#and its like. yeah that would be easier huh. like the self loathing is easier to handle than the confusion and cognitive dissonance

[damselofblueroses]

Bambi, Ch. 2, Ghost

You are my Bambi, girl, I am your candy, tell me what are you waiting for?

Summary: As an archaeologist who works on the Ancient Greece, you were on the verge of excavations’ session. While you have been preparing your team, you learned that your institute decided on your team has to work with another team as they wanted the outcome as a collaboration. The head of other team was your biggest rival, a scumbag in your eyes: Byun Baekhyun.

You two were supposed to work together for three months, in a Greek Island, Chios.

Could you manage to not kill Byun Baekhyun for three months?

Chapter Summary: Byun Baekhyun and the Reader remember the day they spent in UN Village together while they are heading to Chios. (Guys, this chapter, which is dedicated to the beginning of their relationship, is going to be two parts, otherwise it is going to be more than 20k lol)

Word Count: 11k

Content: AU, heavily Greek mythology, enemies to lovers.

Warnings: Well, the story contains NSFW/Smut, please minors do not continue.

Note: This story will be 7 or 8 chapters if I will not change my mind in the meantime. It is inspired by my major; however, I do not have a complete knowledge on archaeology, I am a historian. If I will make a technical mistake, please let me know. I am willing to receive any kind of feedback; you are more than welcomed to drop a message.

Series Masterlist

Chapter 2: Ghost

5 years ago, Hannam-dong

Even if I want you so much it drives me crazy

You ghost

Even if I want and call for you all night long

You came to me and left without a word

You ghost, you ghost

You want to go crazy all night, you plead

You ghost

You disappeared again without a trace

“What type of sadistic and sick person could say that we have to work here?” you cursed between your teeth, you jaw clenched because of pure anger. “How do they expect us to do our job in the middle of fucking super-ultra-rich people?”

“Get used to it.” Junmyeon flinched your forehead, but his frustration was oblivious, even though he was doing definitely better than you. “Where is Baekhyun?”

“I do not know.” you recklessly pointed to the expensive cars on the road. “Maybe he was looking for a sugar mommy.”

“As your sunbae,” Minseok hit you. “I would like to remind you to hold on your manners.”

“Someone has to give a speech on manners to him.” your eyebrows knitted together. “Not to me.”

“Both of you,” Kyungsoo nonchalantly spoke. “need a really good beaten session, since both of you have no idea on how to behave.”

You threw the book you were holding to Kyungsoo, but he was too quick and easily saved himself from your unexpected attack.

“I am here, right?” you hissed. “Where the heck is that bastard? He always disappears when it comes to work, why do you hold me in the same esteem with him?”

“Because you are definitely a copy of Baekhyun.” Chanyeol laughed at your god-fucking-damn-it-so-horrible face expression. “Let’s face with the fact, Indy. Everyone knows that Baekhyun is a disciplined student, just as you are, badmouthed, just as you are.”

“Are you talking about me?” Baekhyun popped out of nowhere. “I heard you are praising me less than the way I deserve.”

Your face could be described as disgusted, but this would be the kindest way of telling how your appearance was. Actually, you wanted to punch his narcissistic self-perspective, to shake his cage in order to give him the lesson he deserved, but you did not want to be scolded by Junmyeon again. You just walked away from him, needing to put a safe distance between yourself and Baekhyun.

God, if you could run away to space, you would do it in order to not infuse with the same air with Baekhyun.

You disliked him, you disliked the way of his well-being, you disliked his velvety voice, his lame jokes, his sharp remarks, you disliked everything about Byun Baekhyun.

And you hated yourself because of finding him very handsome. Sometimes, you caught yourself, staring at Baekhyun, forgetting how to breath properly. His face was like a gift of God himself; his body ratio made you to say oh-my-fucking-god.

Thank God, he had the most annoying character, because if he had a good personality, you knew that you would fall in love over the heels with him.

“What kind of idiot chained us here?” Baekhyun asked to Junmyeon. “Fuck’s sake, what the heck we are going to here? Digging beneath the Richie riches’ villas?”

Chanyeol bite his lips before looking at you, silently reminding your own words and his remarks about being very same with Baekhyun. You did not back off, staring at Chanyeol with all frustration went through your veins, causing Chanyeol to laugh. Baekhyun hit his head, then walked towards Junmyeon to take his own tool bag.

You hated him for this, too. He was acting like he was a superior, like he was better than any of you, and what got your nerves badly was no one scold him as they would scold you if you would do the same things.

“Yeah, I am like this scumbag who does not carry even his own stuff, huh?” you literally sizzled between your teeth, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo heard your annoyed voice, but they preferred to keep their silence. Your hate was not a secret for the team, everyone was aware of the fact that putting you and Baekhyun was a dangerous decision since he also loathed you.

But to your dismays, you were the brightest students Sejong could always play on.

“Seriously what we are going to do?” Baekhyun repeated his question because he really did not have a single clue.

“Didn’t you read the mail Sejong sent us?” Jongdae asked him, raising one eyebrow. Baekhyun shrugged his shoulder, you bit your lower lip in order keep your frustration under your control. What a bastard!

“We have to visit UN Village, there are seven neighbourhood where we have to go and collect the permissions of the residents.” Junmyeon run his hand through his hair. He was already on the verge of cracking since he was the one who had to deal with a lot of capricious upper-class members in order to complete this fucking task. He wished nothing but changing his path, he started to think like the field was not his cup of tea, but before resigning from leadership, he wanted to find a good candidate who could lead the team.

He wanted you to be that leader. You and Baekhyun. Heretofore, Junmyeon laid his eyes on both of you and your abilities persuaded him to nominate your names when he could propose an election. He did not want to be a fieldperson, he wished to stay in his office, but at the same time, he could not inherit his legacy, Godfuckingdamnit Junmyeon’s did his best in order to engrave his name as one of the most successful captains, to anyone but the best. Yet, Junmyeon had no idea how to put you in good terms, since you were like a cat and dog, and Chanyeol, that giant idiot, used every opportunity to fan the flames, even that silent Kyungsoo enjoyed watching intangible scuffles between you and Baekhyun.

Junmyeon has been sensing that the team was becoming aware of the situation and camping as two different poles. Jongdae, Shinhye and Minseok were setting off closer to you while Chanyeol, Kyungsoo and the newbie, Jongin have been shifting to Baekhyun’s side. Damn, Junmyeon could not let it to be happen. He needed all of you under the same umbrella, especially you and Baekhyun had to stay together. He was seeing a great potential of you, if you could combine your powers, you were going to be the perfect team. Period.

“Let’s split into teams.” his eyes wandered around all of you. “We are eight, if we can divide ourselves into four teams, we will finish the job easier and quicker.”

“Yeah, you are right.” Kyungsoo approved. “I am going to take Chanyeol.”

“Are you my superior, dumbass?” Chanyeol hit his shoulder, but he was laughing. “I am with Kyungsoo.”

“Good.” Junmyeon inhaled. “Shinhye, you are with Jongdae.”

You automatically stirred next to Minseok, however you shuttered after hearing Junmyeon’s next orders.

“Indy, you and Baekhyun are together, Minseok, let’s go.”

“What?!” you immediately stopped and hissed at Junmyeon. “Am I with who?”

Jongdae realized the storm before seeing the clouds, clever as always, he disappeared while dragging Shinhye with him. You even did not notice, but Chanyeol’s smile widened, Kyungsoo smirked, and they rushed to their own direction.

Only four of you were standing on the pavement, you were throwing daggers to Junmyeon with your eyes. Baekhyun was nonchalantly looking at Junmyeon, while Minseok could not find a way to break the tension.

Junmyeon was cool as a cucumber.

“You are with Baekhyun.” he repeated his words, sounding like he was condemning you with execution. “What? Do you have a rejection?”

“Yes!” you exploded without thinking. “Why shou-

“Believe me,” Baekhyun interrupted your words, he was indifferent to your frustration. “I did not beg for being in the same team with you.”

“Did I claim that?” you swiftly turned on your tiptoes. “Did I say you are eager to be with me?”

“It would be the greatest joke you could make.” Baekhyun winked to you. “But you are not so into the entertainment, right?”

“Baekhyun,” Minseok noisily cleared his throat. “I am not sur-

“What do you know about me?” you heard your own voice. “This is why we cannot work together, you always make assumptions out of your ass, instead I work as organized, with the facts and tangible proofs.”

“What do you know about me?” Baekhyun coldly smiled at you, you could not describe its impacts on you, that smile had you wanting to punch him at the same time ignited some fires in your lower stomach. “We barely talk, have you been watching me all the time?”

“You wish.” you took a deep breath. “You are not worth my time.”

“Oh,” his eyes glimmered with a menacing luminescence. “I am deeply wounded.”

“If you are done,” Junmyeon raised his hands to the air. “We have to work.”

“Jun-

“Young lady,” Baekhyun barged on. “They did not teach you this, so it’s up to me but we are not in kindergarten anymore.”

You had to admit, no one could get your nerves till now like Baekhyun did.

You had to admit, you hated being called as a kid. Junmyeon’s eyes blown up when Baekhyun labelled you as a kid, before he could open his mouth, you stared at Baekhyun.

“I can see why we could be a team.” you took the directional instructions from Junmyeon’s hand. “A kindergarten kid has to take care of a cry baby while the adults have to work.”

Baekhyun’s eyebrows furrowed, but you wholly ignored his visible annoyance, and started to walk. Junmyeon was looking at your back with a little bit concerned face, but he knew that he did what he had to do.

You were going to scold Junmyeon in the following hours of the day, however, now your job was teaching a couple of lessons on manners to this scumbag who has been walking beside you.

You spent the first hour in a total silence, talking only if the occasion called for it. The tension between you and Baekhyun was solid, someone could cut it with a knife without any problem. Baekhyun was bored to death, he never plan to have a day like this, he wanted to enjoy everything he did, he thought he could be with Chanyeol or Kyungsoo, having fun to death.

Instead, he was trapped with you.

The only girl he loathed to the bits.

He could not endure to hear your voice, even though you talked with the residents very kindly and respectfully. He had to admit that you were doing a good job, but it did not change anything he felt for you. He had been cursing Junmyeon since he put you two in the same task, however, he knew that if Junmyeon wanted something from Baekhyun, he would do it without question. Baekhyun could be many things, but he was loyal to his friends, and Junmyeon had a special place in his heart.

Also, behind the curtains of his hate, he could see why Junmyeon gave you to him. Although you were an abominable bitch, an obnoxious creature, a walking blasphemy, and a hate crime, Baekhyun did not think you could be an offspring of a lovely or healthy relationship, he was sure your parents were diabolical beasts, to his disappointment, you were reallyclever.

He wished you could be more reliable person, so he could work with you.

Baekhyun did not like to confess, yet he was aware of the fact that he desperately needed his own Evelyn O’Connor. Someone who could play the game with him, as his trustable partner in crime. He was extremely close to Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, but they were not equal to his wits and ambitions. Sometimes he was brassed off the conversations, time to time he found them boring and lame. His logic was faster than his mates, actually he was longing for nothing, but someone was equal to his high-speed brain.

You could be the one he was searching for, but you were made of poison, greed, and wickedness. Even if he would be blessed by the Heavens, he could not agree to work someone with you.

“Your Highness,” he heard your fucking voice. “We have to visit at least twelve houses more; do you mind hurrying up?”

“The only thing I mind is your fucking attitude.” he gritted his teeth. “Give the plan to me.”

“So, you can destroy everything I organized properly?” you smirked. “I do not think so.”

“Organized?” Baekhyun cocked his eyebrow. “Organized, my ass. Didn’t you lose Park Sangwan’s house? Twice?”

“Look who is talking.” the red of embarrassment slightly painted your cheeks and ears. “The one who had no idea about today’s plans.”

“At least I did not lose my fucking way and circled around the same house almost for half an hour.”

“And the award goes to Byun Baekhyun for his greatest achievements.” you gave back the wink to him, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Oh, breaking news. No achievement no award.”

Baekhyun took it personally since you two competed to each other as the finalists of last academic year. Your project was accepted as the winner while Baekhyun received only a certificate. You hit the lotto, he had to watch you, walking to the stage with a bright smile tugged on your lips.

Still, he could vividly remember the little smirk you gave to him that night when they announced your name.

“You did it consciously.” his jaw clenched. “That night. When they called you as the winner. You immediately turned to me just to annoy me.”

“It seems, I achieve my goal.” your smirk widened, a glistening layer of fun covered your face. “Were you disappointed?”

“Yeah, of course.” he did not miss a single second. “I was disappointed of the professors, I was believing they were cleverer than me, but their choice showed me they were nothing but idiots.”

“Could you smell the air, Baekhyun?” you asked with a serious face. He was confused for a second, you never ask a question to him or call him by his name, but before he could register, you tucked the words in his throat. “Oh, jealousy, my favourite.”

“Darling,” Baekhyun swallowed hard. “There is no single living soul who can be low enough to jealous you in this universe.”

That was not quite truth, because Baekhyun not only remembered your revengeful smile but also how you were looking like that day. He could paint you on canvas by closed eyes, and he would not miss a single detail.

And he was a little bit jealous on that day. Not only because he lost over to you, but also because of the people around you. You annoyed him not only with your award, but also with your closeness to the other men.

Despite of your usual oversize clothes or no makeup policy, you chose to present yourself in a different style. Your hair was perfectly combed, your makeup highlighted your face features, and you were wearing a little light blue dress which tightly caressed your body. Baekhyun, or none of your classmates knew that you had curves for example till that night and to Baekhyun’s dismay, you had a really good body. You were a minion, your beauty was very soft and although he really hated to admit this, you were a view for the spectators. Maybe not the prettiest, but you had something had people looking at you, liking you, desiring you.

You had an aura which was enough to make your biggest enemy to silently acknowledged that you were attractive.

“Maybe, there is no one.” you shrugged your shoulder. “But youwere eager to low yourself, huh?”

You did not forget the look on Baekhyun’s face when Professor Kim called you to the stage. You were sure as fuck, he was cursing you but also there was something else, glowing in his eyes. Something you could not describe, but you could see the same emotion in your reflection when you saw Baekhyun with that crowd of girls.

Rarely.

But still you knew that feeling.

That ceremony was hard for you, of course you were over the moon because of your achievement, that project opened you some fresh opportunities and proved that despite of being a junior, you were more than a bachelor student. You proved your talents and abilities to yourself by winning the first place, you completed a step, made your first goal come true.

And you nailed Byun Baekhyun’s coffin. It was worth of every minute you spent sleepless, your tears and sweats, the hours in library, the hours in front of the plan of Gyeongbokgung Palace and search for the most logical and safest ways of conducting an excavation around the palace.

Your ideas were chosen over Baekhyun’s ideas, and you were aware of the quality of the solutions he proposed.

You were proud of yourself.

It was the bare truth that Baekhyun’s face were singing to you just as your favourite band could sing, seeing his face just like someone fed him with cucumbers was equal to being accepted into your dream field, Chios’ excavations, as the chief archaeologist.

But you were annoyed.

You could not happily taste your success. You could not feel its flavour on your tongue buds.

Because of that bastard looked fucking magnificent in that bloody black suit.

You have been told about the dress code you had to follow, however no one, not a single soul managed to catch his level of looking good in a suit.

You were annoyed because your taste in men was exactly equal to Byun Baekhyun. He had everything you could ask for, he was devilishly charming, there was even no need for words to describe him, he was beautiful.

And he was the only one you hated the most.

Every girl in the room was drooling over him, to your dismay, just like you. You felt that feeling in your stomach, a pain which was spinning, spinning, and spinning, causing a tornado inside of your stomach.

Was it jealousy?

“I already noticed your ignorance about the feelings.” Baekhyun could not control himself anymore and grabbed your shoulder, turning you to the opposite direction. “We have to follow this fucking street, or we will be lost again.”

“Have you been observing me, Baekhyunnie? That’s so cute.” you ignored the second part of his words, just starting to walk on the direction he instructed to you.

“Observing you takes a minute, baby girl, since there is nothing to see.” he answered but he found it interesting when you called him as Baekhyunnie. “You are a spoiled brat.”

“Hop, that hurts.” you pouted, pressed your fist on your chest, faking a whimper. “Would you like to tame this spoiled brat?”

You started to think that you went nuts.

“In your dreams.” Baekhyun laughed, but he literally lost himself in the fucking possibilities you could be tamed by him. “You have to wait a couple of centuries for someone who can be willing to be with you.”

You chuckled but preferred to keep your silence after his words. Damn, your sudden quietude caught Baekhyun’s attention more. Why didn’t you not attack to him? Why didn’t you give him a sharp answer as you should have?

Why you chuckled like there was a line at your door?

Was it?

Baekhyun pondered that instead of the fact that you were generally with a small group of friends, to both of your dismays your common friends, he did not see you with strangers, so there could not a queue for your hand.

Could it be?

And why the fuck he should have care if there is a crowd for you or not? No one could want someone like you if they did not lose their mind.

But he cared. Fuck, he cared more than he wanted.

Because to his disappointment, he knew that there was a real cavalcade of knightly candidates for you.

“Okey,” you checked the time. “After this one, I am going to have lunch.”

“We are going to have lunch.” Baekhyun gritted his teeth. “I hate eating alone enough to endure your presence.”

“Didn’t you tell me there is no one who could want to be with me?” you snickered. “But you have no reservations about having lunch with me?”

“Imagine the situation I am in.” he grumbled. “The day gets better and better.”

You decided to annoy him, pushing him to the edges as much as you could do. The first response that came to your mind refusing him, but the other option was funnier. You could play with Byun Baekhyun, you could take your revenge by being a pain in the ass.

He said that he could endure your presence.

You could make him regretful of his words.

There was a very little smile tugged on your lips which you were not aware of, however, to his dismay, Baekhyun realized it.

Her lips are rosy and plump, he thought to himself. Even though he called you a spoiled brat, he was not sure of if you were a brat or not. Kiddos have not the type of lips, calling people for the kisses, like you. There was something, even during your cocky performances when you tried to beat the life out of him, although you always kept that dull and bored expression and acted like Baekhyun was not worth of your time, but there was something just in you.

Baekhyun swallowed down his own vomit when he admitted it to himself, and you have caught his glare.

“What?” you purred. “Can’t you take your eyes off me?”

“Who the hell wants to watch you?” he quickly collected his thoughts and put them in a fucking trail. “I am looking for a restaurant where we can have good food.”

After a permanent mutual ignorance session for years, his next words caught you off your guard.

“You like local foods, right?” he asked. “I guess the second shop on this street is famous for jjangmyeon and tteokbokki.”

Well, you had to admit that his questions made your brain a little bit foggy. How could he know that?

“Yeah.” for the first time in history, you did not come up with any sharp answer. “How about you?”

“As long as there is no cucumber or extremely sweet cuisine,” he started to walk. “I am fine.”

You heard that Baekhyun is really not in good terms with cucumber.

“Feel you.” you murmured in your mouth because you hated cucumbers as much as you hated Baekhyun. He swiftly look at you, you accompanied him on the street.

“We should celebrate.” he teased. “I said something, you just answered, and we did not have a fight.”

“This is a privilege for cucumbers.” you shrugged your shoulder, but you also felt that he did not buy your nonchalant tone. “I cannot stand them, mum loves it too much, I mean what type of person can love a cucumber? If I need water, I prefer to drink it.”

Your observation made him tilted his head back in that rumbling laugh of his, you were unwilling to join, but the corners of your mouth turned up slightly.

“Here we go.” He, as a gentleman, opened the door for you, you responded with the most neutral expression you could muster. “Oh, no thanks?”

“Thank you.” you rolled your eyes, however, despite of your strongly negative feelings against him, you do not like rudeness. “Sorry, that was insolence of me.”

“Your apology is fully accepted.” he winked, you hated that cocky tone, you hated yourself for falling into his trap. You passed him, went to a distanced table where it placed in the corner. You did not want to be seen as having a lunch with Baekhyun by your teammates.

Corner was fine.

“Oh, no.” he grabbed your arm, manhandled you to the tables of the center. “I will not let you escape. If they see us, let them to see.”

Your eyebrows knitted, your lips pressed to each other enough to form a thick line on your face, you could almost taste your growing anger. But at the same time, you realized that feeling his hand on your skin increased your heartbeats, you wanted to scream with self-hatred, but you bite down on your tongue as his hand quickly wandered to down, to your waist. He directed you to the most visible table from outside while you were fighting yourself in order to control your fucking pace of breathing.

Please, this could not be true, I could not be excited because of his touch, you thought.

This was not happening, what the fuck was happening?

Baekhyun was not so different from you, even though his face expression was not changed for a bit. He forced himself to take control, but it was really hard for him.

Your hate was reciprocated, right? You guys could not spend even a bloody minute in peace, the only thing you had was annoyance.

So, why you perfectly fit in his embrace just like you were made just to be under his arm?

Why Baekhyun wanted to tight his arm around your waist?

Why could you not say anything even though Baekhyun was literally holding you?

Why you felt like you were in the only place where you had to be for the rest of your days?

“Hi.” you heard the waitress who was a really beautiful girl. “Welcome to Sung’s String. How can I help you?”

Even though finishing her sentence, she begun to eye Baekhyun. You rolled your eyes and reached to the menu; to be honest, this show was not funny after seeing it for the million times. Every time, Sejong Team went outside for a drink, for a gathering or even for a museum trip, girls and sometimes boys gazing the members of Sejong Team just like they were idols or actors because of their good-looking. Eh, they were not wrong, you had to say that the Sejong Team included really, really, and really handsome boys from Baekhyun to Chanyeol, from Kyungsoo to Jongdae and these boys’ superiors were Kim oh-my-godJunmyeon and Kim lord-help-us Minseok.

Well…

You were already got used to the reactions coming from all around when Sejong Team showed their faces. You knew that both of insiders and outsiders of Sejong Institute called your team members as the Flower Boys or a shitty nickname like that.

“I would like to have a jjangmyeon without cucumbers, and a tteokbokki.” you turned the menu off. “With a light coke.”

“Coke?” Baekhyun mimicked you like he could not believe his ears. “Are you kidding? Everyone knows that you have to drink jasmine tea in order to help digestion.”

“Have you been majored in nutrition?” you gave him your bitchy resting face. “Shut the fuck up.”

“No coke.” he wholly ignored you and turned to the waitress who was watching him as drooling. “Please, we want two bowls of jjangmyeon, two tteokbokki, also please we would like to have kimbap and kimchi as the garnitures and of course a pot of jasmine tea.”

“Yeah!” she sounded weaker after Baekhyun conducted all power he had in his eyes to her. “Anything else?”

“I guess we are fine for the time being.” Baekhyun smiled to her, causing a flush of redness on her cheeks.

“I will be back as soon as possible.” the girl literally purred, Baekhyun’s eyes shined after her reaction. Little bastard. You did not want to think about it, but his visible joy had your stomach churned. You inhaled and took your book out of your bag.

“What are you doing?” Baekhyun glanced up at you, reached to take the book from your hands. “Having lunch together means conversation, are you going to read?”

“Give the book to me, Byun.” you kicked his foot under the table. “I know you do not know how to read and enjoy but that’s a good habit to have.”

“Yeah, I know that habit of you gives nothing but lonely hours in library.” he had no limits of shooting his arrows. “Have you ever tried something different for a change?”

“Like what?” you tried to get back your book. “Following your great example and dedicate my life to your favourite sport? Sorry, I have no interest in running after women by lolling my tongue out of my mouth.”

“Baby girl,” Baekhyun put your book in his leather bag. “You have no idea whose tongue lolls out of the mouth.”

You could not decide on what you hated the most. Baekhyun or the girls after Baekhyun? You concluded as both of them were equally horrible in your eyes.

“I am sure your stories are incredible.” you inhaled. “But I really do not like to hear the anecdotes of miserable women. Could you give the book back before I gauge your eyes off?”

“Nope.” he grinned. “I can bet on you are still a virgin but tell me if you have an affair or not, I would like to pay my condolences to your partner.”

He was already written as the first name in your list of most-hated-people, but suddenly became the first man to be written as the first enemy of a lifetime.

“Did you finish your own list of dead partners?” you raised one eyebrow. “Thinking of its length gives me chills.”

“No dead.” his grin widened from one ear to the other. “They just had some temporary heart problems due to the performances I gave to them.”

You opened your mouth to slap his face with the words, but the waitress came back to your table with a huge tray. She was placing every bowl and plate, actually fucking Baekhyun with her eyes, you literally hardly suppressed your instincts, telling you to warn her immediately.

But you were not honest with yourself about why you wanted to warn her. In the deep of your mind, but in very deep, you had been starting to realize that you disliked when the girls threw themselves to Baekhyun because you wanted them to stop. You did not like the scene because you did not want to share Baekhyun’s gaze with another person.

You were lying to yourself without realizing what was the real problem of you.

You loved Baekhyun from the beginning, even though he was a fucking tease and a bloody smartass. There was no other man for you, if someone could cut your chest, the only thing would be seen in your heart was his name.

But that would be the heaviest self-enlightenment, and you were definitely not ready for such as a thing. That’s why you unconsciously continued to trick yourself by disguising your own feelings from your own eyes.

You got the chopsticks and decided to have your lunch instead of burying yourself in the maze of thoughts. Baekhyun realized your discomfort, but he had no idea what the real reason of your mood was, whatever made you unhappy was more than okey for him. He could be happy as long as you were sorrowful.

“You still not give an answer to the question.” he was persistent on pushing your limits. “Do you have a relationship?”

“Why are you curious?” you took a mouthful amount of jjangmyeon. How much you wanted to stuff these noodle strings into his throat, suffocating him to death. “If you want to send a bouquet, please note that I love blue roses.”

“You are really a virgin, huh?” Baekhyun diabolically grinned, you could swear on you saw the red halo over his head.

“Darling, you cannot make me angry by stating what is obvious.” you smiled back, there was no reason holding it back, you were always open on these issues, and a sick part of you wanted to tell him to see his reaction. “Yeah, I am a virgin.”

“Do you conservatively follow a church?” his chin dropped a few inches. “How could it be possible with all the boys who try to seduce you?”

Well, you did not expect to hear this.

“Come on,” Baekhyun continued. “I always see you with a bunch of men, do you really think they are following you only for friendship?”

“On the contrary of you and your limit-does-not-exist type of libido, people can build the bonds of affinity.”

“Only when they do not search for an open door to sneak in.” Baekhyun pointed his chopsticks to your face. “Telling you, I can name at least six permanent names in the waiting room.”

You did not see the hidden meaning of his words, however, Baekhyun was already became regretful, he silently prayed for your ignorance and blindness were going to keep him safe. Because he gave you the biggest clue of his interest in you by stating he could give even names.

He still did not understand how he could know everything about you or why he always put a brick on the ways of the candidates for you, but he did. Hell, he was unapologetically finding a way to prevent the boys who liked you and no one could understand it was Baekhyun. He always came up with a solution in order to intimate them, put them back off. You were not aware but Baekhyun always appeared around you when he thought a candidate was close to you more than he supposed to be.

He already put his stamina on you as his girl, but he was not aware of his own actions. He was not aware of what he has been doing, how he was persistently looking for you, searching for your face in every class or harmoniously living with your voice. It was like your breathing was singing to his ears, and he was dancing with your melody.

Baekhyun did not understand but he was yours.

“I am not sure what you think,” you sipped from jasmine tea with self-confidence. “But there is no such a fucking waiting room.”

“You are really blind.” Baekhyun chewed a rice cake, generously dipping it into the gochujang sauce. “Don’t you think Oh Seunghwan is acting like more than a friend? Or Jang Jeongbun? Jesus, even you really cannot be that much idiot.”

Baekhyun was right for the first time in history. You were nothing more than a retard because you really did not understand the behind the scenes of his words. He was unconsciously giving you the signs of his interests in you, but you were so naïve to see.

