#i hate reading though beef and being like word word | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

carmyboobear · 3 months

Text

ALEXITHYMIA CH 1: onions, weed, and pizza

Roommate AU: Carmy Berzatto x Reader (R18)

ao3 link ch 2 ch 3 ch 4

Summary: Carmy can’t put into words how he feels about his roommate. It’s only been a couple months, but here he is looking forward to going home and sharing a smoke with them. That’s all it is, though. There are no underlying feelings, none at all, even if everyone around him has something to say about it.

Or: Carmy is repressed as ever, but through the combined power of vulnerability, weed, and the horny, Carmy too can find love.

Tags: hurt/comfort, friends to lovers, mutual pining, slow burn, cursing, yearning, repression, SO MUCH REPRESSION, angst, mental illness, canon-typical imagery, unresolved tension, for now, virgin carmy, use of weed, alcohol, all that good stuff, carmy character study, eventual smut, gender neutral reader, nonbinary reader, up to you

A/N: HI I've never posted fic on tumblr before but i deeply love Carmy...please enjoy!!!

CHAPTER 1: onions, weed, and pizza

It always stays the same.

This is the thought that Carmy has when he wakes up, gasping for a chance to just catch his breath and keep it. It’s a kitchen knife twisting like a lock and key in his chest. It fits just right, as all awful and familiar things seem to do.

No matter how many times he wakes up, he’s never anywhere different. That drowning feeling suffocates him in his sleep and follows dutifully into his waking hours. He can’t remember when that haunting started, only that it’s always been with him.

He hates feeling like a drifter, like he’s lost (even though he is both of those things), so he picks a goal and runs after it like a monster. He’s an animal, hunting and working and bleeding until he fucking makes it work , because that’s who he is, and that’s who he’s always been. He can’t not make it work. Because if he can’t do it, then…then what was it all for?

What is he even for?

These are the thrilling thoughts that serve as the background music to the swirl of his cheap morning coffee, oils rotating in a slow circle. He thinks about getting a nicer brand next time he goes grocery shopping. But that would mean change. That would mean less money on the restaurant, too.

Yeah, so it tastes like shit, but it doesn’t matter. Even if it mattered once. Less and less matters to him these days.

Mornings in Chicago are not technically quiet by definition, but when compared to other times of day, they are. Especially when most of his day is spent in the kitchen wringing out his throat. It isn’t bad to have a quiet morning by normal means, but for him…

The quiet is dangerous.

It’s not silent, but it’s not enough. There’s distant beeping of impatient cars. The whirring sound of the old AC unit. He tries to listen to them, but his rampant thoughts nonetheless rise above them all, buzzing everywhere with nowhere to land.

A brief analysis of his thoughts reads as such:

Beef sandwiches eggs flour shipment Michael cigarettes smoking sore throat late shipment so tired not sleeping Michael Sugar Mom coffee tastes bad it’s too early my stomach hurts Michael fucking hates you Michael Michael Michael Michael Michael you piece of shit you fucking ki—

“Mornin’, Carmy.”

Until his roommate wakes up, that is.

When he moved back to Chicago, there was a fact, plain, simple, and unchanging. He wasn’t gonna make rent on his own, not with the restaurant. Not with everything. So maybe he didn’t need to deal with a new roommate, but it’s not like there was a choice. It seemed bearable, survivable enough.

He keeps waiting for the thing that’ll make him grit his teeth, make him regret not getting a place on his own, but it never comes. They’re easy to live with. It’s so easy, as a matter of fact, that it feels strange. The difficulty that he was so certainly expecting just isn’t there.

If anything, he looks forward to being at home. For someone who lives at work, that feeling is completely foreign.

They don’t steal his food (not that there’s much). Instead, they cook him food, leaving heated leftovers on the stove on late nights. In Carmy’s case, that’s most nights. They don’t bring over obnoxious company and keep him up with the noise. Rather, he basks in their company, and they make a ruckus between their laughter. Their presence doesn’t stifle him, it soothes him, just like the candle they leave lit in the kitchen for him when he comes home. They’re not just easy to live with, they’re good to live with, and that’s…

That’s been a hard adjustment, Carmy would say. It’s too much of a good thing that he’s not sure what to do with himself.

On those late nights, they’re usually fast asleep by the time he’s home. But as he sits and eats the leftovers they’ve kept for him, he wants to say something. Something about how a long time ago, there was once a Carmy who cooked for himself, who looked after himself, but that he’s not that Carmy anymore. That it doesn’t matter that he’s a five star chef and they’re just some guy in the kitchen, as they would put it, because he’s…

He’s grateful. Incredibly so.

And yet, the words will never come out. He feels the words tingling on his lips, but it feels scary. He can thank them as many times as he likes (which he does) but it will never capture what he’s really trying to say when he says thank you . There’s too many words, and it just can’t…it just can’t—

It always stays the same.

“You’re up early,” he says to them when they enter the room. It’s a rare sight to see them up at the early hours he frequents. He sees the morning drowsiness in their mussed hair and big t-shirt stained with hair dye. They yawn back at him, nose scrunching.

Cute , he thinks, and he stamps it down as soon as it flashes through his mind.

“Randomly woke up.” They fall into the empty seat next to him on the couch, and they rub at the crust around their eyes. “About to head off to work?”

“Unfortunately, yeah,” he replies. There’s a certain sentiment that lies on the tip of his tongue, something about how he wishes he could have a slow morning with them instead. Of course, he can’t voice it. He can’t even come close.

“The plague of the working man,” they sigh. “Well, I got an idea that might cheer you up.”

“...And that would be?”

“Let me paint you a beautiful picture,” they start. They clear their throat and gesture widely with their hands. He notices their chipped nail polish, the writing callus on their middle finger. “Imagine this—you come home from work, tired. You need to relax —something you need to do more often,” they add with a pointed look. No comment. “And I have dinner ready. Some sort of soup, pasta maybe. I need to check the fridge.” They pause with a yawn. “And before we eat, we smoke a big, fat joint.”

He snorts as they finish, unable to hold back a laugh.

“That’s a nice picture,” he admits. He doesn’t remember when he started smiling. “Y’know, I was wondering when the joint was gonna pop in.”

“You fucking know me, man,” they reply, blooming with his interest, his smile. Not that he can perceive that. “So? Thoughts? Haven’t done that in a while, right?”

“Right, right,” he echoes faintly. His mind is already sorting through the pile of tasks on the schedule. “Well, I gotta go over this new recipe with Marcus, today,” he mutters, partially under his breath. “But before that, ingredient orders. And those invoices before the end of the day—and that, that toilet guy was supposed to come today…I think?”

“Dude, I do like, one task, and the day’s over for me,” they say sympathetically, and the look on their face is so serious that Carmy struggles to hide his smile. “You’re crazy.”

“I, I’ve seen you do tasks,” he argues.

“Name one,” they argue back.

“You did two loads of laundry and did the dishes all before lunch time once,” he says, the memory clear and instant. “And when I woke up, you were vacuuming the whole place.” The immediacy surprises him, and it seems to surprise them, too.

“Damn, I said name one , but I guess I’m just that good!” They laugh, a breathy, exasperated sort of thing. “Well, point taken. Anyway, it sounds like you’re not gonna be home early tonight.”

“It is a Friday,” he says, “but…”

“But.”

“Can’t make promises I can’t keep,” he sighs, and shame melts over him like butter on a stainless steel pain. This isn’t anything new.

“I know, I know,” they say, gracious as ever. “It’s okay. Such is the life of a business owner, yeah?” He searches for some thinly veiled shred of disappointment, frustration in their expression, but he doesn’t. No matter how many times he lets them down, the explosion he’s waiting for never comes. They remain patient, collected through it all.

Says more about him than them, he supposes.

“Yeah,” he mutters, “such is the life.”

“C’est la fucking vie,” they say, and he laughs with a shake of his head.

It can feel strange to laugh. He worries that the lightness in his chest will expand like a balloon, and he’ll float away. It’s uncontrollable, foreign. It should be scary, how his emotions lead him when he’s around them, not the other way around, but it’s not.

It’s not scary to loosen up around them, and that’s the scary part. There are no words to describe why. All he can see is that the fear exists, stubborn and persistent. That fear is what makes him snap out of it, makes him look at the clock. He holds back a sigh.

“Time to go,” he mutters, and they nod.

“And time for me to go back to bed.” They salute him. “Best of luck with your day, brave soldier. And just shoot me a text if you do end up coming back early, ok?”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll try. And, thanks. You, you too,” he gets out. He stands up, readjusting the waistband of his pants. “I’ll, uh, see you later.”

“See you,” they say through a yawn, waving at him from where they’re lying down. They’ve taken his spot, sprawled across the couch, tangled hair flayed out on the pillows.

Cute , he thinks again, and hearing the thought in his brain makes him wanna panic.

He doesn’t wanna panic, doesn’t wanna think about it at all, so he nods, shuts the door, and heads out to work with a cigarette hastily lit in his mouth.

By the time it’s Carmy’s lunch break, he swears his vocal cords must have snapped by how tight he was wringing them.

The soreness has never stopped him from lighting a cig, though. As he stands outside in the back, finally forced to go on his 30, he smokes rather than eating. There’s a sandwich in his pocket, one that was bearing the brunt of test ingredients. He can feel the aluminum wrapping at his fingertips.

Eventually, he does eat, though, because he sees the way his hands are shaking when he flicks his lighter. He doesn’t wanna shake when he uses a knife, so he eats. He tastes it, but he doesn’t really taste it.

In truth, he wasn’t even planning on taking his lunch break at all. Most days, he forgets about it. The kitchen’s always busy, there’s always something missing, there’s always something that hasn’t been prepped that’s ruining everything, the lights in the hallways keep flickering because they need to fixed, Fak’s supposed to fix them, but he can’t, because Richie’s still out getting the replacement bulbs, the pile of papers on his desk are bigger than he remembers, he doesn’t have enough fucking time—

But then he’s in the middle of chopping an onion, and the cutting board slips. The half-chopped onion and its sliced offspring scatter on the floor with the cutting board. The sound of its fall draws Sydney in like a whip.

“You okay? Need a bandaid?” Sydney’s already kneeling by him, helping him pick the onions off the floor.

“I, I’m fine, didn’t drop the knife,” he explains, and it feels like an ocean current is rushing by his ears. “Fucking, I just—such a stupid fucking—” He sucks in a breath and goes silent.

His entire body feels tight, wound like a spring. He can barely fucking breathe.

“Hey.” Carmy turns his intense stare from the onions to Sydney, and when he sees her searching expression, he remembers himself. “Maybe you should go take your lunch break.”

“No, I’m fine, really,” he repeats, and he feels like he’s heard this before. From someone else. He can’t remember. Who was it? “The onions—we’re behind on onions—”

“I can handle onions for 30 minutes,” she interrupts, decisive and firm. “Seriously.”

Carmy’s about to say something, but then he’s looking at the onion half in his hand. His hand is shaking.

“Okay,” he sighs after a beat. “Okay, yeah. Sorry. For fucking up.”

“It happens. We all have our moments.” She shrugs. When he keeps standing there, she makes this shoo-ing motion with her hand. “Go on. Take your 30!”

So here he is, taking his lunch break a whole hour later than he’s supposed to. Although it’s better than most days where he doesn’t take it at all.

She wouldn’t have had to tell you to take a break if you didn’t fuck it all up, he thinks to himself, eyebrows knitted together. When the last time I’ve fucked up something so fucking easy?

He thinks about his dream from last night. A familiar sight of red fire and flames up to the ceiling, crackling so loud it sounded like screaming. The only good part is that when he woke up, he wasn’t at the stove burning his place down. It hasn’t happened at this apartment yet. Carmy hopes it never happens.

Just get it together, he thinks. He aggressively taps the ash out onto the decrepit ash tray they have in the back. It’s full. You’re supposed to be at this shit. So just be good.

“Cousin.” Carmy snaps his head up, and Richie’s at the door, stepping out. His presence yanks him out of his inner whirlpool, a quickly descending spiral. “Gimme one.”

Wordlessly, Carmy hands him a cigarette. Richie plucks it out of his hand like a flower.

“You had a lighter, but no cigarette?” Carmy comments, squinting at Richie pulling a busted up red lighter from his jean pocket.

“Shut up,” Richie mutters, but there’s no heat behind it. “Got the wrong damn light bulbs,” he explains unprompted.

“Alright,” Carmy sighs. He has so little energy that the frustration bypasses him completely, diving instantly into deflated acceptance. “Just return ‘em.”

“Can’t,” Richie says, and when Carmy gives him a look, he elaborates, “no receipt.”

“ Dude .” Carmy opens his mouth, but then he shuts it again. It’s just not worth it. “Thanks anyway, cousin. We’ll get it done.”

“Don’t fuckin’ thank me, you asshole. I didn’t do shit.” Richie nudges him, but like before, it’s not an angry thing. “Also, toilet guy’s not comin’ today.”

“The fuck? Why ?”

“Canceled,” he replies simply.

“Fucking hell,” Carmy mutters under his breath. “Did he say when he could reschedule?”

“Not yet.”

“Great.”

“Yep.” Richie tilts his head up, blowing out a slow stream of gray cigarette smoke. “Might as well wait for Fak to get his ass back in town at this rate.”

“I guess.” Carmy sighs. He thinks about all the things he still needs to do. “I dropped this onion I was chopping, earlier,” he mentions out of nowhere.

“Okay.” Richie gives him a look. “And? You bitches chop those things up faster than I could cut one in half.”

“I dropped it on the floor,” Carmy tries again, but Richie’s expression remains unchanged. “I never do shit like that.”

“Well, cousin, you did.” Carmy feels something in him deflate. “What’s the big deal?”

“Nevermind,” he replies, because he’s a coward. “Just—just forget it.”

Silence. The spark of a lighter.

“I’m gonna leave early,” Richie says, like he can just do that. Which…he can, Carmy supposes. “If no one’s gonna show up, what’s the point?” He slaps Carmy’s back, and Carmy doesn’t watch him as he heads back inside.

Guess all I need to do later is get rid of those papers on the desk , Carmy thinks to himself, idly moving the shortening cigarette between his lips. Then that’ll be it, I guess.

He doesn’t remember the last time he’s gone home early. It’s hard to even imagine what he does on days like those. Sleeping, probably. There’s nothing much else for him to do, not with how tired he is—

Shoot me a text, okay?

He hears them in the back of his head all of a sudden, and he remembers.

Oh, he remembers, hands moving to take out his phone. Almost forgot.

“Sorry to bother you, chef.” Carmy’s not sure how he didn’t hear the door opening. Marcus’ head pops out, nose covered in flour. “Just wanted to let you know that we’re gonna need more flour for tomorrow.”

“Order’s not gonna come for a couple days. I thought we had an extra bag left,” Carmy tries, but the guilty look on Marcus’ face explains it all.

