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#but it's the best piece of advice i ever got as a writer. look up your favorite books on goodreads and read the one star reviews.
ginnsbaker · 22 days
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fic: if i bleed (you'll be the last to know) (2/?)
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Part summary: Leigh goes on a double date with Jules. You reach a tipping point with Leigh's relentless hostility towards you.
Pairing: Leigh Shaw x Fem!Reader | Word count for this part: 5,072 | Warnings/Tags: None for now... smut eventually, enemies to lovers A/N: So... this turned into more than a two-shot. But it will still be a mini-series. It's also kinda slow burn for a mini series (lol). Also, this isn't canon compliant at all. Meaning, I took a lot of liberties and added stuff to Leigh and Matt's relationship, and it doesn't follow the timeline of the show. With that said, enjoy!
Masterlist | Part I | Next Part
-
The vet bills hit Leigh's bank account way harder than she’s willing to admit. 
She knew taking care of pets could get pricey, but she thought that was just for those on their last leg, like Matt's dog, Rogue. Facing those steep costs made her think twice about turning down Drew's offer a while back to bring back her advice column. So, she calls him up as soon as she pays up a quarter of the charges on her credit card for Visitor's medical expenses.
Drew answers on the second ring. “Hey Leigh, what's up?”
Leigh doesn’t beat around the bush. She never has to with her best friend. “Can we meet at the cafe? I need to talk to you about something.”
“Sure. Be there in 20,” Drew replies right away.
The coffee shop they frequent is a small local business that specializes in cold brews. Leigh’s favorite thing about it is not the coffee though, but its interior: mismatched chairs, bookshelves lining the wall, and the temperature that’s always just right. Leigh arrives first, securing their favorite table near the window. Drew walks in a few minutes later, coffee already in hand, and greets her with a warm smile.
“Okay, spill. What's going on?” Drew asks as he takes a seat.
“I've been thinking... about the column. I was wrong to turn it down. I want back in.”
The look of utter surprise on his face tells Leigh this was the last thing he expected. She senses his response won't be a straightforward yes.
“I'd be thrilled to have you back, Leigh, I really would—”
“But?” Leigh cuts in. She doesn’t need to hear a bullshit ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ excuse. She wishes Drew would just be as direct with her as she is with him.
Drew lets out a sigh. Under different circumstances, saying no to Leigh would be as easy as declining an upsell from a McDonald's cashier. However, ever since Leigh became a widow, rejecting her feels significantly harder, even though he's well aware that Leigh values honesty over pity.
“But the thing is, the new writer’s really hitting it off with our audience. She's had a string of articles go viral lately.”
Leigh doesn’t look at all impressed by that. “Yeah, I heard.”
Personally, Drew’s not a fan of the new writer's style, and honestly, he still prefers Leigh. It would just be a hard sell if he brought this up to management. As the saying goes: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
“Look, I still think you have a unique voice. You know I’d still take advice from you over the new girl.”
Leigh scoffs a little at that, shaking her head. Drew rolls his eyes; it’s typical of Leigh to never know how to take a compliment. He continues, “How would you feel about guest writing? Maybe for the first couple of weeks, we could find a way to incorporate your insights into a series or a special feature.”
It’s not what she hoped for, but she recognizes the olive branch for what it is.
And she’ll take it. 
“I... yeah, I think that could work, Drew. I've got a ton of new ideas, and this... this could be great,” Leigh says. “Uhm, thanks.”
Drew grins. “I thought you'd like that. Let's kick off with a couple of guest pieces, see how it goes.”
Leigh half-heartedly returns his enthusiasm just as her order of cheeseburger and affogato are served.
“Anything new with you?” Drew asks, his voice taking on that tone he reserves for the really good gossip. Knowing Drew's helping her out, Leigh figures a little life update wouldn't hurt as a form of thanks.
That update is about you. And the moment Leigh spills the beans, Drew's face lights up like a Christmas tree. But his excitement fizzles out just as fast when he figures out Leigh's got nothing scandalous to say. All she mentions is how you might've missed the mark by not doing your homework on the guy you were seeing.
“What’s your plan then?”
“Seems like everyone’s asking me that,” Leigh says flatly.
“You took your stray to her place, right? So, there must be some sort of plan. I mean, you could've gone to any other vet if you wanted to avoid her.”
“Yeah, but her clinic's location is so convenient, and I didn't want to shrink my world just for her.”
Drew hums in response. Leigh admits she’s been unusually passive with you. Normally, she'd confront issues head-on, but even almost half a year later, she still hasn’t fully processed Matt’s death, let alone his cheating. She's been trying a new tactic, almost as if by ignoring her problems, she hopes they'll fade away on their own. She seems to be betting on the idea that if she pretends long enough, maybe one day she'll wake up and find those issues have lost their grip on her. 
“I don’t know Leigh, the whole thing’s weird,” Drew says, scrunching up his face a bit.
“It’s not like I’m trying to make a friend or enemy out of her,” Leigh replies with a shrug. “I’m just using her services as a doctor, and she’s getting paid for it. That’s all there is to it.”
“Oh, so that’s why you need your old job back. She’s draining your purse,” he says, smirking as he adds, “Bitch.”
“You don’t have to call her that,” Leigh chides, though the corner of her mouth twitches in amusement. Deep down, she understands the twisted satisfaction in disliking someone without having to justify it.
“The funniest thing that can happen is if you two actually end up being friends,” Drew quips, picking up an accidental curly from Leigh’s plate.
Leigh finds that scenario hard to imagine, almost impossible. She doesn’t think she can be friends with someone Matt liked more than her.
-
Leigh is hunched over her laptop, with sheets of paper and colorful markers spread out on the table, meticulously designing missing dog posters for Visitor.
Jules, leaning against the doorframe with a mug of coffee in hand, watches Leigh for a moment before speaking up. “You know, you should've done that the second you decided to take Visitor in.”
Leigh doesn't look up from her screen. “His leg needed to be taken care of first,” she reasons.
Jules rolls her eyes, pushing off from the doorframe to come closer. “And? How did it go at the clinic?”
Leigh pauses, then lets out an exaggerated sigh. “I already told you about the tests Visitor had to go through. They said he’ll be fine.”
“I mean with the doctor, not the patient,” Jules clarifies with a smirk.
There's a beat of silence before Leigh quips, “No cat fights happened, I promise,” her eyes going back to her laptop.
“Any chance she knocked off a bit of the bill?” Jules asks, moving to sit behind Leigh to take a peek of her work. It looks like an 8th grader’s art project, but she bites back any criticisms.
“Nope.”
“Told you she’s a bitch,” Jules murmurs under her breath.
“It's not like anyone's doing charity work these days, especially not in this economy,” Leigh argues weakly.
“Yeah, right. Like she needs your money, Leigh. Veterinarians are loaded, if you didn’t know.”
“If you say so.”
Jules decides to drop the subject, and Leigh can hear her shuffling and thinking behind her.  
“Hey, there's something I've been wanting to ask you. Don't get mad, okay?”
“Prefacing like that? I'm bracing myself to be utterly scandalized,” Leigh says before smiling and sneaking a glance at Jules.
“Great, you’re cracking jokes again. That’s a good sign,” Jules deadpans but a second later, she’s smiling too. 
“Ask away,” Leigh prods.
Jules takes a deep breath, and then:
“Do you think you’re ready to meet someone new?”
Leigh suddenly stops, her fingers just hanging there above the keyboard, unsure of what to do next. What’s the protocol here? If three months is usually the cooling period after a break-up before one can start dating other people, then what's the deal when it's about a husband who's not only passed away but was also cheating? How does that work?
Before Leigh can come up with an answer, she realizes she's already saying no.
Jules groans. “Come on, it's just a double date. It'll be fun. You and me and—”
“I’m really not in the mood to meet other people, Jules.”
Jules cuts in, laying it on thick. “Leigh, seriously, when was the last time you went out and had a little fun? You're practically turning into a recluse. I won't stand by and watch my sister morph into the neighborhood's infamous dog lady.”
“Dog lady? Really?”
“I'm just saying, it's either try something new or start knitting dog sweaters for fun. Your choice.”
Jules can be a real pest sometimes; it’s an endearing quality except when they seem ready to go for each other's throats.
“You think you’re hilarious, don’t you?” Leigh rests her chin on her hand, seriously considering the invitation for a second. “I don’t know how to meet people, Jules. I stopped meeting people when I met Matt. He was my entire world, you know?”
Jules softens, throwing her arms around Leigh’s shoulders. “I know. And I wouldn't push if I didn't think it could be good for you. Plus, I promise, if it's awful, I'll personally escort you out and we can ditch them for ice cream. How's that?”
Leigh senses that Jules won't give up until she gets a yes, so she decides to concede just this time and get it over with.
“Okay, okay, you win. I'll go on your stupid double date. But if this ends in disaster, you're buying me the biggest tub of ice cream you can find,” Leigh says, shrugging her sister off her.
Jules pumps her fist in victory. “Deal! You won't regret this, Leigh. And who knows? It might actually be fun.”
-
The double date goes surprisingly smoothly, except for the occasional touches coming from her date. To be fair, they are typical for a date and are executed with respect. However, for some reason, Leigh finds herself unusually conscious of every physical contact, making her anxious to move things along and call it a night.
As they step out of the restaurant, Leigh mentally scrambles to remember her date's name. She's bracing for the goodbyes, ready to retreat into the comfort of her room, when Tommy, Jules' girlfriend, suggests they cap the night off at a new bar. It turns out Leigh's date has an investment in the place. He jumps at the suggestion, clearly eager to flaunt this detail, perhaps hoping to impress her.
He does earn a sincere, “That’s cool,” from Leigh, just before she slides into the backseat of his car. Tommy quickly calls dibs on the front seat, leaving the siblings sitting next to each other in the back.
The new bar clearly wants to be the town’s next hotspot, but it seems to be trying too hard. It's got this odd vibe where you're not sure if you should be dancing or just looking around, wondering what it really wants you to do. But Leigh agreed to this, and she won’t embarrass Jules by ditching. 
“Can I get you something to drink?”
She stiffens a bit as he draws near, the heat of Patrick's breath—Jules had reminded her of his name during the car ride—making her uncomfortably aware of how close he is. She shifts, trying to put a polite distance between them without seeming too obvious about it. “Um, just a gin and tonic, please,” she says.
She practically sighs in relief as Patrick heads off to order, her eyes darting around the bar. The 90s R&B background gets her head bopping, but all she’s thinking about is her couch and an episode of Parks and Recreation waiting for her at home. Jules and Tommy are in their own little world, giggling and looking all cozy. Leigh never thought she could feel like a third wheel on a double date.
Patrick is taking his time, and when Leigh cranes her neck to peer over the bar, she catches him striking up a conversation with a blonde. Her eyes narrow into slits as she watches, both of them obviously charmed by the other as Patrick laughs at something she said, enjoying himself in a way he hadn’t all night. 
Leigh feels a prick of irritation. Sure, she hasn’t been giving him the time of his life, but they’re still on a date. Isn’t there some unwritten rule about not flirting with other people when you're supposed to be with someone?
She waits a bit longer, hoping Patrick would remember he was supposed to be getting her a drink and come back. However, he hasn't moved an inch from his spot and is even passing Leigh's drink to the woman as they keep chatting. Leigh’s mind races. She knows she isn’t into Patrick, has been giving him nothing but the bare minimum, yet she can't shake off the feeling of being slighted. It's not like she wanted his undivided attention, but this... this just seems rude.
She catches Jules looking at her, a questioning eyebrow raised. Leigh just shrugs, not sure how to explain the jumble of feelings she's experiencing without sounding petty or jealous. 
When Patrick finally comes back with her drink, the mood has already turned sour for Leigh. She musters a polite smile, accepts the gin and tonic with a thank you, but then heads to the bar on her own without saying anything more. At this point, she's indifferent to what Patrick, Tommy, or Jules might think or say of her; she's finished playing nice for the day. 
Leigh slams her gin and tonic like it's water, the sting barely registering. She signals for another without missing a beat and strangers start sliding over drinks with cheeky grins. She toasts to nothing, to no one, letting the conversations slip away before they can get even one word out.
By drink number six—or was it seven?—everything's spinning, laughter too loud, lights too bright. Leigh’s clinging to the bar for dear life when she thinks she sees you. But as quickly as the figure appears, it's lost again, leaving her questioning her ability to handle her alcohol. Back in her college days, Leigh could hold her liquor like a champ, thanks to endless nights of partying. But now, staring down at her drink, she realizes she might've overestimated her current tolerance. The alcohol hits harder than she remembers, making her head swim more than she'd like to admit. It's been a while since she's gone this hard, and her body isn't shy about reminding her.
The worst part of it though is why, of all the faces her mind could conjure up, it's choosing yours.
Just as she tries to shake off the bizarre vision, your face appears again, this time on the dance floor, writhing in a sea of thick, sweating bodies. You're dancing closely with a man, and it’s—
It’s Matt. 
Leigh blinks rapidly, attempting to dispel the hallucination because it's impossible; Matt is dead—this can't be real. 
But the image of you and Matt refuses to go away. She continues to see the way your grind against him, the way you caress his face as you pull it further into your neck. Anger surges through her, hot and uncontrollable, and before she knows it, her last shot of tequila crashes to the floor. Before the bartender or anyone else can even figure out what's happening, Leigh storms through the crowd, pushing her way to what she believes is you and her husband, and shoves the couple hard. The moment she does it, the fog in her brain finally clears.
She saw wrong. They’re just a random couple, looking as shocked as she feels mortified.
Humiliated and more drunk than she's willing to admit, Leigh doesn't stick around to apologize. Tears start to well up as she pushes through the crowd, dodging empty faces while Jules' calls fade into the background. She shoves through the last of the mob, bursts through the doors into the night, and freedom feels just a breath away. But that breath catches, twists into a violent churn in her gut, and she can barely stagger a few desperate steps away from the entrance before her knees are on the cold pavement, and she’s spilling out onto the ground in front of her. A few groans of disgusts from the people around her doesn’t register as she succumbs to the consequences of her indulgence. Shortly after, she remembers why she’s cut back on alcohol, apart from the fact that Matt abhors it, turns him off more than anything.
“Leigh?”
The voice is familiar, even if she’s heard it only a few times. Her head's spinning as she looks up, the chilly air slapping her face after the stuffiness of the club. She blinks, trying to clear the blur of tears and the aftereffects of one too many drinks, squinting at the figure stepping out from under the streetlights.
Your face, more clearly now under the lamp post is kind of sobering her up a bit.
So, were you actually there in the club, or is Leigh so haunted by thoughts of you and Matt—thoughts she's tried so hard to ignore and bury—that she managed to conjure you as a way to finally confront her true feelings about the entire situation? It’s always the battles with herself she never wins.
“Hey, you alright?” you ask, lowering yourself to get a better look at her but keeping back a bit—just enough space for her to catch her breath or in case she needs to throw up again.
Leigh doesn't respond, doesn't even seem to see you're there. You rummage through your crossbody bag, pulling out some wet wipes and offering them to her. She still doesn't look up, but grabs what you’re offering with a little force. 
She proceeds to wipe her mouth and then her entire face as you continue talking, words tumbling out in a nervous stream.
“I saw you back there, in the club. I wasn't sure if I should come up to you, you know, with everything that's happened... with me being... well, the person I am in all of this,” you explain softly. “And then I saw what happened, how upset you got. Sorry I followed you here, I…I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
Leigh abruptly gets to her feet, and you instinctively step back, giving her more room than probably needed.
“Why?” Leigh fires at you, her tone so icy it almost makes you regret coming after her. You're taken aback, eyebrows scrunching up in confusion. 
Why what?
“Why do you even care?” she clarifies, eyeing you as if you're the densest person on the planet.
You grasp for something, anything that sounds like you're not just here out of guilt. “Anyone who knows you would be worried,” you say before you can think twice about what it could mean.
Leigh's laugh is sharp, cutting. “You don't know me,” she throws back.
“Yeah, I don’t,” you mumble to yourself. You wish you did, so you could fix this.
Leigh’s anger doesn’t let up. “You know what I think? You're playing the good Samaritan to scrub off your guilt. But not knowing Matt was married? That's on you. I bet you never asked too many questions because you wanted him to be Mr. Perfect—single, ready to mingle, the dream guy.”
Opening your mouth to argue, you find yourself at a loss. Leigh’s not entirely wrong. With Matt, you were in a bubble, caught up in the thrill of meeting someone who seemed so right, so honest. You clung to his every word, wanting to believe in this image of him you'd built up. 
The truth is, you never wanted to meet Leigh Shaw; you wanted to believe Matt's only fault was how he ended things with you, by disappearing.
But before you can admit to all of that, Leigh is already storming off. You think about chasing after her, but she spins around so fast at your footsteps, shooting you a threatening look and a low, “Stop following me,” that nails you to the ground. 
You keep staring at the spot she disappeared from, long after she's gone, wondering why Matt felt the need to find love elsewhere.
-
Leigh goes home, but not to an empty house. The second she opens the door, Visitor bounds into her arms, full of wiggles and wet nose kisses. Her mom's off somewhere, doing who knows what—Leigh's stopped trying to figure out where or why. Meanwhile, her phone buzzes with a string of voicemails from Jules, but Leigh's not in the mood to dive into those just yet. She decides they can wait till morning, along with the other missed calls and unread messages from strangers, asking for more information on Visitor.
For now, she peels off her socks and pants, leaving them scattered carelessly up the stairs before passing out on her bed.
-
Visitor’s follow-up check-up rolls around way too quickly for comfort. The moment Leigh steps through the clinic door with the dog in tow, you can practically cut the tension with a knife. Leigh's trying to keep it together, but her attempts at civility are imbued with a coldness that can’t be ignored.
With only a small ‘good morning’ from you and a nod from Leigh, you start the consultation, knowing you’d be doing her a favor if you just get right to it.
“How's Visitor been eating?” you ask as you work your stethoscope. 
“He eats fine,” Leigh drawls.
You nod, jotting down a note before moving on, “And his activity levels? Any changes there?”
Leigh’s response comes laced with sarcasm. 
“Oh, he's just peachy. Running marathons every morning.”
You clear your throat, trying to rein in your mounting annoyance at her childish behavior. “I'm just trying to get a complete picture,” you say.
But Leigh's not having any of it. Her comments grow sharper, her patience thinning, and it's clear she's more interested in taking jabs at you than discussing her dog's health.
Her last sarcastic remark has you drawing the line. “Leigh, you can be upset with me all you want outside of this clinic, but I won't tolerate disrespect while I'm trying to do my job,” you say evenly. “You're welcome to find another vet if you can't keep this professional. I have every right to refuse service if this continues. It's not what I want, but I'm not about to let you treat me any less professionally.”
Leigh goes quiet, yet she keeps her eyes locked on yours, decidedly not backing down. Then, after a tense moment, she mutters a single word, “Sorry.” It's not much, but it's something, and you decide to take it and move on.
“You mentioned something about a blood sample?” Leigh says, steering the conversation back to the reason she came in, and you're all for following her lead on this.
“Yeah, we need to check if his platelets are up and his infections are down, see if the meds are doing their job,” you explain. Then, veering a bit from standard procedure, you add, “Since this is a follow-up visit, I'm going to cut the lab test price in half for you.”
The discount evidently lifts her mood. It's not a perfect truce, but it's enough to get through the examination without any more barbs.
A while later, you're back with Visitor's CBC results in hand. “The infection's gone down, but it's still borderline,” you report, showing her the numbers. “We'll need to keep him on the medication for another week. And I'm adding some multivitamins and a specific diet to his regimen.” 
You scribble down the details, then note at the bottom of the pad about the discount—not just for the lab test, but for the prescriptions too.
Leigh takes the paper, scanning the details before her eyes finally meet yours. “Thank you,” she says, her voice softer than it's been.
“You’re welcome,” you reply with a smile before going back to your notebook, looking deep in thought. 
Leigh feels like you're back to your usual, friendly self. Yet she thinks she prefers the more raw, unfiltered version of you. The version that called her out earlier. These days, she's starving for that kind of honesty. Because having her as your client can’t be all that pleasurable. She's aware of how challenging she's been, and the straightforwardness somehow makes her feel more understood, more seen.
She wishes people would stop seeing her as Leigh: the one with the dead husband.
Then, out of nowhere, she asks, “When did you start working here?”
It's a seemingly insignificant question, yet coming from Leigh, it prompts you to close your notebook and focus entirely on her.
“I—”
“Because a year ago, I remember meeting a different doctor,” Leigh adds, absentmindedly running her fingers through Visitor’s coarse hair as he sleeps on her lap.
“You’ve been here before?”
It’s a painful memory—one that still sometimes brings tears to her eyes whenever it crosses her mind. Back then, the clinic bore a different name, and she and Matt had come together to say goodbye to Rogue.
“I have when it was still called Palm Coast,” she says.
You nod, understanding the context now. “Yeah, that was before my time. I bought this clinic on a whim after spending a few years practicing in Dubai.”
While most would latch onto the tidbit about your intriguing career history, Leigh zeros in on something else entirely, asking directly, “When did Matt start coming here?”
You shift uncomfortably at her question, and Leigh immediately regrets pushing too hard. She’s about to backtrack when you halt her apologies. “It’s okay. I’m open to talking about it, just not here,” you suggest. “How about over coffee?”
Leigh hesitates, then says, “Okay, let me just text my boss that I won't be able to lead the yoga class this morning.”
“It doesn’t have to be now. Tomorrow works,” you say.
Realizing her assumption, Leigh’s cheeks color slightly. “What time?”
Now it's your turn to feel a bit awkward. “Would 7 work? It's the only time I have before the clinic opens.”
“In the morning?” Leigh says again, making sure she heard you right.
You nod sheepishly in reply. 
“Or we could maybe—”
“No, it's okay,” Leigh interrupts quickly. She's usually up before sunrise anyway; the only change would be trimming her morning run a bit. And for a one-time chat to get the answers she's after, she figures she can make such a small sacrifice.
“Are you sure you want to return Visitor to his real family?”
True to form, it's Jules who breaks the two-day-long sibling spat. It's usually her who tries to smooth things over with an apology, even on days when Leigh isn't exactly the easiest person to deal with. Her therapist keeps telling her not to always be the one to buckle, especially when she's the one who's been hurt, that Leigh should be the one to step up and make things right for a change. 
But here she is, reaching out first, just like always—because waiting for Leigh to make the first move feels like waiting for snow in July.
“Oh, so you’re talking to me again?” Leigh says as if she's gearing up for another round of conflict rather than welcoming peace.
Jules ignores her and continues, “Have you actually tried to find Visitor's owners, or have you just kinda... kept him because it feels good to have him around?”
“So what if it feels good to have a dog who loves you and is loyal to you?”
Jules shakes her head in a condescending manner, which only serves to irritate Leigh further. As soon as her popcorn is done, she heads out of the kitchen, flops onto the couch, flips on the TV, and kicks her feet up on the coffee table. Jules follows her, opting to stand next to the TV, poised to yank the plug out if necessary.
“Leigh, you do understand that taking care of a dog isn't something to take lightly, right?” Jules starts, but she breaks off when the dog in question trots over, tail wagging, trying to coax Jules into picking him up.
Leigh acts like she hasn't heard a word, her eyes glued to the TV screen.
“I thought you'd learned something from what happened with Rogue—”
That hits a nerve. Leigh's quick to fire back, “Oh, and jumping into a serious relationship is super responsible, right? Especially when staying sober is part of the deal.”
Right after the words leave her mouth, Leigh regrets them deeply. She's painfully aware of Jules' long battle with alcoholism, a struggle that began in college and required more than a couple of tries before Jules could claim any sort of victory over her addiction. Leigh knows it's still a sore subject for Jules, still fighting her demons, making her comment unfairly harsh.
Though the retaliation didn’t come out of nowhere. Leigh caught Jules at the club, discreetly sipping a drink she swore off, and chose to keep quiet then to avoid causing a scene in front of Tommy. She had plans to bring it up later, but then her own slip-up with drinking, bailing on her date, and the fallout with Jules spiraled into one of their nastiest rows in a long while.
“Jules, I’m sorr—”
“Just save it, Leigh.”
Jules heads for the door, her hand clenched tight, barely hanging onto her emotions. Leigh feels the situation slipping further downhill, and she can't just stand back and watch things crumble even more. She's about to chase after Jules when the doorbell rings, stopping both of them cold.
But Jules doesn’t even bother with the door; instead, she veers off, storming upstairs with that telltale slam of her bedroom door echoing down. Leigh sighs, stuck in the aftermath, while Visitor starts barking at the door. Dragging her feet, Leigh heads over to open it, half-expecting another problem but hoping for a distraction.
Leigh definitely wasn't expecting Danny, and seeing him there, she gets the sinking feeling that this storm swirling around her isn’t going to blow over just yet.
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kingdumkum · 10 months
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WHERE THE RIVER MEETS THE SEA
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this has been a long, long time coming. hopefully it’ll live up to the obscenely high expectations i’ve set. agree or disagree, please reblog/comment/send an anon with your thoughts--but make sure you read the RULES of interaction first.
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summary: your date stood you up… again. Don’t worry, though, Baji will be there to pick up the pieces, like he always is. The only question… what will you do when you find out his secret? wc: 15k (we don't talk about it)
cw: virgin fem afab!reader x virgin!Baji, a lil itty bitty baby bit of blood, somewhat public (initially), bc why not, marking, creampie, Confessions galore, somewhat gendered pet names (princess, babe, sweetheart), actually gendered pet names (one handful of "good girl," "pretty girl," and "my girl"), subtle yandere themes but not to the extent a DC label is needed—correct me if I’m wrong though—be nice if I missed something, this is my first time :) way too many words but c’est la vie such is the way.
dedication: Storm, my friend, your support and advice has made me a better writer. Without you, this would probably still be sitting in my drafts, collecting dust and every hateful thought I’ve ever had about my writing. Thank you for being you and all of your aid in getting this to where it is. 💛
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Your coffee’s cold when you give up. Well—second coffee, to be precise; the first you’d ordered after Tadashi said he was a few minutes away. That one had grown cold too, but the barista, taking pity, had given you a piping hot refill—for free.
It feels like an insult when she offers you a third.
An hour and a half has passed since Tadashi said he’d be there, and… well, you were still kinda hoping he might show up. But when the manager approaches with a tight-lipped smile, not-so-kindly pointing at their hours plastered ever so neatly on the glass door and indicating they’re just a few minutes to closing, your hope ebbs entirely.
The heat in your cheeks could’ve rewarmed your cup—but not one to cause a scene, you offer a tight-lip smile of your own and apologize. You don’t explain that you were waiting for someone; the pitying look in the barista’s eye as she mouths sorry and slides the unwanted third cup your way says they know.
You slip into the bathroom, wondering how in the world you could be so stupid— again. This was your third first date in three months… and the third time in three months that you’ve been stood up. 
It hurts more when you check your phone. Two new messages from Emma, asking how it’s going and if you want to grab dinner to dish; one from Draken, asking if you can bring back a vanilla frappe and a triple dark roast espresso with two pumps of caramel; one from Baji, saying he might be late to pick you up, but he’d be there, and could you get him an order of whatever you’re having?
Nothing from Tadashi.
You don’t respond, instead letting your phone rest against the mirror while you stare at your reflection and try, desperately, to convince yourself it isn’t your fault.
Everything had been going great—you thought. You thought he really liked you, that he was excited to get to know you, and that this one, this one for sure would show up. You made jokes that he found funny, you were just the right amount of flirty, and you knew—thought—hoped—the picture you’d sent of your outfit (a simple sundress that accentuated your best features and wedges that made your legs seem endless) was enticing enough that he’d want to see it in person.
But here you are. Crying in the bathroom of a cafe you’ll never be able to return to, wondering how you’re going to explain to your friends that you got stood up.
Again.
Your phone starts to buzz. With a deep breath, you wipe off your dripping mascara. You force yourself to smile at the hollow reflection staring back at you, then answer with an overly-cheerful, “what’s up?”
“Kenny’s worried.” Baji’s familiar drawl echos, making the space seem even smaller. “I said he was being too overprotective, but—well, you know how he is. Said it’s his duty or some shit to make sure you’re okay. He tried to come down here himself, wanted to meet the guy trying to woo you—can you believe that? He actually said woo—“
“What do you want?” you interrupt. Too harsh, you realize when Baji doesn’t answer. “It’s just—I’m kinda in the middle of something, you know?” 
Baji takes a moment, then forces a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, the little princess’s got a date, we know. God, they wouldn’t let it go. You should be thanking me, ya know, I’m the only reason they’re not all crashing—”
“Baji.”
The line falls quiet. Then, softly, “where are you, y/n?”
You frown and start searching for your mascara. “At the coffee shop. Why, where are you?”
Another pause. This one heavier. With the phone tucked to one ear, you slowly swipe the wand over your lashes. It’s clumpier than you usually like, but it’s better than nothing—
“I’m outside.”
Fuck.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he echoes. You mouth another fuck, heart plummeting, then start reapplying your mascara. More carefully, now that you’re out of time. “I, uh—I’ve been here. A while.”
“Oh… yeah?” you question, teeth starting to grind. “How long’s a while?”
Baji clears his throat. “Long enough. You gonna come out, or are ya gonna make me come in?”
Mascara gets tossed in your purse, gloss comes out. “You’re not exactly welcome in the ladies room, Baji.”
You can picture the dangerous curl in his smile when he replies, “not without an invitation, babe—why, you asking?”
Your laugh isn’t completely real, but not unnatural, either. You hover the gloss over your lips, and for a moment, you imagine what it’d be like. To sneak someone into the bathroom, kissing until your lips start to bruise, his hands playing with the hem of your dress, his lips marking your skin, his voice whispering your name…
You shake the thought away. There’s no point in getting your heart broken twice in one day.
“Three’s a bit of a crowd for a single stall,” you deflect. “Be out in a minute.”
Baji hums. Your gloss feels too thick, but you don’t take it off. You fluff your hair again, placing it the way you like, turning your necklace so the clasp faces the right way, lips smacking together once, twice, three times—
By the time you run out of things to do, you think you’re ready. You pick up your purse and give yourself a final once-over. Pretty, you think. Doesn’t look like you spent the last seven minutes sobbing in a public restroom.
When you exit, Baji’s still on the line, but he doesn’t hang up. You know, because the teasing, “well shit, babe, if I had known you’d worn that, I would’ve come two hours ago,” echoes; once from your phone, and the other from the man himself, standing right in front of you.
You laugh, and this one isn’t forced at all.
Baji’s smile gleams in the evening sun. A low wolf-whistle causes your face to warm pleasantly—the way it should have, when you met Tadashi. You take Baji’s extended hand, not flinching when his callouses rub against your soft palms. 
You’re used to their roughness. Much like the others, Baji’s always been a hands-on friend (and fighter), so over the years, you’ve gotten used to the various bumps, cuts, and jagged edges, to the extent that the only hands that’ve ever felt comfortable have been those rough ones, soft only for you. 
Baji spins you, over-exaggerating the way he checks you out. “Sweetheart, you’re going to stop traffic looking like that.”
“Oh, please,” you deny, but your smile hasn’t been this genuine all day. “Laying it on a little thick, Baj.”