“They are my friends, Baekhyun.” you rolled your eyes back. “I know grasping the nature of different relationships is hard for you, but people can be nothing but friends. No need to add tensions or searching for hidden meanings.”

Every time you vocalized his fucking name, Baekhyun felt its impact went straight to his dick, and he hated himself for that.

You were not the type of people who could be okey with the target of teasing. You wanted to play, you wanted to be enhanced by it, sinking into the waves of the game.

And even Baekhyun did not admit it in his head, he believed you were the most attractive girl he has been known because of you always corresponded to his moves and cards.

“How about you?” you immediately played your reverse card, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “I heard that you and your gorgeous looks which made entire school swoon and fantasize about you? Are you really called as the sexiest human being on the country?”

Your voice was the strongest indicator of your disbelief, he could be the biggest moron on planet Earth, nothing more nothing less.

Also, you were aware of those comments on Baekhyun more than you wished for. You kept everything you heard about him in your head, in the safest and the most secret file of your brain, refusing to think but keeping on unconsciously think about those speculations. You found them very suspicious, but not because of Baekhyun did not deserve to be called as the sexiest human being, you found those fantasies as unlikely because of Baekhyun had not that macho man stuff people were somehow attributing to him.

You had grown so sick from all of these dreams and comments, coming from every corner of school since Baekhyun was like a star.

And now, you had him seemed quite displeased with your tease.

“Only on the country?” he raised one eyebrow. “Shit, it seems I am not doing well.”

“Baby, you are coming after Park Chanyeol.” you sighed in joy of dancing on your tiptoes. “That’s a quite achievement, when you think.”

“Chanyeol?” he sighed in annoyance; you knew that you trapped his ego in a small box. “Coming after Chanyeol?”

“Yeah.” you gave the most nonchalant look to him. “Well, I can tell that’s quite unfair since Flower Boys includes really strong names such as Kyungsoo or Junmyeon but… Poor girls, they have to be lunatic to put you after Chanyeol.”

“What do you think about these extremely distorted images of us?” Baekhyun angrily took a mouthful of jjangmyeon.

“Do you ask my list?” you crossed your hands over your chest, cooing with gleamy eyes. “I cannot believe that Byun Baekhyun, asking me, a poor peasant, for her list.”

Baekhyun’s eyes darkening, and you were not sure why your mood was changed from the pure need of mocking him to an excitement which you could not ignore. His voice was really screechy and boyish when he asked your list, and his voice giving you a different kind of pleasure. Not the pleasure of scolding him, but the delight of toying him, pushing him to the edge.

But you did not analyse your current feelings, instead, you rushed to deliver your actually-not-existent list.

“We are talking about physical features, right? But I am going to rate everyone also with their characteristics.” you smiled. “For me, the first name is Chanyeol. I mean, look at that face he has, and his body ratio is excellent, but he has a golden heart. Then, of course Kyungsoo, he is fucking handsome, therefore, he is a great guy.”

“I really pity your tastes of men.” Baekhyun’s discontent with your made-up list was palpable, and the dissatisfaction of his tone was like honey left out in the morning sun.

“The number 3 is Junmyeon as always.” you wholly ignored his comment. “No one can say anything against to Kim Junmyeon, he is the definition of aesthetic. Minseok and Jongdae shared the same number in my list, and that’s all.”

“You forgot me.” Baekhyun snorted, his voice made you lifted your head. He was so tense; you never see his jaw clenched at this expand. What’s up his ass? you silently though in your head.

“I did not.” you were cool as a cucumber. “You are not in the list.”

Till now, you guys always ate each other, digging the graves for each other, always fighting always scolding always throwing invisible daggers to each other. However, you have never ever seen those dangerous lights, dancing in the pupils of Baekhyun after your words.

It was difficult to wrap your mind around the fact that you found this Baekhyun as more attractive than his usual-self and unfortunately you already found Baekhyun very desirable. Even though you would never even let yourself to think about being intimate with him, his eyes stirred something inside of you, ignited some fires close to your lower stomach.

“I am sorry to hear that.” you also never heard this cold voice tone of Baekhyun, and you heard almost every negative version of Baekhyun’s voice which he spared only to use against you. “Let’s finish the meals, we have to be back to work.”

“Yeah.” you nod, lightly smiled. You managed to make him mad, you achieved your goal to annoy him so bad.

Why did you feel bad?

Why did you want Baekhyun to continue on the game?

Why did you feel regretful?

Why did you want to cry?

When Baekhyun’s phone started to ring, you almost completed every house in the list Junmyeon gave to you.

And you spent the last two hours in a total silence. It was eerily, Baekhyun’s lips firmly presses into each other like he sworn on not to talk again. You were not so different, but inside of your mind, something was gnawing your inner peace.

You were not happy, even you coped with the most difficult task, shutting Baekhyun’s mouth.

But you were not happy. You did not feel like you got the prize.

Instead…

You were extremely sad, and you felt like you let the trophy to slid between your fingers.

You had to feel like you hit the jackpot, but quite opposite, you were miserable.

You were especially afraid of losing Baekhyun’s attention, your own heart was aching at the way you told him off.

Still, you were lying to yourself and trying to conceal what made you afraid, you were not honest to your conscious, however despite of your efforts, you knew something was wrong with you after his transformation after you showed him the door.

You were a coward; you were not accepting the solid fact that you were in love with Byun Baekhyun and what made you afraid was nothing but losing him.

However, you were also sure on Baekhyun had a place in your head, making you shutter, had you shaking in your shoes. You could not name where to put his name, but you knew he had a place in your life.

And you were horrified by the possibility of losing the chance of hearing his voice. Even if his cocky remarks were the only words you could rip from him.

“Yeah?” Baekhyun answered to the call, for a second, you were happy to hear his voice again, but he walked towards to the last house you had to visit without waiting for you. He did not do this, even in the beginning of the day. You took a deep breath, you did not know why the heck you were really sad for his sudden coldness, godfuckingdamnit didn’t you hate and always despise each other? You mentally slapped yourself to gather yourself up, but it was pointless, you rushed to catch him.

You were aware of there was a painful squeeze in your chest, but you could not understand the reason of its presence or how you could get rid of that.

“Junmyeon told us to retreat.” Baekhyun informed you without looking at you. “After this house, we have to run back to the meeting point.”

“Okey.” you nod, hated the meek voice tone you produced but your mind was not on the case, you were questioning your own feelings and firm beliefs about Baekhyun.

Baekhyun was not better, to be honest, he was worse than you.

When you nonchalantly told him he was not in your list, he wanted to puke everything he devoured during lunch even though tteokbokki was his favourite food. He wanted to punch himself on the face when you counted the members of your fucking list, he wanted to smack his head into the table.

Chanyeol? Kyungsoo? Damnit, even Junmyeon found his way to sneak into your list, but Baekhyun was not there.

He was always sure of he would be landed in every list, but he never think that being in your fucking list was the most important for him.

Why did he care if you were not seeing him as a man or not?

This question swirling in his head had his mind shattering.

As much as he was happy to see you wiggling like a worm under the fires, he could not control his reactions against the problem. When he saw you trembling over a case, he was the first one always popped out of nowhere to fix the problem in the darkness and never let you learn that it was him. He did not let even Junmyeon to help you, putting aside Chanyeol or Kyungsoo.

Baekhyun was the one who had been saving your ass like he was your invisible rescue call.

But you did not name him in your fucking list.

It drove him into crazy. The lack of your attention. He never mean that alerting you on his helps or care for you, but at the same time, he never think that his efforts would be equal to nothing.

He hated himself as much he hated you.

While you were walking back to the meeting point, both of you were lost in your own darkest thoughts. You were carefully paying the attention in order to not to have immersed each other, however both of you wanted nothing but screaming to each other, enough to have the fiercest fight till now.

You wanted to lose yourself in Baekhyun just like he was dying to bury himself into you for his dear life. However, both of you were very good at muting the voices of your hearts and minds.

“Indy! Baekhyun!” you heard Minseok, turning to his voice. “It is going to be a blizzard; we have to find a shelter.”

“Ha?”

“The forecast was clear as fuck.” Chanyeol pointed Junmyeon who was glued to his phone. “Jun is looking for a hotel for us since we could not go back.”

“We can take the cabs?” you were puzzled, a blizzard would be bad, but it did not mean that you had to spend the night here. “I mean, we are not living in a different city.”

“Yeah, you are right.” Shinhye crossed her arms over her shoulders, trying to keep herself warm. You had to admit, although you did not feel it till now, the weather was really cold. “But the cab drivers refused to drive into the city center. They advised us to stay here.”

“How about using metro?” you asked. “It is not so hard.”

“If you want,” Junmyeon hissed at you, holding the phone over his shoulder for a second. “You can try your chance, Indy. However, we are going to spend the night here. Safe and warm.”

“He is right.” Kyungsoo smiled at you. “I prefer to be warm and dry, sorry.”

You took a look at the team, and everyone was approving Kyungsoo’s words like they were bloody zealots.

“Okey, dumbasses.” you sighed in annoyance. “But we do not have even fucking pyjamas.”

“You can always take your clothes off.” Chanyeol winked at you. “Who says you need a pair of pyjamas to sleep?”

“Shut the fuck up, Chanyeol.” a sudden blush spread over your cheekbones, Chanyeol could not help but burst into laughs.

Baekhyun was determined to ignore you, but he could not help himself.

“Yeah, number one.” he muttered between his teeth, enough to be heard only by you. “Golden heart.”

Your chin was dropped for a few inches after hearing his annoyed voice tone and vindictive comment.

Could it be the reason of his unexpected coldness?

Could he be jealous of your invalid expressions and your fake list?

No way.

He could not be.

Your heart skipped the order of beats.

“Okey,” Junmyeon interrupted your thoughts. “We are going, if we are lucky, we will be in the hotel before the bloody snow will sweep down on us.”

“Let’s go!” Shinhye grabbed your hand, dragging you beside of herself. You submissively followed her footsteps; however, your mind was distracted by Baekhyun’s last words.

Could it be?

“This is heaven.” Jongdae rubbed his tummy. “Thank you, Jun!”

“No problem.” Junmyeon smiled and looked at all of you, to be honest, after a really good and delicious dinner, everyone was knocked out over the table.

Except you and Baekhyun.

“If you want you can go to your rooms.” Junmyeon said. “Since we were fortunate to find a single room for each of us, I do not think we have to play rock-paper-scissor.”

“Ah, having a room for myself.” Minseok laughed. “I do not have to hear your snorts, Junmyeon.”

They were sharing the same flat, everyone laughed after his teasing, Junmyeon too.

“Look who is talking.” he beamed. “I am so happy that I am going to have one night without your damn showering rituals.”

“Tell us about it.” Jongdae whined. “Pleeeassse.”

While Junmyeon and Minseok had been giving details of their flatmate stories to the team, making everyone to enjoy the environment, you were deeply sink into the pool of thoughts.

What a day, you thought. And why I feel like I am desperate?

Also, Baekhyun was not enjoying the unexpected banquet, instead he was quite enough to draw attention to himself. Chanyeol was on the verge of asking what the heck was wrong with him, but Kyungsoo kicked him under the table, pointed you with his eyes. Chanyeol’s wit quickly grabbed the matter, and he devilishly grinned.

You gave a hard day to Baekhyun, and he had no intention to change a thing between you and Baekhyun.

He always believed that you were secretly liking each other, but as you were nothing but stubborn bastards, you concealed your feelings towards each other.

Chanyeol definitely had zero motive to interrupt the fight between you, if it meant you would understand your mutual feelings.

Junmyeon also sensed the tension between you and Baekhyun, but he was not the type of persons who could wait on his corner.

“Baekhyun? Baekhyun!” Junmyeon called out him, waking him up. “How was your day? Why you guys are silent as dead?”

“We completed the task.” Baekhyun answered sourly, the corner of his mouth jumping downwards faintly. “As you assigned me and her.”

Baekhyun deliberately avoided using the pronoun of us.

“And it was a hell of task.” he continued. “I am so tired.”

“Even if you are fucking tired,” Jongdae raised a rejection. “You never shut your mouth, tell us what the heck is gnawing you?”

The bloody girl who sits next to you, Baekhyun thought but he was clever enough to keep the filter between his mouth and brain as valid.

“The girl I gave a promise for this night.” he forced himself to beam. “Because of this fucking weather, I have to arrange another meeting with her.”

Your heart churned, his reply had you wanting to slap your face. Harshly.

And you thought that he could be jealous because you named Chanyeol!

You were nothing but such an idiot.

An idiot who did not know a single piece of shit but acting so superior.

You were a goddamn idiot.

Chanyeol’s eyes narrowed after hearing Baekhyun’s shitty words, Kyungsoo wanted to punch Baekhyun’s face so bad, Junmyeon’s dislike of Baekhyun was obvious but he did not say anything, just sighed in desperation.

You felt nothing but another flash of pain as someone hit your abdomen.

“Are you okey, Indy?” Jongdae leaned over to you, whispering. You shook your head positively, smiling slightly. “You did not throw yourself into even desert.”

Your love for deserts was not a secret amongst your friends as Shinhye, sharing Jongdae’s concerns, handed you a bunch of cloudy puffs, filled with lemon cream. You took one of them, although you had no appetite, you forced yourself to eat the puff in order to put your friends at ease.

He was your biggest enemy and rival, right?

Why you were so devastated, almost on the verge of being hysterical?

You were not aware of you had been hypocritical with your feelings, and you were running away from your own heart. That’s why your hands were shaking, your heart was drumming into your ribs and aching as hell.

You were not ready to face with your heart, but you were also too naïve to save yourself from the pain it caused.

“Was he really harsh on you?” Jongdae murmured, his eyes was nothing but full of worries. “I am sure you could put him in his place but still…”

“He was not.” you said. “And you know me, nothing cheers me up but kicking his ass.”

“Glad to hear that.” Jongdae inhaled but the worries did not leave his face. “So why are you so down?”

“I am really tired today.” you sighed, tucking another puff into your mouth as you mentally punched your face in order to take the fucking control of yourself. “But if I will eat enough amount of these pastries, I will be like a bomb.”

“You are already like a bomb.” Minseok joined into the chat. “You look like on the verge of exploding.”

You unwillingly laughed at his damn right assumption.

“You know what?” you sniffed. “I am dying for a good drink. Would like to join me for a soju break?”

There was no single soul who could oppose to propose of grab a drink in your team. Jongdae jumped out of his chair, Shinhye was born ready and Minseok was the strongest drunkard.

“We are heading to the bar.” Minseok happily announced. “If you guys want to join, perfect, if not, good night to all.”

You were always impressed by the eagerness of Sejong Team to jump into any opportunity for a drink. Everyone, every single soul of this team, had a strong will to consume a respectable amount of alcohol. Less than a minute, everyone gathered up and headed to the elevators in order to visit the terrace of the hotel.

You had been wondering how rich Junmyeon was, even though he was a senior in college, or which kind of relations he had under his belt.

Jesus, you could not pay your attention during the dinner, however the hotel you had been staying was nothing but a touch of luxury. You had a strong guess on the payment bill of this place, however you preferred to keep it to yourself as you knew that Junmyeon did not like talking about the wealth lies beneath his fingertips.

But the bar was intimating.

Minseok, Jongdae and Kyungsoo were having a fierce conversation about the administrative offices of Roman Empire, Shinhye were with Junmyeon as they were talking on the next project that they aimed to present for the Head of Department. Chanyeol, only God knew how the heck he found that, was playing a guitar and you, as dwelling in an extremely comfortable armchair, tucked yourself into a blanket like a sushi roll, were enjoying the sudden calmness around yourself. The dim lights, from the chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, casting mirages across the hall, showing the wooden tables scattered between the chairs and beautiful, fresh cut flowers in their elegant vases.

It is not Korean but Chinese or Japanese, you thought, however with your bad eyesight, making an observation about the porcelain and its design was impossible. Also, you were a little bit slothful at the very moment to move your butt, you wanted to indulge in the soju you were holding, not anything else.

You felt a hand on your shoulder, warm but unfamiliar, your head jerked to face the owner of touch.

Baekhyun was looking at you, however his eyes were different from his usual self. There was no intention to mock with you, his eyes were clear as the snow drops that covering the streets right now.

“May I sit?” Baekhyun asked to you, catching you off guard with an unexpected kindness. You nod, feeling a sudden increase of the level of excitement, but kept your mouth shut. “Thank you.”

Thanking you? Byun Baekhyun?

You perked up, starting to prepare yourself for the fight, despite of the considerable amount of soju flowing in your veins, you were ready to guard yourself.

His elbow brushed your forearm when he was rolling his body in order to adjust the chair next to you.

You were shocked by the reaction your body gave to the moment, the only thing he did was sitting on a fucking chair, but your cheekbones were on fire.

His hips, damn his hips your inner voice was hysterically whispering in your head.

“May I ask to which muse I owe this honour?” you searched Baekhyun’s eyes for a glint of dismissiveness, however this was the very first time you have been the target of sincere, chocolate brown and deep irises.

“I have a question for you.” Baekhyun quickly ignored your offensive joke. “Why I am not in your list?”

He may as well have tossed you inside of a volcano, kicking you into the pool of lava, the impact would be the same. Your heart prompted to your stomach, they churned together, your throat and lungs tightened so bad, enough to cut your air by yourself.

You open your mouth, but nothing come out, just a bubble.

“I do not know how to translate that.” he sneered however you were at a loss. You could expect a lot of words from Byun Baekhyun but questioning the reason of his absence in your fucking list was not one of them.

“There is—” you bite your lower lip to stop yourself, you were on the verge of confessing that there was no list, you just tried to poke his ego, but thank God, you still had a piece of sanity to hold on. “I do not understand. Why do you care my list?”

Do I look like I fucking know? Baekhyun wanted to shake your cage, he wished nothing but screaming at you with all power he had in his lungs. He had no idea why he was mad at you, but he was out of rage and the only reason was you.

“Because I am curious.” he leaned his elbows onto his knees, cocking one eyebrow to you. “And what I hate most is being ignorant to a case.”

“I know.” you spoke without thinking, your mind was delving into the current problem you had in order to find a balanced answer, so you did not realize what you exactly said.

Unfortunately for you, Byun Baekhyun did not become your biggest rival by being blind or deaf.

His lips slightly curled upwards.

But the gentleman he could be, he did not corner you for the time being.

“So?”

It did not mean he would not try to push you in order to get what he wanted.

“Is there a rule saying that every human being has to be interested in you?”

You were not aware of it, but your voice was cracking, and your breathing became heavier, quickened and there was a sheen of sweet on your forehead.

To your dismay, Byun Baekhyun did not unconsciously mark you as his girl without studying you to the bits.

“Humanity is a different topic.” he widely smiled. “I wonder about you, sweetheart.”

Your breath stuck in your lungs because of the endearment, even though you were aware of his teasing of you.

“You are not my type, Byun.” you dead serious.

“Ah, your type is Chanyeol, right?” he smirked, turning his head to the tall brunette who indulged himself into the guitar. “Should we alert him to your interest in him?”

“Goddamn, no!” you hissed at him. What kind of trouble he was aiming to knit on your head? “Do you know the definition of privacy? You are invading personal boundaries, dumbass.”

“I do not think so.” Baekhyun shrugged his shoulder. “If you like Chanyeol, Chanyeol has the right of be aware of your interest.”

“Okey, even a scoundrel like you cannot be crossing the limit of respect like this.” you moved to stand up, giving the most dangerous look to Baekhyun. “I do not have to lis-

“Hey, Chanyeol!” Baekhyun called him with a high-pitched voice. Chanyeol lifted his head, distracted by the unexpected scream of Baekhyun.

“What?”

“Nothing!” your hand immediately tugged onto Baekhyun’s knee, squeezing it tightly in order to warn him. “You are playing so good, keep going!”

Chanyeol laughed at your words.

“You do not have to scream like that, Goddamnit.”

“Tell it to your friend.” you rolled your eyes back, fuming with anger but covering your face pretty well. You turned to Baekhyun, your eyes telling him that he was in serious danger if he was not going to shut his fucking mouth up.

Baekhyun did not care your silent warning, but your hand on his knee was a real distraction for him.

“I know that he is not your type.” he murmured, watching your hand, small, pale, and soft, Baekhyun did not want to confess but he wanted to latch your fingers to his. “Is it Kyungsoo?”

“Do I interrogate your preferences of girls, damn?” you literally gritted between your teeth. “Leave it.”

“I have no intention.” Baekhyun turned to Kyungsoo, narrowing his eyes. “Let’s ask if you are Kyungsoo’s type.”

“What the fuck are you, cupid?!” you grunted, and your hands moved without your consent. You grasped Baekhyun’s jawline, your fingertips were brushing his ears. “I said, leave it.”

“If you want to shut my mouth,” Baekhyun beamed, ignoring the fact that your touch meant for a lot than he could expect, he was going to think about it later. “Tell me why I am not in your list.”

“No one can desire someone like you!” you exploded. “An arrogant, dandy, selfish boy who does not know nothing but bringing trouble to others. That’s why you can never be in my list, even I have to choose between you and an octopus. For the records, I hate octopus, but I would go for it, if it means the other option is you.”

“Oh, you hurt me.” Baekhyun’s eyes glimmered with the sparks of unnamed feelings. He leaned forward, enough you to feel his breath fanning your lips. “You know what, sweetheart? You are so aggressive only when you have a secret which have to stay only in your head.”

“W-what?”

“I am definitely in that list.” Baekhyun claimed it with confidence, but it was just the appearance. Inside him, his heart was definitely shuttering, cracking into pieces, he had no control over himself, he could not understand his sudden behaviours. “I am in your list, if there is a list.”

Your eyes widened, and pupils blown up.

“Jesus.” you snorted. “When you lost your fucking mind?”

“You are a pretty bad liar.” Baekhyun was making assumptions out of his ass in order to get a reaction from you, he was not fucking sure if he was in the list or not, but everything he said actually rang the true bells.

“And you are a lunatic.” your intense eyes pinned him down, and the frowning lips caught your attention, but you forced to came back to your senses as soon as possible. “You will never be anything more than a lunatic.”

You attempted to stand up, but he was incredibly swift to catch your wrist, pressing you back to the armchair.

“Tell me, sweetheart.” he held your wrist for his dear life, caging you and to your disappointment, coming closer to your face, causing your ability of speaking to be faded immediately.

His godfuckingdamnit lips.

“You have been having doubts on me since the day we met, your driving force is giving me hard time.” his breathing was fanning your cheekbones. "Confess now, why are you pissed at me all the time?”

“Hell, you do talk like you are so different. Aren’t you the one who always finds a way to be trouble for me?” you raised one eyebrow, letting him to realize the game was reserved for two people. “If it means liking someone, since when you have been fallen in love over heels with me?”

“You have no idea how much I want to place your heels over my shoulders.”

Your chin was dropped, his words had you turning into a mummy who was trying to register into his remarkable sentence without a single brain cell.

You had to come up with the best answer you could give. You had to find the best response to him, and it had to be a perfect balance of sharpness, cockiness, and matureness as it had to be said with the resting bitch face.

And you heard your own voice.

“Ha?”

“You heard what I said.” Baekhyun intensively gazed at you, the proximity between your bodies had your body quivering and trembling at the same time and his fucking knee slightly, almost insensibly pushed your legs apart.

“You are really nonsensical, Baekhyun.” you inhaled, doing your best in order to ignore all the jolts all over your body, numbing your mind but also setting the skin on fire. Every time you said his name, Baekhyun felt something turning in his lower stomach. “What the fuck you want from me?”

“You did not name me in your list.” You could not believe your fucking eyes, more importantly, you could not believe you were still listening his gibberish like a kindergarten kiddo. “But, I am better than everyone else here.”

His voice dropped the slightest, making you shiver.

“Would you like me to prove it to you?”

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[somerpmemes]

Killing Eve S3 Starters

Change as needed

“If you want to be a winner you have to sacrifice everything.”

“I am so much happier now she’s dead.”

“Bureaucracy in all its glory.”

“I’m back now, with bells on.”

“We’re always like this, aren’t we?”

“We’re gonna make a fabulous team.”

“You’re not easy to replace.”

“What’s in it for you, hmm?”

“Whatever you want, I will do it.”

“Power is there for the taking, ___. You just have to be smart about how.”

“You have friends?”

“You realize to fit in here you have to be socially inept like the rest of us.”

“You know, a normal person would flake on their friend when something better turns up.”

“Well, remind me not to rely on you for anything.”

“You can hide from it, but it won’t hide from you.”

“Are you crying? Don’t be a wimp.”

“Nothing good comes fast.”

“My work remains totally untouchable.”

“You know, you really shouldn’t leave your front door open considering the amount of people that have tried to kill you.”

“Yeah, well it’s not my problem anymore.”

“You just don’t seem very happy, that’s all.”

“Who says I want to be happy?”

“You see this and you’re transported to a time of happiness?”

“Are you ever going to apologize?”

“You really don’t think you did anything wrong at all, do you?”

“Life is just a series of trade-offs, ___.”

“This isn’t something you can fix, ___.”

“Our entire relationship has had you at the center of it.”

“She’s lying, okay?”

“You’re crying because you feel stupid. Because you WERE stupid.”

“Hey, these drinks don’t involve games or organized fun, do they?”

“I hear you’re a walking miracle.”

“You know, when a bullet has been through you, it leaves something behind.”

“And then you taught me how to swear in Russian.”

“It’s about acknowledging the sad together.”

“Couldn’t we be sad and listen to good music?”

“It’s push by the way.”

“Why would I want to look ten years younger?”

“It’s good to have many lovers. Keeps you limber.”

“Winners win alone.”

“You can’t go down that path anymore.”

“So you don’t think about her anymore?”

“So, shall we just dive right in?”

“I don’t believe in distractions.”

“I’m fully capable of doing my job without any approval from you.”

“I know you think I’m a self-serving prick.”

“Some things are bigger than the job and this is one of them.”

“You have to start taking care of yourself right now or it’s going to catch up with you.”

“How long do I have to stay?”

“Anybody can fight. It takes a special person to kill.”

“Just so you know, I’m kinda a big deal in this industry.”

“You do everything I say exactly when I say it.”

“If you make me look bad I will kill you.”

“You did all that for a boyfriend?”

“You only know a country once you know it’s drink.”

“It’s good to know he was getting some before he died.”

“Being hard on someone is sometimes what they need.”

“Don’t be embarrassed will you?”

“Why don’t you go and do your thing where you close your eyes and breathe?”

“You do not get to come here without an invitation anymore!”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m moving up in the world.”

“If I killed everybody who betrayed me there would be nobody left.”

“You have to know, you’re not safe.”

“You think you’re in control but you’re not.”

“Really, I’m fine. You should go.”

“You know I care about you?”

“You really like that baby, huh?”

“It would be really unsettling if he actually got something right.”

“I have all my best thoughts in the bath.”

“I haven’t looked up in ten minutes.”

“Meetings have biscuits.”

“That is literally the most parenting this household has ever seen.”

“You have been unfocused and manic for days.”

“I’m just having some fun.”

“It’s not my fault he was an idiot.”

“You want to amuse yourself, go crazy.”

“I’m the one doing all the work.”

“You think handling you isn’t work?”

“You should get your act together.”

“I’m not ready!”

“Once I pop, I just can’t stop.”

“I don’t have any self-control.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Did you take this job thinking it’d be easier?”

“You really should have some kind of protection, you know that right?”

“Have you ever locked and popped, ___?”

“I want to smell powerful.”

“Pushing ourselves out of our comfort zones is how we grow.”

“I adore a coincidence, it makes me feel I’m in the right place.”

“I just had the novel experience of being stood up.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll have him killed.”

“A terrible lifestyle suits me, huh?”

“Do you believe a word of that?”

