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ncteez · 3 years

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Definition of hate: Chapter Two

You’re being forced to be in contact with the one guy you’d rather never talk to again. First, he’s added to the group chat. Not a huge deal, then Haechan decides to set up an uncomfortable day at the movie theater where Taeyong works. You’re forced to sit beside Johnny, secretly getting more and more drunk in a public space. Thing got worse before they got better, and suddenly, you find yourself texting the man you hated just hours before.

reminder that this is a series. the description can be found linked below under the masterlist! please reblog the masterlist post, not the individual chapters!

WORDCOUNT → 17.2k

CHAPTER TAGS → public drinking, arguments, food mention, a game of would you rather happens lmao, very toxic reader, food, haechan gets a job

fic m.list

Johnny is salty that Haechan and Mark have your phone number and even more salty that the scarcest person in the house got to sit down and discuss sexual things with you. Taeyong got to joke around with you?! About sex?! Taeyong?! This is horseshit!

“Mark, you fucking traitor!” Johnny bellows out, knowing you had already left and called your landlord for a copy of your apartment key. He could see you waiting on the porch for the landlord with what he assumed was your friend that left you high and dry the night before.

“Dude, what?!” Mark questions, wiping his hands on his hoodie from the slices of bacon he had snuck away to his room.

He’s not even confused that Johnny stormed in though because he does that a lot.

“Haechan was in the kitchen texting y/n! I saw your bitch ass name in the group chat too!”

“And? She’s my friend.” Mark laughs out at him because Johnny is being ridiculous. Then he promptly dodges a pillow being thrown at his head.

“Friend?! Right. It’s impossible to be friends with her. Believe me, I’ve tried!”

Mark cocks his head and laughs at him again.

“I don’t know what you did to make her not like you, but I know you clearly got something for her bro. Chill out.”

“Chill out? Did you manage to get her number and not even tell me? On top of it all, you sat in our kitchen and talked about sex with her?”

He’s annoyed that he couldn’t be part of any of it. He didn’t even do anything wrong, yet you just ignore him or are straight up mean to him.

“To be fair, she brought it up.” Mark shrugs in a defensive position incase more pillows are launched his way.

“She what?!”

Another pillow.

Johnny can’t believe his ears. He also can’t believe that he’s so mad about the whole situation. It’s rare for him to face rejection on the premises that he comes from wealth alone. He’s not mad that you rejected him though, he’s just mad that you refuse to even give him a chance at this point. If you intend to be friends with his friends, you’d better try to at least be nice to him.

“Whatever, go be friends with her then.” Johnny finally says, defeated.

“Bro if you want her number, just ask her for it.”

“Hah! Like she would ever.” He scoffs again, storming out of the room and wondering why it is that you dislike him so much.

Mark immediately texts Haechan about it. They both know Johnny is fixated on you for some reason, and they both know Johnny would never do anything mean to you intentionally. Maybe you and him just don’t click? Either way, Mark has never seen him act this way towards a girl. He’s never wanted to be noticed by someone this badly, and it’s kind of hilarious. So Haechan comes up with a plan.

Text Message From: Porn Pals

Haechan: Welcome to the secret chat Johnny! Y/n say hi!

You: uh, hi?

Mark: now johnny, say hi to y/n.

Unknown Number: no

Haechan: D:<

You can’t decide on if you want to stop being friends with them or not over this, but you can’t lie. Life has been a lot more fun with Haechan and Mark in it. Even if you’ve only known them for like 2 weeks at this point. You’re trying to enjoy your morning coffee when you got the ping sound of Johnny being added to the chat. You didn’t save his number and don’t intend to. Instead, you create a new group chat with just Haechan and Mark again.

You: What gives?

Haechan: he likkkes u

Mark: he wouldn’t stop crying that he wasn’t invited to the gc so haechan added him :)

You laugh about it, because that doesn’t seem like the small amount of Johnny you know at all. Always snide and arrogant in the way he talks to you. Why would he ever whine? And what the fuck is Haechan even talking about?

You: I don’t like him

Mark: but u dont even know him

Haechan: he’s sad that u like us more

You: well tell him to be more likable then

Haechan: ok!!

You face palm yourself knowing full well that it’s exactly what Haechan is going to do. And before you can even backtrack and tell him not to, you hear the ping from the original group chat.

Haechan: johnny y/n said to be more likable and maybe she will be friends with u!!!

You: Haechan, you absolute bitch.

Johnny is in his room kind of laughing at the way you just called Haechan a bitch, but he’s still annoyed that you told him to be more likable? Excuse me? On top of it all, Haechan, is an absolute bitch for throwing him into that groupchat and making it weird. What the fuck?

Unknown Number: tell her to be more likable first

Mark: but u already like her

You’re just watching the chat, confused as to why Johnny is always showing up when you’re trying to have a good time. Confused as to why they keep saying he likes you. Thankfully you don’t have to deal with that though, because Johnny makes it clear that he doesn’t like you, not one bit.

Unknown Number: no, I’m leaving now.

[Unknown Number has left the chat]

Haechan: >:(

[Unknown Number has been added to the chat]

Haechan: :) bitch

The groupchat goes silent for a moment and you instantly enter the other chat with just Mark and Haechan again.

You: why are you guys trying to make us to be friends?

Mark: we aren’t. but he’s our friend too and we think u guys would get along if u would just see past ur differences

Haechan: y/n u guys have to play nice

You: I hate you both

Immediately your phone rings with a face time call, and of fucking course it’s Haechan and Mark. You answer it and just glare at their shit eating grins.

“It’s not going to work.” You say as you wave your hand as if to brush them off.

“Yeah probably not, but it’s worth a shot.” Mark admits to himself.

“If you’re gonna be hanging out with us more often—” Haechan finally pipes in. “I suggest you at least try to get along with Johnny.”

The way you nearly spit your coffee out at how Haechan is talking to you showed them that it made you laugh. Though they’re not sure if it’s out of genuine laughter or if you’re mocking them for even trying.

“Can’t I just keep ignoring him?” You groan.

“You can, but he’s just gonna keep yelling at us.” Mark explains, leaning into the camera. “He won’t admit it, but we think he’s mad that you wont be his friend too, considering you’re already friends with everyone else.”

“Awwwwh,” You mock. “Does he feel left out?” You whine out as if you’re speaking to a puppy.

“Yeah probably.” Haechan laughs, nudging Mark away from the camera so he can get closer this time.

“Well, he should have thought about that before being an asshole to me.” You finally say in a stern voice, causing Haechan to back away from the camera with his hands up.

“You guys should try to start over.” Mark pleads out, ignoring that you obviously have something against him and knowing that’s exactly what’s bothering his best friend.

“I only agreed to be friends with you two.” You squint and glare over your coffee mug.

“Fair. But we kind of come as a buy two get three free.”

“three? “You question.

“Johnny, Jaehyun, and Taeyong.” Haechan says with his finger in the air. “Did you really think you can hang out with us without ever having to see them?”

The way Haechan gets serious with you pulls you out of your rebellious thoughts of refusing Johnny’s very existence.

“I’ll be nice then.” You give in.

Haechan smiles brightly, and Mark kind of feels like he had just won a difficult boss battle on a video game.

“Great! Then do you wann-“ You cut him off. “I said I’d be nice. I didn’t say I’d go out of my way to be their friend.”

Jaehyun pops his head onto the screen.

“You do know I’m here right? They’re literally in my room right now.” He asks, glaring at you. You can hear the other two men laugh at you, but you can admit that you’re stubborn. When you said you wouldn’t go out of your way to be “their” friend, you really meant “his” friend. As in Johnny.

“Okay Jaehyun, you’re an exception since you took care of Haechan while I stole his bed.”

He simply nods in approval and immediately pulls away from the screen with a small “damn right I am”.

The group chat with Johnny in it stays dry, but you, Mark, and Haechan constantly talk in the other group chat anyway. You can almost predict the time of day now when Johnny tries to leave the chat again only to have Haechan immediately add him back. It’s funny, kind of annoying, and mostly pointless because it’s not like anyone actually talks there anyway. You assume it’s because your very stupid and pushy friends anticipate you and Johnny to actually have a conversation there. And even if you did want to talk to him, it’s not like you’d let them sit there and read it until after the fact depending on how it goes, so honestly. The “Porn Pals” group chat is dead to the world. Dry, like a desert, much like you.

Today Mark invited you to go see a movie with the two of them because Taeyong is working on weekdays now, and he lets you guys sneak in vodka as long as you’re not obnoxious. No, this isn’t something you’d usually be up for doing, but you find yourself incredibly relaxed around these dudes and you’re finally able to be yourself around them without feeling embarrassed. You still haven’t opened up about your past because for some reason you’re still afraid they may just dip on you after learning about it. They don’t seem like the type to judge you based on where you come from, but they seem like the type to openly talk about it with the other guys in the house, making you feel uncomfortable and vulnerable.

You wonder if you’ll continue to drink and party with them throughout the next semester, it doesn’t seem so bad. Worry still bubbles up when you think about it, now isn’t the time to allow yourself to slack on anything. But you do realize that it’s probably for the best that you don’t slave over your laptop for days on end over an exam that you’re perfectly confident in passing. It would be hard to not want to see Mark or Haechan for a bit of a break anyway.

You pride yourself in intelligence though, you just have a hard time trusting that you can accomplish anything, but they always hype you up. Mark always assures you that he would never let you forget to study when it’s needed, and Haechan is also quick to tell you that you think too lowly about yourself and should know by now that you’ll be fine because you’re a hard worker and only want what’s best, even if that means being miserable.

It’s not so miserable anymore, slipping on your shoes and stepping out of your door to greet the two dopey looking messy college boys on your porch.

“We have to take an uber.” Haechan pouts.

Mark rolls his eyes and steps to the side so you can squeeze between them.

“I told him we could just walk, the theater is only a few blocks past campus—” He looks at you. “Tell him we should just walk.”

Haechan groans louder, stiffening his shoulders as the wind picks up and blows his hair in every direction humanly possible.

“It’s literally about to rain, fuck walking dude.” He looks over at you, noticing your sniffling nose. “Mark, learn to drive already.”

Mark doesn’t see any reason to drive, everything is walking distance and he enjoys the alone time he gets from it. Plus, it keeps him in shape for the most part. Haechan always opts to ride with Johnny or drive Caroline. Speaking of—

“Yo, why didn’t you just ask Johnny to drive his car?” Mark questions, scooting in closer to you and squishing you between himself and Haechan. Clearly, you’re walking, but you stay quiet, also wondering why Haechan didn’t ask.

He shoots a look at Mark. “Johnny has plans.”

Mark snorts, because based on the way he was dressed today, lounging around and not in a hurry, clearly he doesn’t have plans.

“Johnny always dresses up when he has plans?” Mark tilts his head, oblivious.

“Not sex plans.” Haechan corrects him. “He’s just got stuff to do today.”

Low key, Johnny offered to drive them when he and Haechan were passing by each other in the hallway, but Haechan said he wanted to walk. Mostly because he knew you guys were like two brick walls built too close together in a town with far too much space for the situation. But also, because he knew you wouldn’t want to go if Johnny was driving you. Likewise, if Johnny knew you were even invited, which he didn’t.

“Um—ok?” Mark just looks at him, Haechan usually would just say what Johnny’s up to, but he drops it.

“Anyway I have vodka in my hoodie.” Haechan changes the subject as he realizes he brought the vodka, and not the umbrella. Mark assured him that they would make it before the rain started if they walked though.

You laugh, not really liking the taste but hoping you can buy a drink at the theater so you can at least have a chaser or something to mix it with.

“What’s wrong? Vodka too gross for you?” Mark jokes. “Don’t worry, Taeyong buys us drinks since he doesn’t pay as much in rent. It was an easy trade.” He continues to explain. “We like our alcohol mixed with shit too.”

It’s almost like he knows what you’re thinking, you barely even have to talk when they’re around. They include you in every conversation even if you say nothing. Sometimes speaking for you, and it’s almost always spot on too. Exactly what you would have wanted to say or were thinking of how to say properly. The best part? You find yourself sometimes talking just as much with them about absolute bullshit and they don’t judge you for it. You want to kick yourself for waiting so long to accept having friends in your life, for not fully trusting them with your past, and for not realizing that it’s possible that some people just want what’s best for you. Even if they’re a terrible influence and taking you to a movie theater to get absolutely shit faced on the down low.

“Aren’t you cold?” Haechan finally pulls you out of your train of thought, looking over at Mark, who was huddled tightly in his oversized hoodie.

“Fucking freezing.” You whine, your fingers are like ice and you curse yourself for not wearing a thicker jacket, but it’s not like you were expecting to have to walk. You would have pitched in for an uber.

Haechan was quick to grab one of your hands and hold it in his hoodie pocket, Mark matching his action on the other side. You kind of blush at how stupid the three of you look, but it’s platonic and comforting in the way your icy fingers rest against their slightly warmer ones. It’s still cold out, but your heart feels a lot warmer, all you can do is smile.

“I think you guys might be my favorite thing about college,” You sigh out, feeling a raindrop hit your forehead. Thankfully you’d just walked past the school and the theater wasn’t much further.

“Stop being cute, Mark might fall in love.” Haechan jokes but then looks over at you. “I bet myself mcdonalds that I’d be your favorite person, by the way.” You can feel him squeeze your hand. “So, I’m buying myself a burger when we get done.”

“Now—Hold on!” Mark deadpans. “She said we both are her favorite!”

“I’ll just try a lot harder to win.”

You laugh at how dumb he sounds, but you’re happy that he thought of you in his free time, wanting to be your friend even though you had little to offer in terms of fun or even personality. It’s not like you don’t have personality, because you definitely do. You just tend to keep it tightly wrapped within yourself since you’d gone so long avoiding people. Is it even possible now to find it again?

“You don’t really have to try—” You pause and look down as you hop onto the curb to pass into the theater parking lot. “I think I liked you the second I met you when we took our exams.”

The way Haechan smiles at you, ears and nose rosy and eyes glistening from the wind hitting them.

“Wouldn’t want to get shitfaced in a theater with any other pair of idiots, anyway.” You correct yourself, knowing Mark felt left out.

Now Haechan feels kind of bad because you’re probably going to be mad at him after this. Not even Mark knows what’s up. His stomach flips a little bit, hoping you meant what you said for real.

After Taeyong does as promised by the two men, the three of you practically race each other through the mostly empty movie theater. It was a weekday after all and raining as well. Still, Mark won the race to the center row because that asshole launched himself the second he rounded the corner and practically flipped over every row of seats in his path. Haechan was struggling with the vodka heavy in his pocket, but still grabbed your hand and pulled you behind him.

You were a bit confused at the seating arrangement though. Mark plopped down in the very center row, Haechan sitting directly next to him, and you having to pick which one you wanted to sit by. You figured you’d be in the middle.

“This is an important choice.” Haechan says, slipping the surprisingly large bottle out of his hoodie, in all honesty you couldn’t even tell that the bottle was so big considering the large size of his attire that day. “It’s me or Mark.” He adds, opening the cap.

You shake your head and glare at him as he pours a heavy amount of vodka into his half-filled soda. “I’m picking Mark since you’re forcing me to choose.”

Mark looks pleased and pats the seat next to him, popping the lid of his own soda for Haechan to give him some of that precious alcohol. Then he looks over at you. “How much do you want?” You shrug, popping your lid as well and handing him the cup. Mark poured it at first, but then Haechan quickly presses on the bottle firmly as to add more.

Mark just looks at him, confused. “Trust me, she will need it.” He whispers, eyes flicking over to you and watching you adjust in your seat to get comfortable.

The theater is empty and it’s probably because this movie had been out for a while. Barely twenty minutes in the three of you are already giggling like idiots and trying to drink every time a character in the movie is shirtless. Again, twenty minutes in, you’re already woozy.

Haechan seems slightly aloof, but looks to be having fun anyway. You wonder if it’s because you didn’t sit by him, but for some reason you highly doubt that. You also wonder if it’s because he’s afraid someone will come in and catch the three of you getting drunk. Nah, they’re clearly experienced in doing this. Then you find out why he’s constantly looking at the entrance of the theater.

A figure walks in and jogs up the stairs, in your tipsy brain you cannot make out the face, but you can definitely make out the voice when he says “Sorry I’m late, I stopped by the store first.” You can hear bags of snacks crinkling in his pockets, but you still can’t understand why he’s here. Sure he’s their friend, but they invited you knowing full well that you and this man don’t get along.

Mark immediately looks over at you in a panic. “I swear to god—” He takes a large sip of his drink and whispers. “I had no idea he was coming.”

You look over again as your eyes adjust and see the one and only Johnny. As expected, though it shouldn’t have been. Then your eyes dart to Haechan, who is nervously glancing at you.

This was a fucking set up, that little shit.

Then Johnny notices you and looks down at Haechan with a glare. “This was a fucking set up.”

For some reason it shocks you that he had the exact same reaction you had to this little mishap, and you simply lean back and hide yourself from view using Mark as a shield. If Johnny sits over there by Haechan, you’ll be perfectly fine having Mark as your only drinking partner today anyway.

“It was an honest mistake.” Haechan looks up at Johnny batting his eyelashes as much as he possibly can to get him to stay, also making grabby hands at his pockets for snacks.

“Move your feet, I’m sitting here. I’m not leaving until the rain lets up.” Johnny scolds him, staring down at the seat Haechan had very quickly laid across with his legs. “Seats taken. Try somewhere else.”

“You’re not getting any snacks if you’re being serious right now.” Johnny almost pleads in a bribe, but Haechan only shrugs in response knowing he will probably still get some of those snacks anyway.

And though Johnny had every chance in the world to pick any other seat in the theater, he looks over at the seat next to you. Mark, also being a little shit throws his legs up on the seat in front of him, laughing at the way Johnny huffs out at audible groan and literally leaves the row of seats, circles around, and plops down next to you.

Truth is that Johnny is fine sitting next to you. He just knows you have something against him, and he also knows Haechan is a little shit for doing this. It’s not going to be fun sitting here being ignored because you’re sitting there between him and his best friends. You’re also not getting any snacks.

“Don’t talk to me, and I wont talk to you.” He whispers out to you, staring at the screen and reaching over you to give Mark his cup to fill.

“Didn’t plan on it.” You say back in a huff, and Mark shifts beside you. He knows he could just switch seats with you, but it’s kind of funny. So nah.

“Sh!” Johnny shushes you with a furrow in his brow, sounding like an absolute child as he reaches back over you to grab his cup back from Mark and immediately takes a large gulp of it.

You couldn’t help but get a whiff of him as he reached across you that time, kind of ashamed that you think someone like him smells good. Dull cologne and cold winter rain. Slightly sweet, even. Probably from the assumed candy in his pockets. You wonder if you smell okay too, since you have to sit so close to him of course—you don’t need him finding something else to laugh at you for.

You take another drink from your own cup after hearing Johnny directly next to you downing his so quickly, you almost want to race him to the mind-numbing drunkenness so this situation stops being such a fucking drag.

By the time the movie is at the halfway point, you can barely focus on the screen as you grab at Mark’s hand and tell him you really need to go to the bathroom. It’s cute the way he has a gummy worm half hanging out of his mouth when he jolts at the sudden interaction from you, but he has no issues in jumping up and kicking Haechan’s feet off of the chair blocking his path. Sure, he wobbles a little bit when he does it, but you know he will take you to the bathroom just so you can get him alone to talk about the asshole next to you.

Immediately upon seeing the lights outside of the door, you start talking shit.

“Why the fuck does he have to be here?” You whine, holding onto his arm so you can ground yourself properly.

“No idea, but it’s not so bad. It’s not like you guys are talking or anything.” Mark shrugs, opening the bathroom door and walking you inside. You don’t even question that he came in with you.

“Y/n, do you want to slow down on drinking?” He asks, laughing at the way you slap the bathroom stall open and don’t even close the door before pulling your pants down.

“Nah, I need to drink if he’s going to be here.” You say, peeing.

Mark averts his eyes and makes faces at himself in the mirror, knowing Johnny hasn’t left yet because he wants you to notice him.

“Truth or dare?” Mark says, smiling at himself.

“The fuck you mean, ‘truth or dare’?” You question, stopping mid-stream.

Mark laughs at how comfortable you are with him, but it’s really no different than hanging out with the dude bros, so it’s nothing new to him except the fact that it’s in a pink public theater bathroom. He thinks that’s why you guys click so well, you’re not outwardly trying to seem cool or even attractive to them. The only time they’ve ever seen you dressed up was the night you had to sleep over. He appreciates that you live your life without always being the center of attention, that would get exhausting. Though he still gets the vibes that you crave the attention from others at times, he assumes that’s just because you’ve allowed yourself to be alone and maybe you kind of deserve some attention.