“Only the realest truth for the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” is his sly reply, accompanied by a slyer wink. It’s his usual charm, but you’re oblivious to his sincerity, the way you always are. Baji pulls you into a tight hug and closes his eyes, and for a moment, he allows himself to pretend this was your intention all along; to wind up in his arms, with his compliments, by his side—the way it always seems to go after every failed date.
But you never say as much, and you always seem so genuinely excited for the next one that he’s never going to ask. Instead, he’ll take these moments. The ones where you turn to him for comfort, where he gets to hold you, your knight-in-shining-armor, and do all that he can to make everything better.
He’s so close that you almost miss his muffled whisper of, “fucking—stupid bastard. Doesn’t know what he’s missed.”
Your smile slips. Your thumb rubs against the back of his knuckles, familiarly cracked with scabs that never seem to heal. These are fresh, though; you can tell by how his hand darts to the back of his neck, preventing you from looking too closely. 
“Been up to no good?” you question with a raised brow.
“‘Course I have,” he responds easily, “you’ve been busy.”
Baji won’t meet your gaze. ‘If only you knew,’ he thinks—but he’ll never say it. Not that. Not to you. He shrugs off his black leather jacket and drapes it over your shoulders, fingertips lingering as he straightens the collar. His dark eyes flick to yours, a coy smirk almost hiding his guilt as he hopes beyond all hope you don’t see through him.
You almost do.
Not enough to call him out on it, though, so instead, you roll your eyes—but you can’t deny how this—him—is making everything better. He picks up the helmet he only brings when he’s driving you and puts it on for you, visor up so he can brush the hair out of your eyes. Baji offers a comforting smile, then juts his chin to his bike. “Wanna ride?”
The answer, of course, is yes; for him, it will always be yes.
Silently, you climb on and wrap your hands around him, chin tucking into his shoulder as if you were made to be there. He revs and pulls off, seamlessly weaving in and out of traffic. Your eyes close. The wind whips in your hair, and the familiar scent of nicotine, mint, and Baji’s crisp aftershave envelopes you. For a moment, you feel like everything’ll be okay. Your heart might hurt now, but after an evening with him, it’ll all be okay.
That’s the power of Keisuke Baji, though; the sense of embarking on your greatest adventure but feeling like being home, all at once.
It’s nearly sunset when he stops. Pulls up to the river, kicks the bike stand, then grabs your waist to lift you off the seat.
“I can do that,” you say, even as you let him lift you.
“More fun when I do,” he replies with an easy grin. Your feet hit the ground, but Baji keeps one hand around your waist. He takes off the helmet with the other and laughs when your hair flops out. Hurriedly you go to smooth it, but Baji catches your wrist after setting the helmet down. “You don’t have to do that. Not with me.”
He cages you between the bike and his hips with just a few inches of space—and suddenly, your heart starts to race. When did he get this close? How hadn’t you noticed the way his leg slid between yours? Why isn’t he taking his hand away? Why can’t you breathe?
Baji’s dark eyes dart between yours, then down to your lips, and for a second, for a split second, you think he’s about to kiss you—
“Not like anything can make it better now,” he smirks, and if it weren’t for how his fingers were locked in yours, you would’ve slapped him.
“Asshole.” 
Baji laughs, and you swear the moon shines a little brighter. You’re grateful that he turns to check out the area before he can see just how much of an impact his laugh has on you—though you don’t doubt that he knows. He’s Baji, after all, and you’re not blind (or deaf). He’s handsome, witty, flirty with anything that moves—and that laugh of his could bring even the tides to a standstill.
“Coast’s clear,” he says, looking back at you, a lazy smirk curling his features. It shouldn’t be a surprise, hardly any ever comes this far south of the city—but a few weeks ago, you’d accidentally stumbled upon a couple who were… not expecting company, to put it delicately, and ever since, Baji had been extra cautious to make sure it was just the two of you before getting settled.
He takes a few steps backwards, leading you to your spot; a grassy knoll that overlooks the river as it feeds into the darkened sea. The moon slowly rises over rolling waves while the sun, more a memory, sets over the river’s bend. It’s a secret, sacred place for the two of you, where heartache and daydreams don’t exist; only the moon, the tides, and each other.
Your stomach flips but you can’t tell why; this is exactly what happens every time you come here, from the way he helps you off the bike to how he stops you from picking at your appearance. The only difference is the way his hand is still wrapped in yours. 
You wonder if Tadashi’s would have been this warm. 
But Tadashi isn’t here—Baji is, and it’s Baji’s warm hands that always make things better. So you let him keep his hand in yours, even though you’re not sure you should, and you let him gently tug you along when you don’t move fast enough. Let him take his time in taking his jacket back, in spreading it on the grass before waiting for you to sit. You even let him settle next to you, instinctively leaning into the familiar comfort of his body and for a minute, you wonder how you ever could’ve wanted your day to end different.
Then Baji meets your gaze, smiles that sweet, genuinely kind half smile that he only shares with you, and you remember: Baji is your friend—and no matter how many heartaches he heals, that’s all he’ll ever be.
You can’t remember when things got so complicated.
When it was just you and Kenny, you’d sneak up to the roof of the brothel and watch the sun dip behind the buildings and talk about how one day, you’d get a house that was that color pink, and it’d be on the far side of Japan where you could watch the sunset from your porch and life would be good. The sunset was the only dream you’d ever need, and it would be good.
Then Mikey started coming. More often than not he’d fall asleep before the sun did, and on the days he didn’t—the roof felt too… small. The dreams, too… little. They evolved, from a porch where you could watch the sunset to a skyline that never sleeps.
Dreams change, and that’s okay… but a part of you aches for the time when the sunset felt like enough—when the family you had, the brothers you’d found and the friends you’d made—was enough. You still had the sunset, but rarely. More often than not, you were by yourself up there, or stuck to Kenny’s side somewhere out there, or brushing against Baji’s shoulder down here.
So these days, you prefer to watch the moon rise. There’s more comfort in a light to guide you through the night, rather than watching your dreams disappear with the day.
And you do, the way you do every time you’re stood up or don’t feel—enough. You sit beside Baji with the full moon crawling towards you, staring at the conjunction of the river and the sea, and focus on how you’re going to get through this.
Baji cut his hair since the last date—the last time you’d been stood up, you correct. Still long, but now only to the edge of his jaw, not mid-back like you were used to. The light is bright behind him, bringing out the warm undertones in his onyx hair. You can make out the scab on his cheek from a bar fight a few weeks ago; the scar on his nose from when Mikey split it the first time they fought; the tender bruise along his jaw that looks too new to have told you the story yet.
Instinctively, you reach for it… then chicken out, instead teasing the edge of his hair. You’re left wondering if an angel’s wings would be as soft.
Baji glances at you from the corner of his eye. “You don’t like it?”
“What? I didn’t say that.” Your hand falls back to your lap, eyes quick to follow. The light behind him is too bright—too blinding. Too much like a halo. It’s impossible to hide the truth from an angel, and you know you don’t have the right words to convey just how beautiful you find him. “Just… gonna take some getting used to. I don’t think you’ve ever had it this short.”
He scoffs. “Maybe at birth.”
The idea of baby Baji flashes through your mind; sweet, chubby cheeks, little fists flailing at the world. A tuft of hair, dark as his and long already, but when he opens his eyes, they’re yours—
“Why’d you cut it?” your voice is steadier than you expect. It does nothing to change your thoughts, especially when Baji’s slender fingers start pulling at grass, just the way a baby grasps what's in front of him.
He stares straight ahead, letting one hand splay by your lower back as he watches the green blades dance in the wind. “Figured it was time for a change.”
You hmm in acknowledgement, brain too traitorous to come up with anything other than, ‘I bet you were a cute baby’ or ‘you look handsome either way’ or, worst of all, ‘why would you ever want to change?’
He probably meant nothing by it. Baji’s as flexible as they come; sets his own hours at the shop, varies what time he wakes or goes to bed, never eats the same thing too many times in a row… there’s not much permanency in his life as it is, so it sticks with you that he still wants something different.
If he thinks you’re being weird, he doesn’t say so. He waits for you to speak, like always, and like always, you find yourself loving him a little more for it. Baji’s so—quick; to judge, to speak, to fight… but in these moments, when it’s the two of you and the moon and no one else, he’s not. He’s slow; slow to speak, slow to touch, slow to pull away…
Slow to make you wonder why you keep wasting time with boys who don’t deserve it when he might be enough.
The silence becomes too much; too easy to drown in. Too tempting to fill with all the wrong things.
“What happened to your jaw?” is the best you come up with.
It’s no surprise when he answers, “got into a fight,” but how he says it… how he immediately ducks his head and covers the darkening bruise with a broad palm, as if he’d forgotten all about it and wished you would, too… that makes you pause.
One tenet of your relationship is that you don’t lie to each other. There are often times you wish he would, like when Chifuyu teases him about the pretty girl at the pet shop who came back and asked for the number of the flirty hunk who sold her a dog collar and Baji admits she was pretty cute and he’ll take her to drinks tomorrow night, or when Kazutora reminds Baji that he promised to go on a double date with the twins they met clubbing so no, he can’t take a look at that leaky pipe in your bathroom—but you’d never say that. Not when he could, so easily, call you out for keeping your own.
So when he goes out of his way to not have to tell you the truth, you know better than to push.
“Did it hurt?”
Baji looks to you with a cocky smile. “You should see the other guy.” You snort. Baji knocks his shoulder into yours. “I’m good, really. Just… had some business, s’all.”
It’s supposed to be comforting, but it’s not. It only flares your curiosity… and honestly? Your annoyance. “I hadn’t realized a pet shop needed such security.”
Baji barks out a laugh. “I mean, you’ve seen how crazy some people get about their pets, ‘specially when they think Dr. Google is a better resource than Chifuyu’s degree… but nah, this was… off the books.” He catches your inquisitive gaze and offers a smile, but it’s more like a grimace in the lowlight. His hand creeps closer, fingers pressing into your back, and for a moment, you’re willing to let it go. He gently grazes the middle of your spine. “It’s done, alright? Finished. Won’t happen again.”
You know he’s lying because he holds you close, the way he only does when he thinks you’re about to leave.
But you don’t leave; you never leave. You just give him a withering glare you know he can’t see, then turn back to the ocean.
You hate this feeling. The one where the world becomes unsteady, and everything you’d been trying to keep buried since you were thirteen sneaks up on you. That horrid, awful, destructive fascination and jealousy and yearning that’s plagued you since Baji first bragged about stealing a kiss from the pretty girl that lived three floors above him and only gets worse every time he mentions someone new.
Going on dates was supposed to squash this. Meeting a nice guy, having a good time, and getting a kiss or two of your own was supposed to end this. This—obsession—you’ve had since the first time Baji said he hopes that one day, you meet the right guy and you accidentally thought, ‘maybe it’s you.’ Because at the end of the day, he’s the one who’s there. Not Tadashi, who couldn’t even be bothered to show up. Not Draken, who recently started putting Emma above all else (even you). It’s been Baji, your Baji, whose mere existence makes everything better, that’s been the last one standing.
You can’t ruin that. You can’t risk pushing away the only companion who still puts you first for something you’re positive you can find somewhere else.
At least, that’s what you have to tell yourself, as yet another date fails and Baji is here, again, picking up the pieces and making you feel more whole than when the day started.
The sky is nearly dark when you finally ask the question that’s been on your mind since the barista gave you that pity cup—the one that’s probably still sitting in the bathroom, the last witness to your heartbreak. Just as alone and unwanted as you. 
“What’s… wrong with me?”
Baji’s sharp. He alway has been, from the stern angle of his nose to the feral way his teeth carve like a predator’s. He watches everything—the road, the fighters, you—with a scrutiny that’s often clouded behind cheshire grins and snide quips.
But there’s nothing sharp about him tonight; only soft. Soft hands that gently grab your chin and force you to look at him. Soft breathes as he pulls you close. Soft words as he makes sure you hear him whisper, “nothing.” 
Baji’s eyes, dark and teeming with something you can’t place, move from one eye to the other; to the fingers on your cheek; to your tongue, wetting your lips. He leans in, forehead resting against yours as his hand slides back, gripping your hair like you're his lifeline and not the other way around, and you’re back to thinking okay, this is it, he’s going to kiss me, he’s finally going to kiss me—
But all he does is repeat, “absolutely—fuckin’ nothing, alright? And—‘n fuck whoever makes you feel otherwise,” before resuming his seat like nothing happened.
You let go of a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. It’s stale and hot and full of fury, your fury, and suddenly, you can’t take it anymore.
“Fuck you, Keisuke.”
“What?” Baji scrambles for your arm as you abruptly stand, too furious to even look at him. You rip away but don’t stop, trying to will the stupidness of—whatever this is—to go away, to release you so you can go back to feeling better and right and whole. “Wait—come on, I didn’t—what did I say? Did I do something? Where the hell are you going?”
“Forget it!” you snap. His every question—the fact he wants to make it right even though he’s the reason it hurts—just makes it worse. “Just—leave it alone, alright? It obviously doesn’t matter—” 
This time when he grabs your arm, he doesn’t let you leave. He pulls you in to him, nearly crashing you into his chest as he holds you in place.
“Damnit, y/n, what the hell? What did—why are you being like this?” For the first time tonight, he meets your eyes without falter. He tucks a hand under your chin, all but pries your eyes open himself to search for what you're hiding. You try shrugging out of his iron grip, but he’s too strong. “What did I do?”
“Nothing—” You’re horrified at the way your voice cracks. “Fucking—nothing, Baji, you did nothing—“
“Then why’re you so fucking mad, hunh? Why’re you acting like I’m the bad guy here?” His fingers tighten. It would’ve hurt, if you weren’t so angry. “I’m not the asshole who stood ya up—I’m not the one who’s been dickin’ everyone around, pretending like everything’s fine when I know, Draken knows—even fuckin’—Pah-chin—can tell that something’s wrong—“
“You’re calling me an asshole?” you gasp incredulously. “Are you fucking serious?” 
“Yes!” he retorts hotly—then, upon realizing how horribly angry you’re growing, quickly backtracks, “I mean—no! Actually, no, you know what, I did mean yeah, because guess what, princess? You are acting like an ass! You’ve got—all these people who wanna be here for you, I want to be here for you, and all you’re doing is getting mad at me for it—”
“What do you want me to say, Baji?” It’s useless, trying to get free, but that doesn’t stop you from trying. “That I’m—heartbroken—at being stood up—again? That I’m done with dating, that I’m giving up, that everyone fucking sucks but I must suck worse—”
“They don’t deserve you—”
“Like hell!” Your tone is scalding. It must burn him just as bad, because a single lapse in his grip lets you rip your arm away. “That’s the whole goddamn point of dating, jackass, to figure out who’s worth what—and all this has shown is that I’m not worth it, to anyone.” You slam your hands against his chest, tears stinging your lash line. If you weren’t so angry, you might not have missed how his face falters when you push him away. “And you just—sitting there, and—and holding me like that, and—and telling me that I’m not the problem when I’m the only common denominator—you’re such a fucking liar—”
“You think it’s any easier for me?” he’s quick to yell, frustration making him bare his teeth like fangs. Anyone else would’ve cowered—but you stand your ground. Place two hands on his chest and shove, hard, forcing him back as he continues, “you think it’s any easier to see you gettin’ your hopes up, to freak out over what to text, what to wear, what to do—all for those fuckin’ dickweeds? Hunh? Guys who can’t even—spell your name right, or remember what your favorite flower is, or fucking—show up? You think it’s any fucking easier seeing you so goddamn upset over someone who doesn’t even deserve to breathe the same air as you, let alone spend time with you–be with you? Because it’s not, sweetheart!”
The sweet pet name that usually makes your heart skip a beat only aggravates you further. Your hands go from shoving to slamming, open palms against the hard muscle of his chest—but he doesn’t even flinch. Just catches your wrists before you can do it again and stares, like you’ve started speaking in tongues. “Oh, poor Baji, must be hard, hunh, thinking no one’s good enough, thinking everyone’s so lucky as to have people throwing themselves at them left and right—but newsflash, Keisuke, not all of us are like you! Not all of us have the ability to pick whoever we want, some of us actually have to work at it—“
“Stop working on the wrong guys then!”
“You’ve never even met them, how would you know—“
“Because they let me stand in the way!”
The world stills. 
You can’t place why; why this feels like a sucker punch, why your heart is suddenly skipping beats–why you can’t tell if this hurts. Not until Baji’s grip tightens, then his eyes widen, and you have a sneaking suspicion you know where this is going—but still, you ask, “what?”
He doesn’t respond. He can’t.
He lets go of you, though every fiber in his being begs him to stay. He takes a step back, though his heart pleads for him to wrap you in his arms and hold you close and tell you the truth, about what he did, why he did it, why he can’t bring himself to regret it…
He has to turn his back to you, to stare at the waves crashing along the sand as he tries to process just how badly he’s fucked this up and if there’s any possibility for redemption. It’s too late to lie. Too late to try and salvage this.
He’s made his bed; it’s time to lie in it.
Baji sighs–or something close. Something choked, not quite a laugh but also not quite a sob. Something is stuck in him, and even with the ice in your veins, you piece it together. Somehow, this—the failed dates, the heartache, the loneliness—it's all his fault.
Still, you have to ask. “What the hell are you talking about?”
You try making the venom in your voice match that in your blood, but you can’t. Not when he looks so—defeated. He runs his hands through his hair, doing a miserable job of either pretending he can’t hear you or attempting to buy enough time to come up with a plausible lie—though you don’t need him to. Not when his actions say enough.
It’s your turn to reach for him. Your turn to grab his arm, to keep him in place. You want to hold on to your anger, but the way his hands are shaking makes it impossible.
You draw him close, voice gentle as you say his name. You reach for his cheek, keeping his hands still with one of yours, and you tilt his head; he lets you tilt his head so that he has no choice but to look at you. 
When your gazes meet, you wait.
“I had to,” he eventually says. His voice is steady, but his hands aren’t. His fingers wrap around your wrists tightly, as if he’s afraid you might try leaving—but your grip on him is equally tight. “They weren’t good for you. They were jerks, and they were only going to break your heart, and I couldn’t let that happen. Not to you. I had to—I had to.”
“Had to… what?” He doesn’t answer, not until you prompt, “had to what, Baji?”
“Don’t—” he breathes. “Don’t… call me that.” His eyes close, and he leans into the palm on his cheek. For a moment, you pretend that he’s memorizing the feel of you, as if he’s scared to lose you—but that can’t be it. Keisuke Baji isn’t afraid of anything.
You’re not sure what’s more painful: the knots in your stomach or the hope in your heart. “Tell me what you did,” you muster up. “Keisuke, tell me what you did.”
When his eyes finally open, all of his anger is gone. In its place is something you’ve rarely seen, and even rarer directed at you: desperation.
“I stopped them.”
For a moment, all you hear is your own heart… then the waves of truth come crashing down.
“I—I found them, and I swear on my life, on your life—I only meant to talk to them, to figure out if—if they had good intentions, if they were gonna treat you right—but they all sucked, y/n, they were awful—going on and on about how they were—how they wanted to—to fuck you, just to say they could—or they weren’t—serious about how they felt and I couldn’t—I couldn’t let them do that, I couldn’t let them hurt you like that, so I… I hurt them first. Not—not much, just enough so they’d—get the idea. Leave you alone. Stay away from my girl—”
He cuts himself off, and for a moment, you’re frozen. You don’t know what to do, what to think—is this real? Is he saying what you think he’s saying? Does he really mean it?
Baji’s voice cracks when he says your name.
“Y/n, listen—listen to me,” he pleads. His forehead presses against yours. Your cheeks grow wet, though you can’t tell if that’s because of you or him. “You are—the most amazing person in this whole freaking world. You get that? You’re—smart, and pretty, and so fucking funny and—and anyone who can’t see that is an idiot. And it fucking—kills me—that you’ve got it in your head that what these—stupid pricks think is the only thing that matters, because it’s not. It’s never mattered. The only thing—the only thing that has ever mattered… is you. Okay? You.”
Your throat closes. Your hands reach for his, catching only wrists as he cradles your face, trying to ground yourself in this moment. In all the things he says and all the things he doesn’t; in the silent, desperate dream that refused—refuses—to die, taking over you once more.
“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.” His lips are so close, they brush your nose. “I’d say I regret it, but I don’t, because— you deserve better. You deserve the world, if you want, or—or the moon and all the stars, and—and unless they’d get it for you, they don’t deserve you. Okay? None of them deserved you.”
You’re just a hair away from kissing him, from caving to the impulses you thought were dead and gone and hopeless all these years, and the worst possible sentence sinks out: “you’re an idiot, Kei.”
Then you lean forward and kiss him.
In an instant—you feel whole. You feel right, in a way you haven’t since you decided you never had a chance with him; in a way you’ve been searching for in the words of all the others who’d let you down, who’d broken your heart and always, always, always led you back to moonrise with Baji, back home—
Baji jolts. He pulls away and stares at you with a wild mixture of shock and confusion. His fingers ghost his lips, only to draw back as he stares at them, then at you, then back at them, like he can’t quite comprehend this hand is attached to his body—like you were. Like you want to be, like you thought he wanted to be, like you thought he was asking you to be—
Your heart plummets as he just—stands, no witty quip or teasing remark at the ready. No lines to read between; no phrasing to draw false confessions from; nothing other than the stillness of the night, and the pounding of your heart.
“Wait—” you shrink as you realize just how hoarse a single stolen kiss has left you. “I thought—please, Kei—”
A flicker of… something dances in his eyes, and then—he watches you. Studies you, with the same scrutiny he holds before a fight or when picking apart a bike to see what parts are broke and what can be saved.
“Say it again.”
It’s your turn to blink; your turn to have wide eyes and parted lips, to study him like you’re not sure how to fix it. “I don’t—“
“My name,” he says, and your heart starts to leap. “Say my name, sweetheart.”
“I say your name all the time, Keisuke.” You’re barely above a whisper. Barely above the fear that this time, he’ll break your heart and there’ll be no one to pick up the pieces because—you ruined this.
“Not like that,” he breathes. You forget how to. “Say it like it means something. Like—you don’t hate me. Like—”
“Kei,” you interrupt, hands coming to cradle his cheeks as you read between the lines, “I forgive y—”
He doesn’t even let the final word form before his lips are on yours. Hard, aggressively melding like he’s worried you might change your mind and wants to milk every second out of this as he can—but you reciprocate just as desperately. Keisuke’s hands wrap around you, one gripping the base of your neck and the other resting on the small of your back, pulling you impossibly close, as if he couldn’t get enough of you. His mouth opens, teasing your lips apart as you trade air, fingers digging into your soft skin like it’s the last thing he’ll ever touch.
You pull away first, and that’s only because your lungs are aching—not that you mind. The pain helps make this feel real. 
For once, Keisuke’s grin doesn’t seem mocking. He moves a hand to cradle your face, thumb rubbing against your cheek. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that, sweetheart.”
“Not as long as I have,” you admit with a breathy laugh. Your hands lock around his neck, fingers playing with his hair, and you realize you’re smiling.
You kissed. Keisuke kissed you, you kissed him—everything makes sense. Everything is right, and with the moon and tides as your witness, everything is good again.
“Can I…” Keisuke starts, eyes flicking to your lips in an unspoken question. You finish his sentence with a kiss.
“You can always kiss me, Kei,” you say. “You don’t even have to ask.”
There’s the grin you recognize; the scheming, teasing grin that always makes your stomach flip in a way you thought meant he’s up to no good, but now realize as a sign you’d fallen for him long ago. 
“Oh, yeah?” he questions, brushing his lips against yours. “Only here? Or can I kiss… here?” He moves to the corner of your lips, then to the hollow of your cheek as he continues, “and… here? And maybe…”
He trails off, and he trails down, letting his lips drag against your cheek while his hand keeps you firmly in place, lips going done to your chin, down the column of your throat and back up. Your breathy yes would be pathetic—if it ever made it out. All that escapes is a breathy groan of displeasure when he stops, teasing lips hovering just above your own. “What’s that, babe? Want me t’stop?”
“You’re such an asshole.”
Your hands tangle in his hair, lips melding as your make-out turns heated. He slides his tongue along the seam of your lips, silently asking you to open—and you do. His hands curl around you, bringing you closer until there’s no space left between you.
Something digs into your leg. Something hard and unmistakable, and it leaves you grinning deeper than Kei.
You break away, laughing at his whine of protest and briefly glance down. Keisuke follows your eyes and is quick to splutter a nervous chuckle, hands dropping as he tries to step away with a short apology—though the way you catch his belt loops stops him. “Shit—sorry, I didn’t—I just—it’s your fault, y’know—“
“Shut up,” you giggle and drag him back. Now, you kiss him; once, twice, then a third before trailing your lips along the sharp ridge of his cheekbone, along his temple, to his ear. “How about you take me home, Kei?”
Keisuke’s whiplash nearly hurts you. His eyes, big and brown and wide, stare like you’ve grown an extra head. His hands shakily splay against your back, as if he wants to keep you close but he’s not sure he’s allowed to. His voice wavers slightly when he asks, “but I thought… aren’t… I mean, isn’t this… what you wanted?”
Slowly, you nod. Even slower, you pointedly look at the space between you, bridged only by the tent of his black pants. You smile at the sweet way a blush covers his cheeks, and risk slowly trailing your hand along his belt until your fingertips are hovering over that stupid, shiny, obnoxiously big belt buckle you always tease him for.
“I want you, Keisuke, and I want you to take me home.”
He doesn’t need more encouragement. 
Keisuke’s kisses grow fiercer. He devours you, never once breaking contact as his hands slide to find firm purchase on the back of your thighs. With ease, he lifts you atop his bike, setting you in front of him and stepping between your spread legs. The hem of your dress slides up with his calloused palms, collecting in a bunch then pooling down to protect your modesty as he finds two handfuls of ass. He gives a squeeze, eliciting a delighted gasp from you, then pulls back with a toothy smile.
“Then have me, sweetheart. Always been yours, anyways.” 
Your stomach twists, the way it always does when he looks at you like that, and you like it. It makes sense, it feels right—and you don’t have to pretend to justify why it makes your panties wet.
“Gotta—gotta get home—“ you try saying, but Keisuke’s hands have a mind of their own. They’re the only reason you’re still upright as he starts kissing along your neck, carefully grazing his sharp teeth but never once digging in. Your arms lop around him, digging into his scalp and shoulders as he finds this one spot that makes you moan, and you almost curse him for what that smile has done to you.
“Fuckin’—insane—if you think I'ma make it,” he mumbles into your skin, and you think you finally understand how some people can climax from someone’s voice alone.
You laugh and intend to push him away and demand that he do, that you have to, that you need to, because this—isn’t like you, you’re not one to get hot and heavy like this, certainly not in public—
But you can’t think straight. Not when Keisuke’s hands are kneading your ass, pinching and releasing like he can’t decide if he wants to hold on forever or explore somewhere new. Not when his teeth nibble your neck, and you shudder at the unbelievably primal sensation running through you.
Not when the unmistakable hardness of Keisuke’s boner finds home between your thighs, and he starts bucking his hips. It’s subtle, and he doesn’t tease you for the pathetic way you start whimpering. He focuses on continuing to explore the expanse of your otherwise untouched skin, while all you can do is revel in the way your high starts building.
You’ve been kissed before, on the lips and neck and once a little lower, but no one’s ever done this to you; pressed against your collarbone. Moved your neckline aside to suck on the fat of your breast. Left a mark that’ll last longer than a minute. For a moment, you wonder if you should tell him he’s the first, but when the zipper of his pants starts catching your clit, the only thing you’re able to do is moan his name.
Loudly.
Breathy and passionate and different than before, and he pauses. Lifts his head from your collarbone, a thin tendril of salvia keeping his lips still attached to the sensitive skin you know will bruise. He lets one hand trail up your side and cup your face, staring like this might be the last time he ever sees you, all while his hips continue to rut against you.
“Say it again,” he breathes, thumb catching your bottom lip. “Just—just like that.”
“Kei,” you repeat, giggling at the way he brightens and starts kissing you, “we need to go home—now.” For good measure, you boldly let your fingers slide to the edge of his belt buckle, in case he needs some more convincing. His free hand darts to yours, but he doesn’t stop you. He laces his fingers in yours and guides you, letting you palm at his thick hard-on. He lets out a low groan and drops his head from your lips to rest at your chest, just above the collar of your dress. You card one hand through his hair, the other applying light pressure to the (you assume) very painful ache between his legs—and not at all because you know, if he kept bucking into your core the way he just was, the way he keeps doing against your palm—you wouldn’t be able to make it home, either. “Take—take me home, Kei—”
“Not—” he huffs. His grip on your ass tightens, but you can barely feel it. Not when Keisuke whines, low and needy, teeth coming out to nip at your breast, and all you can focus on is the ache between your own legs, getting even worse as his hips start moving faster, forcing the back of your hand against your cunt as you continue to palm him. His hips don’t stop; they push against you so fiercely, so desperately, that you cave, taking away your hand so there’s nothing between you but your clothes. 
You’re on the precipice in minutes; hands digging into his shoulders as you choke on a sob, pleading with him to go faster, to not stop, to keep making you feel good—and it’s made all the worse when he does, pressing his throbbing erection even harder against your soaked panties, all the while pleading into your skin, “can’t—can’t—fuck, baby, I can’t—y/n—“
You gasp when his teeth break skin.
Keisuke’s hips still. Warm air saturates your chest as he groans into it, and for a moment you’re frozen. Your whole body aches, and you want to scream at the cruel way your orgasm was stolen—but you’re too in shock that he got you there that fast, that easily. Something warm trickles down your cheeks, between your breasts—blood? saliva? tears?—he doesn’t move. You don’t move. You’re not even sure he’s breathing, until his shoulders heave and your skin is warmed once more. A slight burn starts to spread across your chest, and when you open your mouth to ask him why the hell he stopped—all that comes out is his name.
You say it softly, then a little louder, but it’s not until you grab his face and force him to look up that he speaks—but his eyes are fixed firmly on the reddening bite mark forming atop your breast.
“M’sorry…”
A mean part of you wants to tell him he owes you a lot more than sorry, but the way his lower lip disappears as he nervously chews on it has you choosing otherwise. “It’s okay,” you comfort instead, “it didn’t hurt that bad.”
Keisuke grimaces. “No, I—” 
He sighs, head dropping back to your chest. Both arms wrap around your waist, and he presses a light kiss to the place he’d just bitten; the only way he probably figures he can keep close without meeting your gaze. He mumbles something, but you only know because you feel his lips moving.
“Can’t hear you…” you try prompting, but it only makes him snuggle deeper. He sighs again, loud and warm and in a way you’re familiar with—the way that really means, I can’t believe I have to do this… “C’mon, Kei, don’t you want to take me home?”
“Ididntmakeit.”
You have never, ever, in your life ever seen Keisuke embarrassed. Not when he told you about needing Chifuyu to tutor him post-juvie; not when he failed his college entry exams; not even when you accidentally walked in on him showering (in hindsight, he was probably a little too comfortable with how long it might’ve taken you to leave).
