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the-witches-you-couldnt-burn · 3 years

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Like I did with you

So I’ve been procrastinating hard during my study break for my exams, but here have a song fic!

Ghost of you by 5SOS

Genius comments: The song tells the tale of a heartbroken lover who has lost his significant other – due to a breakup or even suicide/death – and is refusing to accept the fact that she is never coming back.

I didn’t feel like writing angst and whenever I hear this song I feel like ballroom dancing (and I have).

Also thank you to the lovely people on the Maribat discord server!

Ao3

The sequel ‘It started with a whisper’ is up!

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Gotham Academy implemented a new ‘Study Abroad’ program due to recent funding from a local humanitarian. This program gave the students of Gotham Academy a chance to study abroad in Europe and vice versa. Countries like Sweden, Greece, Germany, Ireland and more participated in the program; offering a multitude of high schools with many different courses.

And because of that very wealthy benefactor, his son got first pick on where he would like to study. This was 100% not a forced decision at all to subtly keep track of the happenings of Paris. With that the Ice Prince of Gotham took the City of Love by storm.

He had been at Collège Françoise Dupont for the past few months, and it’s been hell. The class he had been placed into was ripping apart at the seams. There were two students that the class gravitated towards; he observed some of the others meeting in secret, without the knowledge of their respective ‘leaders’.

The first student that held the majority of the class’ focus was Lila Rossi. She was a black hole with beady green eyes, who dragged who ever was in her reach to an agonising fate. Damian saw through her deceptions and rejected her flirtations. The students that followed her, ate up whatever lie she spat out. Rossi soon learned that lies about the Wayne family and Gotham wouldn’t fly with him.

“Really? You worked with Monsieur Wayne?” The pink clad girl, Rose, squeaked.

Damian had just walked into class on his second day at the hell hole and already regretted it. He shot a glare towards the large group, “Who ever told you that is severely misinformed. My father has never worked with a minor from Europe, due to potential rumours and allegations it could cause. It is not a threat but a promise if a lie of similar caliber is spread there will be a lawsuit.” And with that he walked towards his seat in the back, the Ice Prince had cast his decree, the class’ atmosphere had frozen over.

The second student was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Those that surrounded her were Alix Kubdel, Chloé Bourgeois, Max Kanté, Lê Chiến Kim and the occasional secret appearance from Juleka Couffaine. They didn’t view Dupain-Cheng through rose coloured lenses, they were always grounded and opinions were respected. Damian, who was a loner without Jon at his side, was satisfied by himself; Marinette respected that and didn’t force him to socialise like Lila tried to.

So that leads us to this. He stood against a sidewall of the giant banquet hall, staring out at the crowd before him. Jon was walking to wards him with a can of sprite in hand. Jon had moved to Paris with him but had been placed into a different class. The boy who was the epitome of sunshine stuck around the Ice Prince, their friendship is an enigma to the Françoise Dupont students.

Jon’s face was flushed. He had just gotten a drink after dancing for the past hour. Tonight was the night of the Collège’s formal dance for their graduating class. Skirts of all colours and fabrics swirled, as their partners (majority of whom had matching suits) twirled them to the music.

Jon, gesturing to the crowd, asked him whether he was going to stand there all night or dance. Taking a sip of his drink a smirk appears on his face, “unless the great Damian Wayne is to much of a coward to dance.”

Here I am waking up

Still can't sleep on your side

Damian’s head snapped towards the taller boy, “Are you seriously using my ego to get me to dance?”

Jon raising an eyebrow, “Well?”

If I can dream long enough

The temperamental teen stormed off, grumbling about “Jon being as bad as Todd”. Scanning the room he search for a suitable partner, there was no way he would embarrass himself by dancing alone.

You'd tell me I'd be just fine

I'll be just fine

He spotted Dupain-Cheng stood off to the side, alone. She was draped in a layered white dress with black hemming. As he neared, he realised that the asymmetrical skirt was actually a light blush with her signature apple blossom flowers embroidered. She looked up at him and he straightened his stance, slowing his pace. Her sapphire eyes locked on to his, her bangs curled off to the side along with the rest of her hair in beach waves.

So I drown it out like I always do

She gifted him a small smile, a usual occurrence within her interactions with him. He offered his left hand, bowing his head slightly. “Dupain-Che—“ he cleared his throat, “Marinette. Would you do me the honour of joining me in this dance?”

Dancing through our house

With the ghost of you

Her eyes widened, not expecting the Arabian God of a teen before her to ask her such a question. She saw his temper during class during his spats with Lila and how he kept to himself without the presence of Jon. But here he was in a fitted Armani suit that made his green eyes glow, and hair messily slicked to the side. Marinette looked at his hand, glad that her makeup mostly hid her blush.

And I chase it down

“I am...” She paused to find the right word, “I am a bad dancer. It is better for everyone that I don’t participate.”

“I can think of nothing less appealing than an evening of watching other people dance.” A small gasp escaped from her mouth before she could stop it. She watched as his mouth twitch’s downwards before his facade returned with full strength. “If you do not wish, to I won’t force you. But if you’ll allow me I’ll guide you through the dance to make sure it isn’t an utter disaster.”

With a shot of truth

Marinette’s lips quirked, giggling as she took his hand, “Your funeral Damian.”

What had he gotten himself into?

The two entered the dance floor, taking up the dance support hold. Their dance had the basic steps of the waltz, with a promenade and many spins; some as a couple and some were just Mari. Damian soon found he enjoy watching the sparkles in her dress light up as she spun. It became even more enjoyable when he discovered that the dress was her own creation.

Dancing through our house

The two made quiet conversations during their dance. Damian pulled her closer by the waist as they repeated the basic steps, their bodies perfectly in tune with each other. “You are a fine dancer despite your protests”

With the ghost of you

Marinette tilted her head up at him, blinding him with a dazzling smile. Damian’s heart fluttered, the two always had a mutual respect but it seems to have grown into a fond appreciation.

From the tables scattered around the dance floor there was a blond, with his fist clenched. Lila had dragged him off of the floor as soon as Damian and Marinette made their debuts; together. The brunette was now off angrily gossiping to Alya and any other who’d listen. It was a hot topic between Lila and Alya that Marinette loved him, although now, as he watched her dance with Damian, he was unsure as to whether that was ever true. He sat there, glued to his seat, watching the spectacle before him.

Cleaning up today

Found that old Zepplin shirt

The two dancers didn’t notice that everyone had cleared off the floor to watch them. They danced in sync, no movement was made without the other following it. Adrien had realised awhile ago that even though he didn’t have romantic feelings for Marinette, he cherished her friendship. That relationship was now tarnished due to the path he took when he first revealed his knowledge of the deceptions. His father had forced him to keep Lila happy, even if it made him miserable.

You wore when you ran away

And no one could feel your hurt

He had lost her, and he was unsure as to whether he could gain any semblance of their relationship back.

We're too young, too dumb

To know things like love

Damian lifted his partner’s right hand and twirled her three times, they both were content within their own world. The two swayed before turning together and walking around the now open space.

But I know better now (Better now)

Marinette flushed as she realised what was happening around her, leaning towards her partner she whispered, “I think we’ve become an impromptu entertainment.”

Too young, too dumb

To know things like love

Too young, too dumb

Damian subtly gazed behind her seeing their peers in a circle surrounding them. He was on the inside looking out, and he wouldn’t trade it for the world. He whispered reassurances in her ear, he wished to finish the song before he released her from his embrace. The two drowned out their audience, focusing on each other and the beat of the song.

So I drown it out like I always do

Dancing through our house

With the ghost of you

And I chase it down

With a shot of truth

That my feet don't dance

Like they did with you

The melody slowly faded off as the last lines were sung. The two finished on a basic waltz step before swaying in each other’s arms. The music ends and there is silence, blood rushed to their ears and their breaths mingled.

The two stayed in the other’s embrace, face-to-face, staring. They broke out of their trance by clapping. Looking around Marinette saw many of her peers and most of the supervising teachers applauding their performance.

Their friends broke through the crowd, Jon patted Damian’s shoulder (retracting before he got bit) while Chloe and Alix pulled Marinette back to their table to discuss what Disney magic had befallen the couple. The bluenette glanced back at her partner, mouthing a silent goodbye.

The crowd dispersed but were still buzzing from their display. Marinette was bombarded with questions, not only from her friends, but from other students about her dancing with the demon. Her stuttered replies did little to quench the crowd’s thirst. Her face must be comparable to that of a tomato.

Damian, having noticed the building crowd and Marinette’s uncomfortable stance, broke away from Jon. The crowd parted like the red sea, unwilling to be the one to anger the Ice Prince.

He offered her his arm (to which she took) and escorted her out to the patio outside. She stayed entwined with him, as she looked out at the stray Parisian night; leaning her head onto his should. Here the two could breathe. Here the two of them could be their present selves, no ghostly facades needed. It seems they could drown out anything in the presence of each other.

Unbeknownst to them, Jon had recorded their dance, along with their previous and present interactions of that night. He thought for a second to use it as blackmail material but decided to just send it off anyways. Oh the chaos it caused.

#maribat #marinette x damian #mlb x dc #daminette #adrien salt #Jon Kent has blackmail #ghost of you by 5sos #song fic #good! Chloé Bourgeois #slight Lila salt

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husbandohunter · 3 years

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Stardew Impact [Genshin+Stardew Valley/xReader]

Part 1/3 Kaeya, Diluc

Synopsis: “A mysterious phenomenon brought you and your s/o to an unfamiliar world: Pelican Town! Without the power of Visions, the two of you begin to learn the life of what it takes to be...a farmer?”

(DOMESTIC FARM LIFE YIP YIP)

Coming soon...

Albedo and Childe

Zhongli and Xiao

(A/N): So the brainrot was real in this one. I planned to add Albedo for a Mondstadt edition but kinda went overboard so I gotta split this one into parts too. Wordcount_almost 2k spspspsp

______________________________________________________

Diluc

• Already has the whole year planned in his head. Literally if Diluc were to play this game, he'd have a booming farm within year ONE. Calm and collected through and through, though the new environment raises alot of questions, as long as you were still with him, Diluc ain't complaining

• The town welcomes you two with open arms. It was all thanks to the attire. Diluc wore his usual dark coat adorned with regal gold while you had a dress made of Liyue's finest silk, one that he bought for you. Needless to stay both of you reeked the aura of rich aristocrats (Mayor Lewis is pleased that greedy bastard)

• Once the farm was permitted to your owndership, Diluc began to think of ways to turn it into a vineyard. He was a businessman afterall. Although the staff back at the Dawn Winery were the ones who tended the field, Diluc still knew a few things about planting due to his childhood days Master Crepus would bring him out to their yard and demonstrated the process of gardening. He still remembers those days clearly, doing the very same this moment with you.

• Occasionally works at the Saloon bar. It was the perfect opportunity. As you took care of the farm side, Diluc continues to look for more ways to increase the income while gathering information from the folks around town. Gus LOVES to have him over, like he's just so efficient and reliable! They soon become good friends saying if Diluc were ever to own a wine stock, he would gladly buy from him.

• This is why Diluc would stay a little later due to just chatting with the people from the bar. One time you walked into the Saloon only to the front desk with Emily alone. Turns out the others were in the other room, too busy playing a game of pool. You decided to leave him be since it was rare to have Diluc so relaxed in leisure activities. Thus in the end, you spent your time chatting with Emily until a whole hour has passed before your lover notices and apologizes for losing track of time.

• Everything felt like a dream because it was his dream. To live a life undisturbed from chaos, his duties and the dangers that lurk in Teyvat, Diluc grew fond of the domesticity. There was nothing he loved more than to spend his hours by your side, day after day, returning home to your freshly handmade meals.

• Spring: Already up and early planting the parnersnips (I'm very soft for gardener Diluc you see). What do you expect from a workaholic? Even during his leisure time you would often find him near some plant as he does consider this hobby quite therapeutic. But when it rains, Diluc would be standing beside you with an arm around your shoulder, smiling contently as you lean into his touch. He gazes through the dripping window and silently admires the current progress you both made on the farm.

• Between the two annual spring festivities, I would say the flower dance. Diluc is a private man and would prefer to take things where no eyes were on sight. But with a little bit of nudging from Gus (your wingman), he gives in and leads you to the center stage. Elegant. Graceful. The way you two moved together became the talk of the event. Though, Diluc was already used to people staring by now, all he needed to do was to ignore them and keep his focus on you.

• Summer: No blankets in bed. Nope, its bloody hot in Pelican Town. He tends to stay indoors or anywhere with shade, in other words, his work hours in the Saloon increased.

• Diluc always has a nice cold drink prepared for you if by any chance you were to pay a visit after a whole day of labour. It's a habit he's made subconciously as if it would be a natural occurance for you to enter the door. His colleagues would ask him who did he make that drink for? Honestly so cute i cri

• Moments like these remind him of Mondstadt, where he quietly wipes the glasses while listening to you talk. Your voice is soothing. Sun rays peek from the side casting onto the umber tables, reflecting a rich golden light as the radio plays a soft song in the background. It's so peaceful, the town was small hence not many people visited the bar, Diluc came to appreciate this warm privacy (plus no Venti and Kaeya which is a huge pog realization).

• Autumn: Harvest time baby. The kegs are full and the sheds are full of kegs. This season was huge stonks and the house ended up getting an upgrade. Diluc is the type of man who wants to make sure that his spouse wouldn't have to work another day of her life. I reckon this is why he's so ambitious because he wants you to have the best and you deserve the best. (Husband material. Slap a ring on him ladies).

When there was no more work left to do, time would be spend peacefully exploring the woods. While you skipped a few steps ahead as the leaves crunched beneath your feets, Diluc follows slowly from behind. He sees your back but his eyes stares somewhere far beyond whats in front of him: His future.

It was such a stark contrast to the one he envisioned before. One filled with uncertaintly, blocked by darkness with no silver lining in sight, endlessly wandering as he drags the claymore against the ground. There was never a day in which the Darknight hero wouldn't think of Mondstadt. Leaving the city in the incompetent hands of Ordo Favonious while Abyss Mages continue to lurk fuels him to find a way to return as soon as possible and yet...

"Higher big sis!" Jas tightens her hold on the ropes as you pushed the swing with all your might. She laughs, like a child, it was full of innocence and joy. Later Vincent came in and nugdes you, asking when his turn will come.

"You wanna go too? Alright alright don't worry," waiting for Jas to come down, you lift the boy up so that he was seated safely on the chair, "3..2..1 go!"

He wonders if he could just be a little selfish for once.

• Winter: Best man to have in this season. Every morning Diluc would find himself restricted in movements due to a pair of arms around his waist and legs entangled with yours. Turns out you've been doing it subconciously because he's just so warm (Diluc keeps it lowkey and pretends to sleep longer cuz of it)

~~xx~~

Kaeya

• Haha looks like the portal is gone, guess we'll be stuck forever :)). No kidding Kaeya would be so down to stay here for the rest of his life and the best part is to spend it with you. He doesn't show a shred of concern regarding Teyvat, not like he's easily shaken by events that are abnormal, but you can see that Kaeya is truly and genuinely happy. (You're stunned).

• Oho we also have this marvelous landscape just for the two of us? And a cozy little cabin to go along with it as well? This should be fun~

• Of course Kaeya would also know a few things about planting, just the basics since he did grow up with Diluc. When they were kids, Crepus would give each of them their own pots so they can grow their own plants. It eventually became a competitive thing where whoever's plant grows the fastest gets to eat the other person's dessert for a year (no one wins. They end up sabotaging each other which Diluc started first, thinking it'll be funny as a joke).

• You are, and will be going on dates with him. In fact, the amount of dates you two went on increased since then. The townspeople would call you two "lovebirds" since he's practically by your side 24/7.

• I mean he doesn't have the responsibilities as a Cavalry Captain anymore so what else is there to do?

• Would attend all annual events no matter what season.

• Evelyn constantly gushes how much of a wonderful pair you and Kaeya make and often is the one who provides Kaeya a fresh bouqet of flowers for him to use as a gift. George on the otherhand just rolled his eyes mumbling something along the lines of "youngsters these days" and "crazy hormones."

• Befriends Pam. Love for beer plus somewhat cynical attitude? They get along real swell! She starts sending some recipes into the mailbox of course saying if yall ever need a hand, let her know.

• Spring: I can see Kaeya be switching back and forth between caring for the farm or taking quests posted on Pierre's bulletin board. He likes to keep things interesting, learning the ways of the new world while also getting to know the people around town.

• Would NOT return Mayor Lewis' shorts in which he found in Marnie's room. It's such high quality blackmail material. Kaeya is currently plotting what is the best way to use it to his advantage.

• He didn't tell you of course.

• Summer: There are no blankets because he is your blanket. Since your cabin was small so was the bed. That's why he has to hold you so that no one falls off when rolling over. Either he hugs you with your nose close to his neck, or your back against his chest while spooning you or holding hands if sleeping on your sides became too much. Yall need a serious house upgrade.

• For some reason Kaeya becomes more energetic in the summer. He lets you rest in the shade while handling the farm work for the time being. If you guys got a pet it would be a cat. Hes the first one to refill their bowl every morning outside.

Another day passes as summer comes to an end, the town’s Mayor invited you and your lover to see the annual Dance Of the Moonlight Jellies. Kaeya being the opportunist was delighted to come along. Locking the door of your house, you follow him down the path and made your way to the beach.

Everyone from town was already gathered by the docks when the sun had disappeared down the horizon. You stood by his side in a space far from the others, watching the candle boats set off to ride the waves, lighting up a small ray of light for creatures to find.

“Wow,” your tone almost above a whisper, “If only our friends back home could see this too.”

“Perhaps,” he says. Kaeya slips his fingers into yours and you shot him a curious glance, “But let us enjoy this moment shall we? Just the two of us.”

And there they were. A sea of luminescence radiating colours of brilliant blue with hints of green like a city of laterns floating in a world below. Their image reflects in the star of Kaeya's eyes as he wonders, where would they go? Where would the light lead them? They were so free with nothing to worry, so serene just like the sea and unknowningly, he squeezes your hand. It was a sense for confirmation. One to remind him that this moment was indeed a reality he wishes to keep.

Autumn: Finally a house upgrade and a kitchen!! Because it was harvest season, you guys end up making a set of delicious meals with all the recipes the townspeople gave you. Kaeya can cook since he lived by himself back in Mondstadt. Most of the stuff he learned to make were food that can be accompanied by alcohol though...

• Ahah remember Mayor Lewis' lucky shorts? He found a use for them. It was displayed on the stands during the Stardew Valley Fair (Oh my how did this get here? Must be the wind). Ends up buying a Rarecrow for the farm when Lewis bribes him not to tell this to anyone.

Winter: This was mostly an indoor season for the both of you. With the existence of television, nights would be spent until morning while watching movies at the couch. A blanket drapes around your shoulders as extends to his. Oh and don't forget the hot chocolate!

#genshin impact #stardew valley #genshin impact headcanons #diluc x reader #kaeya x reader #diluc #diluc ragnvindr #Kaeya #kaeya alberich #genshin x reader #genshin headcanons #genshin imagines #genshin scenarios #nya-writes #genshin impact scenarios #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact imagines

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anothertimdrakestan · 4 years

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A Memorable Date With The Batboys (batboys x reader HC)

req: Can you please do the young justice and batfam perfect date with their s/o

hehehe this is so cute! like always pt 2 will be w yj bois! hope ya enjoy :)

Dick Grayson:

- Dick’s favorite dates with you are always the impromptu days you spend together

- one of his favorite dating memories was when the two of you tried to make a one year anniversary cake

- the kitchen (and you guys) were covered in flour and spent the whole day laughing while throwing globs of questionable frosting at each other

- so many eggs were lost in pursuit of a cake that didn’t catch on fire

- at one point dick tried to convince you to add cereal to one of the cakes and it was an epic flaming failure (literally)

- you opted to walk to the bakery down the street and ended the day with a cup of coffee and a shared piece of cake that was so delicious Dick had to go buy another piece for later

- laughing over steaming mugs while also taking the time to reminisce on a year’s worth of memories will always be a highlight for Dick, he finds the most joy in just talking to you and getting to know you more- because you being yourself is truly what he loves the most

- you still have some of the polaroids the two of you took right after failed cake #4 Dick’s hair was sloppily stood up due to the flour and you were cringing while he kissed you on the cheek with raw batter stained lips, he keeps a copy in his wallet for good luck as it always reminds him of one of the best days of his life

Jason Todd:

- Jason’s got two very different ideas of the perfect date

- the first is straight forward:

- kick ass together, eat fast food on the way back, make you scream his name for the rest of the night

- he thinks you’re a total badass and loves going on patrol with you, plus his post-hood hair is like 200x more attractive and after patrol all his senses are heightened from adrenaline and he’s extra good at paying attention to your needs ; )

- on the total other end of the spectrum, he also loves curling up with you on a colder day and reading or relaxing

- it’s not often Jason truly gets to slow down and relax so he relishes in just getting to hold you for a day while you binge tv shows or book series

- he likes to smother you in little kisses while you giggle and try to pull away, making him laugh harder and pull you in for more

- overall, he’s like constantly stuck between thinking you’re the most badass, hottest bad bitch on the planet and thinking you are the cutest most precious thing to walk the planet and he must smother you in his affection (i mean are you complaining???)

Tim Drake:

- i can’t explain why but i just KNOW tim would decide he wants to pop off for a random date night and take you on a whirlwind of magic and here’s what i think it would entail:

- you thought date night would be a night in with takeout and movies but were shocked when Tim showed up to your door in a sexy ass suit saying he had something special planned for the night

- after rushing to put on something to match his fanciness you were escorted into one of Bruce’s fancy cars as Tim drove you to one of the most expensive restaurants in town

- big fancy restaurants are not really Tim’ scene so this would seem like a pretty big shock, until he led you in and up an elevator

- there was a single beautifully set table waiting for the two of you making you shaking your head at his rich dorkiness

- “don’t worry we will be eating good tonight” he teased as he pulled out your chair and helped you in. he wasn’t wrong, the food you had replaced whatever your favorite food was before and you got to spend the night almost exclusively alone with Tim while the two of you stared at the moon from atop the building, talked about your future together, and just life itself

- conversations with tim are truly the best, he has a million insightful little thoughts swirling around his head and he's so cute when he gets excited and wants to tell you about something, even if you don't always get it hehehe

- the night ended with you draped in his blazer and his dress shirt slightly unbuttoned while the two of you skipped through downtown gotham screaming tiktok songs at 2am

- tim always remembers that night as filled with fun, laughs, and a night where he learned more about you just reassuring him that you truly are his favorite person on earth :)

Damian Wayne:

- damian's favorite date with you was more of an adventure than a date

- after a rough patrol damian was in need of a break and you texted him "d just take some time for yourself! like a little getaway" thinking it was nothing

- that was until he pulled up at your door with a stolen batmobile filled with titus and alfred the cat

- and just like that you were seated in the passenger wearing one of damians sweatshirts and your pj bottoms (he refused giving you time to change and just handed over the sweatshirt) driving until he saw the coast

- after an angry call from bruce and some of your smooth talking the two of you were secured for the day, damian knew it would be fun

- the two of you picked up some food and had a little beach picnic watching titus tear through the sand while alfred the cat sat in the car pouting

- you got to watch damian be authentically himself, running like a kid with titus, splashing you with water, and occasionally cracking a large grin that shone brighter than the sun

- damian will never forget getting to kiss you with the salty taste of seawater, the cuffs of his pants soggy and his feet cold but his heart warm and full. he's constantly sketching picutres of you with the ocean behind you, promising himself if he's ever sad or lonely he'll always have that memory to go back to

- you loved that day more than anything too, dami doesn't like you stealing his clothes but you've kept that sweatshirt forever, loving the way it still faintly smells of a mix of damian's cologne and sea water reminding you that beneath the snark (which is hilarious in of itself) there's a boy who just wants to point at pretty clouds and kiss you when he has the chance :)

hope you enjoyed! sorry this one took longer it gave me writers block for some odd reason ehehheh

#tim drake #jason todd #damian wayne #batboys #dick grayson #batfam #bruce wayne #tim drake x reader #jason todd x reader #damian wayne x reader #dick grayson x reader #batboys x reader #batfam x reader #dc headcanons #dc headcanon #jason todd headcanon #dc fluff #red hood x reader

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achaoticeternal · 3 years

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willow // r. weasley

RON WEASLEY X READER folklore/evermore series masterlist

Summary: Ron, Harry, and Hermione have always been your closest friends. But as we grow up and people change, how do our feelings change? Word Count: 3.1k Warnings: time jumps and weird flows but it makes sense so that the story can build. harassment. gushy love stuff (gross) A/N: based on the song willow by taylor swift

As the years passed at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, students would flourish into adolecense making them young fools for years to come. But as you often quoted to your dear friend Hermione, “We are all fools in love” - Jane Austen.

“Well if we are simply all fools in love, then tell me where is your knight in shining armor?” The young witch teased you as you sat in the courtyard, reading and simply enjoying each other’s company.

“Oh, please, Hermione. You know me better then to be some dimwitted girl who chases around a boy who is oblivious to her affections. In fact, I feel bad for the girls who do, because if they were a little more patient, they would see that good things come in due time.”

“Really? And which prized author said that?”

“I did!” The pair of you snickered as your attentions drifted around to see if you could spot the topic of your conversation.

The two of you seemed to be the only fourth year girls who hadn’t taken fascination with boys in your year or older. Every day in the Gryffindor Common Room, many girls gossiped about the latest drama that had developed and which boys they swear fancied them. And though you enjoyed chatting with your female peers, you and Hermione had felt quite left out of the crushes and strange romances beginning to blossom.

Well, you both were left out until Viktor Krum swept Hermione off her feet, and you couldn’t exactly be mad at her for it. In fact, when she confided in you about her fling with the foreign man, you were completely ecstatic as you both giggled at how the other girls at Hogwarts would react. Jealousy took quite a toll on many girl, and apparently a few men.

And even furthermore to Ron’s surprise, both of you had gotten dates to the Yule Ball before Harry or himself could ask you. Roger Malone, a kind Ravenclaw who you had Divination with, had asked you and you did have a wonderful evening. Even if Ron persistently made snide remarks about him before, during, and after the ball had concluded.

However, your fourth year and seemingly most dangerous year at Hogwarts, was quickly coming to a close with the students of Beauxbaton and Durmstrang leaving just a few days ago. The Summer Holiday was coming up quicker than you expected and soon your small group of friends would all be returning to your homes.

“Everything is going to change now, isn’t it?” Hermione asked our group of four after our international peers has departed.

“Yes, but we have each other.”

Once you had stepped of the Hogwarts Express, your parents whisked you away to the family summer cottage so that you could forget the grief of the past year. From watching the trials of the tournament, to puberty, and to loosing a classmate; life was quickly moving forward and your parents began to fear the return of The Dark Lord.

Yet instead of being caught up with family time and walks along the beach, your mind counted down the days until you would be spending time with the Weasley family again before classes started. You always felt welcomed by the family of gingers and were thrilled that you were invited back after attending the Quidditch World Cup with them last summer.

