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#bc its unavoidable how much older he’s getting.
pansyfemme · 1 year
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something about my father doing normal dad activities like falling asleep in an armchair terrifys me
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transenbyconfessions · 10 months
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It hit me earlier today that none of my extended family knows that im trans
Ive seen each of them an average of one time in the past three years ive been out—some more than others and some not at all—let alone in the past decade. I dont have a reliable way to contact any but two or three of them
So like. I barely know most of these people or if they’d be chill. I’ve already made the decision to distance and/or avoid a few of them bc of the comments theyve made about other queer people in my family, or just the people they THOUGHT were queer. And i definitely wont be coming out to them. But theres so many of them that i would like to see at some point in the rest of my lifespan that i just. Dont know about. Dont know if i’d be safe, or if theyd out me to the rest of the family.
I would feel SO much more scared about it than i already do if i wasnt for the other queer people in my family that’ve come out. My dad, my aunt. The former is a first hand account of who i could or definitely cant trust, because if theyre homophobic theres no way in hell they’ll be chill w me being a boy now. The later, unfortunately, gave me a first hand account of my dad’s dad being a transphobic piece of shit, in the early days of being in the closet. That definitely made me realize that i could be jeopardizing my safety if im not careful.
But its not all bad! I know which aunts and uncles supported my dad, which ones have blatantly said they supported trans people because theyre decent fucking people, which ones have clued me in on someone else being shitty to my cousins over the idea of being gay. As i get older its easier to hear the family gossip, to get a sense for these people beyond the smiling veneers they aimed towards a younger me
There’s a few people, maybe six, that i would trust just as well as my immediate family, because they’ve supported my dad or theyve been vocal allies. I want to tell them, if i get the chance.
But my grandma, my cousins, a few of my aunts and uncles? I want to keep them in my life, but i dont know how they’d react.
It’ll be unavoidable eventually. Im going on t soon, it wont take long for me to start changing. Facial hair, a deeper voice. It could be years until i see any of them again, i’d have to tell them ahead of time or risk an argument or confrontation or confusion because ill be so different by then
Its so scary. Im fucking terrified. Especially since my identity will reflect back on my parents, that their accepting of me and my transition could cause rifts between them and their siblings, their parents, more than are already there
My mom is so supportive of me, but even when i talk about being scared of the backlash i dont think she can quite comprehend the terror of it all. It took so much to tell my dad i was starting t, and he already knew i was trans for years. I dont think she knew how scared i was of his rejection, how terrified i am when she suggests i tell one of my aunts, who has threatened to disown one of my cousins if she was gay, that i wasnt straight
I know how stifling it is to hide who i am, and how excited i am to start t is def a reflection of that, but im so hesitant to burn bridges no matter how much bullshit is on the other side. Im trying to cling to normalcy as long as i possibly can, in hopes that it’ll shift alongside me and i dont have to say shit, but gods know it’ll rip itself out of my hands before long
I just hope im resilient enough to weather the aftermath, the next time i see any of them
Submitted July 15, 2023
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nicegaai · 2 months
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begging you with tears in my eyes to elaborate on big bro teaching ice how to touch himself by masturbating together but only if u want to no pressure
🥺🥰🥺🥰🥺🥰🥺🥰🥺🥰🥺💕💕💕💕💕🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 i DO i do i do 🥰😌💕
👇cw: nsfw boypussy on boypussy 👇
boypussy ice has bottom dysphoria and then starts t, and he gets sooooo horny ofc but he still doesnt want to touch himself bc of the psychological hangups and its difficult!!! what do u do!!!!!!! well hes gotta ask his tboy older brother nor how HE gets off without crippling dysphoria 😔💕 no other choice. obviously.
nor says hmm it depends on his bottom growth if he can stroke himself properly... and ice is like i dont think i CAN stroke it because it hurts down there. it's growing too fast! it hurts when i get hard!!!!! well ice have you been applying lotion? nobody told you to? thats so sad...
big brother needs to see the damage and track his clit growth, and its so red and angry! :(( poor baby boy. these are unavoidable growing pains but it looks like youre going to get pretty big...thats a win. nor gives ice some lotion to soothe his tdick, but hes worried about applying it because what if the skin tears? big brother can you do it for me (deliriously horny voice from spreading his legs for nor to see)
so nor strokes ices clit gently while applying the lotion and ice is soooo pent up he cant help but cum instantly, on contact. nor waits for the waves to pass then keeps his hand moving and talks him through a second orgasm. see ice? its just your dick, you have to touch yourself like this or youll get pent up, its not healthy!
nor strips and shows off his own much bigger clit growth and lets ice see how he touches himself. and then makes ice follow along, using two fingers to pinch his little swollen clit to jack off. nor puts on a little show, showing off his tiny cockhead to jealous jealous ice. his own barely shows through his tight clit hood .
nor puts a finger in his own pussy while masturbating and ice cringes, but nor says it feels sooooo good inside too. ice wishes he had enough bottom growth to pin his brother down and feel what its like to be inside him... maybe one day. norway is feeling the same about ice and his reluctance to explore himself. one day he'll strapfuck his lil brother so hard he'll cry 🥰
they cum together crying out each others names and thennnnn. nor is hit by the urge to blow him. he leans over and suckles gently on ices little growing tdick as a special treat for his cute boy
its hard to adjust to being testosterone-horny, but now hopefully ice won't hesitate to play with himself. and if he does big brother is still there to help 🥰
#p
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cmlmrbl · 2 years
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angsty pevencest hc
this is right after they come back in the first movie, just bc that's gotta be the most harrowing and difficult transition to deal with imo, so all the better for angst!
i'm working off the idea that peter was 13, susan was 12, edmund was 10, and lucy was 8 in the first movie.
so they get a bit of time on the throne to learn the ropes and strengthen narnia after the 100 year winter, but sometime after peter's 14th bday there's betrothal offers and dowries presented from neighbouring lands, just because he is the high king and its seen as more auspicious to get in sooner rather than later. ofc the pevensies are all scandalised, susan and lucy think he's definitely too young to be wed, but edmund has now become familiar with the laws and customs and knew this was coming.
still, for a while they're able to avoid it by peter just not accepting the betrothals, seeing as they've only ruled for a year at this point anyway.
when susan turns 14 tho, there are double the amount of betrothal offers and it only gets more and more worrisome the older they get. by the time she's 16 it's pretty much unavoidable, and even the animals advise that she get married, if not to stop the influx at least.
ofc at this point I'd like to believe her and peter have discovered their feelings for each other, so to make things easier (and to celebrate their love ofc) they have a grand wedding.
the same thing happens when ed turns 14 but he's seen what happened to his older siblings and he's decided on himself already.
edmund turns down all marriage proposals, saying he's still waiting for his queen.
and when lucy turns 14 too, they tie the knot!
this means when the four of them are expelled from the wardrobe and returned to England at the end, it's much worse than just losing their thrones. for at least a decade, they've all been married to each other. and that's not easy to forget.
when they get back to the professor's it's clear to everyone that the pevensies have changed. where before it was peter and susan clearly being the older children, with little infighting between them, now there's definitely more arguing and petty gripes.
they had children in narnia, and they had always been a team in raising them, but now they both feel they've failed their children and each other in losing them.
susan can't take it, she just wants to forget everything like it was some horrible dream - but peter can't let her, and so they fight.
he'll do something like tell edmund and lucy not to forget their greens at the dinner table and susan will get whiplash from the reminder of how he used to remind their actual children the same thing.
she'll get so angry with him and she'll remind him they're not his children but when night comes, she still finds herself going to his bed because they never slept a night away from each other for a decade.
when they get back to london and go to school peter has to grit his teeth every time some new boy chats up his sister because he's not her husband anymore and he has no right to feel jealous.
but when girls show interest in him, he coldly rejects them as well, for he could never consider anyone but his queen.
susan sees all this but pretends not to, she wants to move on and she wants peter to as well. she doesn't see how they could be happy with each other in this judgemental world, so she'll settle for being unhappy if it means peter won't have to get the judgement.
it only gets better when they get back from narnia the second and final time, susan being convinced no one can measure up to her brother and peter being infinitely grateful at a second chance, both with narnia, and with his queen.
for edmund and lucy things aren't as hard thankfully.
getting back to England is only difficult because they're not children anymore, but they are back to being treated like so.
still they become closer than ever and they promise each other that nothings changed and when they get older and can actually do something about their feelings then they will.
they become so close that for a while in London, people mistake them for twins - having close ages and such a deep bond.
it's rumoured that they can speak into each other's minds.
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moonctzeny · 3 years
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Promotion
This is technically a part 2 of my fic Work for it but it can be enjoyed on its own!
pairing: supervisor !johnny x intern ! female reader x assistant !haechan
genre: smutty goodness (this will send me to hell vip)
word count: almost 14k
summary: “After you fuck the Sales’ department supervisor, Johnny Suh in your office during an overtime, you’re left to deal with the unavoidable lingering emotions that come with getting his dick on the regular. At the same time, his assistant and your best work buddy, Donghyuck, who initially helped you with getting with his boss, realises his growing crush on you that is too big to be ignored at this point. With their masterful skills in seduction, you’ve ended up tangled in a sexual game with the both of them, all the while trying to move up from an intern to a permanent worker in the company”
warnings: threesome w/ two doms, alcohol consumption, mention of food (meat, lettuce, eggs), oral, overstimulation, thigh job, at some point- reader borrows a shirt from haechan and it’s mentioned that it’s ‘too big on the shoulders’, thigh riding, office sex, pussy slapping, choking, fingering, sir kink thrown in there at some point, a little degradation bc this is my fic we’re talking about
a/n: omg it’s finally done! I really love this so I hope you guys like it as well :)
taglist:  @rainodanna​, @markresonates​, @unknown5tar​, @yoongsicles​
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For every other worker in the office, virtually nothing had changed. 
They relive the same mundane routine, Monday after Monday, the same excruciating 8 hours and short cigarette breaks. The same trees, stuck in their ceramic imprisonment would greet them in the company’s entrance. Rigid and dusty and reeking of cheap plastic. It’s not like they’d come alive, open their little mouths on their thylakoid membranes and tell everyone you fucked mr. Suh, the Sales Department’s supervisor, in your office during your overtime. No, that’s not possible, you reminded yourself when you pass by them every morning, giving them a side eye for good measure, as if that would scare them off their zombie state.
And you were the same too, completing your tasks and meeting your deadlines. Blending in with the rest of the company’s human resource, with the exception of the occasional double take of some tactless male worker here and there.
Donghyuck, however, said supervisor’s assistant and your best friend, wasn’t your typical office worker. He noticed the extra layer of cherry lip gloss coating your lips. He noticed your new perfume, sweeter than the one you used to wear. He noticed the knowing smiles between you and his boss, the heat of your body when you were around him. And it wasn’t just because he was sharp overall.
He was the one who practically got you together, planted the seed in Johnny’s head about the cute new intern of the Financial Department. He was the one who convinced him to finally make a move on you, tired of seeing you trying over and over again to seduce the supervisor to your bed. 
And when that seed finally sprouted, in the form of Johnny spitting in your mouth and taking you on your office chair like you were his last fuck on earth (according to the hair-raising description you gave Donghyuck the morning after), he should’ve been happy, right? 
It didn’t really affect his life in the slightest.
You were just y/n. His friend, his work buddy. The person whom he was close enough to let you know you had a piece of lettuce stuck on your teeth from that sandwich you had on your break. The person who texted him funny gifs of pandas falling asleep during the most boring of meetings. With your nerdy glasses and that ugly brown suit you loved wearing so much. The person he dreamt of fucking every time he fell asleep.
When you told Donghyuck you had a crush on his boss he wasn’t shocked, but the stinging buzz in his guts surprised him. He would see you waltz right past his office all perked up and pretty, to see the person you really came for, nervous as you hung from every word that left Johnny’s mouth. He’d put up with the sound of you giggling over every stupid joke that left the older man’s mouth patiently, just to wait until he’d smell your sweet perfume as you’d walk past him again. To tease you over something that would make you mad enough to notice him, glare at him, maybe even hit him.
And Donghyuck wanted to hate Johnny, he really did. His stupid boss who asked for his coffee specifically made, who was rude and cranky on Monday mornings and got the credit for all his hard work, yet Johnny was nothing of the sort. He was helpful, and kind and let him off early. He was funny and good looking and taller than him and had a six pack, damn it. If Donghyuck was being honest, he didn’t just like his boss, he admired him. It was pathetic, he thought. Most days he’d live vicariously through him. 
Sometimes he would lay on his bed at night, picturing himself to be the second lead of a romance drama that would sweep you off your feet. Everyone gets second lead fever, right? In his rem cycles, he’s handsome and hilarious and much more interesting than the main actor. He would imagine himself stretching out his rays, like the full, rising sun that he was, until they overcame the big mountain that was Johnny and reached your skin. So hot against it that you’d have to undress, remove the clothes sticking on your sweaty skin to embrace him. 
He thought about your body a hundred times too many for it to be considered healthy. The curve of your ass in your pencil skirts, the little hairs on the nape of your neck that stuck out from your tight ponytails. The runs on your tights that he wished were caused by the sharpness of his fingernails. He listened to your voice carefully, all 90 Hz of it, and played it inside his head as if it was an instrument. Putting together chords and harmonies, composing a music piece of all the ways his name would sound like coming out of your lips.
Donghyuck, Donghyuck, Donghyuck
“Earth to Donghyuck? Are you listening to me?”
It was unlike him to be out of it, especially when he was around you. He blames it on skipping coffee this morning or the shade of red of your blouse that fits you so well. Either way, he had to respond, and keep the pink from flooding his cheeks further. There’s no way you could’ve known what was going on inside his head.
“Uh, yeah, yeah. So, let me get this straight. Weren’t you the one who didn’t want a relationship?”
You were upset, he could tell. After the night of the overtime, you and Johnny had indulged in a few more nights of each other’s presence, but had kept it at that. Sex. Delicious, mind blowing, porno worthy sex, but nothing more than that. And you were starting to itch for a little bit more.
Donghyuck was right, of course. You were the one who told Johnny that this wasn’t the right time in your life for any sort of commitment, especially with someone in the workplace. This was your internship, and you were determined to get a permanent position soon, that should be your first priority. Get the bag and go. There were men everywhere. But why was your heart aching for that particular one with the long hair and the caramel eyes and the flower tattoos? 
“I just don’t want people at work to gossip about us, you know how they get. But seeing him so nonchalant about it gets on my nerves.”
Leaving his apartment at 2 am when he was sprawled out on his bed, in just pyjama pants and the light layer of sweat from the athletic sex you just had, hurt enough. It was a sight so beautifully hidden under his work attire that it soon became addictive, the withdrawal symptoms too intense for you to have your dose only once a week. 
Donghyuck scowled when you first let out a frustrated sigh, your eyes pitifully following his boss’s silhouette around. He knew you’d never really complain about it, you were set on that promotion and you deserved it too, but it was hard not to get angry. Everything he ever wanted stood willing and ready for taking in front of Johnny’s lap, how could he not claim you?
He hated seeing you sad.
“Let’s go for a drink. I think you need it.”
Even he surprised himself with the sudden proposition, blinking back at you to gauge your reaction. You were best work buddies, sure, but you never hung out after office hours alone. It would make sense for you to refuse, Donghyuck told himself, trying to soften the blow of a potential rejection. You’re probably tired from working, or maybe you’d feel awkward to be alone with him for so long. Maybe you hated to drink, or maybe you hated him. Oh God, what if you hated him? What if you only spent time with him out of social obligat-
“Sure, sounds good. Pick me up after you’re done? Since you’re on the top floor.”
Donghyuck nodded back at you, too eagerly for his liking, the gears in his brain already trying to figure out where he should take you. You excused yourself back to your office, the small pat you gave his shoulder making him grin like an idiot.
This is not a date, he reminded himself. 
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He had dreamt of this moment for months now. He thought about you every time he walked past that korean bbq place, promising himself that one day he’d muster the courage to finally ask you out. This wasn’t exactly the case today, but it was as close to his imagination as possible. This is not a date.
He repeated that phrase over and over again, let it resonate inside his head. This is not a date because he is a coward and you like someone else. Was he a bad person for taking you out today? Was he taking advantage of your slight disappointment? Was that why you ever said yes in the first place? The self deprecating thoughts lit a fire in his belly and he tried to extinguish it with every shot of clear liquid that disappeared from between his full lips. Like he expected, you weren’t far behind on the drinking either, enjoying the grilled pieces of meat blissfully, moaning in satisfaction with every delicious bite.
You looked pretty before, but now, through the pink coloured glasses of intoxication, you were stunning. There was a halo of bright light surrounding you, making you look so celestial chomping on that piece of lettuce. If it was anyone else, he would pull a face of repugnance at the sight, yet Dongyuck thought that you just looked so cute, so content in that little moment and he wished he could just lean in and leave a kiss over your filled cheeks.
No, that was a dangerous thought. This is not a date, pull it together.
Donghyuck desperately tried to focus his attention somewhere else, anywhere but you would suffice. His eyes finally landed on a bowl of marinated eggs on the table, and it reminded him of the three boiled eggs he makes for breakfast every morning. He was a man of habit, following the same routine until he’d see you and you’d colour between the lines of his life, making it interesting finally. Donghyuck would fill the pot with more water than needed, just enough so that it doesn’t overflow. He liked to be closer to you than he could handle, close enough but never touching you.
Lost in his daydream, he doesn’t realise that he hasn’t talked in minutes. And when you touch his hand lightly with yours to bring him out of it, he almost feels the boiling water burning his skin.
“You’re so quiet”, you say with a chuckle, and Donghyuck makes a mental note to add this harmony to his composition, “you got drunk before I did? Are you really Lee Donghyuck?”
“Well see, I drank all this soju, so I wish I was someone else for the night.”
The statement saddened you, and you withered a little in your seat. Why did Donghyuck drink so much tonight? You came here for you to cheer up, didn’t you? Or were you so caught up in your little personal drama - that you caused yourself - that you missed hearing about his cat dying? You must offer your condolences. Did he even have a cat?
You don’t want to bring up his dead cat in case he did so you just lift your hand next to his head, and weave your fingers through his locks. He has been growing out his hair for months now, and the look might not be the most corporate-professional but it sure fit him. The ash blonde shade that he decided to colour it, brought out the tan of his skin nicely, and the hair itself though bleached was still soft to the touch. 
You see him react to the work of your fingers instantly, his expression shocking you. His mouth is hanging open in a loose ‘O’ shape, small wrinkles forming on the space between his eyebrows. You pick out small pieces of hair, one by one, letting gravity do the rest by allowing the individual hairs to return to their previous state. 
“What are you thinking about?”, you ask so softly it’s almost a whisper, and Donghyuck can only sigh.
YOU, he wants to scream, you’re in my mind all day long and I think I’m going crazy! He is full on staring at you now and there’s nothing in the world that can take his eyes off of you, off your worried eyes that seem to hold all the stars in the sky, or the soft skin of your neck that he wants to kiss and suck and break so badly. But he doesn’t, and the soju calls him a coward for it, so he settles for the next best thing.
“You are pretty”
It was just three words but they sent your mind in a frenzy. Why did it matter so much to you that Donghyuck found you pleasing to look at? He has complimented you before, even flirted with you a lot of times, yet it was always said half-jokingly, followed by a diss. But this time he was serious, no signs of alcohol clouding his eyes. He was so solemn in fact, that those three words made the heat burn on the skin of your cheeks, rising up your throat and hindering you from responding with a human sound. 
He takes one more shot, washing away the embarrassment of his sudden confession and offers to order one more fatty dish to sober up, then take a walk in the city.
The walk was relatively quiet, less awkward than it was 30 minutes ago but Donghyuck was still being uncharacteristically silent.
“I thought you said that alcohol doesn’t make you red”, you say teasingly, trying to spark conversation. 
It doesn’t actually. You were the culprit of the wash of burgundy all over his skin, accumulating even more pigmented around his ears and the freckles of his nose. You were walking side by side now, and Donghyuck thought that for the passersby you two must look like lovers. He let his brain entertain that fantasy, his hand itching to hold yours. He’d intertwine your fingers together, give your palm a little rub with his thumb. Then he’d lift the bundle of fingers on his lips, kiss the thin skin of your wrist and make the aunties that are looking at you now coo in adoration.
“Says you. You look so fucked right now.”, he jokes and you’re relieved to see him go back to his teasing self. You don’t know if it’s the chilly night, but you’re overly aware of the heat his body emits, and the smell of his cologne makes your head spin just a bit more. You’ve been sitting so close to him this entire time that you can list off most, if not all, the ingredients in his perfume. Rose, chilly pepper, orange blossom, lavender. 
“Donghyuck, I will step on you.”
“Mmm, tempting”
You shove his arm playfully and he reciprocates, but his strength is not as controlled as he thinks. The heels of your boots, slippery against the wet floor that the drizzle caused earlier, make you trip on your steps, and Hyuck is luckily there. With his quick reflexes he catches your elbows first, pulling you up against his chest and you grab his left bicep to support your weight. 
You take a deep breath, to register that you did not fall head first on the floor, and that’s when you realise how close Donghyuck is to you. His bangs are tickling your forehead, your deep pants fanning them apart. You admire his glowing skin, the wrinkles of his lips, the two moles lined parallelly with the bridge of his nose. You’re not sure what comes to you, but you raise your free hand and place it over his hot cheek, your thumb connecting those two moles with an invisible line. A raindrop, fresh out of the sky and signifying the start of a new drizzle, falls on his face and follows the trail that a tear would, his voice weak and breaking when he speaks again.
“I’m sorry”
He dips down his head then, connecting your lips and letting the plumpness of his mouth reel you in. You’re over the initial shock almost immediately and kiss him back in vigor, surprised with the heat his kiss has spread to your chest and belly. It was an ember at first, glowing in the very depth of your insides but it was soon starting to spark up uncontrollably, and you were scared of how rapidly it was fueling up. This was your friend you were kissing. So where did all this hunger for him come from?
You pull back when you realise you’re in a road full of people, and you can’t bring yourself to look at him in the eyes. Donghyuck looks disheveled and anxious, and he apologizes again before he urges you to keep walking with him.
“It’s starting to rain. We should get home.”
You walk next to him in complete silence now, stealing quick glances of his reflexion at every surface that made it possible -  the windows of the parked cars, the puddles of water on the sidewalk, a passersby’s glasses. The look on his face is unreadable, pensive if anything else, and it’s rare for the expressive Donghyuck you’re used to dealing with. Your homes are towards the same direction, his a little closer than yours, and it doesn’t take too long for you to reach the entrance of his building, your clothes not even half wet from walking without umbrellas.
Donghyuck fumbles to find his keys, his hands shaking from the adrenaline his body released from the kiss earlier, the feeling still too fresh against his lips. He stresses thinking of what to do next. Should he hug you goodnight? Apologize again for kissing you? Unlock the entrance without a word and never speak to you again? 
“I’m here”, he states dumbly, as if you’d sit at the porch of a strange house and he avoids your eyes as if you were Medusa, “Goodnight.”
You smile back awkwardly at him, waving with a hand made of clay as you wish him the same. He has turned around to unlock the door, key already at the keyhole and you turn to leave too when his voice stills you in place.
“He’s an idiot.” His back is still facing you, and when he turns to look at you his eyes finally lock with yours, as honest and earnest as ever. “Johnny. If it were me, hell, if you wanted me like that I would grab that opportunity- grab you in an instant, convince you to be mine any way I could.”
You’re stuck looking at him like a fool, trying to comprehend what he’s saying and the complications of it. He puffs out through his nose, chuckling to himself and shaking his head.
“It doesn’t matter. Goodnight y/n.”
Donghyuck is half inside the entrance now and your body suddenly exits its frozen state, blocking the door from closing with your boot. He’s shocked with the sudden movement and he opens up the door further for you. You get inside the little hall without thinking, sitting firmly in front of him, a puzzled look on his face. 
“What if I told you he hasn’t even crossed my mind this whole time we were out? What if I told you I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you kissed me? Would it matter then?”
He opens his mouth momentarily, as if to speak but decides to stay silent. He already said everything he needed. It’s up to you now.
And you aren’t ready to leave yet.
You take a step forward to close the distance between you, your chests touching and you pick up the distinct smell of soju in his breath. You’re not sure if it’s that smell or the proximity but you feel drunk all over again, the yellow light of the hall shining disturbingly bright down at you and urging you to do something.
You plant a kiss over his neck, leaving a trace of the remnants of the pink lipstick you applied at the start of the workday. It was tentative, but you could still feel his raging pulse from under your lips. You could feel it get faster too, the rhythm going higher along with his body temperature and you decide on a path. A path of kisses starting from the same spot you’ve turned glittery pink, up his jawline and all the way to his earlobe.
Donghyuck clenches his jawline, you feel that too, and something snaps inside him. He just can’t take it anymore, having you so close to him, your lips on his neck and doing nothing about it. The boiling water finally spilled over the pot, hot and overflowing, and he doesn’t care if he gets burned.
You feel the cool wood against your back before you taste his tongue a second after. He has pushed you up against the entrance door, you realize, but it’s hard to comprehend anything around you when he kisses you like that. It’s the steamy, purposeful continuation of the kiss you shared earlier, and with the lack of prying eyes Donghyuck has a good idea of where he wants it to lead.
He shows you too, pushing his knee between your thighs and he feels your heat almost melt the rough fabric of his jeans. There are so many things he wants to do, so many lines he wants to cross but there is one thing he must ensure.
“Tell me you want this.”
You glide your hands upwards from his pecks to the slope of his neck and wrap them around his neck. Your body seems to act up on its own, and you feel yourself grinding down his leg that is still positioned against the wall. It feels dirty, the desperation of it all, and you connect your chest with his again before answering him.
“Lee Donghyuck. I want you to make me cum” 
You grab his hand before he gets to respond, the cool silver of his watch digging against your fingers, and you drag him to the elevator door. As if the universe had sensed your urgency, you find it waiting for you at the bottom floor, and you pull him inside with a tug of his tie.
