#i feel like the formatting is messed up but i can’t be bothered to fix it so pls pretend its not thanks

[wander-wren]

i suppose i will christen this blog with my top 30 wc characters and talk about The Them. i did the favorite picker a few months back and yeah

of note i did not include anyone from avos on here bc i hadn’t read those books yet (i’m still only partway through tbc lol)

anyway swiftpaw is at the top bc i wrote a swiftpaw lives au and it has spiralled out of control into a 150k+ affair and counting, which i’ll have to make another post about. at any rate i adore him, i think he’s awesome, and i believe in swift/bright/cloud supremacy

ivypool is self explanatory. i think she’s Neat.

longtail and whitewing are both natural extensions of swiftpaw (swift/bright/cloud means he’s whitewing’s other dad in my head). plus i think longtail is super interesting as one of the only reformed villains, and whitewing is also really cool and a good friend/mom.

tallstar is my gay dad. nuff said

i hc mousewhisker as gay and trans for fun (sorry minnowmouse shippers) and he’s the mc of a top secret fanfic i’ve had on the backburner for years (and will continue to stay there bc it’s now entwined with swiftpaw fic and i have to write up to it) so basically i also love him. just a silly little guy

jayfeather, sorreltail, cinderpelt, and crowfeather are pretty standard faves i think. and possibly gray wing? idk he’s Also my dad. dotc was the first arc i read way back when so despite its flaws it’s very special to me. i like that gray wing was just sort of dragged into the plot but genuinely tried his best to do right by everyone even when no one else wanted to.

have you seen moonkitti’s talking video about poppyfrost? it converted me i’m a poppyfrost stan now.

brightheart, dovewing, squirrelflight, leafpool, and hollyleaf are all pretty standard faves as well. i personally headcanon nightcloud as aroace (or a lesbian depending on if i wanna ship squirrelnight. or both oriented aroaces are valid) who got just as much out of a marriage of convenience type deal with crowfeather as he did. i like that story better than her getting reduced to “crazy jealous wife” just because she messes up leafcrow. idc if it’s not canon, justice for nightcloud, she’s a good mom in a weird situation.

i feel like the last two rows are also pretty normal low-tier faves? extra-special shoutout to palebird tho, her arc is one of my favorite things about tallstar’s revenge and i am so glad she got to be happy eventually. her early appearances made me wanna cry with how cruel the other nursery queens were to her.

so there’s that, those are my favorite warriored cats. come tell me my taste is impeccable

#warrior cats #swiftpaw #longtail #whitewing #gray wing #palebird #idk im not tagging all them #nightcloud #there #i feel like the formatting is messed up but i can’t be bothered to fix it so pls pretend its not thanks

[enchxanting]

our love is god [ethan landry] pt. 3

read part 2 here || all parts

pairing: ethan landry x fem!reader

warnings: angst, alcohol abuse, partying, slight physical altercation (v v minor)

a/n: bro this chapter is so long i literally can't help myself when it comes to angst. i promised ethan content last chapter and i will continue to deliver! also ik the formatting is weird on mobile but I cannot be bothered to fix it my b!!

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To say that the car ride is tense would be a gross understatement. It would be more apt to call it torture.

Chad hates listening to the radio when he drives, so we sit in silence. Tara lays claim to the passenger’s seat, so Anika, Mindy, and I cram into the back. It’s claustrophobic without a real middle seat, Mindy perched in the divide.

My breathing becomes shallower, but I can’t tell if it’s caused by the recycled air or the tension between Tara and me. This car ride is never going to end.

Until, miraculously, it does. Chad parks across the street from an unassuming two-story house. We pile out, and I can finally breathe again, reveling in the cool night air.

After I’ve calmed down, I chase after Tara. “Hey, Tar, wait. Can we talk?”

Her brow furrows slightly. “What, Y/N?”

“I don’t want there to be any, um, weird vibe between us tonight. I know earlier was tough, and Sam can be overbearing but she cares about you, and I…” I trail off. I can tell this isn’t working.

Tara avoids my gaze. “It’s fine, Y/N, seriously. Let’s just have fun, okay?”

I want to try again, but she turns on her heels and walks away, catching up to Chad. Nowhere else to go, I trail behind them, following their lead through a side door into the building.

There are people everywhere, way more than I was expecting for a community college party. They’re scattered throughout the first floor, arranged haphazardly in a mess of armchairs, mismatched sofas, and various surfaces that are now being used for beer pong. I look for a familiar face in the crowd, but I’ve already lost my friends.

Now alone, I decide it’s a better time than any to drink my feelings away. I reach into a nearby cooler, not caring what comes up. It’s terrible beer, but I don’t super care right now. All I want is to forget about the way Tara looked at me during her fight with Sam.

I find an empty corner and watch the crowd. Even though this is a small town, I don’t recognize many people. I see a few kids who could be in my class, people I might have forged an absence for, but no one I’ve had a real conversation with. I keep scanning the crowd until I realize who I’m really looking for: Ethan. Ethan-who-I-haven’t-actually-met-yet-Ethan. My face goes red, and I know I must look like an idiot standing in the corner and blushing to myself.

I’m distracted from my daydreams by Tara and Chad, who move into the unofficial dance floor. She’s feeling herself, clearly slightly tipsy already (I don’t know how, considering we’ve been here for all of 10 minutes). I drink some more of my beer as I watch them dance together. As she loses herself in the music, I notice how intently Chad is watching her, a shy smile creeping onto his face. I laugh quietly. How did I miss that?

Tara doesn’t seem to notice his obvious infatuation. She dances towards the cooler I pulled my beer from, finding one of her own. I watch in mixed horror and amazement as she downs half the can. I guess she wasn’t kidding about getting shitfaced, then.

I’m suddenly overcome by melancholy– not atypical when I’m kinda drunk. Tonight, though, after the mess with Tara and the long car ride, it feels shittier than usual. There are too many people here, my feet hurt from standing, and the music is too loud. I need to get the hell out of here. But Chad’s my ride, and he’s not leaving Tara anytime soon. With no other option, I head upstairs.

It takes me five tries to find a room that’s unlocked, but I eventually stumble my way into a small guest room, locking the door behind me. I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths.

“Uh– sorry. I can leave?”

My eyes snap open as quickly as they shut. You’ve got to be kidding me.

Reclining on the bed is none other than Ethan fucking Landry. I can’t decide whether to thank God or curse him.

“Oh, shit, no, it’s fine, sorry– you’re good,” I say. “I just, um, just needed a quiet place to hide for a little and this room was unlocked but if you’re here already it’s chill–”

“No, no, you’re good. I was doing the same thing.” He nervously runs a hand through his curls, and it’s so endearing that my heart skips a beat. “You can, um… you could stay? I don’t mind.” He scoots over, making room for me.

I know what I’d usually do here– make a polite excuse and hide in a bathroom– but between my desperation for reprieve and the liquid courage from earlier, I feel like trying something else.

So, I join him, kicking off my shoes and sitting against the backboard. “Thanks,” I say. “I really, really need a break.”

He chuckles a little. “Don’t mention it, really. I’m Ethan.”

“Oh, I know.” Holy shit. Why the fuck did I say that?

His eyes widen a little. “Wait, really? How?”

I search for an acceptable answer. “Um, my friend Mindy said that she had American History with you. Not a lot of new kids around here besides me, especially not right after spring break, so… I looked you up?”

He smirks slightly. “Huh, stalker much?” I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off. “It’s okay, I, um, ‘looked you up’ too. After lunch today. Just… curious, I guess.”

We both laugh a little at this. It’s exciting to know that he’s interested in me, too. I’ve never had any guys reciprocate that kind of thing.

“So, what did you hope to find?” he asks. “What do you want to know?”

I pause. “Everything, I guess. Why’d you come here, in the middle of the year?”

“Dad got transferred. He’s a cop, a detective, but they wanted to replace him in his department. They couldn’t fire him without a bunch of legal shit involved, so they transferred him here.”

“Good fucking luck,” I laugh. “This town doesn’t have the cleanest crime record.”

“Eh, I’m used to it,” he says. “We’ve moved around all my life… Dallas, Baton Rouge, Vegas, Sacramento… Woodsboro.”

“Jesus. Who’s we?”

“My sister and I. Quinn. She’s actually the reason I’m here– she’s taking some classes during her gap year. Trying to apply to bigger colleges. I would usually never come to this sort of thing, which is why I’m, uh, hiding upstairs.

“Me either,” I say. “My friends dragged me here. Tara picked out this outfit and everything. I feel so weird.”

His eyes drift over me. “I mean… I think you look really good?”

I meet his gaze. The tension between us is suddenly real– it’s almost suffocating. All I can think about is how much I want to kiss him, and I’ve almost made up my mind to do it when I hear a commotion from down the hall.

I pull away, concerned. There’s a second of something dark on his face before it’s replaced with his typical bashful demeanor. “What do you think that was?” he asks.

As much as I want to stay here with him, something tells me I need to see what’s wrong. “I don’t know, we should go look.”

I open the door to a disturbing sight. Some guy has a visibly intoxicated Tara by the arm. Chad, Anika, and Mindy are following him as he tries to take her into one of the rooms. My heart sinks and my palms go sweaty. I feel sick– I can’t let this happen. As he walks through the hall, I get in his way. “Hey, man, let her go. She’s done for the night.”

Tara drunkenly puts her arm on my shoulder. “No, no, Y/N, it’s okay. I’m good.”

The guy sneers at me. “Yeah, dude, we’re good.”

There is no way in hell I am letting this happen. “No, ‘dude,’ we’re not good. Let her go. Trust me. You don’t want this.” I motion to my friends behind us, who all look ready to get messy.

The guy falters, muttering something sounding suspiciously similar to “whatever, bitch,” and lets Tara go. I watch him walk away before turning back to Tara. “Oh my god, Tar, are you okay? I can’t believe that.”

I expect a hug, a thank-you, or maybe just a smile. The stinging of her hand against my cheek is shocking, to say the least.

“What the fuck, Y/N?” she says. “I can’t believe you did that, you fucking embarrassed me!”

I rub my cheek. “Are you kidding, Tara? That guy was a dick, he was going to take advantage of you!”

“So fucking what?” She’s yelling now. “If I want to hook up with an asshole, that’s my decision. Or, or, if I want to argue with my sister over some dumb party, I’ll do it, and I don’t need anyone’s opinion. Don’t pretend like you know shit about me or my life, because you don’t. You think you can show up here after what happened last year and act like you know any of us that lived it, but you don’t, Y/N. You fucking don’t! So leave me alone, and stay out of my fucking business.”

I’m frozen. I don’t know if I’m feeling more hurt, angry, embarrassed, or just plain sad. For her to say those things, to, in some way, confirm my biggest fears about Woodsboro… I don’t know. I don’t know what to say or do.

But Tara doesn’t wait for me to figure it out. She stumbles away, pushing past Chad, Mindy, and Anika. The twins rush after her, presumably worried about her ability to stand straight. Anika lingers for a second, giving me a pitying look and mouthing “I’m so sorry” before running off.

Though I understand their actions (Tara is drunker than I am, more unpredictable, and more likely to get hurt) their absence still stings. My eyes well with hot tears. Everything is out of control.

I turn around to compose myself and notice Ethan standing in the doorway. “Are you okay, Y/N?” he says.

Sweet, shy, Ethan. His big brown eyes are looking straight at mine for the first time that night– it makes me shiver.

All I want is to get out of this house. Leave. With him.

So I ask him, “Do you want to get out of here?”

#ethan landry #ethan landry x y/n #ethan landry x reader #ethan landry fanfiction #scream 2023 #scream 6 #heathers #heathers au #high school au #jack champion

[new-berry]

Instead of reading my 37 open tabs I thought I would share a short fic with you. So NSFW. M/F and implied M/F/M Anthony / Kieran / Charlotte work of fiction untrue etc etc

In case you don’t follow her Instagram here is Charlotte. You know what the other two look like by now. Also this is about porn. Not spelling. Although I did go back and fix a few bits which messed with the formatting a touch. Just look at Charlotte! It’s fine!

“Who’s that?” Cole obnoxiously crunches a peppermint right in Anthony’s ear. It makes his breath almost spicy as it blows past Anthony’s nose.

“Get off.” Anthony shrugs his shoulder but it only half dislodges Cole from his determined perch with his chin on Anthony. “It’s from Kieran.” He finally says when Cole gets bored of waiting to be answered and starts to poke him in the side. “You have bony fingers.”

“I don’t get nagging messages from my Captain. What did you do wrong? Cole looks down; “want a mint?”

“I’ve never done a thing wrong in my life.” Anthony says in his best attempt at a posh voice to make Cole laugh. “And Jamaal’s the club captain,” Anthony tells him, eyes on the text: C has a message for you. Check your emails after training. “But yeah. Gimmie one.”

They are incredibly hot and just about make his eyes water, Cole makes fun of him the whole session.

Anthony doesn’t think about Kieran’s message. He’s helped by the training and the media duties and catching up with people he normally plays against. When he closes the door to his room the text slides into the front of his mind finally taking centre stage.

He checks the door is locked, then checks again just in case, then he feels like an idiot and opens his emails leaning against the door.

There is spam and England team messages and seeing them sends a burn of excitement through him still, and four down: char-t123 has shared a movie with you.

Anthony checks the lock again and walks over to the bed, then for good measure pulls the curtains closed like anyone could see in on the this floor.

He texts “be there in 20.” So E and Cole don’t bother him, mutes alerts and kicks his shoes off as he climbs on the bed.

The screen is a still shot of someone’s back in a dimly lit room while the movie downloads, and then it starts. It’s five minutes and thirty seconds long. When it begins a man’s voice picks half way through a sentence “…here gorgeous.”

The person in front of the camera, probably a phone Anthony thinks, eyes intent on the screen walks forward. It’s a she, in a black and white Newcastle strip with Gordon and number 10 on the back.

All the blood from his brain to his fingertips goes straight to Anthony’s cock. The woman has red hair and the shirt must be a kids size or cut off because it’s sitting above her naked backside. It’s a great backside, and Anthony knows it from memory and touch.

Her ass sways as she walks forward. She pauses for a moment and moves to the side. The angle of the phone shows someone laying on the bed, leg’s bent at the knee and he’s stroking his cock. His face isn’t visible.

Anthony scrambles his clothes off, eyes fixed on his phone, he’s not going to wank off on the three lions on his first day at St George’s.

The woman puts her hands up to pulls her her hair out of the way, to show off his name and the line of her neck and she lets her hair tumble out of her fingers.

It brushes the O and R of his name. Her movement pulls the shirt higher up and her ass is sort of glistening, she teases taking the shirt off, inching it up her side, turning her hip to the camera showing off the curve of her stomach, but with her chin tilted up so her face can’t be seen.

It’s dragged up her side slow, showing the bottom of her breast and the silky looking white skin of her side. Anthony sucks his lips in, bitting them closed, breathing harder through his nose, jerking himself off hard. He spits down on his fingers to make the glide of his hand smoother.

“Leave it on.” The man on the bed says and the red haired woman drops the shirt down. Anthony isn’t sure if it’s his hand in his cock or the other man’s making the slick dirty sounds but he wonders for a moment if he can turn the sound up but decides against it. There are a couple of rooms past his on this floor.

The woman puts one knee on the bed, her red hair hitting the top of her shoulders, and Anthony chokes down a moan, one knee on the bed and her wet pussy with a few brown curls is showing, slick and ready for someone’s mouth or cock, but it also shows off the green jewel from the plug in her ass.

Anthony can feel his mouth drop open as she crawls slowly up the bed, legs spread to show how wet and ready she is.

The other man shuffles down the bed a little and Anthony can see his cock where it slides into the redhead’s pussy. There is the wet soft sound of them kissing. Then she sits up a little to rock back and forward slowly. One of the man’s hands, with a hint of tattoos at the wrist, reaches around to tug the plug slowly out of her ass. When he pushes it back in Anthony’s number twists on her as she arches her back, sending her hair tumbling around his name as she moans low and dirty.

“You need someone else here to fill you up.” The man says and she agrees high and breathy, still shifting backwards and forwards as the plug is worked on and out of her ass slowly.

The video ends and Anthony scrolls back to her crawling in the bed, his name picked out in red, her wet cunt and the shiny lube on her bum where the plug has been worked into her.

He watches her walk in her knees to the waiting man two more times before he’s coming over his fist and gasping in the empty room.

“Fuuuuuck.” Anthony lays back for a minute quickly checking the time and stumbling off to wash his hands.

In the elevator to meet for dinner he sends a message back to Kieran. “I’ll thank C in person.” He wants to send an emoji of a tongue but he can’t guarantee Cole won’t snoop on his phone again. He has no luck putting the video out of his mind at dinner. But it’s all right if he’s quiet he’s the new guy here.

#fic

[majorbaby]

hawkeye oral fixation fic and a six day age!

thanks!

hawkeye oral fixation fic - not actual ageplay but something about trapper's observations re: hawkeye being pacified with trapper's dick in his mouth. excerpt's PG.

six day age - i gotta keep the details of this one under wraps for now but an excerpt is included beneath the cut.

oral fixation fic

Trapper’s gone too long between nurses, on account of his latest back-to-back stint of two 12 hour shifts, and he’d come to the mess tent for lunch earlier than he liked to take it for the express purpose of getting Lieutenant Olsen alone long enough to convince her to do take-out with him.

However, Hawkeye’s on his heels as usual, following him without question through the tent, stacking things on his tray without properly assessing their edibility first. Wasn’t like looking helped the identification process at all. Which is one of the unspoken reasons Trapper understood to be why Hawkeye needs to sniff everything that goes in his mouth.

And that doesn’t bother Trapper, not in the slightest. It’s just one of Hawkeye’s many quirks. But not everyone is as amicable to that as Trapper is. 

He’s just started to lay on a thick layer of charm, and it’s clearly working. Her cheeks flush and her chewing slows. Her eyes sparkle and fix on his. He’s got her. He’s just about ready to brush his leg against her when he notices gaze start to flick away. She’s looking just to the right of Trapper. At first he thinks she just might really be into shoulders, which isn’t something unique to her at all. But it’s a little strange she seems to be into his left shoulder specifically. 

Then he feels what’s against that shoulder – Hawkeye. He’s leaning into Trapper, his weight on that side, as he puts his elbow on the table and observes an unidentified greybrown object impaled on the end of his fork. 

Trapper hangs his head and sighs as Lieutenant Olsen excuses herself from their table.

“What is it?” Hawkeye asks immediately, turning to Trapper and not acknowledging Olsen's exit.

“Hawk…” He isn’t mad. He can’t be mad. He can never be mad at Hawkeye for being Hawkeye. He’s just wound up. That’s why he’d followed Trapper out of the Swamp automatically and sat down for lunch at 10:30 AM even though they’d just had breakfast hardly an hour earlier.

---

six day age

In the morning Trapper awoke to silence in the Swamp. The inside of his mouth felt like it had been sanded down. The still beckoned to him, but he reached for the half-full flask of stale water at his bedside instead. Pursing his lips at the taste of it, he sat up slowly. He was alone in the Swamp for the first time in as long as he could remember, without having fixed it so that he could bring home a date. 

As he brushed his teeth he cataloged the whereabouts of his roommates, former and current: 

Oliver Harmon Jones, shipped back to his hometown of Richmond, Indiana. Cutting circles around every surgeon in the state and being rewarded with ire from colleagues and patients alike. But at least he was home. 

Hawkeye Pierce, now on his second full day of R&R in Tokyo, and probably blissfully unaware of it, passed out in bed next to a woman or a bottle or both. 

Frank Burns – as if on cue a squeaky bugle could be heard – fucking Frank Burns getting a head start on what would be the longest week of Trapper’s life here in Korea, where the weeks already ran a century long. 

Trapper rinsed his mouth with what was left in the water in the flask, dressed himself in a fresh set of fatigues and started for the door. He considered throwing on his robe, but the air felt humid, which was unusual for this time of year, so he left it behind and headed out into the compound. He groaned at the sight of everyone standing at attention and in formation. With their leader in mischief currently on leave, they were left only with their leader in rank.

#wip stuff #ask game

[crasherfly]

Overwatch 2 Is Just Bad Right Now

We all said farewell to Overwatch a few weeks back with the understanding that whatever might lie ahead of us, there was no going back.

You have to wonder now how many people might have retreated to the prior entry in the series had the servers stayed online. We’ll never know, however, because like it or not we are stuck with the mess that is Overwatch 2- and what a mess it is.

I’ve spent roughly 15 hours with Blizzard’s new hero shooter, splitting my time between the open queue and the role queue with a little time spent on Arcade. The much publicized changes- the new 5v5 format, the major hero tweaks to characters like Orisa and Mei- are expected and for the most part easy enough to swallow. But it’s the smaller changes that we are only just now noticing that betray an entry that at best just wasn’t ready to launch and at worst the product of a highly dysfunctional environment.

Setting aside the obvious server and connectivity struggles, Overwatch 2 is in a rough place. Bastion has already been pulled despite Blizzard having years to figure out what to do with the mobile bullet tube. The 5v5 experience- I wish I could call it an experiment, but this is life now- is faster, deadlier and much harder to sustain momentum in. Blizzard still hasn’t budged on granting aim assist to console players who want to partner up with their PC playing counterparts, despite every other big name shooter having found a compromise on the subject (can’t they just like, walk across the street and steal some ideas from the Call of Duty guys???). New players without the right cellphone plan are out of luck- and even if they could play, they’d be greeted with the most nonsensical slow-drip hero rollout this side of Smash Bros. Ultimate. And the battlepass can justifiably be called a grift, its progress pitifully slow with the promise of future heroes being gated at a ridiculously high level.

Issues like the battlepass wouldn’t be much to sweat over if Overwatch 2 could be bothered with giving you incentives to play more than just a couple of matches at a time, but at every turn the post-match UI seems bent toward making that prospect as uninviting as possible. Gone are the achievement votes and post-match stat screens where you can review your basic stats- they’re now buried in your Career Profile. Whether by bug or design the queue often does not load you straight into the next match, forcing you to hop back in line if you want to play more (my experience was on PS5/Series X, it is possible PC players are having an easier time). Indeed, all Overwatch 2 is interested in telling you about your post-game experience is how depressingly little progress you made on its battlepass. A good state game can still make a player feel decent even after a tough loss, but with no time to reflect in the post-game, losing players or left to stare at the sad little BP meter and wonder why they even bothered.

The laundry list of tiny issues that collectively could fill an ocean’s worth of complains continue, from the inexplicably designed stat screen during the match to to nearly unreadable tiny numbers and visual indicators associated with several hero’s powers. Say what you will for the original Overwatch, but it was a masterpiece in intuitive gaming- in its visuals and sound there was rarely a moment where the direction felt unclear. Somewhere along the way Overwatch 2 chucked those lessons out the window in favor for what seems to be change for the sake of change.

But despite the fact that Overwatch 2 has failed where even games like Splatoon 3 have been wise enough to know not to falter (if it aint broke, don’t fix it!) it still has a gameplay loop and sense of strategy (albeit diminished) that every other shooter lacks. On its own this will be enough to keep most people- probably even myself- logging in at least occasionally during the first season. But with faltering design decisions, an infuriating new meta (you’re going to die a lot, especially if you’re a support) and fewer reasons than ever for a new player to try it out, it’s reasonable to ask just what, short of a total overhaul, Overwatch 2 could do to improve its future outlook.

And if an overhaul really is necessary (it sure seems like it is!) then it might be fair to say it- Overwatch 2 isn’t simply a step down from the original- it’s just bad. But for the sake of fans everywhere, lets hope it doesn’t stay that way for long.

[ptergwen]

smoke and mirrors

⇢ richkid!tom x richkid!reader ⇠

w/c: 4.1k

warnings: swearing, drinking, light angst, and implied smut

summary: because of your mother’s insistence on a pristine family image and tom’s messy one, you deny your true feelings for him

a/n: ok ok ok the pics of tom in monaco really made me think and i had to get everything out of my system so here we are! thank you and enjoy x

-

your living room is engulfed by a hushed chatter that comes from far too many guests. half the people, you hardly know. it’s overcrowded, superficial, and the last place you want to be. it’s one of your mother’s get-togethers, as she likes to call them. these things are always far from the casual affairs they sound like.

weeks go into planning, caterers and decorators making themselves at home in yours. the family’s image is everything to your mom, so being a good hostess is her top priority. ironically, she’s more concerned with throwing her gatherings than raising you. so much for family, huh?

the only reason you agreed to make an appearance tonight is that tom might do the same. he’s a really good friend, someone you’ve been able to count on through all the mess that is your lives. you met in high school, when he moved from london to the states. his dad was offered a job promotion he couldn’t pass up. plus, tom and his brothers would be receiving a stellar private education here in america.

it was a win for everyone, especially you. the freckle faced boy who got lost on his way to english class became your closest confidant. tom’s company is such a sweet escape. he’s not interested in opera or the stock market like most people you meet are. he sneaks you out to go on walks at dawn and does shots with you until you can’t stand straight.

as you two continue to grow together, revelations about yourselves have come to light. what you want beyond your inheritances, who you want beyond friendship. you figured out the second part on a faithful night recently. tom showed up to your place with a bottle of tequila. after you drank it down through lots of lime chasers and giggles, he kissed you. you didn’t kiss back.

your heart said to go for it, but your mind pulled you back in. you were so shocked and overcome with new feelings, you froze up. that, and you’d infuriate your mother. although she cares about tom a great deal, she loathes his public figure. he’s always getting papped in places and with people he shouldn’t be. the two of you together would just destroy her.

you still want to please your mom at the end of the day, no matter how deep under your skin she gets.

tom immediately apologized and tried play it off as him being drunk. you grew up with him, became part of each other’s families, which means you know him well enough to know he was lying. he meant every second his lips were on yours.

what you need to do now is something you’ve meant to for a while. the only problem is that you’re stuck at your mother’s party, and tom hasn’t shown up yet.

“y/n, darling,” your mom calls for your attention. she’s dragged you into a conversation with some bloggers, but you haven’t spoken a word. “why don’t you tell us about your trip to spain last summer?” she plasters on her award winning grin and squeezes your shoulder. it’s time to play along.

“oh, it was beautiful,” you halfheartedly reply, more to the bloggers than her. they nod in clear interest. one jots down notes. “we went for a few weeks and visited a bunch of different cities. i’d love to go back sometime.” the typical press formatted answer earns your mom’s approval. you’re off the hook. your eyes start to wander around the room, hoping to set on tom.

“we?” the woman taking notes asks. must everyone pry? “my friend and i,” you shortly reply. you’re standing up on your tiptoes to see over the crowd. you’d think six inch heels would do the trick. “i’m actually looking for him right now, so if you’ll excuse me,” you offer a polite smile and silently pray they won’t ask who. unfortunately, your wishes don’t come true.

the other blogger, a short and stubborn man, speaks up. “just a friend you say? come on, tell us. who’s the lucky fella?” he inquires. your mother raises a firm eyebrow, signaling for you not to.

tom has a reputation for his reckless behavior. it’s your mom’s worst nightmare when the media associates your names under most circumstances. you’re representing her, so she does whatever she can to control how you’re seen. you’re constantly in the papers, being a young socialite and all. it sucks.

“he’d like to stay out of the tabloids, sorry,” you cover for tom, on your mom’s behalf. “i should really go. it was nice meeting you.” the bloggers don’t bother to hide their disappointment as you shake their hands. your mother rubs your back in approval. “thank you for doing that. we’ll talk later,” she speaks lowly. “bye, mom!” you practically make a run for it. 

weaving through the sea of people, you end up by the main entrance. it’s hard not to get lost even though it’s your house. the place is packed with girls just a couple years older than you, wearing pearls around their necks. men’s strong colognes flow through the air. you’re in a form fitting red slip dress and louboutins yourself.

smoke and mirrors is what they call it. you show the pretty parts to distract from your ugly ones.

harrison suddenly comes waltzing in with a lady on either of his arms. you’d expect nothing less. he’s tom’s best friend besides you, considering the failed kiss attempt didn’t change that. their parents worked at the london branch of the same company. they each came to the states and met you. you happily introduced them to your world, helping to make it theirs as well.

“haz!” you meet him at the front door. he’s smirking while he leads the women inside. “fancy seeing you here, isn’t it?” he jokes. “very funny. i died laughing,” you deadpan, curiously eyeing harrison’s plus two. they merely giggle. “listen, have you seen tom anywhere? if he’s coming.” you’re fighting back a frown. “why wouldn’t he be?” harrison questions in a more serious tone this time.

