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#grad school or bust
gorejo · 3 months
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gahhhh !! wish me good luck plsssss 🥺
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strahdvonzarovich · 6 months
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looking very likely that student finance will deem me ineligible bc the application has taken so long the months i'm asking backpay for are outside of an applicable window and uhhh
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bmpmp3 · 1 year
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if you want to get really inexplicably good at drawing very specific flowers MAKE some ocs with various flower symbolism and motifs
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anethara · 1 year
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I have to get up I have to finish writing this stupid article if nothing else I have to turn it in on time.
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lilnasxvevo · 1 year
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Me: Oh man I wanna get back to reading that fic I was reading over my lunch break
Me: …
Me: Dammit that wasn’t a real fic that was one I was imagining in my head
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kingdom-dance · 2 years
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Some old Dahls WIPS  feat. Joaquim being extremely annoyed by his sister’s love, and in the showdown of showdowns, what do we call a bus in Spanish, DW? Not an autobús 😌Also Dahlia profile that I posted to discord but nowhere else aksjdjd
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astrx-nautical · 7 months
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In need of more history grad and history major moots! I love reading everyone's research methodologies and organization tips
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spdrwdw · 3 months
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How much for a crying absolutely depressed and stressed reader overwhelmed and just..
With a Miguel who comforts them even tho they’re failing because they know they should have done better but they were mentally in a hell hole
Like
I just need a hug
Help
(Don’t go to uni kids…)
I'm sorry you're stressed out, dear 💔 I know uni can be overwhelming and stressful. But you got this! You made it this far, I know you can keep going. Have some Miguel to give you comfort and also know that I am rooting for you! You got this! Same for anyone else who is burnt out and overwhelmed. We can get through it!
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Art by onicli on twitter
Pairing: Miguel x f!reader
Warnings: none, just Miggy comforting you during a stressful time, no use of y/n
Summary: Miguel finds you stressed and depressed and tries his best to comfort you.
Word Count: 1.5k
Masterlist
☆*:.。. o .。.:*☆ ☆*:.。. o .。.:*☆ ☆*:.。. o .。.:*☆ ☆*:.。. o .。.
Miguel made his way to your shared apartment after a long day of keeping the multiverse intact and anomalies at bay. It was exhausting at times. It really was. Sometimes he would regret even coming across the multiverse, however, he knew it was fate. He had to be the one to find it and keep everything in line. Plus, he had to keep you safe. You were the most important and precious thing in his life. 
Slipping in through the bedroom window, he noticed how quiet it was. Eerily quiet. But after a second of concentration, he could hear something coming from the living room. It sounded like muffled sniffles and choked sobs. His eyes widened and he immediately busted the bedroom door open, removing it from its hinges. 
You jumped up and let out a yelp in surprise before seeing your boyfriend awkwardly holding the door in his hands. 
“Muñeca?” He blinked when he took a better look at your current state. You were wrapped up in one of your warm, fuzzy blankets. Used tissues were scattered all over the couch and floor. At first, Miguel thought you were sick. But, then he saw the tears that stained your cheeks and the back and forth rocking you were doing. 
Gingerly, he placed the door against the wall.
“Baby, what’s the matter? Hmm? What’s wrong?” He asked as he made your way over to your side in an instant, scooping you up into his arms as he sat on the couch. 
“Ven. Ven aquí, muñeca,” he cooed softly just before you began to burst into tears again, hiding your face against his shoulder. 
“Shh. Shh. Hey, what is it? Why are you crying?” He asked as he rubbed your back, trying to soothe you from whatever it was that was bothering you. 
You simply shook your head as you let out broken sobs. 
“I-I can’t- I-I-I can’t do this anymore,” you choked out. 
“Can’t do what?” He asked, puzzled. At first, he wondered if it was about you two. Was there something going on between the two of you that Miguel wasn’t aware of? Was he neglecting his girlfriend? He had been rather busy these past few days. With working at Alchemax and being Spider-Man and all that jazz. Or..was there an important date that he missed? 
Shit. Was it yall’s anniversary? No. That’s next month..
 “Come on, baby. You can tell me. I’m here for you. Let me know what it is that’s bothering you.”
“I’m just so stressed out. W-with everything. I am trying, Miguel. I really am,” you sniffled. “But, I feel things have just been crumbling all around me. Failure after failure. It feels like I’m burning on fumes. 
First, it was that work assignment I had that didn’t seem to be up to my boss’s standards. I worked so hard with research for that damn thing. I stressed over that assignment! I put up with many sleepless nights due to it. And he just tossed it in the trash! Didn’t even spare a glance at it! 
And then with school. I sometimes wonder if doing grad school is worth it. Like, is it really going to benefit me? All these assignments. All that research and pages and pages of reading and writing just for the professors to glance at it for five seconds and put a big fat F on it because the topic isn’t Nobel Prize worthy or something. It’s just too much and I feel like my brain is going to explode!” You sobbed as you let out a heavy sigh, feeling the tightening in your chest constrict your breathing. 
“I just wish I could figure things out, you know? I feel like I don’t know what I am doing with my life. I don’t know who I am or want to become…and..I just want to know my place in this world.”
Miguel lightly tightened his grip around her, upset that his girl was feeling this way.
“You don’t need to figure anything out. There is nothing to figure out. You know who you are. You know your place. You’ve been working so hard to get to where you are and I am so proud of you for it, muñeca. I know things haven’t been going well, and that’s okay. It’s just a little bump in the road. That’s all. 
We all have our highs and lows. I know I do. I swear I have gray hairs now due to all the stress. But, I push through it, you know. I always see the light at the end of the tunnel.” 
Miguel continued to rub your back before tilting your head up and placed a kiss on your forehead and began to wipe your tears away.
“And I have you to anchor me. You keep me grounded and keep me sane. I push through because I know that you will always have my back and help me get back up should I fall. 
And I am here to do the same with you. I will support you. I will let you cry on my shoulder. I will pick you up when you fall. But, I won’t let you suffer with anything on your own. No matter how big or small the issue. I will be by your side.” 
You sniffled before nodding your head, closing your eyes when Miguel kissed your moist cheeks before placing soft kisses all over your face and lips. 
“I think we both could use a break. From work. From School. And from protecting the multiverse. What do you say? Let’s play hooky and do whatever we want for a day or two,” Miguel suggested, a soft smile on his face. 
“Really?” You asked him, letting out a shaky breath as you tried to calm your nerves. 
Miguel nodded his head as he scooped you back up and carried you to your shared room, settling you onto the bed. 
“Just take slow, steady breaths, baby. Everything is going to be fine and you’ll get out of this slump. Okay? Don’t stress about work. That assignment is over and done with. Move past it. And school. You got so little left to go! And in the end no one is going to care if you got an F or two. Just keep doing your best. Okay?” 
“Okay,” you nodded your head as he helped tuck you into bed before he dissolved his suit and began to get his pjs on. 
He removed his gizmo, placing it on the nightstand and turned it off. Miguel almost never turned his gizmo off, so, seeing that he did made you feel a wave of relief wash through you for a moment. At least you knew he was serious about spending the coming days with you.
As you waited for him to get ready for bed, you stared up at the ceiling, eyes glossing over with tears threatening to fall. You knew you shouldn’t be crying. There was no reason to cry. But, you just couldn’t bear another failed school assignment, or another stressful work project. You felt like a failure. Like an imposter as you try to navigate through your field of work and study. 
“Hey, hey. What did I just say, hmm? No more tears. No more worrying,” Miguel frowned when he saw your glossy eyes as he climbed into bed. 
Wrapping his strong arms around you, he pulled you close to him and peppered the crown of your head with kisses. 
“I know. I know. I just can’t keep my mind from going back to it all,” you apologized. 
“I understand.”
And Miguel did. He understood completely. He had been in those slumps many times before and he was sure he would fall into another one again eventually. But, like he had told you before, he had you to help him keep it all together. 
“Just know that I am here for you, baby. You can rant to me about anything. No worry is too big or too small. But, just know that you’re not alone. I am here. I am always going to be here.”
You nodded your head as you tried to wipe away a stray tear that had managed to fall.
“Thank you, Miguel. Really. It means a lot to me,” you told him, giving him a small smile. And it did mean a lot to you, knowing that you had him by your side to support you. Knowing that he was cheering you on. It meant a lot.
“And you can always tell me about anything, too, Miggy. While I may not understand all that multiverse jumbo, you can talk to me,” you assured him.
Miguel smiled, a slight gleam in his eyes. “I know, muñeca. I know you’re here for me. And that’s what keeps me going. Your love and your support.
Now. Let’s get some sleep, okay? Tomorrow is a new day and a fresh start. Leave all that worry behind.”
“Okay,” you nodded, nuzzling yourself closer to his warmth.
"Oh..don't forget to fix the door, please," you suddenly reminded him.
Miguel let out a chuckle, tightening his grip around you a bit. "I won't baby. Promise."
His strong heartbeat began to lull you to sleep, for morning would bring you a new day with no stress. And you couldn’t wait.
☆*:.。. o .。.:*☆ ☆*:.。. o .。.:*☆ ☆*:.。. o .。.:*☆ ☆*:.。. o .。.
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3027960 · 3 months
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gay lil blurb about valeria
you moved to las almas, temporarily at least. as a graduate student studying the differences between greek and mayan city-state politics for your dissertation, travel to mexico was necessary. as a poor student, staying in a town run by the cartel meant a cheap apartment for at least the year you would be there.
but las almas was cute. colorful. not unlike that time you visited the cuban parts of miami. the people, at least those who weren't armed to the teeth with semi-automatic rifles and knives, were generally nice. your spanish was passable, for as long as you'd been studying the mayans. your k'iche was better, but you doubted it be very useful. maybe.
you'd been there a few months, mostly holed up in your studio apartment, making do with packaged tortas from the corner store and boxed mexican juices. and coffee. lots of coffee. the cafe down the street had a wonderful dark roast shipped weekly from guatemala and you had brought your aeropress with you from the US.
it's not like you were avoiding going out. it's just, well, you had a lot of work. writing. researching. editing.
and, honestly, you were worried. a fat girl, all alone, in an unfamiliar town run by the cartel? probably not the best idea to wander out by yourself.
but tonight...tonight you were going out.
there was a small bar down at the end of your street, run by a seemingly friendly older couple whom you'd passed on the way to the corner store. they spoke english, so you were hoping you might convince them to put an american football game on the television. it was a thursday and football season, after all.
you were going for casual, but cute, dressed in a short-sleeved crop top and long pleated skirt, with sturdy boots on your feet. even in mexico, december was a bit chilly, so you brought a chunky sweater just in case.
...
the bar wasn't crowded, just a few cartel members hanging around with their guns strapped to their back, and a few local men out for drinks after work.
you slipped onto one of the barstools and ordered yourself a beer, a safe choice with your limited knowledge of alcoholic drinks in spanish.
american football didn't make it out here apparently, but you were content to watch the soccer playing on tv. apparently, december was soccer season too. you cheered when others cheered, booed when others booed, and generally felt the tension in your shoulders gradually disappear as you relaxed under the influence of the alcohol.
so, it definitely startled you when you felt a presence settle next to you at the bar. you turned, slightly surprised, your beer bottle halfway to your lips.
and the woman next to you...god.
she was beautiful. thick brows. full lips. strong nose. tan skin.
you felt yourself blush under her attention.
oh, she was saying something to you.
"....niña?"
you shook yourself, giving her a dumb stare. she chuckled.
"where are you from? i haven't seen you before?"
even her voice was pretty, accented and strong.
"i..uh..i'm from the US. i'm here to study the mayans."
"the mayans, huh? smart girl"
you blushed harder under her attention, drawn to her like a moth to a flame. you noticed you had turned your stool towards her, as she leaned her elbow on the bar, face resting on her palm. she smiled as she noticed your unabashed attention.
"what is your name, bonita?"
you gave her your name, fiddling with the lip of your beer bottle, eyes gazing away from her intense attention.
"maybe i could take you on a walk sometime? explore las almas?"
you stuttered over your breath, blinking rapidly at her. it felt like the heat of her stare could singe your cheeks. her attention was addictive, like the cigarette habit you'd been trying to kick for years.
you heard yourself agree. enthusiastically, actually. in your head you were screaming at yourself. don't seem so desperate!
you agreed to exchange numbers, handing over your busted iphone with spiderweb cracks littering the edges. listen, your grad school stipend didn't allow for many indulgences.
she handed your phone back, her fingers lingering over your palm. they felt calloused, hardened from use. the polar opposite of your soft, round palm, used to typing and turning pages in books.
she left shortly after, leaving you reeling for the rest of the night.
you climbed into your shitty twin bed, feeling the heat of her stare heating you from the inside.
before you fell asleep to the sound of the coyotes howling outside your window, you felt and heard your phone buzz on the small bedside table.
you turned to look at your phone:
mi niña, it was lovely to meet you tonight - valeria xx
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qqueenofhades · 4 months
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I’m in undergrad but I keep hearing and seeing people talking about using chatgpt for their schoolwork and it makes me want to rip my hair out lol. Like even the “radical” anti-chatgpt ones are like “Oh yea it’s only good for outlines I’d never use it for my actual essay.” You’re using it for OUTLINES????? That’s the easy part!! I can’t wait to get to grad school and hopefully be surrounded by people who actually want to be there 😭😭😭
Not to sound COMPLETELY like a grumpy old codger (although lbr, I am), but I think this whole AI craze is the obvious result of an education system that prizes "teaching for the test" as the most important thing, wherein there are Obvious Correct Answers that if you select them, pass the standardized test and etc etc mean you are now Educated. So if there's a machine that can theoretically pick the correct answers for you by recombining existing data without the hard part of going through and individually assessing and compiling it yourself, Win!
