#it was looking like a real tragic day if they hadn’t

[beepbeepinthecorner]

lol work is so backed up the OR director and whoever the charge nurse could scrounge up came downstairs to try and bail us out a little. Like my boss’s boss was in the trenches with me basically bussing dishes. And i had half a dozen assorted scrub techs and nurses just sorta tearing apart and organizing carts of stuff for me. I actually loved it.

I mean it was still pretty jam packed when i left but at least I wasn’t completely sardine packed into decon haha

#they are angels for coming down to help #it was looking like a real tragic day if they hadn’t #and frankly the hospital may have shut down tomorrow if we didn’t get help immediately #still might tbh #with the way they’re over-scheduling us we literally can’t keep up #like they’re throwing holiday numbers at us when we’re at like 1/2 staffed #ah well. literally not my problem. i just work there

[loveswrites]

Rainy Road Part 3 Poly! Cullens X reader

Rainy Road Part 3 (Final part) Poly! Cullens X reader

Word Count: 2644

Time it Took me: A long time ngl

To My Love's: Here you guys go! I know you've waited so long for the last part of Rainy road. Some of y'all are gonna be real mad at me but the last part (paragraph) of this is kinda what went on with this part of rainy road. I was trying to make it something it's not. I hope you guys like it! Tell me how you felt! Y'all know I don't do these but TW!!

Love <3

Whatever trash that was on the radio played in the background as you drove away from Seth’s house. You’d like to say that you had a good time but the longer that you sat there and tried to pretend that you were having a good time the more it hurt. You couldn’t take it anymore. So you weren’t going to. Focusing your eyes through the rain on the windshield you finally saw the sign “Leaving Forks”.

 Letting out a breath of air you felt relaxed. Free. For the first time in months you felt some peace. Laughing to yourself you rolled down all the windows not caring that the rain was pouring into the car. This made you happy. This brung joy to you. For the first time in a long time you didn’t see the rain as some tragic reminder of the Cullens leaving you to fend for yourself. You saw it as a way for you to cleanse yourself of this pain. For good. It felt a sign from the universe as your favorite song started playing on the radio. 

“This couldn’t get any better!” You laughed to yourself as you started to sing along to the song. Letting the music take you away you felt the rhythm in your body flow freely. Feeling your phone buzz you looked down ‘Unknown’ It read. Rolling your eyes you let it go to voicemail. This was the fifth time they’ve called. Turning your phone off you did your best to not let this ruin your wonderful mood you were in. 

Thirty minutes passed and you had made it. The waterfall. You loved it here but you would never get too close to the edge because you thought that somehow you’d fall off. I guess you always knew you would fall off in a way. No matter the tight grip on your- one of the Cullens would have on you you always feared the outcome. But not today. 

Shivering as water sprayed on you from the waterfall and the rain you couldn’t help but feel cold. It made it all feel surreal. Walking closer to the edge you felt a surge of adrenaline run through your veins. Jasper had shown you this place. Out of all the waterfalls the Cullens had shown you, This one was your favorite. Maybe because of the way you found it or the memories that you made here. Either way you were happiest here. Reaching the edge you looked down all you saw were rocks and water and.. A small rainbow at the end. Letting out a final sigh you closed your eyes. ‘Finally some peace.’ You thought.  You wouldn't have to feel the void the Cullens had created in you. You wouldn’t have to wallow in your pain anymore. You wouldn't have to do anything. But let go.  

Leaning forward you let yourself fall. The wind that swept across your face made you smile. No longer will you be the girl who loved you dearly. 

Feeling yourself jerk back you snapped your eyes open, stumbling you fell. “What the hell?!” You yelled out with so much anger. Looking up to see who or what the cause of this was you froze.

“Jasper?” You breathed out.

“Why are you trying to kill yourself?” Jasper questioned as venom filled his eyes. He looked like shit. His clothes didn’t match at all. It was like he just threw on whatever was laying on his floor and put it on and called it a day. His eyes were gloomy like a big gray cloud was covering them. His hair was all over the place, it looked like he hadn’t brushed his curls in weeks.

“WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL YOURSELF!” Jasper yelled, making you jump. Jasper had never yelled at you. Looking at him.. He didn’t look human. 

“Why do you care?” You rolled your eyes picking yourself up from the wet hard rocks.

“I care because I love you!” He yelled.

“No you don’t you don’t love me none of you do because if you did you wouldn’t have left me! You wouldn’t have left me to rot in my own hell that you created for me! The hell that you left me in! The pain you caused!” You screamed at him.

“You're going home.” Jasper said sternly.

“I’m not going anywhere besides hell, Oh wait I’m already there!” You yelled walking back to the edge of the cliff. 

“Do you really wanna kill yourself?” Jasper whispered, making you pause in  your tracks. 

“I want to not feel the way I do now ever again.” You whispered looking down at the water hitting the rocks at the bottom. Letting out a sigh you felt the best you have in a while. Your eyes grew heavy. So heavy you couldn’t keep them open any longer. So you didn’t.

Hearing whispers you tried focusing on them. 

“She hates me.” You heard from far away but at the same time very close.

“No she doesn't, she is just going through a hard time. We all are.” Who is that?

“You don’t know the way she looked at me Alice, She hates me” Alice? She's here?

“We broke her heart. What did you expect? Her to accept us with open arms?” A different voice sounded.

“Yes. That's exactly what I expected.” Another responded. 

What's going on? I can't open my eyes? It hurts. This hurts. Everything hurts. Wait. Where am I? Why am I not dead? That question hurt more than anything else. Why can't they let me go?

Let me go, I try to say.

 Nothing comes out.

Let me go! Please! Let Me go! I scream and I claw at my throat until sounds come out of my mouth. Tears roll down my cheek. Tears of sadness or confusion? Another emotion I can't seem to explain but what's new?

"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" I scream repeatedly once I find my voice. Once I found it I didn't let it go until I was hoarse. My eyes snapped open hurting them as they were dry but wet with tears? How can that be? The burning in my eyes only proved to me how real the scene in front of me was. 

There stood the very ones who brung this pain upon me in the first place. The Cullens. Every single one of them. They looked terrified. Like they didn't know what was the cause of this. Even Carlisle even though he  looked like he hadn't rested in a thousand years. He looked at me like I was something he didn't know how to fix. Pity. "I'm not yours to fix!" I scream and scream in anger. Eyes strictly on Carlisle. You could see him break a little bit more each time. I felt a small Crack. 

Rosalie held onto Emmetts arm and she looked.. Scared. That's a first. She said she loved her human life. I didn't. She ruined that for me. "Sad pathetic human life!" I yell and yell, staring her down as tears continue to roll down my face. She slowly let go of Emmett's arm. She looked back at me like I was a monster. How can I be a monster?! Rosalie shook her head in disbelief as she stormed out of the room. Another crack? 

A monster wasn't born. They were made.

Looking towards Emmett the wanna be big bad wolf. "You're weak. You're useless. You're powerless. You're nothing!" I scream and scream. I reach for anything to throw. That anything just happened to be a lamp. A very expensive one. My favorite one. It hit Emmett's chest and Shattered. Just like my love for him. Them. He didn’t try to dodge it. I knew he could've. They could've stopped it from happening but they didn't. They didn't do anything. They didn't do anything. Another Crack? What is this?

Turning to Jasper he looked like he was concentrating. Like he was trying so hard to fix something that shouldn't be broken in the first place.

Muffled to my ears I hear Edward's voice say "That won't work Jasper, She's breaking it.." Breaking it? Breaking them like they broke me? If that's how you word it, yes. 

With those words it looked like Jasper was finally coming to realize what was happening. "Please stop. Don't do this, you can't fix it if you keep going. Please, I love you." Jasper pleaded with a panicked look on his face. He took a step closer but Alive stopped him. "Please let me go." He begged Alice to which she looked at Edward who just slowly shook his head. 

