#anyways sorry. just wanted to clarify my thoughts on him in case people think im. yk. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

reidgraygubler · 3 years

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sunflowers, daisies, lilacs, dahlias (spencer reid/reader)

Title: sunflowers, daisies, lilacs, dahlias

Requested: yes, was a request someone sent to @imagining-in-the-margins, but I took it of her hands :) (So i get this is sorta hard to do but i was wondering if you could write a spencer x nonbinary (gender-neutral pronouns) reader where reader isn’t out to the team yet but spencer finds out somehow and the reader is afraid he’ll reject them but instead he confesses his feelings and just starts info dumping about third genders in other cultures and the roots of binary america, etc. just like fluffy and accepting. once again, i get it if you don’t want to/can’t but that would be awesome)

Couple: spencer reid/non-binary!reader (they/them pronouns)

Category: fluff

Content Warning: swearing (if any), misgendering, usual criminal minds case work stuff, bi!spencer, lgbt+ history lesson, platonic cuddling (or is it?), kissing (not platonic), Doctor Who season 12 spoilers (weird, I know), afab!reader

Word Count: 4,110

Summary: reader comes out as non-binary to their best friend, Spencer, after they notice he changes the pronouns he uses to talk about them and after the team misgenders them.

A/N: pom (aka @imagining-in-the-margins) posted this in her discord and said if someone had any ideas for this, we could have it. and i loved the request so i took it off her hands. im also non-binary and only out to a few friends, so this piece is dear to my heart. also, i wrote reader as afab, since that’s also me, but also the request says that reader isn’t out to the team yet, and i had to give reader a gender. so im sorry about that. that’s where the mis-gendering comes in. spencer’s nickname for reader is bumblebee when they’re friends, but once they start dating it’s honeybee… bc reader is… enbee… thank you all so much for the support! i really do appreciate it. check out my masterlist!

{***}{***}{***}

It was a new day at work. A new day, a new me… Kinda, not really. It’s still old me. I’m just trying to figure out the new me. I think that makes sense. It makes sense to me, so that’s all that matters, I think.

Maybe today was the day I came out to the team as Non-Binary. That’d probably help my feeling of garbage. Not even my own family knew about my little secret. So that’s been something I’ve seriously been thinking about, telling everyone that I was Non-binary and preferred they/them pronouns.

I kept my head low as I stepped off the elevator and onto the floor of the BAU. The good news is, people weren’t rushing around like I was partly expecting them to be. The bad news is, when I got to my desk, there was a stack of files, waiting to be looked over. And the unfortunate part was, I wouldn’t get to get through half of them, because something told me there was a current case we had to go on.

That something being Emily Prentiss standing outside her office, looking for everyone on the team. I looked up at her with a pout as she nodded towards the conference room. I looked back at the stack of files before grabbing my go bag and going up to the conference room.

Everyone was already there, waiting for me. Although, I was usually late, in a sensible fashion. So I quickly took my seat beside Spencer and remained quiet as Penelope and Emily told us about the case.

{***}{***}{***}

“We can go to the most recent victim’s house, interview the siblings,” Spencer spoke up as we both walked up to Emily. I looked up at him and nodded, silently agreeing that I could go with. It’s not like I had anything better to do anyways. Tara and Luke were at the newest crime scene. David and Matt were with the ME. And Emily was about to go interrogate the suspect. So, going with Spencer would give me something to do.

“She’ll have to conduct the interview,” Emily looked up from the file she was reading and right at me. I looked down, away from anyone who was possibly looking at me. Getting mis-gendered was something I was used to, by now anyways. But, for some reason, this time it really bothered me. Emily doesn’t know, it’s fine. It’s mostly my fault anyways. And, I guess it bothered Spencer too, because the expression on his face shifted from normal to… annoyed.

“Of course, they can do the interview. They’re the most like the victim,” Spencer looked at Emily before looking back at me. I looked at him and smiled softly. It was more of a nervous smile than anything else. A change, and correction, in pronoun… I hadn’t exactly told anyone that I preferred different pronouns, I had honestly gotten used to the unfortunate misgendering.

“I can do it, I’m perfectly capable of it,” I smiled at Spencer then over at Emily. So much for a change.

“Then that’s settled, she’ll do it,” Emily looked up at Spencer and smiled before allowing us to leave. I dropped my shoulders as I glanced at Spencer, who was glaring daggers at Emily. He wasn’t usually one to glare at his superiors, especially Emily.

“We should get going, don’t you think,” I whispered as I looked up at Spencer. He finally looked down at me and nodded. “And, you can do the interview, if you want. I get that I’m a lot like the victim’s sister. But, you do interviews better than me,” I laughed and shook my head.

“We can do it together. That’s the only way you can get better at interviewing,” he returned the laughter before following beside me.

“That’s true,” I smiled at him.

{***}{***}{***}

“I know we always do this, but thanks for letting me stay the night after hard cases,” I looked over at Spencer as he got in his car. I readjusted the grip on my bag as I looked away from Spencer.

“Of course, sleeping over at someone’s house after a case makes it easier to relax, especially after hard cases,” he looked over at me with a smile, “We can order Chinese food if you want,” he added as he looked back at the road.

“Yeah, I think I’d like that,” I nodded with a smile. Sometime between solving the last case, and the jet landing I gained the courage to bring up what happened before the interview. You know, the whole they/them thing… With Spencer. I still don’t know how he knew to change my pronouns.

He was talking about something, it sounded like an episode of Doctor Who. I sort of felt bad about that too, because I was hardly listening. I was one of the only few people who actually watched Doctor Who with him, and thoroughly enjoyed his commentary.

“And then the Doctor, who, have I mentioned is a woman now, is in fact the Timeless Child. Did you know that?” He glanced at me as he went on. Again, I felt bad because I wasn’t totally paying attention. “Of course you knew that, we watched the episode together,” he continued to ramble about the episode.

“Spencer,” I spoke, my voice just loud enough for him to hear.

“Mhm, what?” he glanced over at me for a quick second. I looked at him, my mouth opening and closing a few times before actually saying what I was thinking. Which was...

“How did you know?” I asked, my voice a bit of a whisper. I was a little bit scared. How did he know? Sure, Spencer knows everything. But I’m not exactly… Out to the team, let alone Spencer. I don’t think I told him.

“How did I know what, Bumblebee?” Spencer glanced over at me for a brief second. I sighed deeply as I looked over at him.

“You used 'they'… When you and Emily were talking about me and the interrogation… You used 'they' and 'them' when you talked about me… How’d you know? I haven’t told anyone…” I whispered as I looked over at him. He stayed silent for a long time. I wasn’t too sure what he was thinking, but it made me very nervous.

“I saw you at the library with a book about gender/sexuality history and science… And I saw you looking at a non-binary/gender non-conforming forum the other day. So, I connected the dots,” Spencer looked over at me as he pulled to a stop at the red light. I swallowed roughly as I looked at him. “I didn’t mean to off-”

“You didn’t offend me, Spence,” I whispered and shook my head before dropping my gaze from him. My fingers fiddled with the seatbelt across my lap. I could feel my heart going a million miles an hour, and no matter how hard I tried to calm it… nothing worked. “I just… I haven’t used the words out loud before… I’ve haven't told anyone… I mean, I’ve just figured it out myself,” I shrugged again. I glanced at him as he started going again. “I’ve always known I didn’t really identify as… Ya know… And I guess just recently I finally put a name to it,” I sighed as I pressed my head into the headrest. Spencer glanced at me, again. He was obviously trying to keep his eyes on the road, but he was very concerned about our conversation.

“You’ve never said it out loud? Or told anyone?” He asked, clarifying what I had just said. I swallowed roughly and nodded.

“Yeah, I just…” I stopped, letting my words trail off. My thoughts ran wild. If I just said that I was non-binary, it’d make my life easier, I’d be so much happier. So, why haven’t I just come out and said it? “So, say it now. It’s just me,” Spencer whispered as he looked over at me for the briefest second. My heart stopped with his words, and suddenly my mind was quiet. “No one else to hear."

“What?” I spoke, my voice a breathless whisper. I looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.

“Only if you want to. I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do.” Spencer’s voice was soft as he spoke. I looked over at him, feeling my stomach do an anxious flip.

“What if it changes the way you think about me?” I asked, feeling my throat tighten up around the words. Out of all of the friends that I had, Spencer was the only one I didn’t want to lose. In a weird way, I felt like he understood me. Like we were both the outcasts of the team, for our different reasons.

“Why would that change the way I think of you?” Spencer looked up at me and I shrugged. I stared at him, feeling my face twist up in confusion. Even his face had some confusion on it.

“I don’t know. People usually…” My words trailed off again, not knowing what I was exactly wanting to say to him. “You’re not mad at me? Or hate me or anything…? Right…?” I asked, my voice wavering slightly in fear. Fear of what? I was scared he would resent me. It wouldn’t have been the first, or last, time someone resented me. So, why would I expect him to not resent me?

“Why would I hate you? Because you’re finally more comfortable with yourself? Or want to be more comfortable with yourself?” Spencer looked at me as he furrowed his brows. I looked down at my lap and shrugged. “You still haven’t said it, but we’re talking about it like you did,” he pointed out. I dropped my shoulders as I looked over at him.

“You really want me to say it,” I laughed dryly. Spencer smiled at me and shrugged.

“Only if you want to. Just think about how much better you’ll feel,” he offered. I looked down at my lap and sighed.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” I looked back up at him and smiled, “I’m non-binary.” I could feel a certain weight get lifted off my shoulders as I looked at him. Spencer also had a genuine smile on his lips as he looked at me. Like, he also seemed happy with my words.

“There’s nothing wrong with that, you know,” Spencer smiled at me as he pulled into the parking lot of his apartment building. I glanced at him before laughing. “I’m being serious,” he chuckled lightly.

“I sure hope there’s nothing wrong with that. You’re the one who encouraged me to say it!” I laughed as I unbuckled. Spencer returned the laughter before looking over at me.

“Then, why do you care what the team thinks?” Spencer asked as he searched for his apartment keys. “Their opinion shouldn’t matter. It’s your life,” he shrugged and looked up at me once he finally found his keys.

“Everyone on the team is all my friends and all my family…” I whispered as I looked over at him, “I don’t know what everyone will think,” I knew he wanted me to say it out loud to the team, but I was avoiding it. It’s not that I’m not ready. I just don’t want him to think differently of me.

“When has anyone on the team thought bad of you, Bumblebee?” Spencer asked again before parking the car. I swallowed roughly and looked back down at my lap. Of course, when I actually cut my hair short the first time… I had gotten a horrible haircut and everyone commented on it. “No one’s going to think anything bad about you if you come out,” he reassured. I sighed deeply as I looked towards the ground.

“Yeah, but I don’t care about them Spencer,” I rolled my eyes. I rolled my eyes because even though I do care what the team thinks, I think I care more about what Spencer thinks about me. But, I didn’t want to tell him that.

“Then, why were you so worried about it,” Spencer looked over at me before getting out of the car. I stayed in the car for a moment, silent with my thoughts. He’s got a point though. Why was I so worried about it? Of course, the team was my family. I don’t think I could risk losing the team for being… well, me. Maybe Spencer was right. Who am I kidding? Spencer’s always right. About everything. Maybe I should just tell the team… I’d feel a lot better.

I stayed quiet as we walked into the apartment building. In fact, we were both silent. Which was a rarity in our friendship; one of us was always talking, and it was always Spencer. He always had something to say. I wondered what he was thinking about in that head of his. Until I didn’t have to wonder...

“Native American people have a third gender, generally called two-spirit, where the person takes on roles more or less attributed to the opposite sex or both sexes,” Spencer suddenly started an info dump. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I read this exact thing in a book not too long ago. But, it meant so much to me that he wanted to tell me this.

“When europeans came along, they came with the strict gender binary rooted in Puritism, which put heavy emphasis on community and the importance of procreational (heterosexual) marriage within,” he paused to glance at me, probably to make sure I was still listening. And I was. There would be nothing to stop me from listening to him.

“Once the colonizers became a country after the american revolution, they wanted to get as far away from britain as possible. Part of this came with separating themselves from the effeminate man of Britain, whom they saw as feminine and dainty. As a result, they made the American Man, who is basically Teddy Roosevelt in that he is rugged, bold, strong, brutish, daring, and able to survive on the frontier and provide for his family,” he continued as he unlocked the door to his apartment. It was nice to be in a familiar place that felt like home, and felt safe.

“In comparison, the woman was supposed to be the American Housewife who stayed at home, cooked the meals, and raised the children. Thus, the American binary,” Spencer continued his info dump, clearly not knowing he was talking outloud.

I just stared at Spencer with the utmost adoration in my eyes and face. A small smile grew on my lips as he continued to ramble and info dump about stuff I was newly introduced to. I don’t know why I didn’t tell him sooner, I’m sure he would have been a big help. “That’s very interesting, Spencer,” I smiled at him and cocked my head to my shoulder. Spencer looked at me, a slight panicked look in his eye.

“I’m… I’m sorry, was I rambling?” He stopped talking and looked at me after a moment of him talking. I shook my head, silently telling him he wasn’t rambling, even though he totally was. At this point we had parted ways, but still held the conversation between rooms, and across his apartment, him being in the kitchen while I stayed in the living room.

“Anyways… I could continue going on about it all. How WW2 influenced the LGBT community and how Nuclear Families messed it all up too,” he spoke before stepping out of the kitchen and leading me to his bedroom.

“I’m sorry, what?” I looked back at him with furrowed eyebrows. I was honestly surprised with that tiny tidbit of information. “Go on,” I raised a brow as I looked at him. I got comfortable on the bed while I waited for him.

“Yeah! The advent of urban areas provided the perfect place for sexuality and gender identity expression,” he continued talking as he stepped into the bathroom to change, and even continued while in the bathroom, “Many single people suddenly began moving from rural farms with family and religion to urban apartments on their own or with someone of the same identity/gender/sex,” he finally concluded before stepping out of the bathroom. I looked at him and cocked my head to my shoulder. I didn’t have anything to say after he rambled on, so we both stayed silent as we got comfortable in bed.

“How do you know so much about gender identity and the LGBT community?” I asked, turning to face him more. Spencer looked at me with a nervous smile before looking out to the blanket spread out over us.

“Oh, I, uh… I did a lot of research when I saw you in the library… And, after I saw you on the forum,” Spencer looked at me and nodded. I could sense that he was lying, and he knew that I could sense it. So, I raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sure this is the exact reason,” I smiled before shifting down the bed to get comfortable, “No other reason?” I looked up at him.

“Nope, no other reason,” he looked down at his book before shaking his head. I could tell there was definitely something, and I could tell he wanted to tell me. But, I won’t force it out of him, just like how he didn’t force it out of me.

“Well, if you have something to tell me… I won’t force it outta you,” I looked over at him with a smile. Spencer glanced at me before grabbing for a book on his nightstand. I shifted down the bed and looked at my phone. “No one’s going to think anything bad about you,” I glanced at him again, repeating the exact things he said to me early in the evening. Spencer glared at me before looking back in his book.

“You’re the worst,”

“You’re worse than me, Spence,” I laughed as I looked at my phone. I grinned as I browsed random social media. “It’s okay, I get it,” I shrugged before falling silent.

“I suppose it’s only fair,” he spoke out loud after a moment of silence. I looked up at him, watching as he shifted in his seat. He closed his book before looking down at me, “I guess I’ve been in the same boat as you for a while… Not knowing what anyone would think if I came out, fearing that they’d hate me or judge me,”

“Spencer, you’re the most loved person on the team. No one would ever hate you or judge you,” I sat up before turning to look at him. Spencer looked up at me and nodded. I’m glad we could both agree on that. If anyone hated Spencer Reid, I can guarantee that they’d have a whole fleet of FBI agents on their ass. “You can trust me with anything, Spencer,” I whispered before reaching out for his hands. He looked down at where our hands sat before cocking his head to the side.

“I already trust you more than anyone on the team,” he smiled and chuckled with a nod, “I’ve never told anyone except for one person,” he whispered as he looked up at me.

“That’s okay,” I shrugged as I looked at him.

“I’m bisexual,” he whispered, his eyes dropping away from my. I stared at him, taking a deep breath. A small smile tugged on the corner of my lips as a worried look grew on Spencer’s.

“Was that so bad?” I whispered as I fell forward to give him a hug. Spencer laughed as he embraced me. “It felt good, didn’t it?” I backed away from him slightly. Spencer smiled and nodded.

“Like a weight off my shoulders,” he laughed as he looked back at me, “Thanks for that,”

“No, thank you, Spencer, I really needed you and your wonderful words of wisdom… I’ve been struggling with my sexuality a lot, ever since I was a teen really, and you just being there helped,” I smiled at him as I got comfortable in the bed. With that, we fell into a comfortable silence. Sleep wouldn’t find its way to us anytime soon. I think we were both still reeling on the adrenaline of the day.

But then, I started thinking about our conversation in the car. When I had mentioned I was worried about him (or anyone else) thinking differently of me. I mean, that’s been a fear of mine for years. Someone can go from loving you to the ends of the earth to wanting to be on the furthest end of the earth just to be away from you. So, my fear was totally valid. I didn’t want to lose my friendship with Spencer, or anyone on the team.

I quickly glanced at Spencer, noting that he was still quietly reading his book. He seemed at total peace with, well, everything. How did he do it? How did he get out of his head after a rough case, and after such a serious conversation? There were too many things I wanted to know, and too many questions I wanted to ask… Why not just ask them?

So, I did...

“Earlier, when you said me being non-binary wouldn’t change the way you think of me… How do…” I paused for a minute, trying to figure my next set of words. Because I could say something wrong, and it’d be the end of everything. “What do you think of me?” I looked up at him as I spoke. He smiled softly and nodded. It was probably a mistake, asking him what his thoughts were on me. I could only think of the worst. Well, I shouldn’t say the worst possible. Worst case scenario was that he was faking it all and he actually hated me. Well, don’t be too hard on yourself.

“Well, you know,” Spencer shrugged as he shifted closer to me. I looked up at him before leaning away from him.

“No, I don’t think I do know,” I stared at him, furrowing my eyebrows. He looked at me, dropping his book to his lap and slumping his shoulders slightly.

“I love you… Okay? I love you whether you’re they/them, she/her, he/him, I don’t care, as long as you’re happy. If you’re happy, then I’m happy, because that’s all that matters to me. Your happiness,” he rambled for a minute. I just stared at him, feeling my shoulders relax as he spoke. My heart rate raised as he continued to talk about how he really felt about me, and I wished he said something sooner… “Hearing Emily misgendering you, and knowing what was going through your head… Sucked… It sucked watching! You deserve the best things…” He continued on, not caring that he was still rambling.

“Spencer,” I whispered, resting a hand on his shoulder to gain his attention.

“And it’s ridiculous how long I’ve been in love with you too! I should have said something sooner but I didn’t! I don-”

“Spencer!” I shouted this time. It wasn’t an angry shout, though. No, the giggles in my voice and joyful smile on my lips told a different story. And that seemed to get his attention, considering he stopped talking and looked at me. His eyes scanned my face, landing on the joyous smile on my lips.

“Yes?” He asked softly. I nearly fell into his body, and face, as I let my excitement get the better of me as I tried to kiss him. Spencer laughed as he lifted his hands to my shoulders to make sure I didn’t crash into him.

“I love you too,” I smiled as I looked up at his face. His eyes landed back on my face, his smile becoming soft as he looked at me. The expression his face held showed me that I was now his everything. And, it was a new feeling. I would never get used to a feeling so… grand. But, it was a feeling that I loved, and knew it’d be around for a long time. “What do you think the team will say?” I asked, looking at Spencer as he cupped my face in his hands.

“About what, Honeybee?” he retorted, his voice a soft whisper.

“About us, you and me being, well, you and me,” I tried to bite back my smile but failed when Spencer smiled back.

“Who cares what they think… I just care about you,” he smiled before pulling me back in for another kiss.

“I think I like that answer."

taglist: @itsmyblogandillreblogifiwantto , @thebluetint

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desertofsnowflakes · 3 years

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Incorrect Order Chapter 4 (Nessian AU)

A/N: I know I haven't been able to update as fast as you'd want me to but I'll try to fix that. Your comments and feedbacks are very much appreciated. Do inform me if you wanna be added/removed from the taglist! If you happen to find my storyline similar to another fic or one of yours, I'm extremely sorry, I might've just not known. All characters belong to the author Sarah J. Mass. Enjoy!

Summary: Don't first impressions always affect the way you see someone? Well, what more with the Nesta Archeron? Nesta meets Cassian at few unexpected places and to say it didn't go well was a major understatement. Certain circumstances make them become enemies to tolerable company to friends to lovers.

Trigger Warnings: None really

1652words | Incorrect Order Masterlist | Read on AO3

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The best way to keep whatever problems one has out of their mind was to do something they liked. That was the only way Cassian kept from spiraling. Since sending the woman to her own house, Cassian had more than a few moments when he wanted to repeatedly slam his head against a wall. That’s why he spent most of his time sparring with Azriel. He won’t admit he was simping for that woman in his free time too. Or maybe that was always.

Now, sprawled on a couch in front of the TV, with nothing to do but stare at a blank screen, Cassian led his thoughts to the box he kept all unwanted thoughts locked in. He thought about Tomas, her ex-boyfriend. Funny, he thought. I know her ex's name but not hers.

It took him a little too long the other day to realise they didn't exchange names. Again. He once thought that maybe she was purposely not giving him her name. That maybe, for her, he was just a random stranger who happened to save her life. He snorted. Surely anyone would know the name of the person they saved or was saved by— stranger or not. He supposed he'll have to make do with pronouns for now.

After she left his home, it took every scrap of self-restraint not to beat this Tomas dude to pulp and let him rot in the same alley he had the misfortune of meeting him in. He may or may not have been the cause for some extra injuries. Cassian appreciated the woman’s attempt at mercy. He, however, didn’t trust Tomas at all. He was dubious about just handing him over to the police. Who’s to know he won’t frame him and the woman for absurd things? Anyway, he left a note in Tomas’s house saying something like “Step out of line, lose your favourite part of anatomy. Name it and have it for your meal.” He made sure he printed so that no one would recognise his writing. Yet, all this didn’t calm his nerves one bit. He presumed he’ll have to stay on guard for some time now.