“Answer the question, unless you’re—”

“I’m not scared. Dare.”

“Dare you to ask Johnny what you missed in the movie.” He laughs, knowing it’s a simple request.

You laugh back in a mocking tone, finishing up your business and preparing to come out of the stall.

“Dare you to stop trying to make me be friends with him.” You retort as you sway your way to the sink to wash your hands.

“He’s a nice guy. Just talk to him.”

You shake your head again and look in the mirror. “Y’know what? I’ll do it for you. And if it goes south, you have to promise you’ll never ask me to do this again.”

You’d rather do this drunk anyway, at least Haechan had the decency of offering you a drunk set up rather than a sober one.

“Deal.” Mark immediately responds, proud of himself and taking your hand to drag you back to the theater. And in all honesty, he half expected Johnny to move seats at the very least to offer you a more comfortable atmosphere. But he didn’t, and he assumes it’s because his ego is hurt and is fighting his own pride.

When he sat down with you next to him, he immediately noticed you finishing your drink and looking at him for more. There is no soda at all in your cup and at this point, straight vodka might help the situation anyway. Thankfully, Mark is a nice person and pours some of his soda and vodka mixture into your cup to try and balance it out for you.

Once you have your drink back, you glance over at Johnny. He was rubbing his eye slightly with one hand, the other resting under his chin as he chews on his candy. He is clearly pretending to pay attention to the movie though you can tell his eyes aren’t focused. If you didn’t know who he was, you’d half expect him to just be some random homeless man with the way he’s dressed. He probably thinks he looks humble. You scoff.

“Hey—umm.” You blurt out a little too loudly. Haechan and Mark both slapping each other in anticipation and snapping their heads to look at you.

“What did I miss?” You question, finally looking up and meeting his eye. Intimidating.

“I don’t know, I was talking to Haechan the whole time.” He whispers to you, knowing full well that Haechan was just trying to help him. “Why are you talking to me again?”

You shrug, taking another drink. “Dunno. Just wanted to talk I guess—um.” You cringe at the lie.

Johnny looks at you in fake shock. Mark and Haechan watching the both of you because it’s more entertaining than the movie.

“Take a shot every time she says ‘um’.” Haechan whispers out to Mark.

“No, no. Dude. Take a shot every time Johnny looks at her when she’s not looking.” Mark whispers back. “She wont talk long enough for us to make a game out of it—” He adds. Haechan snickers beside him. “Smart boy.”

Johnny just looks at you for a second before shaking his head with a sarcastic laugh. “You mean to tell me, after how many times I’ve tried to talk to you—” He takes a sip in an obnoxiously loud slurp.” You choose now? In the middle of a movie?” The way he maintains eye contact with you is incredibly uncomfortable and makes you feel vulnerable for even trying.

“We aren’t even watching it.” You argue back, taking an even bigger sip of your own drink.

“Okay, what do you want to talk about then?” Johnny says in the most uninterested tone he can muster up.

You just glare back at him and adjust yourself so that you’re looking forward again.

”Never mind then, fuck.”

Mark leans over to whisper to you, smelling heavily of alcohol. “Dare you to touch his leg.”

Without hesitating, you just say fuck it. You’re already annoyed at him for being just as snide as always. You think of nothing and feel nothing when you, very obviously, slap your hand down hard on his leg and don’t even look at him, holding your hand in place.

Johnny’s mouth falls open as he just stares at your hand, then he looks at you in confusion. “What the fuck?” He asks, slapping your hand off him. You immediately slap it back onto his leg causing Mark to nearly choke on his drink in laughter.

“Bro can’t believe she did it, I was just jo—”

“Stop being fucking weird dude!” Johnny says in a pitch higher than usual. “Why are you touching me?!” He slaps your hand off again.

You slap it right the fuck back on and he gives up, aggressively slapping his own hand on your leg.

“Oh!” Haechan laughs again. “He pulled a reverse uno card.”

You freeze feeling the warmth from his palm against you, and you refuse to look down at how big it probably is spread across your thigh. You take a sip, realizing that you’re entirely too drunk to have a man’s hands on you right now. Johnny or not, you haven’t been touched anywhere besides your hands in a long time. You gently pull your hand away from him and swipe his away. Without question you lift your legs up to your chest, push the arm rest from between you and Mark up, and scooch in as closely as possible to him.

“I did it. Never ask me to talk to him again.” You whisper.

Both Haechan and Mark take a drink the second they see Johnny looking at you.

Johnny intended on drinking, but he also intended on sobering up with some shitty theater food before driving home. That didn’t happen because you were there. The movie ended and all of you were too drunk to stand straight. Things were weird, but a little less weird after Johnny heard you joking so comfortably with his friends. He was jealous that he couldn’t join in, but he did enjoy listening to it, maybe even laughing at a few of your jokes.

He didn’t understand why you suddenly tried talking to him, he didn’t understand why he automatically responded in the way he did, and he definitely didn’t understand the leg slapping fest but, what he did understand was that you looked pretty when he was sober and you looked even prettier when his eyes were adjusted to the dim lighting and you were sitting next to him, animated and smiling. He was slightly sad that he didn’t just let you talk to him, his pride eating him alive. He did try to be nice before, but now he’s just so frustrated at the way you’ve spoken to him that he almost doesn’t think you deserve to be his friend anymore. That still doesn’t change the fact that he really, really, wants to know you in a way that isn’t so hateful or full of doubt in the very least.

So yeah, he’s too drunk to drive and too stupid to navigate any situation that involves you right now, at least in a proper way that won’t result in you hating him even more. Which is strange considering he’s never had any issues making friends. Thankfully Taeyong was going to get off work an hour or so after the movie ended, and he groaned entirely too loud watching the four of you stumble like idiots out of the theater room.

“God, I’m never letting this happened again.” Taeyong sighs to himself, watching the way Haechan walks directly into a large steel trash bin and immediately cries out like he’s a goner.

“Johnny, give me your keys.” Taeyong scolds him in a disappointed voice because usually Johnny is the babysitter and never allows himself to get this drunk outside of their house. He watches the way the man scrambles to get his keys out of his pockets, smiling when he notices all of his empty candy wrappers floating to the floor after he hands them over. “Oh my god. I literally give you guys free candy out of my pay check.” Taeyong pinches the bridge of his nose and places a hand on his hip. “and why the fuck are you smiling so big? The movie isn’t even that good.”

“He got to sit by his mortal enemy.” Mark comments as serious as he can. “And they had a fight!” Haechan adds, holding his arm as if that’s what he hit rather than his shin on the trash bin.

Taeyong looks at you. You’re smiling and laughing about it because they’re spot fucking on. Then he looks at Johnny. “You’re smiling because you had a fight?”

Johnny nods in a stupidly cute way, causing you to wonder if you really do have it all wrong about him.

“Uh— okay I guess?” Taeyong finally says as he reaches down to clean up Johnny’s mess. He looks up after placing the wrappers into the trash and watches the way you look at Johnny, then the way Johnny looks back at you. Taeyong doesn’t realize it, but this is the first time you’ve ever smiled at Johnny. You were beginning to soften up a little bit based on the way he’s acting alone right now, and sure it may just be the alcohol making you think he’s easier to be around, but you genuinely think you could endure drunk Johnny. Maybe not the sober one, but this feels okay.

Taeyong looks at Haechan and Mark next, pointing between the two of you with a raised brow. Both of them just shrug and wobble away from him.

“Where the fuck are you two going?!” Taeyong whisper shouts. “You’re going to get me fired!”

“Come unlock Johnny’s car! We can sit in it ‘til you get off work and drive us home!”

“Who said I was going to drive you home?!” Taeyong stomps his foot, pointing down at the floor as to tell them to come right the fuck back here, right now.

“I did!” Johnny calls out, walking past him and catching up with Haechan and Mark. You’re just kind of left standing there off balance when Taeyong looks at you with the same disappointed look he gave to your friends.

“And what’s your excuse?”

“I hate Johnny so I had to drink more?” You try to say.

“No you don’t. Come on.” He softens up and gently grabs your arm to walk you to the group of very annoying drunkards. “I know women more than you know women apparently.” He whispers to you as he walks with you. “The way you looked at him doesn’t tell me you hate him.”’

You soak in what he’s saying. But he’s wrong.

“I’m literally a woman.” You argue at him, trying to make an excuse. “Who hasn’t been laid in like a year?” He adds with a sarcastic question.

You realize that you don’t hate Taeyong or feel any anger towards him, but if Johnny were to say that you’d be crawling out of your skin just to punch him in the face.

“You guys have a lot of chemistry.” He says to you, watching the way the other three men are standing by the door and laughing way too loudly together. “You probably can’t tell, but we can.”

Kind of annoyed that he is talking to you like he has all the wisdom in the world to give to you, you stop and stand there for a moment. “That ‘chemistry’ you see? That’s just the sheer amount of dislike I have for him.”

Taeyong tilts his head and turns towards you.

“Why is it that you don’t like him? I’ve never even seen you guys actually interact before today.”

“I don’t know! I just don’t!”

He glares at you.

“Maybe I don’t like you as much as I thought I did.” He says blankly, feeling a bit hurt that you’re being so harsh to Johnny for no known reason that you can come up with.

You look to the floor, and back up at the group of drunk men by the door. Your eyes fixate on Johnny and you think he must really hate you for how you act towards him. You really didn’t have a reason to feel so hostile towards him. Sure, he embarrassed you, but so did everyone else and you still didn’t hold it against them. You think that even if you wanted to try and be his friend now, he probably wouldn’t want that.

“Why?” Is all you can question back to Taeyong.

“Not to sound harsh, but you’re kind of a bitch.”

You are.

“I don’t know why I’m like this. I’m sorry.” You say back, walking past him and immediately towards Mark.

Mark gets a single look at you and his eyes shoot up to Taeyong. Johnny realizes and also looks over to Taeyong. Then Haechan looks at him.

“Okay! Time to lock you guys in the car ‘til I get off work! Let’s go!” Taeyong averts his eyes and tries to steer the situation somewhere else. Sure, he probably hurt your feelings but you kind of deserved it.

By the time the four of you huddled into the car it was freezing outside and still slightly raining. Haechan had immediately thrown himself into the driver’s seat and pretended to “vroom vroom” like a child. Mark tried to get into the back seat with you to see what happened between you and Taeyong, but Haechan pulled him into the passenger’s side directly over him, causing Johnny to yell about getting footprints on his dashboard.

You laugh about it because there’s definitely a scuff mark. You’d also never been in a car so nice before. It smelled nice, felt nice, and looked nice. You wonder how it felt to drive.

“God, he could have at least turned on the heater.” Haechan whines, slouching in his seat and slipping the last little bit of vodka out of his hoodie.

You’re thankful they didn’t bombard you with questions over what just happened. It’s not anything serious, just something you needed to think about and process on your own. You know you carry yourself in a way that seems like you’re a bitch. No question about it. But that doesn’t stop it from hurting when someone so blatantly calls you out on it. You always say you don’t know why you’re this way, but you know very well that it’s just to give people the option to leave you without it hurting so bad. You know it’s your fault, but you’re a little bit mad at yourself for continuing on with this, even if it’s not how you truly want to act. It’s almost on instinct to become defensive and proud of who you are when in reality, it’s nothing to defend or be proud of.

“He’s going to be off in less than an hour—” Mark comments, eyeing the bottle.

Johnny is quiet when he got into the car next to you and you couldn’t find any strength to be mad about it at this point, instead you just kind of scoot closer to the door and shiver at how much colder it is against the window.

“You gonna share that last shot?” Mark questions at Haechan, reaching for the bottle.

“Nope.”

“Dude, give me some!” Mark whines in an annoying voice as he throws himself at Haechan to wrestle the bottle out of his hands.

“I said no!”

“Guys!” Johnny shouts with a sudden laugh. “Let’s play a game and whoever wins, gets the shot?”

You look over at him, kind of in awe at how he’s acting just like the two you claim are your friends. Still turned off completely by even the slightest idea of him acting like the all too innocent Mark, or the obnoxious baby boy that is Haechan. Johnny radiates chaos on top of it all and, dare you say, it could be a welcome change in your life if it weren’t for the immense number of walls you’ve built around yourself. Mark and Haechan barely chipped those walls and you practically flung the door open for them. Johnny though? He’s still digging with nothing but a spoon, and you hate yourself for enjoying it. For being so mean to him and enjoying the attention you get from it knowing he just wanted to offer his friendship to you.

You scoff out to yourself at what your brain is telling you as you watch him, this causes him to look over at you and study the look on your face for a moment. You confuse yourself and everyone around you when it comes to this man.

“Do you wanna play for the shot?” Johnny asks you, still slurring his words and squinting his eyes in a smile.

You wonder if he always would have been like this towards you if the circumstances were different when he originally introduced himself to you. You can admit that you’re toxic, you can admit that you can’t help but push away from certain people for no other reason than just deciding you don’t like them, but what you can’t admit is that you probably needed his friendship the most. To pull you out of the shell you’ve built around yourself, to learn that not everyone can be judged in two colors, and that you’re not any better than everyone else in the world just because you overcame your homelife.

You’re not ready for that, you’re not completely ready to realize that Johnny is likable. Lovable even, in the way his cheeks perk up with any face he makes, the way his messy hair doesn’t need to be fixed, and the way his hands seems to touch everyone and everything so gently that you couldn’t imagine him ever using them to cause pain. But it’s not the physical attributes to you that determine true lovability and endearing concepts of a person. It’s the brain and the way a person thinks.

You don’t even know how Johnny thinks or what his dreams are in life, and regardless of all of this, you can’t assume it’s anything good because you just don’t want to. Despite moments ago, wanting to be different and feel differently, you just don’t know how to stop. You want him to be an enemy, because if he becomes anything more than that to you, you’re afraid of what he will offer in your life.

“No.” You say in response, still snide and rude like usual. Fooling yourself into believing you don’t want to play.

“Yeah you do.” Johnny comments with a roll of his eyes.

You ignore it, because why is he reading you in something as simple as whether or not you want to play a stupid game?

“Rainy day trapped in a car games!” Haechan shouts, slamming on the horn.

“Don’t hit my car!” Johnny averts his attention from you back to Haechan.

“I honked the car, I didn’t hit it.” Haechan corrects him in a laugh, dangling the bottle with the last bit of vodka sloshing at the bottom.

“Well don’t fucking honk her then.”

Mark laughs about it, because if anyone else were listening they’d think Johnny is fucking his car.

“What’s the game then?” You finally squeak up, still separated from Johnny in the small space the car offers. The window only getting colder, you look over at him and wonder if he’s just as cold as the window if you were to lean against him.

“I’m too drunk to think—” Mark admits in shame. He, for whatever reason, thinks all of you are depending on him for thinking up the game. “Give me a minute to think.”

Haechan shakes his head at him, staring at the last bit. He feels like a cave man fighting over the last piece of bread.

“Lets just play would you rather.” Haechan tries to offer an option.

“How would we even determine a winner?” Johnny questions him as if it were an interrogation. “Huh? How would someone win?” He adds, reaching forward and ruffling Haechan’s hair in a loving way. You kind of smile up at the dynamic he has with Haechan because it’s so similar to your own. Maybe Haechan just has that effect on people.

“Wait that could work though!” Mark throws in his own opinions. “If we make someone choose between really fucked up options, and they don’t pick, they’re out!”

“We’d just pick one even if we don’t mean it though?” You laugh out.

“You mean to tell me, if I asked you to pick between murdering me or fucking Johnny, you’d pick one just for a shot of vodka?”

You glare at him.

“Fair enough.”

Johnny felt irked that you wouldn’t immediately say you’d fuck him so Mark wouldn’t die. Kind of insulting that you’d have issues picking between sex with him versus the murder of your friend.

“This is gonna be fun.” Haechan snickers out, feeling kind of left out from the awkwardness in the back seat.

“Who goes first?” Johnny asks, leaning up between the two seats up front, leaving you sitting in the back feeling alone.

“You can go first since we’re in your car.” Haechan suggests, granting him a nod from the two men.

“Y/n,” Johnny immediately says. You throw your hand to your face and shake your head. Of course he’s coming to be an asshole again. You’re literally trying to find a reason to like him right now, but the second he talks to you, anything you ever thought about him that had a hint of kindness is now gone. It doesn’t exist.

“What?” You answer, watching him flop himself back against the seat next to you, closer to you.

“Would you rather—” He pauses for a second to try and think of something as awful as possible, so you get an out. Because if you stay in the game, the assholes in the front are going to make this real weird real fast for both of you.

“Would you rather make out with Mark or Haechan?” He laughs, thinking he can make it awkward for them too.

Little does he know, that’s not even a difficult question to answer. Nor is it awkward for you. He must not know how close you’ve become with them. Basing his question on the fact that you seem uninterested and grossed out by the very idea of being intimate with any of them. Neither of you know each other in the slightest bit.

“Haechan.” You respond quickly, without question.

Johnny is shocked you answered it like that, seeing the way Haechan gives himself a gold star at the response and how Mark crosses him arm with a sulking face.

“Mark, I love you but you you’d probably cry at the idea of kissing me.”

Both Johnny and Haechan laugh at the answer even though you weren’t supposed to choose. Guess he made the choices too easy for you, guess you three were a lot closer than he thought. Guess he’s a little jealous again.

“What make you think that?!” Mark whines, feeling like a child.

“You seem like the type to only kiss people you wanna date.” You laugh.

“Spot fucking on bro.” Haechan laughs again, the way you can read Mark’s character so clearly is a bit surprising to Johnny though.

“Anyway… “ Mark adds, looking back at you. “You’re probably not a good kisser anyway. Your turn.”

“Excuse me!?” You laugh, mock defending yourself. “I’ll have you know I won best kisser in the world award.”

“Bro just take your turn!” Mark laughs as he brushes you off. Both of you knew it was a joke, no one was hurt.

You think for a moment and wonder if you should ask Johnny or one of the others. You’re a little confused that he threw such an easy choice your way, as insulting as it may seem to Mark. You choose to ask Mark so he feels better.

“Mark, would you rather never wipe your ass again or have to wipe Haechan’s ass for the rest of your life?”

Johnny snorts because that’s gross.

“I’m out. Bye.” Mark immediately states with a finger in the air. “Why would you make me try and pick between those two?!”

“I want the last shot.” You say with a shrug.

“Well so do I!” Mark’s voice breaks when he says it with a fake pout.

“Too bad, you’re out.” Johnny adds, ruffling the smaller man’s hair.

It’s still your turn since you fucked up Mark’s vibes. Nice. Time to get Johnny out.

“Johnny—” You pause, wanting to insult him somehow for no reason other than self-comfort in the way your brain is softening up towards him. You want it, but you don’t want it. “Would you rather lose your car or lose Haechan.”

“The car obviously? The fuck kind of question is that?”

Haechan gives himself another golden star for being the most loved person in the world.

“My bad, figured you appreciated material things over people.” You laugh.

“Again with the judging huh?” Johnny shakes his head at you and huffs through his nose. He very well might just give up on you completely at this point. Haechan, thankfully pipes in to avoid the tense situation that seems to be building.

“Johnny go!”

“Yeah, whatever.” He groans in a way that shows you that you struck a chord.

“Haechan, would you rather—” He pauses. “No, y/n, would you rather learn how to be a decent human being or hmm—” He looks around, and then back at you. “stop being a stuck-up bitch?”

“I’m out.” You comment with little to no emotion.

Johnny just glares at you, and you continue to look back at him.

“Guys, stop.” Mark scolds and causes you both to break eye contact. “I really thought better of both of you.” He adds and looks over to Johnny. “Stop acting like this when I know it isn’t you.”

Johnny is pissed that Mark called him out on the act when you’re the one always causing the drama.

“And Y/n?” Mark finally looks over to you, but you look away. “Johnny has every right to kick you out of the car right now, he had every ability to leave today, and he also could have been mean as shit in his first question—” He’s really just annoyed at both of you. “But he didn’t, and do you want to know why he didn’t? Because he’s actually trying to be nice to you.”

You look up at Mark and you’ve never seen this look on his face before.

“We are all trying to have a good time and you’re both fucking it up.” He adds as he looks between both of you looking as guilty as you can. He’s mad at how sobering the two of you manage to make this outing.

Haechan is just sitting there, woozy and a little too drunk for this situation.

“Mark, let’s just share the last shot and not give them any.” He tries to lighten up and it works. Mark immediately flips himself back around and watches Haechan take a quick sip of the vodka, then he downs the rest himself.