“Dropped it,” Marcus grimaces, and Carmy’s already fucking over it.

“We’re all fucking up today, chef,” Carmy replies, and the day goes on.

. . . . .

It’s a strange, delightful miracle, but he manages to get out of the restaurant before the sun sets.

Considering their collective track record, the fact everyone was able to leave early was cosmic intervention. It helps that the toilet guy didn’t come, in an unfortunate way, but still. Standing outside of the restaurant in the evening like this feels…weird.

It’s not that Carmy’s complaining about a nice thing, it’s just that he wasn’t prepared to have anything good today.

Shower, dinner, and weed, he thinks absentmindedly on the way home. He juggles the three around in his brain. Just the thought of it feels like relaxing. A little.

With company , his brain helpfully adds, and his stomach squirms.

Self control, he thinks. He needs more self-control. He can’t just keep thinking of them so indulgently. He’s not allowed to think of them that way, because it’s not fair to them. Even if no matter how many times he chastises himself, it never works. Even if they remain in his brain like sun-spots in his vision. Even if it’s not his fault that he just can’t help it.

The thing is, though, it always is. Even when it’s not his fault, it actually is. Always.

You dropped that fucking onion , his brain helpfully adds for no particular reason. Fucking loser.

Fuck off , he thinks back as he approaches his front door. Predictably, it does not stop.

Just as his fingers search for his keys in all of his pockets, he hears something that makes him pause, hands stopped on his waist. It’s music, distant and muffled. They’re probably listening to music in the kitchen. He stands, trying to place the song, but he doesn’t recognize it.

He does recognize the voice that’s singing over the music, though.

Oh, he realizes. That’s them.

The way their voice clumsily layers over the music shouldn’t make him pause like this. He shouldn’t be doing this, standing in the doorway and listening rather than opening the door. The keys are in his hand. This, this is a breach of privacy, he tells himself, feeling a little dizzy with distress, he just needs to just—

There’s an abrupt, loud clang, and he shoves the door open.

Concern is on the tip of his tongue, but it dies there. The source of the noise lays face-down on the floor—a pan sitting in what seems to be tomato sauce. The matter next to it is what makes the words evaporate from his lips, like they were never there at all.

They’re kneeled down next to the pan, paper towels in hand, but all they’re wearing is an apron.

His mind blanks. He thinks he stops breathing. He’s never seen so much of their skin at once. He needs to look away, he thinks, but his eyes keep traveling, traveling, and traveling. It just happens so quickly. He doesn’t mean to look, he doesn’t, but they’re right there and he can see right down their—

“No, I—I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were coming back early!” They exclaim, quickly crossing their arms over their chest, and that’s what makes him tear his eyes away.

“I—I thought I texted you,” he says quickly, hot face turned to the side, “on my lunch—...“ He stops there, the memory reconstructing itself.

He forgot.

“It’s fine, I just feel bad about dinner, and, uh—okay, I’m just gonna change real quick, and then I’ll clean this up,” they reply, words rushing out. In the corner of his vision, he sees their bare legs dart to their room.

It seems wrong to just stand here staring at the tomato sauce slowly expand outwards on the floor, so he cleans it up. A couple paper towels later, he’s gotten most of it, and they’ve returned with a change of clothes.

“Sorry,” Carmy starts right as they also go “I’m sorry”. He pauses, meeting their eyes. It’s a lot easier now that they’re wearing leggings and a t-shirt as opposed to, well, nothing. Not to say he doesn’t appreciate the leggings.

“Sorry you had to see me like that,” they sigh. “I don’t—I don’t usually walk around the place naked, I just—I didn’t think you’d be back—“

“I should’ve texted,” he interrupts. He struggles to not think about them walking around the living room naked. “I forgot. But it, it’s fine. You’re fine. Really. Sorry for not texting.”

“Okay. Cool.” They exhale, a tired noise. “And it’s okay. It happens.” They look at the floor and make a sound of surprise. “Did you clean this up?” The look they give him has far too much gratitude, and it feels like a searing hot iron.

“Yeah, uh.” His hands are moving like he’s trying to explain something, but no words crop up. “Felt weird not to.”

“Well.” They smile, grateful. “Thank you. That was gonna be dinner, but…” They trail off, looking at the floor with a sour expression. “I fucked up.”

“It’s just that sort of day today,” Carmy mutters.

“Shitty day for you, too?”

“Yeah. Lots of shit went wrong.” Especially me, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it. “You?”

“Gotcha.” They shrug. “As for me—yeah. Really not my best day. It was just, uh, some family shit. You know how it is.”

Carmy makes a sound of acknowledgement. “That sucks.” He doesn’t know much about their family other than that they’re fairly shitty. It’s the same the other way around, too.

“It’s whatever,” they say, even though it really isn’t, and he knows it. They look at the floor one more time before looking up at him. “Do you just wanna order pizza or something?”

“Yeah, I do,” Carmy replies, his words coming out much more despondent than expected.

They settle on some pepperoni pizza from a place down the street. It’s a tried and true method—they deliver, it’s cheap, it’s oily, it’s cheesy, it’s good. Just talking about it makes Carmy taste it on the tip of his tongue.

“You can go and shower if you want. I’ll get the door when pizza comes,” they offer. They’re standing at the sink, sleeves rolled up.

“Okay, thanks.” Carmy pauses then, gears turning. He’s vaguely worried his memory is going to shit. “Did—did I just say I was gonna shower?”

“Oh, no, you didn’t, you just always shower when you get home from work, right?” They say it like it’s the weather, like it’s familiar, and that’s when Carmy realizes because it is. After several months of living together, of course they’ve picked up on his habits. It doesn’t need to be a thing. There’s no reason for it to be a thing.

“I do,” Carmy replies faintly, and for some reason, that’s all he can say.

“Thought so.” They look at him for just a moment, but it makes him feel like his body’s gone transparent. “I notice these things, you know.”

“Yeah.” Carmy looks at them when they turn back to the dishes, back facing him. “You do.”

He tells himself he’s not gonna think any harder about any of it. He’s not gonna think about the singing, the apron, the way they just notice these things, but then he does.

He’s in the shower, and he thinks about everything.

The water pressure is pathetic, but the warmth still feels nice. Between that and the sound of the running shower, it’s usually enough to quiet his thoughts. This time, though, it doesn’t. To his credit, he does try to think about anything else.

He thinks about work, because he always does. He thinks about flour, about onions, about knives. He thinks about the shampoo lathered in his hair. He thinks about those lightbulbs they still need to get. He thinks about food. He thinks about them. He thinks about pizza. He thinks about the way they sing when no one’s around. He thinks about the way they know him.

He thinks about them, knees on the floor only in a—

He thinks of bashing his head into the tile wall until he explodes.

“Shut the fuck up,” he whispers to himself, rivulets of hot water trailing down his forehead and dripping off his lips. “Shut the fuck up.”

The soreness is still present in his body, but that never quite goes away. He does feel a bit better now that he doesn’t have sweaty, sticky skin, though. It gets even better when he puts on a clean white t-shirt and his favorite sweatpants. It’s a nice surprise from his past self who did his laundry for him.

This amount of niceness is okay. This is what he’s used to—a shower and comfortable clothes when he’s home from work. That’s enough.

He steps out into the kitchen with a damp towel on his head. He finds them sitting by their one shitty window that opens, pizza box in front of them and joint lit. It casts an orange glow to mix with the golden light from the window.

“Hey, pizza’s here!” They slap their hand on the greasy cardboard box. “Just got this joint started for us, too.”

“So you weren’t gonna smoke it all on your own?” He doesn’t mean to tease, but he does. He slips into the seat across them, arms resting on the table they placed by the window.

“I couldn’t smoke this whole thing even if I wanted to,” they protest. “Besides, joints are made for sharing. Here—now you get to take it. Isn’t that nice?” With their elbow propped up on the pizza box, they hold up the joint to him. The lit end of it sizzles a bright orange, emitting a thin trail of smoke up to the ceiling.

“That is very, very nice,” Carmy agrees, taking it carefully from their fingers. Their face spreads into that contagious grin of theirs, and he’s far from immune. Sometimes he smiles so much around them that his face hurts, rusty and unused.

Sure, he can blame that on the weed, but if he’s being honest with himself (a rare occasion), that’s a complete lie. Obviously the weed lessens the tension, the stress that winds him up tight. It’s not just the weed that gets him to relax, though.

It’s them. There’s something disarming about their presence, something that makes him loose-lipped around them. Even when he’s sober, he finds himself feeling comfortable. He’s not quite sure how that happened, or if that’s ever happened. He supposes that isn’t a bad thing. Just something he’s noticed.

He wonders if they’ve noticed.

“You like the new rolling papers?” They tuck their knees under their chin, propping their feet up on the chair.

“Hm.” Carmy lowers the joint from his mouth to give it a good look. He rotates it around in his fingers. “Strawberry?”

“Yeah, it’s strawberry,” they confirm, poorly hiding the excitement in their demeanor. Not that they were trying to. “Can you taste it?”

He pulls from the joint, the edges of the paper sizzling red with the weed. It’s an even burn this time. He rolls his tongue around in his mouth after he exhales a cloud of smoke.

“Still no,” he decides after a beat, and they sigh.

“I don’t know why I ever get my hopes up.”

“I do taste something else in this, though.” He takes another hit, stews on it. “Lavender?”

“Shoulda known you would’ve gotten it on your first tray. Yeah, it’s lavender. I found some lying around.”

“You made this one pretty nice,” he observes, eyes tracing the shape of the joint. “Between the lavender and the new papers, I mean.”

“Well, y’know.” The smile on their face is small and shy. “I don’t smoke joints often, so I wanted to make it nice, and I, uh…”

They’re paused for so long that Carmy interjects.

“And?”

“And I—want that joint,” they finally say, outstretching their hand. Carmy has a strong feeling that they weren’t originally going to say that, but he hands over the joint nonetheless.

“Strain?” He asks curiously. He can feel the body high creeping up his shoulders, fluid and light.

“The strain that gets you high,” they reply with a grin.

“Oh, thank god,” Carmy sighs in relief, and the way that makes them laugh… It makes his chest tight.

“To actually answer your question, though—I dunno.” He likes watching the smoke drift from the tip of the joint as they talk, thin gray wisps in the air. “I think it’s a hybrid? Not sure if it’s more one way or not, though…”

“As long as it’s not the weed that puts you to bed.”

“Um…well, if you smoke enough of it, it can.”

They sit together like this for a while, just sitting and taking turns with the joint. It’s an easy, fluid exchange, flowing between them like smoke. No matter how much they both try to blow it out the window, it always comes back in. The smell of weed is strong in the air, earthy and pungent.

Although he would never describe himself as a talkative person, sitting stoned across from them makes the words come out. Sometimes, he thinks he likes himself better when he’s high—his mind isn’t running circles around itself, and the soreness of his body just floats away. He feels more like a human than a poor imitation of one like he usually does.

This weed smells kinda good, he thinks, and when they laugh, nose scrunched up, he realizes he said that out loud.

“That’s literally what I’ve been saying,” they agree, a bright grin lingering on their face. “That’s how you know you’re a fuckin’ stoner!”

“Feels weird to call myself a stoner,” he muses. He plucks the joint from their outstretched hand. It definitely looks shorter from when they started a moment ago. “But I guess…”

“If you like the smell of weed, you’re too far gone,” they say with a grave expression. “It’s so fucking over for you.”

“Fuck,” he whispers, equally as serious, and then they’re both bursting out into laughter. He likes the sound of their laugh—it’s unabashed, fills up the space.

“Dude, I’m high,” they whisper after they both calm down, like it’s some sort of secret, and Carmy can’t stop himself from laughing all over again. “Oh my god. Are you high?”

“I—I think I might fucking be,” he gets out between laughs, and that sparks them straight into another cackle of laughter. He’s not supposed to be able to make others laugh, he doesn’t even make himself laugh—but then he’ll say something, and they’re lit up with laughter.

“We need to eat this pizza now, ” they yell, projecting over their combined noise. They flip the pizza box open, and it smacks Carmy right in the face.

“Oh,” he reacts mildly.

“Shit, I’m so sorry—”

“It’s fine, it’s not like you punched me in the face,” he reasons, but their guilty expression persists. “It didn’t hurt, it’s just cardboard.”

“I’m sorry, I’m high,” they sigh apologetically.

“I know,” he replies with a little smile. His eyes drift down to the pepperoni pizza sitting before them, glorious in its perverse amount of oil. “So, we’re gonna eat this, right?”

“Oh my god, yes we are,” they gasp, and the moment is forgotten.

When he tears off a pizza slice, the cheese stretches in thin, gooey strings. They grab the slice adjacent to it to snap the strings in half, but they’re both leaned back in their chairs, pizzas in hand, and the cheese is still connected.

“This doesn’t seem right,” Carmy mutters, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “We should’ve just cut it.”

“How could we have predicted this?” They pull their pizza further back, and the string still doesn’t break. “Wow. I’m honestly impressed. I don’t think it’s ever been this insane before.”

“I think we’d remember.” He’s not sure why he’s still talking and not just running his finger across the string to break it.

“I think we would, too.” They snort, shaking their head. “This—this is some spaghetti type shit.”

“What? Spaghetti?” He’s genuinely perplexed.

“I—I mean like—that fucking disney movie. With the dogs.” They pause for a moment, mouth silently moving. “Fucking—lady and the, the truck—”

“Uh.” He has to hold back a laugh. “...The lady and the tramp?”

“ Holyshittheladyandthetramp ,” they blurt out in a rush, and the cheese string finally snaps in half. “…Well, I guess it’s not exactly like the lady and the tramp, then.” They take a large bite of their pizza, and it reminds Carmy exactly how hungry he is.

“You mean lady and the truck,” he corrects, and he can’t stop himself from smiling. Especially not with how good this hot pizza is, delightfully salty and greasy in his mouth.

“Shut up, I was trying,” they grunt through a mouthful of food.

“How exactly is this like the lady and the tramp, again? Or, uh, not like it?”

“Well, it was just like it, but then the string broke.” Somehow, they’re already halfway through their slice. “Could’ve been a beautiful spaghetti moment.”

“Spaghetti moment,” he echoes under his breath, holding back a laugh. “Remind me how that scene goes?”

They go quiet for a moment. It’s like he can see the gears turning in his head. If he’s being honest, he already remembers how that scene goes, but…he wants to hear them say it. He needs to hear them say it.

“Uh, well, they’re…eating spaghetti. The titular lady and tramp.” Their eyes are fidgety, flickering back and forth between their pizza and the window. “And they’re sharing the plate, the two of them. They’re eating together, and, um…”

“...And?”

They meet his eyes, mouth hanging open, and then they close it.