Now, back to the girl. He sighed. He didn’t dare change the sheets in his guest bedroom. He didn’t even let Mor use the room when she came over last weekend— which he could bet created suspicion. No, that room was only open when he craved her scent. He even realised one of his shirts was missing. He shrugged it off thinking he would've left it somewhere and just couldn't find it. Once she came to his house, he was constantly thinking about her. So much that now he started pinching himself often. It was the only way he could stop thinking about her— by creating physical pain.

Cassian glanced at the clock on the wall. 2.30 in the afternoon. He walked to the refrigerator and checked his freezer compartment. Huh. No ice-cream. He sighed, grabbed his jacket and keys and headed to the mall to get an ice-cream with a pout. He’ll have to leave for Rhys and Feyre’s first anniversary only around 5.30 to prepare everything. He has enough time to get an ice-cream and probably hang out for some time. Good enough to stop thinking about her. Or so he thought.

***

Nesta wasn’t sore anymore. Her headache was gone almost a week after the incident. Her nose didn’t hurt anymore. Okay, maybe a little bit. It didn’t hurt unless she bumped her nose against something. Today, her nose was dully throbbing because she hit her nose against a pillow yesterday. A very, very soft pillow and yet it hurt this much.

The man’s first-aid and medicines were really helpful.

It really wasn’t fair that he excelled at basic first aid too. It wasn’t fair that he looked so good. With black tattoos swirling over generously muscled arms and shoulder-length dark hair curling at the edges and gloriously tanned skin and hazel eyes with minute flecks of green and brown when taken a closer look at and dimples and—

A quiet “Who is it?” snapped Nesta out of her moping. She looked up to see Gwyn walking to her.

“Who is what?” she asked, feigning nonchalance. Gwyn's pursed lips and glare conveyed that her act wasn't enough.

“Who are you thinking about?” Gwyn clarified.

“What makes you think I'm thinking about someone?” Nesta retorted.

Gwyn sat on the chair next to her and started assisting with classifying the unceremonious heap of books on the table to be kept back in its correct positions on its own rack.

“Nesta,” Gwyn sighed, “Clotho assigned you this stack almost an hour ago. And you've barely finished a third of the stack. Normally, you'd finish stacks bigger than this in an hour. So there's clearly something.”

“It wasn't anyone,” Nesta mumbled.

As usual, Gwyn saw through her lie. “You were twirling your hair,” she said flatly.

Heat inched up her neck. “I was not!”

Gwyn murmured a “uh-huh” and they lapsed into an easy silence till they were almost over.

Gwyn's eyes lit up as it normally did whenever she got an idea. “Is it him? The guy you came with that day?”

Nesta scowled, “How do you know…” she broke off when she realised which 'that day' Gwyn was talking about. Nesta fought back a blush. “No, no, this isn't about him. We don't know each other. Much. Like, we've seen each other a number of times? That's it. Nothing else.” Cauldron, the first part was a complete lie. But at least the rest are true. Will Gwyn happen to know his name? Maybe I ought to ask her. Or maybe I shouldn't.

She should, she decided. She cleared her throat. “Uh, Gwyn? Do you happen to know his name?”

Gwyn frowned and asked, “He hasn't told you yet?”

Nesta shook her head and answered, “No, we, uh, forgot. I guess. We haven't really exchanged names.”

Gwyn nodded and smiled. “Well, he is—”

“Gwyn!” a voice called. “You can't expect me to come over to you and beg for you to help me. Help me only if you want to or don't work under me.”

Gwyn’s eyes widened. She abruptly stood up and mouthed, “Merrill. I gotta go. I’m so sorry.” She all but ran to Merrill, the very strict librarian Gwyn was working under.

Nesta sighed and continued her work. There wasn’t much left so she was able to finish fast. She picked her things and left the library with a word to Clotho, heading to the mall.

***

The best way to keep whatever problems one has out of their mind was to also eat something they liked. So, ice-cream it was. After having his ice-cream, Cassian was aimlessly walking around the mall. Here, not more than a month ago, he met her for the first time. Almost a month ago. He huffed out a breath. The fact that he was pining for her this long blew his mind off. He—

“This is your fault— not mine. I’m not taking the blame for this,” he told her. They bumped into each other. Again.

Her lips quirked up. “It is kind of my fault. But blame this—,” she poked his chest, “— for making my nose hurt again.”

Just like that, his mood sobered. “How are you?” he asked.

She pointed at the cafe to her left. “Coffee?”

He nodded. Who was he to say no to her?

So they ordered coffee and talked about everything and nothing. He grinned and she laughed. He laughed and she smirked. He wouldn’t say he knew her well but he’d never seen her so carefree. Her laugh was like nectar for a starving man. Her eyes bright and welling up with tears from laughing.

“I don’t think I’ve laughed this much,” she said.

Cassian put a hand on his heart dramatically and said, “I know, I know. I’m very funny.”

Her lips kicked up a notch. She straightened as if she just realised something. He was about to ask when she drawled, “So I just realised that we still haven’t exchanged names.”

Oh. Right. Of course. “Yeah,” he nodded. “Usually, when people meet, they start with introductions but in our case we’ve literally bumped into each other three times and still we don’t know each other.” He shook his head and extended his hand. “Well, hello there. I’m—”

His phone rang in his pocket. Fuck. He was going to kill whoever was calling him now. He was so close to knowing her name. He pulled out his phone to see an incoming call from Azriel. He apologetically looked up at her and said, “I’m sorry. I wish I could choose not to take this call and instead kill this idiot but I can’t. Just give me a moment, okay?”

She nodded and he picked up his call.

“What do you want?” he hissed.

“It’s 5.30 already, you idiot. We’ve got to get the things ready for the party. Mor already went to get the cake and you’re not even at home. Where on all earth and hell are you?” came Az’s faint voice.

“15 minutes only? Mother above, I’m coming.” he said.

Az’s “make it fast” was the last thing he heard before hanging up. “I wish we could stay here and talk forever,” he said to her, “but I have something up in a short while and I totally didn’t realise time was passing this fast. I’m so sorry. It was nice talking to you. Really. And I wish we could meet again. Though without the bumping part.”

He grinned when she smiled and said, “Bye. Have a nice day.”

“You too,” he called back. He didn’t want to think he imagined the subtle look of disappointment on her face because hell, he was a walking epitome of disappointment right now.

taglist:

@shadowsinger07 @im-someone-i-guess @saltyfortunes @cressjacquine @julian-blackthorn-supremacy @champanheandluxxury @zemiraa @ladygabrielli1997 @nehemikkele @heartless--aromantic @sv0430 @ddsworldofbooks @irenethaleia @sjm-things @dontgetsalmonella

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oikawaplssteponme · 3 years

Text

PART 8 | previously: part 7 | masterlist

pairing: Katsuki Bakugou x fem! reader

ratings/warnings: swearing, fighting

synopsis: When UA’s hot heads, Katsuki Bakugou and you, are forced to put your hatred for each other aside and plan the third year Prom, things end up getting a little heated...

a/n: hi hi!! 💕okay so the prom that im describing throughout this fic is like your ‘basic’ prom so to say. that’s simply because that’s just how i personally know how prom works :) i just wanted to clarify that in case some of you were confused since i didn’t really mention that before and i hope you don’t mind :)) anyway, enjoy xx

•

Eight: tantrum

To say you were embarrassed was an understatement. You felt awful for not giving Deku an answer, and even worse for running away. You didn’t even realize you were moving until you found yourself locked in your room. You felt so stupid. Why didn’t you just say yes to Miydoria? It’s not like Bakugou was actually gonna ask you. So why did it matter?

It was the next day and you were seated in homeroom. You didn’t even want to look at your classmates, let alone Deku. You felt so bad for blowing him off like that.

You watched as Deku took a seat next to you, as he usually did. Trailing behind him was Bakugou, who didn’t give you some witty insult as he did most mornings.

“H-Hi Deku,” you said nervously.

“Hi Y/N!” He smiled brightly. Your eyes widened.

Is he not mad at me?

“How are you?” You asked.

“Good! A bit tired though, I was up late doing some training,” he replied. You nodded.

“Uh, look about yesterday-”

“It’s okay if you don’t have an answer just yet. I can wait,” he reassured you. You sighed.

“Mind if we talk at lunch?” you asked. He nodded.

“Well aren’t you two cute?” huffed Bakugou. You looked at him.

“What the hell are you talking about?” you groaned. Bakugou just shrugged and before you could bother him again, class began.

As the morning passed, you found yourself at lunch. You sat with Deku and Iida as you usually did. You felt kinda awkward, not engaging in conversation as you normally would.

“Hey Deku mind if we talk now?” You interrupted. Deku looked at Iida and watched as he got up from the table.

“I’ll give you two some privacy,” smiled Iida. You now faced Deku and took a deep breath.

“Look, Deku, I really appreciate you asking me to Prom. It was super sweet and I loved the poster,” you began. Deku just smiled at you, nodding at every word you said.

Is he even listening to me?

“But, um, here’s the thing. I-uh, I don’t think I’m gonna go with a date. I kinda wanna just enjoy the dance with everyone...as a group, you know?” Deku stopped smiling.

“But we're going in the same group anyway?”

“Yeah, true. It’s just that I’m-“

“Wait did someone already ask you?”

“No, no, uh it’s not that. I just...gosh I’m really sorry Deku. I just would rather go without a date. Anyway, I’m gonna have to be running the dance so I probably won’t be having fun away. I’d hate for you to have a shitty time because of me,” you explained, which was the truth. Odds are you’d be scrambling around the dance making sure things are going well. It would be unfair to Deku to drag him along. Nevertheless, Deku looked disappointed.

“But I’ll save you a dance! How’s that?” You attempted to cheer him up. Deku looked back at you.

“I’d like that,” he smiled. You felt a wave of relief fall over you.

“Perfect. Thanks for understanding,” you said. Izuku nodded.

“Of course, but I sorta already told my mom you were going with me so do you mind if we still take a picture together on the day of Prom?” You laughed.

“Yeah that’s fine Deku.”

After school you followed your normal routine of changing out of your uniform and into something comfortable then going down to the basement. Prom was approaching quickly and you knew there was still much that had to be done.

The door was locked but you could see light peeking out from underneath. You began to knock on the door, hoping Bakugou was inside.

“Katsuki!” You continued to knock.

“I know you’re in there dumbass, it’s me!” You finally heard footsteps approach the door. The door swung open, revealing an annoyed Bakugou.

“Woah what’s with your face?” You asked. Bakugou didn’t say anything, he just turned around and sat back down.

“Uh okay...hey did you ever contact Present Mic about DJ-ing? Apparently he actually charges for school events,” you said. Bakugou paid you no attention.

“Well I called the flower shop for the centerpieces and they said they can give us a deal for 20 but we would have to buy the larger size.”

Still nothing.

“Bakugou? Hello? I’m trying to talk to you.” You went over to him and nudged him. Nothing.

“I know damn well you aren’t giving me the fucking silent treatment right now,” you huffed. You had to clench your fists to stop yourself from doing something stupid. Bakugou shrugged.

“THAT'S IT!” You grabbed the back of Bakugou’s shirt and pulled him to stand up. You dragged him to the wall and pressed your forearm against his neck.

“WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM RIGHT NOW? HUH?”

“I bet you wish I was Deku right now, don’t you?” Your eyes widened.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Bakugou just shrugged. You began to get more heated so you applied more pressure to his neck.

“So that’s what your little tantrum is about? Deku?” Bakugou huffed angrily. He pushed you off of him and pinned your wrists to the wall.

“I AM NOT HAVING A TANTRUM!”

“THEN WHY THE HELL ARE YOU ACTING LIKE THIS?!”

Bakugou opened his mouth as if he were going to yell at you again but he stopped himself. He let out a frustrated sigh.

“Did you say yes?” he asked. You gave him a confused look.

“Yes to what?” Bakugou sighed.

“God you are so fucking stupid…”

“I AM NOT!”

“WELL DID YOU SAY YES TO HIM OR NOT?” You suddenly realized what Bakugou was talking about.

“Do you mean about Prom?” You asked. Bakugou looked down, nodding slightly. You groaned.

“No Katsuki. I told him no.”

Bakugou looked at you with widened eyes.

“Wait, you didn’t choose Deku?”

“What? No, I didn’t choose Deku. Why would I choose Deku?” You questioned. Bakugou looked back down at the ground.

“Everyone chooses Deku…” he mumbled.

“Well I didn’t so clearly not everyone,” you smirked.

Bakugou let go of you from the wall. You rubbed your wrists. Bakugou leaned against the table, his face resting in the palms of his hands. You walked over to him and gently moved his hands so you could see his face.

“Anyway, I don’t think Deku can handle all this,” you joked, gesturing to yourself. Bakugou let out a small laugh.

“I hate you…” he mumbled. You chuckled.

“I hate you more.” You let go of Bakugou’s hands and sat down on the table as you usually did.

“Now that you’re done throwing your fit, will you please go pick up the streamers we re-ordered? They’re in the office,” you said. Bakugou groaned.

“Fine dumbass.”

“Thank you Katsuki,” you smiled.

“Whatever.”

“Why are suits so expensive?” groaned Bakugou. You chuckled.

“Just rent one or something,” you suggested. You and Bakugou were still in the basement, though little planning progress was being made.

“Why are there so many different options?” Bakugou was struggling to find the correct attire for the dance. You couldn’t help but laugh.

“Here let me see.” You moved to sit next to Bakugou, taking his laptop and scrolling through the page he had opened.

“Did you want to get a specific color?” You asked. Bakugou shrugged.

“I don’t know how this shit works.”

“Well if you wanted you could get a colored suit but that also depends on if you have a date or not. You’d look pretty stupid if you and your date had clashing colors,” you explained.

“So if I have a date I have to match with them? That fucking sucks.” You laughed.

“All you’d really have to do is find a tie that’s the same color of whatever dress or clothing that they are wearing. It’s not as difficult as it seems.”

“Hmmm okay…”

“The easy choice is just to get a black suit and tie. That never goes out of style. Like this one.” You pointed to the nicely tailored suit on the computer screen. You couldn’t help but get excited at the thought of Bakugou dressed up.

“And uh, those flower things that people wear. Do people still do that?” He asked. You chuckled.

“You mean corsages and boutonnières. Yeah but again you only need to worry about that if you have a date. Like the tie, the flowers you pick would probably match the colors you two wear.”

“For someone who hates Prom, you sure do know a lot about it,” said Bakugou.

“It’s kinda common knowledge dumbass,” you teased.

“Oh shut up!” Bakugou took back his laptop. “Don’t you need to get your dress or something?”

You groaned.

“Don’t remind me. I have no idea what kind of dress I’m gonna get. And the worst part is that it has to be long,” you complained.

“Why don’t you just ask Yaoyorozu to make you one?” He suggested.

“I asked and she said no because that would be ‘damaging to the economy.’ I just think that she’s gonna force me to go shopping with her and the rest of the girls in class.”

“Ha well have fun with that,” teased Bakugou.

“Hey isn’t it way past your bedtime explosion boy?” Bakugou looked at the clock on the wall.

“Not past yet. But I’m going to bed.” He began to pack up his things.

“God, you’re like an old man,” you joked. Bakugou rolled his eyes.

“Well maybe if you got more sleep you’d actually beat me in a fight for once.”

“Seriously?”

“Did it sound like I was joking?” You huffed and followed Bakugou up the stairs.

“Fine I’ll get some stupid sleep Katsuki.”

“Good. Night Y/N.” Bakugou walked back to the dorms and you stopped to take a deep breath.

That stupid boy is gonna be the death of me.

•

[taglist OPEN: @vangoghpoets @vangoghmusings @bokutory @complimentaryhugsgirl @cloudswritings @kriswu46 @neodnyl @evivn1 @jazzylove @mileven-reddie @whalerus @misssugarless @random-fandom-girl-24 @fanfiction-and-stress @ushiwakatrash @minhoswife @addictofsupernatural @the-shota-king-masayuki @freyafolkvangr @fourteenow @tamaguchi @lalayy @athenarosaline @blxck-coffee @katsukibabe @thatonegeekchick @that-chick212 @bibly @nxynxy @theunknownrandom @flustered-blue-eyed-sex-muffin @94potterhead @moonlightaangel (if your name is bold, i couldn’t tag you) ]

#willow.🌸#my hero academia #bakugou x you #bnha bakugo katsuki #bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugou x y/n #katsuki bakugō #bakugou katuski x reader #katsuki x y/n #mha katsuki #bakugou x reader #hot heads.🌸

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insert-cleverurl · 3 years

Text

solaine copies her dsmp meta twitter part one

preface: i wrote this on february 13th and am now archiving it over here on tumblr before i get around posting it to the actual archive (of our own). i'd like to clean it up before i go there, becuase i wrote this at like one am lying in bed and typing on my laptop that was sitting on my stomach. it's a lot of rambling. i go on a lot of tangents. it is not the cleanest nor likely most accurate meta you will ever read.

how characters (children) on the smp learn from history rather than repeat it: a thread

aka: stop liking the other one you fucks i opened the wikia so i actually know what happened now /lh

context here is that i had earlier made a much less coherent thread (not that this one is very coherent) with the caveat that i was going entirely off memory

this thread is mainly going over how tommy + tubbo both emulate and turned away from wilbur + schlatt respectively, and how i think that's going to reflect in ranboo's arc

"as long as i can't be the next jschlatt, you can't be the next wilbur." okay we all know this. it's obvious from this point on that both tubbo and tommy saw or had fears of how they were each developing into scarily familiar people - schlatt, a dictator, and wilbur, a madman.

starting with tommy, the parallels between his exile arc and wilbur's pogtopia arc are immediately, and glaringly, obvious. paranoia, trust issues, "maybe i'm actually the bad guy here", and most notably, intense loneliness. wilbur made it obvious he believed pogtopis's allies would all abandon them in the end (them being he and tommy, though how much he trusted tommy by the end is also up in the air), and he was completely prepared to kill anyone he had to in order to secure pogtopia's victory, despite also preparing himself to be the one to end it. wilbur gave up on l'manberg, at the very end. he believed tyranny was all that would ever reign, so he blew it up.

tommy, in his exile arc, was also despairingly lonely. he hallucinated tubbo, grew attached to dream, etc etc. tommy was very very close to "becoming" wilbur here (god i'm sorry this is so long already and just me summing things up we already know it's to keep my thoughts in order + satisfy my inability to shut up and use too many words)

where wilbur and tommy go their separate ways is when they were given an out. dream gave wilbur tnt + for tommy, he was. you know. gestures vaguely at logstedshire. wilbur took the out - he gave up. he gave in. we know he had moments of clarity (when niki was in danger) and Maybe this was one he could've had too, but he didn't. he took the tnt.

tommy decided enough was enough. so at a crucial moment in time, tommy turned away from being wilbur. he did not repeat history.

onto tubbo; admittedly i know much less about his arc as president so this will be less outlined. tubbo,,,, acted very similarly to schlatt. probably moreso than tommy and wilbur! strange new laws, ignoring his cabinet, execution, generally appearing to lose his care for the world and the opinions of others. i'd argue the thing that separates him from schlatt is the most important part of this thread, because it proves my point: he remembered.

i just want to clarify here: by "proves my point" i mean this is the clsoest we get to an agreement of the ideas i'm putting out here in canon?? ig?? as in like. this is the most on the nose way to say it. similarly in recent days to quackity consistently referring to his treatment of dream as torture, which seems to be a very "I Am Not In Character" move but is definitely meant for us, the viewers, rather than character dream or character quackity themselves. tubbo's is a little less like that but still it's kind of like pointing at the X on a map for us the viewers. ok tangent over

tubbo lived under schlatt's rule as one of those people he treated extremely shittily. he lived under schlatt's rule as that person he executed. and tubbo remembers all that! tubbo remembers how schlatt's rule played out, and he looks at his own uh, less than stellar time in office, and he admits this out loud (to ranboo, according to the wikia. i am getting all of this off the wikia. i did not watch any streams during this arc.) that he can See himself becoming schlatt.

and when quackity tries to execute ranboo for being a traitor, tubbo stops him.

onto dream and ranboo! dream is a special case in that we never get to see his perspective of things and are rather left to play fill in the blank, and this whole arc is special (in terms of this thread) in that it isn't over. so i will be doing a lot of extrapolating here.

dream starts out as a generally ambivalent character who has very few rules that he pretty much never bothers to enforce anyways (i think? i don't remember).

by this i mean, this is all stuff i heard secondhand in recent months and can no longer remember what it actually was because i never went back to check. i'm pretty sure, but just a disclaimer. i don't wanna get hit with an "um, actually

his villain arc starts very very early - two whole seasons before he really became one. in the war, he is the antagonist and he plays up to it! most of the war is from l'manberg's pov (or that's how we look at it now, at least) so obviously he is the Bad Guy here.

ranboo griefed a house like two days into the server. 'nuff said /lh

ranboo + dream are both heavily vilified characters from the get-go - dream's part should be fairly obvious (uh, the everything leading up the exile arc where he actually did villainous things), whereas ranboo's is most notably during the second festival's aftermath. taking the blame for blowing up the community house, wanting to "pick people not sides" (he wants all his friends to be happy - sounds familiar, right?), etc etc, and now he's with techno and phil, the former of which is Definitely considered a villain for working with dream

now many many parallels are being drawn between he and dream, especially with the whole enderwalking thing. in the aftermath of everything happening, he chooses to stay out of all conflict, until Something Happens and forces his hand. (the egg!) he wants peace for everyone, which again, sounds very familiar, right?

