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cherriesradio · 3 years

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Valentines Day with Class 1-A

Monday

(Very long post, pure, tooth root, fluff)

(Divided by main groups)

Warnings: mentions of alcohol, very much unedited

Dekusquad

Deku

He gently wakes you up by kissing your cheek and shaking you a bit, giggling.

“Wake up sleepyhead. I already made breakfast, your favorite.” He says, with a gentle smile as you turn over and get up for the day.

He takes you to the park. A place you two would take walks at almost every day, whenever Deku had free time from being the number one hero.

He picks flowers off the ground, pulling gently on your shirt to get your attention. When you turn around to him he puts the colorful flowers into your hair, giggling when you pull some out and put them in his.

Then the local boba shop, the one you two would save up for and get boba every week back in high school.

He laughed when you said you two should both get strawberry ones, “because, ya know, Valentines, pink, pink and valentine????”

You would share silly memories of whenever you two would invite others to go. Like when you invited the whole Bakusquad and Bakugo almost set the whole place on fire.

He would end the day by going to the very roof top he learned All Might’s secret. He knew the view wasn’t great, and that you didn’t have much sentimental value to it even though you knew, but it was similar to you.

How it was a part of changing his life for the better, how every time he walked by it he got a little bit happier, how it reminded him of a time he was weak and how much he has improved. It made him feel powerful and like he could do anything some how, and so did you.

He leans over while holding your hand and kisses you softly, a small satisfyed “hmp” coming form your throat

Asui Tsuyu

You woke her up. You wanted to make her breakfast, but also knew how much she loved making breakfast along with you.

Once you dragged her out of bed, she woke right up by you splashing down freezing water in her face. You quickly planted millions of kisses on her face, “to warm you back up! All the cold blood, and all!”

She much preferred to stay at home, but wanted to go out some place fancy for the special day.

About two days ago she reserved a spot at a restaurant that had a frog pond and a fountain, that was outside yet felt warm apart from the cold night air.

For most of the day you stayed inside, cuddling and watching movies. Most were romace comdeys that probably no ones else knew existed.

You two face times the rest of the Dekusquad, since everyone was in differing parts of Japan.

Luckily Deku and Ochako lived pretty close by, so you two figured it would be fun to go to the restaurant with them. A double date, which you had loved since the first one back in your UA days.

You two, begrudgingly, changed out of your pj’s and changed into fancy-jet, more appointments clothing.

It made you so happy seeing the large grin on her face and glow in her eyes as she saw you in your dress/ suit/ whatever fancy wear.

You two hopped out of the car, deciding to park a little far since you two hadn’t been out of the house all day, therefore didn’t get any exercise. So, why not get a few calories off from the whole pack of oreos you ate while watching Mean Girls?

Then when you are finally there, at your seats, waited for Deku and Ochako. Saying inside jokes, poking each other’s sides and holding in giggles among with the many other couples.

When they finally arrived, five minutes late because Deku had to remind his agency that he was having the day off, ordered.

You and a great time, sharing laughs and how your life’s have been lately.

When you got home around 10 o’clock, you slept the rest of the night trying to sleep.

But as normal, you made werid noises to make the otehr giggle, keeping them up, both of you being asleep by two in the morning after giving up and looking at YouTube for a hour before falling asleep.

Ochako

You had decided to spend Valentines with her parents. You hadn’t seen each other in a while and found that it would be nice, especially because of how much Ochako values family.

They are so kind when you two walk in the door with the biggest grins and with a warm, comforting arua seemingly circulating you.

They offer food and little gifts but you deny all of them, knowing they can barely afford giving gifts with how their company is still small.

You two use your hero money and go out and buy them furniture, and clothes, and food, and everything they could ever need for months.

They are so grateful and can’t believe their little Ochako grew up to be as amazing as she is, with a loving, responsible lover by her side at all times.

That night when you get back home, you share stories you and surely already told about your childhoods and how much you love your family’s, biological or not.

Iida

He wakes you up accidentally, he was doing all the paper work he had for the day in the morning so he could spend the majority of the day with you.

The speedy scratch of the pencil on his paper woke you up, whispering in a low morning voice “Tenya, dear? Your already awake?”

He turned in his office chair, a small smile on his face seeing your droopy eye lids and messy hair.

“Yes, love. I wanted to do all the work I had so I can spend time with you. Like how I did all my school work before you came to my dorm back in UA.” He smiled, you smiling right back.

“Alright, I’ll go make breakfast. Oatmeal or pancakes?” “Eh, it’s Valentine’s. Let’s go with pancakes for once.”

He put his head on your shoulder as he hugged you from behind, you flipping the pancakes messily, most landing folded in half.

When both of you were ready and had gotten out of your sleepy states, you went to walk around the city.

You brought your wallets. You visited a indoor petting zoo first. All the goats were weirdly fluffy and soft, and you brushed at the sheep’s fur in awe. He told you tons of facts that you wouldn’t ever normally learn, like how sheep actually need to have their wool taken off or else their overheat.

Then you went a few more blocks down and found a nice smaller library, with a cottage core aesthetic.

You walked in, quickly grated by the friendly old lady at the check out, and waved.

You two spent hours sitting, researching random things you never knew you needed to know.

You would occasionally tap the otehr shoulder to show them a good piece of writing, or something interesting.

After a few hours you went back how with him carrying you, both of you tired from walking all day.

You went home and spent the rest of the night watching documentaries, some that were funny and dumb but some that were smart and made you want to watch it again and again.

You went to bed, both facing each otehr with your arms wrapped around his neck and his around your chest.

Todoroki

Both of you accidentally wake up. He was being the big spoon, and in his sleep he accidentally used his quirk (due to his usual nightmares) and made you just a tab (WAY) to hot. You shrieked and woke him up.

You two giggled, finding that the other was awake. He quickly used his quirk and made the hot spot feel colder, but not to cold. And you told him that everything will be alright, that his nightmares aren’t real anymore. They will never be again.

You jokingly said you should do the thing where you cook on his left side like you did most mornings in UA, and he seriously said “sure”

Of course they tasted horrible because of his sweat and you two had to have an emergency trip to the grocery and got chocolate chip muffins

And of course got distracted and got a ton of other sweets as well

You spent pretty much the whole day in, goofing around, having hour long calls with friends, watching movies, cuddling, anything else you would do on a rainy Valentines Day

And of course, you had to go on Amazon and buy way to much with endeavors credit card that you went on a adventure to steal a few weeks ago and having been saving for a special occasion

As you were in the middle of a puzzle together, the rain calmed down a bit

“Hey, hey, love?” He gently grabbed your wrist in the middle of moving a corner piece

“Yes, darling?” You said, slightly surprised

“Can you and I go out for a second? I wanna try something.” You could resist and said yes, the glow in his eyes was to much to not say yes.

He grabbed an umbrella form the garage and pulled you under as you walked out, softly smiling as he wrapped his arm around your waist.

He brought you to the end of your driveway, righ next to the small garden you two had planted mostly out of boredom

He pulled you close and gently kissed your lips, softly. He let it last longer then his normal mere seconds long pecks, allowing it to last for what was probably half a minute, and pulled away

“Is that all we came out here for?” You titled your head to the side, cocking an eyebrow

“Yes.” He brightly smiled. “I read somewhere that kissing someone in the rain is romantic. And if it’s at night, or as it is right now late afternoon, it’s extra romantic.”

You giggle at his attempt of romance, which did work. How he got to doing it was odd, but that was how he found out about most romantic things.

Bakusquad

Bakugo

He definitely woke you up. He was ecstatic about the day, having big plans (*insert Kenny face*)

“SUKI WHAT THE HELL ITS FIVE IN THE MORNING WHY DO I NEED TO GET UP” “JUST GET UP I HAVE BIG PLANS OKAY GET UP OR ILL DRAG YOU” “JESUS”

He did drags you out, sadly (he drags real hard)

He then throws you on the couch while putting one of your favorite movies, and goes to make bacon eggs and pancakes

You eat, sitting inbetween his legs leaning onto him and watch the movie, maybe a few more until most normal people would be up

He occasionally title your head back so he can kiss your forehead, hair kisses feel werid on his lips

He gets the whole Bakusquad together, surprising everyone but they good

They all come to your house and Bakugo’s all “okay now we’re gonna go to the mall let’s go”

And he buys you literally everything

You can glance at it with the tinyest bit if interest and he’ll buy it

Then you all go for frozen yogurt and it’s good but you get a Brian freeze

And as probably the only in character thing he did all day, he made fun of you for it

Everyone goes home, thanking you two for the good Valentine’s Day

You two go to UA, right in front of the closed building (it’s a weekend, only the employees would be there)

You two remember how you first meet here, how you bumped into him while talking to a friend, and he was ready to yell at you, but he was to star struck by how beautiful you were to say a word.

He blushed

He asks you to turn around

You think it’s just something he secretly bought you back at the mall while you weren’t looking

It wasn’t

“Y/n, you can turn around now.”

You turn around back to him, and at first see how the sunset is perfectly on him, making him look better then ever

Then you notice his pose, his sweet yet needy expression, his hands… what he’s holding

“Will… will you marry me?”

You cover your mouth, quickly collapsing into a tight hug around his shoulders, kissing his cheek

“Yes, stupid! Of course, Jesus, I’ll gonna beat you up as soon as we get home! I love you so much!”

He laughs at how your words don’t match whatsoever

He kisses you passionately, glad that he asked Kirishima to secretly take a video ;)

Kirishima

He was so excited. He tried so hard not to wake you up, but the light sizzling woke you.

You woke up and walked into your kitchen. There stood Bakugo and Kirishima, Bakugo teaching Kirishima how to cook something. Bacon, maybe?

“No, shitty hair, you gotta flip it when the sizzlings a “ssss”, not a “zzzzzz” Bakugo stupidly said

“Kiri? Bakugo?” You said, rubbing your tried eyes, still in one of the large collection of stolen shirts, looking like a huge mess

“Hey dumba-“ “Mornin’, Pebble!”

Kirishima made Bakugo help him make you breakfast, like before, eggs bacon and pancakes. He added a large amount of butter to grease the pan, so they were extra good.

You smiled and waxed to Bakugo as he walked out, just barely seeing him have a small smile at how happy Kirishima and you, two of his best friends, were together

After breakfast you had one of your normal “concerts” where you scream-sing to recent songs you’ve taken a liking to, recently being more trendy songs like “driver’s license” “snowman” and some more odd ones like “Hadal Ahbek” and “good at loving you”

You then go to every dog cafe and cat cafe you can run/walk to, each of you loving the bright and happy look on the others face seeing all the cute animals

You run alariund town, seeing and talking to other couples who honestly kinda envy how helathy and great your relationship is

At late noon you two went back to your apartment

You took a shower together cause you were both sweaty and smelly from running so much and the dog smell wore off on you

He loves when you help wash his hair, wcshing it from the front and kissing his forehead every once and a while

You two get out and change, wearing a shark and dog onsie because your amazing people

You have the dinners night you could ever have

Having adventure time aka the show that you and rewtcahed a thousand time playing softly in the background, tickling each other, giggling at weither or not the neighbors could hear, prank calling the Bakusquad, trying to make a good looking cake, failing bust at least it tasted good?

Overall the best night in you could have after a dog and running filled day

Mina

She wakes you up, a happy grin on her face because she knows you planned something; because you always talk about how you want to pay her back for being so good to you

She’s clearly excited and you grin, some how bigger than her, happy to see her so excited already

You lift yourself from bed, quickly covering her face in kisses before getting up and ordering Uber eats for breakfast

You took her to her favorite shop, a small known one right on the corner of a safe street, only having a villain go through every couple of months, if at all

It was a nice shop, being something that. Colorful animal prints, pro hero merch, etc…

It somehow even played her favorite songs, which isn’t as surprising as it should be because she usually listened to normal, trendy songs

You two bought what felt like the whole store, then went back home to have a good old fashioned at home fashion show

You giggle and laugh, at some point falling on the floor because of how she tried to make you laugh.

You stayed inside and goofed around for the rest of the day, which honestly wasn’t to long.

Around eight you gently tugged in her wrist. “Yeah honeybun? What’s up?” She said, still having a large smile plastered on her face

“Come outside with me for a second, okay? And let me cover your eyes!” You grin, her quickly nodding a yes.

You walk outside of the house, stopping right in front of the fence lining your yard.

You take your hands off her eyes, smiling at her loud gasp.

All of class 1-A, together, for the first time since you graduated. Of course there had been many times you tried to get everyone together again. But with how almost all of the class was in the top 50 hero’s, having Todorki Bakugo and Deku being the top three, Mineta being the only one not in the top 100, it was difficult.

“Y/n! I can’t believe you! This is amazing!”

She turns and hugs you, quickly going back and running towards the others, giving them all giant hugs and chanting how much she missed having them all together.

The class played board and video games, tackled each other, and drew faces on whoever fell asleep for the rest of the night.

They all slept at yours, it was a lucky barrels everyone could fit.

Before you two, the last ones awake, went to bed she turned you to her and kissed you.

“Thank you. This is better then I could’ve imagined. I love you so much, and I’m so glad Im going to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Denki

You both woke on your own pretty much at the same time, Deki accidentally hitting you with his forearm when he moved to sit up.

You laugh, making him make breakaways for punishment. He, knowing you were still in bed and would probably prefer it over his crappy cooking, went out and got donuts

You did like it more then his *unexperienced* cooking

You were still pretty sleepy during and after breakfast, so he gave you the usually little shook to wake you up.

He goes to work because he was unlucky enough to be stuck on duty on VALENTINES DAY

but, he still wanted fro show you how much he loved you even when he was gone, so the night before you left tons of silly love notes around the house.

As you cleaned the house because it had been drover since your last off day to, you found notes around the house

Stupid stuff like “Love, you make my knees weak arms spaghetti” and “Do you believe in love at first sight? If not I need to walk by you again”

It made you laugh and blush, then continue to your normal cleaning

Once he got home, he looked tired and annoyed

“Babe you wouldn’t believe how sucky the boss was today-“ He started, ready for one of his normal rants. You pull his face down, kissing his forehead.

You hugged him tightly, running your hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. ‘Bout this, I missed you all day. Those notes were funny, and sweet. Thank you.”

He instantly melted to you, burying his head in your neck and mumbling a quick “it’s okay, I really like it…”

His breath was hot on your skin, and… oh god he fell asleep

You carried him to the couch, took his shoes off, blanket… the shebang

You made dinner quickly, not wanting to wake him or make him anywhere he could get annoyed again

Once all of dinner was ready and just needed to cool a bit, you tapped his shoulder to wake him up. He’s such a light sleeper.

“Huh? Sparky? What… where am I? Wasn’t I… wasn’t I being all, ya know, in love with you?” He said, face squished up on a throw pillow.

You chuckle. “Yeah, you fell asleep so I put you on the couch. Dinners cooling off, so yeah.”

He smiled up at you and got up, full of energy from the good nap. He sprung up and kissed your cheek as he walk-ran to the counter, wanting to find what you made

“My favorite!” He cheered with a large smile. “You remember everything! You most love me so much.”

“I do. And you love me lots as well.” You said, sitting on the counter.

You ate dinner like that, you sitting on the counter and him standing, probably talking to you even with a mouth full.

You two decided to go out by night, since you spent the whole day at home or work.

You go to bar but everyone is extremely drunk, so figure it’s best not to

You then go to a all-times Walmart, deciding tonight was a time to be crackheads

They take some carts and ride around the parking lot, inviting Kirishima and Sero to come be weirdos

They come in like 2 seconds

“YOOOOO CARTS” “CARTS MAN”

That’s my Ted Talk

Sero

He wakes you up by hanging off the ceiling, and tapping your back

“Huh? Oh, spidey.” You laugh, hopping off the bed as he sways on his tape.

“Was that a good aka up call, sweetheart?” He said s with a cheeky grin

“Yes, stupid.” You ruffle up his hair and go to brush your teeth, now used to not eating breakfast because neither does Sero

( worry he didn’t make you stop, you just got out of the habit stemming from him)

He kissed your cheek as he went off to water your small flower garden handing on the apartment balcony.

Once he came back, you two watched a few romance comedies and tried to find out what in the world you neared to do that day.

“Maybe… oh, we havnt gonna roller shaking in a while?” (I headcanon that Sero likes roller skating lol)

“That’s sound great. Maybe invite the gang? Or would you rather it just be us?” You tutored your head, away from the characters you didn’t really care for because neither of them were that good. At least the bad people go together.

“No, going with the gang sounds great! I’ll go call them and see if they’re free!” He said, climbing out of the nest you had made around you two.

When you got there most of the group was already there, everyone else coming only minutes after you.

You have a great time exhausting yourselves, Sero pulling you around with his tape, you using your quirk to go faster, and generally goofing around.

Once you get back to your shared apartment, your both tired out and ready to cuddle while on the edge of sleep, watching random shows on Netflix.

And you did just that, Sero just barely staying awake enough to turn the tv off right before he fell asleep.

Extra’s (aka ones that a simp for that are rarer)

Aoyama

He ADORES valentine day

He goes all out, the most cliche thing you could imagine

Chocolate, overly expensive roses, cards, the whole shebang

Ojiro

It’s not the biggest thing for him

Like, he loves you everyday and wants to express that everyday, why reserve one day for doing it but being extra with it?

Kinda just takes the day off and does the normal, but the whole day sorta thing

Like, take a walk, cooking together, cuddle a bit, normal stuff

Kouda

He tries his best

He thinks that the classic “be publicly affect, give lots of gifts” kinda thing

But he doesn’t like (aka has a burning hate) for pda

They say it’s fine that he doenst want to go out, and that they can stay in all day

Fin.

#mha #bnha #mha valentines #mha x reader #deku x reader #ochako x reader #tenya x reader #bakugo x reader #todorki x reader #denki x reader #sero hanta

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souprights · 4 years

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DIY for Transmasc Minors/Those still living with unsupportive family

For context, I'm just turned 17, still living with my parents and live in the USA. This is just my experience! It may not be the best/easiest way to go about DIYing. I'm going to do my best to make this as comprehensive as possible, and please let me know if anything if incorrect or if I should add anything.

Firstly, if you're under the age of 16, I don't recommend this at all!! DIY should be a last-ditch effort, after you've tried all else. Please seek therapy, a supportive friend group, and a good community before turning to illegal means, because, yes, purchasing and being in possession of T without a script is illegal.

What's it Gonna Cost?

For cost, you're going to need about $60 - $115 of reliable income a month. Depending on the site you use, and how many millilitres of (injectable) T you purchase, that's going to vary, but $60 is the typical minimum I can find. Don't forget shipping is going to be around $15-30.

This only includes the T!! Don't forget you're going to need needles, bandaids, and alcohol swabs if you're injecting, as well as blood tests.

What Kind of T?

Whether you use gel or injections is entirely up to you and your comfort. However, please avoid orals! Those are just gonna wreck your liver, no matter how painlessly tempting they may be.

Gels run more expensive, but with injectable, there's extra purchases/packages to be had.

Hang On, Blood Tests?

To make sure your levels are in a safe/normal range, you're going to need a blood test. If possible, look for Quest or LabCorp-esque places to get proper bloods done. I was too nervous to do that, given how closely my parents track my every move while I'm not at home, so settle for finger prick at-home tests if necessary. Unless the site advertises Discreet Packaging, I highly recommend having these sent to a friend and picking them up at school/when hanging out.

Do one before starting T, one at Month One, Two and Three, respectively. Based on your levels, adjust or figure out your dose. If everything is typical at Month Three, you don't have to test again till Month Six. After that, check at your One Year mark, then yearly thereafter.

Where/How Do I Get All This?

eroids.com is the first place I turn to when looking for places to order T. You can read reviews for each site listed, and get an average rating from people who've used the sites. If you want to go for gels, I suggest poking around Reddit and finding other people who've DIYed with gel, and asking them for their opinions and recommendations. Make an informed decision no matter what you choose, and spend PLENTY of time researching.

For needles, bandaids, and alcohol swabs I honestly just use Amazon. MAKE SURE you mark your order as a gift, or else you're probably going to run into the issue of the packaging being marked with "medical supplies." Imagine your overbearing parents seeing that and ripping open your package, and immediately assuming you're spending your days in back alleys shooting up. Not fun. Take my word, and learn from my mistake.

As for bloods, just poke around till you find a test that takes your free T and total T both, or go somewhere and have it done proper.

Now, you might try using a PO box to not worry about your family seeing any packages arriving, or having it sent to a friend with more relaxed/accepting parents. Later in the year (when I'm doing this) using the approaching gift-giving holidays to keep people out of your parcels might be plausible. Or maybe your family doesn't care. Ultimately, imagine the worst case scenario and judge what to do knowing your own situation.

Okay, But....Bitcoin

Ah, yes. Daunting, tricky Bitcoin. Majority of sites only accept Bitcoin as payment. But I swear it's not as bad or hard as it sounds. Your first issue is honestly going to be finding somewhere that doesn't require you to be 18+ to purchase it. Now, don't worry too much. For me, I got my older sister to put in all her details, and I just used my money to make purchases. You can do the same with an 18+ friend, relative, or relative of a friend's. Or, send an 18+ friend's CashApp the money necessary to make a Bitcoin purchase and transfer for you.

Now, my first order of T was only about $60, with shipping and everything, since I only bought 4ml total to begin with. If you buy a bigger vial, it's going to cost more. $60 was as much as I could spend without making my parents suspicious (they keep an eye on my bank account), so if you have a similar problem or a smaller spending threshold of concern, don't worry. Just spend your max threshold on buying Bitcoin as often as you can. The Bitcoin will be stored for you to compile and use later. Keep in mind its value may go down, so buy a bit extra if you're saving up over time.

I use an app called Edge to handle all my Bitcoin transactions. It's simple, easy, and you can use a card, a direct bank transfer, Apple Pay or Cash (if there's a Bitcoin ATM near you--no worries, there's a handy map in the app itself to lead you to the nearest one of those). I used Apple Pay, so unfortunately, I can't help with any other methods than that. You can also use CashApp, but Edge's verification went much much faster, and I was not in the mood to wait a few extra days.

There's going to be a fee, usually outlined before you select your payment type. I included that in the cost of the T above, which might be more or less.

And lastly, it's not instant. It usually takes a few hours, but if it's more than a few days, reach out to customer support.

Each site lists instructions with how to send payment once ordered. Just follow their instructions, and talk to them if you have any trouble. They're usually more than happy to help you send them money.

So I've ordered my T

Shipping times are going to vary!! Keep this in mind. If you used eroids, users typically include shipping time in their reviews. This may influence which site you pick. Domestic sites tend to have faster shipping and don't risk customs seizing your pack--if customs seizes a pack with an illegal substance, you're going to get a letter. That's pretty hard to find an excuse out of, way closer to impossible.

Typical processing times are 2-5 days, but may vary a little, depending on things that may include a lovely little pandemic. Shipping is typically 1-2 weeks for domestic sites, 3-5 weeks for international. Shipping prices tend not to vary much, however, no matter where the warehouse is.

Hiding Changes

This is going to be the tricky part. I've known some people to only go on T for three months or so, as to get some changes to reduce dysphoria, but not have family members notice. If you spend a lot of time around family, the changes are gradual and they might not notice. But keep your own safety in mind above all else. What's the worst that's going to happen if your family confronts you over your changes? How long will you be able to write off your voice as "a cold" before someone wises up? How much longer are you going to be staying with your family?

I'm out to my unsupportive family, so despite being discouraged from any transition of any sort, any and all voice changes I'm writing off as voice training. Facial hair? Minoxidil. More muscle? I've been working out. These may or may not be things you can use, so consider carefully.

Aside from your voice and facial hair, there won't be anything too difficult to hide or write off. Shave your facial hair away as soon as you get up if it develops/needs to be hidden. Consider and compile a list of excuses as to why your voice is changing in case of questions.

Hiding Supplies

This is going to depend a lot on your house and situation. Do you have animals, parents or siblings who invade your spaces and find your hidey holes? A piece of advice I read in an MtF guide to DIY is to hide something you won't get in trouble for where you plan on hiding your hormones, and see if anyone finds it over a few weeks. Repeat until somewhere safe is scouted.

I have small cardboard boxes I keep under my bed, in a cabinet I have in my room, and on my desk. Only bandaids are kept on the box on my desk. But the other places I hide things have an equal distribution of my supplies, so even if someone finds one box, I'll be able to continue HRT.

Try to keep your T much better hidden than other supplies. I'm in an arts-focused degree in college, and a very artistic person, so I've managed to write off needles and syringes as pieces to build a 3D art project for a portfolio. Try to find an excuse to use if your needles are found. Maybe the art thing works for you, maybe not.

Consider taking precautionary measures of removing/covering labels of your T if you're using an injectable kind. You might be able to get away with calling it a prop of some kind, for a TikTok video or something if it's found.

Disposing of Needles/Wrappers/Etc

Alright, so you've done your first shot of T, or applied your first gel packet. Congrats! Now, how to hide the evidence? Firstly, for gels, it won't be too difficult. Just use a plastic grocery bag and fill it with other miscellaneous rubbish and mix the wrappers in with that. Toss the tied bag in your own bin, or a neighbour's bin if that's safer. If that's not possible, do so at school.

Needles are a more tricky circumstance. If you're able to purchase and safely dispose a sharps bin, 100% do that. If you're in a place like me and that's not possible, go and buy some soda with twist-top lids, or get them from friends. Once the bottle is empty, you can toss needles into there. In my experience, 1ml syringes and the small needles used for T injections fit in these 500ml bottles no issue. I throw these sealed bottles in the bin once they're full. I know this isn't proper disposable, but I'm unable to get a sharps bin.

Never throw exposed needles into the bin, or leave them somewhere anyone or anything could possibly be exposed to them.

For T bottles, I've only ever found one site that sells it in containers smaller than 10ml. I'm not sure if the 10ml bottles would fit into the soda bottles or not, so follow the same procedure as disposing of gel wrappers. If that's not possible, use a sharp knife to cut open your soda bottle at the widest part and put the bottle in there, before using a strong adhesive tape (not scotch tape--duct tape or something similar) to seal the incision before disposing of it.

In Conclusion

I've left out a list of the changes T causes, and starting doses, because those are all easy things to find, which you probably know already. Regardless of what this small guide says, please keep your own safety in mind and do as much research as possible before moving forward with DIY, and know that I'm no kind of professional, and all this is based off my tiny bit of experience.

As of the original posting of this, I haven't yet started T. I'm going to start in about two weeks, however, and have gathered everything necessary. I may update this guide further as I take T.

#ftm #trans #ftm minor #t #testosterone #transition #reblog

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thepurplebutterflythings · 4 years

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Curiosity Killed The Cat (Part 3) - Gar Logan

Gif: Dxnninja on Tenor

Word Count: 1.7K

Paring: Gar Logan x (f)Reader

Summary: Gar walks Y/N home after her drop-in surprise visit.

Warnings: Mentions of Sex.

Masterlist

Tagging: @ninergirl1d reclusive-chicken-nugget

________________________________________________________________

“I should head home,” Y/N said, “Sofia must be worried.”