This was the man who went skinny dipping for fun. He’ll order fruity drinks for his friends who are too embarrassed to do it themselves. His approach to a lost fight is to get a rematch, not pretend it didn’t exist, and even in mundane moments that have you at a loss for words, like mistaking someone’s name or forgetting a face, Kei’s always quick for a retort or defense or a smile that makes everything better.
Keisuke Baji doesn’t get embarrassed—but that’s the only word that fits. His cheeks are redder than you’ve ever seen, his breathing faster than his pulse. His eyes refuse to meet yours, and his fingers knead into clumsy, nervous patterns along the side of your thighs.
Then he takes a deep breath, and with one shaking hand, he slowly brings your palm to the crotch of his pants… that are now sticky.
Your eyes widen, and you’re almost too late to choke down a gasp. Kei’s eyes close, and he ducks his head in shame. “I didn’t—I mean, I haven’t—you're just—I’m so sorry—”
“Why?” It sounds curt, and you don’t intend it to. Better than laughing, you reason—although you will absolutely get him for this later… when it stops feeling like the most humiliating thing in the world.
Keisuke swallows. “I haven’t ever… you know.”
“What, cum early?” It’s cruel to tease, you know that, but you can’t stop the slight satisfaction that you—you—are able to bring a man like Keisuke Baji to his knees.
“No! I mean—no, I…” Kei looks out to the ocean, fingers still anxiously kneading into your thighs. The temperature drops, though you’re not sure if it actually does or you’re just feeling like it as you try to understand what’s happened, what’s happening—what you’re to do next. His jaw clenches and he tries to pull away from you, but you don’t let him. You wrap your legs around the backs of his thighs, keeping him in place.
“Kei…” you say softly. You don’t force him to look at you. Instead, you let your fingers trail up his abs, curling around his neck so you can rest your forehead against his temple and kiss his cheek. “I don’t care. Just means you gotta make it up to me—”
“I’ve never had sex before.”
You’re grateful he doesn’t look at you, because you’re not able to control the utter shock coloring your face. How is that possible? You’ve heard the whispers when you go out; you’ve seen the looks. At parties or bars or clubs, he’d find a pretty thing and disappear, and you assumed you knew what happened behind those closed doors—because why, why, why would you want to ask about that? 
The others didn’t dispel it, either; in fact, they’d constantly rip on him for his… gift, and Keisuke never fought back. He’d just smirk and wink and say, “it’s never disappointed,” and by the time you’d turned red, thinking about when you caught him in the shower and knew what they were saying was true, they’d moved on to taunting someone else.
So how the hell is it possible that Keisuke’s a virgin—and, more importantly, how didn’t you know?
You’re not sure how long it takes you to recover. If he were to ask, you’d say you were just waiting for him—because when you do speak, it’s only when Keisuke turns to you with narrowed eyes, an apprehensive blush clear on his face. 
“Wanna know a secret?” you ask, forcing a teasing lilt to your voice—though your stomach twists. This isn’t exactly the way you wanted to tell him, and for a flash, you think of how disappointed he might be to learn the truth. 
But when he meets your gaze, eyes wide and focused entirely on you, somewhere between hopeful and nervous, you know it’s for the best. Your smile is sweet, but not as sweet as your lips when you kiss the crinkle between his eyes. He immediately relaxes, hands stilling as he leans into you. “Neither have I.”
He straightens and pulls far enough away so he can examine you. For a minute, your confession hangs between the two of you, then Kei starts floundering, “but I thought… you said… but he… what about your ex?”
You shrug, your own cheeks starting to flush. “It never felt right.”
Keisuke blinks. His mouth parts, eyes darting between yours like he’s waiting for the gotcha!, but all he receives is the embarrassed way you can’t meet his gaze, feeling as if you’ve somehow let him down. You squirm, his warm hands still atop your thighs sending butterflies to your stomach, and shrug again. “I dunno, I just—didn’t think it was fair. Doing that with someone, when all I could think about…” you swallow, lips twisting as you debate whether or not to tell him the truth. 
He catches your chin, forcing you to meet his eyes. “Think about what, sweetheart?”
The way he asks tells you he already knows; but like earlier, when you knew and had to hear it anyway, he needs you to say it, too.
So you take a steadying breath. You gently trail a finger down the side of his jaw, and you make yourself smile as you say, “you, Kei. It didn’t seem right if it wasn’t you.”
This time when he kisses you, it’s slow. He takes his time in tasting you, in savoring the moment. He lets you guide where his lips go, how his hands wander, and he waits for you to pull back before he suggests, “how about I take you home now?”
Your stomach flutters. Fingers knot at the base of his skull, and slowly, a smile spreads on your face. 
“I’d like that.”
He presses a chaste kiss to your temple. You can feel the joy in it, one that doesn’t fade for either of you as he unhooks your legs so you can properly straddle the bike, then tucks the helmet on you and pops on himself.
“Hold on,” he calls as he revs the engine, “might be goin’ a bit faster than usual.”
“Don’t worry,” you laugh, and even though you know he probably can’t hear you, you add, “I’m never letting go.”
You make it to Keisuke’s apartment in seven minutes flat—which, normally, would leave you terrified, given his place is twenty minutes from your spot, but you doubt that’s what’s got your heart racing. He barely gives you enough time to take the helmet off before his hands are back on you, easily scooping you up and carrying you up the stairs. You bump into a few walls, and the way you’ve got a loose grasp on his helmet sends it craning into his back just as often, but neither of you care. Between fits of giggles and cautious glances to make sure he’s not about to walk you through a glass door (or down a stairwell), you kiss like it’ll be the last time you ever get the chance to.
“Anyone home?” you mumble into his lips. He slams you against the front door of his shared three-bedroom apartment, using his hips to keep you up while he tries to find the lock by memory.
“Nope,” he replies, lips busy with your skin, fingers fumbling uselessly behind you. “Stupid—fucking lock—told Tora to leave it—never fuckin’ listens—”
“Relax,” you laugh, although that’s rich coming from you. Your legs tighten around him as you break free from his kiss, instead sucking along the column of his throat. Freeing his face is supposed to give him enough room to actually look for the lock, so the two of you can stop dry-humping in the hall and finally get the privacy you need—but like always, Keisuke does the unexpected.
He throws his head back and moans, giving you more access to leave a matching hickey—and you’re not strong enough to resist the temptation. A whine starts in his throat, from where you’re sucking on his pale skin. The keys clatter to the ground.
“Keisuke,” you scold—but before you can tease him for being in a rush, his lips are back on yours.
“Never gonna make it,” is his only defense.
“Gonna—gonna have to,” you reply, but every time you try pulling away or reach for the keys yourself, he grabs you. Wraps your wrists in his rough hands, pins them to the door beside your head, and leans so far forward that, even with your limp legs, he’s able to keep you up himself. “Kei—“
“So help me sweetheart,” he warns, hips rolling against yours with a sense of urgency only outmatched by his kiss, “if you keep saying my name like that, I swear to the gods I’m gonna fuck you right here.”
“So help me, sweetheart,” you shoot back, breathy and hot as you try to avoid the way his lips chase yours, “if you don’t get me inside right now, I might let you.”
He freezes. Pulls away from the delightful bruise he’d just been leaving below your ear and stares at you with a mixture of awe and utter delight. “Really?”
You swat the back of his head. “No, dumbass, open the fucking door.”
Keisuke’s lips, pink and bruising slightly, twist in a pretend pout as he squats. He keeps one thick palm under your thigh, keeping your leg wrapped around him as he snags his keys. “You’re such a fucking tease.”
“Says the guy who does—that,” you try scoffing, but you’re cut off with a moan when Kei stands and bounces you against his hips. His boner is back and harder than before, pressing into your core, the messy, wet mix of your drenched panties and his earlier cum making a lewd sound in the otherwise silent hallway. 
“Does… what, babe?” he teases. “C’mon, finish that sentence.” 
You don’t know how he finds the focus to actually find the lock this time, but you thank every deity in the world that he does—because it takes just a second, a single, solitary second for him to jimmy it in, slam the door open, and you’re finally alone.
The door frame rattles. Something falls, but you can’t tell if it’s the mirror you insisted he hang above the entry table you insisted he get or if it’s the rickety old coat rack Chifuyu said would ‘class up the joint’; all you know is that as soon as the key is in, Baji’s hands are back to cradling your thighs for support as he crosses the threshold. 
You reach for the door, but he catches it with his ankle and slams it shut, quickly spinning to pin you against it.
“Really—” you pant, “really got the place—to ourselves?”
“Mhm,” Keisuke confirms. He leans into you, palms rubbing along your thighs until they get to your knees, silently asking you to wrap tighter around him. You do, and the moment he feels your ankles cross at the small of his back, his hands move to your waist. “Told ‘em—needed space.”
“Oh?” you question, your hands reaching for the hem of his shirt and tug, tug, tugging—“And when’d you do that?”
He reaches behind his head and yanks his tee off, tossing it carelessly into the darkness of the apartment. You hadn’t even paused to turn on the lights.
“After I saw Tadashi.” You can tell he’s grinning, especially as you drag your nails along the chiseled plane of his abs. His hands slide up your torso, thumb rubbing your stomach through the thin cotton of your dress, grazing the underwire of your bra. “Told Tora this one wasn’t gonna work, either, ’n he said I should just tell ya the truth, 'cause he couldn’t watch me mope around all night again—”
“Mope?” you tease. Kei’s fingers dig in. “Kazutora accused you of moping?”
“Well—shut up!” he whines. “You try watching the person you’re in love with go out with guys who don’t deserve them and tell me you wouldn’t start moping either—y/n? Why… are you looking at me like that?”
Your eyes are wide. Your hands go limp, the helmet falling to the floor with a loud clatter. Your lips part to say… something, but you’re not sure what.
Keisuke’s told you he’s loves you a thousand times; the brief ‘kay love ya! before he hangs up; the gentle love you, see ya tomorrow whenever he’d bring you home; the drawn out gods I love you after you’ve surprised him with his favorite meal—but none like this.
None so… blatant. So unmistakable.
Kei stares at you curiously, as if he isn’t even aware of what he’s just said. He repeats your name, hands leaving your waist to catch your chin.
“You’re… in love with me?” 
Keisuke blinks.
For a moment, you think you must’ve misheard, he must’ve misspoke, you must have misunderstood—but a brilliant smile breaks his face, and he nuzzles his nose against yours. “‘Course I’m in love with you, sweetheart. I’ve been in love with you, and I ain’t ever gonna stop loving you—”
You kiss him.
The gentlest one yet. The way you always dreamed your first one would be; soft, sweet, lips pressing together while your hands held him close. Heartbeats synching. The world falling away as it’s just the two of you, in this moment, endless and forever.
There’s only one thing to say when you pause: “I love you too, Keisuke.”
Your teeth knock together as Keisuke can’t contain his smile, either. Hands move, one around the small of your back and the other under a single thigh. Your lips never part as he carries you to his room.
He sets you at the foot of his bed and stands above you. His chest heaves, bare and flushed with need. Your hands slip from his neck to his bed to keep yourself propped up, legs still wrapped tightly around his waist. Keisuke’s hands travel to your knees, and he just—stares.
He loves you. How could he not, with the way that pretty dress puddles on his mattress, exposing nearly all of your leg but hiding what he’s been waiting for his whole adult life? How could he not, with the way his spit makes your collar glistens in the moonlight, filtering in from behind those sheer curtains you insisted he get? How could he not love the way you say his name, reaching towards him, fingers catching on his belt buckle as you ask him if he’s ready?
“Not yet,” he whispers. The hoarseness of his voice, the way it’s dropped several octaves from merely seeing you on his bed, sends a jolt of electricity through you. You’re about to ask why, but the reverence in how he’s looking at you makes you not want to break this spell.
He trails his fingers along your calves. Gently, he unhooks your legs from his waist. His fingers shake as he struggles with the straps of your heels, but when you go to help, he catches your wrist. 
“No,” he repeats, “not yet.”
You keep quiet and merely watch as your best friend, the man of your dreams, takes his time in undressing you. One wedge, then the other, falling off your feet with a dull clank! on the carpet. Keisuke kisses your ankles, then starts kissing up your calves, then your knees, then your thighs—
The anticipation has you dripping. Your thighs instinctively clench when he gets to your hem, hands curling into fists by your sides. Your panties are uncomfortably glued to your cunt, sticky in a way you’ve never been before, and he’s not even lifted your dress to see yet.
Keisuke rests his chin atop your thigh. “Please,” he pleads—pleads—“Let me—baby, let me. I wanna taste you.”
Today is not the day you learn to refuse him.
Your muscles shake from anticipation as you slowly spread your legs, but that’s not enough for him. “Baby, no, I—I wanna hear you say it.” His voice is soft, shaky. A little hesitant, as if he’s not sure if this’ll ruin the moment but he knows he has to be sure—he has to hear you say it… if only to revel in the desperate way you say his name. 
“Keisuke, please… whatever you want, have it. Just—touch me, Kei, please, I need you—“
“Need you too, sweetheart,” he praises, running his lips along your thigh. “Gonna—gonna have you now, okay?”
His fingers still shake when he lifts your dress, exposing the black lace of your panties to him. At first glance, he can’t tell that they’re absolutely soaked—but that doesn’t stop the way you start to squirm in embarrassment as he just… stares. His thumbs dig into the fat of your hips, broad palms keeping your thighs spread and pinned to the bed.
It takes you a moment to realize he’s not breathing.
“Kei?”
He doesn’t look up. 
His grip gets tighter. His eyes narrow. Before you get the chance to ask him what’s wrong, he growls, “you wore these for him?”
You blink. That is not what you were expecting, but before you can defend with they’re my lucky pair, or I wanted to feel sexy, or it doesn’t matter, I’m here with you—Keisuke’s ripped them off.
You yelp when the fabric bites your skin, failing to wriggling away as Keisuke strips them off your ankle. “What the fuck—“
“I’ll get you a new pair,” he mutters. “Shit—I’ll get you a hundred pairs, but you get rid of every single set someone else has seen. Got it?”
Your lips purse. He’s being unreasonable, you think, and totally ridiculous… but no matter how much your brain tries to reason he’s out of line, your fluttering pussy doesn’t get the message. Your slick is evident now, exposed and iridescent in the moonlight, dripping down your hole and slowly saturating the sheets.
Usually, Keisuke wouldn’t let it go. Usually, he’d keep picking at it until you cave, or at least recognize you heard him—but usually, he’s not staring at your cunt. 
Right now, he can’t focus on anything but how desperate he is to be inside you.
“Yeah, think ya got it… fuck, babe… seems like you like it when I say shit like that, hunh?” 
You whimper slightly, having to bite your lip to keep it together. Slowly, he drags the tip of his finger from the sheet beneath you up along your wet folds. He barely touches you, but when he pulls his finger away, it’s covered in a layer of you. 
He brings it to his face with a cocky grin, watching how the pad shines in the moonlight. “You always this wet, or am I special?”
“Shut up,” you shoot back, preparing to bring up how special he found you earlier—only to immediately throw your head back and moan as Keisuke buries his face between your legs.
There is no preamble. There are no more teasing quips or pauses; Keisuke dives in like a man starved, and the only thing that can sate his appetite is you.
He starts with broad strokes, gathering as much of your slick as he can. He’s messy, messier than you, and soon there’s more of his spit than your wetness between your legs. His arms wrap around your thighs, keeping them pinned and spread on his shoulders as he continues to feast, thumbs spreading your lips open so he can truly devour you.
When Keisuke starts suckling on your clit, your fingers knot in his hair. You moan, loud and whiney and plead for him to keep going as your orgasm starts to boil—faster than before, more powerful too, with greater ease than you’ve ever managed to pull from yourself.
Keisuke brings a hand to your clit, quickly swiping the puffy bud with the pad of his thumb as he focuses his tongue on your fluttering hole. In and out, up and down, the warm muscle drives you insane. Your grip on his hair must hurt, but he says nothing; he focuses on making you feel as good as humanly possible, never once letting up, not even when you start to choke, “Kei—I’m—I’m gonna—“
“Cum for me, sweetheart,” he commands. “C’mon, pretty girl, make a mess on my face, wanna feel how you clench, wanna make ya cry—”
It sends you over the edge.
With a scream of his name, your back arches. Your thighs try closing around him but still, he doesn’t let up. He keeps pace, tongue-fucking you, lapping up all the juice that spills out as his thumb continues caressing your clit until you do start crying and you do have to plead, “no—no more, Kei, can’t—“
“Can,” he corrects—but he stops. His hand stills, moving so that the warmth of his palm covers that sensitive bundle of nerves, and only then does he stop lapping at your hole. He presses a gentle kiss to your sex, then to your inner thigh. “But I’ll be nice tonight, sweetheart. Only ‘cause I love you, though.”
You stare at the ceiling as you catch your breath. The paint is peeling in the corner. The glow-in-the-dark stars you helped him put up when he first moved in are dim. The walls are covered in motorcycle posters. A calendar set to the wrong month hangs above a salvaged desk, covered with various veterinary textbooks, barely legible notebooks, a handful of empty beer cans, and a handful of DVD cases, one of which you know is Dyslexia; How to Read When Even Your Brain Doesn’t Want You To. A neon sign advertising Margaritaville is unlit beside his closet. A pile of clothes that didn’t make it to the hamper rests beneath it.
 The room is so—Keisuke , you feel at peace, even as your limbs turn to jelly.
Your heart is racing faster than if you’d just run a marathon. “Thought—thought you said you hadn’t—“ you try panting, but it’s too much effort, too soon. You end up collapsing back on the bed, head swimming with euphoria.
“Said I hadn’t had sex,” Keisuke corrects as he stands, your limp thighs falling to the either side of his waist, “not that I’ve never eaten pussy.” He scoffs, as if that should’ve been obvious. “I’m not an idiot, babe. I respect women enough to know where the clit is.”
A little laugh escapes you. The fan motor is the only other sound. It’s cool, your nipples perk beneath your bra, but you’re still hot. Still hyper aware that Keisuke is just a few inches away, watching your bare cunt flutter and beg him for more.
Keisuke does love you. You know he does, because he gives you time to catch your breathe before he starts up again, only pressing soft kisses to the inside of your legs and quiet offerings of, “so fuckin’ pretty” and “can’t believe you’re here” and, your favorite, the only one you respond to: “so in love with you.” 
“I love you too, Kei.”
He runs his hands along your sides, slowly taking more and more of your dress up with it until the entire thing is resting by your neck. He makes quick work of your bra, not even needing you to sit up as he unhooks it and lifts the cups away.
He says nothing; just stares at your naked body with the same adoration and awe he held when taking off your shoes.
“You’re—so beautiful,” he whispers. “Y’know that? So—so fuckin’ beautiful.”
He bends down and takes a pert nipple in his mouth. You whine, hate yourself for doing so, then whine again as his free hand starts tweaking your other nipple. He runs his tongue over every inch of your chest, making sure you’re covered with his spit and hands, traversing as much of you as he can.
When he gets to your face, he smiles. “You’re mine, yeah? All mine?”
Your fingers run over his jaw, over the bruise that’s barely discernible in the moonlight. No one’s touched you like him; no one’s even kissed you like him, either, and you’re not sure if it’s the “Keisuke” of it all making you feel like this, or if this is how it’s supposed to have felt all along. 
The answer comes easily.
“Yeah,” you agree with a smile of your own, “yeah, m’all yours, Keisuke. Pretty sure I always have been.”
“Always, hunh?” He holds you gently now; a stark contrast to the hungry way he’d just devoured you. “That mean you’ve always loved me, too?”
Your breathy yes is lost in a gasp when his hand slides between your legs. Gently, he prods a single thick finger into your virgin hole, shallowly dipping in and out. “Never had someone else in here, hunh? M’gonna be your first?”
“Y-yes,” you repeat, voice cracking. Your eyes flutter close as he keeps fingering you. You’d had fingers in there before, but none like this. Your own couldn’t compare, two of yours barely able to stretch the way one of his does… and he’s not even going all the way. Not even knuckle deep as he explores only the shallows, letting you adjust.
Your face scrunches when he adds a second.
“This okay?” he asks. You look at him, hand wrapping around his neck as you bring his forehead down to meet yours.
You nod, then remember what he said earlier, how you could feel his cock jumping when you were sweet and needy for him. “Yeah, Keisuke. Yes—yes, I want this. I want you.”
He cups your face and trails soft kisses from corner to corner, breaking apart only to lift your dress and bra over your head. They’re carelessly thrown to the floor, you have half a mind to scold him that it’ll wrinkle—but when he goes back to your cunt, two fingers halfway in, all you’re able to say is the harsh inhale of his name.
They’re shallow, never pushing in deep enough to hurt, slowly stretching your rim to its max. He goes a little deeper, then starts scissoring them, and it becomes nearly impossible to believe he hasn’t done this before.
“No—no way you’re a virgin,” you hiss when Keisuke’s lips travel to your breast. He alternates between sucking hickeys and kneading them while staring at the way your cunt sucks him in, never stopping his ministrations.
Keisuke lets out a short scoff and shifts. “You literally made me cum my pants like a teenager.”
“Then how—“
“I told ya, babe, I respect women,” is his only reply. The only one he’s willing to give, at least, because he starts paying more attention to your tits than what questions are spilling his way.
You feel like you’ve got to be ready when he adds a third, and you say as much—only for Keisuke to meet your gaze with a cocky grin. “Trust me, sweetheart. You’re gonna thank me for this.” 
It can’t be much longer until he deems you ready, but it feels like forever, even if he keeps you distracted from the slight burn between your legs by playing with your breasts, sucking on your throat, praising you.
“Taking m’fingers so well, pretty thing. You’re such a good girl f’me, can’t believe you made me wait this long…”
“You didn’t tell me either,” you scold. He curls his fingers mid-way through your sentence, rubbing against a sensitive spot you’ve never been able to find on your own. You keen his name, hand snapping down to catch his forearm. He pauses.
“Too much?”
Slowly, you shake your head, eyes watering. “Please, Kei, I—I want you to fuck me.”
Keisuke presses a chaste kiss to your forehead. “Never could say no to you, sweetheart.”
If you could think clearly, you’d start listing all the times he has denied you, starting with just a few seconds ago—but him withdrawing his fingers leaves you feeling too empty to do much but pout.
When he pulls away, you chase after him, only for him to shake his head with a fond grin. “How am I supposed to fuck you if you won’t let me take my pants off?”
With hot cheeks, your lips twist. “You were the one who wanted to fuck on your bike, and then in the hall—what, were you planning on stripping naked then, too?”
You’re rewarded with a very rare, very endearing blush. He sits back on his knees and rubs his neck, eyes dropping from yours—then his lip curls in a smirk. “With how wet you got, seems like you wanted me to. What—you like the idea of that? Getting fucked in public? Don’t worry, sweetheart, maybe we’ll try that one day…” He laughs at the way you squirm, but he’s not wrong; your cunt clenches at the thought.
“You’re such a dick.” Your hands reach for his belt, fumbling slightly as you try to undo it. Keisuke’s hands take over, getting rid of the black leather in seconds.
“Your dick,” he corrects, hands back on you, gently laying you back against his pillows, trailing over your now completely naked body, leaving gooseflesh in their wake. You roll your eyes but say nothing, heart in your throat, pussy pulsing in anticipation.
He straightens, taking in the display in front of him. Taking in you.
You sit up slightly, chewing your lower lip. He’s beautiful, but even more so in the moonlight. It illuminates his pale skin, almost making him glow in the darkness of the rest of his room. Obsidian hair falls in a straight sheet around his flushed cheeks, his lower lip caught between his teeth. Violet and red marks adorn his neck and chest. His abs flex when he watches the way your eyes trail down; down the inlet between them, down the stern jut of his prominent v-line, over the faint trail of dark hair that disappears into the band of his jeans.
His fingers—the ones just inside you—hover on the button. They’re covered in your slick, resting just above a bulge that looks absolutely delicious, one that you know he can’t wait to bury inside you—but still, he hesitates.
“I love you, Keisuke,” you say. He smiles. It’s the only further confirmation he needs before he’s pushing off the bed and pulling down his jeans and underwear in one go.
The others have lied about a lot—like Baji’s lack of virginity—but the size of Keisuke is not one of them.
Your jaw drops as you push to your knees, staring at Keisuke’s cock like it’s the first you’ve ever seen. It’s not, and technically speaking, it’s not even the first time you’ve seen his—but that time in the shower, when it was hanging heavily between his legs and you only caught a glimpse… apparently, that was him soft.
Keisuke hard is more impressive than any porn you’ve seen. So heavy that it can barely support its own weight, even with all the blood rushing through it, and so wide around even Keisuke, with his broad palms and lanky fingers, doesn’t dwarf it. 
A thick bead of pre slips out the tip, trailing along the bulging vein that disappears under Keisuke’s hand as he starts to stroke it.
“This… is where the others tapped out,” he says slowly, taking in the way you watch. “I mean—not that I’m thinking about them—but I just—“
“You’re big.”
Keisuke chokes on a laugh. “So I’ve heard. Pretty virgin like you wouldn’t know any better though, would you?”
You give him a withering glare. “I’ve sucked dick before, asshole. You’re big.”
Keisuke’s jaw clenches. “Yeah? Go on, then. Show me how you’ve sucked dick.”
Later, you’ll tease him for how jealous he got, and later, you’ll revel in the possessive way he determines to erase every other touch from your memory—but now, you obediently crawl towards him, one of your smaller hands overlapping his, and you take control.
You press a soft kiss to his flushed tip. It’s larger than your lips, his pre a salty gloss as you kiss again and again—Keisuke grips your hair. “Suck.”
It’s as much a plea as it is a command, one you can’t ignore. You take him,—just the tip—in your mouth, tongue swirling over his warm head as your hand replaces his on the rest of his dick. Your fingers barely touch, and no matter how you adjust, how you lay your palm or spread your fingers… there’s still at least an inch of him exposed.
He hisses, nearly drowning out the lewd, wet sound your pussy makes as it clenches around nothing.
“This—turning you on?” he says, as if his cock isn’t twitching obscenely against your tongue. “Fuckin—sucking on a big cock making you wet?”
You let go with a wet pop! and bat your eyelashes at him. You know exactly what you’re doing when you say, “No, Kei. I’m this wet ‘cause of you.”
With a groan, Keisuke pulls your head back to his dick and thrusts in, sliding as far as you’ll let him before you start to gag. “That’s—that’s it, sweetheart, get it nice and wet.”
He holds you there for a moment, waiting until you tap on his thigh before sliding out. Your eyes are teary, saliva dripping down the corner of your mouth. Deftly, you twist your wrist while catching your breath. His fingers go from knotting in your hair to petting the back of your head.
“You keep doing that, I’m gonna bust,” he warns, but his fond smile gives him away.
You merely smile. “Telling me you’ve never had your cock sucked, Kei?” 
His lip curls in a snarl, which disappears with a groan when you take him in your throat once more. Slowly, lips pursing around him, tongue flicking along the sensitive underside of his cockhead as you try going as far as you can. Your jaw is already starting to ache, but you’re determined to prove yourself.
“Not—like this,” he moans, pushing your head a little further down. Your lips split in a smile, and you raise your hand to start fondling his balls—a trick that’s always gotten you success before—but before you make contact, Keisuke is sliding out and grabbing your jaw. He’s breathing heavily, pupils blown out with lust. He stares at your lips then leans forward, not flinching at the taste of himself on you.
“Wanna fuck you now,” he mumbles. You wrap your arms around his neck and start to lean back, nodding.
“Want you to fuck me too,” you agree. One of Keisuke’s muscular thighs slides between your legs, easing them apart. He keeps kissing you, letting you fall softly against his pillows while he keeps stroking his member, slick with your spit.
He taps the tip of his cock against your clit. You hiss in surprise, eyes closing shut at the sudden sensation of pleasure that rushes through you. “Let me know if it hurts,” he says quietly. He grips his cock right beneath the head, guiding it through your slick folds, getting as much of your fluids on him as he can. 
He’s torn between needing to see the way you suck him in, and the need to squeeze his eyes shut. The sight of you alone, legs spread on either side, pussy gushing because of him, covering in marks because of him, mewling his name as you beg him to fuck you—it’s almost enough for him to cum on the spot. 
Faintly, honks echo from the street below. It’s amazing that in this instant, as your world is about to change forever and for the better, everyone else is going about their business like nothing’s happening. They’re catching a late-dinner with their partner; walking home from a late-night meeting that could’ve been an email; swinging by the grocer’s to pick up snacks and drinks to share with their friends… The whole world is continuing on, just beyond that window, but for you and Keisuke… it’s as if time’s stopped. 
The world is only real for the two of you.
He bends down to kiss you, making sure to pour every ounce of love and care he has into this one. You respond just as sweetly, reveling in the power of this moment, this one decision that will irrevocably tie you together forever, the way you were always meant to be.
He loves you, you love him, and there’s nothing else that matters.
“Ready?” he asks. You nod, then echo, “ready,” and he puts it in; just the tip, spearing past your tight hole. The two of you let out a synchronous gasp.
It’s even more than three of his fingers; warm, too, and thick, softer but also harder and full—you’re so, so, so full as he slowly edges in. It hurts—it feels good—it burns—you need more—
“Baby,” Keisuke pants. He’s let go of his cock, letting just the first inch or so rest comfortably within your walls. You feel him twitch, feel how tight his fingers dig into the sheets on either side of you so he doesn’t add more bruises to your ever-growing collection. “Baby, talk to me. Tell me—are you—are you okay?”
You whimper slightly when he sinks a little further. Eyes scrunching, your fingers digging into his thighs as you try to even your breath. “It—it’s so—“ you try saying, but it’s like you can feel him in your stomach, the pressure tightening all the way up your throat and cutting you off.
“So—good,” Keisuke gasps. He does the best he can, really, but you—you’re so—warm, and wet, and inviting—the place you’re joined might be the best thing he’s ever felt–ever seen. He slides a little further, presses a kiss to wherever he can reach as he waits until your chest stops heaving as horribly. He tries telling you he loves you, he really tries telling you how amazing you are, how perfect you are, how good you feel—but all that comes out are choked, half-sentences that fade into groans.
Tears prick at your lash line by the time he’s securely sheathed in you. Your fingers dig into his back, trying to pull him flush to your chest and bury his head in your neck so he can’t see. You know how he’ll feel; he’ll pull out and say he’s sorry, that he never meant to hurt you and it’s not worth it and he won’t try again–and that’s not what you want. You just need some time to adjust, that’s all. 
You never realized how empty you were.
Keisuke lifts up from the crook of your neck when the first tear slides against his cheek. “M’sorry,” he breathes, kissing one eye, then the other, licking the tear tracks and kissing you again. “M’sorry, I don’t wanna hurt—“ His arms shake on either side of you. The urge to start shifting his hips is sinful, but he doesn’t. He can’t, not until you're okay, not until you tell him it’s okay.
“It’s—okay,” you breathe. Your face says otherwise, but really… it’s okay. You play with the hair at the nape of his neck, offering him a little smile as you shift your hips ever-so-slightly against his. “I’m—I’m okay, baby, really. Just—just go slow.”
Keisuke kisses you. Slowly, deeply, spreading your lips with his as he gently pulls out and slides back in, heeding your directive to go slow. It hurts, it still hurts, is it supposed to hurt like this—but right when you’re about to give up, right when you’re about to tell him it's too much and maybe you should stop… it starts to feel good.