“Um, I don’t remember, actually,” they say, shaking their head and blinking. He sees it for the blatant lie that it is, and yet. “Do, do you remember?”

As he stares back at them, unable to look away, he wonders. He wonders about what this really means. About if this really means anything at all, about if he’s going to find out if it does.

“I don’t remember,” he answers quietly, cowardly, and neither of them say anything else.

Out of the two of them, they’ve always been better with recovering from awkward moments, so they do. They start talking about something else, and the world keeps turning. But in the back of his head, Carmy remains in that moment, unwilling to let it go.

Why did you say that you didn’t remember? He wants to say. Why didn’t I say that I remembered how it went? Because I remember. They kiss—they fucking kiss. Is that what you wanted to hear? Is that what I wanted to hear?

But because he’s Carmy, he doesn’t say anything. He just eats.

He’s so hungry that the pizza disappears in minutes. It’s delicious, but he’s so high he’s not completely sure he can taste it. Somehow, it remains the best thing he’s ever eaten.

The rest of the night is a blur. He remembers getting onto the couch at some point. They both decide on a random movie he doesn’t catch the name of. They finish off the joint on the couch together, sinking into its cushions. It burns hot in his throat as it reaches the end.

And as it turns out, the weed he smoked is the one that puts him to bed.

“...Ca…Car…” Someone’s calling him. “...Carmy, c’mon. You’re gonna complain about your neck tomorrow if you keep sleeping here.”

“Mhm,” he replies helpfully. He turns his head into the cushion. His body feels like an abstract blob, perfectly molded into the couch cushions.

“Okay, you made a good point. But. ” They laugh quietly, under their breath. “Movie’s been over for like 20 minutes now.”

“Mhm,” he repeats, nearly inaudible. He doesn’t wanna get up. Whenever he falls asleep, it always feels like he’s never gotten an hour of sleep in his life. There’s nothing he needs to think about, worry about. He’s warm and comfortable, and he doesn’t feel like letting that go just yet.

Everything goes silent again for a moment, save for the cars on the road. He begins to drift away again, slipping back into his dreamless sleep.

But then there’s a hand on his shoulder, and it’s like a smoking brand on his skin. His eyes fly open and he jolts awake, jerking upright.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” they apologize, fretful. Between the dark of night and haze of sleep, they look pretty different. The blue light from the television is streaked across the blurry planes of their face.

“It’s fine,” he replies, drowsy. Speaking feels…heavy. Begrudgingly, he adjusts to sit up. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“Weed,” they say with a shrug.

“How, how long was I—?” He cuts himself off with a yawn, wide with condensation in the corners of his eyes.

“Only like, 30 minutes.” They yawn back. Typical infectious yawning. “End of the movie sucked anyway.”

“Oh.” Pause. “What was the ending?”

“Love interest died,” they state plainly. “He told her about how he felt, got rejected, and then she died in a car accident. Pretty tragic.”

“Huh.” Carmy makes a face. “That does suck.”

“Yeah, a bit.” They’re idly fiddling with the remote, scrolling through Netflix without reading anything. “I feel like the movie was trying to say something profound about the unpredictability of life or something, but the writing was shit.”

“I guess it’d be too perfect if they got together,” he muses.

“I guess,” they echo. They turn off the tv, and the room goes dark. The only light is from the yellow street lamp right outside their window, wonderful in its inconvenient placement. It illuminates the shape of the back and leaves their face in shadow. “I think I remember how that scene went,” they say suddenly.

“Oh.” Carmy’s heart feels stuck in his throat. “And how does it go?”

“Well, they’re—both eating spaghetti. Like I said.” They’re not facing him, leaving their face shrouded in shadow. He’s not sure if he’s imagining the shake in their voice or not. It’s beyond him why there would be any shakiness at all. “They somehow get the same noodle, so they, uh, kiss.”

“They kiss,” he repeats for some unknown reason.

“Yeah.” They let out a quick laugh, but it doesn’t sound like they actually find this funny. He wishes he could see the look on their face.

“I don’t think pasta works like that,” he hears himself murmur faintly. For some reason, he can’t help but think that was the wrong thing to say. But he’s already said it. Maybe it’s the same reason as to why his heart is beating so urgently.

“No, I, I don’t think so either,” they mumble. He refuses to place the way they’re feeling.

I can’t fucking do this.

The thought resounds like a gong, hit with a mallet right next to his ear.

“It’s late, I gotta head to bed.” It feels like someone else is speaking for him, moving his body for him. He can’t stop them. When he stands up, he avoids their face.

What the fuck are you doing?

Another thought resounds. He doesn’t respond.

“Right, I—didn’t even notice the time.” He pretends he doesn’t hear the strain in their voice. No, he didn’t word that right—there is no strain in their voice. “G’night.”

"Night,” he murmurs back.

This is enough, he tells himself as he falls into bed. His sheets are tangled. This is enough , he repeats, and it’s not because he’s scared, afraid, anxious, or any other stupid synonym. It’s because he believes it, needs to believe it.

He tells himself, this is enough , even though he wonders, what is supposed to be enough? He doesn’t listen. He stamps down the protests, the thoughts that are out of line. The high usually helps with that, but it’s worn off, now just leaving him in a weary, sleepy state of things.

This is enough, he thinks, and he falls asleep looking at their shrouded face behind his eyelids.

#carmy berzatto #the bear #carmen berzatto #carmen berzatto x reader #carmy berzatto x reader #the bear fx #jeremy allen white #lip gallagher #the bear fanfiction #hahaha i've been stewing on this fic since sept 2023 and now its here... i have like 2 more chapters written right now #they're around the same length #AH!!!! CARMEN BERZATTO!!!!#my writing #my fics #carmy #reader #alexithymia fic

275 notes · View notes

incorrect-riordanverse · 7 months

Text

finally reading tsats here are my live thoughts (spoilers, obviously):

i’m so excited because some pages are darkly decorated and its so cool. still don’t vibe with the title though (the sun IS a star and its peeving me)

why are we talking about dating darth vader 😟 where are we rn (anakin is a yes, but DARTH VADER???)

maybe i’m too old but the jokes are not funny 😭

“this whole place feels like my soul. empty and dark. dark as the pit of the underworld.” <- i don’t care if he’s joking nico would never say thissss 🙏😭 we’re only 10 pages in but please stop butchering my fav character he’s not himselffff i am cringing so bad

i know i’m being dramatic but if they do nico dirty in this book i’m going to end it all

oh my god i don’t think i’ve thought about the words “significant annoyance” in so long. bringing back good memories for sure.

i can tell which parts were written by riordan and which parts were written by oshiro. i don’t think their voices are blending very well together…

also, maybe it’s because it’s the start of the book and they’re trying to familiarise new readers quickly with the characters but it feels like they’re making nico the caricature of ‘emo and shadow and ebony darkness dementia raven way 🥀⛓️🖤’ and will the caricature of ‘happy and sunshine and blonde and flower gleam and glow ☀️🌈🫧’ and i usually like this dynamic when it’s not blatantly pointed out every other page. i have faith they’ll show more complexity than this later on though. future yan will let me know by the end. (future yan here, im not at the end but the characterisation def does get more complex thank gods)

oh ok so it is bob the titan

since when was nico’s actual name niccolo??? how did i forget this detail??

“you have to listen if not you’ll share my fate.” “ominous much?” <- ok he’s finally himself again guys it’s all good

the one-sided beef nico has with percy will never not be funny

“cookie monster appeared over the mouth of the jar, reached inside and gobbled up nico like the chocolate-chip cookie he was.” <- nevermind i’ve gone back to hating this book again

“what was one straight boy when you spent your whole life longing for the impossible?” <- i’m reminded of that time a few years back where everyone made ‘having an unrequited crush on percy’ nico’s whole fanon personality, so i’m glad they addressed this somewhat. this boy has been through so much and people really thought crushing on percy was the biggest thing to focus on about ‘nico angst.’

“we made a mistake. you have to fix it.” <- call me a red flag but if i was nico i would do anything and everything to not go. i would medicate myself so highly on sleeping pills that i can’t dream (doctor bf can go kick rocks). i would track percy and annabeth down and haul their asses into tartarus instead to do it. and if i had to go i would only go in to kill bob myself for sending me those traumatic ass nightmares. no thx. bro willingly jumped in himself and now wants me to save him. nuh uh.

not cupid being will 😭 its like his aphrodite 😭 i am not well.

they always have a really good and emotionally moving scene and they ruin it with a dumb joke. let it be heavy 👏👏

something’s really fishy and i have a feeling that it might not be bob calling for him

if this whole “grumpy ball of darkness” thing continues i will actually lose it

you can’t tell me the percabeth pep talk was actually needed. i will forgive it because i miss them though

im sensing tension in the gap between nico’s connection to the underworld and his relationship with will and i’m here for ittttt. give me the dramaaa

who is the gorgyra girl and why is she in their business sm?

oh shit a will solace pov??? christmas came early 🙏

nevermind that whole nightmare sequence was so fucked up 😭😭

somebody HELP HIM i never thought we would get will angst (nico angst fs, but will???)

DONT JUMP IN THE STYX PLEASE

SOMEBODY TELL HIM HE’S HELPFUL OMG

nico strangling epiales in his sleep is so fucking cool he’s literally HIM he’s literally THAT GUY

184 notes · View notes

yenqa · 1 year

Text

APPLE CIDER!

thank u @soov for helping me pick the banner!

sypnosis : you haven’t experienced much love in your life. well reciprocated romantic love, your first “boyfriend”, was only with you because a bet. until you unexpectedly meet jay, a frat boy whose known for breaking hearts. you’d be a fool to give him a chance right? too bad you both like apple cider.

when a heartbroken girl meets a heart breaker and they bond over apple cider.

featuring : enhypen, chaewon of lsfm, eunbi, one member of txt (EL OH EL THERES LIKE NO ONE)

warnings : literally the most cliche story ever, swearing, underage drinking, food, parties, crying, kissing (not in detail), being drunk (not reader), crying, angsty, reader hates parties, mentions of hooking up/sex, mentions of weed, reader has bad habits, blood, i think thats it?

wc : 7.9k (only 900 words over the expected amount!!)

pairing : jay x fem!reader (uses she/her)

a/n : hey guys… this fic is the most cliche shit ever and idk how it happened,,, u would think this would be like original but its not 😂 🤣. heres the playlist i listened to while making it! and everyone thank @wonieleles and @redm4ri for proof reading it !! anyways,,, enjoy!

READ PART TWO HERE!

cut glitch pls spare me

001 THE INVITATION

“c’mon y/n! i know you’re not over hyun-woo but please! one party! it’s been like a month since you broke up, and yeonjun personally invited me to this party!”

“way to put it lightly chaewon,” you’re tempted to leave and sit somewhere else. can’t she just understand you don’t want to go?

“please! i’ll get you um- coffee for a week!”

you scoff at her suggestion, but after thinking about it, it does seem like a pretty good offer. i mean, it will be just one party right?

“when’s the party ?” you ask, almost persuaded.

“it’s this friday, i can pick you up, and we can get there at nine. the party starts at like eight, but everyone goes at nine.” she pauses for a moment before continuing.

“if you’re uncomfortable, we can leave right away! plus, your beloved chaewon would be right next to you the whole time! isn’t that tempting?” she elbows you softly, and you give her a disgusted look before changing back to your normal one.

“fine. but! you have to let me borrow a dress because i don’t really have any party dresses.”

“you have that one green one! that’s like a v-neck!” chaewon shapes the dress out with her hands, trying to prove her point.

“it’s too big,” you point out, taking a bite out of your forgotten lunch.

“okay fine… i’ll pick you up at seven, and we can get ready and stuff at my house! i’m not lending you any makeup though.” she picks back up her fork, stuffing her mouth with food.

“fine with me.” you shrug, taking a sip of water.

chaewon’s voice suddenly goes quiet, “y/n, you know those really popular guys? well one of them is looking at you!” she whisper-shouts, trying her best to hide her expression.

“so? you’re popular too, maybe he’s staring at you.” you brush it off, why would it even matter anyways?

“no y/n- that’s jay park. he’s like- he has some major beef with hyun-woo.”

“and what does that have to do with me?”

“jay is a heartbreaker, maybe you’re his next subject to get hyun-woo mad or some shit because i know sunghoon told him about you two.”

“so? hyun-woo didn’t even like me, nothing bad will happen,” you reassure her, patting her shoulder. okay, but who the hell is sunghoon? you wonder.

“whatever you say. but stay away from him okay?” she looks at you seriously.

“okay but what does he even look like-?” you whip your head around to see a group of guys laughing. one shamelessly staring at you. he smirks at you, a wink coming soon after. you look at him in disgust, turning around.

“why did you look y/n!” chaewon whisper-shouts again.

“what? i was curious. how am i supposed to stay away from him if i don’t know who he is?” you put your hands up in defense.

“okay fine…” she groans.

“you’re still going to the party right?”

“yeah sure, whatever.”

002 FIRST MEETING

you enter your last period of the day, which also happens to be your least favorite, math. you never really understood why it was necessary in the real world, when would you need to figure out what the integral of a function is? but it’s not like you want to retake math in your senior year. so you get your notebook, and mechanical pencil out, clicking the end a few times before writing the date at the top of the page.

as you’re writing the date down, you can hear the repeated taps on your shoulder from the person behind you, so you turn around to face eunbi.

“hey, are you going to yeonjun’s party?” eunbi asked curiously.

you don’t know why she asked considering you two weren’t the closest of friends, and honestly, you thought she trusted people too easily, which included you. but it wouldn’t hurt to answer right?

“yeah i’m going with chaewon, are you?”

“yeah, me and hyun-woo will be there,” she says almost teasingly. eunbi gives you a genuine smile like she had no clue that you and hyun-woo ever dated. but in reality, she didn’t.

you and hyun-woo kept it on the low, so no one really knew about you two unless they saw you on dates. maybe he did that so he could cheat on you at parties you didn’t go to without anyone knowing. but you tried not to think about him anymore. it’s not like he’s going to beg on his knees for you to take him back.

“oh, well i think class is starting soon, but i’ll make sure to say hi at the party.” you notice how your voice almost deflates after she mentioned him. and eunbi almost notices it too. until her train of thought is broken when your math teacher, mrs. lim, walks in.

one thing you had forgotten was that jay was in your math class. he seems to be having the time of his life on his phone, and sometimes during that period, it’s obvious that mrs. lim catches him, clearly typing away under his desk, but she never seems to point it out.

you never seemed to be mrs. lim favorite. but you definitely weren’t her least favorite. you participated sometimes, usually getting the answers right, and you never really talked or interrupted anything in that class. it was obvious to you at least, that jay was mrs. lim’s favorite. he never got detention for being late, didn’t even have his laptop charged a majority of the time, and he never seemed to look at the board. any of this would’ve easily gotten you detention with an email to your parents, but unless mrs. lim had been doing this on the down low (which she never does), then it’s obvious she favors him over the rest.

mrs. lim had this annoying thing where she would write three questions on the board, and would draw sticks with each person's name on it to see who would answer the question. and to your luck, you were the second person to be called.

you step up to the whiteboard, trying to solve the equation as efficiently as possible so you could quickly sit back down. she calls out the next person's name to which you didn’t really care, it’s not like it would change anything. well until you saw a familiar sharp jawline, standing right next to you. whatever side fate was on, it wasn’t on yours because just as you had suspected, he had no idea what to write.