“Oh, right,” Gar nodded as he stood up, “can I walk you home?”

“I would like that,” Y/N nodded as Rachel smiled and rolled her eyes.

“See ya later, Gar” Rachel also got to her feet, “It was very nice to meet you, Y/N.” She chuckled as Gar poked the floor with his shoe, red stretching up his neck to his forehead as Rachel grinned wickedly. Gar Logan was whipped as hell for this Amazon chick. If Y/N knew what that was and what that meant, she’d have a cheeky smile on her face and would be teasing the life out of Gar. Rachel strolled out the room, chuckling as she did.

“So, out the door or the window?” Gar asked playfully.

“Considering that if someone saw me walking out of the door here, it’d spread around Themyscira quicker than you can blink, I’d say the window.”

“Good to know,” he smiled as he dramatically gestured to the window, “ladies first.”

Y/N cocked her head to the side in confusion at the expression. Perhaps Diana or Donna could’ve explained more about the world of man to her if she pushed them harder, but Sofia wasn’t too pleased for Y/N to hear more and more about the dangerous world that had experimented on her.

“Is this something from your world?”

“Huh?”

“Ladies first – is that from your world?”

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Gar nodded.

“What does it mean?”

“It’s a chivalry thing, I guess,” he shrugged.

“Chivalry?”

“Being very polite, honest. Kind behaviour,” he explained.

“Oh,” Y/N nodded in understanding, “I like chivalry then. Amazons are very chivalry.”

“Chivalrous,” Gar corrected for her.

“Amazons are very chivalrous,” Y/N repeated with the correct grammar, smiling proudly. “You should go out the window first,” she said.

“Alright, thanks, Y/N.”

“You are very welcome,” Y/N bowed her head as Gar smiled and climbed out, offering Y/N his hand to help her steadily get through the window.

________________________________________________________________

“So, growing up on Themyscira must’ve been fun,” Gar began as they slowly strolled. They wanted to take their time, to savour the time they had left together before being forced to part ways when arriving at Y/N’s home. “Sword fighting, horse riding, and all this kickass stuff with badass warrior women.”

“I loved being raised here,” Y/N nodded, “From what Donna told me about the world of man, I am certainly lucky. I wouldn’t change my upbringing for anything. How about you, though? You mentioned you travelled with your parents – you must’ve seen some incredible things, things which I cannot even begin to imagine.”

“It’s been a pretty interesting life, I can’t lie,” Gar scratched the back of his head, “though after what happened to me, I didn’t really travel much. Until Rachel came along, I lived with Chief.”

“Chief?”

“He’s a doctor, like Epione,” he explained, “He gave me the injection which made me… well… you saw…”

“Must be a smart man this chief if he managed to come up with something like that.”

“He is,” Gar nodded.

“What was living with Chief like?”

“Restricted,” Gar said after some consideration. “He wanted to keep us safe, so me and the others there didn’t have much freedom outside the house. Though that didn’t stop me from sneaking out.”

“Something I understand,” Y/N teased, “we are very similar in that aspect, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, we are,” Gar nodded, “All these miles apart, yet the same experiences.”

“Goes to show, doesn’t it?” She chuckled, “growing up is a universal experience.”

“Did you ever get caught sneaking out?”

“Oh yes,” Y/N said, “I tried sneaking out to see if I could see you and Rachel, but I was caught halfway out the window.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, Sofia was not pleased.”

“As I could tell when we actually met and she caught us.”

“She’s protective.”

“I get it,” Gar smiled and nodded, “my friend, Rita, she was very motherly to me after I arrived at Chief’s house.

“Did she have any side effects?”

“Huh?”

“I assume she was given what you was if she lives with Chief, meaning side effects, no?”

“Rita’s a different story…”

“What is hers?”

“She was an actress,” he explained, “You know those, right?” He wanted Y/N to know that she didn’t have to pretend to know things, that he was more than happy to take the time to explain things to her.

“Yes, we have plays on Themyscira.”

“Good,” Gar nodded, “well, she was working on a project, and she was exposed to a gas, a toxic gas that altered her cellular structure - which allows her to stretch her body, but also causes it to deform. She doesn’t have good control over it, not yet at least. It’s hard for her, in more ways than one.”

“I imagine it must be hard,” Y/N nodded as she spoke softly, “It must be so difficult.”

“Rita would like you,” Gar told her.

“She would?”

“Yeah, you’re smart, funny, kind, plus you’re kickass – who doesn’t like that?”

“Perhaps if you have any time we can train together – I assume you train, I heard you are part of a team called ‘The Titans’, who fight bad guys.”

“Yeah, I train, and training with an Amazon is quite the bucket list item to cross off.”

“And quite a specific one too, may I add.”

“But one I’ll be crossing off, nonetheless,” Gar teased her right back, “if Sofia is alright with it, that is. I don’t wanna upset an Amazon.”

“Oh, well, let me tell you,” Y/N chuckled, “I would find a way for us to train together if Sofia said no. In case you haven’t been paying attention, Garfield Logan, I am not one for the rules. Anyway, Sofia is always fine with me training, and perhaps she will be eager to see me defeat someone from the world of man.”

“Hey, I may not be an Amazon warrior trained from birth to fight, but I can hold my own!” Gar said. “I managed to pin you, didn’t I?”

“At the end of the day, I was the one on top, wasn’t I?”

Gar felt himself redden at her words. He could imagine the innuendo that Jason or Larry or Cliffe would make about what Y/N had just said. The one on top. God, was he really thinking something so rude about an innocent conversation.

“Well, maybe we need a re-match,” Gar coughed, “where both of us are aware, and not you sneaking up behind me.”

“I was curious about who you were.”

“And are you satisfied?”

“Very much so,” Y/N nodded firmly as they walked, her hands behind her back, “albeit I saw more of you than I thought I would.”

“Alright, changing the topic,” Gar said awkwardly, “let’s not talk about my…”

“Genitalia?”

“Look, as long as we don’t talk about it, I’m fine with it.”

“If you are embarrassed, then maybe we even it out and you look at me nude.”

“No, that’s not it, not that I don’t want to see you nude, not that I feel entitled to see you nude. God, I’m so awkward.” Gar groaned and brushed his hair from his eyes. They stopped walking and looked at each other. “I’m sure you’re lovely nude, and it would be nice to see you naked, but I don’t want to ‘even it out’, it doesn’t bother me that you’ve seen me naked and I haven’t seen you naked. It feels a little awkward because… I like you, and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, and the thought of making you uncomfortable makes me uncomfortable. Still, I’m also a little uncomfortable because, in my world, you don’t really show someone your naked body unless you intend to be intimate with them.”

“Sex? You mean sex, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you want to have sex with me?”

“NO! Yes, hang on a minute,” Gar said, clearly overwhelmed. “You are stunning, no doubt about it, and I’m sure sex with you would be good, incredible even,” he began after taking a deep breath. “And I do like you a lot, but sex, for me at least, is all about romance, about being in love, and that takes time. It’s a bond, for when you want to be completely one with someone when you can’t imagine life without them, and you want to be with them and only them. For me, that’s it at least. If we were in love, then yes, but we aren’t so… no. Does that make sense, or did I just ramble on?”

“It made sense,” Y/N nodded and smiled, biting her lip, “and it’s very sweet.”

“Y/N, IS THAT YOU?” Sofia called as she walked out of the door of their home. “AND THE MAN?”

“JUST SEEING HER HOME SAFELY, MISS SOFIA,” Gar called back. Sofia squinted for a moment before smiling and nodded, stepping back inside to give them the privacy to say farewell for now without an audience.

“Thank you for walking me home, Gar,” Y/N smiled.

“Thanks for letting me walk you home.”

“I enjoyed our conversations.”

“Me too.”

“Shall we pick up here tomorrow? Perhaps we speak about training together then?”

“I’d like that,” Gar smiled and chuckled, “um… can I kiss your cheek?”

“Pardon? Is that a common thing in the world of man? Is it a chivalry thing?”

“No, for both of those,” Gar said shaking his head, “basically, it’s what you do when you really, really like someone.”

“Like them, how?”

“Like them like you think they’re very pretty, and smart, and funny, and kind, and you hope that you and that person could grow to like each other more.”

“And you like me like that?”

“Yeah, do you like me like that?”

“Yes, you are very funny and kind, and pretty.”

“Thanks, that’s very flattering,” Gar chuckled, not bothering to comment that commonly men were referred to as ‘handsome’, “so, can I kiss your cheek?”

“Yes, I would like that very much.”

“Good,” Gar smiled as he leaned in and softly pressed his lips, plush and gentle, against Y/N’s cheek, stroking his thumb over her other cheek. They both remained still and savoured the moment before Gar slowly sighed and pulled back. “Night, Y/N,” he murmured as he rested his forehead against Y/N’s forehead.

“Goodnight, Gar. I look forward to seeing you again.”

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moviepower · 4 years

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Why do people criticize Jojo Rabbit?

We'd say that this is uncharted territory for distributor Disney, but the company did previously give us their futures face. Hmm. I saw Jojo Rabbit in the best place I could for movies, in my opinion.

For this list, we're looking at why Tyco ITTS 2019 black comedy has proven. So polarizing for critics just to clarify the critical reception thus far has been mostly positive and even watch mojo gave the film a rave review following its TIFF premiere.

Nevertheless, we can definitely see why a movie like this. Wouldn't win audiences over everywhere. Hey Joe, Joe, my old friend. Hi adults. Number 10, the controversial premise. I don't think I can do this last. Of course you can simply by reading it synopsis, you can tell why Jojo rabbit has stirred up so much controversy.

In the midst of world war II, a young German boy named Joe Joe dreams of becoming a Nazi upon learning that his mother has been harboring a Jewish girl in the attic though, Jo Jo begins to reevaluate his outlook on life. I tell them you will be in big trouble throughout this coming of age journey. Our titular character is guided by his imaginary friend.

youtube

Is it worth to watch Jojo Rabbit full movie

Who just so happens to be a flamboyantly incompetent, Adolf Hitler, as inventive as the premises, it was guaranteed to ignite passionate feelings. Critics are unsurprisingly split as to whether the film's premise is inspired or irresponsible. I wish more of our young boys had your blind fanaticism. Okay.

Number nine, how it stacks up to other satires and this world is ruined for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way Jojo rabbit. Isn't the first film to satirize Hitler or Nazis 1940 twos to be, or not to be was criticized upon release for its farcical, spin of Nazi occupied Poland.

But today is viewed as a comedy classic. I know you're quite famous in London kernel. They call you concentration camp Earhart. Yes. Yes, we do the concentrating and the poles do the camping Hitler. Technically isn't the protagonist and the great dictator. It's obvious who Charlie Chaplin was parodying. We can learn more about actress playing mother Jojo on Wikipedia.

Arguably the most famous sendup of Nazi Germany is Mel Brooks. The producers. In which two con men put on an intentionally horrible musical entitled springtime for Hitler. Practically a love letter to this own run a week week. Are you kidding display? It's got the close on page four. Some critics are ready to place Jojo rabbit alongside these revolutionary respected comedy.

What do critics write in reviews about Jojo Rabbit?

Others, however, would claim that the film has more in common with the bridge sit-com Hile, honey I'm home, which was so misguided and tasteless that it only lasted one episode. Oh 10 night. You will make an schnitzel. What a joke. You must be real mad at me, honey. I'm a very, very bad Hitler. Number eight, what's going on in the real world right now?

Fuck man. The house, although world war II is in the past. The same, unfortunately can not be said about bigotry. Nowhere was this more apparent than at the 2017 unite the right rally in Charlottesville, which attracted several hate groups, including neo-Nazis. Since prejudice and discrimination remain prevalent in today's world.

It's obvious why various critics would object to a film that makes light of Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, satire can reflect modern times as well as history in ways that straightforward drama can't. Some might argue that now isn't the right time for a Nazi satire, but others would debate that society needs a movie like Jojo rabbit. A great story about the Irishman is here.

Now more than ever, you're not to nuts. Jojo, tenue kids likes dressing up in front of you. If somebody wants to be part of a club. Number seven, the humor, the best weekend ever.

Soundtrack in the highest level of production

Wow. Your enjoyment of Jojo rabbit will hinder on how hard you laugh. Or of course, if you laugh, the film didn't tickle. Roger Freedman. Funnybone who wrote in his showbiz four one, one review Jojo rabbit is actually borderline antisemitic offensive on many levels and not even funny. Sam Adams of slate couldn't have disagreed more proclaiming for Jojo rabbit comedy.

Isn't a means to minimize, but to analyze wise, to pry at the way, hateful ideologies can be embraced as a comfort and how beneath their promise to. Blame how the world really works is an understanding no more sophisticated than a child's it's time to buy some books. Since humor is subjective, we guess there isn't always going to be a clear line between what's offensively funny and what's just plain offensive.

Oh God. Number six. Jewish jokes. Did you know, Jews can Z to each other's mind. So tell us, you know, who saw one? They could look just like us of Tyco. ITT satire is clearly the Nazis. However, the director who's of Jewish and Maori heritage also pokes fun at Judaism. Hi, well, the real Jordan Rumi was horrified by the audience's reception at the screening he attended.

Writing, you have no idea how it is to be surrounded by thousands of people laughing at jokes, specifically directed at Jews. That being said, Rumi seemed to be in the minority of a group that found the film. Hilarious. As with Borat and South park, many would argue that the humor and Jojo rabbit isn't intended to mock the Jewish faith, but to criticize how ignorant and Semites are a cute number five, the life is beautiful comparison, right?

Jojo Rabbit's reaction to mom's death

Yeah. Critics have stocked a Jojo rabbit up against numerous other films. But life is beautiful. Seems to be the one that's invited the most comparisons this 1997, Italian dromedy also presented world war II through a lighthearted lens, centering on a Jewish man who uses humor and imagination to shield his son from the horrors of the Holocaust. It's interesting what they write about this movie on Amazon.

Well, the film won an Academy award for best foreign language film, and even got nominated for best picture. There were those who found the movies comedic tone, inappropriate. Over two decades later, we will continue to debate if the movie is a life affirming fable or a dated misfire. It's actually eerie how much these two films have in common, especially since both one TIFs peoples choice award.

That is the strongest thing in the world. Number four, is it shocking enough? I was your age. I had an imaginary friend come in so much stuff even before the first trailer dropped Jojo rabbit was being built up as one of 20 nineteens most controversial movies. Weirdly enough though, some critics have expressed disappointment that the film isn't more shocking.

Well, audiences have arguably gotten more sensitive with time. There are still patrons who crave comedy that pushes the envelope to its limits. It's time to burn some books. Brian Talarico of the Chicago sun times felt Jojo rabbit played it too safe. Writing the final scenes of Jojo rabbit are too easy for a film that needs to be dangerous and daring.

Are the best scenes already included in the trailer?

Even if the film doesn't go all out with its edgy concept. Seeing Tyco, ITT dresses, Adolf Hitler will be more than enough to make a few jobs drop. What am I going to do? No idea. Going down the house in Glen Winston church one, negotiate number three. It's depiction of Nazis. The playlist Charles romesco took issue with the films, humanization of antisemites writing.

YTT concedes that a good percentage of Nazis really do hold hate in their heart. But maintains that at least some of them aren't you two seem to be getting on. Well, it doesn't seem like a bad cost. How much pain and suffering the Nazis caused many audiences will understandably struggle with this message.

However, if Ron Jones proved anything with his third wave social experiment in 1967, it's that even ordinary people can get swept up in the dangerous ideals of fascism. Likewise, Jojo rabbit poses, a challenging question. If we're not willing to acknowledge the bad and the good in people, how can we ever rid ourselves of prejudice?

Nothing makes sense anymore. Yeah, I know. It's definitely not a good time to be a Nazi. Number two it's message. And mother took me. She's kind me like a person, whatever your thoughts on Jojo rabbit, Tyco ITT clearly wanted to spread an anti hate message. YTT also claims that he started writing the screenplay before Nazis regained relevance in the media.

There's little doubt that why TTS intent was noble, whether or not the final product successfully gets his message across is where critics are split. A doubt of the a V club felt that making fun of Nazi Germany had been done before. Thus taking away from the movies, broader anti hate theme. Peter Howell begged to differ in his Toronto star review writing Taika YTT knocks it out of deer park with the meaningful lunacy of his anti hate satire, which is equal parts.

Adolf Hitler's thread in the movie

Mel Brooks, West Henderson, and own whimsical brilliance growing up too fast. Ten-year-olds and the celebrating war and talking politics. Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified a better latest videos. You'll have the option to be notified for occasional videos or all of them.

If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on notifications. Number one it's depiction of Hitler. Well, they call me a scared rabbits. Okay. Let's address the giant rabbit in the room. Tyco YTT spends most of his screen time prancing around in a Nazi uniform and toothbrush mustache. If you want, you can read here about preparations for making a movie and other curiosities.

Without a doubt, YTT, didn't set out to deliver a serious or dignified portrayal of Hitler. Rather YTT aspired to make the fewer look as goofy and idiotic as possible. Oh, . Just painting Hitler as a wacky, even likable buffoon desensitized us to the atrocities. He committed though. Some may say yes while others may argue that it leaves audiences more informed and open-minded.

At the end of the day, everyone is going to have a different opinion of Jojo. Let them say whatever they want. People used to say a lot of nasty things about me. Oh, this guy's a lunatic. Oh, look at that psycho. He's going to get us all killed. Do you agree with our picks, check out this other recent clip from watch mojo and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.

#jojo rabbit #movie #movies #netflix #hbo

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rachelthompsonauthor · 4 years

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Hi, everyone! It’s time to venture back out into the world which is a little scary, right? That’s where we are in Northern California – like turtles starting to stick our heads out just a little bit. We’re starting to visit family, actually going to the grocery store, and getting haircuts for everyone – a good thing since we’re all looking a bit like muppets.

Though with the latest numbers in California, who knows where we’re headed. It’s terrifying. Masks, masks, masks, wash, wash, wash.

In case you missed the last two installments of my blog posts, you can catch up by clicking here for week one and here for week two.

This week I’m thrilled to share an insider look into the mind of author Barbara Delinsky, who just dropped her latest hot read, A Week At The Shore, which immediately hit the New York Times bestseller list – her twenty-third novel to do so.

Both Pip and I enjoyed A Week At The Shore immensely.

Full disclosure: Barbara is one of my BadRedhead Media clients (and I’m supremely grateful for that!). I handle her social media, street team, blog and book review optimization, and a good deal of her book promotion.

After finishing the book (which I loved), I had a few questions for Barbara about her writing style, so I emailed them to her and she was kind enough to respond.

A Week At The Shore by Barbara Delinsky Interview

Q: I notice you don’t only use ‘she said’ for dialogue, which I personally love, though as I’m sure you know well, it’s a DEBATE.

A: I’ve actually spent a lot of time thinking about this. I don’t use half as many other words (“she exclaimed,” “she intoned,” or “she declared”) as much as I used to. Yes, there’s something to be said for simple and real. That said, the constant monotony of “she said” gets boring, so I try to find a comfortable balance. This actually ties in with your next question.

Sometimes, the sub for “she said” can express emotion, as in “she cried,” or “she dare say,” or “she whispered.” So it does add something. Still, though, not quite the “show, not tell” rule (see more on that below).

Q: Also, the ‘show, not tell’ rule regarding feelings. You sometimes say what emotions Mallory {Ed. the main character} feels (at times). If I wrote that in my creative writing classes, my teacher would’ve jumped out a window, yet it works. Again, love. All this ‘do this, not that’ advice can be confusing for writers, regardless of genre, myself included.

A: Yes, it does work at times, at least, for me. But then, I never took a creative writing class, so maybe I just don’t know how to show rather than tell. Here, too, I think you have to be guided by common sense. If by “show,” you mean having a character “start to huff and puff,” to show upset, rather than simply to “cry in alarm,” I’d opt for the simpler.

The image of huffing and puffing will distract the reader from what you’re saying. IMHO, the “show, not tell” rule applies to larger things, like rather than saying “her husband could be nasty,” saying something like, “her husband could see her scrubbing the dinner dishes and tell her she was made for this.” So, it’s really giving an example of what you’re saying in summary. Does that make sense?

Q: Yes, absolutely. Also, you write about the past in the present tense – I do this with memoir and blog posts, and prefer to read books or even blog posts/articles written this way. It’s more immediate. When I work with writers in my workshops, they tend to write in the past tense. I haven’t read all of your other books, so I wonder if you do this with all your books?

A: I’m actually not even aware of writing about the past in the present tense, unless it’s a bonafide flashback, in which case it would be in the present. I’ve been experimenting with different tenses book to book. My last book, BEFORE AND AGAIN, was in the first-person past tense, A WEEK AT THE SHORE is in first person present tense.

The latter took some getting used to. And it’s possible that I botched the flashback tenses simply because I’m not ultra-experienced with first-person present. My editor didn’t catch or change anything, though. I agree with you. There is an immediacy to first-person present tense that is nice. That said, the new book I’ve started is in first-person past tense.

Q: Basic skills – I get it. This is how new writers learn. You aren’t new (after writing hundreds of books and stories), so you break rules – is that it?

A: I’m not “schooled” in writing, so I don’t know I’m breaking the rules!!

Q: You’re so skilled, Barbara. Your characters are intricate and layered. This book is a CLASS in writing. Do you ever think about young writers reading your work and learning from you?

A: You are too kind, Rachel. Seriously. I’m just muddling along, basically doing what works for me as a reader, since I have no formal training. Truly. Now I’m just enjoying it.

Barbara has written a few articles for me on my biz site about breaking the writing rules, which I hope you’ll read. She’s a true writer’s writer. I hope you’ll read her books and articles. She’s also an avid reader herself and does weekly book reviews on her blog.

What I’m Reading Now

I’m now reading the third book in the Discovery of Witches series, The Book of Life, and it’s fabulous, just like the others in this series. I’m not going to spoil it for you if you haven’t read these. Harkness is a wonderful writer, and she weaves history, passionate love, and the supernatural together in a way that carries you into other worlds. Even though it’s vampires, witches, and demons, it’s not glowy, corny vampires and evil witches on broomsticks. Harkness’ stories are wholly imaginative.

When I found out Sundance made the first book into a series, I paid for the app ($5.99/month – totally worth it) and watched the entire series in one day. SO GREAT. Perfectly cast, well-acted, leaving me yearning for more. I’m now re-watching it.

What Else I’m Watching

I never did see Being John Malkovich so I watched it with my daughter. Weird flick. Good, but super weird. Definitely takes the, ’15 minutes of fame,’ motto and turns it on its head. Speaking of heads, I’ve never seen such horrible hair in any movie.

Have you seen it? What are your thoughts?

Space Force just came out on Netflix and it’s hilarious. If you’re super conservative, you may not like it, so beware (though they poke fun at both parties). If you can laugh at the ridiculousness of government, please watch. Carrell is great, as usual, and the relationship dynamics are brilliant (and there’s John Malkovich again – great, as usual).

Vanderpump Rules I mentioned previously that this is the one reality show I watch with my 20-year-old daughter, Anya, and we watched the reunion shows – all three of them. I know, ridiculous. Jax is such a joke (his blatant homophobia disgusts me, though he says he supports gays – what?), Jax and Brittany together are just ugh, and Max makes me want to vomit (breaking news – he just got fired – ha!).

And honestly, could Vanderpump be any more white? We’ve been saying this for years.

SO much has happened since last week – wowzers. They’ve fired four people as of this writing for making racist remarks. Either the show will be retooled or canceled. I’m sad to see the epitome of white-girl whiteness Stassi gone – she was at least honest about her privilege. What do you think?

I’d be pretty much done with this show if it wasn’t for my daughter begging me to watch with her (we do watch movies and other shows as well). I’m glad Pumpy fired their asses, otherwise, I’d be done DONE.

Compassion

What’s missing from most reality shows is compassion, which is why I don’t enjoy watching them. We see (and hear, loudly and repeatedly) the negativity, toxicity, and the worst in people because that’s what the editors and producers know will keep viewers coming back – drama.

There are flashes of compassion, e.g., when dealing with the death of a loved one, coming out, infidelity, or mental health issues. I appreciate when Bravo, for example, handles these issues well. I don’t appreciate it when they have not – and they have not in many cases. An overall lack of compassion appears to be missing from many of these people’s lives; however, using The Four Agreements, that’s an assumption on my part; we don’t see behind the scenes or when the cameras are off.

I do have compassion for the casts of these shows who have decided money is worth more than their privacy. They are adults making decisions about their lives, and all that comes with it, as any celebrity does. Now, they’re dealing with the fallout.

“Make good choices!” as Jamie Lee Curtis’s mom in Freaky Friday admonishes a young Lindsay Lohan’s Anna (and we all know how that turned out). Oh, Lindsay. Honestly, she’s such a product of dysfunction, it’s truly sad, but that’s a whole other post.

If only people would listen to their Hollywood movie mothers…

Products Supporting Black Lives Matter

In no particular order, here’s what I’ve bought and am loving:

YUBI: The original fingertip makeup brush is amazing. Worth every penny. How did I not know about this?

Pat McGrath Real Makeup: I’m a sucker for a great eye shadow palette. McGrath’s are pricey but fab-u-lous. Why so spendy? All her products are highly-pigmented so you don’t need much; they’ll last a good long time. Here’s the one I purchased on Amazon. For when, ya know, I actually have somewhere to venture out to.

Body Butter Lady: Lip stuff and of course, body butter. Affordable, smells amazing, and will last a good, long, time.

LipBar: Lips for days, tons of colors and textures to suit anyone.

LipSlut: Awesome colors, and 50% of all proceeds go to support women and children’s charities all the time. Right now, they’re supporting Black Lives Matters. 50% towards charity, 100% against tyranny. Cruelty-free, Vegan.

Their newest shade, F*ck Trump on pre-order, will support civil rights organizations specifically targeted by the Trump organization – I mean, administration. Oopsies.

Here is my current personal selection (F*ck Kavanaugh is a favorite – a pretty brownish-red that wears well):

***

So that’s it for this week. Would love your feedback on COVID-19, books, movies, shows, makeup, racism, or whatever you want to discuss. Thanks for stopping by!

Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book, Broken Pieces.

She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in

Broken Places, available in print everywhere!

The post Venture Out Of Quarantine With Me appeared first on Rachel Thompson.

via Rachel Thompson

#IFTTT #Rachel Thompson

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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Cruising for a bruising, Part 4 (Branjie) - Q-Tip & TheDane

Authors note: Hello everyone. Thank you so much for the comments, love and support on this story from Q-tip and I. We’re so grateful for all the feedback, and we’re having a blast writing it together!

Thank you to ArtificialMeggie and VeronicaSanders for betaing!

If you were a fruit, you’d be a fine-apple

Vanjie shot off the stage as soon as he got the chance, grabbing a towel and wiping his hair down, the stage lights making him sweat, stomping over to the table, Brooke finally finally finally paying attention to him.

“Babe!” Brooke lit up the moment he saw him, Brooke always a bright and happy drinker, Vanjie noticing that Brooke was on his second bottle of beer.