... but of course, that's not the way it works at all, because AI is shown to create misleading, nonsensical, or flat-out dangerously incorrect information in every field it's applied to, and the errors are spotted as soon as an actual human subject expert takes the time to read it closely. Not to go completely KIDS THESE DAYS ARE JUST LAZY AND DONT WANT TO WORK, since finding a clever way to cheat on your schoolwork is one of those human instincts likewise old as time and has evolved according to tools, technology, and educational philosophy just like everything else, but I think there's an especial fear of Being Wrong that drives the recourse to AI (and this is likewise a result of an educational system that only prioritizes passing standardized tests as the sole measure of competence). It's hard to sort through competing sources and form a judgment and write it up in a comprehensive way, and if you do it wrong, you might get a Bad Grade! (The irony being, of course, that AI will *not* get you a good grade and will be marked even lower if your teachers catch it, which they will, whether by recognizing that it's nonsense or running it through a software platform like Turnitin, which is adding AI detection tools to its usual plagiarism checkers.)
We obviously see this mindset on social media, where Being Wrong can get you dogpiled and/or excluded from your peer groups, so it's even more important in the minds of anxious undergrads that they aren't Wrong. But yeah, AI produces nonsense, it is an open waste of your tuition dollars that are supposed to help you develop these independent college-level analytical and critical thinking skills that are very different from just checking exam boxes, and relying on it is not going to help anyone build those skills in the long term (and is frankly a big reason that we're in this mess with an entire generation being raised with zero critical thinking skills at the exact moment it's more crucial than ever that they have them). I am mildly hopeful that the AI craze will go bust just like crypto as soon as the main platforms either run out of startup funding or get sued into oblivion for plagiarism, but frankly, not soon enough, there will be some replacement for it, and that doesn't mean we will stop having to deal with fake news and fake information generated by a machine and/or people who can't be arsed to actually learn the skills and abilities they are paying good money to acquire. Which doesn't make sense to me, but hey.
So: Yes. This. I feel you and you have my deepest sympathies. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to sit on the porch in my quilt-draped rocking chair and shout at kids to get off my lawn.
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choerrypuffs · 2 years
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fast times.
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pairing: co-worker!donghyuck x reader
genre: fluff, slight angst
word count: 7.6k
synopsis: throughout the snapshots of your life, lee donghyuck is always there. (or, you realize that you’re in love with the bane of your existence.)
author’s note: i started grad school and it’s literally eating me alive so i wanted to write something short and sweet to de-stress and then it ended up being almost 8k words 😭
warning(s): excessive drinking, family tension
playlist: fast times by sabrina carpenter ― the bottom by gracie abrams ―  stress by taeyeon ― ruin my life by zara larsson ― cruel summer by taylor swift 
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ST. PATRICK’S DAY 2022  sun’s up too soon like daylight savings, mixed emotions are congregating 
Liquid courage, as the poets say.
Well, don’t fact check that, but surely Wordsworth or Coleridge or whichever poet that Taylor Swift talks about in the lakes mentioned something about getting shitfaced during a St. Patrick’s Day office party.
Regardless, you’re going to pretend like they did because it’s a lot less romantic (lowercase r, not capital like the movement) if you’re just drunk off your ass at an office party without an artsy-fartsy literary reference to back you up.
You’re one too many shots of tequila deep, swaying to the shitty techno music that someone is blasting from their pretentious Spotify playlist while stumbling past the office cubicles, including yours and He Who Shall Not Be Named’s, on your wobbly trip to the bathroom.
Despite the copious amounts of alcohol in your system, the remaining coherent part of your brain is sounding the alarms that you’re probably going to throw up soon. You wish that part of your brain would just shut the hell up because you don’t want to think rationally right now.
You don’t want to think about He Who Shall Not Be Named and how he’s in love with your best friend. You don’t want to think about how his eyes found her the moment she walked into the office, how his gaze melted into a pool of honey, his head swiveling towards every direction she went like a stupid bobblehead. Not that you blame him; everyone is in love with Karina. It’s not his fault, but you’re mad at him anyways.
Ugh, see? You’re thinking about him again.
Anyways, you’re also grateful for that part of your brain because the poets definitely do not write about spewing chunks in front of your co-workers. You just want to hurl in peace and wallow in your misery with the porcelain toilet bowl by your side.
The poets probably wrote about that.
You finally make it to the hall where the bathrooms are, having steady yourself against the wall as you make your way down because walking in a straight line has become a luxury. However, you only get about five steps (at least you think it’s five, numbers are hard) when someone grabs your arm. You don’t even realize your legs are in the process of buckling until there’s a pair of hands supporting your waist to keep you upright.
“Jesus, Y/N,” someone breathes in relief, exhaling loudly.
You’d recognize that condescending tone anywhere.
He Who Shall Not Be Named carefully leans you against the wall, one hand still on your waist while the other removes the bottle of Jack Daniels that you didn’t even know you were clinging onto from the nook of your arm. With one smooth motion, he tosses the bottle into the trashcan and doesn’t even flinch when the bottle very audibly shatters inside.
“I know you’re a loyal worshiper of mine, but just Y/N is fine,” you slur, not sounding nearly as cool as you’d hope, “though it’d be pretty fucking funny if you washed my feet.”
He huffs and pauses, like he’s debating on whether or not he should say what he wants to say next. And because he’s a piece of shit, he says it:
“For the record, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. Not the other way around.”
You groan, shoving him hard. He barely budges, so most of the force in your shove kicks back to you. Feeling yourself tip forward, you grab his shoulders out of instinct to avoid busting your head open against the hard tile. In the process, your forehead slams into his chest, and he lets out a soft grunt. His hands grip your elbows, fingertips warm against your even warmer skin.
“I hate you,” you sniffle, burying your face in his shirt. He smells exactly like a fluffy towel that just came out of the dryer. “You’re tactless and you never let me win and you have shitty taste in movies.”
“And you’re drunk,” he replies nonchalantly, “Why do you drink so much when you’re such a lightweight?”
“You don’t deserve Karina,” you continue angrily.
He actually laughs at that. “Okay, young lady. I’m going to drive you home now. Come on.”
You lift your head so fast that you nearly slam it into his jaw; luckily, he sees it coming and steps back before you can knock his teeth out.
“Don’t,” you hiss, poking his chest. “I don’t want you to drive me home. Don’t drive me home unless…”
He raises an eyebrow. “Unless what?”
“Pretty boys can never be trusted,” you hiccup.
“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about, but let’s continue this discussion when you’ve sobered up,” he sighs, crossing his arms. “And when you are sober and realize that you don’t want to talk about this anymore, like I suspect you’ll do, I’ll even pretend like this conversation never happened because I am a gentleman.”
“Do you think I’m pretty?” you whisper blearily.
You’re wearing a green t-shirt that has “Kiss me, I’m Irish” plastered across the chest in big, bold white letters. You borrowed it from Karina when you realized you didn’t have any green in your closet. Of course, only Karina would look good in something like this, but you really didn’t want to be pinched the entire night. Someone had plastered four-leaf clover stickers all over your face, though you’re not sure how many of them are still on at this point. Your makeup should be intact since you haven’t been sweating, even if you probably have mascara residue under your eyes. You’ve certainly looked better, but this definitely isn’t the worst state you’ve been in.
It’s a stupid question though, really. No matter how pretty you are, he’s already chosen Karina.
When you glance back up at him, he looks like one of those cartoon characters that have two perfect red circles on their cheeks when they blush.
You haven’t seen him this flustered in a long time. He’s always had this smug, impenetrable mask of an expression that you want to punch off his face―like he’s constantly one step ahead of you in something.
You want to take out your phone and take a picture of his expression so badly.
Instead, you hunch over and throw up on his expensive shoes.
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VALENTINE’S DAY 2018 my feelings used to be serrated, but you speak in such a perfect cadence
Pretty boys should never be trusted.
That is your ultimate mantra in life.
Especially pretty boys that claim to be “nerdy.” The ones that smell nice and aren’t misogynistic but also like games and anime and know how to code. The ones that wear indie band t-shirts and actually enjoy the band but don't care if you wear the same t-shirt just because you like the aesthetic. The ones that wear rings on their fingers and metal-rimmed glasses on the tip of their noses.
The ones that other girls would claim were “written by women.”
It’s all a trap.
If anything, they’re worse than the obnoxious frat boy chads. At least those are straightforward about what they want. Nerdy pretty boys are professional manipulators, meticulously slicing your heart into thin little pieces to use as a garnish for their own ego.
So when the new intern swaggers into the office, hands tucked into the pockets of his designer slacks, your Pretty Boy senses start to tingle.
He’s wearing a crisp white button-up (not a band tee since he’s at work), and he’s got rings on his fingers and metal-rimmed glasses right on the tip of his nose. His hair is a little curly and falls into his eyes in that messy but charming look. He’s got a round face and pouty lips, looking just sweet enough to disarm someone.
After he walks in, the CEO of the company follows, and now everything makes sense.
“Everyone, this is my grandson, Donghyuck,” Mr. Lee explains, smiling warmly.
Nepo baby, you realize, fighting the urge to roll your eyes.
“I want you all to know he won’t be getting any special treatment,” Mr. Lee says firmly, “He will have to work his way from the bottom, just like everyone else.”
Right, that’s why you’re personally introducing him to us, you think wryly.
After receiving a load of ass kissing from the employees, Mr. Lee finally leaves, and your team leader points Donghyuck to the empty cubicle right next to yours. He strolls over with an ease as if he owns the building (he technically does) and takes a seat. He smiles at you, though it reads as more of a smirk than a good-natured smile.
“Hi, I’m Donghyuck.”
When he looks at you, he does so with his whole body. His lanky frame is completely angled towards you as he unabashedly drinks in your side profile with his mischievous, twinkly eyes. The way he stares at you with such intrigue makes you jittery, and you keep your line of sight glued to your computer screen, refusing to indulge him even through your peripheral.
He’s deploying his Pretty Boy tactics, you warn.
“I know,” you snap back. You don’t mean to come off that aggressively, but you just know he’s trouble. In an attempt to remedy your curt response, you softly tack on, “I’m Y/N. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You don’t like me very much, do you?” Donghyuck asks, the quirked grin on his face growing.
You blink in surprise. You were not expecting him to say it so straightforwardly. “I…just met you.”
“You’re not answering the question.” He tilts his head, though he doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it. Rather, he probably already knows the answer.
You’re not sure what to say to that, and Donghyuck doesn’t try to continue the conversation either. Instead, he begins to unpack his stuff and set up his work space. When he turns on his personal laptop, you see League of Legends downloaded onto it.
Yikes.
Like the standard pretty boy, he starts hanging up an indie band poster, along with some anime ones you don’t recognize and―a Twilight poster.
Your eyes nearly pop out of your head when you see it. Men, even the pretty boys who are trying to make themselves as appealing to girls as possible, rarely ever admit to watching, much less enjoying, Twilight.
Okay, so maybe your Pretty Boy tingle got one thing wrong, but it doesn’t change the fact that he checks most of the Pretty Boy boxes―
“Are you Team Edward or Jacob?” Donghyuck asks, an amused smile tugging at his lips.
You have no one else to blame but yourself for snooping, but you still grow hot from your face to the tips of your ears and all the way down your neck.
“I’m Team Charlie,” you reply breezily, sounding pretty calm for someone who’s screaming on the inside.
His eyebrows slightly raise, and he just laughs quietly to himself.
You relish in that tiny victory.
.
.
.
As it turns out, Donghyuck is an extremely fast learner.
And despite being a nepo baby, he puts his money where his mouth is. He picks things up extremely quickly and utilizes everything he has learned efficiently. In fact, he’s doing so well that he’s starting to threaten your position as the office’s favorite intern.
And of course, on today of all days, you fuck up.
Another intern messed up the report, and you somehow overlooked it while you were checking. However, the responsibility falls on your shoulders because it was your job to make sure the report was correct. You get viciously chewed out by your team leader, and you’re guaranteed to have to work overtime to fix everything.
Ultimately, it is your mistake, and you’re not disputing that; you just know that you’re being made an example of so the office can look good in front of the CEO’s grandson.
So, while everyone is gathering their stuff to leave, you’re the only one still at your cubicle, fingers clicking away on the keyboard. Your eyelids are already starting to droop, despite the fact that you have at least a couple hours left of work. Giving yourself a couple of smacks on the cheeks, you try to shake away the brain fog and keep going.