“y/n right?” he whispers closely to your ear, making you scoot away, “can you help me solve this?”

“no i can’t” you smile sarcastically, “maybe if you’d pay attention you would know.” you finish writing the answer as you place the cap back onto the marker, walking back to your seat. he smirks at your interaction, writing his solution on the whiteboard. okay, so he did know how to solve the equation? he just asked me for fun i guess. you internally groan, realizing that chaewon was right, you truly were jay’s new target.

003 THE PARTY

friday rolled around more quickly than you would like. you told your parents previously that you were going to sleep over at chaewon’s house, and luckily they allowed it. so, you grabbed your makeup bag and everything you needed to stay the night, (including some medicine in case chaewon got a hangover). you wave goodbye to your parents when you see chaewon’s car parked outside your house. as you head to her house, you start to regret even agreeing to her deal. was a week’s worth of coffee really worth going to some stupid fuck-boys party? it was already too late when you started to put on your makeup, deciding to have some slightly brighter eyeshadow than your usual going-out look.

“no one will notice my eyeshadow, right? i feel like it’s kind of bright.” you turn to face chaewon, who’s picking an outfit out for the both of you.

she scans your eyes, stopping with an outfit in her hands.

“put more on your left eye, to balance it out.” she replies, laying out the clothes on her bed.

you touch up your eye, adding your eyeliner and some lip tint to your lips as you turn to see all the outfit options.

“ta-daa~ do you like these?” she gives you jazz hands, picking the clothes up and imagining they’re on you. in the end, you both chose the outfit with the skirt rather than the dresses. chaewon picked out her outfit, and you both left the house. luckily, chaewon’s parents were taking a vacation somewhere for a week. you two sang your hearts out, laughing at whatever joke you guys made, or every time one of your voices would crack or sing completely wrong. you thought you enjoyed the ride more than whatever the party had to offer, (which wasn’t much).

you could hear the music booming once you entered the small neighborhood. it played softly as you entered, soon becoming much louder as chaewon parked her car. when you finally exited the car and entered the house, you felt like you could go blind from the rainbow lights moving around as you and chaewon tried to navigate your way through the dancing crowd and to the kitchen where all the drinks are. you enter the kitchen, which happens to be much less crowded than the living room.

“it’s so loud in here, why would you bring me here?” you joke, projecting your voice as she shrugs.

“whatever! but i’m going to go find yeonjun, bye! don’t take drinks from anyone!” she yells much louder than you did, walking away and trying to spot her familiar ‘friend’.

you groan, she said she wasn’t going to leave me here. you decide to get a drink, looking at each bottle to find your favorite one. soon, you turn one to see the words “sparkling apple cider”; you smile, grabbing the drink and pouring it into your own.

“not a drinker?”

you turn to see the infamous jay park next to you again.

“not really no, someone has to drive home, and i just really like apple cider,” you take a small sip of the carbonated drink, feeling the fizzy feeling in your throat. jay pours himself some apple cider, looking up while drinking it.

“yeah, i enjoy sparkling apple cider a lot too, i don’t really like the taste of any alcoholic drinks too much, i only really take shots, unlike my friends.” he chuckles at his sentence, sneakily placing his hand on your waist, looking slightly down at you. you slightly flinch at the contact, taking another sip of the cider to cover your reddening cheeks.

you hum, acknowledging his sentence, he continues. “you look nice in that skirt, you should wear it more often.” he flashes you a wink, to which you roll your eyes.

“maybe i’ll wear them less then,” you answer, escaping from his grasp; you grab the bottle of apple cider again and pouring more for yourself. he smirks at the scene, leaving you confused.

“what’s so funny about me pouring apple cider?” you defend yourself, giving him a confused look.

“nothing, you just pour it weirdly, honey.” he flashes you a smile, pushing back his hair.

“don’t call me that, and i’m just pouring it? what’s the difference?” you ask, bewildered by what he said.

“i’ll show you, can you pour it for me?” he hands you his cup, gesturing you to give him some.

“is this a trick for me to pour your drink for you?”

“just do it apple,” he chuckles at your accusation. you place the cup down and pick up the bottle with both hands.

“apple? why that nickname?” you ask, pouring some cider into his plastic cup.

“isn’t it obvious? you love apple cider so much so why can’t it?”

jay notices how you didn’t exactly deny his request for a nickname. apple it is, he thinks as you roll your eyes and place the bottle down, turning to face him. “what is so wrong with how i pour the drink?”

“here let me show you.” he grabs your hand, guiding it with his hands on your own, tilting both items towards each other. letting the bottle spill out into the cup.

“that way, there are fewer bubbles on the top babe,” he continues, taking yet another gulp of his apple cider.

“i-i’ll make sure to wash my hands after this.” you try to make a rude remark back at him without sounding flustered.

he feels giggly at your flustered state. wait, what is wrong with him? he softly lifts your chin to face him, a teasing smile evident on his face.

“why so flustered apple?”

he stares at you, waiting for your answer.

“what?”

“i said,” he maintains eye contact with you, “why-”

“y/n!” you quickly push jay away from you, turning your head to see eunbi, waving at you. you wave back, smiling at her. next to her, was hyun-woo, you noticed he had been trying to keep eye contact with you, which you avoided.

“i love your skirt y/n! where’d you get it?” she checks you out, grabbing whatever clean cup was near to pour herself a drink. you give a knowing look to jay smiling at her.

“i actually have no idea,” you chuckle, “i’m wearing chaewon’s clothes because i had nothing to wear, but i can ask her for you! she might be a little busy with yeonjun though.”

she pats your shoulder, “it’s okay hun! i’ll ask her later, but it was nice talking to you! come on hyun-woo let’s go back to the dance floor.” she grabs his arm walking away. you let out a sigh of relief, forgetting jay was there.

“i told you that skirt looked good on you.” he confidently adds, putting your hair behind your ear.

“it’s different when it comes from the school's heartbreaker, you should know that with your reputation and all.” instead of being offended, he looks at you in a flirty manner.

“and what do you know about my reputation?”

“i know you’re probably toying with me right now like you’ve done with countless of girls, yet somehow you have a bunch of fangirls waiting in line for their chance,” you pick at your skin, watching as the skin turns a dark shade of red.

he’s almost stunned at your reply, sure he did have a pretty bad reputation with girls, but since when was he that easy to read?

you acknowledge his silence, nodding in acceptance. walking away from the conversation before it could get any worse. he's tempted to follow you before he sees you walking up to chaewon, begging to go home. however, yeonjun and chaewon insist that you two would stay, as the party hasn’t even started yet. you were stubborn as always, walking outside, sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, and waiting for chaewon to leave. jay almost thanks yeonjun, for making you stay longer. this way, it would be easier for hyun-woo to spot you two together again. making jay’s job even easier.

he starts thinking of what to say, to maybe change your view of him. so he stands in the doorway, he notices how you shiver in the cold, but you ignore it, putting all your focus on stopping your finger from bleeding more.

jay gracefully takes off his jacket, walks over to you, and places it on your shoulders, you pause the round you were playing, looking at him in annoyance. you take off his jacket, placing it back in his hands.

“i don’t need your jacket, i’m fine.”

jay continues your previous conversation, handing back his jacket and firmly placing his arm around your shoulder, so you wouldn’t take it off.

“what could i do to prove i’m not trying to break your heart?” jay asks, trying his best to look saddened at what you had said earlier.

this time you’re the one left stunned, however, you quickly pick yourself back up, “by leaving me alone,” you answer, continuing the game you had just paused.

he chuckles at your response, leaning towards you, “you know i can’t do that apple.” he flirtatiously replies. you for the nth time that day, roll your eyes at him. you scoot away from him, coming up with a bright idea.

“then can you take me to chaewon’s house then? i am so sick of this party.” jay smirks at your reply.

“are you sure i’m the one who wants to hook up with you so bad?” he gets up, grabbing his key, “but yeah, i’ll drive you to her house.”

you smile at him, texting chaewon that somebody offered to take you home and that she’d have fun. Then jay leads you to his car, making some small talk on the way. he opens your door for you, letting you in. “wow, what a gentleman.” you sarcastically say, stepping into the car. he just smiles.

“just trying to prove that i’m not trying to break your heart.”

in his car, he luckily had a bandage, which you gladly accepted.

while he was driving, jay almost felt bad he was playing you. i mean you had just broken up with hyun-woo weeks ago, or was it months ago? whatever, it’s not like i care. he thought as he stopped at the red light. he looked over at you, smiling while watching whatever was outside the window. he turned back to the road, ignoring the sinking feeling in his stomach as he listened to your directions.

“oh! take a left at the next light.”

he nods, and the lights turn green. his car blends in with the crowd by keeping up with the pace. jay places his right hand on your thigh. he notices how your legs tense at the feeling, slowly relaxing.

jay usually never made the first moves, usually, the girl made the first moves and he played along with it. he didn’t seem to realize why he was so consistent with you. usually, if the girl left, or played hard to get, he gave up on her. for the reason that he could always find another girl. this is to get back at hyun-woo. he thought. but did hyun-woo really deserve this? jay definitely thought he did.

he remembered how distraught he was when hyun-woo was chosen by the coach to be captain of the rugby team. not that he was a bad player or he was a sore loser, but jay thought that hyun-woo was such a stuck-up, which was probably why he was chosen to be captain. the whole team truly believed jay would get the role. he always knew how to pull the team together and get them to play their best. hyun-woo however, always seemed to bring the mood down. after hyun-woo started to continuously mock jay for not getting captain, he knew that his time with that team was over. so he left. even now, a majority of the team still talks to jay, the few who he was close to, told him that hyun-woo was always talking shit about him.

he didn’t care at first. it’s not like it’ll do anything to my reputation. he assured himself, continuing to ignore every time he was told hyun-woo said that stuff. but when sunoo told him hyun-woo felt guilty for breaking your heart and how he only dated you because of a bet. jay knew he had to take the opportunity and seize the girl. he didn’t think this would backfire on him feeling guilt. but here he was, driving you home from a party he desperately wanted to stay at.

you remember suddenly why you were so warm inside and outside the car, you quickly take his jacket off placing it in the middle of your seat.

“you can return it to me on monday, just in case you get cold over the weekend” he sends you a flirty smile, quickly turning back to the road.

“are you sure? i mean it looks pretty expensive, and it seems special since it had your initials on it.” you flip the jacket around, showcasing to him the large letters spelling P.J.

“yeah, i’m sure.”

“and if you’re fangirls see me with your jacket, they’ll go crazy and think we’re dating! i don’t want that, so please take it.” you almost beg, holding the jacket near his shoulder.

“why would they think we’re dating?”

“oh, i don’t know. maybe it’s because your initials are on the back of it? and you’re in the rugby team and it says decelis rugby team under it?” you sarcastically answer.

“well i’m not on the team anymore, but also it could stand for peanut butter and jelly for all they know. so who cares?” he chuckles at his own joke, as you look at him in disgust.

you wonder if hyun-woo would care, hopefully, he did. hyun-woo had always been a jealous man. well, he might’ve been faking it for all you know, he was faking it the whole relationship, why would that be different? you quickly pull yourself together, responding to jay’s joke. “very funny. take a right at the light then turn left on the first turn.” you almost forget your job, quickly directing him the right way and placing the jacket on your lap.

he nods, moving through the road until you spot chaewon’s familiar brown house. you point at it, “that’s hers,” you say, as he pulls into the driveway.

you exit the car and wave goodbye as he drives away. you look at your hand and realize, shit, you’re holding his jacket. you must’ve picked it up when getting out of the car. damn it! now you have to deal with jay, one more time.

004 TEARS

when you had gotten onto chaewon’s bed after washing up, you couldn’t but feel saddened by the deja vu you were experiencing.

every second you were talking to him, you were reminded of hyun-woo.

his flirty words, his smirk, his infamous charming smile, his party boy persona. all lead you back to hyun-woo.

all jay did was remind you of hyun-woo.

you don’t even know when you had fallen so deeply for hyun-woo. maybe it was because he noticed things nobody else did. maybe it was because of his stupid smile. his stupid smile that made you fall in love.

when you got to the party you two were meeting at and he drunkenly admitted to the bet he had made, you knew you should’ve listened to what everyone had said, to what chaewon said. chaewon was always right. and you should’ve known that.

so with tears slowly trickling down your face, you opened his contact. looking through old text messages since you didn’t dare to text him. you ignored the ones where you were arguing since they weren’t the most comforting. but the more you read, the more blurry your eyes got.

deciding it was time for you to go to sleep, you roll over plugging in your phone charger and staring at the ceiling of chaewon’s room.

005 CONFRONTATION

the monday of, you believed the math gods were testing you every day. who decided to make you take calculus and then put jay park in my class? if you could ask your homeroom teacher to change your schedule, you would do it in a heartbeat, if he wasn’t creepy. but that's beside the point, whatever curse was placed on you, it was working.

you sit down in your usual seat. doing your usual routine as eunbi sits behind you. you turn around, feeling bad she always started the conversations.

“hi eunbi! did you have fun at the party?” you ask, knowing she probably loved it much more than you.

“yeah i did!” she leans towards you, quieting down “you know the guy i was with? hyun-woo?” you nod, praying that they didn’t do much together. “i made out with him.” she giggles at her sentence, as your face falls, quickly changing it to a smile, “congrats girl!” you clap a little bit for her, “i thought you were already dating, to be honest.” you didn’t think that, but it wouldn’t hurt to be nice sometimes.

“i wish, i have such a huge crush on him. what about you? do you have a crush on anyone? i won’t tell anyone i promise!” she pulls out her pinky, you don’t bring yours, as you don’t have a secret to tell. you glance at jay walking in, and eunbi’s eyes follow yours.

“you have a crush on jay park?” she whispers shouts, looking at you in disbelief.

“no!” you quickly exclaim, earning the stares of classmates around you, you apologize, quickly immersing yourself back into the conversation.

“i literally don’t even like him-”

“who don’t you like apple?” of course, jay joins your conversations, moving the seat next to you to sit down. you glare at him, “why are you even here? go sit at your seat.” you signal him to move away, to which he doesn’t listen. “well you have my jacket don’t you, princess?” eunbi watches the scene in shock as you pull out his jacket from your bag, handing it to him. “don’t call me that, i barely even know you,” you add, zipping up your bag.