“long story. you have guests to entertain, so i won’t get into it now,” you decide and manage a small smile instead. he perks up. “right. i’ll let you know if i see him?” nodding, you give him a wave goodbye. “enjoy yourself.” “you too, love. cheers!” the girls lean into him, harrison wiggling his eyebrows at you. he’s ridiculous.

hours pass by without word of tom. it isn’t like him to miss an event, especially if you’re in attendance. you despise these exhausting nights, and he’s supposed to be your rock during them. he should have his arm draped around your shoulders, whispering silly remarks to you while you hide out somewhere. you miss him more than you thought possible.

you’re just about to give up when you spot nikki ushering her husband inside. behind them follows tom, clad in a grey checkered suit with his locks perfectly tousled. he’s here. you waited the whole night, and he finally came.

tom kisses his mom on the cheek before strutting over to the drink table, not without a few reporters hassling him. they’re probably looking for another holland scandal to break. he declines their requests for comments on this and opinions on that, instead pulling up a chair next to harrison. the two exchange hugs and fix themselves glasses of champagne, you watching their encounter.

harrison fills tom in on the drama he’s missed tonight while they sip their drinks. tom keeps forcing smiles that don’t reach his eyes. he’s fiddling with his fingers, leg bouncing up and down steadily. those are the telltale signs he needs saving. however awkward it may be, you’re going to have to break your silence. it was bound to happen eventually.

“mate, i’m telling you. she fit her entire first right up her-“ “boys,” you cut into harrison’s story, greeting him and tom. his face tints deep pink upon your arrival. “don’t let me stop you. finish your charming anecdote,” you encourage him and subtly glance over at tom. he’s biting back a grin as he sets his elbows on the table.

“not with a lady present. let’s just… pretend you didn’t hear that,” harrison chuckles nervously and hops to his feet. “i’m gonna leave you two to chat.” humming, you move to take his chair. tom sucks in a breath. “what happened to the girls you brought?” you wonder. “they left. said they got bored,” harrison admits, tom stifling laughter. he elbows his friend for that.

“oh, fuck off. i’ll see you later,” he mopes, flicking your arm for good measure. tom salutes him and grabs his nearly empty champagne. “so long, bruv.”

it’s just you and tom now, seated side by side, silently so. he has no intentions of speaking first. he’s too embarrassed, and you don’t blame him. this is on you. you clear your throat before starting the conversation.

“can i top you off?” you tap the bottom of his glass with a tiny smile. tom shakes his head. “i’m alright, thanks.” he finishes the last sip and sets it down, turning to face you. your smile has vanished. “wasn’t sure you were gonna make it. i’m glad you did,” you change the subject. as if he’s considering the sincerity behind your words, tom furrows his eyebrows.

“mum wanted us to. she dragged me and dad straight off the golf course,” he explains and clasps his hands in his lap. his fingers interlock with each other. you fight off the urge to replace them with yours. “we would’ve been here sooner, but the paps are camped outside.” the hint of a smile forms on his lips, at last. “guess it’s not often you get the town’s finest under one roof.”

“you think i’m one of the town’s finest?” you tease, resting your chin in your palm. something flashes behind tom’s eyes. he looks right into yours, scooting closer. “absolutely. you’re the most eligible bachelorette in this whole building.” you allow a toothy grin to spread across your face. “tommy, stop it. you’re too nice to me.”

the nickname is music to his ears. tom looks you up and down, licking his lips simultaneously. “no, seriously. you look gorgeous,” he muses, you pushing at his chest. he exhales a breathy laugh, and you giggle yourself. “red’s definitely your color.” “reverse card. you wear it way better than i do,” you insist. your fingers tug at the collar of his suit. “too bad you didn’t match me.”

you’re relieved you two can talk like you usually do, light flirting and good vibes. it might not be so hard to put the kiss behind you. well, you can’t go on pretending it didn’t happen. you have to at least discuss the fiasco. tom should know why you didn’t reciprocate, then you can take it from there. whether he still has feelings for you, assuming he ever did, will depend on how that turns out.

“not to ruin the fun, but we still have to talk,” you murmur, tom’s body stiffening across from yours. he’s not sure he’s ready to discuss that. “can it wait? we’re at a party,” tom reminds you, running a hand through his styled locks. “yeah, my mother’s. don’t tell me you’re having a good time,” you playfully chastise him. he simply shrugs. “hardly. you’re the best part.”

you ignore the butterflies roaming about your body.

“you won’t mind a quick convo, then. it is with me,” you attempt to persuade him and place a hand on his knee. tom coughs a bit too loudly, the contact surprising him. “you know what? i think i’ll take you up on that drink first,” he decides with a mustered up smile. “coming right up.” you pat his leg before taking his glass. he chews on his lower lip while you poor the bubbling liquid. that was certainly… odd.

you slide tom his champagne back with an exaggerated wink. tom scoffs at this. “mm, thanks. care to join me?” he brings the alcohol to his lips, eyes never leaving yours. your mother specifically said no drinking tonight, since the press would be here. screw your mother, though. “please. could you hand me a glass?” you eagerly grab the champagne bottle. tom searches for an empty cup next to him.

you two are unspoken drinking buddies at this point.

“here you are, darling,” tom drawls, holding out the glass for you. every time he calls you that, you completely melt. “thanks, tommy,” you purr in response. you’re finally pouring your own drink when someone taps you on the shoulder, and hard. you look behind you to find your mother standing with her hands on her hips, less than thrilled. speak of the devil.

“hello, mother. can i help you?” you make sure to ask rudely. she responds with a smile that’s obviously fake. if tom weren’t here, you’d be getting scolded. “yes, my darling. those bloggers from earlier were hoping you’d finish your interview.” your mom shakes your shoulder in a motherly way. you squint up at her. “didn’t they leave hours ago-“ “they’re back,” she sharply informs you.

she’s lying, and you have a hunch as to why.

frowning, you hold tom’s hand in both of yours. “sorry, this won’t take long. why don’t you go find tuwaine?” you suggest instead. “he’s around here somewhere.” tom gives you an understanding nod and laces your fingers together, even if it’s only for a moment. “must be chatting up some producers or whatnot. i’ll see if i can help.” he’s such an incredible friend to everyone. he deserves the same from you.

“thomas, so lovely to see you,” your mom interrupts. tom stands up, kissing both her cheeks out of courtesy. “you, too. what a wonderful party. thank you for having us.” despite what the rest of the world believes, his manners are impeccable. “of course. give nikki my best, will you?” your mom puts her hands on his shoulders. he grins at her. “definitely. take care, mrs. y/l/n.” “always a pleasure,” she states, nudging you to come along with her.

you shoot tom one last apologetic look as your mother pulls you along and towards the crowd.

tom is no idiot. he’s well aware how she really feels about him.

when a swarm of guests is surrounding you, your mom lets go. you scowl, crossing your arms over your chest. “why would you do that? i haven’t seen tom in days.” she sighs without a care. “isn’t it time you branch out? expand your social circle?” her manicured fingers ruffle your hair. you push away her touch. “i’m social enough. we were in the middle of something really important.”

you begin to walk away, but your mother takes your arm. “whatever you’re about to do, it’s a mistake. he’ll make a fool of you,” she practically spits. yanking your arm from her grasp, you laugh bitterly. “of me, or of the family name? look around, mom.” you gesture to the spot beside her where your dad should be. “as far as i’m concerned, i have no family except tom. i’m gonna go check on him.”

you’re gone before your mom can stop you. she simply stands there, utterly mortified by what you said.

you run around the house to find tom, stumbling in your heels and not giving a fuck. you’d truly meant the part about him being your family. all the holland’s, honestly. they’re the most genuine and caring souls, and you don’t want to lose the one you’re closest to because of your mother’s delusions. 

tom is in a circle with harrison and tuwaine, the three of them chuckling amongst themselves. you’d hate to bug him, but this can’t wait anymore.

“uh, tom?” you mumble his name, appearing behind him. he steps away with another quiet laugh. “hey, y/n/n. that was quick, hm?” your face gives away your distress. his whole demeanor shifting, tom reaches for your hands. “what is it, love? is something the matter?” “just… come with me,” you croak out.

you manage to smile at harrison and tuwaine, dropping one of tom’s hands so you can lead him upstairs. they each return the smile and share curious looks.

following behind you, tom keeps your hand tight in his own. he’d thought you were going to grill him about the kiss that barely happened. it seems like this is a much more pressing matter. his outburst of emotions can be discussed another time. now, it’s time to deal with yours.

you drag tom into the first room on the second floor, which is your dad’s study. he’s away on business this weekend, so he luckily couldn’t make the party. tom sits down in the office chair. you sit up on the desk, in front of him. your lip quivers the second his worried features come into view.

“y/n/n, what’s going on? why are we in here?” tom wonders, his tone soft. your heart clenches. “i- i wanted us to have some privacy when i told you this,” you sniffle out and blink back the tears forming. you’re sort of shaken from the conversation with your mother, and mostly because you have no idea how tom will react to your confession.

his hands come to stay on your thighs, right below your dress. they feel warm against your bare skin.

“tell me what? i’m listening, yeah?” tom gazes up at you with so much love. “lay it all out for me.” god, he’s fucking amazing. if only you knew where to start. “do you, um…” you trail off, letting your tears subside and words settle. “do you remember when your family made your big debut in town?”

a grin replaces tom’s frown, painting his beautiful face. “how could i forget? you made it quite memorable.” he traces circles on your thigh and elicits a giggle from you. “i spilled a whole thing of soda on your white fucking button down,” you recount with a lighthearted sigh. “right before your dad was supposed to introduce you to everyone, too.”

tom presses his tongue into his cheek to hold back another grin. “took ages to get it out. dad went mad when i didn’t show.” he cocks his head to the side, you leaning back on your hands. “you held me hostage in the laundry room so you could do that bloody stain stick.” your mouth drops open in mock offense. “i had to clean up my mess! i wasn’t gonna let the world meet you covered in pepsi.”

that was one of your earliest memories together. the holland’s threw a party and invited everyone who was willing to attend. they had been hoping to properly introduce themselves to the town, and this was their way of doing so. although yours and tom’s friendship was fairly new, you spent all night together because you had experience with such events.

tom’s dad was making a speech to thank the guests for coming. you and him listened from the snack table, until his name was called. he rushed to go up there while you were pouring yourself a drink. he’d bumped into you, and the bottle ended up all over him. you snuck tom right off to his laundry room.

you’d felt terrible as he stood there shirtless and blushing, you aggressively swiping his button down with a stain stick.

“why do you bring that up?” tom questions and continues circling your skin. you purse your lips. “i dunno. it was the last party i actually enjoyed,” you admit, putting your hand over his that rests on your thigh. “like to reminisce when i’m suffering through one of my mother’s.” his eyes shift to where your hands are laced. “i see,” he affirms. “so, is that… all you wanted to talk about?” “not even close,” you laugh out.

a burst of courage coursing through your body, you say it. “when you kissed me the other night-“ “i won’t do it again,” tom cuts in, trying to avoid the rejection he thinks you’ll give him. “it was a mistake, and i’m so sorry. our friendship is more important than my feelings.” you seem excited to hear that, though it’s not for the reason tom expects. “you do have feelings for me?”

he’d forgotten about his i was drunk excuse.

“um, yeah. i do,” he admits, cheeks rosy and lip caught in his teeth. “but, i’ll learn to put them aside, if that’s what’s best.” “no, no. it isn’t,” you dismiss him and put your free hand on his chest. “i love you, tom. that’s what i was really trying to tell you.” your words bring an instant grin to his face. he chuckles in disbelief, standing from the chair.

“fuck, thank god. that’s all i’ve ever wanted to hear.” he’s between your legs now, his hands moving up to your hips. you’re beaming at him as your arms snake around his neck. a burning question comes to tom’s mind. “hang on. why didn’t you kiss me back, then?” he almost whispers, thumb brushing over your hipbone. “this is gonna sound weird, but… my mom,” you reluctantly let out.

“you’re gonna have to elaborate,” tom prompts you and raises an eyebrow. you can’t hold back your eye roll. “she’s never been a fan of the person you are in the media.” his lips form a line. “i gathered.” your fingers tangle in his curls at the nape of his neck reassuringly. “i was subconsciously scared i would be letting her down in some way, if we were together.”

tom allows your hands to work their way up to his scalp. he exhales contentedly as you play with his ever so soft hair. “i understand, she’s intimidating. what’s changed that brilliant mind of yours about coming clean?” your nose scrunches up when he pokes one of your temples. “oh, yeah. i yelled at her earlier ‘cuz she stole me away from you.” his face lights up. “sexy.” “shut up,” you groan. “someone had to tell her off.”

“good thing it got to be you,” tom agrees with a squeeze at your hip. “‘m proud of you, y/n/n. it’s not easy, standing up to mummy dearest.” you tug on his hair. “like you’d know. nikki is a saint.” “that’s what she’ll have you believe,” he says under his breath, you gasping. his lips turn up in a smirk. “on that note… i love you, too.”

“would’ve been embarrassing if you didn’t say it back,” you acknowledge with a cheesy smile. tom dips his head down to rest his forehead against yours. “yeah, yeah. save the attitude for your mum.” your legs easily wrap around his waist, tom’s breath hot as it hits your face. “let’s give that kiss another go,” you mewl. he doesn’t hesitate to reply. “with pleasure.”

tom’s lips land on yours, you kissing back right away. he smiles into it as your lips gently move together. “about fucking time,” he grumbles, your hands situating in his chocolate curls once again. he’s savoring every second you touch him, kiss him, love him. the taste of your mouth is one he’s craved for longer than you could imagine.

it doesn’t take long for things to heat up, you messing with tom’s hair and tom rubbing your hips. you lay back on the desk as his tongue enters your mouth. holding you by your waist, tom hovers over you. his tongue tangles with yours in a deep kiss. between that and his fingers beginning to massage your thigh, you’re done for. you’re ready to take this a step further by the time he’s kissing down your neck.

“tommy?” you grab onto his shoulders, your head back. his lips detach from your skin with a grin. “yeah, love? ‘s everything okay?” he coos, pressing a final kiss to your collarbone. “more than.” you tilt his chin up to peck his lips. “you wouldn’t happen to have a condom, would you? just thinking ahead.” he laughs breathlessly, reaching into his suit pocket.

“conveniently enough, i do. not sure your dad would like me fucking you on his desk, though.” tom sets his hand on your leg that’s still hooked around his waist. “my room’s always available. carry me?” you make grabby hands and bat your lashes. he hoists you up by your waist, not lifting you just yet. “that would break the news of us, no? your mum’s gonna go apeshit.” he keeps his arms around you, chuckling.

“let her. besides, i know a couple of bloggers that would love to announce our status update.” you peck tom’s lips, grinning as you do. you’re suddenly in the air and being picked up by tom. the surprise of it makes you squeal, clutching onto his broad shoulders instinctively. he gives you the look of adoration that’s reserved for you only.

“we’ll go pop a few bottles with everyone, then we’re celebrating on our own.”

#tom holland #richkid!tom #tom holland fluff #tom holland smut #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x you #tom holland imagine #tom holland fic #tom holland fanfiction #peter parker #peter parker fluff #peter parker smut #peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x you

[utopianvoices]

past, present, future → b.chan

synopsis: Your best friend drags you to his high school reunion against your will, and never have you encountered such chaos. Alternatively, you go on the journey of making more friends, and a potential lover.

genre: high school acquaintances to lovers au; fluff, one second of angst

pairing: bang chan x reader

word count: 14.4k

warnings: explicit language, alcohol consumption, kinda dialogue heavy (oops)

note: i am BACK with this mess of a fic. it took me too long to finish this, and i apologise for any shitty writing :3 thanks to my little babie @curanonemu​ for making sure i finished this and supporting me as usual muAH. new formatting on posts too weeeee (new year, new me fsdhfgs jk no)!! also, synopsis kinda sucks i’m sorry :P hope y’all enjoy! x

i.

You did not want to go for your high school reunion dinner. 

High school is a time for many that is either the best, or worst time of their lives. Forever friends are found there and painstakingly embarrassing memories are made in run down buildings with people you care about. Except, you didn’t have any such attachments. 

Those three years were nothing but a filler for you as you studied, helped out in the library, and hung out with one person you called your best friend. 

And on top of it all, it wasn’t even a high school reunion dinner meant for you.

The night the bomb is dropped on you, Changbin walks into the living room of the apartment you both share just outside the grounds of your university, and goes straight to the kitchen to fix himself a bowl of cereal because cooking and Changbin did not get along well. The apartment was way cheaper than the dorms your school provided, and it definitely did not have any nosy RAs who were just out there to torture students for their own viewing pleasure.

On top of all that, you could live with your best friend and not some random stranger who might very much as well be a psychotic killer. Perhaps, Changbin could have some questionable habits, like talking to himself in a baby voice while looking in the mirror, but nothing that threatened your life. 

You hear Changbin’s phone ringing from the kitchen as you aimlessly flip through the shows available on Netflix, deciding which new show you should watch and commit to, when your best friend’s boisterous laughter fills your ears. Used to the noise, you roll your eyes before increasing the volume of the TV, finally deciding to rewatch Sherlock.

Fifteen minutes later, you’re about to solve the known mystery together with Benedict Cumberbatch when Changbin walks in front of the TV, automatically eliciting a whine from you as you crane your neck left and right to catch a glimpse of the screen. 

“What the fuck, Bin?” You finally yell, frowning at the boy in front of you. Realising that he probably wanted something, considering the fact that he wasn’t moving till you asked him, you switch the TV off and settle back into the sofa, throwing him a death glare. “What do you want from me, pest?”

Something’s definitely amiss when you see Changbin shuffling his feet and looking at the ground, a guilty smile ever-present on his face. 

“Whatever it is, my answer is no,” you say distantly, leaning back into the sofa with crossed arms. “So give it up.”

“Oh c’mon Y/n! At least hear me out?” Changbin cries out loudly, dropping onto his knees with clasped hands. 

Heaving out a sigh, you slowly unfold your arms and lean forward, eyebrows raised as you nod at the poor boy in front of you. “I’ll hear you out. But don’t expect me to say yes.”

“Um...” Changbin starts, eyes darting around the room as he tries to find the right words. “So my high school friends are having a reunion dinner next week and I told them I’d go, but I also said I’d bring you along and they were too happy and so now I think you’ll have to come with me but-”

“Woah woah woah, a high school reunion party? Absolutely not.” 

It’s not like you had anything against his friends. You did have brief interactions with a few of them in high school and you knew they were pretty decent lads, but there was no way you were following Changbin to what was meant to be a friends’ gathering. 

“But why not!” Changbin whines, waddling over to you on his knees. “It’ll be really fun!”

“Yeah, fun for you,” you deadpan, staring at your pitiful best friend who has now resorted to throwing you puppy eyes. “They’re your friends after all, not mine.”

“That’s right. But they could be. Don’t you think it’s time you start finding more friends who are not me?” 

Changbin’s once pitiful eyes held something other than desperation at that moment; they held concern. 

It was true that you had no other friend other than Changbin. You knew lots of people, sure, but you wouldn’t call them your friends. With no friends to your name other than that one, it also wasn’t hard to guess that you never dated too. But all that mattered is that you were fine with it, right?

“You know that I don’t need any other friends. You’re more than enough for me. Truthfully, I don’t think I could deal with another Changbin in my life.” 

Your words incite chuckles from Changbin, but that doesn’t stray him from his original goal. 

“How about this,” he starts, opting to sit cross-legged on the floor because his knees were starting to hurt way too much. “You come to the reunion with me, and the moment you feel uncomfortable, we both can leave no questions asked. Deal?”

As tempting as that sounded, you knew it was not fair to cut Changbin’s precious time with his friends just because you did not want to hang out with new people. “That’s not fair to you.” 

Shaking his head, Changbin stares at you, the fire in his eyes clearly visible, and you know that he had made up his mind. “I don’t care. It’s either you follow me and we can leave whenever, or I don’t go at all.”

There was no turning back now. You knew that in the end, what Changbin wants, he gets. 

You sigh numbly before nodding your head in defeat, dreading the day that was to come where you had to leave the comfort of your apartment. 

With no warning, you’re engulfed in a tight hug by a nuisance chanting “thank you” a million times. You ease into the hug, wrapping your arms around him and giving him a light squeeze, before pulling back to see that he had a smile similar to the one on your face. 

“I guess you’re right about me needing more friends. I can’t be annoying you for the rest of my life, right?”

ii.

You’re once again reminded why you don’t go for social gatherings as you take in the various clothes strewn all over your room. 

“Hey- Woah, what happened here?” Changbin asks, bewildered at the sight in front of him. “It looks like a hurricane hit your room or something.”

“Yes, it’s called Hurricane Y/n Is Screwed,” you reply sarcastically, before sinking down into your bed in defeat. Looking up at your best friend, you decide to give it a shot and put on your most pitiful face. “Do I really have to go?” 

“Yes, you really have to go,” Changbin replies without sparing you another glance, as he sifts through the heap of clothes on your bed. “And get that ugly look off your face, please. It makes me want to barf.” 

Flipping your best friend off, you manoeuvre yourself such that you’re facing Changbin, and look upon him in curiosity. 

After what felt like forever, pieces of clothing are thrown at you, along with a reminder that you had three hours before you had to leave. 

“Three?!” You screech, causing Changbin to wince and cover his ears. “You should’ve told me earlier so that I have more time!” 

“What are you so loud for, you damn pterodactyl? And three hours is more than enough. We’re just going to a cheap restaurant a few blocks away because we’re all broke college students.” 

Huffing at your insolent best friend, you grab the clothes he threw at you and make your way to the bathroom, not bothering to contemplate his decision because you knew he had pretty good taste in fashion. In fact, half the clothes you had in your wardrobe were bought with him as your advisor, so you’re really in no position to criticise his choices.

You stare at your reflection and let out a nervous breath; you weren’t used to meeting new people, and there was no way you were going to be able to handle a hoard of newly turned adults. The last thing you wanted was to cut Changbin’s time short with his friends, and as you stare at yourself in the mirror, you make a promise to yourself that you’ll get through the night by whatever means. Even if it meant hours of torture.

Changbin, with absolutely no urgency, is sitting on the couch watching the fourth Harry Potter movie, when you walk into the living room, makeup half done and still dressed in your stay-at-home clothes. Boys, you think.

“I think I need to know who and how many people will be there,” you finalise, watching Changbin pick up the remote and pausing the movie at exactly when Cedric dies; poor chap. “ So that I can, you know, mentally prepare myself.”

“You really don’t, but okay. There’ll be nine of us, including you. Minho, Hyunjin, and Felix from the dance team, Jeongin and Seungmin from the baseball team, Chan from the swimming team, soccer team, and honours board, and Jisung who was pretty much useless like me.” 

“Wow.” 

“In my defense, you’ve seen all of these dudes at least once,” Changbin says, shrugging his shoulders. “Anyway, they’re all really nice and fun so you have nothing to worry about.” 

“Says you,” you mutter under your breath, before returning to your room to prepare for your doom.

iii.

The sign of the restaurant flickers periodically as you stand in the middle of the street with Changbin by your side. People brush past you as they hurry to meet their friends and families in the various restaurants lining the street, excitement evident in their steps.

Taking a deep breath, you push open the door. Immediately, a gush of warm air welcomes you, causing you to let out a content sigh.

“Hey Changbin!” A loud voice calls out from behind you, and the both of you turn in your place. The sight in front of you gives you equal amounts of anxiety and fear, as you wonder how you were going to handle the table of one, two, three… seven boys, including the embarrassment standing beside you, who was now busy doing some sort of weird wave in favour of a greeting. 

“Changbin, please,” you plead, burying your face in your hands as you willed for someone to transport you back to your apartment so that you didn’t have to face reality and stand next to your shameless friend. 

Chuckling sheepishly, your best friend finally stops, patting your back before walking towards the table at the back of the restaurant. “Oops sorry. Let’s go meet the rest!” 

Here goes nothing.

Reaching the almost-filled table, your eyes dart from face to face, trying to see if you could remember anyone currently seated in front of you. 

“Guys! This is Y/n, my best friend,”—at this, a few complaints erupt from around the table—”Gosh, fine. My other best friend.” 

Immediately, at least three people shout their greetings your way. 

“Hi Y/n! Nice to meet you!”

“Yo~ Changbin’s told us lots about you.”

“Y/n, sit beside me!” 

Exasperated, your eyes flit around the table, trying your best to smile at all of them (which honestly turns out to look more like a pained grimace). Luckily, there was one seemingly sane person present. 

“Shut up, everyone.” A boy with blue hair and sharp eyes shushes everyone. “Hi Y/n, it’s nice to have you here. I’m Jeongin.” 

At this, the once quiet table is back to chaos as complaints are directed towards Jeongin for sneakily introducing himself first. Taking advantage of the mess, Changbin guides you towards the empty seats and finally settles the both of you down. Now all the seats were filled, except for one empty seat left beside you. 

You’re about to ask Chanbgin about the empty chair, but before you can, he claps his hands, attracting everyone’s attention. “Okay, everyone will take turns introducing themselves. Seungmin, you start.”

The sandy haired boy seated on the right of Changbin waves both his hands while bouncing in his seat, reminding you of a puppy. “I’m Seungmin!”

Next is Jeongin, who just gives you a small smile. 

Beside him, you see a blonde haired boy, what is up with the hair colours, who just smiles brightly, eyes shining brightly and freckles visible. “Hello, I’m Felix. It’s great to meet you!” 

Taken aback by the deep voice, which was a total contrast to his cute appearance, you’re unable to hide the shock from your face. This triggers a bout of chuckles from the table; it was probably common for people to display similar reactions when meeting Felix. 

Before pretty boy (that’s what you decided to remember him as) could introduce himself, the black haired boy resembling a squirrel interrupts him. “I’m Jisung!” 

You recognise him as the one who shouted when you and Changbin entered the restaurant, and you’re about to acknowledge him when you’re cut off. 

“Oi Han, it was my turn to introduce myself! Who allowed you to skip the line?” 

“I do what I want,” was Jisung’s response, and pretty boy looked like he was one push away from murder. 

Just as you’re sure that you were about to witness a murder, Changbin chides the two boys and breaks up the petty argument. “Just introduce yourselves without any nonsense, please.” 

“I’m Hyunjin,” pretty boy mutters sulkily, giving Jisung a death stare. “And I can dance better than Jisung.”

“You motherf-”

“And I’m Minho,” the last person introduces himself, successfully cutting off Jisung’s profanity mid-word. “Sorry, don’t mind those two. They’re like Tom and Jerry.” 

Smiling weakly, you muster up the courage to introduce yourself to the four pairs of eyes staring at you. Hyunjin and Jisung were busy having a staredown, while Changbin was eyeing the meat sizzling on the grill. “Hi, I’m Y/n, Changbin’s friend. It’s nice to meet all of you. Thanks for having me here.” 

And just like that, everyone is back to their own conversations, with Changbin piling the perfectly done meat onto his plate. You take in a deep breath and look around the table at the happy faces. 

This isn’t so bad, you thought, a little chaotic, but otherwise entertaining. 

“They’re overwhelming huh?”

Any effort to mask your bewilderment vanishes as you catch the knowing look on Minho’s face. A guilty smile blooms on your face and you nod your head. “Just a little.”

“I get that,” he starts, but soon enough, there’s a content smile on his face that shows his love for his friends. “But at the end of the day, I know that these monkeys will be there for me no matter what, so I guess it makes it all worth it.”

Smiling softly at his words, you almost coo at the light blush dusting Minho’s face as reality catches up to him. 

“Ahem anyway. How’s living with Changbin?” He clears his throat before changing the topic, instinctively putting some meat on your plate before helping himself, earning a grateful smile from you. 

“It’s not too bad,” you start, feeling Changbin’s gaze on you after having overheard Minho’s question. “Except sometimes, he talks to himself in the mirror and it’s pretty scarring.”

“Y/n!” Changbin whines as Minho guffaws beside you, nodding his head to your answer, clearly having witnessed that side of Changbin before. “Wait till Chan comes. At least he’ll support me.” 

At the unfamiliar name, you furrow your brows and the name in the form of a question tumbles out of your mouth before you could stop yourself. “Chan?”

“He’s not here yet,” Minho addresses your confusion, having heard your little slip up. “He had to oversee the training for the upcoming soccer match, being the captain and all, and apparently he had a tutoring session after. He should be here soon though.”

That explains the empty chair beside you. 