(slight tangent: yes, the griefing was forcing dream's hand. it's nigh impossible to construe it as anything other than a political attack - the vice president of l'manberg griefing the home of the greater dream smp's king? dream looks weak + open to attack if he lets it slide)

this was a bad way to put it but the spirit of it gets across i think. fuck character limit on twitter

that catches us up on all current lore. where do i think dream and ranboo are going to split? dream has been alone in his decision-making basically since the very first war. not once has he (successfully, we don't know if he tried) gone to fall back on his friends' support and ask for their help in making these hard decisions (of which there are many). he severs his final connections ("i don't care about anything on this server") and cements his place in history as a monster.

i think it is very likely that we are getting a ranboo "friendship and relying on other people" arc here. there are other ways they could go with it, obviously, but given his current arctic anarchist ties and what appears to be other friendships developing. hmm! i'm interested. this part is entirely speculation/extrapolation. point being. the kids on the smp do, in fact, learn from history. they still make mistakes sometimes, but past a certain point, they're always different mistakes. they learn, and they almost always get happier endings for it

i don't know if it's a coincidence that it's the three lore-relevant kids who are the ones doing this. i don't think it is, because this is a very well-written and clever story. the younger generation is the one learning and fixing past mistakes and leaving the world better off for it. that's very neat! i like it a lot. also now that purpled's becoming lore-relevant, goddamnit if i don't want to see next season being his "learning from history" arc. punz vs purpled, maybe? that'd be neat. who knows. ok i think im finally done lol ty for reading :)

caveat I forgot to add last night: obviously ranboo and dream start out in very different positions, moreso than both tommy and tubbo. but at the end of the day, all three of them are their own people who just happen to take after other people in some ways :)

again, ty for reading! here's the original thread. i'd like to add that this is probably out of date and i may come back to it some day but who knows. maybe this will just be a relic of before Now (may 25)

#solaine's dsmp meta #dsmp #dsmp meta #c!tommy #c!ranboo #c!tubbo #tommyinnit #ranboo #tubbo #schlatt #c!schlatt #c!dream #dream #c!wilbur #wilbur

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energyanon · 3 years

Text

Surprise reading as I can’t seem to shake off the curiosity. Ok, I’m gonna set them up in relation to this drama. Personally, I don’t believe it. NV would have to have various personality disorders in order for this to be true, among 5000 other reasons why that is not normal, sane human behaviour. But the Instagram.. so many things don’t match up. However, both me and another anon felt fuzzy headed when we were representing her.. maybe it’s not just her overthinking, maybe it’s something more relating to some kind of disorder, but that’s not my place to say. Let’s check it out. Once again I’m gonna type as I go.

I’ve decided for three set ups here: 1. NV, 2. The group chat as a whole as cited on said Instagram, and 3. Henry.

Set up 2. (The GC) first. I picked up NV and got a headache.

First flag: Natalie wanted to be on top of the GC… that’s weird..

Henry is at a distance but he is staring at them both. Starting to feel like I may have been wrong in my judgment here ha.. 😬 I’m really hoping it’s not true cause otherwise that’s fucking sad and NV has genuine issues. But, I’m ok with being wrong.

Alright, let’s start as NV (cause GC, I feel I already know their feelings regardless of if it’s true or not) FYI, I have moved NV to being close but not on top, as one energy on top of - group of energies would be much too hard to decipher.

NV:

Immediate dizziness. I feel very hot and my air con is currently blasting down upon me so it’s not me. The group chat feels very little to NV. like tiny, as in I could step on them. (1. This can mean they’re not even being seen, she barely cares about them, or 2. Can feel more powerful than) as we know in the screenshots the latter was supposedly the case, so I’m not going to cross that out just yet, but it feels more like I’m just not even seeing them. they’re dirt under my feet. They don’t really have her attention and she’s not super bothered by them, but once I brought her attention to it She does want to stamp it out, it’s a complete nuisance. She wants to cover them up. I gave them a little tap, which ended turning into many taps which turned into actually wanting to destroy their rep all together. so she’s angry about it. (At this point I don’t know if she’s angry about This situation being a lie, as in she’s sick of these people doing this to her, or if she’s genuinely angry at the group for exposing her) the tiny dirt now feels a bit bigger but more like a basketball sized nuisance. She still feels bigger than them, it’s just that this is so ANNOYING. Still wants to rip them up into little pieces, she’s annoyed, she’s moving me around a whole bunch, she’s angry, she’s frustrated, she’s tying her hair up, she’s not having it. like it’s fucking annoying. this is all so ANNOYING. She’s stressed, she’s annoyed, she wants this over and done with.

No more energy shifts. Incoming questions.

Q: do you know them?

No I don’t fucking know them

Ok do you think that was a friend who exposed you?

I don’t know I can’t think I- (just a bunch of profanities) [note: it’s like she’s keyboard smashing in my brain right now it’s REALLY annoyed]

Jaw clenched, I’m swaying from side to side my hands are on my hips, hair away from my face I want to move somewhere else but I need to deal with THIS FUCKING THING FIRST ISHDJFKSJXJDSNX.

god it is SO ANNOYING like if you guys were all in front of me right now you’d be heading me yelling and screaming and So irritated I’m so I’m SO Annoyed. I can’t even think of any other questions to ask cause I’m too busy getting keyboard smashed atm.

I’m gonna move to the group to just see if the intentions there are legit. I need a break from NV.

Ok the group:

the group have some anxiety, stomach dropped. They’re not angry they’re just looking at NV. None of them can be sure if It was NV - I think some of them doubt but it was a “get it out just in case” situation. At least one of them feel bad. Nervous jitters from my right leg. You know how you fidget when you’re waiting to get in trouble?

Q: do you believe it was NV?

There are many of them so I’ll just say it as it came up. No (1) I don’t know (majority) one of them is a yeah, feels like the leader of the group but even then the yeah isn’t a solid resounding yeah. But it’s also not like a “yeaahhh?” It’s like I’m just gonna make a decision and it’s yeah.

Q: are you mad that nv is with Henry

I’m not mad (1)

We’re not mad, we just think he could do better. (Majority)

Q: why did you do this

To expose her

Q: why to expose her if you didn’t truly believe it was her

There is a very weak “it was the right thing to do” like.. when I say weak it feels like they don’t even believe that, but they’ve convinced themselves it is..?

Q: at any point did you lie or fabricate the screenshots?

Resounding no, but one solid yes from someone.

Q: Yes?

One of them.

Q: which one

(I was shown one of them, it was one of the purple and black ones, one where there isn’t much purple - I’ll have to check it after)

Ok, my leg isn’t going crazy anymore - there is just an expectant waiting. They’re looking at NV, she’s taller than them but not much taller (not like they’re a basketball being looked down upon, just normal human heights) the feeling is just waiting. Waiting to see if there is a response. That’s it, that’s all I’ve been given I can’t even conjure Up another question. (Sometimes when the energy is done sharing its just done, I can’t force it past that and I’m not in my right to)

Checking Henry:

Henry is tired, he’s disillusioned, he’s just staring into space. The other two are in front of him (facing one another) but he doesn’t see them. Genuinely no thoughts from him it’s complete disassociation. But I did ask if he knew about this situation, he doesn’t seem to know yet.

And yet he’s still disassociating.. the thought “I don’t know what to do” came up, but it was so slow and fractured it was like… you know that video of that kid who’s trying to say have you ever had a dream that you could do anything but he muddles it up for 20 seconds before getting to it? It’s like that (I’ll link it when I’m done)

“I don’t kn- I just I - what do I ev- wh-“ and it keeps going but imagine it taking FOREVER for him to say it.

He’s stuck in the disassociation. Weird choice, but I need to do it. I’m gonna slap him. (Which yes, means slapping myself)

Ok, that didn’t make much difference, he’s still super tired, he still didn’t see the other two but I tried to bring his attention to NV and he was already turning around to leave “I don’t care, I don’t care I’m too tired” and then he turned back and said to NV to clarify “I do care, but I don’t, I’m tired” and I took him out cause he was walking out of there anyway.

Back to NV one last time, and then I’m doing other stuff with my day and then I’ll do CE tonight.

It’s always dizziness with this chick, I swear. Everytime im with her I’m dizzy, I’m losing blood pressure. She’s calmed down at least but fuck I’m dizzy more dizzy than I usually am (can be her, could also be me continuously going into different energies, I don’t tend to feel like this though but don’t rule it out)

Dizzy, Im not tired, but fatigued like I don’t need to sleep, I need to just lay down. I see the GC but they can fuck off I don’t care. She wants to kick them out of the way. As soon as she does she wants to leap out at them and tear them to shreds. She goes from 1- 100 real quick. I don’t want her to destroy my representative for the group, cause I don’t want anything to accidentally manifest in real time for the actual group, so im going to create a little thing that she can destroy instead - just in case there are any energetic consequences of her destroying the representation of the GC. Found a little piece of paper I called it placebo GC and we’re tearing it up.

Ok so, I got her to tear up Placebo GC. She got raveonous with it. I am now coming to believe that NV has some major anger issues. To be fair, im feeling how annoyed she is and I get it honestly it’s the only way to get out this level of emotion. It’s not healthy, therapy is needed for sure, but I’m not gonna sit here like this and say that she’s overreacting cause when you’re feeling like she is, there’s no where else for this to go

She ripped them up, crushed them, tore at them with her teeth, crushed them into a little ball again and chucked them away and then we just screamed “FUCK!” For literally about 3 minutes and she was LIVID. I’ve sat her down now while I write this, she’s still annoyed, she’s not livid.

Interesting to note though, all throughout the screaming there was never a single thought that came up that was like “why can’t they just let US live, why can’t we just BE together” she really doesn’t seem to care about the affect it has on her and Henry’s relationship, she’s just annoyed people are talking shit. Like she just doesn’t care that people won’t accept them.

Oh! I haven’t checked on her vs. HC so lemme do that. I wanna see if she checks up on him too, cause from a normal relationship perspective, this would affect him too. But let’s see.

Yup, ok, nothing from her end, if anything she’s giving him the silent treatment. Like she’s looking at him in the way you do when your partner has said something stupid and you’re too angry to answer. But she doesn’t care that he’s there. I went to him also to see if he would comfort her and he was just a brick wall, kind of more like “here I am I’m showing up but idc. I really idc. Sorry that you’re going through it I guess.” Both of them had the ~aura~ (I don’t know how to explain it on text) of “this did not go as planned” however, they didn’t SAY that, just as an FYI, it was just a bit of a shared feeling translated into words.

That’s it. I’m ending it there. I’ve got life admin to do, be back later for a CE reading as promised. :)

#ooo I should also check on the “quote NV unquote in the Instagram #fuck that would have been a good idea to see if it was legit her or not.#I’ll leave the set up as it is #do my stuff #do CE as promised and then try that out #reading #nv #hc

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bbugyu · 4 years

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a dragon's kingdom

he never wanted to stop learning about you, and you never knew how much you needed him by your side.

part one | part two

wc.5009 | smut, fluff, hurt/comfort, royal au, princess!reader and knight!cheol, penelope is the best character, sex constantly, it's called the honeymoon stage, unprotected sex, lots of it, lk impreg kink?, confessions mid-coitus, oops she pukes (not during sex oh my god), food consumption, mentions of death & mental instability, lots of crying

why do i care so much about lore and names and backstory and motivation. anyways i've created an entire world if you wanna know about literally any person that is offhandedly mentioned in this fic i can give u their origin story, including he horses. this part is really story heavy but also pretty sex heavy so have fun!!! also im in love with seungcheol but what's new.

"this feels strange."

you hummed, pulling out a pair of pants from a drawer and holding it up to seungcheol. "what do you mean? wearing someone else's clothes?"

he shook his head no, looking around the bedroom you had brought him to with the promise of clean pants. you had gone through all the rooms, you told him, as you led him through the castle wearing a light tunic tucked into a pair of trousers. you'd collected the clothes you liked, that fit you, and brought them to the tower, but there was plenty that didn't fit your criteria, and you were pretty sure he would fit into the clothes in the third bedroom to the left of the kitchen, past the main dining hall, a room you had discovered to be a counselmen's quarters. "you've been gone for so long, but i was at the kingdom only yesterday."

you looked to him, folding the pants over your arm. "what's it like now?"

a wash of realization caught seungcheol off guard. "my god, you've missed so much."

he changed, insisting you looked the opposite direction despite the fact that you had already seen all of him only hours earlier, and you fiddled your fingers and joked about peeking, but only stole a glance when you heard him buckling a belt that had also been found in the room. you exited the couselmen's room and he helped you onto his horse, leading her down the hall in the direction you told him. you patted down calliope's black mane as she walked alongside seungcheol, listening to him describe the castle ground and all the changes that had been made in the last decade.

"the statue, in the fountain?" you nodded when he looked at you. "it's all three of you now. they added you and the queen probably six months after your disappearance."

"that doesn't sound like father."

seungcheol paused, looking up at you. "i didn't know the king personally until only a few years ago, but he's not the ruthless leader you knew him as any more. your loss changed him."

you should have been more interested in your own father, but you couldn't help the way your mind wandered to fond memories of the flowers and gardens. "are there still lilies?"

"yes, of course," he said. "one of the back gardens was planted in your honor, right by the gates. i've never seen so many colors of lilies in my life."

you were quiet for almost too long, and seungcheol looked to you, immediately noticing the tears welling up in your eyes. "does mother go there often?"

"hey, hey hey," he instantly mounted his horse behind you, wrapping his arms around you and kissing your shoulder gently. "yes. every day."

you inhaled sharply, blinking your eyes rapidly to quell the tears. "she used to love roses," you started.

"she still does," he confirmed, and you didn't even realize that you had mourned for her as though she were dead.

"there's a garden here," you continued, wiping at your eyes and rubbing the moisture away on the pants you wore, seungcheol's hands resting on your stomach as he listened to you. "it was almost dead when i found it, but i take care of the roses there. i'll show it to you later."

seungcheol nodded and pressed a kiss to your cheek, making you smile vaguely.

"there's a stable, also," you said, sniffing your nose. "you might recognize the horses. i suppose we should bring them back with us, as well."

he faltered. "from past missions?"

"only three," you clarified, gently nudging his steed around a corner towards the kitchens. "most of them ran to the fields, but three have stayed. i've named them. one had letters carved into its armor plate, but it was damaged - i could only read valerie."

"valkyrie," seungcheol said immediately. "tan colored horse, correct? with a white diamond on her head."

you turned in his grip. "yes, exactly!"

his stomach felt heavy suddenly. "she was captain varian's steed. he trained me for years, his mission was last fall."

"i'm sorry," you said, lacing your fingers with his on your lap as you recognized his loss. you thought of a year ago, when you had found the horse. you did your best to remember who had come at that time. "though it may not be consolation, i believe he was the one penelope ran from the grounds."

seungcheol's fingers tensed between yours. "she-"

"didn't kill him," you finished. "he was a good man."

he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding in relief, his forehead landing on your shoulder. "he was."

"i wasn't sure the horse was his, though i kept it in case he returned. the forests around here are deadly, but there's a village nearby, so i had hope..." you pursed your lips, thinking of how blasé you had always been about the men that failed to save you, not thinking at the time of the people they knew before they came. "i should have done more."

"you did what you could have," seungcheol reassured, his lips on your shoulder as he curled his arms tighter around you. "thank you for telling me."

you relished in the feeling of his arms around you, sighing as you let your head fall back against his shoulder. "i didn't realize how much i missed human contact."

you felt his breath on your neck when he let out a short chuckle. "i've never had it like this."

"neither have i," you said, adjusting to look him in the eye. he was only a breath away, his lips, his jaw, his neck. he had only arrived that morning, but your attachment to him could never get greater than it was now. you wondered if you glowed like he did in this moment - radiating gold in the streams of light from the afternoon sun. "i like it a lot."

a dimple showed itself on his cheek, and you smiled back at it. he kissed you gently, and your shoulders raised at the goosebumps it gave you. "i do, too," he said, running his lips across your cheek and down your neck.

"seungcheol," you sighed. "we just took a bath."

"and you smell divine," he said, smiling against your skin. you laughed at him, mostly because of his near flat out refusal to bathe with you earlier.

"i've drawn a bath," you had said, wearing only a satin robe as you returned to the main room. "i'd be happy if you joined me."

seungcheol was laid out on your bed, blanket covering as little as it had to, an arm laid over his face as he did his best to recover his soul after you had pulled it straight out of him twice. "go ahead," he replied, fearful of what seeing your form again would do to him. "i'll make sure no one bothers you."

you laughed, crawling onto your thick mattress to bother him a bit more. "my knight in shining armor, making sure none of the inhabitants of this abandoned castle bother me while i bathe."

"anything for my princess," he said, rolling his head towards where you laid, prodding at his chest.

"anything?"

he saw the mischief in your eyes, and god, he hated how easily he fell under your intoxicating spell. but he only hated it for a moment, before you led him into your candle-lit washroom, the flames glinting off the glistening tiles of your tub and a view of the surrounding forest through sheer curtains. all he could do was sigh in resignation as you held his hand, letting the robe fall off your shoulders.

during that bath, your name sounded like a song coming from his lips, and it fell upon your blushed ears in the most delightful way. you had never even imagined what the first time hearing your name in someone else's voice in eight years would be like, but you couldn't stop replaying that moment in your mind.

"there should be apples in a basket right inside the door of the pantry," you said, pointing to a door as you lit the candles in the kitchen. seungcheol went to the door you gestured to and grabbed a few of the red fruit, biting into one. you walked over to the window and drew the curtains, letting the sun in. you usually left them open, but the rain in the evening before made you even sadder than you had already been this week. now, opening them back up, it felt like a fresh beginning.

"i have eggs," you said, tapping your cheek, realizing you truly didn't know how to entertain guests. "lots of fruit and vegetables. there's a whole field of potatoes."

seungcheol smiled as he approached you. "whatever you want, i'm not picky. i am going to give calli some apples, though."

you nodded and smiled when he planted a kiss on your cheek, then took another bite of the apple. you watched him trot up the steps to the hall where his horse waited, and you looked around briefly before deciding to wash rice and stoke a fire.

you didn't know how to cook before you came here. you still didn't, really, just the bits of things you remembered watching the cooks in the kitchen when you and your best friend were hiding from your fathers, but it had been enough for you to learn, alone, with only a young dragon as a mentor. meat scared you still - you tried to slaughter a chicken as a seventeen year old and you were so scared of undercooking it that you had roasted it dry - but you had learned how to work with everything that popped up in the plotted fields behind the castle. with the addition of horses, you had been able to take spare jewelry you found to the village and trade for some things you needed - hay and oats, mostly, to care for them - and some things you missed, like rice and cheese. you grunted lightly as you set the heavy cast iron bowl of rice and water over a stovetop, settling the wood lid on it as seungcheol returned.

"how can i help?"

you stared at him for a moment. "you want to help?"

his eyebrows raised. "yes?"

"sorry," you said suddenly, shaking your head as you squeezed your eyes shut. "this is still weird."

he laughed, leaning against the stone wall. "take your time, princess."

"how are your knife skills?"

he pouted and shrugged. "i manage."

you laughed, walking to the pantry to retrieve some vegetables. "do you like squash? they grew like crazy this year."

you checked the rice periodically as it boiled, and you stir fried the vegetables that seungcheol chopped for you. you found another rice bowl - you had never needed more than one - and filled both with rice before frying two eggs.

"i can't believe you've been alone all this time," he said later, pulling a spoon from his mouth. "how did you learn to do all this?"

you told him about your afternoons spent in the kitchen as a child, being more of a nuisance than anything. he laughed when you told him that you had tipped over a pot of stew into the fire below, extinguishing it and creating a thick paste as the stew mixed with ash. you had gotten banished from the kitchen for a year only a few months before you were taken, but you supposed you had picked up some translatable skills during your other visits.

he asked you about your captor, the mad king that had instilled fear in your kingdom's people with your kidnapping. you told him that king edgar was driven to madness by a cruel curse, and you met his true self only after you had arrived to his kingdom - the kingdom whose people abandoned it in fear of the dragon - where he broke down and clutched you. you reminded him of his own daughter, he had said, a beautiful princess by the name of penelope. he said he never knew what came of her, but you knew she was the one that had been cursed.

"the dragon," seungcheol started, his breath catching. no wonder you shared such a close connection with her.

you nodded. "he thought he was crazy for hearing her voice in his head. she was trying to tell him the whole time."

you were quiet when you told him that the late king's madness is what killed him, only a year after you had arrived.

it was his idea to send calliope back to the kingdom with a letter. he was positive she would make it on her own - she had made the trip several times, despite the king forbidding seungcheol from attempting to save you until now. "scouting missions," he explained when you raised an eyebrow at him, his tone unconvincing. he understood why you wished to stay, and he really could not deny the allure of living in a private castle with you for a little while, but he worried that his delayed return would make everyone assume the worst.

"i could write a letter," he said, to tell them what had happened and that you needed time to wrap some things up here, gather the things that should come back with you. "or you could, my princess, if you're hoping for a more dramatic return."

you were laying in the grass, watching the sun reflect orange against the clouds as it began to set over the horizon, using seungcheol as a pillow. you hummed, rolling to lay on your stomach and plucking a blade of grass to inspect. he watched you, and tucked your hair behind your ear as you thought. "you should write it, i think. they might come to collect us if i do. should we send her off in the morning?"

he nodded at you, his hand still on your cheek. you leaned your head into it, craving the way he held you suddenly.

there were countless days where you had lain similar to where you were now, in the grass clearing surrounded by red rose bushes, the earliest times spent sobbing until your throat was sore and your eyes swollen while you came to terms with being truly alone here. now, though, you laid with your savior and lover, and his presence alone changed the atmosphere. suddenly, these roses that were a source of painful memory for you had an air of romance to them.

"should i tell them?" you wondered aloud. "that i chose to stay all these years?"

seungcheol's thumb glided across your cheek bone. "do you think they would understand?"

your eyebrows crinkled. "you know them better than me, now," you said, ripping the grass in your fingers to pieces. "i know mother would, but i'm not sure about father."