“it won’t be like that for long, i'm sure,” he replies, moving the chair back as he sits in his assigned seat. eunbi, still in shock from the scene, hits you on the shoulder.

“what was that y/n?” she covers her mouth with her hand, laying her other hand on your shoulder. you hear the bell ring, meaning your conversation is over, “i’ll tell you later,” you whisper to her, turning to face the front.

when you told eunbi you would be telling her later, you didn’t mean her and chaewon. chaewon was waiting for you outside your class like always, when eunbi asked what happened between you and jay as you passed by the doorway she knew she had to join in.

“wait so jay did what?” chaewon asks, almost disappointed.

“while you were busy dancing your ass off with yeonjun, i was talking to jay in the kitchen and he kept flirting with me so i told him i knew he was playing with me and left. then i went to you and ya know, asked to go home. you declined so i went outside and sat on the sidewalk. he followed me outside and was like what can i do to prove i’m not playing you,” eunbi snickers at your imitation of him, as chaewon nods, letting you keep talking.

“and i guess he noticed i was cold so he gave me his jacket. anyways, i was like leave me alone and he was like no! so i was like okay can you drive me to your house?” you point to chaewon, so they know whose house it was. “and he did, and i tried to return the jacket and he was like no keep it and i was like no! but i accidentally brought it out of the car so i returned it to him today.” you finally finish, taking a deep breath.

“also chaewon you forgot my coffee today.”

“y/n, i told you to stay away from him! not ask him to drive you home!” chaewon disappointedly mentions, as you roll your eyes.

“that wouldn't've happened if you drove me home!” you counter, as eunbi watches the scene unfold.

“hey why don’t you give jay a chance? he might’ve changed his ways.” eunbi suggests, shrugging at your little argument.

“eunbi, we’re talking about jay park here. he wouldn't randomly just change his ways because of one girl.” you mention, reminding yourself of hyun-woo.

“you never know! maybe he will!” eunbi argues.

“yeah right, eunbi” you almost scoff.

006 ONE CHANCE

when you finally lie down after getting home, you feel a little vibration coming from your phone. you look at the notification, thinking it was a text from chaewon or eunbi, you open it.

unknown

hi apple, this is jay. are you free this saturday?

read 3:24pm

you

how’d you get my number?

jay

i have my ways 😉

are you free?

you

i am,,, i think, why?

jay

because i want to take you out

you

jay

we can go to the drive in, watch the movie yk

you

what movie?

jay

spirited away

you

jay

cmon it’s just one date

you

whatever

jay

i’ll pick you up at 7 apple ;)

read 3:32

the fact you knew you were going on that date almost infuriated you. it’s like you were begging for another hyun-woo situation. you didn’t want to say this was different, but something about it was. you had heard that jay doesn’t make first moves, so why was he so keen on you? what was so different about you that he wanted?

you couldn’t think of anything, nothing really made you special from anyone else, and you were fine with that.

but maybe, you could give jay a chance, just one.

007 THE DATE

the week felt much quicker knowing your date was on saturday, not like that was a good thing. you weren’t sure how you felt about the ‘giving jay a chance’ thing, but if this date goes well, hopefully, you wouldn’t be as opposed to it as you are now.

you looked in the mirror, deciding on your outfit. which took a lot longer than necessary. after about ten minutes, you chose your outfit, sprayed on some perfume, and packed things in your purse. the familiar sound of your phone vibrating filled the room, as you checked your messages, seeing that jay was outside your house. you rushed to the front door, carefully putting on your shoes and locking the door. in your driveway, you spot jay inside his familiar black car. you stepped inside, placing your bag on your lap.

“hi apple,” he smiles at you, backing out of the driveway, “you look nice,” he says, looking through the back window.

“thank you.” you return his smile, picking at the skin on your fingernails. he quickly notices, grabbing your hands and encasing it in his.

your face turns warm, as jay keeps his eyes on the road. “stop picking at your hands, i don’t have enough bandages for you.”

you side-eye him, turning to the window, watching each tree and car as they pass by. “have you watched spirited away before?” you ask, keeping your head facing the window,

he brushes your hand with his thumb, “i have when i was younger, i haven’t watched it for a while though.” he replies, turning the steering wheel to the left.

“i’m so excited to watch it!” you squeal, letting your excitement out. he chuckles, slightly turning down the music he played.

he turns into an open field, with a huge screen at the end of it, he continues to drive forward to find a spot and parks as carefully as he can, to help others park near him too.

he glances at you, then your lips only for a second, and looks back to your eyes. he leans forward as you stay frozen. was he trying to kiss you? right now? you want to move but you can’t. almost like your waist is frozen as you look at him with wide eyes.

he quickly grabs a bag behind your seat, looking in the bag with his infamous smirk. you try to ignore that trick, looking in the bag which is filled with snacks. you look up at him, asking for permission to take one, he nods, a smirk turning into a smile as you look through the (many) options he brought. noticing he brought your favorite, you take it, open it, and pop one into your mouth.

“thank you,” you say, taking another one.

he opens his bag, looking at you “you’re welcome, the cashier thought i was buying snacks for a party.”

“well, you didn’t have to buy so many snacks! you would’ve saved money if you had just asked me what i wanted,” you argue, looking at the filled grocery bag.

“well, spending money isn’t a problem when it’s for you.”

“yeah okay,” you turn your head to the window, whatever car had driven in suddenly seeming more interesting than the conversation you guys were having.

he almost giggles at your fake obliviousness, a toothy smile spreading on his face as he glances at the screen, looking for the countdown.

“the movie starts in under a minute, hope you aren’t looking to your side the whole time.”

“why would i be looking at you?” you scoff, shuffling around to comfortably sit as a yawn comes out of you.

“that’s not what i meant,” he teasingly adds, placing his arm back onto your thigh, leaning towards you.

“okay then what did you-” you quickly get interrupted when the countdown on the screen ends, starting the movie (idk how drive in theaters work). “nevermind,” you give in, leaning your arm on the side of the car as you prop your hand up to keep your head up. around halfway into the movie, your drowsiness slowly takes hold of you putting you to sleep.

008 DROWSINESS

you didn’t think you were that tired once you got there to the drive-in, but something about jay must’ve put you to sleep like a baby because why had you woken up in front of your house, on jay’s shoulder?

“when did we get here?” you mumble, sitting up and stretching your arms.

his eyes soften at your slightly messed up hair, barely being able to keep yourself awake.

“i just parked, you missed the whole movie,” he replies, turning towards you.

“what!” you exclaim, “but i was so excited to watch spirited away!” you complain, a pout forming on your face.

“so excited to watch the movie you fell asleep yeah?”

“shut up, i was tired!” you argue, grabbing your purse and opening the door to leave, “thank you for taking me, i had fun.” you blurt out, a red tint appearing on your face.

“i did too,” he smiles warmly at you, waving goodbye as you close the door and enter your house.

009 JAY’S DILEMMA

jay wasn’t usually one to fall in love he wasn’t one at all. every girlfriend he had, every situationship he had. never even came close to what falling in love was. jay wasn’t one to worry too much about a lot of things. but one thing he did care a lot about was his reputation. if he wasn’t able to make you fall in love with him. then he would be claimed as a homewrecker even if he didn’t even like you. but that’s not the point jay was trying to make.

the point was he could never get you out of his head. whether it would be a math question he was having trouble solving or even some of sunghoon’s arrogant comments, everything reminded him of you. jay never had this problem before. he never really cared about his old relationships, until you came in. messing up jay’s whole heartbreaker persona, with only him knowing.

jay still didn’t know what he felt for you on the drive home after dropping you off.

jay still didn’t know what he felt for you when he was laying in bed thinking at ungodly hours.

jay still didn’t know what he felt for you when you waved at him the monday after your date, which he waved back.

jay still didn’t know what he felt for you when he walked into your shared math class, watching you excitedly talk to eunbi about whatever.

he had embarrassed himself during the period because he was too busy with the thought of dating you, would he like that? would he like you to kiss him on the cheek or maybe on the lips? jay thought his answer was no.

but deep down, he knew it was yes.

but he would never admit that at least not to you.

010 LOVE

by now, jay had taken you on several dates throughout december to january. whether it would be studying, ice cream dates, or even museum dates. whatever date idea there was, he probably had done it. but one date he was saving for the big question, was a walk. late at night, with the moon shining brightly above the both of you, and only you two.

you two had already decided to meet at the closest park to your house. which he said was fine since it was the closest to his. he parked his car in a hidden spot, and walked to the swings, sitting down and rocking his legs slightly.

when he saw you excitedly walking towards him, he smiled.

this time, jay knew what he felt for you.

he didn’t have a simple crush or attraction towards you.

love is what he felt towards you.

love.

this wasn’t supposed to happen, but deep down, he knew all along.

love is what he felt when you walked side by side, talking about whatever came to mind.

love is what he felt when you stopped to take a picture of the moon, as he stopped to secretly take a photo of you.

love is what he felt when he asked you to be his girlfriend, to which you had said yes.

love is what he felt when you cuddled into his arm when you were cold.

love is what he felt when you stopped to tie his shoe.

jay’s night was filled with love. and so was yours.

jay hoped it would be like that forever.

011 BUS STATION

it had been two months since he asked you out. and since then he was always asking you to go to parties with him. this time, he asked for you to go to jungwon’s birthday party the following saturday (which was tomorrow).

you hesitate as always, declining to go, opting for a cuddle session in your room.

“apple, please! just for one of my closest friends!” he sulks, as he walks you to the bus stop you share.

he knows you can’t say no to him. which he always uses to his benefit.

“they’ll be some sparkling apple cider there, i know you don’t get to drink that a lot.” he confidently raises his eyebrows, trying to get something out of you.

you look back at him, putting on your pretend thinking face, “hmmm, maybe, i’ll think about it.”

he gives you a quick peck on the lips, to which your hands suddenly become jittery. “fine.” you mumble, looking away. he giggles, wrapping his arm around your waist, keeping you close as you continue to walk towards the bus station.

when you finally got there you quickly ran to the convenience store right next to the stop with jay. buying snacks as quickly as you could before running back out, not wanting to miss the bus.

that was a routine you two always had, and never had you missing the bus. you two proudly ate your snacks as the bus started to move. another routine you two had was jay giving you one of his airpods, to which you accepted listening to the cheesy love songs he enjoyed.

when you had gotten to your stop you two had both gotten up, hands intertwined as you exited the bus, turning the way to your neighborhood. you had stopped in place when you noticed apple cider by beabadoobee was playing.

“this doesn’t sound like the kind of songs you listen to. how do you know about beabadoobee?” you ask curiously.

“i don’t,” he answers honestly, before continuing, “i was looking at your playlist and i saw this song. and since it was called apple cider i decided to play it since you know, apple cider is kind of your thing.”

your smile grows, as you look at him with soft eyes, “then i decided to look at the lyrics, and it reminded me of us.”

if you weren’t blushing before, you were a flaming tomato now, butterflies erupted in your stomach as you try to keep your cool and keep walking, to which he noticed (but he didn’t say anything.)

when you had finally made it yourself you had given him a quick kiss goodbye, as he drove off to his house.

later you decided to facetime him to pick an outfit for you. which he did and stayed on call until hours on end. the call ended when you fell asleep, and jay hung up, letting himself get some sleep too.

012 APPLE CIDER

when you two arrived at the party it seemed much more sweaty than you had expected, the smell of weed and alcohol filled the air as you navigated your way to wish the birthday boy a happy birthday,

jay had finally spotted him in the living room, squeezing your hand and walking towards him.

“happy birthday jungwon!” you exclaim, projecting your voice over the speakers.

jay gives jungwon a side hug wishing him a happy birthday too.

“thank you for coming!” he points to a hallway, “drinks are over there, and jay, do you wanna play beer pong? losers have to take a shot after each round.” he grins at him, as jay looks at you for approval. you nod, as he smiles back at you. jay turns back to jungwon with a smile on his face.

“yeah for sure! uh let me get a drink first with y/n,” he tells jungwon, jungwon nods sending you two off to the kitchen.

when you walk into the kitchen you both grab a cup, you fill yours with sparkling apple cider as always, filling jay’s cup too.

“guess you listened to my pouring advice didn’t you?” he asks as you hand him his drink.

“i listen to all your advice.”

“but that was before we started dating,” he adds, you roll your eyes, handing him his drink and heading back to the living room to watch them play.

the teams were revealed as jay and jungwon teamed up versus heeseung and sunoo, you weren’t paying attention to any other games.

heeseung and sunoo had lost miserably, taking 5/5 shots. which was definitely too much alcohol for sunoo’s system.

sunoo seemed to be blabbering nonsense, as you and jay tried to bring him up to jungwon’s bedroom, where he could get some rest.

“ya know what jay once saidd,'' his voice came out slurred, as he stumbled after each step he took. jay looks at him confused.

“what did jay say?” you asked amused, hoping you would get some kind of blackmail against him.

“he saidd that he waz going to make you fall in love with him-” he trips with jay barely catching him.

“so he could get back on hyun-woo,”

“what?” you ask, looking at jay’s face worriedly.

sunoo’s drunk, you assure yourself. not capable of thinking straight at all.

“come on, let’s get you to bed,” jay responds, opening the door to jungwon’s room and laying him down on the bed.

don’t do this to me jay, not again. you worry, exiting the room and letting him fall asleep. jay looks at you anxious about what to say.

silence fills the hallway. you try to analyze his face to see some sort of innocence in his expression.

he didn’t seem to start talking, so you did, “was what sunoo said true? was i just your girlfriend so you could get back at hyun-woo and that stupid grudge you had against him?” your fingers automatically start picking near the nail bed.

he sighs in defeat, “look, yes you were but let me explain-”

“no! you don’t get to explain because you’ve been playing me for two months! two fucking months i could’ve spent with someone who actually loved me.” you argue, as he looks at you with guilt.

“i do love you apple! i swear-”

“if you loved me why didn’t you tell me earlier? I'm sure we would’ve resolved it by now instead of keeping it from me and letting me run along all oblivious to your plan.” you scoff, trying to head back downstairs.

the wound on your finger just seems to grow with each step you take, the red liquid slowly covering the new injury.

“apple please let me explain-”

you face him again, “did you not feel any guilt keeping this from me? every date we went on, every kiss we shared, was that all because of a stupid revenge plan? were you faking it throughout this whole relationship?” your lips quiver, as you prayed and prayed he would say the right thing.

but for some reason, he's frozen. like his world has stopped and so has he.

he knows he loves you and he knows he wasn’t faking it. so why was he blanking now?

you nod, wiping your tears away, wincing at the soreness of your picked finger as you leave that cursed hallway, heading to the stairwell.