“You finished with the meet and greet?”

“The meet and greet?”

Vanjie looked at the stranger who had just spoken, a tall blonde man who looked about 23. There was not an ounce of recognition in his eyes, and Vanjie bristled. Was he really pretending he didn’t know anything. It wouldn’t be the craziest thing a fan had done to get close to either of them, but Vanjie was onto him.

“Justin and I are just talking about the book I’m reading right now.” Brooke looked at the stranger, Justin, the other smiling and Brooke grabbed a beer for Vanjie, uncapping it and pushing it across the table, the bottle still somewhat cold.

Brooke read, and he read a lot. Old, weird books with wrinkled pages, the things never costing much more than a few bucks each so Brooke ‘wouldn’t feel bad about losing them’. In the beginning, Vanjie hadn’t understood how Brooke would curl up during rehearsals or grab for his bag in airports. There were so many things that were so much more fun than reading, and Vanjie had just put it down as one of Brooke’s idiosyncrasies, some of the weird shit he did just because he was Brooke.

Vanjie’s opinion on it had changed though, when he and Brooke had happened to be in New York at the same time, Vanjie coming in from Mexico with Alexis afterwards while Booke was on his way to Canada for a two week tour. Vanjie had changed his flights last moment, and while Brooke had been ecstatic that they had had the time together, he had also looked almost apologetic when he had told Vanjie he was meeting up with old friends. The friends had turned out to be Brooke’s old company, Vanjie suddenly spending his evening in a bar, feeling like a midget around 6’3 ballerinas who were all reminiscing about their time at Trockadero, all loudly discussing the books they were currently reading in between shows, on flights, and in practice.

Vanjie picked up Brooke’s book, quickly casting a glance at it, “Lord of the Flies” and a lush green jungle filling the cover.

“Is that that long ass movie you used your googly eyes to try and make me watch?”

Brooke laughed, and Vanjie felt a quick flush fill his cheeks, Brooke’s bright smile telling him instantly that he had put his foot in his mouth once again. “That was Lord of the Rings.”

“Same shit, different writer, right.” Vanjie grabbed his beer, taking a sip of it, the liquid tasting just as shitty as it always did, but it gave him something to do with his hands.

“Not really.” Brooke moved, and Vanjie scooched into the booth, Brooke putting his arm around him instantly. “Justin, this is Jose.” Brooke gestured with his bottle. “Jose, Justin, Justin Jose.”

“Hey.” Justin raised his beer in salute.

Vanjie was just about to speak up, when Brooke interrupted. “He’s my boyfriend.”

“A boyfriend? You’re just full of surprises Brock.” Justin smiled, a mischievous glint in his eye that Vanjie couldn’t place. “The mystery truly does grow.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Brooke took a sip of his beer, and Vanjie hated the smirk that was tucked away on Brooke’s face.

“So what do you think of the portrayal of Piggy in the movie?”

“I don’t know.” Vanjie felt Brooke’s arm pull him even closer, Brooke’s hand sneaking under his t-shirt and settling on his chest. “Haven’t watched it yet.”

“You haven’t? But it’s a classic!”

“I tried with this one.” Brooke gestured to Vanjie with his head. “He fell asleep before the opening credits had rolled.”

“No! You have to watch it, I think I have it somewhere on my computer. It’s film histor-”

Vanjie had meant to pay attention, he really had, but it was hard to focus when he didn’t even know what they were talking about, Brooke’s voice warm and sure, his laugh making his entire chest rumble as words spilled from him, his thumb slowly rubbing back and forth, back and forth on Vanjie’s chest.

It seemed like the stranger, Justin, wasn’t actually a fan that was trying to take advantage, just someone Brooke had met and had an instant connection with, and if Vanjie was honest with himself, he had no idea what was worse.

“Yes!” Vanjie punched the air, excitement rushing through him as he had finally finally finally found the stupid movie Brooke had been talking about with his new best friend. “Brock!”

“Yes?” Brooke leaned out from the bathroom, toothbrush in mouth, his hair still wet from the shower he had taken while Vanjie had been cockblocked by the geo tracking on their Netflix account, the poor thing not having any idea what country they were actually in, Vanjie finally whipping out his wallet to buy it on Amazon.

“I found the movie! The Lord of the Flies, original edition baby!” Vanjie smiled brightly, flipping back the covers on Brooke’s side of the bed with a dramatic woosh. “Come sit your ass down, and enjoy the show.”

“You’d hate it, trust me. It’s nothing like the Notebook.” Brooke smiled , walking into their room, brush still in his mouth.

“But you really liked talking ‘bout it earlier.”

“With Justin?” Brooke looked confused for a split second. “Babe. I don’t mind that you haven’t watched it. Honestly.”

Vanjie looked up at Brooke, his heart sinking. “Are you sure?”

“We don’t have to have everything in common.” Brooke gave Vanjie a quick peck, his lips tasting like peppermint. “We love each other, right?”

“Right.”

“Morning.”

“Mmmh..”

“Don’t forget to take your pills.”

“Shit.”

Brooke turned over, grabbing the little orange container that was sitting on his nightstand. He swallowed them with a gulp of water from the bottle he had left there the night before.

“Thanks.”

Brooke laid back down, Vanjie crawling into his arms, sprawling himself over his chest. They were in their cabin, the morning sun shining through the doors to their balcony. Last night had gone by in a blur, the conversation with Justin so easy Brooke had talked and talked until because both he and Vanjie had been called back on stage, the evening ending with drinks for everyone and pizza after the finished rehearsals, their choreographer finally happy with them.

“No problem, bitch.”

It still felt a little weird to have Vanjie remind him to take his pills; it was intimate. Almost too intimate. It had been too much in the beginning, Brooke bristling whenever Vanjie reminded him that he had forgotten to take care of himself. Brooke had never needed anyone, had never allowed anyone to be close enough that they could help with something so private. It had been uncomfortable to rely on someone else, the medication and his adult diagnosis of ADD almost too much to handle with the expectations of a relationship. Brooke had happily shared his diagnosis with his fans. Talking about it to them was easy, a joke or a poke easily falling from his lips in public.

In private Vanjie had been wonderful, the other man breaking down Brooke’s barriers as easily as he had everything else, navigating the trenches of Brooke’s mind with him, learning how to manage and what made him lose focus completely. Brooke had been panicked that two people with ADD, their symptoms manifesting so differently, would tear each other apart, but Vanjie had been nothing but patient, his diagnosis decades older than Brooke’s. While Brooke had been quiet in school, Vanjie had been even louder back then, a trouble maker who had managed to charm his way out of any serious problems. Vanjie had told Brooke stories of getting kicked out of the library, of skipping school and road trips to the beach in half borrowed cars, of how he never had any idea of what was going on in his public school in Tampa, but Vanjie’s ADD had been caught, and caught early, Vanjie’s routine of medication as simple to him as brushing his teeth and taking a piss, while Brooke still struggled with remembering every single day.

“Can I have my phone?” Brooke ran his palm over Vanjie’s back, gently scratching him in just the way he knew Vanjie liked. Vanjie had his own iPhone X in hand, scrolling away on Twitter. Brooke’s favorite was mornings like this, neither of them hung over or getting ready to jump on a plane.

“Mmh.” Vanjie reached out, unplugging it from the wall and handing it to Brooke, Brooke groaning when he saw the little red bubbles littering his screen. He tapped onto Instagram, instantly regretting it when the first thing he saw on his new picture was someone asking for vitamin D. Brooke snorted, scrolling through the comments that reigned from innocent “tropic like it’s hot”, to classics like “how about a good lei?” to the downright crazy, “Is @VanessaVanjie gonna deflower that ass later, and can we watch?”

“So which one is your fave?” Brooke looked up from his phone, Vanjie looking at him, an expectant smirk on his face, Vanjie clearly enjoying the entire situation way to much for his level of comfort. “‘Cause mine is ‘If you were a fruit, you’d be a fine-apple’.” Vanjie snickered, looking at his screen again. “It’s keeping it real classy, don’t you think?”

Brooke bit his lip. “You’ve read all of them?”

“You really think my ADD ass would have stayed in bed if I hadn’t had premium entertainment?” Vanjie was laying with his head in his hand.

“This was a mistake.” Brooke groaned, covering his face, his phone hitting his forehead. “I’m going to delete the pic.”

“Uh, this one is good too babe, ‘Love the flowers, when can we see the tree trunk Papi?’” Vanjie cackled, his eyes flying over his screen, almost like he was reading.

“You’re being such a little shit.”

“You love me.” Vanjie moved, nearly kneeing Brooke in the crotch before Vanjie flopped down on his back, Vanjie settling down on Brooke’s chest, Brooke instantly securing Vanjie with a hand on his stomach, holding him tight. Sometimes Vanjie was like a toddler, happily climbing all over Brooke’s body without any regards for his own safety or the protection of Brooke’s balls.

“I do, but I don’t-”

Vanjie lifted his arm, his phone securely in his hand, the camera already open, Brooke spotting himself, morning hair and all. “Smile!”

Brooke had learned that if Vanjie’s phone was out, there was only one thing to do. Pose, and hope for the best. Vanjie posed too, his head turning for a quick peck, but Brooke wasn’t going to let him get away with this behavior. He knew Vanjie had probably planned a whole photo session, his boyfriend hoarding photos of them like a dragon did gold, but Brooke wasn’t in the mood. Not when Vanjie was being so wonderfully bratty.

Brooke grabbed Vanjie’s hair, deepening the kiss, holding him in place, forcing his mouth open with his tongue, Vanjie whimpering as Brooke bit into his lip and he smiled, finally feeling like he was regaining control of the situation, when Vanjie started laughing.

Brooke pulled back, the shit eating grin on Vanjie’s face frankly annoying. “What?”

“We’re live.” Vanjie shook his hand a little, and Brooke looked at the phone, really looked at the phone, for the first time.

“Shit!”

Brooke grabbed Vanjie’s hand, desperately trying to press the disconnect button, the clip of him grabbing Vanjie’s hair now all over the internet. /

“Have you finally fucked Brooke up?”

Vanjie looked up, her eyes catching A’keria’s in the mirror. They were all backstage, everyone getting ready for a day on deck, Atlantis hiring them to host several pool parties. They had all opted for caftans, the flowy fabrics meaning they didn’t have to tuck which was a form of torture in itself in the hot tropical weather. Vanjie was doing her eyebrows, the third layer of powder leaving two bright white circles on her face. She shrugged her shoulders, trying to play innocent.

“Cause she looks real mad.” A’keria pointed her brush to the other side of the room, Brooke sitting with Kameron and Cracker. “You have no idea why she’s brewing up a storm?” Brooke did actually look kinda mad, and she had been in their room, Brooke rolling off the bed and pacing around, clearly upset.

“No idea.” Vanjie touched her face, the powder pressed and ready. She knew she should probably feel bad about accidentally blasting Brooke, but it hadn’t been her intention. She had only wanted a bit of fun banter, maybe a peck and a cuddle, but then Brooke had kissed her like that, and Vanjie had forgotten everything. Her stomach was warm, curling in cruel delight and possession with the fact that she had managed to show everyone just how much Brooke belonged to her, even if the one she truly wanted to show hadn’t been watching. Vanjie grabbed her pencil, ready to draw in her eyebrows, when she was interrupted by Silky.

“No idea my big fat black ass. You know just what she did” Silky grabbed her phone from her makeup bag, A’keria lighting up at the mention of gossip coming her way. Silky quickly found the video, Vanjie briefly wondering how she managed when A’keria looked at Vanjie with a twist on her lips and delight in her eyes.

“She’s going in on that kiss huh?”

“Y’all just mad.” Vanjie snorted, hoping she could distract her friend.

“We ain’t the ones who’s mad boo.” A’keria laughed. “Brooke is handling that one all on her own.”

Vanjie was making her way across the room, when she felt Nina grab her elbow, the other queen looking at her with something almost like concern on her face. “So, are you okay?”

Vanjie felt taken by surprise, Nina rarely asking her how she was feeling. “Yeah.. Yeah, I’m good.”

“Are you sure? Because you don’t seem good.” Nina’s voice was low, and Vanjie felt a moment of true love for the friend she had gained from Drag Race, her quite compassion and discretion exactly what Vanjie needed, though she wasn’t going to accept, too unsure of her own feelings to share them with anyone.

“I’m good.”

“Fine.” Nina stood up again, clearly ready to leave Vanjie to her mood. “Just,” Nina touched Vanjie’s shoulder. “Know that you can always talk to me, okay?”

Vanjie nodded, a small smile playing on her lips. “Thanks sis.”

Brooke looked at herself in the mirror, adjusting her bra. When Brooke had packed the outfit, it had seemed like a brilliant idea fitting the requirements from the cruise company perfectly, the purple chiffon light and flowy and while she did have to tuck, the regal elegance and how strong she felt in it absolutely outweighed the discomfort. She was in full face and hair, her chest bare, but she was still wearing her sweat pants, the pair slung low on her hips.

She had done her makeup, sitting with Kameron and Cracker. Cracker’s waterfall of a mouth always meant Brooke didn’t have to speak if she wasn’t in the mood, a gift she was more than happy to accept on that particular day. She still felt tingles of embarrassment run down her spine each time she thought of the accidental kiss that had ended up online. Normally Brooke didn’t mind. Had no complaints about a kiss or even a proper makeout session going online from dark club corners, their relationship a central part of what his fans loved about him, but this one was different. Brooke had been aggressive, the possessive, fun and playful part of their relationship their own, something private that was theirs alone.

Brooke grabbed her corset, getting ready to put it on. The process of fastening a corset was a comfort in it’s simplicity, the constriction, the routine a way to center herself. Brooke loved it for the same reason she loved doing her makeup, the ritual of it straightforward and familiar. The next step however, was tucking, and she was once again confronted with the most embarrassing part of the day. She was half hard in her sweatpants, her dick fat with the memories from the morning, had been since the kiss, since that wonderful kiss. Annoyance and arousal and shame all simmering under her skin.

“Knock knock.”

Brooke turned around, worried she’d see Nina or Detox or even Raja, really anyone who would not only clock but also have no hesitation about teasing her mercilessly for her half aroused state. Instead, it was Vanjie, her boyfriend standing behind her, her face looking like an angel’s with a perfectly painted mug, her body bare except for the black pair of Marco Marco underwear that Brooke knew made her ass look like sin, the only thing falling from her lips the dumbest thing she could possibly say.

“… Did you just say knock knock out loud?”

“You have a problem with that?” Vanjie smiled, and Brooke realised Vanjie could sell her sand in the Sahara. Vanjie took a step forwards, her stuff set up besides Brooke’s at the very end of the long row of racks that had been provided for them. Brooke felt the itch again, the lust, the want, the need to finished what she had started, when she herself had stopped, but what her body so obviously craved, Brooke needing to be sure that Vanjie understood how much she cared for her. “Can I have my outfit?”

“Oh…” Brooke felt like she was pulled back to reality, surprised at Vanjie’s mundane question. “Yes. Yes of course.” Brooke grabbed Vanjie’s outfit, taking the hanger off the rack and handing it to the other. “Here.”

Brooke had expected Vanjie to leave, the two of them never getting ready together, but Vanjie was still there, looking up at her with a strange expression on her face.

“So…” Vanjie bit her lip, the sight beyond distracting, her bright white teeth burrowing into her red and full lips, her voice soft and quiet. “You done being mad?”

“I’m not mad.” Brooke knew she was lying the moment the words had left her lips, or at least leaving out parts of the truth, the arousal still swirling under her skin, making her irritable and annoyed, her entire body humming.

“You’re a shitty liar Brooke Lynn Hytes.” Hearing her full drag name from Vanjie was always an experience, Vanjie almost never using it, the smaller queen moving into her space, Vanjie poking a finger to her naked chest. “You’re mad.”

Brooke grabbed Vanjie’s head, hands on her cheeks, crashing their lips together, Brooke pouring every emotion she had kept inside into the desperate kiss, Vanjie throwing her arms around her neck, instantly accepting, loving, taking everything Brooke threw at her.

Two small steps, and Vanjie was backed up against the wall, a gasp leaving Vanjie’s mouth as she broke the kiss, their bodies shielded from view by their sisters’ dresses.

“Ssh. Sssh. You have to- Just shut up.“ Brooke didn’t know what to do, the sounds of music and chatter so loud Brooke could almost believe they had privacy, at least for a moment. Brooke was just about to tell Vanjie to be quite, the whisper almost over her lips, when Vanjie grabbed her ass with both hands, pulling Brooke even closer, forcing the kiss this time, their chests smashing together, the desperation, the want, the need in the act catching Brooke off guard. There was nothing but instinct, their lipsticks smearing as Brooke grabbed Vanjie’s thigh, hosting her up, her feet leaving the ground, Brooke carrying her weight, their cocks touching, Vanjie breaking the kiss once again, the smile on her face annoyingly cocky, flirty and playful, like she was in control of the situation. Vanjie thrusted her hips, Brooke groaning, instantly biting her lip to keep the sound in.

“That ain’t no two kiss boner I’m feeling.” Vanjie was infuriating, her eyes bright with mischeif. “Is this why you’re such a sour face? Or should I say sour cock. Poor lil Brooke Lynn.”

“You’re infuriating.” Brooke whispered, their faces inches from each other. “I told you to shut up, just, shut up, please, I-“

“Make me.”

The challenge was clear, and Brooke wanted to do nothing more than fuck the attitude right out of Vanjie, but she couldn’t, not there, not in that moment, her chest constricted by her corset, her ribs pressed together, their friends, their sisters, their colleagues right on the other side of the thin barrier of racks and racks filled with drag.

“Don’t start what you can’t finish.” Vanjie was loud, a force of nature, something almost impossible to control. She was fire, but Brooke was water, and she was not given an inch.

Vanjie opened her mouth, and Brooke did the only thing she could think of, covering Vanjie’s face with her hand, holding her jaw shut with thumb and fingers, the grip secure from the moment she latched on, and Vanjie’s eyes grew wide, a shiver wrecking her entire body with pure excitement.

“Are you going to behave now?”

Vanjie nodded, Brooke only feeling the movement because she was holding her head. Getting their cocks free was easy, Vanjie’s hands in Brooke’s pants before she could even tell her, their cocks already wet with precum, but Vanjie knew how Brooke liked it, her hand coming to Brooke’s mouth, Brooke spitting in her palm before Vanjie finally finally wrapped her fist around them, Vanjie’s other hand buried in Brooke’s forearm.

The arousal, the annoyance, the burning itch, all of it disappeared as Brooke fucked into Vanjie’s fist, their cocks touching on every stroke, the slick slide delicious, Vanjie hard against her, Vanjie relying entirely on Brooke holding her up, their gaze locked, and Brooke didn’t think she’d ever be able to look away.

What pushed her over was a single moan, Vanjie sounding so desperate, the sound barely escaping between her fingers, and Brooke only had a moment to think, removing her hand from Vanjie’s face, catching her mouth with her own, swallowing every sound as she grabbed a towel from one of the racks, only just covering Vanjie’s hand before she came, Vanjie whimpering into her mouth, a deep groan leaving her as she emptied. Brooke broke the kiss, the rush of oxygen, the pure risk of what they just did leaving her lightheaded, Vanjie’s arm sneaking around her neck, holding her close, the towel wet between them, Brooke’s sweats around her feet, Vanjie’s underwear bunched together on Vanjie’s thigh, the fabric stopped by the crook of Brooke’s elbow.

“That was…”

“That was fucking awesome!”

Brooke laughed, a loud, sharp sound, Brooke taken by surprise by Vanjie’s outburst, the entire room growing still, until it burst into complete and utter chaos, everyone yelling and laughing, Detox screaming the loudest of all that they better not have touched her fucking drag from the other side of the racks.

#rpdr fanfiction #branjie #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #smut #cruising for a bruising #q tip #thedane #s11 #canon compliant

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qqueenofhades · 5 years

Note

hello! i have a half formed idea for a book (based off of a really shitty fic i wrote oops gonna delete that and scrap the good parts into something new) but i was wondering if you had any advice for actually writing a book? i know you've written a couple books, and your fics tend to be multiple chapters, and i can't seem to stay inspired beyond a couple chapters! thank you so much :D

Oh dear. I have done various writing advice asks in the past, but who knows what they were tagged. I suppose you could search in the stygian depths of my blog if you really wanted, and see if anything you found there was useful?

As far as advice, I feel like I’m a shitty person to ask in this department because my own process is so unhelpful. I have idea, I start writing idea, I think about idea obsessively, realise I have a problem, work problem out, eventually book is done, ta-da. I then edit and tinker with things, but the first draft is still pretty close in shape/structure to the final version. Some people write different scenes and then place them in the correct order, but I can’t think of a time I’ve really written anything out of order/non-sequentially. I feel like I can’t write a scene without having already written what comes before, and while I can change details and edit sentences and so forth, I don’t normally change major plot beats/emotional reactions/twists/etc. I also don’t outline things or make any exterior diagrams or so forth, although some people find this helpful. If you’re the kind of person who likes to map your story out on paper beforehand (or think that it might help you to stay motivated if you can see it/have a checklist), then give this a try.

Once again, I feel like I’m being stupendously unhelpful, but my advice when anyone asks how to write a book is “well, write a book then.” I tend to think in long-form projects (as evidenced by my many fics) and the nice thing about fic is that you have as much space/word count as you need to tell the story in as much detail as you want. If you’re thinking about this actually being a book, you may have to be more ruthless, but you can also use e-publishing platforms like Amazon or Smashwords and so forth, and still have it as long as you like.

On that note, you’ll have to find someone to read over your work/edit it, especially if it’s something you’re not confident in doing yourself. I proofread and edit all my own stuff, but then, I’ve been doing this for many years and am an academic and used to catching small and fussy details. Even then, it can look different when I see it on a page/read it in hard copy with a pen in hand, and I see things that I don’t see on the screen because it has gotten so very familiar to me. Asking a friend to edit your stuff can be dicey, and I don’t recommend it unless you know this is someone who can definitely make your work better and knows what to look for and will be kind about feeding it back to you.

As someone who has sat through many ego-shredding rounds of more or less constructive criticism on many things, I can sympathise about it not being fun at all (but at least I know how to take it). You can share your stuff with someone beforehand if you want, but you don’t have to. Once you have something that is some kind of coherent draft, however, it does benefit to have a second pair of eyes on it somehow. Even if it’s a “can you read this and tell me what you think” kind of way, and again with someone who fairly represents a general reader and can give you their take on what they got out of the story, if the plot was satisfying, if the character arcs resolved, etc. I know the most terrifying thought about writing is always the thought of being Known/showing it to someone else, but really, there is no way around it in the professional creative process. Write something that you yourself want to read, but that does imply readers.

If you’re writing about sensitive subjects or things that could upset people, by all means, do your homework . Google is free and easily available, there are plenty of resources to be sure that you’re doing a good job. Obviously you do have some degree of artistic license, but that involves you doing your due diligence and understanding that people will react to it in a certain way if it hasn’t been. I am (big surprise, as an academic) a fan of research in general. I think it helps to set the scene and to evoke details and to immerse the audience in what they are supposed to be tasting/seeing/smelling/feeling/etc. The fun of well-written fiction, in my mind, is to escape to somewhere comprehensively and to know what the characters are experiencing and to be able to picture it vividly.

That is why I tend to be a ho for detail and description in my own stuff, because I am always extremely curious about it. I always do a lot of world-building just because I like to do it, and because if you have plot points/developments/etc that might seem a little far-fetched, it’s easier for your audience to buy it if you look like you know what you’re doing and have thought of loopholes/objections/etc, and that this is taking place in a fully realised and objectively consistent universe that exists outside the basic demands of plot (and don’t change the rules to get your characters out of trouble). If you have to change the characters’ personalities/artificially put things off/your whole plot could be solved in five minutes if they talked to each other, you probably need to do a little more work. Audiences will be patient, but they will also figure things out, and if there is an obvious solution that you’re just not addressing, they’ll get frustrated. But yes.

Also: humor. I can’t read books or stories that take themselves TOO seriously. Especially if you have a lot of angst or drama or plot (as I tend to do), you need to throw in some comic relief and/or wit or other things to leaven the brew. If you can tell that the author is willing to poke fun at themselves and their own characters (we’ve all encountered that piece of media where the lead character Cannot Be Criticized By Anyone even while they’re being an idiot and is clearly a projection of the author’s egoism/how great they think they are), that is usually a hallmark of a good story and someone that knows what they’re doing, and I really do stand by that. If it’s pretentious and trying to make a Point, it’s just not that enjoyable. This is a hellworld. We need some escapism and ridiculousness with our adventures and our drama. So yes.

Good endings, basically. Don’t put your characters/readers through so much and then nope out of a satisfying resolution because Gritty Realism (think why everyone hated the final season/ending of Game of Thrones). You can, but.... again, it’s not something I personally like, and people seem tired of it in general. An ending does not have to be a Disney happy ever after, but it shouldn’t make a reader feel like a sucker for emotionally engaging with your story, and should have some kind of payoff for having done so.

(Also. Whenever possible, make it more gay. I mean, who said that.)

Anyway. Last but not least, have fun. If you’re writing something you enjoy and take pride in, that will transfer, and I always think that is worth the most.

#writing advice #anonymous #ask

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script-a-world · 5 years

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Would it be possible to have an entire planet be one biome? Like a really forest-y planet? What would need to happen to make it possible? Or, what's the fewest number of biomes a planet could have? Thanks for all ur guys's hard work!

Bina:Scientifically possible? There’s no way to know for sure! Can you do it anyways? Absolutely.

Single-biome planets are a common feature in sci-fi (Star Wars does it) so no one will bat an eye if you have single or low-number-of-biome planets. It may not be “realistic,” but there’s a precedent you can take refuge in.

To go more into detail of what’s probably possible, certain biomes are easily suited for covering the whole planet. Like desert, or ice, or ocean. Stuff that’s just kinda dead and uniform. Biomes that consist of organic life such as jungle or forest planets are harder to make calls for. I mean, just what are the conditions necessary for life to thrive and does the entire planet fit those conditions? Luckily for you, you can just make up plants/animals that can easily survive in the necessary range of temperatures, elevations, or atmospheric conditions that your planet contains as it orbits, spins, or has weather.

The worlds are your oysters!

Saphira: I think Venus qualifies? I don't know enough about Venus.

I think the fun part is taking a general biome (forest) and making different parts of the planet different varieties of that biome. Instead of making an ice area tundra, make it a winter's wood. A warm area could be a tropic instead of a sahara. Lots of stuff to play with.

Also, this will be more interesting if your different biome planets are jump-able, more fun for inhabitants who benefit from diversity. Just a thought.

At the end of the day, the world is your plaything.

Tex: My knee-jerk response would be... No TM. A lot of this depends on the size of a planet, its position relative to a star, starting elements, rotational speed, orbital path (also relative to its nearest star(s)), core activity/composition, magnetic field, and amount of water it has. As a taste of how complex planetary biospheres can get, the Amazon rainforest receives a significant amount of nutrients from the Sahara Desert (NASA).

