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forestwater87 · 3 years

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Chapter 15: Grand Gesture

Summary: GRAND GESTURE: He or she must be willing to put it all on the line now or risk losing the one thing they need to become whole-hearted. It’s life or death now.

CW: Smut in the last third of the chapter. Questionable quality.

Summer 2017

“Fuck!” Gwen felt her center of gravity shift as she leaned forward, overbalancing on the rickety chair she’d been using to reach the ceiling. It tipped perilously on two legs, then lost the fight with physics and sent her sprawling with a crash that shook the dozens of tiny papers taped around the room. She hit the ground with her hip and the side of her face, one of them making a disturbing crunch sound and both shooting bright white pain down her entire right side. “Shit!”

She was halfway to her feet, wondering if the crossed-eyes dizzy feeling was from lack of sleep, hitting her head, or marker fumes, when fingers closed around her upper arm and she was hauled upright. “Gwen! Goodness, are you okay?” David let go of her, his gaze roving around the room as he took a step back. “What happened in here?”

She looked around, taking a deep breath and noticing for the first time in hours the thick perfume of tacky glue and paint, as though David walking in had turned her senses back on. It was done, mostly. Well, no — it’d never really be done, but it was enough to prove her point.

She hoped.

While she was panicking, David had wandered over to the center of the room, ducking to avoid a string of origami animals dangling from the ceiling. “Is this for camp?”

“Yes — I mean, no, it’s from camp, and maybe we can reuse some of it but no, it’s . . . not really . . .” She’d planned this, during her mad crafting frenzy: how David would come home, wonder what she was doing, and she’d carefully tour him through everything — or maybe she’d let him get on with his morning routine while she added a few more things, made it just a bit closer to perfect.

But his presence had pulled her to a halt. She’d been like a shark all night, afraid to stop moving or she’d die, but now that he was here she felt drained, the giddy, terrified adrenaline that’d been keeping her going evaporating in an instant.

Though hey. At least she had a good reason to be tired, for once.

He frowned at her discarded supplies strewn carelessly around the room. “Are these from Art Camp?”

The question jolted her into action, and she stumbled forward jerkily, like the Tin Man without oil. “Yeah, but I already took it out of my paycheck, it’s fine. I’ll go shopping tomorrow for new stuff.” She wanted him to hear what she really meant, what she was trying to put together through exhausted babbling: that this was important, that it was worth sacrificing sleep and money for, that she loved him and she respected him and she wanted him to know that.

Finally, finally, he turned his attention to the walls. “Gwen, what is all this?”

“It’s you,” she blurted out, then winced and rested her forehead in her palm. “No, that’s not — it’s — some of the stuff you’ve taught me, look . . .” She took his hand, her nerves trembling at the brush of his fingers against her own, and pulled him toward the doorway. She’d made a messy semicircle around the room, right to left like a supermarket. Dropping his hand, she took a step back, steepling her fingers like she was praying and pressing them to her lips with another steadying breath.

She had one chance.

“Okay,” she began. “So . . .”

---

Gwen looked like she was on the verge of falling over, listing dangerously to the side as she led him across the room. There were feathers in her hair, and scraps of paper; she was speckled with color, marker and paint and even a smear of glitter glue on the tip of her nose, the pads of her fingers nearly black with a rainbow of ink that stained his hand as she held it. It was obvious she hadn’t slept, even more obvious that she desperately needed to.

But her eyes were bright even if the circles under them were dark, and she thrummed with an energy and animation David hadn’t seen all summer.

And he couldn’t bring himself to interrupt her, not when it finally felt like she’d returned to him.

“— song you taught me last year,” she said, and he felt a flash of guilt that he hadn’t been listening. She tapped the paper she’d stuck to the wall, the lyrics of his Camp Campbell song scrawled across it in uneven lines. “All the camp activities, remember? At least the most important ones.”

(It was really just the ones that fit best into the rhyme scheme, but he didn’t correct her as she moved on to a second piece of paper.)

“This is a list of all the facts about nature I’ve learned since I started here,” she continued, gesturing. This one was crammed so tightly with writing that he could barely read it, bullet points snaking in all directions and increasingly smaller handwriting as it moved down the page, until finally Gwen had started attaching sticky notes to the wall below and around the list. “I had to keep going back and adding things as I thought of them. I know I’m forgetting something, but I can’t —” She gestured around her head in a classic “scatterbrained” motion, chuckling weakly. “I’m kind of all over the place right now.”

Next: a bullseye, a pencil stuck point-first into the wall. “I couldn’t really shoot an arrow,” Gwen explained, “but remember that summer you taught me archery? I’m still pretty good at it — we went to a shooting range for Claire’s birthday last year and I was the only one who hit the target every time.”

Next: a messy drawing of a forest, a little stick figure kneeling next to a moss-covered rock. “That one time we got lost in the woods trying to find a good place for bug-catching, you got us out because you knew how to find north. You’d be pretty great in a zombie apocalypse.”

Next: a sheet of black construction paper poked through with holes, hastily taped to the back window so light from the lamp outside shone through in little pinpricks. He leaned closer and realized that they were in the rough shape of the constellations visible above Lake Lilac. “I didn't know much about stars and shit outside of, like, horoscope stuff — I mean, in the city you can’t even see them — but you always pointed out which constellations and planets were out during the summer and now I know them all too.”

And on, and on. Scale models of the crafts and activities they’d done at Camp Campbell, nature facts, and on one wall she’d tacked up a typewritten letter to the Director of Admissions at Queen’s University Belfast. Skimming it quickly, it looked to David like an application.

“I was trying to get into their Environmental Science program. I wrote about Sleepy Peak Peak and Lake Lilac,” she admitted, looking almost embarrassed. “I got in. And I mean, they’re not the best program out there, but they’re still in the top 300 worldwide so that’s pretty cool, I guess —”

“Belfast?” He leaned in closer, confirming that he’d read correctly. “Isn’t that in England?”

“Yeah.” She looked impressed, and he suppressed a weary smirk; yes, he did know a bit about the world outside of Camp Campbell. But she surprised him by adding, “I had to look that up, actually.” She shrugged. “Guess I should’ve just asked you, huh?

“Anyway, that was a couple years ago. I didn’t go, obviously,” she added, responding to his unspoken question. “International travel’s a bitch. I needed a scholarship, and my grades weren’t good enough. I think I only got in at all because of my letter.” She gestured at it, not quite meeting his eyes. “Which I never thanked you for. Or most of the stuff I’ve learned from you. I’ve been . . . kinda taking all that for granted. So, uh . . . thanks, David.”

He wanted to tell her she was welcome, that she didn’t need to thank him at all. That sharing these things with her had been the highlight of his life since they’d met, even if it hadn’t seemed like she cared about any of it. But there was a lump quivering dangerously in his throat and he didn’t trust himself to speak, so he just nodded.

After a second she cleared her throat awkwardly and led him over to a row of stick figures hanging from the ceiling. “Some of these are from Yoga Camp,” she said, pointing at a few of the ones contorted into uncomfortable shapes, “but also all that other stuff you do. Like smile exercises —” and yes, one of the stick figures had a big pink smiley face, “— and breathing techniques and stuff. I use those sometimes when I’m having a panic attack. They really help, even if smile exercises still make me feel like a dumbass most of the time.”

The decorations started to get more abstract as they made their way around the room, simple crafts and trivia giving way to colorful scribbles and symbols, representing things he’d said to her about her relationship with her parents, her love life. “You have really good advice, you know that? You could be the next Dear Abby or something, seriously. I think that’s still running.”

(It was; he read it every morning with his pre-breakfast tea.)

“These get worse, sorry . . . I was getting tired.” Gwen jerked her chin up at a wobbly butterfly — or was it a bird? — dangling over their heads. “I use your advice about hummingbird-ing all the time. With writing, mostly, but sometimes at work or something, too.”

He gently reached up and touched the bird’s feet, watching it spin in a lazy circle. Technically the idea had been his mother’s, a way to avoid burnout by flitting from one project to another and adding just a little bit to each, instead of devoting all energy and resources to one thing and slogging through until it was done. The whole idea was part of his ethos of being a counselor — wasn’t Camp Campbell a place to get a little taste of everything, after all? He remembered explaining it to Gwen during her first week at camp, just over five years ago.

He wouldn’t have ever imagined that she’d actually remembered.

He didn’t think she remembered any of this.

But the evidence was all around him — on the walls, hanging from the ceiling, dozens of examples, mementos of the tiny moments that meant everything to him. Immortalized, remembered, in increasingly sloppy handwriting and doodles.

In the corner was a bright red card that looked familiar. David moved over to it and laughed in recognition: it was one he’d sent her after her first or second summer at Camp Campbell, when he’d seen on Facebook that she was looking for work. He tugged it off the wall, careful not to damage the cheap cardstock, and smiled down at the deer wearing a plaid hunting cap, which he’d made out of tissue paper and markers (he’d gotten much better since then, thanks to a few years of Decoupage Camps).

‘Good luck on your job HUNT! I know you’ll slay the interview!’

“I’ve kept that for years to show my friends,” Gwen said, making him jump; he hadn’t realized she’d come up behind him, but she was close enough to nearly rest her head against his. “I felt like it really captured the kind of guy you were.”

Her breath prickled the side of his neck, and he distracted himself by opening the card — ‘oh deer, is this joke going on too long? I feel like it’s overkill!’ — noticing how worn the crease was, like she’d opened and closed it hundreds of times. “Does it?”

He felt her shake her head without having to face her, stray wisps of hair that’d escaped her ponytail tickling his cheek. “Not even close.”

Unable to resist, he looked back at her over his shoulder, and she took his arm, turning him around the rest of the way. He thought she was going to kiss him — she was close enough that he could see a smeary glue thumbprint on her cheek and what looked like half a smiley-face sticker in her hair — but she just took the card from him, setting it carefully on the couch before taking hold of both his hands. Her expression was grave, shining faint with hope, and between the craft debris and her naked earnestness, she looked incredibly young and vulnerable.

“There’s more,” she said, gesturing with her chin toward the far wall, “and I’ll let — I want you to look at it, but . . . I just had to tell you, I’ve been taking you for granted and it’s not right. I’ve been pretending I still think of you as this —” Pulling one of her hands away, she picked up the card again, her fingers shaking so the deer’s toothpick antlers clacked together, “— sweet, silly, kinda childish David, who belongs with someone sweet, and silly, and kinda childish. And I tried to be that and . . . I mean I sucked at it,” she said, breaking off with a weak laugh, dropping her eyes to their joined hands. “And it . . . kind of broke me. But I didn’t even think to ask if that was what you wanted, because I thought I knew what you needed, and that was — so, really fucked.” She looked back up at him, her eyes dancing with purple fire, her grip on his hand tightening. “And I — I don’t, you know so much that I don’t — I could fill the entire cabin with stuff I’ve learned from you, this doesn’t even scratch the surface.”

She paused, like she was waiting for him to interject, but David felt like he’d been turned to stone, paralyzed and unblinking while his brain whirled.

“But none of it matters if it doesn’t show . . . if you don’t know —” Her voice cracked, and she dropped his other hand, pressing a fist to her mouth. “— h-how amazing you are, how much you matter to this camp and to me and . . . and I didn’t know people could actually be happy 'til I met you. I mean, I guess I knew technically, but not that it was a real thing people actually were. But you figured it out. You’ve known what you wanted since you were a kid and then you got it and I’ve never done anything without second-guessing myself a million times but you just did it, and it meant making so many decisions about your life that could’ve turned out wrong but they didn’t because they were the right ones for you. And you knew it. You always have.” She swiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands, crying in earnest now. “You’re a marvel, David. I should’ve said that every fucking day. And I know it’s probably too little, too late, but I’m sorry. For not telling you and — and for everything.

“And I . . .” She swallowed hard, taking a few heaving breaths before continuing, and he knew she was trying to hold onto her composure even as tears poured down her cheeks, “I don’t know what you wanna do. With — with us, I mean. But you’re right, I haven’t been a good girlfriend to you, and if you don’t want to . . . if you want me to leave right now or after the summer ends or if you just wanna be friends or whatever , that’s fine. A-and — if you do . . . y’know . . .” Her face crumpled, her shoulders curling in on themselves. “I love you so much,” she managed, her words harder to make out through damp, hiccuping breaths. “Whatever — whatever you want — I — I — I trust you.”

Understanding pierced his chest, a small pinhole that allowed light to pour, warm and white, into his heart.

“I trust you.”

David hadn’t realized how desperately he’d needed to hear those words until that moment.

He stepped forward, plucking the card from her hand and tossing it onto the floor (he could make her another one, dozens if she wanted, hundreds) and tilting her chin up so he could kiss her. Her cheeks were wet under his palms, her mouth salty and acidic with the taste of not-quite-morning breath, and each brush of his lips against hers was broken by her pulling back to drag in a sobbing gasp, her mouth moving clumsily like she was as close to fainting from exhaustion and emotion as she looked.

It was, without question, the best kiss of his life.

He broke away to press his forehead against hers, sliding his hands from her face to cup the back of her neck and closing his eyes. “I love you too, Gwen,” he murmured, his heart fluttering at the giddily-incredulous, teary laugh she gave in response. “And I think you need to go to bed.”

She leaned back, and the bleary confusion on her face was so precious he rose up on his toes to press a soft kiss to her forehead. “Huh? But what about . . .”

“I’ve got some stuff to think about,” he said, then gestured at the crafts she hadn’t shown him yet, “and look at. And after that . . . we should talk. But it won’t be a very good talk if you fall asleep,” he added with a laugh as her eyes drifted closed.

She opened them halfway, just enough to glare at him, but the effect would’ve been more intimidating if she hadn’t been swaying slightly. “’m fine.” The adrenaline that’d been keeping her going was clearly wearing off fast, and David was a little worried she wouldn’t make it to bed, that he’d just find her unconscious on the floor of the hallway. “You didn’t sleep either,” she accused, pointing at him with a finger stained silvery with graphite.

Goodness, he loved her so much he couldn’t stand it. “I had a nap.” Not a long one, but he was used to not sleeping much. “Get some rest. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“It’s already the morning,” she complained, but like a sleepy robot she turned and shuffled back toward the front of the cabin. “I’m gonna brush my teeth and shower and stuff. So I look less like a sludge goblin.”

“You do that, Gwen.” He waited until the bathroom door had clicked shut before turning back to the mess she’d made of their living room. It was almost hard to tell the difference between what was art and what was trash left over, there was so much of both; it looked like an explosion had hit a crafts store.

Gwen wasn’t someone who put a lot of effort into things she didn’t care about. It was one of the most frustrating things about having her as a coworker, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t love how unabashedly honest she was, how he could read her feelings just by looking at her work.

There was the soft sound of tape unsticking and one of the decorations sagged, a corner curling away from the wall and drooping down. He pushed it carefully back into place and fumbled for his phone, setting it to camera mode.

This was worth remembering.

---

Gwen was positive she’d never be able to fall asleep; how could she, when things were still so up in the air? But she wasn’t twenty anymore, and after the exhaustion and emotional turmoil of the last few hours — days, weeks; hell, if she was being honest it’d been years since she’d truly felt well-rested — and despite the anxiety buzzing inside her skull she was out in moments.

Soft fingers in her hair drew her back to earth, and when she opened her eyes David came into focus, crouching next to her bed so they were at eye level. He smiled as she blinked at him, warmth and sunshine he probably didn’t even know he was emitting. “Goooood morning, Gwen!” he chirped, his voice way too loud for how close they were, and she winced. “Sorry,” he added, his voice dropping to a murmur. “Habit.”

“It’s fine,” she said, because she’d missed his morning bellow so much more than she could ever miss having non-punctured eardrums. She sat up, clumsily swiping at her face to double-check for drool or errant eye gunk. “Morning.”

“How are you feeling?” He hopped onto the bed, making her and everything else on the mattress bounce. He was being so . . . normal, like all the drama last night had been a dream.

Fuck it. They had some hard, painful conversations coming; she could enjoy a little bit of normalcy while her brain booted back up. “Good,” she replied, yawning. “I mean, tired, but I’m always tired so —” Her blood chilled, and suddenly she was wide awake.

There went normal. All because she had to remind him of what an unloveable disaster she was.

But when she looked back up he didn’t seem annoyed. He leaned against the wall, stretching his legs out so they dangled off the edge of the bed. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.” She scoffed before she could stop herself, and his gaze flicked up to hers, taking her breath away. (God, how she’d functioned for almost four years without feeling more than a flicker of attraction to this man was unfathomable.) “Really. I want to know what’s going on with you.” His hand landed on her knee, light as a bird but blazingly warm even through her blankets. “All I want is for you to let me in.”

A swell of emotion swept up from somewhere in her chest, causing her eyes to prick with tears for the thousandth time. She looked away and sniffed as discreetly as possible — which wasn’t very, she assumed, since he immediately reached over and handed her a tissue from the pack he kept stashed in his pockets. “I mean, if you want me to complain, I can do that,” she muttered, tamping down another flow of tears through willpower. “I can complain about fucking anything.”

David’s laugh made her turn back toward him, because it didn’t have a trace of sadness or pity or anything she’d expected. It was so purely, entirely delighted , more than even he could fake, and he was looking at her like she’d said something surprising and wonderful.

“You really like it,” she blurted out, unable to hide the awe in her voice. “That I’m like this. Whiny and —” she waved vaguely “— bitchy, and whatever.”

“I don’t.” He shook his head and her stomach plummeted. But as she took a breath to respond he shifted closer, gently cupping the back of her neck so he could tap his forehead against hers. “I love it, Gwen. I love everything about you.”

A laugh burbled out of her before she could stop it, and she pulled away to hide her face. “Oh my god. You bastard. You’re so cheesy.”

His fingers closed around her wrists, tugging her palms away from her face. “I love you,” he said, kissing the skin she’d covered with her hands — the tip of her nose, each cheek, her top and bottom lip, her eyebrows.

“I love you, too.” She could already tell that if he was going to keep saying that to her she’d spontaneously combust, because this was all too cute and romantic and lovely and she still didn’t fully understand how this was happening, why he didn’t hate her.

But she’d promised she wouldn’t question his decision, whatever it was. She owed him that much.

His smile faded slightly, a faint line appearing between his eyebrows. “What’re you thinking?”

“Nothing,” she lied automatically, and when that only made him sigh she added, “I said I was going to trust you,” hating the note of defensiveness in her voice, because of the two of them she didn’t have much grounds for righteous indignation.

“Then trust me with how you feel.” It should’ve sounded too much like a cliche, something she’d tease him for, but he was right and they both knew it.

She’d put him through hell by not telling him the truth, and they both knew that, too.

Gwen closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to relax. Things were — they seemed okay, didn’t they? Almost normal, but better, because all her ugliness was out there for him to see and he knew about it and he didn’t seem to mind. And wasn’t that something she’d never thought she’d ever actually find? “I don’t get it,” she admitted, her voice sounding small and stupid. “I keep feeling like . . . like I tricked you somehow. Like I didn’t explain well enough why you shouldn’t want me, because if you really got it you wouldn’t be here. Not because I think you’re stupid,” she added quickly, desperately, “because I don’t, really! But — but even smart people can be . . . I don’t know, manipulated?”

The confusion in her voice made her pause, sit back. Manipulated? That couldn’t be right, could it? She wasn’t trying to manipulate anyone, and she was pretty sure you couldn’t manipulate someone by accident.

Or maybe you could; she hadn’t always paid a ton of attention to her psych classes in college.

“I’m sorry,” she managed after a few deeply uncomfortable moments of silence. “I’m trying, I promise, but I understand if . . . you know. Whatever.” (She still hated saying it, especially now that it seemed like it might not happen. Breaking up with David was hard enough without having to say it.)

He put his arm around her shoulders, tugging her into his side and kissing her temple. “Thank you for telling me, Gwen.”

“You’re not mad?”

She felt him shake his head as she rested hers on his shoulder, scooting down to make up for their (lack of) height difference. “I wasn’t really mad when I came back this morning,” he said, “even before I saw everything you’d made. I had some time to cool down, and I . . . started thinking, I guess.”

Gwen wanted to look up at him, but she wanted to soak in his warmth more so she nuzzled into the curve of his neck, inhaling the smells of floral detergent and piney-woodsy cologne left over from the day before. “About what?” she asked, like there could possibly be more than one answer. Like maybe he’d been pondering the sociopolitics of Malaysia or something.

He let out a little huff of laughter, and she knew without looking that he’d glanced up at the ceiling in a slow blink (that he insisted was less rude than rolling his eyes outright, even though it was just as obvious). “You. Everything that’s happened this summer — and before it.” His shoulder shifted slightly under her cheek, a shrug aborted halfway through so she’d be comfortable. “Things started making more sense after everything we talked about tonight. Like the day we . . . well, when you told me about that gentleman you . . . almost took home.”

“He wasn’t a gentleman, he was a douchebag,” she interrupted, immediately feeling like an asshole. But David chuckled and squeezed her closer, like he enjoyed her company even when she was being annoying (which he did; somehow he actually did) and she let herself relax against his side, believe that maybe things were going to be okay after all.

“I’ve thought about the stuff you said a lot since that day. Mostly the parts that made me feel the worst.”