You’re half ready to get out of the car and just walk home in the rain, but you know they’d just think you’re being dramatic and probably get more mad at you. Maybe you shouldn’t have asked Johnny to choose between his car or Haechan. You’re the reason the game went south because you don’t know how to play nice.

Then you feel a buzzing in your pocket. You grab your phone and see it’s from an unknown number. It’s not hard to know it’s Johnny because you see his number constantly being added to the group chat on the daily.

Unknown Number: I don’t know why I want to be friends with you

You respond, thankful that you’re not having to talk to him directly, even though he’s sitting right next to you. You don’t have the energy now to keep the same attitude now, feeling drunk and guilty..

You: I don’t know why I don’t want to be friends with you

You can feel him look over at you as Mark and Haechan both ignore the situation in the back seat. You’re still drunk, you can imagine everyone else is too. But you’re mad at yourself for making it weird. When is Taeyong getting off? It’s had to of been at least half an hour right? He should be out soon, right? Not that you want to face him either, considering he called you a bitch. Guess you’re the enemy of the day.

Unknown Number: better find a reason then

You: you’re too pushy

Unknown Number: I haven’t even pushed you

You: you’re the one who hates me?

Unknown Number: since when did I ever say that?

Unknown Number: you’re friends with all of my friends, what makes you think I’m so different from them?

You: gut feeling

Unknown Number: oh? so you’re not a robot?

You: okay stop texting me now

Unknown Number: not until you apologize

You don’t respond for a few moments, wanting to reach out and crawl into the front seat with the two men who you’d have no issues apologizing to.

Unknown Number: the least you could do is actually talk to me before assuming I’d choose my car over my best friend

You: ok? the least you can do is not call me a bitch?

Unknown Number: I’ll apologize after you.

You: im not talking to you about this right now. I don’t want Mark to be mad at me because of you.

Unknown Number: he’s not mad at you and it’s not even my fault like?

You: it’s literally your fault

You know it’s not his fault.

Unknown Number: you’re in MY car with MY friends and you’re blaming ME because YOU decided to be a snarky bitch?

You: Again with the name calling? I’m not sober enough for this right now

Unknown Number: and I am??? why can’t we just talk like adults for once?

You don’t know why you’re fighting an internal war over this man. If you really hated him, why is he so persistent in your brain? Do you love to hate him? Love the attention you get from it? You’re acting like a child and you truly have never felt like this towards anyone before. You’ve never gone out of your way to feel hate because usually you just move on after determining how you feel about someone. Not Johnny though. Maybe you should try and step out of your own head for once and try to figure out why.

You: you’re right.

Johnny smiles to himself at the victory of you finally admitting that you’re at least a little bit wrong.

You: as a very drunk adult, I ask that we discuss this further when my schedule allows it.

You can hear Johnny laugh to himself.

Unknown Number: your schedule always allows it, you’re literally with mark or haechan constantly doing bullshit

You: just text me later ok? this is weird

Unknown Number: then save my number already

You look over at him and see him looking directly at your phone, you can see that he saved yours.

stupid asshole: change the name. I KNOW you saved it under something mean

You: and what did you save mine under?

You can hear him snickering.

stupid asshole: none of your business

You immediately launch yourself over towards him and grab his phone, seeing that he has your contact name saved at “cute neighbor” with a sunshine emoji next to it. You can see him blush when you see it, and then you realize that this is technically flirting, though you both almost just had a fight. You pull back the moment you see Mark and Haechan looking at you.

You: okay, ill change your contact name since you were being nice

maybe stupid asshole: you weren’t supposed to see that

You: well I did and I don’t rly know how to comprehend that it wasn’t “pornstar wannabe” or something

maybe stupid asshole: you would be able to comprehend it if you actually knew me

You’re feeling a little better at the thought of Johnny. You’re too stubborn and he knows it. You know it. Everyone knows it. Just as you were about to respond to him Taeyong swings open the door and demands that Haechan get in the backseat. “You guys are insufferable.” He scolds as Haechan shoves you into the middle seat beside Johnny.

Mark looks back at him with question, wondering what kind of chaos he must be praying for to not just crawl over you and squeeze between the two of you. Haechan just points at his phone, knowing Mark hadn’t updated himself on the dude’s group chat where Johnny had sent screenshots of their entire conversation.

“Nice.” Mark says out loud, and all you can think about is the way Johnny doesn’t tense up the way you did when your legs squished into him.

maybe stupid asshole: sober yet?

You’d gotten home a little while ago and have since eaten everything you could possibly find in your fridge. Mark and Haechan had walked you to the door as Taeyong and Johnny rushed to get back inside of their own house due to the rain.

You were about to take a bubble bath and then pass the fuck out when you got his text message, and yeah, you’re pretty sobered up now considering the slight headache coming on. You always got headaches if you got drunk and sobered up the same day rather than sleeping through it.

You: I guess, you?

Wondering if you should trust your pride or your gut when it comes to Johnny, you’re all too confused when you think about the situation as a whole. You told him that you had a gut feeling about him in a negative way, but it was a lie. In the back of your head you know why you’re so mean to him all the time, and it’s because you know you shouldn’t be. You want to push yourself to keep the same energy from the day you met him. You always tell yourself that you have a good reason, though you don’t. Because the reason is you, and not Johnny at all. Mark and Haechan both have told you that he’s a good guy. Taeyong got mad at you for acting the way you do towards him, and even Jaehyun had a heart to heart with you about him.

Admittedly, you’re very dislikable and hard to approach so you’re shocked any of Johnny’s friends even deal with you or continue to invite you over. You have tried to be as unpleasant as possible but still managed to become great friends with them.

You’ve already admitted to yourself that you’re just being difficult, but you still blame Johnny. Mostly because you enjoy that he’s fighting you just to get you to be nice to him. He’s giving you attention that you’d ever had before. Always being brushed off by people you wanted to be friends with, you never thought someone would be the same as you, except you’re the one brushing them off.

The fact that Johnny is attractive doesn’t help either. Why does someone like him so desperately try to be involved in your life? Why is he always inserting himself when he could go out and make friends with anyone he wants? It’s his fault you like the attention, even if it’s negative. You worry if you give him what he wants, he will learn that you’re not worthy of friendship. He will get bored with you and you will suddenly feel unwanted since you’d grown so used to having someone fight you for affection by now. Sure, Mark and Haechan are always around. But it’s different with Johnny. You can feel his energy radiating when he walks into the room, and sometimes you find yourself desperately wanting to be nice to him too.

Maybe it’s time to let all of that go. To try and not be toxic and selfish for once in your life and give him a chance.

maybe stupid asshole: yeah, haechan made us some food to feel better since mark was feeling sick. We have some left if you want any?

You: nah, I devoured my entire kitchen when I got home

Johnny laughs. He’s lying in his bed not even trying to think of how awful you’ve been to him. You’re not being so difficult right now, maybe he made a breakthrough.

maybe stupid asshole: probably for the better considering he overcooked everything and it had no flavor lol

You wonder if you should change his contact name in your phone again, having realized that you should at least treat him like a person.

You: sorry about today…

beefy neighbor: woah you actually apologized?

You can’t even find it in yourself to be annoyed at that. Usually, you would assume he was mocking and making fun of your apology. But he’s not wrong to assume you wouldn’t do it at this point. You hate yourself for being the way you are, all for the attention from him.

You: yeah, I don’t really know why I chose to not like you

beefy neighbor: me either, im just some dude that lives next to you trying to live his life

You: you’re right. Im not very tolerable, so I don’t know why you even cared about how I felt about you anyway.

He takes a few minutes to respond, but you can see him typing and then stopping, only to start typing again before he finally sends it.

beefy neighbor: im not the most tolerable either. I guess im just bad at rejection when there’s no reason for it

You: me not liking you wasn’t reason enough?

beefy neighbor: are you serious? you didn’t even have a reason to not like me to begin with

You don’t respond because once again, he’s right, and you still kind of don’t want to tell him that. Instead, you run yourself a bath. You haven’t soaked in a while and you feel like it may help the headache anyway.

Of course, though, the moment you get into the tub and feel the warmth envelope you, you hear your phone vibrating on the toilet seat.

beefy neighbor: can I call you?

You can’t even respond to his text before he’s calling you and you kind of contemplate not answering it since you’re trying to relax, but also you’re kind of curious to see what he has to say.

“Uh, hey” He says into the phone.

“Hi.” You say, trying to silently sink back into the tub so he can’t hear the sounds of the water. For some reason thinking it will make the situation more awkward than it already is.

“Can we just like—” You can hear him sigh into the phone. “start over?”

Maybe you won’t hate him meeting him a second time. Maybe he won’t have the hold over you to feel the desire of wanting the attention. Then again, maybe it’ll be worse, and he will give you a reason to hate him. You’re not sure which one is worse.

“Sure, what’s your name and how did you get my number?” You question him in a tone that seems friendly, and for the most part it is.

“What’s she saying?” Mark mouths out to Johnny, having inserted himself into the situation the second Johnny showed him the text messages, feeling proud that you’re not being entirely mean to him. He waves him off and points for him to leave the room.

“My name is Johnny Suh, and I found this number on the dark web.” And he says it in such a serious tone you almost laugh at his joke.

“How much did you pay for it?”

Johnny pauses, liking the fact that you guys aren’t being assholes to each other. “I don’t know, like two bucks?”

You gasp in mock pain.

“Damn, I’m cheap.”

“Would’ve paid more.”

You feel a very familiar drop in your stomach, but you ignore it. You know the feeling and you realize it’s something you always felt around him. Except it always came from a negative place, this time it’s not so uncomfortable, which is why you ignore it.

“Oh? How much we talking?” You joke back, allowing yourself to smile.

“Any number.” He says it with pride, knowing he could pay any amount but then he squints as the gears in his brain begin to turn. “Can’t put a price on people anyway.”

It hits you like a brick. That this man actually sees value in others all while parading around the city in his stupidly expensive car? Drinking elaborate and expensive liquors and blasting loud music on the equally as expensive equipment they have in the frat house? That man won’t put a price on a person?

“You literally said you paid two bucks for me.”

“No, I said I paid two bucks for your number.” Johnny corrects you through the muffled speaker in a deep voice, almost sighing. You can’t help but realize this man is less than 100 feet away from you. You blush a little bit at the thought.

“What a sly way to say I’m cheap.” You comment in a smaller voice than usual as you stare at the ripples of the water surrounding you. “Have you always been this witty?”

“Oh! For sure.” He applauds himself as he notices Mark’s head still sticking in through his door. He slaps the door and hears Mark groan at the way it hits his head, little shit is probably going to keep listening no matter what Johnny does.

“You’d have already known that if you didn’t decide to hate me the second you met me.” He trails off, listening to the silence on your end for a moment. He was going to speak up again, but you beat him to it.

“I think—” You pause. “I think I did that for a lot of reasons if I’m being honest.”

“Oh? What are the reasons—hold on, let me grab my pen.” He’s being snarky again, but you’re not upset about it anymore. It feels nice to have the tension drain away, though it still feels like you’re stepping on eggshells with each word that comes out of your mouth.

“Surprisingly, when I think about it, none of them are you.” You finally admit it, and you wonder if he’s going to call you out on it, ending the call and any type of budding friendship since he got what he wanted.

“You’re surprising me more and more.” He says it so gently that Mark almost falls into the room trying to hear him.

“Well, let me think,” You tap the water with your other hand and try to grasp what exactly it was that made you so hateful towards him. “I think the first reason is that I was still really embarrassed by the porn thing, and you talked about it so easily that I felt vulnerable.”

“Well—” Johnny goes to respond but you cut him off.

“At that point I had it in my head that you were out to get me. To laugh at me or make me feel stupid I guess.” You laugh at yourself for a moment. “I didn’t like that the situation was easier for you to navigate than it was for me, and I also didn’t like facing you and having to tell you that you did nothing wrong.”

He doesn’t even try to stop you from talking this time.

“I felt like I had to keep the same attitude towards you otherwise you would make fun of me, and—“Should you admit it? Should you continue to tell on yourself? Not even Mark knows this, nor does Haechan.

“Shit, I’m just gonna throw it all out okay? You’re going to hate me if you don’t already.” You sigh, staring up to the ceiling.

“I have plenty of reasons to hate you, but I don’t. Air it out. I’ll tell you how I feel too after you’re done.” He assures you with very little difficulty.

The fact that he’s meeting you halfway almost makes you angry. Angry at yourself for being the way you are.

“I um—I think I really liked the attention because I’ve never had someone fight for my friendship like that.”

It’s silent for a moment too long and you almost hang up.

“If it makes you feel any better, I told myself multiple times that I was done trying to befriend you. But I always came back and kept trying—” He points for Mark to come sit on his bed with him at this point. He feels excited, like he needs to share this moment with someone other than you, as weird as it sounds. “I never gave someone who rejected me my attention like this.”

“Why did you want to be my friend so badly?” You ask with no hesitation, no weight or anger behind the question. Genuine curiosity.

“You know what? I don’t even know the answer to that. I just didn’t like that you judged me so harshly even though you were friends with my friends, who can, quite frankly, be a lot worse than I can be.”

You can hear a slap on the other line and your heart stops.

“Johnny, is someone listening in right now?”

“Yep!” You hear Mark happily present himself.

You’re not upset about it, more like you’re a little annoyed that Mark has to be involved with this moment that you kind of wanted to stay between you and Johnny. Even if he would figure it out later, you kind of needed this time alone to work out the knots between the two of you, but it’s whatever. You can’t truly expect anything to be private between any of the men in that house anyway.

“Hold on, lets face time. You’ve gotta see Johnny blushing bro, it’s so—” You cut Mark off immediately.

“No! N-“

The call has changed to facetime, and part of you wants to see what Mark is referring to, the other half of you wants to completely do your makeup and hair to make a brand new impression. But! You’re literally in the bath, not exactly the best time to facetime. So you decline.

You immediately get another call.

Declined.

As quickly as you can, you hop out of the bath and throw a towel over you, thankful that you hadn’t dipped your head underwater. Can’t be looking like a wet puppy for a new and budding friendship.

Another call, and you just go ahead and accept it, trying your best to hide your face a little bit considering the bareness of it in the bright light of the bathroom.

“Happy now?” You glare at Mark as you try your best not to look over at Johnny.

“Wha-!” You hear Mark yell before they hang up on you.

A few moments go by before you hear the groupchat that does include Johnny ping.

Mark: Johnny hung up on y/n because he almost saw a tiddie

Haechan: wHAT

Mark: johnny and y/n were talking on the phone and being nice to each other so we called her on facetime and she answered it all naked and stuff

You: I had on a towel you fuckhead

beefy neighbor: oh

Haechan: WHAT

You’re being facetimed again, this time from Mark’s number. Thankfully you were able to throw on a shirt before answering this time. Both Mark and Haechan are huddled over the phone but you can see Johnny slouching in the background on a bed. Kind of looking handsome, but you won’t admit it just yet.

“You tried to flash Johnny?!” Haechan shouts. “You didn’t even tell me you were making up!”

“You guys are literally going to make her hate me again.” You hear Johnny groan behind Haechan, who was still screaming.

“Ignore him. You tried to flash a whole tiddie at my boy Johnny?!” Haechan repeats in a more detailed manner, holding his hand up behind him and waiting for Johnny to high five him. He receives a light kick to the back of his head at that.

“I was literally in a towel, please shut up.” You groan along with Johnny at how immature they’re being. But, you feel kind of nice knowing that if it were to happen Johnny wouldn’t have stuck around to watch.

“Why were you in a towel in the first place?” Haechan questions with suspicious eyes.

“Uh? I was taking a bath when he called?” You admit.

Haechan continues to suspiciously look at the camera, piercing his gaze directly into your soul.

“I don’t buy it.” He shakes his head and clicks his tongue, tossing the phone to Mark. “We are friends with liars.”

“Bro, I was listening to Johnny the whole time, I think she’s telling the truth.”

As Haechan attempts to leave the room he stops for a moment and studies Johnny, who was slightly sulking but very obviously trying to look attractive as he continues to slouch on his bed with his phone in hand. He’s got his back against a wall and a pillow behind him, one leg outstretched and the other with his knee bent as he sways it back and forth.

“Johnny is trying to look good right now.” Haechan laughs to himself, peeking back into the phone at you. You quickly dart your eyes back from Johnny to Mark as to not let them linger for too long, but you notice how he looks at this moment, and without all the frustration in your head you can’t help but believe it’s working. He does look good, trying or not.

“Do you think he looks good right now?” Haechan questions you.

You stare into the phone like a deer in headlights for a second, wondering why it is that you have to look the way you do right now, all while Johnny is in the background looking the way he does so nonchalantly.

“Well?” Mark pushes, moving Haechan out of the way and raising his eyebrows at you.

“Leave her alone.” Johnny comments from the back, his eyebrows slightly furrowed because of your hesitation.

“Yeah, he looks good.” You say at the exact same time.

“What was that?” Johnny perks up, adjusting himself further down on the bed so that he can see you more clearly. “Did you actually just compliment me?!” He adds with a snide voice.

“Who knows?” You comment with a laugh. “I can’t be hyping your ego so soon in this friendship.” You add, eyes focused on Johnny.

“Um, yes you can, in fact—” He tries to say, but stops and looks at Haechan and Mark. Johnny thinks it really is probably better if you guys had time to yourselves despite his excitement in finally getting through to you. Suddenly he can sense your change in demeanor since Mark revealed himself.

You were being straight forward with him, serious, and dare he say it? Adult? But as soon as he allowed Mark to join in, you went right back to banter and casual talk. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate it, it’s just that he thinks he appreciates when you’re real with him a little more. Especially because you said he looks good, but he can’t tell if you said it because you meant it or because Mark and Haechan were expecting it.

“Actually, can I just call you later?” Johnny finally says, allowing you to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Yeah, that’s cool.” You respond, ignoring the way both Haechan and Mark huff at you.

By the time you had gotten into bed, you checked your phone another thirty something times just to see if Johnny texted you again. He hadn’t and you don’t think he will, but for some reason you’re anticipating it.

Johnny on the other hand, fully intended on texting you almost immediately, but he feels the need to talk to Mark and Haechan first, as to avoid another awkward situation like what had just happened.

“Guys—” Johnny coughs, getting up off of his bed as he stares down at the two younger men sitting on his floor as if they belong there. “I’m happy she’s opening up to me but like—” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I think we need to have some time to ourselves before you can just interrupt like that okay?”

Mark looks down for a second and knows he’s right. Even if he was invited into the conversation by Johnny himself, he can’t ignore that he was listening in from the beginning. But he and Haechan can’t always be involved, no matter how entertaining it is. If they’re finally getting close, the least they can do is give them the space to talk right?

“She seems fine with it though.” Haechan comments with a smile.

“Yeah, but I think she was kind of awkward about it?” Mark says directly to Haechan. “I think we should give them space and just wait for Johnny to give us all of the details.. “ Mark pouts when he says it, and so does Haechan.

“Thanks guys.” Johnny finally smiles back at them, watching until they close his door before pulling up your texts and sending a short “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to include them like that.” Before lying down and promptly falling asleep.

A few days have gone by and the texting with Johnny has been practically nonstop. The texting feels like the two of you are really making progress, but you’d be lying if you said it didn’t make you feel out of place or even too shy to go next door to hang out. Multiple times Johnny has invited you but you’ve managed to pull excuses out of your ass because for some reason seeing Johnny face to face feels overwhelming. Everything has changed so drastically since you’d last sat beside him in his car, drunk off of your ass.

He’s not pushy, and a lot more down to earth than you’d care to admit. Someone like him shouldn’t spend his time texting someone like you the way he does. But it makes your confidence shoot through the roof knowing that someone of his status chooses to text you practically 24/7. Sure, it’s a little selfish of you, maybe even arrogant, but in reality he was the one who really fought for this friendship, why should you feel bad for giving it to him and enjoying the outcome?

“Haechan wants you to come over.” Johnny had texted you this about an hour ago, and you stopped yourself from trying to mock him and sending a “nice try.”

You’re thankful you stopped yourself because Haechan just texted the group chat asking when you’ll be over because he cooked something and has some news for everyone. You decide you’ll go, only because it’s Haechan asking. You’ll focus on Haechan and not Johnny right? Even if things feel overwhelmingly positive with the taller man, you can’t help but feel warm at even the thought of the two of you having the usual texting conversations face to face. Confidence through text is a lot easier than trying to find the words to say on the spot. You hope he’s patient if, for some reason, he wants to have the same type of conversations when you’re at their house. You’re not as quick witted without the message box open in front of you. Maybe he makes you feel like you’re not as smart, or as quick as him but you so desperately want to be. For yourself? For him? For the sake of pretending he isn’t an incredibly intimidating and alluring presence in your life? You’re afraid you’ll stutter out of sheer bashfulness, and he will see it with ease.