After poking the internet some, my response is... Mostly No. Deserts, yes! Forests - ah, not so much. The whole "Can a plant survive bottled in its own ecosystem for 50 years? " idea doesn't quite scale up, because as noted in the link, many of David Latimer's plants in his terrarium actually died. There's more to a biome than amount of available water - about half the links I've put in the Further Reading section will help to further explain why.

Unfortunately, it's very rare that a single biome can canvass an entire planet, because each biome (ThoughtCo) performs an important role in the biosphere. A desert planet can be a thing because desert biomes don't rely upon the transportation of water within its system, whereas nearly every other biome does, and with the need for water comes many complications.

I can't actually say for certain the minimum amount of biomes a planet would require, especially because I don't know the goals that these requirements would need to fulfill. Is it plant life? Is it animal life? Is it the propagation of sapient life? The feasibility of these goals are also highly dependent upon their setting - Earth is different from the Moon is different from Jupiter is different from Pluto.

To use your example of forests, I will note that a forest is never just a forest. There's multiple layers to the plant life that fulfill different functions, the soil must have a profitable composition and contains its own microbiome, the fauna are adapted to both and fulfill niche roles to help keep the system functioning. You can't just plant a bunch of tall trees and toss in a few ferns and call it a day.

Plants by themselves are never just plants, and are mind-boggling. They can make complex decisions , talk to each other, display cognition, and know when they're being eaten. They're not passive reactors to their environment, and actively shape the world around them to benefit themselves for a myriad of reasons.

That said, forests need a constant supply of nutrients, and given that plants in general are... very aggressive about how they compete for resources, this makes for a very dynamic and constantly-changing environment. Mint is a good example of an invasive species that performs allelopathy, and is absolutely ruthless about competing for territory (another long-winded and theatrical example ).

The entire subject of forest pathology covers biotic and abiotic factors in forest health, a sub-field of both forestry and plant pathology that covers such subjects as fungal pathogens and the vector that is insects (you can read more about forest pathology in these two journals).

I highly recommend looking at... well, literally anything @botanyshitposts has posted because they will more than pleased to go into detail about how plants Be Like That.

Synth: Tex brought up a lot of good info about how and why a mono-biome planet is a "maybe, but probably No" thing if you want to play by real-world climate rules as we know them. Even a 100% ocean planet would not be a single biome: got your pelagic zone, abyssal zone, neritic zone, benthic zone... Of course this is your planet, like Bina said, and you can make it however you want, real-world logic be damned.

But say you want to have a single-biome planet and have the reasoning behind its existence sound at least a tiny bit plausible. How might that be done? Saphira touched on using different but similar biome types to get a single biome by appearance if not quite definition: "forest" on its own is not a biome. There are boreal forests, deciduous forests, tropical rainforests, temperate rainforests... you get the idea. From space it could pass for a one-biome planet, but down on the ground the differences become clearer. You still get a planet that is All Trees All the Time, but with a variety of vegetation and wildlife that reflects the climate of the inhabited area.

Looking at a global map of biome types, you can see that a few major influences on where a particular biome can be found are: latitude, elevation, precipitation. Are you familiar with the tree line? It's the point beyond which trees don't grow, and occurs high up on mountains at low latitudes (closer to the equator), and also low down on terrain at high latitudes (closer to the poles). You could choose a biome for your planet and then adjust the terrain to fit. Put some really tall mountains along the equator, and slope the land steadily downward as it nears the polar regions. Tweak the major air and ocean currents to bring warmer or cooler temperatures -- and more or less rain/snow/etc. -- to places that would otherwise experience the opposite. You can sort of see this on the map linked above, with how the location of "temperate broadleaf forest" roughly follows the path of the atmospheric Jet Stream carrying warm air from the midwest grasslands and prairies, and the flow of the oceanic Gulf Stream bringing warm water up from the Gulf of Mexico, keeping northern Europe much warmer in winter than it would be otherwise.Further Reading from Tex:

Previous Script-A-World answers

100% ocean planetPlanet with different amounts of gravitySnowy beachesCreating a forest biome

Others

PDF - Mechanisms of plant competition for nutrients, water and light by Joseph M. Craine and Ray DybzinskiMultiple soil nutrient competition between plants, microbes, and mineral surfaces: Model development, parameterization, and example applications in several tropical forestsby Q Zhu et al.Plant-plant competition outcomes are modulated by plant effects on the soil bacterial community by S. Hortal et al.Atmospheric circulation (effect of wind on climate, and thus biomes)Biogeochemical cycleCarbon cycleSoil Respiration Wikipedia; ScienceDirect; USDA PDFEffect of Sun angle on climateGreenhouse effectWeather and climateOutline of meteorologyMicroclimateSolar cycleEcosystem

#pylons #biomes #environment #climate #Anonymous

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harrywavycurly · 6 years

Note

So you know you have to do a boyfriend Niall right? Since you did one for Harry, sorry I don’t make the rules ❤️😉

Hi babes! Haha yes I’ve been waiting for this! I hope you enjoy this because I was all in my feelings while writing this all out 😩 💖

Niall would be the type of boyfriend that’s constantly poking fun at you, tickling you, teasing you and you’re never safe around him and his little sarcastic comments. But he’d also be the type that knows when he’s gone too far and doesn’t exactly like it when his buddies get in on the teasing because it’s kinda like the whole “I’m allowed to say my mom’s being rude but you can’t” type of thing. So he’d have enough smarts to try to save the teasing for when it’s just the two of you or just a few of your close friends because he’s also well aware that you’re not a fan of being made fun of in public and to be honest he isn’t either and he knows that whatever he dishes out he has to be prepared to get back.

He’d always have his hand on your lower back or around your waist when the two of you are walking down the street, it’s his silent way of letting you know he’s there and he’s got you. He’d be quick to figure out that you’re a big fan of hand holding so he tries to always have his fingers interlocked with yours when maneuvering through the crowds at a bar or a concert. You’d learn that whenever he gives your hand or your waist a little squeeze it’s him reassuring you that although he might be listening to his friend’s story he still is aware that you’re there and the little wink he shoots you just adds to it.

Niall would be the type to act as if he doesn’t love the little nicknames you give him, like how he rolls his eyes when you call him “smoochie” whenever you’re in a playful mood but you know by the way the corners of his mouth twitch that he’s fighting a smile. He’d be the type to try out different pet names and he’d learn that certain ones needed to be used for certain occasions. He calls you “love” the most because it just comes naturally and he knows you enjoy it, he knows that whenever he calls you “petal” you go a little weak in the knees so he uses that one mostly by whispering it in your ear before placing a kiss just below it while the one you love the most is “darlin” because it just sounds so good coming out of his mouth with his accent so he saves that one for when you’re least expecting it like in the middle of a conversation about your weekend “sounds like ya had a good time then? M’glad ya had fun darlin”.

Niall would be the boyfriend that loves getting you practical gifts, things he knows you either really want or something that you’ve mentioned you’d been needing. You’d learn that with him you can’t just mention liking or wanting something because next thing you know it’s being delivered to your doorstep, he’d be the type that often just sends you little random amazon packages that he got off your wishlist while he’s away on business. He’d be the type that truly loves everything you get him because he’s just happy that you saw something and it made you think of him so much you just had to get it, even if it just is a pair of tye dye socks.

He’d by the type that insists that you’re never a bother, you’r calls and texts at random times during the day are nice little breaks from his often chaotic schedule. He’d be the type that doesn’t hesitate to invite you to come see him if he’s off somewhere that he thinks you’d enjoy because if he’s gotta be there for work he might as well make the most of it and have you join him. He’d be the one to ask if it’s okay to just share calendars because “s’just a bit easier ya know? Know yer schedule and you’d know mine.” So whenever he sees that you have an important meeting coming up he can be sure to send you an extra sweet morning message and schedule a flower delivery, he’d also be the type that would forget and save surprises like random flower deliveries and dinner dates to his calendar because it’s a habit and he knows you just act as if you never got the event notification.

He’d be the type of boyfriend that fumbles on his words whenever he tries to have serious conversations with you about your relationship. He’d end up just having to blurt it out because the little speech about how he’s ready to move in together just flew out the window whenever he saw you give him that smile that makes your whole face seem to light up. He’d never let you go to sleep mad at him, he’d have you up until 2am if that’s what it took because he can’t sleep knowing he’s upset you. He’d be the type that when he actually gets mad you know it’s taken a lot for him to reach that point and it’s best to give him some space before coming and talking it out and if too much time goes by he’d be the one coming over and placing his head in your lap while he explains what’s going on through his head.

He’d be the type that when he wakes up in the morning or even in the middle of the night it’s a habit to just pull you closer to him, he enjoys the feeling of your back flush with his chest. You’d learn that it’s moment like that he misses the most whenever he’s gone so whenever he gets home the first thing he does is tackle you and just hold you for a moment because he’s just missed feeling you in his arms. He’d be the type that is low key clingy, it’s the Virgo in him that makes him feel a certain possessiveness over you but he’s not one to act on it unless he’s provoked. He’d never shy away from pulling you closer to him when he sees someone looking you up and down in the bar, he’d place a kiss to your cheek and the top of your head when he wraps his arms from behind you while at a party where he knows someone you used to date was attending.

Niall would be the type that likes to know when you get home after a night out, he prefers a call but he knows sometimes you just can’t muster up the energy for a phone call after a night out with your friends. He’d always send you a good morning text whenever he wakes up even if it’s only 3am where you’re at, his goodnight messages always consist of sweet little things like “miss ya loads, can’t wait till I can see ya and have a proper kiss an not jus one of dem phone kisses! Have sweet dreams petal, love ya.”

Boyfriend Niall would be the one that you can count on for anything. Have a flat tire? Niall knows a guy who can fix it in a pinch. Need someone to come get you? Niall’s on his way. He’d always be on your side and in your corner supporting you, he’d be your biggest fan and tell you how proud he is of you all the time. He’d be the type that doesn’t only tell you how he feels but also shows you because he knows that sometimes words only mean so much. Boyfriend Niall would just always make sure you were okay and felt loved because he wants you to feel the exact same way that you make him feel, like the luckiest person alive.

All in all Niall would be the type of boyfriend that you can be yourself with, the type that never makes you feel like you’re being judged, he’d make you feel like all your “flaws” aren’t flaws at all but just parts of you that make you so special to him. He’d know just how to make you feel like you were the only person in a crowded room and he’d know how to love you just the way you needed and deserved to be. 😩😭💖

#damn this was longer that i thought #niall horan drabble #niall horan imagine #boyfriend!niall #Niall Horan #my little irish marshmallow

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goldenscript · 7 years

Text

forever in a night (m)

pairing: kim mingyu | reader genre: best friends to lovers au / fluff, smut warnings: alcohol mention (& some under-age drinking), drunk-ish sex (?) word count: 15,643 description: There’s a long stretch of history between you and your best friend, Kim Mingyu. From your first and last time as lovers to the friendship that has remained intact all throughout, but etched within the seams is the very thread that has always kept you two bonded—it’s nothing short of two hearts that beat as one with an unspoken love.

The first night is a complete accident. It’s a stupid, stupid emotionally compromised mistake that shouldn’t have happened (with your best friend no less)! Did you already mention how stupid it is?

When you’re heartbroken, you eat chocolate and ice cream and any of all the fatty, sugar-coated carbohydrates you can contain. You watch movies about heartbreak and ridicule them with tear-stained eyes and vehement finger-pointing because for fuck’s sake, they aren’t listening to you from behind the thin glass and it’s taking everything in your willpower not to chuck your remote and the popcorn from your bowl, maybe even the bowl itself too, at the screen because as angry as you are, you’re most certainly not in the mood to get up and fix the mess you’d hypothetically make.

You call up your best friend, crossing your fingers that he isn’t busy with homework or a successful love life, though the latter is actually laughable because Mingyu is even worse off than you are but you need something to get your mind off your own stupidity. That’s why you have him. He’s your go-to. Your rock. Everything you need in a man, really, but even more than that because he’s the one you need that’ll help keep your mental sanity stable enough when shit like some guy—Jung Jaehyun, to be very exact—drops you for some other better-looking chick with probably an even better personality at that. It’s not to say you’re a shitty person, but from the way he talked about her, she seemed awfully great so that’s why you do feel a little stupid for hanging around and thinking that the feelings he was kind of sure were there for you would swept away when certainty and something better rolls in. So sure, you’ve been down over meaningful shit before but this isn’t forgetting Mingyu’s birthday (one time, mind you), this actually has you down in the dumps even farther down than those bottomless trenches from the Finding Nemo movie.

Now normally, his arrival is filled with hugs and warmth, maybe even a few good (though you’d never say that), cheesy jokes about kicking Jaehyun’s ass for you but it elicits half-smiles and half-hearted hugs because you’re just not feeling much right now. It’s literally everything you need and more, but in a way, this is different because you weren’t really sure or unsure about the outcome with the bleached blond but you wanted it to work. You hoped for it. And it’s that kind of disappointment and hurt that doesn’t just melt away with an empty threat or embrace. It’s not like the time with your first boyfriend at twelve with a boy by the name of Jungkook, who was as sweet and soft as cotton candy, who like the delicious treat disappeared right as soon as you two shared a kiss. He moved away to a different city, and when Mingyu comforted you in this same method, you actually cracked a smile and took him up on his offering for 7-Eleven slurpees and other terribly delicious junk food.

You do wish it was that simple to just forget like the good, old days, but times are different now—you’re older and a little more mature than those gloriously simple sandbox days, with desires and hormones that do more of your actual thinking than your brain, who knows damn well how bad the idea is that’s floating inside your head. It’s pushing its way to the forefronts of your mind, and all you can really see is his handsome visage, because somehow Mother Nature decided your best friend’s puberty should turn him into a borderline six-foot tall baseball jock with a face that is almost too, inhumanely handsome to actually be the kid you’ve known since the first grade. It was practically yesterday when he was tugging on your hair and leading you over to the baseball field because there was no one else he wanted to watch him play but you, not even Yoohyeon (and she was best-looking girl in school!). Though as rough and annoying as he was (okay, is), he has his kind, gentle moments, like smuggling the good balls out of the closet after some snot-nosed jerk stole the one you brought for you and him or taking you by the hand to appease your fear of crowds and making sure you stayed right by his side or laying beside you during that terrible weekend-long blackout when you were home alone and your parents were out (he had his first middle school game that following day but he came running just to make sure you were okay), all because out of everyone he’s known, he’s always had a soft spot for you and childhood to even now only proves that deeper and deeper, it seems.

There’s just this moment when he cups your cheek and looks you in the eye to ask, “Are you okay?” There’s a gentleness that sets ease in your heart, and it’s the first moment since exactly eight hours ago that your mind actually shuts up for once. You don’t know what you’re doing but the longer you stare at him, falling deeper into the soft, hickory hues, your eyes flicker down to his lips and watch as they move for a split second before your looking at him again; then, you just go for a kiss.

He doesn’t fight you, surprisingly, and it’s not quite like the ones you two have shared during Spin the Bottle and the truth-or-dare circles at parties for the past few years either. But you like it. You like that your mind goes blank without the sirens or racing thoughts, without the what-if’s and what-could’ve-been’s. You like that it’s with him because he’s always been your person—that sort of comfort that is rare to come across in just anyone. And the thing is he just goes with it, his eyes shut within a moment, soon yours follows, and his fingertips take a firmer grasp on your cheek while the other rests at your hip. Before you know it, you’re both laid across your bed with no clothes, the tear of a wrapper breaking into your mutually breathy moans and the touch of his fingertips igniting burns in their wake that remain seared forever in your brain.

In the early morning when the weight of your actions dawns on you, it’s to your very surprise that he’s awake and cleaning up the forgotten popcorn bowl. His lanky limbs tidying your living room as you look on from the doorway. Your parents forgot to come home, but from the looks of the purple splotches on your collar bones and your hips, you’re more than okay with not dealing with them right now.

The only thing that crosses your mind and parts your lips is one simple question: “Can we go back from this?”

“Do you want to?” Mingyu asks with a simple tilt of his head. He doesn’t look affected in the slightest, though truthfully you find yourself pretty indifferent about the entire thing. Even though you were completely screwed over Jaehyun, you find yourself at peace, like a singular weight has just dropped from your shoulders and you can breathe just a little bit better. “Look, whatever happened last night—we’re going to be okay. This doesn’t have to change anything, y’know, you needed someone and I’m always going to be here for you.”

“And you’re okay with just screwing and pretending nothing happened?” your brows screw together, hands wringing the edges of his T-shirt.

“Believe me, I can’t pretend but I mean this really doesn’t change anything, Y/N. I’m your best friend, you’re my best friend. We fucked, so what?”

You laugh, shaking your head at his logic. “You’re way too casual about this.”

He shrugs, striding over to you in about three steps. His hands find your shoulders. “Is that so bad? You’re the overthinker. Let me be the underthinker. ‘Kay?”

Dropping your hands from his T-shirt, you give his cheek a poke. You never would’ve conceived that doing that with your best friend would be so casual, because everyone grows up with the idea that their best friend is that person reserved from those things, that they’re the ones that will pick up the pieces from a safe distance. But in a way, Mingyu has always been a different person for you. Yes, he’s your best friend, but he’s the kind that you can tell anything and everything no matter, and for the two of you to cross a boundary like that together should be weird, should be restricted from then on because what kind of best friends casually fuck like nothing?

Instead, you just go with your gut and give a nod. Because this was just a one and done right? (No honey, no it was not.)

“‘Kay~”

The second time is completely voluntary. An executive decision that you initiate (yet again) because what the hell are you supposed to do when your friends actually banked on the success of your relationship with Park Jimin? Not only was he older but he was also a college student with all access to free booze, but he was undeniably attractive like a devil disguised as a rosy-cheeked cherub. Smooth-talking and a tease. These are things you were well-equipped to handle with having Kim Mingyu, a sudden girl-magnet that senior year (it’s still beyond you considering it’s barely even October), but on the orange-haired boy, it was everything that kept you on your toes and wanting more.

That’s the thing about boys like Jimin—they want to have fun. They like to play around. Correction: they fuckin’ adore it. Of course, he’s sweet and attentive beneath all the selfishness and self-assured confidence, but his capacity for relationships longer than three months were a bigger stretch than your eight-dollar leggings from Amazon. It’s a miracle the two of you even made it into that extra two, but it was a good five-month run.

You just wanted to believe that you could change a guy like him, maybe work around the player nature. You also hoped that something about you made him keep coming back. Maybe it could’ve. Your guts had no doubts that his resolve softened with you. But as spirals come, they go. He just happened to go on his birthday, leaving behind only a simple text that he couldn’t show up to the dinner you planned or even continue what you were doing together, because punctuated at the end of it all was the very audacity of him to conclude that you and Mingyu were something more than you were letting on and his own petty nature kept him from bringing it up because it showed he cared way too much for some high schooler like you.

Knowing that makes you mad. Downright furious, actually.

For him to accuse you and your best friend of being more than just best friends. The very gall makes you convinced that Jimin’s using it as an excuse to cut ties with you, and maybe you’re being petty by calling Mingyu to that one corner boba shop in the city but you can’t control yourself. There's this selfish part of you that just wants to hurt Jimin in that way. Even if he didn't know you invited your best friend to come meet you (at the least, he probably has the thought nagging at him in the back of his mind), it's a nice feeling to know somewhere in the bubble of feelings you’re shrouded in.

The pettiness doesn't outweigh your hurt, however.

The very truth is you liked Jimin a whole fucking lot. Not just a lot. A whole fucking lot, okay. You and him spent five months together. Five, long and wonderful months together just to be whittled into this measly broken half over your best friend, Kim fucking Mingyu. That's what gets you. Of what sort of action did you display that would indicate infidelity? Was "we fucked once last year" written all over your forehead? Or did you let it slip during one of your drunken escapades? Was that it? What the goddamn hell was it? Because, despite that one night—a stupid one at that—nothing has ever changed between the two of you. In fact, it might've brought you two to a closer level of understanding because nowadays you kind of just knew what was up with him, whether he was feeling some kind of way for a girl or something, but it never triggered hidden feelings for him or any of that cliché shit. He’s your best friend. That's it.

You’re hurting. From the moment Jimin left you with those glaring text messages to the moment when Mingyu sits in front of you with furrowed brows and “What happened?” falls past his lips. Of course, you can't hide it from him. Of fucking course, you let it all loose within two breaths. And he looks absolutely pissed at the fact that this is how Jimin decided to end things. Not even face-to-face, but through texts that felt more passive aggressive and heavier to look at the more you stare at your phone screen.

Your thoughts are flying in all kinds of directions, as if it weren't enough that today would've been yours and Jimin's fifth monthiversary. You two didn't really care for that kind of crap, but it was more like an obligatory celebration to mock with some food and maybe a movie. Sometimes even a screw or two. But it felt like it could've been something. Maybe nothing like getting married after all the school’s done or anything, but it could've been like those old loves you think back on from time to time or some cheesy shit like that.

You don't know where you're going on this train, but you feel Mingyu move next to you in the booth and the warmth of his body radiating on you is enough to shut up all the detours. Like those dings on a train that get muted in the background with a pair of good ass headphones, but instead this happens as soon as as you look over at him with a half-hearted smile. Until it only dawns on you that the only way he could've beat the half-hour travel time to downtown was because of that date he should be on.

Fuck.

"You must've been busy with Nayeon huh?" you sigh, only briefly recalling how psyched he was to finally go out with her. It makes you feel even worse now. "I shouldn't have pulled you out like this."

He glowers at you, bumping your shoulder. "Don't say that. Of course, I'd come find you."

Of course you have to say it. You wouldn’t be a very good friend if you didn’t ask. "But Nayeon?"

"She's not my best friend, Y/N. You are. If she really likes me that much then she'd see me for another date," he states simply. But when you look at him inquisitively, he can hardly meet your eyes. "There are other girls anyway, y'know. I'm sure I'll meet an understanding one."

"Like anyone believes we're just friends," you scoff, patting his leg. He doesn't mind as it remains there either. But for some reason, you kind of wonder why you’re letting it rest there now. You’re usually the withdrawn type when you’re hurt. "I bet she was worried we were more than friends too."

"Well..." he scratches the back of his head. "That's true, but still—!"

"Still what? Gyu, I—I," you sigh. "I don't even know anymore.”

You don’t even know why you’re saying what’s suddenly occurred to you, but you suppose it’s because the admission of truth is often easier said when emotionally compromised. There have been plenty of times when you admitted to things while you weren’t in the right state of mind, and it seems this occasion is no exception.

Even as the words fall, you don’t even bother looking very embarrassed about it.

“Sometimes I'd rather just say ‘fuck it’ and just be with you instead of anyone else."

He laughs, ruffling the top of your head. "We could make one of those pacts to be together if we wind up single in our thirties or whatever. Like that one Friends episode! I don't mind."

"Oh shut up," you don't even stop yourself from smiling. The memory of that Friends marathon you two did well into the previous summer comes up—all the mutual complaints, the in-depth discussions, and even the expected clean-up’s after you two attacked the screen with an arsenal of popped kernels—even over the particular hilarity of that damn episode. "Let me be sad, dummy."

He leans in close, lips a damn hairsbreadth away, it actually has your breath caught in your throat. Your only worry is it wasn't that obvious. "Never, you can't be sad in my presence,” his voice is playfully indignant, but the latter half of his words leave an uncomfortable swipe of heat across your body. “I want to make you feel better, Y/N."

"That holds a lot more sexual weight than an innocent one, y'know," you note aloud, regretting it instantly. The corners of his lips curl upwards, with a flash of his pearly whites gleaming beneath in the fluorescent overhead lighting. It makes your heart flip flop all over, and you hate that this isn't the first time it's done that either. "Oh shut up."

"I didn't say anything," he says, shrugging. "But if you're really up for that, then I don't mind either."

You pull back from drinking the delicious sweetness of your earl grey milk tea, almost blanching because you don't think you've ever felt both so horrified and so intrigued, because an actual part of you wouldn't even mind screwing him right now. The part of you that feels hurt and emotionally compromised actually welcomes the thought of his hands at your hips and the jutting of them against yours. Even the thought of squelching sounds that sounded all too good to be true made you so undoubtedly tempted to just agree, but you hold back specifically for that moment.

"What?"

He watches you, deadpanning, "You heard me."

"That's a hefty offer, Mingyu. I don't think I can take you fucking around right now," you sharply point out, knowing that you are the one bullshitting. And of course, it isn't like you don't want to screw your best friend. You like that he was your first. You also like that it's him, out of anybody in the whole goddamn world, because you know for a fact he isn't taking advantage of you. But you also know damn well that you would be very much taking advantage of him (again).

It’s like, for whatever reason, the universe likes to send him your way whenever you're emotionally compromised. She probably enjoys the tease of putting you two together, only to leave the two of you two to deal with your actions in later relationships. It's silly how simple things would be just to be with him. He knows you, you know him. But at the same time, knowing that he's the kid you've basically entrusted all your secrets with could easily slip from your fingertips like Jimin makes you anxious. He isn’t like Jimin in the biggest way where you haven’t prepared yourself to lose him on the off chance he lost feelings, because that’s what you did with the older man. Unlike him, Mingyu holds more sentimental weight that forgoes a few months and actually melts into years of deeply-rooted connection and attachment that could so easily go to shit if either of you fucked up a relationship.

So, then fucking isn’t so bad then?

You suppose if you weren't getting together with Mingyu officially, then just screwing him and shooing away all those (highly possible) repressed feelings is a much safer bet.

Of course, you still feel obligated to ask him, "Can we go back from that? Doing it again, I mean."

He shrugs, wrapping an arm around your shoulders that has your mind even blanker than before. At least it's shutting up any more of your anxieties. "It didn't change much before, right?"

"True." You look over at him, washing over his features in a quick sweep as if it made much of a difference in your decision-making (it didn’t). He's gotten even more handsome, you notice, and not quite in the "holy fuck, my best friend is hot" kind of way though that has happened once, but more in a "you're a really good fucking person and that's really attractive" way. "Why did you do it last time?"

"'Dunno, I guess because you seemed like you needed someone." He gulps, Adam's apple bobbing as his own nerves go down. "And, well, to be frank, you're pretty hot."

You let out a laugh, smacking his chest with your free arm. "Shut up, you punk. Lying to your best friend is a terrible sin, y'know."

"Oh?" He raises a brow at you, cheeks becoming prominent from his ever-growing smile. "Well, why don't you show me a thing or two about absolving that?"

Your nose wrinkles, one of your fingers now placed atop his lips. "We are not doing any of the kinky, roleplaying shit, Gyu."

He asks, giving way for more internal cursing, "So, that's a yes?"

Even though you know shouldn't do this, you find it very hard to actually care at this point. You did call him over there. And, you do need someone to keep your mind off the impending heartbreak. Okay, and you do think he’s pretty fucking hot too.

Giving a nod, you warn him, "My mom's home though."

"S'okay, my parents aren't home. They took a trip down to the beach for their anniversary." He gives your shoulder a squeeze before looking at you with a flash of seriousness in his eyes. "Are you sure about this?"