"Let me go.. Let me go sound familiar doesn't it. Doesn't it!? You Jasper, You're nothing but an addict that will never recover. Itching and  Aching for just one drop of blood. Your miserable existence is an abomination." I repeat over and over so much that I find it funny. Laughing I couldn't help myself but to add another thing. "Blood.. There's no AA meetings for that one Jasper." He looked like he could die right then and there. He looked sadly at Alice as if to say I told you so. Crack. I gasp softly grabbing my chest but as soon as I acknowledge it goes away just as quickly as it came. 

Turning my attention to Esme I couldn't help but frown my face up in disgust. She was kneeling in front of Carlisle who was now sitting on the floor tapping at his chest. What, it hurts? So sad. You hurt me first. Esme took her eyes away from Carlisle and turned them to me. "I understand that you're upset but you can't break our bond, That will practically kill us. Please sto-" I cut her off. Who wants to listen to begging when you've been begging for them to come back for months now? I'm sick of it. 

"Toy. I was a Toy right? That's what you said. You know if a toy is  Delivered to a child in perfect condition and the child breaks it, the child has no one to blame but themselves. Because that toy did nothing to deserve the abuse the child yield upon it. But who cared right? It's just a toy! It's just a toy! Toys are made to be used and thrown away like trash because who cares it's not me- Oh wait it was me! I was the toy!" 

"Please stop, you can't undo it." Esme pleaded as her voice broke mid sentence.

"I trusted you. We made promises to each other! 'I'll hold your heart in my hand and I won't crush yours if you don't crush mine.' I won't crush yours.. I always keep my promises. So Consider your heart crushed." Esme visibly flinched with my last sentence. Crack.. 

Tearing my eyes away from Esme's shaking figure I locked eyes with Edward. The one who drove me to this heartache. It's only right if he was the last one to break. Getting out of the bed I was in with shaky legs I walked towards my final destination.

Coward.

"You know what you're doing, I've told you about it. And I've told you what will happen if you break us all.. Please rethink your decision.." Edward begged as his eyes followed  me as I walked up to him. 

Liar.

"We can still fix it but we won't be able to if you keep going. No matter if we want to fix it later in the future we can't. It won't be the same.. I know you still love us. Don't do this. I love you, I always have and always will. We left to prot-" You cut off Edward's attempts to save himself with one word. What was he afraid of most? Why was he afraid to show his true colors? It's all simply because he is a-

"Monster."

Edward's face dropped. You dug into your memories but not too deep as it always lingered on the surface. He was always scared you'd see him for who he truly is. A monster. 

"A soulless monster. You see Edward you were always so worried about your 'soul' you shouldn't worry about something you just don't have. Humans have souls. You're nothing but a cold hollow shell of something that used to be. Just embrace it. You'll never make it out of this hell you've made. It didn't have to be like this. You could've turned the car around that night. You were in full control. So you Edward have no one to blame but yourself. Why don't you go add yourself to your collection of victims you think you've saved." You sneered with venom. Crack.

With those last words a sharp pain felt like it came through your heart six times, And left the same way it came in. You didn't even flinch. It's like you were numb. The best way you could describe it was you were stabbed in your heart front and back six times. A few last tears ran down your check but you weren't crying anymore. You had stopped crying a long time ago. It was like your tears acted as the blood that would've spilled if you had actually been stabbed. 

Edward's faces twisted in pain and soon after behind you you heard the gasp of the rest of the Cullen's. They were feeling all the pain you felt and then some. You couldn't help but feel proud of yourself. It felt like a weight had been lifted off your shoulders and you could breathe again. 

"How could you go through with this?! It will feel like we've died!" Rosalie stormed into the room the best she could, hunched over in pain. The throbbing in her heart was something she never thought she'd  experience. You couldn't help but roll your eyes. They thought they were the only ones who could break hearts and not blink an eye?

"Well die then."

Rosalie's eyes widened at your words. She tried to look into your eyes to see if you were just putting up a front but no. This was all you. Your head was clearer than ever. 

As you looked around the room you searched for your keys but then thought 'I don't want it anymore.' Anything from the Cullen's gets left tonight. Cars.. Feelings.. it's all the same to you.

"Enjoy my gift. It's the closest thing you will ever get to feeling human." 

You spoke dryly.

Walking away from Edward you stepped over Emmett who was curled into a ball on the floor clawing at his chest. "It hurts." He whimpered. Get over it.

With your back turned you felt the eyes of every Cullen on your back. "Please stay." Carlisle whispered. You paused and hope flooded the heart broken vampires. You continue your journey to the front door. On your way you spoke knowing they could all still hear you very clearly.

"Don't call me. Don't come by my house. Don't make it seem like you've died. Just die." I said before I slammed the door shut. And it was never opened again.

Walking down the long driveway of the Cullens house you felt light as a feather. You felt like you were on top of the world and nothing could bring you down. As you walked you came to a realization. You were trying to make a happy ending, you were begging for one. And that's what took so long that's why they never came back. Because there was no happy ending. A love that breaks you like that will never have a happy ending if it's with the same one that took your heart and stomped it out. The only way out is to make a trade. Eye for an eye. Soul for a soul. Heart for a Heart.

#loveswrites #twilight #reader insert #x reader #cullen romance #cullen poly #poly twilight #rainyroadpart3 #edward cullen x reader #esme cullen x reader #carlisle x reader #rosalie cullen xreader #jasper x reader #emmett x reader #poly cullen x reader #light angst

[lowkeychenle]

the hardest part [ZCL] (M)

Description: You, Chenle, and Jay have been best friends since before you could even remember. After moving away to pursue your dreams, you don't talk to them as often as you should. One day, you get a call notifying you of Jay's passing. When you go back to your hometown, you find everything is different except for one person--Chenle.

Genre: (Hurt/Comfort) Smut/Fluff/Angst (please see content warnings)

Content Warnings: death of a close friend, survivor's guilt, lots of what-if scenarios, navigating life without someone you've always had around, mental break downs, panic attacks (not vividly described AS panic attacks), two people coming together to heal from grief, explicit sexual content (unprotected sex, oral sex, mentions of sex, etc. although it's not super crazy so do with that what you will)

Word Count: 16,965

Taglist: @amyjipark @sofix-hc7 @dinosaurtoothbrushwithninjasauce

Permanent Taglist: @sunnybutcloudy @neozon3nha @waffleuvs

Pairing: Zhong Chenle x fem!reader (featuring OC by the name of Jay)

A/N: thank you for 900 followers! :)

Juliet's Masterlist | Tell me what you think? :)

When you got the call, your life fell apart before your eyes. You didn’t believe it. Not at first, anyway, considering things like this don’t happen to people you know. They happen to people you’ve never met.

Tragedies strike everyone. Not only are you not exempt, but nothing will ever shake you more, you’re certain.

Learning of your childhood best friend’s death is not something you expect to hear at your age. It’s always sudden, tragically, unfortunately. As if any death is anything but those words.

Everything leading up to the funeral—from the phone call to the week it took you to get on the plane—felt like a fever dream. One you’d wake up from and everything would be normal again.

You’re too young. He’s too young.

Was.

He was too young.

Your throat tightens as you close your eyes, resting your head against the steering wheel of your rental car. The funeral awaits you inside, where you’ll say the goodbye he’ll never actually hear.

The entire week, you’d been looking through old pictures and videos, crying at the sound of his voice when you realized how long it’d been since you truly heard him.

You obviously had yet to accept what happened. You’re half-sure that the second you walk in, everyone will be in there as if they’ve all played an elaborate prank on you. How cruel of them to set all of that up in a funeral home. Was he in there right now, waiting for you to walk in with tears in your eyes so he could make fun of you?

You’d cry harder, punch his shoulder, yell at him for playing such a cruel joke on you.

But it’s not a joke.

You haven’t received a text in over a month—well past your monthly check-in time. That thought alone makes you want to scream. Monthly check-ins? You moved away from your friends years ago for college and a ghost of a dream. Now, the only ghost left is his, and you have no idea how to explain your absence.