Even with the new feelings revolving around Johnny, over the past few days you’d come to learn a lot about him that make you feel a new kind of feeling. Respect. His goals in life, how he views the world and what he wants to do with his degree. You’re not at all ashamed that you feel happy for him, proud even. Not so proud of yourself for having judged so harshly but come on, a rich frat boy who always seemed too arrogant really matched him at first glance. The car, the clothes, the house, the smell of his cologne, the expensive music equipment, the ability to buy all of the best alcohol. You couldn’t help but assume he was nothing but materialistic. And while you’re not mad at yourself for the initial judgement, you accept that he was upset by it.

“i don’t want to live off of their money forever.” He had texted you a night ago, as you pried into his life. “what else can I do? They just throw the money at me. The least I can do is spend it on shit everyone else likes, right?” You had responded to that, asking him why he bought such a nice car if it was supposed to be enjoyed by “everyone”. “I actually bought that car with my own money.”

After that conversation, you vowed to never question his character again. He has a plan, he just happens to be lucky enough to have money thrown at him by parents who could give less of a shit if he got a degree or not. Johnny clearly wants his own future, his own money, and his own respect. He wants to build his own empire, not live in the one his parents created. Respect. Yeah. A new feeling, something you’ve never truly felt towards anyone else, better yet yourself. It could easily be mistaken as jealousy, but you’ve come to terms with the differences.

Yes, you wish you had his luck in terms of family and money. But he’s still choosing to live the same path as you, to do something for himself, to prove to his own family that he can do this without help, even if they insist. No wonder he blows the money on parties and his friends.

Johnny is quite a permanent thought in your head these days, and you’re not mad about it and welcome each interaction he sends your way via text. That still doesn’t diminish the uncomfortable thoughts of doing something stupid in front of him. Sure, you probably definitely want to impress him at this point. He’s already seen you at your worst though, right? You really should stop making excuses to not go over and hang out with your friends. He’s one of them. He’s no different than Mark or Haechan.

But he is. In his own way, and you don’t know why.

“Y/n!” The door flings open the moment you step onto their porch, Haechan throwing himself out and towards you in a hug as if he hadn’t seen you in years.

“Why haven’t you come over?” He whines as he hugs you, then very quickly pulls back and looks at you with a squint. “You smell better than usual today.” He trails off, very obviously sniffing you. “And you’re wearing mascara.”

“Yeah—uh” You look around and avoid eye contact. You knew it would be obvious, but damn. “Can you keep it down, maybe?”

“O-Oh!” Haechan claps and then leans into you. “Are you trying to impress—” He looks behind him to make sure no one is there and then very loudly shouts “JOHNNY?”

“Yeah?” You hear Johnny from inside shouting back in response to Haechan as if he were just being called outside.

“Jesus christ! Can you not?” You whisper shout at him.

Haechan looks proud of himself.

“Nothing! She’s is here!” Haechan shouts back into the house at Johnny, and you can practically hear the man stomp through the kitchen and to the door to greet you.

“Still, kinda mad you didn’t get dressed up for me and my big news, but whatever.” Haechan finally whispers out to you and flips his hair directly in your face as turns to walk away. “Everyone is already in the kitchen so do whatever you need to do with Johnny first, no one wants to see that shit.”

“Oh my god.” You say aloud, slapping yourself dead in the forehead as he prances back through the door.

“What was he whispering?” Johnny questions as you trail behind Haechan. And yeah, maybe you’re avoiding eye contact and slightly looking down so he can’t see that you tried to look nice. Haechan just had to point it out and make you feel weird about it. God, that asshole.

“Nothing, hahaha---” You try to play it off as you walk straight into the kitchen to see, for the first time, everyone together.

Jaehyun, Taeyong, Haechan, Mark, and Johnny.

“Bout damn time.” Taeyong comments with a sarcastic scoff. “You look nice today.” He adds.

You simply nod at him in response as you take your seat directly on top of Mark.

“You guys need to buy an extra chair.” You comment, looking around at how there’s really no other seat for you. Yeah, you could have just sat on the counter, but it looked more fun to bother Mark.

“Hi.” He whispers at you, immediately clinging onto you.

Johnny was sat down in the last open chair, watching the way you banter with Mark makes him a little jealous, but he’s happy. He hopes you will feel comfortable enough to do that with him someday too.

“Okay, so-“ Haechan goes to start. “As you all know, I called you here for some good fucking news!”

Jaehyun starts yelling and whooping along with Taeyong, who whistles incredibly loud. You and Mark follow suit, and you can hear Johnny pounding on the table as if it’s a count down.

“Shhh--! Shut up!” Haechan shouts with a smile and gently places his freshly baked cake on the table.

It took all of you a good ten seconds to realize what was going on, then another ten seconds to make out the awful handwriting in icing on the cake that stated, “I got a job”.

“A job?!” You shout almost too loudly out of excitement for him. “And you have to make your own cake for the celebration?!”

Haechan wipes away a fake tear as the room erupts into more loud whooping, because in all honestly, he’s the only one in the frat house who had never once had a job in his entire life.

“Thank you, thank you!” He says as he passes around a bunch of forks, not at all intending to cut the cake. “You may now place bets on how long I last there!”

You take this short moment of chaos to steal a peek at Johnny and really look at him. The way he looks at Haechan with such fondness over news that should seem so small to him has your heart filling just a little bit. While you still think about how much you fooled yourself into hating him, you realize that this very feeling is what you were running from. Because it feels good, and scary, and warm. The fact that this man makes you feel the need to impress him pisses you off, but then again he’s already seen the worst you could possibly be. How have you even managed to become this close to him, yet feel so awkward and far away?

Your ears begin to ring at all of the loud talking and looking at the cake kind of makes you gag because of the butterflies in your stomach. You’ve eaten in this kitchen a few times, but this time it feels like the room is so full of love that you feel smothered. Overwhelming fondness for each and every man in the room hits all at one, and you realize your situation. You have friends. After a year and a half in college you finally have friends. You were invited specifically because someone wanted you to be proud of them, like suddenly how you felt mattered. Not only do you have friends, but this strange and touchy curiosity that has you spinning each time you hear Johnny’s name. You’d been texting him already, but you feel embarrassed talking to him the same way face to face. You still feel like you want to annoy him, to get reactions out of him, to banter and bully him in a way that he knows is no longer from a malicious place. Flirting. You desperately want to flirt, and most of your brain is telling you no, because this is Haechan’s party, not yours.

Suddenly, you wince at a large bite of cake being placed dangerously close to your face and the sickening sweet smell of icing fills your nose quite literally.

“Oohp, sorry-“ Mark immediately retorts, realizing the bite of cake he had offered you went directly into your face and filled your nostrils. “Taeyong accidentally pushed me! I swear.” He apologizes profusely as he goes to wipe some of the icing off of your nose, smiling at you.

You can only laugh, even if you can’t breathe out of your nose for the moment, you laugh anyway. Grossly shooting nose cake onto Mark’s shoulder and immediately laughing out more.

“Disgusting.” Johnny’s voice bellows, and in that short moment you had completely forgotten he was even in the room. But before you can even react he’s in front of you holding a paper towel, but he doesn’t offer it. Instead he attempts to wipe your face off for you.

“I-“ You pause and look at him, icing smeared across the middle of your face, voice nasally as you refrain from a sneeze. “I can do it, thanks.” You close in, seeing that same fond look he had given to Haechan just moments ago. You hide your blush as you grab the napkin and feel like an absolute idiot in front of him, dipping your head and standing up so you can go to the bathroom to clean up.

Johnny just shrugs and looks over at Mark. “Be more careful.”

“She was being cute though.” Mark excitedly responds to him, completely aware that you can hear them considering the bathroom is only a wall away.

“She’s always cute.”

You very nearly shit yourself hearing that voice say that about you to the entirety of his frat. And when you look in the mirror you try to make a face. A face where maybe someone, somewhere, might find you attractive but, you just don’t see it. You don’t see what they see.

“Last time I saw you guys together you were at each other’s throats? I am very confused.” Taeyong butts in, staring Johnny down who has seemed to be in a better mood lately.

“Um—” Haechan throws a finger up in the air. “This is my day and we should be talking about me! But, Taeyong you should really read the group chat more.”

Hearing that has you curious. Obviously there is a group chat that doesn’t involve you, but apparently even without you, you’ve been a point of interest there. So with that, you finish cleaning up and practically run back into the kitchen.

Everyone pauses their talking the moment you walk in.

“I heard everything, you guys know that right?”

“Yeah.” Johnny says back to you, moving over to lean against the counter as he chews his cake. “I hope you heard all of it at least. Any questions?”

And there’s his cocky attitude, right back to the Johnny you hated except you kind of want to…you’re not sure. It’s far more attractive now that you have an idea of who he really is, and you can’t be bothered to admit you like his attention and praise, especially when he intends for you to hear it.

“Actually—” You look over at Haechan. “Can I see your phone? I wanna read the group chat.”

Haechan widens his eyes and swallows hard, immediately taking a step back and placing his hand in his pocket to ensure that his phone is locked.

“Funny you ask, my phone actually just broke!” He shifts his eyes to Mark, “I’m sure Mark’s works fine though!” And with that he is saved when you avert your prying to the boy a few feet away. Haechan desperately doesn’t want to be the one to tell you that no, you cannot ever read their group chat. For the sake of all of them, and mostly for the sake of Johnny.

Johnny stiffened in his spot and nearly choked on his cake when you asked to see it, because if they tell you no, it’ll look suspicious. But for real, they would have to wipe the whole group chat before ever letting another soul read it.

“Just let h--“ Jaehyun goes to say but is immediately elbowed by Haechan who whispers too quiet to hear “youdidntreadityettodaydidyou?”

Jaehyun very carefully and quietly opens his phone and doesn’t need to see past the preview message before his cheeks turn red for Johnny and he coughs.

“Anyway, when is your first shift?”

Haechan is all too happy to respond.

“In like, thirty minutes!”

Just as you were about to divert the subject right back to the group chat, everyone pauses and takes one look at Haechan and groans loudly.

“And how long is the walk?” Johnny asks, feeling saved. The bros got his back.

“At least 20 minutes!”

Taeyong slaps his hand on his face and groans louder than before. “Fuck, get dressed, I’ll drive you.”

It dawns on Haechan that he actually has to be on time for something. It’s not like class or coming home from somewhere. He can get into trouble for being too casual. Even if it’s just a café job, he’s expected to be there and to look nice.

“Oh, I guess you’re right.” He trails off and then he panics. “I forgot to buy black pants with no holes in them.”

He eyes every single man in the room for help, and then sighs in defeat, “And none of you have pants without holes in them either.”

You snicker for a moment. “I do.” You say, eyeing down his size. “They might be a little uncomfortable but if it’s a café, I’m sure if you-“

“TO Y/N’S HOUSE!” Taeyong shouts with a loud clap, grabbing both of you by the arm and practically dragging you out of the room and towards the front door.

You and Haechan kind of laugh at each other, not getting to say goodbye to the others before the overlord of the house had you running across the yard and unlocking your apartment to let them in.

“Huh.” Taeyong stands with his hands on his hips as he eyes down your living room and kitchen set up. “This place is kind of cute. Didn’t know you liked lace.”

“Lace?” You question before realizing the pile of laundry on the couch because you could not be bothered to fold them. “O-Oh.” You kind of blush for a second before running over and sitting directly on top of the pile of clothes, specifically over the panties.

“Relax, I don’t actually care—Where are the pants though?”

You reluctantly get up and have them follow you down the short hallway to your bedroom, where the vibrator is still there in full view, quite frankly collecting dust. You don’t even care at this point, every time you see them something embarrassing happens, must be part of why they like you.

“Vibrator to the left, pant drawer on the bottom right of the dresser.”

You roll your eyes at the way both men look at the vibrator first before going along with whatever they had to do, and you weren’t shocked at all in the way Haechan pulled his sweats off right then and there and just left them crumpled on your floor before selecting a pair of your pants to stuff himself into.

“Interesting.” He grimaces as he squeezes into your pants. “They fit.”

He looks uncomfortable and miserable, but it’s kind of funny because they only fit in certain places, just not where he needs them to fit. Suddenly, you remember that you recently bought a pair of pants online, and that you were going to return them for being the wrong size.

“Wait-” You throw your finger up in the air and run out of the room to grab the package.

Shortly after when you came back in, you see that the two of them were arguing and Taeyong immediately starts bolting past you and back to the frat house.

“Taeyong dragged us out before grabbing my shirt and shoes, so he’s gonna go grab them.” And he says it with the perfect smiling face that you wish it were an emoji in your phone. He seems excited for this job, and you want a photo.

“Wait!” Haechan shouts as he hears the quick click of your camera before you’re offering him the larger pair of pants. “These were sent to me in the wrong size, might work better.”

“You did that on purpose.” Haechan huffs, trying his best to peel the smaller pants off of him. “You could have taken a photo after I switched pants.”

“Yeah but you looked revealing,“ As you say it, his phone falls out of the loosened pocket of the removed pants. You can’t help but notice the notification from “The Bros”.

“Don’t even think about it.” He says, grabbing his phone quickly and looking you in the eye as he slides on the new pants with ease. “It’s not that I wouldn’t show you, it’s just that I can’t.”

You press on as you hear Taeyong run back into your house.

“First of all— I knew you didn’t break your phone, and secondly—why? you guys hate me on the down low?”

“The opposite actually.” Taeyong interrupts and he throws a pile of clothes at Haechan and tells him to hurry with a look of pure sharpness.

“Stop worrying about it, it’s just not our place to show you. Ask Johnny.”

And with that, you decide you’re just gonna have to. When it’s through text, and you’re alone in the comfort of your own bed.

“We have to be there in 10 minutes, I’d suggest you brush your hair.”

Haechan immediately grabs your brush and starts aggressively detangling his hair while Taeyong simultaneously grabs your perfume and nearly smothers the three of you as he sprays him. “You stink.”

Moments later, Taeyong shoves both of you into his little beat up car. You realize you’d never seen it before, and figure he probably just got it or something.

“What the fuck are we riding in?” You question as a joke when he starts the engine with a loud ‘POP’.

“Unlike some people, I’m not made of money—” He looks behind him to reverse. “It shit out on me a couple of weeks ago so I was walking everywhere, Johnny got it fixed.”

“Oh, that’s nice of him.” You comment, more for yourself.

“Tell him to buy me a new car for my birthday.” Taeyong laughs when he says it, and so does Haechan.

“Bro, he probably would.”

They seem to think very highly of him. And to be fair, you don’t even know why you were shoved into the car with both of them, but you don’t mind. It’ll be nice to see Haechan off to his first job.~

please reblog the masterlist post, not the individual chapters!

Chapter Three

#johnny suh smut #johnny suh fic #nct smut #nct 127 smut

409 notes · View notes

astromaki · 3 years

Text

part 2 of 5000 $ - shoto todoroki x fem!reader (1597 words)

part 1. (previous)

tw ; minors dni, angst, nsfw, toxic relationship, mention of cheating and breakup, shoto is a complete bastard here

you finally did it.

you broke up with him a week ago. for real this time, not like the last hundred times you'd yelled at him that he was a heartless jerk. just so he could get you into bed the second you calmed down.

no, you threw him in the trash the day after that party. by message, but it was a start.

even your social media status had gone from 'in a relationship' to 'single <3', you'd even reinstalled tinder, and accepted follow requests on instagram from those boys in the same class as you in college.

and shoto seemed to have abandoned you too. no news from him, and you hadn't even run into him on campus in the last few days.

so why did it still hurt to think about him ? why did your lips refuse to say his name ? and why the fuck did your sheets still smell like him despite the many machines ?

so you could tell that you felt a little joy when you saw this message.

he had sent you this two days ago.

and it's been two days, you've been wondering if it was a good idea to see him again right away.

never mind, you were already at his door. besides, you didn't have to talk to him, just take back what belonged to you and go home. it couldn't go wrong ? right ? it's ridiculous, you even had to convince yourself now.

you knocked, once, twice, three times. you could hear someone inside. and you knew he didn't have a roommate. this rich kid could buy the whole building if he wanted.

fuck. you just had to go in and get your stuff, and it's like you were never there. he wouldn't notice you were there.

you opened the door, and were surprised to see a second pair of shoes at the entrance next to shoto's sneakers. which is more like a pair of rather feminine shoes, pumps.

a strange feeling made you shiver. it wasn't like you to track down your exes, but you don't remember seeing a new girl with shoto on social medias.

slight, imperceptible sighs escaped from his room a little further into the apartment. bed squeaks, that male growl you knew all too well.

fuck. fucking hell.

you knew what it was, you knew what those noises were, who was causing them. why he had asked you to come and get those so-called forgotten things.

and yet you still walked to his room, your brain screaming at you to turn around and stay away from that boy and his unmitigated evil. your heart telling you the opposite, to keep going to find out if he still cared about you. no matter how small, you wanted to know, you had to know, if you ever meant anything to him.

or if you were just a joke, that he could throw a little money around.

"shoto, fuck, yes, right there oh fuc-"

you felt tears welling up in your eyes when you finally saw shoto vulgarly fucking a girl in that room, where you used to spend all your evenings.

but that wasn't the worst part. it was that he had taken your best friend to bed, ochako.

"you're so fucking good, i -" he says in a low voice.

he had already created that crack in your heart. but now ?

his blue and gray eyes finally met yours, his gaze was nothing but arrogance and contempt. the only things he ever felt for you. and even though he was fucking your best friend, busy pacing back and forth, he had the nerve to look you up and down. a smirk lit up his face.

and that asshole finally said the three words he never disdained to say to you.

"i love you ochako," he finally said, looking you straight in the eye. you're the best sex i've ever had. "

his words were spoken clearly, slowly, so that they were articulate for you to hear. a mixture of anger, and sorrow suddenly overtook you

as if you had come back to reality, you suddenly left the room. your steps were disordered, you had lost all your balance, gravity seemed to be slightly stronger. your hands dropped some objects on your way.

what was wrong with you? why?

ochako had finally noticed you after her orgasm, and weakly called out your name, as if begging you to come back would make things better. that he was cheating on you was one thing, but with her ? the one who had pushed you to leave him?

you could hear heavy footsteps following you down the hallway to the front door. and a muscular hand grabbed your wrist to turn you around in one simple motion.

obviously, who else ?

"so you just walk into people's houses without knocking now?"

wow, how did he manage to make you hate him a little more every time he opened his mouth ?

"stop it. don't mess with me. you sent me a message to come in today to get my stuff." your voice was firm.

his face was as haughty as ever, yet he already seemed a little more natural and relaxed than the other times. you would have found it attractive if it wasn't after a romp with your best friend.

"ah, that's right. and so it's okay? you got everything? "

his deceptively kind voice made you want to scream. to take anything and throw it at him. he still had this annoying habit of driving you crazy even after you'd broken up. you wanted to hurt him like he'd been hurting you for months.

but your shaky, broken voice didn't reflect your desires. you were about to cry.

"i don't understand why? why you're being so mean to me. i'm not stupid, shoto, i know that you invited me here today just to see you fuck her."

his face hadn't changed, nor had his eyes. he was glaring at you miserably. as usual.

"i was hoping we could talk if i came to your door so we could maybe work things out, get off to a good start." and it's true, that message he sent you had falsely given you false hope. and you had fallen off the deep end.

a slight sigh escaped his lips. that slight sigh that made the cup overflow.

"why do you care ? we broke up, right ?"he said it in such a carefree tone.

"fuk you shoto. fuck you. you don't even realize how fucking toxic you are! you throw money around to get what you want, you fuck with people and play with their feelings! you're a fucking asshole. and you're a lot like your father for someone who hates him deeply. "

your words of hatred and anger that you had been building up for weeks, for fucking months, poured out on him like a lava flow.

it was mean, it was sincere, and it hurt shoto. it hurt him to see that he had done too much this tim.

his emotionless gaze watched you get angry, cry, push him, hit him, dry your tears that he couldn't tell if they were of melancholy or rage. he saw you push his hand away as he tried desperately to calm you down.

you couldn't see it, too busy screaming and drying your tears, but you managed to wring a sincere expression from shoto.

he was just panicking. he was panicking because he knew he had crossed the point of no return. that not even $5,000 or $10,000 or even $50,000 would bring you back.

his love, full of flaws, who never knew a healthy role model from his parents, would not be enough to make you stay. not to leave him alone.

because we know the cliché, the rich boy who didn't know how to love. didn't even know how to make the one person who always cared about his own selfish self, stay. but that was shoto though. he was that boy who only had toxic love to give.

but please don't leave him for good, he was begging you mentally.

if he had put his pride aside to express himself or even make you understand, maybe you wouldn't have left.