That is definitely a chance to get out of this mess. Maybe leave this moment without the reality that you really screwed your best friend the same night you were supposed to probably bang your now ex-boyfriend, and it's one of those moments where if you were looking at this situation from afar you'd probably say no and walk away. Maybe take a breather for a day or two before doing some other reckless thing. However, this isn't one of those moments.

There is no narrator, talking about the complications of your life and your skewed decisions. This is on real time with a reality that whatever you do will bite you in the ass later, and it's that sort of thought that only briefly passes through your mind before things go silent. His visage is still very close to yours, and the idea of comfort and utter tranquility begins to spill back in.

The repercussions of fucking him might come back later, but you don't find many problems in it. So, without a second thought, you give nod. All punctuated with a verbal, "I'm dead serious."

And with that out in the open, he grabs hold of your hand (the one that was on his leg) before giving it a squeeze. Something about it just tugs on the jagged pieces of your heart, not that they were all that broken. They’re more hurt, like a wounded pride, because you're almost fairly certain that this is what is ailing you the most about the Jimin situation. Well, that and the fact that this would become one of those unresolved relationships that you'd never have an answer to unless you braved a mutually willing conversation with him. (Not that you would, because again, your pride.)

You feel a little better afterwards, at the least.

The third time… god, the third time is a weird passing of “I’m lonely but you’re on my mind” and “Jesus, me too” that actually has you wishing that Jesus or some either higher deity could stop you from this poor decision-making skill. Because at this point, it’s not just to forget somebody or comfort yourself from heartache, it’s actually a voluntary choice that doesn’t last more than forty-five minutes and you counted because the nagging part of you is trying to remind you that what you’ve done is with your best friend and not just any other friend that—even with a given choice—you still wouldn’t opt into, because this time the problem isn’t just your terrible life choices. No, the problem is that you might actually feel something other than disgust and repugnance and exasperation and absolute, platonic adoration for a young man you’ve known since the start of elementary school.

You blame Woozi. It's his fault. Absolutely in the "I forced you two together because I know some shit went down between you guys" way. You don't know how he knows anything in the slightest considering neither you or Mingyu ever said a word about the previous times, but it's like he knew somehow. Well, regardless of whether he actually knew or not, it's still his fault and that stupid pantry's too.

Okay, and your heart's fault too.

But you still like to believe it's because of an inanimate object and because of that evil demon you and Mingyu have the misfortune of considering a friend, because that’s much easier than facing the music for yourself. If only he had just made you two streak down the street naked or drink some grotesque smoothie or something that didn’t involve an opportunity for something that shouldn’t have been so intimate in such an enclosed space, then maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t be put in this position.

God, if only it were that simple, because it isn’t like Woozi made you have feelings for that giant of a best friend of yours after all.

All you know is that the kiss, as simple as it was, made you do a double take. Like out of all things in life, it's not enough to say that you instantly realized you had feelings for him—that sort of thing takes time. This just made you thoughtful enough to really slow everything down. Those thoughts that you had been used to brushing off in Mingyu's presence made a reappearance, becoming a newfound factor in all your endeavors with him. Whatever you didn't think you would feel for him became something like an added layer to the already complicated relationship the two of you shared.

“Are you okay?” He asks you a few days after the incident, milk teas in hand and some take-out food you both love as sort of a celebration to the upcoming first year in college, because that's what that party was meant to commemorate in the first place. Yet somehow the whole thing managed to make you realize your stupid feelings for your stupid best friend.

You nod nonchalantly, reaching for the bag of goods. But like your chances of escaping your damn feelings for him, it slips from your grasp and hovers a little higher over you.

“Hey!” You try making a fruitless jump for it.

He doesn’t even need to budge a little bit as he simply says, “Liar.”

“Am not,” you declare, glaring at him. Sort of. “Gimme my food, you moocher.”

“Hey, I actually bought this!” Looking down at you, his eyes narrow just a smidgen. There’s a lack of malice that only tells you that this is your own intervention. Either fess up or risk starvation. “Something’s up. Things feel… off.”

“Maybe because the scales of the universe have been tipped because I, the supreme overlord, am hungry.” You try to make another jump for the food, but you realize just how much closer he’s gotten before you’re instinctively stumbling backwards. “D-don’t do that—!”

“Do what?” he asks, frowning a little. “What’s going on with you, Y/N? Why’ve you gotten all jumpy around me?

“I—I,” you sigh, rubbing the back of your neck. “Alright, I know I called you over first about hooking up but I—I dunno. I realize how weird that is, because you aren’t really comforting me from anything. It was more like easing some boredom and that was really wrong of me, y’know?”

“Oh!” His voice goes up an octave before both his tone and his arm just a bit but you aren’t even bothering to reach for the food again, “Right. Well, I mean I told you I don’t mind—”

“—Why not though?” you ask, brows furrowing. It’s still the partial truth which is hell of a lot better than a whole lie, so you’re not feeling as guilty as before. You’ve long since resolved on not saying a word of your feelings altogether. “Doesn’t it bug you that I’m doing that?”

“I mean, why would it?” You’re about to open your mouth and state the obvious (because duh, why wouldn’t it?) but he continues, “We still talk to each other, support each other, and y’know love each other, Y/N. There’s never once been a moment where I felt like you were genuinely using me for my body or for the sex or whatever. I know that you’ve been hurt and that it led you to some rash decisions and I know that what happened a few weeks ago wasn’t something very conventional for us but… I dunno, it just—it doesn’t bug me. At all. I promise.”

You feel at a loss of words. You don’t know what you were expecting from him exactly, especially considering how unpredictable Mingyu can be, but if there’s one thing that remains consistent with him—it’s his reliability. Even in your own confusion and hurt, because this does bug you for some reason, you’re not entirely sure whether he enjoys being put in this sort of position or the fact that you enjoy being in this position with him.

“Okay?” he asks, tilting his head at you. “Does that ease some of your guilt?”

You involuntarily frown a little, obviously your own guilt wouldn’t just vanish, but for some reason your heart doesn’t feel quite that heavy knowing that he didn’t see what had happened as a mistake. You already know you shouldn’t have done it. You know that doing what you both did more than once will only lead to trouble (and it has). Hell, doing it in the first place came from a place of hurt, yet that still makes you wonder why he even let it happen—after all, he could’ve said no. So why?

“What’s wrong now?” He takes a step toward you, though you make no move to slip away this time. Your heart is still going haywire, your own brain wondering why you weren’t worried in the slightest that he may hear the disaster going on in you. But you remember that even trying to hide anything from Mingyu is a futile effort. Especially now that he’s eying you at a closer level, having long since setting the food down by the table.

“I’m just…” you rack your brain for the right words, dodging his inquisitive gaze for the cream-colored tiles. “Confused.”

“Why?” You can’t even see him but you can tell he’s frowning. His sneakers with the creases in the front have come into view, reminding you that you’ve definitely got to buy him a new pair for Christmas. His warmth is so fucking close, and you swear your heart might fall out of your chest because of it. You don’t understand why you’re reacting this way towards him or why it seems to titillate the butterflies in your stomach to be put in this position with him either.

Even with the likely chance that what you’re feeling is the complete opposite to his, you can’t seem to find any courage or will to push him away from yourself. It’s silly. Probably stupid. Hell, maybe you would’ve been screaming at some actress for pulling the same bullshit. But the image that glimmers in that thought not only includes yourself chucking popcorn at the screen, but with a rowdy companion who gets a little too excited and shows off his pitching skills just to make you laugh and clean up the mess when your mom gets home with daggers aimed at the both of you.

Whatever you’re feeling and whether it transcends the normalcy of what a best friend should feel for their best friend, you know that you can’t push off the subject any more than you have already. If not for your sake, but for Mingyu’s, because he’s worried about you. His hands are balled into fists at his side, trembling from the uncertainty that touching you (close intimate contact-loving and all) may set you off and draw you further away.

“I—well—how are you so okay with all of this?” you admit truthfully. Among the many things running through your mind, this feels like the safest bet. “How are you not confused?”

Apparently so, because now that you’re looking at him, you can see the worried brows unknit while his mouth parts into a small ‘o.’ He almost looks dumbfounded that you’re really looking at him but you don’t have much time to think after he’s spoken—

“I just know that I’m happy you chose me.”

Your heart reacts before your brain can, but at the very least your lips clamp shut before you can anything jeopardizing. Instead you tilt your head and furrow your brows, doing the best that you can to emulate your confusion (because you are definitely more confused than ever) and keep your heart from really falling out of your chest.

He laughs, running a hand through his hair. His cheeks give off the slightest bit of embarrassment. It makes him look endearing. You hate it. (No, you fucking love it, and you fucking hate that you love it.)

“You trust me. And that’s not confusing.”

Oh dear god, it so is. But you smile, because it does make you happy to see him so wholesome. Even with the guilt of your feelings and the stupid things that keep plaguing you with regret, the more you think about how easily you let this get out of hand and how much Mingyu really didn’t deserve to have a best friend who would put him in this situation just because you’re too emotionally incompetent to deal with them like a normal person.

“‘Kay?” he says, this time propping his hands onto your shoulders. He makes sure to meet your eyes, a contagious grin curving at the corners of his lips. No matter what he’s still your best friend. Your heart may ache for him, for whatever it is you two share in those most intimate moments, but if there’s anything you don’t mind keeping just for a while longer, then it’s moments like this where you can pull him into you with your arms wrapped around his waist and just let the rest of the world fall silent.

Even though you feel your heart rebelling, you still find yourself nodding against his chest, “‘Kay~”

What follows the events of that summer is an expected calm before the unleashing of a storm that comes only a few months afterwards—exactly eight months since that mid-July day. And in that time, you’ve found healing in surviving gruelling classes and managing your own time as a human being, even with the dulled embers of your heart’s desires constantly at your side with a goofy grin and poorly-strung words falling past his irritably chapped lips that makes you wish you could forcibly apply a good two or three coats of ChapStick just so he wouldn’t be too lazy to do it later. You see, just because your feelings for Mingyu made an appearance didn’t mean that you would push him out of your life and let the pain of those well-shared memories together overrule your connection with him. There were years and years of history between the two of you, and to see that go away would be worse than any rejection made by him. So, you did as you did best by pushing away whatever remnants of non-platonic emotions away, because this was Kim Mingyu, your best friend, your rock, your go-to when boys like Xu Minghao make an appearance only to make you feel lonelier than ever for reasons you couldn’t quite understand from a third-person perspective, and if you had to decide between quenching your selfish desires to be with him and take on whatever challenges would come in its wakes or simply live on with the knowledge that you once wanted to date your best friend, then you’d rather live on in silence.

And tonight, as always, is like most where you find yourself complaining about the opposite sex to your best friend, who happened to belong to that end of the spectrum. It reminds you of old times, of the memories when you once complained to him about Jung Jaehyun, but you find yourself lacking the same emotional disparity and more of the sexual frustration that comes when, well, you don’t.

“I hate him,” you groan, giving the pillow in your left hand a deafening smack with the other. “I hate him I hate him I hate him.”

You can hear a groan from the adjacent side to your room, “You said that the first fifty thousand times tonight, shut up already!”

Shifting your glare from your pillow, you aim it at the dark-haired boy perched at your desk and lob your makeshift punching bag right at him.

“You shut up. You’ve been talking about baseball since you came out of the womb, but you don’t see me complaining.” He doesn’t even flinch when it makes contact with his head, just letting it sit on his lap while he rests his elbows on his thighs. “Let me bitch about your stupid roommate.”

“For your information, you have complained about me talking about baseball. Relentlessly. In fact, just this week you were bitching about my game—”

“—It was three-and-a-half hours, Mingyu! Hours. That’s goddamn torture.”

“Imagine playing for that long. Now that’s goddamn torture,” he grumbles, mimicking your tone. Your eyes narrow, another one of your pillows readily available for another attack, but you only pause when you hear him sigh. “But seriously, why are you still hung up on him again?”

“Have you not been listening to me?”

He gives you a look, “Do you really think I can decipher your girl garble when you’re like this?”

“I’d like at least an effort, y’know,” you sniff, leaning your head against the wall. “Don’t make me regret calling you over.”

His eyes soften after they give your visage a once over, a terse nod passing before he leans back in his own chair as if to say, ‘effort it is!’ “What’s up then?”

“I—I don’t know,” you let out a frustrated sigh. “It isn’t like he’s a terrible person or anything but God is he a pain in the ass.”

“Pain in the ass how?” he raises a brow. “Is he bugging you about dumb shit? Forcing himself on you? ‘Cuz I’ll—”

“No! Not that,” you shake your head, actually letting out a bitter laugh as you do. “I just mean he leaves me hanging a lot.”

“Like not texting you back?”

“Well, yes but no, that’s not what’s bugging me. I’m frustrated, Gyu.” Mingyu’s brows contort together, as if the picture weren’t clear as day. Though for someone that’s taken one too many baseballs to the head, you can’t exactly blame him for not picking up on your hints. Of all people, he should know what you mean.

That punk roommate of his seriously wasn’t bad at all, maybe snippy and grumpy (at times), he could text back more, maybe ask you to hang out once in awhile, but it seriously wasn’t any of those things that made you so mad. It was the fact that your status with one another was blatantly clear, practically crystalline with explicit photos and the occasional, cheeky mark to trademark it all. And still, even when you’re both so close to the ride of a goddamn lifetime, he pulls back and leaves so abruptly, you actually have to ask your roommate if you really did have someone over. Sometimes she can confirm it with playful dirty looks as you order apologetic milk teas equipped with boba and other jellies, but there are times where she gives you a funny look and goes, “You had someone over?” And whether it’s to genuinely fuck with you or not is still up for debate.

“Wha—”

You begin to whine, digging your head further into the wall out of complete sheepishness. You hate that Mingyu was right when he said that Minghao wasn’t the one you should mess with. It hurt your pride to be so damn hard-headed, even more so for your thick-skulled best friend to be so painfully right that your own core was screeching at you for putting it through this two-month long torture.

He waits somewhat patiently for your response but you can see the twitch of his hands from your peripheral and that has you clamping your mouth shut. Had his hands always looked that masculine? Your eyes widen, Oh fuck no.

“What?” his voice breaks into the never-ending negations running through your mind.

“Just shut up,” you shake your head, shutting your eyes for a moment to collect yourself.

You’re definitely just frustrated. There’s no way in hell you’re attracted to your best friend right now (again). This is just another one of those passing phases that come and go every now and then. Everyone goes through ‘em. It’s just one of those moments where you can look at them and say, “I could totally date you right now.” Just… y’know, with sexual implications in this case scenario, and under this rare circumstance, you know exactly how that would go down with him.

He grumbles something beneath his breath, but you hardly hear it when the sound of your heart seems to echoes up and down your body and your thoughts are running free into ridiculous circles all leading back to him and Minghao. If that auburn-haired little shit hadn’t built up your libidio this damn much, maybe then you wouldn’t actually feel those residual feelings from that night in the pantry. Or a few days ago when Mingyu drew you in for a tight hug, his hair slicked back with sweat and his uniform sticking to his lean body all too nicely. Or the husky sounds he’d make when your hair tickled his nose after all-nighters over the summer. Or the way his arms tightened around your waist just to keep you into place and snuggle even deeper that following morning. Or his lips—!

Nope nope nope. No.

“Fuck,” you mutter, opening your eyes just to see his furrowed brows and mouth slightly ajar. “You look stupid. Close your mouth before something flies in, dummy.”

“That’s golden coming from you when you looked like you just had some mind sex or some shit.” He begins to mimic what your face looked like, earning yet another pillow sent in his direction. This time you actually hit your target.

“Shut up!”

“Just tell me what’s wrong already!” He chucks the pillow in retaliation.

“He hasn’t gotten me off, alright?” The pillow misses your head, caught in your arms before you bring it close to your chest. “I’m frustrated because I haven’t had an orgasm. Is that clear enough for you?”

Please don’t fucking offer…. God, please don’t let him.

His eyes go wide for a moment before he plainly says, “Oh… well, fuck.”

“Yeah,” you huff, falling completely on your back onto your mattress. “It fucking sucks.”

Oh thank fuck.

Mingyu lets out a grunt, your swivelling chair now rolling toward the desk while he takes half a step and his weight now dipping your bed downwards as he pats your thigh. It’s warm and comforting, at least in the emotional aspect, which was all you really needed from his presence. Maybe some banter just to get your mind off your frustrations.

“Haven’t you… tried… doing it yourself though?” he carefully asks, leaning against the wall and your partially on your calves.

“Believe me, I have but if I wanted to just do that then I wouldn’t have been trying to mess around with him,” you deadpan, moving your arms behind your head as you steady the smooth, white ceiling.

“Then why mess with him if he’s not giving you what you want?”

You frown a little. Of course, you considered this, and it’s so damn simple it’s almost painful that he’d be the one to state the obvious. Mingyu does have his moments, so you’d give him props for the help. That’s exactly why you called him over, actually. Even though he could be painfully clueless with anything else besides baseball and the kitchen, he knew you and knew what to say when you needed to hear advice.

“Should I?” Your gaze flits over to his, and your brows raise in anticipation.

“I mean why waste your time, right?” He then grins, “‘Sides, you can come with me to Cheol’s party tomorrow night. Maybe you can find yourself a new toy to play with.”

Your nose scrunches at the comment and earns him a small kick to his side, but you do like the prospect of a party, especially Seungcheol’s parties. They usually wound up being really fun, whether you came home with anyone or not, anyway. The older boy just had a knack for entertaining others, always incorporating the best music and drinks, even being attentive to his guests.

Although, he often pestered you about yours and Mingyu’s status. He’s been so sure that you two would wind up together, but that just makes you curse Woozi for not letting that incident slip. Ironically, it seems you haven’t let it slip either. You don’t know if Mingyu has, though. You’ve never asked, and a part of you is a little scared to for some reason.

“Yes? No?” he asks, moving to lay by your side. His warmth already seeping through to your side as he curls in toward you.

“Maybe,” you sigh, remembering you were supposed to meet with Minghao tomorrow.

He says suddenly, “I won’t go if you don’t.”

“Why?” you laugh as he pouts, though you can’t ignore how much your heart is going haywire from this position and the sudden proclamation.

“Cheol said I’d have to pay if you didn’t come, and I’m a poor, poor college student, y’know.”

“I’ll let you know, ‘kay?”

His lips loosen curl at the corners ever-so-slightly, dark brown hues glinting in nothing you’ve ever seen before, but you don’t particularly care to decipher it. Your mind is still wrapping around the fact that you really would’ve said yes to him in a heartbeat, if not for Minghao looming right in the in-between.

The auburn-haired boy doesn’t really remain in your mind, however, instead you find your brain infiltrated with screeches as you find Mingyu’s arms wrapped around your waist. His cheeks pressed to your bicep.

“‘Kay~”

Besides a massive fuck you (which is actually a lot more normal than the average person would think), the first thing that crosses your mind when you see Minghao is your decision from last night. It’s simple, to the point, and really, it’s sitting on the tip of your tongue, so ready to just fall past your lips in just one breath. But instead of letting out your grievances and stomping out this thing like you decided, all you can think is fuck as the taste of chocolate and caffeine on his unbearably plush lips fall on yours.

It’s poor decision-making, of course. After all, you could really just push him away and say, “Woah bud, we’re through. I’m better at getting myself off than what you’ve given me these past few weeks.” Instead you continue to let him kiss you, relishing in the taste of something to sate the growing fire inside you. Terrible, you already know. Do you care? Not particularly.

All sorts of rationality begin to fly out the window as he tugs you along to push you onto the bed. The plush bed padding conforms to the curvatures of your back, dipping further as he straddles your waist and grinds his crotch harder into yours as if the constrictions of both your jeans weren’t enough to elicit delicious waves of friction. Each gyration enough to coax a louder breathy moan that feels like music to both of your ears.

His lips look unbearably bare caught between his teeth, the reddish brown tendrils of his hair clinging to the sides of his visage as he seems to lose himself in his own ministrations. Without thinking, you reach forward and beckon him forth with the pull of his T-shirt and coax his lips free to meet yours with a fervid hunger because the daunting reality that this would end like any other relationship you’ve had before—official or temporary—only makes you want to cherish this moment even more.

The way you go about things may be odd, even so much that it even has Minghao pulling back with heaving attempts at catching up with the loss of breath but you see the alluring need reflecting off his dark hues. They’re contorted with hints of something you weren’t quite sure what to think, but the longing is different from the lust that has you blinking in confusion.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, loosening your hold on the grey material. The air feels unremarkably familiar like that plaguing distance has returned yet again, but this time you have no idea why. Was it you? Was there someone else?

“I—I don’t think we should do this anymore,” he straightens up, moving off of you. Air fills your lungs, but there’s no relief in it when you feel your brows furrowing in a deeper curiosity.

You want to half-joke, but it comes off a lot more bitter than you’d like: “That was supposed to be my line.”

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, moving toward the edge of the bed as you sit up to do the same. Neither of your legs brush up against one another, but you can tell that it’s on purpose from the way he pulls his hand away from your proximity and tightens in his lap. “I haven’t been very good at whatever this is.’

“Well, is there any reason why?” When he raises a brow at you, not that you miss the flash of realization cross his features, you sigh, “I know you’ve been holding back, Hao.”

He opens his mouth for a moment before clamping shut, any explanation now hidden behind his teeth and swallowed down as his Adam’s apple quivers ever-so-slightly. It rubs you the wrong way just a bit. To think that he was pulling away without even a reason. For multiple reasons, it hurts.

“Are you going to tell me why?” you try again, hoping to search his eyes for anything resembling an answer. Something that would make sense to this whole ordeal. Even in all your time spent with Minghao, you never would’ve pegged him as the type of person to hold back his feelings. From the countless instances you’ve seen him lay waste upon his friends and tearing earfuls into random strangers on the street for being rude, inconsiderate jerks, it’s actually hard to believe that this is the same outspoken boy in front of you.

You carefully try again, curiosity getting the better of you and stubbornness keeping you from pulling you away and giving up already. “Minghao,” the call of his name elicits a small eye dart in your direction, but you don’t miss the shame that’s washed over his dark hues. “You can tell me anything, you know that already… what’s bugging you?”

“I—fuck,” he sighs, heaving out a laugh. “You and Mingyu. That’s what bugs me.”

You feel a deep knot anchoring your stomach even further down, as if it were possible for it to sink into the deeper recesses of your body, but you find your mind clouding with far too many thoughts to actually organize a cohesive comparison. You’re suddenly thrown back to that year Park Jimin dumped you over text, how easily he dropped you and used your friendship against you to let you go. You can feel your nerves careening and hanging precariously over a ledge that would only lead to the demise of your heart. It’s only been a few months, but the connection and relationship you had been sharing with Minghao wasn’t a passing fling. If anything, you swore it could bloom into something without thinking too deeply about it, because that’s just how easy it is with him.

Of course, the more you ponder this, the more you begin to realize just how fatal this train of thought is. You’re reminded more and more of your situation with Jimin and how crushed you had been and how angry you felt that your friendship with someone outside of this relationship was the sole factor in the end of what could’ve been something. And you know that you’ve shown no sort of interest or previous emotions for your best friend. You’ve staunched away those flames, let them simmer back down into your close-knit relationship that has only ever been as platonic as you two have always been. It just confuses you how easily you’re lumped together with Mingyu when a relationship goes awry and you hate how easily you’re assumed to be acting in infidelity with him when it’s never been like that in the slightest.

You’re about to voice your feelings, each syllable ready to fall out of your lips in a semi-calm manner, but Minghao’s pierces the still air with a scoff.

“C’mon, Y/N. You can’t sit here and tell me that nothing’s going on between you two.”

He probably doesn’t mean to sound so accusatory, but you find your eyes narrowing anyway. Who was he to say you had feelings for Mingyu? He wasn’t you. He didn’t know how you felt or how much you worked to get those feelings out of your system. You wanted to make this work, to enjoy the elation of a casual relationship like this one.

“I can, because nothing’s going on between us,” you reply sharply. “I think I’d know if I was screwing my best friend, while I’m not screwing you.”

“I’m not talking about fucking him,” he shakes his head, while his brows furrow. His eyes remain trained on yours, unrelenting without a chance of backing down in the slightest. “You love him.”

“W-what?” you splutter, eyes blown wide. “Where the flying fuck did you get an idea like that?”

“I have eyes. I don’t know what the hell happened between you two for you to react like that, but I know there’s more going on between you two than you realize.” If it wasn’t enough of a shocker, he even goes as far as stating simply, “I know for a fact that he’s in love with you.”

You didn’t like what Minghao said. In fact, you didn’t like this conversation, period. It actually feets like one of those conversations you would have with yourself whenever your thoughts rotated back to Mingyu. And to have that conversation with someone you were supposed to be romantically involved with feels even more like a slap in the face. Is this how Jimin felt? Is that why he disappeared without a trace?

You shake your head, willing the influx of thoughts away. Regardless of the faint traces of familiarity, you don’t like the inkling of false hope (or the very sensation of hope in this sense at all) and you certainly didn’t like how hellbent this auburn-haired man seems on it. You could practically feel his defiance as he didn’t dare back down on his theory no matter how much you tried to convey any other conjecture with your own level stare. Because, under what kind of goddamn basis could constitute him saying such a thing ? How could he, of all people, known when you were constantly side by side with that baseball player?

You retort, “That’s ridiculous. You can’t even tell me how you know this. It’s probably bullshit anyway.”

“But, is it really?” He raises a brow at you, gaze sweeping over your visage and even resting on your twiddling fingers before the corner of his lip quirked upward. “You’re acting awfully defensive for something you’re calling bullshit on.”

“Or, maybe,” you pipe up, glaring even harder than before. “I’m defending myself because you’re accusing me of being in love with my best friend? And maybe, just fucking maybe, I’m trying to figure out where the fuck you’d get an idea—which is complete bullshit, by the way—like that.”

“Like I said, I have fucking eyes.” He lets out a deep breath, breaking your stare down just to soften his just a smidgen as he continues, “And ears…”

You don’t say anything then, brows only furrowing in response to your own anxiety bubbling in the pit of your stomach—maybe I did fuck up and slip up after all…

“You probably didn’t mean to let it slip one night, but I know you and Mingyu fucked in high school. And it isn’t like Woozi’s the greatest at keeping secrets either so I know about the kiss too.” You feel a lot warmer than he’s ever made you feel, even when the distance seems to become clearer and clearer the long you’re there. “I dunno what really went down between you two and if whatever either of you say is bullshit because I never bothered to confirm it with him, but what I do know is that he’s crazy about you and I don’t think I can… get in between that.”

Without saying the words, it’s like he’s telling you: “And now I know you love him too.” His very voice, the downcast in his eyes—it’s everything you least expected to see today, and yet it’s also under your own whim that you rise from the bed and hesitate with words on the tip of your tongue. What could you possibly offer Minghao that could comfort him? You don’t even know how long he’s known any of these things, but knowing them altogether must’ve put him in a weird position. For him to end things with you… well, you get it.