You thought you had more time.

Maybe that everybody gets older—but that’s not true. He won’t.

A cold chill runs down your spine. You look up at the sky, wanting to curse it for the beautiful blue color when the shade inside your heart is so fucking painful. Gathering yourself and wiping away the stray tear, you brush your dress off and get out of your car. The lot is packed, considering how popular Jay is.

Was.

It’s not real for you yet. Even as you walk in through the doors, the miserable click of your heels on the concrete doing little to soothe the emotions running deep in your veins. The first thing you see when you walk in is a collage of pictures of him—and the one that catches your eye immediately is one of the biggest ones, portraying you, Jay, and Chenle from a few summers back. The three of you are beaming at each other, smiles too wide to not be painful.

A lump forms in your throat. You hadn’t even thought about Chenle. Not really. The three of you had been best friends growing up. Your parents all knew each other, and so you’d been grandfathered into two friendships. In your defense, nothing had been on your mind except for Jay. Not his family, not yours, not Chenle.

Jaw quivering, you trace your fingers over the two men in the picture. God, Chenle must be a fucking wreck right now. Your first goal was to find him.

It’s not like you weren’t friends with them anymore. You were busy, they were busy, and you had a friendship with both of them that made it easy to remain the same when together even if you spent months and months apart. You hadn’t seen either of them in person in over a year.

The doors are open, and you clench your fists together. You freeze just before the doorway. The second you walk in, all of this becomes real. Jay is dead, and you’ve failed to keep up with him and everyone else from your hometown. You’ve become someone else, and in the process, you forgot your roots.

You’ll never remember them again. Not when they’ve been cut at the source.

“(Y/N)?” A familiar voice sounds behind you, and you whirl around.

The tears you’d been holding back fall before you can stop them. You slap a hand over your mouth, and in the blink of an eye, Chenle’s closing the distance between the two of you and wrapping his arms around you.

“God, it’s been so fucking long,” he murmurs, tightening his grip.

You can’t talk yet. Guilt sets in regardless, because you hadn’t so much as messaged him when you heard about all of this. His palm rests on the back of your head, and he doesn’t say anything else. The two of you stand there, and you allow him to comfort you.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” you groan and wipe at your eyes. “This is all just…are you…how are you doing?”

“I’ve been better,” he admits. “Better now that you’re here, honestly. I went outside to take a break from everything and I saw you walk in. You have no idea how good it is to have you back here.”

“I can’t believe I’ve been gone for so long.” You glance up at the ceiling.

“Life happens,” Chenle says softly. He puts his hand on the small of your back. “If you’re ready, I’ll go in with you.”

“Thank you.” You take a deep breath.

Chenle has never been an emotional man. Even since you were children, you rarely even saw him tear up. Hopes of all of this being a prank dissipates quickly when you see the water gathered in his eyes as the two of you walk in.

The air inside is undeniably stuffy, bone-chilling, even. Silence is amplified by how you hear your own heart pounding in your ears. The carpeted floor creaks beneath your feet, and as soon as people recognize you, eyes are on you and Chenle. Nobody says anything.

The casket is on a stage of sorts. The left side is open, and you can’t see inside it from where you’re standing, but your feet freeze to the ground directly below you before you realize what’s happening. A flash of worry crosses over Chenle’s features as he steps in front of you to cover the view.

“Just breathe,” he whispers, hands on your shoulders. “It’s hard. I know. Trust me, do I fucking know, but it’s not about us and our feelings right now. It’s about Jay. You’ll get through this for Jay.”

“He’s in there.” You gulp. “It’s all real, and he’s…”

Your friend nods. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s real.”

Your throat constricts again, and you glance around. His family—his parents and younger brother—are in the front of the room, sitting down together. Much to your surprise, they’re not all sobbing, but the redness to his mother’s cheeks tells you she may have just shed too many tears to keep going.

“This is the last time you’ll ever see him,” Chenle says quietly. “You don’t have to go up there if you don’t want to, but I think you’ll regret it if you don’t. They put him in that stupid band shirt he never wanted to throw away.”

Your heart pangs, and warmth and fondness takes over. “Well, good thing he never did, huh?”

“Exactly.” Chenle chuckles. “I’ll go with you.”

Once you nod, he resumes his spot next to you and guides you up to your best friend to say goodbye. You don’t stay there long. After you see him, you’re sure you’ve been changed forever. It’s odd how serene and peaceful he looks. How nothing about him has really changed when everything about you and your life now has.

You speak briefly with his family, who are all thankful you came across the country for this—as if you’d ever miss it. You just wish you’d had that need to go home when death wasn’t involved. Yours, Jay’s, and Chenle’s parents stay at the funeral after you and Chenle leave. The two of you mutually agreed Jay would punch you both if he knew you were held up because of him.

You go to a cafe together, and despite you having zero appetite, Chenle insists you get something to eat. Grasping your warm coffee cup in both hands, you stare down at the steam while your friend is up at the counter waiting for everything else. You look out the window, watching the cars zoom past.

“It’s a little weird having you back here,” Chenle mentions as he sits down across from you.

“Well.” You sip your coffee. “It wasn’t exactly in the plan.”

“How long are you here for?”

“I took extended leave,” you tell him. “I’ll be here for a few months.”

He purses his lips and nods. “This town isn’t so great without you, you know. Jay and I used to talk about it all the time.”

“Yeah.” Your breath hitches and you stare at the steam from your cup. “I’ve been so…far away this whole time, and now it’s too late to fix it all.”

“Hey, there’s nothing to fix,” he interjects, eyebrows furrowed. “You’re out there making a life for yourself. We’ve never been anything but fucking proud of you, dude. You had the courage to get out. Neither of us ever could’ve attempted that.”

“Did he even get the chance?” You let out a pained laugh and set your coffee on the table.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop it. He loved you, okay? Our friendship has always been easy. You don’t need to talk to people or see them every day to stay friends.” Chenle reaches across the table and grabs your hand.

Your shoulders slump. “God, you’re going through this at the same time I am and I’m just…making it about me. What’s going on with you?”

“Everyone grieves differently.” He pauses to think. “I’m…as okay as I can be, you know? But to be completely honest, I’m not sure how I am. Or what I’m gonna do. There’s not much I can do.”

“I still can’t believe it. He’s just…gone. How the hell do we keep going? It’ll never be the same.”

“You’re right,” Chenle agrees. “It’ll suck. It already does. But we’ll get through this together. I’m here for you.”

You squeeze his hand and give him a small smile. “And I’m here for you, of course. I’m gonna be better about staying in touch and visiting.”

“Where are you staying?” he asks.

“Well, my parents turned my room into a home gym, so I got a hotel for now.” You chuckle. “They really thought I was never coming back.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” His eyes widen. “You’re gonna stay in a hotel for a few months? Just come stay with me.”

“I didn’t want to impose on anyone.”

He presses his lips into a thin line. “C’mon, you’re not imposing and you know it. Plus, you haven’t seen the new house yet, so you may as well.”

“That’s right.” You gasp and shoot straight up. “You fucking bought a house.”

He grins. “Yeah, I did. And there’s plenty of space for you there. Plus, it’ll be better for both of us if we’re not alone right now.”

“You’re gonna make me play board games.”

“Obviously.” He scrunches up his nose. “You would have to even if you were staying in the hotel.”

Familiarity finally sets in, and the awkward air between you and Chenle has officially evaporated completely. He’s still your best friend, and the weirdness was in your own head. The two of you spend a bit of time catching up at the cafe—at times, you even find yourself laughing.

You missed your hometown. The friends you had when you were growing up. What a shame you’re missing one of the most pivotal people in your entire life. Your younger years were shaped and reformed by your friendship with Jay and Chenle.