"i hate you shoto todoroki. i fucking hate you. but know that you'll end up alone, you and your stupid money. and i'll be the first to laugh. "

fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck.

" i- y/n just wait- "

he didn't think you'd hate him so much. the young man knew he was just an asshole with a fat bank account. he just thought that by fucking your best friend he'd get you to come back to him, out of desperation, out of a desperate love.

he didn't think he would feel such a pressure on his chest when he saw you slam the door, leaving him alone in the apartment with your best friend and a big hole in his heart.

he didn't think he'd regret his actions. he was a rich guy who always wanted what he wanted, whether it was money or sex. so you were easy. right ?

he never imagined that he would miss your perfume, your exasperating smiles, that he would miss you.

you were barely gone, and he knew he would miss you.

a/n ; i've never written such a nasty shoto sorry 😟 kinda want to leave this story like this...

please lemme know what you thought about this second part, should i make a third one ? (+ reblogs are appreciated <3)

🔖 taglist; @deepestranchgoopdeputy @kizuatonoaiko

#bnha x reader #shoto todoroki x reader #todoroki x reader #todoroki x you #shoto todoroki x you #todoroki shoto x reader #shoto x y/n #shoto x you #shoto x reader #shoto todoroki angst #shoto smut #shoto torodoki #todoroki x y/n #todoroki shoto x you

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denays-xo · 3 years

Text

Trying To Get Back Together | Tsukishima Kei x Reader

Pairing: Tsukishima x Reader

Genre: Angst

Word Count: 1.04k

Warnings: swearing, angst, toxic behavior, toxic relationship, slight spoiler, verbal argument, no happy ending, ooc tsukishima

Author's note: This is the last update for Tsukishima's story in TTGBT (series? ;3). I plan on posting other stuff too like head canons, one-shots and maybe SMAUs. So stay tuned! I'd like to mention @chelly-ilysmiwdfy! Thank you for liking my previous update. Keep being your cool self!

I'd really appreciate it if you like and reblog. Please do not repost without proper credits 'cause I worked really hard on this :(. Thank you and enjoy!

Summary: Y/N has been living peacefully (or at least tried to) after graduating college and having the opportunity to work their dream job. Strongly getting by everyday and extremely determined to overcome the obstacles that will come their way. When they least expected it, a tragedy came, they were invited to their highschool reunion and there they reconciled with Tsukishima Kei, their highschool ex-boyfriend.

TTGBT: Tsukishima Kei

Part 1: The Meeting

Part 2: The Backstory

Part 3: The Ending

"What did you do with the apartment?" He asked as he continued to stare at the view in front of you two. Your hands still grabbing on to the railing like it's your lifeline.

"I sold it. A friend lives there now." You left the apartment the night you broke up. But the last message he sent you was him insisting that you keep it.

"I see. I guess you wouldn't want to stay there."

"Yeah." Tsukishima's heart shatters upon hearing your answer.

"We could get another one." He smiled awkwardly.

"Huh?"

You felt his hand grab yours and place it on his chest. Your mind went blank and all you could feel was the fast beating of his heart.

"Be mine again, Y/N. Please."

It is as if someone has poured a bucket of ice cold water over your head. You stood there, frozen and staring, just trying to process what he said.

"I—what? What is this?" Your mind was blank and you were only able to let out a few words.

"I want you to be mine again."

"I—no." The fear on his face was too much. "I—should—I'll get going, Tsukishima-kun."

"No. No, Y/N, please hear me out." He held both your hands this time, no plans on letting you go. The both of you stood there for a couple of seconds just staring at each other, trying to find the right words to say. You were at least slightly prepared to see him at this party, but you weren't prepared for this.

"Tsukishima-kun, I don't think this is a good idea. Please let go of me."

"Y/N, be mine again." His loud sobs filled the balcony. You look around and surprised that no one has attempted to go outside yet. "Please, Y/N. I'm still so fucking in love with you, I just can't let you go."

He looked desperate, completely different from the Tsukishima that was cool-headed and sarcastic before.

"I—I don't want to anymore. Please let go of me." Your eyes started to tear up and you couldn't figure out why your chest was tightening so much.

"I promise to… to give you everything you want. I'll make you happier this time around. I promise I won't lash out on you anymore. I—please just be with me." He looked at you with expectant eyes.

"It wasn't because you're mad, Tsukishima-kun. It was because," you hiccup unconsciously because somehow you were crying too. "because you kept running away. I don't think you still get me after all these years."

The tears continually streaming down his face, what a tragic sight. Your heart ached for the man you once loved.

"We still have a chance right?" His voice was shaky, almost a mumble, he was struggling and you could tell.

"We already had our chance and we blew it. You know we blew it. Let's just go on with our lives, please."

He went down on his knees and held my hand even tighter.

"No, no, I'm not ready to let go of you yet. I don't want to lose you. I want you back, come back to me, please. Sleep next to me again, I miss your warmth whenever you hug me. I miss your cooking. I miss how you play with my hair. I miss our bickering. Everything, I miss you so damn much. I think you're the only girl I'll be able to love. I-I know I was stupid, but I can change right? Y-you'll come back if I change right?"

"Please stand up, Kei. Don't kneel, please." You looked up to the sky partly avoiding the sight that's in front of you right now and partly trying to calm yourself. "Why are you doing this? You were the rational one, right? You were the one who's good at handling hard situations. Why have you become like this?" When you finally look down, you see him crying on his forearms still holding onto your hand.

"I just—I desperately want you back and… and I promise not to hurt you anymore."

"I promised myself I won't hurt like that anymore too. I'm finally starting to value myself and I refuse to be treated that way again." You took a deep breath and proceeded to let your heart out. "What you did really hurt me, Kei."

He lifted his tear-stained face, once again he was listening to you intently.

"I was alone at the most important and vulnerable times of our relationship. I know, you were the same. I knew and I understood that. You're going through the same pain as me. You were alone too. But I tried, Kei. I tried to fight for it, didn't I? I sought for you, I reached out. But I don't think you were willing to fight for us too. How could I fight for something as important as our relationship alone? How could I continue to fight when you weren't even willing to fight with me."

The both of you quietly stared at each other for god knows how long. You knew he understood. You removed your hands from his grip and wiped the tears on his face. You lowered yourself leveling with him and kissed him on the forehead.

"The next person you love," both of your tears fell in sync "love them with all your heart. Don't be afraid to be vulnerable when you're with them. I know you like to act cool thinking that people will like that more. But nothing makes a person fall harder in love when you are honest and open about your feelings towards them. Love again, Kei. And—and love them better."

Tsukishima looked up to you with all the hope gone in his eyes. He knew there was no getting back now. He knew he hurt you so much but you were still kind to him. He knew his heart would never fully heal. He knew he would regret losing you for the rest of his life. He knew you will never be his again. He knew but he never spoke. Then, you did.

"Let's not meet each other again."

You stood straight and headed towards the door immediately. You didn't think you could take it if anything more happened. The last thing you heard was his scream as he cried loudly again.

You left anyway.

TTGBT: Tsukishima Kei

Part 1: The Meeting

Part 2: The Backstory

Part 3: The Ending

#haikyuu angst #haikyuu fanfic #tsukishima angst #tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei #break up #ttgbt

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bowieandqueen11 · 3 years

Text

Christmas Surprise / Will Graham Fluff

Request: Could you please do 2 and 5 with Will Graham please?

"Do you need help hanging up the Christmas lights?" and "I made you some hot cocoa."

This is SO SWEET my cheeks are GLOWING

Please comment and reblog!

It was almost odd.

Unnatural even, to see Will Graham genuinely smiling. Yet here he was, standing in front of you with his arms crossed over his slightly rumpled work shirt, a knowing grin on his face. The kind of grin that made you roll your eyes, the sort of ‘I told you this was a bad idea’ look that made you take one of the snowflake baubles off the tree and throw it gently at his shoulder. He only slightly moved to the side to dodge it, chuckling with his step.

‘Do you need help hanging up the Christmas lights?’

‘No’, you lied, hands digging onto the top of the Christmas tree to stop yourself from falling onto your bottom. Shaking his head, Will stopped for a moment and wondered whether it would be funnier to leave you, dangling there, or to step in and help. When your fingers started to slip however, and a few strings of fairy lights began to crash towards the floor, he found his feet made the decision for him.

Elbowing him in the face, you knock the glasses straight off his head and send them skidding towards the fireplace. He finds he can only smile, though, as his arms wrap protectively around your middle and gently lower you to the floor.

‘You know, when you tell me you have everything under control, I’m going to start worrying even more from now on.’

You snort as you bury your face into the side of his neck, cheeks glowing. He squirms a little as you begin to talk against his skin, but it’s not an uncomfortable action, more a getting used to physical touch kind of shiver.

‘Hey! I did have everything under control, for a solid thirty seconds, at least. Winston believes me. He’s my witness, he can back me up.’

You only get a slight huff from the sleeping dog in response.

Placing you down on the floor, Will refuses to let go of your waist. Instead, he places his chin on top of your head for a moment, glancing up to admire the tangled mess of wires and mismatching baubles that you had managed to adorn the tree, the walls, and somehow the ceiling with. Melting into his warmth, you allow your fists to grasp onto his collar and press a feather light kiss against the nape of his neck. He could see you doing it from the corner of his eye, but it still made him break out in goose bumps.

‘Sorry, I must have distracted you from your work.’

He shakes his head quickly, perhaps a little too anxiously, until all you can see are the slight curls of his fringe as they fall in front of his eyes.

‘No - I wasn’t working. I made you some hot cocoa for when you were done. If I’d known the mess you were going to make in my poor living room-’

‘Hey! Our poor living room.’

‘-I would have come in to help make a mess sooner.’

He doesn’t go to move the locks covering his eyes, so instead you reach up towards him. You can feel his breath hitch, the quick inhale of air as you cup his cheek and scratch lightly against his stubble. Yet he refuses to allow himself to look away as you reach up and brush his hair away from his face. He had kept doing that today - looking at you. He’d grown more used to meeting your eye over the years, more confident in the love that he knows he will see swirling in them.

‘Well, Mr. Graham, I appreciate the chocolate, but not the lack of faith.’

Yet as he grabs suddenly onto your wrist, his lips twitching up at the corners, it was a look unlike any you had seen before.

It was just pure, unbridled veneration. As if he were worshipping you through look alone.

Finally he broke away, a smile still playing on his lips as he pulled you towards the living room table, gently nudging some of the dogs away with his knee.

‘Come on, before it gets cold.’

‘You drink everything at a thousand degrees, fat chance’, you mutter, but in good humour, bumping into his shoulder as you let the man lead you away from your pile of decorations. You feel the slight tremor of his hand, as his fingers slip down your wrist and grasp tightly onto your own, but shake off the feeling that anything could be wrong.

Letting go of you, he lets you thump down onto the couch before gently folding himself down next to you. You hand him one of the steaming mugs he left placed on top of an old fishing magazine, and he leans towards you before taking a small sip. He seemed intent on watching your every movement, eyes following your hands with intense concentration as you took your own gulp, slightly freaked out by the way he was watching you.

‘It’s nice to actually have you at home’, you start, trying to lighten the mood as he looks up at you, almost guilty. As if he’d been caught in the middle of something. You blink at him, before continuing, ‘I’m glad Jack actually let you have some time off.’

‘Well, you leaving thirty messages on his answering machine about how I needed some time off definitely played a role in it.’

‘He deserved more’, you add, before screwing your eyes shut in disgust. Your teeth hits against something slightly hard, and lumpy, and you quickly place your cup down and peer inside to see how on earth Will Graham had managed to mess up one of the simplest drinks in the world.

‘Uh, hun, did you forget to stir this?’

‘No.’ He looks at you, expectantly, as you turn to raise an eyebrow at him in disbelief. He looks so afraid, his face turning a ghostly shade of white, and his hands begin to shake from where he’s tangled them together on his knee. ‘No, I didn’t forget to stir.’

Placing one hand on his knee, you rub it gently as you use your other to reach into the cup and take out whatever was inside, wincing slightly at the heat. Placing it on your lap, you reach onto the table and grab a tissue, gently cleaning off the brown lumps until something shining sapphire begins to gleam out.

A ring.

‘Did you just propose by putting the ring in hot chocolate? Hot Chocolate!!’

‘I- well I... I just- you love it so much and I-’

You don’t let another word escape his lips before you grab hold of his cheeks and press a kiss to his unsuspecting one. His hands burn slightly underneath your touch, but his large, shaking hands reach up to grab onto your biceps, stopping you from leaving him before he had kissed you again. Soft, and tender, his lips finally pull away from yours, and you pull his head down until your forehead is resting against his own, trying not to cry.

‘Will you? Will you marry me? I know I can’t offer much, but I- I love you so much’, he breathes, out, trembling under the momentous love that weighs down his heart.

‘Of course I will, Will Graham. I’ll put the ring on, as soon as I can feel my fingers again.’

Please support me on Kofi if you can!!!

#will graham #Will Graham imagine #Will Graham fluff #Will Graham x reader #Hannibal #Will Hannibal #will hannibal imagine #Hannibal imagine #Hugh Dancy #Hugh Dancy imagine #christmas #christmas imagine #will graham proposal imagine

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sage-nebula · 2 years

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I wasn’t okay with talking about it much before, but now that things are looking a little better I think I can. Putting this under a cut, do not reblog it or I will delete it.

Basically what happened is, my parents are staying in Florida for the winter. (They have a place down there.) They left to Florida last Monday, both feeling a little under the weather. On Tuesday I came down with an illness myself, but I’m fully vaccinated against both covid and the flu so I didn’t think much of it.

Note: My parents are not vaccinated despite me telling them over and over again that they should be, especially since my dad is pretty old and has compromised lungs due to years of smoking.

Fast forward to this week. I’m mostly over my illness by this point. My mom asks if she can call me, I say yes. She calls me and tells me that they both tested positive for covid and that my dad is really, really sick. As in “has been in bed for 20 hours a day for the last four days” levels of sick. She also tells me that he refuses to go to the hospital. Why, I don’t know. My guess is that he was afraid of being put on a ventilator, but as I explained to my mom, ventilators are for people who can’t breathe on their own and are basically already dead (like your odds of survival once you’re on a ventilator are very low). The best way to ensure you get on a ventilator is by not seeking treatment before you get that bad. She agreed with me but said that he still refused to go to the hospital, that he’d had a fever for four days straight, that he couldn’t get out of bed, she had to force him to drink water, etc. I pleaded with her to tell him whatever she had to in order to get him to go to the hospital. She said she was trying and the call ended.

Well, I didn’t know when they had contracted covid, but since I was sick shortly after they left I went to the store and got an FDA-approved home covid test. I did both of the tests in the kit, both came up negative. So although I was sick, I didn’t have covid. This just goes to show how well vaccines work. If you haven’t gotten vaccinated already, get vaccinated.

That said, once the thought that I might have covid wore off, I was left with the reality that my dad had been bedridden for days, was running a high fever, and was refusing to go to the hospital despite having a very serious and deadly virus. And I spiraled. I have a very complicated relationship with my father that I won’t get into here, but suffice to say that the thought that he could be dead in the next day or two hit me a lot harder than I thought it would. I cried, and cried, and couldn’t stop crying. I hadn’t cried that hard in seven years. The fact that I was furious that he was going to die of a totally preventable disease because he listened to faux news pundits who insisted the vaccine was dangerous / didn’t work / wasn’t real, and because he was for some reason refusing to go to the hospital, didn’t change that fact. Yeah, he deserved covid, but that didn’t mean I was okay with him dying from it. I don’t want him to die. I want him to live and be better.

But anyway, tl;dr, that’s why I was so upset on Monday. I was pretty convinced my father was going to die, and he was all the way in another state and I couldn’t do anything about it. I really needed comfort, but because of my current moving situation I’m kind of far from all my IRL friends (also it was really late at night, and on a work night no less). So I reached out here on tumblr. Thank you to all who sent nice messages, I really appreciate them still.

Anyway, today is Thursday and my mom informed me this morning that she finally got my dad to go to the hospital yesterday. Dumbass that he is, he wanted to leave after 30 minutes because they were taking too long to see him, but my mom is still sick herself (though not as bad) so she convinced him to stay by pointing out that SHE wanted the treatment, and as long as she was getting it, he figured he might as well stay and get it, too. So they both got antibody infusions (which incidentally means—and I verified this on the CDC website to make sure she wasn’t bullshitting me—that they can’t get vaccinated for 3 months, but the antibodies will protect them until then). They spent about 6 or 7 hours at the hospital, and honestly I wouldn’t put it past my father to sign himself out AMA (against medical advice), but she said that he didn’t have fever / chills today, so I think the antibodies are working. At least, I feel more hopeful today than I did earlier this week. I can probably keep procrastinating the eulogy a little longer.

Once again, thank you for all the kind messages you sent, and sorry for being cryptic about why I needed them. It’s just been a lot to deal with, especially since my own feelings were so complicated. But again, thanks.

#and as a reminder: don't reblog or i'll just delete it and render your reblog moot anyway

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soulmate-game · 3 years

Text

Okay, I’m not sure if what I was trying to say in my last post was said very well.

I completely understand the tagging situation from the First Wave with the DC fans. That’s discourse that is mostly solved and we can’t do anything about those who are forever gonna be bitter or lazy. I’m not talking about that stuff.

The stuff I want to prevent/limit is the hate that comes after our fandom deliberately. And yes, I know I can’t stop it. None of us can stop bitter, antagonistic people from being bitter and antagonistic. None of us can stop people who just want to be angry.

I’m not talking about stopping them, though.

I’m talking about what we can do to protect ourselves as creators and consumers in this fandom. As people who love and appreciate what the creations and people in this fandom have to offer. In simplistic form, I’m saying we need to learn how to shield ourselves from bullies. And there are methods we can use to make ourselves less of a target to the people who go after us, and methods to cut their attacks off short. None of these methods are fool-proof, but they will work to filter out a good majority of the shit we would otherwise be showered by, like a big umbrella against Assholery. Sure, the wind might still blow some in our face and we might splash in a puddle or two by accident, but at least we aren’t soaked.

So let me list the various things that can help you shield yourself from hate/harassment/antis who might just be out to get you.

1) leave the fandom.

The most effective, but least attractive method possible. This is limited to being a last ditch effort, if things have just gotten too hard to handle. I’m covering it first though, because we have to acknowledge that it is a viable method. If you feel trapped, hated, bullied, I’m sure all of us in this fandom would prefer you take a break and leave us for a while in the sake of your own health and safety then stay where you are miserable. This is less of a problem for us though, because mostly this option is gonna be for fandoms where the discourse and attacks are internal. Maribat is largely a peaceful and supportive/healthy environment once you’re inside our little bubble, the main discourse comes from outside in. So let’s focus on the main point of this post— how to keep our bubble from popping.

2) Make it apparent right away that you are Unapologetic.

Whenever you post content or are approached by someone about the topic of your fandom, don’t you DARE ever apologize for liking what you like or posting unproblematic content. You need to make it clear right off the bat that you are not gonna be swayed, bullied, or shamed out of your fandom. Stand with pride and make it clear, but don’t be verbose about it. A simple “Don’t like, don’t read” is classic but sometimes if you’re posting/talking during a more confrontational period of the fandom, you need to up your game to reflect that. The funny thing is, people can easily be intimidated by swearing if it isn’t directed at them or clearly antagonistic. If you’re swearing in a joking, casual or even in a manner that shows you’re not taking yourself too seriously, people will usually avoid picking fights with you. For this, my favorite lines to use on my work include;

“Don’t like, I don’t fucking care. I fell down the rabbit hole.”

“Don’t bother reading if you’re not into this, this shit bitch-slapped me and dragged me along on it’s adventure.”

“I’m addicted to this fandom, don’t bother trying to save me. If it bothers you, I don’t give a fuck. Save yourselves.”

3) Don’t approach or interact

Unless someone comes at you first, never try to persuade someone away from hating us. That just makes you a target in an empty field, for the vultures to surround and gang up on. If someone approaches you with provocative but not overly insulting or intelligent language— I.e; trying to start a fight, vague insults not always relating to the fandom itself, trying to insult your character/judgement— do not respond. Delete the message, block the account, and surround yourself with fluffy good stuff to forget the wanna-be harasser. These people are often not brave enough to outright start a fight, and want you to get defensive first so they know the weak points in your armor to exploit. Defensive statements declare your own insecurities, don’t get defensive. It gives them a way to win without having to defend themselves or feel vulnerable— it’s like exploiting type differences in Pokémon. You wait for an unfamiliar Pokémon to expose it’s type, then snipe it with the moves it’s weak to. Then, you have a near sure-fire win even with under leveled Pokémon on your team.