Although part of your pride wants to argue with Minghao just to denounce all his claims and make him feel like shit for ever bringing it all up in the first place, another part of you knows that there’s really no of convincing him otherwise. He’s stubborn and well-natured. Even if he is an annoying smartass, he cares about Mingyu (and you) enough to let go of you. And even though you can’t exactly see his whole point in doing it, you also can’t help but find yourself muttering an apology to him anyway.

The last thing you remember doing before you leave his room is press a kiss to his cheek. Then the rest of your actions blur together and Seungcheol’s becomes your next destination.

Just as Seungcheol is about to charge Mingyu, you come bounding up the stairs of the fraternity house. It creaks beneath you but you hardly find a reason to care as you send a passing wave between the two with a tight-lipped grin spread across your visage. You try not to let the previous conversation get to you while you’re conversing with the two but it seems that any mention of Minghao goes ignored with an occasional glare to finalize your response, and Mingyu is no exception.

His eyes go wide for the briefest of moments before he drops the subject, slipping past Seungcheol and Dino with you at his side. Emotions you’ve been bubbling up inside you is beginning to spill over and a prickling pain in your chest has you reaching for the offered assortment of drinks with a fervid vigor that gives you whiplash for a second. At the least, no one asks why you’re trying to get shit-faced, but perhaps the reasons are written all over your visage now that you’re letting go of the mask.

There comes a blur of exchanging the usual pleasantries with Jeonghan and other friends that most certainly did not include Woozi (that damn bastard earned himself the bird after the raucous sounds he made at the sight of you and Mingyu together) and even partaking in the festivities of a good, ol’ round of Beer Pong and taking some time to shimmy your way around the dance floor with the dark-haired man trailing you and downing a drink each time you do tried to take two at once.

But just as quickly as you arrive to the party, you find yourself preparing to leave all because the two of you have put yourselves in a precarious situation in which the narcotics have finally kicked in and all forms of your self-control seem to fade the moment Mingyu truly comes into view in all his dark-haired and handsome glory. His visage is too close to yours but only because his cheek presses against the coolness of the wall like yours. You don’t miss the way the two of you involuntarily move closer, your dilated irises flickering between one another and one another’s lips, with the blatant urge to say ‘fuck it’ and just go for it.

Unlike the countless times you’ve brought up the whole ordeal, it’s actually Mingyu who makes the first move with a more-than-expected eye-rolling line that has you guffawing at first—

“How about one more for old time’s sake?”

Your nose scrunches as you respond, “That’s what you’re gonna use to pick me up?”

“I mean, I could literally pick you up if you want,” he shrugs, smiling even deeper as you take a small step back, because there’s really no telling what he’ll do sometimes. “But I’m dead serious.”

“No,” you shake your head, giggling again, “you’re drunk and your name’s Mingyu.”

“Silly,” he grins, looking at you earnestly. “I mean it. If it’s what you want then I’m more than okay to make you feel better.”

Of course he knows something’s wrong...

You’re about to sigh, “Well—”

His voice goes down an octave or so, “Plus, I know I do way better than Xu.”

His cockiness makes you glare at him, but not in the ‘you’re dead wrong” way but more in a “you’re so irritatingly right” way. In this very moment, your desires are pushing past all the nagging logic that has stopped you in the past. You know you shouldn’t do this. You know that jeopardizing your friendship and willfully screwing him also means screwing yourself over. But you also know how much you want to feel him underneath you. To finally have a taste of his lips that you’ve craved since senior year. The very idea of it is enough to coax a single nod, and now you’re both on your way back to your apartment.

You’re there quicker than you expect, but the blur of events is much like your encounter with Minghao. It all leads back to Mingyu and his strong hand in yours as he tugs you along the familiar, darkened path back to your room. No one seems to be home, but you’re absolutely certain that whether anyone was or not, it wouldn’t matter.

This has been a long time coming.

Each grueling month since you put an end to your fun with Mingyu has been hard, and conditioning yourself to push away the feelings you began to cultivate for him has been even harder. But with the opportunity of this night, everything is coming back and the forever you two shared begins to bloom once more.

He has you laid out beneath him, his member so closely pressed against your thigh, you’re practically itching to feel it deep inside of you. However, you can’t help but let the words tumble out, “I—I kissed Minghao earlier.”

He looks at you with a smirk poised on those beautiful lips of his like that fact doesn’t change a damn thing. Instead of answering right away, he presses his own mouth to yours, fluttering pecks before he trails a way down your neck and onto your chest where rough nips take place. “I don’t care.” His voice is low, eyes glinting in dark-eyed lust. “You’re here with me now, babe.”

His lips are back on your body, trailing the places Minghao never once touched with such a fervid flurry, your head is spinning as it tries to keep up with each of his ministrations. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted, even more than you would’ve anticipated as his kisses feather off and he lavishes the reddened areas with his tongue in soothing circles that has you squirming.

He doesn’t hold back as he makes his way down, detouring only to fondle your breasts with his hands and suckling on the perk nipples, before nipping his way down your torso and stopping right above your lower half. His hands are on your thighs and his soft exhale meets the clothed mound, squeezing your soft skin as soon as you find yourself squirming from the sheer anticipation.

You remember his playful nature from the previous time, but this time is even more frustrating with his very lips so goddamn close to the spot you’ve needed to be touched for the past two months, and not just by your own doing. You need someone who can touch you in all the right ways and hit all the right spots. You need… you need… well, fuck, you need him.

Not in the “I can’t function with anyone else but you” but in a “you can fuck me in all the right ways and you get me” way. If there’s anyone in this world that knows your body as well as you know yourself, it’s him. And if there’s anyone in the world that gets your emotional fluctuations, it’s him. And having this opportunity where his face is this close from giving you the orgasm you’ve-so-craved for the longest sixty days in this whole year, it’s almost painful to not be able to buck your hips properly because of how well he’s keeping you in place.

“Mingyu,” you whimper, attempting to move once more but find that he’s keeping you right there on purpose. The smile curving on his lips is lopsided but the light in his eyes tells you just how excited he is.

He breathes hard against your core as he asks, “Yes?”

“Please,” you squirm once again.

“Please what?” he blinks, almost innocently. You almost want to spit a proper retort at him but before you can blink one of his hands leaves your thigh just to graze across your panties. “Did you want me to touch you here?”

All you can do is gasp because holy fuck his fingers feel so fucking good against the lips, and that’s just the outer portion! To think he could do wonders (as always) when he reaches past your panties makes you quiver, earning an even wider grin splaying out across his stupidly handsome face.

“Or here,” he tries once more, actually going as far as teasing the edge of your panties.

“Please,” you gasp out, trying to wriggle, to no avail.

“Just tell me what you want, baby,” his voice is gentle, softening as they watch you with gleaming interest. He’s always adored the way he could make you come undone. Even during the previous times, there’s almost always been an indiscernible look in his eye that just told you how much didn’t hate what happened between the two of you. Whenever you saw it, your mind truly did shut up, and tonight really is no exception.

“You,” you answer, feeling your heart jump when you hear his breathing hitch. You vaguely hear him muse, “That’s not very specific.”

But you hardly control yourself as you bluntly say, “F-fuck, your fingers, Gyu. I w-want your fingers.”

And just like that, as if a switch turned on in him, a poised look on his visage tells you that what you just said was all he needed, because it takes only a split second before your thighs are free and your core is bare to the world. Your panties decorate your floor, along with his T-shirt and pants that had been thrown off since he had you laid out on the bed. He doesn’t even bother letting you moisten his fingers, instead doing it himself in at a snail's pace before pushing past your lips and tracing a circular pattern against the bundle of nerves.

You mutter an “oh my god,” throwing your head back, because this is exactly what you’ve need this year. The only thing you’ve truly desired since you put an end to your ministrations with him, because it seemed too overly complicated to deal with. But right now? It feels all too damn simple—it’s almost hard to believe you’ve been depriving yourself of this in favor of taking the high road.

Screw the high road tonight, your brain immediately pipes up, jutting your hips in a particular way that has you mewling once again.

He increases the pace of his fingers in the exact way you’ve always loved it, each thrust fueling the pent-up orgasm that’s been practically begging for you to have, because for once you’re finally accepting what your heart’s been crying out for. You know it’s wrong. You’re drunk, and you’re not in the right state of mind right now, but it almost flies out the window just to feel the blissful euphoria wash over you.

Your very essence coats his fingertips, and he makes the mistake of bringing them to his lips just for a taste and to say the very damned words that had you ready for a second round the first time, “You taste so fucking good.”

Without another thought, you put your hands on the side of his face, tugging him in for another deep and long kiss. It’s not quick as fervid as the plenty that came before, but it’s enough to have you both gasping. The taste of yourself and the Corona he had are on your lips, giving you reason to take a long, lavish lick on your bottom lips before you get ready to give him a taste of what he must’ve wanted.

However, he stops you. His hand is on your wrist, a shake falling at his head as he answers your unspoken question, “I can wait—I want to please you.”

“Fuck,” you tip your head back, propping yourself up by your elbows. “You really fuck me up, y’know?”

He smiles, pressing his lips to your forehead, “I just want to make you feel good.”

You want to respond, feeling an obligation to, but he stops you with his fingertips. They travel to the stray hairs framing your visage, tucking them behind your ears before he asks, “Won’t you just shut up and let me?”

You roll your eyes, feeling your cheeks burning beneath your overhead lights. Despite how much your heart is fluttering, the burn in your core still hungers for a real taste of what he has to offer, so without another thought to convince yourself otherwise, you give a simple nod.

“Okay, fine.”

He goes in to kiss you once more, much like your own kiss, but this is drawn out with his teeth grazing your bottom lip. As soon as he releases it, he reaches for your nightstand adjacent to the bed for the stash of condoms you keep there in case of occasions like this one and offers it to you.

With a smile, you grab it and carefully rip open the foil to place the contraceptive onto his exposed member. He’s gone a little soft in that brief intermission until he gives himself few pumps that has him tipping his own head back. He lets loose a guttural sound, the sound of your name garbled in between as his hand is no longer his own but rather it’s yours.

The control is literally in your hands, though instead of teasing him like you wish to, you decide to give it to him easy. It’s been that long of a wait, and you refuse to push it along further. Plus, the very act of a handjob is a simple task that doesn’t require much effort. All you really have to do is exert only two kinds of pressures: 1) from the grasp of your hand, and 2) from the sheer force of the pumping.

You know exactly how he likes it—it’s really no different than most boys—not quite too fast but not slow either. His immediate response is to tip his head back, letting out a low whimper that has a smirk curving on your lips. You decide to fuel the fire and add a slight press of your thumb on his tip, releasing your grip on him. He’s about to let loose a complaint, but before he can speak, he watches you take your thumb to your mouth and lavish the appendage.

His lips fall open and he says, “Fuck.”

“Are you ready?” you hum, pushing him onto his back. He nods and you begin to slip the condom onto his hardened length.

He whimpers once again. But he doesn’t say a word as you rise from your position to straddle his waist. You ask once more as you hover, “Are you sure about this?”

He blinks, looking up at you with eyes that have already stolen your heart and the soft touch of his hands are on your waist to give them a squeeze.

“I’m absolutely certain,” he smiles raising his brows at you. “Are you?”

“Of course,” you whisper, moving your hands onto his length to position it to your entrance. “With you, always.”

Without another word, you lower yourself onto him. He’s still thick as ever, but the burn of the stretch washes away as your usual ministrations begin. Your very core feels full to the brim from taking him in, even as you begin to jut your hips at a particular angle in search of the right spot. His hands remain on your waist, giving you squeeze every now and then. It’s like he’s reminding you that it’s him and not anyone else. And as full as your heart feels, your alcohol-hazed brain takes action and has you falling into your carnal instincts.

You don’t think about how this is him, and how this is wrong of you to let yourself do. You think about pleasure and how the two of you are going to feel the best goddamn orgasm either of you two have had since that summer, and although it feels like eons ago, you can still feel the waves of euphoria right now.

Having him guide you and letting you rest of your palms against his bare chest as soon as you find your G-spot is much appreciated. The small whispers he keeps repeating go over your head; however, you feel the knot inside your core slowly coming undone as the rutting of his own hips induce more and more bliss with each thrust.

“Mingyu,” you repeat in breathy moans, each one getting louder and louder and your skins slap against one another. And each time you do, his hips don’t relent, allowing you to come undone after just a few moments. The strength in your arms wanes and leaves you with no choice but to practically collapse atop his chest, though he voices no complaints. “Fuck.”

“That’s it, baby,” he mutters as he manages to move you beneath him. His finger presses against your clit, leaving you with sensitivity and a pure sense of bliss. “Let it all go.”

And in that moment, you fucking do and it feels so damn good.

What takes place afterwards happens in a blur, but you’re certain that he manages to get off as well, your name falling past his lips in the prettiest sound that has your heart going haywire. He slips himself out of you and tosses the condom away, but he doesn’t get back into the bed until he’s coaxed you out of it to relieve yourself and pull on a T-shirt, because after the first time, you two remembered just how important it was to relieve yourselves and avoid UTIs!

By the time you return from the restroom, the comforter is different and the old one is tucked into your hamper at the corner of the room. He’s curled up on the left side, though a corner is dog-eared just for you. Instead of speaking, you decide to thank him later when you two wake and take the invitation of his arms with heavy-lidded eyes and soon drift off to sleep.

When dawn arises, its gradient hues washing your side of the world in muted shades of tawny and even the barest shades of frost, you wake up.

The expected weight of Mingyu’s arm draping over your waist is yet to be found, but you know that he’s still in the bed. His warmth is seeping in onto your left side, beckoning you to the coziness of his side that only he can offer, and yet there’s a stark coldness that reminds you that there are things the two of you need to talk about before moving forward, as always. Still, this time is different. You don’t know how you know, but you just do.

Your head pounds a little as soon as he pierces the still air, but you power through because it’s that important—

“Do you still think about that night in the pantry?”

“You’re in love with each other, Y/N!”

The burning glare of Woozi would have anyone recoiling, as many people in your mutual friend group (and even those outside of it) knew just how scary he could be, especially after the Guitar Incident of freshman year that still has Mingyu deeply scarred. But unlike the others, you refuse to back down against him. Especially about his outrageous accusation.

“No, I am not!” You’ve had to emphasize this point for as long as you and Mingyu have known one another, and yet the message still fails to seep into the minds of your close friends. In some cases, it’s always been a running gag, almost a bet that the dynamic duo would finally consummate their secret love and get together, but it’s a bit of running gag of your own to know that this testament is actually bullshit, because nothing has changed since you and your best friend fucked.

You would think that something would bloom in that shared time together, but nothing has happened. Nothing’s changed. You screwed twice and you haven’t suddenly realized that you adore the way he can’t seem to sneeze in his own fucking elbow instead of a goddamn hand or the fact that he looks very adorable making spaghetti like that one time he bet you his newfound skills have reached a groundbreaking level (though eventually you did admit that it has improved since he first tried his hand at the culinary arts). But still, nothing has changed. Nothing will change.

You even go as far as saying, “It’d be impossible for anything to happen between me and him, Woozi.”

But the narrowing of the blond-haired boy’s eyes makes you want to take it back. The glint of mischief and the way he says, “Oh?” both pisses you off and actually kind of terrifies you.

There are only two times you’ve ever realized you fucked up, and this was that second moment. The first was when you let Mingyu teach you how to skateboard—to say the least, you still have that scar on your leg from the stupid fall into the bush and you still haven’t set a foot on those cursed deathtraps since then. Though somehow you kind of wish you had been on a skateboard in this moment.

“I call bullshit,” he says simply, brow raising. “I know something happened between you two. I don’t know what but I know something did and it’s making you two act weird.”

You try to guffaw, but it sounds more like a nervous choke. It only makes him narrow his eyes even more.

“Nope, nothing.” It’s a blatant lie. He goddamn knows it, but instead of calling you out like you expect, he smiles after a moment. “What?”

“So, if you two—I dunno—wind up in my pantry after this round of truth or dare, you won’t jump each other right on the spot?” He crosses his arms against his chest. “Because at the least, if nothing has happened between you two, lemme just point out that the sexual tension between you two is even worse than Dino and his right hand and that’s some serious shit.”

God, you don’t know who you want to choke more—yourself or this dude you’re supposed to consider your second closest friend. But instead of confessing, because fuck no are you going to let everyone be right (especially Woozi) about you and Mingyu. No, your stubborn ass is going to keep denying this shit until you die.

“Nope, not even a little bit, you fucking demon.”

He smirks, nodding slowly. “So, is that a promise?”

Your eyes narrow, blood pressure practically reaching its peak because no matter what he’s always known how to push your buttons. “Fucking bet.”

He holds his hand out to you, which you begrudgingly take with blatant vehemence. He looks you in the eye, “I can’t wait to commemorate your loss later, sweets.”

You scoff, “Oh fuck you.”

Before turning on his heel for the kitchen, getting ready to gather the group for the well-awaited game, he winks, “You’ll thank me later!”

Mingyu returns to your side after catching up with a few friends he hadn’t seen from middle school. His brows are knitted together at the sight of your seething visage, but he sees Woozi retreating figure as the kitchen door flutters and a daring smirk curls on his lips. “He piss you off again?”

You groan, nodding, “You have no fucking clue.”

He pats the top of your head with some sympathy before snatching two of that flavored vodka Woozi managed to convince his brother to buy and it burns like a motherfucker but you take it anyway because you know you’ll need it to get through the night. Of course, you’re not going to mention the conversation to Mingyu at all. There’s really no point in it considering his height and his somewhat intimidating looks do nothing to the short boy, and if anything, you’re better off facing off in a fight with that demon than your best friend.

And it isn’t like you have a chance to tell him anyway, because Woozi bursts into the room, this time with the hordes of people and a bottle of Fireball just to announce everyone’s required participation in the game.

You feel absolute dread in the pit of your stomach as you find yourself sitting in the circle with the endless possible scenarios in how Woozi will turn this shit on you. Even if you chose truth, you know damn well he’d make that option just as bad as the dare, and honestly, being in that enclosed space with Mingyu could hardly harm a damn thing anyway.

Even with the fear of what could happen, because what’s really there to fear anyway?, you mentally prepare yourself for whatever may come. You don’t care if the table gets flipped on you. And you don’t care about what Woozi thinks, because it’s you and Mingyu who know the truth and no one else. So, with a newfound resolve, you await your turn.

The order goes in counterclockwise, with you coming after Mingyu and a few other souls that take the easy road. The first three of them have gone, but by the time your best friend’s turn comes, you almost don’t bat an eyelash when he asks for ‘dare’ until it hits you that Woozi is his executioner, and the malignant look flashes across that boy’s eyes.

“I dare you to go into the pantry with Y/N for seven minutes.”

Your jaw refuses to drop, though you find your mind screaming at your so-called friend, because goddammit you should’ve seen this coming. You knew it was coming, and yet, to see the innocent elation flash across Mingyu’s eyes when he looks over at you, a part of your heart swells because could it really end that badly?

(God, if only you knew.)

The space itself is a little tight considering how much space Mingyu takes up. His broad shoulders squeeze together out of consideration for you, but as soon as the doors shut with Woozi’s last words echoing through your head: “You have seven minutes, love birds!”

The dark-haired boy looks at you with an adorable sheepishness, “Sorry for dragging you into this.”

You shake your head, “Nah, s’okay. Woozi’s just evil.”

“You okay?” he suddenly asks, trying to step back. “You want me to move—”

But all his back is met with is the shelves and an unopened bag of rice that had his stumbling just a bit. You’re about to ask him if he’s okay; however, his attempt to steady himself only leads into more stumbling and somehow you two wind up on the ground with him cushioning most of your fall.

“Oh fuck—!” you blink from the sudden impact, barely registering the sounds that ensue from the sudden trip.

“Ow!” he says among a few curses, blinking profusely as he sees you in all your glory right before him. “A-are you o-okay?”

You nod slowly, meeting his eyes with concern now melting off your visage. The only thing you can really focus on right now are his eyes, and the way they search yours for any hidden pain. His hands automatically finding purchase at your hips in a gentle manner. He looks like he wants to say something, but it’s like the words are caught on his tongue; you know you want to say something too, but it feels like your own words are stuck on your tongue.

The only thing running across your mind is just how much you’d like to feel his lips against yours and feel your heartbeat quickly. You want your thoughts to suddenly go quiet and to just live in that small moment with him, because being here with him somehow makes everything else melt away.

Slowly, but surely you lean in until your lips touch. You steady yourself by placing your hands on his shoulders, giving yourself enough leverage to pull him in closer. Unlike the previous kisses, even the ones from ages past, this one is completely different. It feels different. The very taste of his lips are sweet albeit laced with traces of vodka and the sour gummy worms from the snacks table, they mold themselves to yours and coax only the tenderest of pleasure to flood across your body.

It feels like it last forever, but you two pull away to breathe. You’re heaving, chests both moving inward and outward in hopes of catching your breaths, but you feel like your heart has swelled so large, there’s no room for your lungs.

“I—” He tries to say, but you pull him again, just for one more taste.

The magic happens again—the swelling of your very organ making you feel warm all over and not out of an increasing labidio. Nowhere in this are any far-from-innocent implications, only the genuine feelings of two friends, and yet that leaves questions imprinted on your mind and a sudden thought that has you blanching by the time Woozi swings open the door, snapping a photo that has you both breaking apart from the intrusive of the flash, because holy fuck do I love my best friend?

You refuse to say a word to Woozi that night, but the look on his face seems to tell you that your secret with Mingyu is safe with him. Though it makes you feel heavy-hearted from the loss of his hands on your hips and the heat that only he seemed to be able to share so damn well. Even though these are things that seem so simple and so him, you can’t help but find them… endearing and heartwarming.

Something (read: everything) changes that night, and all you can think is a simple: Fuck.

Your response is on the tip of your tongue, and you’re just about to do so until he beats you to the punch, “Because I still do.”

You blink for a moment, realizing what he’s just said, “You do?”

You turn to face him, watching as he nods with his attention still remaining on the ceiling. “I think about it a lot.”

“Why?” you have to ask. You need to know. Even if it’s a simple reason, because even if it’s far from what you’re hoping for, you just want to know. It might even set ease to your heart, and really, that’s all you can hope for.

“There’s something I wish I said before Woozi came to get us,” he admits, smiling faintly.

“Was that when I interrupted you with a kiss?” you ask, recalling the way his cheeks looked so faintly pink before it all melted away and the taste of the vodka and sour gummy worms had remained on your tongue then.

This time he turns to look at you in surprise, “You remember that?”

You nod, “Of course, sorry ‘bout that, by the way…”

His smiles even wider, reaching over to pat your head but he makes it about halfway before he lets his hand rest in the space between you two.

“Well,” he sighs, eyes wandering elsewhere. You feel your nerves tighten up, because he hasn’t acted like this in a long time. “I… was going to tell you that I love—d you.”

You want to flinch or react somehow, but you don’t. You just watch him, feeling your heart flutter in the way he hesitated in his use of the word ‘love.’ Honestly, you don’t think you ever humored the idea of him loving you back then but it seemed to make sense.

“When… did you realize?” you ask, reaching for his hand. He hesitates to hold yours, but you just entwine your fingers to tell him that it’s all okay.

“Senior year,” he answers softly. “I don’t know how but when I saw you after that game where we won champs and the first thought that came to mind was you and seeing you there… I… I guess it just hit me that if there was anyone out there for me, then it’d be you. And not because you’re my only option or anything, but because if there was anyone in this world that I’d like to spend my life with then it’s you.”

He continues after a soft laugh, “I didn’t know how to tell you, but then that kiss happened and I wanted to right then and there and…. I dunno I guess I got scared.”

“‘M sorry, Gyu…” you sigh, giving his hand a squeeze.

Before you can say another word, he replies quickly, “S’okay that you don’t feel the same!—”

“—I do!” you say a little too sudden, wincing from the sharp pain in your head. His eyes suddenly go wide, immediately asking if you’re alright. He’s about to get out of the bed just to go and grab you an aspirin but you pull him back down. “I’m fine, really, it’s just… I love you too, okay? I realized that when we kissed in the pantry and I’ve been trying to convince myself otherwise since then.”

He remains in place as you wish, eyes softening as he asks, “Why?”

You laugh, almost bitterly, “Fear, I guess? I’ve lost plenty of people before, but losing you would be the worst blow of them all. I don’t think I could take you leaving me if things went wrong.”

He watches you, almost expectantly, “Is there a ‘but’ somewhere there?”

“But, we can’t go back from this, y’know,” you point out, slowly shifting your focus from your entwined hands to meet his eyes. Without even thinking, you find yourself feeling flushed and the corners of your lips begin to feel sore.

His brows are raised when he asks, “Do you want to?”

“Well, honestly,” you admit, shaking your head. “No…”

He grins wider than ever, “Good.”

A long silence casts between the two of you, though in that time you’re finally back in his arms with his warmth now seeping through his T-shirt and your hearts swelling larger than ever together.

You feel the urge to knowing something, so you suddenly ask, “What the hell are we then?”

“Whatever the hell you want us to be, babe,” he responds and presses his lips to the top your head. “As long as I’m with you, I’m okay, ‘kay?”

Even now, it’s different.

The morning rays of the sun begin to peek in through your window, and unlike the previous moments you’ve spent together, it isn’t nighttime. But the night is reserved for the special times, for the right-now’s you shared right then, and for the forevers you will share together.

You can’t help but feel contentment in the ease of his presence and the excitement that will come as you two spend more time together.

As long as you’re with him, you’re okay too, so you simply say, “‘Kay.”

#mingyu scenarios #mingyu fluff #mingyu smut #mingyu fanfic #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fanfic #seventeen fluff #seventeen smut #seventeen art #mingyu au #mingyu x reader #svt fanfic #svt scenarios #svt fluff #svt smut #svt mingyu #emswriting

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maddierosipal · 3 years

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Excerpt from My Mom The Intergalactic Terrorist

From its place in my pocket, my phone began to buzz, filling the air with the silly ringtone I’d chosen for my mother; the X-files theme, I thought it would go well with the cartoonish alien I’d selected for her contact image. With a sigh, I pulled it out and mashed the answer button in frustration.

“Galileo,” my mother’s voice came.

“What?” I asked.

“What do you want to smell like this week?”

That was her way of asking what scent of body wash I wanted. For some reason, she’s convinced that people bathe to make them smell like something else and they put a lot of importance on said smell.

“Do they have anything like nature-ish? Any waterfall or stream?” I asked.

She went silent on the other end, but I could still hear the background noise of the grocery store, so I knew she didn’t hang up. I could hear her grab a bottle on the other end, making a thoughtful noise as she looked it over.

“How about Ocean Breeze?”

“That works.”

“Wonderful! And what would you like your hair to smell like?”

Groaning, I rolled my eyes, pinching the space between my brows. As I stepped, my foot connected with a loose stone, sending it skidding ahead of me on the sidewalk. I kicked it once again when I caught up to it but after that it was out of my sight.

“Just get me something clear. It doesn’t matter the smell.”

“Alright, but don’t get mad at me if I pick something you don’t like.”