"i think he would," he said quietly. your eyes met his. "heartbreak breeds empathy. i'm sure he would even forgive king edgar if you told him his story."

you considered that for a moment. "maybe i should write the letter, then."

with calliope in the stables, penelope flew the two of you back to the tower for the evening so that you could figure out what all to write, but it was back in that garden the next evening, laying in that same spot, where seungcheol's fingers dug into your waist as you rode him, the sky painted pink and purple behind you. your hips rolled on his, your blouse unbuttoned too low and your pants discarded somewhere they shouldn't be, and you watched his neck stretch against the green grass, a bruise from your biting the previous day showing itself directly over a bulging vein. he filled you in a way that felt new every time, and you sighed, your hands against his bare chest pushing yourself up off him, only to sink down again repeatedly.

his hands tensed on you as he groaned, trying his best to hold out for your second release, but you were making it incredibly difficult for him. you leaned back, palms on his thighs as you lifted yourself off him, and you would never forget the erotic noise that fell from his lips as you seated yourself deeply.

"princess," he groaned, his hands hungrily running down your thighs. "i won't last much longer like this."

the title read more as a pet name, and you couldn't help but clench at the need in his voice, making him choke. "god, me neither."

"please," he gasped out, eyes pleading. "please, can i-"

you nodded desperately, and it took him only seconds to sit up, crossing his legs behind you, cradling you in his arms as he rolled his hips up into you. your jaw dropped in a silent moan, and it took a moment for your vocal chords to catch up, but it wasn't long before you were making all sorts of embarrassing noises for him.

"baby," he panted, his lips pausing their work against your throat. "oh, god, i'm gonna cum."

"yes," you begged. "please. please, seungcheol."

he groaned into your neck, and you whined as you felt him shoot into you, spurring your own orgasm. your throbbing walls milked him dry, and the two of you were panting as you came down, clutching each other in a garden.

you were grateful that he didn't comment on the way you practically waddled the rest of the evening, but you never noticed the proud look on his face whenever he watched you. he did that to you, he thought. and you wanted him to do it to you again and again and again.

each morning, when seungcheol woke with your bare form draped over his side, he felt like the luckiest man on the planet, and you couldn't help but smile when you woke to his quiet and gentle ministrations against your neck, his hands warm against your skin as he pulled you closer to him.

"my darling," he muttered against your throat, adoring the way you felt in his arms, and his honey coated voice made you drunk with desire despite the sleep in your eyes. "when will i ever get enough of you?"

you giggled as you reached for him, making him moan when your hand made contact with his member. "perhaps we'll slow down in a year."

seungcheol thought that sounded okay, but when you wrapped your warm mouth around him, it suddenly sounded too soon.

there was clothing you would miss too much, you told him. the tunics you wore as comfort for years, the most beautiful dress you had ever seen, and god, the trousers. you had never been allowed to wear them before, but the convenience of fewer, less cumbersome layers proved itself again and again, especially now that you had a reason to undress more often.

"i think you look beautiful," he announced matter of factly, seated in the floor only two feet away from you, when you said offhandedly that the dresses probably suited you more. "now and always."

you smiled at him as you folded the clothing into saddlebags. "you're not so bad to look at either," you said, letting him lean over the pile of clothing to kiss you.

the more seungcheol told you about the kingdom, the more you itched to return. you missed the trees and parks surrounding the castle grounds, the cobblestone streets that you would secretly wander down, and you especially missed the way people would smile at you and ask if you were away from the castle alone.

"of course," you would reply, exchanging coin for a snack of bread despite the baker's insistence that you take it for free. "do you think the guards would have let me if they knew?"

the people were your main reason to return. you thought of the citizens that you hadn't seen in so long. you wondered how the children you remembered coming into the world had grown up. you wondered how the shops managed. you asked seungcheol about some, the ones you could remember, and he happily told you the bakery a few blocks away from the back garden gates of the castle was doing well.

you missed your family. with the promise of seeing them soon, your heart ached, even if you had felt spiteful towards them in your youth. you would never agree with everything they did - thus was the nature of an ever evolving world - but you couldn't help but remember the times they had laughed with you. while they had expectations for you, they still cared for you. they still raised you. they still loved you unconditionally.

you missed everyone you saw every day, all the other inhabitants of the castle. your cousin, whose parents died in war when he was only a child, but always had a devil may care attitude anyways. the cooks and help you bothered, but always laughed at your antics. your handmaiden, who had always kept a close eye on you, even if she never told the king about your secret excursions. you thought of your father's right hand man and closest friend, advisor kim. you thought of his son, whom you had been raised with in the castle. he had always been your best friend, your beacon of common sense, and your slightly reluctant partner in crime. you spent much of your long years away daydreaming about his laugh and hugs.

"mingyu," you said, trailing off slightly. you were sitting in the shade of a tree, watching seungcheol throw knives at a target. "is he well?"

"advisor kim?" he adjusted his posture, grunting slightly as he put a telling amount of force behind his throw. "as well as he can be, i suppose. we don't speak much."

"not advisor kim," you said, brows furrowed. "his son. he's around our age."

seungcheol looked to you, his eyes softening. "oh, princess, i'm so sorry." he paused as he kneeled before you, putting a hand to your cheek. "mingyu's father passed six years ago. he's been the king's advisor ever since."

he held you as you sobbed against him, mourning the man you had referred to as your uncle for most of your childhood, and your heart shattered as you thought of all the loss mingyu had endured.

he was smart, and it made sense to you that the king asked him to succeed his father, though you thought it a little cruel. mingyu had always been the most well read person you knew, and was the reason you had decided to make a mission of reading every book in your stone prison. he always had excitedly told you about the latest novel he'd read, or what he had learned in the political journal he'd snuck from his father's office, eyes shining and baring the wolf-like grin you adored. you never understood it back then, but now, having reread most of the books you had access to, you couldn't wait to get your hands on anything he would recommend to you when you could ask him in only a few short days.

you asked that you spend an afternoon with penelope, and seungcheol respected your time with her, despite the boredom that itched at his legs while he sat in your tower alone. he counted your paintings for the umpteenth, wondering how had you done this for so long. he decided he would go check on the horses.

you asked penelope if she truly wished to stay. "we could find someone to help you," you said. "i'm sure father has someone that can reverse the spell."

sweet princess, her warm voice rang in your ears despite her never opening her mouth. i've no family, no subjects, and no sense of humanity.

you chewed on your cheek, knowing your wet eyes gave you away. "you have me."

she chirped, nuzzling her nose against your arm. and for your companionship all these years, i am grateful. but punishing the wicked is my duty, i have accepted my fate and so should you.

"i accept it," you said, wiping at your face with the sleeves of your dress. "but i'll remain unhappy with it."

penelope's sweet giggle was your favorite thing to hear in your mind, for you could almost imagine the woman that it once belonged to. do visit sometime. though i'd prefer if you left the knight at home.

you laughed despite the tears streaming down your face, and your hand ran over her snout. "you would like mingyu more, anyways."

there were three horses to bring back with you, but only two riders. due to this fact alone, seungcheol told you it would likely take a full day to return to the kingdom.

"maybe longer," he thought aloud, his wandering eyes finding yours as you leaned against a post in the stable. "we might have to camp a night."

"leave in the morning, arrive the next?" he nodded at your question. "that's not awful. it's hard to believe that i've been this close to you this whole time."

seungcheol agreed with you, wishing that he had gone against the king's orders and found you sooner, especially when your fingers fiddled with the collar of his shirt. "if only i had known how close i was to bliss, i would have been by your side for years."

you sighed, content, and wrapped your arms around his torso, your cheek landing on his firm chest as he leaned into you.

the first time the phrase i love you came from him, he was curled over you in your bed. your hands were digging into his hair, his lips were slotted over yours, and you were trying your best to ignore the stinging in your eyes as he pushed into you again, the words hushed against your mouth.

you looked up at him, shellshocked, but he never took your silence as judgement. "i love you," he repeated. "more than i've ever loved another person."

a moan was forced from you with a combination of his words and his movements, and it jump-started your confession. "i love you, too, my knight."

his forehead rest against yours, slick with sweat, as he slowly drove himself into you. your thighs ached, partly from the repeated trips up and down the stairs as you packed, but mostly from the way he gripped the backs of them, pushing them until your knees were nearly at your shoulders. the angle let him too far into you, you thought. if anyone were to die from feeling too much pleasure, it would be you, in that moment, as seungcheol bit at your lower lip and muttered sweet nothings into your mouth.

after nearly a decade of ruling a lonely kingdom, you were so close to returning to the castle in which you were raised. you had set the chickens free from their coop, your horses were prepared for the journey, and your stomach ached at the thought. your nerves got the better of you as you emptied your stomach of its contents behind a tree.

"it's okay, my love," seungcheol said, his hands pulling your hair behind your shoulders and rubbing your back. "i'm right here."

"damn shame," you choked out, catching your breath. "i really enjoyed that breakfast."

he did his best to not laugh despite your joking tone. he stayed by your side as your head swam, and asked if the ride back should be delayed.

"no," you shook your head, accepting the water he handed you. "if we stay a day, i'll make excuses to stay forever. i'll be okay."

he recognized the defeat in your words. despite the weakened state you had woken up in, you were right. this place felt like paradise, and you never wanted it to end, but you had a kingdom waiting for you.

penelope watched over you both, laid out in the grass as you made your final preparations, and you wrapped your arms around her neck as you held back tears.

"i'll visit. i promise."

seungcheol wrung his fingers behind his back as he watched you speak with her quietly. he could never quite shake his fear of the majestic being (he had squeezed his eyes shut and clung to you whenever she had flown you two to the tower), and he had a feeling that she disliked him due to their first impression, but he knew you loved her like a sister. then, the dragon's deep firey eyes moved to meet his, her voice creeping into his mind for the first time, causing a chill to run up his spine.

protect her in my stead.

he put a hand over his heart and nodded, and when the dragon broke eye contact, he felt as though he finally understood her.

seungcheol kept a close eye on you as you rode river, a horse he couldn't remember the original name of, but that you named after the location at which you found him. he vaguely remembered the man that rode him before, but he was one that seungcheol had never liked much. every time you swayed slightly, he insisted on taking a break so you could lay down, but you waved him off, not wanting to delay your return any more than you already had.

"oh, dear seungcheol," you said, a smile on your lips. "you will be such an empathetic king one day. good thing i'll be there to make the hard decisions."

he couldn't argue - he never could. you were wise beyond your years and more observant than the people he debated against at home, most of which with whom his arguments ended in him threatening to fight. but with you, he always understood the deep thought and logic behind your words. you had a way of speaking that calmed conflict instead of fostering it, and for that reason alone, he thought you were destined to rule, and he would happy to be by your side as you did.

#YAAAAAA #i tried to make this make sense as an ending even though ive literally already written half of part 3 #anyways idk what to call this series if you have an idea lmk!#part three introduces So Many People yall just you WAIT!!!!#seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen smut #choi seungcheol scenarios #choi seungcheol imagines #choi seungcheol smut #scoups scenario #scoups imagines #scoups smut #cheollie #i wrote dis

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transcendence-au · 4 years

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Okay, sorry for sending so many asks, posts, reblogs, submissions and stuff lately. I have been more active on tumblr lately, esp. for Gravity Falls, TAU, and Transcendence stuff lately. Which I like in general, but with the TAUathon and the Transcendence zine stuff going on, both of which I have been busy with, and have been going on more lately But yeah, I have fics I have been working on for both and they are almost done.

They have a lot of references to other fics and head canons I have read. Im also trying to research and make sure the lore and TAU is as correct and good as possible, so besides them being long, and me trying to make them as good as possible, the research is taking me awhile and stuff. Anyways, for one of the fics, I want to clarify something, I want to make sure Im sticking to the canon or at lease the Squish as much possible, at least with these 2 fics. Anyways, for the TAUathon fic Im almost done with, I want to ask this question, before I finish it, in case, however you answer makes me need to change things in the fic.

I dont need to ask much questions for the TAU zine fic Im working on (which I hope they are still taking. I did said I would be submitting something, but they didnt say any kind of due date, at least the last time I work. I havent checked tumblr a lot until recently since I have been busy working on that TAU zine fic and the TAUathon fic, so yeah I have been busy) since Im pretty sure everything is right in it, and because Im pretty sure I cant tell and show much have a zine thing/fic (Im not completely sure on that, since this my 1st time entering a zine, or doing much zine things, though Im pretty sure, so yeah).

Anyways, my question for the TAUathon fic I am working and I think is just an interesting question in general is how would Alcor’s (near) Omniscience would work with Gods? I know in the TAU verse, Gods are more like Guardians of their Domain usually, and are usually less powerful than Angels and Demons, probably esp. the higher rank demons and angels. Though, I bet there is probably some expectations with that too, esp. with more old/ancient, wise, and experienced Gods, but usually Gods are in TAU. Gods remind a bit of Genius Loci (which I love too, I love Genius Loci stuff, I would love to read more on that. I esp. love the Hank, Alcor Genius Loci stuff esp. in Portland, Gravity Falls, and some I have seen with LA, because those places are just great settings, esp. for mundane and prenatural stuff and coexisting.

Gods remind me a bit of Genius Loci both protectors/guardians of their domain in a lot of ways (with Gods usually have having some stuff that shows who and what they are a God of and Genius Loci being basically literal personifications of the place), but probably a lot stronger and in most cases older, maybe not always though. Anyways, back more on topic, how do you think Alcor’s (near) Omniscience, and probably others’ omniscience as well would work on Gods.

I know Demons with other Demons its possible they might find out stuff about, or around the other demons, or the omniscience and the user might do works arounds to find out stuff, basically it can be very on the fritz, staticy, or/& barely working to not working at really. I know demons usually cant read the others’ minds. And Im basically do the same things with Gods, but both a lesser and more extent. While Alcor’s omniscience is definitely on the fritz and kinda disjointed with the flow of words and information, it is probably giving him more information than he would be able to find out about demons right away, though sometimes if he pushes himself to find out more it causes bad physical stuff too, though the human form Alcor is right now, is not helping that, but basically pushing yourself can be bad with how Im writing that fic.

And another more thing when it comes to trying to get read on Gods, esp. this particular Old God with his omniscience is that it is even harder to read their minds and get into their mindscapes maybe then even other demons (would omniscience with Angels work a bit similar to demons and Gods, or just completely differently now that I think about it?), and you would have to read and use aura and logical deductions a lot more maybe. The reason why I think that, is because of the God Eye item helping against omniscient beings, though maybe whatever they do to turn an actual God Eye (I think its an actual God’s Eye) into an item/talisman maybe makes that stronger, I can see that. Again, I know other people maybe different interpretations on how well or not well Omniscience and Alcor’s Omniscience will work against others. Like I think I know pretty well on how well it works against (other) demons, but Im less sure about Angels and Gods.

So if maybe you can tell your opinion and what you think that would be cool, esp. on the Gods stuff, because that is fic Im writing for TAU now. And if think my ideas that I have been using in my TAU Gods fic makes sense when it comes to Omniscience and Alcor’s omniscience with them and also their own omniscience against other beings like gods, demons, angels, etc. I think what Im doing in my fic with those ideas and stuff makes enough sense, but I would love to hear some of your thoughts if possible.

If you dont know everything (yet) thats fine, Im just curious. And Im also sure other people might come with really good TAU Gods (and even more Angels) lore, head canons, and stuff. If you cant answer soon that is fine. If I finish the fic before you answer, I might make another (updated) version with any information you tell me someday, till then I hope my fic is good enough representation of the kind stuff im asking about and accurate enough. Ever seeing that Mother Gaia Prompt, been wanting more Gods and Old Gods in TAU, so Im making one (and maybe even more later) myself. Also, sorry about long this was, I ended talking more than just the omniscience thing, haha.

----

Glad to see your enthusiasm! Sorry this took a little bit to answer; we’re aware that you’ve posted your TAU fic already. No worries, though; you’re pretty much spot on with the long and short of it, which is this: Alcor’s Omniscience may not be 100% reliable at all times.

In many works and headcanons in TAU, this ability of his seems to work a little more like a cosmic google search than anything. He often has to know what he wants to know about in the first place, and then be able to give it a moment of thought. Now, once he does so, any and all information that may be available to him is instantly downloaded and understood, as it were. That being said, sometimes the sources - or the subjects - of that information have enough power to put up blocks of some sort (for the most powerful, most exclusive example in this AU, consider True Names - no being, however omniscient, can simply reach into this well of knowledge and draw out the True Name of another being). Of creatures and beings with this amount of power, other demons would be some, and it’s very reasonable to assume that angels and even gods would be others. In theory, perhaps one with enough power could overwhelm the blocks around one with very little, but I’m not sure if that’s been explored as a concept.

So in short, I’m pretty sure you’ve got it! Have fun writing those Old Gods and Conceptual Deities!

#submission #headcanon #worldbuilding #gods #demons #angels #omniscience

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scoutisnthome · 3 years

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Songs from the "How to be a human" album by glass animals assigned to dream SMP characters

So i am back on my bullshit assigning my favorite albums different fictional characters. This is one of my favorite albums. And yes this is the band that made the heat waves song. I listen to it when my mental health is kicking my ass making these assigns extra spicy ✨. Just as a reminder this album deals with some heavy topics which will be mentioned in the analysis to proceed with a little caution. DREAM SMP /RP LETS GOOOOO.

Life itself: quintessential tommy tubbo vibes here. But like season 1 tommy and tubbo. Just two kids who want to have fun getting pulled into much more serious situations than their prepared for.

Youth: Philza. And wilbur too. This song is about a father who left his son when he was young and only wants him to be happy. Saying in one of the lyrics "You were clearly meant for more, Than a life lost in the war". Philza has been absent for most of the server time so far and is now coming back to one of his sons dead and two the worst they've ever been. Wilbur i feel is somewhat self explanatory.

Season 2 Episode 3: Quackity and schlatt. I say this half seriously but i can't find anyone else that fits this well. On the surface this song is about a somewhat unhealthy relationship where the pov character in question is dating a stoner type girl who doesn't treat him very well and is implied to be depressed. Schlatt and quackity have an abusive relationship (i know it was mostly jokes but they were implied to be in some kind of relationship sexual or romantic) /rp i cannot stress this enough, where schlatt drinks incessantly and Quackity kind of just takes it for a long while. ✔✔✔✔

Pork soda: I would assign it to dnf but im not going to. Because they are implied to have something going on and i think this song would be somewhat good for that if you interpret it as dreams perspective post dream team break up /rp (sorry im clarifying that so much but just in case) but on principle i will not assign anyone this song because i honestly don't think it fits anyone that great. Sry :(

Mama's gun: technoblade. Instantly thought of technoblade. This is a song about a woman who Hears voices murdering her husband. It's implied she might not have been fully aware of what she was doing either, she shows what seems like regret for it. This fits technoblade for multiple reasons. The chat is canon and is voices in his head who often tell him to kill people. He seems to feel guilty for what hes done as shown with his retirement. Just a very techno esc song.

Cane shuga: schlatt. It's a song about drug abuse amd relationship breakups that result from that. i don't know what to tell you.

The other side of paradise: if i was to assign it id say this was about wilbur but not song by wilbur. Probably changing perspectives every verse if i was to be accurate. First from nikis perspective about the lmanburg independence war and how that became almost everything wilbur was in a unhealthy way. Second is from the perspective of tubbo. About the aftermath, wilbur life in lmanburg and him getting banished later on. The third comes from tommy. He knows wilbur is gone but he can't help but treat ghostbur as if hes wilbur. A way to forget. For just a moment.

Take a slice: No i will not ✨✨✨✨.

Poplar st.: assigning this to wilbur because he fucked a fish /j

Agnes: tommy and ranboo. This is from the perspective of ranboo. The song is about a man named Agnes who ends up commiting from the perspective of his friend. The radio version makes it seem like a romantic song but its platonic and capture his love for his friend. Ranboo for over a week has been the driving force keeping tommy alive making this song seem very bittersweet but kind of perfect for them. /rp

I made this for goofs originally but now i am sad. Anyways enjoy this mess and listen to the album its really good.

#mcyt #dream smp #/rp

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mimi-cee-hq · 4 years

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Yahaba’s Type - Yahaba x Reader (Part 1 of 2)

[Masterlist]

[Part 1] [Part 2]

Summary:

Although Y/n was known as the clown friend, she wasn’t very comfortable around Yahaba. But that started to change when she saw him awkwardly practising his tosses by himself.

AO3 link if you want to read there instead.

Match-up Request:

Hi I’m here for a match up request~ I’m tall (about 1.80) with blonde middle length hair & light brown eyes I’m a bit plump (usually thin but lately I’ve put on some weight) & sometimes I get self conscious about it 😬 been playing volleyball for 10 years as a middle blocker & my team’s ace ☺️ I also enjoy drawing a lot whenever I have free time Im THAT clown friend who gets really happy whenever people laugh with my jokes & I try to cheer people up that way whenever I see someone being down -🦋

So I’m planning on copying and pasting the match-up requests instead of “answering” them because I think it looks better and I can actually save them as a draft. I hope that’s okay. Also, I did not expect this character for my first match up, but this is the one with the plot idea that actually stuck. I hope you’ll like my choice by the end of the story.

Yahaba’s Type - Yahaba x Reader

Words: 1,425

“Can I have your number?”

Y/n unintentionally let a smirk out as she heard Yahaba ask that of her best friend. She knew that the result wasn’t going to be pretty but she figured that he’d be getting what he deserved.

“Oh. Okay,” Chiaki replied with an innocent smile.

As Yahaba handed his phone to her to enter her number, Y/n noticed that he felt a shiver run up his spine. She glanced at the boy who sat at the back of their classroom, waiting for him to make his move. “Let me guess,” said Y/n with a smirk. “She’s your type?” Chiaki was a slim and tiny girl with short black hair. In contrast, Y/n was tall and slightly plump with medium length blond hair.

“Oh, Kyo-chan!” Chiaki smiled at the boy who approached them from behind. “Why aren’t you sitting at your desk?”

Yahaba stared at Chiaki like she was crazy, but Y/n wasn’t surprised. With Kyotani Kentaro’s reputation, nobody would dare to call him Kyo-chan - except for his girlfriend of course.