You’re so immersed that you almost don’t notice Donghyuck set down a cup of coffee on your desk.
“I bought two for myself, but I think you need it more than me,” he admits, actually seeming a little sympathetic.
“Thanks,” you say, a little wary but still appreciative. You’re too tired to even question his motives.
He gives you a wave before leaving. Once he’s gone, you turn back to your computer and start to work again. You nearly forget about the coffee until you pause to take a big stretch, noticing it in your peripheral. Picking it up, you notice there’s a message scrawled on it.
happy valentine’s day! maybe i’ll grow on you :)
You smile, but only a little bit. Only because he’s a little cute.
When you finally take a sip, you nearly spit it all over your computer screen.
It’s so bitter that it sends a shudder throughout your whole body. You start to cough, feeling like even a single drop of that coffee getting in your system is going to make your short circuit. You’re not even sure if this poison could be considered black coffee. It might be actual black tar. Frantically digging through your drawers to find some candy or gum to offset the bitterness, you begin to curse Donghyuck in your head.
When you finally find a half-melted caramel cube and pop it into your mouth, it occurs to you that Donghyuck didn’t even have a cup of coffee in his hands even though he said he bought two.
“That asshole,” you whisper.
Cracking your knuckles and rolling your neck, you start to type again with a renewed vigor, thinking of all the ways you were going to make Donghyuck pay to power you through the rest of the night.
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ST. PATRICK’S DAY 2022  sun’s up too soon like daylight savings, mixed emotions are congregating
You’re not sure how He Who Shall Not Be Named manages to clean himself up and wrangle you into his car in such a short timespan, but he does it. Most of it is a blur to you, though you do recall him throwing you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and carrying you through the parking garage after you started trying to fistfight him.
Now, you’re leaning your head against the cool window, watching all the buildings whizz by, as he drives in silence. Well, not complete silence. Music is being softly played on the radio. It’s that stupid indie band he likes, and you hate that you know exactly what song it is. You remember it from last time.
I’ve only been in his car twice, including now, you think groggily to yourself.
He must really like this song.
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APRIL FOOLS 2019 three stories up here contemplating, but what the fuck is patience?
“Is this some sort of sick April Fools’ joke?” you demand.
“Come on, Y/N. Surely, you don’t think a prank of mine would be this lame,” Donghyuck retorts, offended.
The two of you are fighting again. At this point, it’s a daily occurrence in the office. In fact, Karina likes to say that the official work day doesn’t really start until you and Donghyuck start going at each other’s throats. You feel bad that everyone has to constantly deal with your bickering, but Donghyuck asks for it every time.
“You can’t just take someone else’s client,” you say through gritted teeth, wanting to smack that insufferable look right off his face.
“I didn’t take anything,” he corrects haughtily, “I was assigned your client, who is now my client. Take it up with the team leader.”
“The team leader would suck a fart out of your ass if you asked him to,” you hiss back.
He shrugs like you have a point.
“Fine,” you snap, grabbing your bag. “I’ll go talk to my client myself. I’ll get them to request to be transferred back to me.”
Before marching out, you grab the coffee on your desk and down it all in one go. It’s been sitting there for a couple hours, so it’s ice cold. The cold temperature in combination with the extreme bitterness is just the right mixture to light a fire in you.
Unfortunately, that fire is dimmed when you step foot outside and realize it’s thunderstorming heavily. The wind howls so piercingly that it almost hurts your ears, and the onslaught of rain is so strong that you can barely see the cars on the streets. You weigh your options: you have no car, there’s no way you can wait for a bus, and there sure as hell aren’t going to be any available taxis.
Just as you begrudgingly decide to do the walk of shame back into the office and wait out the storm, you hear a loud honk and see an obnoxiously red Ferrari pull up. The tinted window rolls down, and you find yourself staring at nepo baby Lee Donghyuck.
“Need a ride?” he shouts over the pouring rain.
“Not with you!” you holler back, turning to go back inside.
“Are you really going to wait it out?” he teases. “Their office closes in twenty minutes.”
You want to keep walking and ignore him, but your traitorous feet plant themselves on the concrete and refuse to let you take another step.
“Thanks for the new client, I guess!” he continues in a sing-song voice. A car behind him beeps, and you hear his window roll back up as he slowly starts to drive away.
“Damn it,” you mutter. Not giving yourself to think, you whirl around and dash out into the rain. Luckily, he decided to leave at a snail’s pace, so you have time to fling his car door open and slip inside.
Even though you were only in the rain for a few seconds, you’re soaked to the bone. Your pants make a squish noise when you settle yourself into his expensive leather seat. You want to make a joke about ruining his seats, but your teeth are chattering too hard for you to even speak.
Donghyuck reaches over and turns your seat warmer on before also blasting the heater. Your thin blouse has become see-through, and you awkwardly cross your arms over your chest, hoping he hasn’t noticed. Unfortunately, he has noticed, judging by the way he loudly clears his throat and reaches into the backseat to give you his hoodie.
“Thank you,” you say quietly, pulling it over your head before slipping your arms through. The sleeves are too long, so you roll them up to your wrists. His hoodie smells like fabric softener.
“No problem.” His voice cracks.
Neither of you say anything after that, only the sound of the rain pitter-pattering against his car filling in the silence. Eventually, he turns on the radio.
It’s a song you don’t recognize, but you deduce it’s from one of his indie bands when he starts humming along. You’re not even sure he’s aware that he’s doing it, though you don’t really mind. He’s not a bad singer, and you actually enjoy the song.
The two of you spend the remainder of the drive just listening to music, neither of you really feeling the need to speak. It’s a calm, comfortable silence―something that you never thought would be achievable between you and him. Rather, you wish you had more moments like this.
By the time you arrive at your client’s office, the rain has stopped. You assume he’s going to leave after dropping you off because it’s not raining anymore, and especially since the meeting ends up lasting way past the office’s closing, but you see his Ferrari still there when you come back out.
Walking over to him, you knock on the window.
“You didn’t have to wait up,” you say when he rolls it down, slightly touched.
“You have my hoodie,” Donghyuck states plainly.
Well, there goes the moment. You can always count on him to say something to piss you off.
“Right.” Rolling your eyes, you start to take off the hoodie in the street.
“I’m just kidding, Y/N,” he grins, “Come on.”
You let out a small huff, even though you’re smiling too, and you climb in. He turns the radio on again, and the two of you fall back into the ambiance. It occurs to you that Donghyuck’s car smells overwhelmingly like rain and leather and him. When you cross your arms, the scent of the fresh fabric softener from his hoodie wafts back up to you. You feel warm―the kind of warmth that blooms in the pit of your stomach and then melts throughout your body, like when you take a sip of hot chocolate on a cold day.
“How was it?” he finally asks after the song ends.
“Who do you think I am?” you scoff. “Of course I got them back.”
He smiles, and it makes you feel proud.
“You can tell the team leader to suck the fart out of my ass,” you retort.
This gets a laugh from him before he hesitantly adds, “I really didn’t want to take your client.”
You’ve never heard him sound so serious and so…vulnerable before. He says it with a slight desperation, like he doesn’t think you’ll believe him.
“I know.”
And much to your own surprise, you do know.
Now that’s a sick April Fools’ joke.
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ST. PATRICK’S DAY 2022 sun’s up too soon like daylight savings, mixed emotions are congregating 
“You don’t deserve Karina,” you mumble, coming in and out of sleep.
He Who Shall Not Be Named laughs again at that, though he sounds a lot more exhausted. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“Don’t think I didn’t see it,” you slur. “You were making those stupid moon eyes at her all night long. Looking like some lovesick puppy. Gross.”
He laughs for a second time, but there’s not a hint of humor in it.
What if it had been me, you want to ask him.
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NEW YEARS EVE 2019 tiptoeing past so many stages, but what the fuck is patience? 
You’re not sure what possessed Mr. Lee, probably the fact that his grandson works for the company, but he randomly announced one day that the entire office was getting an all expenses paid trip to a fancy ski resort as a New Years present. Needless to say, everyone was absolutely ecstatic.
But you should’ve known something was going to go wrong when Karina suggested that the two of you leave the bunny slope and move straight into the advanced slope, despite the fact that neither of you have ever skied in your lives until now.
You’d like to think that Karina’s sudden bravery was due to the adrenaline of being on such a luxurious trip. You’re going to blame your lack of judgment on the adrenaline rush as well because you actually agreed to it.
Of course, things derailed almost immediately and literally because the two of you ended up veering off the course due to your lack of steering abilities and somehow found yourselves in a random, remote wooded area off the edge of the slope. Karina also twisted her ankle after landing incorrectly, so there’s that too.
Oh, and there’s a snowstorm.
Well, it’s not really a snowstorm. It’s more of a flurry, but it’s terrifying nonetheless because of your current situation. Karina can barely move, and neither of you have any clue where you are nor do you have any sort of communication device since you left it all at the resort. It’s not like you can leave Karina by herself to get help either. You can really only hope that someone finds you before the frostbite starts settling.
“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” Karina sniffles, her nose redder than Rudolph’s.
You hug her tightly, both to comfort her and to keep the two of you as warm as possible. “Stop crying, you’re going to dehydrate yourself. You can apologize when we get out of here.”
She chokes back a sob.
You want to cry too, but you bite down on your lower lip and just cling onto Karina harder.
“Damn, and I was finally going to follow through with my New Year's resolution of fixing my sleep schedule,” you joke, voice trembling.
Karina laughs weakly at that too. “You say that every year.”
“I know,” you admit sheepishly, “but I really am going to this time. I need to make sure I’m in tip-top condition because there’s no way in hell I’m letting Lee Donghyuck get that promotion over me.”
That’s right, you tell yourself. I can’t die here. Not before that dumbass.
You’re not sure why you’re suddenly thinking about him again, but it makes you feel a lot less scared when you picture his dumb smirk and that sly glint in his eyes when he’s gearing up to say something to piss you off. He always knows which buttons to press on the exact wrong day to press them.
You kind of wish he was here now. He would probably be cracking stupid jokes and distracting you―
“Y/N!”
Blinking the snowflakes out of your eyes, you squint past the sheet of snow and tall trees, trying to make sure you aren’t hallucinating. You see a blurry figure running towards you and Karina, the beam of their flashlight peeking through the darkness. When did the sun start setting?
Speak of the pretty boy, and he shall come, you suppose, because Lee Donghyuck is suddenly kneeling in front of you.
The smug look he always dons is wiped clean from his face, instead, his eyes are wide like two saucers and his hands are trembling. You can feel how tightly he’s clutching your arms even through the thick material of your parka. His hair is damp against his forehead; whether it’s from snow or sweat or both, you’re not sure. His face is flushed, and his nose is red like Karina’s, but you want to reach out and boop it for some reason. You can see his labored breath come out in white puffs due to the temperature.
“I found them!” Donghyuck calls out, turning behind him. A couple of your other colleagues emerge from the trees, all holding flashlights. Then, he reverts his attention back to you. His face is all furrowed up, like he isn’t sure whether to be mad at you for being reckless or collapse with relief.
“Are you hurt?” he eventually asks, voice strained as he helps you to your feet. He brushes the snow out of your hair and lifts your ski goggles from your eyes, scanning your face.
“Karina twisted her ankle,” you reply numbly, unable to feel your lips.
He glances over at Karina, who’s being helped by your other co-workers, before looking at you again. “Are you hurt?”
You shake your head.
Donghyuck exhales loudly, and you watch his shoulders relax. Then he says, “What the hell were you thinking?”
You flinch at his sharp tone. He’s never raised his voice at you before. You’ve always been the one yelling at him.  
“You can’t even drive a car, so what on Earth possessed you to try and ski on the advanced slope?” he continues to reprimand you. “What’s the point in being this smart if you’re not going to use common sense―”
You burst into tears.
You cry for many reasons: the sheer terror you’d been trying to keep at bay finally catches up to you, you’re grateful to be alive, you’re upset that Donghyuck is scolding you, you’re happy that Donghyuck is scolding you, and most of all, you know he’s right. He’s right, and you’re glad he’s right. You’re glad that he’s standing in front of you.
“You’re such a dick,” you wail, “I can’t believe you’re yelling at me when I almost died. Why can’t you just comfort me like a normal human with empathy?”
Donghyuck grows quiet, and you see his expression soften. Sighing, he reaches over and swipes the tears from your face. When you sniffle, he takes his expensive cashmere scarf and wipes your nose with it. He doesn’t even blink at the snot on it as he cups your frozen cheeks with his gloved hands. Grinning evilly, he squishes your face together, a mush of tears, snot, and puffiness.
“I’ve never wanted you more,” he teases.
“I’m going to kill you,” you grumble, shoving his hands away. Though you do find solace in the fact that he’s making fun of you again.
Your colleagues call the two of you over for help, and you make your way to Karina, who’s still unable to get up.
“Hyuck, do you mind carrying her back to the resort?” One of them asks, their hands too full with Karina’s skis and their own emergency supplies that they brought.