She flinched. “I’m so sorry —” she began, but he cut her off with a kiss to her forehead.

“I have trouble with . . . rejection,” he continued, sounding embarrassed. Like that minor character flaw even came close to the millions of ways she was fucked up. “I — I guess you could call it ‘abandonment issues’? But at first, and for a while, all I could hear were the ways you didn’t . . . seem to want me around anymore.”

“But I did —”

“I know.” Another soft kiss, and she wasn’t sure if it was to reassure her or himself. “I know that now. And I think, knowing that . . . it made what you said sound different.

“You were drunk — I know, you downplayed it, and it wouldn’t have excused . . . but your judgment was still impaired. And you didn’t kiss him. Thinking back, it didn’t even sound like you really wanted to. Did you?” She shook her head, not willing to look up at him because no matter how gently he tried to frame this she still felt like it was her fault. “And I just couldn’t stop thinking, how if this had happened a few years ago you would’ve told that story so much differently. If we were still just friends, maybe. You would’ve stormed into the cabin raging about how some jerk had ‘put his mitts all over you’ —”

Gwen couldn’t help it; she burst out laughing, pushing away from him and resting her head in her hands. “That can’t be how you think I talk!”

“It was an edited version,” he admitted, flushing. His smile was wide enough to illuminate the room, catching and refracting the dreary dawn light. “Please come back?”

She snuggled into his outstretched arms, her heart panging at the plaintive note in his voice. She wrapped herself around him, legs entangled with his and arms squeezing his waist; she’d missed him just as much. “Your impression of me is really bad,” she said with an uncontrollable giggle that made her feel like she was fourteen.

“I’ll work on it.” For a moment he just held her, soaking in the relief of being together and being okay. (At least, that's what she was doing.) “Why did it bother you so much?” he asked after a minute or so. “It doesn’t . . . well, it just doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong.”

“I guess — yeah, maybe not, technically anyway. But you’d just visited and saw how terrible my life is, and I was having an even harder time being a less-shitty version of myself . . .” He made a soft noise, almost pained, and pulled her closer. “So when this asshole showed up and was, like, exactly the type of guy I usually go for, it felt like . . . I don’t know. Like the universe was telling me we didn’t belong together. That sounds stupid. Never mind.” She pressed her face against his chest with an embarrassed groan. “Pretend I said something that doesn’t make me sound like I write horoscopes for a living.”

“I like horoscopes!” he replied, because of course he did. After a moment he added, “Thank you for telling me. It . . . helps confirm some things I was thinking earlier, when I left. Because what you said, and what you’ve been saying for a long time . . . I’ve been hearing it the way that’d hurt me the most, but I think you meant it to make me hate you.” He paused for a second, then added, “Do you think I’m right?”

Gwen shrugged, feeling more than a little like one of his campers receiving an aggressively pacifist talking-to. “Yeah. I don’t . . . like myself all that much.”

“I’ve noticed.” And David pressed another kiss to the top of her head, like he was rewarding her for being honest. Or like he just couldn’t help himself. “You haven’t treated me very well lately, Gwen. And I was — am very unhappy about that. But I don’t think it holds a candle to how you treat yourself.”

She wriggled away enough to sit up and look at him, frowning. “So you’re, what? Willing to come back to a shitty relationship because you feel sorrier for me than for you?” she demanded, even though it would’ve been smarter to just not say anything and enjoy his pity while she still had it.

But again, she said she’d be honest. And the true Gwen was kind of a bitch.

His smile turned sad, and he carefully tucked a flyaway hair behind her ear. “See, that’s what I mean. You never give yourself the benefit of the doubt.” When she frowned, not understanding, he took her hand and began playing with it, wiggling her fingers and twining them with his. “I understand better, now. How you’re feeling and what you’re thinking. And I’m not going to let you treat me like I’m a kid, or — or stupid, or whatever. I know you don’t really think that,” he added as she opened her mouth to argue. “There’s a whole cabin’s worth of proof in the living room that you don’t really think that. That’s why I wanna try again. Miscommunications, misunderstandings . . . those are fixable. And now that I know what’s been going through your head, I don’t think you’ve done anything I can’t forgive.”

Her eyes filled with tears — again, and she was going to die of dehydration if she didn’t get ahold of herself — but this time she couldn’t resent them too much, not when it felt like she was brimming over with hope that was eager to burst free. “What’re you saying, David?”

He shifted back, turning so he was sitting cross-legged facing her, and took both her hands in his. “I keep . . . trying to find a way to say it,” he admitted, looking down at their twined fingers and flushing pink, “because ‘do you want to be my girlfriend again?’ is maybe too middle-school, but ‘dating’ sounds too casual, and —”

Gwen pulled out of his grasp and closed the distance between them, straddling his lap and taking his chin in one hand. His face lifted toward her before his eyes did, darting from her chest to over her shoulder before finally meeting her gaze. She wound her free arm around his shoulders, sliding her fingers into the short, soft hair at the nape of his neck. With the hand cupping his jaw she gently swiped her thumb across his lower lip, slightly chapped but still warm and softer than it looked, each breath skating across her skin feather-light and making her skin prickle. “Yeah,” she said, closing her eyes and pressing her forehead to his, holding back a laugh — or maybe a sob, she wasn’t quite sure; the emotions roiling inside her were too much to separate between happy and sad. “Whatever you’re asking, yes, I want it.”

She felt his smile spread under her thumb before he brushed her hand away, tilting his head so he could kiss her. “Good,” he murmured with a breathless chuckle, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer. “I mean, I was pretty sure you’d say that, but still — that’s a relief.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You idiot.” Her blood turned to ice, and she pulled away from him, stricken. For fuck’s sake, couldn’t she be anything but herself for five minutes? “I didn’t mean — !”

David smiled, far more fondly than she deserved. “I know, Gwen.”

Groaning, she buried her face in his shoulder. “I’m trying, really I am.”

“Don’t.” He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back until she was upright, looking down at him again. “Please don’t try so hard to be what you think I want. Just be you.”

“Right.” She forced her shoulders to relax, tilting her head back and rolling her neck until it cracked. “I’m . . . gonna have a hard time with that. ‘Just me’ is kind of the worst.”

“I know you think that,” he said, pressing his half-open mouth to the hollow of her collarbone and making her shiver. “And I’ll keep reminding you until you don’t think it anymore.”

She managed a weak chuckle, leaning into his lips as he moved up her neck. “Good luck with that.”

His answering laugh rolled over her skin, warm and teasing. “Haven’t you heard, Gwen? I like projects.”

Jesus. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, she tugged him upright, taking a moment to appreciate his gasp that wasn’t just surprise. “I love you,” she said, loosening her grip and kissing his forehead, petting away the furrows her fingers left in his fluffy red hair.

His expression softened. “I love —” he began, and Gwen tightened her hold on his hair and pulled back, just so she could watch his eyes flutter shut and his breath catch, “— y-you too.”

Dragging her palm down the side of his neck, she settled her thumb on his throat, feeling his pulse flutter rapidly, and bent to kiss him again. She hadn’t necessarily meant to turn it into anything, just wanted to feel his lips against hers, but her fingers tightened involuntarily in his hair and he moaned, and it was a lit match dropped down her throat to a stomach full of gasoline, a whoosh of heat blazing to life in the pit of her belly. “David,” she breathed, not so much because she had anything to say but because she needed to say it, to roll the sound of his name around in her mouth, let it melt like chocolate on her tongue and infuse her whole body with sweetness.

“Gwen,” he said, and she thought he was doing the same thing, saying her name just because he could, but then his hands were on her shoulders and he was pushing her away, gentle but firm. “Gwen, wait, we should — talk about this —”

“Oh, shit, yeah. Okay. Sorry.” She sat back, her face warming. But as she settled her weight more firmly in his lap he jolted; and if she’d thought she was embarrassed it was nothing to the way his already-flushed cheeks flamed pink, spreading in blotches up to his hairline and the tips of his ears, down to disappear underneath his bandana. He stammered out an apology, avoiding her eyes even as his cock twitched, like bashfulness could disguise how hard he was against her. She quickly rose back up — the last thing she wanted was to make him feel ashamed, or pressured; everything between them was as tremulous and new as the first time — but realized almost instantly when David squeaked that this just shoved her chest in his face.

She hovered there for an awkward second, the two of them staring at each other in mortified horror. Then his whole expression wavered, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth before quickly flattening into a thin line, and the break in his composure took hers out too. She snorted, and they both burst out laughing. “I’ll just sit over here,” she said through giggles, rolling off his lap and settling on the other side of the bed with her feet curled under her so they were no longer touching. He made a small sad sound like a squeeze toy deflating, and Gwen rolled her eyes and stretched out one leg until her foot brushed his knee. “Here, hold my foot if you’re that lonely. It’s practically holding hands.”

His eyes widened, hands closing around her ankle and setting it on his thigh with something like reverence. “Thank you,” he murmured, gently tracing the outline of her foot with his fingertips. “That was very sweet, you know.”

God, she was blushing, wasn’t she? She had to be. “Yeah,” she agreed, trying to ignore the ticklish feeling as he kept playing with her foot like it was a toy doll. “Felt weird, too. I kinda wanted to insult you or something, just to balance it out.”

He smiled, wiggling her big toe like he was playing that little piggies game she used to do with her nieces when they were babies. “That’s my Gwen.” And he sounded pleased, almost proud, like she’d done something wonderful.

But that was David; even though sometimes he was completely oblivious, sometimes he noticed and appreciated the tiniest, most inconsequential things. That’s my David, she thought, her heart swelling like it was going to burst. “You wanted to talk about something?” she reminded him, waggling her toes to get his attention.

“Oh! Right.” He gently took her foot and set it on the bed next to him, grabbing a pillow and hugging it to his chest. “Sorry, I was getting distracted, and that was the whole point of you moving over there.” (He said it with a pout, like she’d gone to Spain instead of just out of arms’ reach.)

“I thought the whole point of me moving over here was so you could cool down, tiger,” she teased. But when he didn’t respond except to flush darker, his gaze firmly on a fraying edge of the pillowcase in his arms, something weird and hilarious clicked in her head. “Oh my god, are you into feet?”

“No!” He lifted his head to give her a tragically betrayed expression. “Not a weird amount!”

She grinned, poking his thigh with her outstretched foot. “What’s a weird amount?” she asked.

He shrugged, not quite able to maintain the kicked-puppy look when a smile kept trying to break through. “I don’t know. Watching people in heels step on fruit. I don’t like that sort of thing, I’ll have you know,” he added defensively, and for a second Gwen was sure he’d stick his tongue out at her.

“Sure, but you’re into them enough to know those videos exist.”

“I think I’d like to go back to you being nice to me,” he muttered, and she felt a stab of panic before he gently patted her ankle and met her gaze with a slight smile. Like he knew what she was thinking.

So she shoved past her nervousness and said, “But I thought you wanted me to be myself. And as myself, I can’t believe you never told me you were a foot guy!”

“I’m a you guy. And . . . you know. All of you. You’re perfect.”

“Yeah, but the feet are a thing, huh? At least a little bit.” When he didn’t answer she laughed, shaking her head. “So do you, like, want a footjob or something?”

“I really don’t.”

“How have we been dating this long and I didn’t know about this? What other freaky sex things are you hiding?”

“Nothing!” he said, hugging the pillow tighter. After a moment he looked away and added, “I didn’t want you to think I was weird.”

“David.” She leaned forward, waiting for him to look at her and see in her expression just how ridiculous that was. “You can’t get weirder than I am. You know that.” When the color in his face receded just a little bit, and his eyes flicked back toward her hopefully, she sighed and attempted to dredge up one of the strangest kinks in her vast library. “I’d totally fuck Drogon.”

He frowned thoughtfully. “From Game of Thrones? So would I- Iiiiiii mean, s-so would most people.”

“No, not Khal Drogo, Drogon. The dragon. Not like a humanized version, either — just full lizard.”

“Oh.” He smiled a little, almost a smirk, and Gwen felt distinctly, lovingly judged. “That does make me feel better. Thank you.”

“No problem. And tomorrow I’m gonna go into town and get a pedicure, just for you.” She wiggled her toes at him, grinning. “I’m thinking something slutty, like hot pink.”

“Gwen!” He shoved her foot away, laughing. “I was trying to have a serious conversation before you started talking about — about slutty toes and dragons!”

She cracked up too, falling over onto her side and nearly toppling off the bed. “Slutty toes,” she repeated breathlessly, and it took a few minutes to recover; every time they tried to make eye contact they burst out laughing again.

“Okay, okay.” Gwen finally sat back up, trying in vain to smooth her hair out of its mass of tangled bedhead. “I’m sorry, you were trying to say something serious. What’s up?”

“Right.” He took a deep breath, fingers knotting in her blankets until his knuckles were white. “It’s just . . . it was starting to seem like we were going to — um, you know. Be intimate.”

She resisted the urge to tease him for his word choice. “I was open to it, yeah.”

“M-me too! That’s why . . . well. Okay.” He took a deep breath, dragging his hands down his face, and Gwen noticed for the first time how tired he looked.

“Hey, we don’t have to do anything,” she said, shifting closer so she could put her hand on his shoulder. “You know that, right?”

He nodded, patting her hand before brushing it away so she didn’t feel rejected, and once again she felt a rush of love so intense it almost brought tears to her eyes. He could be so simply, effortlessly kind, without even thinking about it. “I do. At least, I think I do. I- I mean, I know I do, but it’s hard to . . .” He waved his hand around his head like his thoughts were scattering birds.

“The night before we . . . well. Ended things.” He flinched at his own words, and she felt the same pain flicker over the surface of her heart.

It’s okay, she reminded herself, wishing she could sweep him up in her arms and block out all the bad memories she’d put there. It still hurts, but we’re going to be okay.

Like he’d been thinking the same thing, David stretched out his hand to find hers, squeezing her fingers. “I said I didn’t want to,” he continued in a rush, “you know. Be together like that. And you . . . seemed to get mad — at me. And then the next day you broke up with me.” He squeezed his eyes shut, taking a shuddering breath that had tears behind it, and she tightened her grip on his hand. “It’s okay,” he said, opening his eyes and giving her a slightly-watery smile. “I’m okay. But I just need to know . . .”

“God, no,” she jumped in, taking up the thread of his question as it trailed off into nothingness. “David, no, it had nothing to do with — I freaked out, but I was already — I mean, I was gonna fall apart over anything, it didn’t have to be that. You didn’t do anything wrong, I promise.” She couldn’t stand it anymore, so she pulled his hand to her lips, kissing his knuckles because she wanted to respect his need for space but she had to touch him or she was going to die.

He swallowed, watching their joined hands for a moment before looking away. “You — that really hurt me, Gwen. I just needed to tell you that.”

All the anger he’d thrown at her in the past several hours, all the pain and frustration, and it was those small, matter-of-fact words that slashed her heart in two. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

She hated apologizing — it always felt weak, or dangerous, or something. Like it was an opening for someone to hate her even more, like she was handing them a weapon to hold over her head for the rest of her life. (It was why she hated receiving them, too; she could be spiteful and vindictive as anyone, but it was uncomfortable watching someone flay themselves in front of her.)

But with David . . . it didn’t feel like she was giving him leverage when she told him she was sorry. She wasn’t scared he’d hold onto it and throw it back in her face someday. She wasn’t resentful of him, and she wasn’t worried about how he’d react.

She wasn’t anything but truly, genuinely sorry.

And he didn’t brush it aside, act like she had no reason to apologize the way she’d half-expected. Either she hadn’t been giving him enough credit, or he’d grown up while she wasn’t paying attention. Maybe a little of both. But whatever the cause, he just stroked her cheek with the backs of his knuckles and nodded, a ghost of his smile returning for a second. “It’s okay,” he said, looking at her like she was — god, like he loved her. “Hearing it helps.”

She wasn’t sure if he needed more than that, but she wasn’t going to let a single doubt linger in his mind. “Seriously, David, you can — I won’t ever be mad at you for saying no, ever. For any reason, or no reason or . . . whatever. It’s okay. It’ll always be okay.”

“I — um, I had a reason.” He spoke fast, his eyes wide like he’d surprised himself. Still, he pressed his lips together into a flat line and met her gaze, clearly nervous but just as clearly not intending to end the conversation until they’d said everything they needed to. He was so brave. “I should’ve mentioned it at the time, but I guess I was scared.”

Gwen snorted, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, I can relate to that.”

He rewarded her with a small, soft smile before continuing, “The thing is, everything had just been so gosh-darned strange between us, and it felt like you were avoiding me all the time — except when we were together like that.” He scratched the back of his neck, looking embarrassed. “It sounds silly, but I couldn’t help but worry that maybe that was . . . all you were interested in me for.”

Her stomach sank. “And then when you said no, and I freaked . . .”

David nodded, his throat moving as he swallowed again. “Yeah,” he murmured, looking away. “It — it sure felt like you only wanted me for that one thing, all of a sudden, and when you couldn’t get it . . .”

“I dumped you,” she finished, covering her mouth in horror. “Oh, David.”

“I was a little nervous to tell you to stop.” He pulled his hands from hers so he could fidget, twisting his long fingers together. “Earlier — just now. A minute ago. So we could talk. I — I know it wasn’t fair, but I couldn’t stop thinking you might get mad at me again.”

“I wasn’t mad,” she replied, her hands shaking with how badly she wanted to hug him. (And god, what a change from their normal paradigm, that she was the one who had to hold herself back from a hug.) “I mean, I was, but never at you. I was mad at me, for screwing things up. I — you’re right, I was avoiding you, or avoiding talking to you, I guess. Because I didn’t know how to talk to you, how to act so you wouldn’t find out that I’m . . .” Her throat closed, thick and gummy with tears, and she took a deep breath and swallowed them back. “Rotten,” she finished, which was a stupid, melodramatic word but it felt right; it described the way she still felt despite everything, squishy and overripe and putrid. “It was getting harder to hide, once we were together all the time. And when we were fucking —” She couldn’t tiptoe around the words like David, not when she could just say it and watch him flush red. Even her rotted heart skipped a beat whenever he smiled. “It felt like I didn’t have to try so hard. I couldn’t be amazing, but I could make you feel amazing. And if I could do that . . .” She sniffed, looking away and wiping her face clean. “I thought I was letting you know how much you mean to me,” she admitted, the realization coming right on the heels of the words. “I mean, obviously I wasn’t — add that to the list of things I suck at — but when you didn’t want to have sex, it . . . I took it really hard.”

Her face was turned away, so his hand on her shoulder made her jump. “It felt like I was rejecting the only thing you had to offer,” he guessed, his voice soft and sad but no longer on the verge of tears. “Gwen . . .”

“It’s fine,” she said, shaking her head like she could rattle her self-pity out of her head. “That was just me being stupid, I know that. More importantly — seriously.” She looked back at him, at his beautiful open face, at the way he was watching her like she could possibly have something to say that mattered. “It’s never been about sex with you, David,” she said. Felt the encroaching tears yet again and decided to ignore them. If they came, they came; they weren’t going to stop her, because it was the most essential thing in the world that he knew, that he believed her. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, the sex is really good —” He chuckled, blushing exactly the way she’d hoped he would, and it gave her a little glowing spark of strength, “— but it doesn’t even come close to being what I love most about you. None of that stuff —” She gestured toward her bedroom door, and the mess of crafts cluttering their common room. “— comes close. It’s — everything, a billion other things I don’t know how to explain or describe or show you but I love you, so much, more than I’ve ever loved anyone and it scares me, and — I’m rambling. Sorry.” She shrank back, feeling like an idiot again. “I just wanted you to know that. It . . . we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, ever, and I’ll never be mad at you, or disappointed, or anything like that.”

“Thank you, Gwen.” He was quiet for a minute, and she felt the tension ratcheting up in her shoulders with each long, spiraling second. Part of her wanted to snap at him to just say something, finish the damn thought before he gave her a heart attack, but that was her anxiety and regret talking, and she never wanted to take her own issues out on him ever again.

(She probably would, considering what a mess she was. But she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it on purpose.)

“You’re right, though.” David’s voice was a surprise, as was the soft laugh accompanying his words. He was sitting with his head tilted back against the wall, looking up at the ceiling like he could see through it to the fading stars and brightening sky. His gaze dropped to meet hers, and he immediately looked down and away, biting his lip to try and hide a smile. “We are pretty darn great together.”

A massive weight dropped from Gwen’s chest, rolling away like a stone. “Yeah,” she agreed. Then, to test the waters: “I taught you well.”

It worked; he turned back toward her, his shyness replaced with half-serious indignation. “I like to think some of it was natural talent!”

“Ehh,” she teased, holding her hand out flat and seesawing it back and forth in a “so-so” motion. “Pretty sure enthusiasm was doing most of the heavy lifting in the beginning there.”

He crossed his arms over his chest with a disbelieving scoff. “Well, I never!”

She pressed her lips together to keep from giggling. What a dork. “Y’know, I should say we were insanely good. But I dunno, for all I know you’ve totally lost it.” Shaking her head mournfully, she quickly glanced over to make sure he wasn’t actually offended.

His mouth dropped open, his eyes growing wide before narrowing. “I haven’t lost anything!” he snapped, and — oh, the playful irritation in his voice made her stomach twist. Not in the awful sick way she’d been tied up in knots earlier, but with a flush of heat that took her breath away.