“This place is psychopathic.”

“I should have shot you in the head.”

“I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“I’m not here for you!”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Who doesn’t answer their phone on a stake-out?”

“Everyone, look innocent.”

“Don’t wait for me in the dark like that!”

“Don’t you want to know why I’m in your bed?”

“They own every little bit of you.”

“What kind of baby do you think I was?”

“I’m wearing power. And to keep power, you need knowledge.”

“This is where you belong!”

“So you’re saying this is it?”

“You do realize that’s my desk?”

“What is that smell?”

“You’re supposed to share the cake!”

“You’re like a sad teenager, waiting for a like on Instagram.”

“Don’t you like having fun?”

“You don’t know what it’s like when you’ve chosen to destroy your own life.”

“I promise you, whatever you’ve done is not half as bad as the stuff in my checkered past.”

“I stabbed someone.”

“Do not think that you are the only self-loathing as whole in the room, ever.”

“Choices, ___. It’s all about choices.”

“Can I stay with you tonight?”

“But it’s my job to do terrible things.”

“I want you to have a plan.”

“So not over me.”

“Ah. You made me cake.”

“It really doesn’t look like the picture.”

“Wait, wait, just because it looks bad doesn’t mean it tastes bad.”

“You don’t deserve nice things if you don’t look after them.”

“Why are you lying to me?”

“I gained valuable insight into Victorian gender politics.”

“You’re so close to getting what you want. But you have to play by the rules.”

“You are so annoying today.”

“I am just trying to save you from yourself!”

“You know, you really don’t have to be so dramatic.”

“This would be a really bad way to go!”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be my favorite.”

“What got you in such a good mood?”

“I really hate it when you do that.”

“You’re free now. You can be whoever you want.”

“But I don’t want to be free.”

“You have the hiccups?”

“I’ve been ordered to stay away from all of this.”

“What are you doing home at this hour of the day?”

“It is a bit odd being here in the daytime, isn’t it?”

“I get up to all sorts of stuff.”

“You barely even look at me.”

“I’m trying to tell you that I’m worried about you, ___!”

“You have hat hair.”

“You said you have everything under control.”

“Not getting any, huh?”

“Did they air bnb my room again?”

“I know a killer when I see a killer and she’s a killer.”

“You were mean.”

“I beat the crap out of the sofa so I don’t beat the crap out of people.”

“You’ll have lots of fun, I promise.”

“Being strong is a choice.”

“That looks like shit.”

“You don’t want to dance?”

“Eat this. Be quiet.”

“Come on, it used to make you laugh.”

“You always laugh at things that aren’t funny.”

“You do not belong here.”

“I was not a happy person.”

“You were never a happy person.”

“You were bad from the beginning.”

“Oh, I think I need to kill you.”

“It’s so good to see your eyes.”

“Do you want to put ice on it?”

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

“This is the same stuff I was doing before.”

“You know that would be okay... if you’re not okay, that is.”

“Sometimes you just need to let it win.”

“You can’t watch sports without a hot dog.”

“I don’t want to talk about it!”

“Where are we going? It better be someplace hot.”

“You should run away.”

“I don’t think you really want this.”

“Don’t let them see something’s up.”

“The plan only works if nobody knows there is one.”

“Should I… trust you?”

“None of us are to be trusted, that’s why we work here.”

“Don’t be a grump.”

“Stop or I’ll scream.”

“You know how annoying it is when you have to be around two people in love?”

“You’re a real role model, you know that?”

“You don’t have to do this. I already know you are scary.”

“___, are you comparing yourself to a carrot?”

“I don’t love being here either.”

“It would be so much better if we could have this conversation after I’ve eaten.”

“To you, I am harsh and cold and, to me, you are disappointed and expectant.”

“You don’t talk to people when they are bowling.”

“You can’t beat us, you understand?”

“Oh, I’ve got to get out of here.”

“That guy was really staring at me.”

“Do you know why I love you, ___? Because you’re an agent of chaos. And I love chaos.”

“You’re a beautiful monster, ___.”

“Thank you for the inappropriate touching. It was actually pretty nice.”

“You’re a child. You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“It’s just standard white person stuff.”

“Jokes are for people who do their job correctly, ___.”

“Do you ever think of anything else?”

“Heroes only get the girl in Hollywood.”

“Do you want to sit down?”

“Is this one of those moments we pretend never happened?”

“Look what someone just gave me. It’s a shank made out of a toothbrush.”

“Tone all this down a little. It’s too much.”

“So you’re actually leaving me here?”

“Why are you making this difficult?”

“You can’t get raided twice in a day. It’s a rule.”

“You look ridiculous.”

“Germans don’t wear kilts.”

“Russia has vegans now.”

“There is no such thing as a nice surprise.”

“Just once I want to make a scene and not be told to “be quiet” or to “pull myself together” or that I’m being ridiculous!”

“What kind of person does that?”

“I hope you die.”

“He’s crying out to be killed.”

“You have lost it, haven’t you?”

“Okay, I’m gonna make myself an omelette to celebrate.”

“That random guy now wants to kill me.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Wherever I go, someone wants to murder me.”

“I probably deserve it.”

“Let’s face it, ___, I’m a prick.”

“Don’t argue with me we’re celebrating.”

“You’re not really okay, are you?”

“I fear the walls may be closing in on me.”

“It’s starting to feel personal.”

“What is wrong with you?! You’re an emotional iceberg!”

“I’m not coming at you, I’m trying to hug you.”

“This isn’t healthy.”

“You can’t just refuse to feel anything for the rest of your life.”

“A little overdramatic, don’t you think?”

“Is this really necessary?”

“You’re going to die in this room.”

“We are both to blame.”

“Do you ever think about the past?”

“They seem happy. Carefree.”

“I want to feel like that.”

“Dancing’s not my thing.”

“Are you leading or am I?”

“We’d consume each other before we got old.”

“Talk me through your outfit.”

“Comfortable is what you make people with a terminal illness.”

“I was trained to look devastating.”

“You know, you almost have no sense of humor.”

“What am I supposed to do? Applaud or…?”

“What is this really about?”

“You’ve not tried to bribe someone before, have you?”

“I expected you to look more like a stripper.”

“You know your problem? You don’t know what’s good for you.”

“Well, this is something new.”

“You’re going to burn for this.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

“You never loved me. Not even close.”

“You can be pretty athletic when you choose.”

“I don’t want to do it anymore. Any of it.”

“You were never like them. You only thought you were.”

“When I try to think of my future I just see your face over and over again.”

“Did I ruin your life?”

“Do you think I’m a monster?”

“I think we all have monsters inside of us, it’s just that most people have managed to keep theirs hidden.”

“Help me make it stop.”

#killing eve #ask meme #rp #rp meme #rp starters #starters #sentence starters #sentence starter meme #long post

[real-fanta-sea]

Cutscene after mission in Kortz, but its 52/66 👀👌

First of all, thank you for the prompt, dear! Second of all - I'm sorry it took me 5 months to get my ass to write it 👉👈 but, I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. TW: profanities, lots of horny (because the internet is for porn, duh), and overall NSFW (that's why it's hidden under "keep reading") Without much further ado, here's your fic 😊

********************* "Well, that was fun..."

Michael's been itching to light a Redwood ever since he's shot down the damn Merryweather chopper. His whole body was screaming for a hit and amplified the need by sending adrenalin-induced shivers down his spine.

Who was he to fight with his vice? He took the packet out of his jacket's inner pocket with a precise, smooth move and pressed it firmly with cold fingers, trembling with need. He earned a first-class ticket to hell many years ago, so who the fuck cares if he gets there sooner than later?

Despite his loud self-loathing telling him otherwise, there was someone who cared after all. "What are you doing smoking, huh?" Michael's eyebrows raised slightly in disbelief as he watched Trevor bounce off the wall he was leaning on, latch the Redwoods from his grip, crumble them and toss them aside. The eyebrows raised to his hairline when Trevor overstep all the boundaries they had and lightly slapped his cheek in an almost motherly manner. "No, no, no, that's bad for ya, don't you know?"

Michael's heart started racing again upon the uninvited touch, and he felt the pang of something he hoped to have killed and buried years ago, and that particular something stunned him for a couple of seconds. The mere eye contact was unbearable, and Michael quickly turned his gaze to the remains of his cigarettes and let the rage weight him down to earth again.

"Yeah, well, maybe it's got a little something to do with being caught in the middle of a three-way fire fight between two government agencies and a private militia. You know it gets me a little stressed out..."

As soon as he finished the sentence, he regretted the snarky tone he chose and turned away from Trevor's hurt expression. Fuck, he felt as if he kicked a puppy. His head twitched sideways as it usually did when he was overwhelmed, and he couldn't help but bounce on his feet a little.

"Okay, but we still need you alive, Mikey boy." The remorse was gone, replaced with dread. What the hell did that even mean? "I mean, ya know, at least for now." That didn't help Michael to ease at all. He shot a mild menacing glare Trevor's way and squared his shoulders, awaiting the worst. "Unless, of course, you have another surprise for me, huh? Maybe somethin' to do with another inappropriate friendship?"

Okay, the exchange was getting ridiculous at this point, and Trevor got back to his annoying, suspicious self he knew too well. "Yeah, that wasn't exactly Dave's fault..." Trevor mirrored his gesture as if he tried to show Michael how futile his effort to explain the connection to Dave really was and slowly came closer to Michael, who just tried to look calm and smirked. "No, no, he's just a friendly face of a corrupt government agency, looking to further his career by dealing with an equally corrupt and full to the fucking brim with bullshit low rent hood!" Great, the last thing he needed was an angry Trevor slitting his throat open in a nameless back alley in Morningwood.

"Listen, Trevor, I've been meaning to thank..." but it was too late for friendly gestures. Trevor's eyes already spew fire as he started pacing back and forth, eyes glued on Michael. "Oh y'know, I've been meaning..., Yeah, I've been meaning to tell ya, y'know..." he mocked, and caught Michael off-guard. "What, homie? What have you been meaning to tell me?" Trevor turned around and stepped closer again, but this time, his eyes gave away a different kind of fire - the kind Michael remembered to have kindled heat during cold North Yankton nights.

Without any warning, Trevor grabbed him by both shoulders and threw him against the wall so hard Michael's face cringed for a split second before he remembered to collect himself and glare at Trevor. But it was too late to appear menacing, now that Trevor held both of Michael's wrists in his rough hands and pushed them above Michael's head, grating them against the facade. "What have you been meaning to tell me, Mikey?" Michael gulped and looked back into Trevor's eyes and fought with the sudden idea to reach out and kiss the lips hovering above his own. Trevor's deep growl sent shivers down his spine, and he allowed his head to fall back onto the wall, closing his eyes and easing into the sensation of Trevor's breath on his neck.

"That you stabbed me in the back?" Michael bit his lip hard to stop himself from moaning when Trevor gently pressed his lips against the pulse point on his neck and nibbed on the tender skin, lingering there, breathing Michael in. "Or that you were... and always will be... a worthless wretch who deserves to be put under?". Michael's eyes shot open as his heart skipped a beat, and instead of aroused anticipation, he woke into beast mode. The rage rush put him back on his feet as he sent Trevor stumbling back into the alley, where Michael tackled him against the wall on the other side, and while pinning him down with his whole weight, his hand shot up instinctively and wrapped itself firmly around Trevor's throat.

If he were honest with himself, he would say he felt betrayed, helpless and dangerously aroused by the thought of Trevor's lips and fingers touching him and didn't quite know how to process it all at once. Trevor's grin drove him crazy, and not only because of the plump lips curling up. Michael growled and squeezed harder against the soft, pulsing skin.

"THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU COME BACK FOR?"

Trevor gasped as he fought for breath, but that didn't stop him from grabbing Michael by hips and yanking him closer. "Oh, you know why..." Puzzled, Michael let go for a second, but it was enough for Trevor to take advantage and roll Michael against the wall and rest his thumbs comfortably against his jaw. Trevor's sight lingered on Michael's lips for a moment before he met his eyes again, this time conveying a whole different message. "Shut the fuck up and kiss me..." Trevor's whisper was still hoarse from being choked, and as he leant closer to Michael, the latter found himself easing up into the heat of Trevor's body, tuning out everything else but a beat of his racing heart.

It wasn't exactly like in the movies - there were no fireworks, no oblivious clip montage, no orchestra in the background. It was just the feeling of surprisingly soft lips nibbling on Michael's own, the heat, the sweet buzzing of excitement and sparks setting his skin on fire where Trevor's fingers have wandered under his shirt. Trevor pulled back for a second to slide down Michael's jaw and tease M where he knew was his weak spot - and got the muffled moan out in answer to brushing the tip of his tongue all the way down his neck.

"Fuck, T!"

Michael's whole body was on fire, and all he wanted at this point was to fuck Trevor through the wall if he wasn't pinned down by his friend, who showed no intention to stop kissing him. The least he could do was to grab Trevor's hips, pulling him closer and thrusting forward while holding onto handsful of T's ass. "Be careful what you wish for, Mikey..." was the only answer, followed by a low moan as T pushed back and brushed his hard-on against Michael's. Trevor took advantage of Michael's parted lips to seize them again, but he was awaiting an invitation to deepen the kiss this time. He was not prepared for Michael clinking their teeth and brushing his tongue against his with such hunger and greed. He could not wait any longer.

Michael's fingers yanked impatiently on Trevor's grimy jeans, almost tearing them apart, to get hold of what was throbbing inside, and laced around the girth of Trevor's cock. A gentle stroke was all it took to make the tough guy tremble and moan - and Michael enjoyed the power he now held as well as grieved the broken kiss. Slowly, he built up the pace while rolling Trevor over against the wall again, but this time, it was Michael who kissed Trevor's neck and playfully bit his tanned skin with every stroke. Somehow, in between the moans and curses, Trevor could still unzip the fly of Micheal's jeans and free his cock out of the tight pants with shaking hands. He has always been skilled in pleasing him the way no one else could, Michael thought as the other hand unbuttoned his pants and sent them falling down to his knees. Gently, Trevor slid one finger along his balls to his perineum and pressed it up while brushing up and down.

The pressure building up inside Michael was barely bearable - Trevor's lips, Trevor's smell ("what the fuck, has he showered or what?"), his hands working him up slowly; all of it was suddenly too much and too little at the same time. Aroused, Michael broke the kiss and let go of Trevor's cock to look back at him with a predatory glare - and T immediately understood what was about to happen. All it took for Michael to set off was the tip of Trevor's tongue darting out of his mouth and a cocky nod of his head. Michael grabbed Trevor, turned him around and pressed him back against the wall face first, with such hunger it made Trevor moan upon impact. With one hand pushing Trevor against the wall by the scruff of his neck, Michael kicked his legs apart to make the entering easier for him.

"Fuck me already, Mikey!" Trevor trembled under his touch and wiggled his ass against Michael's erection. "Oh, look who's a cheeky bitch now!" Michael spat onto his fingers, not even bothering to check if it was enough. He just couldn't wait any longer. "Be careful what you wish for, T..." and slid himself inside of Trevor, his knees turning into jelly upon the tightness and heat of his lover. "M...Mikey! Jesus, you're bigger than I remember..."

Instead of answering Trevor, Michael pushed his lover's head harder into the wall, grabbing a fist full of hair and rocked his hips faster while holding onto Trevor's side, gripping hard. With every move, every cry of pleasure, he felt more at home, and all the frustration and fear melt away to make place for Trevor. "God, Mikey, harder!"

Fuck, he almost tripped over the edge right there with Trevor's needy moan. Michael instead pushed deeper and leant forward to bury teeth into Trevor's shoulders, as well as used both hands to keep Trevor steady in place and thrust forward as hard as he could, getting crossed, rolled back eyes and flushed cheeks in return.

Michael felt sweat pearling on the small of his back as he pumped in harder, desperate to enjoy what T had to offer, feeling the pressure building up within. He didn't want to come so soon, but anytime he attempted to slow down, Trevor pushed back and made him keep up the pace. Slowly, the world around them dissolved into a smear of colours. With each move, he felt he was getting closer to the edge: just one more move, just one more moan - Michael pushed as deep as he could and clawed his nails into Trevor's soft belly, looking for support as the whole world shivered and trembled with him, and somewhere far away there was Trevor saying something about loving him and his voice moaning out the same response over and over again.

When he came down from the high, Michael was happy to collapse onto Trevor's back and let his breath even out while still stuck inside his lover. "Fuck, T... that was..." but words have failed him. Instead, he decided to latch on the exposed skin of Trevor's neck and shoulders and plant kisses there when a slight shiver of muscles around his cock reminded him of painful truth - T hasn't cum yet. Michael smirked for himself when he slid his hands down from Trevor's hips to find him rock hard and ready. Without being reminded about Trevor's preferences, Michael gripped his cock firmly and squeezed just right to get a hiss of pleasure in response. He didn't bother with starting slowly and just pumped his fist up and down fast, with teeth planted into Trevor's shoulder. "Mmmikey!"

The shaky breath escaping him and his whole body vibrating in the rhythm of Michael's fist gave Michael signs Trevor is near the point of no return. He slid out of him and let Trevor lean onto him for support instead - he remembered too well the leg shaking orgasms of the past when T could barely stand. "M.. Mikey! Mikey!"

"Cum for me, baby..."

"Tell me... fuck! Tell me you love me, please, Mikey! I need to hear it, please, M!"

Michael squeezed Trevor harder and, leaning closer to T's ear, almost touching it with lips, M let out a hoarse whisper, "I love you, T."

************

Lester sat back in his wheelchair, trying to even out his breath, and brushed sweat off his forehead with his left hand. Fuck it, he thought, I'll have to clean under the table for the third time this week, and threw and an oblivious couple of crumpled paper tissues into a black plastic bin next to his desk. With a sigh, Lester proceeded to clean himself up and wipe his right hand into yet another tissue and input a command to stop recording and download the video onto his hard drive. With a happy little huff, he turned the wheelchair around and decided to take a piss and then crack a cold one open to even out the liquid levels. As he steered away, whistling, a window with a flickering low-quality image from a security camera showed two familiar men kissing and fleeing out of sight in separate directions to disappear back into the depths of their denial and misery.

#fanfic prompt #kissing prompts #real_fanta_sea.txt #birthday fic yay! #am I actually getting shit done here? it's more likely than you think. #am I going to update my first fic? probably

[dearlazerbunny]

Let it Go (Ch. 1 of ?)

Pairings: platonic avengers team x reader, potential background loki x reader

Words: 1800

Genre/Ratings: -WARNINGS- there will be an (unsuccessful) suicide attempt by reader- chapter will be explicitly marked in advance. Drug (pills) and alcohol abuse, lots of negativity and self loathing. There will be an arc, but said arc is going to start in the eleventh circle of hell and inch up from there.

Summary: *not far enough into this one to give an accurate summary, so this’ll have to be updated eventually. enjoy for now!*

If I see another ad for Frozen, I might go homicidal.

I pass at least five of them as I work through rush-hour Manhattan at a snail’s pace. Smash Hit! Instant Classic! #1 Movie in the World! Awesome. Fantastic. Happy for you, Disney. Now please, dear god, get it the fuck out of my face.

I jerk away from narrowly shoulder-checking a businessman hustling down the sidewalk, speaking rapid-fire into the phone glued to his ear. It’s like a very, very fucked up dream; everyone in the world is in on the joke, and I just didn’t get the invite. Maybe they were spying on me. Sure, it could’ve been inspired by a fairytale, but who knows? I could sue. Demand fifty percent of the profits for copyright infringement. That’d be more than enough to set me up with a cabin in Alaska, somewhere all I’d have to worry about is making friends with the polar bears.

On the subway, I notice someone has Let it Go blaring from their earbuds. No less than three little girls are wearing something blue and covered in glitter. One has a cheap blonde plait clipped into her hair, accented by a snowflake charm dangling from the end. I suppress the urge to rip it off her head.

It isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, I want to say. It’s not Disney-dreamy like the mouse has made it out to be, living in a palace and making magical snowmen and singing power ballads about self-acceptance and overcoming your demons. In the real world, you quell those demons with a fistful of benzodiazepines, because if you don’t, something like a car alarm or a slammed door will make spikes of ice splinter through the floor around you. It’s constantly wearing three hoodies at a time, so that way if a stranger on the seat next to you brushes your arm, they don’t immediately get third-degree frostbite. It’s getting a papercut and watching the blood freeze on the tip of your finger, then melt back to liquid when you break it off and toss it away. It’s getting hospitalized when an inner-city charity doctor takes your temperature before you can object and your body temperature is barely higher than freezing, so they pump you full of warm saline and cover you in foil blankets and all that heat makes you sick, so you have to rip the IV out of your arm and walk yourself back to your apartment in your hospital gown while dodging orderlies and strange looks from passerby at 2 AM.

The kid and her parents get off at the next stop. The subway clicks along. I try to make myself smaller as the car fills up with more people.  

Maybe if they’d had Xanax in Arendelle, Elsa wouldn’t have had to deal with all that “conceal, don’t feel” bullshit. She wouldn’t be able to feel anything with all the pills and booze she’d be mainlining. Take it from me, babe, it’s a lot easier to drug those demons away. Much more effective than a song.

Something in me feels a weird flare of pride for handling this… whatever the hell it is better than a fictional cartoon princess. Then I want to laugh, because goddamn, my life is pathetic.

My meeting spot is in a back alley near Bryant Park. Some NYU kid is pawning his Klonopin for party cash, I guess. I think if you’re rich enough to be a frat boy at NYU you probably don’t need the extra fifty from your prescriptions, but whatever. I don’t have a ton of other avenues at this point.

I scan the neon bottle, then shake it open and count the pills inside. “These are only a half milligram? Fifteen.”

“Dude, we said forty.”

“Yeah, for a milligram pill. These will barely last me a week.”

“Twenty.”

“Fine.”

I don’t think the universe agrees with my choices.

The sky splits open with a shriek that balances the world on the edge of a knife. One heartbeat. Two. He and I both look up at the clear blue, unsure. Between the skyline, I see something- somethings- begin pouring from a split in the universe, ugly and black and hungry.

I wrench the bottle from the kid’s hands and run.

Run, run, run, don’t look up, don’t look back, oh jesus what the FUCK IS THIS- Midtown is a nightmare. Not from Friday traffic this time. People are scrambling, screaming and crying, trying to flee the scene. An entire side of a building gets shaved off and falls to the ground like an iceberg. A gas line broke somewhere because everything is hazy with fumes and starts shimmering rainbow colors. I round a corner, cursing and trying to keep my ratty converse on my feet as I dodge rubble and ash- don’t look up don’t look up don’t look up. I can see my breath starting to crystallize around me as my anxiety spikes, and I try to force it down. Don’t think about it. Now is so not the time for that.

In the middle of the street, six brightly clad superheroes stand with grim but determined looks on their faces. There’s Tony Stark in his mechanical suit, Captain America brandishing his shield. The star stands out like a beacon in the smoke. Cool, coolcoolcool, they’ve got this, right? They’ve totally got this. Everything is going to be fine. Everything is going to befineohholyshitthat’sabigalien-

I try to use an overturned car as cover. Dart to one, breathe, press my back to steel and try to shake my body back from shock, wait for a moment of silence between the chaos- run to the next pile of rubble. My footprints are outlined in frost on the cracked pavement, clean white against the ash raining from the sky. As I slam myself up against another car, heaving, I have a prime few of Captain-freaking-America bashing three ugly aliens in the face with his shield, battering them to the ground. He stops for a moment to flex his fingers, wipe some of the grime from his face.

He doesn’t see the alien rushing him from behind, mouth open and yawning in some sort of hideous grin, poised to shove a glowing blue gun against the Captain’s muscly back.

I don’t think. My feet move without my telling them to. I can taste the ash as I dart to the middle of the street, as close as I dare. The air around me is impossibly frigid. I’m not controlling anything at this point, but I can deal with that later. Hopefully.

“DUCK!” I scream as loud as I possibly can over the sound of metal and roaring monsters.

His eyes snap up to meet mine. He heard me, somehow, and then he actually heeds a random girl standing amidst the carnage and hits the deck so fast I can hear the whiplash. It’s hot enough to make my skin boil, but if I stretch my hand out and pull, I can feel something begin to crystallize in my waiting palm-

Fissures crack open in the concrete beneath me. In my hand, a thin lance of ice extends to a deadly point, too weighty for its slim frame, and while I should have all the grace and skill of an alcoholic drug addict, my aim is good enough that the alien now has an unforgiving pole of ice sticking through its breastbone. Frost creeps from the hole in its chest, discoloring its sickly black armor to a grey tint. For a moment, it's suspended in time, unmoving- then gravity takes hold and with one last nightmarish shriek it crumples to the ground in a heap.

Huh. Whaddya know. I flex my fingers, breathing hard. Take that, Elsa. Screw the power of love, I just single-handedly saved a national icon.

Said icon is picking himself up off the ground, a new layer of dust coating the front of his uniform. He looks behind him, at the ugly corpse and the ice that inexplicably hasn’t started to melt in the city’s heat. Then his eyes are on me, hard and curious.

Oh. Fuck.

Instinctively, I pull my hood up further over my head, hopefully obscuring more of my face than before. What did he see? Could he memorize my face? He knows I’m a freak show, that’s for sure. Fuck. My brain kicks in and I run, skidding over broken pavement and letting the sheer terror of a crumbling New York fuel my steps. Either we’ll all be dead by the end of this, or the strange girl with ice coming from her hands will be little more than a hazy memory after all this is said and done. I hope. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it- cold prickles on the back of my neck and pushes me back towards being just another face in the crowd.

  There are over a dozen police blockades to try and control the battlefield, and between them and the rubble raining from the heavens, it takes me what feels like hours to crawl back to my underside of the city. It’s punctuated by the grinding of metal and shattering of glass and sickening cracks of lightning from Midtown, making me flinch and wring my hands deep into my sweatshirts to keep them busy with something other than frosting the ground over. Don’t think about it.

I shove my shoulder into the door, forcing it open, then close it the same way from the opposite side. I flick the locks closed, secure the ball and chains. Each one is encased in frost by the time I’m done, and the doorjamb is clogged with ice. I’m suddenly irrationally thankful that there’s only one window in the apartment. It’s a stupid comfort- those things were leveling skyscrapers, a ratty building like this would be flattened in an instant-

I wrench open the nearest drawer, sending the contents rolling. Bottles clack against each other; pills rattling against the plastic. It’s the most comforting thing I’ve heard all day. I pull one out at random, pop the lid, down it dry. In the back of my mind, the large green monster roars. I shudder and swallow another, this time chasing it with swigs from the obscenely large bottle of booze on the desk. It burns all the way down in the best way, chasing the little orange tablets and promising the sweet release of nothing.  

That should last a day. Maybe more. I fall into the bed, already feeling the combo tug at my system, making me heavy and slow. Maybe Manhattan will still be standing when I wake up. Or better yet, Manhattan will still be standing, but I won’t. I’ve never been that lucky, but it never hurts to hope.

#marvel fic #marvel fanfiction #avengers fic #avengers fanfiction #avengers x y/n #avengers x oc #loki x reader #reader insert #Steve Rogers #natasha romanov #tony stark #bruce banner #Thor Odinson #clint barton #Loki Laufeyson #angst #avengers x reader

[vannahfanfics]

I’ve Got These Scars, But I Think They’re Pretty

Category: Angst, General Fluff

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Characters: Dabi

Additional Tags: Role Swap AU

The bright white waiting room hummed with hushed conversations of waiting patients, worried family, and chatting nurses. Dabi sat hunched in a chair, leg bouncing and hands clasped tight, but not because he was awaiting treatment. His aquamarine eyes scanned the room to observe the comings and goings, the brightly-colored spandex suits and the fluttering capes as the local heroes made their rounds visiting the various tenants of the pediatric intensive care ward. 