“i don’t even get a goodbye?” was he serious right now?

you turn around, “jay, i was just told you dated me to get back on hyun-woo, do you think you deserve fucking goodbye?” you scoff, “honestly, i don’t even know why i gave you a chance,” and with that, you walked down the stairs, your legs slumping after each step.

you should have known, was all you could think. you should have known at the first party when he was shamelessly flirting with you. you should’ve learned that when you cried because he reminded you of hyun-woo. you should’ve known when he confidently asked you on that date. you should’ve known because chaewon warned you.

you should’ve known because it was all the same.

the flirting, the dates, the guy, and the breakup.

you grab your forgotten drink, throwing it in the trash, as you ask eunbi to drive you home.

eunbi had always been by your side. and you were always by hers. you two got so close that when you told her about hyun-woo, she immediately blocked him, and continued supporting you for which you were ever so grateful.

eunbi hurriedly rushes you to her car after seeing your messed up mascara, helping you get in.

“what happened?” eunbi asks once you're both settled, handing you tissues from the glove compartment and rubbing your shoulder.

“he dated me because he had a grudge against hyun-woo.”

“he what?” she exclaims, mouth hanging open.

i know,” you sniffle, trying to wipe away the tears coming down.

“i’m so sorry honey,” she mutters.

you don’t even want to hear any nicknames again, you don’t want to hear any “sorrys”. all you wanted was to be home.

why was it always you? why did you always have to be played? what was so bad about you that people just needed to break your heart? maybe jay would know, or hyun-woo.

“isn’t it crazy?” you laugh through your blocked nose, “is what crazy?” eunbi asks.

“this all started because i chose some dumb apple cider as a drink.”

taglist : @bookishcalls @jwonsociety @byhees @trsrina @quokkas-leebit @captivq @felixsunshine28 @lojocas @yeniiverse @starikizs @hanniluvi @misojunghwan

sorry if i missed yours!

1K notes · View notes

missmastectomy · 2 months

Text

Thinking about how sometimes the woes of detrans women are not as unique as we think.

I sometimes see detrans women express insecurity about their vulvas being too much of an “outie” or their clits being “too big.” Recently listened to a detrans woman talk about how she just knows her boyfriend isn’t attracted to her because her genitalia isn’t normal, her words. And idk what her situation is but I have slept with multiple women who were on HRT at one point and their genitalia is just… normal. And I see this and can’t help but think of all the women who were never on HRT, who hate their vulvas because shitty men call them roast beef, or say that women with big clitorises basically have a penis, when that is just not true.

I never understood this specific insecurity and it’s been helping me with the things I am insecure about. Like, my voice is androgynous and I obsess over it. But I recently watched a videos of women with deep voices and quite a few them just sound similar to me. I still struggle but my paradigm changed. I’m literally just a woman with a deep, somewhat unusual voice. Sometimes it gets read male, but nobody irl refers to me as anything but female nowadays. I don’t need to agonize over it just because a few assholes (who have always been men btw) hassle me about it. Miley Cyrus was fuckin demolished on the internet because of her voice, but even though it’s an unusual voice she is still so obviously female.

The mastectomy scars are harder, mostly because to me they represent a physical violation. But also, mastectomies aren’t exactly rare. Not having breasts affects me but I am not defined by them, nor any part of my body.

I know some women who are experiencing noticeable male pattern baldness, or who have distinctly male range voices, etc. so I’m not saying this works for everyone, and tbh if transition has really affected you and it’s in your ability to reverse some changes, you gotta do what you gotta do. I know how painful it is to not be recognized as your birth sex anymore. On the other hand, detrans women who are androgynous tend to fixate on every little thing that makes us “not pass,” but ime these little things aren’t being noticed by the average person.

We fall into the same trap we were in as trans people and also emulate the self image issues women have been dealing with forever. If anything these insecurities reflect that you could be struggling like other women, but it’s hard to see that when the origin of the struggle itself is so different.

EDIT: Also, butches have people tripping over pronouns all the time. If you’re a detrans woman with short hair (like me) or you don’t dress femininely, you may also be getting this reaction because people just don’t know how to be normal around GNC women

#detrans #gender critical #detransition #misogny #radical feminists do touch #transition #radical feminist safe #radical feminism #radical feminists do interact #ftmtf

71 notes · View notes

sanjisblackasswife · 1 year

Text

Breaking Up with Luffy (ANGST)

Word Count: 2.0k

Black Fem Reader in Mind

CW: Cursing, Yelling, Luffy Calls You Out on Your BS, Reader is a bit over dramatic and annoying, Boa, very bittersweet ending

How dense Luffy can be can really be exhausting

He was too trusting for his own good and though you once admired you now have grown to be annoyed with it

Maybe it was your fault

Maybe you were over reacting, but really? He couldn’t even take your side ?

But IT WAS BOA. You hated her! And Luffy knew this.

Luffy was also very emotionally intelligent, it was impressive how quick he can notice how you can feel, but that didn’t mask how dense he can be handling your emotions.

Boa was once again back and with Luffy, they were on the furthest part of the deck speaking. It’s been a week and for some reason she was still here. She claims it was to “check up on Luffy”, but for what? Y’all JUST reunited a few weeks ago and Boa has been back and fourth coming and going on the ship as she pleases and it began to irk you.

Everybody knew about her obsession with your captain except your own damn captain. The way her touched lingered, the way she blushed when talking to him, the way she would do pretty much anything for him.

It. Irked. You.

She was aware of your relationship with Luffy, which was why you both have had a few heated arguments before. The last one resulting in you nearly drawing your gun at her. It was embarrassing on your end because you never was the type to fight over a man, but this man in particular doesn’t understand when a woman that isn’t his is blatantly flirting and touching all on him and how much it eats up at you.

And everybody is aware of this. So much so that everybody purposely tries to occupy you from seeing the two today to keep things cordial.

“Are you tryna distract me?” Your tone slightly above a tease crossing your arms at Sanji Would was being more than overbearing to keep you in the kitchen with him.

“What?! No I could never! Just keep reading in here, Y/N-San!” He had a cold sweat immediately seeing Boa and Luffy now outside the door giggling and eating together. She brought him a bunch of food as another one of her “gifts” and at that very moment Luffy was tone deaf to everything in sight. Sanji noticed the beautiful woman inch closer and closer their shirtless captain and an instant chill ran down his spine on the possibility of what you’d do.

You shrugged, somewhat naive to what’s happening, you continued to finish your book, giving Sanji a sigh of relief back to his stove. The background noise of the kitchen eventually became tuned out while diving deep into your book. All was well until—-

“OH LUFFY I LOVE YOU!”

It felt like time froze, hearing that unbearable voice, you knew exactly who it was.

“SHE’S HERE AGAIN!?”

You slam your book on the table leaving it behind as you storm out. When you came outside your eyes were met with the same bullshit sight that always led you and Bo to fight

Her breasts smothering Luffy’s face and him not paying any kind to it.

“Oh Luffy! I— oh. MMPH.” Once again . Boa was being too touchy for your liking and it made your eye twitch. Her snarky attitude towards you and you only made you unreasonably upset. The way she’d sometimes purposely touch and cope a feel of Luffy in front of you just for Luffy to laugh at the situation and think you both actually don’t have beef with each other .

“Oh hey Y/N!” Luffy pulled from Boa’s grip to run over to you with his typical Happy Hour lucky smile. He didn’t a care in the world seeing you looking so upset but the tall woman now behind him did.

“Oh Luffy it was so amazing seeing you again! I’m so glad you—-“

Boa’s compliments and heart eyes went through one eye and out the other with you considering you kept getting irritated the longer she lingered on the ship. You wasn’t in the mood to argue with her, but that didn’t stop you from pulling Luffy away as she inches closer by reflex as if you were a child not wanting to share your toy.

Boa noticed this and immediately grumbled in irritation.You clearly don’t understand how angry you make this woman. Your boyfriend just pulled into your touch closer as he ate which in turned made her heart sting, but before she had another dramatic fit an idea came to mind.

“Before I go Luffy I just wanted to let you know that if you need anything just send me a call okay? …and my offer still stands with you about our…little agreement. Remember?”

Luffy furrowed his eyebrows a bit humming in thought trying to remember what “agreement” she was offering. She has made so damn many to him involving getting married who knows what this would be?

“Uh…”

“Oh you don’t remember? Before you left your training we had such an unforgettable night and—“

“OOOOOH! Oh yeah no thanks!” Luffy laughs scaring his head, “Yeah no I’m fine I have Y/N for that!”

It was like Boa nearly turned into stone herself , her face was dumbfounded and her heart was stung, as much as she wanted to cry and plead for Luffy to take her up on her “offer” she had to go but promised to be back soon. The moment she left it was almost as if everybody could breathe again and went back to their devices, but you however dwelled in the whole “offer” situation and how Luffy stated he had you for that.

After lunch Luffy and you were on the Sunny doing your daily fishing routine you both typically started doing when you both began dating. It was peaceful and sweet feeling Luffy happily hun and lean on your shoulder, but you just couldn’t relax until your curiosity subsided.

“Lu?”

“Hm? You caught a fish?!” He sat up ready to help pull your fishing rod, but you grab his wrist.

“No! No not that! I just…Um…okay what did Boa mean by ‘offer’?”

“Huh?”

“When she said you guys had an unforgettable night and—“

“Ohh! Oh That!” Luffy laughs and pats your head. “So before I left she accidentally kissed me and th—“

“She what?” You felt your stomach turn a little, sunk really.

“She kissed me! But she apologized so it was an accident ..anyways she said that we should have one night of uh…” Luffy scratched his head trying to think of the word she used. “What’s that word Sanji uses a lot? Starts with a P?”

Your eyes widen in horror on the possible answer he may say,

“PASSION THATS THE WORD!” Luffy chuckles pointing his finger upwards, “a night of passion, I didn’t know what she meant until she said ‘made love’. At the time I still didn’t understand but I remember that’s what you call what we do sometimes so I said no.”

“Luffy i thought you said I was your first kiss.”

“You were!”

“No.” You stood up crossing your arms, “I wasn’t if that stupid bitch kissed you.”

“Woaaahh!” Luffy laughs a little making your eye twitch in annoyance as he gets up, “you mad?”

“No I’m not mad.”

“Yes you are? You only curse when you’re mad.”

“I’m not fucking mad I’m irritated!”

“Same thing.”

“IT’S NOT LUFFY! Why does she keep coming back we don’t need her help anymore we are GOOD!”

Once again you began to nag and complain about Boa and her presence which always made Luffy Just roll his eyes playfully. He never understood why you were always so mad when she was around but after learning that they both had the opportunity to have sex AND she kissed him you now had a better reason to explain.

“I don’t understand what the big deal is y/n it’s just a kiss. Besides we weren’t dating and I wasn’t thinking about you when it happened.” Luffy shrugged it off taking away your rod to finish fishing, “what?”

“Don’t what me?! You let her kiss you?!”

“I wouldn’t say let..she just did it, who cares?”

“I do, Luffy! You said I was your first kiss! When I asked you about you and Boa you said nothing happened you don’t remember?!”

“It’s not a big deal, y/n calm down and sit with me!” he reached out for you to sit on his lap with a bright smile but all you could do was sit there with a gaped mouth.

Your captain wasn’t the best with words, but damn he could have worded it better. The mere thought of Luffy and Boa being so close made your head spin. And you knew. You knew Boa said it Just to get a rise out of you, and she succeeded because you completely ignored Luffy and headed to your room for the rest of the vending leaving him confused for a moment.

You were quiet all dinner. Not even sitting next to Luffy like you usually do and he seemed not to noticed which piled on to the anger you already had.

He was acting as if he didn’t know you were mad at him and it made you mad.

Were you overreacting possibly?

Even if you were you don’t care to listen to reason right now you’re pissed and want to be alone.

“There you are!” Luffy laughs busting in your room in the late evening to see you buried like burritos in your blankets back facing him. “I thought we were ganna take a bath together.”

“Take it yourself.” Your words are mumbled by the covers. Luffy tilts his head confused at your cold tone, he once again shrugs it off to get in the bed with you to hold you but you wiggle out of his grasp making him whine at your attitude.

“Y/NNNN COMMONNNN IM COLD!” He snatches the blanket off , your warm body now shivering in the cold.

“Luffy for fucks sake—“

“You cussed again. You’re mad—“

“I’m not fucking mad Luffy can’t you ever just read the room?! I had other blankets you could use!”

In your mind your really didn’t want to curse Luffy out. He obviously didn’t deserve it but you’ve been alone in your room all day replaying scene with him and Boa in your head and you just could NOT think about it.

Luffy tries to pull your arm to sleep back with him but you instead pull away to put one some sweats.

“Where are you going?! You don’t have watch duty!”

“I’ll be back Luffy.”

“You always walk away when you’re mad .”

“What?!”

“You do. It’s kinda annoying honestly . Just lay back in bed with me—“

“I said I’ll be back Luffy!” You tried to hide the annoyance in your voice but failed miserably. Was he wrong though? You run away from any issues you tend to have with Luffy and he always calls you out on it. It almost felt like you wanted to cry right on the deck out of frustration. You ended up not sleeping I with him that night. He didn’t seem to mind or ask.

Then one night turned into two.

Then three.

Then a month.

It almost became like you both drifted away. Luffy stopped coming in your room to bother you, you both don’t hang out as much, Luffy seemed normal, you also seemed okay, but every once in a while you felt almost as if you both subconsciously broke up.

He watched you from a distance dancing and laughing with Nami and his cheeks warmed ever so slightly. You have been quieter around him, he didn’t seemed to mind it, but maybe he was over thinking.

But he wasn’t, it’s been 4 months and even though you were still with the Strawhats it was almost as if your relationship has diminished. It was no longer the same between you both, no more fun exchanges, no more inside jokes, no more late night food runs. It was all just

Gone.

And you both ignored how it made you both really feel.