Donghyuck hesitates for a moment, his eyes inadvertently flashing towards you, before he kneels down and turns his back to Karina as he prepares to give her a piggy-back ride.
“I’m heavy,” Karina warns as she carefully climbs on.
“Don’t worry, I do five pushups a week,” he replies breezily, and despite his joking, he stands to his feet without a problem.
She laughs at that, sounding like an angel descending from the heavens.
He adjusts her thighs in his arms slightly, pausing to ask, “That didn’t hurt your ankle, did it?”
She shakes her head, and he says something else that makes her laugh again.
It’s not that you’re jealous that he’s carrying Karina. After all, she’s injured, so it would be a bit obnoxious to be upset over something that isn’t anyone’s fault. And it’s not like you’re any more special to him than Karina.
No, this feeling isn’t jealousy. It’s…uncertainty.
You’re uncertain that he would do the same for you if you were in Karina’s position. Has he ever reassured you with such ease like he did with her? Has he ever treated you like you were made of glass? Has he ever spoken to you so tenderly like that?
You suddenly feel so cold.
Three.
When you get back to the resort, there’s an ambulance waiting to take you and Karina to the hospital for a checkup. You try to tell everyone that you don’t need to go to the hospital, but your colleagues, Karina, and the paramedics insist on you doing so.
“Your glove is torn.”
Before you can even register his words, Donghyuck is holding your hand and flipping your palm over. The fabric of your right glove is ripped, exposing the tip of your pointer finger. You must’ve scraped it against something in the middle of all the chaos because there’s some dried blood caked around your nail.
“You should go,” he says softly, giving your hand an encouraging squeeze before letting go.
Once Karina is properly settled on the gurney, you’re ushered into the ambulance after her. As the doors close behind you, you catch Donghyuck’s eyes one last time. You don’t get to see what his expression is because you look away almost immediately, focusing your gaze on your finger.
Now that the adrenaline has worn off, it does sting a little.
Two.
.
.
.
Once the hospital finally discharges you and Karina in the middle of the night, the two of you call an Uber back to the resort and clumsily stumble up to your room like two people that just came home after a long night of partying, completely exhausted.
You’re so busy fumbling with your room key and nearly miss the gift that someone has set in front of your door. Picking it up, you realize it’s one of those hot chocolate sets that come with a cute little mug and are wrapped in holographic plastic. There’s also a separate bag of marshmallows beside it.
You don’t really examine it that much, simply handing it off to Karina.
“Looks like you’ve got a secret admirer.”
One.
Karina doesn’t notice the note tucked into the holographic plastic until she’s hobbling to the trashcan to throw it away.
happy new year! maybe i’ll grow on you :)
She turns to you to ask you about it, but you’re already tucked in bed fast asleep. Shrugging, she crumples the note up and tosses it away without another thought.
“Happy New Year,” she whispers to you before crawling in bed herself.
It’s a shame you didn’t get to see the fireworks.
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ST. PATRICK’S DAY 2022 sun’s up too soon like daylight savings, mixed emotions are congregating 
“I’m hungry,” you whine, jolting awake and hitting your head against the hard leather headrest on your seat.
“Probably because you emptied out the contents of your stomach onto my Air Jordans,” He Who Shall Not Be Named says wryly.  
You ignore him, getting distracted by the hot dog vendor that you drive by.
“I like hot dogs,” you say absentmindedly.
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HALLOWEEN 2021 picturing us in all these places, ahead of myself’s an understatement
You just wanted to get away from the crowd, really.
The party was getting a little stuffy, and it’s pretty easy to get overheated when you’re in a thick Teletubby onesie. You and Karina had the bright idea of dressing as the purple and red Teletubby, but neither of you considered just how hot it would get.
So, that’s why you’re wandering around the dim hallways of the office, munching on a handful of candy―only to end up hearing a conversation you shouldn’t have.
“You are my biggest failure.” That’s Mr. Lee’s voice, hushed but angry.
“More than my mom? I’m honored.” It’s Donghyuck this time. He laughs, a bitter and choked sound.
You nearly yelp when the sound of a loud slap echoes down the hallway. No one else talks after that, and you only hear the sound of footsteps walking away.
Actually, walking away sounds like an absolutely amazing idea, so you turn on your heel to make a quick escape―
And of course, on today of all days, you fuck up.
All of the candy that you had been clutching to your chest slips from your sweaty palms, clattering to the floor. Every single clatter makes you shrink further and further into yourself, and you have no choice but to step out from the corner you were hiding in.
In probably one of the most poorly-timed situations of all time, you have to face Donghyuck while dressed as the purple Teletubby, and he has to face you while dressed as a hot dog―right after you just involuntarily witnessed a glimpse of his strained familial relationships.
“Hi,” you greet awkwardly, gesturing to all the candy that just fell on the floor. “You, uh, want some candy?”
When he looks at you, all the words die in your throat. There’s a red mark on his cheek, and he looks like a little boy again. He stares at you like a deer in headlights, a mixture of horror, embarrassment, and frustration all over his face. He seems so lost and alone, and you don’t know what to do to help him.
“No thanks, Tinky Winky,” he finally replies. He gives you a half-smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
“What?” You blink.
“You’re dressed as the purple Teletubby, and you don’t even know his name?” He raises an eyebrow as he sits down on the floor, leaning against the wall.
“I think it’s weirder that you do know his name,” you try to tease.
He doesn’t react to that, and you just stand there. Not wanting to leave him alone, you squat down and start to pick up the candy on the floor to keep yourself busy.
“You should go back to the party,” Donghyuck says quietly.
“It’s too hot,” you complain.
“Y/N.”
“Wanna watch Twilight?” you suddenly ask.
He stares at you for what seems like forever, his expression unreadable as he searches your face. After a bit longer, he just says, “Okay.”
You gather up the rest of the candy before taking a seat on the floor right next to him, brushing your shoulder against his. Pulling out your phone, you open the Netflix app and start to play Twilight.
You pretend you don’t feel him trembling, and you tell yourself he’s crying because he knows Bella will eventually choose Edward over Jacob. The two of you watch in complete silence; he doesn’t explain, and you don’t ask.
Instead, you push your hood off so you don’t poke him in the face with your triangle antenna and lean your head against his shoulder. Then, you lace your fingers through his and hold his hand without a word.
A hot dog and Tinky Winky the purple Teletubby watching Twilight, who would’ve thought?
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ST. PATRICK’S DAY 2022 sun’s up too soon like daylight savings, mixed emotions are congregating
“I hate you, Lee Donghyuck.”
He doesn’t say anything to that.
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CHRISTMAS 2021 outlines on bedsides, give me a second to forget i ever really meant it
It happened on the last day of work before Christmas break.
You gawk at the opened box in your hands, a pair of fluffy white angora gloves wrapped in fancy wrapping paper staring back up at you. Even though there’s no receipt included, you already know that these gloves cost more than three month’s worth of rent for your apartment.
“Did you steal these? Is that why you’re giving them to me? So you can frame me for your crime?” you ask suspiciously.
“Please,” he rolls his eyes, “as if I’d let you take the credit for any one of my crimes.”
You carefully take the gloves out before tossing the box at him. Catching it deftly and handing it back to you, he pretends to wipe away a tear dramatically.
“I went through the trouble of remembering how your gloves were ripped during the ski trip, so I meticulously picked these out for you,” he whines. “And I can’t believe you’re now questioning my goodwill.”
That makes you pause.
Is he talking about those cheap gloves that you used only once for that disastrous ski trip and then threw out immediately afterwards? The gloves that you haven’t thought about once since then? The gloves that you had to rack your brain to recall when he started talking about them just moments before? You can’t believe he remembered something so random.
Why did he remember?
It’s a question that haunts you on the entire plane ride back to your hometown and follows you throughout all of your family dinners and even when you’re lying awake on your cramped childhood bed.
It’s a question that both baffles and angers you at the same time. You wish he didn’t remember, and you wish he never gave you those gloves in the first place. The company is always generous to their employees around the holidays, and you know that this isn’t anything special, but it makes you feel special. It makes you want to be special. To him.
He is just a pretty boy. A pretty boy that likes indie bands and wears rings on his fingers and metal-rimmed glasses on the tip of his nose. A pretty boy that likes League of Legends and Studio Ghibli and Twilight and that one Hallmark movie you once caught him watching in the break room. A pretty boy that drinks black coffee. A pretty boy that drives a red Ferrari. A pretty boy that gave you a ride in that red Ferrari when it was raining. A pretty boy that looked for you for an hour during a snowstorm. A pretty boy that dressed as a hot dog for Halloween. A pretty boy that gave you expensive gloves because he remembered.
When did he go from Pretty Boy to Donghyuck?
But he can’t be Donghyuck. He can’t just be Donghyuck to you. Because that would be too real, too unrestrained. Because Donghyuck makes Karina laugh, so he can’t make you laugh. There needs to be decorum, after all. If he’s just Donghyuck, then what happens after?
That’s right. He can’t be Donghyuck. From now on, you won’t say his name. You’ll only know him as He Who Shall Not Be Named.
.
.
.
It happens when your mom tells you to take the casserole out of the fridge.
You see it, that traitorous pack of hot dog sausages.
You think back to Halloween, and then―
Oh my God, I like him.
“What the fuck,” you groan loudly.
That gets you a couple of gasps from your elderly relatives and an asswhooping from your mom.
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ONE DAY AFTER ST. PATRICK’S DAY 2022 ― PRESENT fast times and fast nights, no time for rewrites
For the record, Donghyuck was not looking at Karina.
And if you’d stop avoiding him like the plague, he would be able to explain that to you.
He honestly applauds your ability to ignore the elephant in the room, considering that his cubicle is right next to yours. You’ve continuously managed to give yourself more work or conveniently slip away to the bathroom during any moment of down time. His patience is honestly starting to grow thin, but you wouldn’t be you if you didn’t wear it down to the wire.
Donghyuck finally manages to hunt you down in the same hallway where you threw up on his shoes. It’s hilariously ironic, and he would normally make a joke about it, but he’s in a bit of a time crunch. You look like a spooked cat, preparing to dart away the moment there’s an opening.
“Surely, someone as smart as you is aware that you can’t just avoid me forever.” He tilts his head.
“Well, if you move, we can find out if I can or not,” you reply, refusing to look at him and trying to walk past him.
“How’s your hangover?” he asks cheerfully, stepping to the side and blocking your way.
“Awful.”
“Do you remember what happened last night?”
“No,” you say instantly. You’re such a terrible liar.
“You said you hated me,” he starts softly. He isn’t sure why he’s saying this. This isn’t what he wanted to talk about first. The order is getting jumbled in his head. “Do you?”
You suck in a wobbly breath. “No.”
It doesn’t hit him until after your answer how deathly afraid he was of you hating him. He has grown so desensitized to the word “hate,” yet it’s only when it comes to the person he cares about the most that the gravity of that word becomes so apparent.
“I like you, Y/N.”
This isn’t exactly the grand declaration of love that he was imagining; he was thinking more along the lines of The Notebook or any romcom from the early to mid-2000s, but it felt like the right time to just say it now.
Your reaction isn’t exactly what he had in mind either.
You’re gawking at him like he just grew another head. He isn’t sure why you’re so surprised; he hasn’t exactly been subtle about his crush on you.
“No, you don’t,” you say in an accusatory tone. Leave it up to you to even argue with him on his own feelings.
Now it’s his turn to gawk. “What?”
“You don’t like me,” you state firmly, but it sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself. “How could you like me?”
Donghyuck raises an eyebrow, and he starts listing off reasons with his fingers. “I start a fight with you every morning because I want to have an excuse to talk to you, I bring you coffee everyday, I drove you to my client’s office in the middle of a storm so you could take back said client, I nearly shat my pants when they said you were missing at the ski resort and also bought you hot chocolate and a huge bag of marshmallows for New Years, and you were the only one I gave a Christmas present to last year.”
“You bought the hot chocolate and marshmallows?” You blink in surprise.
“Is that all you got from what I just said?”
“But Karina―”
Oh, right. He wanted to say this first.
“I wasn’t looking at Karina,” Donghyuck finally confesses, “I was looking at you. It’s always been you.”
That’s right, it’s only ever been you.
The stupid green “Kiss me, I’m Irish” shirt. Your smeared lip gloss that he wanted to kiss right off. The sparkly stickers all over your cheeks that made you look absolutely adorable. The way you buried your face into his shirt. How you fit right into his arms. Even when you threw up all over his favorite pair of shoes, there was no place Donghyuck would rather be.
Do you think I’m pretty? you had asked him.
Yes, you’re pretty. You’re so pretty that he feels like his heart will stop every time he lays his eyes on you. You’re so pretty that he can’t even think about the seasons without thinking about you and how you’re so much more beautiful than autumn, winter, spring and summer and anything in between. There’s never been a moment when you weren’t stunningly, breathtakingly, and heart-stoppingly pretty in his eyes.
“But―But that doesn’t make any sense,” you sputter, “You can’t like me!”
“Why not?”
“Because you just can’t.”
“Do you like me?”
“Yes―no! Regardless, you can’t just suddenly decide you like me―” you begin to explain.