In no time you find yourself pushed up against the wall again, and you can’t see much beyond Donghyuck’s lips, but you do catch him clumsily pressing the button to his floor with your peripheral vision. Once the elevator is in motion you feel like you can finally submerge yourself in his lips and the way his kisses take your breath away, not sure if the funny feeling in your stomach is from the sudden change in altitude or the arousal. You’re already taking his clothes off, removing the jacket of his suit off his shoulders and working the top buttons of his shirt open.
It’s him that drags you to his apartment this time, urging you out of the elevator as soon as the robotic declaim of his floor number rips through the wet sounds of you kissing. His keys are already easily accessible in his front pocket from your conversation earlier, and when he manages to unlock the entrance with trembling hands you walk inside as if you own the place.
It’s small and cozy, decorated minimally. The first thing you notice is that it smells like Donghyuck, something that should be obvious but it still overwhelms you. It’s maybe a bit stuffy from the hours he was gone yet this is the smell still lingering in your nose from his skin you were sucking just moments ago, trying to distract him from the easy task of opening the door. It’s addictive and you want it stuck on yours.
And Donghyuck does stick on your skin, discarding his tie on the floor with a strong pull and finishing the task of unbuttoning his shirt that you started in the elevator. His movements are impatient and soon he’s half naked, and you barely have time to admire his caramel skin before his hands are all over you. They start safely at the dimples of your waist, then sliding upwards to your ribcage and copping a feel of the underside of your boobs by sneaking his thumbs under the wire of your bra. You want to feel more, encourage his probing fingers so you reach to the clasp on your back, unfastening the garment and removing it through the hem of your blouse. 
Donghyuck can’t take his eyes off your chest, nipples hardened from your arousal and poking through the thin fabric. He takes his thumbs, the same thumbs that lit a fire in your belly earlier and flips the bud, toying it around and rubbing circles around it. The response from you is immediate, moans that start off soft and build up to a crescendo bouncing off the walls of his apartment.
It drives you crazy, a little bit, that smirk he has on his face now. It’s so familiar in between his features, you’ve seen it countless of times, especially during his typical teasings of you, yet is carries so much newfound weight now, so much sex appeal. He’s already giving you what you need but the climaxing is too slow for your liking, you want more and you want it now. You want what you asked him for in the lobby of this building.
Donghyuck can either read your mind or read through the increased frequency of your moans because he undresses down to his boxers, forming a trail of clothes from his living room to his bedroom, where he has led you. He doesn’t even bother to open the lights, relying on the moonlight from his window for lighting and pushing you down on his bedsheets. 
He climbs up with you, hovering over you and you move back a bit so that your head rests comfortably over his pillows. If the smile he gave you earlier had affected you, then the hungry look on his face right now almost makes you come untouched, his eyes raking up and down your body as if he doesn’t know where to start.
He decides on your calves, kissing them and moving upwards slowly and sensually, not missing the sensitive skin on the side of your knees and paying extra attention to your inner thighs. He’s still at it a minute and a half later, and you can’t tell in the dark but you’re sure they must be decorated by bite marks by now, his close proximity to the source of your pleasure making you squirm in his hold.  
It feels like ages since you last felt his fingers when he grips the soft meat of your thighs and spreads them apart. They soon move up to the hem of your skirt, rolling the fabric upwards and over your ass. You feel his breath against your pussy, making it tingle and twitch even more than it already has, and the wait feels like a new level of hell in Dante’s Inferno. 
A single finger pets you over your underwear, drawing lines over the damp fabric from your clit down to your entrance and then up again. You whimper and whine at the sensation that is half a step from what you consider satisfactory and he hooks a finger on the black lace, moving it to the side and letting you experience the cool air of the room all over again. The full exposure brings heat to your face and you breathe through the embarrassment that arouses you even more.
“Hey, Donghyuck?”
“Yes?”
“Is your cat still alive?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He licks one long stripe over your entrance, and you feel the goosebumps spreading all over your arms and legs. Nimble fingers spread your folds apart, and you hold your breath as he lets his cool spit drip from his lips and land onto your lower ones, then starts sucking over your clit. His tongue is wet and his breath is hot, the combination driving you insane. You grip the comforter, digging into it with your nails to keep yourself grounded.
“Oh my god, yes, right there”
The praise motivates him to keep trying hard, not that it will take a lot of effort to make you come undone. Donghyuck’s unprecedented touches and the newfound sexual tension they have ignited had already worked you up, his skill in oral accelerating the build up to your climax even more. And just when you thought it couldn’t get better than this he starts a series of kitten licks right over your clit, each one sending a wave of pleasure stronger than the one before.
“Fuck, I’m gonna cum”
You’re grinding on his face, trying to find the right pace when you finally come undone, thighs shaking and desperately trying to push his hands away to cover up your sensitivity again. His hold is steady and he continues to lick you keenly, the lewd sound of him slurping your wetness filling the room. Your eyes open wide and you can only stare at his white ceiling during your overstimulation, the cracks and crumbling plaster caused from humidity looking like constellations in your orgasm-drunk mind. The second climax hits you suddenly but forcefully, unable to control the volume of your voice, not that you can hear yourself clearly in your daze. It’s an array of moans and screams and tiny whimpers of Donghyuck’s name, his beautiful symphony coming to life.
His appetite for you is finally satiated, and he decides to take mercy on you and remove his lips from your pulsating heat. You look so beautiful right now, he thinks, skin illuminated by the pale moonlight that is reflected on the wetness dripping from your pussy. He hovers over you again, pulling you into another kiss and you lazily reciprocate. His member is painfully hard, sliding over your slickness. You squirm and yelp everytime the fabric of his underwear grazes against your clit, your nerve endings screaming in sensitivity.
“I don’t have a condom on me”, you whisper against his lips, the taste of yourself on his tongue engaging you in the kiss again.
“I’m too tired to fuck you like you deserve anyways”
It would be criminal from you to leave him untouched like that. He looks so hot over you, messy hair and chin glistening in your juices. You absentmindedly place your nails on his collarbones, then scratch your way down over his navel. Donghyuck hisses at the numb stinging of pain, hips buckling against your pussy in the pursuit of some sort of friction. 
You move your hand even lower, slipping your fingers past the waistband of his boxers. You move past the bristles you find and grasp his member, that is not too long but an impressive girth. You manage to free it from his underwear, and you can’t really tell in the dim lighting but you bet it must have turned a purple-ish red colour. It’s leaking.
“But we don’t have a condom”
You take one of his hands in yours, giving it a kiss to calm him down, then place it over your left boob. He toys with the mound of your chest, squeezing the softness. You had other plans for him.
Connecting your knees together, you let the softness of your thighs connect, with only maybe a slither of space between them. Your hands are still on Donghyuck’s cock and you reach to hold his balls, massaging them slightly and pulling him towards you.
He takes your cue and leans forward, sliding himself between your thighs. The moan he lets out is guttural and elongated, laced with the beautiful metallic tone of his voice. He lets go of your breasts and wraps his arms around your knees, putting your calves on each of his shoulders and continues to rut his hips against you. 
“Fuck. This feels so good”
You look up to see Donghyuck’s face, contorted in a frown that can only be described as desperate, his lips puffy and red from all the licking and kissing and sucking. 
He looks painfully sexy, and you momentarily imagine all the things you would do to him if the serotonin of your double orgasm and the alcohol in your belly weren’t weighing you down. You’d gladly stay up all night for him, tugging on his long hair as you’d let him bend you in any position he wanted. You bet that thickness would feel amazing stretching you out and you moan at the thought, your thighs flexing involuntarily and making him moan even more. 
Soon he has picked up his pace, the tip of his cock reappearing between your thighs more frequently and you can feel his thrusts getting sloppier by the second.
“Fuck fuck, I’m coming”
He suddenly pushes forward, almost collapsing on top of you as a string of satisfactory groans leave his lips. His hips still with a stagger and you entrancingly watch the ropes of white dripping from his cock and landing on your blouse. It was a mess, but you can worry about it in the morning.
Donghyuck fucks your thighs slowly for a little longer, elongating his pleasure for as long as he can and soothing the crescent moons his nails formed on your skin with his fingertips. He reaches one hand to his bedroom floor where he finds a -what you hope is- clean t-shirt, and pats his cum off your blouse as best as he could.
It has gotten late and you’re both exhausted, Donghyuck’s comfortable weight on top of you lulling you to sleep. He’s hugging your hips now, head resting on your stomach and occasionally kissing your hip bones tenderly. You’re not sure when you slip out of consciousness but you do hear Donghyuck mumble something against your skin, something the kiss of Morpheus doesn’t allow you to make out.
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You wake up to a white ceiling. Not just any white ceiling- a cracked, full of moisture pockets ceiling and you wonder when you let the humidity mess up your apartment this much. The culprit of your awakening, the morning sun rays that shine right on your eyes; way too bright than what you’re used to, force your eyelids to open, and it takes you a moment to adjust to the abundant light. This isn’t your apartment.
The sight of a man that greets your barely recovered rentinas shocks you, and you rub your eyes just in case you’re stuck in a lucid dream or something. You see the mess of ash blonde hair and the pile of work clothes discarded on the floor and your mind soon is flooded with last night’s events, buzzed out in your foggy memory. You sense another buzz as well, a physical one this time and you wiggle in place when you feel something hard and metallic digging in your butt. You prod a little with your fingers, trying not to wake up Donghyuck too abruptly and you realise that yes, you’ve been sitting on a phone all night.
Shouldn’t it be a Tuesday today? It’s very bright for it to be that early but surely Donghyuck must have set an alarm for the both of you last night. You yawn involuntarily, deciding to play with your phone until he wakes up as well when the bright white display pulls all the blood from your face.
8:40. You have to be at work in 20 minutes.
“Donghyuck! Hyuck!”
You didn’t care to make your touches light. They were shoves, really, pushing at his shoulders frantically to get him off of you and pull him out of his slumber. He wakes up with a gasp, trying desperately to keep his balance and failing, to then fall unceremoniously on the floor.
“What the hell?”, he groans out with a hoarse, groggy version of his voice, “My head is pounding”
“It will hurt even more once I’m done with you! You didn’t set an alarm last night? Today’s a work day!’
With his eyes bulging, he launches himself forward, grabbing the phone from your hands. 
“Shit, shit, shit”. He’s fully awake now, hands rubbing his face to come up with the next logical steps to take, in order to have you both at work on time and looking presentable. “I have a mouthwash and hairbrush in my bathroom, I’ll get ready here”
“And what the fuck am I supposed to wear?”
“Yesterday’s clothes? Are you really that concerned about recycling an outfit right now?”
You roll your eyes, pushing your blouse down and dragging his comforter off your body. 
“Did you forget about this?”
You straighten out the fabric for him to see, and the big, grossly dried out cum stains aren’t hard to notice. His face looks worried, but not necessarily apologetic, and you can almost see the scenes from the sex you shared last night play through his eyes like a porn film. 
“Your skirt is fine, right? I’ll find a shirt that fits you”
You’re spitting out the fluorescent blue liquid when he timorously walks in the bathroom to leave the piece of clothing he promised. It smells heavily of those moth-repellent sachets and looks slightly wrinkled, like something he pulled out from the depths of his closet but you don’t really have the privilege of playing Suzy Menkes right now. You pull and tuck the fabric in creative ways, in order to style the garment into something you might walk into work wearing one day, yet it’s painfully obvious to you how misfitted it is; too big around the shoulders as one would expect from a man’s shirt.
You exit the bathroom after giving up, pressed by the limited time and the sound of Donghyuck’s uneasy steps through the door. You let him freshen up as well and use the time to collect your things that are scattered all over his place - he was kind enough to bring you your bra that was discarded in his living room floor along with his shirt - and soon you were rushing out of his house and into separate cabs so as not to raise suspicion.
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The rest of the day was normal, well- according to this new definition of normalcy for you. Where everything and everyone seems to follow this movie script of what a typical company must look like, while you worry that someone will probe uninvitedly into your thoughts. God knows what they would fish out. A broken record player of Donghyuck’s moans when he cums, the burn of his thick sex rubbing against your thighs, the paths of his neck veins you memorized by heart. 
You shake your head to clear it from the intrusive thoughts, and click the refresh button of your emails. The sound of keys being tapped and printers being put to use lands you back to reality, and you calmly click on the new incoming message from the Sales Department.
It was Johnny.
You’d think that after having his dick down your throat for about half a minute, getting butterflies in your stomach from the mere sight of his email address would stop being a recurring event for you. But alas, here they were, tapping their little wings in a flutter that turns into a hurricane of anxiety, and you sarcastically thank the universe for having to deal with Johnny while looking like an 80’s librarian.
You walk up the stairs like your ankle’s dragging a ball and a chain, the piece of paper in your hands getting slightly ripped from the abuse of your nervous fingers. It was a stupid document, barely half filled with any valuable information and you think it can’t be worth the calories you burned with that trip. It certainly wasn’t worth entering hell, aka mr. Suh’s office, and just the thought of him waiting for you in his fitted suit and gelled back hair is making you light headed. If Johnny was Hades then Donghyuck definitely was Cerberus, guarding his boss with his three heads and his big dick.
You leave a breath out when you realise he isn’t there, making your way onto Johnny’s office with lighter feet. He smiles brightly when he sees you, handsome as ever, and you carefully leave the document on his messy desk.
“Well, isn’t it my favourite intern”
You laugh at his sing-song tone, enjoying how warm he was being today.
“You used to avoid me like the plague and now I’m your favourite?”
“You always were my favourite”, he winks, and pushes back his hair like he knows the effect it has on you, “If someone is avoiding anyone like the plague that’s Donghyuck. I would have sent him to you but I can’t find him anywhere.”
You gulp dryly at his words, an invisible awl pinching your chest. You could feel Donghyuck slipping away from every place that you might share, in a very subtle way, but still noticeable from you. He left the kitchen hastily when you walked in to make your coffee, excused himself out of the lunch break through which you always kept him company, and now he was gone as well. Was last night such a big mistake in his point of view?
“I’m kidding, I just wanted to see you.”
He motions you to come closer and you timidly oblige, serenaded by the sound of his voice but not missing the hunger his eyes hold. He’s still seated in his big leather office chair, thighs spread out in a way that turned you on embarrassingly much, and you fit yourself in the space between his long legs. 
“He is very jumpy though, Donghyuck. Do you know what happened to him?”
Your whole body tenses up, muscles hardening defensively. “Why would I know?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that you guys are so close.”
Close. Close as in having his knee between your thighs, close as in being pushed up against his chest and the elevator mirror. Close as in knowing how his tongue feels massaging your clit. 
“Have I seen you in that before?”
You’re confused with the sudden question and when you search for the context you realise he’s talking about your- Donghyuck’s shirt. Did he smell the sex on you? The overwhelming scent of pheromones and Donghyuck’s cologne that your nose just couldn’t ignore?
“I don’t think so”, you try to answer as nonchalantly as possible, “it’s new.”
“No”, Johnny insists, and pinches the fabric with his fingers. He’s very knowledgeable about fashion, always complimenting you on your outfit choices and you know he wouldn’t let this one go so easily. “I’m sure I’ve seen this before.”
You follow his line of sight towards the ivory fabric too, as if you expected there to be written “YOUR ASSISTANT GAVE ME THE BEST HEAD OF MY LIFE LAST NIGHT”, in a bright red marker. It was a prison, in the form of 99% cotton and 1% pure anxiety, and you know you had to distract Johnny out of this subject one way or the other.
“You like it?”, you ask seductively, tucking a stray piece of hair behind his ear.
“I’d like you better without it.”
With just one strong, yet calculated pull he has you sat over the length of his thigh. Your hands land on his chest for stability, right over his pecks that fill your palms easily. There’s nothing you want more than to suck on those perfectly sculpted lips of his, but you’re not too faithful on Donghyuck’s mouthwash so you settle for the earlobe that isn’t pierced instead.
He loves the feeling, the activation of his erogenous area and the suction of your lips that resembles one of your favourite activities together.
“I like this shirt”, he starts, unbuttoning your chest into plain view, “and I love this skirt”
He runs his big hands over the plumpless of your ass, squeezing it then retracting his fingers back on your thighs. They’re cold against your burning skin and the contrast causes goosebumps to erupt in the shape of his handprint.
“You love all my skirts Johnny”
“I do. Because I can do this”
His fingers roll the hem of your skirt up your thigh, the only thing separating your heat with the smooth fabric of his slacks being your skimpy underwear. You’re pretty sure the wetness must be transferring to it already, your thoughts of Donghyuck and all the things he could do with you having you desperate for a release. Johnny pets your clit over your panties then, just a light graze of his finger that elicits a moan from you.
Your hips move on their own, slowly humping his thigh that flexes from under you. You grab his tie to help your movement when your pace picks up, enjoying his body heat that coated you. 
“Someone might see us.”
His desk chair was large, sure, but so was Johnny, and even though his back was facing the door of his office, no one could mistake the sight of you riding him as anything else. 
“I told you, Donghyuck keeps disappearing. And it seems like it won’t take you too long to cum with the way you moan like that, right babe?”
“Johnny…”
You were a whiny mess at this point, humping his leg to reach your high. He was nice enough to help you, his hands guiding you as you mess up all over him, lips stuck on the patch of skin right under your ear.
“You know, I kind of miss you calling me Mr. Suh.” he whispers as he’s sucking on your neck, and you shiver at the tone of his voice, “What do I have to do next time you come over to have you call me like that?”
You can’t contain your whimpers anymore, the stinging tears of arousal threatening to roll down your face, so you close your eyes to keep the moisture in. Everything is just too much, the pleasure of your clit rubbing on him, his nails that dig in the flesh of your hips, the heavy suggestions in his words; your orgasm was hanging by a thread and it was a matter of seconds for it to snap. And it did snap, with a bite on your neck, and along with it your eyes snapped open as well.
Donghyuck was staring right back at you.
Your eyes crossed in pleasure, blurry vision making it hard to focus on him. You were falling apart over Johnny’s body, legs shaking and insides melting with his praise. Donghyuck took the sight in from the opened door, eyes studying your face of pleasure and bare chest decorated with Johnny’s kisses peeking from his own shirt. You’d be lying had you dismissed the fact that his presence intensified your orgasm times a hundred. The exposure of your act, the naughtiness of getting caught and by him of all people. You watched as he retreated outside from the office with silent steps, to give you privacy or recover from the embarrassment or both.
And Donghyuck would be lying too, had he said he didn’t like the sight. The mere memory of your face all fucked out flushed his own in crimson red. He remembered it all clearly, from your plush lips to Johnny’s mess of a hair, to the tremble of your body. It refused to leave his mind, the scene of you getting satisfaction from another man, but not because he wanted to erase it. He thought he fit right in, right in that scene between you and his boss.  
You texted him later that day, apologizing for what he had to witness and promising him you would return the shirt as soon as you washed it. He politely allowed you to keep it, not at all acknowledging the incident from earlier, nor the night you spent together. You didn’t have the guts to ask, for you didn’t know that Donghyuck didn’t regard last night as a mistake, like you thought. He was tired of boiling in the guilt of his feelings, selfishly admitting to himself that he did not regret a single thing. He was into you, he meant every word that came out of his mouth, so why was he avoiding you all day yesterday? He was still the fucking coward.
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The next day came rolling along, and with it came a long list of things you wanted to avoid. The first one was arguably dealing with your best friend, the lengthy paperwork you had to fill out being a close second.  
Your mind was occupied with a plethora of thoughts, with Johnny holding the main spot. You’d seen him in your sleep last night, starring in the extremely detailed wet dream your brain fabricated for you, hot breaths and deep thrusts forcing you into the disappointing consciousness of today’s morning.
And the pictures he had sent you right after you decided to get up weren’t helping either. His tall, half naked build occupied most of the shot, skin glistening in the after-shower steam. His toothbrush was hanging from his foamy mouth, in an attempt to make the picture look nonchalant, yet you knew his motives. You let your eyes drink up the sight of his defined abdomen, then moved downwards along the dark happy trail that peeked from the towel, loosely hanging from his waist. Hip bones teasing you and all. Just drop the fucking towel Johnny.
Needless to say, you were a mess when you arrived at the office. The cats in heat outside of your window, the phallic shaped baguette your baker generously treated you with this morning; everything seemed to remind you of the heat between your legs that you couldn’t bring yourself to ignore. You tried rubbing your thighs, drowning in the paperwork, even locking your phone in one of your drawers so as not to be tempted to look at Johnny’s thirst trap again. But he had won.
You grab a bunch of documents that seemed important enough, shove them in your favourite binder, and make your way to Johnny’s office upstairs. 
You knew you had to deal with Donghyuck. It was the unavoidable repercussion of messing up your life like that, getting men that were too good looking for this boring ass company tangled up in what seemed to be a simple internship. Taking a deep breath, then two more for good measure, you start to strut confidently in a straight line that led to Johnny’s office door.
“He’s on call, come back later.”
Your head instinctively turns to the source of the sound, to find Donghyuck staring at the display of his laptop that seemed to be much more interesting than you. The matter-of-fact way he formed his sentences was not unlike him, yet something in you begged for a little bit of attention. Blame it on how horny you’ve been all morning, or the fact that now that you’ve seen him naked, the strict tone affects you much more than it should.
Bothered by your thoughts and thinking about having to sit back at your office for the rest of the work day, you let the binder slip from your hands and drop on the wooden floor. You lean down to collect the scattered pieces of paper, your heels making it hard for you to keep your balance easily, and soon enough you sense a movement from behind you.
“No panties huh?”
It was supposed to be a surprise. Payback for the dirty thoughts Johnny planted in your head this morning. You’d walk in all innocently, sit right across his desk and give him a little Basic Instinct Sharon Stone moment. Then leave him high and dry again, while mentally keeping a note to clear out all your plans for the weekend. But see, he couldn’t give you what you wanted after all, and your resolve started to break. Whatever it was you wanted, you wanted it now.
You get up, unfolding your body slowly and refusing to look at Donghyuck, much like he did when you walked inside. The smirk playing on your lips couldn’t be concealed through your voice.
“Like what you see?”
You gasp as he presses up against you, the only contact you have with one another being his hard-on that nudges your ass. Following your body’s orders, you push back against him too, and you can tell the breath he lets out is ragged and full of tension.
He reaches for your binder with an arm around you, flipping through the pages as he sucks his teeth in disapproval.
“These are last week’s reports. Are you really here for these or are you looking for another quickie with Johnny?” A moan escapes you then, and the little thrust that Donghyuck allows himself drives you both crazy. “Thought so. How insatiable are you? I made you cum two nights ago, Johnny helped you out yesterday. If you really are that desperate you could’ve just come to me for help, doll”
His soft palm rests on the front of your thigh, slowly sliding his way under your skirt. You squirm in his hold in anticipation, and you have to bite your tongue to hold in the noises that threaten to leave you. 
“Donghyuck, Johnny is sitting right through that door. He could come out any minute now and see us”
“And?”
“Your boss is sitting right through that door. You could get fired”
“I could die after this”
His thumb ficks your clit swiftly, and Donghyuck takes this opportunity to slip his other one inside your gaping mouth.
“But-“
“Shh. Don’t talk with your mouth full, baby”
You’re melting in his hold at this point, your back still resting against his chest, lips sucking his digit. The scent of his cologne that you’ve grown so familiar with overwhelms you, painting all your surroundings in a red tint of lust.
“Spread your legs for me”. You oblige with his orders immediately, your arousal not allowing you to keep him waiting. “Wider”.
You take a quick look behind your shoulder to check that the door is still, indeed, closed, only to be met face to face with Donghyuck. His breath is hot against your face, eyes locked on his thumb toying with your lower lip and you completely forget what you initially turned around for. The kiss was natural, your lips melding easily with his ones. The need for him washes over you like a heatwave and you lift your skirt to urge him to continue before you go insane. 
He gets the hint and moves his hand lower, middle finger tracing your opening ever so slightly. It makes you shiver and you realise how quiet the room has fallen, the only source of sound coming muffled through the closed door to Johnny’s office. It excites you and it must show through the wetness between your lower lips, and Donghyuck patiently collects it all. He transfers the moisture over the bud of your clit, his finger smoothly massaging the sensitive skin. It feels divine and there’s no way you’d ask him to stop yet you know there’s something else Donghyuck is after, the sweet tightness that he didn’t get to experience that night at his apartment.
It was a bit much to fuck you out there like that, even for his exhibitionistic tendencies, but nothing could stop him from feeling the next best thing. 
His first finger enters you unhurriedly, careful of your reactions. You moan out his name and he moans at how tight you are, soft pussy practically sucking his finger in. He soon enters his ring finger as well, slowly moving them inside you until you feel every stretch and curl. Your wetness starts to drip at this point, coating his fingers with your juices.
“Such a dirty girl, making all this mess at my office”
The leisure pace ruins you, your eyes shut close in search of patience. You feel his other palm move from under your skirt as well, resting flat against your lower abdomen. He wants to feel himself inside you.
“Donghyuck, please. More”
A chuckle is heard from your left ear, and you can vividly imagine how his face must look like now. The cocky smirk, the tongue poking the inside of his cheek. The next pump has you muffling your whimpers with the back of your fist, his fingers curling just right and fucking straight into your g-spot. 
“More? Look at you. Pretty slut.” 
He’s full on finger fucking you now, and swallowing your moans is gradually becoming more and more difficult. The world crumbles from under your feet and you let yourself get carried away in the intense pleasure, the fast pumping making your legs shake.
“You’re gonna cum?”, he whispers again, and you can only respond with a nod, “That’s my fucking girl”
The orgasm’s intense, shaking you as you bite your hand and hold onto Donghyuck for extra support. He continues to move his fingers afterwards, drawing out your euphoria for as long as he can, then finally leaves you empty once your moans have died down. You immediately cover yourself up again once you sober up from your high, suddenly embarrassed by Donghyuck’s intense stare. He’s moving his eyes through all the features of your face, only for them to fall frozen on your lips, and lifts his hand up to rest his two fingers over them. You get his initiative and put them in your mouth, tasting yourself on your tongue.