When some girl bullied you in middle school, the boys were the first people to come to your defense. They’d walk you to and from class, and Chenle even called that girl out. In high school, when you got your first boyfriend, Jay and Chenle grilled him thoroughly. They were your family, and you were theirs.

One of the only times you’d seen Chenle cry was when he and Jay dropped you off at the airport when you were leaving for college. You hugged both of them so tightly, and you promised to visit often. They said they’d come see you, and that you’d never go too long without them.

Naive promises turn into friendships where you love each other, but you rarely see or hear from the other. Every time you did see them, it truly felt like no time had passed.

You and Chenle get into your car, and he directs you to his house. He tells you a little about it on the way—it’s not too big, two bedrooms, one bathroom, but the kitchen is really nice. He likes to cook, so, of course, that was a deciding factor when he was looking.

Your bags are still in the back, so he helps you grab them. He slings your backpack over his shoulder and grabs the larger of your two bags. Everything about your hometown feels foreign to you as you follow him inside. He flicks the lights on, and the first thing you notice is that same picture of you, Jay, and Chenle that you’d seen at the funeral home.

It’s framed in the center of the wall, and as soon as you see it, you exhale. Chenle stops mid-sentence, walking up to stand next to you.

“That’s my favorite picture of us.” He tilts his head. “He made fun of me for putting that up.”

“He’s always been so weird about mushy gushy friendship feelings.” You purse your lips. “Despite being the sappiest fucking guy I know.”

“He’d be so pissed at all of us for being sad.” Chenle chuckles. “He’d kill me if I let you stay in a hotel, too.”

“The last time I talked to him, he’d just broken up with that girl. What was her name?”

“I don’t even remember. She was weird, though. Like, he barely talked to you and she was all threatened I guess. You and Jay? You two would end up putting each other in headlocks.” He snorts and runs his fingers through his hair.

“We have put each other in headlocks,” you remind him, nudging his shoulder. “And I vaguely remember kicking his ass.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’d consider that kicking his ass.”

“This…This feeling will go away eventually, right?” For some reason, you can’t lift your voice higher than a whisper as you force the words out.

“Which one? The gaping hole or the soul-crushing anxiety?” He throws his arm over your shoulders.

“Both.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think so.” He sighs. “I’ve heard from many that you kinda just…learn how to live with it.”

“Even though he can’t.”

“Even though he can’t,” Chenle repeats. “Guess the hardest part of all of this is that he won’t grow up with us, huh?”

You inhale sharply and cover your mouth. “Damn it.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “I’ve been a damn roller coaster this whole week. You don’t have to be scared to feel around me. You know that.”

“It feels so fucking selfish,” you breathe out. “I haven’t seen him in…months, so do I even really have the right to be this sad?”

“Are you kidding me?” Chenle scoffs.

“Would he even want me here right now?”

“Do you hear yourself?” Your friend gapes at you. “He never stopped talking about the next time you’d be in town. Neither of us have ever even had a negative thought about you, dude. You should know that. There was never a time where he didn’t want you here.”

“I guess I just thought we’d have more time,” you say.

“The world waits for no one.”

When nightfall comes, you and Chenle go to your separate rooms. He bids you goodnight, and you close your door. You sit on the edge of the bed and take in the room around you. Everything has changed immensely since the last time you were in your hometown. Your best friend bought a house, and you’d barely even thought or heard about it. Pride in him surges through you, but for a moment, you think it may be misplaced.

You don’t deserve to be proud of someone you’ve failed to talk to as often as you should have. Losing Jay has torn your world apart, and you still don’t truly believe it. You change into your tank top and shorts, and then grab your toothbrush and toothpaste from your bag.

You’re on your way to the bathroom when you find Chenle in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and bringing a glass of water up to his lips. He gives you a tired nod.

“You’re still up?”

“Sleep on a day like this?” He lets out a sarcastic laugh. “I’ll probably have some crazy ass dream or something.”

You forget your adventure to his bathroom and approach the kitchen island. Without a word between the two of you, he goes into the cupboard to get you a cup as well. He fills it with water and slides it across the countertop.

“Thanks,” you say.

He nods once and crosses his arms over his chest. “How’s life going, though? Current events aside.”

“Life is a constant revolving door of work,” you tell him. “Working my way up the corporate ladder and all that bullshit they spew.”

“You look good. As long as you’re getting all the things you wanted, I’m good, too.” He closes his eyes and tilts his head back.

“Kind of debating if it was worth it at this point.” You sigh. “I’m proud of you, by the way. Buying a house on your own is a big deal.”

“Family business money.”

“You work. You earned it.”

“I guess that’s true. Thanks.” He pauses. “I’m glad you’re here. I don’t think I’d be okay if you weren’t.”

“Like I’d ever leave you to deal with something like this alone.” You tap your fingers against the granite, admiring the swirls of color deep in the design.

“Regardless, I needed you.” Chenle gulps, glancing at his feet. “I still do. Now more than ever with Jay gone.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t come?” you ask.

He wets his lips and takes the bottom one between his teeth. “It’s not that I thought that, necessarily, but I did wonder if you were. I didn’t hear from you, so I kind of just hoped.”

Guilt takes another stab at your heart. “Chenle, I—”

“Don’t apologize again,” he replies sternly. “Life is life. There’s no way any of us could’ve predicted this, okay? Sometimes, shit happens. Not being around a lot isn’t the end of the world.”

“It was for Jay.”

“You were not the end of the world. You didn’t kill him, for fuck’s sake. There’s nothing any of us could’ve done. And reminiscing on it like this and placing unplaceable blame on ourselves is going to make things harder.” He sets his cup in the sink.

“I know. I know that, but for some reason, my head keeps—”

“Let’s watch a movie,” he offers. “Maybe it’ll distract you a little bit.”

You agree, and go into the bathroom to brush your teeth before you follow him into his room. It’s so innately Chenle in there, you immediately feel relaxed. Some things never change, and you’re glad he’s one of those things.

“Sorry, I don’t have a TV in the living room,” he says as he pulls his covers back.

“Just roll me off if I fall asleep,” you reply, climbing onto the untouched side.

Eventually, he’s next to you, and you rest your head on his chest while he finds something to watch. He selects some random comedy movie and then shuffles to put his arm around you.

His scent is familiar, too. The world calms around you when you’re with Chenle. One out of two of your safe places has left the Earth, but luckily for you, Chenle is more than ready to play both roles.

The movie does, indeed, successfully distract you from the impending doom of everything outside. You’re able to forget, even if it’s just for a couple hours, and sink into the familiarity of your best friend.

His chest rumbles when he laughs at the screen, and the feeling has you drifting faster than you’d care to admit.

Until finally, your eyes flutter shut and stay that way, and just like that, you have the best night of sleep you’ve had all week.

You wake in the morning to sunlight on your face and Chenle wiggling away from you. The brightness burns your eyes, and you curse under your breath. Chenle bites back a laugh.

“Did I wake you up?” he asks. “I was about to go make some coffee for us.”

You shake your head and turn onto your back. “No, the sun violated me. Sorry for falling asleep in here. I thought I’d be able to catch myself.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He waves you off. “You still like your coffee the same way?”

You nod. “Thanks, Lele.”

“Of course.” He pats the door frame and heads to the kitchen. The creaks in the floorboards from his steps get further and further, and you cover your face with your hands to block out the sun.

You smell the coffee as it brews, a sigh escaping your lips. His bed is the most comfortable thing you’ve slept on in a while, and you can’t seem to force yourself to get up. You and Chenle had spent the night together many times before, pretty much throughout your entire lives. Jay, too, of course, considering how inseparable the three of you had been growing up.

“Alright, lazy ass,” Chenle calls out. “Coffee’s ready. Time to face the world.”

“Asshole,” you shout back.

“That’s what they call me.”

You laugh and roll your eyes. Swinging the covers off of you, you follow him into the kitchen.

“The fuck is your mattress made of?” you ask as you take the cup he hands you. “Clouds?”