By all rights, Dabi should be among them— but he didn’t exactly fit the mold of hero , even if he was a member of a bonafide agency. With a quiet sigh, he sat up to observe the dark purple scars and silver staples adorning his marred skin. No, children shrieked and cried at the sight of him and his scarred body. He’d only undo the optimism the other heroes were instilling in the ailing children if he strutted around pretending like he wasn’t some kind of patchwork monster. 

Sighing heavily, Dabi leaned forward to cradle his head in his hands. 

It was times like this that he loathed his father the most. So easily, Dabi could have turned to the path of vengeance and brought retribution in the form of a fiery inferno, but he hadn’t. He’d persevered; he’d endured the trauma and abuse and his own goddamn skin melting off his bones as he lived in his own circle of Hell until Shoto came around. He’d overcome all the urges and temptations to become a hero— but he still couldn’t be normal . They always wondered in the back of their minds if he was unhinged or a villain spy because of these scars he was forced to bear. 

Dabi clenched his teeth and curled his fingers into his hair, fingernails scoring into his scalp as he struggled to reign his volatile emotions back in. Oh, how he hated Endeavor, but he hated himself more for slipping back into these spirals of thought time and time again. Frustrated tears pricked at the corners of his eyes as he seethed in self-loathing and resentment and struggled not to let the negative feelings swallow him whole. 

I shouldn’t be here. 

“Hey, mister, are you here to get treatment?” 

Dabi jerked up with a small gasp as a sweet little voice yanked him out of his depressive spiral. He blinked rapidly, his teary eyes blurring his vision into hazy watercolors for a few seconds, until the form of a small child materialized into view. Her eyes were bright and wide as she regarded him curiously, a half-eaten chocolate bar in one hand and the other bundled to her chest in a thick cast. Gauze covered two-thirds of her body, making her seem like a little baby mummy standing before him. 

He straightened up in the chair and rubbed his sweaty palms across the fabric of his ripped jeans. 

“Oh, um… No.” 

“Are you visiting someone?” she asked, chomping down on the chocolate bar. Dabi grimaced slightly as she kept her stare fixed upon him while chewing open-mouthed on the sweet confection. It was a little unsettling, as he was so used to the wrong kind of stares; the little girl didn’t seem to register his scars at all, just gazing unblinkingly at him out of nothing but pure curiosity. 

“Um… Sort of. I’m with the hero agency visiting today,” he explained. The girl cocked her head to the side with a slow blink. 

“Then what’re you doin’ sittin’ out here? Are you tired?” 

Somebody come get this kid! Dabi thought as he shifted uncomfortably. Though he’d deeply desired for a kid to be able to converse openly with him like this, now that it was happening, it was such a foreign sensation that it was deeply unnerving. He cleared his throat awkwardly and glanced around to find someone who could serve as a decent excuse. Unfortunately, all the heroes were busy in patient rooms— leaving Dabi to fend for himself. 

“Look, kid, aren’t you supposed to be in a room somewhere?” he evaded. The little girl shrugged and took another bite of the chocolate. The piece broke off with a loud snap before she chewed avidly on it.

“Yeah, but I wanted some candy, so I took some of my allowance and went to one of the vending machines. I don’t remember what room I’m s’posed to be in, though, so now I’m lost.” 

Dabi had to snicker at her completely emotionless analysis of the situation. The tyke reminded him of Shoto, almost, with that dispassionate disposition and monotone voice. Dabi’s head lolled on his neck as he took another look around. The nurses and doctors were nowhere to be found now, either. Well, he thought as he pushed himself out of the chair, I guess I should do the “heroic” thing and escort her back to her room. 

“What’s your name, squirt?” 

“Katsumi.” 

“All right, Katsumi. Let’s go find your room, huh?” he said as he strode off. The girl obediently trotted to keep up, continuing to munch on her chocolate bar and smearing it a little across her lips. The ICU of the children’s hospital was the largest of the facility, so realistically, it could take a considerable amount of time for Dabi to find Katsumi’s room in the sea of beds. He slipped his hands in his pockets as he strolled along, icy blue eyes flicking between the name placards adorning the closed doors. Dabi was more than content to tread along in total silence, but the little girl— not so much. 

“Hey, mister, where’d you get those scars?” 

Dabi glanced down to see her gaping at the purple patchwork decorating the visible parts of his body. However, what startled him and stuttered his steps was the look on Katsumi’s face; rather than disgust, fascination adorned her features, and there was a strange sparkle in her eyes. He stood frozen as she tucked the chocolate bar under her armpit so she could run her fingers over the wrinkled, stitched skin of his forearm. 

“They’re burn scars, aren’t they?” 

Dabi’s expression softened as Katsumi’s eyes grew lidded. She ran her fingers over the marred areas a few more times, then reached back to claw at the bandages swathing half her body. “So when I’m all better, will I look like this?” 

Dabi’s throat closed up as he felt the oddest sense of shame washing over him. I shouldn’t be here, he thought again. What was he supposed to say? What was he supposed to do as Katsumi studied his injuries and envisioned herself like him— barely held together by staples and prayers? He bit down on his lip as it grew hard to breathe, and once again, the hate began to well up inside of him, a geyser threatening to explode and arch into the sky in frightening brilliance. 

“Your scars are so pretty.” 

Dabi almost fell over. 

“Do— do what ?” he cried as he looked down at her in shock. Katsumi gave him a sweet, innocent smile as if what she’d just uttered wasn’t insanely weird. She shyly rocked her hips back and forth as she placed her hand on his arm again. 

“Purple is my favorite color!” she explained with a giddy laugh. Dabi’s face wasn’t sure what kind of expression to make, but it made something. He sagged in disbelief— and a whole lot of relief — as Katsumi continued to admire the disfigured skin painting his forearm. Her eyes were lidded again, but this time in a childlike hopefulness. 

“That’s what happened to me, y’know. A house fire,” she said and raised her arm as much as she could in the cast. Dabi refrained from contradicting her; it was easier for her to believe something simple like a house fire and not years on years of pushing his Quirk beyond his body’s physical limits. “The nurses and doctors are all super nice, but… I hear them talking about how it’s such a shame that I’ll be scarred for life, a pretty girl like me.” When she looked back up at him, tears bubbled in her eyes before rolling down her plump cheeks, rosy with life and pain. “I’ll still be pretty even with these scars, right? Right ? Just because I have them, people can still love me, can’t they ?” 

Dabi breathed sharply through his nose as he ran a hand through his dyed hair. Of all the things he’d thought would come of today, comforting a crying child in the middle of a hallway wasn’t one of them. Yet he couldn’t help but feel glad for it. This little girl echoed the same things he’d felt after his incident. 

At least, unlike Dabi, Katsumi had someone to put her fears to rest. 

“Of course they can,” he said as he crouched down. His coat brushed against the white tiled floor as he kneeled beside Katsumi and rested a hand atop her head to ruffle her hair. “If anything, the scars’ll make you even prettier. They’re a sign that you overcame everything and came out still standing, yeah?” Dabi was never the best with words, so he hoped that Katsumi understood. 

She stared at him for a moment, still sniffling petulantly. However, little by little, a smile wormed its way onto her face. 

“Really?” 

Dabi’s smile broadened and gave her hair another ruffle, making her giggle. 

“Really. Don’t listen to what those nurses say. Anybody who has any sense’ll know that those scars don’t make you anything less.” 

“Thanks, mister,” she preened, and Dabi swore the smile she gave him was brighter than the sun itself. As he stood, she lunged forward to take his hand and lace their fingers, still probably feeling a little emotionally vulnerable. Dabi didn’t make any move to rebuke her, only tugged on her slim arm so they could resume walking down the hall. Soon she was swinging his arm back and forth as she pranced along, much more animated and happy that she had been previously. 

Dabi felt a sense of pride welling up inside him, knowing that just a few words of encouragement had illuminated Katsumi so brightly. 

Suddenly, he was very glad he came. 

Eventually, they located Katsumi’s room. The nurse nearly bowled Dabi over when they meandered up, screeching at him about kidnapping and not listening to a damn word he had to say. Though Katsumi brightly attempted to explain that Dabi was a kind hero who had led her back, the nurse was about to call the authorities on him until Hawks sauntered up and slapped his gloved hands on Dabi’s shoulders to give her a brilliant grin. 

“It seems there’s been a big understanding. Ma’am, this is one of the heroes working at my agency, so I would appreciate it if you didn’t call the authorities on him.” 

The nurse dropped the phone with a series of confused sputters, pointing at Dabi as if that was all the evidence she needed. Dabi sagged into the bird-man’s grip, irritation bubbling up inside him. For a moment, he had forgotten how much of a ruffian he looked to the general populace. Hawks continued to diffuse the situation with practiced grace. 

“I know he looks like a thug, but I promise, Dabi here is a bonafide hero! He even brought your little lost dove back, yeah~?” 

“Yep! We had a great talk,” Katsumi chirped as she clambered back into her hospital bed. She finally remembered her chocolate bar and removed it from her armpit, frowning when she discovered that it was half-melted and squished. After scrutinizing it for a moment, she shrugged and chomped down on it. Dabi smirked as he watched her, very entertained. 

Hawks’ honeyed words had placated the nurse, who begrudgingly offered Dabi a half-hearted and wary apology. He shrugged her off and walked over to Katsumi, who was enjoying the remains of her chocolate bar. 

“All right, squirt. I’m off. Got lots of important hero business to attend to and all.” 

“Will you come back and see me?” she asked, looking up at him with a chocolate-smeared pout. Dabi snorted and pushed her head a little, making her laugh giddily. 

“Of course. I’ll see ya next week.” 

“Okay! Bring some chocolate bars!” 

“You got it,” he waved as he strolled out of the hospital room. Hawks followed suit after cheerfully bidding farewell to the nurse. They both sighed deeply as he closed the door behind him. 

“Well,” Hawks smiled as he strode up beside Dabi and nudged him with an elbow. “Lookit you, gettin’ friendly with the kiddos. I didn’t know you had it in ya, Dabs.” 

“Shut up, you great big chicken wing,” Dabi growled and flashed him a scowl. Hawks laughed good-naturedly, feathers ruffling in mirth. 

“Oh, come on now! It’s progress!” Hawks insisted. Dabi left him standing there with his arms held up like the great big winged moron he was. Hawks pouted and whined after him, but he continued off to the vending machines, suddenly craving chocolate. As the wrapped candy bar thunked down into the receptacle and he leaned down to retrieve it, a serene smile decorated his face as he caught the reflection of his scars in the glass. 

“Yeah, I’ve got scars, but I think they’re pretty!” He could just hear Katsumi bleating to the ignorant nurses. As he straightened back up with the chocolate bar in hand, he rolled up the long sleeves of his coat, exposing more of the purple patchwork skin to the cold air of the hospital. 

“Yeah. Me too, kid.” 

As he walked out of the hospital into the sunshine, he glanced up at the sky and smiled. 

I’m glad I came. 

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to peruse my Table of Contents!

#dabi #touya todoroki #my hero academia #mha #boku no hero academia #bnha

[ashintheairlikesnow]

BTHB: Tearful Smile

You anons wanted the dubcon drabble? I give you de dubcon drabble. CW: Dubcon (on both sides). Also contains drugging, mentions of torture, violence, and abuse, as well as threatened noncon (not depicted). And more than a fair dash of spice.

@spiffythespook​ asked for tearful smile for @badthingshappenbingo​

Blood spot: requested Puppy sticker: fulfilled​

This isn’t really my “Merry Christmas” piece - that’s going up next week. But it takes place just before the first Christmas (Handcuffs Year) Danny is in captivity, after just about a full year with Bram in the woods in Alberta. 

Tagging: @bleeding-demon-teeth, @spiffythespook, @finder-of-rings, @whumpywhumper, @special-spicy-chicken​

“Wh-what did you give him?”

“Does it matter?” Bram sits back on the couch, one arm up, sipping his beer, with the air of a man watching a really fascinating show on TV. “Look at him, Nate. Doesn’t he shine?”

Danny lay on his back with part of his head underneath the Christmas tree, blue eyes sparkling and hazy, running fingers along the lines of red and blue and green lights, whispering “pretty, pretty, pretty” to himself in a tone of hushed awe and wonder.

God, he’s beautiful. Even with the bruises.

Nate swallows back revulsion at the thought, the self-loathing that had become a second skin he wears over the first. The only protection he had left - hating himself for things he hasn’t even done yet, with the understanding that sooner or later, he will.

He can’t hold out forever, and it’s a miracle Bram has even gone this long without forcing him to take a more active role, to do more than clean up the blood, bandage wounds, maybe hold one knife while Bram uses another.

But he can’t argue with Bram’s question, standing next to the couch and looking across the room… because Danny did shine.

He’s high as a fucking kite, and he glows with it, all the daily miseries smoothed out and away by whatever was in his system. His jaw is a little slack, and the wavy red hair is spread out behind and beneath him against the Christmas tree skirt, a perfect circle of dark hunter green that sets off Danny’s pale skin, even in the yellowed light from the lamps and the crackling fireplace. 

It etches the pale, thin scars on his face - he’s worn the muzzle three times in one year - into shadows, like a line drawing rather than a man.

Danny doesn’t even seem to notice him yet. He’s lost in the curved oval of the lights, twisting the cord that connected them, the wires a bright green mockery of the colors of the pine needles themselves, wrapped around fingers that were beginning to roughen from cleaning. Danny's hands were losing the way they’d once seemed so oddly sensitive for someone who lived as hard as Danny did.

“Bram, is h-he going to be… oh-okay, in the morning?” Nate had never really done drugs besides pot, it had never been his thing. He’s pretty sure he’s the only person he knows his own age who hasn’t tried something harder.

When he’d first gotten to know Danny, he’d been the only one still worrying about whether or not the skinny redhead, who towered over the rest of the group, would make it home safe after one unwise decision or another.

“What, cause you wanna bring him home with you?” Scott laughed, and the others laughed, too, standing at the bar with beers in hand watching Danny Michaelson throw himself around in a mosh pit down by the stage. It didn’t matter that the bar was dark and the band was loud and there was a crowd down there - you could always see Danny’s hair, his height, above the rest.

Nate watched him push at another man, who shoved back and sent Danny reeling, a fierce smile like a snarl on his face, before he spun and shoved at someone else entirely. You could nearly see the sweat droplets flung from his hair, the way he shone. Danny was angry - and elated - in the dark.

Nate wondered, with a sudden rush of blood in his heart and head and other places entirely, what he looked like with that much sweat on him and much less clothing.

He hadn’t been with anyone since he’d gotten away from Bram, but he thought maybe he was ready to try.

“Wh-what? No! I just… you kn-know, it seems like he d-d-does a lot of drugs,” Nate said, shrugging, trying not to look too concerned, too worried, too interested. He tried taking a very calculated drink of his beer, and spilled some less than gracefully onto his shirt, but it was dark enough that the other men didn’t notice.

“Oh, yeah, he totally does.” That was Will, who just shook his head full of curly dark hair, chugged the rest of his beer, smacked the empty bottle down on the bar, and ordered another - all in one graceful motion.

The bartender was not as impressed as Will wanted him to be.

Nate frowned, glancing back at the mosh pit. A woman nearly a foot shorter than Danny had been pushed down, and Danny leaned over her, blocking the crowd from getting near her while he threw an arm out to help her back up

God, Nate thought, not for the first time, and not for the last. He’s beautiful. “Has anyone tried to st-stop him? From getting high all the time?”

“Stop Danny?” Scott rolled his eyes. “Fuck no. Look, he’s a grown-ass man, he’ll make his own dumbass choices. He’s a cool guy, but he’s a fucking roller coaster. Just… hang on and enjoy the ride, Nate.”

“I’m n-not… that’s not wh-what I m-m-m-”

“Settle down, numbnuts, I’m kidding. Anyway, keep it casual with Danny or don’t keep it at all.”

“Wh-why?”

“He’s angry as fuck, man. Probably going to burn out by his mid-twenties on that bitter shit.”

“And the drugs, Will.”

“Right. Scott’s right - can’t discount the drugs. But, you know what - fuck it, don’t we all burn out by thirty now?”

“Yeah,” Scott said, and laughed again. “Danny just gets to burn out with all that mysterious money. We should all be so lucky.”

Nate stands next to the little plastic mat with the thin blankets that left Danny shivering and sometimes so desperately cold he was willing to get in bed with Bram just to have a hint of warmth, and wonders what Scott and Will and the rest of them would think about how lucky Danny is now.

Is his ankle chain lucky? Are the open sores on his wrists from the handcuffs lucky? Is he lucky to have Bram slice into the backs of his hands, over and over again? Should he count himself lucky to be alive, or would Danny have been luckier if he were dead by now?

“He’s fine,” Bram says, waving his free hand carelessly, bringing Nate back from his thoughts. The pale blue eyes - a little cloudy-looking, and with those darker pieces of himself that constantly move under the surface - are locked on Danny, too. “He knew I put shit in his drink the second I gave it to him and he didn’t fight me on it… so maybe there’s something you didn’t know about our little Red, huh?”

“N-no, I saw h-him do stuff, at bars…” Nate hesitates, torn between twin urges to walk away and to stay here to stare at the absolute gorgeousness that was Danny’s face lit from the inside out. That was the thing, wasn’t it? Danny had been bitter and angry - and sort of fascinating for the way he so easily accessed the fury that Nate no longer could - but on drugs he was softer. Nate had sworn, back when he was hiding out and hoping Bram would give up looking for him one day, that he could see that the bitter part of Danny was a shell he wore over the real man underneath.

“You want him?” Bram asks, casually. Like offering to let Nate borrow a book.

“I’m s-s-sorry, do I what?”

Of course I fucking want him, but not like this.

“You’ve said no every other time I’ve tried to get you to take him. I only brought him here because of you, anyway... What about this time? Maybe because he won’t remember it this time? Should make it easier on you, right?”

Yes, because the problem is whether or not he remembers it, not that I did it. That makes perfect fucking sense.

Bram glances back at him, and their eyes briefly meet, and Nate sinks under the water, for just a second, before Bram looks away.

You goddamn monster. I love you.

“I don’t th-think Ecstasy m-m-makes you forget anything,” Nate says, hesitantly, his low voice soft enough to cover the hardness of his thoughts. His stomach twists again. There’s nothing he’d rather do less than victimize Danny yet again, in a whole new way, in an even worse way than the bleeding and the pain.

Danny seems finally to notice him, twisting around on the floor to look over, shooting Nate a loopy, addled, beautiful bright smile. His ankle chain rattles as he moves, the cuff too tightly to even shift around. “Pretty lights,” He breathes. “Nate, come lay down in the lights with me. C’mon. I want you to see the lights this way.”

“Go ahead,” Bram says, grinning. It’s a shark’s smile, full of sharp teeth - too many sharp teeth. “He wants you to see the lights this way, Nate.”

“Bram, I d-d-don’t want t-to-”

“Do I look like I give a fuck what you want? I said get down on the fucking floor with him.” Bram’s voice drops, and Nate has been with him long enough not to flinch at the change in tone, but he feels the cold wash over him regardless. Every defiance, every time Nate says ‘no’, every moment he claws back onto the hint of who he is - all of it is a moment he’s waiting for Bram to turn on him and force him to do it, anyway. “Or would you rather I got down on the floor with him?”

“Oh, no, I don’t want that,” Danny breathes, but he can’t seem to keep his eyes on them - they trail back to the Christmas lights, the evergreen smell in the room, the hint of sticky sap on the trunk where it’s riveted into the tree stand with the special plant food to make its slow death take even longer. “Nate, I want you to come lay down with me, not, not Abraham, please. Nate, can you, please?” He turns the wide, clouded blue eyes on Nate.

“Look, see?” Bram grins. “He wants you down there with him.”

“Why are y-y-you doing this?” Nate whispers, through lips that barely move. “You d-don’t want him to f-f-feel good, or be happy. Why w-w-would you g, give him something that makes him f-f-feel like this?”

“Mmmn, that’s true.” Bram cocks his head as Danny tries to wriggle himself totally out from under the tree, pushing himself up on one elbow. His eyes move back down to the braided rug, the mass of colors and textures, and he rolls onto his stomach, running his fingers over the bumps and ridges of cloth. “Maybe it’s not him I want to make miserable today.”

Nate frowns, eyes narrowing slightly, but he can’t stop watching Danny’s fingers, long and thin, the tracery of scars along the backs of his hands, the wounds reopened and cut a little deeper every time he screws up, defies an order, tries to be who he used to be. 

The bones of his wrists that stick out more than they used to, the little knob right there where wrist and hand meet that Nate just wants to hold, the underside with its thin hint of purplish-blue veins that he’d have given anything some days to lick-

He shakes it off, with effort, and swallows against the dryness of his mouth. “And you th-th-think giving me wh-what I want with him will m-m-make me miserable?”

“I know it will.” Bram shrugs, casual as can be. “You don’t want him like this. But I know you better than anyone else in the world will ever know you, Nate. I know you’ll say yes.”

“H-How do you kn-kn-know I’ll say yes?” Nate asks, and his voice is barely a whisper of sound, but Bram hears him anyway.

“Because if you won’t,” Bram says, taking a sip from his beer, “I will.”

“Y-Y-You already do.”

Bram’s smile could freeze Arizona. “Not like I will if you say no. I know you think I hurt him, but I want you to believe me, baby, I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the ways I can make him regret every fucking breath. So yes, or no?”

“Nate,” Danny says, in a low soft voice. “Nate, come over here. Feel this rug. Shit, I haven’t been high like this since…”

“Since before you came home to me, puppy,” Bram says sweetly, and Danny’s eyes jerk up to his, wide in a face that’s gotten thinner with never eating enough. They don’t quite manage to focus on him, but even like this this, Nate can see the naked fear that crosses his face.

“Before I came home,” Danny repeats quickly, but after a second he seems to forget he was looking at Bram at all. Nate watches his jaw slacken and all his thoughts slip right through his fingers as he drops his attentions back to the rug.

“Yes or no, Nate, I haven’t got all night,” Bram says. The walls of the living room, the one large room in this tiny cabin, seem to be closing in. Smaller and smaller, the way all his choices and his understanding of himself gets closed in, chipped away.

“Y-Yes, you do. We have all the t-t-time in the world, out h-here.” Nate’s voice is calm, somehow, and he steps forward, moving away from Bram and the furniture and over to Danny where he lays stretched on the rug on his side, watching his own fingertips playing with a loose thread in the seam that holds two rolls of the rug together.

“Is that a yes, my love?” Bram’s voice is low, and pleased.

Nate takes all the guilt that threatens to squeeze the breath out of him, sets it aside in an empty gaping canyon of self-hatred that lives eternally in the back of his mind, and says simply, “It’s a yes.”

Danny rolls onto his back, looking up at Nate, wavy red hair falling into his eyes. It’s winter, and Danny’s hair is already getting long, past his ears and whispering along the back of his neck, twisting in soft curls across his forehead. Nate reaches out to push the hair away, and Danny hums softly. “Your fingers feel nice,” He whispers.

“G-Good,” Nate whispers back, aware of Bram’s eyes burning into him, trying to ignore it, to push it all away. Life with Bram has always been about trading away whatever he has left, to save himself in the end. And now to trade the dregs of the man that still remains, to try and save another.

By doing something he’s always wanted to do and doesn’t want to do at all.

“So, this is stupid, but I’ve been… you know, I know you’re older and you, like, know shit I don’t. But I’ve been… thinking about you, kind of a lot, I guess.” Danny looked away from him, nervously sipping his drink, and Nate reached out to take it from his hands, letting their fingertips graze each other just a little bit.

“Don’t d-d-drink so fast, you’ll g-get drunk and be harder to t-t-talk to,” Nate said, and pitched his voice into real flirtation, something he used to be fairly good at. He’d gotten rusty, trapped in that house.

“Aren’t drunk people supposed to be easier to talk to?” Danny countered, but he lets Nate take the drink and place it on the table, tilted his head to let a little hair fall into his eyes, gave Nate a toothy smile that he knew already he’d love to see more of.

“Not y-you. I like you b-b-better sober.” Nate hesitated, then leaned forward, a little more into Danny’s space. When Danny’s smile only widened, and they were nearly nose-to-nose in the little bar, neither of them wanted to pull away and break the moment.

“I think I want to see more of you,” Danny said, a whisper nearly drowned out by the music around them.

“I th-think I want to s-see more of y-y-you, too,” Nate replied, and thought - fuck Scott and Will’s advice, they didn’t know shit. Nate had gone years trapped in hell and he just wanted to be with someone again.

Besides which, Scott and Will didn’t seem to see that under all his anger, there was something that shone in Danny Michaelson.

You just had to find it and bring it out.

Nate strokes gentle fingers across his forehead, down the side of his face and his neck, over a hint of collarbone that peeks out from the neckline of his shirt. Danny shivers with a smile on his face, eyes fluttering closed and then open again. “I’m s-s-so sorry,” Nate murmurs to him, with real feeling. “I’m so s-s-sorry, Red.”

“Sssshhhhh,” Danny whispers, and his own hands slip down. Nate watches with that dryness in his mouth again as the redhead’s fingers curve around the hem of his T-shirt, grip on, and he arches his back so he can slide it right off his head, tossing it lazily to the side. The firelight catches the muscles of his arms as he moves, sets off the freckled skin. “Ssssshhh, you’re so good, Nate, you’re so nice.”

“I’m sorry,” Nate repeats, because he has to, and with Bram watching them both, he leans down to kiss the end of Danny’s nose, one of the scars along his cheekbone, up to his forehead. “I’m so sorry. J-j-just look at m-me now, okay?”

The blue eyes open, and for a moment, the two men only look at each other and smile - Danny’s hazy and drugged and beautiful, Nate’s guilty, tearful, and a little frightened.

Frightened for Danny, frightened of Bram, frightened of himself and how easily he will hand over any last remaining shred of principle or conviction if it will save Danny Michaelson even a moment of pain.

“What are you waiting for?” Bram asks, not quite snapping.

Danny tenses, then reaches out to grab Nate by the back of the neck and pull him down for a kiss. His mouth is soft, and warm - the rest of Danny always seems so cold now - and Nate lets himself be lost in the moment, tries to shift away how much he hates himself for what he’s about to do.

But it’s better, if it’s him and not Bram.

At least once.

At least for tonight.

When they break apart, foreheads still touching, Danny’s cloudy eyes try to focus on his clear green ones. “‘Kay,” Danny murmurs, their lips still nearly brushing. “Can do it. Can look-... your eyes are bleeding, Nate.”

“What?” His voice is hushed, a whisper, and he brushes the backs of his knuckles on his good hand down Danny’s neck, over breastbone, down his stomach, watching Danny arch into the touch, feeling him shift and move as Nate’s hand curves around one hip over the thin cotton pants that are the only pants he’s ever allowed to wear, no matter the weather.

“Like green sky…” Danny smiles at him, a flash of white teeth, nuzzling at his face, his hands moving up to Nate’s neck, over his shoulders, feeling at the fabric of his shirt, lost in the softness, the warmth of the heavy knit fabric. “You’re stained glass,” Danny whispers, words slightly slurred. “You’re a fucking saint sparking fucking starlight…” Nate shifts, or Danny does - he likes to hope it was Danny, for his own sake, for his own sanity. It moves their hips together, just a little, where Nate lays next to him on the floor.

“Fuck,” Danny nearly groans. “Ah…” He grabs Nate by the arms and pulls the older man on top of him, and for a half-second Nate wants to forget that anything is wrong with this, that it’s anything but his first Christmas with the younger guy who seemed like everything Bram wasn’t, everything Nate wanted.

For a while, it’s only this - a kiss, or a series of them, but they run together and Nate isn’t sure he’d count it as more than one. Hands, and Danny’s ribs stand out too much in his thin frame and Nate’s fingertips trail over each shade and hint of light. Danny whispering to him, nonsense things, and the lights of the Christmas tree still shine in his eyes and bounce off his hair.