For the last month, you had been owling your friends weekly, yet you seemed to be sending and receiving owls from Ron every other day. He had never been much of a writer, but claimed in his letters that he was extremely bored with the twins now being of age and not seeing his friends yet that summer.

When it became closer to time, Ron wrote to you saying that the Weasley’s had temporarily moved to a town home in the city, but that you were still welcome to join. He then wrote that his mother had owled your parents about the change and your arrangements to join the Weasley’s before school began.

And before you knew it, you were heading the Grimauld Place.

“(Y/N), darling, its time for us to go!” Your father called down from the bottom of the stairs.

You stomped down the stairs in your new summer clothes, rushing next to your parents at the fireplace. Your clothes and bags had already been sent off and now you’re parents would be sending you off as well.

“Change of plans, dear. We will be join you and the Weasley’s until dinner.”

“Alright, is everything okay?”

“Oh yes, everything is fine. We just have to attend a brief meeting and then we’ll be out of your hair.”

You and your parents arrived in the Kitchen of the hidden apartment without a hitch. Both Weasley parents along with their son, Bill, stood closest to you. From where you stood, you could also see Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Professor Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and to your surprise, Professor Snape.

“My heavens, its good to see you, (Y/N). Ron is upstairs, along with Hermione and Harry who only arrived in the past hour.” As soon as you had arrived, Mrs. Weasley had ushered you out of the room and shut the door quickly.

You looked around the dark hallway in order to try and get some idea of the flat you would be staying in for the next couple of weeks. Your gaze moved to the stairs and you began to stalk over to them and slowly make your way up, observing the wall paper and where it started to peel away from the wall. You had made it up the the landing, looking over strange vases and jars.

Their was a faint whisper that you nearly missed, “Bloody hell.” Suddenly there were foot steps rapidly approaching you, yet your feet remained in place, your body unmoving, “(Y/N)!,” you body turned quickly towards the voice. Ron and you were chest to chest, nearly clashing into each, the red head beaming down at you as he pulled you into the hug.

Ron had grown quite a few inches over the summer, now making him comfortably taller than you. His once long hair and been trimmed up and framed his face nicely, but still kept a boyish length that matched his personality. His embrace was warm as he pulled you tight to his chest, making your cheeks flush a dusty pink. You took the opportunity to breathe in his scent; cinnamon, flannel, and a crackling fire met your nose. Ron hadn’t completely changed, but he was certainly grown from the boy you had last seen near two months ago. It was new, like the warmth now in your chest.

“Oh-ho, look what we’ve walked into, Fred,” George called out from the end of the hallway.

“The two love birds are reuniting, George, we must not dare interrupt them,” Fred teased, the pair of them now approaching.

Ron had released his grip on you and glared at his brothers, his features showing his irritation, “Will you two bug off?” His freckled cheeks burned a deep crimson, leaving you questioning if it was out of embarrassment or that you two were caught in such close proximity.

“Don’t be such a git, Fred, now that Angelina has broken up with you, again,” Ginny teased the twin as she approached you, pulling you into a tight hug.

“Harry and Hermione are in the other room,” Ron said and whisked you off after departing for Ginny. His fingers intertwined with yours as he he tugged you down the hallway with dull walls.

After reuniting with your friends and the meeting in the kitchen being adjourned, it was time for the group to either join for dinner, or depart. Your parents decided to depart shortly after the meeting and bidding you a sweet goodbye along with a few other members. However there was still quite a crowd that Molly had left to feed.

Once dinner had concluded after much laughter and discussing the past summer and what this upcoming school year held, people began trickling away from the dinner table. This left just the Weasley family, Harry Sirius, Hermione, and yourself.

“Well, Ron, it is your turn for dish duty tonight,” Molly told her youngest son while levitating all the dishes towards the sink.

“I can help you if you’d like,” You looked to Ron who was sitting in front of him.

“(Y/N), dear, you don’t have to do that. You are a guest here. Ron will be able to handle it.”

“Well, she is welcome to join me by staying in the kitchen or help,” He smiled warmly at you and a new found warmth spread through your chest. Never had such a feeling come to fruition in you.

The rest of the group departed from the kitchen with only yourself and Ron remaining. Wordlessly, the two of you approached the sink. Ron began to wash the dishes, while you jumped up on to the counter next to him. As he cleaned them, you would dry them. It was a nice and soft moment, the pair of you making light conversation.

“It’s just all crazy to me, how much we’ve grown recently. I mean, this summer has felt like years when it’s really been only two months since I saw you last,” Ron handed you a plate as he complained.

“Well why are you complaining? You practically grown three summers worth in one,” you giggled and he lightly splashed the tap water on you.

“Do I at least still have my boyish charm?” He stuck his tongue out at you as you squealed and upon settling, sent you a wink. You scrunched your nose in response, as you attempted to distract him away from the warmth that spread across your face, “I’m teasing, I’m teasing.”

All the dishes were soon washed, dried, and placed in there respective cabinets all without the use of magic, “You know it’s nice to have you around again,” Ron spoke, placing the final cup into the cupboard. He then strolled his way over to the counter where you sat, leaning his hip against it as he faced you.

“I love my family, but they don’t give me the same sense of home that you do...” By that time, Ron had managed to snake his way between your legs and then counter. His face was mere inches from yours and you create various constellations with the freckles on his face. The pair of you stayed their in each other’s warm presence, not wanting to leave the situation, yet wondering whether to take it further.

The tension began to feel overwhelming as you began to get lost in whatever feeling was happening between the pair of you. So you tried to rationalize the situation like you always did and pulled him into a close hug. Your arms held tightly around his shoulders as you felt the same temptation to wrap your legs around his waist. He latched his arms around your waist with the same fever, “Would it be completely crazy that you feel like home to me?”

Soon the summer holiday melted away into another year at Hogwarts, except this year presented itself in stranger circumstances. At the end of term, you were to take your O.W.L.S and prepare for a career in the wizarding world. However, there was yet another new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor who was interesting to say the least. Hermione has whispered to you at dinner the first night that the Minister himself placed Dolores Umbridge at Hogwarts to spy on Dumbledore.

And to make things stranger, Dumbledore was barely around the castle like in years before and Harry kept having strange dreams about He Who Shall Not Be Named. Umbridge also refused to teach her students magic through practice and so your quartet had taken it into your own hands to begin Dumbledore’s army. All through the fall term and now into the spring, your ragtag group had successfully practiced and avoided the toad discovering your whereabouts; moreover, your relationship with Ron had started to change since summer and it made you nervous.

When you confided in Hermione after the events at Grimauld Place and her taking notice to both Ron’s and your body language, she tried her best to put it into words for you. “You have a crush on Ron, (Y/N)! And apparently he fancies you, as well.”

“But ‘Mione, I don’t know what to do. I’ve never really had a crush like this before. And I don’t want him to become a distraction with the O.W.L.S at the end of the year,” You tried to reason out things, and make everything seem more logical like you did with every other problem that had faced you before.

“This is one thing that can’t be control with logic and reason. That’s not how emotions are supposed to be felt,” she giggled as she squeezed your hand in hers.

“I-I know, but I feel like a...a little pixie. constantly hanging around him and in the way of everything and-”

“(Y/N), I think that Ron prefers to have you around,” The bells chimed outside the castle, “I’ll see you at practice after class.”

“See you,” And with that, Hermione left for her final class of the day and you went about roaming the castle on your free period.

You strolled around, admiring the ancient castle for all her walls had to offer where you now found yourself in the westwing. You were one of few students your year to be allowed to take a free period because of your academic standing and use that time for study or leisure.

When you neared the hall where the Room of Requirement was, you placed yourself in a window sill to simply enjoy yourself. You pulled out one of the Herbology books you picked at the library and began reading as you relaxed. Yet the moment was short lived as you heard a voice call your last name.

“(Y/L/N), (Y/L/N)!” Draco Malfoy was strutting down the corridor towards where you were seated.

You jumped down from your ledge, giving him a curious look, “Is there something I can help you with Draco?”

“Why aren’t you in class, (Y/L/N)? You could loose points for Gryffindor for not being where you should be,” He snarled at you.

“It just so happens I have a free period to do what I please with myself, so if you will pardon me-” You snatched your bag, but before you could turn to leave Draco snatched your wrist into his hand.

“You’re a terrible liar,” He sneered, his face inching closer to yours.

“Malfoy,” Ron appeared behind you, his presence jarring Draco into letting you go. You backed yourself into Ron’s chest, allowing him to be your protector from the Slytherin boy. He ghosted his hand over your hips as if he were trying to pulling you further from Draco, “What seems to be the problem?”

“(Y/N) here seems to be skipping class, which is such a shame since she’s supposed to be such a bright little witch. I figure a detention with Umbridge should straighten her back up.”

“Excuse me,” you quipped to defend yourself and Draco glared daggers at you.

“See happens to have a free period mate, so just bugger off, mate,” Ron stepped in front of you to guard you from the predator that was in the form of Draco Malfoy, “Why don’t you go perform your prefect duties where there are actually students skipping classes or causing trouble?”

Draco’s eyes flickered between the pair of you, and you couldn’t tell which of you he disdained more in this moment, “Whatever, Weasley. I knew you were ever a filthy Pureblood, but I didn’t expect it from you, (Y/N). Both of you and your families are disgraces of Pureblood Wizards.” With his final blow, Malfoy stomped off in the opposite way to find his next prey.

Immediately, you let out the breathe you didn’t even realize you were holding, “Are you alright, (Y/N)?”

Ron now faced you, holding your arms with his large hands, as his eyes scanned for any outward physical or emotional distress Draco could have caused you. You knew that Ron wouldn’t hold himself back from throwing the first punch if he suspected Draco has hurt you.

“I’m quite alright, Ron. I’m just glad you found me when you did, before Draco could take me to her office,” you shuddered at the thought of Umbridge and what she had done to your peers.

His hand flew to your face as he tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear. His blue eyes gazed deeply into yours, searching for some sort of answering that hid behind his eyes. “Ron-?”

Before you could continue speaking, Ron pressed his lips to yours and you responded just as quick. A strong feeling in your gut assured you that this is where you were supposed to be, in Ron’s arm, his lips connected with yours. Every emotion that every girl had talked about when being around a boy suddenly made sense, and felt more intense with Ron. After what felt like a lifetime, the pair of you pulled apart from each other.

He offered you a half-smile as he appeared too love struck to form a coherent sentence, “I-I”, you pressed another kiss to his lips as if to bring him back into reality. After all this time, everything seemed right and perfect in this little moment in time.

It didn’t matter that Umbridge kept sending out her wolves to discover your little army, or if it was only due time till Voldemort made an appearance. Ron was at your side and you were by his through anything that could possibly happen in this lifetime or any other.

Once you pulled away, he rested his forehead against yours and giggled, “Is now a bad time to say that I quite fancy you?”

“You’re unbearable, Weasley,” You scrunched your nose and turned, beginning your walk to practice. When you didn’t hear him behind you, you turned to see his standing there with his mouth hanging open. You sighed and offered your hand out, “well, are you coming?”

The red head grinned as he took your hand, taking large strides as he giggled, absolutely over the moon that he had just kissed you and was now holding your hand. The pair of you, hand in hand, made your way to join your friends in the Room of Requirement, preparing for whatever came ahead of you.

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#wizarding world of harry potter #Harry Potter #harry potter fanfiction #Ron Weasley #ron weasley imagine #ron weasley x reader #ron weasley one shot #gryffindor!reader #ron weasley x y/n #Draco Malfoy #draco malfoy x reader #fred weasley x reader #george wealsey x reader #hogwarts #mattie writes #folklore/evermore series #willow

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jinxfirebolt18902 · 3 years

Text

What are we, then? - JJ Imagine

A/N: I fell hard into a new obsession: JJ Maybanks yes it is. So, I badly wanted to write something but had literally no ideas so I took this prompt list and made a friend choose 2 random numbers. They picked: 9. “we’re not just friends and you know it”

27. “what do you mean maybe? that was a yes or no question”

So yeah. Enjoy some angst.

Words: 2.249

Pairing: JJ x female!reader

—Don’t you fucking dare walk away from me! —JJ shouted after her.

—Watch me, asshole. —she stopped her steps and half turned her body just to give him the middle finger. Her facial expression showed the rage she felt.

Angry outbursts were pretty common between them. They’d known each other since kindergarten, a couple of years before John B came to the picture. So, their relationship was stronger, deeper. They knew each other to the bones. The gang was used to their loud yet harmless fights. JJ was short-tempered, and so was she. At the end, the fact that they shouted their opinions at each other at the moment they felt it was healthier considering they always reconciled half an hour later.

But this time something was different. An event that had happened between them a few days earlier had changed it everything, and nothing would ever be the same. Such event was unknown by the others, and maybe that’s why they were all so confused.

The thing is, for the first time, neither of them were spitting their feelings out. And oh boy it did cause a lot of misunderstandings.

She and JJ decided to shelter from Agatha at John B’s place. It was no news JJ tried to avoid his house as much as possible. She always convinced her parents of letting her go with them as JJ was considered another son and spent a lot of time at hers, and they also wanted their daughter to be a good friend to John B after his dad went missing. Once her throat burned due to her shouting at John B to get his ass out of the ocean in the middle of a hurricane she gave up and waited for them to come back. Luckily JJ found a little sense within his logic and convinced John B of getting out of the water as the storm was way too heavy.

At the Chateau, they cooked some noodles and ate between anecdotes and candles due to the lack of power. Around 3 in the morning Agatha was still blowing, a few cans of beer empty were around the coffee table, she and JJ were sprawled on the sofa bed and John B asleep in his bedroom. The pair was listening to I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing from her phone as they heard the wind and thunder outside. They’d smoked a blunt and were then absorbed in the flame of the candle in front of them.

Her pupils were dilated and she couldn’t feel his eyes on her. Or at least that’s what he thought.

—Staring is rude dude… —She voiced out loud, but softly, in a sleepy state.

He let out a short laugh and then directed his sight to the candle. —You’re so mean to me.

Now it was her turn to laugh. —Yeah, so?

He gently pushed her arm and then let his head fall on her shoulder, his blonde locks tickling her skin. She rested her head on his and closed her eyes but a moment later he looked up and set his eyes on her face, more serious this time. Her eyes locked with his.

—What? —she said in a whisper.

But he was at a loss of words, which didn’t happen often. They just got in a trance where a lot of emotions were in each pair of eyes with a classic love song in the back. At a certain moment his gaze moved down to her lips and his breath stuck in his throat. JJ was never a shy one when it came to girls. His ego, not confidence, always led situations smoothly. But for the first time in his life, he had no clue what he was doing. It’s not like they hadn’t shared alone moments like this before, they always had. The amount of trust between them had no comparison. They were totally sincere with each other, since they’d met there was not a thing they didn’t know about each other.

JJ leaned in and stopped closing the distance just when there were 2 millimeters left to create contact. His blue orbits checked for permission with hers first. She didn’t move at all. He took that as a green light and collided his mouth with hers.

The kiss was soft, and meaningful. Yes, they had a couple of beers running through their veins, and yes also a little of weed into their systems yet they felt like time stopped. It was like the Universe was created for this and only this moment. They felt everything around them vanished. It felt right, just like when you fit the last piece of the puzzle.

The sound of a lightning striking near their location pulled them apart. They shared one more look though this one was loaded with a bit of embarrassment. The moment got kinda awkward and they dealt with it by pretending what happened did not actually happen. She turned around and he cuddled her like they always did.

The next morning John B woke up first, walking from his bedroom to the porch, catching the pair of friends peacefully sleeping in each other’s arms. He ruffled JJ’s hair asking him if he’d been outside yet only earning a groan as a response. Hours later she woke up and went home without talking to her best friend about the intimate moment they’d shared.

A few days later they threw the kegger, there happened strike one. JJ eventually disappeared with a smokin’ hot tourist, which did not go unnoticed by her. She’d seen JJ go from a clumsy kiddo to the sex symbol boy, she’d been there through the beginning to the end of his puberty, she knew better than even bother by his multiple random hookups. Still, after the intense look he had given her before kissing her had left her somewhat overwhelmed. And the fact that they had shared such a passionate moment together days ago made her actually uncomfortable at witnessing JJ get it with some other girl. This was brand new for her, literally she had never been jealous of the blonde. Oh and, one more time, feelings were bottled up.

Strike two took place at The Wreck when the group was in for a fast food meal. They’d gone inside towards their usual table while Kie went to the kitchen. The boys were just sitting when she was approached by Tom, a pogue, with a “Hey, how have you been?” to which she replied with a genuine smile. The boy had had a crush on her since middle school. He was kinda cute, light brown hair, green eyes, a couple of freckles under his eyes and on his nose. And he was nice, a good guy really. Her mom always wanted them to date but she didn’t find the chemistry reciprocated. And JJ had secretly been relieved by that. Not because he wanted her romantically or anything like that but because he dreaded the time she’d got a boyfriend and stopped hanging out with him. Tom asked her to go surfing with him the next day and she agreed, partly because she hadn’t surfed in weeks, and partly because she had bottled her jealousy at the kegger and kind of wanted to hit it back to JJ, as she was completely aware of how JJ felt towards Tom. Through the corner of her eye she caught JJ’s irritable gesture when she accepted the invitation.

A week after the secret kiss, the gang was at John B’s hanging out. By now, the tension between the two was clear to everyone, and their friends knew an explosion was coming soon. They weren’t teasing the hell out of each other as they usually did. They weren’t sitting next to each other in the boat as they usually did. And they also were hitting each other every chance they got, like when she had smacked his head from behind in the afternoon that same day when they were at the beach and the blonde was flirting with a girl, ruining their moment. Or when she was going to the fridge to seek for a beer can and he was coming out of it and shove his elbow into her arm, earning a gasp and a scowl.

—Yo! What is your problem dude? —her voice denoted she was at the edge which only pleased the blonde even more making him smile.

Kie and John B shared a look as Pope sighed resignedly foreseeing what was coming.

—Maybe the fact that you ruined my moment today.

She scoffed and walked past him rolling her eyes. —Yeah, sure. Cause you have so much trouble slutting around with everything that walks.

—Uhhh, excuse me. Do you have a problem with it?

Their friends sighed and walked out to the porch in order to give them space and to be honest, they were not in the mood to witness another of their fights so they rather stargaze outside while the two sorted it out.

—Oh no, be my guest bro. I’m just sayin’ why do you call me out on “ruining your moment” when you can have “your moments” whenever you want.

He smiled sarcastically and looked down at the floor before lifting up his gaze to her. —You’ve been a pain in the ass the whole week, you are the one with a problem obviously.

—I am not. I’ve been the pain in the ass? Are you sure? Cause someone else comes to my mind. —she rolled her eyes and exhaled loudly as she let herself fall on the couch and took a sip of her drink.

—You’re unbelievable.—Did you mean it?

He looked at her in confusion. —What?

—You know what. Did you mean it?

He shrugged his shoulders and looked down to hide the light blush of his cheeks. —Maybe.

Strike three, you’re out.

—Maybe? What do you mean maybe? That was a yes or no question.

—I-I don’t know —his hand went to grab his hair. —Maybe.

—Forget it. —she stood up and he freaked out.

—What? Are you in your period or something?

That’s when she stormed off the Chateau fuming.

The sound of the slammed door got the other three’s attention, turning their heads to look at the person walking away.

—Don’t you fucking dare walk away from me! —JJ shouted after her.

—Watch me, asshole. —she stopped her steps and half turned her body just to give him the middle finger. Her facial expression showed the rage she felt.

After a few minutes John B, Pope and Kiara all got up and went inside to find JJ standing in the middle of the room with a hand grabbing his hair and with the other holding a beer, looking down at an invisible point on the floor.

—What did you do? —Kie asked him with furrowed eyebrows.

JJ grimaced and sighed. —I might have said the period line… —Kie let her head fall backwards and took a deep breath. —Of course you did…

—That’s just a dick move. Anyway, what is going on between you two? You’ve been annoying all week. —John B voiced.

But he only closed his eyes and breathed out heavily.

Hours later the surfer skated all the way to her house. He threw some rocks at her window to wake her but after a few minutes nothing happened, then he noticed a shadow on the roof, next to one of the windows of the big house. He climbed up and jumped from the tree to the roof, a few feet away from her. She was hugging her knees and staring right ahead with her chin resting on her arms. There were no signs of remaining anger, just plain tiredness, and a touch of sadness. He caught that in her eyes, he knew her so well, and it made his heart sunk to know he had caused it. He cleared his throat and dried his palms on his shorts. He felt nervous and it caused his hands to sweat.

—I’m sorry.

She blinked slowly but kept her gaze set ahead. He felt ashamed by his behaviour.

—We’re not just friends and you know it. —now he did get her attention.

She just smiled and rolled her eyes changing her pose, resting her palms on the roof and leaning her core weight on them.

—What are we exactly, then..? —she was teasing him and he smiled sweetly. He nudged her and they both laughed. A second later he looked down and bit his lip deep in thought. She turned her head to look at him.

—You’re everything to me. —he said quietly, still not daring to lift his sight. —I never want to lose you. —he said with an expression of pain on his beautiful face. She furrowed her brows and hugged him. —You never will, idiot. Have I ever given up on you? —she whispered near his cheek due to the hug. His eyes filled with forbidden tears. He nodded no with his head as he didn't trust his voice. Her smile grew wider and she kissed his cheek softly. —See? I’m always there with you. Every day, every week, every year. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. —he half laughed half sobbed and immediately cleaned the tears forcefully with the back of his hand. She held him tighter and he put his head on her.

—So, I guess the answer is yes, I meant it.

#jj x reader #jj mayback x reader #jj obx #jj imagine #jj maybank imagine

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poepoe-thebunny · 4 years

Text

Rudy/Tony and Fam during Quarantine

Cause this is where my life is at, apparently. I thought I escaped the “quarantine fever writing” that everyone else got. Apparently I was wrong.

After another visit to the castle, the Thompson’s end up there in quarantine once miss rona hits the world. Thank god for WI-FI and working remotely, even if his parents look vaguely like zombies due to time zone differences. Tony can’t talk, his online schooling schedule is all sorts of weird and he’s pretty sure his teacher just wants to sleep until the whole thing is over. Honestly Tony can’t say he blames her.

The Sackville-bagg clan, as it turns out, is a surprisingly overprotective bunch when they need to be, especially now that they have accepted their humans into the fold. Even with catching up on modern medicine and germ theory, they won’t allow anything to happen to their precious humans.

(AU/headcanons incoming??

Rudy/Tony:

- Think Rudy was protective before? Think again.

- Rudy is over 300 years old, he’s old by human standards and he has met people who are old by vampire standards. He’s seen Things(TM) ok?

- He has been through more than one plague in his life. He has seen what it can do to the sick and the poor. He knows it’s a different now, that life-saving machines exist, that they’re working on a vaccine, that soap is widely available.

- But he also knows it’s not.

- Tony? Not going anywhere as far as he is concerned. Say hello to your prince, Rapunzel, cause Rudy is keeping Tony up in that tower if it kills him (again).

- He knows where all of Tony’s masks are, and where he puts the extras.

- He’ even shops online for masks with Tony, finding cool hand-sewn, gothic looking ones for Rudy himself to wear. He’s not sure if Corona even effects vampires, but Tony likes finding stuff to match his “aesthetic’ and it keeps his mortal happy.

- He waits on his mortal hand and foot in between videogames and watching Netflix. (Tony likes How to Train Your Dragon and Paranorman, Rudy likes The Little Prince and Kubo and the Two Strings.).

- Rudy’s first introduction to Tumblr is through Tony, and at one point they reach the Plague Doctor Aesthetics. While Rudy hasn’t spent much time in Italy, he doesn’t think they’re very accurate, and complains as such to his mortal.

- Rudy is surprisingly easily offended about historically inaccurate things, and it sends Tony into laughing fits.

- Rudy is Bad At Memes. Like, just in general he doesn’t always get them, and when Corona Memes become a thing he’s just constantly confused. Poor Rudy honestly.

- Tries to learn to cook healthy human food, except he hasn’t had any major kitchen experience in 200-odd years and it comes out as a disaster the first few times he tries it.

- It turns into a teaching session between him and the other adult humans, turns out the old couple who owns the castle like to feed people. Rudy walks into Tony’s room with a tray piled so high Tony can’t see his head.

-Always offering to fly around the castle to get things for Tony, even if he isn’t sick.

- TikTok dances. Tony shows him, then teaches him. Rudy is shockingly good at them, but Gregory thinks he’s cringy.

Gregory:

(Not me flexing my love of the good big brother trope, absolutely not, nope)

- Surprisingly rather take charge about the whole thing, he’s come around to the Thompson’s and the old couple.

- While his parents help when they can, they sort of take a step back, and let the three siblings explain what’s happening in the world to the clan (if they are there). Being the oldest, Gregory sort of defaults to being the leader.

-Checks in with the Thompson’s, as well as Otto and Emma (The old couple who run the place.) Asks if they need anything while they work/are in school etc.

- Warns the clan to be very careful when visiting, not just for the Thompson’s, but also because Otto and Emma are getting on in years and could become sick very easily. Always asks for a heads up before a family visit.

- Won’t tell anyone but, late at night if he’s not busy, he’ll do things around the castle for the humans, especially upkeep for Otto and Emma, while they sleep.

- Dusting hard to reach spots like chandeliers, organizing books in the old castle library, moving heavy furniture and stuff since he can fly.

-Low key drags Rudy and Anna into helping him clean

(”But Gregory, this is our home now too! I’m sure they don’t mind.”

“Humans are fragile, and they’re letting us stay here out of kindness, so don’t be rude. Clean up after yourself little brother.”

“He’s right you know.”

“Of course I am. And don’t think you’re getting out of cleaning the rafters Anna, and stop leaving your books everywhere for them to pick up.”

‘hmph.” )

- Of the vampires he’s lowkey the best at cooking human food. Tony, Rudy, and Anna just walk into the kitchen at night and Fredrick is just watching his eldest, genuinely amused, as he dances around the kitchen in a “Kill the Cook (Too late, I’m already dead)” apron, blasting out dad rock from the stereo.

-Bonds with the Thompsons over cooking human food, especially Tony’s dad after he teaches Gregory what an “air guitar” move is.

-Gregory discovers pinterest food aesthetics, and is a machine of baking, mixing, and decorating sweet candies/cakes/brownies. He wants his food to look pretty dang it.

- Anna and Rudy just watch, silently judging him.

Anna:

- She’s just thriving tbh.

- She has internet access now, and her brothers have never been more terrified.

-If Gregory is the vampire equivalent of a pinterest mommy, Anna is the vampire equivalent of creepy diy aesthetic tiktokers.

-Not like, bloody horror diy, but like, the subtly creepy but still sweet kind, like the Addams family or Coraline.

- She learned needle arts with her mom, so she’s out here sewing Coraline dolls, or patchwork dresses a la Nightmare Before Christmas cause she CAN.

-Makes her own handbag with those felt cartoonish vampire faces and big fake bat ears on the side.

-Learns more modern patterns and stuff, but will make masks for the humans as gifts, cause she doesn’t want them to get sick.

- After watching Coraline together, she made “Other Me” dolls of her brothers, button eyes included, and stuck them in their coffins. She would make them “move’ by flying them around to different rooms when her brothers weren’t looking, just to freak them out.