“It’s pretty nice, isn’t it?” He sips his coffee and cringes from the heat.

“The steam is like, a dead giveaway that it’s too hot to drink, you know.”

“I take back what I said, go back to sleep.” He grins. “Getting a decent night’s sleep has brought your sass back.”

“You know you love my sass,” you bite back.

He holds his hand up in mock surrender. “Whatever.”

“What’s the plan for today?” you ask, holding your cup close so it warms you up.

“No clue,” he says. “My parents gave me a few weeks off to, I don’t know, adjust or whatever. Even though I could probably use the distraction.”

“Comedy movie didn’t do it for you?”

He gives you a pointed look. “A two hour movie can only do so much.”

“We should do something for him,” you suggest, tilting your head as you try to think. “Like, to honor him.”

“What could we do?”

“Sky’s the limit.” You shrug. “I feel like I should.”

“If you do, it needs to be actually for him. Not to compensate for guilt. Guilt you shouldn’t even be feeling, by the way.” His eyes on you suddenly becomes too much. You avert your gaze. He’s always been able to read you like a book.

“It’s really weird,” you say. “Right now, I don’t feel…anything. But I really thought I’d be in a constant state of sad. That makes me feel guilty, too.”

“I get that. It’s the way things work, though. At the end of the day, we’re still alive. We shouldn’t stop just because he did.” Chenle looks past you to the picture on the wall.

You follow suit, letting the events from yesterday flood back to you.

“Lele.” You wait for him to look at you. “Thank you. For everything. And for not letting me blame myself. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d be alone and sad and, quite honestly, wondering where I—”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” You glare at him.

He smiles. “You get it.”

You and Chenle spend some time with your parents. They’re quick to update you on everything everyone in the town has been doing, and you and Chenle exchange ‘when-will-this-be-over’ glances frequently. 

Chenle offers to help your dad cook, leaving you and your mother in the living room. She brings out an old photo album, and the two of you take a trip down memory lane. After flipping through a few pages, she gasps and points at a picture of you and Chenle next to each other at a bonfire. You’re holding the graham crackers, awaiting the marshmallow he’s toasting over the flames.

“You guys were so young.” She lets out a long sigh.

“Mom, that was like, six years ago.” You laugh. “We weren’t that young.”

She trails down the page, and the next one is almost the same, but Jay’s arms are around you and Chenle, and he beams straight into the camera. You smile at the sight, remembering how you swatted at his wrist the second after the photo was taken.

“You know, we all thought you and Jay would get married one day,” she says absent-mindedly.

“What?” you ask incredulously. “Seriously? Come on, you know we were never like that.”

“You kids don’t see it from the outside. I’ve never seen you act so comfortable with anyone. Chenle, too, obviously. I can’t explain it. It was different with you and Jay.”

“I promise you, he’s only ever been my best friend. Not even a smidge of another thought. Don’t speak ill of the dead like that—”

“(Y/N),” your mother scolds you, smacking your arm.

“No need to beat around the bush.” You shrug and close the album.

“Hey, do you—” Chenle’s cut off by your mother.

“If you actually visited as much as you said you would, maybe things would’ve happened for the two of you.”

She doesn’t mean it the way you take it, at least you don’t think she does, but it’s a stray bullet to the heart anyway. Your jaw drops, and it only takes one glance from Chenle for him to understand. He reaches into his pocket and hands you his keys.

“Go get in the car.”

“Chenle, it’s not—”

“Go. I’ll be out in a second.”

Your insides twist and turn, and despite the way your throat closes in on itself, you nod and practically bolt out of the house. The first tear drops as you climb into the passenger seat. You close your eyes and drop your head into your hands. How did life turn out this way?

It’s true that you and Jay had never had any sort of feelings for each other, but the insinuation that he should’ve been more confuses you more than anything. If he should’ve been, you lost that chance before you even knew it existed. But it doesn’t matter, does it?

You never had feelings for him. Never. But for some reason, it suddenly feels like you have to.

Now, a different type of guilt sinks in.

You’re shaking by the time Chenle gets in the car, but he doesn’t say anything before he drives away. Stress boils off of him, and you’re almost scared to glance over at him. Luckily, the ride to his house is short thanks to your small hometown, and as soon as you’re out of the car and inside, he lets out a loud sigh.

You intend to quietly and quickly head into your own room, where you’ll cry until you fall asleep or you need more water before you can shed a single additional tear.

“Don’t even think about it,” Chenle says, grabbing onto your wrist. “Talk to me.”

You stumble into his chest and hold onto his T-shirt like your life depends on it. He cradles the back of your head and sighs, thumb stroking your scalp.

“Don’t let them get to you,” he whispers. “They don’t understand.”

“What if she was right?” you choke out.

He leans away from you to look at your face. “Did you? Ever have feelings for him?”

“No, but what if—”

“There’s no use thinking about things like that.” Chenle’s brows furrow as he scans over your face.

“And now I’ll never know if he ever thought like that, and it’s my fault—it’s not what I wanted, because you know I’d rather fist fight him than anything else, but God, what if he—”

“(Y/N).” His palms reach up to cup your cheeks, making you look straight at him as he guides you to breathe. “I can very confidently say that Jay didn't have any sort of romantic feelings for you at any point, okay? Just take a deep breath.”

“I look like an idiot, don’t I?”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “No, you don’t. You look like someone who really cares for someone they just lost. These feelings are normal, dude.”

“I don’t think you were ever worried about Jay potentially having feelings for you,” you mumble.

“He was very much into women, so definitely never a worry on my part.” Chenle snorts and pulls you back into a hug. “She shouldn’t have said something like that to you. You’re probably hungry, too. I’ll order us some pizza.”

“Let me pay for it,” you say, reaching into your purse for your card.

“Next time.” He nudges you before walking into the kitchen.

You sigh and follow him, quickly wiping the wetness from your cheeks. He’s typing away on his phone screen, resting his elbows on the counter. He runs his fingers through his hair and sends a quick smile your way.

Without Jay around, things with Chenle felt off at first. Everything changed for all of the people you knew in the blink of an eye, and now, you’re left with one of two of your best friends while the other is galavanting up in the sky.

Things would never be the same for you, but you still have Chenle. And at the end of the day, he’s one of the only people in the entire world that have ever understood you. You don’t even need to say a word for him to get a read on you.

“Pizza’s ordered.” He drops his phone onto the granite. “I need a drink. Do you want something? I only have beer and liquor.”

“Beer’s fine,” you tell him. “I shouldn’t drink too much anyway.”

You’re halfway through the can when the pizza arrives. Chenle grabs you a piece, and you pause for a moment. This whole time, he’s been doing things for you—and it’s not just now either. It’s been like this for your entire life. Until the time you moved across the country on your own, you’d barely ever even opened a door for yourself.

You down the rest of your drink, and Chenle blinks at you rapidly.

“Are you good?” He chuckles.

“Just thinking of how good I had it here.” You shrug. “When I lived here, and I got to hang out with you and Jay all the time. I never felt lonely or sad or anything like that. Always happy with you guys.”

His face softens. “I miss those days.”

“Me too.” Right when you open your mouth to continue, Chenle stops you.

“Don’t.” He points at you. “We were the ones who told you to go in the first place.”

The two of you eat in a peaceful silence, where you steal a couple glances at your long time friend. Had you come home any other time before this, Jay would be here, too, and he’d most likely be making fun of you and Chenle right now. It’s like things have gone back to day one, and neither of you are sure how to interact with each other. The atmosphere, the air, the storyline has all massively shifted. You’re unsure of what to do.

“I’m gonna watch another movie,” Chenle says absentmindedly as he finishes sending a message on his phone. “You in?”

“Oh, not this time.” You shake your head. “I’m exhausted. Last thing you need is me hogging your bed again all night.”

He laughs. “Door’s open if you change your mind. Night.”

“Goodnight,” you tell him, watching as he retreats into his room.