Nate buries his bad hand in that hair, feels the softness that’s started to go brittle after nearly a full year of never eating enough.

Bram laughs - the awful off-key barking hyena laughter - and Danny freezes underneath Nate, breathing harder, clutching tightly onto him like Nate could possibly protect him from the consequences of Bram’s horrible good humor.

“J-Just look at me, Red,” Nate whispers urgently against his ear, licking at the earlobe, feeling Danny shiver again and hold him with shaking hands. “Just look right at me.” His good hand slides back down to grip Danny’s hip, to steady him against the sense of Bram’s eyes, and his heart is pounding.

He can feel Danny’s heartbeat, too, and some part of him wants to smile, because he’d always sort of wanted to lay somewhere with Danny Michaelson, feeling his heartbeat right through his skin.

Not like this, though.

Not like this.

I should have known Bram would never, ever let me go. But it never occurred to me that if he found me with someone, he’d take them, too.

Nate drops his mouth to Danny’s neck now, kissing gently along the scarring starting there from the barbed wire that Bram sometimes wraps around his throat, making him practice breathing until he bleeds. When he nips at the scarred skin, Danny lets out the first real, true noise. 

When he closes his mouth on it, the noise gets louder.

“Well this is getting interesting.” Nate would gladly stab Bram like he once stabbed his sister, leave him dying on the kitchen floor, and he and Danny would flee through the woods and find civilization, go back home-

But he can’t hurt Bram. And even if this is the only night he can protect, he can’t let Bram have Danny to destroy if he’s given even the barest hint of a choice.

Danny had tensed again at Bram’s voice, and Nate catches his eyes as he nearly turns to look at the monster sitting on the couch wearing skin like a man. “No, no, just look right at me,” He says, a little urgently, turning Danny’s face back to his. “It’s going to be oh-okay. It’s okay. I d-d-don’t want to, I promise, I just… I have to-”

“Of course you want to,” Bram interrupts, shifting where he sits, slowly leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs, beer still in hand. Outside, snow falls in a perfect picturesque white. “And if you don’t… I will.”

“I know that, B-Bram,” Nate says, in a voice that’s not quite pleading. “I kn-know. Just-”

“Sssshhhh.” Danny cranes his neck, moving his head up from the floor enough to kiss Nate’s cheek, scarred, rough-skinned hands pulling Nate back in for another kiss. “S’okay if it’s you,” Danny says, softly, and he smiles softly, and nearly everything about Danny is soft, and sweet, and beautiful.

And fogged and drugged, high and off-limits in Nate’s mind - but the choice he’s been given is to cross his own lines or watch Danny be torn apart again.

Tonight, just this one night, he has the chance to trade away one more piece of the principled, moral man he used to think he was. He gives away his certainty that he’d never do anything like this - that he would never, ever be this person - because if he doesn’t, Bram will do something far worse.

“Always if it’s you,” Danny continues, and now it’s his lips against Nate’s neck, tongue lapping at the slowly fading pink marks from Ashley’s knives, her little game of seeing how long it took him to scream. “I want you, too.” Danny’s hands are on his shirt and Nate lets him pull it up, pull it over his head, muss up his black hair.

He shouldn’t do this.

He has to do this.

He wants to do this.

But… not like this.

“Saint Nate,” Danny says, tone playful, consonants soft and slurred together, as his hands move over Nate’s chest and torso, play along his sides, slide down under the waistband of his pants until Nate nearly gasps. “Ha,” Danny grins at him. “Look at you, Saint Nate. Saint… Saint Nathaniel. Patron saint of, of puppies, and… fuck, what’d he put in my drink? Shit, you feel so good-”

Nate groans, and gives up, and his good hand slips into Danny’s pants, too, searches and finds, begins to move. When Danny’s hips jerk up hard, Nate pauses, but one scarred hand grabs at his wrist and presses his palm down right where it is.

“Don’t stop,�� Danny murmurs, and uses his hand to show Nate what he wants him to do.

“Fuck, R-Red,” Nate groans into his neck, into his warm skin, as Danny moves against him. “I’m so sorry.”

This isn’t how I wanted this to happen.

“Say, what’s in this driiiiink,” Danny sings, and his voice is cracked and hideously off-key. Danny has an awful singing voice, and still Nate finds himself smiling. “Baby, it’s cold outsiiiiiide…”

“Sssshhhh.” Nate shifts back, resting his weight on his legs, a knee on either side of Danny’s hips. Still on his back on the floor, Danny’s eyes drift through the room, landing but never staying, and finally… finally they make it back to Nate.

When they land on him, they stay.

“Stop holding out on him, baby,” Bram says. His voice is impatient, not quite snapping, but Nate knows it for what it is - not annoyance but hunger. Bram wants him to be miserable, to hate himself, for spend the next few days castigating himself for being a fucking criminal, a piece of shit, the worst thing in the world. “He’s asking for it.”

“Please,” Danny says softly, and Nate’s hatred of himself shatters - for the moment only for now - under the affection there. Written on Danny’s face is all the sweetness Nate once thought you had to find in him, right there to be had, right on the surface.

“H-How can you w-w-want me like this?” Nate asks, and he doesn’t mean the drugs (although he means that, too). No, he wants to know how Danny can want him when they are trapped somewhere in the woods together but Danny is tortured and cut to shreds and beaten and destroyed piece by piece, while Nate eats at the table and doesn’t have to ask and sleeps in a bed without having to earn it.

He wants to know how Danny can want him, after everything that’s happened because Nathaniel Vandrum had a fucking crush on him.

“I wanted you before,” Danny whispers, fumbling at the button of Nate’s jeans, having trouble getting his hands to close well enough. “Why would I stop now? C’mere, Saint Nate. S’okay if it’s you, I want it to be you. C’mere.”

The lights from the Christmas tree light Danny’s skin with little hints of blue, and red, and green, and yellow. The lights glint in his hair and on the line of his freckled shoulder. They dance over some of the freckles on his face, and Nate can’t quite stop himself from kissing his favorite little cluster of them, right along the scar on Danny’s left cheek.

I could never deserve this.

I never wanted it like this.

I want you so badly it hurts.

I’ll hate myself tomorrow, if you’ll let me - but I don’t think you will.

“Merry Christmas,” Danny says, with an odd, lopsided, goofy little smile.

Nate shakes off the icy blue eyes that watch them from the couch, and lowers his head to kiss Danny again. “Merry Ch-Christmas.”

#whump #tw: serious dubcon #on both sides #drugged #tw: forced drugging #caretaker whumpee #caretaker #drugged whumpee #captivity #tw: referenced torture #mildly spicy - like PG 13/mild R spice #like safe enough to read in public but not so safe you want to explain what's happening to your grandma #Daniel Michaelson's story #Bad Things Happen Bingo #bthb daniel michaelson's story #tearful smile #scarring

[kitsune-kaos]

@mannnny92 tagged me on the Pokémon prompt 🙌🏼💕

Floette: If you were a Pokemon trainer what would your team be?

Torterra, Toxtricity (low key form), Komala, Gardevoir, Gigalith, Chandelure

Pikachu: If you could have any one Pokemon IRL which would it be and why?

Jirachi so I could wish for Pokémon to be real 😆 but if I can’t use a loophole like that, then I think go with Eevee 😊 it’d blend into this world easier than a lot of Pokémon and it would evolve in a way unique to our bond 😋

Clefairy: What is the most stereotypically gay thing you do?

I already mentioned my serial velociraptor limp wrists, but I’ll also add in my inability to form serious relationships, having depression/anxiety, and maintaining a solid balance of narcissism and self-loathing

Haunter: Have you ever experienced anything supernatural?

I once had a semi-supernatural experience (pun intended) when I was driving my friends around after my school’s Senior Ball. We were driving aimlessly and I have no idea where we were, but we got on the one road that was just a long, curved two-way road that went through a big thicket of trees. While we were driving on that road a big semi or somethin appeared behind us with its big ole lights. The road didn’t have any exits until it reconnected with the main roads, but all of a sudden the lights from the semi were gone and everyone in the car noticed. And soon after it disappeared we reached the end of the road.

Gardevoir: What was your Gay Awakening?

I didn’t have a super clear awakening but there’s a few key moments that come to mind 😆 like this time my mom and sister were had CNN on and they were like “Anderson Cooper is cute, too bad he’s gay” and in my head I was like ‘oh yeah he is cute 👀 and he’s into guys?? ...I’m a guy... 😳💕”

Another notable event was in middle school PE when I heard a popular girl classmate ask a popular boy when he started jerking off cause they caught her little bro doing it. And I was like “huh?? Jerking off?? Wut that?” So when then at home I looked it up and got into male masturbation porn, and as I never had a desire to include women in the porn I watched 😂I’m sure there’s other key moments I can’t remember 😝

Machoke: What color of underwear are you wearing?

It’s striped with some blues, white, and green

#Pokémon prompt #mutual #thanks for tagging me 💕

[carol-effing-danvers]

knock me the fuck out (i dare ya, babe) part two

More Teacher Steve and Soft Billy!

Part One 

Prefer Ao3 Format? Click here!

Angie is left to wail with around the living room with increasingly frustrated hunger, because Steve needs to spend the first thirty minutes after he comes home screaming into a pillow.

Had Billy seen him staring?

He was so sweet with Lauren, so gentle to her that Steve couldn’t help his smiling, but he’d seen the annoyed expression on Billy’s face from the corner of his eye when he’d turned away. Could he tell that Steve had been checking him out earlier? Maybe he just didn’t want to call him out in front of Lauren and the other children? Maybe he loathed Steve just as much as ever did?

Steve hugs a pillow to his stomach and rests his cheek atop it, feeling glum. Figures. Figures that the first boy he’d ever been attracted to would roll back into town ten years later (looking finer than any person has a right to!), while Steve spends his days with children and his nights alone.

He can’t even get a girlfriend anymore – after the big bisexual breakdown, no girl in Hawkins will date him, but he wished he had a boyfriend or at least a hookup he could call.

Robin gets dates, but he concedes that it’s probably easier when the entire town doesn’t know you’re a queer.

He can’t date any woman within ten miles of the town – even if she somehow doesn’t already know the whole stupid story yet, someone will happily and gleefully open their mouth to enlighten her. And no man will date him either, because agreeing to that is basically agreeing to let the whole town know who you are. There’d be no hiding it.

Flopping his face back down into the pillow, Steve screams some more, before jumping off the couch with a sudden burst of motion. No, no. He promised himself, he promised Robin, he promised Dustin, that he wasn’t going to make himself feel bad about this anymore. The past was the past, and he couldn’t change it.

So what if his dad never spoke to him and his mom only called twice a year? That was about the amount of contact they used to have! So what if the parents tried to stop him from being hired? They hadn’t been able to succeed and Steve got the job of his dreams anyway! So what if he still had a crush on Billy Hargrove? He’d survived it the first time and he’d survive it again.

God knows he’s survived worse.

“Uh, Steve-o?” Robin asks, looking around the kitchen. “Wanna tell me what happened to you today?”

“What do you mean?” Steve responds absently, without looking up from the pan of mushrooms on the stove.

“Steve, you’re making beef wellington, honey,” she says carefully, as though making Steve aware of this might make him explode or something. “I mean, please don’t stop, because your beef wellington is fucking amazing – but you also only make it when you feel like shit. So. Wanna tell me what’s going on?”

He stares down at the pan. “Did you know that Billy Hargrove was back in town?”

“Billy – Max’s brother, Billy?” Robin asks. Steve could almost feel her bristling. “He didn’t start threatening you again, did he?”

“No, Max was right,” he says, in the soft stilted tone that tells her he’s actually very upset. “He’s much calmer now.”

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Then you need to tell me why you look like someone killed Angie in front of you.”

Woodenly, he replies “Remember how I said I had a crush on a straight boy, back in ’86, when all the shit was going down?”

“Oh my god, Steve-”

“But he wouldn’t give me the time of day, unless it involved his fist and my face? Billy was that boy. Is that boy. Man. Whatever.”

“Steve,” Robin says seriously, grabbing onto his forearms and holding her eyes open wide as she tries not to laugh. “Billy isn’t any straighter than I am.”

---

After leaving Lulu with Steve fucking Harrington, holy shit, Billy feels the urgent need for a cigarette as soon as he leaves the school parking lot. He fishes for a lighter before whispering “Fuck” because of course he can’t smoke in the fucking car anymore, Lulu rides in this car with him now.

Cursing, Billy pounds on the steering wheel and pulls over to furiously smoke a cigarette outside, standing on the side of the road because Steve was there, and how the fuck has he gotten even prettier in the last ten years?, and Billy wanted to fuck him on that desk so bad something was wrong with him, and Steve’s smile for the person Billy loved most in the world was absolutely devastating.

Easy as that blinding smile, Billy could feel the old ghosts of his yearning – if not laid to rest, then at least peaceful in their haunting – live and howl again.

Getting back into the driver’s seat involves a whole new chorus of swearing, but he needs to get into work, mental breakdown or not. The bell over the shop jingles as he steps inside, accompanied by the intoxicating smell of sugar, flour, and vanilla.

The woman standing behind the counter of the bakery display finally manages to break his bad mood and he cracks a smile for her. “Hey, Trouble.”

Eleven leans over the counter, palms flat on the glass, her curls pinned to the back of her head. There’s flour smudged across her face and raspberry jam on her apron. “Who, me?”

He hugs her over the counter and kisses her flour-dusted cheek. “Yeah, you topple any major government conspiracies lately?”

Loftily, El says “I like to take the winters off.”

“Is that right?” he drawls, turning the hand-washing station onto hot after hanging up his jacket. “Then I’m just in time.”

She stares at him from her spot leaning against the pastries display, chin resting on her small fist. “Yes, you are,” she says in that eerie tone that means she isn’t talking about herself anymore. “Welcome home, Billy.”

Drying off his hands, Billy says “How come you ain’t tell me how bad things had gotten with her, huh?”

El stands straight, arms protectively folded over herself. “She was already mad at me for…the whole…”

She waves her hand around ambiguously, but Billy correctly interprets that as ‘spilling the beans on that asshole she married’. “She ain’t mad at you,” he soothes. “She’s mad at herself.”

When Eleven still looks unconvinced, he adds, “Don’t tell her I said so, but I know she misses you. Misses all of the nerd herd.”

“We may not be together anymore, but we miss her too,” she says sadly.

Billy’s gaze sharpened upon her. “You tellin’ me Wheeler just left you out here in this backwoods town all by yourself?”

She shrugs. “We grew up. He wanted to go to MIT and I didn’t want to follow him.”

He wants to tell her that Mike Wheeler was insane to leave her, but honestly, staying in Indiana for a teenage girl and giving up MIT was way more insane.

El nods. “Yeah, that’s what I told him.”

He glares at her. “No peaking, Ellie.”

She lifts her hands in surrender. “Stop thinking at me so loud, then.”

Steve, Steve, Steve – has she seen about Steve? El’s eyes widen. Shit. SHIT. SHIT.

“Uh..” She chews at her bottom lip.

“We are not talking about this,” he informs her flatly, pushing the door to the back room open. “You’re gonna pretend you didn’t…hear…see…whatever.”

“Billy…” she says hesitantly.

“What I literally just say?” he demands.

“Yes, okay, but…” Her eyes search his expression intently. “Um…Max didn’t tell you what happened during Spring Break in ’86, did she?”

He swore he was ‘bout to get whiplash from this girl. “Noooo,” he says, drawn out. “Why? What happened back in ’86?”

“Um…” El’s face turns red and she scratches nervously at the nape of her neck. “Steve, um…oh, never mind! Ask Max if you want to know.”

---

“What do you mean, Billy’s not straight?!” Steve demands, practically standing on the kitchen counter as he yells the question at her.

Robin is still trying very hard not to laugh. “Uh, okay…how do I put this…I want you to look back on your memory of Billy Hargrove when we were in high school, Steve. Think really, really hard. Did you ever actually see him kissing a girl? Dating any girls, back in school? Can you name a single girl he dated?”

“Everybody knew he was a total horndog,” Steve scoffs, feeling that old belated jealousy rear its ugly head.

“No, I don’t care about what everyone knew. What did you see, Steve? Remember the way Billy dressed?”

He rolls his eyes. “He was from California, Rob.”

“I visited Disneyland when I was sixteen. I did not see anyone in California dressed like that. He wore eyeliner and curled his hair, Steve. And if I’m remembering this correctly, that boy flashed his tits like he was starring in his own fucking porn video.” She smirks at his steadily reddening cheeks. “Your boy? Is gay, Steve-o.”

Robin pauses and squints a moment, as though staring at something in the distance. “Wait, Billy was a lifeguard that summer, right? Red shorts, came into Scoops and ordered…”

“Double strawberry,” Steve mutters, feeling bitchy and depressed.

“Oh my god.” This time, Robin couldn’t hold the laughter in.

“What?” he asks, annoyed. “I mean, I know the mustache wasn’t really working for him back then, but you should see-”

“No-no-no,” she cackles, holding her sides. “Oh my god, boys are so dumb. Steve-Steve, back then? Billy wanted to choke on your dick real bad.”

He stares at her blankly.

“Real bad, Steve.”

“What are you even talking ab-no! No!” Steve snaps. “Billy hated me! He beat my face in and tormented me from the moment he stepped into town, Rob!”

It’s Robin’s turn to scoff. “You’ve never heard about that trite old adage about boys who pull on little girls’ pigtails, Steve? Except that his little girl was another boy – a boy who already had a girlfriend when he got into town.”

“No way,” Steve snaps.

“And he wants this boy’s attention really, really bad, Steve. But this boy had just got his heart broken and didn’t know he also liked boys, yet. Billy’s boy won’t give him the attention he wants and he’s got a lot of anger management and self-control issues. We see that in the classroom every day, Steve. What do you think Billy would do?”

“That’s a pretty picture you’re painting,” Steve says flatly, rolling their wellington into its blanket of puff pastry. “I have a much simpler explanation – Billy was an egomaniac who thought I was at the head of the Hawkins food chain and decided that he was going to be the new apex predator and humiliated me to accomplish that. Him being gay or not doesn’t factor into it.”

Robin pours them both a glass of red – she’ll have to drink a lot of water if she doesn’t want a headache, but she needs it tonight. “Okay, I’ll make you a deal,” she says airily. “I bet you a full year of grading tests that Billy Hargrove would totally suck face with you.”

“Okay, hold on a fucking minute!” he sputters. “Even assuming this bullshit your on about him having the hots for me ten years ago is true, that has nothing to do with right now!”

“Steve, you look like a nerd,” she says gently. “And nerd really works for you, dingus. If he doesn’t want to at least make out with you a little, the man has no taste and you need to move on.”

“How about I skip the whole question and move on regardless,” Steve says dryly.

“Then you forfeit the bet and you’re marking all of my quizzes for the entire school year next year.”

“Goddamn it, Robin.”

---

“Uncle Billy, what are those silver thingies on your tummy?” Lulu asks, poking at the scars covering his torso where her uncle is in the middle of washing the dishes.

Very seriously, Billy says “That’s where I got bitten by the werewolf.”

He hears Max mutter “Oh my god, Billy”, but she doesn’t attempt to dissuade him from telling the story the way he pleased – after all, what would she tell her? That Uncle Billy was possessed by an interdimensional alien being that had come to Hawkins through a hole in the world beneath their feet and fought a monster made of pulverized corpses with his bare hands? Werewolf it is, then!

“Nooo, Uncle Billy, you’re not a werewolf!” she protests with a little giggle.

“Yes I am. Uh-oh, Lulu,” he says somberly. “Oh, no – it’s-it’s the full moon!”

She vibrates with anticipation, giving a loud shriek when Billy lets out a wolf-like howl and lunges for her. “RAAAAAAAAAH!”

“NOOOOOO!!!”

He wears her out good, chasing her around the house for nearly an hour before he convinces her it’s time to go to bed now. He lets Max relax and talks Lulu through bedtime himself. Feeling like a dickhead as he plops down onto the sofa, where Max is watching a rerun of Friends, Billy just sucks it up and says “So, what’s up with Harrington and Spring Break of ’86?”

To his complete surprise, Max’s jaw gets tight and her eyes flash. “Jesus fucking Christ, the people in this town really can’t keep their mouths shut, can they?” she says angrily. “So who told you, huh?”

“Uh…what?” he says blankly, feeling really far away all of a sudden. “Ellie-Eleven told me I need to ask you about Harrington and what happened in ’86, she never said why I need to ask.”

Yeah, he was still very unclear about why this was a story he had to hear.

Max gives him an owlish stare. “She…she wanted you to know?”

“…’s what she said, man.” He shrugs.

“Wow. Okay. Uh…so during Spring Break, one of your old classmates came home from college and threw this really big party,” Max begins, puffing her cheeks out with a sigh. “Steve and his friend Robin – you remember Robin? Blonde, used to work with him at Scoops? They were at this party, and the longer the night went on, the more that shit got out of hand. Like people were passed out on the front lawn. Someone broke into the neighbor’s house because they were too drunk to realize they knocked on the wrong door. Todd Grace took the riding lawn mower from the garage and crashed it somewhere on the golf course down the road. So, naturally the cops showed up.”

“Naturally,” Billy says neutrally, still wondering exactly where in the hell this story was going.

“Everybody freaked when they came in and Robin couldn’t find Steve, so she assumed that he’d hooked up with someone and forgot to tell her that he was leaving. She didn’t realize that he was still there, and he had no idea that the cops had come and were already in the house.”

She stops and stares at the ceiling. “If anybody in this town could keep their mouths closed, that would be the end of the story, but some of the officers blabbed, and now the whole fucking town knows that they found Steve Harrington in a closet on his knees, sucking off two high school seniors.”

Billy’s brain starts floating on ‘Steve Harrington on his knees’ and launches itself into outer space at ‘sucking off’. Immediately it becomes critical that he try not to picture that – young Steve, still doe-eyed and pretty, but brattier, the stuck up ice princess, with his soft sweet mouth wrapped around-

Max’s jaw tightens up with rage again. “I find it really interesting that whenever someone tells that story, they never mention Mike Tentiss or Zach Cooper, but they were the ones standing there with their pants around their ankles.”

Billy stares at the television without really seeing another on the screen. “Why you never tell me that story, Maxine?”

She’s known he was gay since just before she got married. She kept making jokes about getting him a nice girlfriend or hooking up with one of her bridesmaids, until Billy had just snarled over the phone “Maxine, I am a FUCKING queer!”

Softly, Max says “Cause it started this whole town-wide drama and it almost ruined Steve’s life, Billy. Darlene Cooper tried to have him arrested for molesting her son, but obviously Zach was only a year younger than him. She went around to our house and the Wheeler’s and the Sinclair’s and Mrs. Henderson and Mrs. Byers and tried to get one of us to say Steve had…done something to us.”

“Jesus Christ.” That sounds like something out of Billy’s worst nightmares.

She dips her head into a nod. “Uh-huh. It didn’t work, obviously, and Mrs. Byers – I never saw her that mad, Billy. She screamed at Darlene something awful. Some of the parents threw a fit when the school hired him, said he didn’t have any business being around kids, but I think his mom pulled some strings. She and his dad have basically disowned him. He thought none of us would want to speak to him ever again – I mean, the boys got a little weird for a bit, but Erica was…Erica, and they came around. It’s really sad, though. He’s one of the nicest men I know, but no girl in town will go out with him.”

Confused, Billy says “Uh, ain’t he…?”

She shrugs. “Robin says he likes both, I guess. Anyway, no woman in this town will go on a date with him, and no man will so much as be alone in a room with him. Like if Steve sneezes on them, they’ll suddenly want to suck a dick or something.”

Oh, I’d do a helluva lot more than be alone in a room with Steve Harrington. And there wouldn’t be any ‘suddenly’ about it.

Billy realizes that Max is looking very suspicious right now and narrows his eyes. “Max. Maxie. Maxine. Maxine Roberta, please tell me that you and Eleven aren’t trying to set me up on a date with Steve Harrington.”

His baby sister looks even guiltier. She picks at her fingernails, staring down at her lap. “You don’t-you’ve never talk about any guys that you’re going out with, you’ve never even told me that you were interested in a guy,” she mumbles. “I just…don’t want you to be lonely. Dustin thinks Steve is – lonely, I mean. You’re the same age and you can both…y’know. Handle all the weird shit around here.”

“Mad Max,” he sighs, and tucked the wisps of red hair behind her ears the way he had for Lulu this morning. “I was not nice to Harrington. I was never nice to Harrington – and I don’t just mean the night I nearly killed him. There was a whole bunch of shit you guys weren’t around to see. The fact that we’re both willing to suck a dick doesn’t change anything, Max.”

“But you apologized for that ten years ago!” She pleads with her big blue eyes. “Please? I’m not asking you to go on a date with him, just be nice to him when you see him, okay?”

Gruffly, he says “That why ya didn’t wanna tell me who Lulu’s teacher was?”

---

Saturday morning means going to the 11th Hour, because Robin has a hangover and going to the 11th means that they don’t really have to get dressed because El has seen them both covered in mud, blood (their own), blood (others), blood (alien), and puke – all at the same time.

Also, Steve is a grown ass man who can’t be bothered to put on real adult clothes unless he has to teach and today he’s just fucking given up on his hair because the only people who are gonna see him are Robin, who still calls him dingus after ten years of knowing him, and El, who still seems to think he’s Prince Charming after ten years of knowing him (god help her).

Steve and Robin both think it’s very cute that Eleven the Eggo Queen decided she wanted to open a bakery when she grew up. And she’s really good at it, too. She makes this spiced tart thingy with pears and cherries that he would hold someone at gunpoint for. He loves it so much that she makes a big one on his birthday every single year.

Her eyes light up when they walk through the door, looking so pleased that Steve has a guilty thought that they may’ve been neglecting her a little. “Good morning!” she greets, wriggling with excitement as she leans over the counter. “Christmas galette for Steve and for Robbie…?”

“Tart au citron,” Robin says decisively after a moment’s thought. “And coffee.”

“Lots of coffee,” Steve adds with a grimace. The half a bottle of wine was a mistake and he’d known it was gonna be a mistake even as he was pouring their glasses. “El, can you pretty please with chocolate chip Eggos on top make your hangover sandwiches for me? I’ll watch the counter for you! Please?”

Even more pleased, El says “Oh that’s okay, I can make them. Hang on.”

The swinging robin’s egg blue of the backroom door opens, a voice behind it murmuring, “Lulu, skip to my lou. Lulu, skip to my lou.” A distracted Billy walks in carrying Lauren one-handed, half sleeping across her uncle’s shoulder, and a Styrofoam cup in the other. “Lulu, skip to my lou, my darlin’…”

His cheek rests on her head and the forearm supporting Lauren’s weight bulges with muscle beneath the skin and Steve’s fucking knees feel like water.

“Can you watch the front for a few minutes?” El asks pleasantly, ignoring the shell-shocked look on Steve’s face and the intense scrutiny Robin is giving her employee.

“Sure…boss…” Billy says slowly, eyeing his former classmates suspiciously. He wants this boy’s attention really, really bad, Steve.

He suppresses a snort. In Nancy’s very succinct words – it’s all just bullshit.

---

Who let this man walk out of the house that way? Was it Buckley? Was she trying to cause a goddamn riot? Wasn’t there a law against being such a fucking tease? Malicious seduction or something?

Still mostly dressed in pajamas with his glasses hastily shoved on and his hair looking like he’d stuck his finger in an electric socket, Steve looked tired and fresh from bed, even softer and sleepier than the cardigan and khaki look at school yesterday. Billy wanted to push him down on a bed, straddle his waist and kiss him for ages. Kiss him until those heavy eyelids went from surprised to dark and glazed with lust.