- Spoiler alert: it worked. They ran to Tony for help and she laughed over it for days.

- Anna loves adventure books to Rudy’s poetry and Gregory’s fables/folk tales. She hates being excluded from her brothers “adventures”.

-Tony introduces her to comics and video games and she just lives her best life.

-One of her favorite comic book character is Cassandra Cain/Blackbat/The Orphan.

- She loves books like Matilda, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Giver, as well as games like the Lara Croft/Tomb Raider series.

-VICIOUS at video games, this girl has no mercy, she will blue shell you so hard.

The Adults:

-Life is Hard(TM) right now, but the Thompson’s try to make the best of it. They’re very grateful to Otto and Emma for letting them stay.

-They’re both working remotely, so they’re a little messed up sleep schedule wise. But that’s ok, their vampire friends don’t seem to mind.

- Freda teaches Dottie how to make proper tea, cause she likes it and Dottie is sort of addicted to caffeine. Dottie teaches Freda how to make mochas and smoothies, Dottie likes mango-pineapple smoothies and Freda likes hot white chocolate mochas with cinnamon.

-Surprisingly, Frederick and Bob become pretty good friends. Frederick understands the stress of having to care for your family in very uncertain times, and the two men bond over unsure parental decisions.

-Bob is also surprisingly good at making Frederick loosen up, much to Freda and Dottie’s amusement. While initially awkward, they have a surprisingly snarky and sarcastic sort of friendship. Frederick deadpans insults at him and Bob cheerfully annoys him into Being Nice For Once while being completely aware of the fact that he’s annoying Frederick.

-Meals where Bob cooks often consists of him singing oldies into his spatula, making bad impression of certain singers, including Elvis and Cher. He is occasionally joined by Tony and Gregory, making the entire family laugh.

- Anna’s bones may be old, but she can hand sew like a goddess, and has occasionally taken to fixing up the kids’ torn clothes, as Dottie can barely keep straight lines and Freda prefers knitting.

- Someone (read: Freda) mentions that Frederick can play the cello, and after a rousing performance, it turns out that Otto can play an accordion, and of course Bob can play the guitar. A jam session occurs as the kids just stare in utter bewilderment.

- Tony’s grandparents were kinda hippies, so Bob and Dottie know a lot of oldies and folk songs, which while different than from what they normally hear, Otto and Anna connect too. They swap songs back and forth, and it turns out Dottie can do a mean Loretta lynn impression.

- Dottie likes the Beach Boys, and teaches the others how to Twist. As in, the dance, and Freda actually likes it quite a bit.

#the little vampire 3d #the little vampire #TLV #rudolf sackville-bagg #gregory sackville-bagg #anna sackville bagg #tony thompson #quarantine #is fever writing a thing???#I think it is #This is fever writing #Forgive me fandom for I have sinned

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svtmatokis · 5 years

Note

can i request husband seokmin comforting you late at night about your weight insecurities a month after you give birth?

Hiii oh gosh, this is going to be my first Seokmin fic so I hope it’s okay!! Sorry it took so long! >

Requested from Anon~

Words: 2735

Pairing: Reader x Seokmin

Seokmin sat up sleepily as he heard the walk in closet door shut along with a frustrated sigh. He looked at the clock on the nightstand. His eyes narrowed in disbelief at the numbers.

3:45AM

Doing the quick math in his head, he was certain that you had fed your son at 2AM which meant that his next feeding wasn’t due until 5:30 - 6:00AM. He noticed the empty space on your side of the bed and looked towards the closet to see the light on underneath the door.

Sleepily (and somewhat clumsily), he got out of bed and walked towards the closet. He was about to knock but the sound of quiet sobbing made him freeze. Panic hit him as he tore open the door and his heart broke at the sight he saw.

You were sitting on the floor with your head in your hands while various articles of clothing surrounded you. You were quietly sobbing and didn’t notice the closet door open or Seokmin kneeling in front of you, wondering what had gotten you into this mood in the middle of the night.

It’s been close to a month since you gave birth to your wonderful son and you were married for almost to two years now. You two met through mutual friends one night when Seokmin was home and he had to ask why his friends had hidden you all these years. The comment caused an immediate uproar throughout the group because they all knew that Seokmin was your bias in Seventeen which was why they invited you out that night too. You tried to hide your blush by giggling quietly while Seokmin tried to laugh it off but his face was so red that it gave it away.

The comment also did earn him your number and a kiss on the cheek at the end of the night.

After dating for close to three years (and with a good push from his members), he had proposed after a concert in Tokyo that he had specially invited you to and you were just as surprised when he dedicated his solo song to you.

During the wedding, he sung the same song to you and to this day, listening to it made you tear up every time you heard the song.

“Honey, what wrong?” Seokmin asked tiredly, gently wiping the tears away from your cheeks, “What’s made my sunshine so upset?”

Looking up, you didn’t realize your husband had been there the whole time and you tried to hide your face. You didn’t want him to see you like this, you were not ready to tell him what was going on in your mind.

Over the last month, you realized after giving birth, your body was never going to be like it used to be and you couldn’t help but let it bother you. A lot of your friends, a few being the wives and girlfriends of other members often commented on how much your body had changed throughout the course of your pregnancy which hit a small nerve in you since you already knew that and despite trying to work out when you could, the stress of being a new mom definitely got to you but you tried to hide it from your husband since he already had other things to worry about.

Your son was born two weeks premature and Seokmins tour was supposed to end a week prior to your sons arrival but of course,nothing ever went as planned.

Seokmin had watched the delivery over facetime. Thankfully, you two had planned ahead for situations like this and Seokmin had entrusted Jungkook to care for you as the two of you had become close. He was like the older brother you never had and was the only one who knew of your situation since he caught one of your friends talking about how a certain shirt couldn’t fit you properly and should probably get rid of it. He obviously tried to tell you otherwise but realized you were stuck in that one mind set and only supported you when he could and that also meant pushing you to tell your husband. You consistently told him that you’d get around to it but the chance never came.

Seokmin was now home full time as the company had given him leave to be with his new family. Of course that didn’t mean that your sons 12 other uncles never came over (one or two would visit everyday) and Jungkook, along with Yugyeom and BamBam dropped by almost twice a week. Which one was the godfather? Seokmin was still trying to figure it out.

Seokmin as a huge help around the house and would often take the night time feedings so you could sleep longer. It never really worked out that way as you often had insomnia and Seokmin would find you asleep in the rocking chair, your son asleep in your arms.

He was surprised this time that he found you in the closet and looked at the clothing splayed around. They were all summer dresses and he remembered that they were going to be attending the Seventeen annual family beach gathering.

“Y/N?” He questioned softly lifting your chin making you look into his eyes. “Tell me what’s wrong sweetheart” he said gently and wiped your tears with the pad of his thumbs.

“It’s stupid” you muttered looking down.

Seokmin gave you a look, “You know you can’t say that Sunshine. Everything that has to do with you and our son… our family is important. Whatever has you upset in the middle of the night is definitely important.” He stated though his voice still gentle.

After a few moments, Seokmin heard you sniffle and sigh. He was right and with the how much Jungkook had been telling you to talk to your husband. You realized that yes, he was the man of the house and if there was anyone in this world that could make your frown turn upside down. It was him.

You told him everything. From the comments of your friends about your baby weight to how your clothes were fitting like they should. You knew it was all part of being a new mom but it was also discouraging because you were trying but your body was still in recovery mode and it was taking a bit longer to bounce back.

“I really don’t feel up to going tomorrow…” you let out a deep sigh knowing it would disappoint your husband, “I feel so worn out…you can tell them I’m sick and take Y/S/N with you.”

After hearing all this, Seokmin sat in silence. He was now fully awake and processing exactly what was going through his mind. He was disappointed in your friends as a lot of them already had children and for them to say what they said was hypocritical. He knew he was right when he first started seeing the signs of postpartum depression. The doctor told him that you had a past history of depression so your chances were higher. He took one good look at you and saw the eye bags and tired eyes.

A few of the members who came to visit, namely Mingyu and Minghao brought it up one day after noticing how out of character you were.But Seokmin brushed it off as you having the night shift before they came. His heart also hurt because you were going through this alone and he almost felt like it was too late.

Letting out a breath, he pulled you into his arms so your back was resting against his chest. His arms were around your waist and his head buried in your neck.

“Seokminnie?” you said in a baby voice and he nuzzled your neck in acknowledgment

“I made an appointment with our doctor.” You said softly, “will you come with me?”

“Of course Honey.” Seokmin answered in a whisper happy that you were acknowledging whatever problem you had. He knew that whatever it was, he would support you fully and with the time off he had to be with his new family, he would make sure you didn’t go through whatever alone.

He was also thinking about the perfect plan to have you enjoy tomorrow. Even though you said you didn’t want to go, he knew that you would have fun with everyone and he didn’t want you to miss out. “Why don’t we go back to bed and we’ll talk about the get together in the morning…”

Without letting you answer, Seokmin picked you up bridal style and brought you back to bed and as soon as you were in his arms, you felt the impossible of sleep take over you.

The next morning you awoke to laughter from the living room and walked out surprised to find Mingyu and Minghao with their respective wives and children.

Looking up, Mingyus wife smiled at you and stood up to give you a hug as Minghaos wife did the same. They were soon followed by their respective husbands.

“Morning Sunshine” Seokmin said bouncing your son on his knee. “Did you sleep well?”

Pulling away from the hugs, you nodded your head a small smile resting on your face.

“What’s everyone doing here? Don’t you guys have to prepare for the party?” You asked confused and the five others in the room grinned.

“The men will be preparing today Y/N” Mingyu answered. “You lovely ladies are going to prepare for the party tonight.”

You automatically shot Seokmin a look in which he responded with an innocent smile.

“We thought that you three could use a break from being moms today” Minghao added. “We’ll take care of the kids for the afternoon and we’ll meet back here and head to the party together.”

“Are you sure…?” You asked sitting by Seokmins side as he handed you your son before wrapping his arm around your shoulder.

You then turned to look at him, “What about Y/S/N? He still has to eat… and then we have to get him ready…” your questions started hitting him a mile a minute and he had to put a finger over your lips to silence you.

“It’s all been sorted out. The wives will go shopping and have a spa day while us husbands prepare the food for tonight and watch the kids.” He then looked down at Mingyus son gently caress the top of the babies head.

Even though he was only a year older, the infant grew fond of your son right away and never left his side. You had no idea how the three of you ended up with boys. Mingyu had recently celebrated his sons first year as Minghaos wife was due early in the new year. There was going to be trouble in the near future but you were looking forward to it. Besides, you put up with your husbands enough as it is.

“Plus I’m sure this little one will be able to care for Y/S/N better than his own father.” Minghao added causing a, “HEY” to come from Mingyu.

“They’ll be fine Y/N.” Mingyus wife said, “Plus we’ll only be fifteen minutes away so if anything happens we can come back right away.” She reassured.

“You haven’t seen the girls since Y/SN was born. Go have fun.” Seokmin whispered and you looked into his eyes and all you could see was reassurance. He wanted what was best for you and you knew that you could trust him. He was the father of your son after all.

You thought for a moment and looked down at your son who had fallen asleep in your arms and reluctantly gave in. You has a hunch that your husband had something to do this with this sudden get together and he was right. You couldn’t remember the last time you really hung out with your friends and enjoyed girl time.

Reluctantly, you handed your son to Seokmin and looked everyone.

“Give me fifteen minutes to get ready and we can go.” You said going in to your bedroom to shower and change.

As you were saying your goodbyes to Seokmin, you felt him slide a piece of plastic in your hands.

Looking up at him with question, he leaned down to kiss your forehead tenderly.

“Go buy something nice for yourself tonight. I already gave the other girls explicit instructions to make sure you do so don’t try get out of it.” He then leaned down enough to look you in the eyes. “I want you to be comfortable tonight okay? Don’t worry about a thing Sunshine. Say goodbye to Y/S/N and I’ll see you later okay? I love you.”

Leaning up to peck him on the lips you smiled. “Thank you. I love you too.”

After a full day of pampering, the six of you were now on your way to the event space with your respective children. Seokmins parents had offered to take Y/S/N for the night and were coming to pick him up later in the evening.

As you watched the scenery go by, Mingyu’s wife who you were particularly close to and was sitting beside let out a soft sigh.

“You’re really lucky to have Seokmin. Why didn’t you tell us you were feeling this way?” She asked. The group had rented a large van and Seokmin along with the husbands and children were sitting closer up front while Minghao drove.

“I didn’t think you guys would understand. You lost your baby weight so quickly and the other wives were making comments…” you answered as Mingyus wife shook her head.

“Everyone’s bodies are different. Yours is just taking longer to bounce back which is completely understandable considering how much stress you’ve been under” She said, “And who cares what the other wives and girlfriends think. Remember Y/N, it took me a while to get over my postpartum depression… but Mingyus been such a big support system just like Seokmin will be yours. You can lean on him.”

Later that in the evening, you and Seokmin walked hand in hand along the beach. Seokmins parents had come to take Y/S/N earlier on as did many other Seventeen’s members parents to their respective grandkids.

The party had winded down and everyone had started a large bonfire. You and Seokmin took the opportunity to escape to have some one on one time.

“Did I tell you that you look beautiful this evening?” He asked he swung your hands between you two. The sound of the waves was soothing and you both loved the smell of fresh sea air.

“Mmm not that I can recall” you said coyly as you gave him a side glance and he placed a kiss to your forehead when the two of you stopped at the shoreline.

“Well you look beautiful today” he commented in a whisper wrapping his arms around your waist so you could look at the large moon in the sky.

A comfortable silence enveloped you two as you watched the waves roll in and out. The two of you had fun. You had your small group within Seventeen and being around Minghao and Mingyus families definitely helped you feel calm. No one really bothered you and you didn’t let them either. You had fun and danced with Seokmin while one of the members held your son on the side and when he wasn’t around, Mingyus wife wayour side as their son was also attached to yours.

Throughout the night, Seokmin came to check on you every so often and when he asked you to take a walk, you knew it was the breather you both needed.

Looking out at the sea, you thought about the last month and what progressed. You were slowly coming to terms with what your body was going through and for the first time, you knew you weren’t alone. You never were.

You squeezed Seokmins hand as you took a deep breath of the sea air and he returned your squeeze while giving you a questioning look which in return you giggle happily making him smile brightly. It was the first real smile he’d seen on you in a long time and he was determined to keep it there for all of eternity.

#seventeen #seventeen imagine #seokmin #kpop #kpop imagine #kpop scenario #dk #svt #svt imagine #svt scenario

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asoftervirge · 5 years

Text

between the salt water and the sea strands

RATING: PG, may increase as the story goes on PAIRINGS: R. Sanders/P. Sanders (main); T. Sanders/OMC (mentioned)

FIC WARNINGS/KINKS: Drinking, Near Death, mentions of drowning FIC SUMMARY: Roman, a young sea captain, is rescued by a mysterious person

TAGLIST: @backatthebein, @levy-the-b00kw0rm, @ierindoodles, @rosesandstuff, @notveryglittery, @patchworkofstars (if anybody else wishes to be tagged, please let me know!)

CLICK HERE IF YOU READ IT ON AO3 INSTEAD!

“And we’ll roll the old chariot along, we’ll roll the old chariot along, we’ll roll the old chariot along and we’ll all hang on be-hind~”

Roman smiled as he listened to his crew finish their shanty before clanking their tankards loudly and raising them to the high heavens, then laughing jovially as they spilled beer and ale onto the deck of the ship. He didn’t mind it of course, as he had his fair share of being a sloppy drunk and spilling everywhere. Besides, the ship’s deck also had her taste of sea water, blood, and fish guts, so a drunken sailors’ mess is just something else that makes her unique.

The young man made his way to the front of the ship, gracefully maneuvering around the swaying sailors that are mere seconds away from collapsing, gazing out at the view in front of him. The night’s sky was black and dark gray with no stars twinkling amidst its thick clouds, while the water that surrounded the ship was a eerie mix of dark green and blue. With how beautiful it was, it was hard to tell where the sky ended and the sea began.

He inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of salty water and feeling the cold wind blow harshly in his face, then exhaled slowly opening his eyes as he did so (which he didn’t even know were closed in the first place).

“Lovely, isn’t Logan?” he asked the mysterious person walking up to him from behind. He knew it was Logan due to how loud his footsteps were against the deck. That, and Logan wasn’t much of a drinker of ales and beers, stuck-up wine connoisseur.

“In seascapes and literature? Yes. But actually going out on a sea-faring travel? I’ll pass, thank you.”

Roman pouted. “You’re just a ripe old fuddy-duddy, aren’t you?”

Logan pondered that thoughtfully. “No. More like, someone who’d rather not become a victim of the sea’s cruelty and become feast to the creatures that call her their home.”

“In other words, a fuddy-duddy.”

“To each his own, I suppose.”

Roman groaned and dragged Logan closer to him. “Look at her, Logan! How can you call her cruel? She may be a wild thing, but she still as her moments of peacefulness!”

“And we have yet to see that since we left earlier this afternoon,” Logan reminds him, completely focusing his attention on un-wrinkling his sleeve rather than at the sight of the sea in front of him. “Remind me again, why we’re still out here? You know what your Father said—”

“That I shouldn’t be out at sea when it’s dark and dreadful out,” Roman mocked while rolling his eyes which, in turn, made Logan roll his. “Listen, we’re not that far off from port—”

“Nearly 20 nautical miles.”

“—My men are happy—”

“Because they’re drunk to the gills with beer and singing shanties.”

“—So why not enjoy the sea just a little while longer?”

“Firstly, a storm is on the horizon, so it would be best to sail back to port now. Secondly, I don’t understand how you became a thalassophile in the first place. You always liked riding your horse across the mountains, yet you suddenly develop a love for the sea a few years ago. How is that?”

(Truth be told, Logan knew the answer, and Roman knew he knew the answer.)

Roman had always loved the sea. Ever since he was a child, he always called the sea his second home. He loved her personality, her energy, the way she caressed the shore of the beach on her good days, and raged with fury on her bad. The way she stretched on for miles and miles. Empty, open, free. He loved the feeling of the wind blowing in his hair, the salty spray on his face, the sound of the waves lapping against the side of his ship and crashing in his ears.

He’d grown up in the capital city of Alexandria, which was also the largest port town in the country. You would think as someone who grew up near the sea, he would eventually get tired of it, but he never did. He didn’t have the heart to, his love of the sea remained to this very day.

His father Thomas was an actor in a theatre troupe, while his papa Alejandro was a sea merchant and a sailor. Whenever his papa came home from his travels, he would always tell little Roman story after story about what life was like on the sea, the places he had sailed to, and the people he had met during his trades. It would always bring a excited sparkle to the boy’s eyes, proudly declaring that he wanted to travel the sea with his Papa one day.

Unfortunately, that day never came because Alejandro was killed in an unexpected pirate raid when Roman was a small child. While Thomas wanted to forbid his son from going out onto sea, that only increased his desires. He couldn’t stand being so close to his calling, yet he wasn’t able to answer her. From morning to night he could hear sing beckoning to him, yearning for him to control her tempestuous nature and explore her mysterious, adventure-bound waters.

(And bless Poseidon, Amphitrite, Triton, and any other deity of the sea that gave him that opportunity.)

Being from a sea port town, he was used to having the occasional visit from pirates, usually making trades or wanting to get smashed at the drinking house, rarely did the town get pillaged due to it’s importance in sea trading, but that doesn’t stop pirates from being idiots.

One night, Roman and his boyhood friend and future navigator, Logan Faraday, found a young pirate captain swindling the residents out of coin and weapons, along with any other trinket they happened to have bet on. That, was when Roman decided to strike. He decided that he was going to challenge the captain to a bet; this time, through a coin toss. The rules where simple: if Roman won, he’d take the captain’s ship. If the the captain won, he’d take Roman’s most prized possession, a necklace that his papa gave him before he died.

Roman chose heads, the pirate captain chose tails. The coin landed on tails, yet it was Roman that was the real winner.

(Let me explain, both Roman and Logan noticed the captain cheating during all of his challenges. With Logan’s knowledge, and Roman’s papa teaching him about pirates and gambling, they were able to figure out the captain’s trick. Even one as petty as swapping a real coin for a fake.)

(With a chill and humbled smile, the captain surrendered his ship to Roman. Turns out that the young pirate captain was secretly hoping someone would notice his cheating so he could give up his life as a pirate. Wasn’t all that fun for him anymore. Fortunately, he managed to find fun with his handsome, sellsword of a husband.)

And that, was how The Crimson Prince was born.

“You do happen to know The Salt-Water Poems and Ballads, by any chance?” Roman asked after a long period of silence.

Logan quickly snapped his head towards him, the redoing of his cufflinks coming to a screeching halt. “You mean the book of seafaring and maritime history poems by John Masefield?” he asked, making sure he heard Roman right. Once his friend nodded, he only guffawed (not that he would admit that) and exclaimed, “Of course I do! It is, after all, the only poetry book you’ve ever read in your life.”

Roman rolled his eyes. “Then you know what I’m going to recite.” he tells him, standing proudly now, pretending to hold a tankard in one hand and gesturing to the sea in the other as he begins to quote:

“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.”

Logan sat down, not actually caring about how dirty his clothing will get, and propped an elbow on one of his knees, resting his chin in his palm. He couldn’t help but shake his head fondly because even if he’s heard Roman recite this poem hundreds of times over the years, he secretly loves hearing Roman loudly proclaiming his love for Mother Nature’s cruelest mistress.

“I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.”

Logan gave a miniature applause when Roman finishing reciting (even if he intentionally leaves out the third verse). Roman smiled and bowed dramatically, laughing heartily as he helped Logan to his feet.

The sea was his home; she loved him and his father as they loved her. If there was ever a life he lived where it didn’t involve the sea, it wasn’t a life worth living.

A flash of light suddenly made the sky glow for a second and Logan grew worried. For as much as Roman loved to talk about the sea’s beauty, he knew she held as much fury as she did serenity. Logan knew her wrath as well as her comforts, her storms as well as her gentle waves, and he knew to fear the darkening of the skies above and the enlivening of the water below.

He knew to avoid the sea’s wrath— and he knew how hard it was to escape it.

“Roman,” he began calmly, not wanting to raise alarm in his friend and captain. “Now do you believe me when I say we should head back to port?”

Roman nodded. “You’re right.” he said, quickly making his way back to the ship’s helm. “Alright men, enough lollygagging! Get sober quickly and raise the anchor, we’re retreating to shore!”

Soon, rain began to fall across the deck in sheets of freezing cold, and violent waves tossed the ship from side to side; Roman shivered as he clung to the ship’s wheel to keep from tipping the boat over, his knuckles stark-white as he desperately tried to steer out of the raging storm. Logan stood to his side, snapping rapid-fire commands to the crew below, his grim face illuminated by the lightning crackling above and his sharp voice carrying over the deafening rumbles of thunder.

Roman shoved his dripping hair from his face and grit his teeth, yanking the wheel to the side. The ship rocked dizzyingly beneath him as the ocean battered it from below with all her might.

Crack, boom!

He whirled around, a desperate cry tearing from his lips as lightning suddenly slammed into the deck, sending his crewmates, his family, flying. The rain fell but did nothing to stop the flames the lightning left behind, growing bigger and more monstrous with every inch of Roman’s ship they devoured. As the embers flew and the heat licked at Roman, he turned and gripped the wheel once more, desperate to steer them out, to save them…but it was too late.

The water filled his lungs the moment he fell beneath, and though he chocked and struggled, he couldn’t find the surface in the midst of the chaos, couldn’t escape the darkness and the whirling, churning waves. The sea engulfed him at all sides, sending him tumbling, and darkness crept at the edge of his mind as the sea dragged him below.

He’d always known he belonged at sea, and now, like his Papa before him, he was coming home.

When Roman finally regained consciousness, his head hurt and lungs burned from the salt water he coughed up, he heard a singing voice. A singing voice that sounded like it belonged to an angel, hymnal and otherworldly, but he couldn’t understand any of the words. He considered it to be one of the most beautiful voices he had ever heard. He blinked wearily, the high sun shining directly in his eyes, wanting to see who the enchanting song belonged to.

Vaguely, he could see the silhouette of his savior’s face, the sun illuminating around their face, almost like they were carrying a halo. Due to this, he first believed them to be Papa coming to take him to the Great Kingdom in the Sky (he wouldn’t have minded that if he was honest). He gave them a gentle, appreciative smile, but before he could uttered a word of thanks or even a question as to who they were, they disappeared.

“W-Wait! P-Please!” Roman’s voice was raspy and it broke a little when he called out to them. He began pushing himself upward, ignoring both his head and body aches as he tried to stop the person from leaving. When he had fallen into the ocean, he was certain he was sinking to his grave, but here he was, still alive and breathing. All thanks to this mysterious savior who wished to remain just that, a mystery.

When he was finally able to sit up completely and all sunspots had left his vision, they were gone, no sign of them whatsoever. He frowned as he began to look around, wondering where they’ve gone.

For a few moments, Roman was afraid he imagined the entire scenario…but here was no way he could’ve come up with something that creative, could he? But if he did…why did their sweet voice and warm touch continue to linger in his mind. Why did it seem so realistic?

The young captain’s overthinking was soon interrupted by another voice calling out to him, followed by the loud crunching of footsteps on the sand.

“Roman!” the familiar voice yelled. “Thank the Gods you’re alright! We thought you’d died!”

A pair of hands carefully grabbed his shoulders as their form came into his field of vision. As soon as Roman was able to fully recognize their face, an enormous sense of relief washed over him as he let out a shaky breath.

“Logan,” he whispered hopefully, becoming overwhelmed with emotion. When he was thrown off the ship, one of the other thoughts that flooded his mind (aside from his Father and Papa) was Logan; how his beloved friend and navigator was also to meet a watery grave because of his pride and stubbornness. “I…I’m so sorry!”

“Shh,” Logan soothed softly, his voice strangely calm and gentle. Even if it went against his usually cool demeanor, he pulled Roman into a protective embrace. One that showed that everything was alright, and that he was alive and feeling Logan’s warmth encompassing him. “We believe you drowned. Some of our crew tried to aid you, but the currents were too strong. How did you manage to swim against them, surely your nose and lungs would’ve been filled with water.”

“Someone…someone saved my life.”

“Oh?” Logan asked, voice tinged with curiosity as he looked around the cove. “If so, then where are they? And how did they manage such a feat?”

“I don’t know…they’ve gone.”

“I’m sorry?”

“They’ve gone,” Roman repeated. “I woke up to the most gorgeous singing I’ve ever heard— what it was, I don’t know since I couldn’t translate the words— and then I saw them, or almost saw them, but then…they were gone…”

“Roman, I’m sorry but that doesn’t make much sense.” Logan tells him. “Are you sure you weren't hallucinating?"

“Logan, you— you have to understand I’m not making this up!” the young captain protested strongly, glaring at his friend with firm eyes. “I saw them, I heard them! I know they’re real!”

“You nearly died from drowning. It’s quite common for seafarers to have hallucinations, especially when they’ve nearly drank themselves to oblivion." Logan placated, resting the back of his hand on his friend’s forehead. "You also know that we’ve heard similar stories at the bars we’ve been to, sailors saying they’ve been saved by mysterious folk to draw in a crowd.”