After Kyotani glared at Yahaba, Yahaba surrendered his phone to him as if asking for mercy. Kyotani had the urge to smash his phone right there but Chiaki smiled at him and told him not to do anything rash. “He’s your friend, right?” she asked. “It’s fine if he has my number.” With that answer, Kyotani reluctantly gave the phone back.

“I thought I was going to die,” Yahaba mumbled to himself after he released his breath. Y/n just snickered at his reaction. After Yahaba recovered, he asked Kyotani, “Do you still go to the community center?”

“Why would I still go there?” asked Kyotani.

“Just wondering,” Yahaba simply replied.

Y/n didn’t think much of Yahaba’s question until the following week. Her dad had gotten a cold and asked her to manage the volleyball group for him. He knew that he could rely on her for that since she was the captain of her school’s team and had been playing for years.

When their volleyball association wrapped up for the night, Y/n packed up her belongings and left. But she realized that she had forgotten her knee pads on the gym floor, so she walked back to the community center to retrieve them. She didn’t expect to see Yahaba in the gym when she got there.

She watched as his practised his tosses. She still had the urge to play, even though everyone else from her dad’s volleyball association had already left. But she hesitated since she didn’t know Yahaba very well and had always felt uncomfortable around him. She did know that he was the captain and main setter for the boys’ volleyball team though.

“Ack!” Yahaba said as he froze when he saw Y/n at the entrance of the gym. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Enough to see that you were practising your tosses,” laughed Y/n. She had watched him throw the ball to himself and volley to his imaginary hitters. It looked kind of awkward for him to practise like that, so she decided to help him out a bit. “I can throw the ball to you and spike your tosses if you’d like me to,” she said with a grin.

“Do you even know how to play volleyball?”

“I’m the ace on the team, you idiot!” she told him. Although, she wasn’t really surprised he had forgotten that she was on the team. Even though she had to present a speech before the whole school on clubs day as captain, she knew he had only paid attention to the girls that caught his interest.

“Oh, sorry,” he replied. “What are you doing here though?”

“I was going to ask you that,” said Y/n. “Why don’t you just practise at the school gym?”

Yahaba looked away, not really wanting to answer her question. Y/n figured that he didn’t want his team to know how hard he was working for some reason. So with a mischievous grin, she picked up a volleyball and threw it at him.

“Hey! What was that?” Yahaba complained. He blocked the ball with his arms so that it wouldn’t hit his face.

“I was expecting you to be able to set the ball to me,” laughed Y/n. “You’re supposed to be a great setter, right?” But the words she said to tease him and make him laugh looked like it had hit his sore spot. Just when she started to regret it, Yahaba volleyed the ball toward her face.

“You were supposed to spike that one, Ace,” he said with a smirk. Y/n laughed at his comeback and properly tossed a ball to him this time.

The two of them practised together at the community center over the next few days. Y/n would run up to the net at different locations: left, middle, right, and other locations in between. Yahaba also practised setting from various spots on the court in cases where he wouldn’t get a good pass. This was all to help him practise the precision in his sets so that he wouldn’t give a toss that was too long or short during a game.

Since Y/n was a middle blocker, they also practised quick sets since she had experience with them. This was good practice for her as well since she had to learn to adjust to his sets. She had gotten too used to her setter.

“I think your sets have been getting better, but shouldn’t you do this with one of your teammates?” asked Y/n.

Yahaba just ignored her question and instead said, “Here, give me your number,” as he handed his phone to her.

Y/n looked at him in disbelief, “Are you seriously trying that again?” she asked with a laugh. “Didn’t you learn anything from last time?”

“Why do you have a boyfriend?” he asked with a smirk.

“No,” Y/n replied with a pout.

“I’m not hitting on you,” he clarified. “It’s just handy to be able to practise with you.”

Y/n didn’t really like how he worded that, but gave him her number anyway. “Fine. It’s good practice for me too anyway.”

Y/n later learned more about the boys’ team. She never really watched their games since she was too focused on the girls’ team and improving her own skills. From Watari, she had heard about Oikawa and how Yahaba had to fill in his shoes. Oikawa had the ability to draw out his team’s potential as a setter and it seemed like Yahaba struggled to be like that.

Yahaba and Y/n continued to text each other to see when they were free to practise some more. Y/n started to gradually get more comfortable around him and started being the goof ball she usually was.

“Can I have your notes?” Y/n asked Yahaba one day in class.

“What? Why do you need them?” he questioned. “You probably have better notes than I do.”

“Just give me your notebook.” When Y/n got his notebook, she ran out of the classroom with a goofy smile. Later when she returned his notebook, Yahaba raised an eyebrow, wondering why she was trying to hold back a grin. He decided not to care about it - until he accidentally let out a loud laugh in the middle of a lesson.

“Sorry, sir,” he apologized to the teacher. He tried to keep his mouth from letting out another laugh. Y/n looked away from the scene, trying to keep her own laughter as quiet as possible. In his notebook, she had doodled an ugly version of Yahaba with Oikawa’s hair, saying, “I believe in all of you.” Further down the page was a drawing of Yahaba trying to call each member of the team by their nickname with each of them giving him a look of disgust.

The teacher continued the lesson but Y/n glanced at Yahaba to see him with his head down and still shaking from holding his laughter. Y/n was glad that he found it funny. She was a bit worried because she was poking fun at him and his senpai. Seeing that it cheered him up made her feel giddy.

“You don’t need to be like Oikawa :),” she had written on the bottom of the page. Yahaba looked at her with a smile of appreciation. She smiled back. But then she remembered something that Yahaba said in their second year of high school.

“I only like short, skinny girl,” said Yahaba.

“You really are a shallow guy,” commented Kyotani.

“Well, I never denied it.”

*****

I hope you’re interested in part two. :)

[Part 1] [Part 2]

[Masterlist]

#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #yahaba x reader #yahaba shigeru #haikyuuwritersnet #haikyuu!!#next gen captains #pretty setter squad #seijoh #aoba johsai #aoba jōsai #haikyuu requests #haikyuu matchups #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu fanfic #mimi's fanfiction

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angrylizardjacket · 5 years

Text

sabotage {Machine Gun Kelly}

Summary: MGK has a Lot of tattoos, and Tommy Lee does not, at least not for most of when The Dirt is set. It’s no small task covering them all, but being assistant to the man who does cover them means you’re spending a good deal of time with the actor himself, and he’s not what you’re expecting... that is, if you actually knew what to expect.

A/N: 6477 words. alright so i went to im-fucking-db for Accuracy; shout out to: Christine Wada (costume designer), Corey Castellano (makeup department head), and Jorie Malan (key makeup artist). i reference these people in the fic, and i’ll be sure to explain who they are in the fic, but just in case you need a reminder, they’re also here. requested by my dear @luciana-galvez. under a read more because it’s a Monster of a fic. Please give me feedback, and also let me know if you want a part 2??

“You want me to order how much foundation?” It’s nine in the morning and you’ve barely stepped foot into the production meeting when Corey, the head of the makeup department, is tasking you with buying far more foundation than any one production should reasonably need. There’s overestimating and then there’s... this. “What shade?” It’s with an air of defeat that you accept the company credit card and open your laptop.

“Not now; the cast have a fitting at midday, we’ll get shade match them then.” Corey assures, but you keep your laptop open anyways to make notes during the meeting. It passes by fairly uneventfully, at least for you, and by the time you break, it’s already eleven and you’re starving. The corner store a few blocks away serves as a good a place to get lunch as any, and when you turn up to the fitting, half an hour early, you sit yourself in a corner to wait, and start on your sandwich of questionable quality.

You’re pricing bulk order foundation on your phone, still marvelling at the estimate you’d been given for how much you’d need, when the cast starts to filter in, well, the leads. Aside from being one of the makeup artists, you were also Corey’s assistant, which essentially just made you a glorified errand girl for the rest of the makeup team.

Half the costume department was already here, buzzing and agitated like wasps whose nest had been disturbed, and you’re careful to stay out of their way lest you get stung, or smacked for touching the wrong thing. So you’re grateful when the key makeup artist, Jorie, bursts in with ten minutes to spare, and gives a sigh of relief when she sees you. She’s holding a makeup kit in her hands, and when she begins to set up by a mirror out of the way of the costume department, you can see it’s mostly different shades of foundation, a few tubes of lipstick, more smokey eyeshadow-quad pallets than you can shake a stick at, some eyeliner, and a few face paint sticks.

She’s sticking photos to the mirror of the original band in full makeup, and that’s when you start to accept the fact that it’s going to be a very long day.

“You’re late.” The costume department is not about to fuck around, and despite the fact that there’s still five minutes to midday, the costume designer is already reprimanding the newcomer. “And you can’t smoke in here.”

“It’s not midday-” whoever’s walked in is already arguing back, though as you look up, you see him - god he’s so tall, all limbs - backtracking to stub his cigarette out on the screen door frame outside, you think you recognise him. Well, recognise him beyond the fact that you know he’s playing Tommy; you’d seen his bleach blonde head shot with the drummer’s name beneath it on the document Corey had sent out a few months ago, not that you’d given it a detailed look over. You just did what you were told, you could get to know the actors in the process. But as you’re looking at him, something about him does seem... familiar.

“On time is late; five minutes early is cutting it too close,” Christine, the costume designer was fierce, fiercer than any of the actors had expected, though the rest were already trying to hold back their snickers as he got reprimanded before they’d even started, “ten minutes early is on time; gives us all time to get ready.” She finishes, and disappears into another room to start collecting costumes.

“Fucking hell,” he breathes, rolling his eyes and running a hand through his hair, as the tension dropped the moment she had left. The others were grinning, poking fun at him for getting in trouble before they’d even gotten on set.

“’Stina,” Jorie shouts to the costume designer, “who can we start with?” There’s a long pause, and much shuffling and clicking of coat hangers from the costume department.

“The tall one,” Christine shouts back, and reemerges with an arm full of outfits, “Mister Booth, you first.” And the guy playing Nikki Sixx is lead to a dressing room. After a moment, an assistant carrying another set of outfits makes her way towards you and Jorie, but stops short, gesturing for the guy who had just been getting yelled at to step towards you.

“She meant you, Mister - uh, Kelly?” The nervous assistant doesn’t stay long, and scurries off to collect the two remaining actors, leading them through to the costume room as ‘the tall one’ gives a thin smile as he makes his way towards you.

“Not a fan of being called Mister Kelly?” Jorie asks with a knowing smile, and the tension breaks as he sits in the chair in front of the mirror, half smiling, “what about the tall one?” And he actually laughs at that.

“Fuck no, just Colson’s fine,” he relaxes into the chair, gaze meeting yours where you’re scrutinising him in the mirror, partially because, damn, he really is familiar and you can’t put your finger on why, and partially because you’re trying to figure out what foundation he’d use.

“Where do I know you from?”

“Y/N tell me you’re kidding,” Jorie mutters to you, looking up from where she’s leafing through a stack of photos of Tommy, “did you not read the brief-”

“Dude,” you hissed at her, ducking your head and bobbing down to rifle through the makeup box, “I read it months ago, sorry I don’t remember every actor whose name and headshot I see once.”

“You’re so clueless sometimes; you’re meant to be the young one. Hip to the jive, etcetera?” Jorie’s laughing at her own phrasing, not that you can blame her. When you resurface, holding a makeup sponge and five little bottles of foundation all roughly the same shade with slight variations, she’s looking expectantly at you, one eyebrow raised, hand out and gesturing to the blonde in the makeup chair. “It’s- what is it? - Machine Gun Kelly?” She says it like it’s meant to mean something.

“Gesundheit.”

“It’s his name,” she sighed deeply, pulling out a black stick of facepaint.

“Oh. Your parents hippies?” You ask, kneeling beside his chair and gently taking his arm so you could begin swatching the foundations on the back of his hand. After a beat you reconsider before he can get a word in edgewise, “I guess not if machine gun is in there.”

“Stage name,” he explains, but there’s a smile you can hear in his words, amused, and it doesn’t leave his face as he watches you work in the mirror as Jorie is applying the face paint in two stripes on both his cheeks.

“Hence, Colson?” You ask, not looking up, feeling a little foolish, though the stage name is starting to sound familiar to you.

“Yeah, hence, Colson.”

“Stage name for what?” You ask, but the thought is quickly taken over by the next and words spill from you before he can response, “were you all over Twitter a few months ago? I know I know you from somewhere.”

He’s quick to clarify; he’s a rapper, sort of an actor, yes he was ‘all over twitter’ a few months ago because of a ‘thing with Eminem’, his words not yours.

“So you’re kind of famous, huh,” you muse, which makes him chuckle, “well sorry for my terrible introduction; I’m Y/N, by the way.” And you hold out your hand to shake his free one.

“Flirt on your own time, Y/N, did you get a colour match?” Jorie snaps, advancing on him with an eyeshadow brush held threateningly before her. He closes his eyes, but not before seeing you fluster at the accusation. “You’re the one with all the tattoos, aren’t you?” Jorie’s voice is quieter as she focuses on her work, and Colson tells her he is. The makeup artist steps back for a moment, her gaze appraising as she looks him over. “Could we get you to take your shirt off so Y/N can make sure she’s got the right colour foundation for your chest?”

“I wasn’t flirting, I was shaking his damn hand, this isn’t the forties.” You fire back playfully, sitting back on your heels as Colson pulls off his sweater.

“The forties? How old do you think I am?” Jorie squawks, raising her eyebrows at you.

“For your sake, I’m not going to answer,” you say sweetly, accepting it as the makeup artist cuffs you gently on the back of the head, though both she and Colson are laughing at the exchange.

As you look to him, it all starts to finally make sense, recognition dawning on your face as you take in the tattoos painting their way across his skin. All of it would need to be covered for certain scenes in the movie, which would require a lot of foundation.

“You mind if I-” you awkwardly gesture to his chest with the sponge in your hand, and he sits back in the chair.

“Go for it,” and he closes his eyes again as Jorie comes in with the eyeshadow once more. As you apply the foundation near his collar, where there was a patch of uninked skin large enough to get a good comparison from, from the corner of your eye you see his lips twitch into a grimace for the barest moment.

“Sorry it’s cold,” you murmur, and he gives a smile, shrugging it off easily. You find a colour match easily, and it doesn’t take long, so you hand him a makeup wipe as Jorie starts talking at you, about how Corey himself would be handling the tattoo covering but that he wanted you there to help out. Of course you knew you’d need to be there, you’re his assistant after all, and after you note the shade required, you stand back and watch Jorie do her work.

“I wish we had one of the wigs,” she muses, finally stepping away after she’d finished touching up his eyebrows, and you join her where she moves to stand behind his chair, all three of you looking at him in the mirror.

“You did good though,” you nod approvingly, leaning in a little to compare Colson’s reflection to the picture of Tommy taped to the mirror.

“‘Stina,” Jorie calls, “do we have hair coming in later today?”

“At three,” Christine calls back, and finally you look to where she’s standing by the changing room, putting pins into a leather harness that Douglas was wearing; it looked equal parts uncomfortable and sexy, though you know the second part was on purpose the first part would probably be helped by being surrounded by everyone in their own eighties, bordering-on-fetish costumes. You give him a thumbs up, expression pensive as you look him over, and look back to the photo of Nikki by the mirror. It does not seem to ease his discomfort.

“Alright, sounds good, are you ready to send the next one over to us?” Jorie calls back, and after Christine tells Douglas to get changed out of his costume, you send Colson over to her.

“Don’t wipe that off, we can touch it up but we wanna see it with the wig,” you instruct, and he gives a mock salute and a grin, and you feel yourself smiling back. He was a lot... less than his stage name lead you to believe; he had a lot of energy just under the surface, that much you could tell, which meant he had great potential for his role as the over the top drummer, but he had an easy confidence, a level of professionalism that you’re grateful for, and a tattoo of a spider over his nipple, which you’re not sure of the significance of but it amuses you.

And, not to be shallow, though in this industry sometimes you can let yourself be, he’s hot. Though maybe you just had a thing for guys in eyeliner.

Stop.

You were going to be getting up close and personal with him for the next few months as you would probably be helping Corey cover all his tattoos; thirsting over him in eyeliner is the last thing you’re allowed to think about doing. Above all else, you had to stay professional.

And, as the weeks went on, you were successful in that.

Mostly.

“What’s that one about?” You ask, poking at the tattoo of a London bus on his side. He jumped a little at the prod, giving you an amused but rather tired grin as Corey said your name like a warning. It was almost eight in the morning and he was trying to airbrush an even base coat of darker makeup across Colson’s back that you could apply foundation on top of. It was one of the days where he’d be filming shirtless, and ‘even’ was hard to achieve if he kept moving.

“I got hit by a bus.”

“No you didn’t; shut up!” Your eyes shine bright with amusement as you give him a disbelieving grin. He smiles back, sharp, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Did you think I got it immortalised on my fuckin’ body for fun? It hit me full force; I cracked the windshield,” and he sounds almost proud of it, and maybe he is, but you don’t seem to notice how his smile gets a little wider when he hears you laugh.

“And what about this one?” You poke at the spider over his nipple and he squirms a little. Corey says your name, more insistent this time, and you mutter out a half-assed apology, moreso waiting for Colson’s reply.

“That one’s just cool.”

Maybe it’s the fact that you spend three hours with him a day at least, being weirdly close, which is par for the course when you’re applying foundation to his whole chest and sometimes his legs, but you’re becoming fast friends. Corey’s adamant that you don’t need to come in for the full three hours every day, but you’re there with a smile; rain, hail, or shine, just proclaiming that you enjoy your job when Colson asks about it. He calls you dedicated, and he’s mostly right; though if you’re being honest, part of you just enjoys spending time with him.

“Do you listen to any rap?” He asks, curious one day; Corey’s finished the airbrushing stage and has stepped out to grab a coffee from craft services, leaving you to start on the foundation.

“You mean, do I listen to you?” You smirked, not looking away from where you’re dabbing the foundation down his arm.

“I know you don’t listen to me; you didn’t even know who I was ‘first time we met,” he snickered, and you considered for a moment, humming as you turn his arm over gently and start working on his forearm.

“Well, okay, you’ve got me there, it’s just not my style, you know?”

“That wasn’t really the question,” he’s smiling a little, and you huff out a laugh, conceding.

“I mean, I don’t hate it; if you’re really twisting my arm I’d say I sometimes listen to some of The Beastie Boys earlier stuff; Slow Ride, Posse in Effect, Paul Revere? That I can jam out to.” And you look at him, guaging his reaction, biting back a laugh at his exaggerated wince.

“Not even Sabotage; so you really don’t listen to anything from this century?” He’s teasing you now, and you have to chuckle at that.

“Sabotage is okay.” You roll your eyes, looking back at your work. “When you guys stopped using a brass section as accompaniment, that’s when you lost me; it just adds a certain...” you hum thoughtfully for a moment, taping your chin as if in deep thought. He actually laughs at that, and when you look up, you think your heart might skip a beat at the sight of his smile, “gravitas? Je ne sais quoi?”

“So what do you listen to? What modern music has that,” and he puts on a terrible french accent to gently mock your earlier words, “je ne sais quoi?” You shove him lightly, though there’s no malice in the move, or in your grin as you’re moving to stand in front of him. You start dabbing makeup across his chest and collar. It’s getting harder and harder to keep your thoughts professional when you’re so damn close to him, and he won’t stop smiling at you like that.

Listing off a few bands from this decade seems to placate his curiosity enough, even if he rolls his eyes at some of your choices. Pausing for a moment, you tip your head side to side, considering.

“And classic rock, of course; not just the music, like the people behind it are fascinating, you know?”

Surprisingly, he’s quiet for a long moment.

“You must be enjoying this then,” he muses, though you can hear the suggestiveness in his tone and you swallow hard, refusing to take your eyes off your work.

“This production?” You deliberately refuse to read into his tone, though he was making it difficult when you could hear his smirk in his words, “yeah it’s been pretty great. Get to listen to a bunch of Crue all day? There’s definitely worse jobs in the world.” Snickering, you chance a look at him, though he’s not meeting your gaze, he’s still smiling as watches you work in the reflection of the mirror.

“What about you? Enjoying yourself?”

“Yeah, I mean it’s a challenge at times, but it’s a good one, you know? And I’m getting up at six every morning which is kind of a drag,” he grins though as you mutter out a quiet apology, “nah, don’t worry about it, ‘just part of the job. It’s good, it’s one-hundred.” And he’s looking at you, gaze a little unreadable where you’ve gone quiet as you work, focusing.

It becomes a routine that you fall easily into; wake up at some ungodly hour, smash a coffee or an energy drink before spending three hours covering Colson’s tattoos with Corey, spend an extra hour and a half helping paint on Tommy’s tattoos if the scenes calls for it. Once he’s done, you tell Corey you’re going to get breakfast but you actually take a nap before you’re woken up by one of the production assistants telling you that you have twenty minutes before you need to be on set, so you race to the corner store and grab something cheap and eat it in a distracted haze as you head back to Corey’s trailer to pick up your makeup bag, before heading to set to be on standby for if any of the boys need touch-ups as filming starts. You’re there longer than most of the cast, staying back after filming’s wrapped for the day to help Colson take off his makeup and get the workspace prepped for the following day, crashing into bed almost immediately after getting home to rinse and repeat all over again. It was fun to begin with, but it was wearing you down quickly.

“Dude, you look dead on your feet.” Colson frowns as you yawn loudly, haphazardly blotting foundation onto his back.

“Y/N, it’s looking patchy, I need you to focus,” Corey’s frowning, but for a different reason as he looks over from where he’s made a start on the actor’s shoulder. You wave Corey off with a mumbled apology, rubbing at your eyes before recentering yourself and getting back to work. You meet Colson’s gaze in the mirror for a beat; he actually looks concerned, but you’re too tired to really care.