“Hello, Mister H,” Lulu, his sweet saving angel, mumbles into his shoulder.

That sunny-warm smile brightens up his face again, and Billy’s heart gives a painful squeeze. “Good morning, Lauren. Are you helping Billy at work.”

“Uh-huh,” she grunts, eyes closing again. “Woke me up.”

“Aw, I’m sorry,” he says, all sympathy and sad eyes.

God, this is fucking torture. And Maxine had to go and like…give him fucking hope and shit. Jesus.

“You wanna go back and lay down in Miss Hopper’s officer, Lulu?”

“Uh-huh,” she repeats, still clinging to his shirt.

He makes his very hasty retreat, not looking at El as he passes her in the kitchen. Unfortunately, when he returns to the front counter, Steve is still there, but Buckley seems to have disappeared and he’s blushing now, maybe because the whole universe fucking hates him and then Steve is right up in his face and says “I’m just gonna get this over with, please don’t hit me-”

And then-

-his mouth, still tinged with the minty clean taste of toothpaste, so fucking soft against Billy’s lips, his long fingers lightly touching Billy’s jawline. Steve’s cheeks are cool where Billy touches them, but his mouth is burning hot. The erection he was just managing to get under control before surges to painful, insistent life in his jeans when Steve sighs and moans, large curling around the back of his neck.

Billy answers with a low groan, fingers twisting through the silky strands of his hair to hold him there – not that Steve seems keen to escape.

Breathing is a tragic necessity, though.

“Oh,” Steve exhales as Billy pulls away reluctantly, and his eyes are just as dark, just as sloe and heavy as Billy always dreamed they’d be. He’s still clinging to the front of his shirt and his mouth looks wine-red from kissing, which only makes Billy wanna kiss him more. “I’m gonna grade quizzes for a year.”

#harringrove #knock me out babe #teacher steve #soft billy #my writing

[poppytheorist]

American Kids

1. I had “American Kids” on the August list. Sorry for the delay, “I was busy,” “better late than never,” etc. Already straying from my schedule, looks like September is off to a great start! Also, this one’s both dense and obtuse, my bad. Anywho, here are some words:

2. As is typical, let’s gush first: “American Kids” is easily the most thematically interesting song on Bubblebath. The production is also the tightest. I mean, do you hear this instrumental? You know what? I’m just gonna say it: “American Kids” is the best song on Bubblebath.

3. If you take some time to look at the lyrics, you’ll see that “American Kids” is actually a super weird song. Half the lines seem like their own random tangents, so it’s left up to listeners to piece everything together themselves.

4. When listeners are challenged to consider the connections between seemingly unconnected ideas, they are forced out of worn ruts and must instead open themselves up to possible associations they had never considered. Poppy challenges listeners this way all the time.

5. Genius tells me that “American Kids” is Poppy’s take on the ‘blame the millennial’ movement. Partially true, but that omits elements of Poppy’s disenchantment with the world and her struggle to break free of the music industry’s commercializing squeeze.

6. You’re best off analyzing lyrics yourself rather than using Genius. Genius readings are watered-down so they can be easily digested by anybody and everybody. So, they’re usually devoid of anything interesting. See also: fast food, Marvel movies.

7. Perhaps it’s best to think of “American Kids” as Poppy’s worldview presented as a mosaic, with each piece being one of Poppy’s thoughts crystallized in time. Or think of the song as Poppy Splatoon-style painting a picture of her worldview. Whichever analogy works best for you.

8. In “American Kids,” Poppy lays down a foundation for her future work to build off of. By looking at the underlying foundation, we can see how Poppy’s views have changed as she’s matured. “American Kids” lays a lot of groundwork, so it’ll take a bit longer to get through.

9. Since “American Kids” is so random and bizarre, we will first start by picking out specific threads. These are chains of ideas that link together. At the end, we will weave all these threads into one fabric. If your reading is good, each piece should mesh together nicely. If not, then-

10. “American Kids” kicks off with Poppy acknowledging the limitations of her worldview. She knows she is only exposed to specific information (“I live under a rock”), and she only has certain tools to process said information (“with a blacklight”).

11. From these lines we get a sense of Poppy’s self-awareness. She recognizes there is much she doesn't understand. Honestly, this self-aware hedging is pretty refreshing, especially considering the abundance of people these days endlessly blaring opinions that aren’t even theirs to begin with.

12. Poppy’s introspection continues with the line: “I’m a dumb pop star in my own right.” Again, Poppy understands how she appears. This line also relates an element of disgust, almost as if she has been forced to become something she grew up hating.

13. Reinforcing this notion is: “Sold my soul to the man with a handshake.” However, Poppy expresses her determination to still #DoSomething with her platform, to use it for Good (“Lost control but I don’t think it’s too late”). This idea is explored further by “In A Minute.”

14. Poppy also gives us the fun line, “Forever 21 is cool if I make it,” where she expresses the necessary fluidity of a pop star’s values. In such a role, she has to make sacrifices to succeed, like promoting products she doesn’t really believe in. If she doesn’t, someone else will.

15. Later in the song, Poppy mentions: “It never happened like they say.” In what ways do expectations differ from reality? The lines, “Started life at age 15, got ahead with fake IDs,” and “We’re dying young on broadcast news,” provide insight.

16. To even have a chance as a singer, Poppy had to get a headstart on the competition by starting at “age 15” and by finding ways to ‘break the rules’ (“fake IDs”). This adds to the sacrifices necessary to succeed in the ferociously competitive rat-race that is the music industry.

17. Overall, the first verse tells of the compromises Poppy has made to ‘make it’ as a pop-idol, and of the self-dissatisfaction she feels after making said compromises. The second verse expands on these ideas, telling us how she has separated herself from her old life to make her new life possible.

18. Poppy tells of how she has put distance between herself and her parents (“Last time I told mom that “I love you””), how she has given up aspects of her past life (“last time I ate food from a drive-thru”), and how she has abandoned her old possessions (“burned all my shit”).

19. Poppy also explains how she has forsaken her “teen regrets,” referring to them as a “trip wire.” Basically, any old emotional attachments or ‘what-ifs’ would only distract her and slow her down, so out of mind they go.

20. “I think my father might be gay but I don’t know” is a weird line. It does add to the idea of separating from the past, but it may seem odd that Poppy would even be concerned with her father’s sexual orientation, especially if you’re coming from AIAG.

21. This isn’t the first time Poppy touches on this topic. In “Software Upgrade,” there’s the line: “So come on, baby, tell me, are you gay?” If you compare Poppy’s old use of language to her more recent work like AIAG, you can see a clear progression of her views on identity and gender.

22. With the line, “Boys aren’t even boys anymore,” we see a concern with the absence of structure from the dissolution of traditional gender roles, but Poppy’s newer work (notably “Am I A Girl?”) embraces the freedom of increased individuality instead of decrying it.

23. Poppy ties the second verse to the first with lines like: “I should be everything you hate” and “I should be higher now than space but I’m static.” Again, Poppy emphasizes the self-loathing she feels after abandoning her values to succeed as a pop-star.

24. Before the first chorus comes, “Girls, let’s put on all of our clothes,” where Poppy plants the seeds for her later work on the objectification of celebrities. This became Poppy’s most prevalent theme. See: her videos, her fashion appearances, and “Girls In Bikinis.”

25. On the chorus, Poppy reiterates her desire to remain ‘apart’ from American kids these days. She emphasizes her abstinence from using drugs, and says (hilariously) that she doesn’t “care about your party.”

26. Not only does Poppy reject young peoples’ lifestyles, she is baffled by how and why people adopt such vapid and empty lifestyles to begin with (“I just don’t get American kids”).

27. Credit where credit’s due: there’s one interpretation I actually liked from Genius. It’s a reading of the line, “Drugs don’t work like they did for my parents,” where Poppy points out how the use of drugs has changed over time.

28. In the past, drugs used to be used as a mind-expanding substance. Substances that freed the individual. Nowadays, drugs are almost a necessity, a toll for living in modern times. Drugs are now a crutch, a fix to get people through another day of crushing monotony.

29. Sewing time. Picking out associations elicited from the song is important, but anyone can do that. The hard part is tying these associations together into a cohesive whole. We ask ourselves: what is the overarching narrative? What does the bigger picture look like?

30. Consider the meta-narrative of “American Kids.” A self-aware pop star reflects, with a pinch of disgust, on the compromises she’s made to succeed. That she has distanced herself from her peers, her parents, and her past self to ‘make it.’ How would this someone feel?

31. “American Kids” leaves us with a feeling of alienation, of exasperation, of someone who is disenchanted with modern society, yet has been forced to exist within its boundaries to succeed. “Liberty isn’t cheap and it ain’t free.” Huh, guess Poppy’s right.

32. Poppy’s final slash is delivered with: “I’m a millennial, blame it all on me.” It’s easier to point fingers than find solutions. But, in the words of Sum 41: “When we all fall down, who will take the blame?”

33. There’s one last part of “American Kids” I mentioned, but didn’t explain. Remember the instruments? Yeah, turns out those are kinda important. They’re harder to ‘read’ than lyrics, but if you’re analyzing music, it’s folly to ignore them.

34. Throughout “American Kids” are snippets of sound, flurries of voices that seep into the track. As Poppy closes the track, repeating “American kids,” her voice becomes increasingly distorted and muddied by other chatter until her signal is swallowed by a sea of noise.

35. At the end of “American Kids,” the gale of noise abruptly ends and we’re left with a final, echoing cry from Poppy, one that slowly fades into the background. “Is that symbolism?” Yeah, something like that.

#poppy #american kids

[crowkingwrites]

Battle of the Bands (Ch.14)

Pairing: Robb Stark x Reader, Jon Snow x Reader, Viserys Targaryen x Reader, Ramsay Bolton X Reader

Summary: You just moved into the city for the first tie all by yourself. After you get your dream summer job working for a small magazine, you find yourself in the middle of the city’s rock festival: Battle of the Bands. Local rock bands throughout the city compete to win a record deal that could change their lives. Your job? Get close to them and write about them online.A single girl in the city surrounded by rocker boys during the summertime. What could possibly go wrong?

Words: 1737 // AO3 Link

Chapter One // Chapter Two // Chapter Three // Chapter Four // Chapter Five // Chapter Six // Chapter Seven // Chapter Eight // Chapter Nine // Chapter Ten // Chapter Eleven // Chapter Twelve // Chapter Thirteen

Jon was still on your mind. You liked how he cuddled you. You liked how he kissed you. You shook your head violently. Now was not the time to daydream about Jon. Now was the time to figure your shit out. Well, it would be a lot easier if you had friends on your side.

You texted the most reliable person you knew, hoping they could help.

You to Loras: [Something serious is happening. Tell Renly to be The Scene office. I think we might be getting sued.] Loras: [….good afternoon to you too? Getting sued? What?]

Good you had Loras. Renly was on his way, no doubt. Now Margaery.

You: [911.] Margie within seconds: [Where are you? I can get you. Whats wrong?] You: [I fucked up. Viz is gonna take down The Scene for that article I wrote. He’s gonna sue and I’m going to get fired.] Margie: [That’s…bad. That’s bad dude. We’re going to figure it out. Whatever happens, I got your back.]

Margie’s on board. Then again, Margie’s always been on board with you for anything. Best friends are funny like that. One moment, you’re helping her throw up in a bar in a part of town you’ve never been in before while also texting a thirst trap. The next moment Margie’s helping you potentially go to court.

She was your ride or die, and right now, you’d rather die than text Jon about Robb. As much as you hated it, you needed Robb. This was his magazine.

You to Jon: [That article about Viserys. He saw it and he’s gonna try to take me and The Scene to court. What do I do?]

The anxiety settled in like an old, toxic friend. She made your skin crawl, and your heart beat erratically. You felt so stupid. You put yourself here. You did this to yourself. This was all your fault and you could have prevented it, but you’re stupid. You’re so stupid.

You: [Ramsay told me. How do we tell your brother? This is bad. I’m panicking]

Robb wouldn’t forgive you now. Robb was so fucking stupid for hiring you in the first place. He was definitely going to fire you now. You wish you could punch yourself. If you had been more careful, this wouldn’t have happened. If you had been less slutty and flirty with everyone, this wouldn’t have happened.

You heard the door to the office click open. Your eyes landed on Robb who was holding his face. You quickly texted Jon one more time.

You: [Never mind. He’s here at the office. He knows. I think he’s going to fire me.]

Robb glanced your way before heading into his office. All was quiet save for Robb shuffling things around his desk. You stood there, waiting for your sealed fate. You took a step towards his office, but hesitated. Maybe he needed space.

“So you know,” Robb said from his office, breaking the silence.

“I know?”

“Viz texted me this morning. He sent me threats,” Robb explained. “He’s at Roose Bolton’s office. I think him and Ramsay are working together on this one.”

“They’re not,” you corrected. “Ramsay’s on our side.” Robb walked out of his office with a scowl on his face. He closed his eyes and exhaled.

“You know what? I don’t wanna know. I don’t care,” Robb continued gathering papers and looking through desks. “What we need to do now is call a lawyer.”

“Okay! Great! Let’s call him!” You clapped. Robb slowly blinked.

“I’m looking for his card. I don’t have his number on my phone,” Robb pushed past you. He went into Sansa’s desk and looked through her contacts on her computer. You sat at your own computer and started to print out what you could. Your notes. Your articles. Anything that could help you now.

Your anxiety continued to pump through your veins. Why hasn’t he fired you yet? Why was he so angry that Ramsay was on your side? How were you going to make it through today?

“Oi! I’m here!” Renly greeted. Your anxiety was partly relieved to hear Renly’s voice. You sighed and turned to see your mutual friend. “We’re getting sued?”

“Yes. Viserys threatened us this morning. I’m trying to call the family lawyer, but I can’t find his number.”

“Did you talk to Jon?” Renly asked. “Didn’t he need Petyr last month for—why are you looking at me like that?” Robb glared at Renly. His hands gripped tight at the pile of paper he had in his hand.

“Yes. I tried to talk to Jon. I went over to his apartment. He was busy,” Robb glared at you for a moment, but then let it go. He slammed down the pile of papers and returned to his office. Renly looked at you and inched closer.

“What happened?” Renly whispered.

“Jon and I were…kissing when he saw us,” you bit your lip.

“Oh. That kind of busy,” Renly continued whispering. “Are you okay? You looked freaked out.”

“Oh? Oh. No, no, no. I’m fine. I’m fine,” you said.

“You’re speaking too fast. You’re not okay. What happened?” The anxiety built up slowly over time, but it only got worse. Your self-loathing voice spoke louder than everyone in the quiet room.

You were so stupid. You were so stupid. You were so stupid. You were so stupid. You were so stupid. You were so stupid. You were so stupid. You were so stupid. You were so stupid. You were so stupid. You were so stupid. You were so stupid. It just kept repeating and repeating. Your wet eyes and short breath gave you away. Now, you looked weak.

“Hey,” Robb snapped his fingers in your face. “I’m not going to fire you.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to fire you. Just help me find Petyr’s phone number, alright? Start with that.” You eyed Sansa’s computer again. For a social media influencer, she was very responsible. You darted towards her clean, IKEA-bought desk and searched through her contact list once more.

You hadn’t met Robb’s eldest sister yet, but you had a feeling you would like her. She had pictures of her friends and family all over her desk. One picture caught your eye. Her, Jon, and Robb all together in a silly photo booth. Robb and Jon made a moustache with Sansa’s bright red hair. All three of them were laughing.

And here you are, watching a very upset Robb scrambling to get everything together.

You didn’t see your boss. You didn’t see a potential boyfriend. You just saw Robb trying to keep it together while he spoke with his father on the phone.

“I know. I know!” Robb stressed. “Do you think I care? Jon punched me today. How about that for problem child huh?”

You came into this family, this city, and ruined everything. Jon and Robb were brothers, now they were fighting. Ramsay couldn’t chase his dreams anymore. Viserys was losing his career. All because of you.

The realization didn’t hit as hard as a ton of bricks. You made a soft ‘oh’ sound, and turned back to Sansa’s computer. Renly had noticed.

While scrolling through once more, you saw a weird nickname: LF

“Littlefinger?” you said quietly to yourself. You clicked on his name to see Petyr Baelish’s face, phone number, address, and work emails. Bingo. Robb ducked into his office again as he argued with his father on the phone. You quickly printed out the contact information and left it on Robb’s closed door.

You wiped away the tears in your eyes as you headed out the door.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Renly asked. His knitted eyebrows told you everything.

“I can’t be here. I’ve ruined everything. I think I should just go,” you confessed. Renly put his hand on your shoulder.

“Do what you have to do, ok? Take care of yourself first. Never mind Robb. He can be an ass sometimes,” Renly patted you. Both of you heard another rise from Robb. Something crashed and Robb yelled a very loud ‘Fuck!’ in his office. Renly hugged you goodbye, and you left the office.

It was a short ride home considering the day you had. After receiving texts from Jon and Ramsay, you just flat out turned off your phone. The world needed to be quieter for just a moment. You needed to think.

When you opened the door to your apartment, you found a calm Margaery sitting on your couch. She immediately ran up to you with a warm embrace and a cup of chamomile tea. She kissed your head and you felt your anxiety melting away into nothing.

“So, you had a shit day,” Margie half-smiled. “Do you need to talk about it?”

“I think I realized something,” you said quietly. “I came to this city to live with you and get out of my parents’ space, right?”

“Yeah! And its been so much fun!” Margie patted your knee. “I love having you here. Loras loves having you here. And of course, the men—

“I’ve hurt people,” you interrupted. “I’m having fun, but I’ve hurt people. Did you now that Jon punched Robb over me? That’s what Robb said. Ramsay? He has to work a straight job now because of me.”

“You don’t know that,” Margie sat closer to you. “Nobody knows who kicked out Ramsay’s band, ok? That’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, but what if I wasn’t here? Robb’s magazine wouldn’t be in the shit hole. Ramsay would still have a band. Viserys would still have a career. The Stark brothers wouldn’t be fighting—

“Whoa. Listen to me. Viserys is an asshole. Who cares about him? Not everything is your fault. Stop doing this to yourself.”

“You ended up in the hospital and I ignored it for a boy, Margaery,” you put your face in your hands. All of the words pouring out made your chest tight.

“And I forgave you! It’s fine! Really! You’re scaring me. What’s going on with you?” Margie stressed her last sentence to you. You had enough.

“I think I need to move back home,” you confessed. “I ruined everyone’s lives here. I don’t belong here. I need to go back home.”

Note to Self: Because when you find yourself the villain in the story you have written It’s plain to see That sometimes the best intentions are in need of redemptions  Would you agree?

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[aurababy4619]

I can’t drown my demons they learned how to swim...

You ever wonder how life brought you to this exact moment in time. How you managed to stumble upon this exact train of thought? Yeah well neither have I; My point being is here we are and we’re miserable. I mean what can you expect from hours of self loathing and criticizing. You had to know that at some point you'd end up here. How did I become this way, was it my own self sabotage or was it another's doing. That is something I doubt I'll ever be able to answer but what I can tell you is that I wish it wasn't this way. The worst part about this is that sometimes I doubt whether or not I'm strong enough to pull myself out of this horrid darkness. And that ladies and gentlemen is where we get down to the nitty and gritty details of it all that I'm afraid. Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted to hear all along? I am utterly terrified of being alone....and that's not even the best part, I'm so terrified of this that I hardly let people get close to me. In my head it makes sense...being alone is better then having people reject or leave you right? The logical answer to that should be no because the moment that you’re alone the darkness creeps back in reminding you of how worthless and unworthy you are. That my friends is the repetitive thought process here is that no matter how many diets I go one to be that “perfect size” or how much make up I buy to enhance my “natural beauty” or that clothes that I carefully select day in and day out to carefully hide my insecurities, I will NEVER be enough for someone...I am forever and always doomed to be alone. I beg you though please refrain with the “you just haven't found your someone” or “your perfect person will come along when you least expect it” bullshit...That is something that you throw at people you feel sorry for or to make yourself feel better about your own situation. How long exactly am I supposed to wait for said person huh??? Don't even get me started on trying to start dating ok because that shit sucks. You get so excited to see all of these potential suiters that have an interest in you for what is most likely based on your skillfully taken profile picture only to then leave you on read or block you because you aren't DTF...Sorry not sorry but I will NEVER be someone's play thing to dispose of whenever they so choose, I have more self respect then that thank you very much. Now if you happen to find that person who seems promising they either turn into a crazy person or they don't even bother putting in all the effort required to get to know you. Like come on man a simply “hey I’m busy” or even sending the first text for once so I don't seem like a CLINGY bitch would be greatly appreciated! Not to mention the extreme rarity that you find a decent person and they come up with every fucking excuse in the book why they can’t meet you. Like I'm sorry but you have enough time to see your friends or spend all day on snapchat but god forbid you get off your ass to meet me!?!?!  I JUST WANT TO BE LOVED AND RESPECTED IS THAT SO HARD TO FUCKING ASK!! Again my whole point being is that I try so hard and once again nothing I ever do is good enough....It’s so hard living in this brain and having it torment me daily. Desperate attempts at relief never succeed, Therapy is too expensive and all medication does is temporary numb the pain. I've so often lost hope and let the darkness return to consume me because its easier then trying to fight it off. Depression and anxiety seem to be so common now a days, yet it is still so widely ignored by many as a desperate attempt for attention. How dare you sit there and try and tell me that what I feel and what millions of other people feel is invalid; then you wonder why 123 people on average commit suicide per day. Do me a favor and the next time someone reaches out for help don't be a dick and think they’re doing it for attention. I for one am basically for the most part a ticking time bomb waiting to release all sorts of emotion....but for now I’m going to continue to be the “bad bitch” I like to pretend I am and carry on with a smile on my face and this secret kept tucked away in my pocket. 

#Tryingtostaystrong

[whereisthefood123]

Posibilidad ch2

Paring: Gajevy

Summary: AU in which Gajeel is part of Ft since kid and part of Team Shadow Gear. Setting at Phantom Lord arc

ffnet

Ch.1 - Ch2

A/N: Thank you so much for all your reviews, they truly encouraged me to finish this chapter sooner. Here's the second chapter of Posibilidad. Enjoy! As always, a huge shout out to @ranunculusfox for being an amazing beta!

"We should have a name!"

"For what?"

"For our team! Duh!" Jet jumped down from the old oak to land almost perfectly next to Levy who was leaning on the bark of the tree reading one of her favorite books.

Droy followed suit, but the 12-year-old boy tripped over a branch and fell face first on the freshly-cut grass of Magnolia's park. Gajeel who was the last one to jump snickered at the clumsiness of his friend.

"Just think about it," Jet kept going, "we could be the coolest team in Fairy Tail! We need a badass name, don't we?"

"Ya don't even know what badass is!" Gajeel snorted which earned him a glare from the redhead boy. Droy just laughed at them.

"Shut up iron breath."

"Make me, speedy."

Jet lunged at Gajeel and both boys tumbled to the ground with Gajeel easily securing Jet in a headlock, much to the other mage annoyance. Droy stood by the sideline, jabbing an insult or two towards both kids.

"That would be nice!" All boys stopped what they were doing and looked back at Levy who had closed her book and was now paying attention to them.

"Huh?"

"A team's name." She tapped her chin with her finger and looked up to the tree's canopy. "It'll make things easier to go on a job. And I'm pretty sure it'll help us build a cool reputation." Her eyes shone with excitement as she looked back at them. She stood up and clapped her hands happily. "We're already a great team! It's about time we have a great name as well!"

Her cheerfulness was so contagious that Gajeel dropped his grip on Jet and the three boys nodded in agreement. "Hell yeah!"

"But what should it be?" Droy asked everyone as Levy closed the distance towards her friends.

"It should be something cool!"

"And fearsome!"

"And cool!"

"I already said that, Droy!"

"How about," Levy paused, making sure her friends were paying attention, "Team Shadow Gear."

"Yeah!" Droy said excitedly.

"I like it." Jet nodded.

"Team Shadow Gear. Sounds badass enough." Gajeel's smirk broaden after tasting the name on his lips.

"Then, it's decided!" Levy chirped happily. "From now on, we're Team Shadow Gear!"

"YEAH!" The four kids bumped their fists together and with the big oak as their witness, their new adventures as Team Shadow Gear began.

Gajeel ran like he had never run in his life. He had left Cana behind at some point but he couldn't care about it any less. His heartbeat was pounding in his ears, his blood freezing with dread.

Please, let them be fine. Tell me it's not them!

He pleaded to Mavis, to Metalicana, to anyone that could hear his prayers. Because he hadn't waited for the man to finish explaining. The sorrow in his eyes told him by far how much Gajeel needed to be in the park in that second.

Levy. Jet. Droy.

They should be fine. They were probably fine! Even if Phantom Lord had attacked them, they were strong, and together they were stronger! They would have kicked those Phantom Lord's asses in no time.

Then, why was he able to smell their blood from three blocks away from the park?

Let them be fine. Please!

As he neared the park he noticed the multitude gathered around the big oak in the middle of the park. He faltered for a second, hearing murmurs and whispers with the crowd around; all eyes were glued to the tree. His mind tried to catch up to what was happening and to what his senses were telling him.

The smell of his teammates' blood was stronger in the middle of the crowd. By the old tree.

He wasted no more time. He pushed through the mass of people, barely noticing by the corner of his eye that Salamander's team had arrived almost at the same time as him. When he cleared the crowd, he felt how his heart seized its rapid beating in his chest.

High on the bark, hung the limp, bloodied and bruised bodies of his teammates.

On the same tree that Jet, Droy and Gajeel used to climb up to the top branches when kids, on the same tree where Levy had taught him how to read and write in Fiorian, on the same tree where they had chosen Shadow Gear as their team's name. On that same tree, shackled by wood as if the tree had grown around their forearms, and with a Phantom Lord guild mark painted over their heads, Jet, Droy and Levy had been crucified by Phantom Lord as a sick display for all Magnolia to see.

Gajeel felt like getting sick. The contents of his stomach threatened to go up his throat. He gulped hard, his eyes going wide with the scene before him and his breathing laboring with each second.

No… No!

Gajeel couldn't hear anything. His senses zeroed in on his friends trying to pick up any sign that they were alive.

Please. Please!

And he heard it. Their heartbeats. Their breathing. It was weak and shallow, but it was there, and that was all that Gajeel needed to keep going.

With a strong leap, he jumped to the tree and dug his claws into the bark just next to Jet. He didn't notice when he had covered himself in his iron scales but he didn't care, he would use them to tear down the wood cuffs that kept his teammates in place. Assessing Jet's condition, he noticed the unnatural twist of his arm, leaving no doubt that it was broken. Gajeel placed himself in front of Jet, before tearing down the first shackle. Carefully, he maneuvered Jet to hold him against his body before tearing apart the other restraint. He then leaped down from the tree, softening the fall as much as he could to not worsen Jet's arm.

As he placed Jet on the ground, Mira knelt in front of him. "I got him." Her blue eyes burned with unshed angry tears. He could only nod in response.

Gajeel leaped up again into the tree to get Droy down the same way he did for Jet. When he landed back to the ground, it was Cana that took Droy from him so he could get Levy down.

He didn't waste another second. As he was poised to tear down the first cuff that kept Levy in place, he noticed how bruised and broken she was. The bastards had tortured her more than they did to Jet and Droy. Something boiled inside Gajeel at the thought. A rage he had never felt in his life threatened to take away his sanity. He breathed heavily, trying hard to focus on the present and not on what he would do to those who had hurt the most important person in his life. First, he needed to get Levy to safety.

He tore the first restraint and she hissed in pain. Her limp body fell forward as Gajeel caged her against the bark with his own body to not hurt her other arm.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to her, not knowing if she could hear him.