Roman growled and violently shook his head to the point where another wave of pain rushed to him. He wasn’t even drinking on the ship, Logan knew that! And why would he make something like this up?! He was known to tell an exaggerative story, but nothing of this scale and grandeur.

This person, angel, whomever, was real! The vague, sweet-looking face, the angelic voice, the feeling of soft skin lightly brushing against his own. It couldn’t have been a hallucination, Roman was convinced of that.

Where had they gone when he tried to thank them? How could they have disappeared so suddenly and without a trace? Who were they? Maybe it was Papa, Roman thought with a sad chuckle.

But if it was Papa, he would’ve known; he would’ve called Roman “his little hijo del mar” and affirm that “the seas have called us home”; he would’ve sung to him in a deep voice, rich with passionate experience, not light with a calm gentleness; and he would’ve held a guiding hand and led him to the Heavens. So who was it that saved his life?

“Come, Roman. Let me take you home. I’m sure Thomas is worried sick about you.” Logan wrapped his arm around his friend’s waist, leading him back to port. After a few moments of trying to convince Logan his story was true (and the navigator remained in denial), Roman begrudgingly ceased his protests and allowed himself to be lead home.

#Sanders Sides #Sanders Sides AU #Roman Sanders #Logan Sanders #Patton Sanders #Royality #between the salt water and the sea strands

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5sospank · 6 years

Text

vapor - luke one shot

word count: 7,278

rating: NSFW

keywords: smut, songfic, angst

summary: All good things come to an end. You spent your summer between the sheets with Luke, the boy from the beach house next door, lying to him while he was in love with you. On your last night together, you are left to face the music and he is left to pick up the pieces.

A/N: this piece is inspired by vapor by 5sos, obviously. it’s my fav song by them and i wanted to write something that reflected how i interpret the lyrics. i hope you enjoy. this is my favorite one shot i’ve written :)

You could taste the guilt on your tongue. The wistful words bounced around your brain repeatedly; a reminder of who you pretended to be throughout your entire summer spent on the coast. You weren’t quite sure what it was that had inclined you to act in such a way. You were manipulative, careless of his blatant attachment to you and apparent sentimental feelings, but what you did was done and it couldn’t be changed. Not after all these months, not after all the time you had with him wrapped blissfully between the sheets, and it certainly could not be changed after tonight.

Maybe that’s why you decided there was no point in being honest now. Maybe that was why you continued your facade, hanging on his every word as you sat beside him around the bonfire. The two of you weren’t alone. It was an end of the summer party held on the beach just blocks away from the house that your family had rented for the season. Tomorrow you would be returning home. Everything was coming to an end. Maybe that was why you couldn’t gather up the courage to be jarringly truthful.

So you sat beside him, swallowing up his presence for the last hours you were able to until you flew back home, which was unfortunately located across the country. You couldn’t deny the fact that you had enjoyed the summer with Luke. He was good company. You had found a friend in him, someone worth confiding in, but you also couldn’t deny the fact that his feelings for you were of a magnitude that overpowered yours completely.

He was in love with you. Luke was absolutely, positively in love with you. It was evident in his every move, his every touch, his every glance. You didn’t feel the same, so you lied to him. The disingenuous words would fall from your tongue each time you kissed him, felt his body flush against yours, warm and comforting, familiar.

However, the regret you felt because of your actions weighed heavy on your heart. You had never known yourself to be deceitful, but you were selfish; that much you could admit. You couldn’t stand to be cooped up alone with your family for the entire summer, so when you met the boy who lived in the beach house next door, he seemed as though he was decent company enough. In actuality, Luke was more than that. He was everything you could ever dream of, but somehow, something was missing.

You forced yourself to push the thoughts out of your head. You were brought back to yourself, lulling into reality when you felt his strong arm wrap around your frame. A breeze was picking up despite the hot, roaring fire in front of you, illuminating the features of everyone sat around its perimeter. Luke’s eyes were cold and alert; a contrast to what they usually looked like when his gaze would lock on yours, light to match his smile, which was also failing to make an appearance at the moment. He was thinking. You could practically see the gears turning within his own head, his jaw clenched and his lips set in a thin line.

With a soft sigh, you leaned into his side just slightly, making him aware that you wanted his attention. Once Luke looked down at you, his stare dropped over your face in observation. He raised his brows. “What’s up, babe?”

The petname tugged at the hole in your heart, which was only growing with every passing second. It was your last night spent with the boy who you had wrapped around your finger for the entire summer. The both of you were realizing it, although the definitive feeling in the air was affecting Luke more than it was you.

“Just wanted to know what you were thinking of.” You murmured in reply. Your proximity to him was so close, you could shift forward a fraction of an inch and your lips would be on his.

Luke smiled, although the gesture was empty. Forced. “I was thinking of getting out of here, maybe taking a drive.” He replied nonchalantly. “Wanna talk to you.”

You felt yourself tense. You knew what he meant by “talk” and you also knew that it didn’t mean he was just up for the mindless chat that the two of you usually shared. Luke was being serious. You could see it etched into his every feature.

“All right,” you said. “Let’s go.”

The two of you stood up from the flimsy plastic lawn chairs in synchronization, turning the heads of those who were sat around the fire with you. You said your goodbyes. Some were saddening, considering you had made a good handful of friends that summer, but you eventually walked from the beach with ease. Some relationships were meant to be fleeting, you had learned.

Your footsteps fell heavy once you reached the pavement, nearing Luke’s old pickup truck. The two of you had spent much time crammed into its cab, singing along to the radio’s top ten pop songs with the windows rolled down. Sometimes you would find the energy to get up early with him and go through the drive thru, getting coffees and donuts to share while you would watch the sunrise. He would drive you around town, revving the sputtering engine to impress you, although his attempts would fail miserably. The memories were warm.

You could feel the lump in your throat begin to thicken.

Luke was walking a short distance behind you, but he quickly picked up his pace to step in front of you to open up the passenger door and help you in. You felt his hand linger on the small of your back once you climbed into the cab, inhaling his scent for one of the last times. He shut the door in silence and rounded the vehicle’s front, swinging himself up into the driver’s seat before turning the key in its ignition.

The radio continued playing from before when he had picked you up for the party. It hummed low in the background, clouded by the white noise that was resonating in your mind. You could feel the tension between the two of you, how it was masking what was supposed to be a bittersweet ending to one of the best vacations of your life. You had messed up. You had fucked with Luke’s feelings, and you didn’t deserve to be sad about it.

He pulled out of the parking lot. You watched the way his arms were extended outward, fingers curling around the steering wheel effortlessly. His side profile was illuminated by the sporadic street lamps, his jaw littered with patchy stubble that you had grown to admire. He looked good, but unhappy.

“What did you want to talk about?” You urged yourself to ask. Your voice sounded foreign, unknown due to its shake.

Luke swallowed thickly, glancing over at you as the two of you waited at a stop light. The entire town was quiet, asleep, considering it was well past midnight and the population consisted mainly of retired elderly people. You liked the peacefulness of your surroundings.

“I, uh, just wanted to talk about us, really.” He stuttered out. He seemed nervous as well, chewing on his lower lip, his thumbs tapping repetitively against the steering wheel.

You said nothing in reply. You weren’t sure of how to bring up the subject of your relationship with Luke, if you could even call it that. The two of you had spent the past three months hooking up without ever defining whatever you were. However, you were practically inseparable, and you knew how he felt about you even if he never explicitly said it.

You inhaled sharply as if to brace yourself. “Luke…I have to leave tomorrow. You know that.” You muttered. Your tone was deflated and hopeless.

Luke continued driving down the main street, the low hum of his truck comforting you despite the hecticness that was going on within your thoughts. You could see how your words had already began to cut into him, leaving him bleeding already.

He was silent for another moment. You watched as he turned the truck into the empty parking lot of a local restaurant. It was dark, but you could still make out the torn expression on his face. He didn’t want to hear the answers you had to his questions. He already knew. But he still felt as though he should ask. He needed some sort of closure. He fell in love with you in the span of three months, and he wasn’t sure if he would ever see you again. Luke was holding onto the one last shred of hope he had, that maybe you were in love with him too.

The truck was in park. Luke turned off the ignition, although the keys were still abandoned in the ignition. You two were sitting in uncomfortable silence. He was the first to break the impending quiet.

“I know you’re gone tomorrow, but I figured this would be…worth a shot, maybe.” He muttered, shifting in his seat to look at you fully.

You couldn’t help but stare back at him. He was so beautiful, and he was right in front of you all summer. You felt awful for stringing him on.

“What are you trying to say, Luke?” You sighed.

He ran his fingers through his hair, thinking before he spoke, spitting out his words in haste. “Do you love me?”

You weren’t sure what you were expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. The blunt question made your blood run cold. You froze, your eyes still locked on his, and you could detect the hope that was laced within his gaze. He was completely and utterly still, afraid to even move a muscle, as if even that would change your answer.

But you took too long to come up with a response. Your answer was lain in your hesitation. You didn’t love him back, not in the way that he loved you, at least. You didn’t love him. Even though the months that you had spent with him were some of the best of your life, stuck by his side through every hour of the day, spent creeping into his bedroom while trying not to wake his parents. You didn’t love him, even though he was the one you shared the summer with, sneaking kisses on the beach or wiping the ice cream from the tip of his nose as you laughed. You didn’t love him and you couldn’t bother to hide it. Not anymore.

Still, you opened your mouth for his benefit. You wanted to tell him you loved him. You wanted to love him. But Luke caught you, raising his hand in interruption, bowing his head as he stared down onto his lap.

“Just…nevermind. Don’t say anything,” he replied, dejected, his voice hoarse. “But I love you. And I-I want you to remember me, all right?”

It was almost as if you could feel your heart shatter into millions of tiny little pieces. You could feel it sinking into your chest, your palms warm with nervous sweat as you stared into the eyes of a boy who loved you with everything in him, but you didn’t feel the same. You never knew that guilt could hurt so badly.

“I’m sorry.” You whispered sadly.

Luke shook his head, running his palms over his jaw. You watched his actions, noticed the blatant disappointment that shone through in his every movement. However, you were surprised once you heard him say, “C’mere.”

“What?”

“Come here.” He repeated himself. “Let me kiss you. One last time, just let me kiss you.”

You were unsure of yourself as you unbuckled your seatbelt. You already felt bad enough about leading him on for so long. The fact that he still wanted to kiss you was confusing, but you wanted to do whatever would make him feel better. So you shifted over the seats in the cab of his truck until you were side by side, although Luke had other ideas. He was already pulling you into his lap, already pushing your hair out of your face. His fingertips ghosted over your jawline as his eyes studied you. It was like he was trying to memorize the way you looked, because the both of you knew it would be the last time.

And then he was leaning in, just brushing his lips over yours gently and slowly, his eyes barely open. You were shaking like a leaf beneath his touch, overwhelmed and perplexed, guilty and disconsolate. But he was calming you. His hands on you were like a saving grace, feeling the same as they did all summer long, palms calloused and rough against your smooth skin. His taste hadn’t changed and you felt yourself wanting to remember him, just as he had said. Your feelings differed but you didn’t want to forget him.

You melted into his kiss, caving into him completely and fully, letting him wrap his arms around you. You cupped his face in your hands, feeling his facial hair scratch against you as his jaw moved while his lips did. His kisses were slow and deliberate, pointed, as if he was trying to make the moment worthwhile. You had never kissed him so languidly and effortlessly before, and suddenly, you wished you had spent the whole summer like this - savoring his words and his flavor and the way he fit with you.

Luke sighed against your lips, pulling away after a moment to trail his hands up and over your shoulders, down the expanse of your arms as he admired the way you looked while you were perched in his lap. He was quiet and his chest was heaving gently, heart racing, breathless. You were in the same condition, in awe of what had just happened between the two of you. You could hear your blood pounding in your ears, your lips tingling from his kiss.

“This is the last time we’ll ever see each other, isn’t it?” He questioned, tenor gravelly.

“Yeah,” you nodded. “It is.”

Luke frowned and his fingers curled around your wrists subtly. You stared down at him, awaiting his next move, but time was frozen at the moment. It felt as if you were going to be stuck in the cab of Luke’s truck with him forever, retracing the memories in your head, reminding yourself of how much he loved you.

“Let’s make the most of it, then.” Luke stated quietly.

Your eyebrows drew together at the sound of his words. You cocked your head, immediately opposed to his proposition, but Luke seemed dead set in his ways. He was nodding, already convincing you with the mere look on his face, moving to hold your hands in his own and squeeze.

“C’mon,” he whispered. “It’s only one more night. Just…just lie to me again.”

You blinked. You felt horrible while listening to the desperation in his voice, how badly he wanted to make this night with you last forever. And you were sure that in Luke’s mind, it would last forever - he would play these moments over and over again in his head, play your memories on repeat, thinking of all the times that you told him you were in love, but not with your words - with your actions.

So you did what he said. You leaned in, quicker than you had before, succumbing to his conviction as you kissed him passionately, igniting the fire that had been burning inside of you ever since you met him. Your body fit together with his perfectly, skin electrified by his mere touch, but there was an emotional disconnect that you had finally been able to acknowledge. Except now, the two of you were ignoring it.

And you reveled in that - in the ability to suppress your guilt and your regret as you buried yourself in Luke’s kiss, twining your fingers through his hair as you pushed it up and off his forehead. He whimpered while you shifted in his lap, feeling your lower halves move closer as you arched into him. His hands smoothed down your back, gripping your hips as your tongue rolled along his acutely.

Luke pulled away just a fraction of an inch, his lips still against yours as he mumbled, “Lie to me, baby.”

You tugged on the roots of his hair gently. It was enough to make him whine again, to lean in and reconnect his lips to yours. You could taste the mint on his tongue which surely contrasted the alcohol that lingered on yours, although Luke didn’t mind. He would take whatever he got when it came to you, especially on this last night. He would take anything.

His hands slid up the curvature of your waist, beneath the cotton material of your old tee shirt. Well, it was actually his - you had stolen it from his bedroom floor at the beginning of the summer, but soon it became yours once Luke saw you in it, claiming he liked the way you looked in his clothes. And he was letting you keep it, surely. You didn’t even want to give it back.

You could feel his grasp sliding over your ribs, raising goosebumps on your skin. His hands were cold and chilling, moving over every inch of you, trying to feel as much of you as he possibly could. The two of you were virtually ravenous. Your pace was speeding up as your kisses turned sloppy, swallowing one another’s pants as your tongue traced over his bottom lip before you pulled back just briefly, allowing Luke to tug the shirt over your head.

You observed him smile to himself as he tossed it to his side, most likely noticing that it was his. But then his eyes were back on yours, pale eyelashes surrounding his infinitely blue irises that somehow still shone despite the darkness. You took your hands from his hair, your palms sliding down his cheeks until you were cupping his face while you stared at one another. Your chests were still heaving and the air was still hot around you, but you needed this moment - just a silent pause while you met his gaze, bringing you back to Earth, sobering you.

And then you leaned in to kiss him again, grinding your hips down against his, your jaw going slack from the relieving feeling of the friction. Luke’s reaction mirrored yours: his mouth fell agape instantaneously before he sucked in a sharp breath, his forehead resting against yours as the both of you became too distracted to continue your kissing.

You steadied yourself on his broad shoulders, gripping them through the thick material of the flannel shirt that he had thrown on over an old tank top. Your breathing was ragged as you focused on the gyration of your lower half, how Luke would shift his hips up so that he could increase the contact, hands stationed back on your hips again.

He tilted his head upward so that he could kiss you once more, rolling his tongue languidly over yours, pulling your body down as the friction began to tease him to the point where he was growing frustrated. You could feel him hard beneath you, erection straining against the tight denim of his jeans, making your stomach jolt from the mere thought.

Luke’s hands skimmed up your exposed torso, twining around your back so that he could unclasp your bra. His fingers fumbled nervously for a moment before he was pulling the material from your chest, letting it fall from your arms before you threw it to the side, your eyes locking on Luke again.

He reached out, although you were already close enough to touch. He ran his palms over your breasts, squeezing them, his lips parted as his gaze flickered back up to meet yours. “So fuckin’ pretty, baby.” He murmured, then reached up to tuck your hair behind your ear.

You blinked at him, unable to summon the words to reply to his dreamy compliment. Everything felt dazed - you were guilty all night over what you had done to him this summer, but here he was, touching you and holding you close to him like you hadn’t done anything wrong.

The pad of Luke’s thumb swiped along your bottom lip as he looked at you longingly, then leaned in and pressed a lingering kiss to your forehead. You felt the cool metal of his lip ring and the scratch of his beard against your skin before he pulled back again, allowing you to tug the flannel he was wearing down his arms. You pulled it off until he was shrugging out of it, left in a tight white tank top, that same necklace he always wore dangling against his skin, shining from the moonlight outside of the truck.

“Gonna miss you, y’know.” Luke whispered, his thumb still smoothing over your bottom lip in soothing patterns. “Wanna show you how much I’ll miss you, all right? That okay?”

“Yeah, Luke.” You nodded, your voice weak as you spoke, lowering as he pulled you in for another kiss.

And you were lost again. It felt like it did all summer long - you could practically taste the salt on his skin from the ocean, practically feel the warmth that was radiating from his body from the sun. It was like you had rewound time to the first month that you had spent together, completely immersed in one another without a worry in the world. It felt effortless, but you knew the moment meant so much more to Luke. For you, this was a goodbye, but for him, this was his last chance to prove himself to you. He was still hopeful despite the fact that he knew you didn’t care for him - not that way.

Luke’s tongue was smooth and sweet against yours. It traced the outline of your own, his hands still on your breasts, your nipples hardening from his touch. Your skin was littered in goosebumps but you could only concentrate on the way his chest felt so broad beneath your palms. You could feel his heart beating through the thin material of his tank top, how it was pounding erratically, contrasting against your own heart’s steady pace. He was nervous, anxious, and you knew exactly why.

You ground your hips down again, hearing him expel a quiet whimper that matched your own. Luke’s touch traveled southern, his fingertips trailing over your navel before they were fidgeting with the button on your denim shorts. You felt your breathing shallow once he unzipped them, letting you shift so that he could shove them halfway down your thighs, leaving you in some flimsy lace underwear.

“Wanna feel you, baby.” He gritted, touch dancing around the area where you were craving him most.

“Luke,” You sighed his name, your stare burning into his intensely.

He said nothing in reply, averting his gaze downward to where his fingertips were trailing over your slit. The angle wasn’t ideal but you made do with all the room that you had in the cramped area of his truck, which only forced you to be even closer together.

Finally, you felt him touch you properly, his index and middle fingers rubbing you over the material of your underwear. Your fingernails dug into his shoulders, surely leaving behind crescent-shaped marks that would still be there tomorrow, even if you weren’t. You were inundated with how quickly he warmed up your body, breaths escaping from behind his teeth as his eyes flickered from your lower half up to your facial expression so that he could gauge your reaction.

“Gonna miss how good you look like this.” He mumbled after a moment, still brushing his fingers over you haphazardly.

You were practically bucking your hips up into his touch, your bottom lip taken between your teeth. Luke was enjoying your desperation, but he didn’t show it. He wore a poker face, his brow furrowed and his lips now set in a tight line, jaw clenched and eyelashes pale against his light pallor. He looked determined, focused only on making you writhe from his touch.

He then dipped his hand beneath the waistband of your underwear, dragging his fingers up your slit, gathering the moisture that had developed between your legs. He was breathing unevenly, overwhelmed by the intensity of the moment as he began rubbing at your clit, looking up to enjoy the way that your body was already shaking in front of him.

You leaned back so that you were practically draped over the steering wheel and dashboard. Your back was arched as you moved to grip the door beside you along with the center console. Luke was stunned for a moment by the way you appeared, completely sprawled out and hot all over, your lips parted in pleasure as your eyelids fluttered shut. His movements slowed, his mouth falling agape at the sight of you.

“Always so beautiful,” Luke told you. “Remember that.”

And you believed his words. Providing the way he was looking at you, it was hard not to. Luke was always so sincere, wanting nothing more than to please you, than to have you as his own. But that couldn’t happen, and it wouldn’t - you were leaving tomorrow, you were lying to him.

You felt him insert two of his digits into your center, easing them forward slowly. Your body retracted, breathing shallowing as you screwed your eyes shut at the intrusive feeling. Luke’s free hand smoothed over your bare torso, between the valley of your breasts, down over your navel until he was rubbing at your clit, curling his fingers at the knuckle. Your jaw slackened at the combination of the pleasures, your tenor wavering as you gritted out, “Shit, Luke, feels good.”

“Yeah, baby?” You heard him rasp. “Like that?”

You only nodded rigorously. Your eyes flashed open for a sparing second to see Luke already gazing at you, the movement of his fingers unceasing. Your walls were clenched around his digits as he eased them in and out of you at a steady, safe pace, but it was still enough to get you sweating. Your skin was growing clammy and sticky and your stomach was tensing as Luke’s fingertips continuously traced around your clit in a teasing manner.

You could hear his breaths escaping from his lips just as fast as yours were. He was getting worked up from watching the way your body responded to his touch. The way that he could get you shaking beneath him in a matter of minutes was something that always amazed him. He took pleasure in making you feel good, in getting you to expel his name in a myriad of whimpers and moans.

You bit down on your bottom lip, absently leaning forward, closer to Luke as the pace of his fingers increased. They were brushing against your g-spot, curling to make your body spasm with every shift of his wrist, and the fact that he was still working your clit was bringing you closer and closer to the edge with every passing second.

But what you were aware of the most was Luke’s static glare, the way that he was watching your every move, the way that your body would writhe and your eyes would screw shut. He was so entranced by how you looked like this, your skin virtually glowing from the moonlight shining in through his truck. His scent was surrounding you and you could feel him everywhere, even more so when he leaned forward, pressing his lips to the hollow of your throat.

You whimpered as you felt him suck a lovebite into your skin, his teeth grazing over the flourishing bruise, followed by his tongue, as if he was nursing the area. You whimpered, your back arching as he moved upward, facial hair tickling you as he kissed at your neck again, slowing the pace of his fingers. You whined as time seemed to slow down around you, coinciding with the pace of his every move, with the slow, torturous pleasure that came from the sensation of his mouth on your neck.

And then he pulled back just a fraction of an inch, just enough so that he could speak against your skin. “Sound so sweet, baby girl.” He murmured. You could practically feel his words against your neck, able to make out every single syllable he uttered down to the minute shape of his lips as they moved. You shivered at the sound of his voice and how it outpoured smoothly, like velvet, like honey.

You felt your back arch even more as he sucked another hickey just below your ear, lips moving up to ghost over your jaw before he was hovering over you, watching the way you started to shake. You could feel his knuckles curling more deliberately, his actions more pointed as he became determined to bring you over the edge.

You were close - the both of you could feel it in the way your arms shot out to bring him closer to you, one of your hands curling around the nape of his neck, fingers entangling themselves in his hair. Your foreheads bumped against one another as you moaned, but Luke quickly suppressed the exaggerated noise by kissing you passionately, his tongue swiping against yours in one swift motion.

And you were losing it. You could feel your body grow hot all over, a feverish warmth that lit your skin on fire. Luke held you closely as you cried out his name euphorically, your eyes shooting open as your lips brushed against his while his fingers worked you, your body squirming uncontrollably. You couldn’t help yourself - the intensity of the pleasure was getting the best of you, overtaking you and clouding your mind for a few blissful seconds.

But then you were brought back to yourself, a certain silence thickening in the surrounding air. The only audible sound was the truck’s stereo and its static hum in the background, overshadowed by your heavy breaths and the way they fanned over Luke’s face as he studied you with his bottom lip taken between his teeth.

“You drive me insane.” He whispered quietly, as if it was a secret that he was confessing within the darkness that you two shared. His confession was followed by a kiss, his lips melting against yours fluidly, slowly, as if the both of you had suddenly became overtired. But then he pulled back, pushing your hair out of your face, knuckles brushing over your cheek affectionately. “Wanna feel you all over me.”

You were still shaking from your orgasm, but you found the strength to nod your head, to run your fingers through Luke’s hair and push it off of his forehead. “It’s our last night together,” you breathed out. “Don’t let me forget it.”

Your words spurred Luke on. He chuckled lowly, the sound rumbling low in his chest. His smirk was contagious, the way that it twitched his lips and made them curve upward on the ends only, exposing only a single dimple and the mischievous glint that you had found in his eyes many times. The mood was lifting and you could sense it.

His hands were back on you in a matter of no time, memorizing your body and its curves and its edges. His touch was soft and tentative, and you knew just how badly he wanted to take you home back to his and spend days on end in his bedroom by the beach together, but this moment was all you had left. It was bittersweet, just as you had predicted.

Luke nudged you so that you were standing, your head level with the roof of his truck as you were stationed between his parted legs. He shoved your shorts and underwear down your legs the rest of the way, then stilled completely once you reached out to undo his belt buckle and begin to rid him of his jeans.

They were tight, and there was a short moment of struggle, but he eventually got them down his legs, leaving him in a pair of briefs that clung tightly to his thighs. You could see every inch of his erection and how it was straining against the black material, how Luke’s breathing had increased to the point where his chest was rising and falling rapidly. You decided to pull at the hem of his tank top, to lift it up and over his head so that your eyes could drag down his torso, over his smooth pale skin.

You were back in his lap almost instantly, noting the way Luke swallowed thickly as you looked at him from beneath your eyelashes. Your faces were level now, almost touching as you ran your hands down his abdomen, feeling it clench from your mere touch.

“I’ll miss you too, Luke,” you found yourself admitting. “A lot more than you think I will.”

He only nodded, unsure of how to reply. He was too distracted by the sight of your bare body on display before him, too distracted by the feeling of your fingertips tracing the straight outline of the waistband to his briefs. You were teasing him, but only because you knew he liked it. You had learned almost everything there was to know about his body, knew all of his weaknesses, what he enjoyed and what made him sweat.

And with that realization, you also discovered that you would miss knowing everything about Luke. You would miss the time spent with him and you would miss how natural it was, how easy it all was. You were going to miss him more than you had initially anticipated, and that was what scared you - that maybe things were changing within this very moment.

You urged the thoughts out of your head as you leaned forward and pressed your lips to Luke’s, feeling him practically let out a sigh of relief because you had finally kissed him again. He craved tasting you, feeling your tongue move against his in the alluring way that it usually did. He could spend hours with you like this, if it were up to him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and that sad fact was starting to sink in.

Slowly, you dipped your hand beneath the waistband of his briefs, wrapping your grasp around the base of his erection. He was almost throbbing from the frustration, his voice wavering as he murmured, “Oh, fuck, baby.”

He stopped kissing you completely as his jaw went slack once you began to stroke his length. You watched him the way that he had watched you - with admiration, closely studying the way he reacted to your every maneuver. He would whimper quietly when you swiped your thumb over his tip, spreading the bead of precum that had leaked. His eyebrows drew together immediately as you gripped his shaft tighter, twisting your fist around him, your other hand continuously running your fingers through his disheveled hair.