“I’ve always liked you,” he points out.
“We’ve spent four years hating each other, and now all of sudden, we like each other? It’s too abrupt―”
“Y/N.” Donghyuck reaches over and grasps your wrist, his warm fingers against your even warmer skin as his thumb traces circles against the back of your hand. “Will you go out with me?”
When he looks at you, you have the same expression on your face as when he first met you and caught you staring at his Twilight poster. Your eyes dart around nervously, your pulse pounding against his fingertips, and he knows he has his answer.
“Okay,” you breathe.
He sighs, coiling an arm around your waist and pulling your body flush against his. Leaning his forehead against yours, he whispers, “Now was that so fucking hard?”
He kisses you, and you taste like everything he’s ever dreamed of and more.
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tieronecrush · 8 months
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꒰ა ONLY ANGEL ໒꒱
javier peña x f!reader
chapter two: lips of an angel
series masterlist
rating: E (18+ only, MDNI)
summary: After his return to the US, Javier is trying to settle back into a normal life without the pressures of Colombia and the DEA, but he finds himself feeling isolated with no one to spend his nights with. Now a newly appointed criminology professor at Texas A&M, he is drawn to you, a post-grad student in one of his classes. You’re intelligent and witty, sweet and kind, and he can’t get you out of his mind. To cope with his growing loneliness and to rid himself of thoughts of you, he signs up for an “arrangement service” to connect him with somebody—a sugar baby—he can care for. After he is matched up with Angel, he finds himself developing feelings quicker than he ever expected, but what happens when he finds out Angel is really you?
series warnings: power imbalance (prof and student), sugar daddy/sugar baby relationship, discussion of money, criminal activity, judicial systems, graduate school, smut, daddy/papí kink, praise kink, degradation, self deprecation, discussion of self worth, multiple sexual or romantic partners, sex work, cursing, use of spanish, likely more warning so read at your own risk!
word count: 5.1k
a/n: thank you @northernbluess for beta-ing this series for me <333 love you bestie, the only one i'd wanna be a sister wife with
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To: TheOnlyAngel
Subject: Nice To Meet You?
Hey,
I got an email that we were matched for Sweet Temptations. I figured I would reach out and introduce myself, maybe get to know you a bit if you are alright with that.
Feel free to call me Javi. I am honestly not sure what else I’m meant to do in an introduction like this. I promise I am normally much smoother than this, or at least more human and less awkward.
It’s nice to meet you, and to be matched up with you, Angel. If that’s what I should call you?
J
From: TheOnlyAngel
Subject: Re: Nice To Meet You?
Hi Javi!
It’s nice to meet you too, and hopefully, we get to meet in person. These first emails are always awkward no matter how many I’ve sent or received, so please be assured that, honestly, that was one of the better ones I’ve gotten. :) 
I normally like to ask what you’re looking for out of this “arrangement” (I hate calling it that, it sounds so impersonal) and maybe you can tell me some fun facts about you if you want to share!
I can go first for the fun facts:
Green is my favorite color
I unironically love the song MMMBop by Hansen (which is unexpected if you saw the rest of my tape and CD collection)
My current favorite movie is Romeo + Juliet that came out a couple of years ago cause Paul Rudd <3
That’s about all that I can think of as I sit in bed and type this so hopefully that is sufficient enough!
TTYL Javi,
Angel
To: TheOnlyAngel
Subject: Re: Re: Nice To Meet You?
Hey Angel
Paul Rudd is pretty likable, I’ll give you that. Is he your type? Cause I hate to break it to you sweetheart but I don’t really look like him. Both have dark hair but that’s about where the similarities stop. And Romeo + Juliet huh? Must be a bit of a romantic.
And MMMBop…it is catchy. I have to stop myself humming it at work these days.
As for what I’m looking for, I guess I just want someone to spend some time with. Whatever comes of it, comes of it, but I don’t want to really have any expectations. Just wanna get to know you, Angel.
Took me a while to think of some fun facts:
I grew up on a cattle ranch right on the border of Mexico in Southern Texas
When I was little (like 9/10 years old) my primos dared me to enter a rodeo for Mutton Busting (chasing a sheep around to try to catch it)
A CD of Selena stays in my car at all times, and yes, I know all the words
Hope those were fun enough for you, Angel.
And I hope you have a good day today.
J
The emails continued for about a week and a half, Javier slowly became more comfortable with the virtual communications. Angel was bubbly, and sweet, always asking him questions and always interested in hearing about his day or what his favorite book was. It was either his loneliness or a newfound desperation that had his heart skipping when the sound of new mail pinged from his desktop.
It felt a bit strange to have such normal exchanges with Angel and be reminded of the circumstances with his bank statement for the charges that the service takes monthly. With how personable Angel has been even via email, he finds himself forgetting what exactly brought them together. Maybe all the mystery and excitement will wear off when the two of you meet, but something deep in his gut is telling him that isn’t going to happen.
He drags himself away from his desk, no response from Angel yet today. All he can think about is how he hopes there’s a new message when he comes back, gathering his things to head to the lecture hall for the third week of Sociology of Deviance.
In the beginning, he thought this class was going to be a chore to do. Stuck onto his schedule last minute, had new material to cover, and had an annoying Dean of Faculty checking in on him much more often because of it. However, a handful of sessions in, he’s got a bit of a skip in his step to rush over there, the familiar jump in his stomach when he thinks about you.
The pretty fall floral dresses you’ve started wearing with the change in weather, large cardigans pulled over the top. You’ve worn a few flannels over your shoulders, clearly oversized and he feels a prick of jealousy whenever he sees you in them.
Do you have a boyfriend? Are those shirts his?
What would you look like in one of his button-downs?
Christ, the thoughts won’t stop no matter how hard he tries. Another reason why he is attempting to completely throw himself into this new “arrangement”, hoping it would be a means to an end to his crush on his student.
That’s what it is. He has a fucking crush.
He hasn’t had a crush in years.
Laying everything out for the class session, he starts writing the discussion points on the board. At the sound of the door violently swinging open and a rumble of loud footsteps rushing, he looks over his shoulder to see you, belongings in your arms and clearly flustered. His jaw drops open to ask if you’re alright, making a burning flash of eye contact with you before you drop your head, embarrassed, and find your seat.
Turning back to the chalkboard, he shakes his head minutely, rolling his shoulders before continuing his writing, white powder from the chalk coating his fingers. Instead of his normal thoughts of you, he keeps fighting the urge to ask if you’re okay. In the short time he’s known you if you could even say that about your dynamic, he knows it’s very unusual for you to come in that incomposed. He wipes the residue off on his pants, facing the class. 
While he teaches, his eyes continue to wander to you, oddly quiet when you would normally be engaged in the discussion. That kid Alex, obnoxious from the jump, is taking up far too much air time in this class, and Javier can’t help the annoyance on his face as he leans back against the desk, arms crossed over his chest as he waits for this kid to finish his long-winded, and incorrect answer.
You scoff audibly at a point that Alex made, piquing Javier’s attention. The two of you make eye contact again, and Javier suddenly unravels one arm from his chest, holding it up toward Alex.
“Excuse me, Alex, I respect your points but I think there might be some counters to your arguments. I want to be able to hear them before we move on,” Javier calls out your name, and his head snaps to you, nodding encouragingly, “What were your thoughts?”
“Oh, um, I was going to say that I don’t think that socioeconomic or social standing is the only explanation for the makeup of the prison system. And I think it’s pretty naive to think that it’s only rich people that get off with less severe punishments.” Javier watches your shoulders tense a bit at the obvious eye roll from Alex, the pen in between your fingers bouncing with nerves.
“Do you mind expanding on that? I’m interested in what you think is another reason,” Javier holds eye contact with you, the slightest smile on his face to reassure you to stand your ground in the argument.
“I mean, to me, It’s pretty obvious that the biggest reason is racial discrimination in the legal process. White people dominate the political landscape and the prejudices, even unconscious bias, contribute to the makeup of the incarcerated population. Judges will give favorable or less severe punishments to white defendants, and of course, class biases are a thing, especially because of the cost of criminal defense, but I think the overt, umbrella reason is racial discrimination in the legal process. It’s built into the systems of government, which is pretty depressing…”
You trail off and laugh awkwardly at the silence in the room, some classmates nodding in agreement while some are unphased, uninterested. 
“That’s good. That’s exactly what I was hoping would be brought up by someone,” Javier nods to you, pointing in your direction before he rounds the desk to start writing on the board for students to take down in their notes.
In your seat, you start to copy down into your notebook, glancing up to see him look over his shoulder at you. One corner of his mouth lifts, a smile in his eyes as you try to bite back your own grin that threatens to expose how much you enjoyed his short praises.
From: TheOnlyAngel
Subject: Wanna Meet Up?
Hiiii Javi
I’ve had such a shitty day today, but honestly, I was still excited to be able to come home and talk to you. :)
Do you think you’d be interested in meeting in person this weekend? I’m free Saturday night if you are. LMK!
Hope your day was better than mine!
xoxo,
Angel
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Plans were made to meet Saturday night around eight o’clock. Javier had chosen a bar he’d become familiar with on those nights when he couldn’t sleep, when the memories of Colombia were too much when he couldn’t stop thinking about those damn boats that were in his backyard.
The place is small, intimate, and quiet enough to hold a conversation — which he knew from the one or two times he’d picked up someone and brought them back to his apartment. There was always some sort of live music, usually some jazz or folksy blues, that could fill any first-date awkward silences.
In his last email to her, Javier told Angel that he’d be in the back of the bar, at a table for two, wearing jeans and a red short-sleeve button-up shirt. He makes sure to arrive first, getting there a bit overly early at 7:30 to snag a table and order himself a drink to calm his nerves. Pounding the glass back on the bar top, he orders another whiskey neat to nurse until she arrives.
This is a different feeling than he’s had before a date. Nerves aren’t normally his thing when it comes to women, but something about this night feels higher stakes than before.
Get it together, Javi. It’s a date, if it goes horribly, you don’t have to do it again. Plus, she doesn’t even need to be interested in you, this is her job.
When you arrive at the tiny, hole-in-the-wall bar, you nod thanks to the man holding the door for you, rolling your eyes when you get a comment from him that you didn’t ask for.
“Nice tits, sweetheart.” He slurs and sends you a wink that is definitely more of a blink. You slip past him without issue, scanning the small area for the man with dark hair and a red shirt on. At this point, with how many times you’ve done this, you’re normally not nervous to meet these men in person. It’s something you’re obligated to do, like showing up for any other job, and that’s how you treat it.
But this time around, something’s different. Talking with Javier has actually been….nice? He’s responsive and wants to get to know you, never taking more than a day to get back to you. He’s asked you more questions about yourself than anyone else has before and he always, always wants to hear about your day. If you weren’t careful, you could see yourself getting attached.
Well, getting attached if he’s anything like you’ve imagined him. Or who you’ve imagined him to be.
The only red shirt you can spot is on a man sitting at a table toward the back, facing away from the door and toward the stage in the corner where a jazz trio is playing a low, crooning song. Biting back a smile, you start to make your way over to him, admiring him from behind.
It’s broad shoulders and a strong neck, muscles flexing as he adjusts in his seat. His dark, chocolatey hair is combed nicely, so much so that you can’t help but have the thought of running your fingers through it and messing it up.
Dressed in a black dress with blotted red lips, you weave in between people, ignoring anyone else as you keep your eyes on the man you’re here to meet. Javi stays facing forward, watching the band play even as you stand behind him, cheated to his side a bit. Holding your breath, you lean closer and tap him on his shoulder.
“Um, excuse me, Javi?”
At the sound of his name, Javier turns over his shoulder to his right, a smile on his face already from the honeyed kindness in her voice. She did really sound like an angel for a second there before he realized where the sound was coming from.
“Yeah, I’m Ja—“ The sound stops in his throat when he is facing you. Your supple lips with the dainty Cupid’s bow, rouged cheeks, and gentle smile; normally in a nice dress or cardigan in class, but here you’re wearing much less material, more of your skin on display.
What would it be like to kiss it?
No. That is not ever going to happen.
Those doe eyes hold an innate tenderness that he couldn’t imagine ever being privy to, but here he was, under the stare of those and it was making him sweat. He can only imagine what he looks like to you at the moment, eyes wide and mouth blubbering to speak like a fish gasping for air.
You recognized him at the same time, biting the inside of your cheek to hold back the word vomit threatening to come out. If it did, you know you would end up spilling how honestly excited you are that the man you’ve been emailing with has turned out to be Professor Peña. You’ve harbored a bit of a crush on him for the last few weeks, ever since that smile he gave you when you introduced yourself after the first session. It had been burning moments of eye contact, and those gentle encouragements from him.
Hell, after class this week when he praised your counterarguments, you thought about his voice saying “That’s good” over and over while you laid in your bed that night, coming with the image of him over you in record time.
The first word out of his mouth is your name, tone flicked up at the end in a question. He grumbles to himself as he moves to stand up, forgetting his drink on the table.