“Unless you want us both to get fired I think you should go back to your office. I don’t think I can contain myself around you”
You release his digits with a pop, your eyes full of seduction.  
“What would you do to me?”
Donghyuck growls at your question, turning you around so that you’re fully face to face and chest to chest. 
“You’d look so pretty on your knees, mouth full of cock”. He grabs a handful of your ass, bringing you flush against him and proceeds to grind his painfully hard dick between your thighs. Your noses touch and you feel dizzy at the proximity; the words he mutters against your cum coated lips. “I’d peel those clothes off of you, find the nearest mirror. Stretch you out against the glass so that you see how good you take it.”
You shiver as a response, then force yourself to put some distance between you before you do something stupid. He kindly helps you collect your things in silence, those useless documents that were laying scattered on the floor, and in a moment of weakness you let him pin you against the wall right before you go.There was something so addictive about him and your chemistry, and your lips burn at the memory of his kisses. You’re not sure how much longer you can contain that hunger anymore.
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The end of a shift and the beginning of another overtime. It felt like deja vu at this point, after all the countless extra hours you’ve put into the internship, seeing people grab their briefcases and their car keys as they empty the space around you. You take a moment to appreciate the view of the setting sun from the small window of your office, inhaling deeply as you wrap the hair that’s been bothering you in a ponytail. Your neck hurts and the tension of your body is translating into a dull pain, so you stretch it a little, bobbing your head from side to side.
You jump a little in your seat when you feel a set of hands on your shoulder blades. They massage the sore spots, treating the muscle knots and helping your blood flow freely. It was obvious Donghyuck didn’t have enough of you earlier, and you pout at having to turn down another visit to his apartment because of your overtime duties. 
You were ready to scold him off, tell him you’re busy and that you promise to make it up for him another time, when you feel his soft lips kissing the most sensitive spot on the slope of your neck. You let out a long sigh, subconsciously exposing your neck more for him, and a high pitched whine rumbles in your chest. It’s released as a moan of Donghyuck’s name.
“Donghyuck?!”
You freeze in the uncomfortable arch, your ears confused by the deepness of the voice belonging to the man behind you. Not even the confusion laced in it can cover up the lack of airiness and clarity you’re used to when it comes to Donghyuck’s tone. It’s Johnny.
“I… We-“
You’re left speechless, clueless as to what to say next. You know you don’t have to explain yourself, it’s not like you and Johnny are exclusive. Yet his shocked face at the sound of his assistant’s name coming so lewdly off your lips has your brain scrambling to find some sort of explanation. Thankfully, he’d interrupt your panic in a second.
“The big boss wants you upstairs. I offered to come get you.”
He doesn’t sound angry or upset, nor disappointed. It’s a fresh air of relief before you realize that this is not what you should worry about right now. What the hell does the CEO of the company want to talk to you about? Are you getting the boot? It must be it, but why? Your numbers have been great, you’re always on time - except that one morning, but technically it was Donghyuck’s fault - and you’ve been praised by your supervisor numerous times during your internship.
Unless- What if there’s cameras in the office? 
You start to panic at the thought of an involuntary sex tape become the cause of your dismissal, so caught up in your thoughts that you’re completely unaware you’ve spent the entire trip up the stairs with Johnny in silence. When you enter the CEO’s office, heartbeat echoing loudly in your ears, you notice that all of the department’s supervisors are present in the impromptu meeting as well. You sit next to Johnny, in an attempt to calm yourself down, and you see the head of your department send you an encouraging smile.
“Shall we start?”
A briefing of your work in the company ensued, numbers and graphs that wouldn’t make sense to anyone other than the people in the room. Thirty minutes have passed and no surveillance tape has been whipped out, turning you more confused than ever. The numbers were good, the words from your supervisor are complimentary, so why would they fire you? 
“That is all for the briefing. After seeing your progress and the contribution you’ve made to the company, we’ve decided to offer you a permanent position, if you’d be interested of course”
Oh my god. You can’t believe this day finally came. Your face was glowing, and you tried to convince yourself to stay calm while you talked about your new position and the raise in salary that came with it. With shaky hands you sign the documents, and your boss congratulates you once again, dismissing you off your overtime. 
You waited for everyone to leave the hallway before jumping in Johnny’s arms. He caught you easily, strong build supporting you and lifting your feet off the ground before landing you safely again.
“Good job intern, I’m so proud of you”
“Hey, I’m not an intern anymore!”, you complain by bumping his chest with your fist and he pats your head lovingly in return.
“Why did you have to be in the room as well? Did you know about my promotion?”
“No, actually, they just told me an hour ago. It was hard to keep myself from telling you everything right away.”
The excitement coursed through you, and a sudden urge to kiss him until your lips were numb overwhelmed you. You were ready to turn your thoughts into reality, when you saw Donghyuck from the corner of your eye, instinctively smiling at your obvious happiness.
“What’s the occasion?”
“I got promoted!”
Donghyuck gasped, a huge smile spreading across his face. Your excitement’s contentious so he tackles you without a second thought, his embrace so tight that you can barely breathe. You can see that he’s trying his best to contain a kiss, his glance moving back and forth between you and Johnny. He still kept a possessive hand around your waist once he let you down however, a gesture that could seem innocent yet you knew better.
Johnny smirks at the sight of you two, confidence dripping off his body and making you shiver. You get dizzy at the thought of Donghyuck not knowing that Johnny knows about you, yet Donghyuck knowing about Johnny but not giving a fuck.
“So how do we celebrate?”, the older man asks, with a playful tone that might as well be your active imagination.
“Wanna go for a drink?”, Donghyuck suggests, boldly keeping his eyes at you only while he does so.
You pout in thought, humming pensively when an idea pops into your head. 
“How about you come over my place for one?”
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You should have thought this through more thoroughly, is all you can think about as you’re trapped between Johnny and Hyuck on your couch. Well, not really- there is a sizable distance between you three, yet the atmosphere in the room is so dense it’s nearly palpable. Three glasses, half-full of the alcohol of their choice are sitting on the coffee table in front of you, and you awkwardly stare at the sweat that falls from your glass and forms rings on the wooden surface. 
Your body has loosened up from your drink yet your heart can’t stop racing, not when Donghyuck is looking at you like that. He looks like a man starved for days while you’re the meal presented deliciously in his arm’s reach, and he can’t wait to have you alone and curve his growing appetite. And you ignore Johnny’s cheeky smiles and flirtatious winks as well, carrying on a conversation that doesn’t belong in the inescapable tone of the room but flows easily, until it ends and you’re met with heavy silence and the ticking analog clock on your wall again.
You ask them if they would like some water, getting up before you receive an answer, and you yelp a little when you feel a strong arm halting your trip to the kitchen before it even started. You lose your balance and wobble a little in your spot before unceremoniously landing on Johnny’s lap.
He doesn’t help you up, but loops and arm around your waist instead, holding you in place. In circumstances other than the ones that have already made their mark on your sexual history, staying in this position with his assistant still in the room would be highly inappropriate.
“You’re all we need”, he reassures you with a voice made of silk, then repositions you with a jerk of his knee, your heat grinding right against his half hard member.
“When were you gonna tell me?”
You open and close your mouth sequentially like a fish out of water, choking out a reply after the insistent tick-tock that resonates through the room and gives a tempo to your anxiety.
“I’m sorry?”
“You know what I’m talking about. A little birdy told me I’m not the only one enjoying this perfect little body. Is that right Donghyuck?”
Donghyuck’s eyes bulged out of his skull, almost choking in the sip of the drink he was enjoying when the unexpected question hit him. Sizzling heat floods your face as he stares at you sternly, and you shake your head defensively.
“I didn’t tell him-“
“Well no, not exactly”, Johnny interrupts and places his big hands over your thighs, “I was just kissing her neck, trying to get her to relax, and lo and behold, she starts moaning your name like its a fucking reflex. You’ve really gotten into her head, apparently”
Donghyuck swells up in pride, that much is evident, yet he’s way too distracted to say anything in response, too busy staring at Johnny’s fingers spreading your thighs apart to expose your damp underwear. Johnny’s lips are planted on your neck, teeth nibbling on your earlobe and you wince when you feel the sharp sting of a slap on your inner thigh.
“You aren’t being a good hostess, baby. Open up your legs more, let Hyuck see your pretty pussy. You remember what word to say when you want me to stop, right?” You whimper the designated safe word while opening your thighs further, digging the heels of your feet in the couch’s pillows. “Good girl”
He dips a hand through the band of your underwear, busying his fingers under the fabric. You moan as they slide through the wetness and he smiles a cocky smile when he sees Donghyuck palming himself through his slacks. He removes the skimpy thong with the help of your hips moving to assist him, to then push the fabric inside your mouth with little to no resistance from you.
“Isn’t this pussy divine? I swear when I bottomed out inside of her the first time I thought I lost my damn mind”
He toys with your opening, only dipping half a finger in to challenge Donghyuck to pay attention.
“We haven’t actually…”
“She only let you play with her?”, Johnny teases him, then pushes his point and middle finger all the way inside you, making his assistant’s imagination run wild at what your pussy must feel like sucking him in. “You’re missing out man”
“I’ve made her cum probably twice as many times as you’ve ever have”
You chuckle at his smart remark and Johnny glares at you, softly slapping your pussy to keep you at bay.
“No one addressed you. You’ll get to make all the noise you want in a sec, baby”
You squirm in place, letting out a muffled apology through your gag and Donghyuck looks seriously affected by the sight.
“Isn’t she obedient?”, Johnny asks while grazing your g-spot, and you moan from both the praise and the stimulation.
Hyuck unbuttons his pants at the lewd sound, pulling his dick from the slit of his boxers and you admire his impressive girth. He lets his body decline comfortably on the pillows behind him, spreading his own legs at shoulder-length. The mouth-watering sight of him jerking himself slowly with the aid of his precum clouds your vision; you’re just as needy for him as he is for you.
“She’s a little brat”
“I guess I know how to make her listen”. Johnny lifts your dress over your hips, then helps you off of it through the hem. With a rehearsed flick of his fingers he discards your bra as well, leaving you completely naked for Donghyuck’s eyes to feast on. His hands immediately grope your breasts, playing with the mounds and putting on a show. “I could undress you over and over and over again”
You feel his fingers retract from inside your pussy to form a ‘V’ over your lower lips, making your hole even more visible along with the wetness that’s dripping out of it.
“Will you let Donghyuck use your pussy baby? I feel a little greedy using it all on my own”
You groan in the anticipation and let your head fall back on Johnny’s shoulder, nodding pathetically and mumbling through your thong.
“Oh god, yes, yes, yes”
Donghyuck has heard enough, and with Johnny urging him on he’s standing half naked in front of you in seconds. His boxers are discarded next to his trousers on the floor, tie hanging loosely from the collar. He still has a hand wrapped around his angry sex, red tip and veiny details making you swoon.
“Go on”, Johnny encourages him, “she’s more than wet enough”
Donghyuck rests his left knee on the cushion of the couch, right between your foot and Johnny’s thigh. A little foiled square is getting ripped by his nimble fingers and you bewitchedly watch him wrap up his cock. He slaps it over your entrance a couple times, coming in contact with the other man’s fingers that are still keeping you fully exposed, then finally thrusts himself inside you. A conglomerate of what seems like three different curses leave his lips, eyebrows furrowed in a pleasureful expression.
“Fuck”
“Tight, isn’t she?”
“So fucking tight baby, damn”
Johnny may have a cock so lengthy that most men are envious of, yet Donghyuck’s girth is really something else. It stretches you out more than you've had in months, dull pain getting numb with every release of serotonin from your brain. You almost cry when he removes the entire thing out of you.
“I have to feel that again”
And indeed he does, submerging himself in the tightness of your walls only his fingers had the privilege of experiencing thus far. You feel amazing wrapped up around him, pussy hot and burning in desire as he dips himself further inside you, pushing you up against Johnny’s chest. You hiss in the sting and whimper softly, prompting the man behind you to ungag you finally.
“What is it baby? Hyuckie’s dick is too big for your tight little hole?”
You nod affirmatively while keeping eye contact with the man mentioned, big glossy eyes awakening something dark inside him. He wants to ruin you.
“Maybe you don’t fuck her hard enough”
You can’t see Johnny from the way you’re seated but you know he must have a smile on his face, well aware of the confidence he possesses for his own abilities in the bedroom. His big hands leave your labia and make their way over to your calves, bending you in a way that is almost painful.
“How about you show me how it’s done, then?”
Donghyuck is always up for a challenge, so he wraps a hand loosely around your throat so as to gain leverage. He pulls his hips backwards, gaining momentum, then slaps them forcefully against your own. You moan loudly at the depth, hands scrambling to find something to hold on to as he’s nailing you against the couch. Johnny’s there to catch your sounds with his lips, eating them up eagerly as he slips his tongue inside you and continues to play with your nipples. 
“Is that hard enough for you?”
Continuing his brutal pace restlessly, Donghyuck tightens his grasp around your neck, enough to hamper your blood flow and drool around the other man’s mouth. You’re so out of it at this point, dirty sound after another leaving your lips and you gasp at Johnny’s fingers that are suddenly circling around your clit.
“I’m close, please”, you manage to whimper from between them, Hyuck’s pace only fastening in the sound of your plea. The tip of his cock, thick like the rest of him, grazes against your sensitive spot again and again, not missing a single thrust. He digs a thumb in the softness of your cheek, pulling you away from Johnny and connecting his forehead with yours. By the sounds of his grunts it won’t take long until he comes as well.
“Made just for me”, he whispers against your lips, and you gasp when you feel the heat overflowing in your sex area, vision blurry as you let go and scream in complete pleasure. Donghyuck basks in the confirmation of how good he’s made you feel, hips stuttering as he empties his cum in you and inside the condom. His thigh muscles may be contracting in tiredness yet he doesn’t halt his movements, milking your orgasm for all its worth. You’re basically putty in Johnny’s lap at this point, sex drunk and high from your release.  
“Not bad”, he admits, even though he had some credit to claim with the fast fingerwork he showed earlier. He holds your thighs again, closing them up to help you relax and you wince at the pain in your haunch, the result of staying in a flexibility-demanding position for so long.
You wait until your heartbeat slows down, turning around to face Johnny as Donghyuck ties up and discards the used condom. He sends you a warm smile, petting the messy hair out of your line of sight and you relax in the feeling of safety, batting your eyes up at him cutely.
“What about you?”, you practically meow, moaning softly as you feel his boner twitching from beneath his trousers.
“What about me? Didn’t you have enough?” 
He knows your appetite, knows there’s no way you’d be satisfied by one round only. And how could you, when he sits so deliciously from under you, his big body reeling you in. You know what he wants to hear.
“Please, Johnny”, you plead, playing with the thin tie still neatly keeping his shirt in place. “I need you”
“You need what?”, he growls against your lips, trying to coax as much desperation out of you as possible.
“I need your big cock inside me, please”
“Ass up”
You get up from your seat, complying with his commands and getting on your knees before your tired legs betray you and leave you a mess on the floor.  His hands cup your ass in admiration, giving it a little spank before he slides them over your dorsals. A careful push forces you to arch your back even more, and your cheeks burn at the eager position he has bent you in. You shiver when his cock enters you halfway.
“You’re still not used to me babe?”
“It’s not my fault that you’re so fucking big, Johnny”
“Then maybe I should stay still? Since you can’t take it?”
“No!”, you oppose, tears of frustration threatening to spill out of their ducts, “I can take it, just move!”
You howl as he bottoms out, his long length making you lose your mind. It’s been a while since you’ve had anything more than his fingers and you’ve missed the way he fits inside of you. You hear shuffling from behind you and soon he’s bending over you, wrapping his tie around your neck. With a pull you’re flush against his chest again, and the buttons of his shirt are already leaving little indentations on your skin. You wish it bruises.
“Do you remember what I wanted you to call me the other day?”, he whispers next to the shell of your ear, dark tone sending shivers down your spine.
“Mr. Suh”
“Exactly. Now will you let me fuck you the way I want?”
“Yes sir”
“What a good girl”
Johnny slams into you fully, every pull of his hips resulting in the restriction of your airflow. A game of wanting more of him and sacrificing your oxygen for it begins, and it doesn’t take long for you to turn completely into a submissive mess for him. He’s whispering filth in your ears, hips keeping their inhuman tempo until you’re all out of energy and fall nonvocal. Donghyuck gets hard again at the sight.
It doesn’t go unnoticed by Johnny, who is more than willing to share your body for the pleasure he’s after- at least part of it. He waits until the younger man’s dick is fully solid in his grasp, standing tall and red right in front of you and he lets go of the constraint of your neck without notice.
You fall face first on Donghyuck’s thick thighs, his quick reflexes catching you from a harder impact. His member is twitching right next to your face, tip grazing against your left temple and he helps your head up by wrapping your hair in a makeshift ponytail that his fingers hold together. You wrap your lips around his tip obediently, twirling your tongue around his member until you reach his hairy base. He tastes a bit rubbery from the condom earlier but you choose to ignore it, focusing on hollowing your cheeks around him instead.
Every hard thrust of Johnny’s propels you forward onto Donghyuck’s cock, the bobbing motion natural yet you struggle to take them both inside you. Donghyuck enjoys the vibrations of the moans you make when the other man hits a deep spot in your pussy, Johnny groans when you clench around him as Donghyuck abuses your throat. It’s a give and take of intense pleasure and you know you can’t take much more, the men’s moans growing louder with every thrust. 
“Do you like Hyuck’s cock needy baby? Have you finally had enough?”
He punctuates each word with a slam, one harder than the other, and the rope inside your belly snaps with the arrival of your second orgasm. You try your hardest to stay in place, beg your thighs not to let you collapse as you let Johnny drive you into overstimuation.
“Yes, sir. I love it”
Johnny grunts at the sound of his title, so dirty coming muffled by another man’s dick that it’s enough to send him over the edge. You feel the hot cum filling up the condom inside you, and his spurts take so long that the little tweaks coax another orgasm from you.
Donghyuck drinks up the scene unveiling in front of him, a steady hand forcing your jaw open as he starts to jerk off quickly over your face.
“I want to see your tongue covered in my cum”
You lick your lips seductively in response, opening your mouth up to welcome his ropes of white liquid that leave his slit a second after. They fill your mouth little by little, painting the inside of it and you hold your tongue out to show him his creation, a couple of drops dripping from the corners before you swallow as much as you can. He collects whatever’s left on your jaw, pushing it in and letting you suckle on his thumb dumbly before letting go.
You collapse on the couch, exhausted after giving all that your body could handle after a work day, and you sit in silence as Johnny massages your feet and Donghyuck kisses your neck to calm you down. Your head hurts from the sex and the possibilities that this new combination can bring to your love life, belly tingling in excitement at the same time. You don’t know where this will lead, or when will be the next time you’ll indulge in the company of the both of them stuck on your body. All that you know is that this promotion, at least the celebration of it, tastes really, really sweet. 
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thank you for reading ❤ feedback is much appreciated! If you liked Promotion you can check out Work for it to see where it all started! :) 
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trivia-bangtan · 3 years
Text
after (jjk) - 005
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pairing: patient!oc x patient!jungkook
genre: friends to lovers au, kinda a hazel and gus trope, | lots of angst, fluff and suggestive themes
warning: this chapter gets extremely dark 😭 (nothing new lol)
authors note: omfg im so sorry it’s taken me so long to post 😩 the schedule might change from now on bc my schedule changed 😅 but hope u guys enjoy it 😩😩
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there's a phobia called agoraphobia. it’s basically the fear of places and situations that can cause panic, helplessness and/or embarrassment. usually, i can deal with it. but things like cringe worthy scenes and overly cheesy romance is unavoidable.
especially being friends with jeon jungkook.
i knew better than to hand out my phone number to just anyone, but i thought maybe jungkook would be so busy with his own life, he would leave me alone.
for his parents' sake, i hope he had unlimited talk and text for his plan. the boy texted me first thing in the morning and every hour or so. he would call me at night, sometimes even facetime me, just before he went to bed. and even when we would hang up, he would still text me goodnight.
the only other person i would talk to everyday, other than my parents, is hoseok. hoseok was my older cousin, but one of my closest friends as well. but even hoseok gave a break during the day to allow some “me time” for the both of us.
jungkook was relentless. he would always text me “good morning sunshine” and then text me “good night my moon”. what the hell even was that?
as much as it was annoying, it was endearing in a sense. i guess it was nice to have someone other than family constantly checking up on me. but some part of me couldn’t help but wonder if it was because of what namjoon had said and if he felt obligated to have to talk to me.
i knew jungkook wasn’t like that. but a small part of me couldn’t help but convince myself that it could be true.
“so the guy texts you all the time? it’s not a big deal,” hoseok said, sitting across the island in his kitchen. i stuck my fork into my bowl of fruit, impaling a small blueberry in the process.
“i mean, it’s not but it’s weird. hobi, i’ve never had someone crave to talk to me so often. and i swear it has to be because of what our counselor said,” i mumble.
the thing about hoseok is he has an aura that gets you to spill all emotions. much like jungkook. but the difference between the two of them in my life is that i’ve known hoseok a lot longer and can confirm he can keep his mouth shut.
“well contrary to your belief, you’re a decent person to have around,” he shrugs, giving a strawberry in his mouth. i snort at his comment and roll my eyes.
“wow, what a compliment. it’s a wonder you’re single,” i chuckle, shoveling the fork full of blueberries into my mouth.
“i’m single by choice. what about you?” hoseok smirks, wiggling his eyebrows at me.
“what’s that supposed to mean?” i asked, laughing at his expression.
“what?”
“the whole thing?” i respond, laying my fork down onto the counter, leaning onto it with my elbows, forearms flat as i folded my hands.
“i’m single because i choose to be. i prefer comforting solitude than forced company,” he shrugs, continuing to shovel fruit into his mouth.
“forced company?” i ask.
“yeah. like, just because we’re together, they feel obligated to HAVE to hang out with me or invite me everywhere when, in reality, i don’t give a damn. i mean, you know me. we both value our solitude and respect that. but it’s hard to find someone that understands that. and then i’m the bad guy for wanting alone time when really, it’s a mental health break,” hoseok explains, his eyes locked onto the bowl in front of him.
his statement surprised me. he was always such a people oriented person. as kids, he was the first to make friends between us and always such an extrovert. it kind of hurt to know eventually his whole personality switched. but maybe being so wrapped up in my world and in my own issues, i failed to acknowledge the people around me.
the atmosphere changed after that. almost as if there was a sad reminisce in the air.
“do you think you’re forced to keep me company?” i blurted. i couldn’t deny, the thought crossed my mind multiple times before. was everyone around me just babysitting to make sure i didn’t hurt myself?
i couldn’t tell. i knew asking would be dumb. hoseok would never tell me the truth. he’s usually a pretty blunt and up front guy, but he would never outright hurt my feelings. which saddened me even more. would he willingly lie to comfort me? knowing what i knew?
“do you think i am?”
“yeah,” i honestly admitted. we both sat in silence, taking in my answer.
it wasn’t a lie. like i said, the thought had crossed my mind. every time he placed his phone down on the table to force himself to give me his attention. the way he seemingly dropped everything immediately if i asked him to hang out with me or pick me up some place. how i never heard of him being with friends.
the more i sat there, the more i threw myself into overdrive, thinking until my head started to pound from overthinking.
“well, you’re wrong,” he sighed. my eyes flitted up to gaze at his face. he looked sullen, almost like my answer had upset him. i released a silent huff through my nose, smirking in the process.
“you don’t have to protect me,” i murmured quietly.
“my mom called me. she begged me to come home one day. i didn’t understand it at first, but she's my mom. i did as i was told. when i got home, she didn’t say anything, just told me to get in the car. i remember thinking to myself ‘what’s got her feeling this way? why is she being ominous with her actions?’ the whole drive, she said nothing,” hoseok said, a distant look in his eyes.
“she ended up pulling over at some park. it was late, so i didn’t recognize it at first. but then i realized what park it was. it was the park we went to as kids. and, again, i kept wondering to myself why she was being enigmatic with her actions. and then she spoke. she said six words and then didn’t speak the rest of the week,” he said, his voice shaken with sadness.
“what did she say?” i asked softly, my voice a mere whisper. hoseok looked up at me, his eyes glazed red.
“your cousin tried to kill herself.”
i felt like the air had come out of my lungs.
it’s funny, people like to talk about your attempts, but nobody ever tells you where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. nobody tells you the pain they feel or the hurt. the anger or the betrayal. they pretend like what they felt didn’t happen to convince themselves it wasn’t real and they could move on. because it didn’t work and you’re alive.
but hearing hoseok tell me about his experience, it stirred something in my heart and i hadn’t felt in a long time.
regret.
“she didn’t even mention if you survived or if you were okay. that’s all she said. and because she was crying, i assumed the worst. i had assumed you died. and it felt like everything in me… stopped working. like, i forgot what it was like to not have you by my side. every… every memory, every laugh. every inside joke. it was like a corny ass film playing at 2x speed in front of me. my mind kept telling itself this can’t be real. she wouldn’t do that to me’. but the longer we sat there and the harder she cried, i couldn’t take it. i jumped out of the car and just started running. i didn’t know where i was going but i just had to run because the car was so suffocating, i thought i was gonna pass out. and i kept asking myself ‘why her? why couldn’t she just talk to me? why didn’t she tell me she was hurting? does she know how much i love her and that i would do anything to keep her here?’ and then i was pissed because i thought you had abandoned me. that you didn’t care about me or your parents or my mom. but then… once i stopped running… i felt bad for you. because i could never imagine the amount of loneliness you must’ve felt thinking the only way to solve this was to end it all,” he said through his compendious recount of that night. i could feel the hurt and regret make its rounds in my heart, forcing my body to follow. it physically ached to hear hobi recall every moment of that night. “i’m sorry,” i cried out, crying into my hands.
“that’s why i hang out with you. that’s why i talk to you. because i don’t want you to feel that kind of loneliness ever again,” he admitted, sniffling. the hurt and regret only further festered and made me cry over hard to the point where i felt like i couldn’t breathe. hoseok stood from his spot, making his way around the island. he stood in front of me, pulling me into his chest, my arms wrapping around his waist. i hadn’t hugged anyone in years, and the amount of care and love hoseok had emitted through his hug made me cry even more.