“You make me f-feel so good,” Luke choked out, hips bucking upward into your fist absently.

You shushed him, soothing him as he moved to grip the driver’s seats armrests. His knuckles turned white from how harshly he was holding onto them, completely overwhelmed by your touch, by your quiet voice as you observed him pant.

But Luke was quickly nudging your hand away, shaking his head and mumbling something to himself under his breath. He opened his eyes to look at you again, lips parting before he muttered out, “Need you, all right?”

“Need you, too.” You whispered in reply. You didn’t have to think before you spoke. The words spilled from your tongue effortlessly.

Then Luke was fumbling around for his wallet, flipping open the leather before reaching into one of its pockets so that he could pull out a condom. You watched with hooded eyes as he ripped open the foil, sparing a passing glance at you before he was nudging you out of his lap only slightly so that he could roll the latex over his length. His bottom lip was between his teeth as he did so, and then he was gazing at you again, pulling you back to him.

He reconnected his lips to yours briefly before you were adjusting yourself above him, lowering your lower half down onto his length. You moved slowly, your muscles tightening as you sucked in a sharp breath at the sensation, your walls clenching around Luke’s girth familiarly.

He sighed out immediately, relieved as his arms moved to wrap around your frame, almost in a hug. He was holding you close to him so that your chests were flush against one another, skin sticky. You could feel the cool metal of his necklace pressed against your skin as you steadied yourself on his shoulders, bottoming out completely until he was so deep inside of you that you whined, eyes rolling back.

“Okay, baby?” Luke asked you, his lips at your ear.

“Yeah,” you muttered quietly. “Feels so good.”

Luke didn’t say anything. He was already too inundated in your body, feeling the way your walls were clenched around him as you pulled yourself up, then lowered down again as you started to develop a rhythm. Your body was moving in synchronization with Luke’s - his hips would raise as yours would fall so that he was practically fucking up into you from beneath, mouth brushing against your ear as his grip rested on the curvature of your waist.

You were already shaking from the pleasure. Luke was beginning to take control, noting the way that you were too distracted by the sensation to continue moving. He was thrusting up into you, grunting softly, the noises sounding so pretty as they filled up the silence of his truck. You wanted to hear them again and again and again, and that thought scared you. You were so stuck on leaving this summer behind, but right in this moment, you never wanted to leave. You wanted to stay.

Your fingernails dug into the skin of Luke’s shoulder as you clenched your teeth, feeling the way his tip hit your g-spot every time he angled his hips forward. Luke was moving quickly, his pace quickening in correlation with his breaths. You could feel them fanning over your skin, hot and ragged, stopping short only when he would grunt in satisfaction.

He pulled back, loosening his grip on you so that he could actually look you in the eye, and you couldn’t tear your gaze away. You were hypnotized by the endless blue and the way that he was staring at you with such adoration, you felt your heart skip a beat. No one had ever looked at you so earnestly, so lovingly. For the first time in your life, you knew what it felt like to be loved.

And you didn’t feel so guilty anymore.

Subconsciously, you leaned forward and kissed him as fiercely as you could, as if you wanted to communicate what words couldn’t. You were so overwhelmed by the pleasure that you felt, but they were only emphasized once they fell into correlation with what was going on in your mind. You felt feather-light, like you were floating on cloud nine, and the only thing that was holding you to Earth was Luke’s gentle grasp on your waist.

His tongue traced the ample outline of your bottom lip, acutely and precisely, as if he was trying to put his all into kissing you as well. You were attempting to stop from whining, your body trembling as he thrusted in and out of you with more concentration. Luke bit down on your lip, pulling back until he released it, eyelids fluttering open so that he could meet your stare again.

You wanted to open your mouth, to say something, anything - even if it was just his name in a simple whimper, but your voice was caught in your throat as you felt yourself get lost in the pleasure. You could barely think coherently because of how good everything felt, how Luke’s hands were now snaking away from your waist and up over your ribcage, skimming over your breasts until he was cupping your face.

“Gonna lay you down,” Luke murmured, his voice strained.

You could only nod. You were unable to speak, your eyelids screwing shut as he shifted the two of you so that you were laying down across the truck’s narrow seat, Luke’s tall stature hovering over you. His touch slid down from your chest to your thighs again, parting them even more as he gazed down at your body, unable to fathom that this would be the last time he was going to see you like this.

Your back arched as he began to move again, reigniting the fire that had already built up. A thin sheen of sweat was formulating on Luke’s forehead, his hair sticking to his skin in damp strands. His pale chest was flushed pink and the vein in his neck was protruding as he clenched his teeth, moving his hips forward methodically.

You could feel your muscles begin to tense, your toes curling as your hands frantically searched for something to grab onto. Luke took note of this and reached down, taking both of your hands in his, interlocking your fingers and squeezing. He was breathless, panting as he gazed down at you, the silver antler necklace hanging from his chest in the darkness between you.

“I’m so close, baby,” he admitted, his tenor gravelly, words emitting low from his throat. “Wait it out for me. Want you to cum with me, all right? That okay, baby?”

You nodded rigorously, feeling Luke’s pace begin to slow as his hips started to stutter. Your every sense was on edge, tingling as you felt your high approach you. You squeezed Luke’s hands until your knuckles went white, until you were moaning so loudly that your own voice sounded foreign to your ears.

Luke was in the same condition, blinking slowly as he thrusted in and out of you deeply, making you feel every inch of him with each move he made. He was losing it, his words coming out in low whispers, incoherent and unable to comprehend. You weren’t surprised when he silenced himself by leaning down to leave you a lingering kiss, thrusting forward one final time before speaking against your lips. “I love you,” he mumbled quietly. “Just lie to me.”

And you were trembling, your mind completely erratic and hectic as the pleasure became overbearing. But there was something you wanted to say - you wanted to test the words out on your lips, to see how they tasted, how they would feel against Luke’s tongue, so you said it. You let the three words slip into the air between the two of you, evaporating, but they would never be forgotten.

You told Luke you loved him.

And you weren’t sure if he heard. Part of you thought maybe you just imagined saying it before you were brought to the edge, your hands squeezing Luke’s tightly as the both of you reached your high at the same time, a mess of tangled limbs and soft whimpers in the quiet cab of his truck. But the other part of you was sure that you had confessed your feelings - the ones that you had pushed aside for the entire summer.

You told Luke you loved him, and you weren’t lying. Not anymore.

#luke hemmings fic #luke hemmings one shot #5sos fic #5sos one shot #smut #luke hemmings smut #luke one shot #luke fic #luke smut #songfic #angst #luke angst #luke hemmings angst #one shot #fanfiction #writing #5sospank

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mentalcurls · 5 years

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2. Sei uno str***o

I’m back with my thoughts of episode 2 of the first season of Skam Italia. This was much quicker than analyzing episode 1, but there’s still a lot of stuff I hadn’t caught or thought much about the first time I watched the season, like pre-Luchino interactions between the boys, sexy times and the earliest mentions of Marti’s mom. Bechdel test results at the end. Warning for gratuitous use of italics.

I’m still not over Skam Italia doing that video of Gio and the chat between him and Eva, referencing and overturning Skam og’s “No Norwegian boy would go down on a girl”, that shit was savage, bless LudoBesse

Oh, the song that plays while Gio and Eva are getting to the cabin! “It’s gonna be you / And me / It’s gonna be everything you’ve ever dreamed” is 100% referring to Eva, to her wanting to be with Gio, in peace, for a while, to her anticipation and plans for this trip

seeing the cabin again, though. I mean, intellectually I know this is the first time it’s ever seen on screen, this was the first time I saw it as well cause I watched all of S1 that weekend after 3.5 Ammucchiate, but now the magical triad of “Sto a Bracciano”, “Due ore” and “Patatine e marmellata” colors my experience of it so much, I almost teared up when Gio and Eva got inside

I had kind of forgotten how much they actually show of Gio and Eva having sex, I get why people drew the comparison after the Nicotino sex scenes, BUT “DUE ORE” AND “TU NON SEI DI MILANO” ARE PERFECT ANYWAYS

still not over the absence of any fic in which Gio gets to properly show off his oral skills (with Eva or anyone else)

Marti moaning and complaining about how he’s scarred and traumatized after he walks in on Eva and Gio kills me; tbh his problem is mostly that he saw a bit too much of Eva (not a lot I think, because that sheet was pretty strategically placed) and not enough of Gio

I can’t focus on Eva when there are proto-Contrabbandieri interactions going on, I just cannot

ok, so, Marti. He says his mom “freaked out” because she decided to do housework and that he had to run. So, like. Given that he uses that same wording “sbroccare” that he’ll use in later episodes to talk about his mother’s mental illness, what’s happening here? Because while I see how a person would “freak out” about cleaning (like if they suddenly started obsessing over everything being dirty), I think from what we’ve seen of Mrs Rametta that’s not likely and she probably simply tried to do the spring cleaning. So is that what Marti considers a “freak out”? Does he put spring cleaning on the same level of what I’ve always assumed were, like, panic attacks? And then of course there’s the fact that we have a boy who runs like a bat out of hell as soon as household chores are mentioned. Now. We know in a few months Marti is going to pray for his mom to want to do the chores 💔

“C’mon Eva why are you being like this?” are you really asking Gio?

Marti is at peak 🐍🐍 here: he hijacks Eva’s time with Giovanni, stops them from having sex and keeps Gio busy with a thirteen-hour-long game of Risk Eva doesn’t take part in at all. And Gio lets him! He doesn’t even appear to stay mad about not being able to have sex for more than those two minutes when he hits Marti with his sleeping bag, is he even a teenage boy

that build up to Elia’s appearance, with the creepy music, gets to me every time and Gio going for the fireplace log lifter kills me

Elia Santini is a living meme from his very first line (“Ammazza che accoglienza”)

I mean that chuckle + “Che, davero?” combo is ICONIC

Eva’s unimpressed face at Gio is also iconic.

“C’mon, what could I do, he asked if he could come, should I have said no?” ahem, OBVIOUSLY YES, since you promised your girlfriend it’d be the two of you (honestly, Gio, how did you expect to have sex, with your best friends in the room next to yours, only separated by a door??)

Notice that Eva walks away (only a few paces), fully expecting him to follow her and try to placate her more, so she can properly scream at him, except he doesn’t, he goes inside with the guys

so we get to the beach scene and what I can’t help but wonder is how long the two schemers, Gio and Elia, spent coming up with a suitable excuse to feed Eva for going back to Rome, something she wouldn’t question… and she actually questions it anyways for a minute

and God, the suspicious look Eva gives them as they walk away

in this proto-Contrabbandieri dynamic, I can’t help but notice that Martino fills that Luchino-ish role, obviously he’s not treated the same because he’s much more likely to have a sharp comeback to mocking and he’s not as naive as Luca, but he’s the one that gets left behind while the trouble duo goes to get the weed; and I think that if a Bastardata-like situation was to happen in S1 Marti would be the “victim”

and of course this episode has this big gaslighting incident, where Gio tells Eva he’s going back to Rome for his brother, Martino covers for him pretending he knows nothing (and encouraging Eva to drink and forget 😑) and when Gio comes back they all act like it’s fine, like it’s normal that he was gone most of the day and the whole night and like she’s totally overreacting when she’s mad

ok, but Marti is really really invested in Gio’s sex life, this boy is gone, desperately looking for any and all scraps. I think I’ve seen fic do the “Marti never wanked over Gio, he couldn’t have faced him afterwards” thing and while that’s valid, I think that he actually fantasized a lot about him, basing himself on the sexcapades Gio has told him about, like Villa Sciarra, because this boy has shown he’s thirsty af from day one, first telling Eva “c’mon, zozzoni, let me see” on Skype and then in this episode asking Eva outright what Gio’s like in bed

I can’t even describe Marti’s face during the conversation, first he fakes nonchalance, then he goes for a nice-guy-encouraging-reassuring smile, then he smirks and wiggles his eyebrows, then he’s smug, when Eva seems to be mustering up the courage to speak again he’s kind of hopeful, then smug again, then he softens when he starts cuddling Eva, but in the last shot from that clip he’s looking in the distance, he stops smiling and has a slightly disappointed expression

that conversation with Eva, God. Aside from any and all speculation of Marti’s motives, she is obviously embarrassed and uncomfortable, yet Marti keeps pressing; she clearly states she asked Gio not to talk about their sex life (not too in depth at least), yet Martino confirms he’s ignored her request and quotes some notable examples that prove his knowledge, which embarasses her further, to the point she stops the conversation; finally, Marti justifies Gio and himself by saying “You know, we’re like this.” like that excuses anything (or means anything, really)

those shots of the lake in the early morning and of the trees *insert Poetic cinema meme here*

Gio has the gall to come in like nothing’s happened and announce he’s brought back brioches, then to shake his head and sigh when Eva storms off, like dude? You left her alone with your best friend for a whole day and a whole night, no answers to her calls and texts, she woke up hungover on the couch and in the arms of a boy who’s not you and you’re surprised and exasperated by her being mad at you?? Honestly, Gio, you might be il mago dell’amore cause you’re half decent at matchmaking but you’re shit at doing relationships, at keeping them healthy and working

at least Eva finally gets him to follow her where they can talk alone, she finally gets him to choose her over his friends for a few minutes

Eva’s paranoid and controlling behaviour is not healthy for her or for Gio or anyone else, really, but I get where she comes from. Her relationship began with cheating, her boyfriend is currently hiding something, so trust is not something that comes easy here. Still, asking to read your boyfriend’s messages to someone else is not something conducive to a better relationship.

“You-you change when you’re around them.” hello “7 things” by Miley Cyrus!

And here we go again: “Eva, do you really think I’m hiding something from you? Eva, I’m not hiding anything from you, okay?” and he kisses her, trying to placate and distract her with physical affection

poor Eva walking to a place that is as isolated as she feels

I mean, this trip must have been devastating for her, she’s been anticipating it for weeks, it should be her occasion to be with Gio, to strengthen the one relationship in her life that’s going well, to placate her fears and to forget all the stuff that’s going to shit in her life for a few days; instead Gio’s friends gatecrash the trip, Gio spends half of the time going back and forth from Rome, she gets stuck with Marti who’s a good guy, but inappropriate, she finds out her boyfriend discloses info about their intimacy without her consent, and there’s the whole Laura thing. The only pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel is that kind-of-weird, a bit too touchy-feely girl from the Easter party befriending her on Facebook, how sad is her life?

Bechdel test: this episode doesn’t pass the test. There’s a brief conversation between Eva and her mom at the beginning, but her dad intervenes, plus Eva’s mom is still unnamed so the conversation doesn’t count for the test.

This post is part of my complete series of meta about Skam Italia season 1. If you’d like to read more of my thoughts about the other episodes, you can find the mastepost linked in the top bar on my blog under SKAMIT: EVA. Cheers!

#skam italia #skamit meta #giovanni garau #martino rametta #eva brighi #elia santini #eleonora sava #martino's mom #skamit #skamit s1 #1x02 sei uno str***o #a. writes

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vankoya · 7 years

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Extra Cheese, Please!

✽ Read the indecorous follow-up piece, Less Cheese, More Please!

Genre | Best Friends to Lovers / Housemates AU.

Pairing | Jeon Jeongguk / Feminine Reader.

Words | 9,524 words.

Conspectus | Jeongguk dislikes three things: 1. Having his Overwatch marathon nights interrupted, 2. Dealing with drunk people while he is sober, and 3. Cheesy ramyeon. His best friend slash housemate slash insufferable crush is the drunk girl with an incessant craving for super cheesy ramyeon who interrupts his Overwatch marathon night, and ultimately proves that the aforementioned meal looks just as gross coming up than it does when it is first in the bowl.

Luckily, there is always a silver lining. Even in the worst of situations.

Warnings | Swearing. Alcohol. Vomiting as a result of being overly drunk. Sexual innuendos. Fondling. Jeongguk cannot deal with cleavage.

Jeongguk guesses that it is nearing one in the morning when his phone buzzes four times in succession. The vibrations occur no more than a few seconds apart against his balls, which is where the device has slipped down to nestle over the course of the past eight minutes.

He knows he should probably reach between his thighs and retrieve it to check the slew of texts that tickle his dick through a pair of grey sweatpants. He is also ninety-nine percent positive that he knows precisely who the sender is. But the military bomb payload is that fucking close to being at the Deadlock Gang’s cave hideout, just having passed Checkpoint B, and Jeongguk is quite possibly playing his best Escort game since he planted his sweet ass on the living room couch. The four instant ramyeon packets that he inhaled at eight o’clock are still burning off in his system. Well-needed fuel for a long, uninterrupted night of Overwatch.

Well, the chances of that peaceful gaming occurring were narrowed to considerably slim once a certain someone had slipped out of her bedroom and announced she was going out for cocktails. She had managed to breeze through the front door before Jeongguk could really have enough of an opportunity to stare at her magnificent ass in those jeans. But if his calculations were correct, he has made it through a solid five hours of tranquility so far.

When he sees the attacking team’s Lucio put up a sound barrier, Jeongguk cannot help but blast a grin of victory. He unleashes his McCree’s deadeye, obliterating the entire team. There is a triumphant shout that is echoed amongst his own teammates, and he nearly throws his goddamn PS4 controller at the television when he fist-pumps the air out of excitement. Through the headset, Yugyeom makes a comment amongst his hooting along the lines of: “McCree, that OP motherfucker!” while Jeongguk spams McCree’s: “I’m the quick, you’re the dead,” voice line over and over in the final seconds that the payload reaches its destination and the game comes to a close.

Earning play of the game was expected after the shit he pulled last minute. Though Jeongguk finds himself surprised when he gets ten votes out of the twelve players, considering the opposing team is currently shouting a stream of insults. Because yeah, McCree is overpowered as fuck. But the sheer laziness in him cannot bear the thought of having to train up on a different hero, at this stage.

“I’m out,” Jeongguk announces to Yugyeom as he reaches down to grab his phone, beginning to vibrate against his balls again due to his lack of response. Yugyeom laughs, the connection slightly static.

“Gotta get your girlfriend, huh?“

“Fuck you, not my girlfriend,” Jeongguk barks before exiting the main screen, albeit with a tiny smile, and then shifts his headset to sit around his neck. When he clicks the home button of his phone, he is greeted by a screen lit up with eight notifications, confirming two things.

It is definitely past one in the morning, and it is definitely who he was expecting to be.

Jeongguk gets his heart stuck in his throat, bites his tongue and stupidly grins at the last text that was sent, chest tight at the thought of her missing him. He can picture that dumbass drunk smile of her’s so clearly; a sight that he has seen enough times to have it burned into the very cells of his brain. It is the one thing that is beyond fucking adorable when paired with her glassy eyes, staring roundly at him while she perches that amazing ass on his lap. Right on the zipper of his jeans so that the jagged metal presses right against his dick and– Fuck, too far.

He chances a glance at his sweatpants and yeah, shit, he is a little bit hard now. Jeongguk slaps himself, firm enough to properly wake up from his unexpectedly lascivious daze, and then he quickly punches in his passcode.

He sputters and incredulously shakes his head, running a hand through his hair because hell yeah, she is a twelve alright. More than that even, a hundred in his books, if numbers had to define her. Maybe Jeongguk should not think such thoughts about his best friend of seven years slash university flatmate of two. But then again, her attractiveness is common knowledge amongst their friends and all those alike who encounter her. As clear as the sky is blue and the grass is green. Simply, Jeongguk is just confirming the obvious and nothing more than that.

Yeah, definitely nothing more than that. Totally still not semi-hard over the thought of her drunk smile, of all the boner-inducing things about her.

Before he can text her back, the theme song to Legend of Zelda is filtering through the living room and the ugliest photo he has of her is appearing blown up on the screen. The image is one that is zoomed right in on her face from where she breaches the ocean, pixelated by the added effect of it being a screenshot. The fast motion of her coming up after a wave had crushed her makes it appear as though her face is being dragged down by gravity; mouth parted in a gasp; completely wet hair plastered to her scalp, and presented at such an angle that she looks bald.

It is fucking hideous. Jeongguk had laughed so hard that he peed himself a little the first time he noticed it in one of the snapshots that he had taken on his DLSR at the beach that day, and he never let her live it down. But they did come to a mutual agreement to not allow such a monstrosity to be released to the general public on an unfortunate Facebook birthday post, or as a tactic for revenge. Otherwise, Jeongguk would similarly be having a picture of himself exposed as far as the eye can see. The one where he is slumped backwards over their coffee table, blacked out and wearing nothing but a pair of her pretty pink panties, the tip of his sad and soft dick poking out the leg hole.

Jeongguk stares at the caller ID photo a moment longer, eyes watering with hilarity before he swipes his finger across the screen to answer with, “Well, well, if it isn’t–“

“Th–The sexiest motherfucker you know?” slurs through the other end of the line, nearly drowned out by the commotion she most likely sits cross-eyed within. “Who s’about to be joined by a much less sexy motherfucker, hmm?”

“Let me guess,” Jeongguk runs his tongue over his teeth, unhooking the headset from his neck and placing it on the coffee table, “I’m the less sexy motherfucker?” he says as he reaches for the remote to turn off the television.

“Ding ding, ten points to Gryffindor,” she whoops and giggles, and god, Jeongguk melts a little as he stands up but definitely not because he thinks her intoxicated laughter sounds fucking adorable. No way. “Y’gonna come collect the goods?”

He stuffs his feet into a battered pair of Vans and reaches for his black parka, looking like a damn slob and all with nothing but a dark shirt and his grey sweats underneath. He has no plans to stay longer than absolutely necessary at the bar, anyway. “I can’t think of any goods I need to collect,” Jeongguk sighs, swiping his house keys and wallet from the dish atop the entry cabinet and making way towards the front door. “A drunken mess that unfortunately so happens to be my best friend sounds more accurate.”

“At leas’ she’s got a great ass!” she defends herself, Jeongguk mentally agrees, then literally has to slap himself across the face again for focusing too long on the mental image of it, which he has copied in high-definition into his memory. Her voice becomes distant from the speaker, shouts out, “No you may not touch it, fuckin’ perv! Go piss in yo’ girly fuckin’ Cosmopolitan, yeah?!”

“Please don’t get yourself killed before I get there,” Jeongguk raises his voice a little in hopes of her hearing over the music. A smidgen of the tension that is suddenly squeezing at his chest is released when he hears her indignant huff right against the speaker. “I’m gonna be pissed if I walk all that way just to find you’re dead.”

“It’s like, one kilometre tops, pussy,” she retorts, the eye roll practically audible as Jeongguk locks the front door and then heads down the hallway to the elevator. “A light jog’ll get you here in what, five minutes. So start runnin’, boy.”

“Fuck no. I’m hanging up. Stay alive.” He mutters, punching repeatedly at the elevator button as if it will make the doors open faster.

Distantly, he wonders why he is in such a goddamn rush. He narrows it down to just wanting to get back home again as soon as humanly possible; to return to his disturbed Overwatch marathon. Yeah, of course that is why.

“Thanks babe, you th’ best!” she sings, hangs up before he can, and Jeongguk jams his finger against the button with a greater ferocity until the elevator dings open after what feels to be centuries of waiting. (It was not even thirty seconds.)

He ends up speedily jogging the entire way to the bar to build up his blood circulation because it is cold as tits outside, of course. Definitely not because it means he will get to see her sooner, make sure she is safe and sound and not being leered at by some drunken, creepy lecher.

Nope. No way at all.

They say that there is always a silver lining to every unfortunate and downright dreadful situation. Jeongguk is currently wondering where the fuck such lining happens to be once he finally finds a particular girl that he was forced and threatened to brave the cold in order to collect, only to be met by the pout that she knows gets him all pliable and willing. He does not know it yet, but the silver lining is still coming. Slowly, gradually, but it will.

Even if, right now, that shit seems as likely as getting a blow job from Beyonce.

“How much?” he shouts to be heard over the pounding music, repeats for the second time because he refuses to believe the sum that the bartender first announced.

At Jeongguk’s hip slouches the self-proclaimed goods. The treacherous best friend, who keeps having to be hiked up by his arm curled tightly around her waist since her bones liquefied by liquor are failing to keep her standing. She has that goofy smile pulling at her plush lips, and Jeongguk is torn between wanting to slap from her face, or to kiss it away instead.

The bartender checks the amount again, then leans towards Jeongguk with a somewhat empathetic expression to call back, “Rounded to one hundred and eighty-four dollars.”

On the inside, Jeongguk might be crying a little. Funny how the reason behind his internal agony is also the same thing that is keeping him slightly sane through his mental calculations of how much money he has left in his bank account. Pressed against his side with an intoxicated, unfocused gaze that stares up at him too endearingly for him to be one hundred percent angry. He is at ninety-nine point nine-nine percent. Okay, maybe on the cusp of no less than ninety percent. Goddamn.

“I’m letting you go for a second,” Jeongguk warns her and begins to slowly recede his arm, giving her enough time to support herself on the bar. Rather than doing this, she wraps her own arms around his waist and nestles under his armpit.

In any other situation than the apparent one, where he has to aid his best friend’s spontaneous cocktail night with his own miserable funds, Jeongguk would be fighting to tame the glee. The kind that would be demanding to tuck her closer, and perhaps press his nose to the crown of her head so he can breathe in the soft scent of her vanilla shampoo. Unfortunately, no matter how much he wills himself to be dreaming that his weekly budget is about to be kicked repeatedly in the balls and that maybe, instead, they are just at home on the couch and it is one of those movie nights where she gets extra cuddly for no apparent reason, Jeongguk is still stuck in the apparent situation.

He glares at his tormenter, who continues to latch like a lock around his body, and barely manages to keep his tears from falling as he retrieves his wallet and flips it open, fingers shaky. An extra tug is required from the bartender to loosen the measly grip Jeongguk’s fingertips have on his debit card when he hands it over.

“Girlfriend?” The bartender politely chips in as he swipes the card through the eftpos machine and then faces the keypad towards Jeongguk. As Jeongguk punches in the pin number, the bartender darts his gaze up to him with a raised eyebrow. “Ex-girlfriend?”

“Neither, and I don’t know if that makes it better or worse,” Jeongguk smiles, the kind that conveys his immense internal suffering. The bartender gives a sympathetic nod and hands back Jeongguk’s card before rushing off to continue serving drinks.

The latest, monstrous attachment on Jeongguk’s side squeezes him with her feeble, jelly-drunk arms. Albeit the situation, something softens inside of him when he grabs her chin so that she will properly face him. She blinks languidly like an overtired kitten, mascara smudged beneath her eyes, lipstick smeared a little on her chin. Not in the way that suggests somebody else had their mouth on her own. It is definitely the familiar mark caused by the back of her hand rubbing against her lips after taking a shot. Jeongguk is still weighing up whether he prefers the latter to the former.

“‘m tired, Jeonggukie,” she whines, slumps closer to him, and he wraps his arm around her waist again, hoisting her up with a displeased sound.

“All that talk about wanting me to have a drink with you, and now you’re making me pay the bill and run?” Jeongguk teasingly chides, and she unabashedly nods against his right pectoral. Alarm bells start ringing in his head when her weight against his side grows a tad too close to the ‘falling unconscious’ side of the spectrum. “Woah, hey– No. Don’t you dare fall asleep on me, ___. You still have to walk home.”