The click signifies he’s out of sight, out of mind. You let out a long sigh and clean up your plate before heading into your own room. It’s not as homey as Chenle’s, and the mattress isn’t as cloudy either, but you’ll make do. With a deep breath, you rest back on your pillow, staring up at the ceiling.

Part of you wants to be with Chenle, but the other side of you knows you need to learn how to be okay on your own, too. If Jay’s death has taught you anything, it’s that not everyone you rely on will be around forever. Maybe if you’d relied on him less—

God damn it. You run your hands down your face, opting to scroll through your phone. Halfway through a random video, you receive a text from Chenle.

It’s a simple message of ‘found this and figured you’d want to see.’ It’s a picture of you and Jay, where you look like you’re ready to punch him in the face, and he’s beaming widely as if he’s the funniest person alive.

The photo makes you smile. Your memories of him will stand through the test of time, but that doesn’t mean you’re not going to feel it. One thing’s for certain—his loss will always be felt. You’ll just try and make the most of the time you have left, because it’s very clearly fleeting.

You feel decent enough that you start to drift to sleep, but it’s your dreams that send you through a whirlwind. Images of your earlier years flash through your mind, and you relive some experiences you’d forgotten about. When Jay found out his first girlfriend cheated on him, or when he and Chenle got into their first ever argument and made you be the mediator. Happy memories suddenly came to an end when your dream showed him in his casket, surrounded by the people who love him—the people you abandoned to follow your dream.

You jolt awake, tears burning at your eyes despite refusing to fall. When you look at the clock, hours have passed, and it’s well into the middle of the night. You pat your cheeks to ground yourself to the real world, and overwhelming worry hits you.

What if you lose Chenle in the same way? What if all this time that was wasted is truly…gone, and you’ll never be able to make it up?

You never got to say goodbye to Jay. The days will continue to get colder, but he’ll always be cemented on a bright summer day in the middle of June. Winters without him will be like a frozen hell, and the summers will never be quite as sweet. Your heart pounds in your chest where your guilt resides, and there’s only one solution you know that’ll work.

You throw your blanket off your body and slide out of bed. The floors of Chenle’s house creak beneath your feet as you walk the short distance from your room to his. You contemplate knocking first, but you’re pretty sure he’s asleep anyway.

When you push the door open, the noise catches his attention. He turns over, eyebrows furrowed as he catches you in the frame.

“(Y/N)?”

“Hey,” you mutter, clasping your hands together. “Sorry, I thought you’d be asleep.”

“Nah.” He sits up. “Not doing too great at that these days.”

“Oh. Well, um, do you wanna watch that movie?”

Chenle smiles gently at you and pats the other side of his bed. “For sure.”

You end up next to him, resting your head on him like you did last time. He wraps his arm around you and gently taps his fingers against your shoulder. Eventually, you completely relax and stare forward at the screen. Despite the movie playing, you already feel your tiredness pulling at you again.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly. “It’s just…late. You weren’t asleep?”

“I…” You pause and turn to look at him. “You want me to be honest?”

“Always.”

“I’m so…scared. I’m not really sure of what, but I have this ball of worry in me. It like, physically hurts.” You roll your eyes and tighten your grip on him.

“I get it,” he murmurs. “Seriously. When things like this happen, it’s normal to feel that way. And it doesn’t make you selfish.”

A lump forms in your throat. “I—Chenle, I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he reassures you, pulling you closer to hug you. “I promise you, you’ll always have me.”

“But we never know, do we?” Your voice shakes. “All of it could be over in the blink of an eye—”

He cups your cheeks. “Just relax, okay? I’m right here. I’ve thought the same things about you, you know. To the point where I’m scared to let you out of my sight. But living in fear is worse than not living at all.”

“What do we do without…” You groan as the first tear falls, but before you reach up to wipe it away, Chenle beats you to it.

“We do exactly what he’d want us to do. Keep going and make life whatever we want it to be. He’d be so pissed if he knew we were sad right now.”

“God, he would.” You let out a short laugh. “He’s glaring at us, isn’t he?”

“Oh, for sure. For this and for having a fucking sleepover without him.” Chenle’s smile widens.

“He loved sleepovers.”

“He was insufferable about them,” he interjects.

“Thank you,” you whisper. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’ll never have to find out,” he says, and despite the obvious part of all of it being out of his control, something settles in you.

Your brows furrow as you gulp, studying him to figure out what about this feels…shifted. Things don’t feel like they have every single time you’ve come home in the past, but that may be because of the obvious. There was always three of you. How do you recover from that and become two?

“You don’t have to feel weird about staying in here,” Chenle tells you. “I sleep better when I’m not alone, anyway.”

“It’s not just being alone…I think I sleep better because it’s you.” You curl further into him, and he squeezes you gently.

“Me too.” He runs his fingers through your hair.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“What did you say earlier? To my mom.”

“Oh, not much.” He shrugs. “Just that it was shitty to say something like that to you after everything that’s happened recently. And that you already feel bad enough, and she doesn’t need to make it worse when it’s not your fault to begin with.”

“Not much, huh?” You chuckle.

“It wasn’t enough,” he replies. “I could’ve ranted for hours about how that whole thing was bullshit. But I figured you’d be hungry, so I took you home instead.”

Home.

His home. Not yours. But you’ve never quite felt like you belonged anywhere as much as you do right now. You slide your legs to tangle them with his, and he intertwines his fingers with yours. Without explanation, your heart skips a beat. The warmth of his palm against yours has your mind in overdrive, but you don’t acknowledge it.

“Try and get some sleep,” he whispers.

You nod, terrified of shattering whatever shroud of calm is over you. Instead of a verbal response, you just close your eyes and try to ignore whatever that nagging feeling is snapping at the back of your brain.

Chenle lets out a short sigh, and it doesn’t take long for his breathing to even out. You listen to the steady thumping of his heart, the rhythm guiding you closer to falling asleep. It doesn’t matter what happens. He’s alive. The sound you’re hearing is proof of that, so at that moment you make a vow to yourself. To him.

You’ll never let distance separate you two again. You’ll never let him go the same way you did with Jay.

You’re going to be better.

And that promise, resounding in your soul, is enough to make the night around you fade to black.

A week and a half passes, and you’ve yet to spend an entire night on your own. You try, but every single time, either your or Chenle cave. Sometimes, he’d crawl into your bed without a word, pull you close to him, and breathe you in before falling asleep in silence.

He very quickly becomes your comfort. The only person you want to be around or talk to in the wake of a monumental loss. You try not to let Jay consume your thoughts, but every time you allow your mind to wander, he’s waiting for you at every corner.

The only time you’re truly at ease is with Chenle, and you’ve started getting used to being around him all the time. Today in particular, the two of you decided to have an impromptu picnic in the backyard, the sunset turning the sky oranges and pinks. Both of you lie flat on a blanket he spread out, staring up at the clouds as they scour across the sky.

An empty wine bottle is on the grass not even a foot away from you, and another one is half empty in between you and Chenle. You’ve had just enough to bring a calm, steady feeling over you, and you’re able to forget the world for a moment.

Your best friend lets out a sigh, shuffling a bit closer to you.

“What’s up?” you ask him, turning your head to look at him.

You’re lost in the way the sunset illuminates his face, how overwhelming Chenle he is while equally being reminiscent of an angel.

“You think he’s up there?” he whispers.

Your gaze returns to the sky. “I’d like to think so.”

“He better be. We both know he wouldn’t last a day in Hell.” He chuckles to himself, shaking his head. “I guess I’ve been thinking like that recently. About where we go after…”

“You know I’ve always had a sixth sense about him.” You nudge his arm. “Wherever he is, he’s happy. I can feel it.”

“God, I hope so.” Chenle inhales sharply. “I just wish…I don’t know. That there was something I could’ve done to prevent all of this.”

“Don’t. You’re the one who told me the what-ifs are pointless. There’s nothing we can do to change that he’s gone, but we keep him alive in our memories. That’s what he’d want.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he admits as he clasps his hands together over his stomach.