Managing a smirk, she laid back on her elbows, a warm glow of satisfaction blooming in her chest as his gaze dropped to her stomach, to the narrow strip of skin where her camisole had ridden up. She waited until he dragged his eyes back up to her, dark and intense like the ocean in a storm, then grinned at him.

“Wanna bet?”

His face lit up — or, not quite. Because his smile was bright and warm as sunshine, but underneath the tenderness was a sharp competitive edge that he almost never turned on her. It was almost intimidating, but the shiver it sent down her spine had nothing to do with fear. “Always,” he replied.

Before she could respond he’d pushed himself to his knees and grabbed her just above her calves; a quick tug forward and Gwen was pulled flat on her back, dragged down the bed until her body was sprawled out beneath him. He let go of her, bracing his hands on either side of her head and bending down to capture her mouth in a kiss.

She curled one hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer, bending her knees so he was caged between her legs and arching her back to bring as much of her skin against his as possible. He was warm, almost uncomfortably so — her furnace, her own personal sun, and she wanted nothing more than to melt into him. When he abandoned her mouth in favor of trailing long, suckling kisses down her neck she pressed her lips together, biting hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from making a sound.

“You could’ve —” A gasp, too sudden for her to swallow it back, and she felt David’s satisfied smirk against the base of her throat as he bit down again. “— given me a concussion, you asshole.”

He hummed in assent, his lips skating up to her ear and his tongue lapping at the sensitive spot just behind it. “I know,” he said mildly, “but I didn’t.”

He gently took her earlobe between his teeth, and she couldn’t help the strangled noise that was somewhere between a moan and a sigh. Grabbing his hair again, she dragged his mouth back for another kiss, enjoying the shudder that rolled down his spine and made him tremble everywhere his body was touching hers. For a few dizzying minutes she held him there, barely allowing either of them to draw breath. His mouth was blood-hot, warmer than even her fevered skin, and she didn’t know exactly where she wanted it because she wanted it everywhere — against hers, his tongue lapping at the roof of her mouth and making her shiver; around one of her nipples, his teeth catching on the pebbled skin; sucking bruises into her inner thighs, closing around her clit, dipping inside her cunt, her asshole, along the sensitive strip of skin between the two. She wanted him to kiss her places that weren’t even close to erotic but she knew would burst into flame if he so much as brushed his lips over them: the bone jutting out from her ankle, the ticklish spot inside her elbow, wherever the fuck he wanted to press the gorgeous wet heat of his mouth she wanted to let him, because from the very first kiss he’d been good, better than he’d had any right to be but time and experience had worked their magic and now his mouth could ruin her; without even trying he could reduce her to twitching, shuddering goo.

“Take this off,” she gasped, not sure if she meant her clothes or his because she was wriggling out from under him and trying to remove both at the same time, her fingers clumsy and shaking with how badly she needed to touch him without any fabric in the way. She struggled to her knees, practically yanking her camisole off and throwing it across the room before hooking her fingers in his belt loops and dragging him close enough for her to undo the buckle. “Come on —”

“So I won?” He laughed breathlessly, untucking his shirt and pulling it over his head in one fluid motion, smugness making him unfairly graceful like he was trying to show off.

“Sure, whatever,” she muttered, because who cared about some bet when he was kneeling half-naked in front of her? They’d had silly, jokey sex but that was not this, not when he was so beautiful she was having trouble looking directly at him, hair mussed and lips damp and swollen and pink blooming in blotches under the light constellations of freckles across his skin. He looked debauched, flushed and obscene even with half his clothes still on, and there wasn’t room in her brain for humor when all she could feel was clawing shaking need. She dropped onto all fours, leaning down to trace the hard outline of his cock with her tongue, and even through his shorts he was burning warm. He sucked in a sharp breath, his pulse spiking under her mouth, and Gwen couldn’t resist closing her lips around the shape of his erection, breathing in the salty-ammonia smell of precome and feeling her mouth water. “David,” she began, but there was no end to that sentence so she lifted her head slightly, bit the delicate ridge of his hipbone where it peeked out from the waist of his shorts, caught him as his hips stuttered forward. She kept him steady, one hand splayed across his lower back, as she rose to her knees without lifting her mouth from his skin: over the barely-there softness of his stomach (no werewolf six-pack here, despite his lean strength), tongue swirling among the faint red hair below his belly button, following the curve of his ribs, just barely brushing one nipple — he made a small, strung-out noise in the back of his throat, almost despairing as she moved on up to his neck — until she found his lips again, dragging him into a bruising, breathless kiss.

When she pulled away David’s smile was gone, drawn out of his mouth and leaving him panting. “Okay,” he murmured, soft and almost reverent, but before she could figure out what specifically was okay he hauled her forward like she weighed nothing, capturing her lips for a second before trailing down her throat, pausing at a sensitive place above her pulse point and biting down hard, sucking the skin between his teeth.

Pain bloomed under his mouth, rippling out into shockwaves of cold-hot pleasure, and when he bit her again she couldn’t hold back a moan. “You’re gonna — leave a mark,” she gasped, gently shoving his head away and running her fingers over the damp skin. It was already tender, and judging by David’s expression, contrite and amused and darkly heated, it was going to be a hell of a hickey. “I can’t hide this!”

“I’m sorry!” he tried, but it wasn’t close to convincing when he couldn’t hide his grin. His eyes drifted down to the mark again and he licked his lips, expression growing dazed for a moment before he snapped back up to look at her face. “I can make you a bandana, if you want. Just until it fades.”

“Fucker.” Gwen laughed, not so much because it was funny but because it was him, and she loved him more than she could possibly stand. Tired of the overheated, confining clothes she was still wearing, she shimmied out of them, tossing her pajama shorts and half-soaked underwear without bothering to see where they landed. “Come here,” she said, pressing her legs together and shivering at the wet slide of her inner thighs and labia, a thousand nerve endings sparking to glistening life. “You can make it up to me.”

She swore she could almost see his mouth water, his gaze dropping between her legs as he took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am,” he said — and they’d never tried that before, but judging by the way his cock twitched and his eyes jumped sheepishly to hers, it was something he’d thought about a lot. Filing the information away for later, she held out her hand and pulled him closer when he took it, resting her forehead against his. It took just the slightest shift in the angle of her head to kiss him again so she did it without thinking, her hand sliding between their bodies to curl loosely around the outline of his erection.

He gasped shakily against her mouth, his hands fluttering up and down her waist like he couldn’t decide where to touch her. One of them dropped to her ass, a light, almost hesitant touch, and she rewarded it with a soft groan; he made a weak noise in the back of his throat and pulled her closer, kneading her ass before slipping lower, between her legs. The heel of his hand brushed teasingly against her clit as he pressed two fingers into her, and she mimicked his pace, gliding her palm down the length of his clothed cock and relishing the way his fingers twitched against her inner walls.

He fingered her like that, slow and steady, for — she didn’t know how long. Lost track of the strokes that sent warmly buzzing tendrils up her spine, lost count of the breaths gasped raggedly between their lips, of the kisses that melted into one another until she wasn’t entirely sure where she was, she was hyper aware of the heartbeat pounding in her clit and every too-gentle drag of his hand but numb to literally everything else that wasn’t right here, wasn’t David —

“Fuck,” she breathed, pressing her forehead against his shoulder with a shuddering sigh. She turned her head and lapped at his throat, sucking his skin into her mouth and biting down hard enough to make his fingers jolt inside her, pressing against her g-spot for one delicious moment. “God, I -- please, David, just make me come, please --”

Another shiver, another twitch of his fingers that took her breath away. “Okay,” he said, his voice strangled and hoarse. He pulled out of her and sat back on his heels. “Lay down, all right?”

Yes, yes, whatever he was thinking was 100% all right with her. She almost kneed him as she scrambled into position, but her embarrassed giggle evaporated as he lowered himself onto his elbows, scooching her up the bed like she weighed nothing and settling between her legs. Alarm cut through her arousal, her mind immediately trying to calculate the last time she’d showered, let alone shaved --

His eyes flicked up to hers, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I know,” he replied before she’d even opened her mouth. “I promise, I really want to.”

Oh, god. She covered her face to muffle a squeak, flopping onto her back and looking up at the ceiling. “I’m that predictable, huh?”

David hummed thoughtfully, the sound vibrating up the inside of her thigh. “Only with some things. Other times you surprise me quite a bit.”

“Yeah?” He kissed the top of her mound, his tongue dipping into the V formed by her lips and just brushing her clit — a teasing touch, his mouth moving away even as she lifted her hips instinctively. “I’m surprising?”

“You are,” he said, the camp-counselor cheer in his voice making what he was doing feel even more obscene. He traced the line of her cunt with his mouth before gently fingering her open. “The first time you did this, for example. That surprised me quite a bit!”

“This?” She knew exactly what he meant — her stomach still dipped and swooped at the memory of kneeling on the floor of his shower, the heady rush of confidence and vulnerability she’d felt looking up at him with his cock at her lips — but she tilted her head back with a sigh and breathed, “Pretty sure I’ve never eaten you out before. Not that I wouldn’t be into that, just saying.”

He gasped and spluttered, pulling back to wipe his mouth and staring at her with wide, shocked eyes, then coughed, tapping his chest with his other hand. “Excuse —?!”

When he lowered his head to cough again and take an unsteady breath, Gwen sat up on her elbows, not sure if she should be amused, worried, or mortified. “Oh my god, please tell me you did not just choke on cunt juice!”

David gave her a disgusted look, shaking his head and clearing his throat. “There had to be another way to word that,” he said, as primly as he could while still struggling to catch his breath. “But — um, you didn’t…w-was a joke, or…?”

“I meant it,” she admitted, “but I get it if you don’t want to, don’t feel pressured either way —”

“No — I want to.” He looked startled by his own words, and immediately dropped his gaze, smoothing his palms down her thighs like he could disguise how his fingers trembled. “Sometime. If — if you do.”

Gwen let the awkward silence linger for another moment, not quite sure how to move forward. “Good. That’s…something to put on the to-do list.”

“Y-yes. Okay.” He did meet her eyes then, brightening. “See, you did it again!”

She frowned. “Did what?”

“Surprised me.” He leaned over her body to tug her into a slow, sweet kiss. When she pulled back to breathe he cupped the back of her neck, holding her close and brushing his nose against hers. “You’re an adventure every day, Gwen,” he murmured.

“Yeah, I’m a real goddamn roller coaster,” she grumbled, shifting her hips upward in a blind search for his touch. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d fucking ride me already.”

David laughed softly against her mouth before turning his attention to her jaw, throat, collarbone — a damp, shivery brush of his tongue against her skin moving down her body. “Well goodness, Gwen, now I’m confused.” She both hated and loved the smug, teasing tone he got whenever her composure cracked. “I could make love to you,” he continued, nipping the skin just below her bellybutton and making her jump, “but I thought you wanted me to do this first.”

He closed his lips around her clit and sucked gently, catching her with an arm behind her back as she arched toward the maddening wet heat of his mouth. Lowering her hips back to the bed with infuriating tenderness, he paused, resting his cheek on her inner thigh and looking up the length of her body. When she met his eyes he smiled, pausing to press a chaste kiss to her leg before returning her gaze.

“What do you want, Gwen?” And he asked it untauntingly. Seriously. Like he wanted nothing more than for her to tell him what to do, and like he’d do it without question.

His sincerity was going to be the death of her, she decided with a groan, burying her hands in her hair and shielding her face from his view with her arms. “Fuck. I don’t know. Everything.”

When it came to David, she always wanted everything.

“That’s a real swell coincidence, then!” He traced the seam where her hip and leg met, then dipped down, dragging his fingertips through the wetness smearing her thighs before swiping them up to circle her clitoris. “Because ‘everything’ is exactly what I’d like to give you.”

She barely had time to absorb the statement before his mouth was on her again, sliding the hood back with his lips before swirling his tongue beneath it and around the exposed clit. It was almost too much, too sensitive, bordering on painful and if he stopped she might actually die; she knotted her fingers in the flimsy sheets to keep from pushing his face harder against her, vaguely aware that she was mumbling nonsensical pleas, an incoherent litany of “oh god yes please fuck don’t stop” —

He didn’t. Without lifting his mouth he braced one hand under her knee and pushed it toward her chest, bending her leg and using two fingers of his other hand to enter her. It took him a second but when he found her g-spot he pressed up hard, stroking with the same rapid pace of his flicking tongue. It was more pressure than she was used to, strangely achy but pleasurably so, and it was impossible not to writhe under his touch as the need to come coiled tighter, dragged her higher, kept her suspended on the brink for a frustrating, dizzying, electrifying moment that stretched like a rubber band…

Then it snapped — a dam breaking, a wave cresting and finally letting gravity take over — and she curled forward with a sob of relief, pleasure rippling through her limbs and turning her bones to liquid, trembling through the aftershocks.

The shift from overwhelmingly perfect to just plain overwhelming was a split second. “Nngh, stop, stop —” She pawed weakly at his head, just barely smacking the edge of his fringe with her fingertips, but he lifted his mouth from her with a look of concern. “You’re fine,” she added quickly, struggling to catch her breath and shivering from the buzz of overstimulation, “s’just too much.”

David nodded, relieved, and sat back, wiping his face with the back of his arm. “Wow,” he murmured, eyes wide and awed. “Wowzers. Gwen, have you ever done that before?”

She sat up, frowning. “Come like a train? Like every time we — whoa.”

The sheets between her legs were wet. Not damp, wet like she’d spilled a glass of water (and cooling rapidly, she realized with a grimace, shifting to avoid the blotchy patch). Presumably the same wetness dripping down David’s chin.

“Oh my god.” She groaned, hiding her face in her hands like if she couldn’t see it, it would disappear. Or feel it slicking her inner thighs. “And uh, not really,” she finally muttered, a belated answer to his question. “Once or twice, but you’ve really gotta work over the g-spot to make it happ --” She glanced up just in time to catch his expression, a flash of recognition mixed with pleased sheepishness. “Which you were.” David quickly looked away, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth and flushing pink. “On purpose?”

“I -- I’d read about it, that’s all!” he said, meeting her gaze defensively. “I knew it was, well . . . a thing. That some wom- people can do. And I was -- I’ve seen -- I was curious!” Gwen tried to stifle a laugh and failed, turning it into a choking snort, and he blushed even darker. “I know I should’ve just asked, but I couldn’t figure out how to say . . .”

She waited for him to finish the sentence, but when it became clear he had no intention of doing so, she injected as much demented cheer into her voice as possible and chirped, “‘Golly gee, Gwen, could I try making you squirt sometime?’”

Her imitation of his voice was passable -- she’d spent enough years making fun of him to get good at it -- and though he turned his head away she was positive he rolled his eyes at her. “I don’t know if that counts as bad language or not.”

“Oh no. It’d be so shocking if I said one of the no-no words.”

He chuckled, trying and failing to disguise it as a sigh, and climbed out of bed, tugging the rest of his clothes off. (As he picked up his shirt and wiped his face clean, Gwen quickly bent forward and sniffed the damp spot on the mattress. A little like saline, mostly like nothing. Good to know.)

“So how often do you trawl the internet for sex tips?” she asked, grinning. “Or -- god, tell me you’re not checking out books from the library.”

“Of course not!” He looked horrified at the thought. “And . . . sometimes. More often, after we started dating. I . . .” He paused, looking like he was reconsidering the rest of that sentence, and joined her on the bed to lean back against the headboard. “The time you visited, when I -- used my mouth on you for the first time.” (And what was it about his delicate tiptoeing that made it sound so much more filthy than if he’d said it outright?) “I thought -- or, well, I hoped . . . anyway, I did a little reading. Online, obviously. Just in case.”

So that was how he’d been so goddamn good right off the fucking bat. Always prepared, her boy scout. “Well, I appreciate it,” she said, and sat up, throwing one leg over his lap and draping her arms around his shoulders. “Can I please fuck you now, Mr. Greenwood?”

He sucked in an unsteady breath, his cock twitching up against her; the tip of his head slipped between her outer folds, making them both gasp. “C-condom,” he breathed, his voice raspy and uneven, and she scrambled off his lap before she could give in to the voice in the back of her head insisting they didn’t need to stop and get anything, he was right there , if she’d angled her hips right he could’ve been inside her already --

Her fingers were shaking as she retrieved the foil packet and brought it over, letting him take it with relief. (There was no way she wouldn’t have ripped it, with the way her whole body was trembling like the room had dropped ten degrees.) She watched him roll the latex down his cock, unable to tear her eyes away from how beautifully flushed it was, precome beading at the tip and slicking the inside of the condom.

God, she needed him inside her. Immediately.

David caught her with a breathless laugh as she vaulted back up onto the bed, curling his fingers around her hips and holding her steady. “Careful,” he murmured, and she rolled her eyes, fumbling blindly between her legs to line him up. “Have I- hhha --” He cut off, squeezing his eyes shut with a sigh as the head of his cock pressed into her, “t- told you how beautiful you are?”

Gwen frowned. It was kind of hard to focus on the question when her body was fluttering and pulsing as it adjusted to the welcome intrusion. “A lot?” she guessed, sinking down the last few inches too fast and bottoming out with an electric shock of pain and pleasure. “Fuck.”

“No. Not like that.” He slid one arm between their bodies, parting her folds to see the way she stretched around him. “I -- think you’re so pretty,” he managed, gently tracing her inner labia with his fingertips. “I like your colors. And how we -- um, contrast.”

No one had ever told her that her cunt was pretty before. It was just the kind of stupid, romantic thing David would do. And he was right; his cock looked so pale against her, where she faded from shocking pink into a dark purplish-brown that lightened as it blended into her normal skin tone. There was something about it that reminded her of a sunset -- which was just the kind of stupid, romantic thing David made her think.

“You’re an idiot,” she said, pressing her forehead against his and raising up a few inches, “and I love you so much.”

“I — love you too.” Suddenly he froze, his eyes widening and his grip tightening around her waist, keeping her from moving.

“David? Everything okay?” God, he wasn’t having some kind of terrible flashback, was he? Maybe they shouldn’t be doing this.

His eyes flicked up to hers, and a wide, sunny smile spread across his face like spilled honey. “This is just like the first time.”

It took her a moment to understand what he was talking about, but then it hit her: this was like the night they’d first had sex, from the position to the location to the dizzying, giddy strangeness of it.

God, he was perfect.

“Sort of.” She pressed a hard, quick kiss to his lips before grabbing a fistful of his hair and tugging his head to the side so she could reach his neck; he whimpered and twitched twice, each pulse against her inner walls taking her breath away. “Except I know you way better now.” She punctuated the statement by licking a wide stripe up the side of his throat, then sucked a mark right beside his Adam’s apple, where it’d be safely hidden by his bandana. “All your weak points.”

“I—” He swallowed, tilting his head obediently as she trailed a line of open-mouthed kisses up to his ear, “d-don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She just hummed; that wasn’t worth dignifying with a real response, and the vibrations against his damp skin made him shiver. Instead she toyed with him: tracing the shell of his ear with her tongue, nipping at his earlobe with just a hint of teeth, exploring the delicate area around his ear and neck she knew so well, had staked her claim to a hundred times before.

David’s breathing quickened, roughened, and she had to tighten her grip on his hair to keep him from squirming. Her hips weren’t moving but his were, minute jolts she was positive he couldn’t control. “Gwen,” he gasped, “please, I -- hhit's too much, I can’t --”

“Could you come like this?” she asked, fighting to keep her own voice level. She could feel his pulse pounding in his cock and in his throat, under her lips; her clit throbbed in response, a metronome perfectly attuned to him. “Without me even moving? Or just . . .” She squeezed her internal muscles, clenching around him in a quick staccato pattern, and lapped her tongue against his neck in time.

“Nnno. Or -- yes?” His fingers tightened around her hips, a helpless spasm. “I don’t know. It’d . . . be torture.”

His voice was so low, wrecked, and Gwen’s stomach went into a dizzying, delicious free-fall. “Good,” she said before she could stop herself, think it through and reject it as sounding weird and freaky. David successfully pulled back from her, his eyes wide and blown out with arousal, and he looked so beautiful she couldn’t stop herself from blurting out, “I want to torture you sometime. Nothing you’re not okay with -- and not now, but . . .”

“Yes,” he breathed, and the word was barely out of his mouth before his hand curled around the back of her neck and he was dragging her mouth to his, a kiss made of teeth and desperation with words gasped out against her lips: “yes, god, whatever you want Gwen please I love you --” His other hand slid to cup the curve of her thigh, urge her up onto her knees so he could fuck her properly, pull her back down to set a rhythm that bordered on frantic.

She couldn’t help but laugh, even as she braced her palms against the headboard for better leverage to ride him faster, harder. “Told you,” she teased, biting his lower lip hard enough to drag a breathy whine from him. “Weak.”

That made him moan, drawn-out and broken, and he slipped one hand between their bodies; curling it into a loose fist, he splayed his index and middle fingers just enough for her clit to glide between them, adding an extra jolt of friction every time she moved her hips. Gwen gasped, clutching at his back with one hand as her second orgasm coiled tighter at the base of her spine.