Not just full, but satisfying, bumping against the back of your messy cunt with every stroke. The ridge of his cockhead catches your insides in a way that makes your toes curl, and before long, your legs are wrapping around his waist, pulling him closer.
“Gods—fuck, Kei, fuck—“ you hiss, burying your head in his shoulder, biting his collarbone to keep yourself from screaming. “Just—there, like that, don’t—fuck—“
“Thought you said you were a virgin,” he hisses. Your broken pleas of, I am, I am, I am—go unrecognized as he slowly picks up speed. “Virgin pussy—heh—always feel this—fuckin’ good?”
You moan, loud and unreserved, nails digging into the muscle of his shoulders. Your stomach burns. Your pussy clenches, but for the first time, there’s finally something to hold on to, finally something to fill you up—you’ve never been so full, never felt so good. The coil tightens in your stomach, made all the more tense by the fact there’s something inside— “Gonna— gonna cum, Kei, don’t—don’t stop, please—“
“Yeah, sweetheart? You gonna—gonna cum for me? Go on, cum f’me. Cum on my cock, baby, show me what we’ve been—been waitin’ for—“
You cry when your orgasm finally washes over you.
You’ve never climaxed this powerfully before, to the point that you’ve felt like—this. The world is empty besides the two of you. Bells ring in your ear as you struggle to keep your eyes open, your whole body floating. You feel everything and nothing; like you’re weightless but have never been so heavy in your life.
You gasp for air, fingers digging into Keisuke’s shoulders as his hips stutter a few more times then still. His moans into your ear as his own orgasms consumes him, painting your insides white, shooting so much it drips out of your spent pussy and starts to puddle between you.
He stays there for a moment. Lets his lips trace lazy patterns beneath your ear, still half-hard inside you, one hand gripping the back of your neck and the other holding your breast. Even though you’re spent, your hands delicately trail up and down his spine. Your breathing is heavy and your smile bright and you think you could stay right here forever.
The plastic stars one his ceiling smile down at you, and you imagine the ones outside are doing the same. ‘About time!’ they seem to say. After all these years, about time. There’s a shrill whistle of bus brakes, screeching to a halt; a muffled shout from one pedestrian to another. The fan creaks slightly, the cool air washing over you and helping calm the raging fire on your skin. The clock on Keisuke’s lopsided nightstand, made even with a stack of textbooks he never got to put to use, beeps at midnight: the end of one day, the start of forever.
Kei takes a deep breath and slides off, hissing as his sensitive cock is exposed to the cool air of his bedroom. He lays on his back, taking a hand and placing it over his eyes as he tries to calm his racing heart.
Your legs are sticky. They’re already getting sore. Your hips ache, your spine stretches, your chest burns—but you relish it. Kei’s breathing evens beside you. 
Glancing, you check if he’s asleep—but with the way his forearm covers his eyes, you can’t tell. He looks even more like an angel now. Light, from a city just waking up, creeps past the curtains, illuminating slivers of his pale and flushed skin. He looks–relaxed. Content, even with the blush still coloring his high cheeks bones. His lips are parted, shallow gasps of air being sucked through them, but the longer you look, the more it looks like they’re curling in a smile.
His chest rises and falls steadily, and just when you start to think he might actually be asleep, the hand beneath your neck starts playing with your hair.
“Think it’s—always this good?” he asks breathlessly, pulling you in a little closer.
You pretend to think. He tilts his head, cracking an eye to look down at you curiously. You smile. “I don’t know. Think we better try again—y’know, just to be sure.”
Kei barks out a laugh and pulls you to his chest, looking at you like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. And right now, with the gentle light filtering through his open window, sweaty and smiling and with his cum dripping from between your legs to make a mess of his thigh, you are.
You play with the edges of his hair, sprawled lazily across his sweaty forehead. With a soft smile, he reaches for your fingers and pulls them to his lips. “Do you actually like it? My haircut, I mean. Pretty sure you liked the other stuff.”
You answer with a laugh, pressing a kiss to where the edges fall. “I love it.”
He grins and rolls over, pinning you to the mattress. The short locks make a curtain, hiding the two of you from anything but each other. “Good. Did it f’you.”
“For me?”
He hums and buries his face in your neck, delicately kissing the bruising skin. “Noticed your type. None of them had long hair, ’n I thought…”
With a pealing laugh, you grab his cheeks and bring his face to yours, smothering him with kisses. “Keisuke, you are such an idiot.”
He pretends to frown, but kisses you all the same. “Weren’t calling me that when I was making you scream earlier.”
“Kei,” you say, forcing him back so you can really meet his eyes, “short hair, long hair. No hair. The only kind of guy I’ve ever truly wanted has been you.”
Keisuke blinks. Short, thick lashes bat against those endlessly high cheekbones of his, and then he smiles. He lowers his lips to yours once more and gifts you a kiss; deep, slow. A kiss that’s been years in the making, that says all that your words have and then some.
“I love you,” he says, and you barely have time to say the same before he’s kissing you, hardening cock easily gliding back through your sticky folds, and you go for round two.
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So... happy adventuring :) thank you for reading! if you made it this far… pls reblog, drop a comment, or leave an ask if you enjoyed!! I worked really, really hard on this, and it would mean the absolute world to me that, if y’all enjoyed it, you told me why. if you hated it, tell me why. if i made you cry or scream or fall in love or fierce fiercely full of disappointed rage, tell me why!! i won’t bite (unless you ask)!
hopefully the next adventure gets even better. thanks for reading!
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mikathewriter · 2 months
Text
*.✧୨⎯ Writeblr Intro⎯୧✧.*
Here you will find: writing tips, writing advice, WIP sharing, tag games about WIPs or OCs, random reblogs about the stuff I like and original writing.
About me:
Hi! My name is Mika and my pronouns are she/they. I don't really like to fit into a category of gender, and maybe that makes me agender? But I don't feel like defining that either. Anyways, I don't really mind "male" slang being used toward me, like "dude" or "man". I'm just Mika. That's it!
I've been writing since I can remember. I was born to tell stories and my dream is to have a book of mine published. My favorite genres are fantasy, thriller, sci-fi, dystopia, romance and horror;
I don't really enjoy reading fanfics and I never wrote them, but I don't think it's bad or anything like that. On the contrary, I feel like it's something that makes many great writers shine! However if you want me to read something you made, I'd prefer your original work!
Having said that, I am very chat friendly! Hit me up on the DMs, interact with me, I love all of it! If you need a beta reader or if you just want someone to read what you have already published, please please please let me know! I adore reading original work and I'll do my best to read it regularly and give my thoughts on it (if you ask for it of course);
More under the cut!
Random facts about me:
I'm from Brazil!
I'm also an artist but I don't really draw anymore... But many of my characters got drawings made by me and I might post them!
I'm an ISFP Chaotic Good Bisexual;
I have OCD (feel free to ask questions about it);
I also am a Dungeon Master, but I prefer being called a Game Master, because I'm not really big on the dungeons and dragons;
I love videogames, but my favorites are Resident Evil, The Last of Us and Night in the Woods;
My favorite color is green and I love opossums :D
\/\/\/\/\....../\/\/\/\........./\/\/\/\/\/\...../\/
MY WIPS
> Shards
Synopsis: Thousands of shards of glass don't work like pieces in a puzzle. They are broken, chipped and permanently damaged. Therefore, fractured minds and broken hearts are irreparable. Shards are just small fragments of incomplete storries, forever lonely.
They are horror stories and I recommend you check the TW before reading them. Stay safe!
> All the Other Colors Drowned (ATOCD)
Synopsis: After a trauma that granted her the strange ability to see the auras of those around her, 19-year-old Maya finds herself trying to start her adult life by joining an art club.
Living with OCD, synesthesia and all the various issues that come with adulthood, she now also needs to find out more about Cassandra, a girl from said club with an aura unlike any she has ever seen before.
All the Other Colors Drowned will be unveiled in this Brazilian sapphic romance, where two lost girls finally find themselves in each other.
> Untitled
No Synopsis yet, it's my biggest project and it's probably going to take years to be complete, but it's a Fantasy with a Fae World, where a girl has lost her little brother years ago and will do anything to find him.
\/\/\/\/\....../\/\/\/\........./\/\/\/\/\/\...../\/
And finally
BIG YES TO:
Being tagged in tag games or interaction posts;
Getting asks about whatever;
Talking on the DMs about whatever;
Listening to you talk about your WIPs and OCs or seeing your drawings;
DNF IF:
You are a TERF or perform any kind of bigotry. You are NOT welcome here and this is a very safe space for LGBTQ+ people.
I will probably not follow if:
You post about religion. I have OCD and Religious Trauma and I will not be looking for a trigger. Made up religions for your books are okay, though.
Be kind and stay humble ♡
And thank you if you read all this! ~Mwa
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greenerteacups · 2 months
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Hi! I am an ardent fan of your writing, and I hope to be as sorted and planned as you some day in my own writing journey.
My question is: you have a keen eye when it comes to planning character personality, dynamics, and such. I've also been wading through your ask replies, and your insights into how you write people and how you make them play off of each other is so wonderful to read. If it's not too personal a q, how did you learn how to write like this? Did you go to school for writing, does it come from years of observing people, do you have reading list recs for "how to write real people and real interactions"?
Thanks! This is a really flattering question. I'll try to answer it honestly, because I wish someone had been brutally honest about this with me when I was a young writer.
I didn't go to school for writing. I started doing it when I was about nine years old. It sucked very badly. I kept writing throughout high school, and it still mostly sucked, but some of it was occasionally interesting. ("Interesting" here does not mean "good," by the way.) I took a break in college, and then came back. I've been writing ever since. Sometimes, I feel good about it. A lot of the time, I don't!
I hate giving this advice, because I remember how it feels to get it, and it's the most uninspiring, boring-ass, dog shit advice you can get, but it's also the only advice that is 100% unequivocally true: you have to write, and specifically, you have to write things that suck.
I do not mean that you should make things that suck on purpose. I mean that you have to sit down and try your absolute hardest to make something good. You have to put in the hours, the elbow grease, the blood, sweat, and tears, and then you have to read it over and accept that it just totally sucks. There is no way around this, and you should be wary of people who tell you there is. There is no trick, no rule, no book you can buy or article you can read, that will make your writing not suck. The best someone else can do is tell you what good writing looks like, and chances are, you knew that anyway — after all, you love to read. You wouldn't be trying to do this if you didn't. And anyone who says they can teach you to write so good it doesn't suck at first is either lying to you, or they have forgotten how they learned to write in the first place.
So the trick is to sit there in the miserable doldrums of Suck, write a ton, and learn to like it. Because this is the phase of your path as an artist when you find what it is you love about writing, and it cannot be the chance to make "good writing." This will be the thing that bears you through and compels you to keep going when your writing is shit, i.e., the very thing that makes you a writer in the first place. So find that, and you've got a good start.
Some people know this, but assume that perseverance as a writer is about trying to get to the point where you don't suck anymore. This is not true, and it is an actively dangerous lie to tell young writers. You are not aiming to feel like your writing doesn't suck. You are aiming to write. You are aiming to have written. Everything else is dust and rust. And of course, you'll find things you like about your pieces, you'll find things you're proud of, you'll learn to love the things you've made. But that little itch of self-criticism, in the back of your brain — the one that cringes when you read a clunky line, or thinks of a better character beat right after it's far too late to change — that's never going away. That's the Writer part of you. Read Kafka, read Dickens, read Tolstoy, you will find diary entries where they lament how absolutely fucking atrocious their writing was, and how angry they are that they can't do better. A good writer hates their sentences because they can always imagine better ones. And the ability to imagine a better sentence is what's going to make you pick up the pen again tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that.
Which is what I mean, and probably what all those other annoying, preachy advice-givers mean, when we say: a good writer is just someone who writes every day. It's that easy, and that hard.
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howtofightwrite · 1 year
Note
Hello! I have a very particular sort of scene that I've been trying to get right for over ten years now and I can't make it work; I hope perhaps you can help.
A husband and wife duo who have Mixed Feelings about one another are trying to break out of a facility. (He was recently discovered to be a spy, she is a conscripted soldier in the facility. She was sent to escort him to execution but hesitated - I'm not sure where, in the cell, in the hall? - and - he took advantage of this hesitation? she was arrested as a traitor? - I don't know that either, yet - and they end up running through the halls together to escape)
The facility is vaguely sci-fi; think Star Wars Original Trilogy-style weapons, and there is space travel, but technology isn't... wildly advanced. Like it's not all digital and holograms and hand-wavey stuff, it's only a little more advanced than what we have available now. (Like SW OT.)
Point A is them in the cell. Point B is them on a spaceship breaking free.
I cannot get them from Point A to Point B with any kind of plausibility, or without staggering incompetence on the part of the soldiers and commanders in the facility.
They would likely be armed with only her sidearm, unless they happened to grab rifles off of further escorts sent with her?
I'm sorry this is so vague, thank you in advance for any help!
Personally, I’m of the opinion that any scene that’s been marinating in the brain for a long time (especially for years) has deeper structural/internal issues than just putting together action. Just from reading your question, I can feel the way you’ve laid this specific scenario out breaking your own suspension of disbelief. You’ve got several problems that have built up over time and, now, they’re all working against you.
Change if it’s Not Working
One of the best pieces of writing advice I ever got came from being forced to memorize my martial arts school’s Ten Steps to Mastery as part of my first test for black belt. I only remember the first five and I can’t guarantee they’re all in order.
Set a goal
Take action
Pay attention to detail
Practice, Practice, Practice
Change if it’s not working
Regardless of whether you’re practicing a front kick or writing a full length novel, flexibility is important. The more we try to force something to work, the less likely it will. Training flaws into your technique means they’ll be more difficult to correct later. So, don’t forget to stop and look at the larger picture if you feel yourself getting stuck.
Remember, change isn’t failure. Writing is a complex process and not every idea, plotline, character moment, or scene is going to work out when fit into a larger context. And that’s okay.
Outside emotional exhaustion and stress, my writer’s block kicks in when I’ve taken a wrong turn in the narrative or am avoiding a difficult emotional moment that my characters need to face before their story can progress. Something has made me/them uncomfortable and instead of facing it, I’m attempting to avoid the uncomfortable feeling by throwing some other distracting piece, usually action, in the way. I call these moments false notes. I usually hit them when I’m coming at the story from an external perspective (what have I seen other characters do in other stories/films?) rather than an internal one. (What would this character do?)
If something isn’t working, stop trying to make it work. Instead look for what you’re missing, and where the pieces aren’t connecting. It’s usually further back than the scene you’re working on.
My characters are always right. I’m either not listening or going about it the wrong way.
Food for thought.
Your Heroes are Reactively Active
We hear a lot from the writing community about the importance of Active Characters. These are characters who are doing things to move the plot forward. They make choices. They take action. Then, there are passive or, what I like to call, reactive characters. They are characters who react to things in their environment, whatever that is, but they’re not actively making choices. Passive characters get a bad rap in American storytelling tradition (more so than in the wider Western storytelling tradition.)
Passive characters really shine when working with characters who are in settings where they’re struggling to survive. In the real world, passivity is one of the best ways to survive abuse. Any victim of long term or systemic abuse can tell you that standing up and fighting back, especially in situations where you have no power or means to change your circumstances, makes the situation exponentially worse. You’ve got to gray rock it out, suppress, and survive.
Lastly, there are characters I like to call reactively active. These are characters who feel like they’re being active but are actually just reacting to actions taken by other characters. They appear a lot in YA Fantasy, but they’re everywhere. And, because these characters are always reacting to another character’s (usually the villain’s) actions and choices, they get an easy out when it comes to escaping narrative consequences for the things they do. It’s a deceptive sleight of hand used to maintain a character’s moral purity. These characters appear active on the surface, but, underneath, they’re passively reacting to the narrative events inflicted on them. They don’t take action. They respond to action with action.
Let’s get back to your scenario.
We have a husband and wife in some sort of heavily or, at least, decently fortified, military installation. The husband has been outed as a spy, put in whatever functions as a prison or holding cell within the complex, and scheduled to be executed. The wife is a loyal soldier who must now choose between her love for her husband and her love of duty.
This has the makings of some good drama.
The first obvious problem point is that these characters are trying to do too many things at once. They’re coming to terms with their deep feelings of betrayal, experiencing a last minute change of heart, making a snap decision to escape, and rapidly coming up with a plan to escape in the heat of the moment. If this feels unbelievable, it’s because it is and, even better, doubles for putting the characters in a reactive or passive state. The wife character isn’t acting, so much as she’s reacting last minute to the immediate, impending danger. That would be fine if she wasn’t also having to help carry the burden of coming up with The Plan.
There’s the surface level here, where the last minute change of heart is mimicking the kinds of behavior seen in countless other forms of media regarding escape scenes. However, this narrative decision happening in the heat of the moment is also allowing the character to skate over the emotional consequences of her own betrayal. She’s not choosing so much as she’s being forced to make a choice. And that is removing her agency.
If she makes the choice earlier, starts putting The Plan in place with the help of some friends/colleagues (even if it happens largely off page) then executes at the cell, she takes back her agency and retains her status as an active character.
The difference here is in the processing time. Characters can’t plausibly escape fortified lock up without a plan or, really, The Plan.
The Narrative Structure of Last Minute Rescues
The first problem in your scenario is that you have two characters, neither of which are doing the pre-planning legwork required to successfully execute The Plan. Rescues are like heists, they either take a village or require characters who are extremely meticulous and actively manipulating the village to fill in the gaps. (James Bond does Option 2 beautifully, but even he has a team behind him.) Usually, both happen to some degree. The burden is segregated out into different pieces for different characters. Normally, there’s at least three. The character locked up is trying to figure out a way to escape, but comes up short. The one on the outside who is putting together the pieces needed to execute the rescue/get away. And, sometimes, the one on the inside who is experiencing a change of heart, who, at the very last minute, turns heel and assists with the rescue (most often in the turn of misfortune where a piece fails and the rescue is at risk of being bungled.)
All of this additional weight/build up/expectation of the non-existent plan is being put on two characters and crammed into a single scene.
Think about the rescue of Princess Leia from the Death Star for a moment. How many characters are required to make that escape work?
Seven.
All of them. If a single character in the entire group is missing, the whole thing falls apart. Even Threepio is necessary, mostly because Artoo can’t talk. This off the cuff, by the seat of our pants rescue requires all seven characters and they still end up bungling it to kill their samurai master.
You need one to turn off the tractor beam so they can actually escape. (Doing the real work.)
You need one to figure out where the princess is being held, unlock the doors, and figure out where they are.
You need two to bullshit past the guards going in and one to pretend to be a prisoner.
You need one to bullshit past the guards a second time to save the one that can’t talk with the floor plan.
You need the princess to be the one to get them back out because she’s the only one with balls.
And none of it mattered because the escape was a trap all along.
While you don’t need these specific roles for everything, escaping from a heavily fortified facility is not a two man job. That’s where the feelings of implausibility and extreme incompetence are coming from. There aren’t enough characters helping to clear the way or be there as a safeguard for when things go wrong. This feeds into the next problem.
Soldiers, Spies, and Their Squads
We have another unintended scenario brewing at the same time. And that’s the exhausted retail employee going on a rampage and slaughtering their surprised colleagues. This really knifes your tension. By reacting to the immediate danger, the wife is not making an active, conscious choice with full knowledge of the consequences, and those consequences are killing people she knows, respects, is friends with, shares a camaraderie, or who are at least familiar to her. These other soldiers aren’t faceless goons. It’s a lot harder to pull the trigger on someone you know than someone you don’t, especially someone who has the same values that you do.
Soldiers aren’t characters who work alone. They have a squad. They’re part of a unit. They have a support network surrounding them that allows them to do their job to the best of their ability. Spies are the same way. They also have a support network which allows them to act to the best of their ability, even when it feels like they’re acting alone. Spies have handlers and they have assets, their job requires they build their own support networks so they have someone who can get into the places where they can’t. Those people may be witting or unwitting assets but they’re still there.
Both of these characters should have fairly extensive support networks to fall back on when in crisis. They’re in crisis. The crisis is both physical and emotional. Where are their people? Two characters who are social archetypes whose jobs and survival during wartime are reliant on building trust and skillful communication have no one willing to put their lives on the line to help them out? They only have each other? That’s staggering incompetence.
Spies aren’t assassins. They’re social animals. Soldiers aren’t lone wolves. They’re social animals. If there’s a structural failure here, it’s happening with your secondary characters.  Ignoring the importance of secondary characters is a mistake that a lot of new writers make and I can feel those early mistakes being carried forward in this scene. This is what Hemingway meant when he said, “kill your darlings.” If an idea isn’t working, if it’s holding you back, kill it. Look at the problem and your work from a new angle. One good line or one good scene, regardless of your emotional attachment to it, doesn’t outweigh the entire work.
Plans and Floor Plans
If you’re having trouble coming up with a character’s escape, step back and take a look at the facility itself. Whether it’s breaking in or breaking out, you, the author, need to have a clear visualization of the entire picture so you can find the weaknesses or fracture points.
Plans are easier to conceptualize when you know what the dangers are and what defenses have been put in place to prevent what your characters are attempting. Which parts of the fortress are better fortified than others? Where does this military expect to be attacked? What have they done to prevent it? What are the patrols? Who are the techs? How does the military support itself while fending off attempts to damage its resources? Who handles the supply lines?
The boring minutiae of your world is what makes it feel real. Action is dependent on your world building and this goes deeper than just their weapons. The social systems in place guide how your characters fight. It’s there in how they perceive their environment, and how they recognize usable tools. If you build a functional and consistent world, the action will take care of itself because violence is a natural response to environmental threats. Violence seeks to exploit established systems, to gain an advantage over them. If the violence is imagined separately from the environment, the violence won’t feel real because it’s not reactive and it’s not reacting to environmental stimuli. From there, it’s not logical.
Ask yourself, why do we use guns?
Then ask yourself, why do your characters use guns? What does it allow them to do that they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise? Or, what does the gun do better than other weapons that makes it the preferred choice?
The answer for the real world and your setting might be the same, and they might be different. Both will influence how the character uses their weapon. How they use their weapon guides how they fight. If you’re lost, ask yourself questions.
For example, let’s take a last look at the prison.
Prisons are built with the expectation of keeping multiple people contained for an extended period of time, preventing them from leaving in the event of an escape, and preventing those who are sympathetic from breaking in to rescue them. What have the characters in your setting (not your protagonists) done to facilitate that goal? What safeguards have been put in place to prevent someone from leaving and entering?
In the real world, prisons are built in a way that two people can’t just walk out. There are points of entry and exit that are designed to be remotely controlled from secure locations and cannot be operated or accessed on the ground. You’d need someone (like R2-D2) who can access the remote functions to get someone past the exits that they can’t open themselves.
-Michi
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aceofwhump · 4 months
Note
Dear Ace,
I need some advice. I’ve been a whump lover for as long as I can remember and I’ve been lurking around this community for some time now but I’m still having some trouble with feeling the need to hide my love of whump. I like to write but hardly ever do because all my ideas center heavily around physical whump scenarios. I have the hardest time putting pen to paper because once I do, it’s out there….and what if someone accidentally reads it and realizes how dark my mind is?!?
Intellectually I know that’s ridiculous. I live alone and the chances of someone accidentally stumbling over my writing are practically zero and even if they somehow do, it’s a creative outlet right?
But I still can’t seem to manage actually writing any of it down.
Any words of wisdom about how to get over this hold up and be able to write the stories in my head? Thanks in advanced.
Signed,
Anxious Writer.
Hi nonny <3 Sorry for my slow response.
What you feel is incredibly common amongst the whump community. Incredibly common. You are not alone in these feelings. And just like you're not alone in feeling weird or uncomfortable about your love of whump you're also not alone in loving whump. There's sooooo many of us here with you and you are welcome in this community. Your work would be welcomed in this space. It really helped me finding out that there are sooo many people out there who love the same kind of stuff I do. So know you're not alone.
It took me a while to become comfortable with sharing my writing and my rambles and general love of whump as well. One thing that helped me is knowing I sharing it in a loving space of fellow whump lovers. So I made sure to tag it so that other whump lovers found it and that non whump lovers who have the tag blocked won't see it. Tagging is a really great way to get your work into the right fandom spaces (both with AO3 and tumblr).
I also share the fear that someone I know will find my writing. My mom especially can NEVER find it because she will not understand it at all. So when I do write I make sure I'm doing in the safety and seclusion of my bedroom where no one can see my computer screen. I don't write when I'm in the same room as my family. Not unless I'm 100% sure they can't see my screen. So another piece of advice I can offer is to create a secluded space for yourself where you can write without worry that someone will see it. I don't know if that's the best advice but it's something that makes me feel more comfortable when I write whump. My sister knows I write whump fanfics just like I know she writes smut but we've made an agreement to never go seeking each others profiles or reading each others fics. Just for our own comfort levels. We don't judge each other but knowing the other wont see what our minds come up with makes us feel better.
And I know it's hard to get over the hump of thinking what you want to write is dark and bad but I promise it is not bad to want to write whump. Tons and tons of people write whump. And not just the hundreds aof fanfic writers either! Look at the stuff written by Stephen King or Mike Flanagan. They're praised for their whump writing.
Another piece of advice I can offer that helped me start to share my work is to create a blog/space made specifically for your whump. As soon as I made this blog I immediately felt more at ease sharing my love of whump because I knew I could keep it separate from my real life and keep it as anonymous as I'd like. If you'd like you could create a whump sideblog and post your work there. Try with something small like a drabble in answer to a prompt post. I did that. I wrote a short little thing that fit a prompt post I liked and i got such a nice response from the community it made me feel more confident with sharing more of my writing. Is there a prompt you've seen that gave some inspiration? Go ahead and try sharing your response! See how it feels!
I hope something here helps you nonny. I know it can be hard but we'd love to read your work! Everyone has something unique to offer and teh more whump the better! This community is really nice and we'd love to have you <3
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bettsfic · 11 months
Note
Currently working on my first novel and I feel like this dreaded sense of fear of being terrible. I’m critiquing everything and I’m only on chapter one. I feel like I’m not getting my characters tone write when it comes to writing the exteriority aspects of the book. I also feel like that I won’t ever be able to keep up with my goals: Like wanting to write 3-4 books a year. I just feel this crippling sense of pressure and like my process it wrong.
Do you have any tips? Desperately need some.
i've been a writing coach for a long time now and i've helped a lot of people write their first novels. in fact i would say most of my clients come to me wanting to write a novel. so my advice to you is the same as my advice to them: reframe your goals.
the problem is in the question: "i just feel this crippling sense of pressure." sitting down to write a novel is like stepping outside your front door one day and trying to run a marathon. sure, there are a few people in the world who can run 26 miles and it's just another tuesday, just like there are a few people in the world who can sit down and write a novel. but most people who have a goal of running a marathon have to train for it a long time by running a 5k, then a 10k, and so on.
writing 1 novel is hard. expecting yourself to write 3-4 a year is setting yourself up for failure. the only writers who write 3-4 novels a year are ones who stick to rigid genre formulas they enjoy writing repeatedly. because they write so quickly, their prose is generally fairly stock. i don't want to put down writers who write like this. everybody's gotta make money. but you'll never write your best work writing 4 novels a year. your best work will come from writing 1 novel 4 times.
i know hundreds of writers, i've taught hundreds of writers, and not one of them attempts 3-4 novels a year. exceptionally few can write 1 novel a year. the most famous, well-regarded authors i've ever worked with have only one or two books published. writing is a long con. the longest con.
a lot of times, that perfectionistic voice that critiques everything and keeps you from writing exists because you still need to practice the iterative process. by that i mean, writing a piece of fiction and revising it to the best version of itself over months or maybe years. learning that process takes a long time, and an even longer time for recovering perfectionists.
i think you should work on a short story instead of a novel. it's a lot easier to revise 5k words than 50k. the most important skill in developing your process is learning how it feels when something is done, when you've made it the best thing it can be. once you feel that enough times, you'll have the patience to write longer and longer work, and rewrite and revise that work as many times as you need to.
because we as readers only ever see published novels, i think it's easy to get sucked into success bias. you go into a bookstore and it's like, wow look at all these books that people have managed to write! but beyond those books are billions of words unpublished and maybe unread. thankfully i have no such success bias to offer.
in 2015, i sat down to write my first original novel thinking i would finish it and publish it within a year or two. i got about 10k into it and gave up. in 2016, i switched directions and wrote my first short story. in 2017, i got it published. i wrote a few more stories and got a few more publications, and in the process racked up hundreds of rejections. in 2018, i finished my first novel. in 2019, i queried it to agents and discovered it was unpublishable. i finished a short story collection that year and queried that instead. in 2020, i signed an agent with it. she gave me feedback and i revised it. in 2021, she sent it out for submission and it didn't get picked up. in 2022, i finished another novel, but it totally missed the mark and i think i have to just toss it and move on. now in 2023, i've (nearly) finished what i hope will be my actual debut novel. if it gets picked up (huge if), it'll be published around 2025, ten years after i set out to write my first novel. but it may also not get picked up at all, and i'll have to start over again, and it'll be another ten or twenty or thirty years before any of my work sees the light of day.
i'm not telling you this to deter you. in fact my path is not particularly conventional, but i'm also writing stuff that's difficult (nearly impossible) to market. what i'm saying is, what if instead of 3-4 novels a year, your goal was one novel in 10 years? but not just any novel--your best novel. the novel you can look back on and say, that's everything i've ever wanted to write and share with the world. in 50 years, would you rather look back and find 5 pieces of your absolute best work, things you've crafted with so much thought and love and care that they're part of you? or 200 novels, a quantity so large that most of it you can't even remember writing.
in all creative endeavors, you have to seek joy. you have to write selfishly, write the things that give you the most life. the stories you absolutely need to tell. and to do that, you have to lower the stakes, constrain your goals. you have to play like a little kid in a sandbox of words. your goal on monday: one sentence you're proud of. maybe that takes 100 sentences to find. your goal this month: a paragraph you love so much you want to read it over and over again. your goal this year: a chapter, or maybe an outline, or a completed study in an aspect of craft you're interested in improving. keep it small. seek what you find beautiful. appease only yourself.
i wrote a newsletter about reconceiving the perception of project that you might find helpful. i'm hoping to write soon about reconceiving the idea of Being A Writer, which will hopefully also be relevant.
best of luck to you on your writing journey.
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hoolay-boobs · 1 year
Note
MAAAARIIIIII
I need your help.
Ok so, How to write?
I told you that I write, right? Well actually I didn't write them properly. I wrote them in screenplay format.. Now I want to write them properly but I don't know how 😭😭 my mind is blank.. Even when I manage to think up on how to write, it's so shit.. I have so many ideas but I have no clue on how the heck am I supposes to put them out.. Do you have any advice? How do you usually write? Please help.
*casually implodes* alright. Okay. Excellent.
This just might be the best ask I’ve ever received. I’ve always wanted to teach others how to write, I’m really passionate about writing stuff, and I’m majoring in education in university rn, so I sure hope I can answer this well lmao
But, nevertheless, I finally have the opportunity:
✨ Mari’s Writing Crash Course that I may or may not have composed while tipsy: a short guide to novel formatting ✨
There’s only, truly, three factors that are the most noticeably important: Formatting, Dialogue and Writing Voice.