“What do you mean?” you ask.

He wets his lips. “Jay’s gone. You’ll go back to work eventually. It’ll just be me here, and I—am I behind? Should I be doing something with my fucking life?”

“Chenle—”

“You’ve got these amazing opportunities out there for you, (Y/N). Jay doesn’t get the chance to try, and I’m gonna waste my fucking life away in this God damned town.” He gulps and lets out a defeated sigh. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be doing this right now. And I hope you know this isn’t your fault—”

“Zhong Chenle, would you look at me?” you snap, waiting for him to turn his head.

Chenle furrows his eyebrows, and as his eyes meet yours, you see the desperate worry behind them. The fear of a meaningless life after the loss of a friend who could never do better now that he’s gone, and the knowledge that his other friend got out while she could.

You know him like the back of your hand. He doesn’t want this life. Truth be told, he never did. He wanted to make something of himself, much like you were doing now, and he never got the chance. No moves were made.

You want to tell him there’s still time, but you know better than to go there at this point. With a soft smile, you reach over and cup his cheek, allowing your thumb to run over his cheekbone.

“It’s not your fault. There was nothing either of us could do to stop this, okay? And do you know how pissed Jay would be hearing you talk about yourself like this? Chenle, you’re the best person I’ve ever known. If there’s anyone in this world who can take it by storm, it’s you.” You pause and take a deep breath. “Jay…dying doesn’t mean you have to lay here and die, too.”

“I needed you,” he says. “When he died, I needed you, and you were here. And you always know what to say or what to do. Helping you took the thoughts away from me, because as long as you needed me, I was distracted from feeling fucking helpless about everything.”

“I needed you, too,” you tell him.

His frown deepens, but his gaze softens. Your heart seems to skip a beat, and you still haven’t moved your hand from his face. The stare you’re locked in with him has energy thrumming through your veins, and the atmosphere around you shifts. A slight purple hue from the sky flutters against his skin.

“I still do,” he murmurs.

You nod. “Me, too. I’m not going anywhere, Lele.”

As his eyes travel down to your mouth, you quickly find yourself doing the same. Your imagination runs wild, wondering what his lips would feel like against yours. Everything that happens next is so quick, you almost don’t believe it’s true.

Both of you seem to lean forward at the same time, and his mouth brushes yours. His hand ends up on your hip, and yours moves up to his hair. The soft strands have your breath hitching, and the next thing you know, he’s kissing you. You’re kissing him. You’ve never considered anything like this with Chenle before, but nothing in your life has ever felt so right.

His lips work so perfectly against yours, you forget about absolutely everything except for him. Fingers gripping onto the fabric of your shirt, he shifts closer to you to close the rest of the distance. You attempt to follow his lead, but you’re interrupted by the wine bottle between you falls right onto your lap, the deep red liquid making you gasp as it soaks into your pants.

“Shit,” you curse, jolting away from Chenle.

He quickly grabs some of the paper towel he brought outside and attempts to soak up the alcohol soaked into your clothing. His hand presses against your thigh, and with a gasp, you realize what truly happened.

You just kissed Chenle. You would’ve continued kissing him, too, if the stupid bottle hadn’t been in the way. But now you’ve got his fingers digging into your leg, the warmth zinging through your veins like lightning as you swat his hands away.

“(Y/N), I—”

“Don’t.” You shake your head. “Everything’s fine.”

You quickly stand and make your way into his house to change. And to avoid what will come of this situation. Once you’re in your room, you close the door and lock it behind you, sinking down until you’re sitting on the floor.

You don’t care about your pants. Every aspect of your life has been upheaved this week. You don’t need things to change with Chenle, too. Ever since you were little, you, Jay, and Chenle had always been open and honest with each other—probably too much, in hindsight, but you trusted them both with your life. As far as you were aware, none of you had ever even come close to romantic feelings for each other.

When Chenle said he needs you, is that what he meant? Does he need you or does he need someone?

Your calm buzz from the wine has disappeared, and now panic sets in. You already lost one best friend, and you refuse to lose another. It doesn’t matter how much you wanted to kiss him. Or how much you enjoyed it. Or how badly you want to go out there and ask him what the hell he was thinking.

You flinch at the knocking.

“(Y/N)? Are you okay?” His voice is strained, like he’s having just as hard of a time as you are.

When you don’t answer, you hear a shuddering breath escape him.

“(Y/N), please,” he pleads. “I’m so sorry. Seriously, I have no idea what came over me, and I just—I need you, okay? I can’t be alone right now.”

You sniffle and stand up, cracking the door open so you can see him.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “Please don’t hate me.”

“You idiot, I could never hate you,” you reassure him, pulling him into a hug.

He sighs in relief, the tension in his body deflating as he holds you as tightly as he can. And before you know it, he’s shuddering in your grasp, his body wracked with sobs. Your heart shatters, and you cradle the back of his head. He practically collapses into you, and it has both of you on the floor.

You’ve never seen him like this before. Worry has your stomach twisting and turning, and all you can do is run your fingers through his hair and make sure he knows you’re here. That you’ll never go anywhere without him again.

“I’m so sorry.” Barely coherent, he tightens his grip on you.

“It’s okay,” you whisper, rocking him back and forth as you fight your own tears. “Everything’s okay. I promise, Lele, I’ve got you.”

After a while of you rocking him back and forth, he stops crying. Your shirt is soaked, but you couldn’t care less. You know he needed this, to finally let go of every pent up emotion trapped in his heart, and you want to make sure his thoughts won’t build up like that again.

He falls asleep against you, his grip not loosening. Eventually, you doze off too.

When you wake up, you quickly realize you’re now laying in your bed. The room is pitch black, and it takes you a moment to adjust. Chenle’s nowhere to be found, even when you pat the bed next to you to see if he’d taken his normal spot.

You toss the blanket off your lap. Before leaving the room, you change your wine-stained pants to shorts, and swap your shirt out for a T-shirt. As you walk into the kitchen, you’re surprised to find the light on. Chenle sits at the table, a glass filled with bronze liquid in front of him. With his palms covering his face, he sighs.

“Lele,” you mutter, voice hoarse from sleep.

His tired eyes meet yours, and he quickly averts his gaze and takes a sip of his drink. You shuffle closer and sit directly across from him, clasping your fingers together.

“You’re still up?” you ask.

He nods once.

“Can you talk to me please? This is scaring me.”

He gulps. “I’m so sorry. For earlier. All of it. I have no idea what got into me, and then just—I should’ve left you alone after, too, and I didn’t, and I feel like a fucking ass—”

“Clearly, you’ve had some pent up emotions going on. It’s okay to be confused about them, and I’d never be mad at you for needing me. You’re my best friend. One kiss is not going to ruin us or something. If this is the first time you’ve cried for real since Jay died, you needed that, too.”

“I’m…I don’t know. Embarrassed?”

“Oh, come on.” You scoff. “You’ve done way more embarrassing things in your life that I’ve witnessed.”

“It’s different now.” He frowns.

“Different? How?”

“Everything is different. Jay’s gone, we’ve both changed as people, our families barely even talk anymore. And you know they’ve been best friends for as long as we’ve been alive. If they can drift apart, does that mean we will, too?” he rants, tugging his fingers through his hair.

“Is that what last night was about?”

“I can’t lose you, okay? I panicked last night after I kissed you, ‘cause it felt like I’d ruined everything. And you like, ran away from me, and I—shit, I don’t know. Everything inside me just…froze. All I could think about was that if you left me, too, I’d be completely alone.” He downs the last of his drink, cringing as the liquid rolls down his throat.

“I would never leave you. No matter what.” You reach across the table and grab his hand. “Whatever that meant for you, whether it was an impulsive decision or if you truly wanted it, you can be honest with me. We’re going through a big change right now, you know. Things are going to be confusing and the only way we’ll ever get through it is if we talk about those confusing things.”