“and that’s why i’m so glad you have jungkook. because when i can’t be there, at least he is,” he explained, rubbing small circles in my back.
though my doubt was still heavy, and i felt as if he had an ulterior motive, hoseok’s words comforted me in a way.
jungkook had been nothing but kind, never intrusive or inquisitive about my history or my feelings. he spoke to me because he wanted me to know that he cared.
and for the first time in forever, i felt something else too.
hope.
18 notes · View notes
kaaytea · 3 years
Note
Im the anon who requested the Koushuu x manager/Kazuya's sister reader
Since im still completely in love with the dinner headcanons, I was wondering since it its Koushuu's bday, if i could make another request?^^
About how manager/kazuya's sister would surprise him? Maybe she finally convinces Kazuya to let her spend some time with Kou in the dorm room and they have this really special, fluffy moment cause he deserves some love on his bday🥺🥺
I’m honestly surprised at how quickly I wrote this (see what happens when you guys inspire me😤) so hopefully it sounds consistent. As a fellow Koushuu lover I had sO much fun writing this. Technically bc Wolfy's birthday is in the winter, Miyuki wouldn't share a dorm with him anymore but for the sake of this oneshot let's pretend third years are allowed to stay on the team 🤭 I hope you like it anon! 💖
Reason
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"Please Nii-chan!"
Kazuya's face scrunched in displeasure as he twirled the bat in his hand.
"How many times do I have to say no?" He flatly stated. Kazuya kicked his foot against the crate you were sitting on, his way of trying to end the discussion and get you to continue tossing balls for him.
You let out a deep sigh before picking up another baseball, briefly letting your fingers brush over the worn stitching and scratched leather then lightly tossing it up where Kazuya cleanly hit the ball into the net. You sat there stewing in your thoughts as you continued to half-heartedly toss the balls up, putting in only just enough effort to get the ball up for your brother to hit. You didn't flinch at the sharp clang of the bat, once upon a time you might have, but at that moment you were too upset to even give it a second thought.
"Ok, but what if-"
"(Y/n)," Kazuya cut you off with a stern look, his tone was frighteningly reminiscent of the one your father used to scold you. The simple utter of your name immediately sent chills up your arms as you fought the urge to cower as you did when you were a child. "I said no, I'm not discussing this with you anymore."
You shot up from the crate, gripping the ball in your hand tightly as you glared up at your brother. You weren't going to let him play the older brother card -not this time! You would keep pushing for this until he broke down.
"But it's not fair! You hang out with your friends all the time! Why can't I?!"
"Because Dad told me to look after you, and that includes keeping you from mischievous boys"
Your face screwed up in a sour expression, "If you wanted to keep me from boys why in the world did you let me become a manager for a BOYS baseball team?"
Kazuya stared down at you, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to find the words to respond to you.
"That's.....that's actually a good question. Any chance you'd consider resigning?"
"NII-CHAN!"
The boy broke out into a fit of laughter leaning his weight onto the bat to keep himself upright as he gasped out phrases like: "your face!" and "You actually thought I was serious!"
You huffed at your brother’s childish behavior and slumped back onto the crate, leaning your head on your palm as you spun the baseball around In your other hand. You were completely frustrated with Kazuya, he was treating this like a joke, and somewhere deep in your heart you were a bit hurt by his lack of faith in, not only you but Okumura as well.
Kazuya's laughter started to die down as he straightened up and got back into his batting stance. Only this time you didn't toss him a ball to hit, he watched as you dejectedly dropped the ball in your hand back into the crate.
"Do you really not trust me?"
You heard him sigh through his nose, followed by the sound of another crate being dragged over so he could sit in front of you. He kicked your foot gently, an unspoken way of him telling you to look at him while he talked.
"Look, it's not that I don't trust you, you're very smart and have always been careful with who you make friends with," he offered you a small smile making you fight the urge to smile back, "It's more the fact that you asked to be alone in a dorm room with Okumura. That boy confuses the hell out of me, I never know what he's thinking so it's difficult for me to give you permission to leave you unsupervised with him."
You snorted at what he said. Your brother made Koushuu sound like a mysterious delinquent when in reality he was anything but.
"Nii-chan, Kou can't look me in the eyes longer than 5 minutes. You don't have to worry about him doing anything bad."
"Kou?!" He gasped out. The catcher brought a hand to his forehead dramatically, "You're on a first-name basis with him already! What do I do?! You're being corrupted!"
You groaned, rubbing the heels of your hands into your eyes trying to distract yourself from the unavoidable headache that would surely appear in the next few minutes.
Kazuya stood up from the crate and pushed it to the side with his foot.
"Two hours"
"What?"
"I'm giving you two hours with him -but that's it!"
A grin spread across your face and you jumped up trapping Kazuya in a tight hug. One of his hands ruffled your hair as you babbled out thank yous.
"Yeah, yeah whatever. Now get off, I wanna get through the rest of this crate, and then I'll walk you back to your dorm."
--------------------------------------------------
The day was finally here! Your brother had graciously granted you two whole hours to hang out with Kou in his dorm! Safe to say you were a little more than excited as your dorm mates teased you about seeming extra lively that morning. You simply brushed it off as having gotten a good night’s rest, but the heat radiating off your cheeks contradicted your efforts.
You checked the gift bag hanging loosely from your wrist for the thousandth time as you approached the familiar door. After confirming that his gift was still safely stowed away, you gently knocked and impatiently bounced on the balls of your feet while waiting to be let in.
It didn't take long for the door to swing open and reveal the familiar eyes that always shone with warmth, a juxtaposition to their icy color when you were around. It took you countless hours and silly conversations to melt Okumura's frosty exterior, leaving something reminiscent of a loyal pup.
"Hi," he softly said, already moving to the side to let you into the dorm. When the door closed you threw yourself at Okumura, wrapping your arms around the boy’s neck and pulling him into a hug. The action startled him slightly, his body stiffening up from surprise before he cautiously wrapped his arms around your waist.
"Happy birthday, Kou!" You chirped, beaming up at the blonde, whose cheeks were quickly tinting a soft pink.
"T-thanks," he sputtered as he untangled himself from you. Before Okumura could get a chance to process and compose himself you were already pushing his gift into his hands while chanting "open it open it!"
He sat down on the edge of his bed —with you doing the same, positively vibrating with excitement— and gently pulled out a little bundle of blue tissue paper neatly folded over the gift. Okumura carefully unwrapped the object revealing a new pair of batting gloves.
He turned the gloves over in his hands inspecting them. A mixture of white and deep blue detailing produced a very clean look to the gloves. The thicker material around palms and the very obvious brand name instantly made him realize you probably spent a good amount of money to get these.
"Do you like them?" He turned to look at how excited you seemed. The sparkle in your eyes made his heart flutter, but he couldn't shake the slight guilt that ate at him. "Takuma helped me a bit with finding a style similar to your old pair -but, I noticed you rub at your palms after batting so I got you gloves with extra padding around the base of your hands!"
Okumura was a bit surprised at how observant you were. It's true his old gloves, a pair he's had since his second year in junior high, had started to wear down. It always amazed him how you could pick up on small cues in the sport. Although to be fair, you were a Miyuki and had basically been trained by your older brother in everything baseball-related since you could walk.
"They're really nice," he slipped one of the gloves on, clenching his hand a few times to get a feel for them, "you didn't have to spend so much on me though."
You rolled your eyes and bumped your shoulder against his.
"I knew you'd say that...Think of it this way, these will probably last you the rest of your time at Seidou, so technically they were a valid investment on my part." You sent him a gentle smile which he returned before taking off the glove and moving to put them in his practice bag.
While Okumura was occupied your attention was stolen by the laptop sitting open on his bed.
"You weren't doing school work, right? I'm not interrupting or anything?"
The boy looked back at you and shook his head, his blonde hair bounced slightly at the movement. He walked back over to the bed returning to his spot next to you. In one quick movement, he dragged the laptop over to the both of you and unplugged the headphones he had in. Immediately your senses were filled with the voices of announcers and the crack! of a wooden bat.
"The Hanshin Tigers?," You looked up at him where he confirmed your guess with a short nod, his eyes not leaving the screen as he watched the team’s left fielder catch a pop-up, "I didn't know you were a fan."
"I wouldn't really consider myself one," he softly said, "Taku made me watch all their games with him when we were kids, and the habit sort of stuck."
You smiled at the thought of a younger Koushuu being forced to watch games with his enthusiastic friend. You wished you were there at that time to see a younger version of your two friends, Takuma most definitely shaking Koushuu’s shoulders excitedly at any play that seemed remotely difficult. 
It was obvious that Okumura was still invested in the game, and you'd be lying if you said you weren't interested in seeing how it was gonna play out, so the both of you found yourselves sitting up in his bed.
You quickly lost track of time as you both watched the game, pointing out plays and betting on what would happen. Although, the longer you sat the more sore your arm was becoming. Okumura didn't have the largest build compared to other players on the team, but his shoulders were still significantly broader than your own. Because of that you had bent you right arm and shoulder in an awkward position to watched the game. You started to fidget around trying to find a more comfortable way to sit. Koushuu was about to offer to set the laptop up on a desk instead, but his thoughts were cut off when he let out an involuntary squeak as you picked up his left arm and draped it across your shoulders.
"Is this ok?"
He could only stiffly nod as he felt his heart rate pick up and heat spreading across his cheeks. The heat spread to the tips of his ears as he felt you snuggle closer into his side and rest your head on his chest.
As awkward as he felt in the moment, Okumura had to admit that having you tucked under his arm was a nice feeling. He enjoyed being able to connect with you, somewhere deep in his heart he hoped this moment was what would push the both of you to become a little more than just friends. Slowly Okumura relaxed into the feeling, pulling you closer into him and gingerly leaning his head on yours.
--------------------------------------------------
"Koushuu?" You questioned as you both watched the ending ceremony to the game being displayed. He responded with a hum, dropping his hand to play with the ends of your hair.
"Would you play professionally if you were given the chance?"
He sighed, twisting a lock of your hair around his finger as he pondered your question. He was quite familiar with this topic, his family had been asking him that very question for the past few years and he always had the same response.
"If I found a reason to."
He gazed down at you, watching your eyes shift around his face as you studied his expression.
"I've always just followed Kazuya from team to team, managing and learning so I wouldn't be left behind," your eyes flicked to his lips briefly before locking back on to his crystalline hues, "But he leaves in a few months....I've been trying to find a new path to follow."
A greedy voice from the depths of Okumura's mind whispered 'me'. If he were to be honest he already found his reason to continue perusing baseball, and that reason was you.
In only a short time span you had somehow given a new meaning to the game, your passion and joy for the sport had spread into his heart and, as selfish as it sounded, he hoped that you'd join his side and face the sport together as partners once your time at Seidou came to an end.
Neither of you had noticed how you were slowly leaning closer and closer to each other, a magnetized energy pulling you together. With your noses just barely touching, you cupped his jaw and started to tilt your head up.
"YOUR TWO HOURS ARE UP (Y/N)! ITS TIME FOR YOU TO LEAVE NOW!~"
The magnetic feeling vanished the instant the door slammed open and Kazuya practically sang for you to leave. Luckily, Okumura had quick reflexes and was able to put a decent amount of space between the two of you the moment Kazuya's voice echoed around the room.
"I'll walk you back to your dorm," he said softly, avoiding looking at his captain as you both shuffled out the door.
The walk to your dorm was silent. There was nothing to say as you were both too embarrassed to mention what had almost happened.
Okumura was somehow even more aggravated by Miyuki, the both of you were so close to finally admitting and giving in to the chemistry that had been slowly and steadily building since summer break. All of that progress was ruined in a matter of seconds by the nuisance of a captain.
You stopped in front of your dorm door, quickly looking down both halls only to find the area vacant of any other girls.
"Koushuu," you tapped his shoulder making him turn his attention from the floor to you. Your arms wrapped around his neck and you reached up on your tiptoes, your lips a hairs width away from his.
"Happy Birthday," you whispered before pressing your lips together.
Okumura gently returned the kiss, his hands hovering near you —unsure of what to do with them— until you moved his right hand to cup your cheek. Instinctively he tilted your head up slightly.
You both pulled away with batted breath and burning faces. In those few seconds following, your actions caught up with you. Your body burned in embarrassment as you stuttered out a 'bye' and slipped into your dorm.
Koushuu's fingers drifted up to his mouth as he walked back to the baseball team's dorms, still slightly in shock at the situation.
Hopefully, that first kiss showed you your new path just as it had confirmed his.
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babysizedfics · 4 years
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okok so i dont know if virgil would like it (bc of the separation anxiety) but how does he feel abt peek a boo? i imagine his cgs would make it super fun! like have him on his mama’s lap with his papa in front of him and theyre like “wheres the baby??” and pat covers his eyes “there he is!!” and pat gets all happy and excited to see virgil so v gets all excited which makes pat even mOre excited so v gets lil happy kissies!!!! (can u tell ive been wanting to play peek a boo hdhdj)
I HAD TO SCREAM INTO A PILLOW
I hope you don't mind but i made this into a fic it was essential it was unavoidable i was crying as i wrote this
Title: Peekaboo!
Summary: Logan is a shy new caregiver, Patton learns what separation anxiety is, and Virgil disappears then reappears and is a very confused baby.
Word count: 6,600
Note: Set before the events of Little Accidents, Big Developments (AO3 | tumblr)
Also on AO3
oOo
It had been a somewhat slow day. Roman had been holed up in his room for most of it, rehearsing for an audition that Thomas had landed for the following week. He was working rather relentlessly, though Patton had been sure to request that he at least leave his room for mealtimes - and Logan had outright demanded it when Roman stubbornly refused. After a very speedy lunch, Roman was back in his room and the other three were left to their own devices in the living room.
Quite understandably, Patton had noticed Virgil was much antsier that afternoon. Probably because Roman was constantly talking about how absolutely essential it was that Thomas did not mess up a single line in next week’s audition and that he personally would “enter into a state of devastated mourning should this chance at stardom be killed and dashed across the stage floor”.
That had evidently sent Virgil’s anxiety into a downward spiral. After the fourth shaky sigh in as many minutes from the younger side’s lips, Patton shook his head and twisted on the couch to look at him.
‘Okay, that’s enough,’ Patton said, giving a rare stern look to the boy who was currently pacing the living room floor and looking just about ready to tear his hair out. ‘No more worrying, Stormcloud.’
‘I can’t help it!’ Virgil whispered quite fiercely. His eyes were wide and though they looked in Patton’s direction, it was as if his gaze was fixed a mile in the distance, likely imagining a variation of disastrous scenarios. ‘We could choke or trip or literally do the worst performance ever and Roman would be depressed and then we might not be able to make videos for months because he’s so distraught and what if it was all my fault? What if I was the one to make Thomas mess up and then Roman would hate me and -’
‘Breathe,’ Logan commanded from where he sat in the armchair reading a book.
As if being shaken from a spell, Virgil’s frantic pacing halted and he gasped in a breath.
‘It was not your fault because it has not happened. Roman won’t hate you because even if it did happen, the blame could not fall solely on your shoulders. Everything is going to be all right, Virgil.’
At Logan’s reassuring words, Virgil nodded slightly to himself, his eyes fixed on his feet as he took in steady, though shallow breaths.
Patton bit his lip for a moment in thought. It was obvious that Virgil would not be able to get past this anxiety without a distraction… and what better distraction than being a baby?
With a firm nod to himself that meant Yes, this is definitely the only solution. Not just because I love looking after my baby, of course, Patton switched the TV over from the show he had been watching to Guess How Much I Love You, one of Virgil’s favourite cartoons in littlespace.
As soon as the bright musical score started playing, Virgil and Logan’s gazes both snapped up to the screen. The older one smiled slightly while the younger side’s thumb flew to his mouth in an instant. He began nibbling on his nail as a young child’s voice sang the opening song:
“Dancing through springtime,
Flowers are raised in summer sun,
Catching white snowflakes on your nose,
Running through autumn leaves that float from trees from high,
With a love that is bigger than the sky”
Patton beamed at how Virgil seemed fully enraptured by the animated rabbit and bright flowers on the screen. The moral side happily joined in singing his favourite part of the song, all while gazing at Virgil.
‘Guess how much I love you, guess how much I love you -’ he held his arms out to Virgil in an invitation for a hug ‘- Guess how much I love you!’
‘’M not little,’ Virgil mumbled with a strong blush gracing his cheeks. It was so quiet that Patton wouldn’t be surprised if Logan had not been able to hear it, being slightly further away from them.
‘I know, sweetheart,’ Patton said gently through a smile, knowing that Virgil’s statement wouldn’t be true for very long. His arms remained open. ‘But maybe we can just watch a bit and see if it helps you calm down.’
There was a stiff nod and within a few seconds Virgil had plopped down onto the couch beside Patton, instantly snuggling up to him.
Patton allowed himself a small chuckle as he wrapped his arms around Virgil and pulled him into his lap. Seeing Logan’s proud smile filled him with far more joy than he was currently able to express if he didn’t want to accidentally fling Virgil off of his lap, so he let it fizzle away in his chest with a bright grin. As he settled back to watch the show, he pretended not to notice his baby’s thumb slipping into his mouth.
Needless to say, by the end of the ten-minute episode, Virgil was entirely gone.
‘Papa?’
Patton nearly squealed. He wasn’t quite over his excitement for Virgil’s new nickname for him. ‘Yes, my sweet little fieldmouse?’
‘Peas Minpy?’ Virgil garbled around his thumb, twisting his head to look pleadingly at Patton.
That look… Virgil had no idea what that look did to Patton’s heart. With a firm hand on his chest, Patton said, ‘Okay, baby. Let’s go upstairs and get Minty.’
‘I can fetch them,’ Logan quickly announced from the armchair. Patton watched as he snapped his book shut quite hurriedly, stood, paused for a second as he clearly got a head-rush from standing so fast, then made his way over to them. ‘I’m going to go and get Minty for you, Virgil,’ he explained, leaning down to be eye level with them.
His hand reached forward hesitantly and patted Virgil’s head twice, to which the regressor replied with a giggle and a poke to Logan’s wrist.
Patton fought very hard to contain an adoring smile as Logan’s cheeks flushed before he bustled out of the living room. The logical side was a little awkward in his attempts at physical affection, but they never failed to put a smile on Virgil’s face so Patton could hardly tease him about it. And it wasn’t Logan’s fault that cuddles and kisses didn’t come as naturally to him as they did to Patton. He was trying, and it only made Patton all the more smitten with him.
Feeling his cheeks warm at that thought, Patton quickly busied himself with holding Virgil’s hand (the one that was not currently glued to his chin while he sucked his thumb) and started circling his finger on the little one’s palm. ‘Round and round the garden, like a teddy bear…’
After a short while of singing and tickling and giggling, Logan returned with Minty in tow. One of Virgil’s little baby blankets was slung over his shoulder. At Patton’s raised eyebrow he shrugged it with a short explanation of: ‘Just in case he needs it.’
Virgil snatched his thumb out of his mouth with a muted pop and held his hands out to the soft toy with a whine.
‘Can you remember what word we say when we want something?’ Patton nudged Virgil slightly, though kept him in a firm embrace to make sure the boy didn’t topple off of his lap with his lack of balance.
Virgil’s face turned back to him. He opened his mouth as if ready to say something then frowned and snapped his jaw shut with a pout. Another whine came forth, this time sounding a bit upset.
‘Aww, are you too little, sweetie?’ Patton cooed. Virgil’s head suddenly collapsed onto his shoulder and he heard a sniffle. ‘No, no, it’s okay. It’s all right, baby,’ he hastened to reassure, bringing his hand up to stroke Virgil’s hair soothingly. He really was so sensitive when he was this small, it was difficult to avoid upsetting him. That was one thing that had been difficult to come to terms with when Patton first became Virgil’s caregiver. ‘You’re allowed to be as little as you want.’
The cushion beneath him dipped and he realised the sudden firm warmth pressing against his arm was Logan, who was sitting incredibly close to him. It was difficult not to blush. And so Patton did blush.
‘Virgil, look who has come to see you,’ Logan said so warmly that it melted Patton’s heart.
A curious baby pulled his face off of Patton’s shoulder and all remnants of upset on his features were quickly replaced by sheer happiness. Patton thought it would never get old, seeing Virgil’s eyes sparkle with such rare joy.
A lopsided grin stretched Logan’s lips as he pressed the stuffed dinosaur into the crook of Virgil’s arm. ‘There we are.’
The sweetest little squeak sounded as Virgil sat more upright on Patton’s lap and hugged the toy tightly, burying his face in its fur.
‘So much for not being little,’ Logan murmured lowly by Patton’s ear in an amused tone. The rumble of it resonated right through the moral side’s chest and left him dumbstruck.
‘Yeah,’ Patton breathed, not being able to think of anything much smarter to add.
oOo
Twenty minutes and a couple more episodes of Guess How Much I Love You later, Patton and Virgil (now with a pacifier) were being silly on the carpet. By being silly, they were quite literally just making funny faces at each other and then taking a minute’s break while they calmed down from all of the giggles and aching smiles than ensued.
Logan, being “not one for such tomfoolery”, was back to reading in the armchair. Though Patton had noticed that he was tending to spend more and more time on each page as he cast more and more glances over to the two on the carpet.
It was quite evident that Logan was eager to take care of Virgil, and it was becoming more prominent every day. He was incredibly passionate about the idea when he had first discussed it with Patton nearly a month previously and had been damn near ecstatic when Virgil had agreed to the suggestion. Though, going by his timidity and shy glances when Patton was caring for Virgil around him, it seemed his nerves were getting the better of him. Well, Patton couldn’t have that at all.
‘Oh, you’re such a silly baby!’ Patton chuckled when Virgil scrunched up his face as if he had eaten a lemon slice. ‘Papa’s gonna be right back, sweetheart.’
Without much delay, Patton jumped up with a big smile and ruffled Virgil’s hair, only just noticing that his face had fallen as he walked away. He would be fine, especially with Logan looking after him.
‘Where are you going?!’ Logan practically shrieked, his eyes wide and staring at Patton in disbelief.
Patton couldn’t help but giggle. ‘I’m just going to pee. You can watch Virgil while I’m gone!’ he cried a bit too excitedly if the look of suspicion on Logan’s face was anything to go by. ‘Come on, Lo. You are his other caregiver, aren’t you?’
That seemed to humble Logan as he looked to his lap and fidgeted with his tie. ‘Yes, I - of course.’
As Patton moved out into the hallway he heard Logan sliding off of his chair and talking to Virgil in quiet, gentle tones. He smiled, knowing that Logan truly did have it in him to be a carer, he just needed some encouragement.
Within mere minutes Patton was on his way back to the living room. If he took his bathroom trip quite languidly and chose to use the upstairs bathroom just to have a longer journey, he was sure no-one would have noticed. It was all for a good cause, after all. Though, he began to doubt this reasoning when he became aware of wet sniffles and whimpers and frantic hushes coming from the living room.
‘Logan, is everything okay?’ Patton asked as he pushed the door open.
He was met with the sight of a red-faced, tear-stained Virgil pulling very harshly on his pacifier handle. Logan was knelt beside him, holding his hands out in a placating gesture and looking quite concerned.
It only took a second or so for Patton to drop by Virgil’s side and immediately wrap him in a warm hug. The younger’s crying slowed as he buried his face in Patton’s chest.
‘What happened?’ Patton whispered, looking up at Logan’s bewildered stare.
‘He started crying the minute you left,’ Logan said, his brow furrowed (beautifully), ‘but I could not find any indication of injury or anything in the vicinity that might have caused such a sudden drop in mood.’
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Patton murmured sadly as he gazed upon his curled up baby, suddenly understanding. He lifted Virgil slightly to bring him into his lap. ‘It’s okay, Lo. Sometimes he does that when I leave him for a bit.’
Just as with every time previously, Virgil’s tears had completely subsided now that he was in Patton’s embrace. Rather than whimpers and sniffles, the only sounds coming from him were the suckling of his pacifier and a small sigh of content.
Logan seemed thrown off by the sudden change. ‘He cries when you leave the room? Is there no suggestion that he could be upset by extraneous variables in these situations?’
‘I don’t know much about “ex-trainer vary balls” but nothing else happens to make him cry.’ Patton tightened his hold around Virgil protectively. ‘He just misses his papa.’
The way Logan’s frown pulled down even more was slightly less cute this time, only because it made Patton worry.
‘Patton, I don’t believe this qualifies as “just missing his papa”. This may be a case of separation anxiety.’
Even as his baby snuggled into him further, Patton felt his heart sink. ‘That doesn’t sound very nice. What is it?’
‘In short, it means that he is aware enough to realise just how dependent he is on you, but not in an old enough headspace to have a solid understanding of object permanence.’ Patton’s confusion must have shown on his face because Logan immediately elaborated, ‘When something leaves his line of sight, he believes it has ceased to exist.’
‘Oh, that can’t be right.’ Patton looked down at the sleepy boy in his lap. ‘No, he must know I’m still gonna come back to him. I always come back to him.’ Purple tendrils of hair parted around his fingertips as he stroked his little one’s head.
‘Allow me to demonstrate,’ Logan said, then picked Minty up from where they had apparently been abandoned on the carpet. ‘Virgil,’ he called, ‘Vee, look over here. Look at Minty.’
With a little snuffle, Virgil lifted his head from Patton’s shoulder. It was noticeable how his eyes sparkled upon seeing his favourite toy. ‘Minpy!’ he squealed in excitement.
‘Aww,’ Patton cooed, unable to hide his adoration for just how sweet his little boy was.
‘Don’t you think he was surprised to see Minty?’ Logan questioned, holding Minty just out of reach from Virgil who was starting to whine as he held his arm out to the toy.
‘Well… I guess so, but that doesn’t mean -’
Minty was suddenly pulled away and hidden behind Logan’s back, completely out of sight. An expression of fake-surprise crossed Logan’s features as he looked at Virgil. ‘Where did Minty go, Vee?’