You said you’ve been writing in screenplay format? Immaculate. You’re already halfway there. If you know how to write ANYTHING (short stories, novels, screenplays) you already- hopefully- understand the basis of composing stories. Character arcs, plot lines, worldbuilding, etc. I’m not getting into ANY of that, bc your ask referred to formatting and formatting only. I gotcha luv.
The Step One: The Key to Novel Formatting
You’ve already written in screenplay format before. That’s great. You’re already, like, more than halfway there. I’ve tried screenplaying before, but I never got that far in. Not my best medium.
I’m assuming what you’ve worked on before looks like this (format wise, not content wise lmao)
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Caps lock indication, space down, and dialogue.
Well here’s the neat thing: novel writing, while very different from screenplays, is much closer to screenplays with more detail:
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Caps lock indication, italicized setup, space down, and dialogue.
OTHER THAN describing the camera angles, this has very similar content to a novel: describing portions (sometimes equal portions, usually not) of both dialogue and descriptions.
So! Remove the caps lock indication on who’s speaking, make that italicized setup into the flow of a paragraph, remove all the stuff on camera angles, and put that dialogue under quotation marks.
Now it looks like this:
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OH WOW! IT LOOKS LIKE A NOVEL NOW!!
Don’t overthink it: you just take your same thoughts from your screenplay format, and then… transfer it. Piece of cake 🍰
The sub-category of Part One; Part One Extended I guess: Present or Past Tense
What tense do you want your novel to be written in? Present tense? Past tense?
I used to say, “ ALL books are written in past tense. Because as the reader, we’re looking into a story that has already been written. If a book is in present tense, that means the story is unfolding, that means the author is writing it while we’re reading it, and that’s impossible since we’re holding the copy of the book in our hands. NO books should be written in present tense 😡👎”
And then I opened up The Hunger Games and saw it was in present tense.
So it looks like I’m just wildly wrong about that.
I will say tho, most books are written in past tense. And that might, or might not, be more comfortable for the reader and writer. However, it is up you. Contrary to my former opinion, there is no right or wrong tense for your book to be in.
Here is a visual guide:
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Once you pick one, though, stick with it. Jumping between past and present these, UNLESS it’s for any stylistic choice (character’s flashbacks, time travelling, etc.) will most likely be awkward to read.
The Step Two: The Importance of properly formatting dialogue
Quotation marks go THROUGHOUT a sentence.
“Why don’t you guys go look at my taco salad post” and “she said” is all ONE BIG SENTENCE.
“Why don’t you guys go look at my taco salad post.” She said. ❌
“Why don’t you guys go look at my taco salad post,” she said. ✅
Each dialogue before the end of the sentence completes with a comma instead of a period. Exclamation marks and question marks can be used in whatever dialogue format, since they’re tone indicators. There aren’t strict rules for tone indicators.
Commas and periods aren’t really tone indicators, so there’s a quick key on how to write that stuff:
Remember, if dialogue ends with a “she said” “she exclaimed” “she spoke” etc. etc. etc. it’ll be part of the same sentence. But, if dialogue ends with an action “she walked to the door” “she took a forkful of that taco salad” etc. etc. etc. it’ll be an entirely new sentence.
THIS is what it looks like:
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Also, not every set of dialogue needs to have an end quote to it. This is what that looks like:
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I mean, you could but brackets in dialogue. But I just want to warn you: I read a book like that, can’t recall the author’s name, and it distracted me greatly from the characters, plot, atmosphere, etc. I’d stay away from that.
The Step Three: The Writing Voice
So what is narrative voice, anyways?
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This is essentially how you form your entire story. The tone, emotion, and descriptions of your story.
I know, I know, the idea that every single word you use reveals your writing style might sound daunting, but trust me, writing voice comes naturally. As long as you let it come naturally.
Essentially: people who know you really well, your closest friends and family, who recognize your quirks, your colloquialisms, and your speech patterns, will most likely recognize your writing style. Because it will sound like you.
And that’s all writing voice is. Your own style. Even this answer I typed out for your ask, it’s in my writing style. It’s in my voice. It’s a blend of eloquent words, long sentences, and a dash of humour here and there. My novel, albeit sounding obviously much different than me making a post on tumblr, also sounds like this. To an extent.
You write like how you speak, even if you’re writing from a specific character’s perspective.
An example is Rick Riordan’s writing sounds wildly different from Becky Chamber’s writing. Even though they’re both talented and hard working, excellent writers. Every book looks different Every book sounds different. Every book feels different.
So, how do you find your own writing style?
Of course, a published novel of yours will sound different than your personal diary. But, those differences aside, they both have your voice. So let yourself speak, let yourself write.
Your story is going directly from your brain, to your laptop screen, or pen and paper, or whatever. Let yourself get into it. Sometimes I read what I’m writing out loud. Sometimes I don’t. Do not overthink your writing voice, or try to force your novel to sound more formal, or more casual, or more poetic, or more or less descriptive, or more wordy. Just let it be.
The more you write, and the more drafts you create, you’ll find your writing voice without even needing to search around for it.
There is a website called, I Write Like This. You can copy and paste passages of your writing, a few hundred words at a time if you want, and it’ll analyze your flow of descriptions, dialogue, punctuation, and match it up with whatever famous author your voice sounds similar to.
I copy and pasted my entire second chapter, a few thousand words, and this is my badge:
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My writing voice is similar to our beloved @neil-gaiman . Of course, our writing voice is not identical, as no two authors ever are, but the flow of the writing, the mood, the tone, the energy… it’s a little bit on the same page.
The bonus step four: write shit 💩
You said you write shit?
Good.
Write shit.
This is odd advice to give, I know. But when I say write shit, I mean as a start.
If you had sent an ask saying, “I’ve NEVER touched a pen, paper, or laptop in my life, I don’t know how to write!!” I’d be… daunted. Not an impossible task, but a daunting one. Just slightly harder to get into, slightly harder to give advice for.
I’d much rather you write like shit than not write at all. The hierarchy goes like this:
Good writing >>> shit writing >>> not writing at all.
I can’t remember where I heard this from, but to quote, “you can edit a poorly written page, but you can’t edit a blank page”.
So go, my lovely Sana. Be free. Write all the shit in the world. Fill up your pages. Get writers cramp. Get writers block. Recover from writers block. Make typos. Make messes. Write glorious, delicious, silly, stupid, and beautiful things. Your first draft is not supposed to be perfect. The time will come for pristine, polished, ready-to-be-published writing, and you do not need to rush into there. At all.
Write shit 💩 New-writing is the most necessary shit in this world.
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rollercoasterwords · 8 months
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do you have any advice for someone who wants to start writing but is terrible and has never been good at it? or translating what’s in their head into words?
yeah my advice is to stop trying to write well and instead just try to have the most fun possible. standards of "good" and "bad" in writing are all entirely subjective anyway, and there's no god in the sky waiting to smite you if your writing doesn't meet their standards. if you're not where you want to be writing-wise, that's fine! writing is a skill just like anything else, and you'll only get better as you practice. and the best way to stay motivated to practice (imo) is to not put too much pressure on yourself to measure up to a certain standard and instead just try to have a fun time making up stories!
the other piece of advice i have is to read a lot of books, and try to read books from a variety of writers with different styles. maybe annotate a bit--underline or highlight the parts that you like, the sentences that really stick out to you. then go back and look at those sentences and think about why you like them--is it the word choice? the arrangement of sentence structure? is the writer doing something stylistically that surprised or intrigued you? the more you read, the more you'll begin to notice nuance amongst different writers' styles, and the better you'll get at recognizing what you might want to try implementing in your own writing.
writing is not a skill with a linear trajectory, where you start out at square zero and eventually reach the finish line of being A Good Writer and stop there. it's a skill that you develop over time and with practice, and that you continue to develop for as long as you do it. i genuinely think that the biggest block to most people who want to start writing but are too worried about the quality of their work is not skill, but that worry--the worry of not being "good enough." but who gives a shit if your writing is bad (<- again, totally subjective measure)! do you wanna know what the first story i ever shared on the internet was about? it was called "kidnapped by dragons" and it was about a girl who got kidnapped by four (later i added another one, so five) handsome men who could turn into dragons, and also she had secret magical powers and needed to save the world and there was a mermaid living in the lake in the garden who became her bestie (i was twelve). by my own (current) standards it was Not Good, and now i laugh about how cringey it was. but you know what? there were a handful of random tweens on quizilla.com who ate that shit up, and i had the time of my life writing and posting it, and that mattered so much more than any other measurement of quality. and it wasn't until i got older and started worrying about writing "high quality" work that i stopped sharing my writing and wrote less and less, because i was paralyzed by my own preoccupation with arbitrary standards.
so...yeah there's my advice lol. if you want to develop your writing, try to stop worrying about how good it is, pick something fun to write about, and just write. and when you need to get inspired, read some other writers and think about why you like the way they write!
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littlemisslipbalm · 2 years
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Bottlerock
Josh Kiszka x Fem!reader
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At the Bottlerock Festival in Napa, Josh meets a journalism student who is tenacious enough to get an interview with him after Greta Van Fleet's set. He is enamored by her vivacity and spirit and sweeps her into the whirlwind of his life for the weekend. Are his promises enough to keep them together or are they just too different?
Hey so this is really long so reading on desktop will likely be best (plus there's meant to be a part 2 that I haven't even written yet so...yeah!!!!) So exciting to finally be posting this and sharing it with y'all I really hope yall read it and let me know what you think!
Warnings: some angst, nothing too graphic, maybe self doubt, drinking, weed, SMUT (18+ as always) | Word Count: 21K | Photo credit: Instagram via Pinterest
As the Weight of Dreams guitar solo starts its slow descent, a girl pushes herself sideways along the back of the first row at the barricade. She offers a few “Sorry”’s and “Coming through”’s, just trying to get out. 
“I’m so sorry, I just need to get to the side right now.” She makes it past a few other fans, they give her slightly odd looks. 
She fibs a bit as she continues her work, “I don’t feel well,” she says when she starts to get push back.
“I might pass out,'' she says when some people give her a rough look. 
“I’m really sorry,” she pleads and they let her go. 
“Thank you,'' she calls and continues her journey out from the center of the pit. 
She had foregone her front and center spot on the barricade for the last five minutes of the Weight of Dreams encore because she needed to get to the side of the backstage. It was her mission to get an interview with one of the members of Greta Van Fleet. 
She needed to do this to prove to herself and everyone else that her dream of being a music journalist wasn’t in vain and she wasn’t in way over her head. 
If she got the interview and freelanced the piece she wrote from it to her school’s paper or even just the school radio’s paper, she would be so fucking happy. The radio station had turned her down for a dj position so she had turned them down when they asked her to just write content. 
They weren’t too happy with her about that, but they couldn’t pass up an exclusive interview with Greta Van Fleet if she offered it to them. It was such a good profile, Greta was higher profile than anyone else the radio had interviewed, and from a student on their campus just going up and getting it? They’d be idiots to pass it up. 
While she didn’t want to be an asshole, she was willing to admit she was a pretty great writer. An excellent one. One that was possibly better than any of the writers on the school’s website. 
So she shimmied through the crowd as she missed one of the most epic guitar solos she’d ever heard live. 
She looked down at her phone once she got out, she heard the guitar starting to fall out, the crowd was going wild and she was trying to catch her breath at the place where she was pretty sure the band would walk off stage. Her phone held the notes she had written down the night before and she was editing them, her fingers a flurry over the little digital keys. 
Some of her questions: 
How are you? How was that? What’s it like performing at a festival vs. your own concert? What’s your opinion of outdoor venues? How do you like Napa? Planning on going sightseeing? Are you going to be seeing any of the other artists? Or are there any you are excited or hopeful of seeing this weekend? What’s something you wish people cared more about? Do you think you convey that through your music? What’s one thing you’d particularly like to tell college students, like some life advice? Favorite song right now? Or the one that you’ve been listening to the most that you enjoy? What’s something you still want to do – beside movies (if it's Josh)?
She highlighted ones she wanted to ask first since she knew it was very likely she’d probably only get to ask one or two.
Then she hears the screams grow louder and she looks up. The band is leaving the stage and they’re coming straight towards her. Well, they really were going to turn the corner and head back to their tent and bus where they could relax now that their set was done. Or they were going to go somewhere secluded to watch Metallica but she wasn’t sure if that was necessarily their vibe right after a performance. 
The real work for her began now. Getting someone’s attention. 
Sam gets off first and when she yells his name he simply flashes a smile and waves. She smiles back and tries to say more but he’s already gone. Danny goes next and he doesn’t even hear her say his name as he’s calling out to Sam about something. 
Josh and Jake are trouncing off stage talking, rather yelling, into each other’s ears as they take off their ear pieces and sip from water bottles stagehands passed to them. 
She feels an overwhelming amount of anxiety that they won’t even glance her way since they’re wrapped up in each other. She yells Josh’s name first for some reason. His eyes look at her for a split second and it seems like he’s just going to wave and smile and go back to talking to Jake but she won’t let it happen. 
His eyes are on hers as she continues on with her words.
“Can I talk to you for a second? I’m sure people tell you this all the time, but it’s really important for me! It’ll only take a moment and then I’ll let you go on your way. Please.” 
She’s not sure if it’s her words or the desperation in her hoarse voice. Maybe he recognized her from the front row or maybe something was just looking out for her in that moment. Her tarot cards had hinted that today was an auspicious day and she had been hoping for this to be that fulfillment. 
Whatever it was, Josh gave her a second glance. He quirks his brow and he’s gleaming with sweat from performing his heart out while being outside in the warming May air. He takes a sip of his water and lets Jake walk in the same direction Sam and Danny went before him with a wave of his free hand and a tilt of his head. 
He reaches her with another step and he waves off some of the stage crew asking him if he was alright. 
“Hello there. What can I do for you?” He asks, his free hand pulls absently at the v-neck of his golden jumpsuit, it had glitter over its entirety and twinkled in the sun as the green stalks of flowers swirled around various parts of it. 
“Hi, oh my god, thank you so fucking much, you have no idea,” she rambles her sentence in a breath and Josh’s brows raise and his lips quirk up in a smile as she speaks, this time not as much as a yell since he’s closer and the screams from the crowd have died down a good bit. 
“Right, so,” she starts after gulping down some oxygen, “I’m a journalism student at my college and long story short I wanted to ask you a few questions so that I could write up a short piece on the festival and have some quotes from you because Greta Van Fleet is one of the best artists here. And personally, I love you guys and I really want to do music journalism when I graduate so if you helped me you would make my entire three years in college so far worth it and prove to everyone in my life that I’m not an idiot.”
Josh chuckles at her fast pace and her words. She was radiant, how could he not when to help her. She was a go-getter and he had seen her make her way out of the crowd during Weight of Dreams after she had spent the rest of their set singing along to every song and dancing in the most honest and free way he’d seen someone dance in a festival concert pit – she hand’t had her phone out or anything, just smiling, nodding and singing along. He had wondered absently where she had gone, so seeing her now. It felt fated that she had left just so she could try to talk to one of them. He wanted to help her out.
“Sounds like an offer I can’t refuse,” He smiles at her and she pushes away the flutter in her heart. 
She needed to focus on her job right now. She had strategically taken her edible earlier in the day so it would be waning right about now. Her body was calm, but her mind was lucid. She couldn’t let herself get distracted by the bouncy slightly wet curls atop his head or his perfectly sculpted jaw or any other part of him except his brain that she was going to pick as much as possible. 
“Okay,” She beams back at him and glances down at her phone and then holds it between them, “Do you mind if I record this? It’s just a transcriber so you don’t have to look at the top of my head while I write down everything you say. Usually I have to tell people not to worry about it but I feel like you’re probably used to being recorded right? ” 
“Of course, that’s fine. I’d much prefer to look in your eyes while I ramble on,” He chuckles and it's effortlessly charming. 
She tamps down her smile and glances down at her phone pressing the record button. Her body shuffles to lean on the railing and Josh is tempted to have security let her through, but knows that would be very out of the ordinary since she wasn’t official press and this was only supposed to take a moment. 
She switches to her questions on her phone and then glances up to look in Josh’s face again to give him a reassuring smile, she wanted to impress him as much as she wanted to impress everyone else. She didn’t want him to be bored with her questions. 
“First things first, how are you doing after that?” 
“I feel fantastic! We had a big old time up there,” He grins as she nods him on, “It was a wonderful show, great to celebrate with everyone here on such a beautiful day. See the smiles on all of their faces – yours included.” 
Her eyes widen slightly and she looks at him inquisitively, but decides it’s not important to the story. 
“What’s the most overwhelming emotion you have when you’re up on stage?” She continues, not a question she had written down, but for some reason it came to mind as he said how he felt. 
“Overwhelming?” Josh repeats, the question actually made him think. She counted this as a success. 
“Suppose love is the answer,” He starts and she deflates initially, but he continues, “Love’s a special one because it’s a shared experience of any positive emotion with someone you care about. Love is overwhelming up on the stage because it’s coming at you from everywhere. My brothers and Danny and I are all sharing the love and the audience is joining in on that love. Love for the music. Love for each other. It’s overwhelming…but only in the most welcome sense.” 
She grins, “Well said.” 
He nods back. 
“What’s it like performing at a festival versus one of your own concerts?” 
He responds well and she grins again. His answers are professional yet insightful to a lot of her main questions she wanted to ask. He seems to like the ones she asks as follow-ups to his responses that are just off the top of her head. His hands wave around dramatically when he gets into specific anecdotes that fit into his answers. 
He tells her who he wants to see this weekend and then asks her who else she wants to see. She has to confess that she only bought a ticket for Friday because the three-day one was too expensive for her. He nods in understanding, but quirks his brow when she says she would have liked to do all three days. Josh was so tempted to just give her some VIP tickets that he was sure he could drum up. The minutes tick by and he doesn’t complain that she’s held him up far longer than she’d initially said. 
She asks him what he thinks of Napa and if he’s planning on doing some sightseeing when they’re done at the festival. He looks down at her phone and then back up to her, he had almost forgotten that this was just an interview. He loved answering her questions and if he had been just talking to her, he would have invited her to show him around in a flirtatious manner, but remembered it was being recorded and she was asking as an interviewer. Instead, he gives a noncommittal “Hopefully, but we’ll see how much time we have before we head back to Nashville. We’re prepping for our Europe tour dates soon.” 
“Oh yeah,” She nods along, slightly disappointed at his answer, seeing some idea pass through his face and then be removed before settling on his answer. She decides not to mention she’d be in Ireland when they were and she had gotten tickets. Didn’t want to seem like an overzealous fan at this point, everything had been going so well. 
She goes through a few more questions and she’s surprised Josh has let her ask as many as he had. It had only been about ten minutes, but she could only imagine how much he probably wants to change and possibly shower (hopefully). She asks about his current listening and he goes in depth on one particular album that has caught his fancy. She makes a note to make sure she listens to it in detail when she gets the chance. 
He shares what he wishes more people knew about Greta Van Fleet’s music and how they try to communicate that message at her prompt and he’s in love with that question but refrains from going on too long of a tangent for once, she is unsure of what keeps him from doing it. 
“Alright,” She takes a deep breath, glancing around seeing some people looking on, possibly slightly jealous at all the attention she’d received from Josh for the last fifteen minutes. “Final-ish question.” 
“What makes it final-ish?” He laughs. 
“Well, if you say something interesting I might have a follow up question.” 
“So I should be offended if it’s the last question?” 
“No, then I think you’ve answered it sufficiently.”
“Oh, so I should be offended if it isn’t the last question?” He teases with a smirk quirking his lips to the side. 
She rolls her eyes playfully and almost feels heat rising to her cheeks at the careless flirtation laced in his words. He was extremely proficient at that. 
“No, you shouldn’t be offended at all. You should be flattered.” 
“Alright, flatter me,” He winks. Again, it’s all playful, but she can barely handle his personality. It was overwhelming. Josh was overwhelming. 
“What’s the best life advice you can give to a bunch of college kids right now? Can be something you’ve received or something you’ve come up with over the years.” 
He grins, “Don’t try to please everyone. Work on pleasing yourself. Personal pleasure will make life all the sweeter.” 
She feels her eyes widen as Josh stares into her soul and she’s not sure if he meant his advice to sound so astoundingly sexual, but she looks away from his intense gaze nonetheless. 
“And how would you advise someone who is trying to find their personal pleasure?” 
“Well,” He chuckles, and she can tell he’s got something raunchy to say, but it’s only in the most boyish way that she doesn’t hate it how she might on another man. “There’s two paths that one can go down and I don’t know if you want me to venture down one of them. It might not be very appropriate for a school paper.” 
“It’s a college paper. Everyone’s an adult,” She laughs lightly trying to get good quotes, but also be casual. 
“Alright then, I’ll tell both, just in case you want to keep the second to yourself,” He leans in and speaks lower at the end of that and she gives him a coy smile. She couldn’t believe what a player Josh seemed to be when most times he came off as so sexless, if she was giving her honest opinion. 
“Personal pleasure in life,” Josh starts, “I’d advise that you try new things and if you think you want to try something you should stick to it, even if it seems a little hard in the beginning. Don’t get deterred, there is happiness found in the act of trying.” He says it earnestly and she genuinely thinks he’s thought about this before. “And for the raunchier side of personal pleasure, well, I’d advise being more vocal with others and yourself; about what feels good and simply just letting those seemingly animalistic noises that want to come out, come out. Don’t hide how your body really feels when you’re experiencing pleasure.” 
“Right,” She clears her throat as Josh ducks his head for a moment and looks up at her through his lashes. “Well, that’s all I’ve got for you, Josh. Thank you so much for taking the time, I know I kept you longer than I said, but you had wonderful answers. It was hard not to keep asking you things.” 
He laughs and it’s as melodious as his voice always seems to be. He rests a hand over hers on the railing and her eyes flicker to look at it and then back to his face. 
“It’s only because you were such a wonderful interviewer, kept me on my toes,” He says it sincerely. He pats her hand twice and looks as if he wants to say more. 
He glances over his shoulder and sees his bandmates all hanging around with some of the crew and the people they had invited to the festival with them. He turns back to her and her eyes are wide and expectant, not sure what to do since his hand is still over hers. 
“I’ll let you go,” She starts.
“Would you like to ask my brothers and Danny some questions perchance?” 
She gasps and says the first thing she thinks, “Of fucking course I would!” Her hands fly up to cover her mouth, knocking Josh’s hand off of hers and her phone to the grass below them. A muffled “Oh my god” is audible from her covered mouth. Her eyes fall to the ground where her phone went. “So sorry,” She bends down to grab it and when she stands up Josh is still grinning at her. 
“You know you don’t need to apologize for swearing in front of me right?” His eyes twinkle with mischief. 
“No, I know…it’s just not very professional, y’know. And also it was more about the entire outburst than the nature of it.” She quirks her head at him, hoping he understands. 
He shakes his head in amusement and gestures to the security, who had been eyeing them this entire time, to let her through. Her eyes are still as wide as saucers and she’s not sure if she’s breathing normally so she focuses on that and then remembers she should text her friend, who was surely worrying about her now. 
She looks down at her phone and sees that it’s still recording so she stops that and thinks about how embarrassing that this last part after the interview was memorialized in her transcription app. She pushes that from her mind and types out a message to her friend saying, “getting taken backstage to interview gvf, wtf.” 
Chloe immediately responds, “bruh wtf!!!!”  
Her fingers flurry over the keyboard and say “i’ll try to get you in, but if i don’t text you back just watch metallica without me, i’m so fuckig sorry bro, but i couldn’t pass up the chance to interview all of them.” 
“no i get it, get us the afterparty invite doe” 
She hearts the last message and then turns to Josh, who’s eyes flicker to hers as she slips her phone into her back pocket of the black loose jeans she was wearing. 
“Who was that?” He inquires, the interest clear in inflection of his words. 
“My best friend who came with me. I was updating her on where I am. There’s not a chance she could possibly come back here as well?” 
He looks at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he seems to consider it. She presses on, her penchant for rambling becoming clear. 
“It’s just that I don’t want her to think I’ve abandoned her, but I also get it if you don’t want a bunch of people in your space either. Like you’ve already done me way too many favors for being a complete stranger. I probably owe you big time at this point.” 
He shakes his head insistently and his curls bounce around him. “No, no, no. You don’t owe me anything, please do not think of this as transactional. I offered for you to interview the others because I think you’re a good journalist and I wanna see you succeed now…” His eyes are wide and earnest, once more. 
She really hadn’t expected this to be the way Josh was. From interviews and anything she’d seen from him previously, she thought he was both boisterous and thoughtful, kind as well, but not so intrinsically good and sincere to a stranger – she didn’t think it was possible for someone of his caliber, as much as she liked the band, realistically, she had no idea who Josh really was. She assumed he’d be much more closed off when he wasn’t performing – both on stage and in interviews. Maybe he still was performing for her. 
“Tell your friend to come to the side of the stage and I’ll tell a PA to let her in.” 
She beams and thanks him with a string of gratitude and he laughs again. 
“You talk so quickly, you know that?” Josh asks. 
She couldn't help the embarrassment this time, he had met her maybe twenty minutes ago and he already formed an opinion of her. Instead of acting flustered though, she tries to mask it with a little flirtation. The banter seemed to come naturally with Josh. 
“So do you,” She states matter-of-factly. 
He cackles this time, louder than his other laughs had been so far with her. 
“I guess it’s a good trait for a journalist.” 
“And a front man,” She adds. 
“Depends on who you ask,” He says as they round on the rest of the band sitting around the front of a tour bus after they had taken a brief detour and given the information about her friend to a PA. 
“Depends on who you ask what?” His twin and the guitarist of the band, Jake, asks, looking up to Josh from the lawn chair he was resting in, his neck craning in a long fashion. A smile resting on his lips as he hopes to be able to tease his brother who had been missing from him for too long. 
Before Josh can answer, Sam, his younger brother and the bassist, pokes his head out of the door of the tour bus and yells at Josh. “There you are! We were beginning to think you’d run off with some groupie already…” His voice trails off when he sees a girl standing beside Josh. “And maybe we were a bit correct.” 
Josh scoffs and she wards off any embarrassment by offering a cautious smile, she scuffs the tip of her boot into the soft ground below them. 
“This is…” Then Josh stops and he realizes that he hadn’t even gotten her name and he looks to her sheepishly. A hand goes to the back of his neck, the tinge of embarrassment manifesting in his physicality. 
“Y/N. I’m a journalism student, not a groupie,” She clarifies, and waves her hand at the other three band members who had given her various onceovers. 
Sam hops down the last step of the tour bus and joins the group of them. Danny and Jake remained seated. All together like this they were far more intimidating and she looked back to Josh, who was still beside her, for reassurance. 
“Y/N asked me a few questions right after the show for a piece she’s doing on the festival and she was such a fantastic interviewer I told her you all would love to answer some questions as well,” Josh grins pointedly at the rest of the boys, imploring them to go along with it with his eyes. She notices how he made a point to say her name once he knew it.  
“Oh yeah,” Jake muses, his voice was so gravelly and unique yet so similar to Josh’s. “You’re the one he went to talk to when we came down from the stage.”
“Yep,” She smiles, trying to not come off as nervous. Maybe she’d shoot Chloe a text advising her not to come. She wasn’t sure how intimidating her friend might find this situation. 
They were all cheekbones and sharp lines, strong jawbones and sun-kissed skin, beautiful but wild hair. And they were so at ease, so zen, even after a show, she was in awe. 
“Are y’all always this calm thirty minutes after a performance?” She can’t help but ask. 
“Is that the first question?” Sam asks. 
Josh shoots him a look. 
“Um,” She begins. 
“We are if we smoke a lot of weed,” Jake answers instead with a slight chuckle, “Which is indeed what we’ve done.” 
“Indeed,” Sam echoes. 
She looks closer and sees the droopy red eyes on each of them, the tension in all of their muscles almost nonexistent. That made more sense, it also made her way less intimidated. They weren’t being jerks, they were just being highasses. 
“I don’t need to interview y’all if you’re high,” She says after a moment of thinking. “I feel like that wouldn’t be ethically right, especially since it was just sprung on you. Like if you chose to show up to an interview high that’s another story, but me interviewing you out of the blue when you’re already high…doesn’t sit right with me.” She splays her hands as she talks and then looks to Josh’s face as she finishes. He smiles reassuringly at her, the quirk in his soft lips quickly becoming something she felt dependent on. 
“What if you were high? Then would you interview us while we’re high?” Sam inquires, suddenly intrigued by her, deeming her to not be a groupie that Josh was just fronting as a journalist. 
She laughs at this and his mischievous tone. Her mind raced with thoughts. Smoking with Greta Van Fleet? Could she pass that up? She could claim it was immersive journalism if anyone called bullshit. Plenty of music journalists had smoked weed with rockstars before, at this point it should be a right of passage. 
“Are you saying you want to smoke me out and then get interviewed by me?” 
“If that’s what you want,” Sam smiles. 
Josh narrows his eyes at his little brother, but drops his expression when he feels her eyes go to his face. She looks to him for affirmation and it tugs at something inside him. They barely knew each other but she seemed to trust him. It made him feel good about himself. 
When Josh smiles positively, she nods, a grin now breaking onto her face, “Fuck yeah, let’s do this.” 
Sam disappears back into the tour bus and she pulls out her phone to text Chloe while Josh changes quickly and finds two more lawn chairs. He had told Sam to fuck off and find a chair of his own before he had gone into the bus for the weed supplies. Sam had rolled his eyes at his older brother, but agreed to it anyway. 
“Getting smoked out by gvf and then interviewing them i think…”
Chloe’s text pops in immediately: “no fuckin way”
Then another: “brooooo”
Another: “im gonna go get a drink and watch metallica i think bc one of them is literally gonna try to fuck you and i dont want to cock block, but text me updates PLS and be careful!!!”
Y/N smiles down at her phone and shakes her head before typing out a response after hearting Chloe’s last message: “one can only hope, if not tho, free weed and a fucking crazy interview, the paper is going to shit their pants…might need to leave the getting high asf with them out tho ;)”
Chloe: “tell me if one or more of them calls it fucking grass, i’ll die”
Y/N: “Midwesterners …” 
Josh returns to her side after placing down the two lawn chairs in front of them in a semi-circle. 
“Your friend?”
She hums, “Yeah she actually said she really wants to see Metallica’s set, so she won’t be joining us.” 
“Is that alright?” Josh asks seriously, leaning his head down to ask her more quietly. 
She quickly pushs away the butterflies that just fluttered inside of her when his breath hit the shell of her ear. 
“Yeah, of course. Should it not be?” 
“I just don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. Like you don’t have to smoke weed with us if you don’t want to, Sam’s just pushy sometimes and likes to get his way, youngest child syndrome and all… Do you even smoke?” Josh almost whispers the final question in complete seriousness. 
She cackles at this, but stifles it almost just as quickly as the laughter came out. “I’m sorry, I just haven’t been asked that in awhile. I was high off an edible for the majority of your set, I timed it so that I would be sober to hopefully interview one of you when I spoke with you.” 
Josh pinkens at her words, the memory of her dancing in the crowd once again flashing in his mind. No wonder she’d looked so happy. “Oh, well then. Let’s smoke some grass, huh?” 