She takes this all too seriously.

“You don’t have to call me every time you go grocery shopping mom.”

“But I do! I want to make sure I get the right stuff,” She complained.

“Whatever, I’ll see you at home.”

“Ok son, beep.”

She thinks you’re supposed to say beep when you turn the phone off. I think it’s because she heard the phone beep and thought it was another person. Whatever, I wish she’d go back to whatever planet she came from, and return me to whatever family she abducted me from.

Before I could put my phone away, it buzzed again, this time it played the text notification sound that I had set for my buddy Nikki; Area 51, an excellent match to the history channel “Aliens” meme, the one with the guy with funny hair, that I had chosen for her photo.

“Earth to space cadet. Come in space cadet,” the message read.

“This is space cadet. What’s the problem?”

Nikki insists on calling me space cadet, that or Stargazer.

“Food supply running low. Requesting backup.” Translation: “My parents are out of town again, and I don’t want to cook for myself, so can I come over and bum a meal off you guys?”

“Of course.”

Mom may be the strangest person in town, but she’s never been one to turn down a hungry child. I could already smell what she was cooking when I walked into the house. It smelled like spaghetti, one of the things she’s actually good at cooking. That’s not saying much though, all you have to do is boil water and make sure you don’t overcook the noodles.

The big pot on the stove was steaming and gurgling. My mother stood over it, watching to make sure it didn’t boil over, holding her soup spoon at her side like a soldier holding her sword.

“Nikki’s coming over, so we’re gonna have to set a place for three,” I said as I opened the fridge to grab a soda.

“Ah! Galileo, don’t sneak up on me like that,” my mother yelled, whipping around with her spoon in the air.

“Sorry, did you hear what I said about Nikki?”

“Oh, yes, we should be good. I made plenty of spaghetti.”

With that, my mother went back to watching her cooking. While she finished up, I got to work getting out the plates, bowls, and silverware. At our house, we have a strange conglomeration of tableware. We have chopsticks, forks, spoons, knives, cheese knives, ice cream scoopers, nutcrackers, tuning forks, fondue forks, and skewers all in the same drawer. A typical family would keep their usual tableware in one drawer and everything else in another, right? Not our family. Mom insists that all of these objects are used for eating and should, therefore, be stored together. What’s funny is watching her eat with a tuning fork.

When I set the table, I make sure to grab what we need for whatever we’re eating. If my Mom does it, there’s no telling what she’ll put on the table. You might end up with a punch bowl to eat your dinner out of with the fondue fork she brought you. That’s why I like it better when I do it. A knock on the door alerted me of Nikki’s arrival. Our doorbell doesn’t work; we don’t have enough visitors to warrant getting it fixed.

“I’ve got it,” I said, leaving my mom to finish up the food.

Nikki is my best friend, but I have to say she’s a total geek. She wears her curly hair up in two pigtails that look more like puff balls than anything, her two front teeth have a tiny gap between them, her bag is decorated in space memorabilia, and her clothes are always covered in alien propaganda. She’s one of those who loves sci-fi movies and staying up late watching alien conspiracy videos. If I have to hear about the Roswell UFO one more time, I’ll probably lose my mind.

“May I come in?” She asked, shuffling in place.

“If you aren’t scared of getting probed,” I teased.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she stepped over the threshold of my house, taking off her shoes hurriedly. Nikki’s Mom and dad own a company that does something with fuel, she explained it to me once, but I forgot. Her mom’s the president and her dad’s the CEO, so they’re often out of town on business. It’s not like they don’t like her or anything, they just don’t want their kids getting caught up in everything.

Nikki is the oldest of five, three boys and two girls, and they’re all a different shade of dark. Nikki’s the lightest, then her younger brother Dave, then John, then Sarah and Jamal are about the same. Her mother’s pretty light and her dad’s pretty dark, so some took after their mom and some their father. It makes a lot of people question if they all have the same dad, but they do.

“I brought something sure to tell us if your mother is an alien,” she whispered, checking to make sure my Mom was nowhere nearby.

“Oh god, what is it?”

Slowly, she pulled the device out from her bag, making sure to keep it hidden. It looked like a calculator and a GameBoy had a crack baby. There were all sorts of buttons and wires poking out in all directions. When she pushed the on button, the screen turned on, displaying nothing but white.

“What do you think?”

“I think you made someone on amazon very happy.”

“Come on Galileo, this is the Invader Finder 2000, does that sound fake to you?”

“It sounds like your parents need to monitor your spending.”

She didn’t like that too much. As she glared at me, she pushed a button, and a tiny little blue dot appeared on the screen.

“This machine scans the area for aliens, if it senses one, the blue dot will turn red. It’s supposed to do a bunch of other stuff, but I haven’t figured it all out yet,” she explained.

Of course she hadn’t. More than likely it didn’t have all the settings it claimed it did. She’d probably get home, push a button and it’d spit out the quadratic formula.

“Time for dinner,” My Mom called.

“Let’s take this baby for a test drive, shall we?” Nikki offered, proudly heading toward the kitchen.

Rolling my eyes, I followed behind her with my arms crossed. At least tonight I’m getting dinner and a show. The kitchen table was set with the large spaghetti pot in the center and the container of sauce sitting next to it. There was also a plate of buttered toast off to the side. My Mom noticed Nikki’s little device immediately, but she didn’t seem alarmed at all.

“Ooo, what’s that?” She asked, taking her place at the table.

“It’s a new game I bought,” Nikki lied.

“That sounds fun.”

There were no serving spoons or tongs for us to get our food with. Reaching into the pot, my mom grabbed a big handful of pasta and put it on her plate before dumping a load of sauce on top. Next to go for it was Nikki, after eating with us so many times, she was used to my mother’s craziness. She kept the device hidden under the table in her lap, where she could check it occasionally during the meal.

Once everyone had gotten what they wanted, we started eating. While Nikki and I twirled our pasta into little bites around our fork, my mother grabbed at her pasta with her hands, shoving what she could into her mouth before slurping the rest up like slimy intestines. Her face was covered in red sauce after only a few bites, making her look like a cannibal.

“Thanks again for letting me join you, Ms. M.”

“No problem Nikki. I don’t mind at all. Speaking of, where’d your parents go this week?”

“France. There’s supposed to be some big alternative fuel event going on,” Nikki replied, glancing down.

“That sounds cool. Did they tell you what it was about?”

“The only thing I remember was that it had something to do with some old algae. I didn’t really catch everything.”

“Algae? That sounds so cool!” My Mom replied excitedly, placing her sauce-covered hands on the table.

“I guess.”

Of course, the little light on Nikki’s screen stayed blue no matter how close she got it to my mother. Occasionally it would beep, but that was about it, and it wasn’t even loud enough to hear. It seemed she was getting desperate as she was trying to lean without looking suspicious.

“Say, Ms. M, wanna try my game out?” Nikki offered, holding out the little device.

My Mom tilted her head in curiosity, taking the device like it was a snake whose pattern she didn’t recognize. I guess since it was coming from Nikki she trusted it. As soon as the little device passed from Nikki’s hands, the dot turned bright red, then the entire screen turned to static before fading to all black.

“Oh no, I broke it!” My mother panicked.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m sure I can get it working again,” Nikki reassured her, trying to hide the triumphant grin on her face.

Groan, now I’m going to have to listen to her talk about how it’s “proven” now. Rolling my eyes, I went back to eating my noodles. Sadly, Nikki proved my suspicions right, as soon as dinner ended, while my mother started cleaning up, she dragged me back to the living room with an insane look in her eyes. Once she made sure my mother hadn’t followed, she pulled me down to sit next to her on the couch.

“Did you see that? Proof! Hard evidence. I can’t wait until my fans hear about this.”

Now when she says fans, she’s referring to the 200 people that follow her blog on Tumblr, although I’m pretty sure at least a fourth of them are porn bots. She’s continuously posting crazy stuff about Aliens on there, and she even has a whole segment dedicated to my Mom, but I refuse to read it. I’m scared to see what kind of crazy stuff she’s done that I don’t know about.

“Yeah, right. You saw how that thing was glitching out, it probably just short-circuited, and that’s why the dot changed color,” I explained.

“Come on, Stargazer, how come it only did that when I handed it to her? It didn’t do that all throughout dinner, so what was different?” Nikki questioned.

It’s hard to argue with her when she gets like this. No matter what I say, she’s going to turn it down because she’s already convinced herself, so I might as well just not even try.

“I don’t know. Maybe keeping it on so long made it overheat or something? It was just a coincidence, don’t get too excited.”

“Yeah, right. You just want to ruin this for me,” She said, already typing up a blog post on her phone.

“Would either of you like a cold cream sandwich?” My Mom said, appearing out of nowhere with three ice cream sandwiches in hand.

“Sure thing Ms. M,” Nikki laughed, taking the sandwich that was closest to her.

I took the one in the middle, leaving the last one for my Mom, who happily took it and sat down in the empty recliner next to the couch. The three of us tore the packaging off and dug into our sweet treats. Nikki and I took our bites slowly, trying not to hurt our teeth from the cold, but my Mom ate the whole thing in just a few huge bites. She visibly cringed, but still continued to take massive bite after massive bite.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Gali. Thanks for letting me come over, Ms. M!”

Once she finished her ice cream, Nikki stood up to leave; her typical dine and dash maneuver. She had to be back home by a particular time, or the nanny would yell at her.

“No problem, my dear, feel free to come again,” My mother offered.

“See you at school, tinfoil head.”

Turning around, Nikki gave me the “loser” hand gesture before running off, nearly tripping on the uneven step that leads up to our front door. I headed up to my room after she left. Without her, I didn’t really have a reason to be out among the living, so I retreated into my sanctuary.

My room is the only place in the house where everything makes sense. Unlike the rest of the home, it looks like a sane human being resides within. The walls are covered in posters of my favorite shows and bands, my desk is neat and organized with my laptop in the middle, my clothes are put up, and my bed has matching pillows and bedding. It’s not a huge room, but there’s plenty of space for me to be me.

The bed creaked loudly when I flopped onto it. I pulled my phone out, plugged my headphones in, and turned on some of my favorite music. Personally, I prefer Techno, but I’m not opposed to a good rap song every once in a while, it all depends on what kind of mood I’m in, and right now I’m in a techno mood.

As my ears were filled with fun technological sounds, I stared up at the ceiling, thinking about Nikki’s stupid device. Not gonna lie, it was odd that it messed up right when my Mom touched it, but that doesn’t really mean anything. That was a piece of junk anyway. My Mom may be weird, but that doesn’t make her an alien.

Wanna see more? Check it out on Amazon.com

#book excerpt #sci-fi books #scifibooks #sci-fi #writerscommunity #writing #writer #writeblr #just a taste #bookaddict #bookblr #bookadvertising #self publishing #MMTIGT

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anamelesstraveler · 6 years

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My Heart is Calling

A SniperPilot fanfic. Rated G.

Complete | 3,063 words

Bodhi agrees to watch the house for his uncles, Chirrut and Baze, for a week. He's not expecting to be snowed in during a blizzard. He's also not expecting to invite Cassian Andor in for hot chocolate.

My first entry for the SniperPilot Winter event! This was meant to be for yesterday’s Stuck in a Blizzard theme, for the prompt: "My elderly relative keeps telling me about the nice boy who shovels their driveway, and asks me to spend the day with them. …I was not expecting a very attractive grown man."

This story includes modern AU, misunderstandings, and Bodhi and Cassian being adorable disasters. (Also hinted matchmaker Chirrut.)

“Uncle Chirrut, I swear, I’m fine. The house is fine.” Bodhi jostles the phone onto his other shoulder, fighting to keep hold of it while he balances a stack of blankets in one hand and a portable heater in another. He gives up halfway, switching on the speaker and tossing his phone onto the coffee table. “The storm’s over and we still have power. And it’s not like I had any plans to leave today.”

“You know this, and I know this," Chirrut’s voice is still slightly tinny over the line, even though the snowstorm had broken sometime in the mid dawn hours, but no less mischievous. “But Baze, he worries." If Bodhi strains his ears, he imagines he can hear the man in question grouse at Chirrut. “Thank you again for watching the house. And looking after Lulu. Has she come out of her corner, yet?”

Bodhi peers at the tall cage in the corner of the room, where a ruffled old Amazon sits in the highest, farthest corner, glaring at him with her one eye. “Not yet,” he says. “Lulubelle, you wanna say hello to Uncle Chirrut?”

The bird triples in size, and actually hisses at Bodhi.

“I guess not,” he says. “I don’t know why she hates me. She knows me!”

“She’s just moping because we left her at the house. She’ll come around. It’s only for a week.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see if I live out the week. She looks like she’s plotting to murder me.”

“Be careful, Bodhi… she’s crafty. She just might.” Bodhi can hear Chirrut’s grin over the phone. He stares at it, and then the savagely glowering parrot.

“That’s not funny.”

“Oh, it’s a little funny.” There’s an indistinct rumble of Baze’s voice, and Chirrut hums. “Ah, yes. Bodhi, be sure to invite Cassian in when he shows up. Tell that boy he is absolutely not allowed to spend the entire day digging us out. Invite him in for hot chocolate or something.”

It’s far from the first time has heard about Cassian, the neighbor boy. He’s never met the kid, but Chirrut especially liked to mention him during their frequent calls. The “nice young man” who helped Chirrut carry in the groceries. The “kind boy” who every winter shows up to shovel snow from the driveway. Even Baze seems prone to dote, in his usual subtle manner, on him. (Hardly surprising, given his uncles’ propensity for picking up strays. Or anyone or anything that catches their attention, really.)

“I will, uncle,” Bodhi assures. “Then I’ll make sure he heads straight home.”

“Or you could invite him to visit for a while. He’s been interested in meeting you.”

Somehow, Bodhi doubts this Cassian, who can’t be older than thirteen, would find hanging out with a man fast approaching his late-twentiesinteresting. And neither would his parents. “Uh, sure, Chirrut. Sure.” He clears his throat. “You have fun in Hong Kong. Tell Baze I said good hello. Have a nice night.”

“We will, Bodhi. Thank you. Stay warm and stay safe.”

“I will. Love you.”

“Love you too, my boy. And Baze says he loves you too.” They say their goodbyes, and Bodhi ends the call. The house descends into peaceful, wintery silence.

“Well, Lulubelle, it looks like it’s just you and me for now. Will you hate me less if I give you a banana? Or how about an apple?” He pronounces the words carefully, and is pleased when the feathery little monster perks the slightest bit. “An apple it is, then.”

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

The elusive Cassian doesn’t make an appearance until around noon. Bodhi’s spent the morning curled up on the couch in the cocoon he’s diligently made out of a quilt; drifting between reading the novel he’d brought with him, playing his Switch, and watching Lulubelle dutifully destroy the roll of paper towels he’d sacrificed to her fury. A dark shape marring the blinding white snow outside makes Bodhi glance up.

There is indeed someone carrying a shovel trudging through the knee deep snow towards the house. Bodhi can see nothing of the person under all the layers. Although the newcomer does seem rather… tall for what Bodhi had been picturing.

Perhaps Cassian is slightly older than the thirteen or fourteen-year-old he was expecting. Maybe he’s hit his growth spurt.

The form outside slings the shovel off of his shoulder, looking perfectly ready to start at the bottom of the drive and dig their way up to the house. “Shit,” Bodhi says under his breath.

“Shit!” croaks Lulubelle. “CHIRRUT NO.”

“Don’t you start, Lulu,” Bodhi scolds, and leaps up from the couch, dragging his blanket with him. He nearly trips over it on the way to the door, scooping it up around him. The first blast of icy air has Bodhi yelping, both socked feet fighting to stay behind the door. “Hey!” he calls, his voice hitched in the cold wind.

The figure at the bottom of the drive stops mid-shovel, and looks up. Bodhi can barely see a hint of eyes and a lock of hair falling out from under his hat. He waves. “Up here, up here,” he urges. “Fuck, it’s cold.”

Cassian straightens, but takes a few moments longer to start wading up through the snow and ice towards the door. “I’m Chirrut and Baze’s ne...phew…” he starts to call down, and trails off. The closer he gets… the taller Bodhi realizes he is. And broader. He’s not a large person, necessarily. Only slight taller than Bodhi, a little wider in the shoulders. But… no, this is definitely not the form of a teenager.

Cassian stops in front of him, gazing at him in silence. Now that he’s closer, Bodhi can see that his eyes are a deep, dark color. The rest of his face is covered by the scarf tucked up over his nose, though only for a few seconds more. The man, definitely a man, tugs it down, revealing sharp cheekbones and scruff and a curious lilt to his mouth.

Oh, hell.

Bodhi doesn’t feel cold anymore - instead it feels like his face is on fire.

“Um,” he says intelligently. “You’re um… Cassian?”

‘You’re gorgeous is what you are,’ he thinks.

Cassian the definitely not a teenager nods. “And you’re… Bodhi?” Double hell, his voice is soft and just a touch lyrical.

“Uh-huh,” Bodhi mumbles, suddenly very aware of his ratty (though thankfully not holey) sweatpants and his Zelda-patterned socks that are poking out from under the quilt. And the day’s overgrowth of beard on his face. “Um. Sorry. Yeah, I’m Bodhi, Chirrut and Baze’s nephew - well, not by blood. I’m sure they told you. But they’re like uncles to me.” Shit. Shit, he’s rambling. “Anyway they told me under no circumstances were you to dig out their driveway this time. They’re in Hong Kong for the week. I’m watching the house. And Lulubelle.”

“I’m sure she loves that,” Cassian says, and those eyes light up in amusement. This is awful. Terrible.

“Yeah, she wants to kill me, I think.” Silence drops between them like a dead weight. Bodhi’s palms start to sweat. “It’s… it’s really cold out.”

“It is.”

“Would you… like to come in? I um… we have hot chocolate. I’m pretty good at that. And I have some video games. ...And Lulubelle.” Bodhi putters out into silence again. Horrible, horrible silence.

But the corners of Cassian’s eyes crinkle as he smiles. “I’d love to.”

Bodhi covers up (to what degree of success, he won’t think about) his near whimper as he jumps out of the way of the door. The quilt gets tucked almost protectively around his shoulders as he closes the door behind Cassian. He convinces himself the warmth coming off of Cassian, crackling along every exposed inch of Bodhi’s skin, is a trick of his mind.

He definitely doesn’t cover up the second distressed noise as the man strips off his hat and his scarf, revealing silken, slightly mussed hair and the long column of his neck, because Cassian glances at him. His heart jolts. “I-I’ll be right back.” He brushes by, making a beeline through the living room and tossing the quilt on the couch as he passes. The moment he ducks into the guest room he’s digging through his bag for something that doesn’t look like he’s just rolled out of bed. He may not have brought anything worthy of a date (which this certainly wasn’t!) but surely Bodhi had something better than what he’s currently wearing.

A comfortable, flattering pair of jeans later, but no appropriate substitute for the faded henley or the Zelda socks, Bodhi accepts that he’s already doomed this to failure so he might as well roll with it. He absently checks that his ponytail hasn’t gone lopsided, mourns that a fresh shave would be too obvious, and returns as casually as he can to the living room.

Cassian has removed his coat and gloves in the time that Bodhi had been gone, leaving him in jeans that do… well, wonderful things for him, and a thick, comfortable sweater. He’s standing in front of Lulubelle’s cage, peering up at the cranky old bird where she sits on top of it, speaking to her in soft tones. “How are you, bonita?” he croons.

Lulu, the traitor, whistles brightly in that same nonsensical tune that Chirrut often does.

“Oh, so you, she likes,” Bodhi attempts to joke. Cassian turns, the smile on his face faltering only slightly as he takes in the change in Bodhi’s attire. Bodhi tugs at his shirt self-consciously.

And then the smile returns, softer. “I bribe her with almonds whenever I’m here,” he explains. At the word, Lulu perks up again, mimicking the sound of her treat tin opening. Obediently, Cassian plucks the tin off the nearby shelf and passes an almond to her.

“That looks more like being trained to me.”

“Well, what can I say? I’m easy to train.”

Bodhi… does not know what to say to that. Without combusting. He clears his throat. “S-So I promised you hot chocolate.”

The other man nods, still gazing at Bodhi in a way that makes his skin tingle, and paces closer. “You did.”

Chest suddenly tight, Bodhi smiles nervously, and changes course for the doorway to the kitchen. “You can… make yourself at home. Hang out with Lulu, or s-something. I’ll bring the mugs out when they’re done.” He absolutely does not scurry away to the safety of the kitchen. Not at all. Because that would be cowardly.

He didn’t think to bring any proper chocolate with him, so Bodhi settles for putting the kettle on to boil and dragging out the tin of instant cocoa. They still have milk, chocolate syrup, cinnamon, and whipped cream, so Bodhi can doctor it up nicely. He sets everything down on the counter, his mind on autopilot and buzzing with anxiety. His hands shake a little, and he clenches them on the edge of the counter to still the tremors.

He’s invited his uncles’ - very attractive - grown man of a neighbor in for hot chocolate. …Now what?

His gut tells him to go for it. To go for what is another question entirely. Is it weird to ask someone out after meeting them fifteen minutes ago? Is it creepy? Is it stupid?

Yes. The answer to that last one is definitely yes.

Bodhi doesn’t do this. He never does this. There’s a reason Bodhi has been single for years. There’s a reason he doesn’t date. And it’s this. How is he supposed to know how and when and even if he should start this?

A knock against the doorjamb has him bolting upright again. Cassian stands in the doorway, looking concerned. “Hey. Everything okay?”

“Oh! Y-Yes. Sorry. Just… um… just waiting? You can sit down, I don’t mind--”

“No, it’s alright. I was just coming to…” Cassian trails off, folding his arms across his chest. He seems to wrestle with his next words. “Well, you’re not ten, is what I was trying to say.”

He blinks. “I’m not… what?”

“Ten.” Cassian gestures back out into the living room. “Mister Imwe talks about you a lot. But the only picture I’ve seen is the one on the mantle.”

Bodhi flushes hotly. “The… oh god, the picture from when I won the boxcar derby? I can’t believe… god, I’ve told him to take that stupid thing down so many times.” An incredulous laugh, half hysterical, lodges in his throat. “Did he show it off? It sounds like Chirrut.”

“Only a little,” Cassian admits. “Mostly he would just tell me about how wonderful his cute nephew is, and how he would be would like it if I took his nephew somewhere when he visits. He mentioned a movie, the park, ice skating, maybe.”

“Well, to be fair, I thought you were like, fourteen with the way he--” Bodhi freezes, the second half of Cassian’s answer finally processing. “He--” A sound like a dying animal leaves his mouth next. “He didn’t.”

He isn’t the only one with the red face here. Even Cassian looks a little pink now. “He did. Especially after I told him about the asshole my friend tried to set me up with. Didn’t catch it, then. Your uncle is… crafty.”

Bodhi covers his face with this hands, and wishes for death. “I’m so, so sorry,” he says from behind his hands. He’s too busy wishing the floor would open up beneath his feet. And so the feather light touch at his elbow makes him jump back, knocking into the counter.

Cassian’s eyes are wide, apologetic. “Bodhi,” he says gently. He’s not standing in Bodhi’s space, exactly. He’s keeping a polite distance. But all the same Bodhi can feel it, this… something crackling in the space between them. He doesn’t like it. In fact, something instinctual and wanting urges Bodhi to close the gap as soon as possible.

They gaze at each other. Neither of them can seem to form words for a stretch of moments. The only sound in the kitchen is the gentle bubbling of the kettle.

“He was right, you know?” Cassian says at last.

“Right?”

Cassian breaks his gaze first, his lashes fluttering as he looks away. They’re long and soot-dark against his skin. And his smile is almost shy, and entirely breathtaking. “About his nephew being cute?”

The words that try to leave Bodhi’s mouth all jam together into one incoherent smear of sound. “Y-You… really. Really?”

“Yes? And… if you’d like to do… any of those things. We could?” Cassian tips his head towards the window, his grin turning rueful. “Well, not today. I don’t think anyone is getting out of this neighborhood today.”

“W-We could stay in? And still have a date?” Bodhi is quick to suggest. His heart feels ready to slam out of his ribs, but it’s exhilarating. “Is that weird? I don’t, uh, date. Really. I hooked up some in college but--” His eyes widen in horror, just as Cassian’s brows tick upwards. (But the look on the other man’s face isn’t exactly disapproval. No it’s almost interest-- Bodhi can’t think about that. He will die.) “I mean not-- it was either that or I had those dates where you’re both too broke to do anything, so you sit in a dorm room and watch shitty movies and play games and eat ramen out of a cup. Not… adult dating.”

Cassian’s expression softens, and Bodhi isn’t sure if that’s better, or worse. “I wouldn’t mind staying in today…” he says. “We could try the… adult dating thing once the snow is clear.” He reaches for Bodhi again, this time slow, with a heartbreaking gentleness. He takes Bodhi’s hand in his, and draws it up to his lips. They press warm and dry against his knuckles, the slight ticklish brush of his beard making Bodhi’s heart leap. “If you want to.”

Bodhi gapes at him, mouth parted. He mentally picks his jaw up off the floor a moment later, determination filling him. “Stop me if I’m being too forward,” he says. He musters up the restraint to give Cassian a few seconds warning before he cups Cassian’s sharp jaw in both hands, and leans up to kiss him.

He doesn’t have to worry about being forward, in the end, because Cassian is already smiling against his mouth, a flicker of movement before he lets out the tiniest breath of a moan, and tips his head for a better angle. He meets each of Bodhi’s kisses with his own, chasing Bodhi’s mouth as he pulls back for each shaky gasp. Bodhi feels like he’s soaring, though his feet haven’t even left the ground. Cassian’s arms go around his waist, drawing him in, pressing Bodhi up against every warm line of him. But there’s something so soft in the way Cassian trembles as Bodhi’s tongue teases his lower lip. Something so addicting in the little exhale, not quite a whimper, against Bodhi’s mouth.

Their kisses linger each time, growing deep and more insistent.

And then the kettle lets out a shrill, escalating whistle, and both of them freeze. They don’t part completely, drawing back enough to watch each other without going cross-eyed. There’s something incredibly fetching about Cassian’s pleasure-dark eyes and the flush warming his cheeks.

From the other room, Lulubelle lets out screech in echo to the kettle.

Cassian chuckles, and leans in again. But instead of pressing his lips to Bodhi’s, he brushes a feather light kiss under the corner of his eye, and steps back. “I’ll see about her,” he offers.

“Y-es,” Bodhi rasps, voice low and hitching around the word. He isn’t imagining the the catch in Cassian’s breath at the sound of his voice, which is… a power rush unlike any other. “I’ll, um, I’ll get the drinks. Be right out?”

Cassian smiles at him, that same small, heart stopping smile, and waves at him on the way out. Bodhi lifts a hand to wave back, regardless of the fact that Cassian is no longer in the doorway… and gazes at the spot that other man had occupied for a few moments.

The continuing shriek of the kettle finally knocks him out of his daze, and he whirls to remove it from the burner.

Maybe being snowed in for the day won’t be so bad after all.

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

END.