Don’t be a proud Infernape that gets sniped by a weak-ass level 5 Piplup. We’re strong, don’t show them the chinks in our armor.

4) Have a support network. Even if they don’t know they are your support network.

The fandom as a whole serves this purpose, and this is mostly gonna be a tactic you use when the discourse is inside the fandom, but there can be uses for this in discourse from outside the fandom as well. If someone tries to act like they like your story/art “but...” they passive aggressively state things they “would prefer” or they try to make it sound like you made stupid mistakes (a tactic to make you insecure about yourself) instead of kindly pointing out errors or offering constructive criticism (ex: “you know you put your trigger list somewhere where it’s useless right? Love your story though.)—THESE ARE ALL PROVOCATIONS. They are trying to make you insecure so that you change things about yourself, your work, or jump through hoops to try to “make it up” to them when you did nothing wrong and there are no problems to fix. Do not fall for it! Instead, politely as possible, bring the issue into a public space where you feel safe/trust the people in that space to keep the bullshit from escalating. For me, I straight up explain my reasoning for the placement of my trigger list as if I’m advertising a particularly boring but important product that I’m selling, then offer places for them to bring the issue into a discussion with others. I send them to a discoed group or right here to my tumblr, and I immediately make the issue into a big discussion (do YOU think there is anything to change? Let’s ALL talk about it) so that I am no longer isolated and easy for them to harass. They might refuse to join the discussion and further try to pressure you, but do not cave. Merely say that a public discussion has been started, and if they are actually, legitimately concerned about the way you do things then they can debate it in a public setting. This way, you have back up. 9/10 people who try to target you this way will back off and never enter the conversation you started.

5) Do not fight back.

This sounds counterintuitive, but a lot of the time once discourse gets this bad, arguing/defending/ trying to prove your point only fuels their rage more. I have found that people hate very little in this world more than they hate being wrong. And people who hate being wrong will fight to the bitter death about their opinions, no matter how invalid or hurtful they are, in the favor of their blissful ignorance. Remove yourself from harmful discussions or those that seem to be going in circles as soon as possible, and try to surround yourself in your support group. Never let people make you feel stupid, your opinions illegitimate, or your likes/dislikes invalid or evil.

6) Try to learn how to recognize bullies in disguise

It’s too much for me to try to cover here, but you need to PLEASE look into how to spot gaslighting. Tactics of gaslighting are often used to attack others and try to make them feel like their own opinions are invalid or their mindset untrustworthy. People will often approach you in the guise of friendship/support/ “I am not into this, but...” and while this is not always a red flag, we have to keep our eyes open for any signs of this person or their approach being rooted in anything other than legitimate curiosity or kindness. Not all suggestions that say they are out of concern actually ARE. Keep an eye out for warning signs, and cut off interaction once things seem like they may lead to an argument or you being in a vulnerable position if you continue interacting.

(Brief mention of s**cide and threats in the section below)

7) If all else fails, BLOCK THEM.

No hesitation, we don’t need this shit. They make a second account? Block that too. Don’t respond, only take screenshots or reblog if it is directly harmful information that can/should be documented (words that encourage suicide, threats, insults that seem a little too specific for comfort) and give the evidence to someone you trust to look out for you. A therapist, a family member, or even the authorities if you deem that necessary. Just don’t handle it alone.

We are not responsible for other people’s actions, opinions, or anger. Take the steps to protect yourself instead of trying to reconcile. Sometimes, reconciliation isn’t an option. Both parties have to be willing to reconcile, and it is clear they have nothing in mind but hurting us. So raise your shields and protect yourself and your friends, we’re not gonna lose a war to petty jerks.

#tw: harassment #bully prevention #bullying prevention #steps to protect yourself #maribat #ml x dc #mlb x dc

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xavadak3davrax · 3 years

Text

So Close Yet So Far / Fred Weasley

Prince! Fred Part 2 – So close yet so far

Warnings: mentions of some sexual content but nothing happens.

Summary: Fred can’t stop thinking about you so he takes matters into his own hands. And then he makes and an irrational decision that he needs to see you more.

Taglist: @manuosorioh @itsbebeyyy

Hey guys. So here is part 2 of prince Fred. First I wanna say thank you so much to everyone who reblogged and liked and commented. It really left me speechless. This blog is just something to have a little bit of fun and unwind from the real world so yeah. Thank you with all my heart. Like I said this is part 2 but they are still a bit far from lovers ahah I will probably make this a series i think? I most definitely write another parte but I don’t think I will be satisfied with only one more. Also english is not my first language so please excuse any mistakes and feel free to leave a message if you feel like I should add any other warning or anything else. Thank you so much once again :)

Part 1 of Prince Fred can be found HERE

PART 3

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Fred had been having the worst week ever, he didn’t think it could get worse. Ever since he left the market a week a go he thought seeing her (and for the first time for that matter) that it was a sign to him. The day of the talk of weddings and he finds her? The most precious and strong-minded girl he ever encountered? Lucky guy.

As soon as he hit home a week ago things took a turn. He came home to his father and mother accompanied by the queen and princess of the south. It took him a few seconds to actually understand what was happening in front of him, but as his thoughts started to make sense Fred’s mood switched completely. He has nothing more nothing less than In front of his future wife, according to his father’s next words. Fred despised his father then more than ever. Although he knew it was an obligation to marry, he never thought it would come so fast. Or was it that fast? Maybe it wasn’t but the idea never stuck with him.

From that point on his worst week had started. Both the queen and the princess would stay until the wedding had some structure and things had a course. Fred didn’t want to seem rude, or uninterested (which as this point, he was but still) but planning something that we was praying wouldn’t happen, was starting to take a toll on him. Physically and emotionally.

Very rarely did he appear in the meetings his father had planned, and he almost never made appearances in the meals throughout the day. He started eating his in chambers, either alone or sometimes accompanied by some girl who he thought would take is mind of, of everything.

So exactly a week after he first saw you, he decided that he had enough waiting and thinking around. He needed to see you, to talk you, he wanted to get to know you. And now leaving the castle was not as easy has it was a week ago. His father had reenforced security after his son’s sudden change in behavior. Fred didn’t really understand why seeing has he was always a rule-abiding kinda person. And his recent behavior was totally justified in his opinion.

So, after he got himself presentable he sneak out through a different door and a different passage way, and soon enough he was walking towards the market and you. Although he had only seen where you worked one time he remembered well and clear enough. He was attentive this time, and he very quickly got his sight on you. It was only you and your mother this time and has started to approach your stand your mother nudge you slightly, making you break eye contact with the things you were doing and looking at him for the second time ever.

“Your Grace.” Your mother said before you could speak and before he could announce himself to. You however didn’t say anything and just bowed to him, much like your mother had done.

“Good morning.” Fred said, his voice come out very soothing. What could he say next that would make his appearance justifiable? He was a Prince for crying out loud why was he now worried about what they could think about him being here and not buy anything? So his silence prolonged for a bit to long, until he finally mustered up the courage to start talking. “I was wondering if I could talk to you for a bit?” He was looking directly at you now.

Your mother tried her hardest to hide the smile that was threatening to appear on her face. She decided the best was to keep working on some stuff around her. But also keeping and eye and an ear peeled to what you would day or do.

Now you couldn’t just refuse royalty. It wasn’t something that would look good around and specially for your family. So, still very quietly you nodded and rested the small box you had on your hands and then came out around and next to him. “Before you go do you wish to have something to have something to eat your grace?” It was your mother.

“Oh I appreciate your kindness but we will have something along the way.” He smiled at her and then turned to you. “Should we go?” He spoke gently and then started walking and you followed, walking had silently has you could scared that any sudden move was going to scare him way. He was so used to big, fancy and expensive stuff how could he like or want to be next you?

“You highness your visit is very unexpected but very much appreciated.” Your voice finally made it’s way out of your throat, and your thoughts had finally started to make some type of sense. Until now nothing had really made sense.

What you didn’t expect from such a simple phrase was his laugh. A short belly laugh. “ You are very eloquent. But you do not need to speak to me in that way. You can relax I’m not here to hurt you or do any unwell to you or your family. I’m here because…” He trailed of. Could he admit to you that even though you both had a very small talk last week that he was left to wish more?

You finally smiled a little, letting that pent up nervousness subside. “You don’t have to justify yourself. I understand.” Even though you didn’t very much understand it still felt right to assure him that.

“Things have been getting chaotic up there, and I have not been able to stop thinking about you, about the incident” He admitted, stopping for a second because they were now close to a little lake and garden that was not very far from the market. You looked at him and waited for a second to see what was he going to do. He seated himself on the grass and you followed. The food he promised nowhere to be seen, but you didn’t mind His presence was already something to big to comprehend.

You decided to stay quiet, because by reading his expressions and movements you knew more was to come and somehow you had a feeling, he needed this a lot.

“My father decided that to be king I should get married.” Why was his brain allowing to share such personal stuff with someone he did not know. Someone he was only now seeing for the second time? “And I don’t want that.” He looked at you. The sun was shinning, and the light was hitting you beautifully. Every part of you that he already found beautiful was now even more prominent.

You found that this time was best to start talking. “I’m really sorry about that.” That was the first thing you had the courage to say. Your brain was trying to process all of this. All your life you thought you had it difficult. I mean how could you not? You weren’t born into wealth. But just the little bit he said also made you see that royalty doesn’t have it easy either. I mean you could not imagine yourself marrying someone you didn’t love. And for your age, and people around you, you were considered “old” to not be married. Most of your friends from when you were little already had kids of their own. And you? Well, you still helped your parents and lived with them. But they never pressured you to marry someone you didn’t love. Your own father had once said that he preferred that you lived with them all their lives, instead of marrying someone you didn’t love and didn’t make you feel appreciated.

“It must be very hard to have to marry someone not for love but for necessity, for other arrangements other than love.” You also looked at him, the sun hitting your eyes made it kind of difficult to look at him with a straight face, but he was also affected by it so you didn’t make a fuss out of it.

“Yes, it is. I know it is my duty to all of you, to give structure to our country, but I feel like my parents are just pushing me into a trap. One I will never be able to get out of.”

“Can you not marry out of love?” You asked but this time you broke the eye-contact and stared straight ahead into the clear water.

“I could yes, first if I found someone to love, and second if somehow my parents approved of it. They were always the best parents ever and I have nothing to put against them… but with this, this seems different. But I could yes.” Fred said.

“Then, you should marry out of love. I know it not to be a simple thing. You simply do not fall in love for someone out the blue. “ A big lie there, but maybe he could let that pass. “You just need to make the most out the time you have and find someone.”

“That does not sound like finding someone to love, seems to me like finding someone to substitute the girl my parents already found for me to marry.” He chuckled.

“Oh. You parents already found you someone? I’m sorry to hear that.” The feeling you felt in her chest was very different to something you ever felt. I mean how could you feel this for someone who was not yours? Maybe you could justify this by saying everyone, at least girls would feel this way. Seeing he was the prince, everyone had some kind of attraction towards him, and it would break every girls heart to know that someone they dreamed all their lives would be taken, and not to you.

“They did. She is, what you would expect every princess to be.” His simple explanation brought a lot of meaning in there. Because what was a princess suppose to be like? You sure as hell never thought about it. You dreamed of being one, but not how to be one. “Enough of my sad life. Please, tell me about yourself.”

“About me? What’s to know about me?” You have never been asked that question before. The boys you’ve been with never took their time to you. You thought they did, in the beginning, but you were naïve, and didn’t know better. All they did was getting something sexual out you and then they were out. To never be heard or seen again. So, this question took you by surprise. And by the time you took responding he could feel you didn’t have anything prepared.

“Well, I work with my parents and given that I’m an adult that should be a lot to say about me, right?” You tried to joke, but when his face was kept serious you knew it hadn’t stuck.

“Well, when I look at you, I see a hardworking woman. Someone who’s passionate about what they do. Do not think otherwise. You do not have to be married, and be out of your parents just because people around you do that. Break the norm, show them what you can achieve.” He changed his position so now both of his hands where behing his back and supporting his body and stretched out his legs.

“That is very nice of you. But as woman in this society, we are expected to married and have our first child by the age of twenty. As you can see, I have none of those. All I have is money my parents give me and that ends up in the either way because we have things to pay and cannot afford to be behind on them.” You concluded. And that’s when you saw Fred’s demeanor change.

“Come with me.” He started to get up, and his eyes followed you to the same.

“Where are we going?” You couldn’t hold in the small laugh that left your lips as you got up and followed him.

“To the palace.” That’s all he said before he started walking in the direction of the castle.

The arrival at the castle was not what you had expected. Very honestly you thought that the prince was gonna take you in through the back door, maybe the kitchen, the stables. Never, through the front door. So when you entered and faced the King and the Queen you felt the air on your lungs leave. Your mind racing, was your dress ok? Of course it wasn’t. it was not, it was the oldest of your dresses, ripped. Your hair looked nice! You had took the time this morning to do make it look pretty. It was something rare, but today was one of those ‘rare days’.

“Mom, Dad. This is y/n.” Fred cut right to the chase. Since they were there in front of you might as well just present you.

“Your highnesses.” You tried to do it the best you could, a small smile on your face and never looking them in the eyes unless they spoke directly to you. Before they could even talk Fred was already making himself heard and explaining the reason why you where there, which you, also didn’t know.

“y/n is looking for a job. I found her in one of my morning walks to the village. We have been talking for a while and I was thinking we could offer her a job here.” There some lies in that sentence, but I don’t think his parents needed to know that.

“y/n is it? Well, I’m sure my son here will help you find something important to do around the castle, given we always have so many tasks.” It was his mother talking, you knew her from all the beautiful stories your mother told you, how kind she was. “After that son I would ask you to join us in the greenhouse for some tea with the queen and the princess.”

“Sure mother, whatever your heart desires.” Fred gave her a mocking gesture before grabbing your wrist and pulling further into the castle, to you, unknown territory. “ I was thinking you could work as a maid. My personal maid.” He added the last part with a small shade of pink appearing in his cheeks. “I have very few people who I trust to work along side me, and also very few people who I trust to help me in the mornings. Almost none of them come in contact with me directly mainly because I appreciate my privacy. But I would like you to be a part of them. This job I’m offering will give you a monthly salary that we will discuss further, should you choose to accept this job. Is this to much information?” He asked when he looked at your face to see you look perplexed and a little lost.

“No I just.. Just didn’t think you would offer me a job. Me of all people” You said and when he stopped walking and opened the door you knew exactly where you were, even though you’d never been there. Certainly, this was not ok. He should not be allowed to bring one of his subjects to the castle and certainly not to his chambers. He should also not be allowed to offer a job to someone he barely even knew. But today was made of surprised and that was happening.

“Well, you just had to charm me with your small talk and I was hooked.” He jokes, entering his chambers and closing the door as soon as you entered to. “I will give you some time to think about it, as this is a big step, but I think personally you should consider it. I will give you way more than what you are making with your parents and although they might loose someone to help they will gain your income, which is already a plus, in my point of view.”

“Yes of course, please never think I don’t appreciate your offer hole heartedly, I do. And I will most definitely consider it.” You were now just standing in the middle of his chambers waiting for him to give you some type of instructions. When he motioned for you to seat, you did just that, in the chair he had pointed at.

“We should discuss further things related to it, in case you might change your mind.” He said. And so, after that you spent what thought was hours sitting there listening to him talk, but in reality it was no more than an hour. “If you have any more doubts about it, please do not hesitate to come to the castle, I will let the guards know that if you come I should attend at you immediately.” You nodded, still trying to process all the information from the past hour, but finally, after what seemed like an eternity, your brain was putting the pieces together.

“Thank you so much for this I will not forget the good you are doing for me. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but thank you.” After finishing that sentence Fred came forward and hugged you tightly. Took you by surprise but you did not hesitate to wrap your arms around him and retribute the hug.

You left after that. Not many words were shared after that unexpected hug.

You spent some days after that lost in thought. Not a single task your parents asked you seem to get right. They knew of the offer, they more than anyone else supported you in going for it. It was an amazing opportunity for you. You thought it was the best for you all, they would be able to live a comfortably from then on. But parents being parents they were thinking of your future, you would be able to start a better life. So you had you mind made up 5 days after the offer was made.

That day you woke up with a sense of relief upon you. Your mom knew of your decision so she made sure before she left for work to lay down your best dress and your best accessories just so you wouldn’t go to the palace unprepared like the first time. You got dressed and made yourself look as presentable as you could and on you went.

When you got there you followed Fred’s instructions and at first the guards where suspicious but after much insisting they went to warn him of your arrival. Being early and Fred being a night owl he was still a sleep, but very quickly came to his senses when he realizes you were there.

Thoughts evading his mind. Where you there to reject the offer? He hated the feeling that came upon him when he thought you not working there. For the days since you last talked all his brain could conjure where images of you working there, him being able to see you every day. Talk to you. Maybe in of those days he thought and dreamed of you, it might have gotten a little filthy, which scared him to admit that. But what if you were there to say yes? The joy he would feel. But the problems his mind would bring him if he had to look at you every day. Would he be able to control himself?

He had let his thoughts run wild for so long now that he feared when he came down you wouldn’t be there to speak your mind. But has he came down the last flight of stairs he found you, staring at everything, your hands behind you back, and your eyes moving quickly as if to catch every single detail around you.

They announced his arrival, what made you break your train of thoughts and look in is direction in seconds. You moved to his proximity and smiled brightly.

“Thank you for meeting me so quickly Your Grace.” You knew he didn’t like what you just called him. But first you were surrounded by guards, and they could not hear you treat him like you treat on of yours, and second if you were to work for him you would have to always call him that. Whether he liked it or not.

“Nonsense. Do you want to seat?” He asked, at the same time he gestured to the guard to leave you both alone. But you spoke fast after that.

“I a coming in to take up the offer you highness made days ago, if it’s still stands.” You looked at him. And you couldn’t believe, or at least your mind didn’t want to believe what you saw. The brightest glow his face has ever had, or that you have seen, appeared.

“It does still stand. And I’m very glad you decided to accept it. You don’t have to start today but I can take you to Miss Agatha. She’s the one in charge of all personal things, she does know I was thinking of adding someone new, so you are to be expected. Is that ok with you?”

It would never seize to amaze you how much the Prince consented to everything. Always making sure you were okay, and that what he was doing was okay to. You were so not use to it. You nodded and behind him you followed.

And so, that’s how you became part of the royal troupe. That’s how, from that day on you would work for the crown. More specifically Prince Fred himself. To attend to his needs. You didn’t think you would be able to let the little infatuation you had for him stay the way it was. You would have to work very hard to keep it small and discrete, after all he could never, and would never fall in love for someone like you.

#fred weasly x reader #fred weasley imagine #Fred Weasley Imagines #fred weasley #prince!fred #fred weasley one shot #golden

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rechoired · 4 years

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A problem with the Tales Of Arcadia community

First and foremost, I’d like to ask anyone taking the time to read this to please read the post all the way through before commenting on the matter. There is a lot of dirty laundry to unpack here, and some points will be building off previous ones.

I’ll get right to the point. Most everybody in the Tales of Arcadia fandom will have heard of the blog imthegingerninja / ginger-le-gay. She is one of the most well-known ToA-centric blogs, after all. (If you’re wanting to avoid her on Twitter as well, her account is Margaret Bell, or @The_Book_Bell.)

This is your PSA, TOA fandom: Ginger is a toxic, manipulative person.

This is not a claim I like to make lightly, but it’s long overdue that this issue is properly brought up within the fandom.

I’ve seen so many people wonder why the Tales of Arcadia fandom is so small. Well, I and many others very strongly believe that Ginger is one of the main reasons for that, if not the main one. To make matters easier, I’ve tried to break this down into some main points. So let’s take a look at how Ginger falls under this category.

Disclaimer: Please DO NOT look at this post as an excuse to harass Ginger or any other blog mentioned here. This sort of behavior is NOT acceptable. The point of this post is to educate those who may not know the extent of her harrowing behavior, nothing more.