“Fuck, this is bad…” He whispers under his breath, shaking his head at himself as he runs his hands on the sides of his jeans. “I’m so sorry.”
He steps back to further the distance between you two, awkwardly avoiding your eyes as he attempts to recover his professionalism.
“It’s alr—“
“I had no idea it was you. This is completely inappropriate, I apologize. I should leave, uh, and I completely understand if you need to change out of my class. I know it’s past the cut-off date, but I would help if you needed—”
“Javi — can I call you that?” He considers it for a moment before nodding, rigidity evident in his body, “Javi, it’s alright. You don’t need to apologize, neither of us knew before this moment…But I do have to say, I wouldn’t tell.”
“Uh, I’m sorry — what?”
“I wouldn’t say anything. If you wanted to sit down and have a drink, or a few, and get to know each other like we planned to, I wouldn’t say a word. Even if you weren’t interested after this, I promise, the secret’s safe with me.”
Javier can’t deny how much he was looking forward to meeting the woman he was emailing with. And he can’t deny that he’s had his eyes on you since that first meeting. Hell, he can barely control his thoughts around you.
Of course, it had to be you. The two people he can’t get out of his head have turned out to be only one person, and of course, it’s you.
“If it informs your decision, I would love to get to know you more, Javi.”
He stutters through his thoughts out loud before resigning with a sigh, taking a breath as he forms his response, “Only if you’re comfortable with it.”
“Definitely. Wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise. Now, may I join you?” You gesture to the empty chair and Javi nods quickly.
“Yeah, of course. Here, let me get that.” He visibly relaxes a bit, falling into a routine he knows well. Rounding the small table, he pulls your chair out for you before settling in the seat opposite. Shortly after, a server comes around and takes your drink orders, Javier looking to you to go first. After the order is placed, the server leaves the two of you in silence at the table.
Another beat passes before Javier speaks, saying what you both are thinking, “Sorry, I just, cannot believe it happened to be you.”
“Why’s that?” You ask with a lilt of humor in your voice, sitting up in the chair to move toward him, “Don’t think I would be into all this?”
“Yeah, I guess so, but—Actually I should not say what I was about to say,” he chuckles and shakes his head.
“Oh, c’mon, what were you gonna say?”
“Nope, definitely not going to tell you, sweetheart,” he smirks at you and then adjusts in his seat awkwardly, “Oh, ‘m sorry, I shouldn’t have sa—“
“Javi. It’s fine, just relax. You’re not making me uncomfortable at all if that’s what you’re worried about,” you give him a sincere smile, reaching across to hold his arm that’s lying on the table, “It’s actually kind of nice to have those nicknames coming from you and not some other creepy men who contact me.”
“Why’s that?” He echoes your question from moments before, eyebrows raising in curiosity and the same smirk growing on his face, glancing down at your hand on him.
“I shouldn’t say what I was about to say,” you attempt to imitate his voice, laughing at the end when he gives you a look that says ‘Really?’.
“I don’t sound like that, cariño. But that’s a good try. Now what is it that makes me nicer than the other men you’ve seen?”
‘That’s a good try.’ This man.
“And how do you know that? I could be nailing what you sound like to other people. You hear your voice differently.” You poke his arm pointedly, moving your hand toward your lap again. Before it leaves the table, Javier stretches his arm across, catching your fingers with his. He holds them loosely in his, running his thumb across your knuckles as he keeps eye contact with you.
“I’ve heard my voice enough in press conferences that were televised, angel. I don’t sound like that,” he uses his free hand to take a sip of his whiskey, “And don’t try to change the subject. I wanna know what you are gonna say.”
“I could say the same thing to you. We both have our secrets tonight,” you take a sip of your drink and shrug, “You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.”
“Nice negotiating, cariño, but I think I’d have to have a few more of these if I was going to share mine.” He raises his glass a couple of inches off the table, the amber liquid sloshing around before he sets it down again.
You’d say anything to get him to keep giving you praise like that all the time.
Grabbing your own glass, you lift it to him and smile, “Well, only one of these and I’ll be spilling all my dirty secrets.”
Javier’s jaw notches to the side as you say that, biting his cheek before he takes his hand from yours and runs his thumb across his bottom lip to the corner.
Inside his chest, he feels his heart beating faster and feels his blood rushing south, that same damn smile of yours that you give him from rows away in class doing the same damn thing it does to him there.
Half of him is wondering how he can make you smile like that all the time.
The other half wants to wipe that smile off of your face and have you whimpering.
What would you look like under him?
Jesus Christ, he’s way far gone.
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Javier’s had three more whiskeys on top of his previous three. You’ve had about four drinks yourself.
The evening has devolved into something much more casual, breezy; conversation has flowed between you two, finding things in common and swapping stories that have the other laughing. From the serious professor in class, this more easy-going Javi is refreshing to see and definitely makes your crush a lot worse, somersaulting stomach and warm, syrupy flood across your whole body.
The subject has returned to the evening’s secrets, you asking him again to share what he was going to say.
“Please, Javi, it can’t be any more embarrassing than what mine is. I’ll tell you what I was gonna say if you promise to tell me.” You extend your arm, fingers closed into a fist beside your pinky.
He looks at your hand, debating internally before deciding ‘fuck it’ and links his little finger with yours.
“I promise, cariño,” he smiles and nods for you to share, “What are you dying to tell me so that you can hear what I was gonna say?”
“The affection from you is nice cause, I don’t know, you feel…safe. When I first started, I was getting some weird men that wanted to meet, and—This has just been fun,” you resign with a soft smile, “Plus it helps that you’re hot. Got the whole smoldering cop with the porn stache thing.”
“Smoldering cop with the porn stache? I didn’t realize that was a thing,” he laughs, the crinkles next to his eyes deepening before he takes your hand lying on the table, “I’m glad this has been fun for you. After all that shock and awkwardness at the beginning, I think it’s been really nice to get to know you, angel.”
“Alright, I shared my little secret, you share yours now.”
Javier sighs, his thumb rubbing back and forth across your skin. He takes a moment to speak before he meets your eyes, a resistant smirk on his face, “You are really gonna make me say this?”
“You pinky promised! I didn’t make you do that, there’s no coercion here, Javier.”
“Fine, fine. You’re too quick, cariño,” he squeezes your fingers with his, “I was gonna say before that I couldn’t believe it happened to be you ‘cause—It’s stupid, really, but I’ve had a bit of a crush on you since that first class, querida.”
“A crush? The sexy Professor Peña has a crush on me?”
“Couldn’t keep my eyes off of you. Can’t keep ‘em off of you, cariño. Too beautiful. And you’re fucking on it all the time, so goddamn smart. I really am convinced you should be teaching for me,” he glances down sheepishly, feeling exposed from his tipsy confession.
The surface of your cheeks heats up, feeling a tingle down your spine when his eyes meet yours again. Leaning forward across the table, you bite your bottom lip as you drink him all in.
“D’you think I’ll ever be able to properly pay attention in class again after that?”
“You better, sweetheart. Just cause I’ve got a crush on you doesn’t mean you’ll get a good grade. Not gonna go easy on you. Fair’s fair.”
“Mm, I don’t mind it hard. I prefer it that way, actually. Makes it much more satisfying when you finish.” Your tongue wets your lips before you take your bottom one between your teeth, watching as Javier’s eyes darken at your double entendre.
He shakes his head, giving you a knowing look about your mischievous word choice, “Better be ready for a challenge then, angel.”
“Always, Peña.”
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It’s late now, verging on turning into Sunday; the hours flew by with each other. Javier noticed the time on his watch, the crowd in the bar was sparse in spots that were full when he got there. When he looks at you, your eyelids look heavy, and those normally wide and bright eyes, eager and excited, look drowsy and content, so close to slipping closed and turning your mind off for the night.
“You ready to head out, angel? We’ll go find you a cab.” He asks with a subtle smile on his face, scooting out of his chair and standing, offering a hand to you.
“Yeah, m’ready.” You rise after taking his hand, hiking your small rectangular bag over your shoulder and stepping closer to him as he switches which hand is holding yours. Right in right, he grips yours from the outside of your palm, fingers lacing together as he presses his left into the small of your back, weaving between the patrons and out the front door.
The air is crisp when the door breaks open, cool air surrounding your warm, alcohol-blanketed bodies. Javier's touch still surrounds you, your right shoulder pressing into his chest when you turn to say something to him.
He takes a step back, allowing you the space to rotate fully in his arms, meeting his eyes and feeling a grin toy at your lips.
“Tonight was nice.”
“It was. Think I should be saying thanks to you. M’glad you had me stay.”
“Yeah? Well, m’happy to hear that cause I was gonna say, if you wanted to keep this up — meeting up, the arrangement all of that — if you wanted to keep it up for the semester, I would happily keep the secret. Y’know, you help me, I help you kind of thing. We just have fun.”
Javier considers the offer, ticking his jaw as he debates internally. On one hand, it’s a massive risk. The two of you could be seen out with each other, or if anyone noticed anything different in class, it could jeopardize his job, and possibly your degree. But on the other hand, if every night with you is like this one, he’s hard-pressed to say no. You’re funny and intelligent and beautiful — sure, there’s the element of how you two met and what happens behind the scenes, money taken out of his account monthly and forwarded to you through the service — but with the way you’ve had his heart pumping from your sweetness and his cock half hard at how turned on you have him constantly, he really can’t find a fuck to give about the risk.
“Alright. If you are in for it, I definitely am, angel,” he grins at you, his tongue poking out to wet his lips when his eyes flit to yours, the faint red lipstick of yours still holding strong.
“Good, Javi. That’s good,” your voice is a purr, a smug smirk playing at your lips when he leans in closer, walking you back towards the brick facade of the bar. His knees nearly give out when he hears those small praises, already waiting for the next time you speak them to him.
“Can I…?” he trails off, the tip of his nose only an inch from yours.
“You can kiss me, Javi.”
Without wasting another second, he catches his lips with yours, gentle at first with soft, delicate kisses exchanged. His tongue slides along your bottom lip, a breathy whimper parting your mouth enough for him to lick into it, melting his tongue with yours. One of his hands moves to hold your jaw, the other stagnant at your hip. A step closer brings him flush against you, quiet moans muffled into each other’s mouths.
The roughness of the brick is harsh against your bare skin on display, the contrasting sensations pooling arousal in between your legs. Javier tastes like tobacco, whiskey, and mint gum; an interesting combination but an intoxicating one. His hand at your hip moves around to your ass, pulling you off the wall slightly and against him, his growing bulge felt against your torso.
Before the two of you can get completely lost in each other, you pull away, hands on his chest. A taxi pulls up at that moment, honking its horn in question if you need a ride. You wave to him and ask for one minute with your fingers, turning back to Javi standing in front of you a bit breathless.
“I should go. Got some reading to do for this class on Monday that I’ve got.”
“Oh, yeah? Hope your professor hasn’t been killing you with the readings,” he smirks back at you.
“Nah, he hasn’t been killing me but seems like he does really wanna give it to me. Must have some high expectations,” your voice is coated with a lilt of teasing, winking at him as you slip from his arms.
He follows close behind to walk you to the cab, a hand finding your back and dropping down to graze his fingers across your ass.
“Think you’ll have no trouble exceeding those expectations, angel. Plus you could always ask for one-on-one tutoring or some extra credit.” It’s his turn to wink, opening the rear door for you and helping you in.
“Glad I have your confidence, Javi. Here, gimme your phone I’ll give you my number.” You reach out and he fumbles it from his pocket, passing it off to you. The information is quickly entered and saved, handing his device back to him and looking up at him from the seat of the cab.
“I’ll be waiting for a call, Javi. And I’ll see you Monday, Professor Peña.” You give him one last look, giggling as you shut the door and he hits the top of the taxi before you drive away, standing there with an idiotic smile on his face.
Javier grew up religious, his mamá dragging him to church every Sunday. He’s only been back to church at the major holidays he’s been home, leaving behind any spiritual side of him. All the concepts of eternal souls and heaven and hell meant nothing to him.
However, tonight, he felt an inkling to believe that heaven was real, and he had met an angel.
His angel.
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tagging those from last time: @northernbluess @swiftispunk @joelsversion @mrsquill @yazsos @cartoon-garbage04 @sugadolly @ilovepedro @lovers-liability @deathwife @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @undrthelights @atticrissfinch @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @casa-boiardi @wannab-urs @fishingforpike @msjarvis @walkintotheriveranddisappear @sugadolly @tbniarq @vee-bees-blog @spidermanfrog @belliezz @joelsflannel
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May I request college and hangman.
I’ve been trapped in my dorm for two days due to weather. My brain is melting.
Oh no!! I hope you're able to escape before cabin fever sets in!
So, I don't know what happened here but this mini drabble kinda got away from me hehe Back when I was in college, I, for some reason, romanticized long distance relationships because of all the angst and feelings involved. Then I got into a long distance relationship and it was HARD seeing all the happy couples and wishing my SO was around to cuddle with. The reunions were intense which was great and it worked out in the end but, overall, do not recommend lol Anyway..enjoy! Also, I figure this drabble is long enough to warrant a gif.