Watching Virgil’s reaction, Patton was beginning to understand what Logan meant. A mild panic had clouded over Virgil’s eyes and he looked frantically between Patton’s face and Logan’s now empty hand. It wasn’t long before the whimpering started anew.
‘Sweetie, it’s okay,’ Patton murmured, rocking him slightly on his lap. ‘You remember where Minty went, don’t you?’
Wet eyes locked onto his. ‘Gom,’ Virgil whispered forlornly.
‘He’s not gone, baby. See.’ Patton sent a pointed look to Logan, to which the logical side at least had the decency to appear embarrassed by his experiment and pulled Minty back out from behind him.
Virgil gasped through his pacifier, apparently shocked by the toy’s sudden reappearance. He whined and made desperate grabby hands at the toy.
‘There you go, Virgil.’ The toy was pushed into Virgil’s hands and instantly squeezed against his chest in a tight hug. Logan looked back up to Patton a little shyly. ‘I apologise for upsetting him. I had to prove my hypothesis.’
A sigh escaped Patton as he swayed his baby gently. Logan did honestly look remorseful, and he had shown Patton what object permanence was (or more what it wasn’t) so perhaps it was all right. Even if it hadn’t been in a very fun way. ‘So, does he think I… I die when I leave the room?’ he whispered shakily.
‘Not nearly so morbid,’ Logan reassured, actually reaching out to stroke his finger across Virgil’s knuckle. It was a very small act of affection, but Patton appreciated it nonetheless. ‘He does not have the mental capacity to think about anything that he cannot see. When you leave him, he cannot see you and so all he can think about at that moment is your absence, rather than believe you could exist somewhere that is not with him.’
The strangest bittersweet feeling swirled in Patton’s chest. Sure, it was kind of cute that Virgil loved and needed his papa so much that he always wanted to be with him. But Patton couldn’t be with him all the time. He did his best, of course, but he couldn’t exactly go hours without needing to go to the bathroom or fetching something from the cupboard.
‘Can we maybe fix it?’ Patton asked.
That crinkle in between Logan’s eyebrows came forth again and Patton longed to press his lips against it and smooth it out with a kiss. ‘There are simple activities we can do to try to reinforce object permanence. Though given the fact that he is not truly a developing child, I am unsure if they will have any effect on him.’
‘It’s worth a try though, right?’ Patton didn’t want his baby to be needlessly upset if they could help it.
A soft smile stretched Logan’s lips, and it made it quite tricky to remain worried. ‘It’s worth a try.’
And try they did. They really did.
As per Logan’s suggestion, they started with Patton leaving the room for progressively longer bouts of time. Thirty seconds, then one minute, then two minutes, and et cetera. At least, that had been the plan. In practice, it was much more resemblant of ten seconds, Virgil’s distressed whimpering, and Patton dashing back to comfort his baby. Then ten seconds, then Virgil whimpering, then Patton dashing. Ten seconds, whimpering, dashing. All in all, they considered it a failed attempt. (Patton was very glad that Logan didn’t reprimand him for ruining the experiment.) (‘You didn’t ruin anything, Patton.’)
The next activity was hiding objects and showing Virgil that they would always be revealed again. Minty had been the first choice, though Virgil was still rather distressed from their first activity and was clinging onto the toy tightly. The caregivers came to a silent agreement that it would not be fair to take away his comfort item. They instead attempted to hide things from around the room; little trinkets such as a photo frame or one of Roman’s sketchpads he had left lying around.
Virgil at least did not start crying whenever they were hidden behind Logan’s back or under his baby blanket. In fact, he hardly seemed to notice them disappear at all. No matter how much baby-talk and coaxing from Patton and Logan, the regressor did not react to them and only frowned and buried his head against Patton’s chest with a whine that almost resembled a groan of annoyance. Apparently he was entirely uninterested in the activity when it concerned such boring objects.
‘Virgil, look. Roman’s drawings are all gone,’ Logan announced, pulling the blankie over the sketchpad for the fourth time. Patton felt Virgil’s head roll on his chest lazily to look. ‘And now -’ Logan pulled the blanket back with a little gasp, revealing the book, ‘- there they are, they came back!’
‘Wow, would you look at that!’ Patton gasped, shaking Virgil very gently to try to excite him.
A soft grunt sounded before Virgil buried his pouting face in Minty’s tummy.
Both caregivers sighed.
‘Perhaps this activity is too impersonal to interest him,’ Logan mumbled, looking more than a little disheartened.
It wasn’t a surprise, given how passionate Logan was about educational activities. Despite the logical side’s hesitance with being solely responsible for a regressed Virgil, he had displayed plenty of interest in the boy’s wellbeing. Over the past few weeks wherein he had been subject to Virgil’s regression, Logan had had plenty of input in ways Patton could play with him and similarly teach him things that his regressed self had not known before. Patton, in turn, had convinced Logan that he himself partake in the activities too, and hence Virgil’s comfort around him had been gradually growing.
So seeing how disappointed Logan was by Virgil despondence for this activity, Patton absolutely had to do something to remedy it. He just had a fussy baby to get through first.
‘Oh no!’ Patton cried, knowing that it would be enough to get Virgil’s attention. As expected, the baby looked up from his toy still adorning a frown as he suckled his pacifier. ‘Vee, I’ve lost something very important and I can’t find it!’
Virgil’s grumpy expression melted into a worried one and he looked over to Logan. Then he pointed at the other side and whined at Patton.
A giggle worked its way through Patton’s words as he explained, ‘No, I didn’t lose Logan. I can’t find my happy little baby anywhere!’
Shyness replaced Virgil’s confusion as Minty was pulled up to cover most of his face.
‘Is he…’ Patton hummed in thought for a moment, then fluttered his finger under Virgil’s ear, ‘over here?’
A little squeak was muffled behind Minty as Virgil’s eyes crinkled. But, Patton thought in amusement, he still couldn’t see Virgil’s smile, so technically it didn’t count.
‘No?’ Patton gasped, then moved his finger down to wiggle over the sole of Virgil’s socked foot. ‘Is he under there?’
With a strained giggle, Virgil dropped Minty to push at Patton’s hand quite weakly. His dimples were starting to show.
Biting his lip around a grin, Patton released Virgil’s foot but then started circling his finger around in midair teasingly. ‘Oh, I wonder where my happy little one could be.’
‘Papa!’ Virgil called, giggling around his pacifier.
‘Oh my, I think I heard him!’ Patton’s finger started wriggling and moving towards Virgil’s tummy. ‘Could he be in here?’
He slid his finger under Virgil’s shirt and started squiggling over his tummy. Virgil was immediately squirming in his lap, giggling uncontrollably.
‘There’s my happy baby!’ Patton laughed.
For another couple of moments, the room was filled with the sounds of Virgil’s bright laughter and the soft kicks of his feet against the carpet. Then Logan spoke up:
‘Actually, this poses another suggestion.’
Patton twisted in his place, keeping a firm hold on Virgil who was still calming from his giggles. At some point during the tickle attack, Logan had apparently moved back to the armchair. While he was sitting quite stiffly and avoiding Patton’s eyes, there was a slight twist in his lips that suggested he was holding back a smile.
‘What’s that, Loganberry?’
A half-hearted scoff greeted that nickname, though Logan continued regardless. ‘Playing Where’s the baby? - otherwise referred to as Peekaboo - is a commonly used tactic in teaching object permanence in infants.’
‘Oh, how adorable!’ At once, Patton shuffled both him and Virgil to face Logan on the carpet, supporting Virgil in sitting upright. He was eagerly peering over Virgil’s head at Logan. Patton wouldn’t miss this for the world! ‘Whenever you’re ready.’
Logan bridled in his seat a little. ‘I, um… Well, I anticipated that you would want to do it, Patton.’
‘Oh.’ The slump of Patton’s shoulders was probably more noticeable than he would have liked. Was he asking too much of Logan to play a game like that with their baby? The logical side has always been sensitive to looking less than serious. ‘Of course,’ Patton nodded, regretting that his voice sounded strained.
‘Wait, no. I -’ The words stuttered to a halt as Logan closed his eyes and took a deep, likely steadying breath. When his eyes opened again, he looked down at Virgil with a soft, open expression. ‘Shall we play a game, Vee?’
Pride swelled in Patton’s chest.
The weight on his lap shifted as Virgil turned around to look at him. His expression wasn’t too easily read, but Patton knew he was simply seeking affirmation and so he encouraged him. ‘That’ll be fun, won’t it, baby?’
Seemingly satisfied, Virgil turned back to Logan and made a hum of assent.
It would never be spoken aloud, but Patton was quite sure that both he and Logan acknowledged just how awkward the logical side felt in that moment.
With a quiet clearing of his throat, Logan lifted the baby blanket from the floor and held it up in the air in front of him, concealing his face. After a moment, the fabric dropped to his feet to reveal Logan’s face - adorned with a faint blush.
‘Peekaboo,’ he said in an incredibly unfitting monotone.
A wince fought to crumple Patton’s face, but he battled it fiercely. As was to be expected, Virgil did not react much to Logan’s weak exclamation.
‘That did not have the desired effect,’ Logan grumbled, his cheeks a deep shade of pink now.
‘Aw, come on. Maybe you could try again with a bit more, y’know,’ Patton stalled, shrugging his shoulders with a guilty smile, ‘feeling.’
Logan’s eyes darted between Patton’s face, the blanket on the floor, and Virgil. Then he shook his head rapidly and muttered to his lap, ‘This was a silly suggestion. Forgive me.’
Being overcome by a wave of sympathy, Patton offered, ‘Here, why don’t we switch?’
He gripped Virgil tightly and rose from the floor with his baby in his arms. Virgil only had the chance to whine for half a second (he didn’t respond too well to being picked up a lot of the time) before Patton was easing him into Logan’s lap.
‘Uh, Pat - Patton…’ Logan stuttered, going stiff in his seat.
Ignoring the nervous protest, Patton persisted and situated Virgil further back on Logan’s lap so that the regressor leant against Logan’s chest. ‘There we are, sweetheart.’
It was met with a high-pitched whine and one of Virgil’s hands reaching out to him again as he leant forward to chase his papa.
Logan quickly caught Virgil’s shoulders before the boy swayed too far to one side. ‘Are you certain this is all right?’ he asked quite breathlessly. ‘I haven’t held him before, I don’t -’
‘Logan, don’t worry.’ It was almost amusing how wide Logan’s eyes were. Patton sent both of his boys the most comforting smile he had to offer. ‘I’m sure Mommy Logan is plenty capable of holding a baby in his lap.’
Both sides on the couch spoke simultaneously:
‘“Mommy Logan”?’
‘Mama?’
Virgil’s tiny voice filled Patton with such intense awe, he could hardly breathe past the swell of adoration in his chest.
He just smiled and with each hand offered a supportive touch to the two on the couch - a hair stroke for Virgil and a shoulder squeeze for Logan. He directed his next words at Virgil, knowing Logan wouldn’t be able to argue with his baby-talk. ‘Yes, baby. You’ve got a papa already, haven’t you? So now you’ve got a mama too!’
In a somewhat unexpected change of heart, Virgil’s upset at being away from his papa dissipated and he sank back against Logan’s chest quite happily.
Logan’s arms had fallen forward to secure around Virgil much in the same fashion as a seatbelt.
The decision to be so unapologetic and forward about suggesting “Mommy Logan” had been a risky one on Patton’s behalf, though seeing the gentle smile that softened Logan’s face thwarted any lingering doubts he had harboured about it.
‘I suppose that makes sense,’ Logan murmured, absently stroking his thumb over Virgil's shoulder and gazing down at him as if in a trance. ‘I can be Mama Logan.’
Going by Logan’s expression, Patton was sure he recognised the feeling that lay behind it. Patton knew it well; being entranced by the vulnerability and innocence and sweetness of the person who now relied on you to take care of them. It was the feeling of protectiveness. The paternal instinct. It was love.
He did his best not to tear up at seeing it displayed so openly in Logan’s eyes.
‘Okay, baby, are we ready to play?’ His happy tone was only moderately hindered by his tearfulness.
Virgil bounced a little in Logan’s lap (which earned him a surprised chuckle from the logical side) and nodded, squeezing Minty tighter in his hands.
‘Here we go!’ Patton announced, then leaned forward. He covered Virgil’s eyes with the palms of his hands. The confused squeak from Virgil forced Patton to bite his lip to conceal a giggle. After a couple of seconds, he lowered his hands and with a bright smile. ‘Peekaboo!’
There was certainly more of a reaction in comparison to Logan’s monotonous attempt, though it was not exactly the expected one. Where Patton expected to find an excited glimmer in Virgil’s eyes, he only saw confusion and upset.
Undeterred, Patton simply laughed it off. ‘There you are! And now…’ He covered Virgil’s eyes again, slightly concerned at his small whimper. When he lowered his hands and called, ‘Peekaboo!’ again, Virgil outright pouted at him.
‘What’s the matter, baby?’
‘I think he may have sensory issues with you covering his eyes,’ Logan suggested gently.
Patton observed how Virgil had instantly started rubbing at his eyes once Patton’s hands had pulled away from them. ‘Was it a yucky feeling, Vee?’ he asked.
A little nod and whine from the regressor confirmed the suspicion.
‘Aw, honey, I’m sorry,’ Patton cooed, feeling his heart sink with guilt. He had to remind himself to be careful of Virgil’s sensitivities. It was certainly proving to be a learning curve for the touchy-feely father figure.
Logan seemed to have regained some of his usual confidence and spoke without an ounce of hesitation, ‘I suggest you attempt it with his blanket instead.’
Glad for Logan’s to-the-point problem solving, Patton picked the blankie up. The material was unfathomably soft and always calmed Virgil down after he had been subjected to “yucky” textures, so he was sure it would help with their game.
‘All right, let’s try this again. Ready?’ Patton held the blanket taut and dropped it over Virgil’s head. An even louder whimper this time sounded from underneath it and Patton shared a concerned glance with Logan.
‘Papa!’ Virgil called out in panic. His grip on Minty was tight enough that the soft toy bulged between his fingers.
Patton hurriedly lifted the blanket again, ready to exclaim “peekaboo”, but was heartbroken to see Virgil’s eyes glossed over with tears.
Virgil whined as soon as he seemed to notice Patton. He dropped Minty to Logan’s lap so that he could hold his arms out. ‘Papa,’ he whispered, sounding close to tears.
‘Hey, hey, don’t cry, baby,’ Patton soothed, wrapping Virgil in a quick hug (that just so happened to include Logan, seeing as how he was so close behind Virgil). ‘It’s all right, Papa’s here.’
‘This separation anxiety is far more intense than I initially thought.’ Logan sounded troubled. 
It made Patton’s stomach flip. Would Logan want to test it more? Would he say it was bad for Virgil’s mental health? Would he want to separate Patton and Virgil? A sick feeling surged through Patton and he quickly plastered a big grin on his face, pulling back from Virgil despite his baby’s reluctance to let go.
‘No, no, we can do this,’ he assured. ‘Can’t we baby?’
Virgil didn’t seem to know what Patton was asking him, so he only whined and stretched his arms out further towards Patton.
‘It may help if you speak while he is hidden,’ Logan whispered. ‘That way he will still sense your presence.’ He offered a slightly awkward smile. It was beautiful to Patton.
He picked the blanket back up from where he had dropped it to the couch and, as per Logan’s instruction, repeated the game but this time spoke when Virgil was covered by the blanket.
More whines met his ears, though Patton quickly gasped and said, ‘Uh oh, I can’t see little Vee anywhere!’
To his relief (as well as Logan’s, going by the drop of his tense shoulders), Virgil’s whimpering stopped.
‘Papa?’
‘Where’s the baby?’ Patton sang.
A confused coo came from Virgil. It was such an unmistakably babyish sound that the remains of Patton’s concern were overridden by thoughts of My baby is so frickin’ adorable!
Then he snatched the blanket from Virgil’s head with a wide smile. ‘There he is!’
Virgil blinked slowly a couple of times before twisting around to look up at Logan.
The logical side smiled down at him and nodded. ‘You came back,’ he stated simply.
For a moment Patton was unsure of what would happen next. Virgil’s silence could have meant anything from shyness to fear. It could have been followed up by hysterical giggles or heartbreaking sobs.
Instead, Virgil turned back to Patton and mumbled, ‘Bwankie.’
How on Earth Patton had not yet suffered a heart attack from the sheer amount of adorableness coming from his baby, he had no idea.
‘Shall we play with your blankie again?’ Patton asked.
When Virgil nodded, so much pride and happiness filled Patton that it spilt out of him in a joyful giggle.
‘Oh my gosh, okay!’ He bounced on his toes as he lay the blanket over Virgil’s head again. His baby did go slightly rigid upon being left in darkness, but it was quickly remedied: ‘Where’s my little baby?’
Virgil’s body relaxed back into Logan and he shook Mento in his hands with a squeak. With a strong suspicion that his little boy was excited, Patton pulled the blankie away. ‘There he is!’
And it was true! Virgil was smiling behind his paci and flapped Mento in the air in front of him with a giggle. The anxiousness of the previous few minutes had completely disappeared.
‘Logan, he liked it!’ Patton cried, unable to contain how ecstatic he was.
He was a little surprised to catch Logan staring at him with a distant look and a soft smile etched onto his features. With a little start, Logan seemed to catch himself and nodded stiffly.
‘I am glad,’ Logan said and with the hand that wasn’t keeping Virgil secure, he scratched at his cheek. It only drew attention to how rosy it had become. ‘It might be worth keeping it up. Solely for the educational merits, of course,’ he hastened to add.
‘You don’t have to tell me twice,’ Patton laughed and looked back at his baby. ‘Again?’
Virgil bounced a little in Logan’s lap and his dimples sunk in his cheeks. ‘Gen!’
‘Anything for my little stormcloud.’
Virgil was promptly hidden behind the fluffy material. 
‘Oh dear, where did Virgil go?’
The blanket giggled.
Logan chuckled quietly as Patton winked at him. ‘Where’s my itty bitty baby?’
‘Papa, Papa!’
Patton gasped with an exaggerated surprise, ‘Oh my goodness…’ He swept the blanket off of Virgil's head to be met with a very happy baby with fluffed up hair. ‘There he is!’
The sound that came from Virgil could only have been described as a squeal of delight. His face was glowing with joy and he squished Minty against his face. He tended to do that when he was either shy (which he certainly wasn’t at that moment) or when he was so overwhelmed by emotion that he had to hide and process it for a moment. The fact that he was hiding from intense joy, rather than intense fear as usual, was nothing short of heartwarming to Patton.
‘I love you, honey,’ he whispered and leaned down to press a firm kiss onto the top of Virgil’s head.
‘Um, Patton?’ Logan asked quietly.
With a growing embarrassment, Patton realised he had his hands on Logan’s thighs to steady himself in leaning forward. He quickly retracted his hands. ‘Sorry.’
‘No, no, that wasn’t - you can -’ Logan cut himself off by clearing his throat. His eyes darted up to Patton quite hesitantly before they settled on Virgil. His hold on the regressor visibly tightened. ‘I wondered if perhaps I could try playing again.’
Patton had not, in fact, known true pride until that very moment.
‘Gosh, yes, please, of course,’ Patton rambled, instantly crouching down to be eye-level with Virgil. He had to seize this window of opportunity lest Logan shy away. ‘Let’s move you around, sweetheart.’
With a little help from Logan (and a little blushing as Patton’s hand brushed his), they were able to get Virgil to face Logan whilst in his lap. There was only a slight protest when Virgil reached out to hug Patton but couldn’t because of his position, but it was soon brushed over when Patton sat beside Logan so that Virgil could clearly see him. Perhaps the separation anxiety had not been helped so much by the game, but it was fun nonetheless.
‘We’re gonna play with Mama now,’ Patton announced and smiled when Virgil looked expectantly at Logan.
The logical side faltered a bit, though as Patton nudged him slightly with his shoulder he seemed to come out of it. ‘Are you ready to play, Vee?’
The baby nodded and hugged Minty tightly to his chest.
Logan did as Patton had - covering Virgil over with the blanket and immediately wondering aloud, ‘I appear to have lost Virgil. Wherever could he be?’
To Logan’s credit, the performance was far more expressive than his first attempt. It wasn’t quite as resemblant of a children’s TV presenter as Patton’s coos and gasps were, but it was certainly enough to get Virgil smiling, as was quickly revealed when Logan pulled the blanket back with a joyful, ‘There he is!’
They kept at the game for several more minutes, none of them getting bored of the repetition.
It was quite difficult to be bored by Virgil’s squeaky giggles, Patton found. Especially when they were supplemented by Logan’s soothing voice and a grin brighter than Patton knew the logical side would have ever dared to display in any other situation.
By the last round, Virgil was getting sleepy; his laughter was interrupted by quiet yawns (which sent Patton’s heart racing as he questioned how a human being could so closely resemble a kitten).
‘Last one, Stormcloud,’ Patton chuckled as Logan covered the boy with the blanket once more. ‘Then it’s naptime.’
‘Where’s Virgil?’ Logan called. ‘Where’s the baby?’
Virgil’s giggles were quiet, and it was noticeable how he was swaying a lot more now, being too tired to support himself. It was a good thing that Logan refused to release him from his careful hold.
Patton had shuffled further toward the other two as the game went on and now he was fully leaning up against Logan’s side. When they both looked at each other with bright smiles, Patton actually dared to wonder whether Logan’s cheeks really were just flushed from all the laughter, or if maybe Patton wasn’t alone in feeling a spark where their arms touched.
‘Together?’ Logan suggested.
Patton was sure his smile was completely goofy by this point, but he hardly cared.
‘Three…’
Logan smiled. ‘Two…’
‘One…’ Patton pulled the blanket from Virgil’s head.
‘Peekaboo!’ the caregivers said in unison, their happy, sing-song tones identical.
oOo
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catbirthdays · 3 years
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Feel free to delete this if you don't feel up to answering but I was wondering how you coped with quarantining with your family with covid? I'm in a similar situation now as my nephew tested positive for covid after having a cough for weeks, which we and his doctors thought was bronchitis (only recently did he test positive for the virus). Now we're all quarantined together, and it feels inevitable that I will get covid. In fact I've developed a cough as well, though I don't have any other symptoms. Our house is very small and because he's so young he needs tending to from family, he can't necessarily sequester himself in his room either. I have a cat that mostly stays in my own bedroom and I'm worried about caring for her if I were to become infected and had to recover there. I've been stress cleaning for hours.... Do you have any advice?
im so so sorry youre going through this :'( thats horrible and i know how scary it can feel. i hope you and your family have a good recovery soon!!!! and i apologize in advanced because I'm probably going to be no help with this 😔 my family kinda did everything wrong bc they're wack.
ill put this under a read more thing since it got a bit long.
so i have 7 people in my small house and though only 1 of my brothers had it at first, everyone getting it was pretty much unavoidable. my house has an old air system, and the same air circulates through my house. so even though we tried staying separated it ended up not doing much help. but! besides me and my mom, everyone in my family including my dad, who is an older man and has an autoimmune disorder and other bad medical conditions, were actually very okay during the whole thing. all my brothers couldn't even tell they had it. its a very strange sickness that affects people very differently. either way make sure to stay hydrated, even if you dont have it.
when i was sick, i was really bad off (but im really bad off for most sicknesses, like i feel like im dying even with a cold) but i was still able to move about and care for my pets, so even if you do test positive i wouldn't worry too much about being too sick to care for your cat. on the days i couldn't get out of bed someone else in my family made sure my cats were fed, and im sure if you do end up in a similar situation someone in your family would do the same if you asked.
it is a scary sickness, but in my experience being scared of having it just makes you feel worse. there are probably many websites that have useful tips for people in your situation, but here's a few i learned from when i had to quarantine: if you have a window in your room, try and keep it open to bring in fresh air (though if its too hot outside don't torture yourself!!), drink lots of water, sleep on your stomach if your cough gets worse, keep yourself occupied with things you enjoy and try to limit reading scary stuff about people who had covid really bad, because everyones body is different. if you have to be in the same space as other family members, make sure to wear a mask/have them wear one too, and wash your hands afterwards because washing really does help
i wish the best for you and your family!!!! ❤️ i know this probably didnt help much but i do hope you're able to feel a little better about it all.
(if anyone else reading this also has any good tips/websites with information feel free to link it in the replies!! )
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janexeu · 4 years
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     though the mist might prevent some from seeing it, JANE MÁRQUEZ is actually a descendent of HYPNOS. it’s still a question of whether or not the TWENTY-SIX year old DEMIGOD ELEMENTARY EDUCATION MAJOR from NEW ORLEANS, USA has taken after HER godly parent completely, but the demigod is still known to be quite SACRIFICIAL & STUBBORN.