She bit his shoulder because she could, because she had to, because he’d like it and because it was that or scream loud enough to wake the entire camp. “Fuck, god, David --”

He shuddered and buried his face in her hair, his breath hot with a stream of pleasured mumbles beginning and ending in her name --

Gwen didn’t know which of them came first. It didn’t matter, really, because they dragged each other over the edge. His cock was almost painfully hard, unyielding as iron as her muscles tightened and fluttered around it, and the sudden snap upward of his hips as he came nearly knocked her breathless.

She was going to be sore tomorrow. Or . . . later today. She turned her head and mouthed at David’s neck, relishing the sweet-salt taste of his sweat, and let him hold her up as they caught their breath.

“I love you too,” she whispered belatedly. David huffed a weak laugh into her hair, stroking her back with a touch that was light and ticklish. “But we’re sleeping in your room tonight. I don’t wanna deal with the wet spot.”

Yeah, she was going to be sore, and exhausted, and facing a hell of a cleanup both in her bedroom and outside of it.

David groaned and gently pushed her upright, sliding out from under her and taking her hand, like she was a camper who needed to be ushered back to bed. “Phone,” she bleated, weakly reaching for it as they walked past, and he paused to pick it up for her, and in that second she loved him even more, more than she’d ever thought possible.

Worth it.

#campcamp #camp camp roosterteeth #gwenvid #cc gwen #cc david #this ending is too awkward to put in the main tags but fuck it #i spent weeks working on this okay #maybe even months #i am exhausted and cannot look at this anymore #hope y'all like your smut interspersed with pages upon pages of talking #because that's what you're getting #the only reason this isn't a total disaster is raenbows and don't anyone forget it #forestwriting

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softkuna · 3 years

Text

Sukuna || Interview || Fic

Part 1

Content ║ Punk!Sukuna x reader. There is an oc version here.

Beauty wasn’t in the eye of the beholder, no, it is in the mind. Sukuna was enraptured. Addressed again, he shifted his posture, leaning into the arm of the couch as she did with her chair. The two were close in their cohort. An air of comfortable conversation lingered between them, much to his dismay. Her question wasn’t unusual. He’d been asked it in the beginning of his career and one where he had a planned answer.

Count ║ 2,626 K

Consider ║ Swearing. Female Pronouns (she/her).

Creator ║ This is the reader version. I took the name of the oc out. Hopefully the double post isn’t too weird? I did research on punk fashion, culture, and all which was really interesting. I knew some stuff about it before, but it’s really rich! I hope it’s not too information dense for you guys. Either way, Punk!Sukuna is now my comfort au and writing him is an absolute delight!! Also, Sorry for changing from ‘you’ to she/her ;v; it’s a lot easier for me to write/edit this way.

Sukuna had a lazy grin as he lounged back into a modern cream sofa. His arm stretched across the back of it, ankle crossed over his knee. Eyes staggered from the two cameras set up to the woman talking with some other chick. One held a small stack of papers, the other was grandly gesturing. He breathed out a short-stop breath, wishing they wouldn’t waste his time with bickering. Annoying as it was, it left a thick self-satisfactory lather over his ego.

“-didn’t you say the band?”

“Yeah, but this is better.”

“Sure… but what happens if-“

Quite frankly, he hated most press and avoided it, so to just have him in the hot seat was a double-edged blade. They didn’t get the whole band, but they did have The King himself. Whatever publicity he thrived off of were live shows, signings, fancams, tangible and real-time events. Interviews were a complete and utter waste of his time. He did a couple in the beginning, but found them pointless, callous even. They all asked the same shit. So, him coming alone was absolutely a note to pin to the fridge, even if it were a passive-aggressive post-it note.

His head turned to the two going back and forth. It wasn’t until the third minute ticked by that Sukuna felt the flashpoint of his blood plummet, “Yo! We doing this or what? You’re wasting my time here, Eros.”

The blogger whipped her head to the man with an indignant, “Excuse me?”

“Eros. Known for being reckless and unreliable? Like your scheduling.” He leaned forward, elbow on knee and chin in palm. The aura of shit-eatery exponentially growing, “You’re not excused, sorry, not sorry Princess.”

“I think you have the wrong God,” She quipped as she dusted off the front of her outfit. It was a smart look and an intentional one for an interview with a punk rocker. What would strike the best complement than a khaki academic outfit? It consisted of a white high collared button up, sleeves billowing before cinching at her wrists. The blouse was stuffed into high-waisted, cuffed khaki chinos, pleated at the center of each pant leg. Over top, a gray woolen sweater vest. Accessories included various silver rings, a black ribbon to tie under the folded collar, and small silver studs as earrings. Makeup remained that done-up natural with brow, liner, and mascara. Hair had been swept into something similar to a faux 1920’s bob, pulled loosely back. The overall silhouette made the perfect contrast.

Sukuna wanted to peg her as your average superficial fashion bitch, he really did. Even at the concert, she dressed smartly despite the pathetic look on she wore on face. It wasn’t until afterwards when he saw the burn in her eyes, that he craved for her to prove him wrong.

Black flats clacked as she approached her own seat, a matching armchair to the couch. She held a certain command once she walked in, instructing him on where to be, which camera to look at, and what the introduction would be. He listened, admiring how her small frame moved to and fro, fixing up last minute edits on a paper, chattering with who he assumed to be a videographer. It was a whole production. One that was hers. The set itself was practically out of a home décor magazine. It was a general space used across the publisher, but she was born to be there. Deserved to be there. Her calculated glee and deliberate positioning of each member made him feel as though he were looking through a mirror.

The interview process began.

She sat professionally, legs crossed and leaning on the arm of her chair closest to Sukuna. He was unmoving, that slit to his lip curling upwards as the cameras began. She introduced the blog, the channel, her social media handles. With a smile, she introduced herself, “With me in this special is lead singer of Two Face, the King of Curses – Sukuna.”

The camera panned to his lazy wave, “Yo.” He looked to her, she looked to him and for a moment she thought she saw a flicker of interest. Maybe the man was meant for cameras after all.

“After looking more into the punk scene, there’s a pretty interesting history behind it. Revolution, social discourse, poverty, violence, and unity. As someone in the scene, can you talk a little bit about what you know of the background?”

Sukuna drank in her voice, smooth and warm like the steady strum of a bass guitar. For a moment, he wondered if she sang. He quirked a brow, “Sounds like you didn’t research enough to summarize it yourself,” Eyes flickered to her features, watching as slight annoyance crinkled onto her nose then smoothed, “Let me learn you, Daisy. Starting back from rock in the 50’s, take that, strip it, build it with shit you find in the backyard…” His wrist rolled as his harmonious voice sang on, lacking even a single stutter as he summarized the movement top to bottom, inside and out, “…So, people would make their own records, sell them in plastic bags, they’d scan and reprint photos to make their own ‘zines. Shit was hard to distribute without tech…”

Much of his dissertation, she hadn’t even found on her own deep dive into the culture. Sure, the anarchist and nihilistic ideologies were well known to pretty much anyone who would listen, but the deep history and connection between communities was far beyond the surface scratched into.

“There’s a crowd of sub-genres now. Fuck ‘punk is dead’ what even is that bull shit?” Sukuna scoffed, jerking his chiseled chin to the side, “Only thing that’s dead here is – ironically – peoples drive to change.”

His interviewer sat in silence for a moment, mind spinning. He spoke in the way a well-educated University professor gave a dissertation to his peers, dripping in confidence from his storm of information. He was articulate despite the fowl language, even including a tie in to modern perception. Excitement curled into the recess of her mind. In a delightful turn of events, expectation and reality didn’t match up.

She leaned forward slightly folding her hands over the arm of the chair, “That was comprehensive. Thanks!” She chuckled, causing the man before her to freeze and thaw with a nod. She continued, “With all of this mention of D.I.Y. culture in punk, let’s talk about Vivienne Westwood.”

Sukuna kept his attention to her profile as she spoke to the camera, catching himself in the glow of her enthusiasm, “On Kings Road in England, she kickstarted the fashion movement into gear. Now, many would think that with a style such as this, it would’ve been hand-me-downs, pins, self-stitching, but contrary to this belief, many of the clothes in her store were expensive. Knock offs circulated, and seeing as much of it did have that hand-done finishing touch, many decided to take tailoring to their own hands…” Not that this was a competition, but she found herself trying to prove his ‘research’ comment wrong. Her ability to scour and exhaust her resources of fashion history is the furnace that kept her going and she would make it well known that she was not to be challenged.

The approaching lurch of a stalemate stuck to the walls of the vocalist’s stomach. Something he didn’t think he’d feel for a while. Small stuff over here may not’ve known all there was about the cultural history, but he could feel the crashing wave of fascination washing over him as she spoke. Sure, some of it he knew. Some of it he naturally garnered from stylistic preference and others he learned for marketing, however there was just a certain target she aimed for with such precision that he bled a newfound admiration.

“You’ve answered it already, yeah, I know. I saw the interview,” Her head tilted to the side, pleasant smile hinting at her trick, “but enlighten me for a second about how your natural style transitioned to what it is on stage. We’ll put up some of the photos taken from last night here,” her hand gestured to some empty space, “You basically turned chiaroscuro and made it a performance. It’s obvious in how each member contrasted with themselves and the stage.”

The chick didn’t even know who he was a week ago, yet somehow watched every interview since the start? An answer tumbled from the tongue readily, “Punk is like a renaissance of music. Like I said before, it tore down the foundations of what was before and built something new out of it.” The words were succinct, but as her pretty lashes bat, he was goaded into continuing, “Contrast is important. I like art. I like plays. Just ‘cause it’s punk doesn’t mean I can’t have it look aesthetic? Or is that a word only snobby fashion journalists can use now?”

“Hm. Change ‘journalist’ to ‘vocalist’ and you’re a word away from meeting the requirement,” It was a sour candy treat traded for his lemon warhead.

“Ouch. Miss Blog-Spot here has some sass,” His large frame leaned further into the armrest, cheek resting on that fist.

“Mister Eight-Track here is some a–“

The videographer clapped his hands, “We have sponsors, you know. We can at least censor him.”

It was Sukuna’s time to laugh a loud, hyena-like cackle. A large hand smacked his leather-clad knee. She scrunched her nose again, biting back her tongue from childishly jutting out at him.

As soon as the videographer clapped his hands again, she recollected herself, shuffled her papers, and continued on, “From what it looks like, you took a mixture of old and new high-trend brands and added a touch to them to keep with theme. Even now, you’re wearing a Real McCoy with cone spikes embedded. Is that custom made? McCoy isn’t cheap.”

Part of him hated her keen eye, but reveled in her raw talent all the same. “I’m not going to bull shit you and say I dumpster dive for my clothes. I like high quality things. What’s the point in making money if I can’t spend it? What’s a bigger ‘fuck you’ than having your version of a top-brand item being worth more than the original?” With a proud glint in his eye, he rolled the jacket off, sure to make a grand display of strong, bare arms as he did so. The muscle tank he wore was similar to the concert before, white with a pocket, neckline was stretched and worn. It hung over the dense muscle of his shoulders and chest. Sukuna could feel the trail of her eyes on him. His chest puffed from her approval. He threw the jacket over his knee, flipping the leather inside out to show where the studs had been placed, “See this? Did it myself.”

Manicured fingers touched the inside of the jacket, thumbing the connecting points that the studs were pressed in by and sealed. The work was immaculate. Sukuna leaned back, canines gleaming as he saw her mouth move in a silent ‘wow’. He picked the front of his tank top, snapping it up and allowing it to billow back to his body, “Embroidered this, too.”

He waited for her comment, her praise. Why? Like he needed some two-bit Vanderbilt bitch’s validation. He chalked it up to being praised by a master of the craft. He hadn’t been prepared for her to take the fabric between her fingers and rub it, concentrated brows cinched like a corset. Well-toned abs flinched in response to her delicacy, but she didn’t notice.

The embroidery was messy and chaotic, but it was obviously intentionally. The way the needlework was so clean, barely leaving a hole from the pull of the exceptionally soft fabric. It wasn’t floral like in the concert, but abstract stitching created crosses and streaks here and there, using the composition of the fabric as like it were a canvas. Experimentalist. It was like touching the work of Westwood herself.

God, she hated how perfect it was. It squeezed her heart to know that he was so effortlessly multi-talented. She rubbed the fabric between her fingers once more, attention being stolen by his baritone voice. She could practically hear the treble in it, “Ey Princess, you think it’s okay to just touch me?” His breath caught under the arrogant teasing of his words. Not from the words themselves. Couldn’t care less about that. What choked him up was whatever resplendent emotion flared from them when she peered up to him.

“Let me check the tag.”

“What?”

The blogger leaned back, cheekily snapping the shirt as she did so. “Your shirt, can I check the tag? I want to see what its made out of. Also, sorry.”

Sukuna blinked twice, mouth stupidly hanging open before he leaned forward, “I’ll allow it.”

He may have tinnitus, but he wasn’t deaf enough yet to miss the mocking ‘I’ll allow it,’ muttered under her breath. He wanted to laugh, but for the second time, the graze of chilled fingertips along his skin shut him up. Along the back of his neck, she fiddled to flip the collar and tug it. Her eyes squinted and a hum escaped her throat. Sometimes she wished she could read upside down. That’s when she sat on the back on the sofa and leaned closer, pulling the shirt to better read the small print. If Sukuna were a cat, he’d lean his head into her. The thought physically bothered him.

“I knew it. It’s American Pima. Thanks for letting me check.”

He missed the shiver her touch gave him as she sat back into her chair.

“While I have more questions for you, this video’s gotten pretty long already, so we’ll have to cut it a bit short here,” She gave a closing statement, motioning for her guest to do the same. With a thanks, the cameras were cut.

While the editor and videographer chatted together, She leaned heavily into the back of her chair, poised posture slipping into something more comfortable. Long lashes slid closed and a heavy drag of breath lifted her chest. Sukuna’s eyes trailed along her form, contemplating Eros once more.

She exhaled sharply, “I do appreciate you coming on stage. It’s disgusting how talented you are.” She laughed, cracking an eye open to meet his, “I prepped a lot of questions thinking you’d be short with me. It’s a shame I only got to ask a few.”

He was surprised himself. It was more than just her talent to make him talk - she may have been the first to see him as an opportunity rather than a commodity. ‘She would be the first and last reporter to see me as a meal’ was the thought he had going into this interview. He had every single intention to shut down her buffet, make it apparent that he was not to be dined on by a single soul. Yet, if his dish were ‘opportunity’, hers would be ‘intrigue’. He wanted to devour it, to know its palette and identify its spices. It was a compulsory urge to order, just to see why he craved it in the first place.

“Film the next few concerts. Backstage.”

Tags: @lovesakusa

#⛩.sukuna #⛩.fic #⛩.punk #🍺.jjk #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #sukuna #sukuna x reader #ryoumen sukuna x reader #jujutsu kaisen fic #jjk fic

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willow-salix · 3 years

Text

FabFiveFeb Alan!

Finally got this bugger edited, so here it is, my offering for Alan week of @gumnut-logic FabFiveFeb. Once again I’ve written what my daughter plotted with a few of my own tweaks thrown in.

“Is there really nothing else to do around here?” Alan whispered to Selene, jolting her awake from the sleepy doze she was enjoying stretched out on a sun lounger. “How can you just lay around here all day?”

“Like you don’t do the same every day at home?” she grumbled, stretching out in an effort to wake up. She'd never admit it, but she was getting a bit bored with having nothing to do, hence the impromptu nap time.

“That’s different, I’ve got things there to do.”

“You mean you have technology?” Selene grinned evilly. “Whereas here it’s-”

“Like I’ve gone back in time to 2015 and the graphics suck, " he groaned.

“Come on, it’s not that bad, don’t you like the peace and quiet?” Selene’s family home was indeed very quiet, set apart from the other houses on the street, it backed out into a small but flower filled garden that held nothing but the sun loungers they were currently occupying, the picnic table their drinks were on, a slightly rusted BBQ, some yoga mats and a bird bath in the shape of a frog on a lily pad.

Alan looked towards Selene's cool, but rather weird, younger brother who was currently doing some kind of yoga crossed with Tai Chi that seemed to have a little of that 1970’s disco type of dancing thrown in for good measure.

“Adam, help me,” he begged, trying to invoke the bro code.

“Chill out, little dude, it’s all good," Adam said, his sleepy tone the perfect accompaniment to his snail like movements.

“Nothing about this is good,” Alan huffed, feeling dismissed and beyond frustrated. He was seriously regretting offering to go with her for a visit under the mistaken belief that time spent away from his brothers with his cool sister-in-law would be awesome. But no, he’d been stuck there for three days and they’d done nothing but talk about boring things that he couldn’t really join in with because he didn’t share the same memories that they did and watch TV in the evenings. The only positive thing was the quality of the food on offer.

“How did you grow up like this and not die of boredom?”

“We made our own fun, we’d read, draw, do arts and crafts, go on days out and-”

“Days out? Where did you go?” Alan jumped on that information like John on a double cheeseburger after a month in space.

Selene thought about it for a moment or two. “The seaside?” she offered. "That was always our favourite place to go and somewhere we always looked forward to, a rare treat really."

“The beach? Yes! Can we go?” he gave her his best pleading puppy eyes and she was, as he well knew, powerless to resist.

“Well…” she dithered, caught between spending time in her family home with her mum as it came up to what would have been her parents 30th wedding anniversary and the need to do more than sit around and mope, especially if that moping meant that her littlest love had a crap time. “Ad’s, are you up for a road trip to Southend?”

Her brother paused in his Night Fevering to look at her. He seemed to think about it for far longer than was necessary before nodding.

“I could go for that. Wanna take my car?”

***

“I’m never getting in a car with your brother again,” Alan shuddered, still looking a little stressed out by the whole experience.

“Yet you’ll get in a jet with Scott?”

“Scott goes faster than 25 mph and he knows what road signs are,” Alan explained in the same tone that John adopted whenever he was explaining to her why she actually needed an investment portfolio.

“Road signs are all part of the conspiracy, man, they just want you to follow blindly and never question where they are sending you.”

“To the beach, they were sending us to the beach,” Alan continued to bitch. Selene couldn’t blame him, two hours in a car with her brother's sitar music, cloud of vape smoke and tendency to lose track of their destination was enough to make anyone a little antsy. Maybe now he'd stop complaining when she took too long to fly them to her flat.

They left the car park and headed towards the seafront. Thankfully, with it being a weekday and term time, there weren't too many people about. As always the sea was a dirty grey colour, nothing like the clear blue they were used to on the island and Selene could tell that Alan was looking at it with thinly veiled disgust.

Southend had been promoted to a historic seaside town back in 2038 and hadn’t changed since. The lights of the out of date arcades still flashed in welcome, drawing Alan’s attention almost immediately, the little beach huts still offered deck chair rental and the amusement park with its clanking, clunking kiddy rides and its ancient roller-coaster still drew some crowds.

“See that there?” she pointed out towards the sea. “That’s still the longest pleasure pier in the world.”

“Pleasure Pier? Did you have to make that sound so dirty?” Alan groaned.

“Sorry, but that’s what it’s called, there are different classifications and one that has no purpose but for leisure activities like this one, is known as a pleasure pier.”

“I didn't know that, but it still doesn’t make it any better,” he muttered as she slipped one arm through his and the other through Adam’s to tow them across the road.

The air was filled with a mixture of freshly fried donuts, fish and chips and the unmistakable scent of the sea and Selene was immediately hungry.

“It’s been such a long time since I’ve been here,” she sighed happily, relaxing into the atmosphere of what had once been one of her favourite places in the world. She could vividly remember how exciting it had been to hear the announcement that they were going to the seaside for the day. That meant an afternoon spent playing on the beach, splashing in the sea, eating dinner out of a paper tray with a little wooden fork and, if you were really lucky, a trip around the sealife center and a floaty helium filled balloon to take home with you.

Looking out down the length of the beach she easily conjured up images of childhood days gone by, seeing her father chasing Adam down the beach as he attempted to make a break for freedom or tried to eat a clump of seaweed while her mother screeched at Rufus to run faster and catch him.

Maybe coming here had been a good idea in other ways too, she pondered. Her mother tended to favour being miserable if it was an option, and often when it wasn't, and had been mooching around the house sighing like she was a Victorian ghost haunting the place. She’d gone out to visit friends for the day, leaving them alone and that had been when Alan had seized his chance. And Selene for one was glad he had, he was always good at sensing when she was in need of cheering up and this time had been no exception.

“Can we start at the arcades?” Alan asked, looking more excited than he had in days. Who was she to disappoint him?

“Sure, lead the way!”

***

Two hours later and Selene had finally dragged her brothers away from the bleepy, shiny, flashy machines and back into the fresh air. Alan, it transpired, was almost as good on a claw machine as John and she was now lugging along a whole new family of stuffed toys, all slightly moth eaten and smelling a little suspect but cute nonetheless.

“I’m hungry,” Alan announced.

“Good call, little dude.” Adam, surprising Alan no end, had joined in rather enthusiastically at the arcade, being more active and alert than he’d ever seen him before, displaying a competitive streak that rivaled a Tracy's. But, now that the excitement of gaming had died down, he was back to his chilled and slightly lethargic self.

“Fancy some donuts?” Selene suggested.

“Sis…” Adam drawled.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Selene giggled, shoving the stuffed toys into her brother’s arms as she headed to the donut stalls. “I'll get them, you two meet me on the beach.”