She laughs and watches him sit down and pat the seat beside him. Jake and Danny also watch on as she smiles sweetly towards Josh and he reciprocates it. 
They eye each other and it’s like they know exactly what is going on. Normally, Josh didn’t create such an elaborate ruse to get what he wanted, but it certainly seemed like the route he was taking would get to the same end result: hooking up with a hot girl after the show. What they didn’t know or couldn’t possibly realize was just how special this hot girl was already becoming to Josh. 
“So,” Sam sits down on a different type of chair that he must have found inside the bus between Danny and Jake, “What made you want to go to school for journalism?” 
She debates on saying she didn’t come here to answer questions, she’s supposed to be the one asking them, but she refrained, seeing the genuine curiosity in most of their eyes. She needed to go with the flow. Something she was trying to be better at. 
“I didn’t initially start out as a journalism major. I was English first and found it boring as fuck. I just knew I wanted to be a writer.” 
Jake nods along to her answer and Josh watches her intently while she glances around at all of them. Sam produces a few joints and places one between his lips, breathing in and flicking a lighter to the end of it. He puffs at it for a long moment, then slips it between his slender fingers again and pulls it from his lips, the smoke billowing out past his lips. 
He passes to his left, Jake, and she notes it, finding the way someone smokes in a group extremely telling. By passing it to Jake, she was going to get the joint faster than if Sam had passed it to Danny, whether that was on purpose, she couldn’t be too sure. 
“And you want to do music journalism?” Sam asks as Jake leans back into his seat. 
She nods, feeling shaky under his entirely too intense droopy eyes. Jake takes only a little puff of the joint and passes it to her. She’s careful to avoid his finger tips, but it doesn’t seem like he cares much as he lazily holds it out to her. 
She felt the weight of everyone’s eyes on hers and she tried to picture her face as she put the joint between her lips. She never felt attractive when she was smoking from a joint just because her lips seemed to disappear and she was concentrating on not coughing up the smoke in its entirety. 
Strategically, she crosses her legs as she brings it to her lips, hoping that might draw some attention from her face. Her baggy black jeans probably weren’t that visually appealing to them compared to if she had worn shorts or a skirt. She cursed herself, but maintained that these pants were lucky despite how unsexy they might be. She often wore them when she got impromptu interviews so in her heart she had known she needed to wear them rather than one of her cuter short skirts or sheer tights and shorts that she had originally been thinking of wearing. 
Her maroon booted foot swings slightly as she splays her entire hand over the lower half of her face. Her second line of defense, the rings on her hand and her black painted nails would be more interesting than her face. 
She pulls away and glances to Josh before blowing the smoke behind her, not wanting to be rude. He’s been watching the entirety of her movements. The way she shifted in her seat and closed her eyes slightly as she took the hit. The glitter over her eyelids and white eyeliner she had under her eyes was all he could focus on now. It hadn’t distracted him when she had stood across from him at the gate, but now it was transfixing as her eyelashes fluttered and she looked at him not closer than before, but without a physical barrier between them. 
She leans forward to pass it to Josh, once again mindful of fingers touching, but he grins when they still brush since the joint had dwindled. He takes a couple hits and they go around from there with the first joint once more and then start on a second one. 
Sam continues to grill her with questions, but as the time goes on her laugh gets lighter and more intermingled with her responses. Her eyes droop to meet their level, the whites of her eyes don’t turn as red as theirs though. They never did that anymore which she thought was a blessing. 
“And why did you want to interview the Greta Van Fleet?” Sam finally asks and at this point she would admit that she was fully stoned from their weed – oftentimes she was dubious of out of state weed, but this worked plenty. 
“Because,” She laughs to herself and wants to tell them just how big of a fan she was, but still maintains some self control, “you’re the best band Bottlerock got and…the college girlies love y’all.” 
“Is that so?” Sam laughs, throwing his head back and his once more long hair with it. 
“Yes,” She insists, her eyes go to the other band members and see Danny is watching Sam, Jake is looking off into the open space, and Josh is still looking at her. She stares in his eyes, no longer inhibited by anxiety, “the spin on the classic rock sound, the meaningful lyrics, the cool outfits, the sex appeal. What more could a girl want out of a band, except maybe some more interesting names, but the band name makes up for it, I think.” 
Sam’s laugh is loud, similar to Josh’s yet on a slightly higher register. Jake manages a “Hey” at her dig about their basic names. 
“Is that all you want out of a band?” Sam prods. 
“Maybe it’s time for Y/N to start asking the questions?” Josh interrupts. 
She nods, feeling extremely stoned, she tries to ground herself, she takes a deep breath and it cools her screaming lungs. Josh had given her a water bottle when she’d asked for one, but it didn’t stop the dry paper feel of her mouth or the ache in the back of her throat no matter how much of the liquid she gulped down. 
“I agree,” She states and looks down at her phone, the questions in her notes app swirling in loopy waves now before her eyes in just the slightest way. “What’s the most overwhelming emotion you feel up on stage?” 
The same question she had asked Josh earlier was still floating around in her mind. She wanted to see if they had different answers. 
Jake hums eagerly, clearly interested in the question as he adjusts his seated position and strokes a finger around his lips. “Suppose ‘sublime' would just about sum it up?” 
Her eyebrows raise and she suppresses the laugh that threatens at her lips. She was both enamored by the response and grossed out. If any man outside of Greta Van Fleet had said that to her she likely would have rolled her eyes, but coming from his lips she was like ‘damn, that’s fucking insightful,’ especially since she was high. 
“Electrified,” Sam tries to say coolly, the word just sounds muddled around his mouth. 
She snickers, “I don’t know if that is exactly an emotion, but I’ll take it. 
“Happiness,” Danny responds easily and she returns a nice smile, she’s having a hard time thinking of what’s coming next right now. Maybe there was no need to worry about it. 
The next question comes out before she means it to. Well, she didn’t mean for it to come out at all. It wasn’t written on her notes app, it just popped into her head. Insidiously. 
“Are you ever jealous of one another?”
Everyone is silent for a beat too long, but she doesn’t notice it. Everything was foggy with weed. 
“What would we be jealous of with one another?” Jake asks slowly, like he’s not sure if he heard the question correctly. 
“I don’t know, you tell me. The answer can just be no, but…it doesn’t seem like it is.”
“Was she asking these hard of questions before?” Sam asks Josh. 
Josh laughs lightheartedly, sufficiently high, “Nah, but she keeps you on your toes, huh?” He doesn’t see the harm in the question because he trusts Y/N. It was clear to him that she wouldn’t use this question in her piece and it was more something that had piqued her interest. Hell, she wasn’t even recording this anymore, her transcription app was closed and forgotten about in the back pocket of her jeans. 
“I’d say I get a little miffed when some people leave me out of the band just because I’m not a biological brother, but the boys have never made me feel that way. It’s other people,” Danny lets out. 
She nods solemnly at him. 
Sam pipes up after a hum of contemplation, “I’ll always be the younger brother in people’s eyes. Deference always goes to Jake or Josh which can be…annoying, but like Daniel said, it’s not them, it’s other people.” 
She nods. Jake and Josh share a look. 
“Oh come on, you two are identical twins, I feel like all I usually hear from them is complaining about their other half.” 
Sam laughs, “I could certainly share my thoughts.” 
“No, no, no. That’s not how this works. It’s about self reflection,” She splays her hands in front of her in a slow manner as she says ‘self reflection’. 
“Okay, okay.” Sam holds up his hands in defense and she smiles back. 
She looks to Josh who is now worrying his bottom lip. When she turns to Jake, he’s tugging at his lip with his fingers. She feels a little bad, but it was just so fun making confident men get a little shaken. 
“Um, maybe how Josh can grow facial hair, pretty jealous of that. You’d think I could too, but it’s even patchier.” Jake conjures up his response. 
Josh laughs out a relieved laugh that gives away more than he possibly wanted it to and then breathes out his response before he loses his nerve, “Jake’s ability to be in a stable long distance relationship.” 
Jake arches a brow at Josh and she can tell that even if he was high now, Jake was going to follow up with his brother later to unpack what he had just said. She didn’t feel comfortable doing that since she barely knew them and the response had sent an uncomfortable bolt of anxiety through her, throwing off the high, but she was determined to keep ahold of it. 
“What’s one thing you wish people cared more about?” 
“How do you work that into your music?” 
“Can you describe the sensation of playing your instrument?” 
She runs through the different questions and gets better and better answers as she sticks to the less controversial ones. Sam waxes eloquent about playing bass with his feet, while Danny shares how drumming feels all encompassing, Jake tries to explain how he both disappears and is everywhere at once when he plays his solos, Josh talks about feeling connected to every living thing when he sings. 
She almost wants to cry as they describe it because she’s never felt those things before and likely never could. She was never one to stick with things that were hard, instruments were hard for her. Her hands are too small and weak to reach the different notes whether on the guitar or piano. Her voice never good enough and her mind not creative enough to set her poetry to song. 
They finish up the questions and Jake decides he does want to see Metallica play the second half of their set, Danny says he’ll go too. After a moment of hesitation, Sam stands to leave too, sending a wink her way and a pointed look at Josh. Josh asks her if she wants to go with them. 
Her head lulls onto her shoulder as she stares at Josh. Her eyes move lazily over the outline of his entire body, sweeping over details she never would have noticed in a picture or from her position below the stage earlier. His profile is illuminated as the sun starts to set and his skin is cast in gold. She smiles to herself and her eyelashes flutter once more as she savors the dying light and warmth as it recedes from the sky. 
She felt so happy with herself, she had gotten more than she had hoped for, the interview and now Josh seemed like he wanted to hang out with her rather than kick her to the curb. And while, ethically, it might be wrong to be doing whatever this was with Josh as a subject, she was still a student, afterall, fuck ups were bound to happen and as long as no one found out it would be fine. 
“No,” She mumbles finally, eyes still closed, “I’m content being here.” 
He nods even though she can’t see it. When she reopens her eyes, she still can’t take them off of Josh. She wanted to laugh at how unreal this situation felt, but it might just be because of how fuzzy the weed had made her feel. 
He looks at her after a moment of feeling her gaze on him. 
“Thank you,” She speaks out softly when it seems like he’s going to ask her what she was thinking. The buzz of people around them was filtered out of earshot, making it seem like everyone else was very far away and they were completely alone. 
“You did this all by yourself. You’re incredible.” 
“I never could have done it if you hadn’t been nice enough to walk over. You could have just ignored me or said you were too busy.” 
“Yeah but you didn’t really give me a choice with your speech and all.” 
“And all what?”
“All of you.” His hand comes out and waves in a down movement, gesturing at her figure, “Your look, your determination. I saw you slip through the crowd during Weight of Dreams. I had been curious as to where you had gone since you seemed to be enjoying the set so much. Seeing you call me over afterwards piqued my interest. I had to know what was up.” 
“Well I told you what was up, you still could have left after I explained myself,” She pushed, their eyes planting on each other’s as she ignored his vague compliment of her figure and personality. 
“Yeah but I like you.” 
“Yeah?” She grins, leaning forward on her knees, closer to Josh as she knocks them slightly in hops of brushing them against his. He nudges out his knee closest to hers so that they can touch. ��I like you too.” 
Josh only hums in response. She waits for him to speak, the giddy excitement overtaking her relaxed body. 
“I don’t want you to think I do this all the time…” Josh starts, worrying his lower lip, “Sam made it out to sound like I’m always fucking groupies, but that’s not true. And even if it were, I really wouldn’t consider this to be similar. I like your mind.” 
She laughs. “You like my mind,” She repeats. 
Josh pinkens around his ears and over his cheeks, he looks especially boyish despite his facial hair and strong features. 
“I just meant…” 
“No, I know. I like your…mind, too. It just sounds so cheesy.” She laughs again and Josh rubs at the back of his neck and sighs like he’s trying to find the right thing to say. 
“What if we just forget about the whole ‘we’ve only just met’ thing and ‘you’re in a famous band that I just interviewed’ thing and like every other part of this situation? Just focus on each other.” She continues.
“I think I can do that,” Josh nods, slips a hand to her neck and pulls her face closer to his. 
She sighs at his warm touch and leans closer. His nose brushes against hers and it nudges at her cheek. Her eyes fall down to look at his pink lips, so close to touching hers. And she takes her own advice and forgets about literally everything else besides how Josh feels against her.
She lets herself get lost in his kiss, it’s warm and soft and a little bitter from the taste of smple and a beer on his tongue. It shouldn’t taste good, but she hopes to remember it for the rest of her life even though it’s happening as she thinks it. 
She often felt that sensation, remembering an event just as it was unfolding in real time. She looked forward to a time where she would be looking back on this and it made her try to store every single part of it to memory. 
Josh presses his mouth harder against hers and she sighs at how good it feels, at the fire of desire starting to kindle faster inside of her. Her hand falls down to rest on his knee that is facing hers and it grips him tightly, fearful of him pulling away and losing the sensation of his soft lips. His nimble fingers had snaked up her shoulder to the base of her neck and they splayed along the entirety of it in a dominant but careful way. He was holding her there, but it was clear that she could pull away at any time. 
She pushed into him for more, her mouth opening for him as he licked into her and they went back and forth in the kiss, staying connected while their hands moved around and explored each other’s bodies with a passionate care. 
Josh pulls back first and she’s grateful for the reprieve, not realizing just how much she needed air. She thinks about how he’s a singer and has a crazy lung capacity, he must have pulled back out of courtesy for her, which was endearing. 
He looks at her shyly and she wants to laugh at how vulnerable he seems for just making out with her in public after knowing her for only a couple of hours.  
“I really want…” Josh takes a deep breath, but as she noticed, he wasn’t out of breath in the first place. 
Her cheeks are flushed as he speaks and the hopeful look in her eyes communicates that she wants him just as much as he wants her. 
“I would really like,” Josh corrects, “If you’d show me around Napa tomorrow.” 
Her eyes widen and her mouth immediately opens to protest, but sees the softness in every bit of Josh’s features. She wasn’t planning on staying in Napa, she was going to spend the rest of her weekend in her hometown before heading back to school. Her hometown was about an hour and a half away and then her school was four hours from there. 
“I wasn’t planning on sticking around since I don’t have tickets for the other days,” She starts.
“I can get you and your friend tickets for Saturday and Sunday, if you want,” Josh supplies. 
“I’m not even from Napa, I don’t even know all that much about it,” She continues. 
“Then we could explore it together,” Josh tries, his eyes a hopeful warm honey brown. “C’mon, this is me trying to see you again.” 
“Josh,” She sighs at his conviction to make it work even in just this tiny thing, but she knew it would only hurt her more to continue hanging out with him if his interest in her was more than just a hookup. “One or two more days won’t make me hurt less when I never see you again… like this.” 
Josh sighs, but there’s a smile on his face. He takes one of her hands in his and rubs his thumb over it gently. 
“What if you looked at this situation where only the best case scenarios happen? You say yes to hanging out for the next few days. We listen to good music and drink good wine because, y’know, Napa is known for that stuff,” Josh begins a speech and she rolls her eyes playfully at him sharing such a widely known fact. “And then we part ways, but we have endless memories together and since only good things happen, we’re bound to see each other again. And we go on from there.” 
She giggles at his smile that bids her to say yes to him. Her head shakes a bit, trying to ward off the silliness she feels, the silliness of reality, but she wants to try this untethered optimism Josh is asking her to buy into. 
“Okay,” She relents with another nervous laugh.
-
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, what am I going to do?!” 
Chloe sighs with a roll of her eyes. “You’re going to shower, get dressed and then go out with the frontman of Greta Van Fleet. Dazzle him with your brilliance and make out with him again – or maybe more, that part is up to you.” 
“No,” Y/N trails out the word, her hands covering her face. “I can’t do this. I feel like I’m going to throw up.” 
“No, you’re not,” Chloe reassures. “Just stop thinking about it so hard. He asked you out. He convinced you to stay. He’s orchestrating all of this – he clearly wants you, so stop worrying.” 
“Okay.” 
She found herself saying okay to things that didn’t feel okay at all. Yes, she wanted to hang out with Josh again and do whatever that entailed, but she was scared. He was a famous musician and, like, this force to be reckoned with and she was just a 21-year-old college student who barely knew what she was going to do with her life. Sure, she had this tentative plan, but it moreso was a line she repeated when people asked, she wasn’t exactly sure if it was what she truly wanted. Josh had his life figured out at 26 and he was talented, successful, sure of himself and just all around wonderful. How was she supposed to measure up to his standards? 
Yesterday, she had been cool, but looking back on it she was convinced she was still a little high when interviewing him. Plus! This was different, this was like a date or something, whereas yesterday had been her proving a point, had been her going after a goal and achieving it. It wasn’t meant to be intimate – and sure, she had made out with him, but in her defense she was high and he’s hot. 
With all that in mind, she and Chloe got dressed for the day. Luckily, both of them were overpackers and had about three days worth of clothing with them. This was both a good and very very bad thing for Y/N. She was able to wear something else but she also was able to overthink her outfit about ten times based on the different combinations she could come up with. 
Eventually, she settled on the same slouchy black jeans as yesterday and a black halter vest that she thought was both impossibly cool and flattering. Her boobs looked especially good in it so that reassured her. Instead of her boots, she put on her mary jane Doc Martens and hoped they didn’t give her too much height next to Josh. She felt like the outfit wasn’t very Josh. It almost was more of Jake’s vibe or possibly Sam’s. Did she look too young? Would Josh not like it? Would he like that she hadn’t dressed to please him in the idea that it wasn’t light, bright, floral or anything remotely happy – things she assumed he liked when it came to clothes? She didn’t even really know him, fuck, did he like that on his partners? The irony wasn’t lost on her that by asking these questions she was negating the point that she hadn’t dressed with him in mind. 
As she walked to the patch of grass next to a specific wine booth Josh had said to meet at, these questions, worries and thoughts raced through her mind. When the booth was in sight and Josh’s curly hair was conspicuously bobbing beside it as he spoke with one of his brothers, she fought the urge to turn back and run – just to change her outfit. Did Josh want a frilly, lacey, flowy girl? She could do that. She liked that vibe too, but this had been what she settled on and now that she saw him in his white shirt and khakis, she was mad at herself for her choice. They were going to look like complete opposites. 
Chloe noticed her slowing down. “Keep it moving, girl,” She insisted. 
Y/N reluctantly kept moving towards them. She was more nervous now than she was yesterday. Admittedly, yesterday she had nothing to lose. Today, Josh knew who she was, he had expectations of her and what if she didn’t fulfill them… 
Josh calls her name after spotting her and before she can run away and hide. His face is bright and shiny as the sun washes over his tanned skin and beaming grin. It’s almost like his eyes twinkle with the sun sparkling off of his irises. She smiles back, timidly. In her head, she was telling herself to just act normal, but it had short circuited and she had no idea what normal was anymore. 
“Josh,” She greets and tries to suppress the wince that follows because she immediately feels lame for just saying his name back. 
“How are you today, ms. journalist extraordinaire?” Josh expounds before pulling her into a friendly hug that lingers to the right of friendly in the end. 
“Good,” She mumbles back into the collar of his shirt where her head was resting as he held her there, her body felt limp and clammy in his arms and she hoped he didn’t notice it. Once again her eyes slip shut in annoyance at her words. Why not anything more than just ‘good’. 
Her hands wrap at Josh’s waist since his arms had gone around her shoulders. Her hands rest at his lower back for a moment as warmth rises off of him while waves of chamomile, clean linen, nag champa and a little bit of weed invade her nose. Of course he smelled amazing and she was wearing a mix of an expensive perfume she had received as a high school graduation gift and a men’s cologne she had stolen from a guy’s apartment one time because she was drunk and thought it was funny and then ended up really liking the scent. Would Josh like a manly scent on her? 
Her eyes slip shut at the warm and soft sensations of Josh’s presence, but she’s pulled away from him by reality. She steps back from him upon realizing she needed to introduce her friend to him and Sam, who gave her a small smile and a casual nonchalant wave of his hand. 
“This is my friend and roommate, Chloe. Chloe, this is Josh and Sam – as you know,” She feels herself grimace at her words. Why did everything that came out of her mouth sound wrong to her? Of course Chloe knew who the guys were, she was just about as in love with them as Y/N was. 
Chloe laughs and says hello. Josh smiles sweetly at her and Sam nods his head and says hello back. 
“Nice to meet you, Chloe,” Josh starts, charming as ever. “Did you enjoy Metallica’s set last night?” 
Chloe responds affirmatively and casts a glance at Y/N, communicating her knowledge of what she and Josh did instead of going to the Metallica set. Josh doesn’t pick up on it and asks another question instead. 
“What’s it like having a journalist as a roommate? Does she ask a lot of questions?” 
“Besides when she’s trying to pick an outfit, not really,” Chloe laughs, once again shooting Y/N a look. 
Josh catches this one and looks over her outfit once more. “I think the outcome is lovely,” He smiles, reassuringly. “You look fantastic,” He rephrased to Y/N, in case his meaning wasn’t clear. 
She smiles in an uncharacteristically shy way, a laugh sounding from her closed lips as her eyes flicker between her friend and Josh. “Thanks,” she mumbles. 
There’s an awkward beat of silence – or maybe just a breath that she interprets as awkward, that she longs to fill. 
“Who did you want to see today?” She asks Josh, unable to let the silence go any longer. 
“I was just about to ask you the same thing,” He smiles. 
Chloe chimes in, getting bored of being a third wheel to them, “I’m going to go over to the twenty one pilots stage and hope by the time it’s their set I can be closer to the front.” 
“Oh,” Sam’s eyebrows perk up in interest, “I can just get us to the front of their stage if you want. I wanted to see them perform as well.” 
She regards Chloe and Sam’s exchange before turning to look at Josh who has a perplexed expression pass over his face for a moment and then lets it pass. 
Sure enough, Chloe is happily agreeing to the idea before Y/N can try and protest. She had been hoping to keep some safety of having other people around, so she didn’t have to be alone with Josh. If she wasn’t alone, there was less chances of it being her fault if things didn’t work out. 
“I’m not super into twenty one pilots,” She says once Chloe and Sam are out of earshot. 
Josh quips, “Neither is Sam, but he must like your friend. But not to worry, I’m sure he’ll be a gentleman.” 
She rolls her eyes and gives a quick ‘sure’, but she wasn’t too worried about Chloe going off with Sam – he was her favorite, after all. 
Josh circles back to their original discussion, reiterating her original question of who they wanted to see perform today. She notes his change in the question, who do ‘we’ want to see. 
She hums, “Well, I glanced over the lineup for today and I think the Black Crowes and Greensky Bluegrass would be cool to see. Also Rainbow Kitten Surprise.” 
“I was thinking the same exact thing,” He nods with a smile gracing his face. 
“Oh, were you?” 
“Well, if you want the truth, I was prepared to say that no matter what you said, but I, too, want to see the Black Crowes and Greensky Bluegrass. I’ve never had the pleasure of listening to…Rainbow Kitten Surprise, but I’m sure it will be an experience.” 
She grins at his cadence and the manner in which he regarded her as he spoke. He was mesmerizing. Her anxieties were forgotten as she looked at him and longed to just observe him. 
They agreed that leaving the festival would be a hassle and therefore would put it off until tomorrow. Instead, while the set times for the three bands were off in the distance, they were going to get drunk off of free wine and beer. Since Josh was talent, he got all his food and drink covered. And since Josh was Josh, he was charming enough to get her food and drink covered, as well. 
After the first wine bar, two glasses of wine - one red and one rosé and 45 minutes of stilted conversation, they walked around the festival on an especially grassy patch of land. They were almost shoulder to shoulder as they walked, Josh only slightly taller than her, but she didn’t mind. His hair made up for it with about three inches of extra volume. Their hands swung by their sides, almost brushing with every step, but she never took the plunge. 
Josh was carrying on the conversation almost completely by himself and she was content to listen. She didn’t want to say something to irrevocably change their time together. She felt his eyes on her as they ambled towards a beer tent that had looked fun and interesting and also had seating for them to rest for another 45 minutes. The bluegrass band’s set was at 1 pm and it was just about noon. 
“What’s wrong?” 
She giggles and looks at Josh who is still regarding her with a perplexed expression. “Nothing.” But her response is too quick. 
Josh stops walking. His hand jumps up to her upper arm, to hold her from walking away but also as a form of connection. 
“Seriously, did I say something?”
“Oh my god,” She rushes, this time in adamance and necessity to reassure Josh. “No! No, no, it’s not you. I’m just in my head, I guess.” 
“Why?” Josh immediately pushes, wanting to fix whatever is plaguing her mind. 
“I’m just…” She stops and sighs. Her head turns away from Josh, dropping his gaze and looking around the field they were in, instead. “Honestly?” She starts again and Josh nods. 
His eyes are anxious and kind, appraising the situation with the utmost care despite having no clue as to what she is about to say. 
“I’m a fucking mess, Josh,” She sighs. “I’m a third year college student and I have no idea what I’m gonna do with my life or how I’m gonna get there. I’m terrified and confused all the time. I live my life in weeks, waiting for the cycle to end so that I can hang out with my closest friends who aren’t actually that close and essentially do nothing because it’s always just the same.” 
She takes a deep breath before continuing since Josh has remained silent. “And you’re you,” She gestured exagerratedly at his frame. “You’ve got your shit figured out, you’re a famous fucking musician for fuck’s sake, and I’m over here trying not to implode with all the thoughts racing through my mind, hoping and praying that I don’t fuck this up because I just don’t know why you’re even bothering with me.”
“Bothering with you?” He repeats, his expression is sad in a way she had never seen before. “Oh, sweet girl. You don’t need to have everything figured out. It might not seem like it, but even I don’t have all my shit figured out. You’re not a mess, you’re human and you are living the human experience so you need to be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself and trust me when I tell you that you aren’t going to fuck this up. I told you yesterday that I liked your mind…right before I kissed you, if I’m not mistaken. So let’s get out of that mind for a little and just be here, present with one another. It will feel really good.”
“I don’t get you.” She still feels defensive and unable to believe that Josh was really this open. 
“That’s because you don’t know me,” He responds in a slightly gruff voice. “Yet. Like you, I’m a far more complex person than just who I was when you met me yesterday.” 
She nods quickly, immediately realizing her mistake. “You’re right, I’m sorry if I implied that your life was perfect.”
“Don’t apologize,” Josh chuckles good-naturedly with a shake of his head. “Just promise me you’ll be present today.” 
“I promise.” She speaks softly, desperately wanting to be telling the truth, but a nagging part of her mind can’t comprehend why Josh wants anything to do with her. 
“Good. Now let’s go drink some free beer!” 
The day passes, filled with laughter and music and alcohol and anecdotes of their lives. She was sure Josh was the funniest person she had ever met with that terrible kind of dad humor that most people hate but she couldn’t get enough of it from him. Josh was certain that Y/N was the most interesting and complex person he had met in his life yet simple in the way she interacted with him – there was so much going on behind her eyes, he was enamored with unpacking it all, bit by bit. Once she stopped the worrying, she would beam at everything he said and gush about the things she loved, namely music and fashion. 
“I know it might sound materialistic or silly, and maybe it boils down to seeking beauty and then therefore pleasure,” She arches a brow at Josh, harking back to his comments yesterday when she had interviewed him. “But I think dressing up is the best thing you can do, especially if it’s just for the fun of it. It’s exciting and enthralling and I wish I could just play dress up all day like I did when I was in preschool.” 
He ducks his head down and smiles into his beer for a moment before taking a quick sip and shaking his head. His curls bobbed with the movement in an endearing fashion that made her want to pet his hair, but obviously she refrained. 
“I don’t think it’s materialistic or silly. Especially when you backed it up with the insight that it’s likely due to your love for beauty and pleasure and your childhood.” 
She twists her lips up, trying to hide her smile as she averts her gaze from Josh’s once more. He was just so sweet. “Thanks,” She whispers from across the picnic table they were sitting at after the first band's set. 
Josh had offered to get them to the front of the stage but she had said she wanted to hang out at the back on the grass, where they could watch the crowd and the band. No one bothered them as they swayed along to the bluegrass music and sipped at their plastic cups of beer. Josh had taken their cups from their hands when they were done and placed them beside them on the grass before extending his hand to her. She had placed her palm in his with uncertainty painting her features. He nodded back reassuringly, the light never once leaving his perfect golden brown eyes. 
He spun them around in the grass and they began to dance unabashedly between the interspersed people. She threw her head back in laughter as he dipped her and brought her back close to him with one large hand securely clutching at her waist. It was firm against the curve of her skin just above her hip. The point of contact was skin to skin as her top was cropped and her pants weren’t super high waisted. It felt like seering heat and ice simultaneously. 
He grinned back radiantly at her and she saw it before ducking her head into the crook of his neck. Her breath fanned over the skin at the base of his neck that was exposed as her grip on his shoulder pulled his shirt a little bit away from the divot in his collarbone. She’d kept her head there for the rest of their dancing, resting her chin on his shoulder for a while as well. Josh had hummed along to the songs and moved them around as the leader of their dancing, swaying his hips slightly to bring her out of her reverie. 
Back at the bench, she realizes Josh is speaking to her again and she nods with her eyes widening slightly to show she had been listening despite her daydreaming of a moment that had passed just a half hour ago. He was telling her that it was cute that she still enjoyed something that she did as a preschooler and shared that he had begun singing and performing when he was just a toddler as well. 
She hummed in agreement. “You’re a good dancer.” 
“You’re not so bad yourself,” He winks playfully and she swats at his hand resting on the table between them, moreso to just touch him than to chastise him for being flirty. Since the kiss yesterday, nothing too intimate had passed between them, save for the hug and the dancing. 
“I danced until I was a senior in high school,” She admits, contemplatively, almost conspiratorially since the next part felt like a bit of a secret to share with someone as famous as Josh – even if she tried not to think about that part of him for her own sanity. “I loved to perform too.” 
“You don’t say,” He lights up and once more she is shocked that he can look any more interested in their conversation. “You know what? I can actually see that.” 
She laughs lightly, as if she’s a little embarrassed by his compliment. “Yeah,” She pauses. “I’m sure you know better than I do, but the thrill of being on a stage and having people watching you do what you’ve practiced for so long and you’re a little nervous but you’re mostly excited to kill it and have them applaud you. That thrill of getting to be something more than just yourself – I don’t know if you think of it like that when you’re singing since you’re just yourself up there, but –” 
He nods along and bites at his lip while she speaks. “No I think so too, it’s exhilarating. I definitely am more than just myself up there. I feel invigorated and full of life but I also know what you’re talking about from acting, kind of taking on a different character that is more than me, but like it’s still me doing it, becoming it, y’know.” 
“Do you ever think you do it off stage?” She asks meekly, maybe scared of his answer. 
“Sure, definitely. I don’t know,” He walks through his answer aloud and she smiles softly at his uncertainty. After a moment. “Don’t we all? We’re all performers somedays.”
She hums her agreement, glad he thought similarly to her. The thought had been on her mind since she met Josh and how differently he would act in different moments. 
“You’re challenging, you know that?” 
“Most people don’t say it like it’s a compliment.”
Josh shakes his head and takes another swig of beer. She follows suit. 
“Most people don’t like to be challenged.”  
“And you do?” 
“Clearly.”