“Oh, he needs to get tutored after training?” You ask, feeling bad for the unknown boy. Having to absorb information after physical activities is torture. You couldn’t even focus after 40 minutes of gym. “That’s rough.”

At your assumption, a cat-like smirk spreads across Minho’s face. “Oh no, darling. He tutors after his training.”

There’s no way you’re to be blamed for the first thought that pops into your head after discovering that said Chan was responsible and smart. You’ve seen people struggling with just one extracurricular, and begging teachers for extra credits because of poor time management. 

So, it’s really not your fault that the first words that enter your head is, that’s hot.

Just then, the bell situated above the door rings, indicating that someone was entering the restaurant. You’re not bothered by it, until Felix’s deep voice fills your ear.

“Chan!”

It’s almost comical how slowly you turn towards the sound, blush threatening to fill your cheeks at your first impression of Chan, without even meeting him. And as Giovanni Torriano has once said:

Talk of the Devil, and he's presently at your elbow.

Your eyes follow the figure of the devilishly breathtaking boy walking towards your table. He’s still dressed in what you assume was his soccer jersey, black hair tousled from the wind and practice. Shaking your head, you rid yourself of that inappropriate thought and opt to stare at the bowl of radish that looked the most interesting to you.

“Hey guys!” Chan smiles widely at the group of friends, as a few of them immediately get up from their seats to greet him with their usual bro hug. He sets his things down beside Minho, and is taking his seat when he spots you. Confusion clear in his eyes, he looks around the table, silently asking for an explanation as to what a stranger was doing at their usual table. 

You realise his staring and try to introduce yourself, but you find yourself unable to form sentences as the reality of who Chan was hits you. 

The star swimmer of your high school’s swimming team, and the top student of every single year. He was the epitome of popular. Everyone knew his name, and apparently he had never missed one day of lessons or training. On top of that, he used to regularly tutor in the library.

“Oh, this is my friend Y/n!” Changbin pipes up, slinging an arm around you. “Same high school as us, and my roommate now.”

At this, the confusion clouding Chan’s hazel eyes clears up, and he turns to face you, extending a hand. “The one who used to carry thick books everywhere and helped out in the library right? I’m Chan!” 

Being the complete opposite of your best friend, you’re sure no one has ever noticed you in the library. You blend in perfectly with the shadows and shelves, and you didn’t usually help the students out, opting to arrange the books in the storeroom—the one small thing you could do to help out the aged librarian who brought you mouth-watering brownies every Thursday. 

The thick books, in your defense, was your attempt at trying to finish the Harry Potter series whenever you had the spare time. You never had to explain yourself because you never expected anyone to notice. Especially not the most popular guy in school who had a million other friends.

But there he was, in all his glory, eyes crinkled into crescents as he waits for you to shake his hand, seemingly remembering you when nobody else did.

A small nudge to your side from Changbin breaks you out of your reverie and you grab his hand, silently noting how soft they were. “Nice to meet you.”

Smiling at you, he gently shakes your hand before turning to the other boys, immediately making jokes and laughing along. 

“What was that about?” Changbin whispers harshly, eyeing you and Chan suspiciously.

“What was what?” 

“Chan remembering you! You’ve never even met before.”

Looking at your best friend, you shrug before reaching out for another piece of meat. “Beats me.”

Changbin opens his mouth to interrogate you more, when he’s successfully cut off by Seungmin. 

“Y/n! Tell us more about yourself! I’m bored of hearing about these idiots.” 

Jeers sound from around the table as you let out a nervous chuckle, aware of how everyone’s attention was on you. “Me?” You ask, pointing to yourself for extra confirmation. 

Yea!” Seungmin replies, nodding vigorously. “What are you doing now, and how was high school for you, and just everything!” 

Noting your hesitation, Changbin is about to step in to save you, but your hand on his thigh stops him. Looking at you curiously, he realises from your expression that you’re finally about to do what he had been nagging at you to do since day one of becoming your friend. 

iv.

‘Is it possible for a stomach to burst from too much laughing?’ is what runs through your head as tears stream down your face from laughing uncontrollably at another joke Jisung was saying. 

“Wait, I remember Changbin telling me that people used to refer to you as Baby Photos when you all played at the school shows,” you ask after you had recovered from your laughing fit, curiosity piquing. “What’s that all about?” 

At the mention of the familiar name, the boys let out groans and Hyunjin starts hitting Jisung. “It’s all Jisung’s fault!” 

“Basically, he somehow got ahold of all our baby photos and submitted it to the administration on behalf of us,” Changbin explains, rolling his eyes at the memory. “So if you see our yearbook, all eight of us have our baby photos instead of the actual photo we were supposed to submit.” 

How is that even possible?!

“We still don’t know how he managed to do that.” Chan answers your unasked question, shaking his head fondly at the ridiculous memory. 

At this, Jisung pipes up. “Everything is possible when you’re charming and handsome. You lot won’t be able to relate!” 

And you finally agree that the beating Jisung gets after was well deserved. 

“Restaurant’s closing in ten!” 

The owner of the restaurant, a nice old lady who had a soft spot for the boys, calls out from the back. She had already let all of you stay past her usually closing time, and even gave you some free side dishes, together with a loving chide about how the boys don’t come and visit her anymore. 

The screech of the chairs fill the place as everyone gets up, stomach and heart full from the meal and company. You smile to yourself, glad that you let yourself be convinced to follow Changbin because you had one of the best days in your life. 

“Did you have fun today?” Your best friend asks with a smug smile, already knowing the answer.

“Shut up,” is all you can say—a clear sign that you were admitting defeat. “It was okay.”

“That wounds me,” someone speaks up from behind you, having heard your conversation with Changbin. You whip around to see Chan clutching his heart and wearing an exaggerated hurt face. “I thought we had a connection.” 

“I-you, no, that’s not-what” you splutter, horrified at the thought of Changbin’s, and now apparently your, friends thinking that you didn’t have a good time with them. There was no way you could let them think as such when they had made you feel so comfortable, and have so much fun. 

Your stuttering and horrified expression does it, and Chan bursts into laughter. “I’m so sorry, it was a joke. But your face!” 

The guilt and regret is replaced with relief and irritation, and you smack his arm out of habit, something you always did to Changbin when he was being a pain in the ass. But as soon as you do it, you’re once again filled with regret because Oh my God it’s only been two hours, you’re not supposed to just smack people.

“Stop overthinking it, idiot,” Chan cuts you off, adding in a low tier insult to make you feel a bit better about your reflexes. “We’re friends now; all of us.” 

Friend to friends. Now that’s an upgrade.

You’re about to say something, when you’re cut off by Changbin screeching unceremoniously as he glances at the time displayed on his lockscreen (it’s a picture of the two of you making ugly faces—he refused to change it).

“Shit, we’re going to miss the last bus that leaves from here!” He almost shouts, grabbing his and your things. “Adios bitchachos!”

A snicker or two echoes through the empty restaurant at Changbin’s farewell, together with requests of bringing you the next time they meet.

“Make sure Y/n comes for the next dinner! Doesn’t matter if you’re here or not!”

Jisung earns himself a string of vulgarities from Changbin for that, as he guffaws and hi-fives Hyunjin. 

You’re barely able to say your farewell to the boys with Changbin dragging you out of the restaurant, but you manage to shout out a few words while waving. “Thank you for today! See you soon!” 

The bus arrives just as you reach the bus stop, and Changbin all but collapses on one of the empty seats from the running you both did. 

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

“You’re foul.” You’re staring at your best friend in disgust when he starts questioning you about the dinner, nausea forgotten. 

“So…” he starts, pivoting in his seat to face you, cheek leaning against his hand which rested on the seat in front of him. “For someone who was dead set on not coming, you sure looked like you had lots of fun.” 

Rolling your eyes at his words, you turn to face Changbin. “Isn’t that what you wanted? Me making more friends?”

“Of course, of course~” he drawls, smirk ever-present on his face. “And who do we have to thank for that?” 

“And you ask me why I don’t listen to you or ask you for favours.” Turning your attention back to your phone, you open up Temple Run in hopes of keeping yourself occupied for the bus ride back; but Changbin had other plans. 

Whining, he snatches your phone from your hands and slips it into his pocket. “Y/n! Tell me everything!”

“What do you want to know?!” you ask, exasperated. “You were there literally the whole time.” 

“Yes I know, but I want to know what you think of all my friends!” Changbin claps his hands in excitement, leaning forward in anticipation. “Well, our friends now.” 

You can’t help but sigh as you prepare for the long bus ride ahead—but somehow, you don’t miss the sudden warmth enveloping you as you recalled the past few hours. 

“First of all, Jisung and Hyunjin are hilarious, it’s like…”

v.

Two weeks later, and you’re knee deep in shit. Not literally, of course, but you might as well be. 

It’s the infamous hell month in your university, where every student (regardless of major) has a shit ton of assignments and tests to complete, and the library is open 24 hours for poor souls like yourself. 

It’s two in the morning when you’re working on your second essay of the day. There are crumpled balls of paper all over your desk and surrounding your bin, courtesy of your pathetic aim. 

“You’re cleaning everything up later,” Changbin speaks up from across the dining table you both were sharing to get work done, tapping away on his equipment as he works on some new beat. “I don’t expect every ball to go in, but to miss everything? That’s some serious talent.”

“Shut your mouth, Seo.” Flipping your best friend off, you finally push yourself away from the table, stretching a bit before making your way to the kitchen to fix yourself a bowl of ramen in hopes of satiating the beast growling in your stomach.

As you open each shelf, you slowly come to the realisation that you were completely out of snacks and food. Even the single frozen bag of peas and empty ice cream tub stares back at you in pity as you scan the fridge. 

Taking a breath to calm yourself, you slowly turn around to face your unsuspecting, so-called, best friend. Walking towards him, you knock the table a few times to get his attention.

He notices your presence, and removes his headphones to look at you quizzically, his full attention on your blank face.

“When were you going to tell me that you had consumed every single food item we have?”

It’s almost comical how quickly the blood drains from his face, as his eyes dart all around the room, skillfully avoiding you. If it were any other situation, you would’ve definitely laughed while falling onto the floor. But this wasn’t any other situation.

This was war.

And honestly, it would have been a war that you would’ve definitely won—if not for the loud sound your stomach just produced.

Narrowing your eyes at the accused seated a few feet away from you, you walk over to the countertop with your wallet, eyes not leaving Changbin for a second.

“I will deal with you when I am back from the convenience store.”

And with the sight of Changbin gulping imprinted in your mind, you slam your apartment door behind you and make your way grumpily to the 24-hour convenience store located seven minutes away.

vi.

The electronic chime sounds throughout the store as the part-timer throws you a friendly greeting from the counter. “Welcome!” 

Reciprocating with a smile of your own, you take slow steps towards the shelf with the various assorted packets of ramen, and your hand automatically reaches for your favourite one. Just as it comes into contact with the plastic, you can feel yourself salivating and your stomach growls in appreciation. It’s a myth, you think. There’s no way food like carrots and asparagus is what gets students through school. The only saving grace you have during this period is packets of ramen and chocolate milk. Countless numbers of assignments and tests are already torturous enough; healthy, tasteless food on top of that? No, thanks. 

Clutching the ramen packet in your hands like it was the treasure of your life, you walk towards the milk section to complete your meal with your favourite carton of chocolate milk. There was something about the combination of milk that combats the spice from the ramen, and you’re about to drop onto your knees right there and then to worship the people who invented ramen and chocolate milk, when you see the last carton being taken away right in front of your eyes. 

Without any second thoughts, you rush towards the person and grab their arm, already getting ready to pull out the sob story of how you absolutely need the chocolate milk to survive. Surprised by the sudden contact, the man holding the carton whips his head towards you, eyes wide. 

There’s a fleeting sense of familiarity that passes through you when you see the hazel peeking out from above the mask that covered the rest of his face, but you’re too preoccupied to dwell on the thought. Just as you’re about to open your mouth to beg, you’re cut off by an all too familiar voice. 

“Y/n?”

Huh?

You stare at each other for a few seconds before the realisation of who you were holding, no, clinging onto dawns on you. 

“C-Chan?”

In a lively city that thrived at night, there were a thousand other 24-hour convenience stores scattered all around in every corner. It also wasn’t everyday that you decided to go to the convenience store for food, opting to go to the grocery stores instead. So, if you calculated correctly, the chance of you bumping into Chan at 2:30 a.m. at that very particular store should be close to never.

Yet, there he was standing right in front of you, chocolate milk clutched in one hand. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Oh I came here to water my plants.” 

Plants? 

You’re more than confused, till you hear the soft snicker that escapes his mouth. Narrowing your eyes at his antics, you decide to bite back with a “Ha ha, very funny.”

“So… Are you planning to hold onto me forever?” Chan teases you, eyes gesturing to your hand that was still clutching onto him, before looking back at you with a twinkle in his brown eyes. “Because I wouldn’t be opposed to that.” 

With the whole bumping-into-Chan thing that happened, it had completely slipped your mind that you were still holding onto him. You snatch your hand away in horror, eyes widening as you feel the heat creep up your neck. “S-sorry.” And before you could stop yourself, you also continue to spill why you had grabbed his arm in the first place. “I was just craving for chocolate milk, and the one you took was the last carton left.” 

Looking back and forth at you and the carton, you start to feel like an absolute idiot, until he reaches out and pushes the carton into your hands. “You can have it then,” he says, and walks away. “Stay right there, let me grab some ramen and we can have supper together!” 

You stare at the carton for a few seconds, the droplets of water that formed on the outside cool against your fingers. On a normal day, you would have refused the milk vehemently, telling the other person not to worry and to have the last carton. But today wasn’t any other day.

And Chan wasn’t any other person. 

We’re friends, after all, is what echoes in your mind as you look up at the boy walking towards you, two packets of ramen in his hand and a carton of strawberry milk. Smiling at him, you finally express your gratitude for his kind sacrifice. 

“Thanks for this,” you say, waving the carton in front of him. “I don’t think I would have made it through the night without it.” 

Nodding with a smile, he tears his two packets of ramen open and pours in the hot water that was situated at the back of the store, grabbing yours from you in the process. “What brings you here at this hour? I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be craving ramen and chocolate milk in the middle of the night on any other day.”

“You’re right about that,” you reply dejectedly, recalling the big pile of assignments waiting for you back at the apartment. “It’s hell month in school, and I’m drowning in work. On top of that, Changbin exhausted every single food source we have at home!”

Chan does his very best to hold back his laughter at your expression; he knew you were angry, but you looked as threatening as a kitten. And thankfully he succeeds, because he really did not want to be on the receiving end of your wrath. Although, he thinks, you really are not going to be able to do much damage.

“How dare he,” Chan agrees, finally taking a seat beside you, the steam from the ramen warming his face up. “Hey but, if he hadn’t done that we wouldn’t have bumped into each other here.” 

You nod your head in agreement, thinking about how to start a casual conversation, when you are suddenly hit with the realisation that you knew essentially nothing about Chan. You didn’t know what university he went to, what he majored in, and what he was doing in the convenience store that late at night too. 

One question at a time, you decide. 

“What are you doing out this late anyway?” you ask, slurping the noodles and breathing out in relief at the taste of the ramen against your tongue. 

“I come here often,” is what he replies, before taking a sip of his milk. “My uni’s about fifteen minutes from here, and I usually work the best at this time. Being a music production major, there aren’t very strict deadlines, but I’ve still got to get my shit done.” 

Oh. That’s all your questions answered. 

You know the trouble of trying to get questions out, especially for you, who has never really made the effort in going the extra mile in interacting with people. It’s annoying and nerve-wrecking, and probably the biggest reason why you refused making new friends. The whole process was just painful. So, when Chan answers your unasked questions, you feel the hypothetical weight lifting off your shoulder, and you open your mouth to express your gratitude. At least, that’s what you had planned to do. 

“Are you a mind reader?” you blurt out, before immediately clamping your mouth shut and facepalming. “Ugh, sorry. I have a really bad habit of blurting out whatever comes to my mind.” You groan at your inconvenient habit, and Chan pats the top of your hand in hopes of comforting you.

“I just meant to say that I was thinking of asking you those questions and you answered them even before I asked.” Chan looks at you with a smile, intrigued by your personality. You clearly didn’t have any other friends other than Changbin—but you never looked as if you were upset about it. It was also clear that you were content with not interacting with people, but when you did, you were never rude about it and you really did try your best. Never in a million years would he have thought that the student scurrying around the library with tons of books would turn out to be someone like you. 

“At least that means you’re an honest person!” Chan says, beaming at you. “C’mon, learn to look at the brighter side of things.” 

Shrugging your shoulders with a tired smile on your face, you turn back to your ramen, which has now gone soggy due to your little chit-chat with the boy beside you. 

There’s a comfortable silence that hangs between the two of you, until Chan speaks up again. “What’s your major? I realised I never asked.” 

At the mention of school, you pull an automatic stank face before replying. “English Lit with a minor in Philosophy. The worst decision of my life.” 

“And why’s that?”

“I never knew there’d be this much essay writing!” you cry out, throwing your head against the table. The rest of your words come out muffled, but somehow Chan manages to catch it. “I mean, I knew there was going to be lots of essays. But not this much.” 

“In the major’s defense, that’s kind of a dumb move on your part, Y/n.”

“Yes, I know. Please don’t remind me of my idiocy.” You finally sit up, before sadly chewing on your noodles. “At least I have ramen and chocolate milk to keep me going.” 

And as the night went on, both of you continued the conversation back and forth, you learning more about him and him about you. You talk about your assignments, how annoying some of your professors were, and how living with Changbin was. All the times you had to chase him to clean up after himself, or all the times he stayed up with you until ungodly hours just because you had procrastinated too much and was rushing an assignment in the last hour. You also learnt more about Chan; how he was studying music production because that was his dream since he was young, and how he actually roomed with Jisung, who was equally as messy as Changbin. The only difference was that Chan couldn’t be bothered about the mess. 

“Changbin, Jisung, and I actually used to make tracks and post them on Soundcloud,” Chan says, smiling as he recalls the three high schoolers cooped up in his room with the bare minimum equipment that wiped out half their savings. “We even had rapper names.” 

“Ooooo~” you tease, nudging his shoulder as his ears start to turn a bright red. “What was yours?” 

“What’s in the past should stay in the past, Y/n. Let bygones be bygones. No point talking about it now.”

“Awww, c’mon!” You plead, fidgeting in your seat. “Was it something embarrassing like Cheminem, or something?” 

“I can’t help but feel more relaxed when your standards are that low,” Chan says, with some form of relief in his voice. “Uh, mine was CB97.” 

“Don’t tell me…” you mutter, eyes wide as the laughter threatens to escape your lips. “Did you really just use your initials and your birth year? Talk about bare minimum!” 

“Hey! It’s better than Meminen, or Cheminem, or whatever you said earlier.”

Sticking your tongue out at him, you decide to probe further. “What were Jisung’s and Changbin’s?” 

Chan stares at you with wide eyes, your mischievous eyes giving away your evil plans. “No. Changbin will kill me.”

“Don’t be a party pooper! I’ll treat you to ramen next time if you tell me.” You try tempting Chan with food, with no hopes that it would work. But somehow, you see his resolve crumbling, and realise that you just needed one final push. 

“I’ll get you chocolate milk and two packets of ramen.” 

At that point, Chan regrets telling you his habit of eating two packets of ramen with chocolate milk almost every night when he stays up. “You shouldn’t have given me the milk then!” is what you said while chiding him, and he just claimed that “you looked like you needed it more than me” while saying that he really wasn’t picky about the flavour of milk. 

So when you tempt him with his cravings, he has no choice but to give in.

Twenty minutes later, you walk into your shared apartment, a mysterious smile playing on your lips as you drop the keys into the little holder by the door. It was made by yours truly during a random pottery workshop you signed up for. The shape was slightly off, and the colour wasn’t bright or vibrant—but it worked and that’s what mattered. 

At the sound of the keys clinking in the holder, Changbin’s head shoots up to gauge your mood from your expression. Surely you would be at least a little less angry after your little run to the convenience store, he thought. 

But instead of seeing a blank expression, or even an angry one, he sees the smile on your face and his heart drops. Why were you smiling? The fact that you were smiling made him feel a hundred times worse, and he had already started saying his prayers.

“So, Changbin…” you start, leaning against one of the chairs at the dining table. You weren’t even angry about the empty shelves anymore, but you just could not pass on the opportunity of teasing your best friend. “Or should I say, SpearB?”

And you’re more than content with the way his face morphs into that of horror, as he grips the edges of the table. “How did you know?” he asks, his voice strained and barely above a whisper; one would think that the whole world had found out about his darkest secret from the way he was reacting. 

Shrugging playfully, you go back to your seat and sort out the papers scattered around the table, grabbing your laptop to start working on your assignment again with a full and happy stomach. “Who knows~”

“Y/n, tell me,” he starts to whine, making his way to you on his roller chair. “No one knows other than the boys-”

And the realisation of who the culprit was hits him.

“It was Chan, right?” he asks, already reaching for his phone to scold the older boy. “You must have met him when you went to the store—he’s always getting ramen there.” Typing furiously on his phone, he pauses to look up and whine again. “I can’t believe you two gossiped about me! And it was me who made you both become friends. The disrespect!” 

Finally the laughter you had been holding in breaks out and floods the living room, the sound bouncing off the walls. “I can’t believe,” you start, trying to catch your breath as you continue laughing. “SpearB! What do you do? Impale people with your sharp flow and rhyme?”

“Just shut up, please,” Changbin pleads, plugging his ears with his fingers. “La la la, I can’t hear anything you’re saying.” He rolls back to his side of the table and grabs the headphones, shoving it over his head to drown out your laughter. 

Your laugh fest is cut off by your phone vibrating, signalling that you had a new text message. Grabbing it, you tap your phone a few times to open up the messages page. 

chan: can’t believe you outed me to changbin chan: traitor y/n: drama queen y/n: i said nth, he figured it out on his own chan: ఠ_ಠ

Giggling at the emoticon Chan used, you unconsciously lean back in your seat as you search your gallery for an emoticon to reply with, assignments forgotten. 

“Who’re you texting?” Changbin asks, having heard you giggle at your phone. He’s eyeing you suspiciously, and you knew it was better to answer him, because a curious Changbin is a dangerous Changbin, and he’ll probably stomp over and snatch your phone to see who you were texting anyway. “It’s Chan.”

“When did you two exchange numbers?!”

“Earlier, when we met at the convenience store.” 

It was right before the both of you parted ways; when Chan had proposed something that was pretty much impossible to turn down. 

“I had fun today,” he said, one hand stuffed in his pocket while the other swung the plastic bag containing some chocolates to add to his secret sweet stash. “You said you’re having hell month, right? Hit me up whenever you need an emergency ramen run.” And with that, he pushed his phone into your hands, signalling for you to do the same. 

Smiling to yourself, you keyed in your number into the phone clutched in your hand, saving yourself as “Y/n”, and before you could regret your decision, you quickly added a smiley after your name and tossed the phone back to Chan. “Here you go.” 

The cool metal is being pressed into your hands, and before you know it, you’ve said your farewell to Chan and were on your way back home. 

“Look at you socialising out of your own will,” Changbin states proudly, wiping an imaginary tear as he gives you a fatherly (or what he thinks is fatherly) smile. “Albeit, at the expense of my shame, but if it means my little Y/n making more friends then why not!” 

“Please stop, you’re an embarrassment to me, yourself, and literally everyone around us,” you deadpan, clearing your side of the table up. It was time to call it a night, because God knows you’re not going to be able to do anymore work. “Besides, it’s really not that big of a deal. I doubt we’ll continue talking after tonight. It’s probably a one-off thing.”

“Hmmm I wouldn’t be too sure,” Changbin muses. “I feel like there’s something that’ll come out of this.”

vii. 

Seo Changbin isn’t a lot of things. 

He isn’t tidy, opting to throw his clothes all around his room instead of folding it; he isn’t patient, always screaming at you to “Hurry your ass!” when he had been waiting barely three minutes; and last but not least, he definitely isn’t punctual. “Changbin is my name, and being late is my game” is something you’ve heard way too often from him that it was a wonder you hadn’t murdered him yet.

Changbin isn’t a lot of things—but what he somehow is, is intuitive when it comes to you.

So when you find yourself back at the convenience store at 12:30 a.m., ramen and chocolate milk in front of you as you laugh over some stupid story Chan was saying, you can’t help but curse at how right your best friend was. 

You were reaching the end of your hell month, which also indicated it being four weeks since you and Chan had developed the routine of pigging out at the convenience store at terrible hours. 

“... and he just fell off the tree!” Chan concludes his story of how Hyunjin fell off a tree in high school, words coming out breathless due to how much the both of you were laughing. “Ah, that brings back memories.”

“I can’t believe I never talked to you guys more then,” you say, shaking your head slightly. “It would’ve been hilarious.”

“Someone was too busy with Voldemort,” Chan teases, pushing his nose down flat in what you could only describe as a Voldemort impression. Laughing, you swat his hand away while rolling your eyes at the boy you’ve grown so fond of in a span of four weeks. “Why’d you never talk to us?” 

Thinking back to high school, you ask yourself. Why didn’t you ever bother talking to them?

“I guess it’s just cause I already had Changbin,” you start, pausing to think back to the past few years. “As much as I complain about him, he’s really one of the greatest best friends anyone could ask for.”

It was true; Changbin was there for you during high school like no one else had been, and for that you were eternally grateful for him.

“So you were scared to take any other chances since you already got the best?” 

People always asked you why you didn’t make more friends in high school. Hell, even your mother kept asking, when other parents struggled to keep their children at home just because they were spending too much time out with friends. But the answer to that question was something you never thought about, and you can’t stop the feeling of shock spreading through your body at what the boy in front of you had just so casually uttered. 

You were scared.

“I-I…” you stutter, eyes wide as you stare at the boy in front of you. Chan can’t help the worry that seeps into his face at his words, and he’s starting to wonder if he said anything wrong. “I’ve never ever thought about it. But, oh my God, that makes so much sense.” 

After years of waving everyone who asked you why you never made any other friends away just because you yourself didn’t have the answer to the question, you’re hit with a huge realisation of just why you didn’t want to find more friends. And it wasn’t even you who figured it out. 

This boy sitting leisurely in front of you, skin pale and soft, with messy black hair framing his face that he never bothered brushing away. This boy, who was as kind as he was hardworking, always willing to help out anyone, even with his own responsibilities. This boy who had been readily there for you at the devil hours for almost every day in the past four weeks, always checking up on you to make sure that you were surviving.

Never in a million years would you have expected someone to figure out something that was locked away so deep inside of your heart, and for it to be Chan, out of everyone. The thought makes your heart race a little, but you decide to blame it on the conversation the both of you were having. It was definitely not because of the boy seated beside you.

“Shocking, huh,” Chan starts, laughing slightly as the worry he had felt earlier replaced with something he could only describe as fondness. “It’s a pity though.” 

You look at him questioningly, and what he says next makes you realise a few things that maybe you were better off not realising. 

“We would’ve been much happier in high school with you there. I would’ve been much happier.” 

As much as you regretted not befriending the other seven boys in high school, you were starting to regret bumping into Chan that very first night even more. If you hadn’t bumped into him, you would’ve never spent so much time with him, never realised how great of a person he was, and lastly, you would’ve never started falling for Bang Chan.

viii.

It’s like déjà vu.

With your exams and assignments completed, you find yourself watching the latest season of Haikyuu when Changbin enters the room, waltzing towards your reclined figure. 

“Y/n~” Changbin starts, poking your shoulder to get your attention. “Whatever your annoying ass needs now, it’s a no,” you say without even turning to look at the boy beside you.

“Oh? Even if it was an invitation to dinner with the boys later tonight?” 

And when your head whips to the side to look at your best friend, you’re so tempted to just wipe that smirk clean off his face, because the bitch knew you would have said yes.

“I fucking hate you,” is what you can mutter, before switching the television and throwing the remote to the side, choosing to ignore Changbin as you walk towards your room to pick an outfit. But you’re forced to stop in your tracks when Changbin casually utters the next few words.

“Chan’s especially excited to see you.”

You’re not sure what Changbin means by that, but there’s no denying the increase in your heart rate at the mention of the dimpled boy. 

“What?” You try your best to sound as nonchalant as you could, hoping that your best friend wouldn’t pick up the slight quiver in your voice. But, of course, he wasn’t your best friend for nothing. 

“I said, your little boyfriend’s excited to see you.” Changbin smirks at your expression, stretching his legs out to rest it on the coffee table in front of your sofa. “And it looks like you’re just as excited.” 