She hooks her chin on his shoulder and conjures that goofy, heart-melting grin that has Jeongguk crying a little on the inside, because he is such an absolute sucker for her. In that moment, her pout becomes the bane of his existence as she says, “Jus’ carry me, yeah?”

“Hell fucking no.”

Jeongguk carries her on his back the entire damn way.

By the time they reach the front door of their apartment, Jeongguk’s knees are weakly trembling and he feels utterly winded. Maybe it is a sign that he needs to get back into the gym on the weekends instead of indulging Yugyeom with Overwatch marathons. Or, more favourably, he needs to find a new best friend who will not 1. have him pay for her expensive, alcoholic ways, and then 2. make him piggyback her through the bitter cold night while she is practically deadweight against his shoulders in her partially asleep state.

“For someone who was calling me a pussy because I couldn’t be bothered walking to the bar, you’re awfully hypocritical in riding my back the whole way home,” Jeongguk says, gasping a little, jiggling the key in the lock and bustling them both inside once the latch clicks.

She clambers off his back, staggers slightly, and then catches herself on the back of the couch. Miraculously, she appears minutely more sober than she was twenty minutes ago. “Could’ve got an Uber.”

Jeongguk kicks off his shoes. “What, and paid him with the moths flying out of my wallet?”

She shrugs. “It would’ve cos’ like, three dollars.”

“That three dollars is lasting us until next Thursday, thanks to a certain someone who just made me blow my pay that I only got four days ago,” he hisses, sliding out of his jacket and hanging it over one of the dining table chairs.

And there it is again. That silly little grin tugging softly at her lips as she wiggles her hips against the couch. Strategically, Jeongguk briskly turns on his heel and strides into the kitchen before she can get her nails in him. Moulding him like the pathetic putty that he is. He can practically hear her pout when he ignores her blatant attempt at melting down his cold facade. Then, her heels unsteadily click across the vinyl flooring to watch him pull out a saucepan and fill it halfway with water, positioning it on the largest hotplate.

Jeongguk does not cast his eyes her way, even if every inch of his body, particularly his dick, is demanding that he do so. Because holy eight-pound six-ounce sweet baby Jesus in his cradle of hay, he did not notice in the dim lighting of the bar, but she is wearing a black v-cut sweater that exposes her shoulders and collarbones and a barely there shadow of cleavage. That, in itself, is saying something since her tits are a size that would fit neatly in his palms without any overflow. Just a nice, small and cute handful. God, he has never seen her with even a hint of cleavage like this before. This is unchartered territory that he has no idea of how to face, especially when he can barely cope with the sight of her amazing ass in any kind of legwear.

Jeongguk, staring blankly at the packet ramyeon in his hands, mentally forces himself not to get fucking hard like a teenage boy in the middle of their goddamn kitchen.

“What’cha doin’, good lookin’?” she hums, now perched on a breakfast bar stool with the side of her face mashed into the heel of her palm, elbow propped up on the kitchen counter. In his periphery, those small, adorable breasts spill from the v-neck onto the white laminate as a result of her slouched over position. Every single one of his nerve-endings is aflame.

Jeongguk releases the air trapped tightly in his lungs and then proceeds to make way towards the slowly simmering pot of water. He dares not a single glance at her, for the fabric of his sweatpants leaves little to the imagination, and she has definitely recognised a semi in them before.

“I’m making you something to eat since you always get hungry after drinking. Also, because I’m the greatest best friend that this world could’ve ever graced you with.” Jeongguk’s eyes are glued to his hands as he begins tearing into the packets. He dumps the dehydrated noodles and seasonings into the water, and desperately tries not to think about how sweet her tits would look in his hands. Praying that she takes the bait, he adds on as an afterthought, “Why don’t you get changed into something comfortable, and the food will be ready when you are?”

There is a pause, a moment where Jeongguk’s tongue pulses like a heart in his mouth, and he tries not to break into a nervous sweat. He can practically hear his own words clicking into place in her mind; connecting, disconnecting, reconnecting; fumbling through the drunken haze that still lays thick on her thought process. Twenty seconds pass, and he ends up so on edge that when she slaps her open palm against the countertop, he startles so abruptly that he rips open a seasoning packet with the ferocity of a gorilla. Beef flavouring bursts over his shirt and the stovetop in a cloud of brown dust.

“I shall go do that,” she announces. Jeongguk, going from nearly hyperventilating out of surprise to having a coughing fit from inhaling seasoning particles, sees her slither like a lizard off the stool out of his watering periphery. Except drunk, and with a goddamn, freshly fucking harvested cleavage.

He only lets a tear roll down his cheek once she has staggered down the hallway. This is Jeon Jeongguk, at the ripe age of twenty-three, accepting that he may die tonight.

Despite this possibility, he goes about cleaning up the spilled beef flavouring, saving as much of it as he can and depositing it in the simmering pot. The ramyeon-making itself goes rather smoothly. He manages to not spill the boiling water all over himself, nor accidentally rub his eyes after touching the chilli sauce like he did that one, hellish time that rendered him blind for just under three hours. He stirs the noodle broth and listens to her clomp around her bedroom, the occasional grunt and groan emitting when she cracks her hip against her desk, or whacks her shoulder against the frame of her walk-in closet.

She remerges in an acceptably less boner-inducing outfit. Consisting of one of his black hoodies that nearly reaches her knees, and assumedly (he prays, at least) a pair of unseeable boyshorts underneath. Jeongguk starts straining the ramyeon into a bowl.

“That’s mine,” he says about the hoodie while she clambers back onto the stool, looking soft and cuddly in her bundle of cotton and fleece. Her attire may not be as threatening to his vulnerable dick, but it is definitely as murderous to his weakened heart.

“Finders keepers, losers are weepers,” she immediately fires back, settling into her previous palm-smushed-against-face position, waiting for him to finish plating up the ramyeon. “Dun’ forget the cheese, either.”

At that, his whole body shudders with repulsion. For the first time since the growth of her cleavage was made apparent, Jeongguk faces her directly and hopes that the sheer suffering she puts him through is perfectly translated through his withered expression when he says, “You are disgusting,” before opening the fridge anyway and retrieving the container of pre-sliced easy-melt. “I will never understand how you can perform such sacrilege against the two holiest foods by combining them into the edible-equivalent of Hell.”

“Excuse you, cheesy ramyeon is the best gift this world has given us.” She frowns at the ceiling, thinks this over for a moment, and then corrects herself with, “Has given me, since I’m the best gift this world has ever given you.”

Jeongguk merely chuckles, does not deny it, because one may call him a deadset liar if he were to do so. Instead, he peels two slices of cheese out of the container and places them atop the bowl of steaming ramyeon, pressing them down with a fork so that they melt faster.

She makes an iffy little sound, somewhat of a whine, and says, “Extra cheese, please!”

“You’ll make yourself feel sick,” he warns, yet all she does is glare adorably at him until he caves like the weak man that he is and adds an extra two squares. A thought itches at the back of his mind, informing him that he is most likely going to regret this, and he brushes it away just as quickly as it forms. Under that beguiling gaze of hers, she could ask Jeongguk to stick chopsticks up his ass and impersonate a popsicle and he would.

An over-exaggeration, but you get the point.

“Alright, one extra cheesy ramyeon for the drunk girl with disgusting taste in food,” Jeongguk declares, reaching across the counter to place the dairy-laden bowl in front of her before grabbing her hand, putting the fork in her open palm and forcibly curling her fingers around it with his own. He holds her hand a moment longer than necessary between his own, grinning tightly, remaining to ignore the voice that is now screeching in his head that feeding her this is a very, very bad idea. “Bon appétit,” he finalises, and the deal is done.

She smiles up at him, eyes shining and all of her teeth on display. Jeongguk wonders what wars he must have ended in his past life to be rewarded with this girl of starlight and vanilla and honey who winds around him, softens him into warm and easy. Before he can further dwell on such a tender thought, she shovels a grotesque forkful of cheesy ramyeon into her mouth.

“Tfhanksh Jeonguffie,” she says around the stickiness, and Jeongguk, now the perfect picture of nonchalance, wordlessly turns on his heel and begins to clean up the dishes. Anything, really, to distract himself from projecting the small amount of vomit that has lurched up to the back of his throat at the horrendous meal making contact with those lips that deserve so much better.

Minutes slowly go by, stretching past two in the morning and beginning to progress towards quarter-past. Besides the sickening slurps that she makes behind him, and the clattering of the saucepan with a handful of dirty dishes from his own dinner being washed in the sink, no conversation is made, and it is comfortable. These moments are precisely why Jeongguk has not risked it yet; asking her the big question; the determiner as to whether their best friendship will advance into something more. If she were to deny him, he believes he would be able to handle it, but he knows well that such knowledge would be on her mind every time she looks his way. The awkward tension would ensue, she would overanalyse his every move, and he would become distant because he does not want her to get the wrong idea. They would anticipate the day that the lease on their apartment runs out so they can go their separate ways as soon as possible.

So, he keeps quiet and basks in the contentment that they have created together in their little home. At the end of the day, she is his best friend, and he could not imagine a future without her in it. No matter if they were romantically involved, or purely platonic. Sure, he would love to kiss her collarbones and put his hands on her hips and maybe – just maybe – tell her that he loves her in the morning glow of a lazy Sunday, whispered across the pillowcases. But he can live without that. He can be a big boy about it and move on.

He keeps telling himself this, at least. Soon, he will genuinely be convinced that he can do it.

“Jeongguk.”

“Mmm,” he hums in response, turning around when her follow-up is delayed, and he instantly notices how her expression has suddenly transformed.

Honestly, Usain Bolt could not even compare to how fast his ass moves. Jeongguk skirts around the kitchen counter, pulls her off the stool, and hastily guides her towards the sink while cursing under his breath.

“I feel…” she mumbles as Jeongguk takes out the plug and then gathers her hair up as well as he can manage, holding it in a loose bun at the crown of her head and cringing when her torso slightly convulses. “Like I’m gonna– Ugh–“

“Oh my god.”

Jeongguk swears he did not make her that much cheesy ramyeon. But dear fucking lord, the sheer amount that comes up and splashes into the sink is simply horrifying. The noodles must have expanded in her stomach for such an extensive volume to now be regurgitated in disgusting, yellow chunks that make his own stomach turn with wooziness. He cannot believe he thought cheesy ramyeon looked bad in the bowl, because it is appearing to be at least ten times worse in the form of barf.

“You owe me– Ugh, christ– So big after tonight, you little shit,” Jeongguk grunts at her between clenched teeth and gags when he gets a whiff of the stench. Like over-fermented dairy left out in the sun for weeks, doused in a hefty helping of vodka.

The sound she makes is awful when the next heave is unleashed onto the stainless steel, and she reaches one hand back from where it is braced on the counter to weakly pat his stomach. When she shakily murmurs, “I’ll give you the best blow of your life as thanks,” Jeongguk has to bite the wet, fleshy inner of his cheek to stop the visualisation of her words from drowning his mind until it is all he can think about.

“Don’t talk about sucking my dick while you’re vomiting,” he groans with a small tilt to the corners of his lips despite himself, collecting a loose strand of hair that is falling dangerously close to her mouth. She halfheartedly laughs before another surge of cheesy ramyeon makes its departure from her body, and Jeongguk dry-heaves in perfect synchronisation.

By the time the contents of her belly have been completely and utterly expelled, Jeongguk is admittedly feeling much weaker in the stomach than he was before her bout of throwing up. Especially after having to wash it down the drain. Once there is not an inch of cheesy noodles in sight, he gingerly carries her bridal-style into their shared bathroom and props her up on the sink, one hand on her waist to keep her steady and the other reaching for her toothbrush.

Jeongguk bites his lip to hide his smile when she leans forward and rests her forehead on his chest while he squeezes out a line of toothpaste. He wets the brush a little under the tap, and then takes her chin like he had back in the club, lifting it up so that he can see her sleepy, downright adorable face. Seriously, who looks this cute after vomiting up their breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all of the vodka sloshed in between?

“Open your mouth,” Jeongguk says, moving his fingers so they can squeeze her cheeks and make her lips pout like a fish. His heart weeps like the pathetic thing that it is at the sight.

She waggles her eyebrows to the best of her ability in her sobering, exhausted state. “What’re you going to put in there?”

“Not my dick, unfortunately for you,” Jeongguk chuckles, holding up the toothbrush, and she sighs loudly with faux disappointment. Well, he thinks she is joking. Surely she is.

Obediently, she opens her mouth. Jeongguk abruptly shoves the toothbrush in there and starts scrubbing at her pearly whites before he can think of the way she looks with her lipstick-smudged lips parted so obscenely like that.

His brain is the epitome of a keyboard smash.

It only glitches all the more when Jeongguk gradually comes to realise the entire position that they are both in; taking him over like a virus. His non-brushing hand still cups her small jaw. Glitch. Her bare thighs brush against his hips as she lightly swings her feet. Glitch. She blatantly stares at him, eyes half-lidded and looking like melted butter. Error: Jeon Jeongguk is no longer computing.

At least he can thank all of the deities that she is no longer wearing the Cleavage Sweater of Jeongguk’s Absolute Demise. Otherwise, he would have a bird’s eye view of the goods in question, and he, undoubtedly, would be a dead man.

Before he can linger on the dangerous thought of her small breasts while he is at this high-risk proximity, she makes a distressed gurgling sound. A sliver of Jeongguk’s sanity returns to him and he realises that toothpaste is spilling out of her mouth and onto his hand. With a panicked yelp, he yanks the toothbrush out of her mouth and she hurries to swivel around and spit out the accumulated mass of minty foam into the sink.

“Jesus H. Christ, Jeon,” she rasps, coughing once and wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. Her glare is watery and suspicious. “Were you trying to drown me? Imagine that. Death by toothpaste.”

He sputters, swallowing down laughter. “Shit, sorry, I was just– Uh, thinking about something,” he mutters, sheepishly smiling and reaching around her to rinse off the toothbrush.

“‘bout what?” she hums, dipping her head down so she can cutely shove her face in his own. Jeongguk grunts and cranes his neck away, but she grins wider and follows him, accidentally bumping her nose against his jaw. “What’cha thinking about, huh?”

“Ugh, hey– Stop!” He lets the toothbrush clatter into the sink and smooshes her cheeks between his large palms, holding her still, approximately an inch away from his nose. Cautiously, Jeongguk leans back, redeems the blush that is steadily heating his own cheeks by saying, “I was just thinking about all the ways I’m going to make you repay me for making me deal with your drunk ass.”

She half-heartedly waggles her eyebrows. “Care to elaborate?”

“Oh, you know,” he says as he drops his hands to her knees, but he does not fucking know at all since he was thinking about her tits again. His barely functioning, overtired and exhausted brain manages to conjure a handful of weak options. “I could make you do the dishes for a whole month. Or maybe, I could get you to buy the groceries for the next two fortnights. That’ll wipe your cocktail debt, at least.”

“You’re too soft on me, Jeongguk. Even when I can make your life a living hell,” she sighs, sleepily blinking at him. Unexpectedly, she knots her hands into the front of his shirt and pulls him close, successfully bringing his face back to the proximity that it was only a moment ago; nearly nose to nose. He can very suddenly feel his pulse practically vibrating in his throat. “‘m really sorry. You deserve something better than just some silly chores. I’ll pay you back the money of course, but– … Hey, what does my breath smell like?”

Before Jeongguk can even question her, she is forcefully exhaling onto his face. A gust of peppermint fills his nostrils, powerful enough to make him flinch. “Minty fresh. Why?”

Her lips stretch into a gentle curve, and beneath the fluorescent lighting of the bathroom, it almost appears nervous. “Good, ‘cos here goes nothing.”

Jeongguk is about to frown, about to speak, about to something. He cannot recall. Not now that she has closed the short gap between them and is accurately planting her mouth upon his own.

For a moment, Jeongguk thinks he might well and truly be dreaming. That tonight was some ridiculously real, torturous fantasy that his imagination managed to conjure in his unconscious state. But then her soft, damp lips part ever so slightly. Warm with the heat of her mouth, yet cool from the toothpaste. She opens up to him, her hands sliding up his chest to lock around his nape, the tip of her tongue skimming along the rosy flesh of his lower lip, and he knows.

This is very, very real.

Holy shit.

It takes a second for him to comprehend that he should kiss her back instead of standing there like a startled creature. And so, he slides his hands up from her knees to the middle of her thighs, the soft flesh warm beneath his palms when he gently grips them, and he tilts his head slightly to the side to deepen it. At this, she makes the most pleasant, lovely little sound. The edges of her nails lightly graze against the hair on the back of his neck, and elicit gooseflesh that tingles along his arms.

Jeongguk parts his lips, lets her in, groans quietly when her tongue brushes against the underside of his own and then recedes. He chases after it, tasting warmth and cool peppermint as he carefully sinks his teeth into her lower lip, nibbling at the plush flesh and releasing it. A thin string of saliva connects their mouths as they separate for the most infinitesimal of moments before they dive back in. They are abstrusely drawn to each other. Like a black hole has formed between their bodies and they are radiant stars, pulled to the centre by gravity, colliding and becoming one.

Jeongguk cannot think straight. His mind has become an unrecognisable labyrinth that he cannot navigate; sent into turmoil by the taste of her, the feeling of her underneath the weight of his hands. He searches higher up her thighs, skimming beneath the hem of the hoodie and over her boyshorts, finding her waist and anchoring his fingers there, pulling her closer. Now, with her torso melding against his own, she loops her arms over his shoulders and her legs around his hips, locking her ankles and hands so that the embrace cannot be broken. Jeongguk melts completely, and he prays that this is not just some measly, intoxicated repayment. That what he feels in the slow movements of her lips and the press of her tongue is what he thinks it is.

What he has been hoping for all this time.

As if she reads his mind, she suddenly jolts away like she has been electrocuted. Jeongguk, startled and with his lips still parted, stares at her with awed, lovestruck eyes. She gazes back as though she is very, very unsure.

Oh no.

“Woah,” she breathes, then she is untwining her limbs from his broad figure and clasping her blushing face with something akin to embarrassment. Jeongguk would think it looks utterly adorable if the fear was not currently spiking his adrenaline. “Wow– That was– Oh. Geez. I’m so sorry–“

“Why are you apologising?” Jeongguk barely whispers, and he almost does not want to know the answer for the fear of her words shattering his feeble heart like a hammer taking to glass.

“I’m– What? I’m apologising because that– That was something I shouldn’t have done,” she stammers, then sighs, letting her hands fall into her lap and staring down at them. Jeongguk is frozen, his own palms still firm against her waist underneath the bunched up fleece. “It was out of line. We’re best friends. I mean, I could blame it on being drunk if I wanted to and we could forget all about it. But in all seriousness, I’ve wanted to do that for a while. It was a very sober decision–“

Jeongguk exhales, and it shudders reluctantly out of his lungs. “You’re not making sense.”

“Okay, fine, fuck it!” she suddenly shouts, and it makes him jump. Her voice echoes around the bathroom, and she looks up at him again, eyes overflowing with frightening determination. “Jeongguk. I like you, okay? There. I said it. I like you so much, and I get that saying this might fuck up our entire friendship but I really like you–“

He cuts her off with his mouth on her own and thinks: How were we this blind for so long?

This time, the kiss is brief, yet urgent. A sense of desperation hides in the corners of their mouths. Not searching for an answer, but out of the sheer desire touch one another, breathe one another after being oblivious for so long. Jeongguk begins to laugh, soft chuckles against her mouth that draw mystified, hopeful giggles from her own chest. The kissing becomes quite pointless, for they are simply smiling so wide out of the absolute ridiculousness that they could have been doing this for months, maybe even years, at this stage.

They were just too foolish and scared of losing the other. Yet none of that matters now.

“Is this you confessing back to me?” she mumbles, and there is so much delight dancing like starlight in her eyes that Jeongguk’s heart races. He pecks at her mouth once, twice, then moves to her cheeks, her nose, her forehead and her chin until she is laughing all over again and holy shit, Jeongguk is quite possibly too in love for somebody who was so firmly denying it no less than two hours ago.

“Something like that,” he hums, squeezing at her sides before slipping his hands out from underneath the hoodie so he can reach up and cup her face. There is something radiant bursting through his ribs. Most likely, his elated heart. “I think I love you. At this stage, for me at least, I feel like I love you. I thought I just loved you as a best friend, but it’s definitely more than that.”

“Oh thank god,” she grins, and he feels it against his palms. “I was going to say I love you instead of I like you, but I thought it might be too sudden and scare you away. So yeah, I love you too, asshole. Also, I’m still a bit tipsy.”

Jeongguk’s face feels as though it is going to split in half from smiling so hard. He tucks her hair behind her ears, dies a little on the inside at the fact that he can do that, and so much more, now that they have laid their cards on the table. Brushing his thumbs over her faintly blushing cheeks, he kisses her, and then says, “Really? Wanna go to bed?”

“Yes,” she sleepily nods, latching her limbs around him again like a starfish. “Onwards to my bed, O’ Noble Steed!”

“God. You’re ridiculous.”

“Ridiculously in love, bitch.”

“Wow, there’s the best friend that I know. Thought I lost you.”

“Nope. You fell in love with this, so you’re stuck with this.”

Grin still plastered to his face, Jeongguk hooks his hands underneath her thighs and lifts her up, delighting in the way she giggles with glee in his ear. In navigating out of the bathroom and to her bedroom, he carries her towards all the light switches so she can flick them off. He kisses her cheek with every single one.

When they enter her bedroom, the overwhelming fragrance of her hits him like a shockwave. Even more so as he carefully lays her down on the bed and then tucks in behind her; the gentle, vanilla aroma lifting from the pillowcase. She rolls over to face him in the dark, and Jeongguk loops his arms around her waist so casually that anyone would think they have been doing this for years.

“Hey,” she whispers.

“Hi,” he murmurs back, pressing his lips to the centre of her brow. At this rate, he believes he may never stop kissing her now that he has started.

Languidly, she blinks, and then mumbles, “This is real, right? I didn’t black out on cocktails, did I? I’m not just having some crazy, amazing dream?”

“Definitely real,” Jeongguk chuckles, pulling her closer. She cranes her neck, angling upwards to catch his mouth against her own, still tasting faintly of mint and pure, unadulterated joy. He licks at her bottom lip, and she groans, pulling away.

“Don’t do that. You’ll make me more horny.”

Jeongguk’s dick, in an act of betrayal, begins to stand to attention for the nth time that night.

“Y-You’re horny right now?” He clears his throat, swallows saliva down his suddenly very parched windpipe.

“Yeah, ’cos I’m still a little drunk,” she whines cutely, but it is nearly lost on Jeongguk. Because now all he can imagine is peeling her out of his hoodie and the boyshorts, seeing her lovely and bare, and then making her cry out his name with every fluid thrust inside of her.

“Fuck, now I’m kinda horny,” he mutters, and she cackles evilly.

“Are you hard?”

“Half,” Jeongguk admits, and she shifts so that she is propped up on her side by her elbow.

“Can I touch you? I’m too tired to jack you off but– I just want to, y’know, feel it,” she is smirking through the shadows and Jeongguk cannot roll the yes off his tongue fast enough.

Then, her small hand is on his dick, almost immediately causing it to swell to its full, erect size.

Jeongguk releases a tight exhalation that whistles between his teeth, draws soothing patterns on her back with his fingertips to try calm himself from potentially blowing his load right here and now. He cannot believe that he has dreamed of this more times than he can physically count on both hands, and now it is actually happening. Out of fear of disturbing the moment, he keeps his muscles locked. She stays rather silent as she feels around him through his sweatpants; gently squeezing his shaft, his balls, her thumb gliding smoothly over the head.

Then, she nods to herself. Her hand recedes, and Jeongguk feels the loss like a blade driving through his gut.

“I always thought it would be big after seeing your semi that one time, but this is quite impressive,” she very casually states while she lays back down, and Jeongguk’s heart stutters. He cannot decide whether it is torture or euphoria that he is experiencing right now. A concoction of the two, most likely, because 1. she thinks that he has a big dick, and yet 2. he refuses to drill it into her while she is still a few steps away from sober. He wants her head completely clear for that.

Instead, Jeongguk latches onto two of the words that she speaks, smirking himself as he says, “Always thought, huh?”

“Oh come on, you can’t say that you haven’t thought about my body, too!” she accuses good-naturedly, wriggling closer to him so that all of her curves and slopes press against him. His painfully hard dick nestles into her thigh. The desire to roll it against her spreads through him like wildfire. “I might’ve been drunker earlier, but don’t think I didn’t notice the way you were staring at my cleavage like a man deprived. That shirt is a godsend for my tiny titties, right?”

“God, you have no fucking idea,” Jeongguk shamelessly admits, burying his face into her neck and softly biting the flesh there, shivering when she squirms. She is better than he could have ever imagined in all of her reactions to his touches, the sounds that she creates. So real. “That’s why I told you to get changed. I thought I was going to die.”

She threads her fingers through his hair, softly stroking the dark locks. “I’ll make sure to wear it more often then.”

“Well, here’s your cautionary warning that I probably won’t be able to hold myself back when you do. I don’t care where we are or who sees.”

“That’s hot,” she laughs, and then yawns. Jeongguk untucks himself from the nook of her shoulder, licks his lips, and presses a firm kiss to her mouth. When she moves her thigh to wrap around his own, it brushes against the head of his hard cock and he has to swallow down a needy moan.

“Sleep. We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay?” He murmurs. “And we’ll fix this horniness problem. Also, side note: can I hold your ass?”

“Yup, go for it,” she hums, closing her eyes and resting her forehead against his own. Jeongguk smooths his palms down her spine and then over the supple flesh of her ass, and lord, it honestly feels as fantastic as he had expected. He gingerly gives it a squeeze, and she makes a soft, appreciative sound that has all the blood rushing out of his head, leaving him lightheaded and so fucking in love that it hurts. Well, hurts his dick, for the most part.

The room fills with placid silence, yet his heart thrums loudly in his ears, keeping him awake. He focuses on the way her breathing begins to even out, and tries to match his own to her pace. Slowly; in through the nose, out through the mouth. The minutes pass, and Jeongguk feels his body become heavier, heavier, until he closes in on the soothing edge of unconsciousness.

She stirs.

“Jeonggukie.”

“Mmm.”

“I think I’m going to vomit again.”

Jeongguk has been woken up in numerous unusual ways. Being punched in the face is a first, and is quite possibly one of the more painful methods. Even if it was an accident as a result of somebody flailing too close for comfort.

“Ow– Jesus!” He squawks, immediately rolling onto his back and cupping his nose where the fist had made sharp contact.

When he opens his watering eyes, he notices that his best friend is looming over him with a very confused and very concerned expression. The sight of her as the first thing he sees when he awakes is not abnormal, for she has proven to be a much more efficient alarm than his own cell phone on numerous occasions. Even if her method this time around was unnecessarily more painful.

But it is the fact that her bedroom surrounds the both of them that throws him off. Because that must mean he is sleeping in her bed. And why on Earth–

Oh.

That’s right. They confessed. They kissed. Jeongguk fell asleep with his hands on her beautiful ass after holding her hair back while she threw up a second time.