#sniperpilot winter #SniperPilot #Bassian #CassianBodhi #Star Wars #fanfic #Let me weave you a Dream #fic: My Heart is Calling

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everlastingfable · 6 years

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Rules: Answer these 92 statements and tag 20 people. I was tagged by @kingofthewilderwest

LAST:

1. Drink: water... this post reminded me that I did not drink anything for the past 10 hours

2. Phone call: with my mom like 3 days ago

3. Text message: from my dad. idk how to cook....

4. Song you listen to: I guess when I was playing Heart of Courage on the piano. For an actual song, the last song on my spotify is Centuries from fob but I fell asleep like 3 songs before that so idk

5. Time you cried: can’t remember

HAVE YOU:

6. Dated someone twice: yes although I wasn’t aware the first one was a date until after

7. Kissed someone and regretted it: I’ve never kissed anyone so no

8. Been cheated on: no

9. Lost someone special: I don’t think so.....

10. Been depressed: yeah

11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: I’m not old enough to drink either.... no

LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS:

12. red

13. gold

14. black

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU:

15. Made new friends: yes

16. Fallen out of love: no

17. Laughed until you cried: yes. thank you lance and kaltenecker that was a delight

18. Found out someone was talking about you: no

20. Found out who your friends are: uh no?

21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: no

GENERAL:

22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: I did the math 94%

23. Do you have any pets: no :( I miss my bunny

24. Do you want to change your name: sometimes, but idk what to change it to

25. What did you do for your last birthday: uhh pack to move out of my dorm the next day, reorganize my comics, had an unpleasant/pleasant surprise of cookies from my family

26. What time do you wake up: I’ve been waking up at 6 the last few days but usually around 8

27. What were you doing at midnight last night: sleeping

28. Name something you can’t wait for: httyd3, vld season 5, thanksgiving break, winter break, when I finally have some time to read this book I bought

29. When was the last time you saw your mom: 8 days ago?

30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: I guess like the motivation to be in school? Like idk I’m so tired I just wanna graduate and get this over with I’m just not interested in college. tbh I didn’t really want to go I just did because it’s expected of me and if I want the chance to have a non-retail job I kinda have to get a degree

31. What are you listening to right now: the keyboard clacking sound

32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: I don’t think so

33. Something that is getting on your nerves: the voltron fandom always gets on my nerves. Personally, probably just my current need to like figure out who I am? Like this is so annoying what’s my sexual orientation? That’s something I’m constantly thinking about and it just bothers me because I keep switching around between completely and totally ace to possibly hetero, maybe bi??? girls seem cool idk I can’t ignore it and there’s also the fact that I read this one fic of child!keith being autistic and that’s thrown me into a loop because I relate to those events so much but I’m not... or I don’t think I am. Even then obviously it’s not something that causes an issues for me but I just want answers

34. Most visited website: tumblr, facebook, youtube, a03

35. Mole/s: uh there’s one on my thigh. google isn’t answering my question if moles can just be a dot like you don’t feel it it’s just a dif color on my skin

36. Mark/s: there’s a very faded scar on my left leg from when I slipped on algae and fell into a river, and another faded scar on my right foot when I stepped on glass

37. Childhood dream: I wanted to be a writer at one point, also a chef, and a graphic designer

38. Hair color: dark brown

39. Long or short hair: long. I kinda want to try short hair but that’s something I’ve never done before and I’m scared I’d hate it. I don’t want to wait for it to grow out if I do

40. Do you have a crush on someone: irl, maybe?? fictional characters tend to be more of squishes: keith, matt, hunk, shiro when he’s not unknowingly sabotaging the team

41. What do you like about yourself: haha

42. Piercings: no

43. Blood type: O+

44. Nicknames: I think frosty is the only one that’s ever stuck. There’s been a few that people have tried to give me but they didn’t work

45. Relationship status: single

46. Zodiac: taurus and I hate how everything about it is food

47. Pronouns: she/her

48. Favorite TV Show: voltron

50. Right or left hand: right

51. Surgery: do wisdom teeth count?

52. Hair dyed in different color: I want to but I’m afraid I’ll hate it

53. Sport: no

55. Vacation: so many places tbh. I want to go to the northwest of the US (Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, I only know popular cities...) I also really want to visit Europe SO BADLY especially the Norwegian area, also South America I want to see the Amazon rain forest and the Galapagos Islands

56. Pair of trainers: yes. idk how to answer this

MORE GENERAL:

57. Eating: what is this asking? am I eating right now? no. what do I want to eat? I have a uncrustables pbj sandwich sitting in front of me I’m waiting for it to defrost. I also have taiwanese sausages I’m waiting to defrost and cook. what’s my favorite food? like any variations of sushi, particularly poke bowls

58. Drinking: yoooo the only good part about the holidays is egg nog. I’m probably gonna finish the half-gallon I bought two days ago today

59. I’m about to: keep answering these. I should also study for a test tomorrow

62. Want: money? to not be tired? to have some free time where I’m not stressed about what I’ll have to do later?

63. Get married: no but I do want to organize a wedding. seems fun

64. Career: idk man. right now I’m just going with my dream from high school which was to work at dreamworks but idk how

65. Hugs or kisses: hugs, but I feel like a lot of hugs I’ve gotten just don’t feel nice

66. Lips or eyes: eyes

67. Shorter or taller: majority if not all of my friends are shorter than me and I’ve gotten used to that to the point where I cannot deal with people taller than me

68. Older or younger: same thing. I’m usually the youngest so just being older than people is ???? also I think being the youngest prevents me from comparing myself to others? because they’re older so of course they would be “ahead” of me in life. so less stress

70. Nice arms or nice stomach: I’m weak for arms

71. Sensitive or loud: ??

72. Hook up or relationship: no

73. Troublemaker or hesitant: is this in terms of relationships I’m so confused. I guess just platonically, both? I’d like to be friends with someone who’s willing to do crazy things because that’s usually exciting, but at the same time someone who knows when to restrain themselves

HAVE YOU EVER:

74. Kissed a Stranger: no

75. Drank hard liquor: no

76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: yes

77. Turned someone down: I think

78. Sex on the first date: no

79. Broken someone’s heart: maybe?? it’s more likely I just upset them

80. Had your heart broken: no

81. Been arrested: no

82. Cried when someone died: no

83. Fallen for a friend: idk

DO YOU BELIEVE IN:

84: Yourself: no

85. Miracles: mmmm

86. Love at first sight: not really. It just doesn’t seem plausible to me

87. Santa Claus: sure

88. Kiss on the first date: for me personally, no

OTHER:

90. Current best friend name: I can’t just have one best friend.... peach & percy

91. Eye color: they’ve been described as black holes before

92. Favorite movie: httyd obvs

I tag: @peachdoxie, @lastronaut, @zhe-lazy-fox, @tanyasm10, @stratoc, @palions, @emkayohh, @frxstguardian, @howdomaddie, anyone else who sees this and wants to do it.

#personal #tagged

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9r7g5h · 7 years

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Remember All - P1

Fandom: Xena: Warrior Princess

Overall Rating: T+ (Rating subject to change); Chapter Rating: K

Genre: General

Summary: Given another chance, left with her memories of their first time through, Gabrielle knows there's only one option for her- let Xena live. Whatever she had to do, whatever she had to change to make sure that would happen, Gabrielle was willing to do it.

Words: 4,684

AN 1: So, a while ago, I had made a tumblr post about how I prefer to put 'When Fates Collide' after FIN, just because the episodic nature of the show allows it and because I love that episode the most. I also put forward the idea of how cool it would have been if, at the end of 'When Fates Collide,' instead of reuniting Xena and Gabrielle, the beginning of 'Sins of the Past' had started playing. Because the idea that the two of them are so in love they would be willing to go through all of the heartache and pain once more, just to have those precious few years together? I adore it. Now, the lovely @acrossnowhere made a comment on my post about Gabrielle possibly remembering everything that happened, and my mind exploded. It exploded, resulting in a giant ass fic that's already almost 30K and still not done yet, so yeah. This is going to be a ride, my friends, and I hope you enjoy!

AN 2: Just a reminder, I place 'When Fates Collide' after FIN, so there's some slight inconsistency with the actual airing of the show. But this is fanfic and I don't care.

Disclaimer: I do not own Xena.

P1, P2, ???

It was sick, Gabrielle could admit, but standing there, watching the flames? She couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of satisfaction in knowing that the world had tried so hard to keep them apart, and it would burn for its sins.

She sunk to her knees as she watched the loom burn, the fire spreading up through the tangled threads to the wood itself. It was beautiful, watching this disgusting mess, this pale imitation of what could have been, destroy itself. She didn’t care that it would destroy everything along with it- the universe had taken Xena from her in both worlds, so why should she? Why should she care, when just a few miles away, the other half of her soul was dead; when in the other world, her soulmate was nothing more than ash? It didn’t matter to her, either way. Her life was already over- she was just waiting for it to end.

Closing her eyes, Gabrielle tilted her head back as the flames consumed the last of the wood, a small smile on her lips even as the Fates behind her screamed, pleaded with her to see reason, begged for a chance to make this right. Closing her eyes as the fire spread to the carpet she kneeled on, Gabrielle felt the flames began to lick at her skin, the pain almost nothing in comparison to the pain in her heart.

Closing her eyes, Gabrielle screamed.

“Gabrielle? Gabrielle, come on! It’s your turn to get the eggs.”

Only to open them as Lila called her name, poking her in the side to get her to wake up.

It was a dream, she eventually settled on. A dying dream as she burned, as the world crumbled around her. For some reason her mind had chosen to bring her back home, back to when she was young, before she had ever met Xena- one last good bye, perhaps, to the people she had lost? Or perhaps a reminder of what had been lost, the innocence and calm that had long since disappeared from her life. She couldn’t be sure- all Gabrielle knew was that, when she left her bed, her mother was at the fire place, checking on their bread, while her father brought in the last bucket of water their home would need before he left for the field. People who smiled at her and greeted her a good morning, even if her father poked fun at her late rising.

People who accepted her hug and held her as she began to cry, trying to sooth away whatever night terror had brought her to tears.

It was strange, this dream. She passed the hours in almost a daze, helping her mother and sister with their chores, calling her father in for lunch, laughing and joking with them in a way she hadn't done in years. At least, years in the original world, the one this most resembled. She still had her memories of the other world, the world Caesar had brought upon them, and there she had seen her family just a week before she had left for Rome.

Lila had been pregnant again, more than happily married to the man she loved, the man who tended her vineyard and turned the grapes into wine. Their parents had never left the farm, even after Gabrielle had offered to buy them a house closer to her own, but they made the effort to visit between the harvests. They had all been preparing one last family dinner before her boat left, since her tour with her play would keep her away for who knew how long. It had been nice, catching up with them all, promising she would send word of how the play was received, promising the children presents all the way from Rome. It had been nice, even if it hadn't been real.

The last time in the real would had been after Hope, after Gabrielle had died and come back to life, something even she couldn't understand. And then it had been an argument, a series of explanations as they tried to get her parents to understand what had happened, tried to get them to realize the lies Hope had placed in their heads, tried to give them the truth.

Xena had eventually lied, when it had become clear that demon children that grew up to look exactly like their mothers were too much for them. She claimed an evil god had created a shape shifter, something that could mimic another being perfectly. Said shape shifter had first seen Gabrielle after it had been born, and had chosen her to model itself after. Said that she and Gabrielle had gotten separated from each other, and when Xena came to Potediea to find her, had found the creature instead, pretending to be her. That the creature had then lied, tried to turn Gabrielle's family against her, and would have succeeded if not for the real Gabrielle reaching Potediea herself, just in time.

It had been a bitter parting, having to leave her parents with lies about their lives, but what else could she have done?

So this dream was nice. It was normal, safe, a couple of months before she met Xena, if Gabrielle had to place it somewhere in her past. A dream where she could remember the family she had lost, and have one more day with them before her mind was destroyed with the rest of the world.

Until that night. Until after dinner, as they all sat around the fireplace, keeping themselves busy until it was time for bed. Her mother spinning, Lila playing with the cat, her father working on some small carving- if this was to be her last night here, for Gabrielle was sure the dream would end the moment she went to sleep, she would spent it with some fragment of normalcy. So she had a scroll and a quill and some ink, idly writing out whatever came to mind, at peace with the world around her and the last remnants of her dream.

"I don't know why you bother," Heradotus sighed, shaking his head as he glanced up at her parchment- not that he could read it, no; it was Hecuba who could read, and who had insisted on teaching both girls, even if their father saw no use it in. He knew just enough to read a road sign if he had to travel, and even then, he took the same path he always had, making it unnecessary. "You need to get your head out of the cloud, girl. Those stories will never do anything for you."

"Heradotus, leave her alone," Hecuba said, her eyes never leaving her work, her hands never stopping, but a warning tone in her voice. "She's happy- let her write."

"There's more important things she could be doing," he protested, as if Gabrielle wasn't there, sitting tense and listening to every word. "Like weaving or sewing or half a dozen other things that are actually worth wild doing. Your scarf you're going to make with that yarn will keep one of us warm, or will sell for a couple extra dinars for the winter. Words aren't worth nothing."

Part of Gabrielle was still, frozen, trying desperately to ignore the words falling from her father's mouth. It was an argument he and her mother had had time and time again, an argument that would end with both of them angry and neither of them speaking to the other. He would apologize for it the next day, bringing her a new quill or vial of ink, and would ask for her to tell a story for them to listen to, nodding in approval as she spoke. And during the winter that was all he would ask, story after story as they sat cooped up in the house, unable to go further than the barn due to the snow piled almost as high as she was tall. He would say how well she spoke, how good her stories were, and this was an argument that would lie dormant for at least a couple of months.

But reading and writing weren't traits expected of a wife, and whenever he got started on thinking about the future, about how Perdicas, even though he wanted to marry her, had his entire family supporting him taking some other, less head strong girl as a wife, Heradotus' disapproval would rear its nasty head once more.

So part of her told her to ignore it, reminded her that this would pass. But the part that remembered this was a dream- that remembered Gabrielle was much older than she seemed, someone who had spent the last almost thirty years (most of them asleep, yes, but still she counted them) as friend, companion, and lover to the most dangerous woman in the world; the part that reminded her she was an Amazon Queen and how dare a man speak to her that way; the part that reminded her she was friends with the gods themselves- told her to prove him wrong.

"Where are you going?"

The question was surprised as she stood- she had never interfered with her parent's arguments before, instead just keeping her head down as she let them work through it. Now they both just stared at her as she picked her way out of their circle, stepping over Lila and their cat, stopping only long enough to grab her bag before she was out the door.

Out the door and running, right towards town, her mother's voice fading into the night as she left to prove him wrong.

The tavern was still full she reached it- not a surprise, really. Most people would have just finished eating dinner, and most often came to wet their throats and have a good laugh after a long, hard day's work. It was still early enough that no one was too drunk, that she didn't have to fear from that lot, even if she was sure she'd be able to beat them (her body might have returned to being soft, but her mind was still that of a warrior's), and almost every chair still full when she opened the door and walked inside.

"Go home, girl," the tavern owner growled when he glanced up to see who had entered his establishment. He knew her, she could see, his eyes lighting up with recognition, even if he didn't know her name. "This is no place for someone like you at this hour. Go home, or come back with your father to keep you safe." Expecting her to obey, he returned to cleaning his counter, wiping a grimy rag over a patch of spilled stew before it could soak into the wood.

"I can protect myself." His hand paused at the conviction in her words, and he looked up at her again, this time giving her more than a moment of his attention. Pointing towards a large bowl Gabrielle could see behind him, she nodded towards the front of the room, where a small stage lay empty. It was rare for performers to arrive in little Potediea, but still one was always there, just in case. "I'm a bard, and I bet you I can fill that bowl before the end of the night."

It was clear the man wanted to laugh, that he thought her delusional, but still he reached behind him and grabbed the bowl, emptying the grapes it had held into another and wiping it clean. He held it out in one hand, his other offered as well. "If you fail, you come work for me this winter. For free. Deal?"

The way he spoke made it clear he thought he was going to win, and would get another pair of hands to help out without having to spend a single extra dinar. Smiling widely, Gabrielle took the bowl and shook his hand, and went to stand before the room.

And found herself frozen as she tried to find a story to tell.

All of the stories she had were of Xena- of the good she had done, of the evil she had once partaken in, of the way she had made the world turn and bow before her. For years now, Xena had been her muse, her inspiration, the source of her stories- even in the other world, in the fake world Ceasar had created, Xena had still been her everything, even if Gabrielle hadn't known it. So what stories did she have now? She had the old legends, the old myths everyone here would have grown up knowing, but nothing good enough to actually fill the giant bowl now sitting before her.

For a moment she panicked, because how could she tell a story that didn't exist? A story from the future, a future that was still to be seen?

But only for a moment. Because this was a dream, she reminded herself, and who cared if a group of peasants from Potediea knew about the future in a dream? What did it matter to them, or to the gods, if soon this world would come to an end? But just to be safe...

Looking out at the crowd, many of whom had taken to ignoring her, muttering about their hopes getting up and being disappointed at the lack of entertainment, Gabrielle met the tavern owner's smug gaze and spoke.

"I sing of Nea," Gabrielle called to the crowd, stomping her foot three time to gain their attention, "the fiercest warrior in the land, and how she saved a soul from a fate worse than death- marriage to a god."

They were enthralled, captivated as Gabrielle described the kidnapping by the priests, the advice 'Nea' had given to her young companion, the mental battles the warrior had had to face in order to save her friend. Not a single word was spoke as Gabrielle told her tale, not a single person moved as they watched as Gabrielle's hands acted out the performance before them. Not a single breathe was drawn as she explained the slowly moving panel behind the young woman and the man before her with a sword, forcing her to choose either between killing him or her own death.

For a long while, as Gabrielle stood there, staring out into the silence, nothing happened. No one spoke, no one moved- it seemed as if the tavern had been frozen in time.

Until one little voice, a traveling merchant's child, sandwiched between its parents, asked for another.

With that little voice, the room erupted into applause, dozens of handfuls of dinars falling into her bowl, everyone begging for another, for something else to entertain them as they whittled away the night. Gabrielle promised, after she had had something to drink, and before she could order a handful of people started calling for the owner to bring her some water, some wine, some ale, whatever she wanted to drink. Just for him to be quick, so the next story could begin.

She took a cider, expecting the owner to be belligerent - most men were, when they lost a bet they had been sure they would win. But instead he just stared down at the almost filled bowl and quietly offered her his stage any night she wanted.

Considering it was common that performers left at least a portion of what they made to the owner of the venue where they performed, tonight would mean a hefty sum in both of their purses, something both of them could benefit from.

She told two more stories that night- her own play from that other world, shifted a bit for only one performer instead of a full cast, adding in an extra fight scene to appease the critics, and the story with Diana (artfully called Niada); the first drawing tears to their eyes, heartfelt sobs ripped from what seemed to be even the toughest of throats, and the second sending them howling with laughter, quite a few of the drunker members of the audience finding themselves on the floor as she spoke.

By the time the night had passed, the bowl would have had to be thrice as big to hold all of the dinars dumped at her feet, piles of them scattering around her as thankful patrons left their tips for her tales before stumbling off to home. Some of the travelers tried to proposition her- there was always room in a caravan for such an accomplished storyteller. But Gabrielle just shook her head and thanked them for their interest, making it clear that, after such a long night, she had to go home.

The owner only took a third of what she earned- less than the usual commission people demanded of her, Gabrielle noticed, but the overall sum was more than she usually made, especially since she and Xena had mainly stuck to the back roads, smaller villages. And she knew if she continued to perform here, the sum would never be quite as large again. She had gotten lucky, and a couple of merchant caravans had arrived the day before, giving her a large audience with deep pockets to spin her stories too. Still, even with his 'discount,' the owner was more than pleased, helping Gabrielle to scoop the rest of the dinars into her bag, enough to make it weigh heavily on her shoulder.

"You're Heradotus' kid, right," the man asked, walking with her towards the front door. Behind them, serving girls were helping the last of the drunks upright and up to bed, while a few others set about to cleaning up the room. "You're not walking home, not this late and with that much coin. Come on."

He didn't give her an option, really, and while Gabrielle knew she could take him and any who tried to bother her, she instead followed after him, and allowed herself to be hoisted onto the back of a large black horse after the tavern owner had finished saddling him. She was tired, and she trusted the man, at least to a point.

"Which one are you again?"

"Gabrielle."

"Well, Gabrielle, if you keep performing at my tavern, we're going to become the best of friends."

He rode the horse fast, passing drunks who hailed them, ending up at the farm far quicker than Gabrielle would have been able to make on foot. He even escorted her to the door, knocking and making sure she was in the thankful arms of her parents- though he gave her a particular look when Heradotus and Hecuba pulled her in, both of them almost crying from worry as they scolded her for disappearing for most of the night. It was right there before her parents that he offered for her to perform at the tavern again, saying clearly how good her stories were and how she had brought in nearly a week's worth of profit for him from that one night alone, before nodding his head and leaving for his own home and bed.

They almost started interrogating her, Hecuba and Heradotus demanding to know where she had gone, why she had run off like that, what had possessed her to do such a thing and worry them so, only to stop as Gabrielle dropped her bag onto the kitchen table, the dinars clanking merrily within.

She said her good nights, holding them both in a long hug before finally heading to bed, leaving her parents to stare into the sack at the pile of coins she had brought home. Giving Lila- already asleep- a kiss on her cheek, Gabrielle kicked off her shoes before sliding into bed, ready for this dream to finally end.

Only it didn't. She woke up the next morning, still in bed, as Hecuba shook her awake and asked her to come talk with her and her father.

It wasn't a long discussion, no. Gabrielle admitted that she had gone to the tavern, told stories there to show that her stories did have some value, and that had been the extent of her plan. She hadn't been planning on doing anything with the dinars (she hadn't expected to wake up again, for surely the world should have disintegrated by now); she had just wanted to show Heradotus that he was wrong.

She had, and while there wasn't enough money to pay for it now, if Gabrielle kept performing at the tavern, by next year there would be enough to send her to Athens for training.

Gabrielle, just confused by the fact she was still there, that the dream was continuing despite the fact it should have ended, despite the fact that her mind should have crumbled to dust as the universe was destroyed along with the loom, just agreed as eagerly as she could make herself sound. Because while it was a long while away, the idea of going to Athens was appealing, even if she was sure the dream would end long before she got there.

So she agreed, and while it wasn't every night, since she still had to help out around the farm, Gabrielle went to the tavern and told her tales, returning home with a pouch full of dinars to eventually get her to Athens.

It all passed in a daze, day after day sliding into the next, as Gabrielle tried to figure out what was going on. Because the longer the dream continued, the less she believed it truly was a dream. Because things were happening. Things she remembered, from when she lived through them the first time.

A neighbor's cow, previously healthy if old, sickened and died within just a few days. The first time it had taken them months to figure out why, but this time Gabrielle already knew. Knew that there was a little pond just beyond the farmer's land, where a fox had fallen in and drowned, polluting the water. The cow had slipped through a hole in the farmer's wall, drunk from the still pond, and had died from it.

A child got lost in the woods. The first time had taken them two days to find him, cold and hungry and almost delirious from thirst. This time she knew, and it only took her a few hours to find the cave he had crawled into after he had broken his leg climbing a tree. The parents had cried over her, asking the gods to bless her for bringing him home, when before they had done it over one of the other men in the village.

A woman gave birth, and this time Gabrielle knew it would be a girl, and she knew the woman would name her Gelda, and she knew all about that child. About the life she would live and the way she would grow up, about everything to come.

The more these happened, the more Gabrielle knew, the less she believed it was a dream. Because things were different, yes, things that she herself changed that were different from what she remembered. But that which she had no control over? That which she just barely remembered, and didn't know how to change? That stayed the same.

She couldn't believe that it was a dream, not anymore, not as the days and weeks and months passed. Not as she woke up and dressed herself, preparing for the day ahead. Not as she heard the screams, the excited yells coming from the village. Not as her father yelled at them to run, as she and the other women nearby ran towards the forest with men on their heels, trying to catch them.

Not as she stepped forward, just as she remembered, to offer herself to the men, and not as she stepped forward as well, demanding they fight her. Not as Xena, standing there in just her shift, just as Gabrielle remembered, fought the army and saved them all.

It couldn't be a dream, Gabrielle had realized and accepted that by now. If it wasn't a dream, then it had to be real, and if it was real, she had another chance.

Another chance with Xena, another chance to live a life with her, another chance to make things right.

Part of her wanted to tell her the truth, right then and there. To tell her that they were soulmates, to tell her that they were friends, lovers, that they meant everything in the world to each other. That when all else failed, they still had each other. Part of Gabrielle wanted to do nothing more than to pull her into a kiss, and make it clear what their future would hold.

But she restrained herself. She couldn't do that, even if she wanted to. Xena wasn't ready for some overwhelming confession of love from a stranger, even if that stranger could list every single secret Xena had kept from the world. Even if that stranger knew her better than she knew herself.

So, instead, Gabrielle followed what she remembered, and asked.

"Please, you have to take me with you."

She listed what traits she had- reading, writing, map reading, everything she could think of. She almost listed knowledge of what was to come, but stopped herself before she could; she knew the future, yes, knew what was to come, but things were going to change, if she had it her way. The world would be different, and she didn't know when the differences would come. So she held her tongue and instead begged Xena through every other way she had to please, take her with her.

And just like before, Xena said no. Her mother had made a comment about her going to Athens, Perdicas had tried to pull her away, despite their engagement being put off since she was going to school, and Xena told her no. Told her she had a life here, that it was dangerous, and that she wasn't taking her along.

It was a good thing Gabrielle already knew the way, avoiding the cyclops and hitching a ride with the first cart that came along. Only this time she was prepared- her bags packed with all the dinars she had made that would have been for Athens, easily carried foods that would actually last replacing the soft bread and fruits she had packed the last time, flint and steel and a small knife hidden away so she could survive alone if she had to. This time she knew, knew exactly what she was getting into, and Gabrielle went prepared.

It went exactly as she remembered it going- she caught up to Xena, stopped the people of Amphopolis from making the biggest mistake of their life, and Xena stopped Draco. She saved the town from his army, and when she left them, Gabrielle followed.

Followed her to her brother's grave, and made it known that Xena wasn't alone (she had wanted to say she'd never be alone, that as long as she lived, Xena would always have a friend, but perhaps that was too much, even for her). Followed her as she left the town, upset over her treatment by the people she had once called family. Followed her into the camp, pretending to need Xena's fire. She had the flint, had the know-how, but Xena just smiled and offered her the other side of the fire, and while Gabrielle itched to protest (in the first world, it had taken over a year for them to share the same side of the fire, but rarely had they separated after they had started), she had just settled into the furs without protest.

It was almost exactly as she remembered, exactly as it should be, and for now, for Gabrielle, that was enough. Things would change, she was sure of it- there were so many regrets she had, so many things that she needed to do to make sure their future was a little bit better, but for now, this was enough.

It was enough that Gabrielle remembered it all, and could change it as they went.

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