Red travels up your neck and spreads across your face, as you sputter at your best friend’s preposterous words. “W-what are you- I- Huh-”

Realising that your little breakdown wasn’t helping your case at all, you take a deep breath to calm yourself, before speaking to the insolent brat in front of you. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“But you like him, don’t you?”

You freeze like a deer caught in headlights, and the first instinct you have is to play dumb. “O-of course I like him. He’s my friend.”

“I will pretend like I did not hear that pathetic attempt of you trying to act dumb,” Changbin states robotically, rolling his eyes. “C’mon, Y/n. It’s obvious. So stop pretending and just fess up. It’ll be easier for the both of us.” 

You had two choices now: Either fess up and prepare yourself for at least a thousand years of teasing, or just completely deny it till your deathbed. 

Clearly, the second option was much more appealing. 

“No, Changbin,” you snap with as much conviction as you could. “I do not have a crush on Chan. He’s just a really good friend.”

The knowing look on his face wavers, and you know that you’re seconds away from success. It’s not that you did not trust your best friend with the information of you having a crush on one of his friends. You just did not want to say it out loud—saying it out loud would mean that you were confirming it, and there will be no going back. And that scared you. 

You were scared of liking someone who was way too perfect, and who probably would never like you back. 

So the best solution was to keep your little crush hidden away in the depths of your heart, and slowly get over it as soon as you could. It was as easy as it could get.

ix.

Apparently, you realise, it wasn’t at all easy to get over a simple crush. 

The smell of meat fills your nostrils as the eight boys chatter loudly over the sound of the sizzling of the food. You’re back at the same restaurant, with the same boys, except it wasn’t exactly the same as the last time. 

This time, you had a raging crush on the boy who insisted on sitting beside you, leg brushing against yours every few seconds as he piles the food on your plate instead of his. 

It definitely didn’t help that every time your hands brushed while reaching out for the side dishes around the table, you pulled your hand back as if you had just been burned, ears immediately heating up. 

“Did you know Chan told Y/n about 3RACHA?” Changbin whines to Jisung, making him stop his actions mid-way, meat hanging from the chopsticks just a few inches away from his mouth. “All I heard the past few weeks was ‘SpearB, help me’, ‘SpearB, go there’. It was torture.”

The table goes silent at the new information Changbin had revealed, and all you can do is smile sheepishly as your friends stare at the both of you. 

“These two have been meeting almost everyday the past few weeks to get ramen at weird timings, and I’m pretty sure Y/n has lots of quality dirt on us now,” Changbin says pointedly, completely ignoring the way your eyes widened because why would he just say that?

It already wasn’t easy keeping Changbin in check with his little fantasies every time you went out to meet Chan, and now it was going to be worse because you just knew that the six other boys were going to question you from their expressions. 

You turn to look at Chan, expecting to see the same ‘busted’ expression on his face, but all you see is a guilty smile, before he opens his mouth to speak. “In my defense, I was bribed.” 

“Yes but, you never told us your 3RACHA names even after we kept begging you for weeks,” Hyunjin speaks up, eyes wide in disbelief. “We had to bribe you with a new game for your console, but you just told Y/n after two packets of ramen and chocolate milk?” 

Your heart rate picks up speed just a fraction after hearing Hyunjin’s words, and you can’t help but feel a little special that Chan was comfortable enough to tell you things he refused to tell others. There’s a small smile playing at your lips as you look at the boy beside you, who was now rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly as he tried his best to defend himself from the accusations that were now pouring out from all his friends. 

Unbeknownst to you, your own best friend was watching the both of you since the night started, a glint in his eye as he catches the way you threw small glances at his friend, blushing every time your hands brushed or when Chan purposely picked out the meat that was grilled best to put on your plate. 

He also didn’t miss the soft smile playing at Chan’s lips every time you laughed at another stupid joke Jisung cracked, head thrown back slightly as you clutched your stomach, or the way his eyes widened every time you leaned a little too close to him to reach for a side dish. 

Fools, is what he thinks when he eyes his two best friends. Fools in love.

The night goes on, and it’s Changbin who proposes a game of who can finish a bottle of soju the fastest to make things more exciting. You already know how it was going to end when you see the soju bottles crowding the table, all screaming the obvious outcome of the night.

“Rule’s simple. We’ll have two people against each other, and the one that loses has to pay their opponent’s share for tonight’s dinner.” 

You notice Changbin avoiding your eyes as he speaks and distributes the bottle, which could be attributed to the very scary death glare you were throwing right at him. 

Here’s the thing—your alcohol tolerance was shit. And Changbin knew that, making you wonder what he had planned up his sleeve.

“Right, here’s the lineup,” he announces, making it seem as if the lot of you were in some world championship of sorts. “Hyunjin and Jisung”—there’s a loud ‘Die, bitch!’ that resounds from Jisung as they both get ready to win against each other—“Seungmin and Felix, Minho and Jeongin, and Chan and Y/n!” 

You were going to kill that idiot. 

Changbin starts off the game with a recap of the rules, and makes sure that everyone has their own bottle of alcohol. Disaster is the only word flashing in your mind, and you’re on the verge of ditching your friends to return to the comfort of your room. 

“Jisung and Hyunjin first!” Changbin instructs, to which the two boys grab their bottles and have a stare-down with each other. 

“I’m gonna win so hard, your ancestors are gonna feel it.”

“Let’s see you try, pretty boy.” 

On Changbin’s cue, the two boys start gulping down the alcohol, and you visibly cringe at the ghost feeling of the taste on your tongue. 

“Are you okay?” Chan whispers from beside you, eyebrows furrowed. “It’s a stupid game. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.” 

There’s a grateful smile on your face as you shake your head, letting the boy know you were okay. “I’m fine. Just worried because my alcohol tolerance isn’t that good, and I don’t want to inconvenience all of you.”

“I promise I’ll take care of you,” Chan mutters softly, staring right into your eyes. The smile slowly drops from your face as your heartbeat echoes in your ears at his words and the way he was looking at you. You so badly wanted to look away, not being used to such eye contact, but there’s something about the way he’s looking at you that makes it almost impossible for you to tear your gaze away from his twinkling eyes. 

The sound of a bottle being slammed onto the table snaps you out of your little moment with Chan, and you immediately turn away to look at what was happening at the table, taking deep, cleansing breaths to calm yourself. 

On the other side of the table, you realise that Hyunjin was the one who finished his bottle first, now having the time of his life teasing Jisung, who had about one quarter of the bottle left. 

All the boys, except Chan and Felix, were laughing their asses off—Felix was the only one comforting Jisung, while Chan was staring at the table, an unreadable expression on his face.

“There, there. It’s okay, Sung,” Felix coos, patting Jisung’s hair, as the latter sulks at his loss. 

The next two rounds proceed quickly, with Seungmin and Jeongin emerging as the winners. Everyone stares shell shocked, as Jeongin gulps down the liquid with vigour and speed, and slams his bottle down onto the table with a grin.

“There’s no way! I can’t believe Minho lost to a baby!”

“Just because he’s the youngest doesn’t mean he’s a baby, Changbin.” Seungmin deadpans, swiftly moving the empty bottles to the side of the table. “And how come you’re not participating?”

“Someone needs to bring Y/n back,” Changbin shrugs, passing the bottles to Chan and you with a guilty smile in return to your scowl. “And I’d rather stay sober when taking care of drunk children.”

You turn to pass the bottle to Chan, quickly avoiding his gaze when he looks at you. You’re not confident in your abilities to keep the blush down if he was going to look at you the way he did before. 

“Okay,” Changbin cues, making sure both of you were ready with the bottle caps off. “Ready, set… Go!”

You didn’t mind paying for Chan’s share for dinner, you really didn’t. But if there was something about you that was both your downfall and pride, it was your competitiveness. You were competitive to the point where you tended to disregard the consequences of your actions. 

So, your brain doesn’t register the painful consequences of your actions as you gulp down the bottle of alcohol like your life depended on it. You weren’t the best drinker out there, but you were going to try your very damn best because it was a competition. 

With no expectation of winning, you swallow the last drop of soju and slam the bottle back onto the table, when you realise that everyone was staring at the two of you with their mouths open—specifically at Chan.

Following their gaze, your eyes widen in surprise as you see the boy holding an almost half-full bottle of soju, clearly indicating that you were the winner of your little game. 

It’s like a dam breaks, and suddenly everyone’s shouting at the unexpected outcome. Hyunjin and  Jisung scream while looking back and forth the bottle and Chan, while Felix, Seungmin, and Jeongin sit with wide eyes and open mouths, unable to process that Chan just lost to you.

On the other hand, Changbin watches Chan with a smirk, which slowly drops when he realises that Minho, who was sitting beside him, was staring at him with raised eyebrows, clearly asking the question ‘What the fuck just happened?’.

Just as he’s about to pull Changbin to the side to question him, you shoot up from your seat, stumbling around almost immediately because of the sudden bout of dizziness that hit you. You fall back onto your seat as fast you had gotten up, and Chan wraps an arm around you almost instinctively, making sure you didn’t fall off your seat. 

The table is back to having their own conversations a few minutes later, as if they weren't just screaming over your victory, with Hyunjin and Jisung having a rock-paper-scissors tournament between themselves, proposed by Jisung who was still sore about losing to Hyunjin.

Alcohol clouds your mind as your head lols back and forth, with soft giggles spilling from your lips. In your drunken state, you register the arm wrapped around you, and you turn your head to look for the owner of said arm. 

Chan looks at you with the fondest smile as he tries to hold back his own chuckles at how cute your giggles were, at the same time being extremely conscious of the way you fit perfectly around his arms. He thanks his lucky stars that you were drunk as he held you, assuring him that there was no way you were going to hear how fast his heart was beating. 

“Oh?” you drawl, squinting at the boy beside you. “Who might you be?” 

And at that very moment, Chan hopes with all his heart that there is no one else who will get to witness what he was seeing right in front of him. 

There are strands of hair covering your face, cheeks red from the alcohol (and from the close proximity to him, but he doesn’t need to know that) and eyes drooping from the oncoming sleepiness. Yet, to him, you were still the most beautiful in that moment. 

“I’m Chan,” he replies sweetly, hesitating for a moment before adding more to the sentence. “Your friend.”

An exaggerated gasp escapes you as your eyes widen comically. Words tumble from your mouth, with hiccups disrupting your sentences every now and then. “Chan? Bang Chan? From high school? The really, um-" hiccup "-cute boy who tutored in the library? The super popular dude? You’re my-" hiccup "friend?”

There’s a light pink flush dusting his cheeks at your words, but he laughs nonetheless while nodding, finger reaching out to tap your nose. “Yes, I am.” 

Scrunching your nose at the contact, you continue giggling when the sound of someone clearing their throat interrupts the little exchange you and Chan were having. Chan turns to face his friends, and immediately starts coughing when he realises that they had been watching the whole scene with amused expressions. He awkwardly retracts his arm from around your waist, only for you to get up and stumble over to where Changbin was sitting, arms reaching out towards him while making grabby hands. “Changbinnnn~”

You plop yourself onto his lap, arms encircling his neck as you pull his ear closer to your mouth. Used to your drunk antics, he concedes, knowing that he’ll end up with more damage if he didn’t listen to you when you were drunk. 

When he is close enough, you cup your hands around your mouth and whisper into his ears. At least, you thought you were whispering. 

“You have really cute friends, Changbin.”

The whole table erupts into cheers at your words, and you immediately cover your mouth with a horrified expression. “Did everyone hear that?”

“You weren’t very quiet, darling,” Changbin snorts, pulling you up with him as he stands. “How are all of you getting back?” 

“We’re all crashing at Felix’s place,” Seungmin speaks up, tapping away on his phone. “The uber’s about to arrive… right now.” 

Grabbing their things, everyone except Minho, Chan, Changbin, and you, make their way out of the restaurant, shouting out hurried farewells and promises of ‘I’ll wire the money to you when I get back!’ to Changbin. 

“Okay, Minho and I will go settle the bill,” Changbin says, readjusting his grip on you. “Chan, can you look after Y/n for a bit?”

“Sure,” Chan replies, looping your arm around his neck as his snakes around your waist. “We’ll be out at the front.”

The moment Chan leaves their sight with you by his side, Minho turns to bombard Changbin with all the questions that had been bothering him the whole night.

“What was that?” Minho asks in bewilderment, pointing to the door that Chan and you had exited from. “How on earth did Chan lose that game when he’s the best drinker amongst all of us?!” 

“It’s called being in love,” Changbin scoffs, shaking his head at his two friends. “Disgusting.” 

The distressed look on Minho’s face dissolves, and is replaced by what one could describe as enlightenment. “No fucking way. I was wondering why he kept smiling at them like an idiot. That explains so much! Have they confessed?”

“You think?” Changbin rolls his eyes, knowing that there was no way either of you had the courage to confess first. “The only way either of them will confess is if they are drunk.” 

“But Y/n is dru-” Minho starts in confusion, when he stops mid-sentence, realising what Changbin had just done. “You evil genius.”

“What can I say,” Changbin states proudly, brushing imaginary dirt off his shoulder. “I wonder what’s going on outside,” he mutters under his breath, staring at the door. 

On the other side of the door, Chan finally succeeds in getting you to sit down with him on a curb, his jacket folded neatly under your bottom to make sure that you were not sitting on the hard cement. “I’m tired,” you whine, head dropping onto the warm shoulder beside you. 

Chan tenses up at the sudden contact, staring at the top of your head, when you nuzzle your cheek against his shoulder. At the feeling of your cheek against his shoulder, he relaxes, and positions himself such that you didn’t have to strain your neck. 

There’s a comfortable silence between the both of you, until you decide to break it by asking Chan a very obvious question.

“We’re close friends right?” 

You lift your head from Chan’s shoulder, almost whining out loud at the loss of comfort, but you decide that asking him that question was more important. Clearly, drunk you had very different priorities. 

Chan just nods and replies with a soft “Of course”, wondering why you were suddenly asking that question. “Why?”

“Since we’re close friends, can I tell you a secret?” The last few words are spoken in a hushed whisper, as you reach out and grasp Chan’s soft and warm hands. His larger hands clasps yours, as he chuckles at your question. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Y/n. You’re drunk, and you might regret telling me when you sober up.”

“No!” You almost shout, alarming Chan who looks around to make sure no one heard your exclamation. You continue in a softer tone, to Chan’s relief. “You’re my close friend! So I won’t regret it.” 

And the wide smile you show Chan almost makes him want to kiss you right there and then. Almost. 

“Alright then,” Chan agrees, rubbing circles into the skin on your hand. “Go ahead, tell me your secret.”

Giggling, you use your free hand to beckon him closer, your face moving closer to his at the same time. Just as his ear is close enough to you, you whisper out the words that make his heart stop. 

“I think I like you.” 

He freezes in place, eyes staring at the black tar road ahead of him as his heart hammers against his ribcage because of your nonchalant words. He gulps before slowly turning to face you, the person he had grown to like more than he could ever imagine coming into his view. He takes quick, shallow breaths as he continues to stare at you, unsure of what to say. 

Luckily (or unluckily, for Chan), you decide to continue talking, baring your heart and soul to him. 

“It’s like...” you start, trailing off after your first two words, before finding the right words to continue. “It’s like I was always happy in life, but you made me realise that it was possible for me to be happier when you are there with me.”

And the smile you give Chan, accompanied with the words you had just uttered, makes him want to protect you from the rest of the world. He’s not sure if he loves you, but what he’s sure about is that all he wants to do is hug you and never let go, to be there for you every minute, every second. And he thinks that’s enough. 

That’s enough reason to hold onto you and never let go.

Opening his mouth, Chan is about to reply to your drunk confession, when the sound of soft snores fill his ears. 

Leaning against the light pole that was situated very conveniently behind you, you had fallen asleep in the split second Chan had taken to make his move. Your chest rises and falls with every breath you take, and Chan can’t help but breath out a laugh at your timing. 

There’s always tomorrow, he thinks.

x.

There’s white noise playing in your ear as you stare up at your ceiling.

Changbin is seated at the edge of your bed saying something important, you assume. You aren’t listening; your brain cells have decided to go on a strike and replay the scene from yesterday on loop. 

I think I like you.

You want to scream. You want to scream and murder the boy sitting beside you so bad. After all, it was his fault that you ingested that goddamn devil liquid that made you spill more than your guts. 

It was a wonder that you were able to find a friend as precious as Chan, and there you lay in despair, all thoughts of facing Chan again slowly slipping away from your fingertips. There was absolutely no way you were going to be able to see him after the stunt you pulled yesterday. 

“Y/n, are you listening?!”

“No.” 

A hand wraps around your arm and you feel yourself being pulled up, coming face-to-face with your distressed best friend. “Stop being stubborn. Calm down and listen to what I have to say.”

And that’s when you snap.

“Stubborn!?” you shriek, clutching the ends of your hair. “I just confessed to your friend, Seo Changbin. I was drunk, and I confessed my very large and real crush to the person I am crushing on. I have ruined any chance at friendship with him, so don’t tell me to stop being stubborn and to calm down!”

Taking a deep breath, Changbin pulls you towards him, both his hands resting against your cheeks. “Listen here. Stop being a wuss. Yes, you confessed when you were drunk. Yes, it’s embarrassing as fuck. But get over it. You know Chan. Is he the kind of asshole who drops friendship over small things like rejection?” 

There’s a pout playing at your lips as you shake your head, partly due to the way Changbin was squishing your cheeks, and the other half because you knew he was right. 

“But I still don’t want to face him yet,” you whine, pushing his hands away from your face and diving back into your covers. “I just want to wallow in self pity, and hopefully waste away on this bed so that I’ll never have to face anyone ever again.”

Changbin knows that there was no convincing you otherwise, so he settles for sighing and getting up from your bed. 

“Don’t stay in bed for too long. I’ll order us food for later.”

Muttering something under your breath, you roll over and bury your face into your pillow, sighing as you think about the boy whose smile gave you more warmth than the sun could ever provide.

You’re in the midst of imagining how different today would’ve been if you hadn’t opened your dumb mouth when your phone rings and cuts off your thoughts. Reaching out for it, your mouth runs dry when you see the name displayed on your screen.

“Chan :)”

Your finger presses the decline button and your phone clatters against your bedside table as you decide that you are not ready to talk to Chan yet. And you’re not sure if you’ll ever be ready to talk to him, let alone face him. 

A minute after declining the call, there’s a series of knocks on your door, and you shout out a “Go away!”, not wanting to hear anything related to Chan and how you need to stop being a coward. But as the knocking continues, getting louder as time passes, you start getting annoying and realise you have no choice but to open the door.

“What the fuck do you want, Chang-”

You cut yourself off as you take in the person standing in front of you with wide eyes, looking as handsome as ever even with the furious look painted on his face. 

The silence is thick with tension, and you can’t help but avert your eyes, choosing to look at anything but the boy in front of you. 

“Why are you ignoring me?” Chan asks, voice quiet and flat. “I’ve been calling and texting you all morning.” 

“Um, I-” you start, not knowing how to answer his question. You imagined your day going various ways, but this definitely wasn’t in your plans. “Did Changbin call you?”

“I asked,” he starts, walking towards you. You take a few steps a back, and continue walking backwards until your hands come into contact with your dresser. You were trapped. “Why are you ignoring me, Y/n?”

You blink rapidly, not used to this closed-off version of Chan. The usual warmth and softness in his eyes were missing, and instead all you saw was disappointment and anger. You open your mouth to speak, but it wasn’t easy to get the words out. 

“Was it funny messing with me?” Chan continues, not breaking eye contact with you once. “To just get my hopes up and disappear like it all meant nothing?” 

“W-what?” 

“How was it so easy for you to just start ignoring me?” 

“No I-”

“Is that all I mean to you?” And instead of the disappointment and anger, you see pure, unfiltered hurt, and that was enough for your walls to come crashing down. Tears well up in your eyes as you look at the boy in front of you, and it’s like a dam breaks. 

“I’m sorry.” Sobs wreck your body as you wipe the tears that don’t seem to stop. “I-I’m so fucking sorry, Chan. I was scared.”

“Scared because you just said that in the spur of moment and you don’t actually mean it?”

“No, I was scared because I like you too fucking much!”

There’s a pregnant silence between the two of you, and you continue staring at the floor, vision blur with stubborn tears that refuse to fall. And that’s when you hear it.

A chuckle. 

It’s soft, and you would’ve missed it if not for the pin drop silence in the room. 

You slowly lift your head up to confirm if you actually heard what you heard, or if you were hallucinating, when you see it. 

Chan was smiling. 

“Can’t believe it worked.” 

What on earth did that mean?

“W-what do you mean?” you ask, sniffing softly. 

“This was Changbin’s idea. For the record, I was against it.” Chan’s hands come up to rest on your cheeks, his thumb wiping away the tears on your cheeks as he smiles softly at you. “I mean, of course I was hurt and worried. But I just wanted to come over and talk it over like a normal person.”

His smile widens as one hand continues cupping your face, while the other reaches to tuck the one stray strand of hair behind your ear. “He said you’ll never admit things unless I, uh, scared you a little.

You stare at Chan as the gears work in your head, putting the pieces of information. The moment the last piece clicks in place, you stare in shock at the boy standing in front of you with a sheepish smile.

“What the fuck?!” you yell, equal parts of relief and anger taking over your mind. “I fucking hate you!”

And with that you storm off towards your door, Chan chasing after you with apologies spilling from his mouth. But the both of you knew that you weren’t actually upset, which can be seen by the giggles accompanying every apology.

Just as you’re about to leave your room, you’re pulled back into warm arms, and you fight every urge to melt right into his embrace. His arms wrap around your frame tightly, but gently. You feel his strong heartbeat against your back, and it’s enough to make you shiver, goosebumps erupting all over your skin. 

“Do you hate me?” Chan asks, chin resting on your shoulder as you feel his breath tickle your neck. 

“Yes.”

“Really?” Chan asks in amusement, lips against your ears and voice just above a whisper. “That’s a pity then. Because I like you too fucking much too.” 

He whispers the last part of the sentence, making your knees go weak and your heartbeat pick up its pace as it usually does whenever the boy who stole your heart was involved. 

You turn around in his arms to face him, sighing contentedly at how things ended up turning out.  “I’m really sorry about the ghosting.”

“It’s okay, love,” Chan assures you, the pet name inducing butterflies in your stomach. “I would’ve been embarrassed too, if I had confessed to you when I was drunk.”

“I would’ve loved to see that.” You whine at the unfortunate circumstance of you confessing instead of Chan. “I probably looked like an idiot while confessing.”

“Since I’m your boyfriend, can I tell you a secret?” Chan teases, repeating what you said the night before with a little twist. Smacking his arm lightly for the jab, you nod with a laugh, ignoring the way your face heats up when he refers to himself as your boyfriend.  

“I really wanted to kiss you when you were confessing.” There’s mirth in Chan’s eyes as he gazes at you the same way he did back at the restaurant. The only difference was that you knew he liked you back. And you had never been happier. 

“Go for it.”

And that’s all the confirmation that Chan needs to lean down and press his lips against yours in a feather-light kiss, as your hands rest on his chest, appreciating the strong beat his heart was playing. 

You part a few seconds later, eyes still closed as a smile plays on both your lips, before you’re pulled for another kiss, this one more forceful than the one before. His lips press against yours harder, and his arms pull you closer—as close as you could be. You respond with equal fervor, pouring every emotion you have into the kiss, when you’re interrupted by a loud cough. 

“I would appreciate it if I didn’t have to bleach my eyes every time I see the two of you.”

Oh. 

It completely slipped your mind that Changbin was just a few steps away from your room, and you want to crawl under your bed and befriend the monster there when you see the haughty smile on your best friend’s face. 

“I think a thanks is in order.”

Removing yourself from Chan’s arms, you walk over to Changbin, who smiles wider when he realises you are walking towards him. Opening his arms to welcome you in for a hug, he can’t help but shriek when you start punching him everywhere possible.

“Dude, what is wrong with you?!”

“That’s what you get for coming up with stupid ideas to get me to talk!” you snap at your best friend with words that carry no real bite. “Were you that desperate?”

“Clearly!” Changbin replies, exasperated. “It was getting depressing. He wouldn’t stop calling me because he was worried, and you were being a stubborn bitch!” 

At his words, there’s a tinge of guilt that pinches at you when you realise the trouble you had put your best friend through. 

“Okay, I’m sorry,” you say with a pout, burying your face into Changbin’s shoulder. “And thank you.”

“Yes yes, you’re welcome,” Changbin says with a soft smile. He wouldn’t admit it just yet, but seeing his best friend who meant the world to him end up with someone who just as much deserved nothing but the best made him eternally grateful. “Now go smooch your boyfriend. We don’t want him becoming too jealous of the attention you’re giving me.”

“Oh, shut up,” is what Changbin gets in return, as Chan intertwines his hand with yours. Just as Changbin walks out of sight back to his room, Chan turns to you with the biggest smile.

“Now then, shall we go on a date to celebrate our first day?”

“Absolutely.”

And as you and Chan sit on the beach that evening, surrounded by sand and accompanied by the sound of the waves and the soft breeze with a orange hue enveloping you, you think:

Life had never been sweeter.

#stray kids imagines #stray kids x reader #bang chan x reader #stray kids #bang chan #stray kids fluff #stray kids oneshot #stray kids scenarios #skz imagines #skz scenarios #skz oneshot #skz x reader #skz fluff #chan x reader #bang chan imagines #bang chan scenarios #bang chan oneshot #dee scribbles

[oligbia]

Hey Liv, how are you?

I’ve been feeling a little down lately, so I wanted to request a scenario with Yoosung, where he takes the initiative, slowly heating things up with MC... (Pre-dating,, or really new in the relationship if possible <3)

Please ignore it if you don’t feel like doing it!! Thank you so so much in advance 💐❤️

Yoosung X Reader

Spicy SFW, 16+ only

Im really sorry you're not feeling the best, hun. If you need anything im here <3

Personally im not vibing myself, but writing this was really nice, so thank you for the request

If Yoosung Kim was a font, he would be Calibri. Typical, not bold, not quite fancy enough to be a serif font. He was the default, the basic, the font you use when your essay is due in forty minutes and you don’t have time to bother with formatting. He wasn’t special. 

    Maybe he wasn’t special, but he was a mess. He lived in his tiny apartment, rarely cooked a proper meal, wasting his life away playing a video game. His life was moving in slow motion, purpose lacking after the death of his cousin. He missed her.

 She would be Playfair Display, if she was a font. She was elegant, perfect, and beautiful. She was the kind of font you picked if you had done the essay days before it was due and wanted to look beautiful, the font an extension of elegant ideas. 

Fonts. . . why was he so caught up on fonts? He had an essay due. That's why he was in the computer lab between classes, trying to write an essay. He didn’t have much time, but he had to write this essay. But, he was so caught up on the fonts. He couldn’t pick one, couldn't settle on one. It was a such an arbitrary decision, the font won't save his essay, won't save his grade, won't pick his major, won't fix his life, it wouldn’t bring her back, it wouldn't make V stop lying- 

Tears pricked up at the edges of his eyes, threatening to pour over. He sniffled, rubbing his face with his sleeve. It was midnight, the school computer lab was only going to be open for a few more hours, but Yoosung knew if he didn’t write this essay now he would never right it, and if he never wrote it he would fail again, and Jumin and Jaehee would pressure him about the future, and Jumin would call his mom again, and Yoosung would fail college, and he would never have a future because there isn’t a future in gaming.-

“Times New Roman.”

Yoosung spun his head around, unaware that you had been standing behind him. “The assignment is supposed to be in Times New Roman- you are from my 10am philosophy class, right?”

Having a better view of you now, he did faintly remember you. He had attended class sporadically, not having much interest in it when he was there. You sat towards the front of the class, he had only seen you a handful of times from his seat in the back. 

He nodded, “Yea… I’m not really sure what I’ll write about. I haven't really paid much attention.” A small blush crept over his face as he played with his fingers, embarrassed. 

“I figured as much, you aren’t there very often. Do you need help? We have a few hours before the computer lab closes.” 

Yoosung looked up at you, basking in the warmth of your smile. If you were a font, you would have been Indie Flower. He didn’t know you that well yet but he knew you were soft, you were kind, you were cute. He nodded. “Honestly, yea I think I do.” Yoosung gulped, realizing he had the chance to be bold, to be something. “Do you accept payment in food?”