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( she’s b-b-b-back on her bs : katya ! tis uhm ,,,, a lil bit of a chonk of an intro but ill try 2 b cute w it. any time u wanna yeet jus peep the gif again & forgive me bc Look At Her ! )
POWERS ( more info here )
hypnokinesis  — p much made her a glorified babysitter w lynch-esque wacko dreams. it got stronger naturally as she got older, but jus w herself n eventually the ppl shes real close w. its also gotten a lot better since comin to eonia 
seeing gods in dreams  — she doesnt hang out w em every fridays at tgifs but like ,,, if she had Pertinent Questions she cud smhw make it happen. found out abt her being a demigod at age 10 when she met hypnos
memory retrieval — shes got great memry of her own but bc she knows it can help w grief n all that, shes been learnin in eonia how to do it 4 others if they mayb wanted it
BIO POINTS 
her single ma died during childbirth so jane's been in the foster care system since 5ever. attempts at reunification nvr worked out but thankfully she got real lucky w her group home and foster families. twas stable enough to not emotionally scar her even further but the instability of it all was fosho a big ol’ lot and has influenced her rigidness in sum aspects of her life
she lived p much as a mortal even tho her powers r a lil freaky. never went to camp but it worked out bc all her abilities r internal and cannot be Perceived by others. she had a talk w hypnos abt what 2 do n he mentioned camps but also gave sum monster avoidance tips ( like rarely use ur powers, maybe learn self defense, yada yada ) n she jus ,,, did that so she cud continue livin real normal w the mortals. logistics of camp stressed her out esp bc shes livin w non-family n stuff yk it was All Too Much, miss her w the added demigod stress tyvm
got married at 23 to her childhood sweetums luis, but he ,,, died abt a yr later fr a car accident. coma for 2 weeks n jane p much slept the entire time in his hospital room, visitin his dreams n talkin to him. twas a life support sitch so they eventually decided to pull da plug whch was real sad but like she's processed it 2 da best of her abilities. her powers helped a lot in the coping too n she visits memories of him in her dreams smtms when it gets real sad then shes ok again bc life goes on n life is pretty uwu
bc of her bg round kids of all kinds, shes always been passionate abt em. always takin babysittin/tutor gigs and went to community college so she cud teach n then worked as an elem teacher. only started considerin goin 2 eonia 4 postgrad when she had a student who showed signs n strugglez of bein a demigod. she eventually got to talk to their godly parent 2 confirm n she was shocked pikachu meme, real concerned for all those youngins who hav no clue what to do ! or how to cope ! bc they cant facetime w the olympians lyk she can ! so cue her discussin eonia w luis a lot then a year after the accident, broke out the pro-con list again. took abt *checks watch* another yr til she finally decided to zoom 2 athens but then whoosh she did !
PERSONALITY
yearning ? idk her — shes can be a bit of a take it as is typa chick. can be a lil literal jsksj not dumb but like ,,, def doesnt read into things enuff to pine n long n year yk. some things might def fly over her head. she says Yes To Serotonin in this house. she dk the the mitskis n the sikens n the carsons ; its all mary oliver up in this joint. we just tryna luv life n be grateful folkz
le freak, say chic ! — control freak, that is. growin up in an unstable envi meant shed cling 2 stability n independence, wrvr she cud get it. so when it comes 2 the way she does things, she can be real a heel digger. also bc she has 2 deal w kids yk so it can b A Lot n shes v stern lyk dat. ofc she wont infantilize the eonians .,,,. or will she ? big sis vibes outta control. she means well tho always always means well. itll also b v hard to get her 2 giv up on sum1 bc life ? she luvs it n knows u can too
changes by david bowie — is decidedly skipped on the playlist. she doesnt like change !!! i mean she knows its inevitable but still not entire unavoidable. ever since she got out of the system, shes had a partner n her own way of doing things n its been workin out so why change it yk ? she says time may change me but jokes on u i can sorta trace time 
rip but im different — this goes out to all em whores in this house. she respectz ur hustle but like ,,,, not her thang. girl doesnt even get drunk when she drinks bc she doesnt rlly drink sksjsk doesnt like the taste of it, big baby ! but like she's Lived, its more like. ok tried it, not for me. thanks tho. also for all the meanies in the house, y’all perplex her. shes empathetic n wont show the judgement but smtms shes lowkey lyk .,., ur how old n u had all this goin 4 u n ur still so rotten ? how u actin like a 7yo w a trantrum ? scratch head, make it make sense
at least u tried — dad jokes, bad puns, tries to be big jokester but isn't funny. she's pretty tho so she gets away with it. idk wht else 2 say ur honor. shes the type thatll embarrass u w affection
well that was Awkward — probably sum1 abt her if  they see her actin a Fool bc shes in a foreign sitch or topic. when shes a fish outta water then she can be so ! easily ! flustered ! which is p much her in eonia. shes not new new but theres way 2 much godly shennanigans for her to wrap her head ‘round n sis has never gone to camp so its ice bucket challenge level shock from time to time still w da magics n lore
til death do us part — yknow when death cab for cutie said i knew that u wer a truth i wud rather lose than 2 hav nvr lain beside at all ? how abt when they wrecked me by rudely sayin love is watching sum1 die ? yes ? no ? nywy thats jane 4 ya. if she loves then shes in and if shes in then she is all in, luke danes stylez
was that a vivid enough picture or did i just word vom the same things agen n agen sjksjs jus know shes cute n sweet if a lil frustrating n annoying bc shes stubbornpants mcgee. may or may not have a slight compulsion to help fix other ppl ..,,.. someone set her str8 n tell her fix u by coldplay isnt it !!!  
OTHER INFO 
5′9″ born 4 october 1994, virgo sun n moon
not a freshie ! idk how long her program is but like ,,, lets ignore that 4 now ok jus kno that she been here a while
yogi & boxing enthusiast back at home. hc her mans got real into the martial arts w her when hypnos told her she gotta learn how 2 defend so that was one of their things : bonding by workouts so jane cud protecc herself if need be
her maiden name’s jane fulton. got her mommas surname but the name jane ? thats some jane doe bs some rando picked out for her which she hated at first but then seeing tarzan made her go hmmm, ok bet !
lgbtq+ alliance president ! identifies as pan
she met her late hubbie when they were abt 7ish, real friends 2 lovers cuteness. jane was there for him throughout his entire coming out & transition ergo her passion for the community esp queer kids bc she was That Cis Ally for her mans. wears her ring as a real lowkey necklace now
shes also real passionate abt sleep. will ask u how did u sleep last night p much every day u see her bc ppl spend like half their lives asleep catherine ofc shes gonna ask
her fave thing abt eonia ?  the whole siblings bit. shes had 2 make do w what she got n build a family from scratch so this ? she luvs it a lot let her give u kithes hypnos babies
shes p well versed in the greek thingies but only thru the knowledge mortals gets + dream info. after her realizin who she is, all things ancient greek jus sorta became her niche interest ykwim ? shes not like Super Learned abt it more like ,,, ok i gotta at least make Sum sense outta all this, gotta learn what i can. imagin how embarrassin it wud b 2 see a god in ur dream n then go : sorry to this man. nope. not jane, not her, nuh-uh 
luv languages : words, acts of service, physical touch !
useless hcs but she loves disney sfm ok. smtms dresses up as princess tiana for bday parties n shit bc shell do nythin 2 put a smile on the kids n babs faces
ya like jazz ? bc jane surely does ! adores motown & 60s music. nina simone owns her. no one drag peggy lee from 101 dalmatians ! not an important hc but i jus wanted to quote my bubble butt winged bee lover barry
POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS
children ! infants ! babies !
demigods that make her scratch head damn u live like this ? but also wud knife emoji to protect n care for. shes not the oldest on campus but shes been livin independently p much her entire life so she finks shes got a tight grasp on the myth that is Adulting  
srsly tho the Big Sis vibes is off the charts w this one. shell perserve u dumdums
baddie influencies !
convince her 2 get drunk at a party ! bc she never does. convince her to maybe try drugs ! or go hook up ! do smths impulsive idk jus smth new !
gl tho bc shes not rlly ,,, easily influenced But she can b reasoned w ! in general i fink its just gonna be a fun dynamic if y/m knows how to coax sum wildness outta her or w/e bc thotty yummy theyre hotty yolo rzning jus wont do w this gal. will most likely get argumentative like a big ol momma hen but if u win then ur winning big
Sleep Now or forever hold ur peace !
idk sum1 she helps w their messy sleep ? shes def not super public w it, surely knows her other siblings r Better at it but if  y’all are close, she probs enjoys doin it 4 ya. she runs her hair thru fingers a lot when she does it. like a lot a lot unless u tell her to get lost
lover boi, lover gorl, lover enby !
she can be a lil traditional when it comes to how she views rels. she wants all that meetcute courting bs ! no gender roles tho n u best be sure shes not constantly comparin w her late hubbie ,,, but she jus wants smth magical n 2 be wooed again yk ?
so yea ,,, crushers mayhaps ? sum1 who is tryin 2 woo her ? sum1 she had a meetcute w and now janes got lowkey heart eyes for em ? idk lotsa possiblities but pls keep in mind she is not good at the flirtings so hav mercy on her 
eonia tour guide !
or jus friends who like ,,, constnatly fill her in w all the godly stuff n whatnot. years of not goin 2 camps mean u miss out on a lot ! explore ruins w her n get her info her mortal educ didnt make her privy 2 yk 
head real empty atm i will think of sum n let y’all know when i do, but give us all the conekshunz. friends, enemies, the usual bit, lgbtq alliance peeps, lmk whats up whats done whats cookin we want it all
( shes p much a new muse n da result of me tryna bring in an emotionally healthy kid to this sad sad university. janes in a v good well-adjusted place rn n is my therapy muse bc that other bitch m** is a messy handful. but wbk life aint linear so mayhaps shit’ll hit da fan or one of y/m will ruin her lmfao press f pls ! but also color me eyes emoji bc we love to see it )
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bigsnzstanacct · 5 years
Text
Richie Robbins
Here’s my first, totally unfinished sneezefic. It’s all about loud sneezes, I haven’t edited it at all and tbh I found it on some random blog that had clearly grabbed stories from the forum bc I didn’t want to dig through all my old computer backups so ya know if it’s screwed up it’s not my fault.
As passionately as he desired to, he knew he wouldn't be able to evade it. It would come, as so many times before: unavoidable, uncontrollable, unstoppable. He closed his eyes, tilted back his head, let the itch like fire at the edges of his nostrils expand to set his whole nose ablaze with a tickle so strong, only a monstrous explosion could expel it. And monstrous explosions were his stock-in-trade.
"hehh...hehh...HEISSSHOOO!" he exploded. His stunned professor stopped her lecture, as the noise rang out through the huge lecture hall, waking up quite a few drowsy (hungover?) students. Flummoxed, she lost her place in her notes, as the boy sitting next to him, a jock, last name Stevens... first name he couldn't remember, muttered, "Nice one, Robbins. You planning to blow any houses down any time soon?"
Richard Robbins waited a moment before he replied, hoping to make sure the one great sneeze had been enough to expel the full magnitude of the tickly sensation in his nostrils. He sniffed before opening his mouth to reply, which was, as always, a huge mistake.
"Yeah, Ste-st... stevens... I... hah... I...iiegh...ieghhh..ihhh...ihhh..." He thought for a moment he'd gotten it under control, rushing a firm index finger to his quivering nostrils, but it was too little, too late: "Y-yeahhhh... ahhhKESHHHHHuuuhh. HEYY-SHEEUUUUEY!" Another of his roaring sneezes rang out through the room, again startling Doctor Renyolds, who had just managed to get herself composed enough to begin lecturing again. And the sneeze came with a brother, a great screaming affair which appeared to have erupted from the very depths of Richie's being, and, luckily enough, had carried with it sufficient force to finally blast out whatever was causing the terrible tickle in his nose.
"My!" Doctor Reynold's voice came, after only a few seconds, "Whoever has been exploding in my has thoroughly put me off my lecture. Were we speaking about Hamlet or 'The Waste Land'?"
Richie sank in his chair. He had hoped to avoid this, this time. All throughout high school he had been known as the school's sneeze factory, variously going by nicknames from Sneezy to Big Bad Wolf to Johnny Tsunami--that particular psudonym coming from a quite unfunny teacher--but in college, he had hoped to avoid being identified primarily by his nose.
Of course, when you had a nose as big as Richie's, it was rather difficult not to notice. It was nearly always the first thing people noticed about Richie, either because he was busy sneezing or because its moderately thin but hugely protruding shape, rather like a right triangle seen in profile, was the most commanding thing about his face. And his nostrils: they were great, wide, massive things, sucking up irritants with an unholy frequency, tickling with an unthinkable burning fury, exploding with almost unimaginable, messy force. There were times when he felt his older brothers' insistence upon calling his nose Mount Vesuvius was not wholly inaccurate.
Not that any of the men in Richie's family had room to complain about his sneezes. While Richie may have gotten a double portion, this was surely a family curse: when the six Ritchie men--three older siblings: Tristan, Adrian, and Sebastian, Richie himself, his little brother Max, and his father--were united in colds and allergies, it was a wonder Richie's mother hadn't gone deaf. All six of them complained of unusually strong itches that developed deep within their nostrils, which could only be expelled by their characteristically loud sneezes. Stifling or containing the sneezes would never do; it would only intensify the tickle--and the resulting sneezes--by several orders of magnitude.
No, there was little Richie could do in such a situation besides let himself sneeze and hope that no one would notice. Which, thus far, had never happened.
"Hey, Robbins," the jock queried, "should I send out the storm warning to little pigs?"
After class, Richie walked out onto the campus, on the way to his dorm room. He was hit full in the face by the bright September sun, and by his furious nasal tickling.
"Nodda... hiihhh... nodahhh... again... HEEEYY-SHEEUU! HISSHHH! ehh... ehhhSHIIEUUU!" He let the sneezes erupt into the open air, giving them free reign to bend him in half, three times, each sneeze bigger and louder than the previous, though, for Richie, they were comparatively light, more like minor aftershocks than the sneeze-quake itself. He wished these would've hit in the lecture hall, rather than the nuclear blasts he had actually let out.
"Well, you can't always get what you want..." Richie muttered to himself.
"But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you just might find...!" Sing-shouted Richie's best friend, Adam, who had, as ever, appeared behind him.
"How do you do that?" Richie asked, "Do you stalk men unawares in the night by custom? I'm beginning to think you're practicing to be Batman."
"Richie," Adam paused to say, mock-serious, "I am Batman. And even if I wasn't, I'd be able to locate those sneezes from halfway across the campus," laughed Adam. "But anyway, what's up?"
"Well, I exploded in the middle of my Poetry and Drama class, and I'm pretty sure Professor Reynolds hates me, but besides that, not much."
"Old Vesuvius come back to life? Well, no shock there. No offense dude, but your nose has been permanently set to stun since high school."
"Yeah, I've noticihhh... ihhhh... ihhyahhhhhhhAAESSHUUU!"
The pair began walking down the cobblestone path of the university, presumably towards the dorm rooms, then cut through the quad, where, of course, the flowers begot a huge tickle in Richie's nose. "Oh! W-waaahhh... ahhh..." He tried to get the tickle under control long enough to utter the phrase "watch out," but Adam had long since learned to gage when Richie was about to embark upon one of his voyages to a Byzantium of Richter-scale rocking sneezes, and had promptly set his fingers in his ears, got down on his knees, and, in a grand military manner, announced, "Cannons are aimed! Target has been acquired! Fire at will! Fire at will!!"
The fact that he had never, frankly, fired at will, passed quickly through Richie's mind before the sneeze washed over him, washing away all thoughts other than the sneezes, and all quiet in the quad: "yyeeaaaaaaHHHCHOOOOOOOSSSHHH"
Several stunned students turned around to locate the source of the booming noise, and Adam thought that he heard a "wow," somewhere in the distance. A few birds, it seemed, started from the trees. Adam wasn't even entirely sure that he had imagined the swaying he thought he saw in a few of the trees. There was no doubt about it: Richie could sneeze. Ever since they met in freshman year of high school, Adam had seen Richie's nose at the epicenter of a daily series of frightful detonations. This particular sneeze had been not only monstrously loud but torrentially wet, leading Adam to celebrate his decision to crouch at Richie's side; he did not want to get drenched, as he had been on more than one occasion. Ever since freshman year.
"Geez, Rich, you done?" Adam asked, after giving Richie a few seconds.
"SHEEEOOO!" Richie exploded, if possible, even louder.
"Guess not." he chuckled. After Richie (and Adam) felt sure that Richie's nose wasn't about to go nuclear again, Adam stood up, began walking, and quipped, "You know, I'm looking for a side-kick; before I swoop in and lock up the baddies, maybe I can get you to sneeze and blow 'em down!"
"Shut up, Adam." Richie joked, giving Adam a playful slap on the head, before the two rushed off trading barbs as they went.
—-
Richie reached the dormroom with comparatively few incidents, although he had to force himself more than once to obey his father’s favorite dictum: don’t stifle your sneezes. Don’t even try. Richie’d heard that particular sermon preached any number of times, along with his mother’s story: “When your father went on our first date, he tried to hold those things back, and when they finally came out”—“when she smothered her spaghetti in pepper,” his father would always interject—“I thought he was going to blow everything off the table! He sounded a little like you, actually, Richie.”
So, with his mother’s slightly nasally voice ever ringing in his ears, Richie forced himself to let out a series of noisy nasal explosions, in order to satiate his nose’s uncontrollable need for relief from its buzzing, burning, incredibly tickly itching sensations. Few people could imagine just how strong the tickles in Richie’s nose got; perhaps the only way to truly represent their magnitude was their own self-expression in his explosive sneezes. He felt fairly lucky that he'd only had to give in to three or four on his way back to the dorms, although the gaggle of women who had clearly bathed in perfume were less than joyous at the sudden, shocking explosion of elephantine nasal trumpeting which had suddenly erupted to their near right, and each had jumped at least a foot in the air, much to the amusement of Adam, who'd laughed almost as loudly as Richie had sneezed.
Adam and Richie had reached their dorm room, and were sitting about, not really doing anything, as college students are wont to do in lazy afternoons, after classes but before the dinner hours. Of course, they could have been studying, but who’d want to do that? Richie was busy plotting ways to avoid blasting the cafeteria during lunch (take an extra dose of Claritin, bring a handkerchief, and always avoid pepper like the plague), while Adam sat on the bed, debating with himself about whether or not to take a nap, when he felt a tickle invade his nose. Adam’s sneezes, while certainly not tiny, couldn’t compare in the slightest to Richie’s nasal artillery, and the “ihh… ihhhh…IT-CHEEOOooey” he released was nothing compared to a Richie sneeze.
But Adam’s nose wasn’t done yet; the tickle returned, the previous sneeze having done nothing to alleviate it, but rather seeming to have augmented it: “nyehhh… hih! hih! hehhh…” Adam’s nose vacillated on the edge of a relieving sneeze, its power building with every hitch of his breath, “nighiiee…hiegh… ighhhiee… iiiaaAAAAAHHH-CHOOO!” Adam sneezed, much harder than normal.
“Woah, buddy,” Richie murmured over his shoulder, “You really let that one go; you aiming to start a sneeze fight?”
“No, no, no, no,” Adam said, still feeling a bit lightheaded from the sneeze, which had taken more out of him than usual, “getting into a sneeze war with your nose is like bringing three sticks and a baseball bat to the Crimeahhhh… Crimeaaaaahhhh… Crimean... aayyYAH-SHEWWWESSH!” Yet another draining sneeze burst from Adam’s nose, this time with some considerable spray. “Yeesshhh,” Adam said, “that would would’ve drenched a tissue almost as bad as you would! I’m turning into a fire hose sneezer like y… you… you… Ah-CHOOeeeyyy!” Adam let out yet another sneeze, although this one was comparatively light, more in keeping with Adam’s usual sub-volcanic sneeze level.
Thus far, he’d been able to avoid it, having long since learned that if he was to ever do anything except sneeze, he’d have to suppress his sympathetic sneezing reaction. But ever since he’d been a teen, Richie’s nose had been envious of anyone who let out too many sneezes around him, and desired to experience such enormous relief as came with his hurricane-strength achooeys. Thus, he felt a slight tickle brewing when Adam had released his fourth sneeze, and when he heard Adam hitching up to a fifth—“ahhh… ahh… am… ah… am I ever gonaaaahhhh stahhh… stahhh… stop… ahhh…”—he feared his nose too, would begin to go into sneezy paroxysms.
“Adam, man, ah… ah… can you get a hold on those sneezes… my n-nose is starting to tickle too… hoohhhh… ohhhh…”
Richie struggled to get a grip on the still relatively slight tickle that had invaded his nose, as Adam did his best to hold back his sneezy nose from the delightfully relieving fifth sneeze that he knew was on its way. “ahhhh… ahhhh… I-I dunno… ohhhh ahhh… hah… It ruhhhh… ruhhhheaalllly tickles. Ahhhhh… AHHHH… AYYY-CHEOOOSHH!” He let out another sneeze, the strongest, wettest, and most forceful of the bunch, although not spectacularly loud.
But anyone waiting for a noisy nose would have little time to wait. Adam’s fifth and final sneeze had sent Richie’s sympathetic tickles into overdrive, and with almost no buildup, he reared his head back, nostrils flaring wildly like a bucking horse, and bellowed out an enormous, “CCHHHHEEEOOOOOOOO!” Followed by two more, slightly less loud but torrentially wet, “PLESSHEWEY! IT-CHEWWW!” Each sneeze was a spectacularly loud, messy affair, though they were commensurate to Richie’s normal sneeze volume, which, of course, approached the ear-splitting at close ranges. It was more than enough, Richie realized sheepishly, to sound throughout the entire dorm room floor, and maybe the floors above and below. He remembered to make a mental note to avoid staying up late nights—a late night tickle could easily turn peaceful dorm-mates into irate potential tormentors, irritated by being woken by Richie’s cannon-like sneeze. He realized, too, that he might’ve shaken people from any number of midday naps.
When Richie’s series of explosions were done, an affair which sent Richie’s body completely out of control, rearing back and exploding forward with abandon, his entire body at the mercy of his monstrously powerful lungs, mouth, and most of all, nose, Adam couldn’t resist making a quip. “See why I don’t want to get in a sneezing fight with you?”
“Yeah, I know. I hate those sympathetic tickles. Gotta keep that under control,” Richie said, as much to chide his nose as anything else.
“Under control? Your nose? That’s like keeping a bull in a china shop from disturbing a single piece of porcelain. Really wish I could find out why I was sneezin’ though. Those were pretty big for me, though for you it’d be like taking an earthshaking thunderstorm and replacing it with a light, pleasant summer rain…” Adam laughed, but paused when his joking was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Who is it?” Richie shouted, fearing that it was an irate neightbor, awoken from a nap. This had been one of his many fears about college; each of his older brothers had brought home several stories of how they had woken up between one and several fellow dorm-mates, roommates and apartment neighbors (not that the Robbins boys needed to be in the same building with a person to make themselves known by their noses; the family’s suburban neighbors had revealed on several occasions that someone, usually Richie, had been audible through the windows). Tristan, the oldest, who had, after Richie, the second most Vesuvial nose in the family, once told the story of how he had woken up, very literally, his entire dorm with a series of cold-inspired sneezes, and how only the awesomely pathetic sight of his sickly state, ensconced as he was in blankets and almost covered in used tissues and hankies, had prevented him from receiving one of his dormmates infamously cruel practical jokes.
Richie hoped to avoid such a situation, and so it was with apprehension (and desperate attempts to remember his self-defense classes) that he opened the door.
“Hey, dude!” Said the surprisingly pleasant and excited looking young man at the door, “was that a sneeze, or did somebody set of a nuke in the room next to mine?”
Relieved as Richie was by the friendliness of the visitor, Adam slightly sluggishly slid out of bed, laughing as he did, “That’s my man here, Richie, the Nose extraordinaire, the loudest sneeze in the west, superman of sneezes, the titan of ticklish nostrils, Sir Vesuvius himself, the leaf-blower…”
“Richard, just Richard is my name.” Richie cut in, eager to cut Adam off before he got to the detested “Johnnie Tsunami” epithet.
“Well, Richard-just-Richard, I had to come over here to see if that nose actually just came out of a person!”
“Sorry, I can’t help it…” Richie said, suddenly blushing slightly, “I hope I didn’t wake you or anything…”
“Nah. I wasn’t doing anything. But really, you just sneezed that loud? You got some kinda supernose or somethin’?”
“Well, it’s not exactly thin, as you can see,” Adam began, with a professorial air, “and the protruding shape and large nostrils provide some explanation as to its loud-speaker like qualities…”
“It’s just been that way since I was a kid,” sighed Richie, mildly put off by the awkward conversation.
“Dude, I haven’t heard a sneeze that loud since, like, ever, probably. Although my dad sets off some real firecrackers back at home… I didn’t think I’d hear anything like that for another few months. Kinda reminds me of home, actually.”
“Well, anytime you get homesick, just give us a ring and bring the pepper, though you might wanna bring some earplugs actually…”
“Adam. Geez, do you ever run out,” Richie inquired, with an irritated air.
“Not really.” Adam replied straightforwardly, "I'm a joke machine. And a love machine. Just FYI, let the ladies know..."
“Well,” the visitor declared, “Adam, Richie, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Jerry.” He stuck his hand out, and Richie shook it forcefully, though he found his grasp met with a vice shaking like a centrifuge.
“Nice to meet you, too.” Richie said, wincing slightly from the handshake.
“Hey, dude, we’re headed to lunch soon, wanna come?”Adam asked cheerfully.
“Yeah, totally. I was actually kinda hoping to avoid eating lunch alone,” Jerry confessed, “though I don’t know how you get through lunch, dude. Better warn ‘em: hide the pepper!”
That’s a joke I haven’t heard before Richie thought to himself. But, though not original in his jokes, this new acquaintance wasn’t half-bad, and was certainly an improvement upont the angry neighbor Richie’d feared he’d encounter. And speaking of curing homesickness…
“Are you wearing co-cologne… cologne… ehhhhh… ehhhhhhh… EHHHHHSSSSHOOOO!” Richie erupted another characteristically noisy sneeze, which, at unusually close range, prompted both Jerry and Adam to dramatically cover their ears to avoid the full blast of Richie’s nasal explosion, which was easily a nine on the Richter scale, probably a ten.
“Geez, man, I thought they were loud through the wall!” Jerry said, awestruck.
“Richie’s nose? Man, you haven’t seen anything yet. He’ll blow the paint off the walls before we graduate,” Adam joked, yet again.
“I think I might go ahead and take a shower,” Jerry responded, “I’ll meet you guys in about thirty minutes, alright?”
“Sounds great!” Adam said.
Richie would’ve replied, but Jerry’s cologne hadn’t yet finished with Richie’s surpassingly tickly and tickle-able nose. “hahhhh… HAHHHHH…HEHSHOOOH!” Richie erupted again, thanking his lucky nasal stars that his nose had seen fit, for once, to not let out a great big wet one while he was right in someone’s face. He opened his mouth to say, “nice to meet you,” but what came out was another, “TITCHEWWWEY! SHEWWWWWSH!” It was hugely, horribly wet, and in his zeal to avoid blasting his new compatiot, he had turned and, inadvertently, sprayed a great, big wet one into the face of his good friend Adam.