#luffy #TimikosLuffy #luffy x black reader #Luffy x female #Luffy x female reader #Luffy Angst #one piece x female reader #one piece x black!reader #one piece angst #one piece Luffy #one piece #black reader #female reader #x female reader

594 notes · View notes

seasurfacefullofclouds1 · 3 months

Note

maybe i’m mistaken but.. the way the media treats louis has changed a bit. (not necessarily in a Good way just. different?) hear me out.. i was reading this shitty daily mail article that talked about harry’s 30th - and ofc it was filled with all kinds of daily mail typical nonsense. but when it predictably started listing off the “shortcomings” of the other 1d members and how they weren’t nearly as worthy of having their ass kissed as harry, louis’ bit wasn’t as bad as the others..? especially compared to the way they focused on liam’s alcoholism and had several paragraphs dedicated to insulting zayn.

they described him as “pint sized” and said his venues were “noticeably smaller than harry’s” (which, no fucking shit? holo was in the works starting back in 2013). the worst part was alluding to jay and fizzy’s deaths being some kind of “one direction curse”. other than that though - no mention of freddie, the airport arrest, the chile leak (which.. didn’t DM leak that..?), beef with H, tiffs with journalists, etc.

i just think it’s super weird that the worst insults they could come up with were calling him tiny and comparing his tour to H’s? it’s almost like the strategy they’ve collectively taken in the last year-ish is to downplay his success and aid in the gp not taking his solo career seriously (by minimizing any of his solo accomplishments/focusing on 1d/sexualizing or objectifying him) rather than being outright insulting and aggressive and throwing vitriol at him hoping he breaks.

could also just be that they were too busy lavishing so much nauseating praise on H that they surpassed their word count or they wanted to insinuate that louis was forgettable or not worth their time, but idk!

hate to give them clicks but here’s the link if you want to read it in full:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/usshowbiz/article-13032513/Why-Harry-Styless-friends-urging-settle-married-babies-30th-birthday-today-lives-incognito-life-London-Canadian-model-Taylor-Russell.html?ito=native_share_article-top

First, it’s actually very on-brand for an article about Harry Styles’ birthday to consist mostly of insults about the other 1D guys. The fact that this is 2024 but media still feel the need to do this belies the hollowness of the Harry Styles hype.

After three years of build-up in 1D (2013-15) and eight years of industry propping him up, giving Harry Styles the access to the biggest songwriters and producers in the industry, the best venues money and power can buy, Azoff clients and adjacent saying his farts don’t smell, movie roles handed to him on a silver platter, with Christopher Nolan no less?, iconic Phoebe Waller-Bridges making a music video with him, Chloe Zhao saying he’s the second coming of Christ, Bono loving him more than his own child, even Billie Eilish and Miley Cyrus wanting to work with him, bought Grammys over Beyoncé etc., and this is the best they can do for his birthday? That Harry is “better than the rest of 1D”?

DM sounds a little like Harries on Twitter boasting about Harry Styles’ streams, or his wealth, or his Grammys and stadium tours, all of which amounts to the same boast: look what industry can create.

Look what they did with someone so white, bland, and pretty. Look at the money machine they built from a guy so vaguely defined as to have no identity at all. Harry Styles says nothing, supports nothing, sings about nothing, stands for nothing. Harry’s convictions are those of Jeff Azoff & friends. He truly lives up to his name: all style, absolutely no substance.

But Harry has… numbers. Harries (and media) cling onto numbers like peasants worshipping the god of hard currency. They love that money. The way they boast about Harry’s numbers is a little scary, to be honest. It suggests that there’s nothing else they like about him.

We can also tell, nine years later, that Harry isn’t the deep-thinking romantic poet he was painted to be, the one who cared about social issues and community, the one who thought deeply about human relationships and love, the one who cared for his fans enough to speak to us like family, to treat us with care, to do one-on-one fan service, to look genuinely happy in our presence, to look and act grateful even as those words pass his lips onstage AND off, to measure the people he works with with genuine, heartfelt friendship and not only because of their power and influence.

Because it’s very clear, nine years later, who that person in One Direction was. It’s the guy who never put 1D down, who, despite everything that has happened since, values the journey and can articulate it with all of the bittersweet authenticity to his experience. It’s the guy whose album was delayed for years because his first solo single competed a little too hard with Harry’s.

To your other point about press being nicer to Louis this year, other people have noticed the same thing, that Louis has been winning touring awards and other peripheral awards not central to the music industry. He isn’t going to walk the Brits or Grammys red carpet, and he won’t be nominated for VMAs or Aria awards.

But Louis isn’t even supposed to have a solo performing career in 2024. After 2017, the industry shut him out of radio and streaming. Faith In The Future was shut out of critical reviews. He started touring with a 1500 capacity venue. He isn’t supposed to be able to sell arenas, let alone stadiums. He wasn’t supposed to set a livestream world record— not when Niall did one the same year. Louis isn’t supposed to be friends with indie musicians, or have a reputation as “rock ‘n roll royalty”— having been shut out of the BBC. He isn’t supposed to tour the biggest venues in Australia. He isn’t supposed to sell arenas in Poland or Romania or Finland or Turkey. He isn’t supposed to create his own festival, give fans the first festival completely free, and showcase young, upcoming bands. Louis wasn’t supposed to be in the position to nurture any band, was he? He was supposed to be ancient history by now. They all were supposed to kneel before the legendary Harry Styles and disappear.

But Louis is selling upwards of 700k tickets for his second tour, and here we are, Harries following his every move, Larries relying on him to launder Harry’s image, and DM having to acknowledge that Louis is successfully, happily touring and making music on his own terms, with his own employees, singing his own lyrics to his enthralled audiences. He doesn’t take the bait to compare himself to his bandmates, nor relive old fights, nor stir up band controversy. He doesn’t talk badly about the other men’s relationships or families. He’s the only one who has watched Niall’s and Liam’s concerts and publicly supports all the guys’ careers. If the worst they can say is that Louis isn’t Harry Styles, thank God he isn’t. Thank god he stayed himself, went through the fires and came out better. One Direction mythology has eroded over the years, but at least Louis remained good, inside and out. Not perfect, but human, trying, and genuinely, actually good.

Who really knows why media can show some positivity to Louis now. I am cautious about any real change. I guess the rest of 2024 will be revealing. I’ve been waiting for so long that I don’t really expect anything different. We’ll see.

37 notes · View notes

spidey-d00d · 2 years

Text

Lost in Thought (J.S x Reader)

Hangman x Reader Summary: You and Jake have known each other for a long time, comfortably saying ‘I Love You’ Platonically for years, until one night where you finally get to the point where you mean it more than friends.

Tw: Cursing, unedited work, fluff? angst? idk it’s cute tho Word Count: 2.2k

A/N: I've been weird about writing one shots lately, not sure if people are enjoying them or not, but I have gotten a couple people saying to go on and continue and I thank them tremendously, it has truly helped even if it was one or two people that had said it to me. Thank you for all of the likes and reposts and I hope to keep getting some more one shots out there for those who actually read them! Of course, requests are open, and encouraged. I want to open my writing up to more Top Gun characters, I've just also had a lot of my own ideas for Hangman and that's why i've been writing for him so much, but if there is something you want to see for other characters please let me know!

(NOT MY GIF)

The amount of time you have spent with the insufferable man that is Jake Seresin was unimaginable. Especially with the fact that you haven’t killed him yet, or yourself for that matter.

He was your best friend though. Ever since meeting him on a detachment one time years ago, putting him and his place and him clinging onto you, you guys have been inseparable. You were the only one able to put him in his place with few simple words, and him the same for you.

Jake knew since the moment that you had shut down his entire deal the first time you met him, he wasn’t going to let you go. He clung to you even though you hated the idea for a while, but he grew on you so you allowed him to stay.

Every once in a while the two of you got separated for deployments but always found a way back to each other, no matter how long you guys had been apart.

You weren’t sure when the feelings you had for Jake Seresin when from friends to more, but it scared you. The idea of losing the friendship you had always craved felt more terrifying than the idea of him loving you back.

You had a strict, ‘no dating pilots’ policy, just for the fact that you knew how dangerous it was from being in the profession, and seeing the reactions of the spouses of those who didn’t come home from a mission being something that haunts you at night. You couldn’t imagine feeling that way about someone you loved so you closed yourself off to the idea.

Jake snuck into your heart though, you cared about that man so deeply, whether it was more than a friend or not at this point, if something happened to him you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself.

“9 Ball, You, Me, ready to lose?” The cocky blonde stood in front of the stool you were perched on, talking to everyone around you. You raised a singular eyebrow in his direction where he was leaning against the cue.

“Me? Lose? Seresin I am actually wounded that you still don’t know me well enough to know that I don’t lose.” You faked a hurt expression before snatching the cue he was resting on, leaving him to lose balance a little bit before straightening out.

In the middle of you winning the game, Rooster, or Bradley Bradshaw, had come into the bar. Seeing Hangman straighten up, you knew that this was going to be interesting. It wasn’t like the two men had a huge beefing feud going on, where it would get physical, but you knew they weren’t best friends. There was a little bit of butting heads going on between them and you just wanted this to be a good night.

Before Jake had the chance to get a word in, you stood in front of his body, making his attention move from Bradshaw to your eyes. You always forgot how much taller he was than you until he had his chin all the way down to make eye contact with you.

“Go for a walk with me?” Was all you asked and all it took for him to wrap his hand around yours and make the way over to the back door that opened out to the beach.

Once the cool air hit you, both of your bodies relaxed. Neither of you had made an effort to let go of each other's hands, it was normal between you two.

Though there had been drunken moments, neither of you had crossed the line of more than friends, surprisingly, but that didn’t stop you from holding each other close or holding the others hand, it brought comfort to you, so it wasn’t a big deal.

“Jake,” You broke the silence, to which he replied to you with a hum, “ What do you think is gonna happen tomorrow?” You wondered out loud, as he found a nice spot on the beach to plop down onto the sand and drag you with him. You sat next to him, watching the light from the sun bounce across his face and make him glow more than usual.

Something in your stomach flipped, a feeling you had felt a few weeks ago, the feeling you had associated with your feelings that were changing for the man sitting next to you. You lost your breath slightly at the realization but covered it up quickly, hoping that he didn’t catch on.

If he did, he didn’t acknowledge it as he started talking, “I have no clue, just glad they got us together again, I missed you.” He grinned, leaning down and bumping his shoulder into yours with a small grin.

“I missed you too bagman.” You teased, forcing yourself to break eye contact with him because you felt like your heart was going to fall out of your ass at that moment, bringing your eyes to the view in front of you.

He let out a belly laugh, one that only made frequent appearances with you and not a lot with others, and that you pride yourself on.

“I’m never going to shake that name am I?” He said with a laugh still in his voice. It made you smile at the sound, “Nope, never.” You grinned up at him, as he stared you down.

You could’ve sworn you saw adoration in his eyes, or something along those lines but you ruled that out as quickly as it came. It had to have been nothing, so you ignored the feeling in your chest and looked back out at the water, silence over taking both of you once again.

You guys sat there for a long while in the silence, it never being awkward, your thoughts were running wild with a bunch of what ifs, or different outcomes in your life.

What if you just let go and let him know everything that has been shifting in your body for a few weeks now. What would happen? Would he leave? Never speak to you again? Would you lose both a one sided love and your best friend in the process? You couldn’t bear the thought of it, of losing Jake.

Before you could go any further into your thoughts, the silence was sliced with his words, “You’re thinking too loud again.” He gave you a light smile when you looked up at him with wide eyes, hoping that you didn’t say anything out loud because you were too zone into your thoughts to pay attention to anything else.

You mind was put a very slight ease when he spoke once more, “What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours?” He hummed, taking in the look in your wide eyes that bored into his.

You quickly weighed the pros and cons of everything you had just been thinking of. If you told him, and he didn’t feel the same way, could you guys go back to how it was before or would he just leave you in the dust, not wanting to deal with your feelings for him, ones that weren’t reciprocated? Or would he turn the world on its axis and say that he’s always had feelings for you too, and you guys would live happily ever after in your fairy tale word of fighter jets and the Navy?

“Y/N” He said, breaking you of your thoughts once more, you really needed to get out of your head in front of him.

“I Love you” Was all you managed to get out.

Jake gave you a confused look, not sure why it was so hard for you to say that. For a while now, you guys have told each other that you loved the other, especially when being shipped out for other missions. It was always meant platonically, as a friend way, a best friend way. You guys were so close and it was normal for you to say it to each other, but he didn’t realize that this was different. It was a different type of love to you now, and it scared you.

“I love you too?” He said in more of a question than a statement.

You sighed, not knowing that difficulty this was going to be when you randomly blurted it out. You loved the man but he wasn’t always the brightest in a way. He was dense when he wanted to be.

“No, Jake, I love you” You pushed yourself to try and get him to understand. You were already here, might as well go all the way and hoped it worked out in the long run. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea to do it now, right before a big mission where you would have to work with him for a couple weeks no matter the outcome of this night, whether it went good or bad, but it was too late now.

“Y/N I love you too, are you okay?” Jake asked, more confused than before. He got it, you loved him, how was this what you were so worked up over, lost in thought for the past, he didn’t even know how long they had been out there for.

“Oh my god Jake, I know you’re blonde but don’t act like it,” You rolled your eyes, getting slightly frustrated because this was making it far more embarrassing for you, trying to confess your love for someone who can’t even tell, “Jake Seresin, I love you.” You breathed out, “I am in love with you.” You added a little quieter at the end, forcing your eyes to look down at your hands instead of his face, afraid of his reaction.

The silence once again enclosed the two of you, neither of you moving or at this point even breathing. You were terrified to look at him, but he softly put his hand on your chin, guiding it up to look at his face after a few moments of silence. You closed your eyes as he had your face now angled up towards him. If you didn’t open your eyes then you didn’t have to face the rejection he was about to push on you.

“Open your eyes please.” He whispered quietly, to which you replied with a shake of your head.

“Don’t act like a child, open them,” He said in a stern voice, but it was still quiet, “Please” He added, a lot softer than before.

You couldn’t avoid it any longer, he was literally sitting in front of you, so you slowly opened your eyes to look at his green ones, ones that were flowing with an emotion you hadn’t seen in them before. You couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but you just hoped it wasn’t bad.

“You mean it?” Jake asked, trying to find clarification that this wasn’t just some joke or a bet you had going on with Phoenix.

“Of course I mean it Jake.” You whispered, searching his face to find any answer you could. You hated not knowing how he felt but he was masking it, trying to make sure you weren’t joking with him and he could let his guard down. “I’ve always loved you, just, I realized it was more than before recently and I couldn’t go any longer thinking about it without you knowing how I felt.” You added on, feeling a need to explain yourself, though he didn’t need you too, all he needed was to know that you meant it.

That’s all it took for him to smash his lips against yours. It was all you ever dreamed of, the fireworks and sparks everyone always referenced when talking about the kiss with the love of their lives, made in appearance in your body and mind.

You couldn’t think of anything else besides him. Not the doubts or the mission or the random people walking the beach like you guys had been before sitting down. It was just his lips on yours, the softness of his lips you had imagined to be chapped when you day dreamed about this exact moment before.

“I love you too, so much.” He breathed out as you two had separated from each other, out of breath, but your foreheads rested against each other.

A grin spread across your face like wildfire, mirroring your own as his hand came to brush a few hairs out of your face, and then rested on your cheek holding you close.

“It’s about damn time Seresin,” You giggled, “I didn’t know how much longer I could take thinking about the worst case scenarios.” You smiled up at him.

“I’ll always love you y/n, forever.” Was all he replied after pushing your lips together again in another kiss.

The two of you spend the rest of the night like this, telling each other how much you wanted to be with the other, sharing kisses and laughs on the way back to the barracks. It was perfect for you guys, finally getting the shot at the perfect navy, fighter pilot, fairytale life.