And so there the two of you were, sitting on the computer lab floor, boxes of takeout scattered on the floor around you. He watched as your smile somehow grew even brighter as your laughed, nose scrunched up. He didn’t realize how funny he was, he was just telling you about the one time Saeyoung convinced him that he had to drink chocolate milk after he had all that coffee. 

“I’m sorry to laugh, I can’t imagine how awful that was.”

He giggled nervously. “Yea- yea it was pretty bad.” 

Your eyes landed on his. You had been here with him for a few hours now, but had yet to make the realization that his eyes were a soft lavender color. You noticed the deep brown roots springing up in his blonde hair. His lashes were long and curled at the ends. 

Yoosung was very much aware of how close you were to him now. You had leaned in closer to him subconsciously, observing him. His face was warm, palms a little sweaty. 

“You bleach your hair.”

Yoosung blinked. “I always liked blond hair. My family is blonde. 

You nodded. “I think its pretty. You're pretty, Yoosung.”

And like that, he kissed you. He didn’t think about it, he just did it. His lips were soft, he tasted like the sweet and sour chicken he had for dinner, but you didn’t mind. Your hands held onto the collar of his shirt, his hands resting on your waste. The kiss, innocent and pure, ended almost as soon as it started. He pulled away from you, face red with embarrassment, eyes wide. His hands, however, remained gently to your sides. 

“I’m so sorry!” His voice was laced with panic and fluster. He really hadn’t thought about it first, he just went for it. That's what Zen always said to do, right?

You giggled, face also red. “It’s alright, Yoosung. I promise.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

He did it again. He just kissed you. He didn’t overthink it, he didn’t ask questions. He just did it. And it was amazing. Your hands rested more comfortably on his neck now, fingers lost in this long, bleached blond, locks. He pulled you closer to him, your body mere centimeters from his. This kiss wasn’t like the last one. It was less innocent, more desperate. His lips kissed yours roughly, his teeth grazing your bottom lip while your tongue brushed against his. It was almost too much for him, almost. The butterflies in his stomach were pushing up into his lungs, his breath removed from his lungs. He swore if there was a Heaven, the angels sang for you two. He had only met you hours before, but he knew you were special. You were so valuable. You were so kind, offering to help him write an essay for a class he rarely attended. 

Needless to say, he will likely be returning to that class. 

You pulled away from him, face flushed as you panted. You pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his smile, pressing your forehead against him. You swore you could see stars in his eyes. He reminded you of a Golden Retriever puppy, so excited and full of energy. 

“Go on a date with me. A real date.” Yoosung’s breath was shaky and not much more than a whisper. 

    You giggled. “Alright. Pick me up this weekend?”

    Yoosung nodded, his hypothetical tail wagging as his smile grew. You smiled, pulling him into a hug. 

#mystic messenger #yoosung #yoosung kim #yoosung mystic messenger #yoosung mysmess #yoosung x reader #yoosung mm #mysme yoosung #yoosung x mc

[after-avenging-hours]

Out of Time [6]: Steve x Reader

Series Masterlist with dates on chapter releases - tag list will not be used for this series

Summary:  After Steve gets injected with a mysterious substance during a mission gone wrong, you come to find out that the only thing that can save his life is a pure sample of Dr. Erskine’s Super Soldier Serum. Unwilling to let the love of your life die without a fighting chance, you travel through the quantum realm back to 1943. Equipped with little more than your knowledge of past events, you have to figure out just how exactly you’re going to get your hands on that serum. Not only that, but with the infinity stones no longer protecting the reality you’ve come from, there is now a chance that your presence in the past can change the future you’ll return to. Can you succeed without messing things up? And if things go wrong, can you fix it before it’s too late? Or will you run out of time…

Word Count: 6761

Warnings: This part contains smut, Steve is a virgin for obvious reasons, Explicit themes (18+)

The next morning, you meet up with Dr. Erskine first thing to go over the plan for the day, along with Colonel Phillips. The Colonel then calls for a vehicle escort to take you all to where Agent Carter is getting the recruits initiated. The vehicle pulls up just in time for you to see her fist flying into one of the recruit’s face.

You scoff out a laugh, wondering what exactly that guy did to piss her off.

“Agent Carter, I can see that you’re breaking in the candidates. That’s good,” Colonel Phillips announces as he approaches the group. He then proceeds to order the soldier the get himself back up.

You stand next to Dr. Erskine and sweep your eyes over the group. You catch Steve’s gaze for a brief moment before he looks straight ahead at attention. You have to glance down at your clipboard to help fight off your smile.

The Colonel begins to pace in front of the recruits and gives his introductory speech. “We are going to win this war because we have the best… men,” he falters when he pauses and glances over at Steve. He turns to shoot Dr. Erskine with a look. The Doctor has to look away to keep his face neutral. “And because they are going to get better,” the Colonel resumes his pacing. “Much better.”

He continues to explain to the men what exactly they have signed up for. An opportunity to become the man that will lead the Allied forces into winning the war. A man who will be the first in a new breed of Super Soldiers. A man who will personally bring Adolph Hitler to the gates of Hell.

“We will be testing you in just about every aspect you can think of. Strength, endurance, agility, cognition, aptitude... By the end of this week, we will know you better than you know yourselves. You are on the clock from now until we’ve made our decision next Monday. You will follow every single order, explicitly as it is given to you. We tell you to jump, just do it, don’t bother asking how high. We will tell you when to eat. We will tell you when to sleep. Am I making myself perfectly clear?”

“Sir, yes, Sir!” all of the recruits shout simultaneously.

“Sergeant Duffy, you can take it from here,” the Colonel relinquishes control of the recruits to the Drill Sergeant.

“Alright, men! Step into formation!” He orders. “First up is the ropes course! Ready! March!”

You follow after the group, along with Agent Carter. You take notes on the performance and times of each recruit as they complete the course. You bite your lips and cringe inwardly when Steve barely makes it halfway up the rope wall before losing steam. It breaks your heart to have to check the incomplete box next to his name on the paperwork, but you know if you don’t accurately report what’s happening, it will raise several questions with the others.

This is just the beginning of a very long and challenging week. Every day the men are up before dawn, they have 30 minutes to eat breakfast, then they’re jumping right into the next test. Steve’s differences from the others quickly paint a target on his back. One of the recruits, Hodge, the one that Peggy punched on the first day, seems to have a vendetta against him.

You witness Hodge kicking out one of the posts of the barbed wire crawling course, forcing the wires to collapse directly on top of Steve, pinning him down. Sergeant Duffy was quick to put Steve to blame, but you happily wrote a mark against Hodge on his form. You’d definitely be reporting this back to Erskine.

Steve struggles for a few minutes but is eventually able to work himself loose and crawls out of the remainder of the course. You frown when you notice the back of his uniform is cut in several spots. You’re pretty sure you even saw a flash of red.

Later on, the men are given an hour for lunch. As the rest of the group heads for the mess hall, you watch Steve diverge off to the barracks. You rush to your room to grab your first aid kit. You step back out of the officer quarters at the same time he’s leaving the barracks, dressed in a different uniform. You release a quick whistle to catch his attention before jerking your head to the side to indicate he should follow you.

He looks around to make sure no one else has witnessed the interaction before walking over. You take him around the back of the building before ducking behind a series of large crates. “Vic, what are you doing? We’re going to get in trouble,” Steve whispers.

“Sit down and take your shirt off,” you instruct, kneeling on the ground to open your first aid kit.

“There’s no need for that. I’m fine,” he huffs stubbornly.

You fix him with a pointed look. “Steve, the sooner you stop arguing with me, the sooner we’ll be done, and then the less likely we’ll be caught.”

He stares back for a moment before giving in with a dejected sigh. He looks around once more before ducking behind the creates, too. He starts unbuttoning his uniform and turns around to sit cross-legged with his back toward you. Once the shirt is off, you hiss at the sight of the cuts on his back. Most aren’t too bad, but there’s one going across his right shoulder blade that’s deeper than the rest.

“You and I have very different meanings for the term fine,” you scoff.

“It’s really not that bad. Just hurts when I, you know, move…”

You breathe out a laugh, shaking your head at him. There’s that stubborn jerk you know and love. Leaning forward, you press your lips to the back of his neck. He turns his head slightly to glance at you over his shoulder.

“What was that for?”

You smile, “A distraction from the pain.”

He releases a low hum before turning his head back. You disinfect your hands before reaching out to inspect the deeper cut. You prod gently at the skin around the cut. Luckily, it’s not quite as deep as you originally feared and it won’t need stitches.

“This is going to sting,” you warn as you rip open a disinfectant wipe packet. You dab as gently as you can to the cut, but Steve still releases a harsh breath.

“Think I could maybe use another distraction,” he comments, his voice tight.

You oblige with a kiss to the top of his shoulder. Once you’re satisfied that you’ve cleaned up the cut, you pull out your healing spray from Shuri. “This will feel a little cold at first, but then it will start to numb the pain,” you explain before spraying over the wound. You tape a piece of gauze over the cut to keep it protected before moving onto the smaller cuts.

As the gel begins to take effect, the tension in Steve’s shoulders begins to ease. Your concentration breaks when he releases a long sigh. “Vic, what the hell am I doing here?” he asks, sounding dejected.

“You earned your spot, Steve. Same as the rest of them.”

He scoffs dryly. “But I’m nothing like the rest of them.”

“That’s a good thing!” you insist. “Steve, you know that this isn’t just about who’s tallest, fastest, or strongest. Your strengths are up here,” you tap at his temple. “Find a way to use that to your advantage.”

“Can’t exactly think my way out of a push-up…” He sighs, looking off into the distance. “I’m just so tired.”

You’re not surprised. He’s pushing his body past its limits. “I know,” you scratch comfortingly at the short hairs at the nape of his neck. “But it’s just a few more days. I know that you can do this.”

The scratch of your nails on his scalp helps to relax him. “Thanks, Vic. It’s nice knowing there’s someone here that’s on my side.” He looks over his shoulder to meet your gaze once again.

“I’m always on your side. Even when you’re being a stubborn jerk.” You smirk humorously.

He chuckles quietly and lets you finish bandaging him up. The rest of the cuts don’t need as much attention, just a quick spray of the healing gel before covering them with a few bandages, so the gel won’t rub off on his uniform.

“Okay, you’re done,” you tell him, so he can put his uniform shirt back on as you pack up your kit and collect the trash.

He slips the shirt over his shoulders but leaves it unbuttoned as he turns to face you, sitting on his knees. “Can I get one last distraction?”

When you lift your gaze to catch his, he taps a finger to his bottom lip, right where he’s giving you a goofy grin. You match the grin with one of your own before leaning forward on your hands and knees. You tilt your head and press your lips to his. As much as you want to give in to the kiss and spend the whole afternoon with him tucked behind these crates, you know it won’t be long before someone comes looking for the two of you. If you’re caught together it would immediately disqualify Steve from the program, so you keep things short.

Pulling back, you blink your eyes open. Steve’s face looks more relaxed than it has his entire time here. You smile at him encouragingly, “Go show ‘em what you’re made of, Rogers.”

Darting forward, he places one last peck against your lips. “Yes, ma’am.”

He finishes buttoning up his shirt and stands. He looks around to make sure the coast is clear before reaching a hand down to help you to your feet. You have him go first then wait a minute before stepping out from behind the crates and make your way back to your room to put away your first aid kit.

-

Dr. Erskine grabs you during breakfast the next morning to go over the progress on the recruits so far. While you’re in your meeting with him, the recruits are taken on their endurance run around the entire camp. It will take the full morning to complete the round trip. You can’t help but be worried about Steve, especially since you’re not there to watch out for him.

You step back outside to meet up with the recruits at the same time that they are returning from their run. You feel dread pooling deep in your gut when you see Steve sitting in the back of the escort vehicle. As you hurry your approach, you find that he doesn’t appear to be injured. In fact, he looks rather content. Maybe even a little smug.

The vehicle comes to a stop, along with the rest of the recruits. Sergeant Duffy dismisses them to lunch, a rather sour look on his face as he holds a bundled green cloth in his arms. Steve hops out of the back of the truck, confirming your thought that he’s not injured.

“What happened?” you ask as he approaches.

“The Sergeant said that if anyone could bring him the flag at the halfway point, they’d get a ride back the rest of the way. I pulled the pins out of the bottom of the flagpole. Once the pole was on the ground, getting the flag was easy.” He shrugs casually.

You and Dr. Erskine share a look, trying to conceal your smiles to not show favoritism in front of the others.

“That is one way to do it,” Dr. Erskine tells him before you both let him continue to the mess hall for lunch.

The two of you then meet up with Agent Carter to get her notes on the recruits after their run.

By the end of the week, Steve has found a few other areas to shine through. Every time you give Dr. Erskine your reports, you can tell that it’s only helping to affirm his feelings on picking Steve for Project Rebirth. You’re currently watching the recruits running through their afternoon exercises, with Agent Carter leading them through a round of push-ups. Your attention is momentarily pulled away from the group when Dr. Erskine and Colonel Phillips walk up, arguing over Erskine’s apparent choice to pick Steve.

“You don’t win wars with niceness, Doctor,” the Colonel huffs and digs through a weapons create in the back of one of the military trucks. He pulls something out of one of the creates that you can’t quite make out from your position. “You win wars with guts.” In the next second, he tosses the object into the group of recruits. “Grenade!” he shouts and your heart completely stops.

You’re about to dart into the fray as the recruits completely scatter, but then you notice one individual jumping directly onto the grenade. “Get away!” Steve screams, huddling over the explosive device. “Get back!”

Time seems to come to a complete stop as you think that this is the moment you’re going to watch him die. A full second passes, then another. As time seems to start moving once more at a normal pace, you realize that the grenade never went off. Everyone else seems to come to this conclusion at the same time and Steve begins to push himself out of his huddled position.

“It was a dummy grenade,” one of the other soldiers announce and everyone begins to collect themselves. “All clear.”

You find yourself releasing the breath you didn’t even realize you were holding.

Steve looks around in confusion. “Is this a test?” he asks.

You look over to Dr. Erskine and Colonel Phillips to find the two in a staring match. “He’s still skinny,” the Colonel mutters before walking around the doctor and heads off. Erskine watches his movements, trying to hold back a smile of amusement. Once the Colonel is out of sight, he gives that smile to Steve

-

It’s your last night at Camp Lehigh and you can’t even pretend to fall asleep. You should feel relief, knowing that Steve was successful in getting chosen for Project Rebirth. And a part of you is. But this means that tomorrow is your last day here in this time. Tomorrow is the whole reason you even ventured back into 1943. Tomorrow is your one shot at getting the serum. Tomorrow… you go home.

Unable to stand one more second laying still in your bed, you push yourself up and move the blankets off your legs. Peggy is fast asleep in her own cot, but she’s a light sleeper, so you try not to make too much noise as you slip out of bed. You grab your silk robe to throw over your nightgown once you’ve stepped out of the room. You twist the knob of the door as you carefully pull it shut, so it won’t click. You then walk barefoot out of the Officer Quarters and make your way over to the barracks. As you approach the main door, you pause when it opens on its own.

Dr. Erskine steps out, and he catches you standing there. He chuckles quietly, holding the door open for you. “Don’t keep him up too late.”

An embarrassed smile crosses your face. “I won’t, Doctor.” You slip inside before the door shuts behind you.

Steve is sitting on the side of his cot, with his back toward the door. He looks over his shoulder as you approach, quickly standing to his feet when he sees it’s you. “Vic!”

As soon as he’s within reach, your hands dart out to yank him close. You wrap your arms around his chest and bury your face into his neck, holding him tight. He stiffens at first, before relaxing into your hold.

“Is this my congratulations?” he asks with a gentle laugh.

“This is because you jumped on top of a grenade, like an idiot, and scared me half to death!” You squeeze him a little tighter. “I need to know that you’re okay,” you mumble against the side of his neck, breathing in his familiar scent.

“Sorry,” he apologizes, wrapping his arms around your waist.

When you feel the comfort of his nearness beginning to seep into you, you lean back and unwrap an arm to hold the side of his face. “This is your congratulations,” you say before placing your lips over his.

His arms tighten around your waist as he kisses back eagerly. “God, I missed having you so close,” he whispers against your lips.

Instead of his words causing you comfort, they hit you with a cold dose of reality. You pull back with a snap, your breath hitching.

“What’s wrong?” Steve asks, looking at you with concern.

You feel the pain in your chest like a knife to your heart, and you’re sure it’s plain to see on your face. “Steve, there’s something I need to tell you,” you confess.

His eyes become cautious and guarded. “What is it?”

You release a shaky breath, feeling the tears already beginning to well in your eyes. “After the procedure tomorrow… I have to go away.”

“Go away?” he repeats, brows furrowing. “You’re getting reassigned?”

“I-” you start before cutting yourself off. You know you can’t tell him the full truth. He wouldn’t understand. “Yes,” you force out. “I’m getting reassigned.”

His gaze flickers between yours, trying to get a read on anything that you can give him. “Well, where to? Maybe I can get assigned there also.”

You shake your head, your lips trembling as you attempt to fight off your tears. “No, you can’t. It’s something I have to do alone.”

He looks like he still doesn’t understand. “So, what does that mean for us?”

You exhale sharply, looking up as a last-ditch effort to keep the tears from falling. “It means we won’t see each other again.”

“Ever?”

All of your efforts begin to fail when your gaze drops to his once more and you see the look on his face. He looks absolutely heartbroken. You feel that knife in your chest dig a little deeper. “Not for a long time.”

He watches as you begin to fall apart in his arms, but he just can’t accept it. Steve Rogers never gives up on anything. “No, we can find a way to make it work. I’ll talk with Dr. Erskine and Colonel Phillips after the procedure. If it works, they’ll have to say yes, right? And even if they say no, we can still write letters to each other. This doesn’t have to be-”

“Steve,” you cut in. You can’t allow him to get his hopes us. “This is our last night.”

His breaths come in quick like he’s gearing up for a fight, but when he sees the raw pain in your eyes, he knows that now isn’t the time for arguing. Maybe he can change your mind before tomorrow. Maybe he can’t. If this truly is the end… “Then, let’s make the most of it.”

His hands cradle your cheeks before he pulls your face against his. He’s in complete control of this kiss and you are more than happy to submit to him. You’re not sure where this sudden burst of confidence has come from, but you are reveling in it. His hands slip from your cheeks, down your neck, and over your shoulders. He pushes against your robe until it’s falling to the floor.

The two of you stumble over to his cot, not wanting to part, as your hands roam over each other’s bodies. Your hands slip beneath his white SSR t-shirt before they crawl up his stomach. He releases you just long enough to tuck his dog tags inside the shirt before he helps you pull it off. He sits in the middle of the mattress and you crawl to sit on his lap, your nightgown bunching up at your thighs.

You hover over him, hands on his shoulders as you barely skim your lips against his. He stretches his neck up as you tease, trying to get more from you. Your lips split into a grin before your tongue darts out to swipe straight up the middle of his mouth. His hands shake when they grip your hips.

“Have you done this before?” he asks breathlessly.

You stop your movements and pull back to meet his gaze. “I have,” you confirm. “Does that bother you?”

He shakes his head fervently. “Oh, no,” he insists, squeezing your hips a little tighter. “As long as it doesn’t bother you that I haven’t…” He drops his gaze for a moment.

Your lips spread into a sweet smile and you run your fingers through his hair, lifting his gaze back up. “That doesn’t bother me at all, Steve,” you assure him.

He worries his bottom lip between his teeth, and you can tell he has more to say, so you wait patiently for him. “Bucky once told me that sometimes women don’t feel pleasure if you don’t do it right.” He pauses, looking at you with concern. “Will you teach me?”

You look at him with so much tender affection, he can feel it in his soul. “Of course.” You settle yourself a little more comfortably over his lap, with your knees framing his hips. “Just start by touching me.”

He glances down at where his hands rest at your hips, then his eyes travel back up the length of your body. “Where?” he questions.

“Everywhere.” Leaning back down, you capture his lips and kiss him fiercely.

His hands seem to take on a life of their own. They trail up your sides, exploring your curves so delicately, one would think you were made a glass. They skim just past the edge of your breasts, not quite brave enough to venture there quite yet. He traces the dip of your collar bone and the bend of your shoulders. As you continue to mold your mouth to his, he uses the touch of his fingers to paint the image of your body in his mind.

His hands then skim down your back, fingers spread wide so as not to miss a single inch. They come to a stop just below the curve of your lower back. Pulling out of your kiss, you breathe heavily as you catch his hooded gaze. Releasing his shoulders, you reach back and grip each of his wrists. Continuing to hold his gaze, you push his hands down even further until they are well and truly settled over the globes of your ass.

Steve’s breath hitches and his pupils dilate completely. He may not realize it yet, but you know your man has a thing for your ass. You grin deviously when you feel his hands squeeze. You rock your hips encouragingly, rubbing up on the erection that’s begun forming in his pants. He grunts in surprise at the sensations running through him and he squeezes your ass again. He feels like his heart is about to beat right out of his chest, it’s pounding so hard.

Wanting to touch even more of you, Steve’s hands glide down your thighs and slip under the hem of your satin nightgown. He moves at a pace slower than a snail as he moves back up your legs. His fingertips brush the curve of your ass once more, and when he expects to feel cloth again, he finds nothing but skin. His lips part in shock. “You’re not wearing underwear…” he realizes.

You can’t help the short giggle that slips out. “No, I’m not,” you confirm.

He swallows thickly, trying to process that information. “Do you do that a lot?” he questions, wondering how many nights you’ve shared a bed together like this.

“Sometimes,” you respond cryptically.

He releases a shaky breath, “Oh God, I’m going to hell for this.”

You laugh, wrapping your arms loosely around his neck. “Well, then we can go together.”

“Can…” his mouth has gone dry and his voice cracks. He has to clear his throat to try again. “Can I see you?”

“You can if you take off my nightgown,” you grin cheekily.

He fumbles a little, getting the satin material up to your waist. You help him remove the gown and let it fall to the floor. And suddenly Steve has a very naked woman sitting over him. After a quick glance over you, he quickly realizes that he could spend hours looking over your body and would never grow bored. He could explore you as he would an art museum. Looking for every single minuscule little detail within the great masterpiece. Lose himself in the curve of your hip, or the swell of your breasts, or between your thighs.

You notice where his gaze drops to and recognize the curious interest in his eyes. You take one of his hands back in yours and slowly bring it to the junction of your thighs. His fingers slide over your folds and he inhales sharply.

“You’re wet…” he surmises.

“I am,” you confirm with a laugh.

His fingers do a little exploring over the area. “Are women always wet like this?”

“No, not like this. It’s mostly just during arousal. It helps to act as a natural lubricant,” you attempt to explain while he’s got his hands on you.

“Where do I… go in?” he questions, his face flushing. He feels like he’s failing in class. Isn’t there some sort of primal instinct that’s supposed to kick in or something?

You smile in understanding and guide him to where he needs to be. “Just press gently,” you encourage. He does as you’ve instructed and slowly, his finger pushes in. Your lips part and you release the sweetest little mewl as your body welcomes him. “Add a second finger,” you urge, more than ready for the satisfying stretch your body has been craving from the moment of arousal.

It’s been a while since you’ve gone this long without sex. Especially since you’d been on that recon mission with the team for several weeks even before coming to 1943. Your body was begging for a little action. You have a brief flicker of thought on whether or not this is technically considered cheating, but then Steve flicks his fingers experimentally, hitting your g-spot, and all other thought promptly falls straight out of your head.

“Oh, right there! Steve, touch me right there!”

Steve doesn’t know if he should be watching what he’s doing with his hand or if he can just stare at your face. You’re absolutely breathtaking. Neck stretched, lips parted, eyes closed. You’re a picture of pure bliss. Your hips begin to rock against his fingers as your body tries to chase after its first orgasm. Reaching down for his hand once more, you position his thumb over your aching clit.

“Rub that in little circles.” You’re growing more and more breathless the longer he plays with you. The sounds coming out of you are so sweet, Steve can nearly taste the sugar in the air. You try not to be too loud, knowing there’s night patrol walking around the camp and you don’t want to call their attention. “Oh, Steve. That-” your voice drops with a sharp exhale. “That feels so good.”

Your hips stutter against his touch and your breasts heave with every breath. Steve is mesmerized by you. He’s not sure what drives him to do it, be it that instinct finally kicking in, or purely an insatiable need, but he leans forward and takes one of your breasts into his mouth. This must be the correct move because the sound that rips out of you shoots straight to his throbbing cock. Your hands dive into his hair, tugging and gripping at the strands, but also keeping him close and encouraging him.

Steve does his best to divide his attention, keeping his hand moving between your legs while he mouths at your breast. He tries to keep his teeth out of the equation, unsure if that will hurt you. He sucks your nipple into his mouth and laves his tongue over the hardened bud. His other hand reaches back down to grab at your ass once more. He uses that hand as leverage to keep you close and encourage the way you rock into his probing fingers.

“Oh yes! Right there, Steve! Don’t stop!”

He’s not entirely sure which area you’re referring to, so he keeps up with it all. He sucks even harder on your breast, circling his tongue around the sensitive bud. His hand between your legs is beginning to grow tired, but he doesn’t dare stop, and he continues to squeeze and push the globe of your ass.

Your voice continues to rise in pitch the closer you get to your peak. “Oh my God! Oh, Steve! Yes! Yes!” And suddenly, your body is tensing above him and your walls spasm around his fingers. Your climax hits you like a splash of paint on a blank canvas. You’re seeing all sorts of colors and swirls behind your closed eyelids. You hold onto him tight, afraid that if you let go, you’ll get whisked away.

He pulls away from your breast, not wanting to miss the sight of your euphoria, but he continues the movement of his hands. His fingers are pushed in deep, stroking at your quivering walls and thumbing at your clit. Your entire body shakes around him. Steve feels like he’s strung so tight that he may just join you with the barest hint of touch to his straining cock.

“Okay, okay,” you ease, gripping at his wrist as your body begins to come down from your high. He’s more than happy to keep going, but you’re going to go nuts from over-sensitivity if he keeps it up. “That was good,” you huff with a breathless laugh, guiding his hand to gently pull out from between your legs. “So good…” you drop your head unceremoniously to his shoulder, needing a second to collect yourself.

He feels your breath fan across his chest, sending tingles in its wake. “I didn’t kill you, right?” he asks jokingly.

You giggle breathlessly, lifting your head back up. “No. You were perfect.” Cupping his face in your hands, you slant your lips over his in a sloppy kiss and start to lean forward until Steve falls back against his pillow. Your mouth drags away from his, over the side of his jaw and down his neck.

“What are you doing now?” Steve asks as your lips ghost down the center of his chest.

You place a kiss just above his belly button before grinning up at him devilishly. “Now I’m going to do you.” Your fingers hook into the waistband of his pants, popping the top button and dragging down the zipper. In one move, you pull his pants and boxers off his legs, allowing them to join the remainder of your clothes on the floor. Steve’s cock is hard and ready for you, laying against his abdomen. He’s not as thick as you’re used to, but he’s definitely got more length than you were expecting. He’s also got a bit of an upward curve right now that seems to have gone away after the girth built up.

Your gaze flickers up to see that he’s watching you intently for your reaction. You give him just the barest hint of a smirk before you lean down and drag your tongue over him from base to tip. His lips part in a shaky breath and he throws his head back. You swipe over the very end of his tip, getting a taste of the pre-cum that’s dribbling out of his head. You wrap your fingers around his base to hold him steady before you take him into your mouth.

“Good God!” he cries out, hips jerking up and his back arching. He grips the bedsheets, his knuckles immediately turning white as he squeezes his eyes shut. He’s never felt anything like this before and he knows that it’s way too much. “Vic, honey, you gotta stop,” he begs despite the way his body thrusts up into your hot mouth. “I won’t last,” he shakes his head fervently, the muscles in his neck and shoulders tensing up.

Having mercy on him, you release him with a parting lick to the slit on his head. You keep your hand wrapped around him as you sit up on your knees and begin to get yourself into position above him. “Are you sure you want to do this?” you ask for his consent one last time before it becomes too late.

His eyes blink back open and meet yours before he nods. “Yes, I want this,” he confirms. “I want you, Vic.”

You smile sincerely and move to line him up with your entrance. His tip has just barely brushed against your slick folds when he jolts and tightly grips your hip.

“Wait! Wait,” he rushes, making you pause. You’re about to move off of him, but his grip holds you steady. “I’m not wearing a condom,” he tells you in a hurry before you’ll think he’s backing out. “I don’t even have one…”

Your muscles relax as you laugh lightly. “It’s okay. I have birth control.”