Her arms now free of their burden Selene quickly ordered three dozen of the delectable little morsels, something the English called Dinky Donuts, small little ring donuts, freshly fried and drenched in a sprinkling of sugar. Knowing that they’d need them she bought some drinks too and took her bounty back to the boys, proudly displaying her prize.

“I got them!” she yodeled, but no excited sounds were heard in return. “What’s up?” she asked, nudging Alan as she reached his side.

“What the heck is this?”

“The beach, duh. What else could it be?"

He scuffed a toe into the stones at his feet. “This is not a beach, this is all stones. Where's the sand?”

“It’s a pebble beach, most of the British coast is,” she shrugged.

“It’s wrong.”

“If you say so,” she wasn’t in the mood to argue or defend the virtue of their beaches, she had hot donuts to eat.

“This is not a beach, there’s no surfers, no sand, no lifeguards, no nothing.”

“This is England, we take things at a more chilled pace,” she soothed, dumping a bag on each of the boys' laps.

She took her own and opened it, inhaling the rich scent. Oooh yeah, that hit the spot. She reached in to pluck one out, studying it from all angles, marveling at it's perfection. She lifted it to her mouth prepared for the taste explosion that was about to assault her mouth in the very best of ways…

“Sel!” A sharp Alan elbow embedded itself in her side, making her drop the donut. She watched in horror as it hit the pebbles and rolled away.

“You had better have a good reason for making me sacrifice a donut,” she warned him.

“Over there!”

Selene turned, following the direction in which Alan was pointing.

“What? I don’t see anything?” All she saw was the relatively empty beach, nothing but a few seagulls pecking around hopefully, one coming close enough to snag her lost donut, racing off in triumph with it in its mouth.

“Them,” he pointed again.

“Them? What about them?” The them in question turned out to be a small group of school age boys, the oldest no more than ten years old. They were all holding a number of balloons from the pier, which were bobbing along above their heads and looked perfectly innocent. “They’re just having a day out, could be an inset day or something at school.”

“No, look what that one's holding,” Alan insisted, nodding towards the oldest looking boy who was carrying a small box with holes in it.

Selene squinted closer. “Is that an animal box?” She was amazed that Alan had even noticed such a thing, she hadn’t looked twice at the boys, just seeing a happy group of friends at the seaside on a rare day off school. Alan always seemed like he was paying little attention to anything, more absorbed in his games or phone, but here was the undeniable proof that he was just as good as his brothers and had inherited their danger seeking sense.

“Looks that way,” Alan agreed.

“It could be innocent,” Selene argued lamely. “Maybe they are just taking their pet on a day out too?"

“Sure, that’s what it’ll be,” Alan said, rolling his eyes.

“Honestly, it’s something I’d do,” she retorted, feeling the need to defend herself and her wish to believe that there was good in everyone.

“We’ll keep an eye on them,” Alan decided, finally reaching into his own bag for a donut.

As was usually the case, Selene was easily distracted by talking to her brother and just enjoying the novelty of being in a different place to one she was used to. She’d finally grown accustomed to hearing the sound of the ocean at all times of the day and night after so long in a city where traffic was the only ambient noise. b

But here the sound was different to the island, here the waves lapped gently over the pebbles rather than crashing against rocks and she was surprised that she could tell the difference.

She’d worried, when Alan had suggested going out, that this little beach from her childhood which stood out so bright and shiny in her memories, would look pale and dull in reality. Life was often that way, your memories and imagination creating a perfect picture that was rarely obtainable in the real world and she didn't want her memories tainted by the truth. Thankfully she had been worried over nothing and was finding it just as charming as she had remembered it to be.

“Not bad are they?” she asked, turning to Alan to see how he was enjoying his donut feast but the space next to her was empty.

“Allie?” she called, looking around like he might suddenly pop out of nowhere. Surely she hadn't ignored him for too long?

“Alan!” she yelled, trying again. He was a big boy now, an adult in his own right, but she got just as panicked when she lost Scott, which was actually easier if you could believe that. Alan was usually happy to hang near her and chill, Scott was always dashing off to look at something or other and would just vanish into the ether without a second thought.

“Ad’s, have you seen Alan?”

“Yeah, little dude, cool shirt, strange hair.”

“Thanks for that lovely description. I meant did you see where he went?”

Adam nodded, pointing further down the beach to where the small group of school boys stood, Alan beside them, waving his arms violently, clearly yelling at them though she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“Shit!” Selene was up in a second, grabbing Adam's arm and towing him along in the process, forcing him to abandon his stuffed animal squad to the mercy of the seagulls as they barreled down the beach after Alan.

"Al," she panted, finally catching up, "what…doing?"

In answer the small box that the boy had been carrying was thrust into her hands, a disgruntled rustling noise along with a manic scrabbling, coming from inside.

"Oi! Give that back!" a boy yelled, his piggy nose turned up to the sky in indignation. "We 'ad ta catch that thing ourselves. Ain't no way you're gonna snatch it."

"You're not getting it back," Alan insisted, his arms folded as he firmly stood his ground.

Selene passed the box on to Adam who was standing there doing absolutely nothing to help, his attention on the balloons floating above them. Once her hands were free she immediately flanked her little brother, knowing that he wouldn't be doing this without a very good reason.

"What's going on?" she demanded to know, her hands on her hips. "What are you boys up to?"

"This idiot won't give us it back," the oldest boy and apparently the mouthpiece of the little hoodlum brigade, continued to yell. Selene had seen boys like him before, usually ones with overly aggressive parents that taught their kids that you got what you wanted in life by being obnoxious, rude and threatening. Well not on her watch and apparently not on Alan's either.

"You're right , I won't," Alan agreed. "Because that is a living creature that you were about to tie to a bunch of balloons."

"Weren't doin' nothin' of the sort. Yer lyin'."

"You were what?" Selene hissed, her attention fully engaged now that there was the potential for injury of an animal. "You were going to send an innocent animal into the sky on the end of some balloons?"

"Nah, we weren't," the little bully boy continued to argue, elbowing one of his friends when they opened their mouth to speak.

"We ain't doing nothin' wrong, were we lads? Nothin' at all. Just a little experiment for school, jus' like teacher said."

"Experiment? What kind of experiment?" Selene asked, narrowing her eyes in warning.

"Why should we tell you?" the mouthy one sneered. "You ain't nothin'."

"We were just seeing if he could reach space, like. Teacher said that people would send monkeys up in rockets a hundred years ago," another boy piped up, sounding pleased with himself. "Figured we'd try the same out ta sea like a note in a bottle."

"You are so not doing that!" Selene yelped.

"Yeah, 'ow you gonna stop us?"

"You wanna say that to the police?" Alan threatened.

"Police? Yeah righ', like yer gonna jus' call up the police like they actually care. An' then wot, 'ave em come running on the say so of a nobody? Fer this? I don't think so, mate. They don't give a crap."

"Listen up you little shit," Selene started, rapidly losing patience. "You're not getting that…Whatever that is-"

"Rat," one of the kids helpfully offered.

"Rat," Selene continued with a little shudder of horror at the fact that they had gone to all the trouble of capturing a dirty rat off the street just to do something cruel to it. "You're not getting it back and you're not going to hurt it. What's wrong with you all?"

"He's been to space," Adam suddenly piped up, like he was only just catching up to the conversation but still missing the main point, pointing at Alan helpfully.

"Space, yeah right," another of the boys, a weedy looking string bean that had previously been hiding near the back of the pack, looking at Alan judgingly. None of the boys looked particularly bothered by their threats or the fact that Selene was practically spitting, she was so angry.

"Al," she demanded, determined to win the little shits respect. "Show them that clip you took last Saturday, the one on your board."

"We can all board, you ain't nothing special," the mouthpiece sneered, not impressed in the slightest.

Alan pulled out his phone, fiddled with it for a second then showed them the screen where a video was playing, taken from his vlogging drone as he boogied around outside Five on his astroboard. The dark heavens were clearly visible all around him while the earth spun quietly below, and there, if you looked closely, was John, in the background, sitting on the outside of the gravity ring, clearly doing all the work while Alan filmed for Brandon’s channel. The Alan on screen zoomed in a loop the loop, the drone following, the camera angle changing to show Three securely docked to Five.

“That actually is space!” one kid gasped.

“And that’s...that’s…” another stuttered.

“Thunderbird THREE!” someone screamed in excitement.

“Still think I’m a nobody that the police won’t listen to?” Alan asked casually as he pocketed his phone. "Maybe I should skip the police and go straight to the GDF? What do you think, Sel?"

"Yep, sounds like a plan to me. They take animal cruelty very seriously, you know."

The ring leader visibly deflated before their eyes, but he valiantly tried to hold on to his ‘couldn’t give a shit’ attitude.

“So you know some people, what’s that got ta do with anythin’? You ain’t the boss here.”

“Knock it off, Wendle, it’s over,” one boy ordered, rolling his eyes.

"Wendle?" Alan mouthed to Selene who shrugged in return. Never had a kid looked less like a Wendle in the entire world.

“Yeah, I never wanted to do this in the first place,” another joined in.

The first one to have spoken walked away, followed by another, then the other that had spoken. Others trailing after them until the small group had dispersed as if it had never existed, all of them hurrying off down the beach with calls for getting donuts or having to head home.

Wendle managed to stand his ground for less than a minute before he gave in.

“Keep the stupid rat then!” he yelled, taking off after his friends.

Adam, being Adam, waved goodbye like it was the most normal thing in the world, still holding the rat filled box.

Alan let out the breath he’d been holding, visibly shaking, either from anger or adrenaline. He had never been one for confrontation no matter what form it took or who it involved.

“You did good, babe,” Selene praised, giving him a hug.

“Yeah, good, little dude,” Adam agreed, “here, have this, I insist,” he handed him the box with the rat in it like it was some great prize.

“Erm, thanks,” Alan said, gingerly accepting the box of rat, which rustled as the creature inside shifted around. He held the box for a second, looking completely bemused and a little disgusted, suddenly having a very real feeling of compassion for John when he walked in on Selene and Scott doing something weird.

“What are we going to do with the rat?” he finally asked Selene, who was the only one there since Adam had wandered off to rescue the stuffed animals they had abandoned, snatching up Alan’s dropped bag of donuts and picking one out to munch on.

“I don’t know,” Selene admitted, “I guess we should take it somewhere to release it. Not around here though, maybe back at Mum’s.”

“I guess,” Alan reluctantly agreed, not liking the idea of sitting in a car with a wild rat in a box.

Since they had gained another tag along, even if it was in a box, they decided to cut the day short, knowing they couldn't drag the rat around with them all day. It had clearly suffered enough, what with being caught and stuffed in a box and having survived a narrow brush with death. It would be better for them to take it straight home and let it go in the relative safety of the garden before it got even more stressed out.

"I'll drive," Selene insisted, leaving Alan to hold the rat in the back seats, Adam calling shotgun so he could 'pick the tunes, man'.

With Selene in the driving seat it was a far shorter, not to mention less frustrating, journey back to Casa de Tempest.

To Selene's intense relief their mother was still out when they got back. She would have pitched a fit if she'd seen them releasing a rat into her garden, she'd never go out there again.

Adam wandered off the second they got home, muttering something about a tofu log, leaving them alone to release the beast.

"You can do the honours," Selene smiled, nodding at the box he still held. "Since you were the one to perform the daring rescue. Seriously, you did good today, sweetheart, but I'm really starting to think that I need to stop taking a Tracy with me whenever I go places, you're all the same, nothing but trouble."

Alan blushed at the praise, as always finding it slightly uncomfortable to be the center of attention in such a way, but still happy to get the validation that he'd done the right thing. With so many big brothers who had all been there and done that before he had a lot to live up to and often felt like he couldn't quite match up to them.

Taking the box over to the bushes near the fence where Selene had indicated, he opened the flaps and stepped back to give the little guy some room.

The rat didn't move at first, staying inside the box, obviously scared by its experiences. They stayed quiet, giving it time to make up its mind. Finally they saw the box wobble as the rat made its tentative way out.

"Shit!" Selene yelped, launching herself off her seat so fast Alan barely saw her move.

"Sel, what are you…doing," he finished, stunned to see her hit the ground, the rat cradled protectively against her chest.

"Help me up," she wheezed and he did as she bid, helping her to her feet as her hands were occupied.

"What's wrong? Why did you catch it?"

"Allie, look," she carefully opened her hands, just a little. A small, pink nose poked out, followed by a pure white snout, a grey face and perfect pink petal ears.

"Is that…?"

"A domestic rat, yes. This was either someone's pet or it's come from a store. We can't let him go, he'll never survive in the wild."

"Wow, he's so cute. Can I hold him? He won't bite me will he?"

"I don't know, he seems tame enough but he's had a fright today so I can't promise anything." She carefully placed the rat in Alan's outstretched hands.

The rat, far from looking terrified, seemed to be perfectly fine now it was out of the box. It sat down on its haunches and began to wash its face with its little paws, one grey, one white.

"Aww, he's great," Alan cooed, cupping the rat in one hand so he could stroke it gently with the other. "I've always wanted a pet."

Selene sighed, knowing exactly what was coming next, there was no escaping it, it was going to happen…

"Can I keep him?"

***

"We gotta move fast," Selene instructed. "I've got the cage and the bedding. Have you got the food?"

"Yep," Alan held up the bag with the food, treats and water bottle they had purchased on their way home. The rat was curled up in his new travel bag, which was hanging from Alan's shoulder.

"Right, we make a break for it, we go straight to your room, don't look back no matter what happens and avoid John and Scott at all costs. Got it?"

"Got it," he nodded, grinning happily.

"They're gonna kill me," she sighed, not that there was much she could do about it. "OK, let's go!"

They raced up the back stairs from the hangars, straight to the upper floors of the villa where the bedrooms were situated, bypassing the more populated communal areas and managing to avoid any and all Tracys.

They dived into Alan's room, Selene struggling a little, burdened as she was with a three storey cage. Alan cleared a space on his desk and took the cage from her.

While Alan set up the cage, filling it with fresh bedding and tasty foods, Selene made herself at home on Alan's bed, the rat happily perched on her chest, enjoying an ear fondle.

"I didn't know you were back," a voice called from the hallway, accompanied by the sound of footsteps.

Selene and Alan both jumped, their heads turning guilty towards the door they had neglected to shut where a suspicious looking spaceman stood.

"Hey, gorgeous husband of mine, I've missed you!" Selene chirped, trying to divert his attention as she quickly grabbed the rat and stuffed it in the pocket of the hoodie she'd stolen from Adam.

John gave her a look that said he'd seen everything.

"What's that?"

"What's what?" she answered, trying to look innocent.

"That tail sticking out of your pocket."

"Tail? What tail?" she poked the tail gently back inside.

"Why does Alan have a cage on his desk that he's trying, unsuccessfully I might add, to hide by standing in front of it?"

"To put Gordon in?"

One sleek ginger eyebrow rose and they both knew they were wasting their time. They were well and truly busted.

Alan held out his hand and Selene passed over the rat, who was none the worse for its impromptu expedition into the depths of her pocket. It sat quietly in his hands, happily nibbling on a piece of cereal bar that had already been occupying his hiding place.

"Where did that come from?" John's foot tapped out a rhythm as he waited for them to spill the beans, leaning against the door frame, his arms folded.

"Have I told you how hot you look when you're all grumpy and intense like this?" Selene tried.

"Where did you get the rat?" he repeated ignoring her blatant attempts at distraction.

"The beach," Alan admitted, caving immediately under the big bro gaze.

"The beach?"

"Yep," Alan looked at Selene for backup, cradling the rat who didn't seem to care about any of the drama he was causing.

"Some boys had him in a box and they were going to tie it to some balloons and let it go but Alan spotted them and stopped them," she explained.

John glanced at the rat, who was looking very adorable and fat.

Ever the master of managing her husband, Selene got to her feet and crossed the room to wrap her arms around John's middle.

"Alan was great, he sprung into action before I even knew what was going on. He rescued him, and really, isn't that what International Rescue does? Rescue people?"

"That's not a person, that's a rat," John argued, but she could tell he was weakening.

"Did I mention that I missed you?" she grinned, standing on tiptoes to place a little kiss on his chin.

John's sigh of surrender was epic.

"I'm banning you from ever leaving the house again with any of my brothers. What next, a dolphin with Gordon?

"No, don't be silly. We couldn't bring a dolphin home in my car."

John rolled his eyes ignoring his wife to face his brother.

"Does that thing have a name?"

"Yep," Alan answered, grinning proudly as he moved closer, holding the rat out for inspection.

"John, meet Fuzz Aldrin."

#alan tracy #selene tempest #adam tempest #John Tracy #fabfivefeb #seaside #day out #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirdsarego #thunderbirds #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds fanfiction

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hetalia-high-school-au-ask-blog · 3 years

Text

Introduction!

This is all the information you need to know for this AU thingy!

So this AU is gonna be huge. All the hetalia characters I can think of will make an appearance. Now this will be mature, so if you are not comfortable with DARK topics, do not read it. This is my warning.

Ships that will be in this (in no particular order):

Alfred x Arthur

Matthew x Gilbert

Ludwig x Feliciano

Lovino x Antonio

Yao x Ivan

Kiku x Heracles

Roderich x Vash

Feliks x Toris

Matthais x Lukas

Berwald x TIno

Emil x Li

Vladimir x Milen

Romeo x Anthony

Some ships may be added or removed.

World Academy is a school in Washington D.C. It strives to be very accepting and very open, having many different people from many different countries. It has amazing sports programs, as well as art and drama programs. It's a huge school filled with different people, all with different interests. Because of this, the school has many sports from all over the world, such as soccer/European football, American football, and Australian football. The school has the highest grades in the area, and most students are well behaved, thanks to the high discipline by students and teachers.

Now I will give a little blurb about each character in the context of this AU.

Alfred F. Jones(America)- Alfred is an energetic young boy, your classic jock. He is a big sweetheart, with a heart of gold, and would die for his friends. He loves to cook, but enjoys some good chicken nuggets from McDonald's every once and awhile. He is also a VERY big fan of American football, and loves to play with his buddies. Despite being a popular jock, he would never bully someone for anything, especially for their sexuality, since he himself was bi. His life seems perfect, but is there something dark under the surface?

Arthur Kirkland(England)- Arthur is a prim and proper young man, with a bright future ahead of him. He is the student council president, and is feared throughout the school, since he holds the power of a staff member when it comes to punishing misbehaving students. He also has a secret sporty side, not playing on the school's official teams, but for fun on club teams. No one knows about this side of him, and he'd prefer to keep it that way. Very very gay for all the jocks in the school but refuses to admit it.

Matthew Williams(Canada)- Matthew is timid. You could tell from a mile away, if you could spot him. He was shorter than his older brother, Alfred, and is outshined by him in every way. The one thing he had a better grip on were his grades, which mattered very little to his parents. He too had a secret that even Alfred didn't know about, and he knew if he revealed this secret, Alfred would be pissed. Likes to refer to himself as demi, but is more gay than he realizes.

Gilbert Beilschmidt(Prussia)- Gilbert is a very loud and obnoxious boy, constantly harassing both boys and girls about numbers and flirting relentlessly. He hated following rules and would often disobey dress code, and be disruptive during class. Sometimes he'd straight up ditch class and waltz back in the food with no care in the world. He's protective though, especially of his little brother, and who he thinks needs it. He's pansexual, like the entire BTT.

Ludwig Beilschmidt(Germany)- Ludwig is serious and tough, not taking shit from anyone. He is the student council's vice president. He doesn't hold as much power as Arthur, therefore is less feared, but he makes people aware that they shouldn't break rules. He's a hunky man, and attracts many suitors, but he only has his eyes on one boy. A certain art student with a cute curl, and adorable smile. Demi sexual (or felisexual)

Feliciano Vargas(N. Italy)- Feliciano was an art student with an uncontrollable love for pasta. He is a bubbly and happy boy, and is rarely seen without a smile. He is one of the best artists in school and is commonly tasked with making murals and posters for events. He is quite popular for it. His best friends are Ludwig and Kiku, though he feels guilty about Ludwig. He won't deny that Ludwig looked a lot like his old crush from middle school, and kept him around for the fuzzy feeling. Though, he loves Ludwigs company either way. Gay for Ludwig, but doesn't really know yet.

Lovino Vargas(S. Italy)- Feliciano's meaner and more aggressive brother. He is considered by many to be an "evil twin," since his and his brothers personality clash. He does have a few soft spots though. He loves tomatoes, and his love for pasta is almost as big as his brother's. He is outshined a bit by his brother's artistic skill, and his ability to speak to others. It made him feel he was lesser, and he lashed out because of it. He still loves his brother, despite the fact he feels inferior to him.

Antonio Fernandez Carriedo(Spain)- Musical nerd. He loves the classic musicals, and the new musicals as well. Often found singing in the drama room and will no doubt perform any musical song you ask him too. He can play the guitar, and likes to learn his favorite songs and Lovino will play tambourine along with him. One of the happiest and positive boys in school. Pansexual, like all of the BTT, but really likes Lovino.