He tore apart the second cuff and she whimpered against his chest. Gajeel cradled her with as much care and softness as he could before he jumped down from the tree. He didn't release his hold on her when they were on the ground, opting instead to kneel down and gather her in his arms. He just needed to feel her heartbeat beneath her skin, to remind himself that she was alive.

His eyes roamed over her body. They had hurt her in so many ways. She was kindness and light and they had smeared her in blood and dirt. He felt the magic rippling under his skin. He wanted to destroy everything that had anything to do with Phantom Lord. He wouldn't forgive anyone that had done this to the woman he loved. He would rip them all to shreds and have them all begging for nonexistent mercy.

Something dark crept inside Gajeel's heart then, and he felt the raging beast looking for release. They would pay. He would make them pay!

Gajeel raised his raging eyes to see Makarov standing in front of him. Master's order from the previous day still rang in his ears but he couldn't care less at this moment. He would break the laws of the Council and of Fairy Tail just to return the pain that Phantom Lord had caused to his nakama.

"Master." Gajeel growled lowly, seeing the uneasiness and sadness within Makarov's eyes as he looked at Levy's broken body. His dark eyes shadowed as he bowed his head but Gajeel felt the sparks of magic power igniting the air around them.

"Wrecking our shoddy bar I could bear with… but no parent can remain silent after seeing their children's blood." Makarov's fist tightened until his cane burst into a million of splinters. He raised his head and Gajeel froze at the rage in the other man's soul. "THIS MEANS WAR," he declared with fury lacing each word. His booming voice echoed all throughout the park and into Gajeel's soul as the old man turned to the rest of the guild members shouting orders that the dragonslayer didn't care to hear any more.

Gajeel felt his rage burning again with Master's declaration. The monster within him wanted to rip to shreds every member of Phantom Lord. And he would take his time to ensure every single member suffered as much as Shadow Gear had. He clenched his teeth in anger. He will show them what happens when they messed up with his teammates. He will show them. He will-

A trembling hand gripped the front of his shirt, instantly snapping him out of his dark thoughts. He looked at the woman in his arms and saw Levy's eyes half-lidded and glazed in pain. Gajeel's heart ached at seeing her like that, so broken, so small. He should have been there with them and not at a stupid bar over an idiotic fight. He should have fought alongside with them. The anger he felt ignited once again with a layer of self-loathing coating his soul. Phantom Lord was to blame for all of this! They-

"...rts." Her frail voice barely registered in his ears. Confused about it, Gajeel leaned down closer to her.

"H-hurts…" she whimpered before her grip on his shirt started loosening.

Gajeel then realized his iron scales were still covering his body, with his claws digging painfully into Levy's shoulder where he was holding her close to him. He hadn't noticed that his fury had him tightening his grip on Levy barely stopping before breaking skin.

As if he had been splashed with cold water, Gajeel came back to the present. All his dark thoughts dissipated with the shame that washed over him.

With a gasp, he retreated his scales and softened his hold on her, still not letting her out of his arms. "Levy, I- I'm sorry," he stammered, worrying his lip at the mere thought of causing her more pain.

But Levy didn't hear him. She had fallen unconscious again, her eyes fluttering closed and her grip loosening any strength left in her.

Gajeel felt his head spinning with his heart pounding in his ears. How had he let the beast inside him take such a hold of him to the point of hurting Levy? His breathing quickened at trying to control the whirlwind of emotions clashing within him. Pain, anger, regret, sorrow, love. All these messing around with his heart and mind as he took a deep breath and looked up to the sky trying to clear his mind from the fog of rage clouding his judgement.

Focus, damnit. Focus!

His eyes scrunched shut and his jaw tightened. The beast in his core wouldn't settle. He felt his scales wanting to resurface just to shield him from the raging turmoil in his soul. But he couldn't let them! He couldn't risk hurting Levy again! Not a chance! But the monster was slowly taking ahold of his mind with the anger chipping away any chance for Gajeel to remain in control.

Damnit!

He took another deep breath and decided then to focus on Levy. He focused on where his hand touched her skin and felt her calming warmth. He focused on the memory of her voice and on that particular tingle that would spread through his chest whenever he heard the sweetness of her tone. He focused on the image of her wrinkled nose as she was lost between a thick tome, and on her addictive scent of lavender and parchment that became his favorite fragrance. And as he focused on the brightness of her eyes and on the specks of gold that shone brighter when she smiled, Gajeel felt how the monster within him gave way to the man he was. A man that hurted, a man that was in love, and a man that aimed to be better with each breath he took.

He slowly released his breath and sensed how the rage he felt was carried away by the gentle breeze that ruffled the leaves of the old tree. With a clear mind, Gajeel returned his gaze back to the woman in his arms and to the people around him, trying his best to understand the situation with a level head.

Fairy Tail was going to war with Phantom Lord and everyone was preparing to leave as soon as they could. But what about Jet and Droy? What about Levy? They were just going to leave them at the hospital and hope for the best? What if Phantom attacked them again? They couldn't stay awake for more than a minute in their current condition. They wouldn't last a second if Phantom Lord decided to target them again. Fairy Tail still didn't know the true motives of Phantom Lord attacks. What if they had an ulterior motive? What if they were luring their main forces towards a war while they attacked those left behind? What would happen then to Levy, Jet and Droy?

He couldn't let them be in danger, abandoning them to go to war. Not a chance. He had already let his emotions get the best of him by storming out of the guild the day before.

In that single moment, Gajeel understood what Levy had done for all of them on so many occasions. Keeping a cool head even when your heart aches was something incredibly difficult to achieve. But someone had to do it. Gajeel felt it was so easy at that moment to let his rage take hold of his sanity, to unleash the beast and set all hell loose in Phantom Lord's guildhall. But he had to take the best decision, not just for him but for his team. They needed him more than his craving for revenge. He couldn't let them down. Not again.

Gajeel looked down at Levy and brushed some strands of hair behind her ear, cupping her cheek gently.

Not again.

"Master," Gajeel called with an even voice as he stood up cradling Levy in his arms. The old man turned to look at Gajeel and was surprised briefly by the cool demeanor of the young man. Gajeel looked down at Levy before meeting Makarov's gaze. His resolve strengthening his soul as words left his mouth. "Give them hell."

Makarov took notice on how the storm within Gajeel's red eyes had settled, his previous dark aura changing drastically to composed but still fiercely protective. The old man understood then what the dragonslayer's words meant.

"You're not coming." It was a statement, more than a question, but Gajeel still shook his head to get his message clear.

"I'll stay with them." He looked down at Levy for emphasis. "If Phantom comes back to pick a fight, I'll be here waiting." And boy, how he wished they would come just so he could release some pent-up rage.

Master nodded. "I'm counting on you then."

With no more left to say, Gajeel walked right after Elfman and Nab who were taking Jet and Droy to Magnolia's hospital. His teammates needed him more than they had ever needed him before. And he knew, besides the physical scars, there would be more damage to deal with once they woke up.

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoy this chapter! There's still going to be one more chapter to wrap up this story and by the looks of it, it's going to be a long one. But that one will have to wait a bit as I need to finish first my contributions to gajevy fallfest.

Let me know your thoughts on this chapter! Did you like the little flashback on when they became Team Shadow Gear? And what about Gajeel's reaction to finding Levy, Jet and Droy? Next chapter will have another flashback to the past that I hope you will all enjoy as well and of course, more Team Shadow Gear feels and some more Gajevy~

Thank you for reading!

WTF (Where's The Food?)

#gajevy #ficsforvera #ftfanfics #gajeel redfox #levy mcgarden #fanfic #fairy tail #jet #droy #team shadow gear #this was super fun to write #and fox helped me so much with pinpointing things that made this chapter even more painful #i'm here hoping that tumblr will not mess up the format #in any case. ffnet should keep the format as I want it. so you can read this chapter there as well :) #please let me know your thoughts on this so I know what works and doesn't and tweak a bit the next chapter :) #(and also because i'm addicted to reading your reactions in the tags and looking through the hilarious GIFs you use lol)

[unproduciblesmackdown]

posts about things with absolutely no introduction but it's because i was reminded of the topic the other day

this one's for those of us in the lifelong isolation no friends society, i know sometimes there's other people out there!! anyways i've been thinking about how like, personally, obviously, b/c idk how other ppl do it b/c we aren't friends with each other lol, its just a fuckin wild thing to deal with in part cuz its one of those answers to which there's not necessarily any Right Way to handle things or Answer or Solution or anything. isolation p much = more isolation and plus not having friends makes ppl less likely to socialize with you so that's rough; anyways yknow, the point is just oops you can't Choose to like, obtain a friend. u can try to get ppl interested but you can't control it beyond that, so, yknow

anyways what am i getting to? yeah so i've never had close friends in that i was never able to share personally honest things anyways for the longest time for a couple reasons, and also, people just didn't like me. the double whammy of "oh no its abuse" and "oh no you're lowkey socially ostracized by your peers from preschool on without end" is like, good luck to little me getting friends! i had sort-of friends in like a couple ppl who'd hang out with me regularly and on occasion we'd go to each others houses or smthing but it wasnt able to be like, the normal fun event it should. oh well. middle school was a little better and a little worse but i didnt keep up w ppl cuz i went to a different school later and its that situation where you're friends-ish Because you're at the same school right...smh...didnt thrive in college magically, but one essential thing was i was away from home more often than not so, that was real important ultimately. but anyways in the end i had like a handful of college friends-ish (accepted by other friends groups lol) and theres a couple of them i still talk to now and again

so like, yknow, friends, mostly friendly acquaintances, my siblings i'd classify as friendly acquaintances, i'm very glad about all of them really. just unfortunately i've only just started to have friendships that are like a decade old and the "longtime close" friendship is nonexistent b/c college is just four years and then you go other places, and i'm not at the heart of friend groups and not "good" at communication in other ways so its hard to keep in touch in ways. smh!!

funnily enough i'm also not good at internet stuff though it's been absolutely essential, god knows. that's why i'm able to talk to anyone rn!! but i can't do group chats and i only like approaching things "one on one" aka i don't like feeling like im in the midst of a group even outside group chats. if you get what i'm saying. like even back being in the small early mh fandom of like, three dozen ppl, in retrospect i didnt like having to be in the entire Group yknow. lemme just be over here. which is what i do now.

anyways for additional reasonsl, communicating has been trickier these past few years and for the most part its been kind of a situation where i wasn't necessarily going to get to talk to someone every day, though usually it'd maybe only be like, a gap of a day or two. and anyways, the thing is that, over the past ten years especially its started to be Distressing like wanting friends, not as much having them, and also having it be more obvious that there was some kind of deficiency keeping me from having (and having had) friends like other people did. not fun! but what i'm getting around to here, whats been wild, is just this like, decade-ish (or two decade-ish if you want) Personal Effort to just figure out how the fuck to stop having to feel like shit about it all the time right? then you're lonely AND stressed and probably self loathing also

so like yeah, the thing is that the other day something was going on about like, yknow, the idea of the longtime close friend with a steadfast presence in your life, and that's just always like, lfjdglmao what!!! sounds nice. i had a friend for a week in second grade and im not sure we ever spoke and then the teacher made us sit on opposite sides of the classroom and it was too embarrassing to be friends anymore. that's kinda close but lol for real......it's not only the lack of friends to tackle but also like, i don't assume to have friends in the future. it's something that like, i would obviously theoretically want, and be happy if it happened, but i can't say i hope for it, because that implies too much being expectant or whatever. and it's weird!! its a weird time just kind of presuming friendlessness until otherwise occurs. and it's not great, i'm definitely still unhappy about all this shit. its just that i've also like, been able to shave off how distressing the issue mightve been in earlier years yknow

like it sounds all depressing to say like, i've just had to be less emotionally invested in the whole thing, but it's kind of true. not by ignoring it or ignoring the feelings so much as like...just acknowledging that this is how it is and there's only so much i can do but not hating myself about it is a start. and yeah it's like "oh, feeling less, depressing" but also frankly when i decided also that its less horrible to be friendless than to feel stuck w crap ppl / ppl who you aren't too important to / etc, i figured that i'd also rather be friendless and just enjoy being myself than try to make myself easier to talk to. i'm not like intimidating or anything, i just can't hold a conversation. but i'm not very interested anymore in trying to convince ppl to like me, yknow, i'm out here, and if i'm ever going to have friends i'd like them to be people to like me For Who I Am, wipe tear. what i'm just saying is "a weird dumbass" b/c its just vague social weirdness that ppl don't necessarily like, loathe, but probably they'd rather talk to someone else. i'm not great at socializing stuff, like i said, hence social rejection since age 4

oh and i meant to say!! i've been able to turn up my emotions by turning down my investment in the idea of Needing To Always Be Trying To Make Friends b/c, as anyone might know, all i like to do is talk at great length about whatever weird, niche shit i'm into at any given point. and that's pretty much it. i'm not pretending to be deep by not really knowing how to do small talk. lmao you guys know what i'm talking about. and obviously not everybody is into Getting Enthusiastic or super focused on whatever weird thing at any point, and i'm not Into getting my passion all fired up and being brushed off or anything, so we can all avoid each other, and i get to continue entertaining myself

so that's a way i've been able to turn my feelings up actually lol.....dunno how to segue into it so i won't but it's also just like, not saying that i Truly Don't Care about not having friends, or that it doesn't hurt that i've had this relative friendless past and the futures looking bleak, b/c it does!! it's still distressing. but like, its turned down. the whole general issue can be a very Bitter one for sure!!!! and it has been in the past sometimes and like.....it's still there basically, i've just been able to turn down the volume a lot on a bunch of these shit feelings like "that's upsetting" or "i'm bitter about that" and just kind of calmly let it simmer back down b/c i'm sort more familiarish with what sets it off and more familiar with Dealing With It Always overall

no idea if i've made the point i was setting out for there. dealing with the No Friends Isolation Life society life is not fun but we're out here, sometimes. it continues to be not fun. "oh well," is an often relevant sentiment. c'est la vie. c'est ce que c'est? i think. and i think it's nice that after years and years of just like, struggling to figure this shit out myself, and probably feeling like shit most of the time, i've at least managed to go "shh" at some Bad Feelings. definitely still there. but this time it doesn't heap extra shittiness on top b/c of having to deal with the intensity of it and feel bad about that too etc etc. it's all weird! getting more familiar with dealing with some shit which is just, the way that it is in part because of bad luck and of course i'm jealous of everybody who does have friends. but oh well. b/c c'est la vie. im also glad for everybody who has friends, obv. it's all complicated!! which is just part of why this post exists. it has no real point, i'm just kinda going like, weird, huh? and kind of good, and kind of a bummer. oh well

also im aware this is a suddenly long, technically depressing post at like circa midnight for a lot of people, but basically this is just me in normal mood. sometimes it's depressing posts time out of nowhere, but i'm not especially depressed!! nighttime is just more of my Peak Hours. night owl 4 life. thanks

oh and ps. another thing i would think about (with more distress in the past, and like, no distress now) is that its also funny cuz, one thing i’ve generally had to do is be aware that it’s a bigger deal for you (me) to get a new Friend than it is for them to be getting you as a friend, b/c math says so. and so i’ve had to push myself to not be overly hopeful or invested in order to be both fair to them and myself. and nowadays that’s just kind of how i view the no-friends-ness of it all, like. i’m not mad that i’m not for some reason way closer to anybody i know. why would i be. and i don’t expect anybody to think like “oh my god we have to be Good Friends” because like. not in a self deprecating way but like, why would any random person want that. and i dont expect to be better friends with ppl im just casual friends with, which is great, cus like Friendly Acquaintances and other lite friendships are fantastic and im very grateful. but i am aware there’s plenty of reasons making it difficult to just like, pick up a Close Buddy and i’m not like “oh i demand one from somewhere, from some reason.” so what i am trying to say is that keeping my expectations honestly realistic is an effort to be fair to both other ppl and myself and i think it works. no friends!! we out here!!!!

#long post //// #long and incoherent lord knows. whatevs #its midnight...the no Purposeful Writing hours....... #(bat emoji)

[littleredroseonthevalley]

An Opera on Separation - Chapter 17

Prologue | Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | Ch. 5 | Ch. 6 | Ch. 7 | Ch. 8 | Ch. 9 | Ch. 10 | Ch. 11 | Ch. 12 | Ch. 13 | Ch. 14 | Ch. 15 | Ch. 16 | CH. 17 | Ch. 18 | 

Summary: Lois’ presence disturbs the spirits at the Sterling residence. Some keep their cool, some lose their temper, and all are faced with their own dilemmas.

Rating: T - Content not suitable for children.  Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with minor suggestive adult themes.

Words: 1467

Notes: Back we are, two weeks later. It’s been hard finding a spot for this on my schedule. I never thought I’d be out of days to post stuff, and not out of stuff to post.

Also, my many thanks to @onesuntowngirl for her nice comment she left on my private chat. Thank you!

Don’t forget to reblog and to comment! Preeeeetty please.

Fear and Loathing

“Mother!” Nathan exclaims.

Standing by the doorway, Lois Sterling smirks, dangerously. “I am back.”

He rolls his eyes. “That I can see. What I wonder is why are you here and not dazzling crowds and bullying students in Sorbonne.”

“If you’re really interested…”

“I am really not.” He interrupted.

“If you’re really interested,” She continues, forcefully. “My post-doctorate program has come to its end, and I’ll be returning to Yale for the second term. There’s no direct flight between Paris and New Haven, so I thought it would be nice to see how my only son is faring before I head to Connecticut.”

“If only I could believe that.” The blond man sighs. “What do you want, mother?”

The eldest smirks. “Since you insist in going straight to business, very well. I came to pick up my jewellery. I kept here quite a collection and I’d like to take them with me. After all, every well-informed citizen in the western world now know you can get grabby, can’t you, Nathan?”

“There we go.” He grumbles. “I was starting to worry, I was pretty sure that would be the first thing out of your mouth.”

“I tried to give a more tasteful lead, out of consideration.” She responded.

“Of course, how stupid of me.” He growled back.

“I assure you, Mrs Sterling,” Emily saw fit to intervene. “That we have gathered everything that belonged to you and had Mr Goldstein deposit at your safe.”

“Oh, Emily, you’re here.” Lois says, monotone. “I did not notice, it always seems you blend with the wallpaper.”

The redhead retreats, but the blond comes to her defence: “Mother, you are at our house. Say what you want about me, but you will treat Emily with respect. She is, after all, doing much more for me as my ex-wife than you ever did as my progenitor.”

The tense standstill between Nathan, Emily and Lois was only broken by the arrival and consequential, and almost obligatory, sardonic comment of Queenie Harper-Rhodes.

“Lois Sterling. It’s been nineteen years if it’s been a day.” She smirked. “Still using a broomstick as a spine, I see.”

The woman smiled, resembling a hungry shark. “Soraya Harper. Still a tactless freeloader, I see.”

“Better off as a freeloader than as a frigid shrew. I know you hate all men, but women these days have options.” Queenie shots her a smile of superiority.

“I prefer self-respect, thank you very much.” Lois sneers and turns back to Nathan. “So, what do you intend to do?”

“About what?”

“About your judgement, of course!” She exclaims, as if it was obvious. “Are you going to flee the country? Tamper with evidence? Intimidate witnesses?”

“I am not doing such thing!” He exclaims, revolted.

She rolls her eyes. “Please, Nathan, respect my intelligence. The one thing you despise is to take responsibility for your actions. And you certainly isn’t innocent in this whole thing. You’re not competent enough to pull off a meteoric ascension like you did.”

He narrows his eyes. “I prefer not to discuss my legal strategies with the likes of you.”

“So there is a strategy, huh? I wonder what it is.” Then a thought races through her mind and understanding flashes on her blue eyes. “Unless… Oh, you’re really pathetic. Out of everything you ever did, the one thing I approved of was your divorce. But this girl waves a bone in front of you and suddenly back you are, waiting on her hand and foot.

“And I really cannot understand why.” Lois gets closer, like a panther closing down on prey. “Out of all your girlfriends, and you had your share, poor Emily here is nothing special. She’s not pretty, she’s not smart and she’s not ambitious. She dress like a granny, speaks like an annoying Santa’s elf, and has absolutely no personality. She’s just… flat. Flat Emily.”

“Lois?” Queenie calls her name.

“Yes?” She responds, with an evil smile.

Before she could say anything else, Queenie slapped her face, hard enough for the skin contact resonate throughout the apartment.

“This is my daughter you’re speaking about, so I’d hold my tongue if I were you.” The woman threatens, anger barely contained.

“I…”

Still not letting her speak, Queenie slaps her again, the force bucking Lois to her knees.

“I’ll tell you what she has.” Queenie holds Lois up. “She’s not so bitter to the point she has to blame her son for every setback her miserable life ever had. She doesn’t need the approval of a heartless, faceless academia to prove her self-worth. And she has a family that will rip off to the last of your teeth if you ever open your damned mouth to speak ill of her again.”

Queenie throws Lois in the ground and kicks her stomach for good measure.

“It’s better if you leave, mother. Now.” Nathan says, sneering and looking down at the woman. “You got what you came for.”

Emily was at Zig’s apartment, finishing her gruesome tale about the going-ons at Park Avenue that evening. Them both were laid on his bed, the man’s arm around her shoulders, trying to bring consolation through physical contact.

“So what happened after your mom hit Mrs. Sterling?” He asks, containing his frustration at the aristocratic family.

“I admonished my mom, of course. She shouldn’t have slapped Mrs. Sterling, regardless of what she said.” The woman responds, her worry about the consequences seeping through her voice. “She got angry, understandably, and left.”

Zig might have thought of many things to say, but none of them were fitting for the emotional state of the young woman, so he preferred to simply be comforting and say: “You had a rough night, huh?”

“Very.” She agrees and hides her face on his shoulder. “Thanks for letting me stay here, by the way. I didn’t want to stay there alone with Nathan.”

“Don’t mention it, Em.” He wrapped a hand on her waist, for support.

They stayed like this for a few silent moments until Emily asks, with a muffled voice: “Hey, Zig?”

“Yeah?”

The woman emerged from their position. “Do you think I’m flat? I mean, do I have a boring personality?”

“No!” He denies, but his voice wavers.

“Don’t lie!” She accuses, slightly hurt.

Feeling painted to a corner, Zig sighed and confessed: “I love you, Emily. Just like you are. And because I love you is why I worry about you. It’s not that you’re boring, but you could be more assertive. So that people like Nathan and his hag of a mother can’t walk all over you.”

Emily looked at her boyfriend and considered what she has been told. She opens her mouth to speak, but the man interrupts her: “I know that you think you owe Nathan, and I respect that. I don’t understand, but I respect that. I don’t want to fight you over that again, especially since we just got back together.

“But I worry about you, I worry that someday you might be taken for a fool, just because you’re so darn soft-hearted. That Nathan convinces you to do something terrible, something you cannot come back from, just so he can escape his trial.”

The redhead hugs the man tightly, resting her face on his toned chest. The warmth from her cheeks over his heart calmed his shallow breathing, the anxiety of knowing bad things are to come.

“I love you, too, you know?” She said. “And I know I can be… trusting, but I don’t think Nathan will be doing anything, at least not against me. But, either way, I have my eye on him, and I won’t be letting him go away with making me an accessory. Don’t worry about me.”

“Easier said than done.” The Latino grumbles, and the woman kisses his cheek.

“Come on, let’s sleep.” She said, smirking. “It’s late, and we both had too much of an exciting evening.”

“Fine, bossypants.”

They kissed one last time, covered themselves and turned off the light.

Still on that same evening, Queenie sat on a bar, twirling an olive on a martini, thinking about life.

“Have you been waiting long?” A deep voice comes from behind her.

She smirks and faces the man. “Yes. But I don’t mind.”

“Not that you could. It’s not like we scheduled anything.” He counters, with a smirk of his own.

“That would be a lousy stake out.” They chuckle, and she continues: “How are you, Nathan?”

“Same as always, same as always.” He responds, a slight grimace on his face. He, then, motions for the barkeep for a drink. “How did you know I’d be here?”

“Wherever Lois go, you’ll surely be trailing shortly behind.” The woman answers, twirling her tousled hair, faux-innocently. “Let’s dive into business, shall we?”

“Whatever the lady wants.”

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An Opera on Separation - Masterlist

Taglist: @alicars; @boneandfur; @cora-nova; @choicesfannatalie; @emerald-bijou; @kennaxval; @liamxs-world; @lizeboredom; @mfackenthal; @moodygrip; @mrsdrakewalkerblog; @radiantrosemary; @topsyturvy-dream

#the junior #nathan sterling #zigmund ortega

[bastardsonofday]

Secrets Secrets are No Fun

Lucien Vanserra has a secret, and Azriel is hellbent on figuring it out. For better or for worse. 

Aka nobody is straight, half of them are self-loathing, and Lucien is a sex-repulsed asexual. 

ao3

Lucien Vanserra had a secret that only one person had ever known. Jes had loved him anyway, had promised him that it didn’t matter—but Lucien knew better. Lucien couldn’t tell anyone, if someone did know his whole facade would crash down around his ears and no one would believe him ever again. No one would need him. No one would want him.

Cassian almost found out. He’d gotten too close.

They were at Rita’s. Just the boys for some fun. Lucien and Cassian were wasted and had ended up in the coat closet because they were going to go back to the House of Wind. Lucien dropped a coat and bent down to pick it up. They were alone and Cassian stumbled, falling onto Lucien, knocking them both into the floor.

Cassian giggled as he sat up, looking at Lucien.

He was close. Too close.

Cassian leaned in, a hand on Lucien’s hip. The touch and the alcohol and the closeness and knowing what was about to happen- it was too much, revulsion crawled up Lucien’s skin and Lucien threw up in Cassian’s lap.

Cassian just blamed it on the alcohol. Lucien knew better.

Lucien’s head hurt worse than it ever had before. He stumbled out of his room, and down the hall. His stomach growled, and his lips were chapped and dry. Thankfully, the House of Wind hallways were soft colors and dark and gloomy. Lucien never thought he would like dark and gloomy. Autumn, Spring, everywhere he’d lived it had been bright and even in the dark it was never gloomy.

He managed to find his way to the dining room. He could tell because the minute he entered the brightness on the world dramatically increased and Lucien’s headache got worse.

He smelled coffee.

“Morning~” Feyre sang, handing Lucien a steaming cup.

“No nooo,” Lucien tried to say, but his mind didn’t want to make words, “nooo, shhhhh...”

Feyre laughed. “Need help getting to the table?”

“I’m fine.” Lucien grumbled as he found his way to the dining room table. He took a huge sip of the beverage, making him wake up because he’d just burned his mouth, and helping lessen his headache slightly.

Cassian had already woken up. He sat with his head on the table, glasses of ice water haloed around his face.

“Morning.” Lucien greeted.

Cassian made a noncommittal noise.

“Boys’ night got a little out of hand?” Mor asked. She sat in the chair next to Lucien and crossed her legs before reaching for the tea selection.

Lucien frowned. “Why are you...” His brain seemed to be angry at him, “… head hurts.” He said as an explanation of his speech was slow and his eyes were squeezed closed, “Time?”

“Noon. You’re just in time for lunch.” Nesta said sourly. She’d hoped that Lucien wouldn’t wake up at all. Lucien had half a mind to hope he wouldn’t have woken up either.

“You know, for someone who was clearly trashed last night, you seem pretty put together.” Feyre said.

Lucien shrugged as he sipped his coffee. “Practice.”

Cassian mumbled something that vaguely sounded like “fuck you.”

A new set of footsteps entered the room and Lucien shaded his eyes to slightly alleviate his pounding head. Azriel walked into the room shirtless and sweating. Of course, Lucien thought bitterly, of course Azriel would look like Prythian’s next top model the day after he got so drunk he started dancing the macarena with lesbians.