“Well… um… are you trying to tell me you don’t like my jokes, buddy?”
Now, getting sprayed by a sneeze was usually a messy affair, but getting sprayed by a Richie sneeze was pitched somewhere between “elephant sneeze” and “sprayed by a fire hose”. Adam was drenched, and Richie found himself reflecting yet again as to why he never, never attempted to use a pathetic tissue to hold up against the surpassing force of his all-powerful nasal eruptions, the tickly twin cannons of wind, wet, and sound that had taken up residence on his face, began full-strength operations in high school, and seemed to grow in power alone as their experience increased.
“Well, I think I’ll be taking a shower too.” Adam said, before promptly turning around, grabbing a towel and some clothes, and rushing to the bathroom, letting out an irrepressable, high-pitched, and surpassingly effete “EWWWWWW!” which sent Richie and Jerry into shaking convulsions of laughter.
After cleaning himself off from Richie’s hurricane-force discharge, Adam proceeded to the downstairs dining hall to meet both Richie and their new friend Jerry. Of course, he heard Richie before he saw him. “heh… heh… HAT-CHOOO!” It was a comparatively small one for his good friend Rich, but the noise still carried well out of the dining room and into the hallway. Adam often kidded Richie about his sneezes, but half the time he genuinely felt bad for the guy. After all, those massive eruptions that had punctuated almost his entire high school experience weren’t just occasional explosions, they were daily at the very least. Any number of things lit Richie’s sneezing fuse, setting off a chain reaction inside Richie’s nose that led inexorably to a blast of such volume and violence that people often inquired of Richie how such a loud noise could come out of a 45-year old 6’ 10’ two-hundred-thirty-pound ex-logger construction worker with a bad head cold, much less little old Richie Robbins. Every time he sneezed with people around, Richie would blush, shrug, and, Adam knew, mentally wish himself out of the room. It wasn’t easy having a semi-superpower—not that it’d do any good in a fight, Adam mused—for a sneeze. But it was life for poor Richie, and that was simply that.
For Adam’s part, he’d never been particularly bothered by his best friend’s outrageous a-choos. Maybe he just had ears of steel, but the volume didn’t bother him, and it did provide a decent shake-up during lulls in conversation. Heck, he’d been a regular vistor to the Robbins household, and that was an experience unto itself. Multiplying Richie’s sneezes with a father, three older brothers, and one younger made a ruckus that just didn’t make sense. If anyone needed proof that sneezes were hereditary, well, Adam knew where to bring them. He’d heard the same story from all six Richie men: it’s the tickles. The tickles, itches, tingles, and twinges that invaded the Robbins family sinuses were purportedly unbearable, like a thousand invisible brushes sweeping all the way up the nasal cavity. And the only way to get those brushes (temporarily) out was to let out a blast that could be heard across three counties (or at least a small suburban house… and a few of the adjacent ones.) Their sneezes came from their toes and then some. But the big sneezes were just the only way that they could relieve the incredible pressure and the tickle that built up in their large, protruding nostrils, swishing around their noses with an unimaginable irritation. The ones with long build-ups were the worst. He’d seen Tristan and Adrian, Sebastian and Max, even Mr. Robbins, staring up at lights, forcefully fanning under their noses, doing anything to tip the tickle out of the gate and onto the flight ramp, at which point a sneeze would shoot out from their nostrils of which any elephant would have been proud.
It was thoughts like this that preoccupied Adam as he sat down with Richie and Jerry, who were discussing the finer points of eruption-inspiring allergens.
“For my dad, is the dogs that are the worst, man, get him within ten feet of a dog, especially one of those great big shaggy things, and oh man… it’s time to break out the protective earmuffs, I’m tellin’ you…”
“Yeah, dogs get me bad too, but the cats… oh… waay… wait a second… I’b gonnahhhh… ahhh… HASHOOOEY!” Richie gasped out a “’nother… nothaaahhh” before bursting into a second tectonic shift of a sneeze, “YASSSHOOOOOO! Oh, I’m so sorry, that was a big one.”
“They’re always big ones, Rich!” Adam said as he sat down.
“Can’t argue with you there.” Richie sighed. While he often wished he could just get rid of his charateristic sneez-plosions, Richter rockers, or Richie Roars, as his nasal expulsions were variously called, Richie was grateful for friends that weren’t repulsed, shocked, or amazed by his sneezes, and he felt much less self-conscious about lettin’ it rip when Adam, or, as of today, Jerry, was around. Not that he had much (or any) choice.
“So, you two comparing notes?” asked Adam.
“Yeah,” Jerry said, “so far, we’ve mentioned flowers, pepper, animals…”
“Actually, most spices get me, red pepper worst of all.” Richie began, “In fact, the reason I sat down at this table is because it doesn’t even have a red pepper shaker, thank goodness. But I’ve blown back the fur and feathers on just about any pet you can imagine…”
They continued on talking like this, unaware that at the table just behind them, the very jock that had filled the standard role of Richie’s sneeze tormentor was subtly listening in on their conversation. Ashton Stevens was his name, and he, like Jerry, had also had a big sneezer at home. But he didn’t have such generous memories of his parents’ noisy noses. In fact, he had been driven nearly insane by his mother and father’s constant loud sneezes, which, unlike Richie’s, seemed put-on, fake, as if they both just wanted to announce to the world how noisily they could sneeze. The crowning moment had been that day, the day of senior prom… but Ashton tried not to think about it. For his part, he had rather dainty sneezes, somewhat at odds with his large and muscular build. He, of course, had never been plagued with allergies on the level of Richie’s, but he had gone through an allergic phase as a teen. During that time he constantly focused on controlling his sneezes, squelching them down until they were little more than a semi-audible, “chuh”. Richie’s gargantuan gale winds had brought him right back to that moment at the senior prom, and he secretly seethed inside every time Richie’s nose went out of control and spasmed with a silence-smashing sneeze. But he was formulating a plan, in the back of his mind, that would shame Richie into shutting up, as his parents never would.
Meanwhile, as Ashton Stevens seethed, Richie (predictably) sneezed. “yeaaaahhhh, ahhhh… aaaaahpppppSHEWWW! Uh, another one. I don’t know what’s making my nose so itchy!” The sneeze, honestly, had been the lightest one he’d let out in a while, only audible above speaking voices at the end, indicating a comparatively low-level irritation. Probably a stray flake of black pepper. While he reacted to pepper as much as anybody else, Richie had never had nearly as much of a problem with pepper as he did with dander, other spices, and the dreaded perfume and cologne.
“So,” Adam inquired, “what are you boys up to this evening. It’s Friday night, and ah… ah… HAT! CHOO!” Adam let out a neatly segregated sneeze, a firmly punctuated breath drawn in followed by a neat and tidy choo, which, although somewhat wet, was not extremely loud, as per the normal pattern of Adam’s sneeze. “Woah, I don’t know why I keep sneezing.”
“Yeah, come to think of it, neither do I,” Richie added, “do you think you’re allergic to something up here?”
“Nah, I’m as hardy as a bull, allergens can’t get me down. Try as they might, they cannot invade the fortress of my mighty nasal guard. Granted, they don’t have as big of a target on mehh… on mehhhh… me… as…. BAA-shewww!” Adam sneezed again, with a sound that sounded utterly fed-up with sneezing.
“Any chance you might be getting a cold?” Jerry inquired. Adam and Richie exchanged anxious looks. Each knew what the other was thinking: if Richie caught a cold, his sneezes, seemingly impossibly, would grow significantly in strength, volume, and mess.
“No,” Adam said, attempting to laugh away the possibility, “No way! The last time I had a cold was…”
“The camping trip in eleventh grade. And I promptly caught it and nearly blew down our tent on several different occasions.” Richie finished for him, “And I hope it’s not happening now,” he moaned, “because if you get sick, then I’ll get sick, and if I get sick…”
“Don’t worry, Rich!” Adam insisted, “I’m not getting sick! But so you don’t worry, I guess I’ll take some vitamins, and call it an early night, I guess…”
“No way, man!” Jerry interrupted, “we’ve barely been in college for a week. We’re goin’ out tonight. We’re going somewhere, and if you don’t like it, mister, too bad!”
Adam laughed. “Well, can’t argue with a command like that, sir. Where do we go?”
“There’s a nice bar nearby,” Richie offered.
“No, no, no, I mean a real club: loud music, sloppy drunks, and scantily-clad women.” Of course, at the mention of women, all three hormone-addled brains perked up instantly, and any reluctance at club-going was instantly erased.
And, Adam saw another perk:
“Plus, the club’s so loud, Richie, that it’s probably one of the few places on earth where your sneezes can’t carry. You know, places like construction sites… death metal concerts… one of my sister’s shouting—I mean singing recitals…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. But that’s actually a good point, and the sneezes have actually been comparatively light...” but suddenly Richie’s eyes got a distant, faraway look. His nose scrunched up, and the itch exploded in his nostrils like a thousand buzzing tiny, invisible flies, sending his nostrils into a rampage of twitching, his upper lip, his entire face swishing and moving with the enormous need to sneeze that had burgeoned so suddenly in his nostrils. This was gearing up to be a real monster; his breath hitched, “hahhhh… hahhhh…,” his eyes bulged. He reached his hand up to try to scrub away the itch, although he knew it was useless. This was shaping up to be the biggest sneeze that had hit him all day… “hih! hih! ah! ah! ah! ooooh, it won’t come ou… outahhhh… ahhhhhh… ahahhhh… ahahhah…” the sneeze stuck for a moment, leaving Richie’s face in a mask of sneezy agony, the corners of his mouth turned firmly down, his eyes tearing and glancing upwards, searching for a light bright enough to send his brewing eruption into its final stages of detonation, his eyebrows severely arched. His watering eyes rapidly blinked for what seemed an eternity, before he gave his nose one more good sniff and gave in to the inevitable detonation: “hhhhaaAAA-AARRSCHOOOhhh! HAAA-HOOOOOSH-SHOOOOEY! Ahhh… igghiee… hah…" He hitched for just a few seconds before absolutely roaring out the thermonuclear explosion of his final sneeze: "RAAH-SCHOOOOOOOOHH!”
“Woah.” Said Adam and Jerry simultaneously.
The sneeze was so big, it left Richie panting a little after. It wasn’t just the biggest sneeze all day, it was the biggest set of sneezes he’d had in a month! Richie had rocked back and forth with each colossal sneeze, giving his tickly nose complete abandon. The sneezes took him over, and each was a nearly-shouted affair that was louder than most people can shout. Those sneezes seemed to come from his whole body, his nose being merely the epicenter of the eruption. He was completely out-of-control for each massive gusting sneeze, his whole frame shaking and swaying at the mercy of his king-sized schnoz and the unbearable itch that had taken three of Richie’s most powerful sneezes to expel. When he opened his eyes afterward, he was half-afraid that he’d blown the table away!
Adam and Jerry, prepared by experience, had covered their ears, but the rest of the dining hall… well, being unprepared, some had dropped forks, plates, and cups, most had stopped their conversations, and quite a few shocked “what was that?”s sounded around the room. Those had been big even for Richie, far too loud, in fact, for anyone to hear the near-simultaneous soft, tickly “chuhh! ch-hoooh! chuhh! ka-chuuhhh!” that had come from the next table over, soft barely-there puffs of air in comparison to Richie’s Kansas twister sized sneezes, which he swore would have been big enough to send Dorothy not only to Oz, but to the other said of Mars.
“Dude,” Adam said, as the dining room slowly went back to normal, after being rocked by Richie’s “You totally shouldn’t have jinxed it.”
“Ha-ha,” Richie said, not feeling exceptionally prepared for laughing after single handedly—or rather, single-nosedly”—overpowering an entire dining room full of noisy college students in volume. “Let’s just get out of here as quickly as possible. I don’t want another one of those to happen… and I think… there might still be the beginnings of a… ah…” Richie quickly clamped his hands over his nose, hoping that he might fight the tiny residual tickle back before it became another of room-rocker, or at least get outside into the open air to release the beast.
Adam, Richie, and Jerry hurried surreptitiously out of the dining room. At the table behind them, sat Ashton Stevens, face upturned, irritated tears forming in his eyes, but a smug smile on his face, nose twitching and jerking with otherwise imperceptible “chooh! chuh! ha-hushh!” sneezes, with a plate of spaghetti practically drenched in red pepper. His little “experiment” confirmed, he threw the plate away, which promptly cleared up his sneezes, and walked calmly out of the dining hall, but not before slyly sliding the red pepper shaker into his waiting pocket.
--
Richie had, of course, erupted again outside, although once out of the range of the red pepper flakes that were like gunpowder for Richie’s cannon-like nostrils, the sneezes hadn’t registered quite so high on the Richter Scale (“a minor aftershock!” Adam had quipped).  But sneezes that huge left Richie concerned; could he be catching a cold? That would be disastrous. Besides feeling bad, he could hardly go to class, detonating another sneeze every few minutes, sneezes that would rock a three hundred person lecture hall and perhaps even send his papers flying down to the row below, sneezes that would throw even the most concentrated lecturer off of his or her game, sneezes that, in a smaller classroom, would probably disturb not only his own class, but all the classes on the floor! Of course, he’d had mega-sneezes like that before, and it didn’t always mean he was catching a cold, but if he was… well, he’d just take a lot of vitamin C that night. But going to bed early wasn’t an option. Richie, Jerry and Adam were going to a nearby club, Club Z, for a night on the town. After running back upstairs to change (again), the threesome left their dorm and headed towards Club Z, chatting all the while.
“So, Rich, how are classes going?” Adam asked, to get the conversation started.
“Oh, pretty good, when I’m not busy sneezing through them. Sebastian warned me that his sneezes tend to disrupt standard professorial activities, so I knew mine would probably blow out a few eardrums. Not that I’m not used to that sort of thing.”
“How about you, Jerry?”
“Oh, things are going well for me too. Chemistry is kicking my butt, but besides that I’m doing pretty well. That class is so boring! I almost wish that someone would come in there with a great big Richie-cane kinda sneeze. At least that way things wouldn’t be quite as boring!”
“Oh, you would have loved our high school then,” Adam cut in, “Almost every time I fell asleep in class, Richie’s nose would get an itch and once the nasal volcano got going, sleeping was not an option.”
“Whatever, Adam,” Richie said, blushing slightly at the extended discussion of his nasal… ahem, prowess, even among friends, “I didn’t even have a half of my classes with you.”
“Exactly.” Adam replied, smiling. *** Soon, Richie and company arrived at the club. However, they were still several feet away when the perfume started getting to Richie’s nose: “ah…. ahhhh… agghhha… igghhiiie… AAAA-CHOOOOH! heh… heh… AHHH-CHOOOOOH!” he sneezed, blasting out the tickly perfume smell as hard as he could. When Richie sneezed, his whole body was involved; in fact, Adam was surprised that Richie didn’t have a six-pack from all the forceful contractions of his stomach and chest as he roared out all that sneezy air at obscene velocities, and decibel levels.
“Bless ya, buddy. Are there some flowers around,” inquired Jerry.
“Na… no, nahhh.. ahhhhh WAAAAAASSSHOOOO! ARRRR-CHOOAAAYYYY!” Richie screamed out each sneeze. While not as loud as the true Richie-canes of the dining hall, these sneezes produced more than enough volume to echo loudly off of the nearby buildings and turn quite a few heads. Richie was quite afraid that an irate head would poke out of one of the windows of the high-rise apartment buildings on the street to demand that he achieve the impossible feat of quieting down his great lion’s roar of a sneeze.  He’d been asked by more than one teacher (and moviegoer, and theater patron, and restaurant waiter, and even, on one notorious occasion, a few patrons at just the sort of rock concerts that Adam had supposed would be loud enough to drown out Richie’s roars, but then again, not only were all the people there drenched in cologne and perfume, but Richie had left from a friend’s house who had a very furry german shepherd, and Richie had the beginnings of a cold) to control his thunderclap sneezes, but, like the thunder, Richie’s sneezes were a force of nature, and could not be quieted down or controlled any better than the wind.
Hoping he’d gotten his nose under control with that last massive sneeze, Richie ventured to speak, “No… it’s the perfume... oh, wait… ‘nothing one’s cahhhh…. coming…. RAAAAASSSSHOOOOOH! YASSSSSSHHHHHHHH-OOO!” Richie sniffed loudly, as two girls, one of who was probably wearing the sneeze-causing perfume, looked around. The girl wearing the perfume, alright slightly tipsy, half-spoke, half-shouted, “Ugh, I can’t stand it when people exaggerate their sneezes like that! Can’t he control it? That’s just too loud!”
Aside from the irony of the woman commenting on Richie’s loud sneezes with her loud voice (although Richie had to admit that even a trained opera singer would have difficulty keeping up with him in volume when he really got going), Adam was offended by her comments about his friend, and was about to walk up and give the perfume drenched woman a piece of his mind when her friend abruptly did it for him!
“Oh, Charlene, be quiet! They can hear you. Besides, how can you expect a poor kid to control his sneezes when you can’t even control your big mouth!” Adam had to admit that he was impressed, and as Charlene and her assertive friend got in line for the same club as Adam, Richie, and Jerry, Adam made a mental note to “bump into” her at some point that night. Maybe Richie’s wind-machine strength allergies would flare up again and give him an excuse to talk to her?
Meanwhile, Ashton wasn’t far behind the trio, cringing at each of Richie’s elephantine sneezes. He thought to himself, “This is ridiculous! He sneezes even louder than my father! How embarrassing! I don’t even know how those other goons can stand to be seen around him. I’ll teach him not to be so disgusting with his sneezes.” As the perfume got to his nose, Ashton harshly muffled three sneezes by pinching his nostils, “shhhmp! chikkk! ch!” They were barely audible. Ashton fingered the red pepper in his pocket as he watched Richie and company walk into the club. He bided his time for a few minutes, and then, after walking around the block a bit, went in as well.
—-
As soon as the threesome entered the club, Ritchie rushed off to the restroom, hoping to give his nose a good, strong blow to clear his nose of perfume and pollen, so as to head off the sneezes at the pass. But by the time he reached the restroom door, his twitching, tickling nose had had too much, and, bleary-eyed, Richie let it take over for six full-strength sneezes: “HAASSSSSHHHHHOOOooooo… hh… hhhiiiiiIIIIIIIIICHOOOOOOO! Ih-CHOOO! haaahHH-CHOOOOOO! ahhhhhHHH-CHOOOO! HAHH-CHOOOOOOOhhhhheyyy” That last one was a monster, making a gutteral, throat-scraping sound as the normal “choo” was twisted by Richie’s awe-inspiring lung power into a growling, snarling shout of a sneeze, leaving Richie somewhat lightheaded and dizzy. And of course, he immediately connected the number of sneezes (Richie rarely let out so many all in a row like that) to the head cold he was desperately afraid was brewing in his firecracker nostrils, those wide, vacuum-like tunnels where tickles went in, and sneezes came out that were second only to the Big Bad Wolf with a bad cold.
And speaking of colds, Richie was terrified of developing one. Every cold he’d ever had had settled directly in his nose, causing a near-constant tickle that he could only blow out with his biggest, most ear-drum busting, dorm-wall rattling, earthquake-causing sneezes. Even Richie’s biggest sneezes could only provide momentary relief from the tickle; minutes later, the tickle would come back with a vengence, and so would the sneezes, until Richie would deliberately blow them out as hard as he could, just to get the tickle to stop for a few minutes. Richie’s colds were events in the Robbins household (and every house on the surrounding block); he hoped and prayed they wouldn’t become events on-campus too.
Looking around the restroom and finding it (thank goodness) empty, Richie marched to a stall to give his nose a few of his patented, honking nose blows. While not quite commensurate to his sneezes in volume, those bass-note honks of his could certainly send a rumble through any room, and Richie was glad that the room remained empty as he did his best to keep his nose free and clear, so as to minimize sneezing episodes.
Meanwhile, Adam and Jerry were on the prowl, and getting shut down all the time. Jerry had offered to buy drinks for no less than three women, with no success, while Adam’s jokes were falling unusually flat, perhaps owing to the volume of the music and the near-impossibility of hearing anything (except perhaps for Richie) over the thumping bass and wailing noise of the speakers.
So it was that Adam and Jerry had given up and begun dancing their way into the morass of people at the center of the club, when Richie went searching for them. Of course, hidden as they were in the mass of people, Richie had no hope of finding either of his friends, and sat down at the bar, quickly flashing his (fake) ID, and ordered a beer. He figured he’d wait until he found Adam and Jerry to start dancing, and he was sure that his nose would give him ample opportunity before then to test Adam’s theory that the noise of the club would muffle the rumbling explosions of his nose.
In fact, as the bartender slid Richie his beer, Richie felt his nose flaring into life. His breath hitched, his face contorted, his nostrils assuming control of his face, twisting this way and that as though they had a life of their own, reacting to the bucking bronco of itch that had, as always, brushed ferociously against the twitching walls of his sensitive nostrils. And as Richie’s face contorted, his watering eyes slid closed in preparation of the great big sneeze to come…
…and Ashton Stevens saw his chance. He’d been sitting at the bar, plotting how he could cause misery for Richie at the club. Luckily, he’d been at the bar while Richie had erupted in the restroom (especially since the only thing Ashton found more disgusting than sneezes was nose blowing), but now he was sitting not too far from Richie, and had been spying on him out of the corner of his eye since Richie had sat down. Now was his chance. He slid the small shaker of red pepper out of his pocket and sent a cloud floating up into the air, knowing that the strong air conditioning in the room, as well as the breeze from the constantly opening front door, would waft the tickly spice straight into Richie’s all-too-combustible nose.
And he was right. Seconds later, Richie froze, as he felt the tickle in his nose multiply exponentially. The itch in his nose, already monstrous, became a thousand buzzing flies, scurrying through his nasal passages, wreaking havoc on his sensitive sinuses, creating such tremendous pressure in his nose that he knew that the only way to get any relief would be to blast out a sneeze at full-strength. He felt it gearing up to be as big as the one in the dining hall, if not bigger. Out of his watery eyes, he took a quick glance around him: there was no way he’d get to the restroom before his Vesuvial nose gave an eruption that would put Mt. St. Helens to shame, and the way his nose was feeling, it’d be wet enough to outshine Old Faithful. But there were so many people around. Richie had been warned about it time and time again, and he knew he shouldn’t… but he didn’t want to spray any strangers! So… he stifled.
“ahh…. Ahhhhhh… AHHHHHHHHH… AGGGHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAA…” He wound up, with huge, powerful breaths, and then… “chhhmmppppppppppp!” He sneezed, somewhat wetly, but contained, and with nowhere near enough volume to be heard over the noise of the club. Stifling successful.
But his nose was on fire. It was as if he had quadrupled the already unimaginable tickle. If he was going to fire off one eruption before, now he was preparing for a twenty-one-gun salute. Finger struck firmly beneath his nose, Richie rushed to the restroom as fast as he could, pushing past the clubgoers in the crowded club, afraid to give so much as an “excuse me” for fear that speaking would tip the sneeze into the uncontrollable zone. Richie forcefully pushed the door open as he marched into the restroom, which was, of course, filled with people. In the already small, echoing restroom, Richie’s sneezes would probably reach ear-splitting volumes and annoy, if not terrify, every patron in the restroom. But it wasn’t as if he had any choice; he had to let the monsters loose.
Richie quickly swung a stall door open and closed as his breaths became audible, and grew louder, and louder… “iiihhhhhh… HHHHHiiiiIIIHHHHHH… HAHHHHHH… HAHHHHHHH…. HHAAAAHHHHHHHHH…HAAAAAAAAAAAAA-SHOOOOOOOOOOOOO! BAAACCCHOOOOOEEYYYY! HASSSHHH! HAHHSSHHHHuuhh… OOOO-SHOOOOOOOH! USSSSHHHHHH-CHHAAAHHH! Ahhhhh… Ahhhh… ahhhhh…CHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
They came, sneeze after sneeze after sneeze, outrageous in volume, hurricane like in spray. Richie heedlessly swung backwards and forwards, gulping in air to fuel each massive explosion. He knew now why his parents had warned him to never, never hold in his sneezes, because this was the result: a constantly seizing nose in a fit that would last for minutes.
The reaction of the men in the restroom, as expected had been vocal and noisy. The already somewhat drunken patrons had no trouble voicing their disapproval: “What the hell?! Did somebody drop a bomb in here? Shuddup in there, I can’t hear myself think!”
But Richie, whatever he wished, he no ability to shut up. His nose was in control now, and it was going to blow, and blow, and blow until the pent-up tickle was blasted out, full-strength.
“Hehhhh… ehhhhhh… EEHHHHH-SHOOOOOH! EH-SHOOOH! Eghhhhaaaa… haaaa… haaa… YAAAAAAA-SHHHEEEEEWWWWWWWW!  SHIISSSHHHHH! ISSHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHH-SHOOOH! AHHHHHHHH-SCHOOOO! AH-SHOOOOH!”
The sneezes just kept coming, unbelievably loud, unbelievably powerful. This was one of the longest fits Richie could remember (though probably not the worst he’d experienced). Gradually, the sneezes grew farther apart: “haahhhh.. hahhhh.. HA-SHOOO! Ahhhhh… HA-SHUU! iiSHHHIIII-OO!”
Each sneeze, though still loud enough to echo through the restroom, was at a more manageable volume. Still, Richie was exausted from firing off sneeze after sneeze, and as his nose finally let out its final “heh… heh-chhh-EW!” Richie just wanted a nice long nap. He sat in the stall for a moment to survey the damage. He had been right about the spray; he could see the glistening drops decorating the entire stall door as though it had been hit with a hose. He still heard the men grumbling and muttering about his sneezes, and he was sure that those who were in the restroom (and probably those near the door) would spread the word to their friends about Richie’s incredible eruption. Sometimes, Richie just wished that his nasal curse could just go away. Why was his family cursed with the world’s most massive sneezes? Why was his nose the epicenter of such eruptions? But, as he sniffed gently, preparing for a nose blow to clear the last bits of congestion in his nose, he was glad for one thing: the tickle was completely gone.