“Clearly,” She smiles back at Josh and they’re silent for a good while after that, just staring at each other with a thick air of tension and longing. 
They see Rainbow Kitten Surprise at the back of the crowd once more and she bops around happily while Josh smiles and enjoys it more than he expected. He whispers in her ear when they mess up chords or are off key, how he knew it she wasn’t sure but she believed him and nodded back conspiratorily. A fan stops him once during that set and she watches quietly as they interact. Josh is animated, possibly more than he was with her – if it were possible, as he takes genuine interest in what the person tells him and then takes a picture with them. He bids them farewell and once they’ve gone away he returns closer to her, telling her about his joy in meeting fans. Her brow creases in thought as he explains it, but she’s stuck on how his demeanor changed with them and then deflated to a slightly more controlled self when he was just with her.  
She lets him take her to the front of the stage for the Black Crowes set and she lets him hold her with his arms wrapped around her waist as they sway and bounce to the songs. They’re plenty tipsy and possibly fully drunk by then and she leans her head back onto his chest. She rests her hands on his forearms that are snaked close to her body and she can hear him breathe against her ear softly and raggedly when he’s out of breath from dancing them around. 
A more sultry song comes on and she purposefully settles into Josh’s chest a little more. His touch is electric as she moves his arms from around her waist to her hips. She can feel him smile into her hair as she presses further back into his firm body and he presses close to her. 
When one of Josh’s hands goes missing from her hip she’s close to turning around to see what was wrong, but is placated by his slender fingers playing along the base of her neck as he moves her hair out of the way. They return to her hip but she’s distracted by his plush lips on her neck as they sway, tangled up in one another. 
“Is this alright?” Josh asks lowly in her ear, before continuing with another kiss. 
“More than,” She breathes, peeking over her shoulder at him. “I’ve wanted you to kiss me again all day.” 
His lips quirk up into a pleased smile. “That can be arranged.” 
She giggles at his brows lifting in a way that is supposed to be seductive but seems a little hokey coming from Josh and all his lovely mannerisms. 
Once more, his lips are on hers and she melts into his touch, twisting around in his hold. His skin is fire against her compared to the cooling May air. Their tongues lick into each other's mouths and their sighs are soft against each other’s mouths, only heard by them due to the music being plenty loud around them. 
She tears her lips from Josh’s to kiss his strong jaw, something she had longed to do for a while. The hard spot of his jaw just below his earlobe is where she wants to kiss the most. And as she laves it with her tongue, Josh breathes hard through his nose as his hands hold her close to him, feeling her body soft and sweet against him. 
She bites at the hoop earring in his ear when it catches the light for a moment when her eyes slip open. 
“Careful,” Josh warns breathlessly when he hears the clank of her teeth against the metal and feels the slight tug. 
She lets go and smirks against the skin of his throat as she moves to a new landscape. 
She murmurs against his skin. “What? Do you not like that? Or do you like it a little too much?”
Josh hums in nonchalant agreement, attempting to keep his composure while she makes out with him in a relatively public place, even if it is dark and secluded.  
She continues kissing his neck, moving with ease as she sucks softly and Josh’s hand pets over her hair, content with letting her work until she nips at him slightly. 
“No, baby,” He softly grips the base of her neck and pulls her away from her position, bringing her eyes to meet his. 
She tips her eyebrows up in protest and he smiles in spite of himself, his lips splitting to show off the little gap between his teeth. He was too pretty, it wasn’t her fault she wanted to give him a love bite. 
“I can’t have visible marks,” He sighs, wishing he didn’t have to say it, wanting nothing more for her to continue and do whatever she wanted to him.
“Aren’t you done touring for awhile?”
“Yeah, I just don’t like visible marks where people might see and speculate.” 
“Speculate,” She repeats. “I understand,” She says before moving away, no longer wishing to continue down the path she was traveling, it couldn’t have gone much further in public anyway, especially if she couldn’t leave marks. 
Josh brings a finger to tip her chin up so that she’s looking at him once more. Her eyes look anywhere but his own. Across the bridge of his nose, his sunkissed and lightly freckle-smattered cheeks, the curls that fell over his forehead, his well-trimmed mustache, his hairy goatee that had been tickling her while they kissed. She didn’t look at his lips either, avoiding them as well. 
“Hey, look at me, please.” 
Her eyes meet his, reluctantly. Her face has a pouty expression as he regards her. The lights from the stage didn’t really illuminate her face as she faced away from it, but he could make out her expression nonetheless. Their intertwined bodies were wrapped up behind one of the large speakers, obscuring them from the majority of the crowds around them.
“It’s just a preference, it doesn’t mean I don’t want you, because trust me. I want you,” He chuckles as he tries to express himself clearly. 
She nods meekly, flushed at the authoritative tone he had had with her while she was clutched in his hold. She wanted to make him happy. 
“Will you kiss me again, sunshine? The little noises you make are so pretty in my ear,” He soothes, petting at the back of her head. His voice is gravelly with desire as he looks into her eyes. 
She feels herself brighten at the pet name Josh had chosen for her. He had waxed eloquent earlier about his love for the sun and everything it did for the world. For her to be his sunshine and to want her, she would glow for him.
“I feel like we need to leave,” She responds, still wanting more with Josh and sure that couldn’t happen when they were in public. 
Josh quirks his head and then picks up on her meaning. A smirk crawls onto his features, the alcohol in his system making him so very pleased that she was such a go-getter in every aspect of her life. “Is that so?” 
She nods and pecks his lips, ready to retreat after the quick kiss, but Josh pulls her back in for a longer kiss that she hums her approval into. Josh’s lips are insistent but she pulls back with a scrape of her teeth against his lower lip, growing impatient with the limited range of actions they could partake in while at the festival. 
He pushs down the groan that threatens at the back of his throat from her actions and she feels him attempt to control himself with a squeeze of his hands against her body, the base of her neck and her waist. 
He leans down and places his lips against her ear, whispering, “Are you going to take my advice from yesterday about personal pleasure.” 
“Certainly, Joshua.” Her fingers trail across his chest in a swirling pattern. 
“Fuck,” He breathes, his head falling between them. 
“What?” 
“Say it again.” 
“Certainly?” 
“No,” He rolls his eyes and shakes his head at her. “You’re a tease aren’t you, sunshine?” He presses against her and her breath hitches feeling his arousal harder than before. 
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Joshua,” She grins evilly at him. 
He laughs and pulls away from her, encircling his hand around her wrist and pulling them away from the stage. “Do you think your hotel or my hotel is closer?” 
“I thought you guys were staying on the tour bus?” 
“Oh, right,” Josh looks back at her and shakes his finger at her dramatically, realizing she was correct, as she jogs to trail behind his fast pace. They break out into a fit of giggles and she catches up, wrapping her arms around his right arm in a hug as they walk along quickly. Her body curls into his like she wants to become one with Josh and maybe she wishes she could. 
Inside the tour bus, a flurry of things happen. Josh doesn’t even have the chance to assure her that they’ll be alone to partake in the activities she’s been whispering in his ear during their fast-paced walk to the bus. 
She kisses him for a moment, with hot lips smearing against his in a hurried fashion. He forgets about what he wanted to mention after he had just slipped his phone out to confirm with his band group chat. 
Her hands tug at his shirt and he obliges happily, giggling at her eagerness. Delighted that she would want to have sex with him. He felt like he was 16 again, when his high school crush finally took charge and made it clear that she wanted to have sex with him. Josh loved when a woman made her wants clear — like he had told Y/N, being vocal about pleasure was a good thing. 
“What do you want, sunshine?” He asks when her hands are trailing at the waistband of his pants. 
Her eyes cast up at him mischievously and she blinks at him with a bit of a pout. Her hands run up his smooth chest, it’s toned but not too muscular and she wants to kiss, bite and lick over every inch if he’d let her.
“I want you, Josh,” She whispers.
“I’m all yours,” He responds just as softly, his head nodding to promise it was true. 
She squints her eyes at him, simultaneously endeared and annoyed that he’d say that. She wanted him to start taking charge, he seemed to be going along with everything she was doing but she wanted him to be more active with it. She wanted him to be the dominant one, it made her feel wanted, desired. 
“Josh, I want you to fuck me like you mean it.” 
“I’ll mean it.” He goes in for a hungry kiss, nodding his head insistently still and leaving her breathless. 
Her breath becomes heavier as she begins to anticipate Josh’s moves. Her fingers fumble with the button of his pants again and he pushes them off so that he can tug at her own top. The buttons come undone easily and he pushes it from her shoulders. The black lace bra that is revealed makes Josh’s jaw drop. She grinned and reached behind herself, unhooking the bra and removing it from her body. 
Josh’s lips flew to kiss between the valley of her tits. His warm lips suction against the skin, making her arch her back. The trail of his lips moves around her body, making the skin raise with goosebumps when the cool air touches where Josh had been. His large hands were wrapped around the bottom of her shoulder blades, keeping her close as he kissed her. 
A particular hard kiss from Josh’s lips on the underside of her left tit brought about the loudest moan she had made. Josh nipped at the skin and then leaned back on his heels to look up at her with a grin on his face. 
“Keep making those noises, baby. You sound like a fuckin’ angel.” 
“I need more, Josh. Please.” She pets at his hair, brushing back the unruly curls that had been happily tickling her as he kissed her. 
He nods. “Okay, sunshine, let’s get you on the bed then. How could I say no when you ask so sweet?” 
He walks her back until her knees bend at the feeling of the bed behind her. She’s kissing at his neck until she can’t anymore. Josh stops for a moment as he watches her sitting there, looking up at him. Her arms behind her, keeping her sitting up, her face flushed and adoring as she stared at him. Her breasts perfect and heaving as she took the chance to catch her breath. 
He finishes taking off his pants and she does the same with hers, leaving them in only their underwear as Josh crawls on top of her and pulls the curtain closed around them. One of Josh’s hands is cupping her jaw as he kisses her and the other trails down her body making her tremble. 
“Josh,” She sighs his name against his lips. 
His hand continues down, swirling over the cotton fabric and rubbing over her clothes cunt. 
“I bet you’re soaked, huh?” Josh questions, more to himself than anything, continuing to focus on teasing her over her panties. 
She nods, nonetheless, causing his thumb to bump against her lips. He glances up at her face with a watchful eye and presses his thumb against her lips firmly. She parts them and sucks it greedily into her mouth, swirling and laving her tongue over it. Josh smirks and continues his fingers’ assault on her continuously growing arousal. 
“All over me when we were in public, I felt you pressing you’re ass into me when we were dancing. Trying to get me hard where anyone could see, so fucking naughty. Did you get wet just from dancing, baby?” 
Her moan is muffled behind his thumb in her mouth, but he takes it as a yes. This was so hot, Josh finally seeing exactly what she wanted. 
“Yeah you did. Cause you’re kinda a slut when it comes down to it. Is that pussy insatiable? Such a needy cunt that you’d let me take you anywhere?”
“Fuck, yes! I need you.”
His nimble fingers finally slip under the fabric and glide through her folds, circling her clit and dipping into her entrance a little before pulling back and licking a bit of her juices off his hand. His groan is loud and shaking which just makes her want him more. The cloudy fog of alcohol had made her hornier and more submissive than usual, but she didn’t feel weird about it with Josh. 
“You taste delectable, angel.” 
She squeaks at the name which makes Josh’s smirk widen. 
“Here, taste yourself,” He removes his thumb and thrusts the other two digits into her mouth now, making her moan. “Fuck, angel. I’m gonna cum in my boxers if you keep making those sounds.” 
“Then fuck me, please.” 
“You’re sure you’re ready?” He tilts his head, teasing her slightly but also checking in to make sure they’d done enough foreplay. 
She nods and pulls him in for a kiss, tongues in each other’s mouths, dancing together and fighting for who’s in charge simultaneously. One of Josh’s hands trails down and yanks at her underwear, pulling them down around her knees and she wiggles them the rest of the way off before pulling up her knees and letting Josh’s body find a home between them. 
His boxers are next but not before he grinds his clothed cock over her quivering center, open, leaking and hot for him. He sits back on his knees for a second, one hand running up and down her thigh, soothing her shivering body and the other wrapped around his cock, it’s head twitching as he dragged it through her folds. A squelching noise sounds when he begins to push it faster around her clit and entrance. The heat between her legs is amazing, it already feels as if she’s going to explode, but she wants Josh inside of her. 
He relents from his teasing finally and pushes his cock head in and then slowly the rest of him, bottoming out and draping himself over her once more. The full feeling Josh gives her cunt is better than anyone of the few before. His body is wrapped around hers and hers is then wrapped around his cock. She whimpers for him to move and he starts at a steady speed, attempting to control himself when it feels so good inside her warm snug cunt. 
He speeds up when she begs him to, the slapping sound along with every sensation was so much but she was greedy and wanted more. Her moans are loud as he pounds into her. 
“Fuck,” Josh grunts, arm beside her face as she clutches as his biceps. “You’re pussy is so sweet to me, angel. So snug and warm, so inviting. Like you made it up special, just for me.” 
“Did you make it up special for me, baby?”
“Yes,” She moans and writhes “Just for you, Josh.”
“That’s right, angel. Thank you.”
He babbles about her pussy like it’s a cabin home for his cock and in her drunk heightened state it makes complete sense, its also a little endearing if he wasn’t fucking her obscenely at a festival on a tour bus, but that barely crossed her mind. This was Josh and he was making her see stars. 
“Josh,” She whines, hands gripping now at his shoulders and back, legs wrapping around his hips to push herself up to him. 
“Are you gonna cum? Gonna cum so pretty for me with that sweet cunt of yours. Can feel it choking my cock, wanting it to never leave. Believe me baby I don’t ever wanna leave.” 
She nods deliriously, moaning at his words. 
“Then go on, angel. Take it. It’s all yours. Yours for the taking, go on. Cum.” His affirmations and encouragement is so sweet and so hot coupled with his thumb rubbing tight circles into her puffy clit, she loses it, convulsing around Josh’s cock as it continues to pump into her. 
Her body shakes and her head rolls back, the orgasm coming in multiple waves as he fucks her through it. A hand goes up to her face, soothing her tensed expression as the pleasure washes over her. He continues to talk but she can barely hear it. He pulls out and cums on her stomach just when she flutters her eyes open, meaning she gets to see his own eyes flutter shut and pink lips drop open as he finishes. 
He smiles lopsidedly when he opens his eyes and sees her adoring gaze on him. 
“That was amazing, sunshine,” He gives her a peck on the lips before getting up to get them cleaned up. She nods and closes her eyes, feeling content and unbelievably tired. 
She tells herself not to fall asleep before Josh returns and maybe she doesn’t but the next thing she remembers is soft sheets and a peek of sunlight coming from somewhere. 
The next morning, she finds herself in an unfamiliar bed. It wasn’t the hotel bed that she had slept in the two previous nights either. 
“Fuck,” She sat up quickly and almost hit her head if an arm didn’t keep her from sitting up completely. Instead she just jostles back and forth with the new weight registering in her mind. 
Her eyes trailed from the hand on her shoulder, up the toned arm, over the connected shoulder and finally to the face of the owner of the arm, Josh. Josh... 
Josh fucking Kiszka. She’d fucked Josh Kiszka. In his tour bus. Right. Let’s remain calm. She took a deep inhale through her nose and out her mouth, trying to be as quiet as possible as he snoozed quietly beside her. His lips were slightly parted as he breathed evenly, his skin looked as soft as perfect beach sand.
Her body was covered in a t-shirt that wasn’t hers and wasn’t Josh’s either since she was sure he only owned white ones. This was an oversized raggedy faded black Queen shirt that smelled of strong men’s cologne and not at all Josh. She picked at the collar and brought it to her nose, sniffing it and wrinkling her nose. 
“What the fuck?” She whispered to herself which caused Josh to stir ever so slightly beside her. 
She sunk back to lying flat on the bed from her position on her elbows. 
“You awake, sweet pea?” He asks softly, groggily into her ear. 
She hums as if waking up and flutters her eyelashes open, in a way that she hopes is attractive. ‘Sweet pea’ had her preening into his touch when his hand slid from all the way across her body to touch her waist, beneath the thin sheet that covered them both. 
He was curled up against her and she shifted onto her side in a relatively awkward way due to the cramped sleeping situation they were in. Thankfully, it was spacious enough that she didn’t have any aches or pains from actually sleeping in it last night. Some soreness in her thighs and other places, but that was from the activities prior to the sleeping. 
A realization of a few things happens all at once for her. 
“Did your bandmates slash brothers hear us last night?! Where’s my phone? Did I remember to tell Chloe where I was and that I wasn’t coming back to the hotel? Fuck, do you know where my phone is?”
Josh smiles, like her freak out is amusing to him and he pats at her uncovered hip, stroking it softly, trying to soothe her. 
“It’s on the charger. You texted Chloe and I told my brothers to fuck off for half the night and texted them when they were free to return to the bus. You’re okay.” 
She breathes a sigh of relief and then flushes at the memories of last night. Of Josh in all his glory. Of the extra care he took with her, like no man had ever done before. Of the sounds she had made for him. Of the words he had said. 
“Was it any good?” 
“Jesus Christ Sam!” She shrieks and tucks her knees to her chest, which doesn’t really do anything, but makes her feel more covered up underneath the thin sheet. Josh’s hand slithers around her back to hold at her other hip, trying to comfort her once more. It certainly distracts her, his soft touch and undying warmth. 
Josh glares at the curtain around the bed, knowing his brother is likely standing in the hallway behind it. 
“Well, we’re all wondering,” Sam calls again. Jake was still in bed, but awake, and Danny was making coffee down the hall, but indeed they all were quite interested in hearing what had transpired the night before. All their ears perking up to Sam’s voice echoing through the cabin instead of the murmured voices they’d heard previously.  
Josh looks to Y/N with an apologetic smile and she returns it, before tucking her head into the crook of his shoulder, finding immense comfort in his body. He reluctantly pulls the curtain back to glare at Sam, who is grinning boyishly, like he just won a game. Josh throws a pillow at his own naked chest. Sam catches it easily with a ‘humph’ sound, but the smile never leaves his face. 
“C’mon get on with the story!” Jake’s voice comes from above them, followed by a peek of his head out from his bed’s curtain. His eyes are foggy with sleep and his hair was unruly and maybe a little tangled. 
“Are they always like this?” She murmurs to Josh, but loud enough for both Sam and Jake to hear. They snort. 
Josh chuckles good-naturedly, he loved his brothers despite how prying they could be. “Only my entire life.” 
“Nice shirt.” Sam interrupts their moment once more. 
She eyes his shirtless form, how confidently and smuggly he was standing there, eyeing the shirt she was wearing. She glanced at it, its worn blackness, the little tear at the shoulder likely from someone tugging at it constantly. “Is it his?” She asks Josh. 
“Yeah,” Josh laughs. “You were insistent on wearing it last night and I tried to tell you, but you hushed me and said to be a ‘good old fashioned lover boy’ and let you do what you want.” 
“Yeah that sounds like me.” She relents and rolls her eyes at Sam who raised his eyebrows at her teasingly. “If you’re not careful, I just might keep it.” 
Sam smiles at that and raises a palm, “By all means, keep your souvenir.”
She laughs genuinely and everyone smiles happily. Afterall, it had been a good night and the guys were happy to see Josh happy. It was just obligatory to give him a little shit for it. 
Josh tells her that he’s going to get ready and then take her back to her hotel. Before she can protest, he explains that it’s so she can change and get ready to go out into Napa together. She smiles and he pecks her on the lips before getting out of bed. He hands her jeans and original shirt from yesterday back to her. As he saunters off, she works to put her jeans back on, but keeps the Queen shirt on, the halter was cute albeit slightly uncomfortable and after last night, all she ever wanted was to feel blissfully comfortable. One night with Josh had taught her so much about herself that she had never known. It was euphoric. Even the morning shenanigans of Josh’s brothers couldn’t dampen her mood, her happiness. 
She climbs out of the tour bus bed and ambles towards the smell of coffee. Eager and interested in putting some of the dark liquid into her system. A slight headache from all of the alcohol consumed yesterday persisted despite her happiness and she hoped to dull it. The ache in her legs however and the tenderness along her neck and chest, she never wanted those sensations to leave. 
Danny and Sam were seated in the area where the coffee was and Sam was quick to jump up and grab her a cup, noticing her longing stare at their cups filled with the warmth. She thanked him and greeted Danny with a soft smile. After Sam hands her a mug filled to the brim with hot coffee, she thanks him once more and takes a seat beside Danny, opposite of Sam’s original seat. 
“So…” Sam settled back into his seat and cast his eyes towards her, with a tilt of his head, rather coquettishly. 
She rolls her eyes again, but smiles softly behind the lip of the coffee mug. “You’re not going to hear a word from me. If Josh wants to tell you, that’s up to him.” 
“Based on the marks I can see on your neck and that I can only imagine going…lower. He’ll have lots to say,” Sam winks. 
Danny laughs at his friend and shakes his head at Y/N. “Ignore Sam, he’s just jealous he didn’t find anyone to hook up with at the festival. It’s always a fun place to meet people.” 
She nods, trying to ignore the slight sting his words carried. They regarded her as a friend but then spoke of other people as mere conquests. It made her feel a little icky, because wasn’t that what she was to Josh? 
There’s a beat of silence after Sam made a sound of disapproval of Danny’s observation. She swallows some more coffee before glancing her eyes back down the corridor, hoping Josh would walk out soon. 
“He’s going to be awhile,” Danny interprets her gaze. “All that hair doesn’t fall into place on its own.” 
She laughs and nods understandingly. 
Danny starts again, feeling as if he had upset her somehow, but not exactly sure how. He asks about her work as a journalism student and she jumps into it, animated and happy to talk about something she was passionate about. Eventually, Josh reemerges from the back of the bus and graces them with his presence, bright and bubbly as always. 
“Ready, sunshine?” 
A smile spreads across her face, unwittingly. Her body naturally gravitated towards the thing, the man, who had been so kind and good to her the last few days. 
After she’s changed and ready for the day, informing Chloe of the plans. The three of them are ambling outside to her car since she told Josh they didn’t need to take the random rental the band had gotten. She liked to drive anyway. The boys meet them downtown, having someone drop them off instead of driving themselves. The town center had a green garden filled with willowy trees and a white gazebo. The sound of chirping birds was almost drowned out by the passing cars, but as they walked to the center the birds became clearer and her smile grew wider. It was nice to be outside of the festival in the fresh air that wasn’t overpowered by food trucks and alcohol. 
The boys asked questions about Northern California that Y/N tried to answer to her best ability. Chloe was from Southern California which they had a little more knowledge about, but they were vastly unaware of all the huge state had to offer. 
After getting coffees from a little café and ambling down the semi-quiet streets of downtown Napa, they came upon a ceramics store where you could paint premade pots and other ceramics. 
“Oh my god! We have to go in,” She beams upon reading the sign. “This is, like, my favorite thing from my childhood. Where I grew up there used to be one, but it closed when I was like nine.”
Josh had paused beside her and had his brows raised as he watched her excitement, loving to see her excited when she had been rather quiet the entire morning. He chalked it up to a mild hangover and being one of those people who needed a few cups of coffee to start their day, according to what she had told him previously. 
“Let’s go in, then.” 
She looks up to him with a hopeful expression that turns into glee when she sees he’s serious. In her excitement, she takes ahold of Josh’s hand and leads him into the shop trailing behind her. Everyone else smiles and follows behind with mumbles of agreement that it could be fun. Jake asked if there was alcohol involved or if there could be alcohol involved and she shot him a look of mock disdain, but couldn't keep the smile off her face, caught between her childhood self’s wholesomeness and her current self’s appreciation for a good drink.
“After you fire them, can they be shipped?” Josh asks innocently to the worker who was helping them, Alice. 
“Sure! We can ship ‘em anywhere in the continental U.S. for a small fee. Outside of that, the fee does get a bit bigger.” Alice replies, handing Jake the last piece the group needed, a frog mug he had asked for. 
Josh thanks her and then turns to Y/N who is seated across the table from him. “Do you want to paint one for each other and then we can have them shipped to each other afterwards?” 
Her head quirked to the side as she felt his foot press next to hers underneath the table. She wanted to take his hand and hold it, but he had dropped her hold immediately upon entering and seeing the worker approach them so she didn’t think he liked to be touchy in public where people could see. So she refrained. She bumps his foot back and Josh smiles a little wider, mirroring her tilted head. 
“Why not?” 
“Fantastic.” 
She tries to push away the angry butterflies in her stomach that hadn’t stopped fluttering all day since she had left Josh’s bed. She longed to be back in the safety of that bed, where Josh would touch her hip to remind her he was there to comfort her. Now she just dreaded this day ending as much as Josh had encouraged her to live in the present and not view it as a memory like she had told him she often did.
At the large table, the six of them get to work on painting their ceramics of choice. Josh’s, that would be Y/N’s eventually, was a plate with vegetables on it. Y/N’s, that would go to Josh, was a small catch-all dish for jewelry or anything. Jake’s was the frog mug. Sam had snagged an ashtray with raised stars on the outside. Danny had a bowl with etched in waves. Chloe picked out a small cup that she said she’d use as a shot glass, everyone had heartily agreed that she chose the best one. 
The music playing in the store was calming, yet upbeat enough for them to consistently work and not get too off track. It also wasn’t too poppy for the music snobs who sat within the confines of the store. As an aspiring music journalist, Y/N couldn’t claim that she wasn’t one of them. Only Chloe listened to anything that could resemble the top 20 of today. 
Conversations ebbed and flowed, but with Josh and Y/N on the edge of the table, they slipped off into their own conversations more often than not. 
“I’ve been wondering,” Josh says, glancing up from his plate that now had the outer edge painted with what would be a deep forest green. “How did you get out of the pit so quickly so that you were waiting at the side of the stage when we got off? I saw you move through with relative ease, but what could you have said to get through that crowd, it’s usually pretty difficult.” 
She smiles down at the catch all plate that was going to be lavender at the center, save for some spots where she was going to place little diamond stars. “I might have lied quite a bit…I said I thought I was going to pass out and that I felt sick. Plus, people are more willing to let you out of the front rather than let you in.” She shrugged and smiled a little when Josh shook his head at her in admiration. 
“Your journalistic integrity might get called into question if you always use a ruse to get what you want.” 
“Luckily, I told you the truth,” She simpered. 
“But you didn’t!” Josh widens his eyes, realizing another thing she had fibbed about, albeit, he wasn’t actually upset about it. “You said it’d be quick and look, I’ve been with you all weekend long.” 
“That was your choice,” She shrugged, smiling down at the dish. 
She felt the eyes of Jake on her, across the table, appraising the girl Josh had taken quite a liking too. He was perplexed that they were still hanging out with her. He didn’t mind, he liked her well enough, but the whole situation was odd and he really hadn’t had time to ask Josh about it, save for after the first night. 
Josh had told him about their kiss and how he’d told her he wanted to see her again. Jake had assumed she hadn’t wanted to hook up right away so Josh was being patient, but after last night he assumed it would have been a ‘see you later’ and not a ‘we’re all spending the day together’ kind of thing. Josh had also told him that he shouldn’t worry about what he had said during their high interview with her, about not being able to hold a serious long distance relationship. He had been pressed for an answer and he knew it was true, but he also didn’t want a serious long distance relationship, so what was the big issue with saying it. 
Jake had nodded and sighed and simply hoped for the best for his brother. He was a charmer, but Jake worried that Josh often laid it on too thick, misleading girls to think it was more than it was for Josh. He just hoped Y/N understood that this wasn’t something that could last longer than the weekend. 
The wind picks up when they exit the shop. Josh had insisted on paying the shipping costs for both of their pieces since he had been the one to suggest that they exchange them. Sam had teased Josh and asked if he’d pay for everyone’s, but Josh had cackled and heckled his little brother back. 
Jake raised a brow again at his twin’s kind gestures and wandered off ahead of the group down the street. They hadn’t decided where they were going next so he wanted to be in silence for a little. 
Y/N watched him walk off and if Josh notices her attention stray from him, he doesn’t say anything as he regales her with a story from when he had accidentally almost set his laptop on fire. She laughed and smiled and interjected words of amazement and concern at all the right times – a skill she had had all her life, but perfected as a journalism student for particularly boring interviews where she just needed one quote and had to listen to someone go on forever about something that didn’t matter to her. Not that what Josh was saying wasn’t of interest to her. She was just preoccupied with Jake’s strange behavior. She didn’t know him well, obviously, but she had gathered he was quiet but also kind and particularly boisterous with his brothers. She didn’t think her or Chloe should be the cause of this silent and almost sulking quality he was exuding. 
Her interest was piqued and she just wanted to know why. She wanted to understand, perpetually curious – it was a blessing for her future career, but potentially a curse in this situation. 
Jake stops his walking to peer into a window display. The winery it was promoting was one that someone had mentioned to him that they should try while they were here. Now that it had popped up again, he thought it could be a good activity – especially with the drinking included. 
“Y’all want to go wine tasting?” He asks, turning his head to stare at the group mildly once they had neared his figure. 
“That sounds like a fantastic idea, Jacob,” Sam supplies, eyes lighting up at the prospect of going to a winery. “You are such a wonderful patriarch,” Sam snickers and Jake rolls his eyes. 
“Hey!” Josh interjects, his ego showing itself. 
Danny sounds off in agreement of going to the winery, as does Chloe, who really didn’t care, especially since she wasn’t yet 21, cursed with a summer birthday, much to her chagrin. Most wineries probably wouldn’t care, but every so often there would be a server who would card everyone. 
Y/N agrees as well, of course, but notes the flicker of possible annoyance in Jake’s eyes when she voices said agreement with “I’d love to go. Acceptable forms of day drinking are my favorite pastimes.” 
The gravel crunches beneath her car as she pulls down the unpaved road that was leading them to the winery. Chloe had said she’d take over driving after the winery so that Y/N could drink to her heart’s content. She had grinned at her best friend and thanked her. 
Inside the winery’s tasting room, a host greeted them and immediately began to help them, getting them seated outside to enjoy the warm sunshine. The breeze was welcome outside now, when they were sitting on wicker couches and chairs with dark grey cushions accented with red throw pillows, all warmed by the sun. 
Y/N found herself seated directly next to Jake on the couch and Josh on her other side in a separate chair. Josh beams at her and asks her to remind him of her favorite type of wine. She responds with “‘Malbec’ or sometimes ‘Merlot’.” Josh nods before turning to their server, asking if any of the tastings included a Malbec. She smiled and tried to keep the heat from rising to her cheeks as the server’s eyes flickered from Josh to her, noting the clear relationship they seemed to have in the server’s eyes. 
Jake readjusted in his seat and flicked some of his hair off of his shoulder. His movement brings her attention to him, but he doesn’t regard her. His eyes shifting and flickering around the scenery, out at the green vineyards and blue sky. 
“Is something wrong?” She murmurs to him, while Josh is still occupied with deciding on which tasting the group was going to do, while Sam and Danny amused Chloe with a tour story. 
His eyes reluctantly find her face, but avoid maintaining eye contact for longer than a beat. 
“Not particularly, why do you ask?” 