His brows furrow in confusion. “What is that?”

You realize too late that modern birth control hasn’t been invented yet. “Uhm… well, I have an IUD. It’s like a small device inside me that releases a certain type of hormone that prevents fertilization.”

“Oh,” he states simply, but wonders why he’s never heard of anything like that before. It certainly sounds handy. “And that’s effective?”

“Yes,” you smile in amusement. “So, can I…” you glance down to where you’re still holding him.

“Oh, yeah. Right. Go ahead.” His cheeks flare with embarrassment.

You giggle at his awkwardness. “You’re so adorable.”

He winces slightly at that, his cheeks only getting hotter. “Not exactly the words most men want to hear when you’ve got your hands on his penis.”

You laugh again and stroke his length in a comforting gesture. “Well, you’re not most men.” You settle back over him and align his tip against your entrance. “You’re my man.” With that said, you begin to sink down onto him. Your body welcomes every single inch that fills you until he’s pushed in to the hilt.

“Oh wow…” he breathes, hands gripping your hips even tighter.

“You okay?” you ask a little breathlessly, your body thrumming with sexual energy.

“Yeah…” he responds brokenly, trying to hang onto his last shred of control. He’s never felt anything like this before, there aren’t even enough words to describe what he’s feeling. Good is an understatement. Great is way off the mark. Euphoric might be close, but it still seems to fall short.

You give him a second to get used to the feeling of being inside you. Your fingers glide up his flat stomach and over the ridges of his ribcage. Sure, this body is smaller than you’re used to, but he’s definitely not as delicate as everyone has been made out to believe. This last week has certainly taught you that much. No matter what got thrown at him and no matter how hard he took a beating, Steve still managed to persevere. He picked himself back up and he kept moving forward. His inner strength somehow manages to shine brighter when he doesn’t have the muscles to back it up. Even though you’d been scared out of your mind when he jumped on that grenade, you’re also so incredibly proud of him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, causing your gaze to lift back up to meet his.

“Like what?” you question, wondering what he’s reading off your expression.

“Like I’m the only man in the whole world that matters.”

The love that you feel for him in your heart swells like a balloon. You lean forward, cupping his cheeks in your hands, and brush your nose against his. “Because you are,” your words caress his lips moments before you capture them.

You start to move your hips in slow circles, taking great pleasure in the way he twitches inside you. His hands squeeze your hips before they fall back down to your ass. He uses his grip as leverage to start rocking up into you. His movements are a little sloppy, more of a reaction rather than a coordinated effort. It feels good either way and you have to pull your lips back to release the delighted gasp that’s desperate to escape.

Your hands reach up to grip the metal bar from the bed frame as you find a rhythm to grind down against Steve’s gentle thrusts. His parted lips are swollen and red from your kisses as they release stunted gasps and heady grunts from deep within his chest. His heart is pounding so fast, he thinks it might just burst, but if this is the last thing he ever gets to experience before he dies, it will be well worth it.

“Can I go faster?” you ask with a needy whimper.

Steve thinks he may pass out, but because he’s a sucker for pain, he nods his head fervently. Your grip on the bed frame tightens and the muscles in your thighs quiver as you begin to bounce yourself on his cock. “Oh shit!” Steve’s eyes roll back as unimaginable pleasure sparks through him. Every time you slam down on his cock it sends a bolt of electricity licking up his spine. He brings his knees up and digs his heels into the mattress, so he can meet you thrust for thrust. Just about every muscle in his body is screaming in protest from this past week of hard training, but he pushes through the pain because the pleasure is way too good to stop now.

Your body pulls him in so deep, he feels like he’s going to fall into you. And maybe, he already has. These last two weeks he’s spent with you have felt like a dream. You dropped into his lap like a fallen angel and every moment since has been pure fantasy. You seem to embody everything he ever hoped he could get out of a partner. You saw him for the man he actually is, not the one you wished he could be. You treated his jagged and broken edges with gentle understanding and care, instead of choosing to throw him out with the trash like so many others had before.

You made him feel like a man capable of giving and receiving love and affection. You weren’t just a flickering candle in the dark. You were a bright, shining beacon, like a lighthouse in a storm. Your light chased away his insecurities and made him believe that he could do the impossible. He wanted to spend every day of the rest of his life basking in your radiance.

“Steve! Oh my- Oh!” Your back arches and your entire body quakes with the power of the orgasm that crashes through you.

The way you clamp around him has Steve seeing stars. Just a few more quick thrusts and he’s emptying himself into you. Your bodies quiver in tandem as your hold on the bed frame weakens before you collapse against his chest. You’re both sweaty and your skin sticks together, but neither of you seems to mind.

“That…” he starts, in between his heaving breaths. “Was pretty incredible.”

You release a tired giggle and attempt to move at least part of your weight off of him. There’s not much room to go anywhere on the tiny, single-person cot, though. His hands slide up from your ass, to curl around your waist, and he keeps you close. His cock, limp and satiated, slips out from your folds when you shift back, landing with a wet slap against his thigh. You can feel a dribble of his thick cum beginning to leak out from between your legs, but you are entirely too worn-out to do anything about it.

You’re already half asleep by the time Steve tries to coax you up enough to be able to peel back the blanket and sheets on the bed. You tuck your head under his chin and slide a knee between his legs, relishing in the feeling of getting to sleep in his arms one more time. Your sigh of content is the last thing Steve hears before he falls asleep.

Part 7

#steve rogers x reader #pre serum steve x reader #40s steve x reader #steve rogers smut #pre serum steve smut

[maehara-san]

whiskey on the rocks // katsuki bakugo x reader

Part 27 

Pairing: AU!Katsuki Bakugo x F!Reader

Summary: After looking for months for a job position you finally get an opportunity at a big company. Being the assistant of the angriest person was going to be a lot harder than you thought it would be.

A/n: It was a long waited update and instead of the other format I decided this one would be best. Enjoy! Feedback is appreciated always and taglist is always open <3 <3 

👑 series masterlist👑

After the talk with Bakugo, you needed to vent to someone. This was something HUGE and if you didn't start talking you'd go insane.

Quickly scrolling pass your contacts you clicked on your best friends. After a few seconds, their faces popped up on the screen.

"Hey what's up?" Denki asked as he munched on his sandwich. "You usually don't call us unless something happened."

"Is everything alright?" Shoto asked looking at you with concerned eyes.

"Yeah...well..." you sighed feeling frustrated. You didn't know how to even feel, to begin with. Everything was all over the place.

"What is it y/n?" Your other best friend Tenya asked. "Did they catch the one who framed you?"

You shook your head and bit your lip. "No... it's something else. I don't know what to feel...he did seem sincere."

"Wait! Did Midoriya confess to you?!" Denki yelled at the screen causing his co-workers to look at him.

"What?! No!" you quickly said, "He never will do anything of that!"

"You don't know!"

"Anyway...no that's not it. Bakugo...actually asked me if we could talk." you said dropping the bomb right away "And well he said a lot than I had expected him to."

"Good or bad?" Shoto asked.

"It was good...surprisingly. He was quite respectful and didn't yell at me for once...a bit awkward I gotta say." you explained, "He did apologize to me though."

"Wait what? Since when is he not an asshole?" Denki asked.

"I don't know either!" you responded. Taking a deep breath you tried calming down. "But when he spoke. I could even tell...he meant what he said there was nothing behind it. It was just a person apologizing for his behavior."

"What did he tell you exactly?" Tenya asked.

"He started by saying that he was an asshole and shouldn't have acted that way. He judged too quickly without thinking about it since it's never happened before. I understand...then explained that he will make sure the person who ruined the project will be punished immediately. He never meant to yell and hoped that I will accept his apology and if I didn't he would understand." you explained.

"Did you accept his apology?" Shoto asked closing the door to his office.

Your eyes met with each one of your friends. They looked at you silently waiting to hear what your answer would be. After a long pause, you finally spoke.

"I did."

Tenya nodded along with Shoto. Denki however didn't say anything almost as if he had been bothered by your response. You were too kind, to begin with even if the silent treatment did last there was no way you wouldn't say no.

"I'm glad he finally apologized for his mistakes. He did say some bad things though...are you sure you can forgive him for that?" Tenya asked.

You decided to move to a more private part of the building. Luckily mostly everyone was having lunch on the top floor so the garden was empty.

"I realize that it's too early for me to forgive so easily-"

"-yeah it is after all the bullshit he has said to you. Not to mention what happened at the festival." Denki butted in "I saw you two arguing before you even ask and don't try to deny it."

"I'm not trying to deny anything. Yes, we did argue there and the things he said hurt a lot-"

"Then why did you accept his apology?!" he exclaimed.

"Because! This is my workplace and I shouldn't be acting like a high schooler. He is still my boss and not to mention I work with him. Bakugo did say a lot of crap but I'm not going to act immature. That's not right when he's owning up to his mistakes."

"Just because he is owning up to his mistakes doesn't mean he feels sorry." Denki retorted.

"Guys calm down there's no need to fight-" Shoto spoke trying to ease the tension.

"What are you trying to say?" you spoke ignoring Shoto at the moment.

"Maybe he apologized because Abigail is gone and he needs a right hand. He's going to use you!"

"Don't say that! He wouldn't do that to me. Plus I'm working with Midoriya-"

"Why can't you see it? Your little crush on him is making you blind to see shit." he retorted.

"I don't have a crush on him," you said not sure if you were trying to convince yourself of them. There was no way they would believe you.

"You do though. We've been seeing how you're acting. His relationship or whatever he has going on with Abigail is bothering you. It's not good to deny something you know it to be true." Tenya said.

"Shoto tell them I don't have a crush on him." however your friend shook his head and didn't speak.

"See we can all tell. If you're only doing this to be near him then you'll only end up getting hurt again." Denki added. "It's best to be professional and not engage outside of work for the sake of your insanity."

"I gotta go. Midoriya is waiting for me. See you later." you ended the call before anyone else could talk.

After work was finally over you and Midoriya started making your way to the bar. He had been invited by Denki and decided to go there together.

'It's been such a long day...all I want is a drink.' you thought taking off your blazer and setting it down on your lap.

"By the way...you don't have to tell me if you don't want to...but did everything go okay with Bakugo?" he asked keeping his gaze on the road.

"Uh...yeah yeah...he apologized and said he was going to investigate as well about what happened. Bakugo wants there to be no tension especially since we're still working together," you answered looking out the window.

There wasn't traffic surprisingly, only a few cars here and there. It was chilly but you didn't care. Your mind had been cooped up all day with the conversation you had. Part of you was ready to put it behind you while the other side of you knew nothing would change. Bakugo was with Abigail that much was true.

"I'm glad to hear that." he took a turn and kept driving. The music was only background noise, there wasn't anything specific. "I hope after this...things will ease around the group."

"I hope so too," you mumbled.

After a few minutes, you had finally arrived. The bright sign welcomed you making your eyes wince at how the lights shined. Midoriya opened the door allowing you to enter first.

"Thank you," you said making his cheeks turn a slight pink in return. Midoriya walked in after you and kept himself close in case any drunk men tried to talk to you.

He looked at your figure, not in a sexual way but observing you. There was a clear notice about how stressed you were. After you had talked to Bakugo your mood had changed. He asked if there was something wrong however you shook your head and tried changing the subject. At times he wished he were able to find out what happened to you, find a way to make you smile again. It was obvious to his friends how much he had changed after meeting you.

His personality had developed and you made him feel confident and comfortable again. Still, there was no telling how much longer he would be able to go without letting you know how he felt.

“Y/n!” a familiar voice yelled out. Your eyes scanned the place to see your pink-haired friend.

“Mina?” you said as she walked over to you. “Hey.” still confused about her being here.

Mina pulled you into a quick hug and smiled softly. “I hope you don’t mind. Denki invited us as well.”

“Us?” you questioned “I didn’t know more people were coming. I know he only invited Midoriya-”

“Oh...I thought he told you,” she said and you shook your head. Looking straight ahead you see three different bodies sitting at the bar next to Tenya and Shoto. Midoriya had left to go talk to Denki.

“Who else came?”

She was about to answer when a rough voice spoke instead. “I did too.”

“I’ll go get you a drink.” you smiled small and gave her a nod. Mina looked at the two of you and left.

“I...um didn’t expect you to come. Giving the fight you had with your friends...” you said.

“Mina told you?” he asked, “I told her not to say anything.”

“Well...it was unavoidable since you commented on my post wishing them both a happy life. Kinda hard not to talk about...she was practically happy the next day.” you chuckled lightly.

Bakugo smiled small, “I needed to fix it. There’s no reason to dislike...she’s happy and...I need...to try.”

“She’ll appreciate it.” you added, “Little by little, I’m sure it’ll be okay.”

“Yeah.” he rubbed the back of his neck. There was an awkward feeling between you two. Up to now you never have had a true conversation that wasn’t about work. Besides the one in the park, you were drunk so there were some things you didn’t quite remember.

“Can I ask you something?” you asked.

“What is it?”

“D-Did you mean it when you apologized?” you quickly shook your head “I-I’m not doubting you! I-It’s just...t-that I want to make sure...because I want things to be okay between us. I want to keep supporting you in anything you need...you’re still technically my boss after all.”

‘I hope I didn’t mess it up!’ you thought.

“I did.” he softly spoke “I-I meant it...and I hope you can sincerely accept my apology. I...also want to...work well...again.”

You broke into a soft smile “I will continue to do my best.” He gave you a soft nod and was about to speak but got interrupted.

“Come over to the bar!” Hanta exclaimed looking at the two of you.

“I guess we should head over,” Bakugo said. You nodded and made your way over to the bar, taking a seat next to Midoriya.

“Here’s your drink,” he said placing it next to you on the wooden table.

“Thank you.” you softly smiled and drank some of the mixed drink. There was a slight burn in your throat that felt good.

“Alright! Today there should be no talk about work or anything okay?!” Denki yelled over the background music. “Let’s enjoy tonight!” a small smile formed on your face and raised your cup clinking it against the other ones. He already had a little too many drinks that you could tell.

The music blared louder grabbing their attention. “Let’s go dance!” Mina exclaimed dragging him to the dance floor. He placed his drink down and wrapped his arms around her body making her laugh.

“Do you wanna dance?” Midoriya asked nervously. There was no telling what would happen and if you wanted something to happen. Taking his hand you accepted his offer and followed him. Bakugo sat back watching the scene unfold.

“I…have never danced so I apologize in advance if I step on you,” you admitted making him chuckle.

“Don’t worry about it.” he smiled “I’ll help guide you. I’m not an expert but i will try my best to help you learn.”

You nodded softly smiling and followed his lead. The song wasn’t fast pace it was more on the calm side. He had his hands resting on your waist and your arms were wrapped around his neck. It was small talk you tried enjoying yourself and focusing on the music. After a long battle with your self, letting loose was the thing you needed the most.

Midoriya’s heart began to beat loudly. He tried his best to stay calm and enjoy this moment with you, it took all his strength to not kiss you right here and now. It was true he was liking you more than friends and coworkers, this man was falling head over heels for you. Despite knowing what the risk was he wasn’t going to let you go.

The song then changed into a louder tone people danced differently. He spun you making you giggle. The lights shined brightly on the two of you, his hand in yours holding it tightly. Your smile grew feeling relaxed and comfortable, the way he made you forget about those uneasy thoughts was incredible.

“I don’t know what to tell you, bro…” Kirishima spoke, “It seems like Midoriya isn’t backing down either.”

Bakugo looked down at his beer he was already kicking himself for not fixing it earlier. Looking at you made his chest clench again. Abigail was there but he wasn’t sure if there was something more or if it was an old feeling being brought up with no meaning.

“I think you should tell her,” he said.

“…You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Bakugo mumbled, “You’re already drunk.”

His friend shook his head “If you don’t accept your feelings now there’s no telling what will happen. I know nothing is going on with Abigail… as much as you want to ignore what you feel, it’s not going away.”

‘Is there even a chance you feel the same way?’ Bakugo thought running his fingers through his hair creating a messy look. ‘Why would she?…I don’t  blame her if she didn’t…’

All this self-pity was making him upset, since when did he start doing this to himself? It was getting ridiculous if he didn't feel afraid with Abigail why was he nervous around you?

He rubbed the side of his temple, it was too much. Bakugo felt like a teenager all over again he thought this crap would be over but then Abigail happened and things changed.

"What do you have to lose?"

Kirishima was right.

Your mind was filled with happiness. The small drink began to loosen you up and the tension in your body was gone. Midoriya enjoyed himself whenever he was with you, he could tell you were tipsy already but not enough to make any wrong decisions.

The more he kept his eyes on you the easier his heart was falling for you.

His emotions were getting difficult to control all he wanted to do was confess and show you how much better he could be. That's all he wanted and hoped for.

"I love this song," you shouted making him break out into a chuckle. His hands held tightly onto yours making sure not to let go. Your smile was bright and the lights made your (e/c) eyes glow.

As the song was starting to end he spun you around and brought you close to him. With the final melody, he dipped you gently and looked into your eyes.

"I don't know how long I've been able to last," he said. "Now that I have you here...I don't want to hold back y/n."

"Izuku..." you softly spoke.

He looked at your beautiful face and then at your soft lips. His eyes closed, within a second his pair of lips were placed on you.

The kiss was slow yet soft at the same time. It held a lot of emotion and everything he felt you now knew. Your eyes slowly closed as well, then they moved on their own. The noises were being drowned out as your mind eased and focused on only him. There was no reassurance that you felt the same way however you were feeling protected and cared for something that you had long lost a long time ago.

Midoriya then pulled away and lifted you back up slowly without breaking eye contact.

"I know...I-I probably crossed the line." he explained "But I can't keep it a secret any longer." holding you close, his hands held your own. "I like being around you, your smile is the highlight of my day. I don't mind working late or being stuck at the office all day. When I'm with you it feels like a different place. There isn't a guarantee that you like me back that much...but I don't want to keep pretending like I don’t have feelings for when it’s true. I like you y/n."

Your heart then dropped. “Y/n?” Midoriya asked until he decided to turn around to see his old frenemy standing there.

"Bakugo..."

---

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#bnha masterlist #bnha x reader #mha x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #bnha bakugo #BNHA au #bnha fanfiction #mha blog #mha fanfiction #bnha series #mha social media au #bnha social media au #bnha fake tweets #bnha fake texts #mha bakugo x reader #bnha bakugo x reader #things go wonderfully right or horribly wrong #fanfiction x reader #send in anons #send in asks #send in suggestions

[animerunner]

Maybe your take on what happened after Eda and Luz got home in Young Blood Old Souls? Like maybe some angst with found family hurt/comfort?

Sorry it took this long. Hope you enjoy it! Starts under the line break Also for the record the Luz being uncomfortable was an incident with a teacher. Not anything Camila did. If you want a slightly easier time reading I did post Ao3: The Little Things

I’m taking requests (just have patience): https://animerunner.tumblr.com/post/648098732308578304/opening-up-my-askssubmissions-for

Honestly if you can. Just read it on Ao3. This was a nightmare to format.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Everything ached but Titan did it feel good to be back to normal Eda thought for a moment stretching as they stood outside The Owl House.  No magic or not, it beat being stuck as a beast. Or maybe petrified and for all accounts dead. She didn’t regret the choice the previous day when facing Lilith. She didn’t regret saving Luz, no matter where it had led for them. How could she? What could have happened would have haunted her and probably would still haunt her? But that didn’t mean she wasn’t grateful to no longer be an owl beast. Speaking of which, Eda noticed Lilith moving towards the edge of the forest. “I wouldn’t go there, Lily. The forest isn’t always the safest at night.”Especially without protection.Eda noticed Luz stiffen slightly out of the corner of her eye. Wondering for a moment what that was about. Something to bother her, she supposed after she talked to Lilith. “Well then, what do you suggest I do?” “Let’s talk about that in a second. Let me just talk to Luz first.”Eda knew what her first inclination still was after all this time. She knew how miserable it could be where you had nowhere to go. Nowhere to shelter. However, at the same time she needed to make sure Luz would not hate this. After all, Eda wasn’t the only one who had been heavily affected by the last day.Lilith seems to hesitate still, and Eda wonders if she is going to protest again. However, when she doesn’t Eda turns her attention to Luz who's just been watching until this point. “So is Lilith going to be staying here?” Luz asks. “Probably.” Eda admits. Unless she could find another solution. Which didn’t seem likely considering probably most people Lily knew were in the coven. “Is that going to be a problem?” “I mean, if I don’t have to act comfortable around her-”Eda snorts at that. “Kid, she threw you off a bridge. I would be more surprised and concerned honestly if you were comfortable around her.” Luz gives a shrug at that. “Then I should be okay though... that’s not the only thing…” Oh boy, Eda didn’t think she was going to like this, but she had to know. “What else happened?” “You remember how you mentioned how the forest isn’t exactly safe to walk around in?” Eda nods. She really doesn’t like where this might be going. “Well, she also took Owlbert after you transformed, which meant-” “You had to walk home in the dark. Shit.” Eda massages her forehead. Trying to keep her temper in check for the moment. It’s been a long day and getting angry now would only be at half strength. There was going to be a lot to work through for all three of them, that was for sure. Lily had split the curse and thank the Titan for that. But the mess she had made before doing that…Eda really needed to have a long talk with Lilith when she wasn’t exhausted. Because she was having a hard time wrapping her head around why half of this had happened in the first place. Eda knew her, and Lilith had grown and changed since they were kids. And sure Lilith may not have had the best impulse control or foresights when they were children. But this felt so much worse that it concerned her. What had happened in the years between? All things considered, they were lucky that things hadn’t ended poorly for Luz. Or things would have gone more than a little worse for all of them tonight. “I’ll be having a long talk with her about this.” Eda admits. “For now, are you sure your okay with her staying here?” “No, I mean, it’s not like she can go anywhere else, right?”Eda frowned at that question. “I’m honestly not sure. But I’m inclined to think no, she probably doesn’t.” Not with the way Belos behaved, anyway. Not if half the rumors involving the Coven were to be believed. More than likely she was all Lilith had and wasn’t that a great thought to have? “Then I can deal with her as long as I maybe don’t have to be really friendly.”  “Kid after the past day I would be more surprised if you were okay being friendly with Lily.” “Yeah, well,

sometimes people can be weird about this.” Okay, Eda was wondering what that just meant. Probably something else with the human realm. Which like several other things over the past month raised some questions for her. “Well, at least for me when you’re here you don’t have to fake it, okay?” “Thanks, Eda.” “Why don’t you head upstairs while I talk to Lily, okay?” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eda waits until she is sure Luz is back in the house, and hopefully out of earshot, before she turns to Lilith. Honestly, she really didn’t want to have this conversation right now. She was exhausted. She was aching something fierce from having been stuck in the beast’s form for over a day. They had just escaped the coven after nearly getting killed. She really just wanted to go give Luz a proper once over to make sure she hadn’t got hurt and then go to bed. But she knew there was no way that would happen. With the tension still lingering, the risk of either of them not sleeping at all if they didn’t talk was too high. Also, there was a risk her sister might sneak off judging by what she caught her doing. Even if they didn’t talk about everything. They needed to clear the air, at least a little. “Alright, so we don’t have exactly a spare room set up at the moment.” Heck, they barely had Luz’s room set up, arguably. They needed to fix that, actually. Well, fix it if Luz still wanted to stay after the last day. “So you’re going to have to crash on the couch for the meantime.”  Lilith looks surprised that she’s offering the room. “Are you sure me staying here is a good idea after everything that happened?” Eda pinches her nose in exasperation. “Look, it’s late. I’m dead on my feet. We can discuss and dissect your decision making in the morning.” “I’m just not sure if anyone would feel comfortable-” Eda snorts at that, despite herself. “Hah oh don’t get me wrong Lily. No one’s going to be comfortable at first. Too much happened in the last day for that to happen.” She pauses for a moment before taking a breath and continuing. “But where would you go? I’m guessing most of your friends are connected to the coven in some way. So they’re out.” Eda watches Lilith for a moment, and she can tell she’s thinking. Before wincing in realization. “I’m right aren’t I.” Lilith’s silence is an answer of its own.Eda sighs. “Look if its really that bad. If it gets really uncomfortable for all of us. Then we can look at getting things set up in the morning or the next few days. I’m just too tired right now to process everything.” The pain of just about everything that has happened in the past day is bound to come crashing down soon. The reality of the revelations along with it. Maybe when it does, her opinion will change. For now, though, it’s just too much to deal with. Lilith’s voice is softer than she expects when she speaks next. “I just didn’t think you after everything I did to your family. You would appreciate my continued presence here.” Eda can’t quiet keep the exasperation out of her response. “Oh, so you do acknowledge it then?” That was a flip from a few days ago. Where Lilith apparently thought so little of her kid that she was willing to throw her off a bridge. “I hadn’t realized you had changed that much since the last time we were around each other.” Eda massages her face, trying not to get too exasperated at that. “Lily, people change.” Especially when they were separated for as long as they had been. The last time they had been close, really close, Eda hadn’t even met King yet. “I know that. I realize it was foolish-” Eda raises an eyebrow at the word choice. “I’m not sure calling nearly killing my kid being simply ‘foolish’ even begins to describe the situation.” “I am aware. I can’t defend my actions before I realized how much she meant to you. How much this all meant to you, how you had found your own family while I worked for Belos. Just hope that I can offer reparations with time.” Eda watches Lilith for a moment before

asking a one word question. “When?” Lilith blinks at the question before she says. “After Belos threatened to go after Luz. You put her before all else. Including your own safety.” Yeah, that made some sense, Eda supposes. “Yeah, because somehow she has become the closest I have to a kid. Her, King, and I are a family.” Look at her being all parental. Though maybe she should have phrased that better. Lilith looks almost like she kicked a pup demon by saying her, King, and Luz were a family.Titan, there was going to be a lot to work through, wasn’t there? “Look, I can’t even begin to get in the mess right now. I’m way too tired. We all probably are. But despite it all, I missed having you around. I missed having a sister. And while things might not be great right now, I want you back as part of the family. But your going to have to accept I have other family than just you now.” Lilith looks at her with a surprised expression. “You would still want that even after finding out I cursed you?” “Well, I mean its not great. I kind of wonder why you thought that was remotely a good idea if you actually wanted me in the coven-” “It was only supposed to be a day.” Eda sighed, trying not to facepalm. “Look, I will not stand here and argue semantics with you. Of what was and wasn’t supposed to happen. We can do it in the morning. Regardless, I’m not leaving you homeless. Not after knowing how much that sucks.” She pauses for a second. “I just wish you had done something maybe a bit sooner Lily.” Something in Lilith seems to snap to attention at that comment as she says. “Edalyn to be quite frank, you don’t have the faintest idea what being in the coven was like. I couldn’t have walked away. I’m still amazed that we got away to begin with.” Eda feels like snapping back at her sister’s tone. But then realizes that as much as she hates it. She really doesn’t know what happened with Lilith in the coven. All she knew were the rumors. Which who knew how much those actually held water. She sighs. “We have a lot to catch up on, don’t we?” “Indeed.” “Come on, lets get you settled so I can get back to the kid.” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eda makes sure Lilith is settled on the couch. Before she goes up to Luz’s room. Hearing the tail end of something for her mother. “Hey kid.”  “How did the talk with Lilith go?” “Okay. She’s crashing on the couch for now. Until we get a room or something set up. I just wanted to check on you because the last day’s been rough for all of us.” “I’m okay, I think. It doesn’t really feel real yet what happened. I faced Belos ya know?” Wait, what? When had that happened? Eda pushes aside the concern for the moment. She is way too tired to deal with everything involved with unpacking that plausible motive behind that. Or even just how Luz and Belos had apparently been in the same room long enough to fight each other. “Kid, it’s okay to not be okay. I actually was wondering if after all of this if maybe you should be spending some time with your Mom.” It’s hard to admit. She really doesn’t want the kid out of her site after everything that happened. However… at the same time maybe it would be safest back on Earth. At least until things settled down a bit.Luz glances away and Eda suddenly starts feeling more concerned about what apparently happened that she was unaware of. “We can’t do that.” “Kid, it’s fine-” “No, you don’t get it I really actually can’t send me back.” Luz admits reluctantly. Eda frowns at that starting to realize Luz isn’t just being contray to be contray. “What do you mean we can’t?” It should be as simple as going through the portal door, right? Wait, where was the portal door? Last she had checked had given it to Luz… right before she had been sent up to be petrified. With instructions to burn the portal door. From the human side.Which had obviously not happened, so what had? Luz looks away from Eda, refusing to make eye contact. “I uh kinda had to burn the portal door.” Oh. Oh