And okay, maybe, just maybe, seeing pretty girls drape themselves over the cast, over Colson, over all your hard work, it got irritating. Not that you begrudged those beautiful girls their job, it’s just that sometimes the oil or body glitter they’re covered in to play strippers would end up exposing some of Colson’s tattoos as they were all over him in certain scenes. Next to them, you were the one wearing jeans and a sweater, carrying a tote bag and looking like a child when you had to touch up his makeup. Everyone was always kind to you, of course, and you to them, but you think it’s more pity on their part; it’s common knowledge within the first week of filming how early you had to arrive, and how late you stayed back.

Some of the girls were incredibly talented actors. Probably. They were wasted in this film, reduced to eye candy and sex dolls, pretty beyond belief but not with any real substance. More than a few of them were dismissive of you, mean and sharp, because you weren’t the one responsible for their makeup, so you didn’t matter, and yeah, they were in intense, physically demanding scenes at times, but some of them seemed to just be catty for the sake of being catty. You tried not to let it get to you.

You really fucking tried.

Some of the extras had formed a sort of clique against you, which you found absolutely ridiculous, but they seemed to resent the fact that you and Colson got along. It had been a few weeks, starting with just snide comments in your general vicinity, but by now it had moved on to straight-up bullying. It was never around anyone important, least of all Colson, and when you’d told Corey about it, he’d just advised you to ignore it, as if it would help.

So you were tired, both physically and mentally, and this actor had the gall to come up to you and call you desperate. For doing your job.

“Hey, can you kindly fuck off?” You snapped, fury blazing in your eyes as you fought to keep your tone level, “I’m trying to do my fucking job, it’s not my damn fault the director won’t give you any screentime-”

“Wow, harsh.” Colson’s voice comes from somewhere to the left of you, and he doesn’t sound impressed. Of course he has to come in at the worst possible moment, just when you sound like a villain. It feels like you’re on the verge of tears, exhausted and stunned, and the extra’s expression flickers to something smug for the barest moment before looking almost painfully innocent.

“I’m really sorry,” she sighs softly, hanging her head; it’s an act, and not a very good one, but she’s pretty, “I just know you work in makeup and I thought you could help me find someone in costume to talk to; it’s okay, I’m sure I could find someone else.” It’s painfully scripted, and she plucks at the string of the bikini she was wearing nervously for effect, turning and heading away.

“Take a break or something, you’re acting like a tool,” Colson says, and doesn’t let you get a word in edgewise, going after the girl, whose ruse had manipulated him just as she’d wanted. He’s introducing himself and you feel like death standing; you hear a snicker from behind you, and when you turn there’s one of the extra’s friends, another from the clique, smiling triumphant.

When you get back to Corey’s trailer, he pauses where he’s eating a sandwich from Craft Services, and raises an eyebrow at you. You bite back your bitterness and pull your sweater from your bag, balling it up and using it as a pillow as you resigned yourself to napping beneath the row of makeup mirrors. Corey goes back to his lunch.

“You wanna talk about whatever this is?” Corey asks. You’re struggling to untangle your earphones after pulling them from your pockets.

“Unless you can do something about the asshole actors on set, no, I don’t want to talk about it.” You sigh, resigned and resolute. Corey nods, taking another bite of his sandwich.

“Fuckin’ actors.” He muses.

“Fuckin’ actors.” You agree. It’s not an honest statement regarding your feelings towards actors as a whole, but sometimes a few bad apples really did spoil the bunch, even if it was only for a moment.

You get to nap, heart aching where you’re pretty sure Colson thinks you’re some work-obsessed asshole who thinks you’re better than the actors you work with. Which you obviously don’t, but daily bullying can wear down the nerves. It only takes a moment, one careless comment that came out too harsh for the likes of onlookers, and any good will you’d been building up seems to evaporate. Not to mention the lies you know the extra had probably been feeding him since the moment you left.

When Colson comes in to get his makeup removed for the day, the tension is so thick that to you it felt solid. You’re sitting in one of the makeup chairs, spinning idly, scrolling through your phone when the door opens; his gaze finds yours the moment he steps in, but he gives you a look, scrutinising, almost disbelieving, and he looks away.

“Do you need my help?” You asked Corey pointedly, your gaze shallow and tired. Colson was tying his wig into a bun already, a look you quietly adored, though he was refusing to look at you. God, the clique really had managed to slander you in only a few hours.

“No dear, go home and rest, you need it,” Corey smiles at you, and you’re already moving around, pulling on your sweater and collecting your things. You want to say something, say anything to the man who’s now regarding you icily, but soon enough some of the other members of the makeup team are here, like always to help speed up the removal process, and your voice gets caught in your throat.

“Hey,” by the door, you finally stop, “I don’t-” but your breath catches on a sigh, “I don’t have the energy for this; I’m not the asshole.” And you sound so defeated, but he doesn’t answer, just rolls his eyes and keeps scrubbing at the foundation on his skin.

The moment you step into the trailer the next morning, same time as always, at the crack of dawn, you can already feel exhaustion settling into your bones.

“Take the day off,” Corey frowns at you, “Colson told me what those assholes told him; I’m gonna have a word with him about it this morning.”

“No, dude, I’ve gotta explain myself, if I take the day off it looks like I’m running away; I’m an adult, I don’t need you stepping in for me.” It takes you a moment, and you sigh, defeated, “listen, Corey, I actually really like Colson, okay? And I don’t want him to think less of me, so if that means I have to be up at too-fucking-early-o’clock convincing him I’m not a complete bitch, then so be it.” Corey can’t help the pitying look he gives you, but doesn’t say anything more on the subject.

You’ve worked in this industry for years, it’s not the first time something like this has happened; while working in close proximity to talented, famous individuals, outsiders sometimes get jealous. It’s easy to be told to try and ignore it, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when someone you thought you were getting along well with completely ices you out because someone who’s jealous twists their opinion of you.

It takes a full hour, the silence thick and heavily as Colson stood patiently as the makeup was applied, before you can work up the courage to say something.

“What did she say to you?” It takes him a few moments to register what you’d said, but he frowns a little in confusion. “What did she say to you about me?” You reiterate, voice calm and level, focusing on your work as you speak, and his mouth opens as he goes to tentatively respond, but you don’t give him the chance, “because I can promise you she’s lying.” His mouth closes again, frown deepening. Corey is silent too.

“Well, I was told that you treat her like shit and don’t take her seriously just because she’s an actor, which is pretty fucked,” he admits with surprising candor. You have to take a moment to stop yourself from rolling your eyes.

“It would be fucked if it was true.”

“But you don’t take her seriously. Apparently you ignore her when she comes to you for help.” And it hurts to hear him spout the slanderous rhetoric the extra had poisoned him with.

“It’s not Y/N’s job to help her,” Corey cuts in, much to both Colson’s and your own surprise, “and I’m sure if she had a real question, she would point her in the direction of someone who could help her. ” His tone doesn’t leave room for arguments, though Colson doesn’t exactly seem convinced; perhaps he assumed that you really were some heinous bitch who had turned the makeup department head to your side.

“I do take actors seriously, obviously,” you gesture to him, and he makes an expression that’s a little unreadable, “but if you have to know, she and a group of other extras have been harassing me for weeks now, so yeah, I tend to ignore her.”

Your hands are shaking. When did that start? God, when did you start caring so much about what he thought of you? When did the idea of him thinking badly of you start making your chest hurt. When did schoolyard bullying start getting to you so much? Things are moving in a blur, and you think you mumble something about getting a coffee before you leave the trailer.

Corey finds you half an hour later at the corner store, staring blankly at the coffee machine, cup of undrunk, now cold coffee in hand.

“Go home. Please.”

You look at him, but his words aren’t really registering; he realises he may have interrupted a micronap. It appears you need rest far more badly than he realised. He sends you home for the rest of the week, and it’s a Wednesday. You want to protest, but you cut yourself off with a yawn and he calls an Uber for you without letting you get a word in edgewise.

It’s practically radio silence for almost five days.

You watch Netflix and eat junk and take baths and claim self care when really you’re wallowing, dreading going back to work. Sometimes you catch yourself just staring at your phone; you and Colson have each other’s numbers ‘in case of emergency’, though what would constitute a makeup related emergency you’re not sure, it was his suggestion. Emergencies turned out to be him asking about call times, sending selfies from on-set where his face makeup was running from how much he was sweating, he’s grinning and bright and Douglas or Iwan or Daniel are pulling a face in the background, blurry photos of you on set that you hadn’t realised he’d been taking at the time.

There’s one you stop at when you’re looking back through them, it’s another selfie, he’s squinting, having just woken up, and half cut out of the shot where he’s focused the camera on a smudge of foundation and a bit of eyeliner on his white pillowcase where he hadn’t managed to get all of the makeup off the night before. It’s surprisingly intimate, despite the fact that he’s followed it up with [💀😢].

You wanted to send something, to say something, but you weren’t sure what you had left to say. You weren’t in the wrong. You didn’t need to apologise.

Sometimes you thought you saw the typing bubble appear, but it would disappear just as quickly.

You’re refreshed by the time you step back into the trailer on Monday morning, feeling almost chirpy, that is until you see that Colson’s arrived before you, and Corey’s nowhere around.

It’s not the same as last time, there’s no anger, no hostility in the way he’s regarding you, just a surprising pensiveness. He’s lounging in his makeup chair, watching as you put down your things and start rifling through the collection of makeup on the counter.

“Where’s Corey?” You ask, carefully neutral.

“Said he’s getting coffee.”

“That’s kind of him.”

There’s a long pause that follow, and when you finally look at him, Colson seems to be considering you seriously.

“Do you have to be here?” Despite the words that are said, they don’t feel like an attack, instead they feel like a genuine question, bordering on concerned.

“It’s my job,” you start, but he smiles a little, and something in your heart eases.

“Yeah, no, I know, but you don’t always have to arrive this early, do you? I wouldn’t if I had the choice,” he snickers, and you sit back on one of the other chairs scattered about the edge of the room, waiting for Corey to get back, playing with a makeup sponge.

“Well you don’t, and neither does Corey, and...” hesitating a little, you fidget, avoiding his gaze, “it didn’t seem fair.” You shrug, laughing a little awkwardly, “leaving you here with him all that time.” Though you’re trying to clarify by means of a joke, he sees through it clearly, expression quickly morphing into a grin.

“So he was right.”

“About what?” You ask, looking at him with surprise and confusion written all over your face; this wasn’t the reaction you were expecting.

“Corey’s pretty convinced you just like spending time with me,” you can feel yourself getting flustered, looking down at your fidgeting fingers.

“He’s such a snitch.” You mutter, and Colson actually laughs, and though you feel your anxiety holding tight in your chest, you force your next words from your mouth; “yes, okay, if we’re going full middle-school about this, I enjoy your company. A lot.” You pause for a moment. “Are we good?”

“Yeah, of course; I’m sorry I was a dick last week,” he actually gets serious for a moment, tone surprisingly humble as he speaks, “I just- there’s like this long history of people shitting on me and not taking me seriously, so it touched a nerve, but I should know you better than that, right? Like we’ve spent enough time together that I should know you’re not some entitled dick.”

It’s enough to make you smile.

“Corey gave you a talking to, didn’t he?” You teased, and Colson rolled his eyes.

“Practically the moment you left; turns out those girls have had a few complaints from HR, situations like yours,” he sighs, before grinning a little, “but yeah, we’re good.”

It’s as if a sudden elation comes over you, and you have to work to not let it show on your face, else you’re pretty sure you’re going to embarrass yourself at how happy that makes you.

“And of course I take you seriously,” you hear yourself saying as you turn to rearrange the makeup on the counter, though you both know he can still see your pleased grin in the mirror, “I take all actors seriously, and you’re wonderful to work with-”

“Oh, so I’m wonderful now?” He snickers, though it’s not unkind, and you accidentally knock over a bottle in your embarrassment.

“Wonderful to work with,” you clarify, but he still takes the win, just as Corey finally walks in with three mugs of corner store coffee in hand.

“You were right, and she thinks I’m wonderful.” Colson practically preens, and Corey makes a face, before turning that face on you.

“I take it back; you’re the worst client I’ve had.” You deadpan, and Colson can’t help but laugh.

“No way, you’re not living this down,” he muses, smiling fondly at you. “I’m gonna tell everyone-”

“Christ, tell me you’ve at least asked her out,” Corey sighs, putting down the coffees, and that shuts Colson up quickly, “or do I need to go on another twenty minute coffee run to give you two some space?” He doesn’t even wait for an answer, just heads towards the door, announcing that he’s going to get a spare airbrush head from the other makeup trailer and that you have ten minutes.

“Sorry about him.” You say into the silence that follows in the wake of Corey’s departure. Colson’s surprisingly tight-lipped, avoiding looking at you. “He makes a lot of assumptions.” You add, getting to your feet and crossing to where the coffees sat in their little, cardboard carry-tray. Each cup has a name, and you take both yours and Colson’s, heading over to him with an expression that you hope is something akin to a friendly smile, and not a grimace of embarrassment.

“He’s right though,” Colson reaches out for his coffee when you offer it; his fingers brush your as he meets your gaze and it feels like a moment. “You wanna grab dinner or something after today?”

Mind whirling, part of you thinks he’s made a mistake, that he hadn’t meant to say it, another part worries about what the rest of the cast and crew will think, and part of you is worried it’s a joke. But you’re so sick of doubt.

“Yeah, actually I’d love to.”

The morning passes in a breeze, passes much more easily than it’s seemed to for the past month, and there’s butterflies in your stomach the entire time. There’s an electricity in the air during filming, though you’re pretty sure you’re the only one who can feel it. He’s wearing the wig with the undercut, sitting behind the drums up on the risers for most of the day, wearing only a pair of underwear, boots, and suspenders; it’s quiet a look. Somehow he’s still managed to sneak his phone up there because you’re zoning out at the side of the set, and he takes a photo of you, sending it to you; your eyes are glassy by you’re grinning to yourself, and once you get it, you look to him, and he’s grinning as if he’s waiting for your reaction. You roll your eyes at him, but you’re still smiling; you’ve missed this.

“You’re actually kind of sweet, aren’t you?” After filming wraps for the day, you’re crammed into a booth of the only restaurant open in town past ten. You’ve just ordered, and he’s leaning back, regarding you with amusement.

“I don’t know why that surprises people, most of my asshole act is just, you know, an act, for show or whatever,” he shrugs a little, smirking, “most of it; sometimes I am just an asshole.”

“I don’t know your asshole act,” you remind, smiling a little; there’s butterflies in your stomach but they’re excited rather than nervous, relishing in the way he’s smiling at you, “but I guess I should have know you better anyways; after all, we’ve spent enough time together, haven’t we?”

#mgk #mgk x reader #machine gun kelly #machine gun kelly x reader #machine gun kelly imagine #mgk imagine #colson baker #colson baker x reader #colson baker imagine #the dirt #the dirt cast #the dirt imagine #the dirt cast imagine

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abiik · 3 years

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4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 28, 29 + a, b, c, h for xingchen / 1-10 & 15-20 + a, b for zhi yin ?

aaaaaaa thank u for this jo!!!!! sorry this took so long!!! anyway this is. also very LENGTHY so im putting it under a cut <333333

xingchen

4. how easy is it to earn their trust?

it is actually very difficult to earn their trust, only because xingchen doesn’t allow people close enough in order to do so. the very few people who do have their hard-earned trust before the gang comes around is their remaining bio family.

5. how easy is it to earn their mistrust?

i wouldn’t say it’s easy for xingchen to suddenly mistrust you after earning their trust. they actually are the type to hold out for you for far longer than they probably should. while there are like, inklings of mistrust here in there, they’ll probably still trust you to watch their back in a fight and defend you against others who are like ‘xingchen maybe that isn’t a good idea :/’ they have a whole lot of hope & love for the world, though, & it's very hard for them to give up just anyone, especially someone who has previously earned their trust.

6. do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?

xingchen was raised that laws are immovable, so they’ve grown up knowing & believing this philosophy for most things. however, as they’ve grown older they’ve realized that maybe they aren’t completely sure about this. perhaps, it can be situational.

7. what triggers nostalgia for them, most often? do they enjoy that feeling?

snow. winter on the mountain triggers nostalgia for them. seeing the jade amulet & sword that belonged to their mother & the calligraphy set that belonged to their father but mostly snow. they do not enjoy the feeling. they will subject themself to it anyway.

11. how do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

it mostly depends on where it comes from or who they’re around and what they’re confused about. usually they’ll simply ask to clarify; there’s no use in going into a situation pretending like they know something & they all get themselves killed because of negligence and pride. but…. that pride is exactly what gets the better of xingchen sometimes and it’s fucking hilarious.

28. would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth?

xingchen would absolutely prefer an unpleasant truth to a lie. they would possibly mumble through it or deliver it stiffly/coldly so as to be detached from the unpleasant feeling, but at least you would know the truth.

29. do they usually live up to their own ideals?

hmm. this is... difficult because so much of xingchen’s ideals were crafted by someone else, expectations put on them by someone else. outwardly, it would seem so. for xingchen, i think that they would always feel as though they have not done enough, or that they could have done something differently; that there is always room for them to improve to become the most perfect version of themself. they’re very tough on themself and i think that it begins getting worse around the second youxiong arc & the aftermath of that & the entirety of new boot goofin arc :)

a – why are u excited about this character?

i love xingchen’s energy!! their thoughts and their feelings are something i love to explore as well as like, the way that they’d react to things bc their method is so different than zoe’s. im also excited bc, just. like. the outward perception of xingchen is so different when compared to who they are as a person, unfiltered and raw.

b – what inspired u to create them?

xingchen was the order in the chaos; that’s initially why they were created. the body of their character was this philosophy, to balance zoe, to mirror her. xingchen’s name was something that was conceived almost like, directly after this, and once again, it was a mirror to zoe’s birth name - xian, and the implications behind that. xingchen’s name was mainly chosen bc of the amount of stars that surround their planet: 4. so xingchen’s name & this idea of someone who completed zoe’s balancing act, who ordered the chaos, crafted the idea of a character that was, in a way, the juxtaposition of celestial and earthly (like zoe) but only slightly to the left, wherein even to zoe, this character would be someone you were in awe of. they always sort of felt like the human embodiment of a shooting star, moved by duty and the righting of wrong to come down to earth. xingchen & zoe are technically on the same spectrum, but they have different methods, and that’s what i wanted from xingchen. i wanted a character that did elicit this feeling of awe, because of how amazing, talented, attractive etc. they are, EVEN TO ZOE, but was also intensely stubborn and, initially, very stuck on this ‘my way, or the high-way’ sort of mentality. i WANTED xingchen to create conflict with zoe and zoe to create conflict with xingchen, bc i wanted it to be an opportunity for both characters to be taken out of their comfort zones by each other.

of course, other things, small images, inspired me further when creating a silhouette for xingchen: blue & white; white jade; the sunrise; loquats; clouds; snow on mountain tops; spring; music played on a guqin; ballet & figure skating; swan <3

c – did u have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story?

hmm i did have trouble figuring out how i would involve them, or any of the rest of youxiong, into zoe’s story after the new boot goofin arc. sure she made off world excursions late in that arc after her recovery, but there wasn’t a lot & my mind was blank. i’m still looking to involve xingchen more maybe bc im not 100% sure on the whole roommates thing.

h – what trait do u admire most?

tbh how deeply xingchen feels things. they don’t communicate it often, it’s difficult for them, both verbally and visually, and sometimes even physically, but they feel everything so, so deeply and that’s. i just really love them a l o t.

zhi yin

1. what’s the maximum amount of time ur character can sit still with nothing to do?

yin can sit still for a moderate amount of time with nothing to do. she fiddles, though, with her fingers or with her clothes, even when she isn’t particularly nervous.

2. how easy is it for ur character to laugh?

it’s fairly easy for yin to laugh if she’s on good terms with you - & this is mostly everyone as she believes the best of everyone, that everyone is generally good.

3. how do they put themselves to bed at night? (reading, singing, thinking?)

yin usually starts by making herself - & cheng – something warm to drink & once she’s assured her brother she’s fine & sent him off to bed, she’ll curl up in bed & read about far away places or an interesting new techniques that she knows she’ll never be able to try until she passes out.

4. how easy is it to earn their trust?

it’s hard for me to gauge how easy it is bc yin DOESN’T trust most ppl. she’s the type of person who looks like she would be easy to win over, & she would be likable & sweet to u, but the only ppl yin is loyal to & trusts at the beginning are cheng, her uncle, and oddly enough, zoe. so like, while she does believe ppl are generally good, this doesn’t mean that she has every intention of falling victim to someone’s wrongdoings or intentions to harm people she cares about bc she trusted blindly on account of this philosophy. she’s cautious, but she doesn’t have this all-around anxiety like cheng, and she isn’t gullible like everyone intends her to be. for yin, i think it is like this: if cheng or zoe trusts you, she will trust you, but she will be cautious, and mostly look to them.

5. how easy is it to earn their mistrust?

i think in order to lose yin’s trust, you would have to lie to her. like, big time. or hurt her family.

6. do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?

yin is on the fence with this. with her uncle zhi as one of her mentors & cheng always looking out for her, laws/rules were immovable in order to keep her in a box & (in cheng’s situation) to keep her safe. however, their clan never actually taught them that rules had to be followed so rigidly (they follow a philosophy that one should achieve the impossible) that they were flexible, so i do think yin leans more towards flexible, but has anxiety about acting it out.

7. what triggers nostalgia for them, most often? do they enjoy that feeling?

making soup, walking on the docks, boating out on the river, practicing forms with cheng. yin does enjoy it, even if it is sometimes bittersweet.

8. what were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?

stop daydreaming so much. (she wasn’t daydreaming) :)

9. do they swear? do they remember their first swear word?

yin doesn’t swear! not really

10. what lie do they most frequently remember telling? does it haunt them?

‘i’m fine.’/ ‘i feel fine!’ yes.

15. how do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?

yin has a soft, pleasant voice. it’s almost like a whisper but its warm & sweet. she has the type of voice that if u were in a crowd, because of the tone of it, u might not be able to hear her even if she was standing next to u & speaking. her tone is always very sincere, or slightly teasing. she can stutter a lot when she’s excited or nervous. yin thinks about what she says usually, but sometimes she does pipe up & blurt what she’s just thought of on the spot. rarely does she raise her voice, but when she does, u know she means business.