552 notes · View notes

yourlocaldisneyvillain · 2 days

Text

okay so i know no one cares but the internet is for yelling about your feelings and so i shall do just that! i think education on kink is so misinterpreted by the Youths on the internet (which proves they're too young and immature to even be having convos abt kink...) and there are also many minors who are into all that tiktok written porn and wattpad shit which has sorta leaked onto tumblr as well. and like i can't know who reads or writes that shit but it Smells Of Youth lol, and like and god knows that i read porn as a minor but ...... adksjhfgfdasdjhf you know?? at least i was aware i was in spaces not meant for me lol and behaved accordingly.

so i read a short lil ficlet that was on my recommended page (ofc a larissa/reader thing lol) that i think shows exactly what's wrong with the younger generations (not to sound like an old lady but you know what i mean) and that is that they are more concerned with appearances rather than the content -- that is, something checking all the boxes of safety rather than it actually being safe.

in their crusade for Righteousness and Political Correctness (even tho i hate using that word bc that's what far-right ppl use when they don't like that minorities want to be treated with respect) they forget that like. you can't slap a "this is okay label" on something that isn't okay and that magically makes it okay.

what i mean by that is that in that ficlet -- and it doesn't matter which one it is bc they are all basically the same fic regurgitated over and over again with slight changes -- we are clearly talking about a fucked up scenario: a principal pursuing and wanting to fuck her student! but THEN she says "if you want me to stop just say red" as if that makes it all okay?? it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of safewords and what they are for. nothing was negotiated or talked about, she DEMANDED that this clearly young person call her mommy even though no preferences were discussed prior etc etc.

and my beef with this is like, if you're gonna write a fucked up scenario (and god knows i love those), you should not try to signal with your narrative choices that what is happening is okay, unless it is a literary choice that somehow serves the story. but what i've read and keep reading feels like aha! not problematic bc we are all over 18 and we have safewords! so nothing could ever go wrong :) please, treat a fucked up scenario like a fucked up scenario! commit to your fucked up fantasy goddamit! stop trying to virtue signal! you're writing about a principal fucking her student and abusing her power, which is okay and you should be able to write about that! but she's not uwu mommy askjdhfsg you know?? and i think that's why so many people got mad at me for writing my fucked up shit (inevitable specifically) and it's bc i wrote basically what the narrative they keep writing about would look like in real life lol, and i didn't do any of the performative stuff they do to make it Okay and Not Problematic. someone would end up hurt, i promise you! it's okay to have your fucked up fantasies, just don't pretend they're not just that -- fucked up fantasies that need to be carefully managed if you ever want to engage in something that mimics it in real life.

it's really dangerous that all these Youths keep using bdsm terminology without understanding what it means. safewords, dom/sub dynamics, aftercare... if you write a sexual assault scene and slap aftercare on it, it is still sexual assault. if someone coerces you to have sex with them (and there is more way than one to coerce a person to sleep with you without using any force) but say oh you can have a safeword and i'll stop :))) that is still sexual assault lol. you saying the words doesn't mean anything.

also, i'm not saying there aren't inherent power dynamics in any relationship, not just with age gap stuff which is a popular trope in these fics, but like they need to be addressed and managed if you want to write a Healthy Relationship(TM). there is a social power imbalance between men and women and yet het relationships exist and work! but if you don't wanna write that, if you wanna write your "mommy that sorta rapes me but not really" fantasy, by all means keep doing it but pleaaaase call it what it is! otherwise it's just confusing and harmful for all the young people on these webbed sites.

i am all for fucked up shit, both reading and writing it, and there should be space for everyone to unload their bullshit on the internet. however, problems arise when fucked up shit is being sold as Good(TM) bc it checks certain boxes and basically passes as Not Problematic uwu on a technicality, rather than examining the actual content. there are ways to examine fucked up desires and the dark side the human psyche, but what is not productive is slapping buzzwords on stuff and saying oh it's Moral(TM) now. fiction doesn't have to be moral. please give up on that notion! but if it's trying to be, then it shouldn't endorse prettily packaged sexual assault lol.

#personal #i have more things to say but my thoughts are getting jumbled

11 notes · View notes

lokidottir1308 · 2 years

Text

Eminem x fem!singer!reader

warnings: secret relationship, mild swearing

Dating your brother’s rival? Couldn’t be you, right? Wrong.

You knew Colson would be mad once he found out about your relationship with Marshall. It wasn’t that he hated Marshall, but the beef the both of them had with each other had a huge impact on his life and career. After all, he didn’t rap anymore because of it.

He adored Marshall, he grew up listening to his music. You had to admit, even though you loved Colson more than yourself, what he did to Marshall‘s daughter disgusted you.

Colson may have been young when he tweeted what he did, but he was old enough to know that saying something like that about a minor wasn’t okay at all. Plus, Hailie was only a few months younger than you.

You were lucky enough to be known for something else than being Machine Gun Kelly‘s sister. You‘d made a name for yourself in the acting and musical industry.

Thanks to that, you met Marshall. Your manager was a friend of Marshall‘s manager, and once he’d listened to some of your music, he decided the two of you had to feature on a song together.

At first, you weren’t too sure about taking the offer because of Colson, but it would have been stupid to turn such an opportunity down. Working with Eminem? Anyone would kill for that.

So you net up with him- and hit it off right away. Though he was a couple years older than you, the two of you got along perfectly. You grew pretty close and after releasing the song, he asked you out on a date. Of course, you agreed.

It was the night of the Grammys and you were supposed to announce one of the winners - the artist of the year award. It wasn’t surprising to you to see Marshall being nominated.

You were calm throughout the night, just enjoying your time with Marshall and some of his, and now your, friends, talking to different people and waiting for the actual award show.

You went backstage once it was your turn to announce the nominees and the winner. You walked out on stage and the crowd started applauding for you.

"Thank you so much. It‘s an honor to be able to announce the winner of such an important category. Now, before I‘ll announce who the winner is, here are the nominees.

Different artists and some of their work were shown on the screen on stage. Seeing Marshall appear, you immediately started smiling. Once the video was over, you grabbed the envelope that had the name of the winner on it.

"Now, the Grammy for the artist of the year goes to…" you slowly opened the envelope and read the name, a smiling starting to form on your lips. "…Eminem!" you cheered.

Your eyes darted to Marshall, he smiled slightly before standing up to receive his award, the crowd cheering for him. He walked up to stage and did something you never would have expected him to do.

He pulled you into a deep kiss, his hands placing themselves onto your waist. The cheers got even louder before he pulled away, gave you another quick peck and went up to the microphone.

"First of all, I want to thank my friends and my manager for kicking my ass whenever I needed their motivation and for believing in me, even though it’s probably really hard for them to keep the swearing in my songs to a minimum." he said and the crowd chuckled.

"And secondly, I want to thank this amazing woman behind me, who has been nothing but supportive of me and my career. Thank you for everything Y/N. I love you." he turned to you, showing you a smile he rarely showed in public.

Your eyes widened at his words but you started smiling at him. You walked up to him and wrapped your arms around his waist, kissing his cheek. "I love you, too." you smiled.

You skipped the after party, neither you nor Marshall liked such events. He drove you home and gave you another kiss before waving and driving off.

You opened your door with a big smile, only to almost scream in surprise when you saw Colson sitting on your couch, arms crossed over his chest. "Hello, dear sister of mine."

#imagine #eminem x reader #eminem imagine #eminem #marshall mathers #marshall mathers x reader #marshall mathers imagine #oneshot

537 notes · View notes

515limit · 1 year

Text

jack x miranda

NOTE: this is just my opinion :) giga word doc incoming

Jack and Miranda is honestly my favorite non Shepard ship, I've always been a big fan of both of them and seeing them grow through the series is honestly one of the more interesting aspects of the game, not just for them but most of the characters on general. Jack goes from just a generally hateful person to genuinely caring individual no matter how hard she tries to act otherwise. Miranda obviously goes from being a blind follower of Cerberus for the purpose of recognition to finding her own path and purpose in life. I love seeing them interact after the fact in the Citadel dlc, where you can tell they try to keep that sense of normalcy as best they can so it's not awkward through their empty insults and banter, but i genuinely think they were happy to see they one another was alive. But still i kinda wanna break down their whole dynamic because they deserve it, and i'm bored, nothing else. I think they're an underrated ship with more evidence?? than people think. I don't like to say evidence necessarily because nuance is a thing, and i think their relationship in general was supposed to be something you read between the lines not entirely blatant.

So to start as soon as we start Jack's recruitment mission we hear about how mean and hatful she is, and get shown that as we play through it looking for her. She's clearly extremally powerful and portrayed as being kinda unhinged, not just in her actions but she tells us herself how bad of a person she is overall. However, as you spend time with her you see that's just not true, at least to the extent that she claims or is initially portrayed. She's scared, she's tortured. As a child and now as an adult in her head. She can't mentally escape Pagia, and it makes her lash out. She can't trust people, or maybe she doesn't even want to. She doesn't want to let people in. Jack is clearly a very emotional person, all of her noteworthy scenes in ME2 come from emotional outbursts. She's hurting and you can tell the most in her poetry that she writes and can read in the SB dlc. All of that is to say, Jack and Miranda don't hate each other. They hate themselves. I'll get to Miranda in a minute, but Jack and Miranda have no real reason to beef with each other initially, neither has ever done anything directly to the other, except they're famous fight after Jack's loyalty mission. The thing is Jack has a thing for just saying mean shit, she speaks before she thinks, just like when you're talking to her and trying to get to know her as a person. Jack calls Shep "Cerberus lapdog and a military stooge" even though she has no real way of knowing that. Depending on how you play Shepard that could even be the exact opposite, BUT she feels threatened. Shepard cares. At least enough to talk to her and get to know her, so she gets defensive and says the meanest things she can think of just to get a rise of of Shepard. She's not mean because she's actually a hateful person, but more as a defense mechanism to keep people away.

I'll come back to this! I wanna talk about Miranda now. Miranda desperately needs approval, it radiates off her. From the second we meet and are actually able to talk to her she's noticeably jealous of Shepard even if she denies it, you can tell she isn't happy about how much trust and importance has already been placed on Shepard over her (a loyal and dedicated Cerberus agent). and this isn't the only time either, later when you talk to her she says she doesn't get it. Why Shepard is great and she isn't. For renegade Shep she even brings up their lack of family and education, lamenting over how much better they are than her. She's has extreme self worth issues, something she can't get past to the point of bringing up how Shep is great even though they were poor and lived on the streets and whatever. She says those things and continues to talk about her dad and how she was supposed to be. Miranda doesn't see how that might upset Shepard because it's technically true, it's not meant as an insult, but just a statement. She just sees it as i was "born" better so i should have been. She's extremally tone deaf all of ME2. Just like how the illusive man, didn't know about the Cerberus facility Jack was at. That being said, i do think at that moment it was definitely something she said to upset her, because she's just being petty, but the point is her and Jack don't get along initially because they're extremally similar and they both know it.

When Jack comes abord, the first person she talks to is Miranda, she mentions that she'll go out of her way to read all of Miranda's files. For what though? They know nothing about each other, all she knows is Miranda works for Cerberus, but so does the whole damn ship. She doesn't mention anything to Jacob or anyone else ever, just Miranda directly and the general Cerberus umbrella. (or at least i don't remember if she does so if that's not true just ignore that bit i'm going off memory) Anyway when it comes to Miranda, I don't think she even hates Jack at all, just her being so disruptive, she doesn't think she belongs there. Jack was in prison and in her mind that's probably where she thought she belonged, and she wasn't gonna change her mind about it either. In her mind Cerberus didn't know about Pragia so why is it there fault. Miranda is kinda dumb to think that way but she's blindly loyal to them and taking any chance she can to defend them because it's the only place she's found that she belongs. They're both angry but honestly it's just not at each other. They're both so stuck in their heads with their beliefs because they're insecure and cling to the only things they can to cope. In ME2 they're both still the insecure scared kids they were growing up and they found each other, and i think it scared them both. Being so different, but so similar at the same time. Jack thinks Miranda is so preppy and above everyone else, but maybe she reads her files and realizes it's the opposite. That she craves recognition, that she genuinely works hard for everything she has. That Miranda understands maybe more than anyone what she went through. Neither were enough, neither could live up to the impossible expectations given to them, and both decided to break away from that to find their own way, and are still haunted by their pasts as of ME2.

By the time ME3 comes around both have grown. Like a lot. You see the real Jack, she's still abrasive, maybe more out of habit than anything but she's a caring and honestly warm person now. She's responsible and loving towards the kids she looks after and they all look up to her, she's finally found somewhere she belongs. She seems genuinely happy even with the reaper war going on, she seems like the happiest person we talk to the whole came, she's laughingly and looking forward to the future, instead of the day someone will betray her. She has such a genuinely good 180 from who she was after realizing there were good people, there are people that care, that WANT her to be around. They don't just use her and throw her off to the side afterwards.

As for Miranda she's calmed down and loosed up a lot, she sees that her own self worth is more important than anyone else's recognition and is able to find her own path for one, she decides to do good after realizing what Cerberus truly is and is actively working the whole game to deter Cerberus and turn people away from sanctuary later on.

They are both completely different people, and that's why in the citadel dlc, they're just sharing drinks and genuinely enjoying each others company. I don't think Shepard mentions them getting together for no reason, i think they were meant to find each other from the beginning. This is more speculative than anything, and i'm not taking into account Shepard romances with either, so if you disagree and think they're just friends that's okay! This is just how i interoperated them. I think they do like each other and maybe to some extent have for a while, and just refused to acknowledge it to themselves or each other. They're polar opposites at first glance, Jack is covered in tattoos, reclusive, aggressive, and rude. Whereas Miranda is "perfect", no marks or blemishes and well put together, extraverted, generally tries to act like she's polite, and wants to take leadership roles. But on the inside they're the same, both just want to find their places in the galaxy, both want desperately to belong somewhere. Jack found her place, maybe Miranda will find her place too, and maybe it's by Jack's side. Helping the biotic kids and working with the alliance. Maybe she can finally do what she thought she was doing in Cerberus and help humanity the most by rebuilding and proving her knowledge to other people.

They're both genuinely caring and loving people at heart, their war crimes aside. (sadge) I think Miranda ending up with Jack honestly makes sense considering everything, it'd even help with her wanting kids and all since she can't have any naturally. Her and Jack could happily teach the biotic kids together after all is said and done.

That's all for now, thank you for coming to my tedtalk and reading my rant if you got this far :)

I may add more later if i think of anything!

#miranda lawson #subject zero #jack x miranda #mass effect #mass effect 2 #mass effect 3 #just ranting #character study #sorta..#i have so many thoughts about them like little worms in my head #please talk with me about this i'm so obsessed i need to discuss ;w;#jackanda

99 notes · View notes