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3k Celebration Mini Drabbles
He just shows up. Out of the blue, unannounced, wearing a suede jacket and faded blue jeans and a patronizing expression on his face. His dog tags catch the light filtering through the dome of the rotunda.
“I don’t know what you’re doing here,” you say without so much as stopping as you pass him. “But this is a bad idea.”
“You weren’t returning my calls,” he says, falling into step with you as you rush across campus to get to your next class.
“I’m in college,” you respond curtly. “I’m busy.”
He steps into your path. “I’m in the Navy,” he says, as if you need the reminder. “I’m busy too. But I came all the way out here, so the least you could do is talk to me.”
“You’re going to make me late.” You try to walk around him, but he holds out a hand, pressing it gently into your abdomen. You sigh, trying to ignore the way your stomach lurches at his touch.
“I miss you,” he whispers, his fingers contracting on your waist, scrunching the material of your shirt.
The words bring up a whole slew of emotions you’ve been actively repressing for months. “We had a deal,” you remind him, suddenly breathless. “No strings.”
He nods, but his hand is pulling you closer.
“You’re stationed three thousand miles away,” you reason as he tugs you toward him, as he rests his other hand on your hip. “And I won’t be back in San Diego till next summer,” you continue in this vein although you’re not even buying your own bullshit. The actual source of your resentment stems from something entirely unrelated to geography.
“I can wait.”
“Right,” you scoff, shaking your head. “Like you waited two whole days after I left before hooking up with half of the new recruits?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw the photos,” you say, pushing his hands away from your body.
“Nobody hooked up with anybody,” he says tersely. “That’s what this is about?”
“This is about me needing to bust my ass this year so that I can get into grad school and you not distracting me in the process.”
“Y/N,” he says. “I promise you, I didn’t hook up with anybody.”
“Must’ve been tough for you.”
He gives you a hard look. “Not really.”
You exhale sharply, doing your best to avoid his gaze. Wooing women is second nature for Jake, so you’re not really falling for his act. “I’ve got class, Jake,” you say, brushing past him. You’re halfway to the door when he speaks again.
“I’m being deployed.”
The words hit you like a ton of bricks and you freeze, glancing back at him in alarm. “Where?”
Several passing students eye the two of you curiously as you speak to one another across the hall. “I can’t say,” he responds, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
You bring a hand up to your mouth as your eyes fill with tears. “For how long?”
“Six months.”
You close your eyes, mentally preparing yourself for spending the next six months worrying about never seeing Jake Seresin again. Perhaps not even the following summer when you return to San Diego to visit your aunt.
“I’m going to come back, Y/N,” he says, although you detect a hint of uncertainty in his tone. “I want to come back to you.”
You blink at him through your tears, swallowing anxiously before walking right back to him and throwing your arms around his neck. “You better fucking come back to me, Jake Seresin.”
He brings his arms around you, holding you tightly against his chest. He sighs and chuckles into your hair. “You got it, sweetheart.”
3k celebration
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gabessquishytum · 2 months
Note
DILF Dream/College Athlete Hob
Dream is an active alumni and a sports booster for his alma mater - Orpheus goes to the school, but he's in the renowned music department.
It helps that Dream is rich, but he enjoyed his time at university and is happy to fundraise and work towards a more diverse and inclusive institution, on the alumni side (and the sports boosting keeps him from meddling in the music department ~ so Orpheus doesn't get mad at him.)
Hob plays rugby, on scholarship, so he's always attending booster events with a butterfly bandage holding an eyebrow cut closed or a busted lip, a little crusty with blood, and because he's on scholarship, his jackets aren't quite tailored enough, so he always looks one hand gesture away from busting his seams (Dream can't help but find it charming,,,,,,,,and wanting to get him better fitted clothes).
Hob loves looking at Mr. Endless( and imagining him letting Hob hold him up against a wall as he fucks into him.). The silver at his temples, the smile lines, DILF Alumni Endless is beautiful and is really nice to the students who have to work the events chatting with guests. And sometimes it looks like Mr. Endless is just as interested in Hob as Hob is in him.
But Hob is a student and Dream a rich alum, it would be wrong for them to get together. But god, the things Hob would do to, and with, that man.
Then Hob busts up his knee his last semester. Thankfully, he's already got into his grad school program and it didn’t rest on his rugby playing - 'cause he's not doing that anymore. He'll walk again, but playing a sport where he runs and sets himself up to be tackled......yeah, no more of that. Maybe when he's finally an alumn himself he can finally make that pass at Mr. Endless. (And unfortunately, the knee probably won't let him fuck Mr. Endless up against that wall anymore.)
AHHHH yes I love it <3
Imagine Hob’s first alumn event after he finishes his grad programme!! He's a few months into a brilliant job as a sports journalist for a big broadcaster, and although he's definitely not having a lecture theatre named after him, he's happy to make a small donation and show up to encourage the bright young students. And maybe also to oogle Mr Endless.
And Dream is definitely oogling in return. Hob’s suit is a lot nicer now, and he looks very distinguished with his fancy cane. He's a bit softer around the edges but his rugby playing physique is still extremely worth staring at. Dream stares plenty... until Hob sidles right up to him with a grin and a wink.
They chat about Hob’s blossoming career, and about how Orpheus is getting on so well too, but the whole time Hob’s heart is beating fast because he thinks he might actually have a chance! Mr Endless has more silver flecked through his hair than ever, and frankly Hob would risk his bad knee by grovelling in a bathroom stall and worshipping Dream’s undoubtedly gorgeous cock.
Mr Endless would never allow such a thing. After the event is over he fully intends to whisk Hob off to the fanciest hotel in the area. He's a gentleman, and he thinks that Hob deserves to be wined and dined. After all he's been the star of Dream’s fantasies for a while now - he deserves some kind of reward.
If Dream can get him sweating, bruised and maybe with his lips swollen, just for old times sake... he'll be a very happy man.
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Text
Let's Get These Heels Off...
Burlesque!Terzo x Fem!Reader
Warnings: NSFW, Smut, MDNI!, Lingerie, basically smut with a little tiny bit of plot 🤷‍♀️
Word count: 3.4k
ANYWAY, I'M BACK HI HELLO!!!!! I really did not mean to take a hiatus, but I am in grad school and that just needed my attention these past weeks. I have been writing the whole time, this just happens to be the first thing to get finished!
But! I am sooooo excited about this! @angellayercake and I have been squealing and giggling and losing our minds over burlesque Terzo for months now and she requested this special 🥰 it was an honor to write this for you, my dearest Cake, and I hope you love it as much as I love Pastimes for a Retired Papa and Banchetto!!! Enjoy 😘
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Photo credit to @theshamelessghoul @vitadevoid on Instagram 🩷 please go follow both of her accounts, she's an absolutely beautiful artist.
After stalking his Instagram page every night for a week, you knew you had to see him perform in person. Not to mention that Vegas isn't too far a drive from your place. You 𝘩𝘢𝘥 to see him, you just had to.
And that's how you found yourself at the door of this club, paying the high cover charge. The venue was well worth it though, beautiful dark decor, mirrors and dim lighting making the place feel large, but intimate. You'd made it a point to dress appropriately, wanting to look fine and feel your best, but not outshine the performers. So you went with a tight black leather dress that displays your bust nicely, black lace long sleeve crop top layered over, and of course black stiletto heels to match.
Glad you came by yourself to fulfill this silly little fantasy, you take a seat in a quaint cushioned arm chair, noticing the array of vintage mismatched furniture, and order a drink. There was already a set going on, dancers gracefully moving across the stage, with the lighting offering glimpses of the room while keeping most of the viewers concealed in the shadows. You were grateful for that.
You'd never been to a place like this before and you just wanted to view the art from a distance.
Just in time too, as the one you'd been longing for took the stage, his presence larger than life, seemingly squeezing all the air from the room... And he hadn't even shown any skin yet.
His gig was definitely out of the ordinary, but there was something so alluring about watching this Anti-Pope, Papa Emeritus the Third, sashay across the stage. His dance style is slow and sensual, teasingly revealing a fishnet clad leg here or a lace covered hip there as he slowly works his way out of his papal vestments.
He certainly has the bedroom eyes down to a science as you find yourself unable to look away. Another thing that's hard to look away from is that beautifully plump ass, showcased so artfully with leather straps cupping his cheeks.
The Anti-Pope was well practiced at making his way across the floor, legs spread sinfully and hands groping various body parts. Lastly, he unhooks his corset to reveal tassels on his nipples, and he wasn't left in much more than those and a pair of panties. A few more twirls around the stage and the last few notes of the song ring out, while the lights go totally dark, leaving it pitch black in the room. The click of his heels returning backstage are the only sound until the lights slowly come back up.
Hell, he really knew how to leave a crowd wanting more. Or maybe it was just you--either way, you were happy to have seen him perform in person. It had been worth the drive and every penny.
You were pleasantly surprised to find him in the kickline of a few other performances that night, for the performers that needed back up dancers. Although you did think it was unfair for the boss to put him in the back like that, because he always stole the stage from whoever was supposed to be leading.
After the night had simmered down, a few of the dancers creeped out into the audience, mingling with the crowd to keep them happy and earn the waiters some higher tips. There were still a few performances happening, but they hardly held your attention as you felt a shift in the vibe. Papa had come out from backstage and was taking his time greeting the guests, many of them wanting to kiss his hands or cheeks.
He's so charismatic that people are drawn to him like a magnet. You feel the pull too, but you're perfectly content to watch from afar... It's not like he would know you anyway.
That is, until it seems like he's coming your way. Is he? No. Surely he's looking for someone behind you.
Tensing your fingers around the arms of the chair, you try to straighten up as best you can as he saunters right over, leaning forward and placing his hands on top of yours, effectively pinning you to the spot. His nose is only inches from yours as he looks you over, "Didn't your Mama teach you it's impolite to stare?"
"D-don't mind me... I'm just enjoying the view, um, Papa." You knew you didn't stand a chance of sounding confident in front of him, so you just did your best not to fumble your words.
He smirks, letting you know he enjoys the flattery, "Please, tesoro, call me Terzo. Papa is simply my stage name." He winks and offers his hand up to your lips.
Carefully, you take his hand in yours, appreciating his short black nails, before softly placing a kiss to his knuckles. "Terzo," you whisper, mostly to yourself.
While his hand is still in yours, he snakes his hand around your wrist before bringing it to his lips. "And you? Who are you this evening, dolce mia?"
"Just a starstruck fan," you supply before giving your name.
Still kissing his way up your arm, he tries your name on his tongue before nipping at your earlobe, earning a heavy breath from you.
"Would you like to take this somewhere a bit more private, bella?"
You stutter, "I-I didn't... I didn't think that was allowed here."
"Sì, sì, you are right, 'no stripping here on The Strip', eh?" he chuckles. He stands up and stares you down, looking you directly in the eyes, "I guess I'll be getting off all by myself tonight then." He fakes a pout before flashing a playful look at you.
Suddenly he's walking away, as if he'd forgotten about you all together.
"Hey, wait!"
He keeps walking, heading up the spiral staircase behind the stage. You hesitate momentarily before chasing him up the stairs. You had come all this way; why not take the fantasy as far as he would let you?
Upstairs, he sits at his vanity, illuminated beautifully by the soft light. Yet again, you stare as he fixes up his makeup. When he sees you behind him, he makes a comment about you being in his mirror.
But then he stands up and you're drawn to one another. He turns and within a second, his hands are on your jaw and yours on his waist, making out.
At some point, you were spun around and the next thing you know, you're being backed into another vanity, stumbling into it as lip glosses and tubes of mascara roll onto the floor. Grabbing roughly at your ass, Terzo lifts you onto the vanity, mouth never leaving yours. In fact, he uses it as leverage to gain access to your tongue.
Your fingers tremble in an attempt to untie the silk robe he'd covered his lingerie with, while he's working your black lace top off. As it drifts slowly to the floor, you start to hear a rumbling noise across the room.
Terzo pulls away from you, and before you can ask what the noise is, he's pulling you off the vanity. "Come with me, cara mia," he whispers, dragging you behind one of the various curtains back stage. Suddenly the room fills with chatter, and you realize the noise had been many, many sets of high heels coming up the stairs. The night must be over downstairs and the club getting ready to close.
Wrapped in a shroud of darkness behind the heavy velvet curtain, you feel Terzo's hands return to your waist and his lips at your ear, "Quiet, dolcezza, we wouldn't want to get caught, would we?"
"No," you reply, trying not to giggle. His mouth is curled into a big smile as it makes contact with your neck, leaving a trail of kisses and nips along your exposed skin. Silently you let out a shaky breath, fighting off a whimper.
"Ugh! Whose shirt is this?! They knocked over all my shit!" one of the dancers yells, receiving a low chuckle from Terzo.
Hands sliding up his body, you finally slip that robe from his shoulders, exposing more skin, but your hands are much more interested in diving into that luscious black hair, which draws another low noise from the man. "Shhhh," you breathe out.
His hot mouth is now lapping at your cleavage, until his thumb finds the scandalously placed zipper on the front of your tight leather dress. Inching the pull tab down, his nose dips down to the space between your breasts where he places a soft kiss.