He pushes himself up on his elbows, a sleepy half-smile beginning to tilt his lips.

That is, until she very bluntly says, “What are you doing in my bed?”

The smile immediately vacates his expression, and he suddenly feels as though he has fallen off a cliff face and is plummeting through the air. Jeongguk’s voice trembles in the back of his throat as he quietly says, “What do you mean?”

“Why are you in my bed?” she questions him again, and Jeongguk thinks he is literally about to be sick. “Oh! That’s right. You came to the bar, didn’t you? Jesus. Did we get that drunk again that we ended up crashing in my bed together?” She shakes her head. “I bet it was like last time when we passed out in your bed after that frat party. You remember the one, right? Where we had a full-blown argument over pineapple on pizza–“

Jeongguk swiftly scrambles upright and out of the bed, his chest feeling tight in the worst possible way. Did he genuinely dream everything that occurred last night? Did none of it actually happen? Or was she drunker than he initially thought and she has completely forgotten everything that occurred?

“Don’t you remember, ___?” He whispers, and his voice cracks.

She tilts her head to the side. The sunlight filters through the bedroom window, casting her in a sheen of gold, and she looks so unbelievably, heart-wrenchingly gorgeous that Jeongguk feels something in his chest begin to splinter.

“Remember what?” she says, utterly clueless, and Jeongguk casts his eyes to the ground, confused and hurt beyond belief.

“Don’t worry,” he murmurs, starting towards the door. He cannot completely comprehend what is happening right now, but he knows that something is definitely off because he swears on his heart that it was not a dream. She was real. Her warm mouth shaped against his own was real. Her voice wrapping around the words ‘I love you’ was very, very real; he knows that he could never imagine such a confession so vividly–

Behind him, she bursts into a fit of laughter.

“Oh my god. Jeongguk, you’re more gullible than a dog running to fetch the ball that its owner pretended to throw!”

He whips his head around, eyes as wide as Jupiter. “W-What?”

“I remember what happened, dumbass. Everything. I kissed you in the bathroom, we confessed our undying feelings for one another, I touched your dick, yadda yadda.” She crawls across the bed until she is kneeling before him, carefully reaching up to clasp his face between her palms and Jeongguk is torn between wanting to beat her with a pillow or kiss her senseless. Huh, he supposes this is what angry sex must be all about. “Was I really that convincing?”

He closes his eyes, furrows his brow. His mind is still suffering from the sudden whiplash, and is now doused in liquid fury. “I’m honestly going to fucking kill you.”

“I love you too,” she placates him, rising up to tentatively kiss him. He cuttingly stares at her half-lidded gaze as she dusts tiny pecks to his unmoving lips until he finally caves through the simmering anger and gives in to her, flicking his tongue out to meet her own. Carefully, as if she is unsure whether he will tear her head off or not at the slightest misjudgement, she begins to travel her mouth down his jaw, mumbling, “I’m sorry, that was mean of me.”

“I genuinely thought for a moment there that I must’ve had the wildest lucid dream,” he mutters, settling his hands on her ribs and angling his head to the side so that she has easier access. “But I feel like I could’ve never imagined the sight, nor stench of regurgitated cheesy ramyeon with such disgustingly intense clarity.”

She chuckles, quietly apologising again, and the exhalation of it on his skin raises the hairs on his nape. She reaches the under of his jawline, plush lips coming into contact with an especially sensitive spot on his neck, and an involuntary moan escapes him when the light suck of her teeth sends shivers down his spine.

Jeongguk can feel the curve of her languid, wicked grin instantly forming against his skin.

“Instead of fucking killing me, how about you fuck me to my grave?” she suggests, and her tone is too saccharine around such filthy words. Unbearable enough to bolster his morning wood to its full capacity, even when the flame of rage from her awful joke is still dying out.

“You’re insane,” Jeongguk chuckles despite himself, and she leans back, divine smile still intact.

“Insanely horny after keeping my sexual frustrations for you locked up in my body for roughly a year now? Yes,” she confirms with finger guns and a wink. He shakes his head out of incredulity. “And, I do believe I have a dick to blow to say thank you for last night. And also to say sorry for scaring you just now.”

“Baby, I don’t think you realise this yet but if we’re really a thing now, then you’re going to be sucking my dick for a whole month to pay me back for the past twelve hours.” Jeongguk sighs, running his hand through his hair and then down his face. His heart soars from the way her expression meekly transforms at the sudden nickname. “I’m going to have to start a fucking tally.”

“Well,” she hums, slips her fingers into the waistband of his sweatpants, and Jeongguk becomes lightheaded, “consider this strike number one, baby.”

The way she says it melts him down like candle wax, and he cannot help but tackle her onto the bed, grinning at her surprised squeal that is soon suffocated by his lips. Jeongguk knows that they have all morning for this. That he can take his time to explore her body in all of its magnificence until he can perfectly map it out in his mind, can understand the raw shape of her, what glorious noises she makes when he touches her, and what specific places on her being elicit them. He mouths his way down her throat, catches the blissful sigh as it releases from her lungs into the early morning, and then detaches so he can sit back and look at her, straddled beneath him.

Jeongguk entwines her hands with his own and slowly draws them above her head. She simpers, her half-lidded, glassy eyes flooded with unadulterated desire, cast in golden sunlight that makes her appear unbelievably ethereal. He slides his palms to her wrists, leans down so that his lips hover just above her own, gazes right at her and thanks his lucky stars for gracing him with an embodiment of themselves in the form of a girl so radiant that she blinded him; enough, that he could not recognise the love cooped up in her eyes until she spoke it.

He murmurs, “___, I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember. Even if you destroy my savings account and eat the most repulsive meal known to humankind. You’re my best friend, and I want to escalate our best friendship to ‘best-friends-who-fuck-each-other-and-are-ridiculously-in-love’. What do you think?”

“Well, I love you too,” she smiles, her eyes flicking between his own, a glint of mischief hiding underneath the flutter of her eyelashes. “And I completely approve of such an upgrade. Partly because I cannot even express how long I’ve wanted to hold your hand and tell the world that you’re my boyfriend, and partly because I really want to blow you while you play video games.”

There, the realisation drives straight through Jeongguk’s heart. And his dick.

Ah, silver lining.

Note | I just wanted to write about Jeongguk’s phone vibrating against his balls. That is all. I have also never played Overwatch, so if any of the references are incorrect, I apologise. Thank you all for reading, liking, and reblogging this fun and silly little piece. I would love to hear your thoughts on it! ♡

#jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #jungkook x reader #bts fluff #bts smut #jungkook fanfics #bts fan fiction #jeon jungkook #extra cheese please #ecp #/ vomit #/ alcohol #vankoya #gukvory

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cccreekturtsss · 6 years

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as suggested by @elevatorville, ill be doing this whole thing (minus a few for reasons like requiring input from the asker or me legitimately just not having an answer)

answers under the cut

1: a song im ashamed of liking? def a lil peep song, maybe downtown 2: shit man, remembering my favorite lyrics is gonna be hard. theres car seat headrest's "apologies to future mes and yous, but i cant help feeling like were through. the ripping of the tape hurts my ears. in my years, i have never seen anyone quit quite like you do." from famous prophets. that one fucks me up good. 3: some of my favs are the dismemberment plan, car seat headrest and radiohead 4: god uhh i guess 1: academy award by the dismemberment plan, 2: i want you to know that im awake by car seat headrest, 3: neighborhood #1 by arcade fire, 4: age of adz by sufjan stevens, 5: the great curve by talking heads 5: this is pretty generic but. i shot the sherrif by bob marley. i was getting put on new anxiety meds and getting used to them making me barely concious while spacing out to planet earth. 6: wilco is overrated imo, but i am trying to break your heart will never not fuck me up 7: alice in chains is the shit but man in the box is overrated as all hell 8: famous prophets (stars) by car seat headrest. more specifically, the first time i heard it. the piano part was so unexpected, and THEN they pull the pain star shit. DAMN. 9: i wouldnt say they saved my life but the antlers helped me through some shit in the past. specifically hospice. shit in that album hits close to home for me and to relate to it when i needed it was kinda nice. 10: car seat headrest. deadass who else would you expect 11: grizzly bear's veckatimest and yellow house + department of eagles' the cold nose and in ear park bring back major memories to the Good Old Days. 12: kiss another day goodbye by david kauffman and eric caboor 13: i dont sing in the shower, but girlfriend is better by talking heads would be my go-to 14: in elementary school, i tried to play the flute but i sucked so bad i forged my moms signature on the practice sheets 15: uh? the tourist by radiohead maybe 16: devil in a new dress by kanye west, communist daughter by neutral milk hotel, only you by makeout videotape, family romance by department of eagles and id engager by of montreal 17: does saving weezer from becoming mediocre musicians count? 18: ok computer by radiohead. no questions here, its just like. THE album. 19: forgiveness is due by the dismemberment plan 20: i can change by lcd soundsystem 21: all i can think of is. piss on your grave by travis scott 22: passing put pieces by mac demarco. 100% 23: breathe by dandelion hands 24: comfort by jerry paper 25: sad claps by machinegirl 26: idk? i dont have a good memory of lyrics so. heres "im bound to your bedside, your eulogy singer" off of atrophy by the antlers 27: either xtc or talking heads 28: im trying to learn guitar, but its so damn hard hdhfjl 29: mac demarco. his bands shows look so fun. 30: cds. vinyls have a nice aesthetic but cds are more accessible, plus they fit my aesthetic more anyway 31: oh boy this is gonna be a long one. sober to death by car seat headrest, no surprises by radiohead, take me down by smashing pumpkins, chalk talk's cover of wouldnt it be nice, weezer's brain stew cover, the good times are killing me by modest mouse, cheerleader by grizzly bear, after hours by the velvet underground, kurt cobains cover of and i love her, nude by radiohead, only you by mac demarco, pale blue eyes by the velvet underground, when the lights went out by whitey, from the stars by redvox, i am trying to break your heart by wilco, i dont belong by look mom im on tv, me and hawkins by best witches, your protector by fleet foxes, you are you by fleece, in ear park by department of eagles, she wanted to leave by ween, let down by radiohead, helicopter by deerhunter, zebra by beach house, i want wind to blow by the microphones 32: naruto themed sexting (by pannuci’s pizza) is a pretty obligatory one. i also like despair came knocking (by daniel johnston) tremor christ (by pearl jam), and disco infiltrator (by lcd soundsystem) 33: why bother be weezer? man idk 35: sylvia by the antlers 36: ive talked about them too much here already but. im proud of how far car seat headrest has come even just since i started listening to them. im really proud that theyre getting some of the recognition they deserve. especially knowing alot of wills early stuff, its been a long time coming. 37: i want wind to blow by the microphones 38: my smile is extinct by kane strang 39: telecastic fake show by moving on is the only one i have the english name of both the band and song for. in terms of non-english songs, aside from a few edgy italian and japanese rock songs, its mostly instrumentals by far 40: submarino by franco tamponi 41: la mer by debussy 42: earthborn by brian bennett 44: rooster by alice in chains 45: just what i needed by the cars (massachusetts) 47: orange things by best witches 48: girlfriend is better by talking heads 50: i wouldnt rock it but id definately put some mf passion into academy award by the dismemberment plan 51: someone great by lcd soundsystem 52: that one part of impossible soul by sufjan stevens. you know what the fuck im talking about 54: shit, disney songs generally just arent my thing. hellfire from the hunchback of notre dame i guess? 55: kid a by radiohead 56: kim's caravan by courtney barnett 57: blow up the outside world by soundgarden 58: summer love by justin timberlake. his older albums unironically have some fucking bangers 59: pink triangle by weezer 60: eight and a half minutes by the dismemberment plan 61: two wuv by tally hall 62: guerilla radio by rage against the machine 63: spook by adult jazz 65: the summer ends by american football. some government required down-to-earth chilling 66: dreamy by jad fair 68: no one does it like you by department of eagles 69: shouldnt you be laughing by jerry paper, and bonus: a song that a former friend associated with me that really stuck is making flippy floppy by talking heads. hell, this got me into talking heads so theres that too 70: real talk? i like alot of charles mansons music. a specific example would be home is where youre happy

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carliejeanmakingperformance · 4 years

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Blog 1 - Paines Plough & National Theatre of Scotland

Describe briefly in a few sentences what each of the Paines Plough monologues were about.

Chris Thorpe - Manchester:

There are 8 people plus our protagonist in a living room in Manchester. The protagonist is lying on the floor as there were no seats left, while the other guests are ‘laughing like fucking monkeys.’ (Thorpe C, Paines Plough 2018) a man is hovered over him with his ‘boxers down around his knees’ (abid) and balls drooping over his mouth. Everyone is ‘a bit drunk’ (abid) and as he struggles to get up from the floor the rest of the room begins laughing more. On the 3rd attempt he is successful and stammers home upset and angered. He argues that ‘its not happening because who i am, its happening because where i am in the room’. (abid) His attempts to calm himself fail as when he gets home he grabs an iron golf club and marches back to his friends house. On arrival there are now only 6 people left in the party ‘all fucked’ (abid) and asleep, taking this opportunity he ‘I bring[s the club] round fast and hard right under his [friends] eye.’ (abid) Surprised as the force made ‘more of a splash’(abid) than a crack or snap as expected, he is then reminded that his hands and head often work separately. Reminiscent memories of his school days flashback seeing his now wife watching him smoke, and the intriguing nature of his hands doing ‘what they want’, (abid) bringing the realisation of his actions back to the now as she can no longer watch their actions pan out ‘forever.’ (Thorpe C, Paines Plough 2018)

Hannah Silva - Plymouth:

A girl watches as her father's aggressive ‘blood clot’ (Silva H, Paines Plough 2018) distorts his memories and makes him see things less clearly. Clouding over his memories of war, there is confusion over a letter, a French lady, and childhood memories where father and daughter would play Bach on piano together, despite his comments on her ‘tiny hands’ (abid) . His dreams and memories become warped as he forgets his daughters name and the horrors of war become more than just past experiences as the loving daughter longs for her father to remember that ‘he was a poet and she was a musician.’ (Silva H, Paines Plough 2018)

Chloe Moss - Liverpool:

It is 1988 in a Liverpudlian town overlooking north Wales, A girl is perched in a toilet cubicle on breaktime, trying to overcome her generalized panic disorder with her knees ‘bent against [her] chest.’ (Moss C, Paines Plough 2018) She feels the only way to help would be to leave school as not even her mantra is working on easing her anxiety. She is ‘the last person anyone expects to be bunking off school’ (abid) as she tells herself ‘I'm a good girl, I don't do things like this.’ (abid) Sneaking out and convincing herself and an older girl that she must leave for the dentist. Her only wish throughout is to have the ‘ability to enter a room of people without feeling puse.’ (abid) The protagonist finds herself on the beach where due to her teachers description of quick sand she has grown scared of the possibilities that there are ‘bodys underneath the dunes.’’ (abid) finding a place to hide a lady with ‘binky the dog’ approaches and starts talking about her dead son whose death can loosely be blamed on Margaret Thatcher, ‘the witch in charge.’ (abid) The girl awkwardly tries to get out of the convocation by going to retrieve a ball for the lady's dog, running as if ‘this is a parallel world which ordinary girls fly.’ (abid) This act allows her to realise that she was not saying her mantra while walking over the sand and that while focusing on other things she had moved passed the point of being scared. (Moss C, Paines Plough 2018)

Zia Ahmed - London:

The protagonist and their partner Broke up due to race differences and issues surrounding racism. He speaks of how he feels he always has to apologize for people of colour's mistakes. He repeats ‘i love you’ (Ahmed Z, Paines Plough 2018) throughout the story highlighting how even although they are no longer together he longs for them to be a part of their life. Using popular culture he explains how ‘where i come from bond looks like the bond villains and the bond villains look like bond’. (Abid) This monologue highlights how someone of a Pakistani background ‘feel most coloured when [they] get thrown against a sharp white background’, (Abid) which isn't helped by popular culture, and racism, where people of colour then feel they have to ‘go back to where they came from’ despite them being from that area, and not allowing them to stick up for themselves and having the right to say ‘I ain't English i ain't Pakistany, im London.’ (abid) This story is key in pointing out how racism, it’s behind you, no it's around you.’ (Ahmed Z, Paines Plough 2018)

Alan Harris - Cardiff:

A boy from Tonteg, Pontypridd was used to getting into trouble, he wore the right clothes and wanted to be the first to do everything such as getting ‘the top of their hair permed.’ (Harris A, Paines Plough 2018) It is who he became, drinking with ‘no consequences.’ (abid) The first time he ‘got arrested as an adult was in Caerphilly,’ (abid) he stole a push bike left in a ‘front garden’ (abid) and a police man caught him and threw him in a cell. In the corner of there cell there was a duck, he claimed that ‘the duck is staring at me, and it says ‘‘alright.’’’ (abid) The protagonist goes and touches the duck on his shoulder, stating ‘i can see the world from the eyes of the duck’. (abid) He then becomes the duck and has both his and the ducks memories. Using the toilet in his cell to get his feet wet, which made him ‘happy.’ (abid) He professed ‘they let me go, out of my way’ with wet feet at 5am, he sees some ducks and ponders on the thought that they are ‘Maybe looking for a new patch of water to call home.’ (Harris A, Paines Plough 2018)

What images/ characters / moments particularly stuck out for you in any of the Paines plough monologues and why?

Chloe Moss’ performance particularly stuck out to me as it reminded me of how stressful childhood is, it showed me how being young the smallest things seem to be magnified and heightened causing things to be larger than initially thought. The scene with the lady reinforced the initial panic of quick sand, yet as it developed it showed the value of listening and lending an ear to someone in need. This touched me as I felt the lady chose to see how much the girl needed someone and instead of prying, ofered convocation and elevated the girls fear.

The monologue set In Tonteg remainder me of vivid memories from home. The power of the strong welsh accent combined with a detail account of what a ‘valleys’ man feels although they should do to prove themselves to their friends was a clear and accurate reresentIon of my home town Pontypridd where this monologue is set.

Hearing how emotional Hannah Silva’s monologue was really helped paint the picture of a piano and how much music can effect an individual. The description of the piano accompanied by visuals on the ‘treble clef shaped blood clot’ not only created a connection between the writing and song but also the bloody and sanding reality that the protagonist father has a blood clot causing him to forget and muddy the past resting this beautiful sound of uncertainty.

How were the National Theatre Scotland monologues using the frame ( screen) to successfully tell a story?

Space was an important part of both monologues. The first has dark background, and the use of cinematography overlaying the monologue gives set and historical context to the scene, you could see the ‘monkey dung men’ (Poet F, cited by Watson J 2020) who worked there, as well as visually seeing the asbestos dust in which they were told too ‘breathe it in son’ - ‘there's men welding over there and your worried about a bit of dust.’ (abid) The monologue is delivered in interview style as he's talking to the camera, and you can see the raw emotion clearly as he's talking about how he ‘thought [he’d] dodged the bullet’ (abid) and chose to change trade to an electrician. ‘Jimmy read, that man could speak’ (abid) is visually captured through video aid showing Jimmy historically speaking to a crowd, allowing the audience to feel connected to the historic context being told within the story. Coughing is used to move between frames and it shows the effects of the asbestos, foreshadowing the context of the story ‘cough - pardon me - cough’ (Poet F, cited by Watson J 2020)

The second monologue differs as it is set in a Messy bedroom, which allows people to connect with the frame due to the set being universally recognised as well as the personal nature of the setting. Timeless is being captured within the frame as everyone has experienced being ill, with it jumping back to the main set of the messy room allowing the audience to feel as trapped as she is. ‘this room is a box i can’t get out of’ (Fagan J, cited by Dickie K 2020) allows for the story to not only be successful within the room she has chosen to set it in, but also within the box it is captured in on the website and even further onto the device its getting viewed from, this then makes the issues captured in the story magnified and much more significant than initially thought. Due to the video being recorded out of the normal format the frame is malleable and can be distorted allowing different angles such as the pacing and washing of hands through sanitisers and bathroom scrubbing to be more intimate and almost 1st person, as it is filmed as though we are looking as the protagonist and doing these things ourselves, really putting us into the mindset of the character. Having the frame watch her from the end of her bed reinforces the intimate feeling as if we were perched on the end of her bed and allowing her to talk to us, allowing us to move from sympathising with her in the main bedroom set, to then almost being her in the overlaid scenes. (Fagan J, cited by Dickie K 2020)

Bibliography

Ahmed Z, cited in Paines Plough (2018) Come to Where I’m From (2.0.3) [Mobile App] (Accessed:05/10/2020)

Fagan J, Cited by Dickie K 2020. Scenes For Survival Launch Collection | National Theatre Of Scotland. [online] Available at: <https://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/latest/scenes-for-survival-launch-collection> [Accessed 4 October 2020].

Harris A, cited in Paines Plough (2018) Come to Where I’m From (2.0.3) [Mobile App] (Accessed:05/10/2020)

Moss C, cited in Paines Plough (2018) Come to Where I’m From (2.0.3) [Mobile App] (Accessed:05/10/2020)

National Theatre of Scotland. 2020. Scenes For Survival Launch Collection | National Theatre Of Scotland. [online] Available at: <https://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/latest/scenes-for-survival-launch-collection> [Accessed 4 October 2020].

Paines Plough (2018) Come to Where I’m From (2.0.3) [Mobile App] (Accessed:05/10/2020)

Poet F, Cited by Watson J 2020. Scenes For Survival Launch Collection | National Theatre Of Scotland. [online] Available at: <https://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/latest/scenes-for-survival-launch-collection> [Accessed 4 October 2020].

Silva H, cited in Paines Plough (2018) Come to Where I’m From (2.0.3) [Mobile App] (Accessed:05/10/2020)

Thorpe C, cited in Paines Plough (2018) Come to Where I’m From (2.0.3) [Mobile App] (Accessed:05/10/2020)

#makingperformance #painesplough #nationaltheatrescotland #drama

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bobbystompy · 4 years

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My Top 75 Songs Of 2019

Previously: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

First time going below 100 songs since 2015, and I cannot wait. Giving this extra juice already.

As always, criteria and info:

This is a list of what I personally like, not ones I’m saying are the “best” from the year; more subjective than objective

No artist is featured more than once

If it comes down to choosing between two songs, I try to give more weight to a single or featured track

Each song on the list is linked in the title if you wanna check them out for yourself; there is also a Spotify playlist at the bottom that includes the majority of the songs

This is usually the part where I put up a pump up video, but we are going with something a little different this year.

youtube

(It was stuck my head. Blame Blink-155.)

75) YG - “In The Dark”

The video begins with YG chugging a full tequila bottle -- sure. This song is very bad. It’s like he’s in a competition to make the verse lyrics worse than the chorus lyrics (spoiler alert: the verses “win”); not even satanic imagery can save this.

74) Solange - “Stay Flo”

Here’s a weird take: wouldn’t Solange’s career be way more fun if everyone slept on her? Instead, it’s hype on hype -- plus being Beyoncé’s sister -- which makes it nearly impossible to deliver. This has a fun beat/vibe but is kinda boring... and was still easily my favorite off her album.

73) Art Alexakis - “The Hot Water Test”

My doctors told me that I had a disease / I will slowly fall apart until there’s nothing left that looks like me

This song makes the stakes clear immediately. It was released a few months after I saw Art play in June 2019 on my birthday. At the intimate show, he revealed his multiple sclerosis diagnosis as if we were all his closest friends. Something like this is never easy to deal with -- a similar announcement by the Lucky Boys Confusion singer did not help matters -- but music can help such a painful situation, and it’s clearly Alexakis’ exile here.

72) The Cranberries - “In The End”

A very suitable sendoff for the band following the passing of singer Dolores O’Riordan. The recording story (via NPR):

O'Riordan died suddenly in January 2018 at 46 years old and left behind the vocal tracks to what was intended to be the band's latest album. Now, O'Riordan's bandmates have decided to complete that album, In The End — the last album the band will release — in her memory.

[...]

In June 2017, O'Riordan and Hogan started emailing album ideas and demos back and forth to each other. O'Riordan had been very open about her struggles with mental health and addiction, which would affect the band at times, but they wanted to make a new album. Hogan says that when they were emailing those demos, she was in a good place. They started laying down her demos.

"All of that was kind of behind her," Hogan says. "She's kind of found a way to cope with the mental health thing. That's why she wanted to write so much. That's what she kept saying, 'I have so much to say, I just need the music to put it to.' "

Hogan says O'Riordan's apparent stability is what made her death even more tragic and devastating. (Officials ruled O'Riordan's cause of death to be accidental drowning due to alcohol intoxication.) But after a period of mourning, the remaining band members remembered they still had O'Riordan's demos. As Hogan remembers, they finally had the courage to start listening to them again in late February and, with her family's permission, started recording in April. "We spoke to her family and said, 'Look, how do you feel about us finishing the album?' And they were really supportive," Lawler says. "They were delighted, actually. They gave us their blessing."

Hogan says, in a sense, they were used to O'Riordan not being in the studio when they recorded — "Dolores hated hanging around the studio once we worked on our parts" — but, of course, this time was different.

71) Raleigh Ritchie - “Time In A Tree”

Exercise time. Play the first minute or so of this song without looking at any YouTube visuals.

/waits for you

OK, who are you picturing singing this? Got your image?

Well, whatever it was, you’re wrong -- it’s GREY WORM HIMSELF.

This was the best thing about “Game of Thrones” in 2019, sadly.

70) Culture Abuse - “Goo”

Simple, effective, gets out before you can dislike much.

69) Lil Pump f/ Lil Wayne - “Be Like Me”

Sometimes, a song starts, and you can just tell it’s going to be ignorant. Even before the vocals kick in. This was probably our moment here:

Between that and the beat, it’s like the only thing you can think is “Ohhhh, he’s about to say some horrible things about women.”

Other choice lines:

- “Yes, I’m hella ignorant, I don’t give a fuck” (he even says it in the song)

- “I take drugs like it’s Vitamin C / I’m a millionaire, but I don’t know how to read”

This song almost feels like it existed already.

68) The Get Up Kids - “Satellite”

Finally, our first rock song with some punch. This probably takes the crown from both DMB and P.O.D.

67) Bad Religion - “My Sanity”

BR is historically my favorite band, so it is rather deflating to see them so far back on this list. That said, it is Year 40 (!!!) of their existence, so some can be forgiven. Yet... we’ve never needed them more, you know? It’s this weird mixture of resentment but understanding.

66) Billy Liar - “The Righteous & The Rats”

Gonna see him (them?) open for The Bombpops in March; looks quite promising. Has an old school Brit punk feel.

65) Beach Slang - “AAA”

Beach Slang never lets you forget they love -- no, like, LOVE -- The Replacements. When this cover dropped, I googled “replacements AAA”, and, surprisingly, nothing came up.

Ohhh, what I fool I was. After more digging, I discovered a band called Grandpaboy who performed “AAA”.

“Oh, damn -- he finally went outside the box with this pick.”

No. Grandpaboy is fronted by Paul Westerberg. Singer of, you guessed it, The Replacements.

James Alex wears his heart on his sleeve so hard, he might as well give the heart a little jacket so his heart can wear its own heart on its sleeve.

HE DID THAT TOO?!