boy.She was not prepared at all to deal with this. “Kid, you were supposed to burn the door after you went home.” “I know, I know what you told me to. But I just couldn’t. Even when I thought I had the chance.” Luz breathes for a second. “I couldn’t walk away knowing you were going to be petrified. I couldn’t walk away from the place I feel most at home. From the place where I have more people who care about me. Your my family as much as Mami is Eda. And so is King.” Eda tries to ignore the sting of the start of tears. “But kid your Mom and friends-” Eda began in protest. Only to stop as she sees something flash through Luz’s eyes for a moment. Eda feels some concern growing. “Kid, everything okay?” Luz glances away before hesitantly saying. “Back at home, I’m not exactly the most popular kid.” Eda’s not sure if it’s the exhaustion or if Luz is just being contrary. But she feels more confused by that statement. “Okay?” It wasn’t like Luz was the most popular person here either….but she had her and the others to support her. “I mean, I don’t actually have friends back on Earth. Just my Mom.” Eda blinks as she tries and fails to wrap her head around that statement. “Not one?” It was a hard idea to wrap her head around. Luz was a sweetheart, from what she can tell. It dumbfounded her that no one wanted to befriend Luz. Who wouldn’t want a kid like Luz in their life?  And just like that, the anger that had been cooling off over the evening’s events came back as Luz shook her head no. “I’m just the weird freak back home. No one wants to be friends with me there.” Eda doesn’t even know how to address that. This ironically enough was more Lilith’s area of expertise. Lilith had also struggled to make friends. Maybe not as much as Luz, apparently. However, it had still been there. It was partly why she had known that Lilith didn’t have anyone else to turn to other than her. Eda had a funny feeling if they could ever work past the issues. Luz might actually get along with Lilith a lot better than any of them originally thought. “What about your Mom? Aren’t you worried about her?” “Of course! Though I’m not sure if I’m ready to think about that.” Luz admits. “Some part of me is scared about what will happen if that’s the only way home. But at the same time I don’t regret it.” “Kid-” Eda began in what she already knew would be a vein protest.Luz isn’t having any of it, though. Just shaking her head. “I would have been far more haunted if I had gone home and let you get killed.” It would have been far more painful to trap herself back on Earth.Though she knows when it fully hits that she’s cut off from Mami, it will hurt. There’s going to be tears later. She is sure of it. But she feels more at home on the Boiling Isles than she did back on Earth. She misses her Mami, but she loves the little family she’s been building with Eda and King. So for that reason she just can’t come to regret the decision to burn the door to save Eda and everyone she cared about from whatever Belos was planning. She would repeat that decision in the instance. “Besides, it would have been far more dangerous to hand the door over to Belos.” Eda feels the headache getting worse coming on despite Luz’s good intentions. “That’s why I told you to go home and burn it.” The entire point of handing over the portal door was so the kid could go home safely. And Belos couldn’t do whatever it was he had been planning with the door. It was commendable that the kid what she did. It was heart wrenching. However, she was never supposed to do that in the first place. “I know, but that wouldn’t have worked, anyway. I couldn’t burn the portal door on Earth. I couldn’t even cast magic. Apparently my magic doesn’t work back home, though. The door was going to have to be burned one way or another. So I rigged it to explode with Belos.” Oh well, that explains a couple of things, Eda supposes. She isn’t sure it makes her happier, but it helps in some ways. “That’s my girl.” Eda said, giving Luz’s hair a ruffle. Though a frown quickly replaces her smile. “So

what was this about fighting Belos?” Luz shrinks a little at the tone. “Er-” “Kid, please don’t tell me you actually challenged him to a fight.” “I didn’t have a choice. He took Lilith and King and then said I could only save you if I handed over the portal.” “Kid-” “And don’t you try saying your not worth it.” Titan dang it Luz really knew her too well at times. “Fine, I won’t. Can you at least tell me if he hurt you?” Eda asked inwardly, hoping the answer was no. The way Luz glances away at the question already gives her an answer. Though Luz thankfully elaborates anyway. “Er-I may have been slammed into a pole.” Eda blinks. Well, it could be worse, she supposes. She just needs a bruise cream and- “And he may have summoned a giant worm to try and eat me?” Well, that was a lot more concerning. Considering what swallowed the kid and its structure. Luz was fine other than the bruising. They would know already by this point if it was something worse. However, hearing that sentence was more than unnerving. “Shit, kid, why didn’t you tell me about that earlier so I could look at it?” “You were distracted with your sister it didn’t seem as important at the moment.” “Whose currently not my only priority.” Eda said with a shake of the head. She guessed they were also going to have to set some better ground rules on what was considered ‘safe’ and ‘unsafe’ in Isles terms in the morning. Since she did not want this happening again. “Yes, I needed to talk to her, but your also a priority of mine, especially if you are injured. And you should have told me you were hurt when we got back, even if it was just simple bruising. What if it was something worse?”  “Sorry.” “Just-don’t apologize. Rather just try not to make that mistake again, okay?” “I’ll try.” Eda raises an eyebrow. “Okay, I won’t.” Well, most likely knowing their luck that wouldn’t hold. But at least Luz acknowledged trying not to get engaged with Belos again, Eda supposed. “Good. Now let me go get some bruise cream and we can get this looked at so you can get a good night’s sleep.” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Eda tries to go to sleep after Luz drifts off. Probably she should go back to her own Nest since that would be the easiest. But she doesn’t feel like moving. Well at first anyway However, she finds herself surprisingly antsy. There’s something about the quiet and darkness of the house that is setting her off. She doesn’t really understand why, but goes to get some fresh air. Hoping it will make her feel better. Once she’s outside, she feels better. There’s something about outside being able to see the night sky calms her. It’s only after a minute she realizes it probably has to deal with being trapped in her mind for as long as she was. Sure, it had turned out okay. But for a minute, more than that. She had been living with the reality that she might be forever trapped in her mind. That she would have to live never knowing what happened to the people she loved. Until she herself passed away. That hurt more than anything else, as much as Eda would probably deny it. She’s not sure if she’ll ever never take advantage of the little things again. Though it’s funny because who would have thought she would miss watching the stars? She certainly wouldn’t have before this.Luz’s voice breaks out of the melancholy. “Eda?” Eda glances behind her, surprised to see Luz in her pajamas holding a sleeping King in her arms. She hadn’t realized Luz had followed her. “Hey kiddo. I thought you were asleep.” “I was, but I woke up and found the room empty. And I suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about yesterday.” Right, there was going to be a lot to work through after this. The issues with Lilith were just the beginning of it, arguably. “I just needed to spend some time outside, that’s all, don’t worry your pretty little head too much.” “Is it because of what happened?” Eda winces. Luz was a bit too observant at times, it felt like. “Maybe.” “I’m sorry.” “Not your fault,

kiddo.” “But-” “Hey, we talked about this. The only ones who bear responsibility for the last twenty-four hours are Lilith-” Even if it had been meant for only a day. Even if it was truly an accident. That didn’t change everything else that happened. She and Lilith were going to have a long road ahead to repair the damage to their relationship. And while Eda didn’t think it was impossible to do. She had been sincere when she told Lilith she had wanted her back in her family if they could sort this out. It also would not happen overnight. Not after nearly killing Luz.“-and Bonehead. Not you, okay?” There’s a slight pause before Luz finally says. “Okay.” “Good. Now you should probably get back inside and go to sleep.” Luz hesitates and when she says next makes her look and feel younger than 14. “Can I just stay out here with you? I’m afraid if I leave that-” Luz breaks off, but Eda can fill in the blanks herself. Mainly because it isn’t that hard to see it. And the feeling it is somewhat mutual. After all, she had come dangerously close to loosing Luz during that duel. “Sure, kiddo, if that’s what you want.” Luz curls up against her. And Eda isn’t surprised when she drifts off again soon after. It’s been a long day. She looks at Luz a bit longer before turning her eyes to sky to watch the stars. It was definitely true. You never know how much you appreciate the little things until you nearly lose all of it.

#the owl house #the owl house fanfiction #eda clawthorne #luz noceda #mama eda #this will probable be the last time i crosspost like this #because this is way too time consuming and complicated

[baroquebucky]

baking

a/n: this fic is for the sweetest person @broken-hearted-barnes !!! you deserve the world and more and you’re so amazing and ilysm !!! i hope you enjoy it :~) <3 also im trying out a new format (???) for my fics, let me know what you guys think !

in which you and bucky bake together

masterlist

Baking. Your escape from the world, your muse, and best of all, delicious food. You baked all the time at the tower when you had a chance. Everyone would beg you on the way back from a mission to make some cookies, a pie, a cake or anything at all, they adored your baking. You tried teaching them so they could learn themselves but it was way too much of a shitshow. Tony tried to eat the batter, Steve got confused half way through, Nat didn’t even try, Clint shook his head as soon as you extended an apron his way, Thor tried the most, but it just wasn’t for him. Sam looked at you, laughed, and turned back around. Bucky blushed deeply, eyes going wide before looking down. And Bruce kept getting distracted by Tony messing with his batter. You even tried teaching Peter, who nailed it but was terrified as soon as he presented his pastries to the team, almost getting ran over as they all scrambled to get some. Safe to say he wouldn’t bake in the tower anytime soon.

So for the time being it was just you baking. You were okay with that, you didn’t have to share your supplies or your kitchen, you could just blast your music and enjoy the sweet, sweet smells of the food you made. Then you realized that someone had been using your ingredients, your utensils were slightly misplaced to the right and the over smelled slightly like raspberries. Strange. You shrugged it off and continued about your day, training and following your own routine. Then you heard the mention of the red fruit you smelled before and your ears perked up.

“those raspberry scones you made were amazing barnes! You’ve been holding back on us” sam spoke loudly, you rounded the corner and you could see a very red bucky, rolling his eyes at his friend. “wait until y/n finds out you can bake, she’s gonna freak out” Bucky’s blush deepened and Steve nudged his shoulder.

“you know if you asked her out she’d say yes” he looked at him pointedly, and Buckys smile faltered a bit. He shook his head slightly, his long hair falling into his face. “i don’t think I’m her type, she likes all those celebrities with curly hair” he spoke, looking at the other two men in the room. As Steve was gonna speak your you entered the room, ready to give an earful to bucky.

Then he looked at you and any anger you had melted away, you were left with fondness and the want to kiss him all over. “uh hi” you spoke, a bashful smile on your face as he gave you a grin. “hi” he replied, a giant smile on his face as his eyes darted between you and the floor. “Do you guys know who baked earlier? It smelled really good in the kitchen, like raspberries.” You looked ag Bucky, he knew that he was caught.

With a laugh Steve and Sam both yelled out “it was Bucky!” Before darting out of the room, leaving the two of you together. Your eyes landed on the super soldier in question, chills running down your body as your eyes locked. You felt goosebumps rise on your arms, you rarely ever got cold, the tower was always the perfect temperature, what the hell was going on. From down the hall Sam and Steve told FRIDAY to lower the temperature in the room the two of you were in, they knew bucky would give you his sweater in an instant.

“So you like to bake huh” you smiled, sitting close to bucky, unintentionally scooting closed so you could feel his body heat. Bucky looked at you and noticed how cold you were, instantly taking off his bomber jacket and sliding it over your shoulders. “sorry i hate the cold” you smiled sheepishly as you held the jacket closer to your body. “Don’t worry about it doll, looks better on you anyway.” He smiled, eyes going wide as he realized what he had just said. You blushed deeply, suddenly growing very warm at his words.

“you can’t avoid my question barnes, you like to bake?” You held eye contact with him and he smiled, looking down at the ground before nodding and looking back up at you. “I didn’t want to take that from you, I always thought baking was your thing so why intrude on it” he shrugged his shoulder, looking at his finger while you studied his side profile.

“i really want to stab you right now buck” you sighed, laughing as his eyes went wide for a second, “it could’ve been our thing this whole time! I love having someone else baking with me, hence why i gave everyone baking lessons.” He smiled at you and moved ever so slightly so that both of you were pressed up against each other.

“you’d really want me in there with you?” He turned to look at you, butterflies in your stomach as the two of you grew closer. You nodded, not trusting your voice. The two of you glanced at the others lips, too scared to make a move first. You both stayed like that for a while, just trying to memorize every small feature on the others face. Then you pushed forward, your lips landing on his softly, kissing him gently. He smiled into the kiss, immediately reciprocating your movements as giggles left your mouth.

Days passed and you and bucky were almost always in the kitchen when you weren’t busy. The team was more than happy, getting many pastries in return for dealing with how sickeningly cute you and bucky acted all the time. You had realized yesterday after baking a cake for the team that you were low on supplies, so you made a mental note to go tomorrow to buy some more so you didn’t run out.

When you woke up early the next morning you got dressed, not bothering to tell anyone you were heading out. You calmly went through the aisles of the grocery store, leaning on your shopping cart and walking slowly to try and spot the brand of flour you use. You hummed along to the song softly playing over the speakers, putting the bag of flour in your cart before heading to get the sugar.

Bucky woke up nervous. He barely slept last night because of a nightmare he had of you. He knew it wasn’t real but he had to make sure you were okay. You never woke up early so he immediately went to your room and softly opened the door, expecting you to be sleeping soundly under your too many blankets. Bucky’s heart dropped when he saw how messy your sheets were. Signs of a struggle.

Yeah there was a struggle; a struggle to get out of bed so you could keep to your schedule.

Bucky ran back to his room, grabbing his phone and calling you, texting you and even leaving a fucking voicemail. You didn’t answer.

As you cruises down the shopping aisles, getting some peach lifesavers to make bucky try, you wondered if you should stop by the coffee shop you loved and get something really quickly. You smiled to yourself and headed to checkout, forgetting you never took your phone off Do Not Disturb.

Bucky ran all over the tower looking for you, asking FRIDAY and every living being if they had seen you. Everyone was both shocked and amused that Barnes was losing his mind over you not being in your room, they assumed you went for a walk but Bucky didn’t want to believe them, he was too paranoid.

You decided against getting the drink, heading straight home instead, your heart fluttering at the thought of bucky missing you. You smiled to yourself and tapped on the steering wheel to the beat of the your music.

Bucky slipped on his boots and fixed the knife near his ankle, he was gonna find you no matter what. It wouldn’t be that hard considering you were already pulling into the tower and trying your best to carry all the bags at once.

Bucky rushes out the tower, a menacing look on his face, searching everywhere for your face. You locked the car door and immediately booked it for the doors, not wanting to risk dropping a bag and having to make two trips.

As you ran towards the doors, Bucky game out of them, his menacing expression fading away as he ran towards you arms open and smile on his face.

“don’t hug me! Get a damn bag and help me dammit” you laughed, pushing him softly as he took all your bags and you sighed in relief. “okay I get it you’re strong” you giggled, noticing how stressed out he looked you furrowed your brows.

“bucky are you okay? you look stressed” you noted, he smiled sheepishly at the ground before turning to you when you entered the kitchen. “I’m not- well anymore at least” he chuckled and you cocked your head, urging him to continue.

“i- well when i woke up you weren’t here and so i freaked out and” he pulled the knife from beside his ankle and the gun he had behind his back, “i was gonna go look for you to make sure you were okay.” He blushed and you felt your heart explode into a million pieces, a giant smile spreading on your face as you jumped into his arms. He held you up with ease and buried his face in your neck, your legs wrapping around his waist.

“you are too much james” you whispered, smiling as he set you down softly. “I went to go get more baking supplies, we were running low, and i just realized my phone was on do not disturb, so sorry for missing your” you glanced down at your phone and you choked on your spit, “36 missed calls” you bursted our laughing and he frowned at you. You gave him a small kiss on the cheek before jumping up on the counter next to him, swinging your legs.

“well? if you were so worried then put the things away or else im really gonna be distressed because i hate putting groceries away” you smiled at him and he rolled his eyes, giving you a kiss on your lips before moving to put everything away.

“im only doing this so you can teach me how you made the scones the other day” bucky smiled at you from behind a cabinet and you laughed. “secret recipe” you piped up, sliding off the counter and hugging him from behind.

The kitchen was your guys’ safe place, a place where you could mess around and be disgustingly cute. A place to kiss between tasting batter and have one too many flour fights. Baking in the kitchen with your Bucky was your safe place. 

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes one shot #bucky barnes drabble #bucky fluff #soft!bucky #protective!bucky #bucky imagine

[shadows-and-flowercrowns]

Equals

______________________

AN: I haven’t really proof read this. Its just.. I’ve had this idea floating around my head so I decided to put the metaphorical pen to paper to get it out. This is just a one shot of why Elriel makes sense to me 🤷‍♀️ I’m also posting this on mobile so please forgive me for any formatting issues and what not.

______________________

Elain watched in silence as Azriel faded into shadows, the voices around them growing more raucous by the second.

He had been doing it more lately.

Or, perhaps she was only now able to see it.

It was hard to tell.

She loosed a long breath as she looked around the table.

No one else seemed to have noticed. They were all focused on Feyre as she regaled the inner circle and their guests with the story of how she had found out Rhys was her mate.

Elain couldn't stop the amused grin that spread across her face as she watched Kallias and Viviane laugh at Feyre's tale. Her eyes flicked towards Azriel once again and her grin quickly faded.

"Az." She whispered.

The darkness disappeared in an instant, his anxious eyes darting around the room, searching for a threat, before they finally fixed on her.

Elain gave him a slight smile and he dipped his head, eyes softening.

Though she turned her eyes away from him, pain tugged at her chest at that momentary flash of panic that had consumed him. She understood that feeling all too well.

Everyone had thought that Elain had mastered her visions years ago, before the final battles of the war, but the truth was that she had only really started gaining full control over the last several weeks.

True, it had been years since the visions had held her in their grasp, fully consuming her to the point that her eyes glazed over and she couldn't differentiate the present from the future when she spoke but that didn't mean they hadn't continued to plague her.

For years she had felt them tickle at the edges of her mind as the fog and whispers fought to take center stage. It had been a constant effort to push them aside.

No one had known, save Azriel, that she had struggled.

"Listen," Feyre exclaimed, "I was absolutely pissed at you for not telling me but I also didn't understand how it could be true!"

"It's important to remember," Rhys drawled to Kallias in a stage whisper, "that the Feyre we know and love today wasn't who I was dealing with then. She had thought she wasn't my equal."

"Oh, please!" Vivianne said between laughter.

"I was still newly made." Feyre shrugged, a genuine smile plastered on her face. "I didn't know the extent of my powers."

"Well, your story is sweet but Viv should tell their story." Mor interjected with a waggle of her eyebrows.

Elain stood up quickly as a flush spread across her neck. She had heard this story once before and had no desire to hear it again.

"Dessert!" She exclaimed, "I just remembered, I have dessert in the kitchen. I'll be right back."

Once she was in the safety of the kitchen, she braced her hands on the counter as she let her head fall forward. A dark chuckle sounded from the doorframe.

Elain whipped around to see Azriel standing there, arms crossed over his chest. The blue siphons on his hands glinted in the fae light.

"I figured you could use a hand." He said, pushing himself off the door frame and coming to her side to help prepare the tray.

"A coinvent excuse." She muttered but grinned up at him none the less.

They worked in silence. Elain chewed on her lip as she tried to make the mess of feelings clanging around in her head into something more solid. Setting down the knife she had been using to slice the tiered cake, she turned to look at her friend.

"Thank you."

He let out a huff. "I am happy to help but, trust me, I feel you're doing me a favor. I really don't need to hear about the exact look on Kallias' face when the bond snapped in place for them. Again."

His wings ruffled slightly in agitation.

"No, not for that. Thank you for being there for me."

Azriel set down the plates he had been laying out to turn to look at her. Now that his full gaze was on her, Elain felt heat blossom on her cheeks.

"It's just, with Feyre describing her conversation with the Suriel, it got me thinking."

She paused, struggling to find the words as Azriel continued to look at her, giving her the time to formulate her thoughts.

"Feyre is Rhysand's equal even though their powers aren't the same. I don't know what it's like to be a shadowsinger but you the only person who has ever understood me, my powers. You see me. This may be silly but I hope that you know that I am here for you as well."

He opened his mouth before shutting it, brows furrowing as his head cocked to the side.

"Forget I said anything," she muttered, turning back to the cake.

She tried to cause a distraction for the both of them, clattering the plates and utensils about. She was making more noise than needed but Elain was keenly aware that Azriel hadn't turned back to resume his work and she could feel the weight of his stare.

The flush was spreading now, down her throat and onto her chest. Elain moved faster, finishing in record time.

With a sigh, she prepared herself to turn and face her friend but Azriel grabbed the tray and disappeared into shadow.

Elain began to gnaw on her bottom lip once more.

She shouldn't have said anything.

Elain returned to the dining room, not even the slightest bit surprised to learn that Azriel had excused himself for the rest of the evening moments before she had arrived.

She had expected it but the knowledge had still left her feeling a little empty inside. She moved to the side of the room to sit alone for some time, quietly observing the group as she thought of dynamic of her relationship with Azriel.

Elain valued his companionship beyond all the others. She thought of that first day in the garden, the first time he had mentioned that he didn't always feel like he belonged. He had been trying to make her feel better, to let her know that she wasn't alone in her isolation. In some weird way it had helped her, knowing that someone who had been with this group for so long still felt alone at times. But even in the haze, Elain had wanted to make his hurt go away.

At the beginning, when she was still so lost to her visions and could barely speak, she gave him some of her favorite flowers that she had grown. As time passed and she gained control, Elain had become more vocal in expressing how much she valued him in her life but there were still moments like this evening when he would try to push her away.

Making up her mind, Elain excused herself from the rest of the group.

She quietly walked up the steps, barely even noticing the tickle in her head of an impending vision. She passed her bedroom and continued down the hallway until she stood in front of Azriel's door.

With a shaking hand, she prepared to knock but the door opened before her hand made contact with the wood. Elain didn't bother waiting as she immediately stepped forward to cross over the threshold into Azriel's room.

She was plunged into complete darkness once the door shut behind her.

"Azriel?" She whispered tentatively.

She heard rustling from behind her and then a hand touched hers. She flinched in surprise at the contact and Azriel withdrew. Elain practically lunged in his direction, gripping tight to his arm.

"Please don't hide from me."

She felt his body relax and a moment later the shadows withdrew.

They stood in the center of his room, her refusing to let go of him.

Elain saw his eyebrows raise ever so slightly as she pulled him along so they could sit at the foot of his bed.

She slid her hands down, adjusting her grip so she held one of his massive hands between her own, cradling it in her lap.

The two sat in silence. After a moment, she moved to rest her head against his shoulder.

"You should be down with the others." He said quietly, his body remaining still and unrelenting as stone beneath her.

"They will be fine without me."

Azriel pulled away, disentangling himself from her. He stood up and walked across the room, bracing both hands against the dresser in the corner.

"So will I."

Elain had once heard Rhys compare Cassian to fire and Azriel to ice. She felt the shudder pass over her at his words but pushed on. "Let me rephrase that then: I would rather be with you."

He turned to look at her, the unfeeling mask cracking for just a moment to reveal the desperation beneath. "You can't say things like that. You can't say that the story with the Suriel reminds you of me."

"What do you mean? Azriel, you have been the best thing that has happened to me since I moved to Velaris."

He crossed his arms across his chest and he looked for all the world like he was preparing to fight her down on her own feelings.

She shook her head.

"It's like I said earlier - you are the only person who understands me."

"But that is the thing, Elain. You don’t understand me. Do you know what it means to be a shadowsinger?"

She tentatively nodded. "As much as you know what its like to be a seer."

"I torture people," he retorted. "You do not. That is the difference between you and I. We will never understand one another."

He turned his back on her once again, signaling quite clearly that the conversation was over but Elain refused to be dismissed so easily.

"Why?" Elain asked, voice hard.

"'Why' what?" He murmured.

"Why do you torture people?"

She gave him a moment but he kept his back towards her and she let out a long sigh.

"It is to protect us." Elain said in a voice barely above a whisper. "Everything you do, it is to protect us and for that, and for so many other reasons, I am happy you are in my life."

She watched as his shoulders sagged.

"You don't know what you are saying. If you truly knew, you wouldn't want me in your life."

She saw him shake his head but still, he didn't turn to look at her.

"I know why the Cauldron blessed me."

Azriel turned to look at her then, surprise coloring his features. She had always flatly refused to talk about her time in the Cauldron, even to Nesta.

"It told me. The Cauldron said that it felt sorry for me. Do you have any idea what it is like to have the Cauldron, the object that created the universe, look at all that you are and pity your very existence? It saw every moment I had lived and knew every thought I ever had. It saw all of me and came back with nothing more than a naïve girl that deserved to be pitied. It gave me this new life so I could try again.

"When I was human, I spent so much of my life agonizing over the future. Would my father recover from his injuries? Was Feyre dead? Would Nesta ever marry a man who could keep her safe? The Cauldron made me a seer so I would no longer have to guess. It made sure I would know but I have found that knowledge is a curse. Do you know how many times I have seen you all die?"

She saw a muscle in his jaw flicker.

"I learned quickly that I can't help everyone, Azriel. I get to watch as my choices, my actions and inactions, hurt others. This weight is on my shoulders and I accept it so long as I can use it to keep you all safe."

Azriel opened his mouth but Elain plunged on.

"And then there is Lucien.”

Azriel’s eyes widened at this. They had never really talked about this. He had stood by her side when she announced her decision to break the bond, even stepping between her and Feyre when her sister urged her to ‘think it over’. But never had the two of them discussed why.

“When I was human, I loved a man who was wicked. I was blinded by his sweet words and noble title. The Cauldron knew he would never love me once I was made so it gave me Lucien. A male who would have not one but two claims to a throne. A good male of noble lineage who would one day allow me to be higher socially than I had ever imagined. A male who would love me beyond my wildest dreams, who would care for me and give me a life I couldn’t even begin to fathom. Being mated to him would allow me, simple Elain, to have a purpose and bridge the gap between Spring and Night. It would have allowed us to make an alliance that would be so strong that it would ensure peace amongst the courts even after we are all nothing more than dust."

She let out a small, humorless laugh.

"But you and I both know how that worked out. Turns out, I didn't actually want Lucien. I know how Feyre feels on the matter, even if she would never say it to my face now that the bond is broken. I know that everyone thinks I made a rash decision and that I didn't give him a chance."

She shook her head in sadness and frustration. "I knew exactly what I gave up when I rejected the bond. I don't want that life."

Azriel pushed himself off the dresser, moving purposefully towards her. Elain watched every movement with bated breath until he stopped before her.

"So what do you want now, Elain?"

Her eyes went hazy for a moment. When they cleared, she gave him a blinding smile at the future ahead.

"An equal."

#elriel #azriel x elain #elain x azriel #azriel #acotar #elain archeron #acowar #acofas #acomaf #acotar fic #elain and azriel #azriel and elain

[zirkkun-uthcs]

Generic Headcanons (Sanses)

This list includes short bits of information on the various Sanses to be included on this blog. If you’re looking for a specific one, please use CTRL+F to search for the AU, due to the length of this list. Reminder as well that most of this information is entirely headcanon. If there’s canon information that I’ve messed up somewhere on this, please let me know so I can fix it and adjust accordingly!

Please note: When answering asks, I will first list the character being requested in the format of AU!Sans, but the nicknames here are listed because sometimes I drift off while writing and lean towards those names.

Undertale

Nickname/s: Comic, Tale Date of Birth: ??? Height: 4′9″ / 145 cm Gender: demiboy Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: demiromantic / asexual

+ takes a lot of time to like someone at all, usually by default doesn’t trust people + isn’t a fan of physical contact, but if someone was to manage to get close to him, he’s incredibly cuddly + horrible with directions, will get lost really easily; uses shortcuts to make up for it

character tag

Underswap (original concept by p0pcornpr1nce, who has left the fandom and deleted the content)

Nickname/s: Blue Date of Birth: ??? Height: 4′9″ / 145 cm Gender: non-binary Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: demiromantic / bisexual

+ is a pun connoisseur; will only accept the best puns, anything less is just unacceptable + is emotional, but tries to hide it because he feels the need to keep on a strong persona for the sake of everyone else +  is secretly an incredibly talented writer and has a lot of written works in his room

character tag

Underfell (original concept by Vic the Underfella)

Nickname/s: Red, Fell Date of Birth: ??? Height: 4′9″ / 145 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: panromantic / pansexual

+ is extremely self-conscious and hides this by acting like as much of a confident asshole as possible + crushes incredibly easy due to the lack of caring people he has in his life, but refuses to believe he’s lovable + secretly hates cats. doomfanger may or may not be the cause of this

character tag

Underlust  (original concept by nsfwshamecave, who has left the fandom.)