Gently you hold him against you, one hand tangled in his hair, the other on his cheek. Undoubtedly, you have his face paint all over you, but Terzo is simply alluring in everything that he does. From the way he performs on stage, grasping everyone's attention in the palm of his hand to the dangerous way he romances you, kissing you like he loves you... you know you'll never get enough.
Finally, the dressing room starts to quiet down. Girls chatter about where they're going to grab dinner or who's going home with who. And eventually, you're left alone with your lover for the night.
Peaking his head out from behind the curtain, Terzo nods that the coast is clear, taking your hand and smirking, "Per favore, bella mia, follow me. I know the perfect place to have my way with you."
Cocky in an endearing way, that's how you'd describe him. A stranger who somehow knows exactly what you need... It's maddening, but comforting.
However, upon reaching some kind of office door, you are given some pause, "Hey, woah, where are we going?"
"Just through here, amore," he tugs your hand.
"I mean, is that someone's office? Are we supposed to be in here?" You question him, but the idea of getting caught has certainly done something to you.
"Sì, the owner's. Won't it be fun, dolce?"
Looking between his hand still holding yours and his playful duochromatic eyes, you can't deny him. "Yes," you grin, biting your lip as he pulls you through the doorway, nearly slamming it behind you.
Despite him not being the largest man, he has full control of your body, making quick work of shoving everything off the desk and laying you back on it. "Bellissima, cara mia, your beauty is unmatched," he mumbles, admiring your disheveled form spread out before him.
You huff, "Please... Have you seen yourself?" It was true. He looks like pure debauchery in that moment, leaning over you in nothing but heels, fishnets, and a black lace thong.
He smiles in a way that almost looks shy, "Sì, but tonight is all about you, no?" He leans over you on the desk, placing a kiss to your jaw.
"Who said that?" you sigh at his contact.
"You did, signora, with your actions," his lips start their decent down your body, again on your cleavage, your sternum, your belly, as he slowly unzips your dress and continues his explanation, "you drive all the way out here, from wherever you come from; you dress up; you spend your evening with us... I have never seen you before."
By now he's made his way to the waistband of your panties, kissing the skin just above the lace.
"Oh, and you know everyone who comes in here?" you chuckle and your hand comes up to massage his scalp.
"Mmm, sì, amore," he slides the zipper down to where it ends at your knees, allowing the dress to fall open, and he lifts one of your legs off the desk to nip at your inner thigh, "and if I do not know someone... I make it a point to introduce myself." His devious eyes flicker up to yours.
"So you do this with everyone you meet?" you sit up and raise your eyebrows, shaking the dress straps from your shoulders.
"Are you implying something about me, tesoro? Besides..." He ducks his head down, rubbing his nose perfectly across your clit, "It's not lady-like to kiss and tell."
Feeling his hot breath even through your underwear, you're met with those smoldering bedroom eyes he had on stage. When you let out an involuntary whimper, you have to stop yourself from urging his face towards your core.
Like a mind-reader though, he's pulling off your panties, "You must've been wet from the moment you saw me on stage." He grins proudly, but before you can chide him, Terzo's mouth is already on you, instead stealing the air from your lungs as his tongue circles around your sensitive bundle of nerves.
"Ah! Oh, Terzo..." you gasp as your fingers curl in his soft hair. If your eyes hadn't been screwed shut in pleasure, you would've seen the enjoyment written on your lover's face as he works his magic.
His hands grip your thighs roughly, pulling you to the edge of the desk to be able to dip his tongue between your folds, teasing your entrance. Your needy whines egg him on as he fucks you with his tongue, that perfect nose smashed up against your oh-so-sensitive clit. It's so overwhelming you actually try to push his face away, but Terzo digs his heels in, holding you firmly in place. Surely you'll have bruises where his fingertips clutch at your skin.
In an embarrassing amount of time, that familiar tension builds in your abdomen. Looking down at the man through your lashes, you feel an urge to beg for permission, but your mouth is unable to form the words. He senses it though, and gives you a gentle nod without disrupting his ministrations. Thighs squeezing against his ears and a high heel digging into his back, you cum for him, convulsing as he carries you through it.
Carefully, he stands up between your legs, allowing you to lean on him with your arms wrapped around his neck as you both catch your breath. Propping your chin up on his chest, you look up at Terzo. His face paint is totally wrecked, but you like seeing what's beneath it as well.
"Bene?" He whispers softly, "Was it good for you?"
"Yes," you let out a breathy laugh at the absurdity of that question. Eyes trailing down, you notice his painfully hard cock barely concealed by his thong. Looking up at him, you slowly reach for it, and you're met with a pleased hum when you palm at the head.
His lips find yours once again as he gently bucks into your hand, feeling just as needy for you as you'd been for him. "Per favore..." he rasps, "please."
"Please, what, baby?" you ask him.
"Fottimi," he says it so quietly you hardly hear him.
"Hm?" you look up, cupping his chin in your fingers, other hand still working his throbbing desire.
Squeezing his eyes closed, a beautiful blush blooms across his cheeks, "Fuck me. Please, fuck me..."
Seeing this once-confident performer enter such a space, you feel even more of a need to please him; it lights a fire like you hadn't experienced before. "Why don't you go lay on the couch for me then, hm?"
It's not lost on you how earlier you'd been worried to even come in the office, and now you're telling your lover to use the furniture.
He nods and takes a couple steps across the small room, heels clicking on the old hardwood floor. Pausing in front of the small piece of furniture like he has to think about it, he slowly bends at the hips, placing his hands on the soft cushion first, then following with his knees.
You follow him over, unable to resist his plump backside. Palming and squeezing at it, you chide him, "Putting your cute little ass on display for me? Just like you did on stage," you trail off. 𝘛𝘩𝘸𝘢𝘱! You earn an involuntary moan from Terzo as you spank him. He turns to look over his shoulder at you, where you then lean down and press a soft kiss to the hand mark you left on him, "I think I asked you to lay down."
He gives you that devilish grin before flopping back on the sofa, stretching and arching his back, feigning innocence.
Something about him acting this way emboldens you, so settling between his spread legs, you reach down and harshly tear open the front of his fishnet stockings, "If you want to act like a little whore, then I'm going to treat you like one!"
He reaches down to grab your wrist, placing it on his crotch and rutting against your hand again, "Sì, amore, please..."
Snatching your wrist away, you swat your fingers at his erection, making him jerk in a way that you're pretty sure means he liked it. "You're lucky you're so goddamn pretty."
"Hmm," he grins again, "Or what?"
"Or..." Roughly, you grab the waistband of his offending little panties and rip them down enough to expose him, the pretty pink tip dripping with precum. Taking his length in your hand, you stroke up and down, before continuing, "Or I wouldn't touch you like this..."
He whines at the way you handle him; he's so perfect, you know you can't resist him any longer.
Moving to straddle his hips, you grind your sex on his. This allows you to lean down and kiss him again, which he pulls you into hungrily. When you break away, you gaze into those lust blown mismatched eyes, "Or I wouldn't fuck you."
It's your turn to grin as you line him up with your entrance, and he becomes a writhing mess beneath you. Seconds later, however, the room is filled with gasps, sighs, moans as you finally become one.
With Terzo fully seated inside, you waste no time working your hips, easing you both into the motions of lovemaking. And what a picture you are: a tangle of limbs, lingerie, and stilettos.
His needy hands reach out to squeeze at your breasts, urging your bra straps off of your shoulders. Finally, you reach behind to unclasp the article of clothing and discard it. In an instant, your lover's hands return, cupping, massaging, and teasing your chest. The way his fingers roll your nipples already has them budding, but his mouth closing around one of them really does the trick.
With one hand cradling the back of his head and the other on his shoulder for support, you ride him at an energetic pace, gasping each time his teeth nibble at your sensitive skin.
"That's it..." he starts to whisper between love bites, "sì, principessa, oh, pl- per favore, take your pleasure from me."
Kissing the top of his head, you sigh into his ear, "Touch me... Touch me, please, Terzo!"
"Sì, signora," he obliges, his middle finger finding your clit easily, "Sei bella, così bella. Veini per me, cum on me, tesoro."
"I'm gonna..." You bite your lip, "Ahh, cum with me, baby."
Your second orgasm hits you like a wave, and it has you seeing stars. Feeling you clench around his cock, Terzo, blissed out, bites down on your collarbone as he follows you over the edge, spilling into your perfect velvety walls. Pain mixed with pleasure somehow heightens the sensation futher for you; it's nothing short of a miracle you were able to ride you both through your climaxes.
Terzo collapses straight back and you right on top of him, exhausted. His arms come up to wrap around you, gently tracing shapes into your back. When you give a tired groan, he offers, "Dai, we should get you upstairs, you stay the night with me."
"Upstairs? You live here?" you mumble into the crook of his neck.
"Sì, ragazza stupida," he chuckles, "I own this place."
"Hey!" you sit up and see him pointing at something... the name plate from the desk, thrown across the floor reading 'Terzo Emeritus.' Glaring back down at him, you argue, "Well, I'm not stupid, or whatever you said."
He smiles up at you, softly. "It means 'silly,' amore mio."
"Oh... Well still..." you lower your voice to a near whisper, "I would like to spend the night with you."
He reaches up to stroke your cheek, "Okie dokie, then. Let's get these heels off."
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catboybiologist · 4 months
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Unprompted fucking rant time!
I'm getting my PhD after getting my BS and my Master's. I've gone through three separate rounds of university applications. And while I'm openly a bisexual trasfemme now, I've done every round of those applications as a cishet white boy. I've been rejected by a shitton of universities, and accepted by a fraction of that. My current institution is an R1 for my field- basically meaning it's in the highest tier of research funding and therefore research prestige/output- but it's very far from a household name the way Harvard or Stanford is. My undergrad institution was the cheapest local four year college that I was guaranteed admission to because my high school grades were piss poor due to an array of mental health problems.
So from that perspective.... Race and ethnicity demographics should 100% be used as a factor in determining admissions to help increase diversity. There's many reasons to think this, but there's two that underline a lot of my thinking on the matter.
Number one is kind of obvious, but what isn't obvious is how blatant it is. The top tier of universities has blatantly favored white people for generations, oftentimes explicitly. And oftentimes, they still do! Having relatives working at a particular university, or being alumni from a university, is literally part of the application materials for many of these universities. During my Harvard grad school apps, they literally had a pop-up window that asked me to check off any wealthy families I was a part of from a list of donor and alumni last names. It was so fucking blatant that I bust out laughing. Spoiler alert, I didn't get in. You cannot look at me with a straight face and tell me that these universities should be allowed to openly and blatantly give admission priority to rich, white, dynastic American families, while not affording any concession for overcoming the shittiness of being born into a persecuted group.
Number two is the thing that most people realize, but I don't think has really sunk in on a societal level. A massive factor in admissions is blind, dumb luck, and I'm not joking. When admissions tells you they received more qualified applicants than they could admit, it's 100% true. Many applications end up in a stage where they just have to randomly reject people to keep numbers down- or even if it's not completely random, they have to grasp for straws into an enormous amount of intangible factors that have nothing to do with someone's actual qualifications. So if you're down to that level of grasping at straws.... Why not use it as an opportunity to increase diversity? Because as it stands, you're not getting rejected because you're white- you're getting rejected because your high school didn't have a fucking sailing team. Remember that Stanford admissions scandal a while back?
There's a number two and a half that is an observation I've had about life in general here: one of my deepest held beliefs after going through a good portion of my early career is that everyone is overqualified for the opportunities they've been given. If your education system is genuinely functional, you'll be able to take people from an amazing diversity of backgrounds, and y'know... Educate them. If these universities lowered their admissions standards a shitton, and randomly pulled from the new pool of "less qualified" people, and they put them in an environment with access to the same resources as before... They would succeed.
There's a whole other rant embedded here about how elite-tier university education actually sucks, and all they do is filter for people who already have massive educational resources of their own. University prestige is mostly a lie, except in terms of how much grant funding you can get. But if you gave that level of funding to a state college tomorrow? They'd still do great things with it. But that's a side thought.
There's ALSO the side rant about why marginalized groups are important in science overall for perspectives on how science interacts with society, but that's also a whole other rant.
There's one thing I will say against this: sometimes, it's too late. For grad school and a little bit for undergrad admissions, an enormous amount of unpaid labor and study is required to even be eligible for the application itself. Required undergrad research hours are often unpaid. My undergrad research advisor paid her student labor when she wasn't required to, and surprise surprise, she has one if the most diverse and successful labs on that campus. Beyond just undergrad research, this goes waaayyyy back to the schooling and tutoring opportunities that people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds have access to from day one... But that's also a larger side rant. Point is, race based admissions are valid and necessary now, but they're a temporary bandage on the bleeding wound that is education discrepancy.
This was kinda random, but this got kick-started by an IRL discussion with a couple of friends and I just needed to vent my whole perspective here. Idk if the community of voyeuristic transfemmes I've mostly accumulated here will care, but it's nice to just type these things sometimes lol
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