16. what makes their stomach turn?

when she goes under. it’s an awful feeling of being disconnected from herself & not knowing what she did while she was out, & seeing everyone’s faces after, looking them in the eye after what she could have possibly done & them seeing what happens to her when she get ‘sick.’

17. are they easily embarrassed?

yes. yin is easily flustered, if that’s the same thing. she fumbles over her words in this case & will fiddle with her hands. crying is sometimes the result of being embarrassed too :) but i would rather not think about yin crying…

18. what embarrasses them?

usually anyone acting particularly brash, or flirty. when she, herself, makes a grand gesture on her own end, and it’s rejected. sometimes being reminded that she can’t cultivate while others can, that she’s a lacking heir.

19. what is their favorite number?

hmm three.

20. if they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do it?

yin might explain familial love as brushing her a-cheng’s hair out of his face & patting his head despite him being taller than her just to piss him off a little, nagging him until he rolls his eyes & does as she says, or finding a blanket tucked over her that clearly wasn’t there before after a late night of reading at her desk. she might explain platonic love as sitting with zoe on the docks with their toes in the water, zoe’s head on her shoulder & both of them spilling their hearts out, or sharing tea & poetry with xingchen for the first time, seeing them blush around the tips of their ears & having to stifle her giggles until they finally broke the tension with a laugh of their own. yin doesn’t know how to explain the difference of romantic love yet.

a – why are u excited about this character?

yin has so many different, like, facets & she’s really fun to think about. i really love thinking about her dynamic with zoe, but i especially love to think about her dynamic with others in the group & how she might get along with them & how their relationships will progress. she’s really sweet & is willing to help people out of the good will of her heart but still holds them at a distance & is like…disconcerting in a way, and that’s a character i’m pretty sure i’ve never had before, so she’s pretty new to me.

b – what inspired u to create them?

yin remained a mystery to me for so long, hence why her name is yin. she was like a little shadow. she remains a little shadow. a secret still. something i, and everyone, has yet to figure out. a dark spot with a gentle smile that stayed at zoe’s side. she’s the shadow in the pond that you arent too sure is a stick or a snake or not, but you keep creeping closer to anyway bc you think if it were a snake it would have made some move to get closer to you by now. and yin’s not a snake. she’s the turtle in this story. or a shell, perhaps. a lucky dark little tortoise shell. she can be a little scary at times, as the person creating her, and for the other characters interacting with her, but also she comes off as completely harmless. like a lake or a river wide and deep enough to swim in. yin has really just been fragments and pieces, little ideas here and there, that have come together to create a very healing, loving character that just has an overwhelming flood of love pouring out from her at all times.

there was also the idea, story-wise, of wanting to create a character that doesn’t become friends with zoe specifically bc of a shared interest/goal – yin doesn’t want to kill her uncle; she genuinely wants to be zoe’s friend. they do share traits & like. actual interests – they’re both family oriented, hence why yin wouldn’t want to kill her family – but yin isn’t zoe’s loyal-ass friend bc they have a similar moral code or bc they had similar goals & became close over the course of the mission etc. like jason, for example. the lotus is a big symbol for yin as well, which connects her directly to zoe, who is representative of the center.

ask me some q’s about my ocs!!

#h talks.#h replies.#jo #shrined #oc: xingchen #oc: zhi yin #oc asks #this is so long & it took so long JO IM SO SORRY #BUT !!! IT WAS ALSO SO MUCH FUN !!#SO THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!#<33333 #IM REALLY HAPPY TO SHARE #also thank you for waiting so patiently #i hope this is coherent enough & that i understood the questions ?? sjkjdkje #ANYWAY !! I LOVE YOU #long post /

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dvp95 · 5 years

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quiet on widow’s peak (3)

pairing: dan howell/phil lester, pj liguori/sophie newton/chris kendall rating: teen & up tags: paranormal investigator, youtuber phil lester, dan howell is not a youtuber, online friendship, slow burn, strangers to lovers, nonbinary character, trans character, background poly, phil does some buzzfeed unsolved shit and dan is a fan word count: 3.1k (this chapter), 9.5k (total) summary: Phil’s got a list of paranormal experiences a mile long that he likes to share with the world. Abandoned buildings, cemeteries, and ghost stories have always called his name, and a particular fan of his has a really, really good ghost story.

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

Interviews used to be Phil's least favourite part of this job. The research was always captivating, the filming was always fun, the editing was always challenging, but talking? To people? About things? Absolutely not.

He still doesn't love doing it, but he's long past the point of begging Martyn or Ian to pretend to be him on the phone.

The curtains in Phil's room are open for once, letting natural light in so he doesn't look as dark on the Skype screen. His eyes keep drifting to himself, distracting him as he tries to fix his hair or laments not getting out of his pyjamas. This is his fourth interview of the day, and he's starting to hate the process with a renewed fervour.

"Okay, thank you," he says, clicking out of the screen record window. "Can I message you here if I have any further questions, or would you prefer this to be your final statement?"

"Oh, um," the girl says, her eyes round with some kind of emotion that Phil can't be bothered to parse. "No, no, that's... that's all I saw. I don't have anything else. But you can still... message me, if you like."

Ah. Phil makes a face that he hopes reads as apologetic and not panicked. "No, I - sorry. Gay. Just interested in your ghost."

"Oh!" she says again, looking more puzzled than Phil thinks she has any right to after a forty minute conversation where he mostly just asked her clarifying questions that she kept dodging. She tucks some of her long hair behind her ear and shakes her head. "Sorry, that's just - you haven't said that online."

Phil isn't very good at knowing when people are lying to him, but now he's definitely suspicious of the half-assed testimony he'd gotten from this girl. He sighs. "Okay, you know who I am, then?"

"I mean, I looked you up when you messaged me about a video and all," she says. "Wanted to know if you were a creep or, like, legit."

Okay, that's fair enough. Phil supposes that if he were a girl in uni and a stranger asked to video chat, he'd also do a little digging first. He still doesn't quite believe her story, though - most of it matches what she'd written on Facebook, word for word, and she didn't go into detail on anything she claimed happened.

"Right, of course," says Phil, feeling awkward and exposed.

Her eyes are wide and blue and she can see into his room, into his life, and she's giving him this look like she thinks she knows something about him. He hates this feeling.

"That a secret, then?" she asks.

"No," Phil says. "It's just not relevant to my job. I don't have a lot of ghouls asking me out."

She doesn't laugh. Phil is getting more and more uncomfortable by the second, and he's wondering if it's worth it to hang up on a potential lead - no matter how dubious her claims - when she says, "Well, alright. I won't tell anyone anyway."

"Thanks," Phil says automatically. He doesn't particularly care if she does or not, but he does want this call to end as soon as possible. "And thanks for your time. Message me if you think of anything else you forgot to mention about the Wilkins place or if you know of someone who's seen something."

Before she can even respond, Phil hits end on the call and groans, resting his forehead on his thumbs for a moment.

Unsurprisingly, this is giving him a migraine. It doesn't take much to make the twinge of a headache turn to insistent throbbing, because Phil's body hates him and overreacts to everything.

Phil takes a couple of deep breaths before he comes out of hiding. He attaches the final screen recording to the email he's already got open and ready to send to Martyn. After a moment's thought, he CCs PJ and Sophie in and adds, Nobody sounds credible except the second person to me, so... it's not looking good lol, before hitting send.

He takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes for a moment. Interviews are still draining for him, especially when they don't go as planned, and Phil's starting to get the impression that there's nothing to even find at the Wilkins place.

But. Phil pauses, considers his options. He hasn't interviewed everyone, has he.

Before he can talk himself out of it, Phil shoves his glasses unceremoniously back onto his face and opens Tumblr. Winnie hasn't said anything to him so far today, so Phil feels only a little like he's bothering them when he shoots off a quick, Hey! I just finished interviewing the sources you gave me and most of them aren't very promising. Would you consider letting me ask you some questions to round out the video?

me?????, Winnie replies almost immediately. i didnt even see anything?? like im happy to answer questions but idk how much use ill b in an INTERVIEW

I know! And you don't have to lmao so don't feel pressured or anything but you know so much more about the place than they do. Everyone claimed that they didn't know other people were having paranormal experiences.

oh bullshit, Winnie says. Phil is surprised into a huff of laughter.

There's a part of Phil, fuelled by anxiety and uncertainty, that worries Winnie is just pulling an elaborate joke on him. That part of him feels a little more at ease every time he actually talks to Winnie. They just seem... genuine. And maybe Martyn would disagree, would blame Phil's desperation to see the best in people, but there's a reason Phil doesn't tell Martyn everything.

Before Phil can agree with Winnie's colourful derision, his laptop beeps again. i look like an ogre rn but i can voice chat if you rly think itll help

It would!!, Phil assures them. The tender spot behind his eyes twinges again, serving as a reminder. Can I call in like an hour? I've got a headache from the screen lol

sure i really have nothing else going on today

So it's later in the day, late afternoon light still streaking through Phil's window, when Phil sits back down at his computer and adds the Skype username Winnie gave him. His head still hurts a bit, but it isn't all-consuming now that he's had another coffee and some painkillers. The padded headphones feel good to put over his ears, blocking out most of the typical noises from such a full house and a busy street, and Phil just sits in the blissful quiet for a moment before he sends a voice call request.

It gets picked up almost immediately, and Phil presses a smile into his palm before he says, "Hi! Can you hear me alright?"

There's a beat. Phil waits, in case Skype is lagging as usual, but he's opening his mouth to repeat himself by the time he gets a response.

"Yeah," says Winnie. "I can hear you."

Phil isn't really proud of himself for being surprised by Winnie's voice. It's just. He knows his viewer demographics, okay, and he has a rough grasp on Tumblr demographics, and the name - alright. It isn't his proudest moment, is his point, because he's expecting a much higher pitch for absolutely no good reason.

In addition to that, his brain automatically tries to classify Winnie's voice as very obviously masculine, and Phil has to push back against that.

"I can hear you, too," Phil says cheerfully, not allowing his anxieties to spill over into the conversation.

"That's good, probably," Winnie says. There's another beat of silence, and then a huff that might be laughter or a sigh comes through Phil's headphones. "Sorry, I - I'm not trying to be fucking weird, this is just surreal."

"Is it?" Phil hums. "But I haven't even asked you about ghosts yet."

A snort - definitely laughter, this time - follows, and Phil is so glad that he's able to put Winnie at ease even if his brain is betraying him. "That's true. I guess it's gotta get weirder from here."

"That's kind of, like, the subtitle of my whole channel," says Phil. After a moment, he frowns. "Subtitle? No. What's the thing, on the poster -"

"Tagline," says Winnie. They sound so amused and warm and, okay, they've got a nice voice. That's not gendered. Phil can think that. "You're thinking of a tagline, you buffoon."

"Tagline," Phil echoes gratefully.

"Don't you," Winnie starts, then stops abruptly. They don't finish the sentence, but Phil can kind of guess what they were going to say. There's the sound of some rustling, like Winnie is getting comfortable, before they change tacks. "Again, I didn't see any of this alleged ghostly activity with my own eyes, but I know the hot goss."

Phil opens the recording program out of habit, nodding even though Winnie can't see him. "That's still really useful at this point," he says encouragingly. He clicks a couple of buttons. "And, yes, I do have an English degree. Thank you for not asking."

Winnie laughs, the sound of it filling Phil's headphones and making it feel like they're in the room with him. It's warm, like everything else about their voice, and absolutely contagious.

"I didn't want you to think I was, like, a big stalker," Winnie says, and Phil can hear the grin in their voice.

"Eh, I know you watch my videos," says Phil. "So I figure you know some stuff about me. You probably know that I'm going to ask this, too, but - is it okay if I record our conversation? I don't need to include it in the video if you don't want me to, but it's still useful for me if I don't so I can, like, actually remember the things you told me."

"Yeah, sure," Winnie agrees easily. They hesitate, for a moment, and Phil waits for whatever the caveat will be. "Uh, can I still swear?"

The question surprises Phil into laughing. "Yeah, you're fine. I can bleep them out."

"Then I am all for it. Ask me the ghost questions, ghost man."

Phil presses record and glances down at his notebook, where he's scrawled some disjointed questions alongside his usual doodling. "Uh, okay. Yes. I am totally a professional."

"If you say so, mate," says Winnie.

"Hush. Okay." Phil finally gets his brain back on track and taps his pen against a question near the end of his list. "So, Winnie, you did all this research into the Wilkins place on your own downtime, but you mentioned that you've been hearing murmurs about it for a while, right?"

"Not that long, actually, I've only been hearing about it since term started," Winnie says, and Phil is struck by how comfortable they suddenly are now that there's a guideline. Or, maybe, now that there's a non-Phil audience. "Which I thought was pretty weird, since I'd been there a couple times since I moved here, and it's a spooky fucking place but nothing to write home about."

That's more or less exactly how Phil feels about the situation, except that he doesn't remember the Wilkins place to be scary at all. Maybe it's gotten worse in the years since, or maybe he's just got a higher threshold for empty, decrepit homes than Winnie does. Either way, he's not sure if he should be relieved or suspicious that their thoughts on it mirror his own so well. He starts a spiral in the corner of his page as he considers the answer.

"So, you never got the impression that it was haunted before?"

"I - can I be perfectly honest?" Winnie asks, and then doesn't wait for a response. "I don't get the impression that it's haunted now. I dunno if people are just making shit up or if they're doing too many drugs, but we all know that ghosts don't actually exist."

Phil snorts. He does have a fairly large number of skeptics who watch his videos to argue in the comments about logical explanations for his findings or to just enjoy watching him fail so much, but he hadn't really expected that from someone who sent him a sourced essay on the topic of ghosts.

He's recording right now, so he's not about to give away the fact that, yeah, he kind of does agree with Winnie on this one. Instead, he keeps his tone neutral and says, "You don't believe in ghosts."

"I don't believe in most things that can't be explained by science," Winnie says, so matter-of-fact that Phil has to smile.

"I don't really believe in science," Phil says, mild.

A beat. "Excuse me?"

"I said I don't believe in science," Phil repeats, doubling down on the joke so he can hear that incredulous pitch of Winnie's nice voice again. "I mean, isn't it all just as made-up as anything else? People just tell us stuff exists and we have to believe them?"

"We believe them," Winnie says slowly, "because it's a fact."

"How do I know that?" Phil asks. He knows how off track he's already gotten, and he decides to cut this part out before he sends the file to Martyn or his friends.

"Because you can. See it. With your eyes." The genuine bewilderment in Winnie's voice is very funny. "Like. What the fuck, Phil. If someone drops an apple and it hits the ground and they're like, 'oh that's gravity', how are you supposed to say, 'uh, no it ain't'?"

Phil leans back in his chair a bit, his spiral turning into an apple. "Because, what if that's just what the apple wanted to do? It's not like we know any of this for sure, Winnie."

"You're fucking with me," Winnie says, but they don't sound very certain.

"I am," Phil admits happily. "Do you remember the first incident that kicked off the Wilkins place rumours?"

"You," Winnie says, and then cackles. They lean away from their mic as they do, but the sound of it still makes Phil feel some secondhand giddiness. He wonders if their laugh has a volume limit, or if it's just going to keep getting louder the funnier Phil is. He is so tempted to put that to the test. "Fuck. You little fucker."

Phil hides his own giggle in the palm of his hand and clears his throat, trying to get back into the professional mindset he'd forced himself to be in for the four earlier interviews.

"Do you need me to repeat the question?" Phil asks. He can't resist teasing, just a bit.

"No, fuck off," Winnie chuckles. They take a deep breath and let it out on a hum, low and thoughtful. "So, there was this shindig during fresher's, which I obviously didn't go to because I'm not a fresher and I'm too old to go to shindigs, but people were talking about how the house was making weird noises. A girl I know - I linked you to her Reddit post - said she saw someone just standing outside the window watching them, but, like, is that really a supernatural occurrence in Rusholme?"

"It's not. And she hit on me as well, so I'm not sure her judgement is trustworthy."

"Sounds like her. Sorry. Anyway, nobody really thought 'ghosts' as much as they thought 'rats in the walls and a pervert on the street', but then - this one didn't get spoken about online. I don't even know how valid it is."

"Word of mouth is how most ghost stories get passed," says Phil. "I'm not going to hold you to citations on rumours."

Winnie huffs a laugh. It's soft, quiet, and Phil almost wishes he could say something ridiculous to make them cackle again. Unfortunately, he has a job to do.

"Fair enough. Well, some idiots spent the night there to see if anything weird would happen," Winnie says, and Phil feels a bit attacked, "and three separate dudes had sleep paralysis."

Phil hums and jots some messy notes down. "In the same night?"

"At the same time," Winnie corrects him. "The other idiots were trying to wake them up for a long time, apparently. They're convinced that the guys who fell asleep were just pulling a prank on them, and maybe they were, but that's when the ball really got rolling."

Out of everything Phil has heard today, this is the most compelling story so far. Maybe that's a good indicator of the Manchester students being full of it - maybe there truly is nothing to find in the Wilkins place - but it piques Phil's interest anyway.

"For someone who only believes in cold, hard science, you're good at telling ghost stories," Phil says.

"Thanks," Winnie says, sounding pleased with themselves. "Learned from the best."

Phil is suddenly very, very glad that this isn't a video call, because he can't stop himself from smiling like an idiot. "Oh, is that what they're calling me?"

Another cackle. Phil doesn't remember the last time he made someone laugh so much without tripping over his own clown feet.

"I never said I was talking about you."

"Uh huh."

"Oh, shut up," says Winnie, and Phil can still hear the laughter in their voice. "Don't you have a bunch of questions to ask or something?"

Phil does. He has a whole list of questions that he should be following. He chews on his pen and looks at the doodle-covered list of things he's meant to ask Winnie. His head still hurts - maybe the extra caffeine didn't help after all - and all he really wants to do is take a nap.

"Yeah," Phil says, reluctant. "I've just got, like, a migraine. Can I call you back another time? This was a really great start."

"Oh, yeah, sure," says Winnie. They've dropped their voice down to something soft, like they're worried that they'll make Phil's headache worse.

"I'm actually going up to check the place out this weekend." Phil isn't sure what makes him say that. He meets up with sources in person, sometimes, but usually only if they've seen something with their own eyes. He just feels comfortable talking to Winnie, far more than he'd felt talking to the other students he'd interviewed today.

Phil doesn't actually extend the invitation, and Winnie either doesn't pick up the hint or doesn't care to.

"That'll be good," they say, still soft. "Get some rest, Phil, you can call me back when your brain stops trying to drill a hole through your temple."

After Phil says goodbye and hangs up, he sits at his desk for a long moment. It feels too quiet, all of a sudden, his padded headphones blocking out all the ambient noise around him. It's good for his head, but Phil is still weirdly disappointed.

#phan #phanfiction #phanfic #dnp fic #words words words #quiet on widow's peak

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taexual · 5 years

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HOLIC - 24 | jb x reader

pairing: Im Jaebum x Reader

genre: enemies to lovers au | roommate au

warnings: some angst, some fluff

words: 5.4k

disclaimer: i do not own the gif, please let me know if it belongs to you, so i can give proper credit

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You could not get Jaebum’s voice out of your head all throughout the next day at work. You’ve only heard the song once so you couldn’t recall all of the lyrics, but the melody echoed around your mind and you found yourself humming along under your breath the entire day. You should have asked Jackson to forward the song to you instead of bailing like you did. You should have also thrown your arms over Jaebum and screamed at him about how good his music was until he finally believed you. But there was something stopping you from doing that.

In part, it could have been your own naturally reserved nature. Despite craving affection at times, you weren’t usually overly affectionate either. Hugging people out of the blue wasn’t something you were brave enough to do no matter how much your hands were itching to touch them. More than that, however, you had a feeling it was the fear of what would happen after – you’d hug Jaebum, fireworks would explode, but… what then? The overhwelming amount of feelings his music had caused you did not make a good pair for the uncertainty you felt, as well as the plain obscurity regarding your future with him.

You’ve been listening—or, well, trying to listen—to Eva, your supervisor, as she explained to you and a few of your colleagues how to handle the sudden swarm of schoolchildren that were coming to an exhibition at the gallery, and still replaying the chorus of Jaebum’s song in your mind, when you felt someone watching you.

Truth be told, it could have been anyone. A fair number of weird characters appeared at the gallery and just stood there, staring at nothing in particular – stoners, usually, but seemingly sober people dozed off here pretty often, too – but you could already tell this wasn’t the case before you even shifted your gaze to the far corner of the gallery where Jiho had just entered through the backdoor, stopping immediately after he caught the sight of you.

You hadn’t called in sick today, after all. But, oh, at that moment, you truly wished you had.

You looked away, ignoring the shivers of anxiety that had run down your spine and focused on Eva’s words instead, hoping Jiho would go away and you wouldn’t have to talk to him. You’ve already asked him to take your picture out of his exhibition and you didn’t feel like clarifying anything else to him. You’d naively hoped you could go on living without ever having to admit to him that you’d genuinely thought his interest in you was romantic. It seemed so obvious and so stupid now.

Jiho, however, didn’t think you and him owed each other any serious conversations, and that was why he strolled up to you, giving Eva a smile – that she, of course, reciprocated – and then asking to talk to you for a moment. He couldn’t understand the flash of terror in your eyes; he just wanted to borrow you for a quick chat.

You’d have paid good money to get Eva to tell you that you couldn’t leave with Jiho, but she merely nodded, giving you a suggestive smile as if to say that she supported whatever was going on between you and the photographer. Little did she know…

“I should really be back soon,” you told Jiho as he guided you towards the quieter—and emptier—part of the gallery. “With all of these exhibitions happening, I need to know what our plan is.”

“I won’t keep you long,” he said. “Are you free this weekend? I’ll be staying in the city for a little longer after my exhibition and I was hoping we could hang out, organize ourselves a little photoshoot. What do you say?”

You squeezed your lips shut as you tried to find a way to reply to this.

“I don’t think so,” you ended up saying. No point to toy around and pretend. “I have plans.”