Nickname/s: Lust, Lusty Date of Birth: ??? Height: 4′9″ / 145 cm Gender: demiboy Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: biromantic / bisexual

+ is secretly a hopeless romantic, but has yet to meet anyone interested in romance over sex, so he takes what he can get + flirts with anything that breathes; has a plethora of horrible pick-up lines + has been outside of his own AU and is well-versed in the multiverse

character tag

Xtale (by jakei)

Nickname/s: Cross Date of Birth: Oct. 10th Height: 4′9″ / 145 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: demiromantic / bisexual

+ has difficulty trusting anyone anymore due to the betrayal he’s had in the past + he finds comfort in doodling or other art-related things, and can often be found locked away for hours doing so + will wear literally anything but his uniform when no one’s around, no matter how stupid it looks

character tag

Ink (by myebi/comyet) (same headcanons apply to Underverse!Ink)

Nickname/s: None Date of Birth: April 15 Height: 3′9″ / 116 cm Gender: demiboy Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: aromantic / asexual

+ his ink vials’ colors represent: green = comfort/safety, yellow = joy/energy, orange = encouragement/creativity, red = wrath/violence, pink = love/care, purple = lust/attraction, blue = sadness/concern, cyan = calm/relaxed + refuses to ever drink his pink or purple vials anymore due to the fact he doesn’t want to mislead people into thinking he cares about them + his tastes change based on what emotions he’s feeling/ink he’s drank

character tag underverse-specific

Pale (by unu-nunu-art/unu-nunium)

Nickname/s: None Date of Birth: May 26th Height: 3′9″ / 116 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: aromantic / asexual

+ clings to people who help him literally only once, because he considers all nice gestures as “Oh, so we’re friends now?” + appreciates any and all physical contact and can get a bit nervous if he’s near someone but can’t hug them + when he absorbs an AU for emotions, he has even more emotions that Ink does, but it’s far more temporary

character tag

Fresh!Ink (by myebi/comyet)

Nickname/s: None Date of Birth: ??? Height: 5′0″ / 152 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: aromantic / asexual

+ is a parasite like Fresh is, but isn’t the same exact one; they exist as separate beings + doesn’t ever really drink ink vials, hence why he’s replaced them with his spray cans entirely, which just contain normal pain + enjoys making large street-art style murals, but never keeps them, so he places them in hugely inconvenient parts of the multiverse just to annoy people

character tag

Error (by loverofpiggies/CrayonQueen) (same headcanons apply to Underverse!Error)

Nickname/s: None Date of Birth: April 4th Height: 5′4″ / 163 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: demiromantic / demisexual

+ doesn’t trust anyone and would rather just dispose of someone before he gets the chance to even try and trust them + has tried to delete his own emotions on several occasions, but concludes he must lose his SOUL to do so, and is too scared he’ll die + lacks logic due to the fact that he’s a glitch in a program, meaning he can no longer create logical conclusions

character tag underverse-specific

Template (by unu-nunu-art/unu-nunium)

Nickname/s: None Date of Birth: April 3rd Height: 4′5″ / 135 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: demiromantic / demisexual

+ constantly does a plethora of redeemable, good things within the multiverse to compensate for the fact he’s an “Error” + tries to be more comfortable with things like hugs in order to further distance himself from Error, despite also having haphephobia. + unlike Error, remembers his past as Geno a lot more vividly

character tag

Ragnartale (by NaomyMikolMaria) (please note I’m a bit behind on this AU)

Nickname/s: Knight Date of Birth: ??? Height: 5′5″ / 165 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: heteroromantic / demisexual

+ doesn’t like using his magic anymore, but can’t exactly remember why it leaves a bad taste in his mouth + actively tries to void out his emotions for others’ sake, as he finds his own life far less valuable + part of him likes being a monster more than a human, because he thinks he looks horrible now and that more people will leave him alone

character tag

Dusttale (by ask-dusttale)

Nickname/s: Dust, Dusty Date of Birth: ??? Height: 4′9″ / 145 cm Gender: demiboy Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: lithromantic / asexual

+ absolutely despises all humans and it wouldn’t be surprising if he tried to kill any on sight + can often be seen talking aloud to “himself,” but he’s actually talking to “Papyrus” + has the same observant skills as Sans and is just as quick on his feet if not faster, however he’s also more rash in his decision-making due to his insanity.

character tag

Fresh (by loverofpiggies/CrayonQueen)

Nickname/s: None Date of Birth: April 20th (pretends it’s April 1st) Height: 6′3″ / 191 cm Gender: genderfluid Pronouns: he/him or they/them Sexuality: aromantic / asexual

+ while he be default doesn’t have any emotions, if for some reason he starts to feel anything, he will reject it immediately, and become incredibly harsh + started dressing in 90′s clothes as a joke, now he enjoys them unironically and has genuinely started watching human 90′s shows + sends memes to Error just to piss him off; his favorite to send is Rick Rolls

character tag

Outertale (by 2mi127)

Nickname/s: Outer Date of Birth: ??? Height: 4′9″ / 145 cm Gender: demiboy Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: demiromantic / asexual

+ because he can see the stars all the time, he’s far more fascinated by the Earth’s sun and atmosphere compared to other Sanses + has had his jacket since he was a kid but just didn’t bother getting rid of it. that and he never outgrew it. sometimes people still think he’s a kid because of it + gets cold easily; his jacket is extremely thick and fuzzy to make up for this

character tag

Altertale (by friisans)

Nickname/s: Guardian Date of Birth: ??? Height: 4′9″ / 145 cm Gender: demiboy Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: biromantic / demisexual

+ despises his brother so much that he won’t even look in his general direction and will likely burn or destroy anything that reminds him of his brother + appears very calm and collected most of the time, but can easily turn around and be manipulative or angry when least expected + is horrible at keeping watch of the human children because he always teaches them how to exploit things and they use that against him

character tag

Aftertale (by loverofpiggies/CrayonQueen)

Nickname/s: Geno Date of Birth: ??? Height: 5′0″ / 152 cm Gender: demiboy Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: demiromantic / demisexual

+ is really bad at social interaction due to extended isolation and because of that may come off as blunt or rude + if anyone acts friendly around him, especially if they are a more physical kind of person, he will instantly not trust them + seeing spaghetti is a sure way to make him burst into tears, but he’ll pretend he’s not actually crying

character tag

Swapfell (by poptatochisp and community)

Nickname/s: Mal Date of Birth: ??? Height: 5′3″ / 160 cm Gender: cisman Pronouns: he/him Sexuality: panromantic / demisexual

+ doesn’t do well with people who disagree with him. this will cause genuine unintended arguments over the smallest things + very formal in most situations possible, but assumes everyone else should be too + is bad at emotions, just, in general. understanding them, having them, everything

character tag

#uthcs headcanon #undertale #undertale headcanon #uthcs pin #sans

[of-another-broken-heart]

I’m just going to copy/paste this because it took me hours and I’m drained. 

I guess I have to format it again if I want it to show up at all... 

I couldn't even make it back home before breaking down crying again.

Driving while chronically sleep deprived, exhausted, fatigued, and dissociating is bad enough. Doing it with all that AND without being able to see? How special. 

I barely had time to sit down, my phone rang. I answered it, begging for someone to hear me. For thirty straight seconds. "Hello? Hello? Hello???" Finally someone spoke, but they couldn't hear me. I'm sobbing. They hung up. I scrambled to call back, from my computer, because at least then I'm not fighting a lack of reception as well as my anxiety. They called again. I didn't answer. I waited for my computer to ring through instead. I'm put on hold.  I'm sobbing. It was just to ask what my pharmacy is. Which I already answered on my paperwork. Which I answered, again, at check-out. And I was forced into a third confirmation via a pointless, needless, anxiety-attack inducing phone call hazing. For something I already answered. 

It's not fucking fun. People don't choose this. I didn't choose this. But does it matter? "Call," the command comes. "Just call." "Call to confirm." "Call to ask." "Call." "Call." "Call." 

I want you to think of something that takes physical hold of your body and brings to you to tears. I want you to hold that and sit with it until it does those things. I want you to choose to reduce yourself to a sobbing mess, struggling to breathe, alone. And I want you to picture a world where you are commanded, demanded, required to do this. For virtually everything. Imagine needing help - but you must first re-traumatize yourself with your most painful memories until your nose is running and your eyes burn from crying. And you're exhausted for the rest of the day, too. Maybe multiple days. Absolutely exhausted. So fucking depleted that taking yourself to the bathroom is almost impossible. Feeding yourself - even eating something out of a can, or microwaved - is a herculean effort. Does that sound fun? Of course not. 

As for the appointment itself: It's the same. Much better bedside manner. But it's the same underlying capitalism-serving "care" system. It's my fault. I'm not trying hard enough. I'm not blacking out alone on the side of the road enough. I haven't dissociated hard enough and/or blacked out while driving yet, so it can't be that bad, right? Not until I'm maimed or dead, right? Why address the root of a problem when we can just plaster on endless band-aids instead? When we can blame you for hurting, instead of the environment that's poisoning you? I'm not medically sedating myself into an obedient little wage slave, and that's the real problem. I should aspire to produce capital for someone with most of the remaining hours of my life. That's the purpose of living, that's the reason for "health"care - not to care about health, no, just to keep the wheels of capitalism well-oiled with wasted human life. Inherent human value? Quality of life? Nah. 

They refused my medical history. I brought the 72-page pdf on a flash drive. Because that's how I was given it. Because I can't afford to buy and operate a personal fax machine and/or print out a chapter book's worth of pages of medical records. I went through the trouble of getting the files, and it took over a month - only to be told "we can't take anything but paper or fax." I filled out a file release form as best I could. But I didn't have the phone number or address memorized. Not even before that place became synonymous with medical neglect and trauma for me. So now they're going to go through the ancient months-long ritual of requesting the self-fucking-same documents from LISH, either by mail or fax, because they "can't" access a flash drive or a pdf or use email. Welcome to 2021. We're back to "normal" and teleheath never existed and the internet is fake and technology is a myth and why do anything efficiently when you can waste time and do damage to people instead? My Aunt called to check in on me during her lunch break. (Thank you again) She offered to get the file printed and try to hand it in for me. I'm too tired to hope. I'm too exhausted to think they'll accept it without fuss. Anything and everything to make things harder.

Top priority order of business is the whole "diseased for life" thing. Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Hypothyroidism. Daily hormones for every day of the rest of forever, gatekept behind eternal doctor visits and prescriptions and pharmacies and copays and and and and did I mention this is forever? I've got a referral to have a thyroid sonogram done. Haven't ever had one of those before. Need to make that appointment. I was able to have my blood drawn for the thyroid testing without needing an additional appointment, which was a nice change of pace. Normally you're supposed to fast for that, but I wasn't expecting that could be done during the visit. Three years of having to make additional trips to the lab for blood work. I ate immediately before getting there, so hopefully nothing had a chance to metabolize and skew the results. Even though it was great not to have to juggle yet another appointment for health shit, it was stressful. The nurse took three tries before she had all the supplies she needed in the room. I already have anxiety spikes (which also raise my blood pressure and heart rate) for all doctor visits now. (White Coat Syndrome, I learned, it's called) I didn't need to have a rubber cable tied around my arm, popped off, tied again, popped off, and tied a third and final time to make it worse. A pro to that con: she was incredibly accurate and gentle. I normally have sub-dermal bleeding and some bruising after having blood drawn, and keep the bandage on for a day or two. The bandage didn't last even an hour after I got home - but there wasn't a single spot of trapped blood, and I almost couldn't even tell where she stuck me.

I have another new diagnosis to add to my growing collection. Hypertension. High blood pressure. I used to have slightly low blood pressure. It stunned the first doctor I ever saw (you know, because I'm fat, so that sort of thing is supposed to be ~impossible~) and it frustrated my last doctor at first, too. But now, with years of building stress and anxiety? It's almost like living with your most basic human needs barely provided (food, shelter, healthcare - let's not bring up social needs LMAO those don't count anyway, right?), and at constant risk of being taken away, for months (years, in some cases) on end, is some form of stress. It's almost like being constantly dismissed and told "you're just not trying hard enough" (WHILE TRYING YOUR BEST JUST TO SURVIVE EACH DAY) is some form of stress!It's almost like perpetual, ongoing, worsening stress has a negative impact on your heart! It's almost like there are decades of data that spell this out, plain as day!It's almost like I noticed my elevated heart rate back in NOVEMBER and mentioned it out of concern to my last doctor - who dismissed it outright because my reading in-office wasn't *that* bad, and also shouldn't I be on 5487 psych meds instead? If I was sedated out of my mind, I wouldn't be physically capable of feeling stress in my body despite the presence of real-world stress factors. That's healthy, right? Don't bother to solve the stressors, just neuter the body's response to them. Super healthy response. (Not) My GYN took note of my concern in December, when my vitals DID show as high in-office. Not that my GYN had the jurisdiction to do anything about it. I'm being put on another medication to try to mitigate this, and potentially also address some anxiety. I haven't picked it up yet. I don't know the name. I don't know if I'll be able to afford it. "Your copay is only a dollar!" Yes well, when you don't have a dollar, you can't afford a dollar, can you?

I was given a list of psychiatrists. To "Call!!"Precisely none of them are a reasonable distance away. Nearly half aren't even in my insurance network. Some explicitly exclude Medicaid. Others are exclusively for children. I was suggested a medication for depression and anxiety. I can't remember which one. Either Abilify or Lexapro? I declined it for now, either way. I wanted to be able to research it. Lexapro is just another SSRI and I already know those don't work for me. Adding a chemical bouncer to my brain to make sure the happy chemicals stay out to play doesn't help when there are no happy chemicals in the first place. A quick search for Abilify doesn't address anxiety at all so it was probably Lexapro. In which case, I am not interested in repeating a different-flavor-Prozac experience. It was not good. I didn't get any notes with that medication, regardless. I got a sticky note with "Valerian Root Extract (tea or tincture)" and "Magnesium Glycinate 2 capsules" scribbled on it, instead. Out-of-pocket home rem-maybes. I can't afford to experiment with snake oils, so mostly I'll probably just spend a bunch of time looking for data and research and studies for those substances, and that's it. If I get around to psychiatric care, I will have to start from scratch in my insurance's shoddy search tool, again. And, frankly, it's not a priority. My mental health struggles are the result of a lot of physical factors and external/social factors, and no amount of artificial chemicals bullying my brain is going to solve any of it. When your car starts leaking oil, you don't just commit to buying more oil forever and dribbling it all over, wherever you go. You fix the fucking leak. If your house has a gas leak, you don't invest in gas masks. You fix the fucking leak. If you end up with a burst pipe, you don't commit to wasting water and money and damaging your environment. You fix. The fucking. Leak. But in these comparisons, I'm getting prescribed oil and gas masks and infinite water damage/waste/bills as long-term care.

I mentioned my fatigue. It was the final straw that made me give up with the last doctor. It just keeps getting worse. It's been getting worse for over 3 years. And I'm so, so fucking tired of it getting pinned fully on the fact that I'm not on psych meds. I WAS on psych meds during part of those 3 years with my last doctor. And it didn't fucking make any difference! A daily chemical lobotomy does not address or restore my lack of physical energy. My decades-old medication-resistant insomnia has never vanished with psych meds before, and it's not likely to do it now. Especially not with yet another of the same family of chemicals that I already know don't work. I want my concern to be taken seriously. I don't want it just brushed into the mental health corner, again. Being too tired to even do the things you used to enjoy - no one fucking wants this! I don't want this! I miss being able to go for walks. I miss going to the gym. I miss seeing how much I could do, and feeling good, and feeling strong. And I can't do any of that now. Not without risking harming myself in the process. 

No one wants this. I keep talking, but it feels like no one listens. At the earliest opportunity, we're back to repeating the same tired old shit that doesn't work. I try to come prepared, and the stress and time and system make sure I fail to stand up for myself anyway. I didn't get to document my disordered eating history. The relapse this year. Restricting, sometimes to the point of not eating at all. I declined to be weighed, because I want my care to be based on relevant data, vitals, blood results - not the shape and size of my body. But I was too tired to realize I needed to dodge a verbal ask for the same information. Which, it turns out, is nearly as bad a trigger as having the scale spit it out for me. Being your own advocate for equal care, when you're already tapped out? I'm not winning that challenge. 

I'm frustrated. I'm not giving up, but I am frustrated and beyond tired. I don't really expect anyone to read this mess. But it's here.

#personal

[blazinbeautywrites]

Band Wars: Rise of the Phoenix

Note: Due to the rampant uprising of plagiarism on this site and others I am stating once and once only that this is my ORIGINAL work. If I find out that you have stolen/taken any part of my work I will handle you and the situation the way I see fit.

None of the pics or gifs I use belong to me so full credit goes to the originators of said gifs and pics.

Length: 2,356 words

A/N: Sorry it took me so long to get this out guys. I was not happy with the final results and when I was I still was unsure so I rewrote it again and decided to just post it. I’ll let yall be the judge lol.

Genre: Honestly idk lmao

Chapter 1

 Universal Music Group (UMG) decides to debut a new girl group, PHOENIX on their first ever reality show “Next Big Thing.” The winners of the show get a 5 year, 5 album recording contract and will tour with CNCO 1 year after they debut. The winner of the show was Zania Reye Bloom, followed by London Monroe Jones, Jolene Maria Sanchez, Siane Rei Choi, and Avery Lynn O'Reilly. The band is composed of 5 talented women with different ethnic backgrounds, ages 24-25. 

Since the show served as the girl’s training they were immediately thrusted into the spotlight after the show ended. They went to work on their debut album and as the release date approached the girls were getting antsy. Now only were they about to release their baby onto the world, but they were finally meeting CNCO today and discussing ideas for their tour.

*UMG headquarters in LA*

“Yoooo I’m fucking excited! Can yall believe our debut album is coming out in a couple days?” London said as she led a couple of her members to the elevators.

“Girl this tour bout to be lit as fuck. Bruuuh we’re going to fucking Sweden. I didn’t even think we had fans out there.” Zania said.

“Yeah you can thank that girl Astrid who made the finals. She was Swedish.” Avery said.

The girls finally heard the elevator ding at their floor and immediately got out. The girls walked into a meeting room where they saw their other 2 members Jolene and Siane bonding with the boys of CNCO.

“Finally you bitches show up. What took yall so long?” Siane asked.

“Avery thinks she’s still in Ireland and almost drove us into a damn ditch.” Zania said.

“You’re alive aren’t you? So quit complaining.” Avery said as she took a seat opposite Erick.

“Anyways if yall are done….THIS is CNCO ladies. This is Zabdiel, Christopher, Erick, Joel, and this is Richard.” Siane said as she pointed to each boy as she introduced them. Richard definitely caught Zania’s eye and she quickly averted her eyes so he wouldn’t catch her ogling him. Little did she know, he was checking her out too.

“And I’m Zania, and of course yall met Jolene and Siane. This is London and Avery.” She said as she gestured to her other bandmates. She was about to say something else when a tall, slender woman walked into the room followed by a man wearing the loudest shade of yellow and another woman dressed in all black.

“Okay let’s make this short and sweet. I’m Veronica Pierce, you can call me Vee or Ms. Pierce, never Veronica. Get it? Got it? Good. I am your tour  creative director. I’ll be working closely with you all to design your tour. And please, let’s all collectively agree on a specific concept. I will not have my people designing 2 separate stages. To my left is Chez Moa, your set designer. And to my right is Mel Carter she and her team will be styling you all so meet with her some time this week so she can get an idea of what you guys want and need. And ladies you have a busy weekend ahead. Friday you have your album release, press runs, then your album release party later that night. Saturday you’ll be on Good Day LA where you’ll be interviewed and then perform your lead single. Sunday you have a mini showcase where yall will perform some fan fave covers from the show and a few songs from the album, including your single with CNCO. You’ll have tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday to learn choreo for both performances. You’ll meet your choreographer tomorrow. Any questions?” 

The whole room was silent as both groups stared at Veronica and her associates. Zania raised her hand and the other members of Phoenix sighed. They knew how this shit was about to play out.

“So do we get to breathe? Or do we have to pencil that in too?” Zania asked. She knew she was being an asshole but this shit was ridiculous.

“Hmmmm you must be Zania Bloom. They told me you had a mouth on you. Listen up sweetie this my show. I call the shots and if they bother you, you can leave.” Veronica said. Zania smirked at her and leaned back in her chair.

“Nah I’m good. You may continue, Ms. Pierce.” Zana said. Sarcasm dripping from her words.

“Anyways that’s all for now. And remember this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It can be taken away in the blink of an eye so watch yourselves.” Veronica spoke. She eyed the room but everyone knew exactly who that was meant for. She, Mel, and Chez exited the room in silence. Once they left, Siane burst out laughing.

“Yo I was clenching my fucking ass cheeks. She’s soo fucking hot.” Siane said.

“Keep it in your pants Siane. And Zania, girl why did you do that? You made that shit more intense than it needed to be.” London asked.

“You know me, I just had to say something. She was a bitch to us when we did the show, now they’re making her the tour director, wtf?” Zania said.

“Am I the only one who noticed that guy had on too much yellow?” Chris said. Everyone turned to him and started laughing.

“Look, I ain’t wanna say anything but he was so wrong for that. And it was a complete contrast to Mel who had on all black.” Jolene said.

“But real shit Vee ain’t no joke, she can make or break you. So just be careful.” Richard said. He made eye contact with Zania and she smiled at him.

“Oh I’m not afraid of her. She’s on a power trip so I’ll entertain her mess for the sake of this tour. You don’t have to worry bout me baby boy.” Zania said. Everyone got up to leave but on her way to the door she was stopped by Richard.

“I don’t know if you realized but I’m a grown ass man so that baby boy shit not gon fly with me.” Richard said. Zania was amused.

“Oh did I bruise your whittle ego babe? Look it’s not that serious-”

“But it is that serious so treat me with respect or keep it moving baby girl.” Richard said as he cut her off. He walked away leaving Zania stunned in silence. She walked back to her group and chuckled.

“Yall…...that guy Richard just lowkey put me in my fucking place. Oh this tour is gonna be so damn fun.” Zania said. She and her bandmates went to find their stylists to get started on designing their perfect tour outfits.

                                             ______________

It had been a full 5 hours and the girls were hard at work on their choreo. They were thankful that most of the songs they performed were their covers from their reality show so the moves were ingrained in their heads. They breezed through their choreo for their own singles and just finished running through them a final time before Laurieann Gibson called for lunch. The girls were beyond starved and as they walked to the cafe area of the upscale dance studio they saw CNCO walk through the door.

“Oop the boys are here.” Jolene said as she fixed her slightly messy hair. She made eye contact with Zabdiel as he and the other boys walked into the dance studio they’s just left.

“Ooooohhh do I sense a little crush? London teased.

“See that tall one, Zabdiel? I promise you, I will climb him like a fucking tree.” Jolene said, much to the amusement of her group. 

“Woah. Down girl, we have a whole ass tour to get through.” Avery said.

“Look if I can’t fuck Vee, you can’t fuck Zabdiel.” Siane argued.

“Girl. Zabdiel is fair game, Vee is our fucking boss. There’s a difference.” Zania said as the girls found a table near the back of the cafe. Avery went to order them some food and soon a waiter came back with a tray of fruit, some finger sandwiches, and a basket of the cafe’s homemade potato chips.

“This looks so good and I’m starving.” London said. As the girls ate they discussed the difficult choreo.

“I really thought Laureiann was gonna throw her shoe or some shit at you cuz you couldn’t get that one move down.” Siane said.

“I wish she would throw some shit at me.” Jolene said while the others laughed at her.

“What kind of shit yall think they’ll have us do with the boys?” London asked.

“Probably something sexy, ya kno to pander to the fans.” Avery answered.

“I heard that they’re partnering us up with them for the collab so whomever we pick is our dance partner for the song.” Siane added.

“Well. this should be fun.” Zania said. The girls chat a little bit longer before cleaning up and heading back into the dance studio. When they arrived they heard their song with CNCO playing. Laurieann was teaching them their choreo and once saw the girls she turned the music off and immediately began assigning pairs.

“Okay London you’re with Joel, Jolene with Eric, Zabdiel and Siane, Avery and Chris are partners and lastly, Zania, you’re with Richard. Everyone please stand with your partner. I’m only gonna do the dance two times and then you’re gonna do it and we’ll fine tune everything afterwards” Lauriann said as she read off her list. Before the girls could even process anything they quickly got into formation to do the choreo.

                                            ______________

A few hours later, both Phoenix and CNCO were spread out on the floor, exasperated. Lauriann told them to rest up and that she’d see them in the morning before she left them all a sweaty mess in the studio.

“I swear there are parts of me that are sweating I ain’t know could sweat.” Siane said as she attempted to lift her head to no avail.

“Girl I feel like my fucking feet are gonna fall off.” Zania said.

“I can’t feel my left asss cheek.” Jolene mumbled.

“Bruh at least yall voices aren’t hoarse as fuck.” Richard said.

“We should probably start heading out because I need an ice bath or some shit.” Avery said as she willed her body to move. Everyone followed suit and struggled getting to their feet. When the girls began packing up to leave, Zabdiel strolled on over to pull Jolene to the side. Zania looked on and smirked to herself. All she hoped was that whatever they had going on didn’t get in the way of her group’s path to success. She snapped out of her little daze just as Jolene made it back.

“Well, what was that about?” Zania asked.

“Girl he asked for my number. I was like no and he said can you really say no to this face. I almost fucking melted so I gave him my number. He’s so fucking cocky. I love it.” Jolene beamed. Zania could tell her friend was happy so she chose to keep her mouth shut. The girls finally made it to the elevator when Zania realized she’d left her phone in the dance studio.

“Shut yall I left my phone. Yall go on I’ll text yall once I get home.” Zania said.

“Girl we’ll wait, just hurry up.” London said. Zania jogged back to the building and ran up the stairs to be quicker. Once she got to the door of the studio she heard the boys talking.

“I really like that girl London. She’s classy, yet has a sexy side. I like that.” Joel said.

“Now see Jolene….them lips. I bet her head game on point.” Zabdiel said.

“Ew bro what the hell!” Eric exclaimed.

“I know you of all people are not talking.” Richard said.

“Even though I think she’s kind of a bitch, Zania fine as fuck too.” Christopher said.

“Yeah she is fine. Yall seen that ass? I’d love to get behind that.” Richard said. Zania had heard enough and walked into the room.

“Yall should really make sure that the door is completely closed before you talk about us. Anyways I left my phone and just came back to get it. Oh and Richard, Zabdiel? I understand that Jolene and I are attractive but please don’t talk about us like we’re pieces of meat mkay?” With that she grabbed her phone and walked out, leaving the boys a little dumbfounded. Once she got back outside she filled her girls on what she heard.

“You know. We should teach them a lesson.” Jolene said.

“Oop I sense an infamous Jolene Sanchez prank.” Siane said.

“Yep. Okay so here’s the plan.” Jolene explains the little prank they’ll play on the boys at the showcase. They’d messed with the wrong girls.

                                            _____________

The rest of the week went by in a blur and before they knew it, their album release day was finally here. It’d only been a few hours and their album was already number 1 on a few of the urban and pop album charts. Siane screenshot the Billboard charts where their album was number 1 and sent it to their group chat. She then called them all on a video chat.

“WAKE UP BITCHES! WE NUMBER 1 BABYYYYYY!!!!1!” She yelled into the phone. The others, as groggy as they were, laughed at how hyped their member was.

“Girl you are so lucky I was up getting ready or I’d curse you the fuck out.” Zania said. 

“Bitch whatever. Anyways I love yall so much! We’ve officially ARRIVED! Like we in the fucking building forreal now. WHEW! Let me start getting my shit together. See yall soon. Love ya! Siane said as she hung up the video call. The girls were buzzing and couldn’t be any happier that after almost 6 months, their hard work has finally paid off and that their fans love their album as much as they do. They couldn’t wait to see what lie ahead for them. They knew whatever it was, it was gonna be big.

#cnco #christopher velez #richard camacho #zabdiel de jesus #joel pimentel #erick brian colón #band wars: rise of the phoenix #bwrotp #cnco scenarios #christopher velez scenarios #richard camacho scenarios #zabdiel de jesus scenarios #joel pimentel scenarios #erick brian colón scenarios