Yao Wang(China)- Secretary of the student counsel so he is very serious about rules. One of the oldest kids in school, but pretty short. Most people know not to mess with him though, because he takes karate classes, and already has a black belt. He's kind of a neat freak, and wants everything to be perfect. Spends most of the time in the library organizing books and gossiping with the librarian.

Ivan Braginsky(Russia)- Ivan is one of the tallest and scariest guys in school, but is honestly very sweet. He doesn’t try to scare people, but ends up accidentally doing so because he is bad at anything social. He has a few issues, but is genuinely trying to fix himself, and understands people’s views of him. He has a big attachment to his sister, Katyusha, and keeps the scarf she made for him when they were children.

Kiku Honda(Japan)- Kiku is an odd boy. He has a fascination with art and mythology of all cultures. He also values his own life and culture and will happily tell people about it. He is the treasurer of the student council, and is pretty closed off, thanks to his massive love of anime. He tries to not let it bother him too much. His favorite mythology to learn about is greek mythology, since it is so far from his home country and is so different .

Heracles Karpusi(Greece)- A quiet and reserved boy, but incredibly horny all of the time. Often thinks of his friend Kiku in sexual ways, but is often unfazed by it. He quite enjoys these thoughts. He is Kiku’s main source of mythology information, since he himself is greek and they share a mythology class. He hates this guy named Sadik, and has hated him for a really long time because they were an item at one point. He doesn’t like to think about it.

Roderich Edelstein(Austria)- One of the most snobby rich kids you’ll ever meet. He thinks he’s better than everyone else and really only cares about himself. He was the previous president of the student council, but lost the election to Arthur this year. He is still upset about it. Now he spends most of his time playing the violin and piano. At this point he is only concerned about his image to colleges and nothing else.

Vash Zwingil(Switzerland)- Gun crazy, and very protective of his adoptive little sister. He has been in love with Roderich for years, ever since they were children, but has started to hate the person that Roderich has become, but is still madly in love. No one except his sister knows, and he would like to keep it that way. He does get it through to Roderich that he should treat people a bit better.

Feliks Lucasiewicz(Poland)- Very… comfortable with himself. His family is very christan, and he knew he was gay from an early age, and knew his family wouldn’t be supportive. So to give a gainate middle finger to his family, he began to cross dress, and ended up really enjoying it. He often gets mistaken for a girl, and is flirted with. He finds this cute, but usually tells them there’s no point. He is quite desirable among gay boys in his school.

Toris Laurinaitis(Lithuania)- The main writer of the newspaper club, and very shy. He was abducted by Feliks, and has grown a weird crush on him. He thought he was straight for the longest time, but this boy confuses him. He is slowly opening up more because of Feliks, and they go horse riding together a lot. He loves these rides because it’s an excuse to get even closer to Feliks.

Matthais Kohlar(Denmark)- A literal crackhead. He is often caught either in the middle of something bad, or about to do something dangerous. Whether he is always high or just reckless is never clear. He has broken practically every bone in his body, at least once. He is a massive headache to take care of but he's a pure hearted guy who loves his friends. Like this dude should jump off a cliff for the sake of friendship.

Lukas Bindevik(Norway)- Reserved and closed off. He is very mysterious and is often caught talking to himself. He grew up without siblings or friends, and his parents are divorced. He had no contact with his father, and only grew up with his mother, and therefore grew mother-like tendencies. He can be very protective, and is good at talking people through their problems, even with his minimalistic speech.

Berwald Oxenstierna(Sweden)- The tallest and most terrifying guy. He's 6'4 muscular and has this resting bitch face that could strike fear into the hearts of WWE wrestlers. But he is actually a giant teddy bear when it comes to the people he cares about. He's big and buff, his hugs are great. He likes to sing to himself while he's working or lost in thought, and many find this charming, earning him many suitors in the process. He's too dense, and too gay for a certain Finn to realize how popular he is.

Tino Vainamoinen(Finland)- One of the most positive and loveable boys in the world. He is only 5'2, and a little on the cubby side, but he is very confident, not afraid to show off his body. He may seem innocent, but on the inside is one of the most kinky shits. He loves a good pounding and will let you know. He will go into heavy detail about his sex life when he's drunk, making people laugh, or be uncomfortable. He's got his eyes on a certain Swede though. He’s also on the hockey team.

Emil Stielsson(Iceland)- Emil is a new kid. He had lived with his single father since he was an infant, not knowing anything about his mother. His dad never told him. But he came to this school this year. He was very awkward around new people, but found comfort on social butterflies talking to him. He is lowkey kinda emo and is stuck in his emo middle school. He is learning how cringy he had been.

Li Xiao Chun(Hong Kong)- A social butterfly. He somehow ended up being friends with every clique in his school from his broad range of interests and friendly personality. Though he does sometimes get fought over because of just how loveable he is. All the different cliques he's friends want to hang out all the time, but because he has so many friends, his schedule is usually filled. He never fails to make time for his newest friend, Emil.

Francis Bonnefoy(France)- The. Biggest. Man. Whore. He has been with practically everyone in school. Most notably his friend with benefits for 2 years, Arthur. Francis had fallen in love, but Arthur never returned the feelings. He always pressed a bit, to see if there was a chance Arthur changed his mind, but never forced him into it.

Alory Kirkland(N.Ireland)- In college. He’s the oldest of the Kirkland siblings (26). He’s very annoyed most of the time, the simple sound of people talking can make him angry. His little brother, Arthur, is the worst. For some reason that boy in particular could be breathing too hard and it would annoy Alory. He’s so glad to have moved out, away from his loud chaotic family. He loves them but he prefers it quiet.

Allistor Kirkland(Scotland)- The second oldest of the Kirkland siblings (24). He's also in college, but constantly visits, unlike Alory. He’s also much happier and peppy. He was never a role model though, always getting in trouble when he was a kid. But, he was the fun one for sure. He also likes to take his siblings golfing, since that is something that he does love to do. He can get competitive with everyone there.

Reuben Kirkland(Wales)- The most chill of the Kirkland siblings. He’s 22, and will visit every once and awhile. He doesn’t talk a lot, and really only spoke after he turned 16. He and Allistor got into all kinds of trouble as kids. He is an actual role model though and would apologize. When he doesvist, he likes to cook for the whole family, since he’s the one who can do it correctly in their family.

Dwight Kirkland(Hutt River)- He is LOVED by his grandparents and aunts and uncles because he sucks up to them when he’s with them.Because of this he is always sent piles of money, and ends up with about ~1000 dollars a year. He loves to flaunt his money in front of his other siblings and spoils himself with it. This is why no 16 year old should have this much money. They’ll use it on stupid things.

Jett Kirkland(Australia)- The athletic one of the family. He loves to swim, surf, and to play australian football. He has broken too many bones to count and has almost died multiple times thanks to being reckless. Kaelin had to perform CPR one time because he almost drowned. He still continues, even if he almost dies. He is quite dumb and will tag along with Alfred. They have many… misadventures. Let’s hope he doesn't die before he goes to senior year (hes 18)

Kaelin Kirkland(New Zealand)- One of the only people who can keep Jett from actually killing himself. He is a movie review youtuber, and spends most of his time in his basement, researching and recording for videos. He is also lowkey obsessed with sheep. His entire room is sheep themed, and it has caused every friend he’s invited over to laugh and call him cute. He doesn’t like being called cute. Acts older than he is (17).

Peter Kirkland(Sealand)- In middle school(12). He is still obsessed with disney and princes. He is convinced that Alfred is a hidden prince and will try to expose him. Also crushing hard on Alfred. He tries his best to be recognised by his peers, but his efforts are futile, since he just annoys the people around him.He trie ]s to ot let it bother him but he’ll be the first to admit that it did hurt him a bit.

Wendy Kirkland(Wy)- She is quite aggressive. Jett taught her different ways to pin someone to the floor, and she’ll test these ways on Peter. Arthur tries to stop them, but Jett and Kaelin will make bets on these kids. Wendy always wins, because Peter doesn’t know how to fight back. Other than that, Wendy is very artistic and draws a lot in her free time. She impressed the people around her.

Romeo Vargas(Seborga)- Similarly to Matthais and Jett, he can’t keep himself out of trouble. He got stuck in a tree, and the fire department had to get called to get him out. He may have done this on purpose just to get carried by buff firemen, but that’s unclear. He’s the youngest and most reckless Vargas brother, but spends his time volunteering at the middle school as an assistant, and met Peter and Wendy through it.

Im Yong Soo(S. Korea)- He’s sorta a perv. He can get a little touchy at times, and will constantly flirt with any living breathing human. Kiku finds this annoying,but he knows Soo means nothing by it. He has a tendency to grope when drunk, resulting in a hard slap to the face from Kiku, who was not so nicely touched. Soo apologies\es profusely after he sobered up, knowing that what he did was wrong.

Natalya Braginskaya(Belarus)- Very creepy and has… incestous tendencies towards her brother. She is the one personwho can scare him and is constantly pestering Ivan to date her in secret. She hates Yao’s guts since she knows that Ivan has a crush on him. Thankfully weapons aren’t allowed on campus, otherwise Yao would not be alive. Seriously the girl is unhinged and needs help.

Katyusha Braginskaya(Ukraine)- She’s a very loving and caring big sister, but after a long series of events, she barely speaks to Ivan anymore. She knows he still loves her though thanks to him wearing the scarf she made for him when they were kids everyday. They are slowly working on rebuilding their relationship, but it’s a slow process. She desperately wants that relationship with her brother back.

Sadik Adnan(Turkey)- He absolutely hates Harecles’s guts from some stuff that happened in middle school. They constantly fight, usually behind the school, but sometimes find hospitality while bathing. They have normal conversations in the showers, but are at each other’s throats any other time. He breaks the dress code a lot by wearing a hat to hide his face most of the time, and refuses to take it off.

Gupta Muhammad Hassan(Eygpt)- Selectively mute. He can hear just fine but he doesn't talk at all, preferring to speak over text and emojis. Even then, his monotone personality shows through his texts, where he gives single word responses only. He's very reserved and all that's known about him is that he had something to do with the Heracles and Sadik drama that happened. He refuses to talk about that, text and all.

Lillia Zwingil(Lichtenstein)- Vash's younger sister, and the light of his life. She is very loving to her brother, making food for him every day and seeing new clothes for him in home economics. She also likes to go hunting with Vash, despite her dainty and cute persona, she has a wicked aim, thanks to Vash teaching her. She's also the only one to know his crush on Roderick.

Eduard Von Bock(Estonia)- Hacker man. Well sorta. He likes to work on computers but he'll admit that it's hard for him to work. Not necessarily because he's bad at it, but because his internet is slow. He does his best, but sometimes downloading a file tha tag takes three days only to be told you don't have enough space makes you want to punch a hole straight through the computer.

Ravis Galante(Latvia)- He small and just pushed around by the bigger boys a lot. He is often bullied for his height and shy stutter, and had no way to stand up for himself. He'll begin to speak, but either get shut down or chicken out. So he spends most of his time in the library, sitting in the loneliness. He did like friends, it just made it hard when the entire school hates you.

Gianna Bonnefoy(Monaco)- She's Francis's half sister and is just as flirty. She loves to make everyone around her blush in her presence, either by radiating beauty or making inappropriate comments. Francis will tell her to stop, which is really code for, keep going it's entertaining. She liked to braid people's hair, weather they're boys, girls, or anything in between. If you had hair she wanted to do it up all nice.

Vladimir Popescu(Romania)- Obsessed with everything paranormal. 100% believes in ghosts and likes to go out ghost hunting. He will go to abandoned asylums or hospitals to try and find spooky activity. He can get extremely jumpy and scared when it comes to ghost hunts, and has screamed like a girl on multiple occasions. When he's not doing that, he plays D&D, and is very good at it. He DMs.

Milan Hinova(Bulgaria)- He really likes yogurt. He and Vladimir go on ghost hunts and he is actually very calm. He doesn't believe in ghosts and will brush any sort of paranormal activity off as wind or the state of the building they're in, and is like Vladimir's protector. They'll often record and post videos of these ghost hunts. He doesn't play D&D, but will come to the sessions to hang out with Vladimir.

Anthony Gunner Jones(Molossia)- A sweetheart around his parents and when he's alone, but foul mouthed and angry with his friends. Alfred and Matthew's cousin, who they really like. He will get very flustered and embarrassed if he's complimented, and will punch people in the arms when he feels it's appropriate. He also volunteers at the middle school as a gym assistant, and has a GIANT crush on Romeo.

Thank you for reading.

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pansyaparkinson · 4 years

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Under the cut is a formatted version of Pansy’s application, since Tumblr has decided to be mean (once again):

OOC

Name: Karli

Age: 29

Pronouns: She/Her

Timezone: CST

Writing Sample: Please provide a link to some writing. This does not have to be from a roleplay specifically, though it is preferred.

Ships: Pansy/Chemistry is ultimately the most important thing to me. I have this weird soft spot for Pansy/Goyle after some chemistry I had with a Goyle when I played Pansy in another rpg and I’ve shipped them ever since! But it’s not something I would need to have. Mostly, I’m excited to play her coming back to Britain and reconnecting with all the folks from her past!

Anything else?: Pansy’s favorite color is red (despite the - ugh - Gryffindor colors!) and she often sports a crisp, pristine red lip that almost looks like blood.

IC - Overview

Full name: Pansy Auria Parkinson (Delvaux) - Pansy managed to keep her surname under the pretenses of her career, having been known within her line as a Parkinson. She uses Parkinson for her professional and personal life - but will call herself a Delvaux if it helps her get ahead or in polite French company.

Age: 40 (31 December 1979) - Yes, she throws the most extravagant New Year’s Eve parties in celebration of her birthday.

Gender: Cis-female (she/her)

Sexuality: Heterosexual. Pansy will be the first one to tell you that she likes cock. But only when that cock does whatever she wants. She’s not necessarily homophobic in the “normal” sense where she really cares who is fucking who - but she definitely makes homophobic jokes sometimes and, even if she loves you (looking at you, Draco!), you can’t escape her rolling her eyes a bit whenever the topic of sexuality comes up. She’s definitely going to hit you where it hurts if she’s angry.

Blood status: Pureblood

Former Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Occupation: Designer for Twilfitt and Tatting's

The shoppe, Twilfiit and Tatting’s, has been owned by the Parkinsons for generations. The oldest son, Malcolm, Pansy’s father, had inherited the business from his father. Malcolm, however, had plans far greater than his father could have dreamed. While Twilfitt and Tatting’s location in Diagon Alley brought enough money in to sustain the family fortune, Malcolm wanted to expand.

Throughout Pansy’s childhood, he was in constant discussion with other businessmen to open new locations throughout various places in Europe. It took a lot of time away from his family, but tripled their income and made Twilfitt and Tatting’s the place to get high end robes, clothing, and accessories.

Pansy started scribbling designs for new outfits when she was young, but her father would not take them seriously until after graduation, when he finally allowed her visions to become a reality. The Auria line (named for Pansy’s middle name) became the fastest-selling line Twilfitt had ever seen.

But it wasn’t enough. While her father was never a Death Eater - much too busy being successful to follow a man with no fashion sense at all! - he did a lot of his business with people who were. As those wizards and witches were caught and sent to Azkaban for Voldemort-supporting acts after the war, Malcolm’s businesses began to fail.

The Parkinson’s were losing money fast at that time - something they’d mainly been able to keep from the public eye - and Pansy had to step up and find a rich man to marry in order to help the business stay afloat. Pansy’s mother, Cordelia, did not want to fall from grace like those Malfoy’s, after all.

Pansy did manage to do just that - find a man, save the company, and is now the leading designer within the multiple Twilfitt establishments. Her line is sleek and expensive, mainly geared towards fashionable and rich witches. (Link to some of the clothing will be posted below within the “extra” section). She’s very happy with her career… but it came at what costs?

Marital Status: Widowed.

Pansy met Armand Delvaux when she was just twenty-three years old on a trip to the shoppe in Paris, which had been doing rather well until the fall of Voldemort. On their last bit of finances, the ability to keep the fact that the Parkinsons were actually broke was becoming harder and harder to manage. Meeting Armand had been a gift from Merlin itself, it seemed. Rich he was, though not so handsome, he was forty-two years Pansy’s senior and had lost his original wife in an unfortunate potions accident when the woman was rather young.

Pansy had gotten to work quickly, making herself known as available (though not too available) and Armand had fallen for her even before her knees hit the ground. Honestly, those Gryffindors complaining about torture under the Carrows know nothing until they’ve stuck a wrinkly penis in their mouth to save the family.

They were married within just four months of meeting one another, something his grown children (there are three of them, two daughters and a son - the middle one the same age as Pansy herself) were very vocal about not being in agreement with. While Pansy lived her life with her husband without loving him, she did love what he had to offer her. The funding for Twilfitt went back up - the Paris shoppe suddenly bloomed - and they were able to expand farther than even her father had expected.

The shoppe is now the leading brand for expensive, designer clothing with Pansy at its helm. When Armand died two years ago - rather young for wizards, but Armand had always been known to experiment with the tobacco he put in that pipe of his and his poor heart suffered - she inherited 85% of his money (despite more protests from her stepchildren, really they’ve been such a pain!). With that money, she purchased a rather loftily flat in England with a direct connection via floo to her estate in Paris. The last two years, she’s split her time between the two, but the excitement of France has recently died down and she’s been spending much more time with old friends in England.

Faceclaim: Katie McGrath (1st choice), Eva Green (2nd choice), Lucy Hale (younger) - I would prefer the Katie/Lucy match, as I feel like they have more similarities and also Katie’s supergirl resources and a few others are TOTALLY Pansy-esque

Summary: A lot of Pansy’s life shortly after the war had been defined by that one moment in the Great Hall - and, really, how unfair was that! She’d only wanted to have her school stay undestroyed and her friends kept safe, after all. The Parkinsons had never chosen a side in the war, safe from any harm regardless of what happened given their pureblooded status. Pansy herself hardly thought about the war at all - and yet, she was being punished publicly for it. While there was no trial or prison for her - the backlash her old classmates gave her for trying to give Potter up to the Dark Lord was enough to make her bristle. That, combined with the Parkinson fortune dwindling, made Pansy run away to Paris to find a rich husband and start a new life. She settled with a man forty-two years older named Armand Delvaux and the failing business her family owned - Twilfitt and Tatting’s - began to thrive again with his money. Pansy herself found passion in fashion designing and her Auria brand is known as one of the leading brands in high-fashion clothing sales. While she spent most of her life after school travelling between Paris and London, she has decided to plant herself anew in the country of old friends and enemies again, now that her dear old husband has died. Many still think of her as that bitch from school and they aren’t wrong… but, cut her some slack, she’s grown up… a little bit.

IC - In Depth

Discussion

I included a lot of this discussion above in places I felt they made most sense, but below is a discussion of various things I have yet to add:

-Pansy is not ashamed of what she did during the war because, quite honestly, she hardly did a thing. She was no Death Eater - there was no Azkaban for her. As far as anyone knows, Pansy is the same person as she always was… but maybe just a bit nicer. Of course, that’s a laugh! She’s playing nice because it’s what this new wobbly feelings world wants her to be. She’s still not going to hold hands with Weasley or tell Granger she’s pretty or something insane like that! She’s got standards. She just might not spike your drink with laxative potion for a laugh anymore… well, not much potion anyway. Potter can miss one day of work for her entertainment.

-Pansy is ambitious. She’s a Slytherin for a reason, after all. She’s a designer (not a shoppe keeper, to anyone who may ask, thank you very much!) and values her work. She spends hours working on new pieces for her Auria line and won’t stop until it’s perfected. Some people think fashion is silly - but Pansy knows the truth. It’s an art form. Some wizards have just yet to discover it.

-Pansy is not nice. While she can play at it with a smile when she has to, she’s not above backhanded compliments and manipulation. She’s such a gossip and shouldn’t be trusted with any secret. Who’s dating who (or who’s fucking who, more like it) will be spread like Fiendfyre… whoops, don’t mention that word in front of poor Draco and Gregory… they get a bit sensitive. Pansy “forgot.”

-Perhaps the most curious thing about Pansy is that she both cares and doesn’t care about what other people think about her. It’s why she’s so mean - it’s easier to be the one on top putting everyone else down than have it possibly happen to her. When someone brings up her betrayal of Potter before the final battle, Pansy pretends to easily shrug it off with a perfectly presented insult and a roll of the eyes. But, the truth is, there’s a reason she uses make up potions and wears nice clothes and keeps all the flyaways out of her hair… the better she looks, the less fodder everyone else has for the fire.

-While there was no actual punishment for Pansy after the war, given she never fought for any side, the way those old classmates of hers viewed her after the stunt in the Great Hall was punishment enough. They looked down on her, something that brought up a whole lot of insecurity for her in a way she hated. It was enough to push her to France, agreeing to look after the shoppe there, and allowed her to settle into security with a husband she didn’t love.

-In fact, she did not love Armand at all - even for a second. While Armand was kind to her in some respects, he also very much underestimated her. Kept her out of the discussions when Twilfitt went into business with the Delvaux Company. She could play at her “little designs”, but could not truly take over the business, despite the fact that her line made the business the most money out of anything else they sold. In Armand’s mind, business was no place for a woman, something Pansy was unabashedly in disagreement with.