You didn’t have the slightest clue what you were going to do this weekend, but staying home was far better than hanging out with Jiho. He wasn’t a bad person – he was actually rather nice, all things considered – but you had an entire list of people whom you’d have rather spent your weekends with.

“Oh,” Jiho’s tone was flatter now. “Well, will you, at least, make it to the opening night of the exhibition?”

“I, uh—”

“W-why—look, I can’t help but feel like there’s something you haven’t told me,” he said and your heart picked up speed. “If you don’t want to come, you don’t have to, but I’d appreciate it if you respected me enough to say it straight to my face without making up excuses.”

The way he put it made you feel like you were the one who’d hurt him by dismissing his attempts to spend more time with you and, perhaps, in a way, you really have been disrespectful to him as you tried to deal with your own emotions – but you still couldn’t ignore the fact that you had all of these emotions to deal with precisely because Jiho hadn’t been clear enough about his intentions from the beginning.

“I’m sorry,” you said, inhaling deeply. You didn’t want to give in to your guilt – misunderstandings were, usually, a mutual problem – but you knew it wouldn’t be fair to him if you didn’t fully explain yourself, no matter how dreadful the thought of him mocking you was. “I didn’t mean to be flaky. It’s just… I-I guess I just don’t want to be a part of, uh, you know, whatever you’re doing with those girls.”

Jiho’s eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean? I’m not doing anything with any girls. If, uh—if you mean the people I’ve photographed, then they are all friends.”

“Am I your friend?”

“Yeah, of course.”

You nodded, the words spilling out of your mouth far easier than you’d have expected them to, “well, see, I had assumed I was something more.”

Jiho blinked. “W-what do you mean?”

“Well, you know,” you said, anxious for him to understand even though it was clear that, unless you explained what you meant properly, he would not, in fact, know. “I thought you and I were more than a, uh, network connection. Or what do you call this? But it’s fine. I misunderstood your intentions, I guess that’s my bad. It’s just a little weird for me now.”

He could clearly see that it wasn’t a little weird. You looked about as uncomfortable as it was possible to get.

“Oh,” Jiho said. You avoided his eyes but his gaze remained firmly set on you. “I—well, I can’t say I didn’t suspect that this might have been the case. I’m sorry if my intentions weren’t clear from the start. I’m always very… accomodating. That sounds wrong—I just… I’ve been doing this for a while, as you know, and the girls I usually hang out with don’t expect anything but business from me. They’re my friends, of course, but they’re also my source of inspiration most of the time. You are, too.”

He sounded nice. A lot nicer than you’d have expected from him and, all of a sudden, you didn’t understand why you’d dreaded to see him so much. Jiho wasn’t trying to purposefully lead you on and trick you into posing for his pictures – but, then again, he could have been more professional about this and actually ask for your consent before using your picture in his exhibition – he just didn’t think you’d be this much of an outsider in his world. Sure, it was wrong of him to assume you’d understand what he wanted from you but, at the same time, it wasn’t exactly right for you to assume the exact opposite, either.

“It was a misunderstanding,” you said again. “I guess, both of us should have been more open with our expectations, right?”

“Yeah,” Jiho chuckled, glad to hear your voice sound lighter. “I guess we should have. For the sake of this, I do have to mention that I value our friendship. I think you’re very interesting. But – and I know now that I should have mentioned this as soon as I met you – I’m not interested in dating. The real kind of dating, I mean.”

You didn’t know what other kind there was, but you chose not to question that right now, when it was starting to look as though you’d resolve this with little to no further damage to your dignity.

“That’s fair,” you said. “I have to mention, then, that I’m really only interested in exclusive relationships. I guess we’ve run into a bit of a conflict of interests here.”

Jiho shrugged his shoulders.

“Not necessarily,” he said, “I’m not holding you back from being involved with other people romantically. If anything, I encourage that. You look really beautiful when your eyes glitter with affection and even though I know we—” he stopped suddenly, choosing to word it differently, “uh, I don’t think I was ever the reason why your eyes were glittering like that, to be honest with you. I’d say your heart was always someplace else.”

“Hmm,” you cleared your throat. You’d just started to feel more comfortable but all of that backfired when you noticed the subtle smile on his lips. As if he knew something about your life that you haven’t told him about. “Well, anyway, I don’t regret meeting you per se. I regret the circumstances. But you’ve taught me a lot and I’m grateful for that, I just—”

“Listen, here’s what we’ll do,” he cut you off, recognizing the dismissal in your voice and knowing that you were about to attempt to get rid of him. “I won’t bother you to the point of you getting a restraining order against me, alright? That’s not really my style. But let’s not throw this to waste. Like I said, I genuinely value every friendship I develop and ours is no exception. So, if you decide you’re comfortable enough to meet up with me again, then let me know, yeah?”

You watched him for a moment, not sure why he was almost desperate to keep you in his life.

“Why?” you finally asked just to truly get everything off of your chest. “I-I mean, you know a lot of people. Plenty of girls. I’m nothing special, w-what’s the point?”

“That’s exactly the point,” Jiho replied. “All of these people – as you’ve said – are important to me. And you’re one of them, I already told you. And, who knows, maybe in the future, we’ll find a way to work together. I don’t want to lose that opportunity.”

“Work together?” you raised your eyebrows. “You mean in terms of photography, of course?”

“I mean anything,” he said with a smile and then continued before you could ask anything else, “so, think about it, okay? We don’t have to be the best of friends but we don’t have to be strangers, either.”

“Hmm.”

“I’ll let you get back to work,” Jiho said then, understanding that you biting your lip was a signal that you didn’t have much else to say. “But I’ll still be waiting for you at the opening night of my exhibition, so… think about that, too.”

He left with a wave and you knew the quick movement of his hand lasted about as long as his memory about this would last. There was no way he’d ever notice you missing in a crowd of beautiful people that would come to his exhibition.

Perhaps the day of his exhibition was really going to be the day when you finally called in sick, or, perhaps, you’d convince Eva to give you cleaning duty and then spend the whole day in the basement below the gallery, cleaning old frames and sneezing from the dust. Or, as unlikely as that was, perhaps you’d actually step on your pride and show up to see Jiho’s photographs one more time.

When you got home that night after work, all you really wanted was to flop down on your bed and sleep until it was morning again, but, apparently, it was nearly impossible to call it a night at six o’clock in the evening because your roommate – who’d apparently gotten home about twenty minutes before you did – popped his head out of his bedroom, letting you know that he’d ordered take-out because neither of you had gone grocery shopping and thus began a conversation that changed the course of the rest of your night.

“Great,” you replied, still a little awkward after you got to see a much deeper side of him last night at Jackson’s studio. “You could have texted me, I’d have bought some food on my way home.”

“I didn’t realize until I got here,” Jaebum replied. “And by that time, you were probably in your car on your way back already. It’s fine, though. I ordered enough food to eat leftovers for breakfast tomorrow.”

“Alright,” you said. “Let me add a reminder to my phone so I could go shopping tomorrow.”

“I’ll do it,” he offered. You took your shoes off in the hallway and gave him a look. He smiled in response, “what? I’ve brought food before. Several times, even.”

“Well, yes, but lately, you’ve been spending your nights at Jackson’s studio,” you pointed out carefully. “I didn’t expect you to—”

“Well, the song is more or less done. I’m not adding anything else to it right now,” Jaebum cut you off. “I’m working on, uh, something else right now, but there isn’t much I can do without the lyrics.”

“You said writing went well when you were with Jackson.”

“Yeah, but not for this song,” he explained and you tried to ignore the sudden rush of adrenaline when you realized that you and Jaebum were having a legitimate conversation about his music. “I need a different atmosphere for this song. And, either way, I’m not writing tonight. Just can’t do it. So, I’m all free.”

You smiled, the exhaustion you’d been feeling slowly fading away. “Was this a subtle offer to hang out?”

“It was,” he said, nodding his head in the direction of his room as an invitation for you to come in. Obviously, you were not going to pass on the—unexpected—offer.

“Okay,” you were still smiling, your heart hammering inside of your chest as you walked towards his bedroom. Jaebum moved away from the door to let you inside. “So, this song you’re working on – what’s it about?”

You took a leap asking this – you knew that – but instead of changing the topic – even though he did want that – Jaebum just shrugged his shoulders, closing the door of his room and plopping down on his bed.

“Love,” he said, patting the spot next to him as an indication for you to sit down. “But, then again, all songs are, aren’t they?”

You shrugged your shoulders, sitting down on his bed next to where he was laying. “You tell me, you’re the songwriter of this household.”

“I guess if you’re looking for love, you can find it in any song,” he hypothesized. “I don’t want this song I’m working on to be about the kind of love that you have to look for, though. I want this song to be full of obvious love. I want the song to be love.”

You couldn’t help the swelling feelings in your chest as you listened to him talk. This had to be the first time you heard him open up about his songs—and the process that went into creating them—in real life, not just over texts at four in the morning when both of you were beyond exhausted and had not met each other in real life yet.

“Do you always try to focus on one emotion when writing songs?” you wondered.

Jaebum considered this for a moment, his eyes focused on the wall of the room in front of him. He wasn’t looking at you but you didn’t really need him to – for now, it was enough that he was teling you about something that was so meaningful to him. Although you’d have loved to see the sparkle in his eyes that appeared whenever he got excited about something, you considered yourself lucky enough to take a quick dip into the endless oceans that were his mind.

“I guess I do,” he finally answered. “When there are so many emotions inside of you, you can’t help but try to choose one and hold onto it when you write, otherwise, you’ll only create chaos. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but I want my music to, uh… to mean something, I guess? I want the lyrics to be deep but easy to understand, however paradoxical that sounds.”

“Well, anything’s possible when you put your mind to it,” you said and earned a look from Jaebum – a hopeful one. It was a look that unleashed even more butterflies into your stomach that was already full of fluttering wings as it was. “And I think you’ve done great so far. The song I heard yesterday – “Don’t Touch Me” – I think it had the right amount of depth while still being relatable.”

“Yeah,” Jaebum looked away from you. “I worked on the lyrics for that one for a long time.”

“Do you…” you started to say, but then realized you lack the courage to finish your question. Talking about something as personal as a song about his ex-girlfriend might have broken Jaebum out of this laid-back state he seemed to have been in and the last thing you wanted was for him to kick you out of the room for prying too much. “Nevermind.”

“Hey, you can’t do that,” he warned, sitting down properly, and then checking the time on his phone. “The delivery guy clearly got lost with our food. The least you can do is finish your questions while we wait. Otherwise, we’ll just sit here in silence.”

“Are you saying you’ll stop answering my questions once the food gets here?”

“Absolutely. I’ll be too busy eating to talk.”

You smiled. “Alright, well, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but—”

“I’ll try to,” he said, cutting you off. The look in his eyes was reassuring and the electric shocks you felt signified that the connection you’ve felt with Jaebum before you met him wasn’t fictitious. It was there, it had just been hiding underneath your daily arguments and frustrations. God, you were so glad to feel those sparks again.

“Okay,” you said. “Do you always write songs from personal experience?”

“I do,” Jaebum answered. This time, he didn’t look away from you.

You felt like he was telling you this because he knew you wanted to know. It was obvious that he usually felt great discomfort when he was forced to talk about his music, but it seemed as though he had finally realized that the reason why you were so curious to know more about this was because you genuinely enjoyed hearing him talk about this. So, he did. He talked about himself because that was what you wanted and, with a surprising jolt of his heart, Jaebum realized that he wanted to give you what you wanted. All that you wanted.

“I don’t think I could write songs about abstract concepts,” he revealed then. “Or maybe I could. But they’d lack the emotion I seek. They’d lack the depth.”

“So, Suji,” you said, speaking the word that made him inhale sharply. “Why did you choose to write about her?”

He looked down. “You can’t tell?”

“Well, I got the general idea why from the song itself,” you said. “But I’d like to hear you explain it.”

“There’s not much to explain, really,” he said, scanning the tiles of the floor of his room and then suddenly shooting his gaze to you. “It’s kind of like you never explained to me what happened between you and Jiho.”

You blinked, surprised to hear him turn the topic around. “I, uh—okay. I’ll talk if you talk.”

Jaebum chuckled lightly at this.

“Okay, that’s fair,” he said and then, after another deep breath, continued, “I’m usually working on multiple songs at the same time. Well, not full songs, but… verses for them. Lines. Sometimes certain words just come to me at the most random moments, so I write them down and then I use them when I’m trying to put a song together. Every day, I might find myself writing different lyrics and it all depends on what I’m feeling at that moment. It depends on the strongest emotion. And, of course, ever since I left Suji, I’ve just felt angry. Bitter. And living with these emotions meant writing about them.”

“I heard that,” you admitted, your voice small. “All of that. The most surprising thing to me, I guess, was that the song didn’t have an ounce of love in it, and yet it was still undeniably a love song. Somehow, it was an almost hopeful love song.”

This brought a smile to his face. “Those who are in love have a tendency to see love everywhere.”

It was you who looked away this time.

“Anyway, I had no love left in me anymore,” Jaebum continued after you didn’t say anything. “Not towards her, at least.”

“You focus on one emotion when you write,” you said, “but maybe you put more emotions into your work without realizing it. Maybe you were expressing your anger and bitterness, but you ended up expressing your hope of moving on with your life without her. Maybe, you accidentally ended up expressing your hope of loving someone again, too.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, still smiling. You weren’t looking at him so he took this time to watch you before finally speaking again, “so, what about Jiho?”

You sighed. “Oh, that story is far less inspiring and, uh, it lacks the romantic aspect, too. It’s just plain embarrassing, actually.”

“How so?”

“Well, turns out,” you exhaled slowly, “Jiho never actually had any romantic interest in me. He was looking for a… I don’t know, a networking connection, I guess? Just someone he could photograph. Someone with an attractive enough of a face that he could invite to his shows.”

You could tell by the way Jaebum’s gaze lingered on you for a few seconds before sliding to the floor that his thoughts had wandered someplace else. Perhaps, he was remembering the question he’d asked you when you and him were watching a movie and he’d insisted that five days was enough for a person to understand if they had feelings for someone. Back then, you told him that Jiho had to have feelings for you or otherwise, he wouldn’t have taken you out this many times but, clearly, that was not the case at all.

“Sorry,” Jaebum spoke then, his eyes on you again. “How did you find out?”

“Oh, that’s the fun part. I got to his pre-show that Friday night,” you said, “and there was a ton of girls there. Not just in attendance, but as models in his exhibition, too. Every single picture contained a girl and she was photographed in the exact same way as I was—”

“Wait,” he stopped you suddenly. “He used a picture of you?”

Jaebum sounded weirdly offended when he said this.

“Y-yeah, he wanted to,” you replied. “But I asked him to take it out of the exhibition. I don’t know, maybe it was stupid. He never asked for my permission to use it and it’s almost like I would have been fine with him using the picture, as long as I was the only girl he’d photographed. I asked him to take the picture out as soon as I found out I wasn’t actually the only one. Naïve, right? Stupid, too.”

“Not at all,” he disagreed, surprising you. For a moment, you almost had to double-check if this was really the same person who’d teased you for dating someone who wasn’t brave enough to kiss you. “You had obviously thought he was seriously into you. Actually, he’s kind of a dick for not making his intentions clear.”

“I confronted him about it,” you admitted. “He apologized and asked to stay in touch but, honestly, each time I think of him, I just get so incredibly embarrassed as if he’s leading me on and laughing at my little-girl expectations behind my back. Even though this was a genuine misunderstanding. Or so I hope.”

Jaebum nodded, humming in response but staying quiet otherwise. He was thinking about something again and, even though you already had trouble guessing what he was thinking about under normal circumstances, this time, he looked even more indecipherable than usually.

It seemed so unexpected that Jaebum had taken your side instead of teasing you but you couldn’t explain why you were expecting him to be mocking. Jaebum may have been rude to you a handful of times in the past, but the longer you lived with him, the more he proved himself to actually be understanding and even compassionate.

“No offense,” Jaebum started to say, “but it didn’t seem to me as though you were very infatuated with Jiho, either. I-I mean, the conclusion of this whole thing is bad, I can understand why you wouldn’t want to talk about it, but I’m just getting the feeling that finding out what he really wanted from you helped you free yourself from some sort of constraints.”

“Constraints,” you repeated.

“Yeah,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Like you were forced to keep seeing him against your wishes. Maybe because you thought you owed him your time because you thought he liked you. Or maybe because you just wanted to be with someone, but it wasn’t necessarily him – and there’s nothing wrong with that. It just seems to me like finding out the truth about Jiho freed you, essentially. Now you have fewer things to worry about.”

“Because I didn’t really want to be with him,” you said.

“Right,” Jaebum confirmed. “But that’s just what I think. Sorry if it’s—”

“No,” you said, swallowing with great difficulty because your body was suddenly overcome with a thick wave of hotness. “No, I think you’re right.”

You didn’t think he was right. You knew he was. Days leading up to Jiho’s pre-show at the restaurant, you were trying to come up with a way to let him know that you couldn’t continue seeing him because your thoughts – and your heart – were elsewhere. They were right here, in this room, in the hands of the person who understood all of your emotions without having to hear you voice them.

“So, how come?” Jaebum asked, distracting you and making your heart syncopate its beating to the sound of his voice. “How come you still went on those, let’s call them dates, with Jiho even though you didn’t really want to be with him?”

Lifting your eyes to meet his, you smiled briefly. “You can’t tell?”

He responded to your smile with one of his own – recognizing his words from your lips – and then shook his head. “There’s no way I was right about everything.”

“You were,” you said, completely unprepared to embrace the fact that Jaebum must have known that the only reason why you went out with Jiho was because you were jealous. Jaebum could have had any girl he wanted and you were looking to prove a point that you could get yourself a guy, too. “You were, surprisingly, right on point.”

Instead of gloating about that, Jaebum just nodded in acknowledgment and then said something you’d never expected to hear him say, “you know, I’ve never tried to explain to you why I texted Suji that night it all started.”

Surprised to hear him address this topic without you basically forcing him into talking about it, you blinked a few times. “Y-you… you haven’t.”

You could remember Jaebum opening up to you about his past with his ex-girlfriend – all so you wouldn’t get in touch with her – but his reasons for texting her that night were about as vague as it was possible. He said he’d felt lonely. He said he’d lacked self-control. But back then, all of the things he’d said seemed more than enough. Jaebum had a hard shell and just this one crack that revealed this tiny bit of information about him was more than enough for you at the time.

You knew him better now; and all because he wanted you to know him better.

“Would you like me to?” Jaebum asked. “Explain, I mean.”

Unable to speak, you nodded.

“I was jealous,” he said simply.

You weren’t sure if the rapid beating of your heart was caused because he’d just mimicked your reasons for going out with Jiho or because Kiera had suspected that Jaebum got back together with his ex because you met Jiho.

“Why?” you dared to ask.

“Back then, I thought I was jealous because you had a chance at an actual relationship while I didn’t,” he said, “so, even though I knew I could never work with Suji, I just called her because she was the closest thing to a relationship I’ve ever had. All along, I was just trying to prove a point.”

“Funny,” you said with a straight face. “That was exactly the reason why I went out with Jiho.”

“I know. That’s why I guessed that,” Jaebum smiled. “You and I are more similar than we sometimes realize.”

“You said ‘back then,’ though,” you pointed out, unable to focus on your similarities with him when you were scratching the surface of something potentially life-changing. “Do you… not think that that was the reason anymore?”

Jaebum was hoping you’d notice and yet continuing to speak proved to be more difficult than he’d expected.

“I don’t,” he said. “I do think I was jealous, but I don’t think I was jealous of something as abstract as the fact that my roommate was capable of starting a relationship while I wasn’t.”

“Yeah, you’re not into anything that’s abstract in any way.”

“That’s right, I’m not.”

Shakily, you asked, “what were you jealous of, then?”

“I don’t know,” he concluded, his honest eyes resting on yours. “I can’t seem to find an explanation that would make sense. I just know that there was some jealousy-induced emotion there that forced me to dial Suji’s number after months of avoiding her and the strength of that emotion could not have come from something… abstract.”

You weren’t sure if you felt relieved or disappointed to hear his explanation suddenly turn vague again, but this was far more than you’d expected from him so, with a small smile, you nodded.

“This wasn’t really an explanation,” you pointed out. “You still didn’t give me a proper answer why you texted her.”

“Maybe. But that’s because I don’t have the answer myself,” he said, “so, I gave you all I have.”

He’s never voluntarily revealed all of his emotions before, especially not when he wasn’t sure what he was feeling in the first place. You couldn’t even begin to explain your joy to hear him talk so openly but you had to physically restrain yourself from reaching over and wrapping your arms around him in an uncharacteristic display of affection again.

God, it seemed as though your life had suddenly turned into one long period of desperately wanting to touch Jaebum but restraining yourself because, just like he couldn’t find an explanation for his jealousy, you couldn’t find a possible outcome of your embrace that wouldn’t tear down all that you and him have been trying to build after your last fight. There were so many things that could have gone wrong at any moment and, right now, you weren’t ready for any kind of change.

“Thank you,” you said slowly, wanting to remain in this moment—your gazes locked in an embrace your bodies weren’t brave enough for—forever. “I appreciate that.”

Jaebum nodded and was about to add something else when the doorbell rang. For a moment, both of you were confused – far too lost in the little world inside of your apartment – but then Jaebum realized.

“Ah, the take-out,” he spoke, getting off the bed. “About time.”

He left the room to open the door and that broke the spell inside of the bedroom but that was okay. Everything was okay. Because you saw the smile on his face when he left. Because you knew he was just outside of the bedroom and you could hear how fast he tried to pay for the delivery so he wouldn’t have to stay out in the hallway for longer than it was necessary.

And, even though you and him wouldn’t talk about anything as deep as this when he’d be back, even though you and him wouldn’t pour your hearts—and feelings—out to each other tonight, even though you wouldn’t get to touch him in ways that you’ve wanted to, everything was okay. Everything was okay because you knew he’d be here with you, smiling at you from across the bed again.

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