1. Dishonesty and Death Threats

[EDIT: Shortly after this post went up, she started blatantly lying about me to try to cover for herself. You can see those lies being easily disproven here]

Ginger has been kicked from at least three Tales of Arcadia servers, all for similar reasons of violence. While I cannot provide screenshots as I am no longer part of the servers they were in, there are multiple witnesses that can verify the disgusting behavior she engaged in. The one I saw specifically was her saying that certain members of the fandom should be gathered up and hunted for sport, among other gross things. (Elaboration of why can be found in point 3, though it still doesn’t excuse this kind of talk)

Here is some points made by another blog that also sums up similar issues with Ginger, though:

While there were multiple instances of her inciting violence towards others, this is unfortunately one topic I cannot provide specific screenshots for at this time. But I will add them in as I can find them. That being said, I want to move to the dishonesty, something I do have a screenshot for.

While you could argue that people sometimes notice the similar things, this is far too close together to be considered an “original find”. The reblog button is there for a reason, but she instead decides to steal the OP’s premise and present it as her own original thought.

There have been a couple other blogs that have confirmed that their theories and analysis posts were often stolen and presented as Ginger’s own as well, to the point where they stopped bothering even making such posts, as the above blog points out. (Out of respect for their privacy, I will not be naming these blogs. Say what you will about that possibly weakening my point, but if she’s willing to so blatantly steal from that person shown above, it shouldn’t surprise you that she’s so willing to do it to others.)

Theory-making and analysis posts aren’t as solidly “original content” as a piece of art or fanfiction, sure, but it’s still common fandom courtesy to give credit where it’s due. Ginger has intentionally avoided extending that courtesy far too many times.

2. Hypocrisy

Most of this is going to be about past Merlin vs. Morgana drama, though there are also words to be said for the incredibly shaky relationships she forms with “friends”.

But first let’s talk about those wizards.

This is a topic I’ve tried to approach with Ginger before, but she borderline refused to acknowledge any of the points I was trying to make, and when she did, I don’t know if I just wasn’t being clear or what, but it honestly looked as though she was purposefully trying to misunderstand what I was saying in her bizarre responses. (To be fair, I was sending messages out of anger because she vagueposted about a blog I admired, calling them a “disgusting creep” because of them simply saying they’d hoped Jim and Merlin would be able to actually bond at some point... Not really a justifiable reaction to such a harmless thought, in my opinion. But my point is, I recognize that the circumstances may have clouded my ability to vocalize my thoughts clearly.)

That aside, we should first acknowledge this post Ginger made to save face after having gotten some backlash about hate-train related things (Side note: I couldn’t find the original post, so this is a screenshot I got from someone else. I did not add the writing. The text underneath it should still be slightly readable, I hope.):

Taken at face value, this is a very reasonable post. I think everybody would and should be able to agree on it. Hate-meme him for fun, sure, but don’t actually harass or insult others over a fictional character. Simple, right?

Apparently not, because Ginger’s done loads of that to others. Probably why the “LOL” was added in, I bet.

This post confused me. First of all, exploring dark topics (”angst”, as you put it) has never been a rare occurrence, every fandom has that content, most in heavy abundance. I’ve noticed no staggering difference in volume of this fandom compared to others I’ve been in. People enjoy angst not because they think the character “deserves to be in pain”, they enjoy a fictional blow to their own emotions. There’s lots of different reasons people like angst, but it’s barely ever been out of a genuine hate for whatever character’s the focus, from all the things I’ve seen. Your own friends have indulged in Jim angst and body horror posts before, does that mean you think they’re awful people? I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain something like this.

Also, way to basically admit you think all Merlin stans get off on child torture. So much for “If you like Merlin as a character, you’re valid”, am I right? God, what a mess of a post. (It’s been very recently deleted, which makes me wonder if she got more backlash on it, but just... wow.)

Let’s look at another one.

Again. Vagueposting about someone specific, I’d wager, since most of the people I’ve seen comment on this topic either think both characters are morally gray, or hate both.

But of course, when it comes to Morgana, suddenly excusing bad behavior can be justified. Ginger can call someone a disgusting creep because they want a familial bond between Jim and Merlin, that’s just wrong, but pushing the Mom-gana narrative with the genocidal abuser and Toby is completely fine, folks.

(Note: I would like to point out that I really don’t care about what theories and hopes people have for Morgana. You should be allowed to love that character in any way you want, same as I would say for Merlin. My issue with these examples is the completely brazen hypocrisy in which these two characters are treated. You’re obviously allowed to love Morgana without consequence, but the same should be said for any character of the show, and yet it’s not.)

The most obvious instance of this double-standard is well observable here, I believe:

... I think this mostly speaks for itself. Sorry, but this is very blatantly trying to excuse Morgana’s actions, here.

Oh hey, remember that post about Ginger saying that liking Merlin must mean you want to see Jim in horrible pain?

Say anything similar about her with Morgana, and suddenly she takes issue with this line of reasoning!

I’m sorry, but if you can’t take this sort of thing, then you shouldn’t be dishing it out. One of your own friends is still getting hate over the simple fact of liking Merlin, and all this mentality is exactly why.

Let’s look at one more.

Fun fact! Morgana horrifically abused somebody for centuries, tried to kill multiple kids, took horrible advantage of Claire (probably traumatized her), and canonically wanted to genocide humanity, not to mention all the OTHER murders she's committed, both directly and indirectly.

But somehow pointing any of this out “doesn’t count”. This is why the fandom keeps saying more and more things like this:

And this:

I could be going through her constant hating on Merlin and people who like Merlin for days straight, but I hope you all get the idea by now.

Again, I would like to just reiterate: You can like whatever character you want for whatever reason you want. The problem with this case is the hypocrisy and mistreatment of others, not your taste in characters.

Now interestingly enough, she’s lately been singing a different tune about the guy, switching from the “I hate Merlin I hope he dies!!!” mentality to “Oh he should get a redemption arc too :)” sort of thing.

I’m highly convinced that the only reasons for this “change of heart” is because of the constant backlash she was getting for the obnoxious amount of hate posts being thrown around all the time, but also because Aaron Waltke keeps tabs on the fandom more lately, and has spoken himself about Merlin not being a villain.

I could go on about this point forever, but I think I’ll just leave the Merlin topic with this post going through the hypocrisy of the Merlin Hate Train. In fact, here’s two just for fun.

Now onto more real-world focused areas of hypocrisy. One such instance can be found in Ginger’s Janus Disorder server.

Just take a look at this post.

While the offender in this case isn’t Ginger specifically, it still takes place in her server, and she made no moves to enforce her “No discourse” rule. All over... what? A random kudos on a fanfiction that’s not even about anything controversial since all characters involved are adults? I immensely don’t understand the point of why this ever had to be an issue, or why nobody spoke up about how ridiculous this is.

I’d also like to point out a certain user called firecat17. For some quick context, waaay back in the Kung Fu Panda fandom (around 2018), this user had been harassing people and saying incredibly vile things, a person of which Ginger had a bit of a feud, but firecat’s anon threats had gotten to the point where Ginger ended up having to block their IP.

Obviously, the user firecat was the one in the wrong, here. (Also, the irony in this comment is through the roof...)

Interesting point there, Ginger. Sure would be nice if you practiced what you preached.

Why am I bringing this random old drama up, you may ask? Well, it just strikes me as strange that someone who was so vile to Ginger is suddenly on her okay-list again, sending her asks and getting casual responses as if nothing ever happened.

To be fair, there is the possibility that they worked out their differences in private. But given the severity of the kinds of words being exchanged, I would still find that rather suspicious.

When someone who’s said things so vile can be so easily forgiven, yet something as harmless as leaving a kudos on some random fanfiction is considered grounds for harassment, it’s obvious there’s no stability or room for trust among this group of people. Unsurprising when there’s been several instances of this “friend group” turning on each other.

If you think you’re somehow different, that your “friendship” with Ginger or the others is more valued than that, then I’m sorry to burst your bubble but it’s likely not true. She’d throw you under the bus at the hint of you doing something she deems problematic, as it’s happened to multiple blogs before you.

3. Demonization of and insensitivity towards s*xual abuse victims

(This topic is one that’s hard for me to talk about, being a victim of CSA myself, so I’ve gathered some different sources to do most of the main talking for me. I tried to form more commentary on this myself, but I get too emotionally charged in my responses, and I don’t want that to cloud any reader’s perception of what I’m trying to communicate here, so I’ll try to keep most of my comments brief on this one.)

One thing recently brought to my attention about Ginger and her squad that especially bothers me is their rashness in labeling people p*dophiles and p*do apologists. If these claims were true, then I wouldn’t have a problem with it.

But these people are accusing others of these horrible things and threatening them on the sole basis of fictional content.

Now before you fly off the handle at me, let me be very clear: I absolutely understand that there are gross people out there who use the “It’s all just fiction” argument to hide their actual, pr*datory behaviors. (We’ve all probably seen at least one or two neckbeard memes of that caliber)

But like it or not, exploring traumatic themes through a fictional lens is something that has been studied and proven to be a genuine coping mechanism for some. It’s not something that works for me, but I knew a few people from past therapy groups that it worked surprisingly well for. Bringing a trauma into a controlled environment and processing it through fictional means can and does help some victims deal with what they went through.

It’s important to understand that not everyone processes their experience in the same neat, little boxes you have laid out as the only “acceptable” ways of coping. Trauma fiction and expressive arts therapy are commonly used by victims, and it does help some people, whether you like it or not.

I’m already dragging this on too much, so here are some sources for better-worded information on the topic (Warning: Most of these deal with highly sensitive themes such as gun violence and s*xual abuse.)

Source 1 - Source 2 - Source 3 - Source 4 - Source 5 (pages 61 onward, specifically) - Source 6 - Source 7 - Source 8 - Source 9 - Source 10 (and believe me, if those all don’t satisfy you, I can easily supply more.)

And this quote from source 9 I think sums it up best:

“Fiction works differently. My imagination gives me a framework to process the grief and terror and the consequences, even when I myself have not found any resolution. It allows me to enter my own traumatic experiences sideways and linger inside them, if I know I can give them to characters who might be lucky enough to find the antidote: love, connection, community, family. In other words, I can enter — and exit — the trauma loop through stories that are not exactly the same as mine.

This goes for the reader also. Recent studies periodically assure us that stories — literary fiction, hardcover books, even the simple act of reading — promote empathy. We rarely have identical experiences, so fiction is how we practice linking our similar or parallel realities so we can feel them. This seems particularly useful in our current society, where we are all so separated, and are working so hard to block the violence that keeps happening to us from our minds.

Fiction connects us, and it can also contribute to our healing. When we see ourselves in worlds we don’t live in, like The Handmaid’s Tale or The Color Purple, sometimes, that very different violence helps us finally process our own. Because as much as our memoirs and testimonies are brave and validating, fiction does not just mirror our truths so they are safe to experience; it also helps us endure the aftermath. Because long after the immediate experience is over, survival struggles onward, in every moment of our daily lives.”

While most professionals have in the past advised that victims keep their trauma-related works more private, to only show it to your trusted friends or family, the fast-growing use of the internet has led more people to sharing it in an online platform, which is not unexpected behavior.

I unfortunately don’t have the screenshot of the original post, but there was a post made some time back literally telling a fandom member to go and hang themselves over this garbage. A survivor of s*xual abuse, no less. And to top that off, one of Ginger’s squad @emmy-puff commented in support of that violent post, as well as blatantly misgendering the target of it. While, again, I was unable to get screenshots, there are multiple witnesses to this instance, one Anonymous even having called them out on it back when it happened. (I suspect that Emmy deleted that answer due to how bad it made them look.) If anybody reading this has screenshots of the initial post or the ask that came of it, please feel free to share.

I don’t care who you are or who you’re talking about, if you use misgendering someone as a way to hurt them, then you are an insult to the trans community. That is an awful thing to do, and you lose so much credibility if that’s the only thing you can fall back on when getting in a fight with someone. While this post isn’t about Emmy specifically, this is exactly the kind of hateful rhetoric that’s being encouraged in the environment Ginger’s made.

Another thing I would like to point out on this matter is an instance that happened in the ToA fandom a couple years back. I, again, don’t have screenshots available (I believe the original post ended up deleted) but the post in question caused enough of a fuss that I’m sure a few people must remember it...

A while back, there was an artist that posted uncensored, untagged r*pe art of Aaarrrgghh, Gunmar, and Jim in the main Trollhunters tag. As you can imagine, this infuriated many people. Many of which are among the list of those who’ve been labeled “p*do apologists”. Almost the very minute that post showed up in the tag with no trigger warnings of any kind, the fandom immediately got on OP’s tail about it, because they all shared that basic understanding of “This is a traumatizing subject for many people and they should have the ability to avoid it”. If the people you’ve labelled as pr*dator supporters were really as awful as you say they are, they would’ve jumped to that person’s defense, too. But they were completely against OP’s horrible lack of consideration of survivors, right alongside the rest of the fandom.

Am I saying you have to like trauma fiction? Absolutely not. Are there people that make trauma fiction that are actual pr*dators? I’m sure there are. But those people would be that way whether trauma fiction was out there or not. Gross people have existed and will always exist regardless of what media is out there.

I deeply understand the controversy, uncertainty, and stress that surrounds this topic, I promise you, I do. But the fact of the matter is, some people actually do use trauma fiction and expressive arts therapy as a way of coping, as has been observed in people even from ages as young as 5. To say otherwise is blatantly untrue. This isn’t a matter of opinion or morals, this is plain, studied facts that you cannot change about human psychology.

Nobody should ever have to go through something as horrible as s*xual abuse of any kind, and I know how deeply upsetting it can be to see certain images or stories with those themes in play. Those users with a sense of decency and understanding for fellow victims will tag their posts with the appropriate warnings. After that, it’s up to you to filter out what you don’t want to see. You curate your own internet experience, and it’s just plain irrational to try and harass everyone into conforming to your rules. While it’s an 18+ blog’s job to make sure to tag and label their content appropriately, it is your job to block the things you don’t want to see, whether you’re an adult or a minor. It is YOUR job to blacklist content that you know will upset you, because it is always going to exist on the internet, and any internet user needs to know and understand that. Multiple times I’d seen people going off about posts that were already appropriately trigger-tagged. If you don’t have those upsetting tags blacklisted by now, then the fault is mostly on you in that kind of case, not the OP.

Before I end this topic off, just one more example of blatant disrespect towards victims:

I’m sorry, but the absolute nerve of comparing some random fictional character you’re petty over to an actual pr*dator who’s terribly hurt real children is just awful. Imagine how insulted one of Onion’s victims would be if they saw that. Lord.

Ginger claims to care about victims, but she’s made it abundantly clear that she only cares about those that behave the way she think a victim should.

4. Ableism

I’m going to just show a couple posts here and let them mostly speak for themselves.

Just... my God. You looked at the definition of psychopath and decided that was enough to give you qualification to speak like this about it? Do you realize the extensive work and study of human psychology goes into the diagnosis and understandings of psychopathy? Not to mention, you just admit to thinking people deserve hate because of a mental disorder they legitimately have no control over? I’m sorry, but that is just cruel. Demonization of the mentally ill is not cute or funny. Next.

While I’m still annoyed with Emmy’s transphobic treatment of another user mentioned earlier, they make a very solid point in this instance. (The first post they referenced has since been deleted, but here’s the second one speaking out against the ableism.) I feel I don’t need to add much to this, as these points have already been argued very well by users better qualified to speak on the subject than I.

5. Manipulation tactics

This part is more observations of two kinds of abuse tactics Ginger appears to demonstrate, using the above as points of reference.

First, there’s DARVO.

Then, less formally, there’s this good point about online cult mentality.

Before you say anything, obviously I don’t think Ginger thinks of herself as some sort of deity. While it could be argued that she considers herself a point of authority within the TOA fandom maybe, I haven’t seen enough of this to say for sure how far that goes. So that point can be ignored, because it mostly doesn’t apply in this case. (The “Dictating parts of your online life” might also not apply, but I can’t say for sure as I haven’t gotten any confirmation of that sort of thing in Ginger’s group.)

But there are grains of truth in the other four points, especially that last one. Plain and simple, she’s made people afraid to speak their minds about even harmless things such as character analysis.

Ginger is someone who can’t seem to comprehend different viewpoints and life experiences. She’s extremely unsympathetic towards people she doesn’t understand, as can be observed in above examples. Assuming malicious intent from everybody you can’t understand is a dangerous and hurtful mindset to have, for both you and those who you unnecessarily scorn.

There are a few outcomes I’ve speculated should she ever come to see this post.

1. She will ignore this post completely, pretending as if it doesn’t exist

2. She will dismiss me as being some sort of horrible person, a p*do apologist or something of the sort (despite being a victim of that myself, clearly she doesn’t care about who’s actually been hurt by real p*dos or not if they don’t conform to her narrow worldview), and claim nothing I’ve said bears any meaning, despite the extensive evidence I’ve provided.

3. She will get people to try and attack me.

4. She will actually address these points in a tactful, mature, and serious manner instead of her usual act of trying to dismiss everything at the slightest hint of non-conformity. (The least likely outcome, but one can dream.)

I could add to this post all day, but it’s long enough as it is and my focus was on getting the main points out of the way. I understand that I lack some of the receipts necessary to back myself up in a few parts, but I know that many other fans have bared witness to those things, so I know there will be at least some people who’ll know what I speak of is true, and that’s good enough for me.

That being said, if anybody has screenshots of the instances I wasn’t able to provide for, it would be greatly appreciated if you could add them into the conversation.

!!!-If you have screenshots, but are too uncomfortable to get involved in this, then you can private-message them to me and I would be grateful and more than happy to add them in while keeping you completely anonymous.-!!!

(I've removed the section with all the tags, as I recognize it was probably going overboard. My goal was just to spread information, not to try and involve those tagged, but I understand how that may have gotten lost in translation and made people uncomfortable. Also, it apparently was showing up multiple times in people’s notifications when I only tagged people twice, so I’m not sure why that glitch happened, but I apologize for that annoyance as well.)

Now, to end us off, my responses to questions or angry comments I’m probably going to get:

You don’t even have all the evidence! How are we to know you’re not just lying about some of this?

Admittedly, I don’t have as much screenshot proof as I would like, that’s true. But for most of the instances I couldn’t provide for, there were other witnesses to her bad behavior. I don’t really have the need to lie when there’s already a lot of knowledge out there of the bad stuff she has done. Nor do I really have the emotional investment in this fandom anymore to lie for the pointless reason of causing drama.

Why post this on a throwaway account if you think people are on your side?

I just don’t really want my main blog associated with TOA anymore, to be frank.

You tagged a bunch of people, so you must be trying to get them to attack Ginger!

No. I tagged a bunch of people because I think this information should be heard on a wider scale, considering the position Ginger has in the fandom. I don’t want her or anybody else to be attacked, but her negative impact on this fandom deserves to be acknowledged.

Again, I don’t think Ginger or any of the others deserve harassment or cyberbullying or anything of that manner, that’s kind of what this whole post is against. And it just hurts the situation more than it helps it. What bothers me is how she’s never apologized for or even once acknowledged the gross way she’s treated people. While she might be more low-key about it now, she still treats people who don’t deserve it like garbage. There are still several people upset about the damage she’s caused to this fandom, rightfully so. I wouldn’t be so loud about making this post if I didn’t think it was something worth drawing attention to.

Thank you for reading.

#TrollHunters #3Below #TOAwizards #Tales of Arcadia #TOA

205 notes · View notes

ill-skillsgard · 3 years

Note

Would you ever write about Faust making Faith squirt for the first time cause that would be the hottest thing ever.

Warning: 18+ SMUT. Anal play, sex toys, size kink, possessive sex, strong anti-Christian themes, squirting, angst, feelings.

Note: I really hope you guys enjoy this one! Please let me know your thoughts and reblog/like if you can! I’d appreciate it.

Faust x Faith Masterpost [x]

"You didn't wear the outfit," Faust murmured against Faith's lips.

"Sorry. I forgot. You got here so quick."

He took hold of the metal loop dangling at her neck and smirked. "But you wore this for me."

"I thought you'd like it," Faith giggled.

"You think you're some kind of naughty girl? Do you think this collar makes you bad?"

Faith shrugged.

"Do you know what happens to girls who wear things like this?"

She grabbed his hands and placed them on her chest. "Why don't you show me?"

"You couldn't handle it," he chuckled.

Faith wasn't in the mood to convince Faust to do what he wanted with her. He'd gotten it lodged in his head that she was too delicate, but she wanted him to overpower her and make her hurt in that viciously pleasurable way she dreamt of.

"Come on, Faust, you were the one who said you wanted to wreck this pussy. You won't take advantage of our last couple of nights together by making me never forget them?"

"You say that like I'm never coming back."

Faust nipped her bottom lip, palms sliding down her ribs to the back of her skirt. He pulled it up and squeezed her ass in both hands, watching her face change shapes any time he compressed her skin.