-Pureblood families - particularly families from higher society - have always stressed reproduction. While marriages are ideally full of love and children, creating an heir has always been the higher standard within the society that Pansy grew up in. She was supposed to get pregnant - supposed to have children and carry on the bloodline, despite any children she may have had not taking on the name Parkinson. That didn’t happen. In the end, it was discovered after trips to several different healers that Pansy could not, in fact, have biological children. Armand was alright with it, as he had three other children to carry on his name, including a son. Pansy could’ve considered adoption - she could’ve considered surrogacy. Instead, she decided that her life would be devoted to her career. She never truly liked children, anyway - just thought becoming a mother was what was expected of a young woman like her. In the end, she has found she feels very fulfilled. She’s usually very happy with her choice, but that doesn’t stop from the occasional pang of resentment and sadness whenever she sees old friends and acquaintances with their growing families.

-Despite what many believe, Pansy does love her friends. Draco is an actual treasure! Even if she is mortified by the way she threw herself at a gay man once upon a time. She very much values his friendship and has spent many visits to England with him. Daphne, too, is practically her soulmate. Pansy adores the woman who has been friends with her since Hogwarts. While Daphne’s status from Spindrift Lane meant she was more easily manipulated, Pansy loves that in a friend. She’s always been Queen Bee, after all.

-But just because she loves you doesn’t mean you’re safe. She’s mean whenever she wants to be - nice whenever it serves her. She might order her friends around sometimes and give backhanded compliments (Oh, your skin finally doesn’t look washed out today in that outfit!), but if anyone else tried to do that to someone she cared for, they’d be in for a rude awakening. Just because she can be a bitch doesn’t mean just anyone can talk to her friends like that! Even her own attitude has died down in recent years, as she grew older and things didn’t matter nearly as much. But she’ll still pull out the claws whenever she has to.

-Pansy is mostly in disagreement with Hermione’s Cerberus program. While she agrees that magical people shouldn’t be just going off with Muggles and therefore the Statute of Secrecy is important, she definitely doesn’t like the idea of people trying to watch her all the time. In her eyes, it’s a very prejudiced program. Who are considered the “suspicious ones?” The Slytherins from the war. Even though Pansy herself did not fight in the battle or even pick a side, she knows how people view her. Just because she was a Slytherin doesn’t mean that she’s off experimenting with Dark Magic and absolutely despises how this program will make her and others like her look.

- Pansy isn’t surprised more shit has arrived on that doorstep, but just like in the last war - she has no interest in playing a part (yet).

Plots

-Pansy is back in England now, almost permanently. While she does still visit France periodically, this is the first time she’s been in her home country more often than the other since she was twenty three. Yes, she’s stayed in close contact with her friends… but how will everyone else handle the Ice Bitch being back? She may have grown a bit throughout her time, but would they know it?

-Party on NYE? Pansy’ll throw it, so long as you bring her a gift!

-We have a plethora of Gryffindors and Weasleys and other do-gooders from the war (I play one of them, after all!) on the dash and I wanted to bring in someone who is opposite of Harry and who will give me The fog hardly interests her. Where there’s Hogwarts, there’s trouble. Where there are Weasleys and Potters and all the Gryffindors, there’s trouble.various plots. I’m not against the tension and definitely don’t expect people to just be happy with Pansy, who is rather mean about 70% of the time. I’m all for those interpersonal tension-filled plots.

-While I say Pansy doesn’t want to be part of the war, what I mean is that she’s not ready for it. If this fog business becomes worse - what happens then? She’s an adult now and likely can’t just hide behind not choosing a side. I would love it if she gets sucked into helping, rather than hurting, and is forced to work alongside all these people who probably hate her. If the Order is reestablished, perhaps she can join and be an actual asset. She’s got money - but she also has intel. Just because her husband thought business was no place for a woman didn’t mean Pansy abided by it. She knows more about the people her dad used to do business with than anyone thinks she does. She can be useful to the Order. She doesn’t want Lord Voldemort to come back, after all. He really fucked things up last time!

Extras

The link to Pansy’ pinterest is located below. It includes pictures of the faceclaims and her designs for Twilfitt.

https://www.pinterest.ca/karliandtaylor/pansy-parkinson/

#application #about

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cthayers · 5 years

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hiya it is sam back at it with another muse already ... so as you will soon find out i have little to no will power ... and i had no idea we’d be able to take up second muses so soon but i literally was already working on this beotch because i knew i wanted to bring her in eventually ! camila is a v old muse of mine that i have never had the opportunity of playing in a group but i figured this was the perfect opportunity and so here we are .

did you hear how CAMILA THAYER is applying to columbia university as an ENGLISH major ?! the TWENTY year old is living in the WATT HALL. i heard that they got in because they are + CREATIVE and + PASSIONATE, but honestly i think SHE can be - RESERVED and -ARROGANT. they’re a real ACADEMIC. oh well, only time will tell if the SOPHOMORE will make it til the end.

full name : camila allen thayer

nickname : cam , cami

birthday : june 15, 1999

zodiac : gemini sun, cancer moon, aquarius rising

nationality : american

ethnicity : 1/2 ashkenazi jewish, 1/2 english

religion : atheist

sexual & romantic orientation : bisexual , biromantic

hometown : hampton , new hampshire & cheraw , south carolina

accent : twinge of a southern accent , but mostly a posh new england accent

languages spoken : english , conversational french

major : english

minor(s) : latin & french

hobbies : reading , horseback riding , tennis , piano playing

aesthetics : plaid skirts and knee socks , clawfoot bathtubs , sylvia plath poetry books , thin framed glasses , pink highlight , wandering through the met , film cameras , hand written letters + PINTEREST

character parallels : astrid sloan ( the politician ) , camille preaker ( sharp objects ) , amma crellin ( sharp objects ) , camilla macaulay ( the secret history ) , serena vanderwoodson ( gossip girl ) , donna sheridan ( mamma mia here we go again )

personality & headcanons

camila has always been a quiet individual , especially around those she doesn’t know . calm , cool , collected , many people’s initial impression of her is that she hates them due to her resting bitch face and the lack of acknowledgment she gives before she’s truly comfortable around a person

she does not open up easily , and doesn’t really know how to handle being loved . so she typically doesn’t let anybody get that close .

major abandonment issues and daddy issues . so she seeks validation from men and also if she lets you in be prepared to fucking stay

doesn’t party much because she prefers to stay in and study or be with her closest friends , she drinks but prefers small social gatherings with those she’s close to

has a nasty cigarette habit and shows no signs of stopping

her favorite season is the fall , and her favorite holiday is halloween

i think she’s v mysterious sort of ? like , this really pretty girl that keeps to herself mostly , and her small group of friends , but she’s got this alluring aspect of her that draws some near .. v greek mythology siren esque

very soft , but also not at all ? like wears skirts and knee socks and berets and flow-y white dresses and sits in coffee shops while it rains reading poetry BUT , she can be dangerous . seductive , arrogant , selfish , and quite emotionless at times . v ice maiden type , will use beauty to get what she wants in the most subtle of ways

so basically she comes off as this sweet , elegant woman with a soft smile who spends her weekends at museums , but when you get closer to her ( if you get closer to her ) you might see a much darker side to her

kind of into that witchy shit , so

background

camila was the second child born to marianne allen, though her older brother has a different father. her brother was born when marianne was just seventeen, running away from her perfect new hampshire home and her perfect new hampshire family to raise the child with his father in a small town in south carolina

they had planned to run away and meet in south carolina , though the father never showed . so it was just marianne and this baby boy , but it wasn’t long before marianne found herself pregnant again , another local farmer boy , thomas thayer

so camila was born , and it was the four of them in this tiny home that barely fit all of them , and marianne was just shy of twenty and didn’t even want to be a mother , so life wasn’t all that great for the thayers .

camila’s mother was never very maternal , and her father was a drunk . he didn’t truly love marianne , nor did he love camila very much . he especially didn’t love her brother , who wasn’t even his child .

camila and her brother stuck together , a dynamic duo of sorts . they were best friends and had each other’s backs through anything . at night , when they could hear their parents fighting , they would cuddle up in bed together and talk about their happiest thoughts , the lives they wished they had , so on .

at seven , thomas thayer decided to call it quits . he left in the night without so much as a goodbye , and though he had never felt particularly close to camila , camila felt close to him . it was her father after all , and she craved his attention , his validation .

at nine , her grandparents in new hampshire were finally able to locate them . getting cps involved , they were granted full custody of the kids , and camila and her brother were taken away from their mother and put into a new , grandeur home with these old people they’d never even heard about before . it was not a welcomed change , though it would soon be .

the first thing she discovered at her grandparent’s home was her grandfather’s library . he was a retired professor at dartmouth , and had an entire room full of literary classics , academic journals , and other first edition books . as a child , camila was not allowed in without his supervision , though she often snuck in without permission .

she was put into private school where she was expected to achieve excellent marks and commit to extracurriculars , though she was so behind in her schooling due to the underprivileged education system she’d faced in south carolina , that it took her a while to get back on track . though once she did , she excelled . they found that camila was incredibly gifted in creative and liberal subjects , such as art , english , and history . still , she excelled in math and science , though had to put forth a little more effort .

she took up horseback riding and tennis , but nothing could replace the comfort she felt in cuddling up with a good book from her grandfather’s library , in front of their grand fire place with a mug of her grandmother’s hot cocoa , or playing the piano in her grand parents’ grand hall

though she lived a life of luxury , her and her brother spent two - four weeks every summer going down to visit their mother . each year , as she got older , she began to realize just how broken her mother was , and truly began to understand why her grandparents felt the need to take her children from her .

camila , though not necessarily a tomboy , had always surrounded herself with boys . all her best friends were boys , and she hardly ever got along with her girl classmates . perhaps it had something to do with growing up so close to her brother , and often befriending his friends .

when she was sixteen , though , her guy friends started seeing her differently . boys , in general , began to really notice her . this was the first time she realized she was closed off to love . she had a boyfriend during her junior year of high school , and on the night he told her he loved her , she simply responded “ no , you don’t . ”

anyway ! getting accepted into columbia was a dream come true , though no one was all that surprised . she’d also been accepted to dartmouth ( her grandparents’ alma mater and where he taught , and where he’d urged her to go ) and brown , but something about new york city was enticing . she’d always lived in small towns , under twenty thousand people , and moving to a big city with millions seemed like a nice change of pace

she has made one close knit group of friends during her freshman year , though she’s still only a sophomore and we know how those things change . nonetheless , if you weren’t one of those people , you probably wouldn’t know who she was , because she didn’t get out much ( mayhaps she was seen around campus though )

wanted connections !

alright enough about camila if you got through all that i’m so sorry KJAHKSJGH but ! i have quite a few connections i’d love

the close friends she made freshman year . these would be pretty much the only people camila hung out with last year , and though things can change , the only people she’ll hang out with at the start of this year . i imagine this group to be mostly guys ( though not necessarily exclusively ) , because she tends to befriends boys as opposed to girls ? i’d say about 5 people ! ( 1 / 5 )

her number one best friend . this would have to be a male or male presenting muse , as camila has never found herself that close to a girl , reasons unknown tbh , she just gets along with boys better IDK inspo : ( x , x ) ( 0 / 1 )

close girl friend . that being said , every girl still needs her girlies . so she’d be fairly close to this girl , even if she doesn’t open up that much , perhaps the girl feels like she can open up to camila ? this can all be plotted out ! i feel like camila is a v good secret keeper , she doesn’t talk all that much so you can expect her to keep anything safe lmao ( 0 / 1 )

toxic relationship . sooo tbh this gotta be with a muse who is not a good guy , because camila is not that good of a gal ? . i see this being sort of on again , off again ? i’m not sure if either of them truly feel anything for one another , but they must feel something that keeps them going back to one another . though camila doesn’t really open herself up to love , she’s not necessarily closed off from relationships . ya girl needs to be satisfied and she ain’t the type to sleep around ok ? anyway i see them being really possessive of one another and having p explosive fights , definitely not right for each other and yet !!! also just to be clear , i see them as mutually bad for one another it’s not one sided ! just give me this angst pls . inspo : ( x , x , x , x ) ( 1 / 1 ) lukas tozer

unrequited crush . this would be unrequited on the other muse’s behalf . open to m/f/nb and whether or not camila knows there is a crush there can be plotted out ! basically this just goes along with the hc that camila is very mysterious and allurring from afar , and that those who don’t know her all that well tend to be drawn to her and a lot of times will romanticize her ? but also for extra angst i am possibly thinking that the two are v close and camila does know and won’t let them like her buT we can figure it all out . lmao . anyway ya inspo : ( x , x , x , x ) ( 0 / 1 )

also just general plots i’d love to see : someone she tutors in english or journalism or literature anything regarding that sort of subject , bad influence / someone determined to get her out of her shell , enemy plots !! gimme girls who think she’s a snob or boys who think she’s a bitch or everything in between , study buddies , girl crushes because camila is bi and thinks every girl is pretty , give me anything under the sun tbh i’m open to so much

#columbia.intro #this ended up getting so long i M so sorry #just give this a lil like and ill come hit u up on discord or ims !

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mist-over-water · 4 years

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Decade in Review.

2010.

One of the newest members in my group of friends began spreading lies about me, saying that I had been bitching about everyone behind their back. I hadn’t obviously, but they believed her, and in the space of a day, I had lost all of the friends I had made in my five years during high school. My first lesson of the decade: if I have something to say to someone, just say it!

I left high school, with one friend, whom I had had since primary school. I passed all of my GCSEs, and I began sixth form. I was part of the first year to attend this sixth form, and it was exciting to help work out the kinks, and I got to study two different types of English (language and literature), photography and sociology.

After my brothers’ girlfriend had suffered a miscarriage the previous year, she got pregnant again, and my twin nieces (Ellie and Layla) were born; they were premature, but oh so perfect, and changed my life, honestly.

I went to North Carolina, and spent my sixteenth birthday there, where I met my best online friend. I had an amazing time, and again, it was an experience that changed my life forever.

I stopped speaking to my dad, for many reasons; that’s such a long story, that now’s not the time.

My mum’s boyfriend moved in, and began a seven year story of abuse.

2011.

I met four of my best friends; they changed me so much for the better. WE shared some good memories, some of which I still cry reminiscing on to this day.

After getting scolded at sixth form, I actually began putting some effort into my A Levels, shocking my teachers at what I was capable of!

The friend I visited in America came to visit me in England for three weeks, though as none of us could drive, it was not half as exciting and action packed as my time in North Carolina! Sorry about that!

One of my best friends that turned my back on me in the previous year? I began speaking to her again, she is still my best friend to this day, and we began opening up about our struggles with mental health a lot more.

I began bulking my CV out a lot more, between work experience at my old high school, and volunteering at a charity shop and an art gallery, I barely had any time for myself!

I also began running a creative writing club at sixth form, which formed the basis of them beginning the creative writing A Level! One of my proudest achievements.

My mums dachshund got pregnant, and we kept one of them - my little dachshund/Jack Russell cross, Molly!

2012

My hard work paid off - I was the only one in my group of friends to get offers from all five universities I applied for! My first choice was University of Lincoln, and I moved 150 miles away from everyone I knew to study English.

I became a really shitty person. With the psychological abuse my mums boyfriend put me through, that friend who came to visit me, and I went to visit? I treated her awfully. I pushed her away on purpose, I hurt her so bad. I think about it every day, and every day I regret it.

I joined the Anime Society, and met a lot of great, fucked up people. I met people on my course. I met a lot of people, most I don't speak to anymore, but given half the chance, I'd welcome them back in my life with open arms.

I began drinking too much, like I don't remember much of my first year, I tried passing this toxic behaviour off as a personality trait. How wrong was I.

2013

A long story, but I got in my first 'relationship that wasn't a relationship', and he broke up with me at the beginning of the summer as he was finishing university, and I was only just beginning, and we lived on other sides of the country.

Upon reflection on things I ultimately regret, I made the decision to begin speaking to my dad again. He ultimately got married, in a wedding I was the only family member to not be invited.

I moved in with four gay people, and experienced the best parties I've ever been too, honestly. Though as housemates, they were insanely flawed.

I got into my first real relationship! He was psychologically abusive, took all of my money, nearly got me kicked out of university, made me lose all my friends, and... What a fella.

He raped me, five days before Christmas. I still suffer with trauma from this, but I'm not ashamed of it anymore.

2014

I attempted suicide. I broke my families heart and I promised my Nanny Gate that I would never hurt myself again.

I broke up with my boyfriend! To which my housemates took me out for drinks and a celebratory meal. They had no idea what had happened to me, but they knew he was bad news.

My dad forced my mum to sell my childhood home, forcing me, my mum and our abuser to move into a tiny two bedroom house, with seven dogs.

Another niece, Imogen, was born!

As well as drinking too much, I began trying drugs, trying to pass it off as a quirky part of my personality.

That friend that I visited in America, and she visited me in England? I began speaking to her again. Although we don't speak much, I could talk to her every day if I could. I'm so thankful that even if she didn't forgive me for everything I did to her, she put it behind her to rekindle our friendship.

I moved in with two of my best friends! Though by the end of the year, we would hate one of them. This happened all the places I lived during university.

I began dating a man I thought I would marry.

(Also, fun fact, I went on holiday to Walton-on-the-Naze that year, where I stayed at the same part of the caravan park @onetruejonsey lived with his girlfriend at the time, I got drunk, and got lost, and tried to get into his caravan! If that's not fate...)

2015

I got my degree without much effort, and I realised I've never really tried at anything. My dad and my boyfriend didn't attend my graduation, but mum and I had a blast.

For so many reasons, I fell out of love with my boyfriend, though he manipulated me into staying with him for almost a full extra year.

I got my first job as a Healthcare Assistant! But I quit as I saw too many residents being treated badly, and no manager or supervisor was interested in hearing my concerns. I done work experience at my old sixth form, trying to find an age group I'd like to teach, turns out older kids weren't that. But I did get a Christmas Temp job at EE.

2016

My boyfriend broke up with me, so angry that I had tried to break up with him and he had not let me, I got back with him just to break up with him. I am a pretty little bitch, honestly.

I went to Kenya with my mum, so we could complete our bucket list item of seeing giraffes and elephants in the wild. It was incredible, and made me reevaluate how lucky I am.

I got a job at B&Q, though my supervisors were awful, I made some good friends with other members of staff.

I planned to take my life at the end of April.

My Granddad Gate got there first, losing his battle to COPD just three days before I had planned to die. Seeing my Nanny Gate and mum, I decided to not go through with it.

While window shopping on Plenty of Fish, I met @onetruejonsey.

One of my friends from sixth form got me into trying harder drugs. I decided to stop speaking to her, I sometimes still get an angry text to this day.

Me, mum and our abuser got evicted from our house.

2017

@onetruejonsey's mum, knowing the situation with my abuse at home, offered for me to move in with them. We went to London for four days, and decided I should move in by the end of January, six months into dating.

I got a job with him and his mum at McDonalds, we were everyone's parents, and it was amazing.

I was discriminated against because of my mental health, and I gave a days notice that I was quitting. Someone else put in a formal complaint about how they had treated me, which made me feel a lot better about everything.

My Nanny Gate was hospitalised over Christmas, where she stopped speaking, eating, and drinking. Her three favourite things.

2018

@onetruejonsey and I experienced the worst argument I've ever had in a relationship; one of which I still think back to, to try and figure out what happened, and learn from.

My poor mum went off work sick for a broken foot and got evicted from her bungalow in the same month, meaning she had to go back to our abuser.

My Nanny Gate died, but my mum, brother and I were all with her when she passed.

This meant my mum had to pack my Nanny Gate's belongings as well as her own bungalow, the deadline for each was only a couple of days from each other. I moved back in with her for a month to help with this.

I was unemployed for five months, and after working so hard to get out of my overdraft during my time at McDonalds, I ended up with £5 in my bank.

With my Nanny Gate not around to say anything anymore, I began self-harming again. Though @onetruejonsey then made me promise to stop it, and I hate breaking my promises.

I got a job as a Housekeeper at Premier Inn, after my second interview. It was only a Summer job, and they tried so hard to fire me, but never found the grounds. After a teaching job fell through, I got my act together and became one of the best housekeepers at the site.

My fourth, and final niece, little Millie was born. With her ginger curly hair, my heart could have burst with love.

@onetruejonsey and I have a tradition to go to the zoo for my birthday, with my mum and nieces. Surrounded by them and giraffes, he got down on one knee and proposed to me! I cried so much, and so many people congratulated us. Even the guy who yelled "HAS SHE SAID YES YET" which makes me laugh everytime!

2019.

@onetruejonsey and I learnt to drive, and we brought our little car, Moss. We have plans to update him to a better car ASAP, but at the moment, I'm so in love with him that I can't bare the thought of getting rid of him!

After nearly getting our own flat, I can't imagine life without a dog. We decided to stay put with his parents, and save as much money as we can to buy a house. A house we will raise our children in one day, dog and bearded dragon included!

2018 was such a shit year, it took up until Summer this year to recover fully from it. When we decided to start planning our wedding. Of which we have booked 90% of everything.

I went on my twenty-first teaching interview, and after that rejection, I decided the universe was sending me a sign. I had not enjoyed any of my previous work experience, and I didn't enjoy working with the kids during interviews. I made a conscious decision that I would not pursue that anymore.