The stare he finally gives her with his question almost feels like he’s completely turned the tables on her. She suddenly feels very small under his gaze and she immediately longs for when he was refusing to look at her because this is far more intimidating. His pointed nose is narrow and sharp like a beak of an elegant bird as he stares down at her. His eyes barely crinkle at the edges and his eyebrows furrow ever so slightly. Her eyes break from the stare to look down, catching on the glinting silver of his long necklace that lays against his naked tan chest, exposed due to his unbuttoned shirt that wrinkles beneath an unbuttoned vest. His vibe was very slutty pirate if she could name it and she actually loved it if he wasn’t looking at her with such intensity. 
“You’ve just seemed,” Her eyes return to his face, attempting to not back down, realizing Jake had just turned something on, a mechanism to further avoid her questioning. She decides to change her course of action. “Nevermind.”
Jake’s face turns satisfied, thinking he had successfully gotten her to leave him alone about what had been bothering him. 
The longest wine tasting option Josh could have picked commences with a Malbec coming up fifth. By the sixth wine, she was feeling slightly tipsy. Josh was grinning and telling a story that the boys were all a part of so she assumed it was only for her’s and Chloe’s benefits. His hands flew around him as he described a grand concert hall dinner they had attended previously and how they had met Elton John that night. She smiled and giggled when Josh mimicked Elton John’s British accent. 
“Jake, of course, is much better at doing a British accent than me,” Josh laughs. “I’ll concede to that. Will Mr. Reed be joining us at any point this afternoon?” He regards Jake for his question, who smiles back calmly and shakes his head negatively before draining his glass of Zinfindel. 
“No, I don’t think he will,” Jake’s regular voice sounds, “But I am going to go for a smoke, if that’s alright?” 
Josh nods, but approval wasn’t actually what Jake was looking for. He moves to stand, but before he can maneuver himself around Y/N, she stands as well. 
“You don’t mind if I join you?” She asks, innocently. “It’s a bad habit of mine, but if I’m not alone I don’t feel as guilty.” 
Josh smiles happily at his brother, seeing no reason for Jake to say no to her and being delighted at the prospect of the two of them getting to know each other a little better. 
Jake gestures for her to go ahead of him since it didn’t seem like he could refuse. 
They walk off together down a path that leads towards the vineyards. Everyone else rested with their wines, it gave them time to catch up, Danny and Josh were still only on the fourth wine and Sam was on the fifth. Only Y/N and Jake had been keeping the official pace, finishing their sixth before wandering off. The remaining group also decided to order some snacks to go along with the food. Chloe happily sipped at her Coke Zero. 
Jake fishes his pipe from the inside pocket of his vest and his box of tobacco, beginning to pack the pipe. She regards him beside her, expertly packing the bowl. 
She can’t help her yelp of laughter at the sight. His eyes flicker to her face that she tamps down into a tight lipped smile. “That’s so pretentious, I’m sorry.” 
He rolls his eyes and continues his process. “It’s all I’ve got. Don’t you know? Cigarettes kill.” 
She laughs genuinely at this while simultaneously slipping her crumpled pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket. “I think it’s all tobacco products, but whatever helps you sleep.” 
They pause to help shield each other’s smoking device of choice from the wind so that they can be lit. Surprisingly, Jake speaks first after the cigarette and pipe are burning. 
His hand toggles the pipe from his lips and allows the smoke to billow out from his mouth. It goes off in the opposite direction of her, thankfully. He had been careless, just allowing the smoke to seep from his lips, if the wind had blown the opposite direction it would have hit her directly in the face.
“Have you enjoyed your weekend?” He attempts to be casual as they continue down the path between the vines. 
She glances at him and how his eyes continue to survey the land, clearly not actually caring to hear what she has to say, but attempting to preoccupy her mouth with words that wouldn’t question his behavior again. 
 She hums in affirmation and blows the smoke from her lungs. 
“Jake,” She calls his name, hoping this will actually bring his eyes to her. It does. “Are you ever compelled to write?” 
Jake’s eyes flash wide in confusion, not fully understanding the question and confused as to where it came from. “Pardon?” 
She smiles to herself and then looks away from him to try and explain her question better. “I know you’re like the guitar guy and I honestly don’t know how much of the lyrics you write for the band, but beyond that, are you ever moved to write something down? Not like a to-do list or something like that, but to write down a story or a thought that bounces around your head until the only way to stop it is to write it down.” 
Jake immediately brightens. “Yes, often,” He breathes out. She had described something he experienced regularly but didn’t discuss with people because the few times he had broached the topic it had been shot down. He assumed most people didn’t feel that way. 
“I feel that constantly,” She continues and takes a drag of her cigarette. “Sometimes it’s exhausting right?” 
Jake nods when she looks to him for confirmation. 
“When I’m with Josh,” She pushes forward. “I don’t feel that compulsion. I feel peaceful. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to write things down, I want to remember every moment, every breath, every laugh with him, but it’s not so frantic. I know I’m younger than you guys and you might think I’m naive for entertaining the notion that Josh and I could continue whatever this is when we’re apart, but I’m okay with it being something when we’re together and then something else when we’re not. What I’m trying to say is, I would hate for you to be upset with me or your brother for something we’ve got under control. I was apprehensive to say ‘yes’ to Josh when I first met him, but now it feels so easy and it’s barely been three days.”  
Jake chuckles despite himself and her eyes flash to his face, disturbed that he would laugh when she had said something so serious. Had she completely misread his expressions and behavior today. 
“You’re incredibly astute for barely knowing me and my brother.”
“Is that actually a compliment or are you being facetious?” 
Jake laughs again with a little shake of his head before tipping his pipe over and blowing out the fulling smoked bowl of ash. “No, I mean it. I worry about him. Some people get misled by his charm and it ends up blowing up in his face at the end of the day because he’s so empathetic. He’ll beat himself up over a girl crying because he made all these big promises and grand gestures, all for it to end. He doesn’t do it maliciously, he’s just too intrinsically optimistic and loving. He’ll give a random girl an interview and then decide to introduce her to the rest of the band and sweep her off her feet, spend the entire weekend with her and make her fall in love. And I’m the one left to pick up the pieces when he feels terrible that he’s upset you, but since you already know what this is, I’m relieved.” 
She grimaces but attempts to keep it light. She hoped Jake had said this out of kindness, that he hadn’t intentionally just told her she wasn’t as special as she thought she was. That Josh did this all the time apparently and any promises he had made her were bound to be broken. She hoped that it wasn’t fully true either, that he hadn’t just reduced this weekend to another time he’d have to console his brother when she got upset that it was ending. Because in her eyes, it wasn’t ending, this was just a see you later. That’s what Josh had told her. Best possible outcomes only. 
“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Y/N. I think you’ve got good things coming to you in this life,” Jake bumps the elbow of her arm that wasn’t holding her cigarette butt that she didn’t want to drop in the dirt. “Thanks for talking to me, I feel much better.” 
“Yeah,” She replies, lost in her mind once more. “Course. I don’t like to see people upset.” 
They turn back and rejoin the group. Jake doesn’t notice her quieter state, now telling her his own story about traveling around California previously. She interjected when necessary, but otherwise her eyes wandered along the vines. The vibrant green was barren of any fruit, it dangled along the lines that had been placed to hold up the crop. The crop that would flower and fruit that would make the wine. Maybe following Jake down this path hadn’t been such a good idea. 
Josh beams at their return, not consciously noticing that Jake had been quiet before but certainly noting that he was brighter than before. Perhaps because he spent time with Josh’s new paramour which made him happy. He also didn’t seem to notice the lackluster quality that had overtaken said paramour upon her returning. He was good at seeing the happy things, at times to a fault. 
It also didn’t help that Y/N masked her displeasure with a sunny smile that mirrored Josh’s. 
After the winery, she does her best to continue the facade that had proved to be convincing for the last hour. However the wine was affecting her brain. She was tired and a bit sad. When she lags behind the group, Josh finally notices and slows to walk with her, letting the rest of the group wander ahead on the walk back to the car. It was a long winding road that they had walked down originally to get to the vineyard’s barn where the tastings took place. 
“How’re you feelin’, sunshine?” 
“Honestly?” She looks up at him, the sun shining on half of her face from the angle Josh looked at her. It bronzed her features as if she was ancient art and Josh truly regarded her as such. 
“A bit drunk,” She starts with a pout on her lips when he nods her on. He ‘aww’s at her and wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into him. She huffs and presses her head against his warm chest, finding it comforting yet also aggravating that he didn’t know why she was upset. But how could he when she hadn’t told him and had been acting like everything was fine? “Are you sure you want to continue things when we’re apart?” 
“You know I am,” Josh stops, leaning back to look in her eyes. He sees the sadness clearly now in her watery eyes. “Did you get in your head again?” 
“No,” She shakes her head and laughs humorlessly. “I actually wasn’t until Jake and I went on our walk –” 
“What did he say?” Josh intervenes, suddenly worried. He shakes his head, already upset at his brother for making Y/N upset. 
“It’s fine, Josh,” She puts a hand on his chest. “I don’t want you to be upset with him because of this, he didn’t realize he said something callous. It just made me feel like maybe you didn’t actually care about me all that much.” 
“But I do, trust me,” He says her name, pleading for her to believe him as she blinks back a few more tears. 
“I want to Josh,” She nods, “It just sounded like this happens a lot and I don’t want you to be upset because I’m upset because Jake said that’s always what happens and just…fuck. I don’t know. I just wish I could believe you, but I’m scared and I want to be chill about it but I’m just not chill.” 
The tears come faster and Josh hugs her to his chest because he feels realization wash over him. She was scared. She was scared of what he could do to her because she cared that much. He held her close and tried to soothe her upset state. Thankfully no one had come back to look for them, likely realizing they needed some time alone. 
“You don’t need to believe me right now, that’s fine. I’ll prove it to you, though. That this isn’t like the other times, that I’m not leading you on. I’m sorry there’s nothing I can do right now that will show you that, that will grant you peace of mind. But I hope you know, these past few days have imprinted themselves in my mind. I care for you deeply.” 
“Thanks,” She sniffles and attempts to will away the tears, no longer wishing for them to come out of her eyes. She didn’t even feel like crying they were just happening to her because of what they were talking about.” 
He kisses the top of her head and she gives him a watery smile. When they reach the car, no one asks what took them so long or why it looked like Y/N had been crying. Chloe gives her a backward glance from the driver’s seat and Josh glares at Jake a little, but stops when Y/N places her hand on his thigh. 
That night is soft and Josh kisses Y/N a few times, they hold one another but neither of them offer to stay the night. Josh promises to see her again. She nods and kisses just to the right of his lips. 
“Thank you for everything, Josh. I hope you’re right.” 
-
Ooops sorry... PLS tell me what you think, inbox is open or feel free to comment
Part 2
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shepherds-of-haven · 9 months
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hii! i'm a new author working on my first if, and i'm really not doing great tbh. shepards of haven is (my current hyperfixation) sosososososo good and so expansive and just generally the best thing ever and i'm aware that you've been writing this story for years and that's probably why it's so amazing but i'm not having a fun time over here and i was wondering if you have any tips for worldbuilding or if you could share like a general overview of your process? thank you so much :))
Hi there, I'm sorry to hear you're not feeling great about your project at the moment! I think my #writing advice tag could be helpful to you, since that's where I stick all the posts and answers about writing tips and worldbuilding advice from this blog, as well as my @strangevoyages blog, which is exclusively focused on my authorial career and writing-related tips and tricks, so it might be easier to parse through for advice! This post I wrote last year, in particular, could be helpful for worldbuilding, as well! (As well as this post for my general tips for beginning writers of interactive fiction!)
On top of all that, though, I think the best piece of advice I can add on for you is to be patient with yourself! As you mentioned, I've been working on Shepherds for over 20 years now: it was basically the first story I ever wrote, and I still haven't published it in a complete form yet. My first novel, We Have Always Been Here, also took about four years to complete, and in that amount of time, I burned it completely to the ground and started it over from scratch FIVE TO EIGHT TIMES before I got so sick of looking at it I just had to submit it. And I thought I would start my second novel directly after that, starting a few months after WHABH's completion in 2019. It's been four years since then and I'm still figuring out the world and characters of that second novel, to the point that I've also started and completely scrapped the story three or four times... I didn't even settle on the main cast or their names until earlier this year, so that's like 3 years where I didn't even know their names, let alone how their world worked. 🥹 And in the last four years, I've still only gotten as far as about ten chapters on this series, and my most current draft is only at four! (And I'm about to scrap some of that and start over again... 🥹)
At some point, you finally iron things out and the story details settle and actually click, and then you might be off to the races--but you've got to give yourself the time, patience, and understanding to actually get there first! I know that things can feel frustrating when it feels like you've run up against a wall or you just aren't feeling inspired, but letting things simmer for a while just allows the flavors of your story to complexify and deepen. You're creating a whole new world in your head, so give yourself a break! It takes time. Like a good soup, sometimes you have to let it sit on the stove for a bit and bubble away without poking at it impatiently and wishing it would hurry up or dumping ingredients in it to make it cook faster. In the meantime, consuming media that inspires you or that you genuinely love and enjoy--without turning it into the work and chore of "research"--might uncork or illuminate something you didn't even know was brewing. That's what I most often do when I'm feeling uninspired! I just leave everything where it is, meander away, watch or read or play something that intrigues me, and that often naturally sparks inspiration when I'm not thinking too hard about it. A watched p(l)ot never boils, so to speak!
I hope that (and my other posts linked above) help you in some way. Good luck with your writing and again, try not to be too hard on yourself! You're not alone, every writer feels this way: it's just a part of the process, but one that we can mitigate by giving ourselves time and patience. :) And thank you for the kind words about Shepherds, I'm glad you're enjoying it!
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dandylovesturtles · 8 months
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For the writing meme: 11, 16, 24
11. Link your three favorite fics right now
AH NO questions like this are so hard... ok I'll do my favorite completed and my favorite ongoing that I'm subbed to.
I'm basing this on how much I reread them lol
Completed:
who're you hiding - Leo gets sick and hangs out in Donnie's lab.
all the things that I could live without - Disaster Twins post-movie recovery fic.
Panic Buttons - Leo has a panic attack and Raph helps him (cw that the panic attacks depicted are very graphic)
Ongoing:
The Old College Try - Disaster Twins go to college.
Three-Sided Coin - Three Leos from three different points in the timeline get transported to an alternate dimension (I think??).
call me here (I will appear) - Leo dies in the Prison Dimension and comes back to his family as a ghost.
Bonus (some favorite fics not from ROTTMNT):
Poor Wayfaring Stranger (Final Fantasy XV) - AU where Cor finds MT!Prompto and brings him back to Insomnia to take care of him. Idk how else to describe this fanfiction. It's one of the best pieces of writing I've ever read. It basically reconfigured my brain.
ikanaide (Project Sekai) - Tsukasa gets sick and his friends take care of him.
(do you take this jerk to be) your one and only (ATLA) - AU where Zuko is engaged to Yue and Sokka does not like that (though his reasons change over the course of the fic, if you know what I mean).
(putting the rest of my answers under the cut because this got long lol)
16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?
OH GOD SO MANY they basically don't stop.
Of the ones I feel confident I will write at some point, there are... 5 I think. 100ft is one of them so I won't talk too much about that.
The other chapter fic I want to write is my take on the "save everyone in the doomed timeline" style fic, and I've talked about it before. I've been tentatively calling it "Donnie and Mikey's Step-by-Step Guide to Saving Your Doomed Family," or just "Step-by-Step Guide" and, like I've said, it's intended to be heavily B Team focused.
The idea came from my interest in the time between the end of the Season 2 finale and the start of the movie, a time where Leo and Raph fought a lot and Donnie and Mikey had to lean on each other. They've always been close but in the movie they're downright clingy, with Donnie reflexively tucking Mikey under his arm or holding on to him in so many scenes, and like a lot of other people I interpret this as a consequence of Raph and Leo's fighting and the tension it created in their dynamic. But I also kinda shy away from that actual time period, because if you stay canon compliant with the movie it's kinda hard to have an actual resolution to that tension without overwriting it some way. And I know some writers thrive in that limbo, but I am not one of those people haha. It's just not something I'm personally interested in writing myself.
So this fic will be set in the immediate aftermath of the film, where things are kinda resolved but not really because Leo and Raph are still too seriously injured to have an actual conversation, and Mikey and Donnie are still left in uncertainty of what their sibling bond will look like when all is said and done.
And what better way to distract yourself from the growing tension in your own family than by involving yourself in someone else's problems - specifically the problems of yourselves from a doomed future?
I'm really excited about it... whenever I get to it haha.
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24. Worst writing advice anyone ever gave you?
I caaan't remember if I've told this story here but if I have I'll just tell it again lol
I grew up in a really small rural town that happened to have a very small private college in it (the entire campus could have fit in the commuter parking lot of the state college I went to). Every now and then this college would host some kind of speaker or a workshop that was open to the public, and this was a big thing because my town didn't get a lot of that kind of thing coming through it. One of these workshops was hosted by a published author, and it was a class for beginning fiction writers. I was around 17 or 18 at the time, and me and two of my other friends (who also wanted to be professional writers one day) were very excited to sign up.
I mean, I can't stress to you guys how hype we were for this. You'd think we had backstage tickets to a Lady Gaga concert. But our town didn't have a lot of people you could talk to about this kind of thing. Getting advice from someone who had actually gotten their books bought and published by an actual publishing house was a big deal to us.
So we get to the workshop. We're the only teenagers there, but we weren't worried about that. We were the nerds in high school, we were used to this. We all sit down in the same row, pencils and notebooks ready to go. Ready for wisdom!
She asked the group to give a short, punchy summary for a story idea we each had. Like the straight A students we were, my friends and I all put our hands up first. She called on me, and I rattled off my back-of-the-book style summary for something I wanted to write, a fantasy novel about dragons and swords (I was a dragon girl).
I remember she gave me this nasty look and said, "Oh, you're one of those."
She preceded to go into a prolonged rant about how genre fiction is pointless; how there's nothing redeemable about fantasy worlds, how it's empty-calorie entertainment, the potato chips of the literary world. Books, she said, are supposed to be about real things. Contemporary and historical fiction were the only worthy genres in this woman's mind.
I don't remember a lot of the advice that came after that, I just remember sitting in my chair feeling dejected and stupid.
I think about that sometimes, and how one person can be so wrong. Genre fiction may be set in fantasy worlds or sci-fi futures, but it's still about real things. Real emotions and real struggles and real philosophical questions. If you cut yourself off from fantasy and sci-fi just because it deals with unreal or theoretical concepts, you cut yourself off from a broad spectrum of human self-expression.
Anyway, she may have sold a few historical fiction novels but I have 250K hits on AO3 so who's laughing now, lady
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Thank you to the fabulous @that-cyber-writer for tagging me in this Writing Questions Tag Game! D.M. Foyle, as @that-cyber-writer is also known, is working on a nail-biting crime thriller entitled Tangled Wires starring Raz, a brilliant hacker on the run from the Russian mob. Interested? Go check out Tangled Wires and all of Foyle's projects here! I'm tagging (no pressure!): @inkovert @outpost51 @aquadestinyswriting @merlina87 @sarah-sandwich @lucianinsanity @winterandwords @threeking @avrablake @the-finch-address @thawinoakenshield @the-down-upside-finch @lunarmoment @sodaliteskull @kingkendrick7 @harps-for-days @cee-grice @tate-lin @rubywrite @poppy-in-the-woods @hippiewrites @the-down-upside-finch @lexiklecksi @linaket and anyone else who'd like to participate!
✦ What is your absolute all-time favourite idea you’ve ever had?
The one that inspired the novel I'm writing right now, The Sorcerer's Apprentice! Initially, I just wanted to explore the relationship between two individuals at completely polar opposite moments in life: one, an elderly character, preparing to die and looking back; and the other, a youthful character, just beginning to come into their own, in early adulthood, still figuring out who they are and what they believe in, facing forward. It would be a lie to say that the novel isn't still very much built around this dynamic, between the elderly sorcerer Valeriano and his young apprentice, Altaluna. But it's grown from the original idea to incorporate issues and topics I hadn't expected; climate change, environmental disaster, colonialism and neocolonialism, the body as a machine, contemporary theories of perception, abusive family dynamics, and more. These topics and their associated plot/world ideas are likewise what makes The Sorcerer's Apprentice my favourite written piece to date. It's like the more I dig, the more I enjoy what I'm doing. If the first idea was compelling but lukewarm, the accumulation of ideas that has ensued as I attempt to do the initial idea justice has taken it to the next level.
✦ Is there a question you’ve been asked that really stands out to you and that you still think about sometimes?
Not that I can think of off the top of my head! Sorry :S I wish I did.
✦ What is your favourite part of being a writer? What parts could you take or leave?
The trouble is, you can't have any of it without all of it, so this is a bit of a trick question, to which I don't really have a clear answer. I love it all. I hate it all. I struggle every step of the way. And I have the time of my life, always.
✦ What is your greatest motivation to write/create?
It's changed over the years! As a child, I just liked exercising my imagination. In my teens and early twenties, I wrote to escape or to envision the life I wanted, the person I wanted to be, and how I wanted to be perceived by others. Now, my greatest motivation is rage. I am one very pissed-off adult lol I suppose the difference is also that now I actually have something to say, something I feel is worth saying. And I feel that very strongly, which helps me get over the bad days at the desk where no words are coming or where I doubt my capacity to write at all. Because it doesn't matter. This -the message of my novel- has value to me. It's more important than my small personal feelings of insecurity or ups and downs. So I'll find a way. That's my motivation. It's not really that I want to write, it's that I have to. It's that I can't live in a world where this isn't said ~ and where it isn't said the way I'd like to say it.
✦ What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever read or been given as a writer?
The best advice I ever received was from a world-renowned author in his 90s who told me that it (writing) never gets any easier, so basically, your choices are either quit or keep going with the knowledge that it's never going to magically turn into a picnic, no matter how much experience/talent you have. I also got some lovely advice a couple years ago from (I think?) Anne Lamott in her writer's memoir Bird By Bird. In one of the chapters, she mentions that if you lack inspiration, you can always write to get your own back, aka. you can always write as a way to avenge yourself. And that just flipped a switch in my brain. I don't think I'd be writing The Sorcerer's Apprentice without that little seed she planted.
✦ What do you wish you knew when you were first starting out writing?
Nobody knows what they're doing. You'll never be more prepared than you are right this minute. But also, you have to live a little before you can know what you want to say ~ the same way you have to live a little to figure out who you are. Writing is organic. It grows with you. You have to let yourself grow, so the writing can follow.
✦ What is your favourite story you’ve written to completion? Link it if you’d like and can!
I don't have a favourite completed story to share, so I'm sharing a link to my current WIP, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, a fantasy novel exploring the interplay between colonialism, capitalism, and environmental catastrophe through the fraught relationship between a mysterious sorcerer and his protogé.
✦ Which of your characters would you say has the most controversial mindset? Why do you say so, and how do you personally feel about their ideals?
Valeriano, the antagonist of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, is the only character I've ever written whose views are absolutely despicable in almost every way. I'd be very concerned if my readers don't find his mindset controversial. The man is sexist, racist, and classist; he discriminates against any LGBTQ+ classification that isn't his own (biphobia, anti-lesbian, etc.), he's morally perverse, and he bristles with a sense of in-born superiority. In short, he represents the polar opposite of my own personal views and ideals.
✦ If you, when you first started writing, met you now, what would younger you think?
A younger me would definitely not recognise me, let alone understand why I'm writing what I'm writing. And that's how it should be! I'm glad little me enjoyed a time when all that mattered were unicorns and fairies, and the world was bright, open, and good. I wouldn't take that away from little me for all the world, not for anything. Plus, I have the lingering feeling that little me would be proud of me anyway. Even if she doesn't quite get it. She'd trust me and my choices. We'd be different, but we'd be cool, you know?
© 2024 The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. All rights reserved.
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cowgurrrl · 8 months
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Okay I’ve shouted them from the rooftops a few times but I want to make a conducive list so welcome to
June’s writing advice!!
You may be asking, “why are you qualified?” The answer is I’m not. Everyone writes and processes storylines differently. However, I did just graduate with my BA in English, I’ve been a writer for fourteen years, and I’ve been published ten times (and counting). This advice may not work for everyone and that’s okay but this is just a list of things that I’ve done that help me!
1. If you’re having writer’s block, you’ve probably gotten in your head about what an audience would think of your work. Take a break and think about what you think would be the most fun to write and write it. At the end of the day, the pride and joy you get from your craft is the most important.
2. No writing is ever wasted. Did you know gardeners will reuse rotten tomatoes in their compost to make their next batch of tomatoes taste/grow better? The new tomatoes wouldn’t be what they are without the old tomatoes. No “good” piece of writing can ever be what it is without the “bad” writing.
3. Adding onto that: if you wrote it down, it’s worth keeping! Create and keep a “graveyard” doc where all your cut/deleted writing can go. Even if it doesn’t make it into the final draft, it can always end up fitting somewhere else.
4. Everyone is on their own creative journey. Don’t be a dick. Be kind or shut up.
5. Working on multiple wips at the same time is actually great for preventing writer’s block! When you get stuck on one piece, you can always move to work on the other while your plot works itself out in the background. Write anything and everything you want.
6. In my personal opinion, using “said” or “asked” is not a bad thing. So often, we are taught to use other words like “shouted” “whispered” “clamored” “questioned” etc. However, I find that my brain gets taken out of what I’m reading if there’s too many uncommon verbs. Using a “whisper” or a “scream” is fine every once in a while, but normally, using “said” or “asks” is easier on people’s brains. So much so that you don’t even realize it when you’re reading until you’re looking for it!
7. Read your dialogue out loud to make sure it sounds natural. Sometimes you don’t realize how clunky a sentence is until you hear it!
8. Holy shit give your characters flaws. The best characters and plot lines that stick with people for years are the ones where not everything is black or white. People love to debate morals when it comes to characters. For example, one time I wrote an argument between two of my characters in an original work I’m still working on and my creative writing classmates got into a twenty-minute argument during workshop on who was right and who was wrong. When they finally asked me, I said, “they’re both wrong.” But didn’t give them a reason why. They hated and loved it lol. Give your readers something to debate.
9. Make it fun! Create a playlist, draw a storyboard, make a Pinterest board, make a list of people you would cast in the live-action version of your story. I like using Unreal Engine to create a 3D model for my characters to help me visualize them and be able to describe their facial expressions. Basically, do whatever it is that makes you a little more excited to write!
10. Know that it is no small feat to pull out the most divine pieces of yourself for the world to judge. Writing is one of the most intimate things I’ve ever had the opportunity to share and it’s changed my life. People want to hear what you have to say and they want to root for you and your characters. Create community. Support each other. Write whatever you want. Be kind. The world needs more kind writers like you.
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disdaidal · 6 months
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For the Writer's asks:
What feedback did you receive for your writing that stuck with you?
Show us a piece of dialogue you really like.
Hello! :))) ♥
13. What feedback did you receive for your writing that stuck with you?
- Well, first of all, I have this absolutely horrible habit of rambling and writing sentences miles long (:D), so I may have received quite a bit of feedback about that both in English as well as in my mother tongue. Every now and then I still often find myself typing like a total madman, without breaks or periods in between, so I try to go through them and cut them down in smaller sections. I don't nearly always heed that advice, but I try to. Because now I notice that when others are doing it in their writing, rambling on and on without breaks, it's harder for me to read and stay focused. :D So, yeah, I think it's important.
There have been other kinds of feedback over the years, mostly small things that I've tried to keep in mind. But since they are mostly minor things and I've noticed that other people don't always follow/know them in their writing either... *shrugs*.
18. Show us a piece of dialogue you really like.
Ohh, man. 🙈 I wrote this part in my latest wip a while ago and it may not be my best dialogue ever, but I like it regardless:
Yennefer’s face lit up with a grin and she laughed. “Oh, yes, Prince Charming,” Adding fuel to the fire. “I'm sure he’s delighted to come back home to his biggest fanboy ever.” “Oh, knock it off…” Cahir moaned, giving her a small kick with his left foot. Ciri and Yennefer giggled in response, and Fringilla hummed, amused. They all knew about his crush, teasing him about it at any chance they got, and it didn’t make him feel any better. “I’m sure he’s just pissed after another shit day at work and that he has to come home and see my sorry face after everything I’ve done…” “Nonsense,” Yennefer gave him a small slap on his backside which made him jolt. “He’s going to be so happy to see you again and he’s gonna keep fussing all over you and cook for you and we’re just gonna sit here and watch it all happen. Maybe pop some popcorn while we’re at it,” She turned to look towards the kitchen, then back at Ciri. “Do we have any?” Ciri shrugged and Cahir lifted his head from the pillow, scorning. “We? You don’t even live here!” “Oh, don’t be such a sourpuss, C; we’re practically family,” Yennefer brushed him off and dug out her phone from her pocket. “Should we call him and ask him to bring us some on the way back?”
💜 Writer's Ask Game 💜
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ravarui · 30 days
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❤️ + alyafae
Send ❤️ + a URL and I’ll write something nice about them/their blog! Accepting From @benevolentgodloki for @alyafae
Buckle up my friends, cause this is gonna turn into a long rant on how much I adore Gin again.
Where do I start with her? Gin is without a doubt my best friend and she was one of the very first people I interacted with back in the day on my Tony Stark blog.
I remember how intimidated I was all those years back already, because her writing has been so beautiful and she had such a good grip on her Pepper muse, seeing and reading her replies felt always so in character it was unreal. It didn't matter if it were just commentaries or threads. I read it and my first thought was always: Yep. This is exactly what Pepper would do/say in such a situation.
We've been writing for eight years together now and til this day it was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.
Because not only is Gin a talented writer, but also such a kind and compassionate person. If you have problems and you're her friend, you can always count on her having your back, no matter what. She'll lend an ear and offer advice if you need it. Or just listen to you and give you a hug. The advantage of living relatively close to each other.
But back to her writing skills: They are phenomenal. She writes so many muses, from so many different fandoms and puts a lot of love into her OC's it's amazing. It takes a special skill to be able to juggle so many muses with vastly varying personalities. On top of it, she also doesn't shy away from writing muses of fandoms she is entirely unfamiliar with. There is so much diversity going on it's amazing. I dare to say that her list of muses offers something for everyone in one way or another.
Special shoutout to her Shakky muse, who's existence on her roster is entirely my fault, even if Gin is not in the One Piece fandom at all.
Writing however isn't her only talent! Oh no! Gin is absolutely talented when it comes to sewing and drawing as well. Whenever I see pieces she created I am left in awe by her creativity.
Without Gin this blog wouldn't exist at all. She was the who encouraged me to make it. Who helped me picking an url, made my icons, set the whole blog up with me together and also promoted me. Not to mention that in the beginning she was the one who helped me getting a feel for all my muses, because she made sure I got interactions for all of them.
All in all Gin is wonderful and every day I am thankful to be able to call her my friend. She's the better half of this blog. The Pepper to my Tony.
I recommend everyone who follows me and likes my writing, to follow her too. You get bonus points if you tell her that you're mutuals with me too btw! She doesn't shy away from all kinds of AUs or Crossovers, so don't worry about that. Just start chatting with her and I am sure you'll figure something out for your muses. And if not, well there is always her beautiful writing to look at and read.
PS: She also got a cat who is very cute and fluffy.
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