You can’t even make jokes about this band; they live in the jokes with their damn earnestness.

64) Gesaffelstein & The Weeknd - “Lost In The Fire”

Even lesser known Weeknd-involved tracks sound like they could lead a soundtrack or close out a festival. Are you familiar with this one at all? It has 87 million views on YouTube. Abel is never not not playing.

63) FIDLAR - “By Myself”

Started from the bottom and I’m still at the bottom

Falling apart never felt so carefree and burdenless.

62) Constant Elevation - “Fuck Runnin”

As hardcore punk as this list is gonna get. All glory to Vinnie Caruana. Though none of his solo tracks from 2019 made it, this has an undeniable energy and confidence. Plus probably the best song title of the year.

61) Maren Morris f/ Brandi Carlile - “Common”

A focused duet that drills into relationship dynamics before throwing a personal theology wrench in the middle of the chorus.

60) Anti-Flag - “Christian Nationalist”

AF going in on the white, religious right. This is like throwing a 50 mph pitch to -- /looks up good baseball players -- Pete Alonso.

59) Cokie The Clown - “Punk Rock Saved My Life”

This is less of a song and more of a confessional essay, and it gets harder and harder to look away with every revealing detail. If NOFX’s Fat Mike needed this character as a vehicle to get all of these autobiographical details off his chest, hopefully it’s a helpful therapy.

58) White Reaper - “Might Be Right”

“Judy French” is such an untoppable song, but “Might Be Right” has a similar dynamic.

57) Denzel Curry - “RICKY”

Denzel Curry as a rap moniker is such a slam dunk.

/looks up actual name

!!!

56) Ariana Grande - “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored”

It takes a special kind of hot girl twisted to issue this unflinching request while totally pulling it off.

55) Goody Grace f/ blink-182 - “Scumbag”

Not sure if Goody is a Soundcloud rapper, punk rocker, or some kinda emo hybrid of both.

A few asides:

- Have we ever -- ever -- heard Travis Barker this subdued on drums?

- On the Blink-155 podcast, Goody said he gave Tom from the Plain White T’s a songwriting credit because he unintentionally lifted some melodies from “Hey There Delilah”, but... I really don’t hear it at all; like, it sounds maybe in the same key but not much else?

54) Jonas Brothers - “Sucker”

Despite their popularity in the past, I do not think I could name a single JoBros song. That changed in 2019 with this poppy, light, clappy, Maroon 5-style single.

53) Goo Goo Dolls - “Money, Fame & Fortune”

Someone -- coulda sworn it was Brendan Kelly -- said this was Goo Goo Dolls sounding like Fake Problems, and that is spot on.

52) AJJ - “A Poem”

A poem is song that no one cares about

This short, folky tune led to one of my favorite Twitter exchanges of the year, when I reached out to a music journalist with a question and AJJ came flying off the top rope.

51) DaBaby - “Suge”

This song is fun, but I really don’t get it. Beat is cool, flow is fine... this is the new face of hip-hop? His name is DaBaby! What are we doing here?!

50) Laura Stevenson - “Jesus, Etc.”

Taking a classic and doing it full justice/adding some harmonies.

49) blink-182 - “Not Another Christmas Song”

Blink’s 2019 album “Nine” was very, very bad because it tried too hard and was not good. This song, released later in the year, takes an opposite approach and actually works. We get lyrics that are discontent, even clumsy at times -- the “I miss fucking in the rain” line is so out of place/cringe-y but actually feels real and not workshopped by 10 producers. The trio can hopefully use this better b-side to figure out the best songwriting should flow out of you without having to go through multiple stations on a conveyor belt first.

48) Dave Hause - “Eye Aye I”

This song has a lot I love (catchy chorus, wistful thoughts, hairline analyses) and a lot I don’t (genuine use of the word “old bores”, Van Halen getting respect), but one thing is clear: Dave Hause is in complete control.

47) Beck - “Up All Night”

I’ve casually followed Beck’s entire career and would not have guessed this was him if given 100 chances. As an exercise, I’m going to pull up the 2020 Coachella lineup and randomly point to an artist.

/pulls up lineup and points

I got Daniel Caesar. If you told me this was Daniel Caesar, that would probably make more sense here.

46) Shawn Mendes - “If I Can’t Have You”

Randomly came into Shawn Mendes tickets in 2019, and good gracious, that was something. Other than parents, we were the oldest people there by a lot. Getting to watch thousands of teens and preteens legitimately having the best moment of their lives was downright inspiring. When you’re that young, it’s not even hyperbole. Phones were flagrantly out; I’m talking 20+ minutes of straight video being filmed. I wanted to judge so badly, but if you gave me an iPhone at my first concert when I was 14, who the hell knows how egregious my behavior would’ve been. As fun as the whole experience was, I never wanted to be in a grimy punk club more. Sometimes, leaving your comfort zone makes you appreciate your home base more.

This is a rock solid pop song, but there are way too many you/you rhymes to not penalize it some.

45) Big Thief - “Cattails”

The whitest song you will ever hear that isn’t written by Vampire Weekend.

44) Bayside - “Prayers”

Bayside went super metal with their 2019 release “Interrobang” (such a sick name). So yes, the guitars are a touch harder than you might be used to, but the chorus soars; a great hook transcends genre.

43) Naughty Boy & Mike Posner - “Live Before I Die”

Few had as interesting of a year as Mike Posner. Following a breakup, the death of his father, and the death of Avicii, he decided to walk across the United States of America. He legit became Forrest Gump, right down to the beard and grown out hair.

In the video, you can see how a snakebite hospitalized him and almost derailed the whole trek. After a rehabilitation period where he almost lost his leg, our man finally makes it to the Pacific Ocean. If nothing else, watch for the ending -- it’s exhilarating.

42) Post Malone - “Wow.”

Post is flexing in this one; we’ve got slow motion jamming with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, international flights, a dancing beard guy, and a Fall Out Boy name check which really makes them sound cooler than they are now.

41) Bryce Vine f/ YG - “La La Land”

Sometimes, these summertime Cali songs write themselves. That is until YG comes in and flips over the board before you can finish the game. By the time the Coachella reference is dropped when Bryce comes back in, you realize 1:47 may have actually been a better endpoint for the song than its 2:47 length.

40) David Rokos - “Backseat Drives”

It’s winter in Chicago, again and until forever. If you haven’t been to the Jewel in the South Loop or Marshall Field’s before they changed it, just listen to this so you don’t actually have to.

39) Simple Creatures - “Drug”

Mark Hoppus and the dude from All Time Low give us this synth-pop bop that feels like the duo shooting their shot at a real mainstream pop hits. It didn’t quite get there, but they should feel OK about where it landed.

38) Chris Cresswell - “To The Wind”

My interest in The Flatliners ramped up considerably in 2019, as their near decade old record “Cavalcade” got plenty of spins (peep “Filthy Habits”; just stunningly incredible punk). Though they did not release anything this year, their singer put out “To The Wind”, a longing song about missing someone.

37) Kesha f/ Big Freedia - “Raising Hell”

Kesha, with the help of New Orleans’ Big Freedia, gives us another one. I’ve personally dug Kesha for a while now, but when is it time for us as a society to put her into the all-time conversation for pop artists? She has at least, like, seven HOF certifiable bangers. Plus she kills a guy in this music video.

In conclusion, I think this could translate to a country song very easily.

36) No Lenox - “Marquee”

Illinois/Japan’s No Lenox are back with Reuben Baird on the mixer and legendary masterer Collin Jordan (of The Boiler Room) on the, well, master, and the fullness in sound leads to the assault that is the “I saw your name on the marquee / Your friends were milling around outside” part. They only play it once, but I really could’ve gone for closer to five.

35) Red City Radio - “Love A Liar”

Rapid fire Red City Radio gets this one done in exactly 120 seconds.

34) Barely March - “Lead Single”

This sounds like Joyce Manor turned up to a 17 out of 10 before unexpectedly turning into a hellogoodbye song.

33) New Lenox - “Old Words”

Not a typo from two songs ago -- legitimately a different band. This one was written by your boy. The first 15 seconds were from a demo recorded 1/2/16 before developing the rest in 2019 (after some encouragement). We have Dave Rokos on guitar/bass, Dave Hernandez on hums, and Brian Bedford on some very temporary sleigh bells. Themes: online dating, resolutions, exes, currents, Black Wednesday, hope, and Carly Rae Jepsen stage banter.

32) MakeWar - “Sails”

Honey, I can’t make it on my own

You might get some Gaslight Anthem vibes as the vocals come in, but by the time the song ends, MakeWar leaves their own imprint on this impassioned ballad.

31) Sheryl Crow & Johnny Cash - “Redemption Day”

Was gonna say Johnny’s voice could move mountains before realizing no, Johnny’s voice is the mountains.

30) American Football f/ Hayley Williams - “Uncomfortably Numb”

Sensitivity deprived I can't feel a thing inside I blamed my father in my youth Now as a father, I blame the booze

An unlikely collaboration that makes you forget about its unlikeliness by the two minute mark. The two voices trade spots, mesh, harmonize, and weave throughout this beautiful song.

Asides:

- Blake from “Workaholics” in the video?!

- Choose to interpret this song’s title as a Pink Floyd diss

- “I’ll make new friends in the ambulance” should be a 2005-level emo lyric that we all mock, yet it’s somehow one of the most stunningly appropriate closers of the entire year

- I wish my friend Luke was with us to hear it

29) Stuck Out Here - “Embarrass You”

Stuck Out Here got onto my radar with 2014′s amazingly named “Getting Used To Feeling Like Shit”. Five years later, they’re back -- and not feeling much better. The Toronto quartet’s Bandcamp describes the song like this:

They’re fucking up, but unlike previous releases, they’re finally holding themselves accountable.

You can even kinda hear their Canadian accents in the “I’m sorry I embarrass you...” part.

28) The Weeknd - “Heartless”

The Weeknd will be on these lists as long as he continues to make music even 1/8th as good as this.

27) The Chainsmokers f/ blink-182 - “P.S. I Hope You’re Happy”

A simple song that’s a touch more clever than you first realize. The Chainsmokers guy is giving me some real Owl City vibes. Also, how airtight of an apology is the line “I blame myself for when I was someone else”. It’s like the modern way of saying “When I was a child, I spoke like a child”.

Also also, the “I will find a way somehow...” harmony in the pre-chorus is as pretty as music got in 2019. The Chainsmokers are so sonically pleasing, whether you end up liking the music or not.

26) Vampire Weekend - “Harmony Hall”

ooooooooh, that crisp guitar in the intro

25) Alex Lahey - “Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself”

If Carly Rae Jepsen can get a sword, why can’t Alex Lahey get a god damn saxophone? HIT ME.

That solo, combined with the “Mighty Ducks” reference in the chorus, make this song untouchable.

24) Lizzo - “Truth Hurts”

Let’s be clear: this did drop in 2017 but was technically re-released in 2019, so it does qualify for our list despite the criteria threatening timeline. Anyway.

The walking piano part, the iconic intro line (with a lawsuit!), the Minnesota Vikings reference (causing a Green Bay radio edit), and all of the damn positivity. Lizzo was among music’s big winners this year, and her success made you wonder how the hell someone this talented was slept on for those two years.

Let’s end with the purse.

23) An Horse - “Ship Of Fools”

Awkward band name, but a song that makes you pay attention. Kinda like Tegan and Sara, had they stayed more rock. So much urgency in the vocals and lyrics.

22) Charli XCX f/ Lizzo - “Blame It On Your Love”

Trippy vid; Charli continues to give us anthems. Wasn’t super high on the Lizzo cameo, but it somehow made more sense in the context of said video.

21) Sincere Engineer - “Dragged Across The Finish Line”

Sincere Engineer is back -- you can tell from the second those guitar leads get goin’. Drums from 1:19 to 1:36 = /heart eyes emoji. My buddy Cox said his next tattoo very well could be the outro lyric “Too dumb to succeed, too honest to cheat”.

(Bonus fact: they did a beer collaboration/show with Pollyanna Brewing Company in 2019.)

20) Lil Nas X - “Old Town Road”

Was unwilling to listen when this first dropped solely because of how horrible Lil Nas X’s name is (”What if a rapper came out named ‘Lil Jay-Z X’?!”)... what a foolish notion. One billion streams and a Billy Cyrus cameo later, I wouldn’t have been able to miss out on the Song of the Summer (and year) if I tried. More notes:

- Picked this because I had to, but “Panini” is legit good (200+ million streams)

- Went with the original (sorry, Billy), which is a beautiful 1:53 long (brevity, brevity, brevity)

- Did you know: Lil Nas X uses a Nine Inch Nails sample on the beat? This Rolling Stone interview with Trent Reznor is super interesting

Reznor calls “Old Town Road” “undeniably hooky,” but once it exploded, he took a back seat to the phenomenon. “The reason I haven’t stepped in to comment anything about it is, I don’t feel it’s my place to play any kind of social critic to that,” he says. “It was a material that was used in a significant way and it turned into something that became something else, and those guys should be the ones the spotlight is on…. They asked if I wanted to do a cameo in the video, and it was flattering, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I don’t feel like it’s my place to shine a light on me for that. I say that with complete respect.”

Still, Reznor is amazed at how the song became a juggernaut. “Having been listed on the credits of the all-time, Number One whatever-the-fuck-it-is wasn’t something…I didn’t see that one coming,” he says. “But the world is full of weird things that happen like that. It’s flattering. But I don’t feel it’s for me to step in there and pat myself on the back for that.”

19) Gryffin & Carly Rae Jepsen - “OMG”

What doesn’t this little bop have? It’s kinda Chainsmoker-y and tingles like cool breath hitting the back of your neck.

18) Craig Finn - “Blankets”

You travel your whole life just to get out to the place you’re gonna die

I love everything about this song: the artwork, the intro, the climax, the command Craig Finn has from start to finish -- with such a payoff. Now several albums in, the greatest compliment we can give is that his solo stuff now feels more essential than Hold Steady releases*. You can even hear it in this line: “When we got to the Twin Cities / I said ‘Man, I know some songs about this place’”. Another life.

17) Carly Rae Jepsen - “Now That I Found You”

Carly always keeps us in the sky; picking one song was difficult because the album is even more fulfilling as you get to put the pieces together.

16) Billie Eilish - “Bad Guy”

Different genres*, but Billie Eilish lived up to her hype in the exact same way Lana Del Rey did in the earlier part of the decade. Lana said she was the gangster Nancy Sinatra and totally fucking was. Billie feels like something potentially even bigger. Nearly everything about her aura lets you project (or even second guess, if you’re a skeptic). Is she dead-eyed because she’s high or disaffected? Or just Aubrey Plaza? Is it her or her brother that’s pulling the strings? How can someone so young be so good already? In the skinny fashion era of All Achilles Everything, how is she rocking such loose fits?

“I never want the world to know everything about me. I mean that’s why I wear big baggy clothes,” she said. “Nobody can have an opinion because they haven’t seen what’s underneath.”

“Nobody can be like ‘Oh, she’s slim-thick, she’s not slim-thick, she’s got a flat ass, she’s got a fat ass,’” she continued. “No one can say any of that because they don’t know.”

It almost seems too easy, but how much sense does that make to you?

Great jokes aside, I have so much anticipation for what’s next, with assured belief in its potential. Pitchfork:

In 10 years, she will still be well under 30. Let’s hope the planet survives that long.

Yes.

(* - though not totally)

15) Ben Gibbard - “Filler”

Before you check Gibbard’s, please listen to the original by Minor Threat. That’s what he had to work with. From there, a total transformation while doing the near impossible -- keeping its beating heart.

14) Martha - “Wrestlemania VIII”

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Third favorite song title of the year/favorite music video of the year. This is energetic, bratty punk at its finest; also surprised to find out it was British, but, based on the upcoming tour dates and YouTube description...

This is a silly & frankly quite rubbish video but when you are a band trapped within surveillance capitalism's endless hunger for content trying to promote a tour sometimes things will be a silly & frankly quite rubbish.

I love them. Seriously didn’t even notice the accents in the singing until I knew to look for them; now, it’s all I can hear. Also, the part in the video where they finally show someone with an instrument, only he stops playing guitar halfway into the solo (/crying emoji).

THEY SAY ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDA

13) Chance The Rapper f/ Ben Gibbard - “Do You Remember”

Chance The Rapper dropped a one hour and 17 minute album in 2019 because he is a monster. I could not name three songs on it, but this one stood out big. It’s Chano doing what he does best: reminiscing and evoking summer in his city. Gibbard on the hook gives it that 2005 nostalgia while also making you say “Damn, it’s been nearly 15 years since 2005?!”

Fav two lines:

1) “Used to have obsession with the ‘27 Club’ / Now I'm turning 27, wanna make it to the 2070 club / Put the 27's down, Lord, give me a clean lung / Took the ring up out the box, I know this ain't no brief love”

2) “That summer left a couple tan lines / I love my city, they let me cut the line on the Dan Ryan”

(If you know, you know.)

Two more asides:

- If you Google “death cab for cutie”, the next autofill from there is “do you remember”. Rough for the legacy.

- “My daughter on the swing like the 2017 Cubs” is a line that confused me, but here’s how Genius explained it:

Chance is talking about a memorable summer and the things that made him happy. This line continues that theme when he raps about his daughter happily on a swing and how that’s similar to the 2017 Cubs. The Chicago Cubs won the World Series in 2016; therefore, the 2017 season was one of celebration and relaxation as the pressure of the 108 year drought was over.

12) Lana Del Rey - “The Greatest”

I miss Long Beach, and I miss you...

Listening to this song feels like watching the cement dry on a classic in real time. Lana Del Rey’s galactic “Norman Fucking Rockwell!” dominated lists at the end of 2019, and she -- to borrow her word -- fucking deserved it.

- The Beach Boys line is so god damn perfect

- The guitar solo (soooo sick)

- The breathy singing; the crooning; the notes that go up and then down until you’re surrounded by melody

- The perfection of this album name (minus the very iffy exclamation point) will have me comparing nearly any other all-time album title for probably the rest of our lives

- Tried playing this album during my Monday night pickup basketball run, and it very much failed... but that’s about the only thing it couldn’t do

- I’m told the dude with her on the album cover is Jack Nicholson’s grandson (named Duke Nicholson, because of course)

11) Off With Their Heads - “No Love”

If you do not like punk rock, this will be unlistenable. If you do, what a treat! I love how dissatisfied and put off he sounds, and, while there are a few more lively songs remaining on the list, none in 2019 got fast-tracked to my workout/pump up playlist at this speed.

Factoring in the band’s van accident (occurred after the release of this song), the “There’s nothing I could say that’s ever gonna make it right” outro becomes hauntingly clairvoyant.

10) Drake f/ Rick Ross - “Money In The Grave”

We need to face facts: it was a down year for stadium hip-hop. Nowhere on this list do you see Jay, Em, Kendrick, or Kanye (rest in peace). This was my favorite rap song of the year, and it couldn’t even crack the Top 5. Similar to his beloved Raptors -- who are being celebrated here -- it’s almost as if Drake needed some injuries outside his own locker room to get the crown. But I’m done being bummed, let’s focus on the good:

- Ohhhh, the intro (”I mean where. the fuck. should I. really even start?”)

- The way he says “grave” in the hook like he can barely contain

- The hook itself -- read it out loud: “When I die, put my money in the grave”

- How cool Ross sounds when he breaks in

- The Zion reference

The bad:

- Rarely take this angle, but really wouldn’t mind if it were longer

- Misogyny

9) PUP - “Bloody Mary, Kate And Ashley”

Second favorite song title of the year, 6/8 time signature, satanic references, drugs, hallucinations (maybe), and, yes, the Olsen twins.

8) Better Oblivion Community Center - “Sleepwalkin’”

“It’s impossible to count...”

The intro, as the tempo gets jarringly slower and slower, ironically helps you acclimate quicker. This Phoebe Bridgers/Conor Oberst collab was my No. 1 played track of 2019 (the album coming out in January definitely helped). The song builds to Phoebe’s solo part:

You like beer and chocolate I like setting off those bottle rockets We can never compromise But fighting 'til the death keeps us alive

It’s sung so well, you can almost feel the heat of the spotlight on her through the stereo. The lyrics could be anything.

The chill guitar solo takes us out.

7) AM Taxi - “Saint Jane”

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Adam Krier is such a rockstar, he had me shouting “I’m no hero, at best a zero!” within my fifth listen -- and I was skeptical as hell when I first heard the line. But that’s about where it stopped. You can tell this song is going to rip even before the vocals come in. When they do (”These fears don’t die, you get older and they multiply”), it’s just fucking time to go.

6) Taylor Swift - “Paper Rings”

My favorite pop song of 2019. Tay is firing on all cylinders; every lyric is exactly where it’s supposed to be; boppy and fun and sincere (while still being light-hearted). Still holding out minor hope it will be a single in 2020.

5) Pkew Pkew Pkew - “The Polynesian”

I’ve always said the best songs make you want to live the lyrics, whether they are positive or negative. This one had me researching “polynesian wisconsin” faster than I’m comfortable disclosing. And yes “bed bugs” and “needles” were both in the Top 7 recommended searches after those first two words.

Pkew Pkew Pkew collaborated with Craig Finn on some of their lyrics on 2019′s “Optimal Lifestyles”, and I’d be blown away if he doesn’t have fingerprints on this one -- the storytelling is pristine. Go into this open-minded, and I’d be shocked if you weren’t shouting the “Goatees, tall cans, camo pants, and Packers fans” mantra by the end.

Bonus story: this St. Patrick’s day in Chicago, I asked my friend Sara (Wisconsin native) if she’d ever stayed there, and she held up her elbow and showed me a scar from the hotel’s water slide. Your boy was over the moon.

4) Spanish Love Songs - “Losers”

It gets harder, doesn’t it?

Dylan Slocum has a way of not just writing depressing songs -- many lyricists are good at that -- but specifically depressing songs. This song contemplates death, homelessness, squandering your limited time on the planet, credit card debt, leeching off your parents because you have no other choice, crippling illness, and completely giving up because there genuinely is no other choice. The last lines are, without any hint of winking, “We’re mediocre. We’re losers. Forever.”

It’s wonderful.

Two straight Top 4 finishes for SLS; their 2020 album should be something special.

3) oso oso - “the view”

If Jade Lilitri is making personal progress in “microscopic strides”, you wouldn’t be able to tell by his songwriting. Every tune has a way of warming up your entire body and being. This grabs you, whether it’s the laid back guitar or the mismatched quick drums or the big ass chorus. While it came down to this one or “basking in the glow” (an actual single), the bridge here puts us over the top:

But not as much as the phone ringing Not as much playing my house Not as much as the way her goddamn voice sounds It's like taking in sun And then taking it back I fall into old habits I'm stepping over your cracks again

Her voice? This song.

2) The Menzingers - “Strangers Forever”

This song makes me want to rip up walls, sprint through streets with no destination, shred my lungs screaming off rooftops, bash hands drumming the steering wheel until my sprained fingers beg me to stop. It is such a perfect encapsulation of my favorite band of the decade and possibly of all-time.

Scranton’s sons gave me everything and more from 2010 through 2019, so it’s fitting they end so high here. This is probably the most clownable sentence of them all, but I am so constantly thankful I am alive to experience Greg Barnett’s songwriting. What he creates, I can only compare to the best books or movies or athletes or even personal relationships.

The way the guitar alternates in the headphones to start, the drums that go big and push the song along, the reverb vox that certainly could have less reverb, the “it is what it is”-style lyric of “My miserable memory’s making me more miserable”, the oceanic imagery, the quiet bridge that explodes into a final chorus. Barnett said the overall theme was inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”.

In it, the character Darya Alexandrovna learns of her husbands infidelity and declares: “Even if we remain in the same house, we are strangers — strangers forever!” The idea of becoming a stranger to someone you so intimately know stuck with me, and became the overarching narrative to this song. Dolly’s statement is definitive, but she also realizes the trappings of 19th century patriarchal Russian society. It’s a complex conundrum, and while lyrically I speak in the first person, this song exists in a world outside of my own personal experiences. I wanted to write about the finality of relationships that need to end this way. Strangers Forever.

My only gripe is I wish there were more. But I’m the same person who never wants them to stop.

1) Signals Midwest f/ Sincere Engineer - “Your New Old Apartment”

Only one song could make me fear missing the chance to be with the love of my life the same year I married her. As discussed in “The Polynesian”, the best songs have the consistent ability to put you in someone else’s shoes. You are either reliving something you personally experienced or maybe taking it all in for the first time. And that can be powerful -- especially dealing with anything big picture.

“Your New Old Apartment” launches me into 2009 without ever asking. Age: 23. My life was transient, I had no career, I didn’t even believe in marriage. I left my retail job in the Chicago suburbs for an unpaid newspaper internship in New Jersey. When I saw the people I loved, I always tried to make it count. Still do.

The descriptors and feeling are suffocating, right from the jump:

I only saw you a couple times last year Once at a wedding, once at a funeral I wore the same clothes to both, and I was worried you would notice ‘cause yours were impeccable

That’s me, then. Not knowing how to dress but hoping to get by anyway. I remember talking to my buddy P before buying my “work clothes” and learning you needed to match your shoes with your belt. Boyish adulthood.

The song continues, and the narrator is filled in on 5-year plans. It may be cliche to speak, but every current moment is simultaneously your youngest and oldest. Being in my early 30s now, it is so easy to scoff at anyone’s best laid plans, but I’m also the same cat who thought The Wonder Years’ “Jesus Christ, I’m 26 / All the people I graduated with / All have kids, all have wives, all have people who care if they come home at night” was life-defining, because I was the same age when that dropped, and it always hits the hardest when it’s all around you.

What I love about these lyrics are the careful observation mixed with mature-behind-his-years restraint. For a very long time in my life, I did not think I would get to be with my wife as anything more than a friend. When you are forced to come to terms with those potential realities, you must make concessions and convince yourself they’re OK. So when it’s revealed the narrator’s muse is married, he resigns himself to hopefully seeing the person more and at least being adjacent to the life they are living. It is tragic but still something. It is alternate hope in the hopeless.

I can picture myself listening to this song that wasn’t yet written while leaving a 2009 or 2010 or 2013 wedding and wishing I told her everything. But I wouldn’t have -- not then. I would have poured my heart out into a diary and quoted a line or three from this at the bottom. But that was then, this is now.

In 2019, her new old apartment will be my new old apartment, and that will never be lost on me.

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* * *

Bonus coverage. Since we are at the end of the decade, I rounded up our No. 1 song from each year and have that below:

2010: The Menzingers - “Time Tables” 2011: Jay-Z & Kanye West - “Gotta Have It” 2012: Carly Rae Jepsen - “Call Me Maybe” 2013: Kanye West - “On Sight” 2014: The Menzingers - “Where Your Heartache Exists” 2015: Big Sean f/ Kanye West - “All Your Fault” 2016: The Menzingers - “Lookers” 2017: The Menzingers - “After The Party” 2018: Horror Squad - “I Smoke The Blood” 2019: Signals Midwest f/ Sincere Engineer - “Your New Old Apartment”

* * *

It’s time to stop writing. Thank you so much for reading.

Spotify playlist is here, featuring 70 of the 75.

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