Meanwhile, Ashton had been standing near the door, and had heard Richie firing off sneeze after sneeze after sneeze. He was red with rage; that fit had been exactly like the one his dad had blasted out at Ashton’s senior prom, in the middle of Ashton’s prom king acceptance… all over the prom queen. She dumped Ashton within the week.
Turning violently on his heel, Ashton marched out of the club, certain that he had a new secret weapon to use against Richie: if he could get him to clam up those sneezes, just once, then he knew Richie would fire off a show of sneezes so loud that Ashton could use it to embarrass Richie in front of anyone within earshot; in other words, Ashton grimly laughed to himself, anyone within a five-mile radius.
—-
Ashton, however, had not been the only person close enough to the restroom to hear those gale-force blasts trumpeting out from Richie's nostrils of fury. In fact, just as Richie was beginning to launch into a fit for the ages, Jerry had decided he ought to slip off to the restroom; no need to "break the seal" yet, but Jerry had anticipated he was in for a fairly long night, partying with his newfound friends, and--hopefully--with a few more newfound "friends" from among the club's very attractive female population, and as such wanted to make sure that his tiny bladder would not interfere with his very large-sized dreams---oh, alright, fantasies---of what would go on that night.
But Jerry was pretty far from the door when he heard that tell-tale eruption coming from the men's room. He quickly stuck his head into the restroom and knew immediately the source of the disturbance. He would scarcely have believed that even Richie could sneeze so forcefully. He was putting up a good fight with the music in the club, and that was deafening as it was. Heck, at close range, Richie's nose could have outdone a shotgun, a leafblower, a small nuclear explosion... but in the midst of these musing, Jerry noticed Ashton. Unlike everyone else in the restroom (and nearby), who were scrambling to get away from the noise, Ashton seemed transfixed. He was just standing by the restroom door, not going in, didn't seem to be coming out, and he had the most peculiar, almost devious expression on his face. Of course, Jerry knew Ashton somewhat---Ashton was touted as one of the most talented football players of the freshman class, and at their D1 school, that meant a lot. But this threw Ashton in a completely different light. Why on earth was he just standing there? And what was that strange look that passed across his face each time Richie bellowed out another monsterous, "HHHHHEEEEEESSSSSSSSCHHHHHOOOOOOOOoooooh!" Jerry was not a suspicious person by nature--and as Richie's twenty-one gun salute went on, he knew he had to check and see if Richie was alright--but he filed that instance away in his mind as yet another strange happening of college life.
The more important thing was to check on Richie. When it finally seemed that Richie's nose had calmed down enough that he'd be able to speak, Jerry ventured forth a, "Hey, man, you alright in there?"
"Jerry?" Richie responded, fearing the worst, "oh, god, don't tell me you could hear me all the way out..."
"No, no, man, I was just heading to the restroom when I heard the big bang from outside the door, don't worry. But what happened there? I didn't think you were ever going to stop!"
"N-neither did... oh, god, h-here ihhhh... here it gooohhhh... ohhhhh... oohhhhhh... ahh... HA-CHOOOOH! Man, thought I was done there," Richie give a liquid sniff, "but the aftershocks just sneak up on me."
"And speakin' of sneakin', there you guys are!" Adam quipped.
"Are you just everywhere?" Richie asked, half-laughingly, half-exasperated. Adam had the strangest habit of popping up everywhere.
"A magician never reveals his secrets, young Richard." Adam gave a sudden gasp before, "Ha-chooOOSH! Huh... hashhhooo! Ugh, must be in the air," Adam said, as he grabbed a tissue from the sink counter to blow his nose. He was a bit of a nasal honker, and his blows were decidedly louder than his generally quiet, gentle sneezes (although, in comparison to a Richie-cane, your average elephant was pretty quiet and gentle), and were much louder when he had a cold---because he didn't have Richie's almighty, head-clearing sneezes, he relied much more on forceful nose-blowing to blast out the itch from his nose, and still had far less success--unsurprisingly--that a full-force sneeze from Richie, even without a cold or that dreaded red pepper.
Richie, however, wasn't so sure that something was "in the air"; the humongous fit he'd just succumbed to made him almost positive: he was catching a cold.
"No, Adam, it's not 'in the air'--we're sick, and I'm going home." Richie declared. Adam was somewhat taken aback at his friend's unusually forceful tone, but he knew that, as always, he could joke his friend out of his resolve.
"Oh, you're not sick---granted, a 300-pound body builder with a bad head cold and a wind machine up his nose probably can’t compare to the ‘ol schozz-cannon you’ve’ got… but those, my friend, were not cold sneezes.”
“How do you know?” Richie demanded.
“I still have hearing in my right ear, obviously.”
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Not to complain abt lateral aggression online but you know that cycle of transphobic women severely misunderstanding the experience of trans men and their complicated relationship with misogyny despite not being women but then also trans men severely misunderstanding misogyny becuase of their complicated experience with having to deal with the fallout of it despite not being women
Yknow that circling piss pool
It seems like whenever i see a discussion of misogyny and like...how children are taught to live under and emulate it. Theres this disgusting mess of transphobes and terfs extrapolating reality out to their theories on "socialization"...but then there are also like 20 transmasc weirdos who are like trying to distance themselves from it and end up essentially saying misogyny or the aspect of it being discussed is fake and all these women are lying bc 'well I grew up as a gurl and it wasnt like that for ME' as if 1. Feeling disconnected from being a girl because you werent one had No Effect on how you viewed girls and how you were treated bc people assumed you were a girl??? Are you fucking sure????? 2.just like...lol at men thinking its progressive and good for them to deny misogyny generally? Lol @ men trying to distance themselves from their role in misogyny...especially men you would expect to have more compassion since they were like a mistakeb target of it...but nope! That just becomes a new excuse to say they cant do a misogyny that goes largely unchecked
Like....if you are aware that your trans or your not
A starting point is feeling a kind of disconnect from the group youre "meant" to be part of
When that group is women, youre inevitably going to also be disconnected in some way from the pain that comes from misogyny, bc on sone level it doesnt feel "meant for" you. Thats someone elses experience. When it happens to you its a mistake.
But then when these discussions come up now were "generalizing". It becomes "oh well this didnt happen with me, one example of a person, and furthermore a person who WAS NOT A WOMAN, so therefore you argument that x is a societal problem is bunk i guess" and its.....just.....So...like peak boy logic idk
When my brother came out so many things immediately made sense for better and for worse. For worse in that i realized why he never fucking helped with chores, he didnt seem to feel any empathy for my mom having to do everything for him, and i had to pick up the slack. It made sense that i didnt have an older sister, and it made sense that all that shit about the plight of the oldest daughter had always made me so like actively angry because it was the opposite of what i thought was my experience. But actually, I was the oldest daughter...for however much of a girl i am yknow but. Different convo.
Biological sex isnt a thing and there isnt really some deeply ingrained set of gender genes ir whatever. Its just feelings. But when youre born into a binary culture where you learn even subconsciously that x is how women should be and z is how men should be...when you dont idebtify with women, you dont idebtify with x. You tend to go toward z bc thats the only other option youve been given.
So even if x is expexted of you, its like completely expected for youre behavior to start shifting before you come out. A lot of people relate to that either bc they were realizing who they were or becoming more comfortable with being that way outwardly. Its not a negative thing. But when were talking abt being a guy...an unavoidable part of that list of guy thongs is misogyny. And entitlement. And sadly the transphobia these men face seems to push them into like grabbing onto these parts ofbbeing a man a lot stronger, and using their unique perspectivw and """insider info""" on what its like to be a woman (even though...again...they arent...so um...) as a tool to discredit them
this is really messy and like Ironically PMSing phone complaining and im sorry but like ohhh my god it annoys me so god damn much. boys annoy me it especially annoys me bc that boy is like saying its transmisogynist to talk abt an actual aspect of misogyny. whne like...no...trans girls are also victims of this. these expectations of women effect them as misogyny. directly. its so fucking stupid like yes a terf can will and often does take real issues and conspiracy theory connect them to making it trans women’s faults...but that isnt the same thing as trying to talk abt the misogyny faced by all women. like. obviously. and a man getting holier than thou abt it and trying to shut down that discussion as something transphobic makes me want to pull my hair out.
this is probably rude but it comes off like he’s trying to make it about him when its not. like ‘this is transmisogynist which is a kind of transphobia and that effect ME!!!” when in reality he’s just...a man complaining that women are talking about their own oppression. it isnt misogynist to talk abt fucking misogyny
and at the end of the day the thing being talked about was the INCREDIBLY WELL KNOWN IDEA that women are specifically put-upon by men and society at large. that women have to do all this extra shit just to exist, then more to not be ostracized, then more that the ‘normal’ expected amount of work that ‘everyone’ has to pitch in, then ‘’’women’s work,’’’then more to keep the men around them from falling to pieces and throwing temper tantrums...and after women do and have done all that, for thousands of years all around the world, we’re still the weak and lazy and simple and childlike ones that have to be protected by manly man who, as we all know, totally do All of The Work. that not being the experience in your family doesn’t make it suddenly dissappear. that not being your experience as a woman, because you AREN’T a woman, doesnt....make women’s experiences...different. but im just gonna unfollow that person and hope someday theyll learn ad well all go about our days bc it would be too much of an unneccessary and pointless effort for me to argue with a man about how women apparently don’t have to put tons of unneccessary pointless effort into dealing with and placating men and how saying so, apparently, hurts women?????? Ok
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seasaltmemories · 6 years
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FE echoes or 5d's for the meme?
how about both?
FE Echoes
Popular Opinion
The art and general aesthetic is amazing, I love Hidari’s style, it’s very elegant, the OST is also great, Heritors of Arcadia stands out for coming with little warning in the credits yet really capturing the bittersweet tone of the ending (and the meta connection of Silque’s VA singing it only adds to the feels)
Unpopular Opinion
For the most part I love the gameplay, part of the appeal is that it is something fresh and weird in comparison to the rest of the series, so I understand it not being appealing, but just so many elements clicked for me, magic costing hp balanced out in that you could depend on items like the blessed ring and nosferatu to help make it a fun risk-reward sort of game, clerics with shields are especially fun as they can make semi-tanks who self-heal, the range of archers made up for any difficulties I had with accuracy and it is just nice to have more flexibility with positioning them, same goes for mages with increased range
I don’t know a lot about map design, so i won’t contest the complaints about it (and on my second playthrough I’ve noticed more repeating and all) but that hasn’t outweighed my love for turning my squishy units into cold blood killers
Share a song that makes me think of the series/a certain character
The Violence by Rise Against really captures the conflict between men and gods, how both Duma and Mila have failed Rigel and Zofia specifically and so much of the different conflicts are about humans trying to surpass and overcome the systems they left behind and both failing and succeeding in different ways
Ramble on about OTPs/characters that make me giddy and/or rage
I’m a hoe for celicalm bc they’re both adorable and love each other but you can play with cool and angsty ideas surrounding being the children of fate and kinda how tragedy almost seems to be unavoidable
but 99% of the canon couples in echoes are adorable: 
Clive/Mathilda are like always like seconds away from making out and Clive worshipping the Valkyrie goddess Mathilda is, is such good shit
Tatiana/Zeke have that same constant heart eyes though while less pda-ish they are still very in love and good
Mae/Boey are a great arguing pair bc at the end of the day it is obvious they care about each other and are best friends, also their ending is A+++ with going home and having tons of kids
Gray/Clair kinda tread cliche ground but I still enjoy their dynamic and Gray for all his faults is truly into her and cares about her as a person
just like while fandom is fun to ship crazy ships and come up with all the thousands of ways they could get together, just getting to see couples be couples is something I love as romantic material often leave out that one detail
gotta say tho the only canon couple I could not get behind was Berkut/Rinea, I don’t want to shame others for liking it but I really can’t believe he would hurt her like that if he loved her, FE plays with the the trope of loved ones being forced to fight/kill each other (it happens with Alm and Celica not long after these two) but even if he was tempted by Duma and having a breakdown over losing his birthright, he still made the conscious choice to sacrifice his girlfriend for his selfish gain, those are explanations for why, not excuses, regardless of your thoughts on the ship we have to accept the straight canon facts because I don’t like seeing literal abuse rhetoric trying to explain away the damage and pin the blame on anyone other than Berkut
besides that big elephant in the room, they never had super romantic scenes until after they died, and I might have been able to enjoy the tragedy if I was at all invested, and so I can still enjoy works for it by the fandom, especially the darker stuff, but I can’t help but side-eye too fluffy stuff
5ds
Popular Opinion
Yusei can be a pretty reactive character and seem too perfect so I went in a bit hesitant about him but alas even I was unable to keep from falling for his charms, I don’t want to deliver a critique of s2 just yet as I am still in the middle of it, but in S1 Yusei can get away with being more reactive and not losing really bc holy shit is the world set on making him suffer, he’s a great underdog who just wants to take care of the ppl he loves and do the right thing, especially with how ensemble-like S1 is he is perfectly serviceable as a protagonist and just a really likable guy
Unpopular Opinion
5ds is simultaneously overhyped and undeappreciated
Like often ppl who don’t like the spinoffs will say that DM and 5Ds are the only YGO’s that matter and regardless of your feelings on each individual installment that’s just a shitty attitude to deal with
But at the same time, 5Ds’ fandom is like the least active, at least here on tumblr, I see more content for even GX, which is also a spinoff and older, like even before I got back into it was really sad to see fandom events where each installment was represented except for 5ds
And when it gets mentioned at all it is the same old beats glorifying/trashing it, like it making card games on motorcycles cool, s2 being horrible, being the “darkest and most mature” ygo (which is arguable and not as important as presumed), Aki’s the greatest, Aki was ruined and irredeemable, Dark signers is the peak of ygo, WCP was horrible and drawn out
I agree with statements on both sides but man I am just so tired of the same discussions and I wish there was more appreciation for just what we got and general love for the characters and all
Share a song that makes me think of the series/a certain character
People Like Us by Kelly Clarkson is a good signers song, especially with the fire motif
Ramble on about OTPs/characters that make me giddy and/or rage
Scoopshipping gets its own mid-season romcom and is so good and canon and while I understand why they retcon it, my heart is still broken
Faithshipping is also good and pure and I think you can have a discussion about Aki’s mistreatment without pinning the ship as irredeemable 
Feeding into that, Aki is still an amazing and iconic female lead, I do have criticisms of her treatment but man I want to celebrate her as much as we mourn those choices
I really can’t see the Yusei/Jack/Crow trio as romantic in any combination, they feel like brothers, the closest I can get is some lowkey onesided feelings Crow might have had for Yusei, but all in all they feel like family
Also we got good f/f content with Misty/Carly and Sherry/Aki
Kiryu is Yusei’s ex and you can’t convince me otherwise
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headcanons : silly stuff
RE: CASSANDRA-ISMS
when cassandra was nine, she was walking home with dulcie and keandra through one of the huge buildings where griffins nest, and a bunch of griffin eggs hatched…and all imprinted on cassandra. cassandra had no choice to but to care for the babies, with the mother griffin moving into the family’s front yard.
her mothers were not happy.
cassandra will sometimes speak in a singsong voice, just because she’s used to it, and it’s not really weird to her to do it- she’ll also do it to convey different emotions if she’s talking with someone who knows capellan enough to get it.
an amazing headcanon that sammun came up with is that a singsong voice is also cassandra’s like slurred voice- when she’s tired or drunk.
as the boys get older, cassandra isn’t as afraid to swear around them- by now, it’s nothing they haven’t heard before…but she’s always careful not to swear around the boys & splinter
however she still does not let the boys swear casually- if its out of anger, or surprise, she’ll let it slide, but other than that…she’ll make them go brush their teeth. this comes from her misunderstanding the concept of washing someone’s mouth with soap- she thinks the goal of it is to simply clean their mouth. donatello has the best dental hygiene bc of this
cassandra always has party poppers on her, without fail. she carries usually 2 or 3 in her bag or pocket, and it’s gotten the point where she’ll use them for the most mundane of things. just did the dishes? time to fucking party. mikey’s been cooking? party popper. donnie made something cool? that gets TWO party poppers.
the best time though is after a battle, when everyone’s tired and aching, and suddenly cassandra’s just. popping party poppers.
cassandra probably hasn’t been around a lot of animals/pets to be honest?? like her family didn’t have pets on capella, ioavis was exclusively populated by ioavians, she might have encountered these huge, lizard like beasts pyrrites used as horses on pyrrah, but she never got attached to them…
so mikey’s cats & of course, spike, are cassandra’s first experiences with pets! and tbh? cassandra loves cats. don’t even try to talk to her if there’s a cat in the room that she hasn’t encountered before, because she’s going to try to befriend it.
cassandra wouldn’t get a pet cat because she knows they unnerve splinter, and she feels like it’s fair because she’s pretty much the same way with dogs. it’s an unspoken rule- splinter wouldn’t introduce a dog into the family because she’s scared of dogs, cassandra won’t do that with cats.
anyway it should be noted that cassandra looks down on fortune-tellers/clairvoyants who pass off their visions as Fate and Unavoidable. she’s more lenient if the clairvoyant genuinely did not know that fate really…isn’t a thing (at the very least, to the rest of the galaxy). but on the whole, cassandra will be quick to “correct” them and will honestly talk down to them.
likewise, anyone who tries to pass off bad deeds as simply being “fate” will be regarded with scorn from cassandra. and those who try to write off their good deeds as their destiny will be assured that their deeds were of their own doing- they chose to be good.
i should probably talk more about this- in my lore, fate & destiny do not exist. of course, the concept of them exists but most of the universe knows it to be false. prophecies aren’t a thing, and if they are, they’re more of guidelines than “this will definitely happen.”  if this conflicts with someone else’s lore, i’d love to talk about it and reach some kind of middle ground! but yes, fate does not exist in my lore.
cassandra has definitely taken the boys trick or treating before.
if we’re going off “hello, clairvoyant?” canon and not….canon canon, then splinter might have taken them once before? since they are like 6 years old in ‘hello, clairvoyant?’
paola paints ‘seams’ onto the boys so they look like they’re wearing costumes
it takes a few years, but cassandra Goes All Out for halloween. decorating the lair, watching halloween movies, etc.
she loves to dress up too tbqh. she’s been a witch, a knight, and a pirate before.
gosh but i can see paola dressing up as vivi from final fantasy and joining them.
all versions of cassandra need glasses- classic cassandra usually wears contacts, but keeps her old glasses on hand in case she needs them. hellion has either healed or eyes or hasn’t, but just refuses to wear glasses.
when she counts on her fingers she starts with pinky
she adores fruit, especially chocolate covered fruit. she also loves crunchy peanut butter. her family has caught her just eating peanut butter straight out of the jar with a spoon many times before. her favorite food ever is pop rocks, and is usually eating them at the worst possible moment.
cassandra has a habit of speaking without really meaning to, especially when she’s got a lot on her mind.
hope everyone likes pumpkin spice, bc that’s the only flavored food cassandra’s buying for all of fall. even those nasty pumpkin spice m&ms
the boys definitely played with cassandra’s hair a lot when they were younger- they were absolutely fascinated by it at first and honestly still are. sometimes the boys offer to brush her hair for her because they like playing with her hair
cassandra really likes picking people up. not like flirting but like physically picking them up and carrying them places. she likes showing off her strength and likes being close to ppl when she carries them.
cassandra’s always very affectionate but on holidays like national cuddle up day (january 6th), valentine’s day, national kissing day (july 6th), national hand holding day (today) give her and Excuse™ to be even more affectionate
i can totally see cassandra liking superman (last of his kind? very powerful but also a nerd? hmm…sounds familiar).
it takes a lot for her to get drunk, but once she is drunk…goodbye emotional barriers. she cries 500% more but usually it’s happy crying. and she’s vERY likely to blurt out a love confession when drunk.
cassandra is also extremely clingy when drunk and will lean on you or lay on you.
cassandra loves to sit in the tree in the dojo. sometimes she’ll sit in on the boys and splinter training and just sit up there watching them. cassandra likes being up high and swinging on stuff, so she probably sits on the tire swing a lot too.
cassandra cheats during family game night unless someone says “mom don’t use your clairvoyance.” in her mind, if you don’t remember that she’s clairvoyant, that’s on you.
cassandra would absolutely learn how to do card tricks to impress the boys- maybe even just on her own. cassandra’s that person who will pull out a deck of cards at a party and will do magic tricks to get out of having to actually have meaningful conversations with people
glow in the dark stars are something unique to earth, and cassandra is just in love with them, so she puts them all over the lair on the ceiling, in her bedroom, in paola’s cabin, and in her spaceship. glow in the dark stars everywhere.
cassandra makes sure all her kids know how to sew. leo got really good at it and can actually make some p decent looking stuff- he’s best at stuffed animals tho.
whether or not cassandra is weaker than her partner, if they’re sparring she’s still gonna throw them off by kissing them
everyone cassandra knows has, at some point, gotten some form of winter gear that she’s made from her for christmas or during the holiday season. it’s generally the first holiday you spend with the family, honestly. cassandra just wants to make sure everyone’s warm enough during the winter
cassandra absolutely taught the boys how to play their instruments. in addition, she taught raph how to play the trombone.
as the boys get older and start to push away cassandra’s affection (for the sake of being “cool” and “mature”) her heart breaks a little more every time they reject a hug or kiss on the cheek/forehead.
since cassandra herself struggles with being organized and neat, her rule is that the common area, kitchen, dojo and lab have to be clean. the boys’ rooms can be as messy as they like, but everywhere else has to be clean
gross thing cassandra will do to freak people out: put food that maybe shouldn’t be eaten raw in her mouth and cook it in her mouth, then stick her tongue out so people can see it. however, she can’t cook with her inclination- at least, not well.
cassandra smells like cinnamon & apples & campfires & (sometimes) sweat. she might smell like smoke if she’s just got home from work, but she usually takes showers right away after getting from responding to a fire.
since cassandra has both time blindness from her adhd, and also an incredible awareness of time as it moves due to being an augur, cassandra’s perception of time is really messed up. you will frequently hear her say “time isn’t real.”
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othervorgestern · 7 years
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Worldbuild: How do they drink?
Dinos have partial control over their lips. They are able to lift the corners of their mouth in a smilelike fashion and are able to snarl to expose their teeth in a threat display. However, I doubt they are able to form the typical "o" form and are unable to flex their cheekmuscles properly in order to form a sucking motion. They are able to press their lips down though. So we have different options.
-"Bowls
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Bowls where without a doubt the first drinking equipment and where most likely made out of wood or clay instead of solid stone, wich would have taken up too much time and work for a heavy drinking device. Though it cant be ruled out that special tribespeople received a small rock one, like the leaders or shamans. But these where more symbolic than useful. Nowadays,wooden bowls are never meant for drinking anymore. they are just holders of goods that need no special preservation and for estetics. Clay and porcellain bowls still get used, especially among the poorer classes, since they cant afford the more intricate , prices and less messy options. Bowls come in two types. (fig1)
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I. Gets held with both hands. Dinosaurs, like birds, can't swallow actively. They require gravity to help them out a bit. So the backwards up motion of the head, jaws full of water is unavoidable. And in the case of bowls it can lead to a small degree of messyness.
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II. Can be held with one hand. the drinking process is the same, though. In all it is the more popular option.
- beaked cups Dinosaurs can't "o". But they can press teir lips together. This is where these come into play.
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BCs are a relatively modern invention. With them , a dino just has to bite the beak of the cup. Its lips will seal around the beak, so it can drink without loosing touch of the cup. Wich at best avoids a mess entirely.
Those are, of course, only of use to those, who have lips in the first place. Not all Ornitischians can use them! BCs used to be one piece flasks, made from metall. Since metall could be purred into fitting forms. One piece porcellain BCs do exist, but are usually just for decorative uses. The northern parts of the new continents made it a tradition to paint porcellain BCs in intricate patterns. BCs can be more vertical than bowls, allowing better storage when full. They can always be held in just one hand.
They are more expensive, but recently a new version of BC joined the market. it is a three part BC, consisting of an upper cup with beak, a lower cup as bottom and metal clamps to hold both pieces together. They are easier to clean and refill and it is believed that they will take over the BCmarket, once manufacturing is settled and its price drops. Surprisingly the inventor of this three part BC is an ornitischian, who cant even use them himself. His name is Arrank Beadgrow, and its safe to say that he made his fortune with those cups.
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On the subject of glas Glas is a thing in this world. Younger than clay, but older than porcellain. The first glas structures where plates and windows, flat structures that got purred into forms. Glas bowls where crafted quite early by tyrannosauridae in the far south of the old continents. The glass gets purred on a flat surface, pressed into a round form and then , when still in its bendable state, folded by use of a metal bar. Few traditional glasssmiths exist and their works sell for hundrets of stone. Though being considered one of the finest arts, its also one of the most in danger of extinction.
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Nowadays glass bowls get crafted by pressurized machinery. Fine detail is not part of those. Just function. Glass gets molten to its gooey state, purred into a bowlshaped metal form. Then a metal cone with a thinner diametre gets pressed down into the mass and remains there until the glass has hardened. It is rough, easy and cheap. Glas cups wheren't a thing for the longest time. And neither where bulbs. Dinosaurs can't blow in an "o", so first the metalworking had tobe refined, causing the invention of a blowstick with a beak end to chew down upon when blowing. Before that only two glassbulbs where known, dating back to one of the oldest glasssmiths known from the icy times. 8000 years ago. Whilst hos name was lost, his works ( signed by the form of a clawimpression on every piece ) survived the test in time in a digsite, south of the capital. The clawmark suggests that the glasssmith was a dromeosaurid. The south capital glassfindungs count as some of the most important records of the icy times, since each piece is covered in fine engravings, depicting everyday life at the time.
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After the beakended blowstick, glas bulbs became popular in form of vases, wich nowadays serve no usefull purpose, other than to look pretty, or house flowers. They come in a large variety of sizes and shapes. Glass BCs are a part of the newest 3-parter line and are so far the most expensive. Attempts at one part glas BCs where made, but none of the processes proove itself feasable, since the beaked top prooves very difficult to form properly. The 3-parter line also only provides a glass bottom.
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