“I’m hungry!” Azriel said with a grin. He plopped down onto the chairs and clapped his hands to which both Lucien and Cassian protested. He chuckled sadistically.

Mor sniffed disdainfully. “You need a shower.”

“I’m going back out after family lunch. Speaking of which, is Rhys still asleep?” Azriel asked. He reached for some of the food set out (which Lucien had just realized was on the table).

Elain slapped his hands. Azriel retracted them.

“I let him sleep in. He stayed up pretty late.” Feyre said with a grin and a wink.

“Ew,” Lucien grumbled. Feyre laughed and slapped Lucien on the back as she sat on the other side of him. “Ow.”

“Anyway, we should start without him.”

“Lucien, what was that last night?” Elain asked suddenly. All heads turned. Except Cassian’s which stayed placed on the table between its cage of ice water. “I felt… something weird.”

Lucien flushed. “Nothing.” She couldn’t know. Elain couldn’t know. Please Mother, Lucien prayed, please make her not know.

“He threw up on me.” Cassian grumbled.

“Wow, he managed a whole sentence. That’s progress.” Azriel said as he reached over Cassian for the rice.

“You threw up on him?” Feyre said pityingly. She patted Lucien’s back soothingly.

“That explains your lack of pants!” Mor cried.

“Shhhhh…!” Cassian and Lucien hushed in unison.

“Oh yeah. Rita offered to wash them for him, and he could pick them up later. I knew I was forgetting something.” Az said before shoveling food in his mouth.

“How do you do it?” Lucien asked horrified. He looked down at his own plate and pushed it away, too nauseous to eat it. He decided to stick with coffee.

“This is Az’s usual post-drinking session. And I hate him for it.” Mor said, watching Az stuff his face.

“You’re just jealous.”

“You’re unusually talkative today.” Nesta said accusingly.

Azriel shrugged and continued to chew.

The sound of feet padding across the floor announced the High Lord’s arrival.

“It lives!” Mor cried.

“SHHHH!”

Mor chuckled.

“So, what are we talking about?” Rhys asked softly as he sat down. He reached for the pitcher of coffee and Feyre took it from him so he wouldn’t spill it all over himself.

“Did you know Lucien threw up on Cassian last night?” Feyre asked.

“So I guess everyone has to know, huh Feyre?” Lucien grumbled, growing red.

“Well yeah. Why else would Cassian come home missing pants?” Rhys mumbled.

Elain shook her head.

“That’s not something that should be a given!”

Everyone laughed and Lucien decided it was best that they all thought that he’d thrown up from alcohol poisoning.

As Azriel watched Lucien shift in his seat, rubbing his hands in a warming gesture around his mug, Az knew something was wrong. He was unsure about what exactly it was, but something was wrong. And it wasn’t snooping, Azriel rationalized, because this was his job, and it had nothing to do with Elain or Rhys or Feyre at all. Nope. This was all for the sake of his intelligence gathering.

Lucien was glad that Elain was close to Azriel. Sure, it hurt, but it also hurt because he felt guilty. So yeah, it hurt but the clear-headed part of Lucien was glad that Elain could fall in love one day with Azriel. Because then she’d be spared… Lucien. And Lucien telling her the truth. Lucien didn’t know if he could do that. He didn’t know what she would think of him if she knew the truth. Lucien couldn’t stand that rejection.

“Hey, you okay?” Feyre asked him one day over tea.

Lucien nodded. “Fine. Why?”

“You seem… on edge recently. Ever since-ever since the Boys’ night-did something happen that night?”

Lucien shook his head. “No. Nothing happened. Really Feyre, I’m okay.”

“Okay… if you say so.”

Lucien squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“So, I heard you and Rhys have been working on our post-trade agreement feast with Winter.”

“Yep.”

“Are you going to be okay… with…?” She let the question hang.

Lucien took a deep breath and thought before speaking, choosing his words carefully. Rhys had asked Lucien to flirt with one of the Grand Countesses of Winter, something to do with avoiding international incidents and hopefully defusing volatile relations with charm… whatever. Lucien was used to doing this, Tamlin had asked him to flirt for political means a lot. It was part of his job as Emissary.

It made his secret easier to hide, he believed. Easier to hide and easier to deal with, if he pretended to be normal. If he pretended maybe he could be… he wanted- Jes.

Oh Jes… Jes was the only person who understood, who was okay with his secret. Jes…

“I’ll be fine. Nothing I can’t handle.” Lucien said with a shrug. And he was right. But Feyre was still worried, because she was a good friend.

“If it ever makes you uncomfortable, you know you can come straight to any of us and we’ll make sure you never have to do something like that again.” Feyre promised.

“I know, Feyre. I promise, I’m cool with flirting. I’m used to it.”

“I just-After everything that happened with Ianthe...”

Oh. So that’s what this was about. Lucien sighed kindly. “Nothing like that will ever happen again, thanks to you.”

Feyre frowned. “I’m… worried about you.”

“I know.”

Feyre leaned over and squeezed Lucien’s free hand. Lucien squeezed it back.

Azriel was forced to do something he never thought he’d do. He called Alis of the Spring Court. “I’m not quite sure how you want me to help you.” Alis said as she chose a menu for that night’s dinner.

“I just want to know about Lucien’s relationship with Ianthe.”

“Why would I know about that? And can’t you just ask him?”

“I’m not going to burden Lucien like that. And don’t shit with me like that, you know as well as I that the women of the household know everything.”

Alis frowned.

“Look, Lucien and that bitch had their own-”

“I’m worried about him, Alis. Please. Feyre always said you were the one to go to when she needed help.”

Alis glared at Azriel. “That was below the belt.”

“I know.”

Alis chewed on the inside of her lip. “Ianthe came onto him. As I’m sure you know, she liked to do that. Consensual or not.”

“How far did it go?”

“Too far.”

I see.

“Thank you, Alis.”

“Good luck with whatever you’re doing, Shadowsinger.” And with that, Alis signed off.

Azriel sat back in his chair, staring at the door to his office. Something was wrong with Lucien, and he didn’t think that was it.

“Three hundred and fifty six.” Cassian said proudly.

“No.” Rhysand argued. “That’s bullshit.”

“Three hundred and fifty six.” Cassian insisted.

“No.” Azriel said flatly.

“See! Az agrees with me. And he’s a Shadowsinger. He’d know.”

“Uh, yes. I’m not lying.”

“Cass, I know you. You haven’t had more than three hundred.”

Cassian’s mouth dropped open. “Not true! You haven’t been with me every second of every day!”

“It’s impossible, Cass.”

“Oh, it’s possible.” Lucien said.

“See!”

“But, Cassian is still lying.”

“Hey! I thought you were on my side!”

Lucien snorted. “Please.”

“How would you know that, anyway?” Cassian asked, taking a swig from his beer.

Lucien raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

“You? Three hundred and fifty six?” Rhysand said incredulously.

Lucien straight out laughed. “No.”

“No? Then how do you know it can happen?” Rhysand asked.

“Maybe I’m just not one to kiss and tell.”

“Or maybe you’ve just met Helion before.” Az said with a smirk.

“Please, Helion’s number is way higher than that.” Lucien said, rolling his eyes. “And unfortunately, he is one to talk about it.”

“So what about you, Lucien? If not three hundred and fifty, then what?”

Lucien snorted. “I’m not telling.”

“So... a lot, then?” Rhysand asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“Woo! Good job, Foxy!” Cassian said, slapping Lucien’s leg.

“What’s the number?”

“You’re not going to stop asking until I answer, are you?” Lucien asked. The men nodded eagerly. “Believe it or not, I haven’t had any sexual partners since Jes.”

The Illyrians’ jaws dropped.

“None?”

“Well,” Lucien crossed his legs uncomfortably, “Ianthe. But, that was for magical reasons.”

Rhysand nodded, but said nothing.

“Really? None?” Cassian asked, eyes wide. “I-I can’t imagine none! She died so many-!” Az cleared his throat and kicked Cassian.

“Oh.” Cassian said softly, understanding. “Sorry.”

Lucien shrugged. “It’s okay, Cass. It was a long time ago.” Lucien took a moment of silence, rolling the stem of his wine glass between his fingers. A small smile lit his face. He looked back at the boys, and cleared his throat. “Anyway.” He blinked the water from his eyes, “Cass is still lying.”

Cassian’s eyes widened, good-natured laughter on his lips. “I am not! I would never!”

Elain sighed, leaning her head on Lucien’s shoulder while he read to her.

Lucien paused to take a drink of water.

“You have a pretty voice.” Elain hummed.

Lucien smiled at her. Elain shifted so she was laying more on his chest than his shoulder. “Thank you.” Lucien reopened the book and resumed reading from it.

Lucien read until he heard even breathing from Elain. He frowned, and twisted gently to see if Elain was okay. As it turned out, Elain had fallen asleep.

Lucien let out a small laugh, rousing Elain. Shit. He hadn’t wanted to do that.

“Sorry.”

Elain hummed softly. “It’s okay. I want to hear the rest of the story anyway.” Elain sat up, yawning. She was so beautiful, Lucien thought. So, so beautiful. And sweet.

Elain’s eyes fluttered open. Lucien’s breath caught. Elain smiled at him.

They were so close. Elain wondered if the fluttering in her chest was what this Mating Bond was supposed to feel like.

Elain began to lean forward, and Lucien watched as she came close to him. Her lips pressed against his, and despite what he wanted, Lucien’s stomach turned. Lucien stumbled backwards on the couch (to get way from the feeling more than Elain herself, of course), and Elain fell forward. Elain was surprised; had she done something wrong?

“I’m-I’m sorry, Elain. I-We should go to bed. It’s late.” Lucien stood swiftly, and drained everything in his glass.

“Lucien, have I… upset you? I didn’t mean to-!”

“You didn’t! Everything is fine, Elain. I just… am suddenly tired. And you were falling asleep, you should go to bed.” Lucien said as he began obsessively putting the pitcher and the glass in the sink.

“But-”

“You’re exhausted Elain, don’t stay up on my account.” Lucien insisted. He closed his book and began walking out of the room.

He left Elain alone and confused. “But… I want to stay up with you.”

“And he just… left?” Azriel asked Elain over tea. Elain nodded.

“It was so weird, Az. One minute, I think I’m going to kiss him, and the next he’s out the door.” Elain sipped from her cup.

“Hmmm… that is weird. Did he give a reason?”

“He just said that I should go to bed, that I was probably tired.”

Azriel pursed his lips, swirling the honey in his tea.

Elain cocked his head. “What are you thinking?”

“Nothing… Would you do something for me, Elain? And keep in mind you have complete and utter right to say no, as always.”

Elain crossed her legs. “What do you want me to do?”

“Could you… possibly… this is going to sound weird—kiss Lucien again, and tell me how he reacts?”

Elain was confused. “… Pardon?”

“Could you kiss Lucien for me?”

“First, that is a very odd request. Second, I… don’t know how comfortable I feel doing that.”

Azriel figured she would say that. He shrugged. “Okay. I had to ask.”

“Why did you ask?”

Azriel shifted, uncomfortable with the question. He didn’t want to lie to her, but he didn’t want to answer either. “Call it… professional curiosity.”

Elain made a face and took a sip. She thought for a moment. Was it really that bad? She did want to kiss Lucien, or at least try it. If she was going to attempt to kiss him again anyway, why not report his reaction?

“Maybe.” Elain conceded. “… Maybe.”

“Thanks. It’s a big help.”

The war room was quiet as Azriel studied the report Lucien had given him. Amren flipped through a profile on a new spy recruit. Lucien raised an eyebrow. “Well?”

“I think this new recruit has other priorities.” Amren said. She dropped the file down, and groaned, rubbing her eyes. “I hate this form.” She mumbled. “My eyes never used to hurt before.”

“Can’t relate.” Lucien said, twirling a pen between his fingers.

Amren raised an eyebrow and sighed.

“Good job, Lucien.” Azriel said, passing the report back to him. “I���m impressed. You had no trouble?”

Lucien snorted. “Please, Day Court royals will spill their guts if only for a promise of a kiss on the cheek.”

Azriel sat back in his chair. Amren was suddenly interested in the conversation. “Oh?”

“Like you didn’t already know that.”

“And did you?”

Lucien snorted. “I didn’t need to.”

“And this works for every Day Court royal?” Amren asked.

“Well, of course not every one. And shouldn’t you know this?”

Amren shrugged. “I only recently started listening to all of you. Figured now that I have to live with all of you, I may as well actually learn this spy stuff. Being second in command and all.”

“Winter Court tends to be more reserved in public. Autumn will do anything if you get any amount of beer in them. Summer is trickier, especially since the Ambassadors to the other Fae classes have been added to the formal gatherings. And Tarquin has been training them well not to spill anything. Dawn is just a much of a sucker for kisses as Day, but they also crumble for sweets. And Spring…” Lucien bit his bottom lip. It was always hard for him to talk about Spring. “Well, I know everything there is to know about Spring.”

Amren let out a huff. “It’s information like this, Foxy, that makes me glad you’re on our side.”

Lucien grinned, his eyes far off and his mind preoccupied. “I could say the same about you.”

Amren shrugged off the compliment. “Don’t humor me.” I know Az invites me to these things so I feel important. She thought.

“Amren is right. You’re a useful addition to my network. And a good ear to listen to.” Azriel said with a smile.

Lucien flushed. “C’mon guys, you’re embarrassing me.” He joked.

“Oh ew. If we’re talking about feelings, I’m leaving.” Amren said, standing up and stretching.

“Sit down, I’m not done.” Az said, rolling his eyes and waving a hand. Amren groaned and flopped back onto the couch.

Azriel and Lucien talked a little more, and occasionally Amren put in her two cents. The discussion circled around to the connections that sleeping with people in other Courts made, when Amren made a joke about Varian and Azriel mentioned his own experience with some Winter girls and Lucien stayed conspicuously silent. Amren hadn’t seemed to notice, and when Lucien brought up Varian’s relationship with Cresseida Amren grew defensive and snapped something back about Lucien’s “true relationship with Alis” and Lucien narrowed his eyes, angrily.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

“Alis is off limits. She has done nothing but try and keep her nephews safe!”

“What’s it to you, anyway? You seem fine with us screwing with Tamlin!”

“Tamlin is a bad person!”

“Alis is his closest ally at this point!”

“She’s just trying to make a living!”

“Oh? And are you sure that’s the only reason you’re protecting her?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“A-Alis and me-That’s ridiculous! Fuck you! You know nothing about me!”

“Really, Foxy? Ridiculous? There’s a reason they call you ‘fox boy’, isn’t there?”

Lucien stood, his chair screeching backwards. “Screw you.” He growled. Lucien turned to Azriel. “Call me when you want me to work with you again.” Lucien turned to Amren. “And you? Don’t bother.” He turned and stomped out.

Amren flushed and huffed. “What crawled up his ass and died?” She grumbled.

“You should apologize.”

Amren’s eyes flashed. “I have nothing to apologize for. It was a joke. Dunno what his problem is.” She stood up and stomped out as well.

Azriel groaned and put his face in his hands. He’d have to iron out this argument—couldn’t have his two best strategists fighting like that. Lucien must have blown up like that because of the disrespect Amren had shown her. That had to be it. Azriel was sure there was no other reason, and Amren had been out of line...

Elain left Azriel’s office and Azriel mulled over the information she’d just given him. Elain had tried to kiss Lucien again, and again he had rejected her. He’d given her a flimsy excuse and she’d accepted the rejection.

But Azriel knew that there was a real, actual reason Lucien didn’t want to kiss Elain. A reason he’d thrown up when Cass had tried to kiss him. A reason for-

Oh.

Oh!

But… why was he hiding it?

Azriel did the only thing he could do. He went out to a Velaris liquor store, bought a bottle of the best Dawn Booze out there, went to Mor’s and knocked on the door.

Some time and half a bottle later, Mor and Azriel were on the roof of the House of Wind. Really, what was the point of living in the Night Court when you didn’t go out every night and stare up at the stars? They giggled and held one another while they passed the bottle back and forth. Mor had also pilfered a couple bottles of vodka from the House of Wind liquor cabinet.

Mor took a deep, happy breath. “So, why did you want to get drunk with me?” She asked. She swung an arm around Azriel.

Az frowned, rolling the bottle between his warm hands.

“Oh, so it’s work related is it?”

Az gave Mor a puzzled look.

“You always want to get drunk to get an epiphany when it’s about work.” Mor said simply.

“Well, you’re wrong this time.” Azriel stretched. “It’s not… exactly work.”

“No?”

“It’s… Hmm…” Az bit his lip. “Why haven’t you come out publicly?”

Mor’s eyes widened. “What?” She sat up, sobering.

It was the liquor that made Az roll his eyes. “I’m not an idiot, Mor. You’re gay.”

Mor stared at him for a second. Then sank back to the ground, nursing her booze. “Yeah. I am.”

“Why haven’t you come out publicly?” Az repeated.

“Because… I don’t want anyone to know.”

“Why?”

“I… I was afraid to how you would react.”

Azriel sat up, taking her hand. “Mor… you know that I love you for who you are. And if you who are changes, then I still love you. And you know…” Az pressed a kiss to her hand, “I’m not particularly straight myself.”

“You-You’re not?”

“We love you for you Mor, not who you love. And yes. I’m not straight. But Mor, will you tell us now that you know that we love you unconditionally?”

Mor stared at him. “I… I don’t know if I’m ready.” She said softly.

Azriel frowned. He hadn’t thought about that.

“Thank you, Mor.”

“I… think I should be the one thanking you.” Mor said softly. “I’m glad we got drunk tonight.”

Az smiled. “Me too.”

“Hey Az?”

“Hmm?”

“You in love with Elain now?”

“Hmmm...” Az mulled the question over. “I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“Maybe? That’s reassuring.”

“I was in love with you.”

“Oh.” Mor said in an unsurprised tone.

“You knew.”

“… Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault who you love.”

“I’m sorry I caused such turmoil in you. I’m sorry I caused such hatred.”

“You didn’t cause anything. My self-loathing… that comes from years of abuse and my worth hinging on my use as a heterosexual man’s sex slave. It had nothing to do with you.”

Az stayed silent for a time. He stood.

“I have to go.”

“Az, don’t-Don’t run away-!”

“I’m not. I’m… I’m going to figure something out, once and for all. I love you Mor, don’t forget that.” Az walked downstairs.

He searched the rooms, drinking what he had left of his wine. Finally he found the one he was looking for. Azriel knocked on the door (slightly louder than necessary). Lucien was half asleep, his hair up in a messy bun, his pajama pants were askew on his hips, and he was shirtless. Well, Az reasoned, it was kinda hot out.

“Hi. Would you kiss me?” Az asked, pushing past Lucien and into his room.

“I’m confused and you’re-” Lucien took a whiff of Az’s breath as he passed, “drunk.”

Az shrugged. “Would you?”

“No.”

Az narrowed his eyes. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to… and… you’re straight last I checked.”

Az snorted. “Please. No one is straight in this country. But that’s not the real answer.”

“Yes it is.”

“No! You’re lying about why you don’t want to kiss me! You won’t kiss me, you won’t kiss Elain! Who will you kiss?”

“Why do you want me to kiss anyone?” Lucien put his hands on his hips.

“Because if you did then I could know the truth! Now it’s all conjecture!” Azriel fell onto the bed, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

“The truth about what?” Lucien asked. He didn’t like where Azriel was poking around. “What do you think you know?”

Azriel stood, leaving the open bottle on Lucien’s bed and pulled Lucien close to him. Lucien’s face was red and his breath fogged in front of Azriel. Lucien pushed Azriel away from him, a micro-grimace flitting across his lips. Az frowned. “Why won’t you tell anyone that you’re sex-repulsed?”

“What.”

Az groaned. “I’m sick of repeating myself! You know exactly what I said!”

Lucien took a step back. “I’m-I’m not-”

“Yes, you are. So why are you lying to me?”

“I’m not broken.” Lucien snarled.

Azriel looked like he’d been slapped. “I never said you were.”

Azriel took a step forward. Lucien took a step back.

“I’m not broken.” Lucien repeated. Lucien’s hands were balled by his sides. “I’m not-”

“I never said you were.” Azriel whispered.

Tears shined in Lucien’s eyes, his lips were pulled downward slightly—Azriel couldn’t tell if it was a frown or a grimace or just Lucien’s ‘about to cry’ face. Azriel couldn’t know the secret. If Az knew then-then-

“You’re not broken. Lucien, are you even allosexual?” Azriel asked.

“Of-Of course I am! Wh-Of course I am! How dare you ask me that, Shadowsinger! How dare you-!”

“I’m not.”

Lucien was, for once, at a loss for words. “I don’t-”

“I’m not allosexual. I’m a-spec. I’m not quite sure what yet, I flip between labels sometimes, but...” Az trailed off with a sigh. “I’m certainly not allosexual.”

Lucien stared at Azriel. “I-I don’t understand. How can you be okay with that?”

“How can I be okay with that? How can I not? It’s who I am.”

“But you’re-” You’re like me. You’re broken.

“I’m me. And I’m fine.” Azriel said softly. “And you are too. You aren’t broken. You haven’t misled anyone or lied. You just haven’t found the right label, or aren’t ready to use the one you’ve found. But no one thinks you’re broken. No one.”

No. Lucien couldn’t. “No.”

“Lucien, if you aren’t ready that’s… that’s fine too. I just… I needed to know if I was right. Am I right?” Azriel asked.

Lucien said nothing. “I need you to leave.”

“Lucien-”

“I need you to leave.” Lucien repeated. Lucien expelled heat from himself, making the air shimmer around him like an aura.

“I’m sorry for pushing.” Azriel said with a nod, sobering up. “But when you want someone to know, you can tell me.”

Never. Thought Lucien as Azriel left the room in a hurry. Lucien walked over to his bed, and felt something cylindrical and cold. Lucien groped around and picked up the object. A bottle of Dawn wine with about an eighth left. Lucien pressed it to his lips, and downed it all in one gulp.

Never. No one else could ever know.

The knock on Azriel’s door was light and hesitant. Using his shadows Az could tell it was Lucien on the other side. “Come in,” Az said. He finished up his paperwork and started filing them to clear his desk.

Lucien walked in carefully. He looked uncomfortable, and he shifted from foot to foot.

“You can sit if you want.” Azriel offered. Lucien sat wordlessly. He played with his hair nervously.

“Do you want water?” Azriel asked. He stood and walked over to his pitcher of water on one of the shelves in his office.

“When I told Jes how I felt, she told me the label I was looking for was sex-repulsed asexual.” Lucien began, jumping into it. The words came out in a rush, and then Lucien dammed them up again. He stared at Azriel, waiting.

Azriel sat back down. He leaned over, looking at Lucien directly and kindly. “I’m listening.”

#diana writes #diana writes a court of thorns and roses #diana writes secrets secrets are no fun #secrets secrets are no fun #asexual!lucien vanserra #lucien vanserra #elain archeron #azriel #morrigan #cassian #feyre archeron #amren #diana writes lucien vanserra

[thinkingaboutsanfrancisco]

Dancing? 

The suggestion grips me with the force of sheer horror, all too fleeting optimism fading and my eyes widening the second I hear it.  

Oh fuck. 

I don’t know how I didn’t consider it beforehand, but I wish I would’ve so I could’ve warned him before he got himself so excited over it. What the fuck happened to relaxing? That isn’t relaxing, man! I can’t even sit properly, so what the hell makes you think I know how to dance?! I can’t dance! Not in that crowded platform with all of those people! Don’t you know how fucking mortifying that would be for me? I-I don’t know shit about dancing and everyone would find that out all too quickly. You don’t want to know how awful I’d be out there. C’mon… 

“Uhh, no thanks, man. I think I’ve embarrassed myself enough for one night.” I answer, the pain of the mere thought contorting my face into a deep wince. I hate to harness his hopes, but there’s simply no fucking way I’m setting myself up like that. I can’t. 

“Embarrassed yourself — huh?! Man, who are you trying to impress? The cokeheads you’re gonna sell to later?!”

“Yes.”

Easy to joke when you don’t have to worry about it. 

For as much as I’ve stressed myself about selling here, I’d like to at least have the chance. If I go out there, I’m sure no one would want to look at me again, much less buy from me. 

At least that’s what I think — like that’s to be trusted tonight. 

“You don’t need to be worrying about impressing nobody. Fuck that, J, fuck that so hard,” S proclaims with a blithesome laugh that provokes a snort of my own. Those five shots are definitely in control now and they’re the fuel he needs for another admirable attempt at saving me from my stubborn self-consciousness, “The first step to becoming relaxed is not giving a damn what people think. You gotta separate from your ego! Push all that shit aside! You need to humiliate yourself a little, because that’s the purest state of peace — looking like an absolute fool and not caring that you do...”

Aren’t you supposed to be learning to loosen up? Seems like you’ve had a head start. 

Or perhaps I’m already further along than I give myself credit for, because this knowledge resonates in my soul. He’s right. It is the purest state of peace—fuck, sometimes it’s been my sole state of peace...

—“Who were you before you realized what a cruel and judgmental world we live in? Before society made you feel shame for who you are?” 

Bold of you to assume that I could remember it. 

I do, but barely. It would knock him right out of the dancing mood to find out that I was a Kindergartner when my small shoulder was introduced to the burden of societal shame, so I’ll spare it. 

That kid isn’t who you’re really looking for anyway.

He’s looking for who I am when the leash tethering me to my ego is so loose that I can't feel the collar, where the horizon of shamelessness is in sight and its rays shine bright enough to thaw my embarrassment. Fortunately those moments are easier for me to remember, especially considering that lately I’ve been capturing the screwiest selections of them for Snapchat and the goddamn ‘Gram if they’re really golden. It’s all produced by the cells in my brain that are dying, I swear to God. I loathe having my picture taken in any other circumstance, yet I’ll gladly zoom right the fuck into the depths of my pores, mold my face into some goofy, grotesque, expression that shouldn’t be humanly possible, and be so marveled at the how strange and mortifying I look that I’m compelled to share it somewhere. The weirdest part is that I don’t give a fuck who else sees it either— hell, I enjoy breaking up the mundane timeline of food pictures, filters, and FaceTune so much that I feed off of it. If I weren’t as slick as I am, I would probably get reprimanded at work by my manager for capturing all of my obnoxious posing with all of the incredibly expensive instruments that I can’t play, but if the day ever comes where I get caught...I wouldn’t freak out. Seriously, I’d be okay with it just because a couple of my coworkers and a few of my followers found it as amusing as I did. It’s insane — a total antithesis of my nature — and that’s probably why it’s so fucking fun. 

So yeah, man...what am I doing worrying about fucking cokeheads? 

They’re so laser focused on getting their lines and going back to making fools out of themselves in much more nefarious ways that they hardly care to look at me anyway, only what I’m giving them. The punctuality and proper presence I prioritize will never be as pristine as the product, so why the hell am I letting their opinion get in the way of allowing any of my silly and stupid side to show here? Especially when I need him and my friend is pleading to meet him...

“Let him out. Just fucking let him out and come dance with me, JJ…” 

It cracks me up seeing this grown ass dude turn into an impatient little kid who’s lightly tugging on my arm as if he’s only dying to drag me away from my seat so I’ll join him on the playground instead of the club’s corybantic center. I was starting to come around anyway, but there’s something deeper in his urgency that really convinces me. He knows…

If I don’t move soon, I’ll spiral into this shitty slope further. 

And that’s the scariest thing of all.   

“Alright, alright, alright. Since you asked me nicely, I guess I’ll dance with you,” I give in with an exaggerated sigh and roll of my eyes before my playful smile spreads, “Easy on the arm though, kiddo. I can’t do much dancing with a dislocated shoulder, y’know.” 

#/manalliwantodoisdance #04172015 #this is how you know this a period piece i literally just said he did it for the gram #i thought i escaped this by being unable to join insta til 2017 but i guess not