"You're going away for weeks. Who knows what will happen? Maybe you'll find a new girl and forget all about me."

Faust loosened his and shook his hair out of his face. "Don't say that."

"Im just kidding," she chuckled, leaning in for a kiss and meeting the crest of his cheekbone instead.

"What?" Faith asked.

"I'm serious. Why do you think that way?"

She pulled away to focus on the solemnity of his face. "I don't know, it's just something girls say."

"I don't think so."

"Relax, baby. It's okay. Let's just do it right here in the car. Please? I'm going to miss you so much when you go away. I need all I can get."

"I don't care," Faust said, framing his long fingers into a C-shaped hold on her neck. He didn't squeeze, but held her in place and drilled into her eyes with his. "Are you saying you might find another guy while I'm gone?"

"No! Of course not!"

"Then why do you think I'd cheat on you?"

"I don't think that," she whispered.

Faust released her throat and tightened his arms around her, pinning her in his firm embrace as she straddled his lap. "I'm not looking for groupies and shit. I just want to play. That's all I care about. That, and you."

"I know, Faust. Why do you always have to take everything I say so seriously? You know I'd never think about that. I'm a good girl, remember?"

Faust's throat rolled out a soft growl. "Good girls don't wear slutty little collars. Or sneak out of their dorms to fuck their boyfriends in the backseat of a car."

"Don't you want to corrupt me? Christian girl, taken by some heathen devil-worshiper... Destroying her purity."

He curled his hips up, the thick seam of his jeans rubbing against her flimsy panties, brushing over her sheathed clit. The pressure grew with the next carve. Faust filled with blood and clamped her frame against him as his hand snuck around to the back of her skirt again.

"Faust, please. I want it. I'll let you do anything to me."

"I know. You've waited long enough. Now I know what you can and can't handle. But not here."

Faith whimpered when he stopped feeding her strokes of his groin. She'd been wriggling against him, trying to fret hard enough that his buried erection pressed against her folds. Though his tilting stopped, the hands at her behind explored the soft mounds of flesh and the sensitive spots that lied between them.

"You're gonna give me everything. That mouth and those pretty lips. Your cunt. Mm-hmm, and this one right here too. Yeah, I'm gonna fill that asshole with all kinds of things. My fingers... my tongue? Maybe a special surprise I have waiting at home?"

Faith never felt such a violent shiver ripple across her skin. It was like the window cracked open on its own and let in the bitter night air, sweet with the seasonal decay. He pressed his index finger against the promised hole, rotating and varying pressure over the cotton.

"All right, I'm serious now. Let's get going. Climb into your seat and buckle up."

On the ride back to Faust's apartment, his arm stretched over to toy with her clit, still never breaching the protection of her underwear. He only ghosted his fingertips over them, refusing to nudge them aside to give her the full strokes she craved. Even when Faith tried to pull them down, he stopped her hand, clicking his tongue and berating her for being too eager.

"Control yourself. Just enjoy what I give you."

"Please, I want more."

"You'll get more when I decide you deserve more. Tonight, you're mine. My pussy. My tits and ass and mouth. Whatever I say goes. Understand?"

"Yes, Faust."

"Good... Now I want you to lean back and finger your pussy. Then I want you to smear that pussy juice on the windshield. Draw my roommate a little picture."

Faith scoffed, cowering against the backrest, clutching her seatbelt. "What? Are you serious?"

He swung his eyes away from the road for as long as it took for the windshield wipers to clip twice.

"Do it."

She obeyed, and parted her legs to insert her middle finger as far as the second knuckle, curling to find the spot inside Faust helped her discover. Faust looked back at the road as she worked herself up, nodding and smirking when she brought her glistening fingertip to the glass to create the shape of a heart.

"Aw, isn't that sweet? Leave 'em a little message."

Faust held the hand she'd used to finger herself the entire elevator ride up. He led Faith straight into his room after dropping the keys at the door. This behaviour was normal, as Faust never had much to say to his roommate besides agreeing on times to use the car. Faith skipped along with his formidable steps to the bedroom.

Faust's bed welcomed her instantly. Giddy and nearly delirious from the excitement of not sleeping in her own bunk at school, Faith sat down and smoothed out her skirt while he went to the closet to rummage around.

Even the gory posters and beer bottles gave her a sense of comfort. She'd miss his room, and the nights they spent entangled in each other, his massive limbs always draped over hers while they cuddled or talked or slept or fucked. It keyed into her head then that she wouldn't see his plaid bedsheets or nap under the comforter that smelled like his shampoo and deodorant for a long, long time. She tried not to think about that, but the realization overcame her by the time Faust retrieved the item for which he searched.

He knelt on the carpet, noticing a single tear on her cheek and wiping it away.

"Don't do this, babe. Don't cry."

Faith brushed the next droplet away herself and breathed in deeply.

"I'm so sorry. I'll try not to. It's just hard because... I'll miss you."

"I know. It'll be tough, but when I get home, maybe I'll be able to get out of here... Get a car. Move closer to your school. I won't have to keep borrowing fuckface's shit-wagon to come see you. Things will be better after I get back."

"I just can't imagine sleeping without you for that long."

"It's part of the gig, Faith. It always will be. I'll have to do this at least once a year. Probably more if things go well."

She looked down at her toes and nodded, avoiding the large green eyes imploring her to accept reality. Faust stood up and raked his hand through her hair, pressing her face against his thigh.

"Don't get soft on me now. We have a big night, remember? Unless you don't feel like fucking no more?"

Faith would never pass up the opportunity to please him. It always meant if she did a good job, he'd pleasure her right back, tenfold. But tonight made a heavier promise Faith craved since the moment she passed him by in the diner; for Faust to show her the dark side of life, where her elders and superiors had always promised demons lurked, waiting to undo her and lead her away from the righteous path.

He handled her jaw firmly, raising her to her knees on the bed. He bent at the hips and captured her lips along with the silver ring hanging from her neck. A length of chain slid through his grip as he stood up, and he wound it up in his fist, raising her another inch. The leather pressed into her skin and she surrendered instantly.

"That's what I thought."

"What're you gonna do to me?"

"Don't speak. You'll answer me and that's it. Now get off the bed. On your knees."

They switched spots, Faust sitting on the edge of the bed and Faith kneeling between his legs. He pulled the leash short and worked open the button and zipper of his pants, nodding for Faith to pull them down.

"You wanna be a bad girl?"

Faith nodded, a warm, fluttering sensation filling her chest.

"Yeah. You want to do all the sinful things they taught you not to do in school. Like giving your precious little pussy away. There's no way a slut like you can wait until marriage and you don't care how it looks in your God's eyes. The only one you want is to serve me, even if it means going back on the vows you made to stay pure and chaste," Faust chuckled." Well, it's way too late now. I've already soiled you and taken your virginity. But don't you think it's inherently perverse how those supposed men of God put so much importance on what's between your gorgeous legs? Almost like that's all they think about. And who can really blame them? You can do bad in school, cheat on your work, hurt others, lie, steal, disobey your parents and still earn forgiveness, but the moment you let a man's cock inside you, you’ve got no worth. Funny, isn't it? The ultimate sin is what you crave the most. All those white men policing your pussy. Your pastor... Your father... Your God."

A sliver of her past self shuddered to hear the unabated truth pouring from Faust's lips. There was always a shameful breath lingering inside her whenever they had sex, but she always suppressed it by looking into his eyes to find the love living deep in those green pools. Tonight, Faust didn't let an ounce of affection shine through, determined to bring her shame to the forefront of her mind to exploit it.

"What? Am I wrong? That's what they taught you, isn't it? That your urges make you sinful. That your natural human instincts put you off the path to heaven. Even though, mm, when I stuff all your little holes, you swear you're already there. Why does it feel so good to fuck me when it's so wrong?"

The residual polyps of her religious upbringing quivered and stung, echoing past lessons drilled into her from birth. Faith was always aware of existence on the other side of the fence where the criminals and harlots and sinners lived, and as a child, thought herself too good to wander into those dim pastures. As she matured, new world realities filtered through the pinpricks her parents overlooked—other children whispering of PG-13 movies, sex-charged billboards and unsupervised access to the internet—leaving behind the silt of the depraved for her to examine with hungry eyes. Nothing excited her more than the thought of finding a used porn magazine at the park, or staying up later than the rest of her girlfriends to catch flashes of soft-core skin on cable television. Now she was neck-deep in the sin they'd worked so hard to keep her from, ready to dive in with but a nostalgic glance back at her old, virtuous life.

It still bothered her whenever Faust referred to God, as they fashioned Him before her as divinity, unchallengeable. The unabashed way Faust spit upon His image made her cringe, yet his gall carved out a spot in her head above her pastor, above her father. Faust was the only man to defy her doctrine, and that made him more courageous than anyone she'd ever known. Even her daddy cowered in fear of God's wrath. Faust... he pissed on the cross and the bible, made a mockery of the gospel and showed her how delicious the grapes of temptation tasted on her contaminated tongue.

Faust pushed the elastic band of his boxers down so it bunched under his balls, helping his shaft stand upright. If left without support, he'd loll to the side, the girth too much for his blood to circumvent.

"Open your pretty mouth and suck this fat fucking cock, right now."

Faith displayed her tongue, waiting for him to trace a line from tip to tonsils. The warm pre-cum coated her tastebuds, and she wrapped her lips around the head, swallowing the fluid and moaning.

"Oh, Christ, baby, that looks so good. How does it taste?"

Faith hummed in agreement, unable to form a word with the mass wedging her jaws apart. He bucked his hips up once, hitting the back of her throat, then settled on the bed and let her go to work while he used the chain leash to angle her head. Bubbles formed around the ridge, dripping down in all directions to lubricate the way. Soon, Faust shivered from the warm froth gliding downward and pulled her off by the chain, anchoring his shaft against his belly.

"Suck that spit off my balls," he barked.

Faith did as she was told, keeping her eyes on his slackened face as she trailed her tongue up and down, collecting the saliva and swallowing.

"Good. That's good. Now, get up on the bed. On your hands and knees," he yanked the chain.

Propelled by the force around her neck, Faith crawled onto the bed and awaited his next move. She didn't notice the shiny object in his hand until he placed it on the bed next to her. A shiny metal plug with a jewelled end awaited, puckering the bedspread under its weight.

Before Faith mustered the courage to ask, Faust pulled her panties down to her knees and lapped her entrance with the same sloppy ardency she'd shown him but a minute before. He nipped her folds and continued upward, two hands now spreading her cheeks apart to reveal the next destination of his travelling tongue.

"Did you get all nice and clean for me?" He snickered.

"Mm-hmm," Faith said with a nod.

"Yeah, 'cause you knew I was gonna play with that ass."

Faust teased her with circles of varying pressure, switching his middle finger out for his tongue the first time he dipped inside. She wiggled and let curious noises escape her before clamping her hand over her mouth.

"How does that feel?"

"It feels... good," Faith replied.

"Yeah? You like it? Like it when I sodomize you?"

She whimpered. Faust took her mewling as a sign to continue. Slowly, he inserted his fingertip, reading her body and how it contorted from the new intrusion. When he was certain she wouldn't refuse, he worked the digit in and out, anointing the site with a fresh wad of spit.

"What do you think about the toy I bought for you?"

Faith craned her head to regard the little silver toy. "I like it."

"Really? You're not just saying that are you? It's not just something girls say, is it?"

"No, I want it. I'll do it if you like that."

"Anyone ever tell you how sweet you are? You’re always thinking of others. Perfect little cock-slave. It's really too bad your holes are so tiny. I'd really love to fuck your ass, but we wouldn't want anyone getting injured tonight," Faust said.

Faith simpered and wiggled her hips. There was a brief loss of contact as Faust went for a bottle of lube he always had stashed under the bed for nights Faith needed it. He coated the toy and rubbed the rest around and inside her tightness. With his fingertip eclipsing her hole, he dipped in one last time before replacing the digit with the tapered end of the plug.

Faith couldn't tell what it looked like when her body accepted the weighty piece of decoration, but when Faust had it in place, he breathed heavily.

"Fuck, Faith... That's adorable. How's that feel?"

She tilted her hips from side to side, grimacing from the flare pressing into her cheeks. "It's... Different."

"Spread your legs a bit more. Yeah, that's good. Open up and show me that pussy and your cute plug."

Faust overestimated his reserve of patience. Once affixed with the pink jewel, he lost sight of everything else except filling her other holes too. But he had to control himself if he wanted to achieve what he set out to achieve, and that required endurance. He had to tease her with a little more tongue-fucking before slipping his cock in from behind. She gasped and clenched hard, flinching away. The added fullness only intensified the stretch from his width and the imposing length. Faust seethed a moment before teasing her pussy with the tip.

"All right, work it however you like, babe. Get comfortable. It's a lot."

Left to her own efforts, she sat back on him and let the stretch course through her. Faust watched most of his length disappear, mouth dropped in awe. She continued jamming him back inside after every withdrawal, hoping to impress with her resilience.

"You're doing good, baby. Keep going. Fuck, that feels amazing."

When Faust grew bored with the position, he flipped her on her back so he could watch her wince in mixed pain and pleasure. Her struggle urged him on, her panting, encouragement. Over the months, Faith got used to the breadth of him inside and didn't tremble as much or wilt from trying to keep up. It was time to move onto the next part of his plan, which was to introduce yet another form of stimulation.

Faust had her sit on him, his chest to her back, fully enveloped in her wetness with the plug angling just right. Once she perched in his lap comfortably, he reached around to rub her clit with one hand while the other anchored her collared neck back so her head rested on his shoulder.

"You're gonna come all over me, understand? I won't stop until I feel your pussy spasming around my dick."

Faith squealed from the frantic fingers dancing over her clit, the shaft pumping her in a violent clashing of rhythms. Even his brutal whispers in her ear fell into time, playing her like an instrument with expertise. By her arching back and sharp breaths, Faust knew he was close to his goal. He just had to restrain himself from succumbing to the tightening pressure around him, the feast that was her body contorting on top of his.

"Are you gonna come? Gonna fucking squirt for me?"

Faith nuzzled into his neck and whimpered, "I... Can't. I don't know how."

"Yes, you do. Feel that spot right there? Remember? Remember what I told you."

"Faust," she gasped.

"You're right there. I can feel it. Right there, Faith."

He coiled his thick arm around her chest, pressing her as he shot his groin up and up. Each thrust landed harder while his fingers coddled her most sensitive spot.

Amid the barrage of sensations, a peculiar warmth bourgeoned in her groin. For a second she thought her bladder was about to release, but it was too gradual... Too intentional to be a regular function. The undulating pulse sent red hot waves of pleasure through her body, shooting to her fingertips and crackling in her ears like a sudden ascent up a steep mountain. She closed her eyes and let out one continuous groan that spiralled upward, squealing from between her teeth as the volcanic frequencies shut down all other modes of operation.

Faith didn't notice the first spurt. Only when Faust laughed did she unscrew her eyes to see between her legs. Faust lifted her quickly, sidling them both to the edge of the bed where the mirror reflected the clear fluid dripping down his cock and spreading between their thighs. He'd fucked her hard enough to collect fizz along the underside of his length. She gasped when a contraction forced another small emission from a place inside her she never knew existed.

"Oh, my goodness... Am I?"

"Squirting? Damn fucking right, babe. I knew I could get ya to gush all over my dick."

The fervent racks of orgasm subsided after a while, and she giggled. Faust laid back on the bed, feet planted on the floor as he slipped out of her and let her roll to the side. Faith huddled up under his arm and placed her little hand on his heaving chest, his heartbeat kicking up the limb.

"You didn't come," Faith said.

Faust grabbed her hand and tightened his arm around her shoulders. "Yeah. That's 'cause I'm not done with you."

~*~

On the day of Faust's departure, he drove Faith to her campus and got out of the car to give her a hug. She produced a rickety smile as she buried her face in his hair and the first sniffle racked her throat. She imagined they looked novel to most; Faust spreading his feet and crouching to use his entire body, clam-shelling her in leather-bound arms and ripped black jeans, and Faith in a school kilt and his largest and softest hoodie.

Faust kissed her once softly, then again slowly. She savoured his breath and sent her tongue after his. They parted, joined once more and parted again for their first attempt at goodbye.

Faith shivered from the effort of holding back her tears. She knew crying would only make it harder to part ways. If she could hold on, then she could cry in her plain, two-sided cubicle in a building of people that weren't Faust. She already felt sorry for her roommate who would suffer her grovelling.

To her surprise, she reared in the heat behind her eyes, remembering the times in the Summer when Faust would talk about touring. The glint in his eye and the smile he let slip only in her presence was Faust at his purest. How could she let her emotions taint his goals? Faith smiled, driven by her unexpected surge of self-control.

It was Faust who bit his lip and blinked rapidly, trying to smother a tear before it oozed out. Faith gasped at the glimmer he smeared with the leather cuff of his jacket. Then, she broke.

Faust wrapped her up in his arms again and squeezed her tight, Faith jostling with sobs.

"I love you. I love you so much," she cried into his chest.

"Yeah, babe. I love you too. I fucking wish you could just come with me. I don't trust this town either. You better not ever walk alone at night anywhere. Even if it's from your dorm to the parking lot. You always walk with someone."

"I will."

"I'm serious, Faith. And don't fucking hang out with Anika and that crowd."

"Why not? I mean, I won't, but... Why?"

Faust pressed his lips together, squeezing his fist. She cocked her head, and he released his frustration in one deep breath. "All those guys will rip you apart. Because of your... Upbringing. Christians just... Fuck. I can't put this nicely."

"Do you really think I still care about my religion? It was something I just did as a kid. I don't really... I don't know. I know what you guys sing about and I don't care."

"It doesn't matter. To some of them, Christians are the enemy and they'll do terrible shit you'd never think of. Please, just fucking promise me you'll make some other friends. Some smart girls. Have like a girl's club thing in your dorm."

"Girl's club?" Faith taunted.

"You know what I mean."

"No smart boy friends?"

Faust went deadpan, then stooped to grab her ass and pull her closer. "Don't make a murderer out of me. If I hear of any guy—"

"Or girl!"

"Or girl... If anyone tries anything with you..."

"You'll go to prison for me. I know. I'll do everything to make sure you don't end up in prison."

"And you better not worry about me and what I'm up to. My life will be nothing but sleeping on the way to shows, sound check, pre-set, set, post-set shower, then beer in the bus."

"I trust you. But will you say goodnight, every night?"

"I'll try."

She hopped up to kiss him again. "Thanks, beetle."

"One more thing before I go," Faust said, stepping toward the car. He circled to the driver's side and ducked in to grab something he'd tucked under the seat while Faith wasn't around. She already had her mouth covered by the time he returned to the sidewalk. "That collar you supposedly had lying around... You gotta get rid of it."

Faith touched her throat as though the leather strap was still there. "How come?"

"Because I got you a better one," he said, handing her the parcel. The box had a weight Faith didn't expect.

She unravelled the black plastic, a lacquered wooden box beneath the makeshift wrapping paper. The collar inside was thin, with a metal buckle and a thick D-ring hosting a thicker chrome loop.

"Faust!"

"My friend made it. It's not some Hot Topic shit. This collar means you belong with me."

"Is this like your version of a promise ring?"

Faust scoffed. "It's not a ring. It's a collar. Hand-forged metal. Leather cut with skill. Not some tiny, overpriced rock. But if you want me to make you a promise, I will."

"Promise me what?"

"That I belong to you, too."

Faith melted, rolling her eyes and leaning into him. "Ugh, oh my gosh, if you keep being so cute I'm not gonna let you leave! First you cried and now you're giving me something you asked your friend to make for me? That's sooo cute!"

"Shut up. Come on, this is serious."

"I know! Which is why it's so cute, because you're a big, tough, serious man, aren't you?"

Faust's indifference broke, and he chuckled with her as she poked him and hung off his arm. He helped her put on the collar, then slipped the box into her backpack.

They settled back into a melancholic silence, neither one of them wanting to start the next round of goodbyes. Faust eventually stepped into the tight hug, proceeded more kissing and a few deep breaths to wane the sorrow.

"I hope you have fun, Faust. You don't have to worry about me. I promise I'll be safe."

"Say goodnight, every night."

"I will."

"All right... Well, I should go."

"Please do, so I can go to my room and cry some more."

Faust pressed his thumb into the corner of his eye. "Fuck, I know."

"I love you, beetle."

"Love you too, babe. I'll talk to you soon as I'm on the road."

Faust let her go and drove away. An immovable lump formed in his throat as he drowned out his inner-mourning with a cacophony of feral guitars, erratic drumbeats and screeching.

#faust x faith #faust stuff #valter skarsgard fanfiction

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