I was discriminated against at Premier Inn when I went into crisis with my menal health, the same day our hotel manager was visiting with an apprenticeship tutor. I spoke to her, and she offered me a job at a different site, where I would do housekeeping and reception, and an apprenticeship, and get a pay rise, AND one day becoming assistant hotel manager, but maybe at a different site.

My decade did not go as planned. I hoped to be teaching by now, but the universe has had different plans for me. A lot of bad stuff has happened to me, but that's karma I suppose. While at university, I spoke to a good friend, and we talked about how bullshit dream jobs were, and I made a promise to myself that I wanted to grow up to be unapologetically happy. So in this decade, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to work whatever job will pay me that I enjoy, I will come home to a fiance who loves me and I love him, we will have our wedding, we will buy our house together and drive in whatever car we can get, I don't care what it cost or how new it is, we will have our Bassett Hound and whatever little pets we want, and we will one day have children together. And that child will be so loved, I will move mountains for them to never experience pain and hurt of the likes we have experienced.

#personal

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jazzinseoul · 5 years

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Storytime: My Awkward Almost-Romance with My Language Partner

I’m currently on an Amtrak train from NYC -DC, and looking out the window has me feeling angsty and nostalgic. Plus, being that I have 3.5 hours to kill, now seemed like the perfect time to recount the awkward almost-romance I had with my former Korean language partner. It’s been almost 4 years since this series of unfortunate events happened, and yet it still feels like just yesterday I was making a fool of myself.

PSA WARNING: LONG AND CRINGEY TOWARDS THE END

…

BACKGROUND INFO

It was the fall of my sophomore year of college. Around mid-September, my Korean professor announced to the class that a coordinator from the Korea WEST program had contacted her about wanting to connect program scholars with our class to do language exchange. At first, not a single person in the class raised their hand. We were all still beginners and could barely communicate anything past basic phrases like “Where is the bathroom?” But eventually, a few of us were guilt-tripped into agreement.

My soon-to-be language partner contacted me via email a few days later, and we agreed to meet at a coffee shop near my university. Before then, we began texting over Kakao Talk. Back then, my Korean skills were even worse than they are now. He would literally send a two-sentence message and it would take me 10 minutes to respond because I was having to look up every other word in my Korean dictionary app. (God Bless You, Naver). Luckily, we were able to converse fairly easy in English when we actually met in person.

To be honest, my first impression of him was pretty neutral. He seemed kind of nerdy but kind. I think we talked for maybe an hour, mostly about my vast knowledge of Korean media and pop culture which seemed to both surprise him and entertain him. Regardless, I was just glad we had something to talk about. Especially since in our previous email this boy had been wanting to discuss the history of Chinese-Korean relations (what?)

Anyways, it was casual and fun even though quite awkward at times. Afterwards, we agreed to meet every Friday once I’d finished classes. And that’s when things kinda began to take off…I guess.

SURPRISE: I CAUGHT FEELINGS

Being a cancer means that I’m constantly in my feelings, and unfortunately, it doesn’t take much to trigger said feelings. I think it was around the second or third meeting that said feelings were caught. We had met at a coffee shop, per usual. But this time he offered to walk me back to my apartment which wasn’t far from where we had been talking. The sidewalks in the neighborhood were tiny and riddled with signs about parking violations and traffic rules. That being said, it was difficult for us to both stay walking next to each other and I had to keep walking around the signs that stood annoyingly in the middle of the sidewalk. For some reason, he noticed and suggested that we switch sides so that I was no longer inconvenienced. He also used his arm to shield me from oncoming traffic as we crossed the street.

Now any normal person would think that this is just a person with basic human decency and manners. My sensitive ass, on the other hand, was ready to get married right then and there…lol. From that day on, he was in my head 24/7. Friday became my favorite day of the week. I constantly looked at my phone for messages from him. Each time I heard that squeaky Kakao notification, my heart began beating wildly. In other words, I was sick y’all. Also, each time we met, he insisted on paying for my coffee. I was so shook each time he offered, and it made me like him even more (silly…I know).

It didn’t help that our conversations had gone from lasting one hour to three-four hours at a time. His English was already pretty good (he’d studied abroad in England before) so our time together was mostly to help my Korean. So I’d bring my Korean books, which he’d help me with for awhile before our conversations somehow got onto some more interesting topic. We would literally just sit at a coffee shop and talk about everything.

In October, I changed my profile picture on Kakao (I had just got box braids and was feeling myself.) He sent me a message saying that he noticed that I changed my pic and that I looked pretty. When I tell you a bitch was on the floor. Oh my god. But having never dated in my entire nineteen years of existence, I didn’t know how to respond and quickly changed the topic even though I was screaming on the inside.

SUDDEN DEPARTURE/ A PRECIOUS BITCH

By November, pretty much my entire Korean class had all stopped talking to their language partners except for me. But I knew our time together was coming to an end. Korea WEST scholars were only in the city for six months to attend a language school. In December they were all supposed to move to NY and participate in an internship related to their college major.

But a little before Thanksgiving, I suddenly received a message from him one night after we had met. It read something along the lines off:

“I have bad news. My internship has been moved up and I’m leaving for New York in like a week. We were having so much fun at the coffee shop that I didn’t have the heart to tell you then…etc.”

When I tell you I was heartbroken, y’all. Now to be clear, we had never crossed any lines. We hadn’t done anything that could really be interpreted as romantic. But we had spent a lot of time together and developed a very special friendship. So, we agreed to meet one last time before he left.

Many things were said, but the highlights were:

“To me, our relationship is very precious.” (His words not mine.)

“In Buddhism, it talks about how people are tied together by ropes. And I feel like the rope between us is very strong.” (Shut the front door.)

“Will you come to NY to visit me?” (BIIIIIITTTTCCHHH)

He walked me back to my apartment and we hugged. After that I didn’t see him for around three months. And that’s when I fucked up.

MEETING (AGAIN) AND DUMBASS DECISIONS

Distance does what it always does and we talked infrequently. I never went to see him in NY, mostly because I was broke and could barely afford paying to my laundry, let alone a bus ticket. He had talked about wanting to come into town for the annual cherry blossom festival. He finally set a date to come down, and in the weeks leading to his arrival we began talking often again.

Honestly, back then I don’t remember much of what was said because he was talking in Korean more and I didn’t understand many of the things that were said—especially when they were ambiguous in nature. Plus, my Korean wasn’t good enough to understand the nuances of the language. So anytime he said something that I thought could be flirty I doubted my interpretation. My self image back then was terrible and I just couldn’t believe that a Korean man could be interested in a chubby, black girl like myself. I was the polar opposite of the Korean standard beauty. Plus, I had a history of one-sided crushes. And felt that this wasn’t going to be any different.

Anyways, he came back into town and we met, spending basically the entire day together. First we went to a coffee shop. Then we went to an art museum. Next we went to the cherry blossom festival. The weather was fantastic so we stopped on a bench and ate chocolate he had brought me; plus, fed some random squirrel that had taken a liking to us. Afterwards we walked for about 20-30 minutes back in the direction of my campus. We grabbed dinner at a random spot, and that’s when things began to get awkward. I’m not sure exactly why. By then, we had spent at least 6 hours together and conversation had been flowing easily. But suddenly we were each saying nothing and both began scrolling on our phones.

Afterwards, we continued walking unintentionally in the direction of my apartment which is near a movie theater. He began to hint at wanting to see a movie, but I was so overwhelmed by nerves and butterflies and awkwardness that I just pretended I didn’t hear him and began speed-walking to my apartment. And then, suddenly, I was at my front door. (GAWD)

He waved bye to me and quickly walked away.

And that was the end. Well…kind of until we met again 6 months later in Seoul.

Moral of the story is…I’m dumb. If you agree, please like, comment, and subscribe.

#korea study abroad #dating korea #language exchange #south korea

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sebastianxmercer-blog · 5 years

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Self Para No. 1 - Don’t Walk Away

circa 2017

Jerking upright, Sebastian awoke to cold water being splashed across his face. Raising his hand to defend himself on instinct, Sebastian winced as Ebby threw another cupful of water onto his shivering body. He could hardly even mutter a,“Babe, what’s wrong,” before she jumped onto his lap, her tiny hands balled in the collar of his crumpled dress shirt from the night before. He couldn’t exactly remember where they were, what they had done, or where they had gone. Were they in Ireland or England? He couldn’t recall. Casting his blue gaze out the window, Big Ben blinked back slowly in response. “What have you been doing?!” she shrieked, her screams muffled by her own sobs as she collapsed onto his chest, her day-old mascara staining her cheeks. What a way to wake up-- but then again, it had become their usual pattern. Even her way of jolting him awake was right on schedule, nine o’clock on the dot. Wake up, break up, make up. It was a never ending pattern of forgiveness, broken promises, and disappointment. Then again, he didn’t know what else to expect the day he decided to drop down on one knee and ask for her hand in marriage. Weren’t deceit and dishonesty just synonyms for what they called marriage? What was marriage, what was a relationship if it did not mean hurting the one you loved?

Running his hand through his hair, he brought his lips to her soft head, doing his best to soothe her anxiety. It was usually anxiety when it came down to it. Ebby had never been one to handle the spotlight well, or the fans, or the females for that matter. When they had first formed The French Lips, he had done it for the promise of stardom, she had done it out of love for the art. A strong willed girl with an iron fist, Ebby often fluctuated between points of extreme happiness and despairing sadness… it was one of the many reasons Sebastian had come to adore her in the first place. Her hands strung melodies wherever they landed, on the piano keys, on his heart, on his body. Nobody knew him like Ebby, and nobody knew Ebby like he did. They had gone through the ringer together, grown up together, became who they were supposed to be t o g e t h e r. It wasn’t always perfect, but he figured it didn’t always need to be. They were happy, in their own imperfect way. He needed her just as much as she needed him, and when he looked at her laying on his chest, felt the wetness of her tears seeping through the fabric, he felt the weight of the words she couldn’t say aloud from above the surface of her sun kissed skin. She had everything, even him… something that not many others could say.

With a sneer, she pushed his hand away from her head, drawing his phone from her back pocket. Holding it up to his face, he peered at the image on the screen. His own face grinned back at him as two topless girls wrapped themselves around his chest, one nibbling on his cheek and the other girl with her hand snaking its way up beneath his grey v-neck. They didn’t look older than twenty four. Closing his eyes, he tried his best to recall the memory… though the night before only came to light in broken bits and pieces. He couldn’t have told Ebby their names if he tried. He couldn’t remember what he did with them either. That was his own fault. It wasn’t new though, he had cheated on Ebby dozens of times before… but the groupies meant nothing to him. They were just a body to rest in for the night when the pressure and intensity of his own world grew to be too much. Ebby’s heart was his true home though. She knew that.

“I don’t remem-”

“That’s the problem Sebastian, you never remember. God, how many times have I had to watch this and see things like this and watch as you become this… this person,” Ebby stuttered, a single tear rolling down her cheek as she sat upright, her doe eyes boring into his. Those eyes, she killed him every time with those damn eyes. She always had, even from the first time they met. “I’m tired, Sebastian. I’m tired of worrying about you and I’m tired of giving you chance after chance after chance. God, all you ever do is hurt people. That’s all you’re good for, I swear,” she said with a shake of her head, wiping her hand across her snot streaked face. When she got up from the bed, he grabbed for her waist only for her to slap him away. She always did that too… always only ever met him halfway.

“Baby, come on. You know they don’t mean anything. You’re my main girl, you… it’s always been you. Come back to bed, let’s go to sleep and forget this ever happened,” he drawled slowly, taking his time as he swung his feet over the side of their king sized bed. “We’re in London, why don’t we enjoy ourselves. We’ve never traveled as much as we do now.”

“Sebastian!”

He didn’t even register his phone being thrown out the window until Ebby slammed the windowsill shut behind it. “Don’t you fucking get it?” she exclaimed, throwing her hands to her side. “We’re done. Look at you, you’re a fucking mess. Look at what you’ve become! Look at what you did to the band. It’s your fault, it’s all your fault, and I’ve stuck by you because I love you. And I promised I would never leave you. We promised each other, when we were still kids at Berklee, that when we made it big, it wouldn’t matter because all we’d have would be each other. Don’t you remember that? Don’t you want that? Don’t you fucking want more for yourself? You’re so washed up, you can’t even remember each night as it happens. You think I haven’t found this either?” Pulling out a vial from the pocket of her bathrobe, she held it up in the light. It was his fairy dust, shining under the dim glow of the swing lamp above her, his jolt of energy… his s p e e d. Rising to his feet, he bridged the gap between them. Her breath was ragged and she was in complete hysterics. It was hard for him to look at her like that, much less know that he was the cause. He never wanted to hurt her… God, he loved her more than anything; but he also loved beauty, and the world, and intangible, impossible things. He just wished she could understand that he did want more, but everything came with a price. Even the world and its orbit wasn’t good enough for him. He’d always want more.

“You’re not going to leave Eb. How many times have we gone through this? We’ve always found our way back to each other. Don’t walk away. I made a promise to you, to care for you and love you and protect you. I promised you that.”

“And you haven’t kept a single one. All you’re doing is hurting me. Do you see how this h u r t s me? You hurt me Sebastian, and I’ve done all I can to hold onto you, but I can’t anymore. I don’t want this stupid fucking ring, I don’t want your jewelry or that gross ass Chanel perfume or a stupid fucking Lamborghini. I want you back. I have to let you go and you have to let me leave. I won’t watch you kill yourself slowly. I don’t want to bring our kids to your funeral in ten years because you’ve overdosed in a strip club or alleyway. This was never how it was supposed to be!” Her words were jumbled. They came too fast and all at once, smacked him harder than she ever had. She left him breathless, and all he could do was watch as she pulled her pants around her slim waist and threw a sweater over her head.

Slightly hungover and partially dehydrated, his hands combed through his jet black hair. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many ways to express how much she meant to him… but all possibilities were escaping his lips. Nothing he said would have justified his actions, nothing he could do would fix it. He had broken her, and she had risen from the ashes. Her own strength was written across her face, and her posture was that of a grounded goddess-- fearsome in her presence. He never thought Ebby would actually leave him, and every minute he watched as she prepared to walk away, he couldn’t help but stare in awe. He had taken her for granted, and she realized she was worth more. Maybe that was for the best. “Ebby, I-”

“I’m leaving you,” she blurted.

“Ebby, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare fucking say that to me, don’t you dare say that to me now just because I’ve made up my mind. I’m going no matter what you do or what lie you spin this time. Here, I won’t need this anymore,” she said, prying her engagement ring from her thin finger and throwing it on the ground. The echo from the metal clattered so slowly, he could feel his own heart beat with it. “God, I hope you make something of yourself or die trying,” she finished.

“I always told you that you deserved better,” he whispered, uttering the only honest words that could come to mind… the only thing that felt right to say aloud. With that, he watched her pivot on her blood-red heels and make her way to the doorway for what would invariably be the last time. The reality of his own predicament didn’t seem real. It felt as though he were living in an alternate universe, watching someone other than himself experience the worst day of his life. It was entirely surreal, painful and gutting to watch. It wasn’t real, it wasn’t real, it wasn’t real.

The click of her heels only paused for a moment as she took one last glance over her shoulder, her long lashes combing her soft cheeks. He had never seen such malice in such beautiful eyes.

“Go to Hell, Sebastian. Maybe you’ll see me there, you son of a bitch.”

#p: self

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softkuna · 3 years

Text

Sukuna || Interview || Fic - oc

Part 1

Content ║ Punk!Sukuna x oc. There is a reader version here.

Count ║ 2,626 K

Consider ║ Original Character. Swearing. Female Pronouns.

Creator ║ I swear this will go somewhere, I just enjoy the set up too much. So this is the version with the oc that I have. Her first name is Koyori. I have tagged this so that if you dislike ocs, you can read the other version. But! If you like ocs, hopefully you’ll like her ;v;. I did research on punk fashion, culture, and all which was really interesting. I knew some stuff about it before, but it’s really rich! I hope it’s not too information dense for you guys. Either way, Punk!Sukuna is now my comfort au and writing him is an absolute delight!!

“-didn’t you say the band?”

“Yeah, but this is better.”

“Sure… but what happens if-“

Koyori whipped her head to the man with an indignant, “Excuse me?”

Black flats clacked as she approached her own seat, a matching armchair to the couch. Koyori held a certain command once she walked in, instructing him on where to be, which camera to look at, and what the introduction would be. He listened, admiring how her small frame moved to and fro, fixing up last minute edits on a paper, chattering with who he assumed to be a videographer. It was a whole production. One that was hers. The set itself was practically out of a home décor magazine. It was a general space used across the publisher, but she was born to be there. Deserved to be there. Her calculated glee and deliberate positioning of each member made him feel as though he were looking through a mirror.

The interview process began.

Koyori sat professionally, legs crossed and leaning on the arm of her chair closest to Sukuna. He was unmoving, that slit to his lip curling upwards as the cameras began. She introduced the blog, the channel, her social media handles. With a smile, she introduced herself, “I’m Yama Koyori, and to join me in this special is lead singer of Two Face, the King of Curses – Sukuna.”

The camera panned to his lazy wave, “Yo.” He looked to her, she looked to him and for a moment she thought she saw a flicker of interest. Maybe the man was meant for cameras after all.

Much of his dissertation, Koyori hadn’t even found on her own deep dive into the culture. Sure, the anarchist and nihilistic ideologies were well known to pretty much anyone who would listen, but the deep history and connection between communities was far beyond the surface scratched into.

Koyori leaned forward slightly folding her hands over the arm of the chair, “That was comprehensive. Thanks!” She chuckled, causing the man before her to freeze and thaw with a nod. She continued, “With all of this mention of D.I.Y. culture in punk, let’s talk about Vivienne Westwood.”

Sukuna kept his attention to her profile as she spoke to the camera, catching himself in the glow of her enthusiasm, “On Kings Road in England, she kickstarted the fashion movement into gear. Now, many would think that with a style such as this, it would’ve been hand-me-downs, pins, self-stitching, but contrary to this belief, many of the clothes in her store were expensive. Knock offs circulated, and seeing as much of it did have that hand-done finishing touch, many decided to take tailoring to their own hands…” Not that this was a competition, but Koyori found herself trying to prove his ‘research’ comment wrong. Her ability to scour and exhaust her resources of fashion history is the furnace that kept her going and Koyori would make it well known that she was not to be challenged.

“You’ve answered it already, yeah, I know. I saw the interview,” Koyori’s head tilted to the side, pleasant smile hinting at her trick, “but enlighten me for a second about how your natural style transitioned to what it is on stage. We’ll put up some of the photos taken from last night here,” her hand gestured to some empty space, “You basically turned chiaroscuro and made it a performance. It’s obvious in how each member contrasted with themselves and the stage.”

The chick didn’t even know who he was a week ago, yet somehow watched every interview since the start? An answer tumbled from the tongue readily, “Punk is like a renaissance of music. Like I said before, it tore down the foundations of what was before and built something new out of it.” The words were succinct, but as Koyori’s pretty lashes bat, he was goaded into continuing, “Contrast is important. I like art. I like plays. Just ‘cause it’s punk doesn’t mean I can’t have it look aesthetic? Or is that a word only snobby fashion journalists can use now?”

“Hm. Change ‘journalist’ to ‘vocalist’ and you’re a word away from meeting the requirement,” It was a sour candy treat traded for his lemon warhead.

“Ouch. Miss Blog-Spot here has some sass,” His large frame leaned further into the armrest, cheek resting on that fist.

“Mister Eight-Track here is some a–“

The videographer clapped his hands, “We have sponsors, you know. We can at least censor him.”

It was Sukuna’s time to laugh a loud, hyena-like cackle. A large hand smacked his leather-clad knee. Koyori scrunched her nose again, biting back her tongue from childishly jutting out at him.

“Let me check the tag.”

“What?”

The blogger leaned back, cheekily snapping the shirt as she did so. “Your shirt, can I check the tag? I want to see what its made out of. Also sorry.”

Sukuna blinked twice, mouth stupidly hanging open before he leaned forward, “I’ll allow it.”

“I knew it. It’s American Pima. Thanks for letting me check.”

He missed the shiver her touch gave him as she sat back into her chair.

While the editor and videographer chatted together, Koyori leaned heavily into the back of her chair, poised posture slipping into something more comfortable. Long lashes slid closed and a heavy drag of breath lifted her chest. Sukuna’s eyes trailed along her form, contemplating Eros once more.

He was surprised himself. It was more than just her talent to make him talk - she may have been the first to see him as an opportunity rather than a commodity. ‘Yami Koyori would be the first and last reporter to see me as a meal’ was the thought he had going into this interview. He had every single intention to shut down her buffet, make it apparent that he was not to be dined on by a single soul. Yet, If his dish were ‘opportunity’, hers would be ‘intrigue’. He wanted to devour it, to know its palette and identify its spices. It was a compulsory urge to order, just to see why he craved it in the first place.

“Film the next few concerts. Backstage.”

tags: @lovesakusa

#🐇.oc #⛩.sukuna #⛩.fic #⛩.punk #🍺.jjk #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #sukuna #ryoumen sukuna #sukuna x oc #ryoumen sukuna x oc #jjk x oc #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk fic #jujutsu kaisen fic

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