He stares where you’re touching him, jaw tightening as his chest rises. “It wasn’t the first time I wanted to.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry if that’s weird—”

“Don’t. Just keep talking.”

“I don’t know what’s going on with me, honestly. I just…it feels like you’re the only person who understands me. The only one who ever will understand me.” His voice shakes as he speaks, and his grip tightens. “Ever since you’ve been back, things have…changed for me, I guess.”

Your heart pounds, apparently hammering against your throat and making it hard to breathe. You refuse to allow any reaction to come out until he’s done, because that’ll counteract everything you’re trying to do here.

“And I don’t know how they’ve changed, to be fair. It’s different. That’s all I know. We’re closer than we’ve ever been, and um…” He closes his eyes, forehead wrinkling as he gains the courage to continue.

“It’s okay,” you tell him. “Keep talking. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I think I…like you.” Chenle’s shoulders slump as the words escape him. “But this is so…so much right after everything with Jay, and I don’t know if I really do, or if it’s because—”

“I get it, Lele.” You send a small smile his way. “It’s not weird, and I completely understand what you’re talking about. At the end of the day, we’ll always be best friends. So if this is something you want to explore, the worst case scenario is we end up right back to being friends, right?”

His widened eyes dart back to yours, shock evident on his face. “What?”

“There’s only one way to figure out if it’s real or if it’s a product of circumstances.” You shrug. “And honestly, I’ve been…the same, I think. I kissed you out there, too. But we don’t have to make this weird. We can let things naturally progress if they do, and until then, we’ll just be us. Okay?”

“How long?” he asks quietly. “When did you start…”

“The night we came back here after everything my mom said,” you tell him. “I needed you, and you refused to leave my side.”

“It was that day for me, too. I saw the look on your face when she said all those things to you. The thought of you and Jay like that got me thinking, I guess.” He lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank you for not making this weird.”

“It doesn’t have to be. We’re both adults and we’ve known each other our whole lives. There’s nothing wrong with…exploring something as long as we’ll be okay after if it doesn’t work out.” You release his hand and grab the cup in front of him.

When you stand to put it in the sink, he leans back in his chair and watches you. You’re surprised by yourself, truly, because you expected some sort of awkwardness to start between the two of you after your conversation, but everything feels the same.

You make eye contact with him over your shoulder, and he gives you a small smile. When you make it back over to him, you put your hands on his shoulders.

“You need to get some rest,” you tell him.

“Come with me?” He places his hand over yours.

“Sure.”

He stands, and when he faces you again, the distance between the two of you is minuscule. You’ve known the man in front of you for your whole life. You’ve spent all that time with him, never quite feeling the way you do now.

Maybe it’s because of Jay’s passing, and the two of you are desperately grasping onto something familiar. There’s a pretty decent chance of that, but also…maybe this is how things were always meant to be.

You’re not entirely sure what to expect at this moment, but he pulls you into a hug, squeezing you tightly. You relax in his grasp, returning his gesture with ease. When he lets you go, he grabs your hand and leads you to his bedroom, and just like most nights before this one, the two of you quickly fall asleep wrapped up in each other.

A few days pass with no changes. You woke up first this morning, so you head into his kitchen to start the coffee. Leaning the small of your back on the counter, you close your eyes and inhale the scent of the dark, brewing liquid. Chenle’s shirt hangs off your shoulder, and it’s almost long enough to cover your shorts.

There’s a short knock on the front door, and with a frown, you move to answer it. When you open it, you’re surprised to find a woman behind it. She seems familiar, but you can’t place it.

“(Y/N)?” She frowns, eyeing you. “What are you doing here?”

You chuckle. “Sorry, do we know each other?”

“Oh, you probably don’t know me. Chenle and I dated not too long ago, and he used to tell me about you all the time. I heard about Jay and wanted to stop by and make sure he was okay.”

“Oh, he’s—” You pause, wondering what you should even say to this girl. “He’s sleeping right now. If you come back later, I’m sure he’ll be…um, accepting of conversation.”

Recognition comes back to you as soon as she explains who she is. They broke up over six months ago, and while Chenle didn’t really tell you why, he said he broke up with her. You hear footsteps behind you, and relief floods when you feel Chenle’s presence behind you.

“Did you need something?” he asks her.

“I, um, I heard about Jay. I know how close you guys were, so I wanted to see how you were doing. How are you doing? It’s probably good that (Y/N)’s back, right?” she rambles, clasping her hands together behind her back.

“Thanks for stopping by, but I’m alright. Having (Y/N) back is great, and you should probably get going.” Chenle’s tone stays steady, and you’re shocked to find him so stern with her.

“Chenle, I—”

“I don’t know what your goal was in showing up here, but you shouldn’t have. (Y/N), close the door please.”

You shoot a nervous glance over your shoulder, and then an awkward smile to the girl on the other side, and then do as he says. After, you turn to face him with a raised eyebrow.

“Not even worth the conversation,” he says, shaking his head. “Is that coffee I smell?”

You nod.  “Yep, I figured you’ve made me enough coffee, so it’s probably my turn.”

You rest the small of your back against the counter, and he approaches you, placing his hands on either side of you as he leans closer to you. Your heart races, lodged in your throat as you await his next move.

“You know, your eyes dilate when you look at me,” he teases you.

“Shut up.” You gently push at his chest and laugh. “It’s only because you piss me off.”

“Not according to science.” He gives you a smug grin.

“I cannot believe you’re flirting with me right now,” you tell him, scoffing. “I haven’t even had any coffee yet. I can’t keep up.”

It’s been days since the kiss. So much time has passed, and he hasn’t even so much as tried to kiss you again. The way his gaze flicks down and his smile fades has every logical thought escaping your brain.

“Relax,” he whispers. “It’ll never feel normal if you don’t.”

You let the tension release from your shoulders, and you nod. His hand slides beneath the hem of your shirt, the warmth of his palm directly on your hip. Your face heats up at the gesture, unsure of how to reciprocate or let him know you like it.

“I think we should really talk about all of that, though.” You clear your throat.

He quirks an eyebrow at you. “We’ll talk about it soon. Not at this very second.”

He lifts his other hand to the back of your neck, his thumb stroking your skin as he leans forward. You meet him in the middle and grip onto his shoulders. The kiss is short, and as he pulls away, his eyes flutter open.

“Again,” you say.

He kisses you again, and this time, he moves a little closer to you to make sure his chest is against yours. His fingers weave into your hair, and you let out a short moan. Embarrassment floods through you as you pull away from him and drop your head against his chest.

“Did you just—”

“Don’t you dare.” You shake your head.

“Maybe we should put everything out on the table,” he continues. “Like what…um, what we’re okay with during our…this, and what things are off-limits.”

“I would think that things shouldn’t be off-limits if we’re trying to see if this is real. If we’re…compatible.” Your cheeks burn as the words leave your mouth. “Why are we being like this? We’ve never been awkward talking about sex.”

His eyes widen and his face turns bright red. “Probably because we’ve never talked about sex together. Like me and you.”

“That’s really weird to think about.”

“Sure is.”

“Should we…move on? I think the coffee’s done.” You push his arm away so you can slide away from him. Clearing your throat, you grab two coffee cups from the cupboard.

Chenle leans his back against the counter where you’d just been, with his arms crossed over his chest. You make both coffees and mix them together before turning around to hand him his. He takes it with a smile and a quick thank you, and then you sip your own.

“So,” you start. “Tell me what happened with that girl.”

He sighs. “You really wanna know?”

“Of course, I do. It’s a little weird that I don’t know already.”

“She was weirdly obsessed with you and Jay. Like, constantly was bringing you up despite never having met you, and just…it was weird. Kinda gave me the vibes that she’d just be jealous all the time when you did come around.” He pauses, pursing his lips as he thinks further. “That, and she tried to fuck Jay.”

You choke on your coffee. “Hello? She did what?”

“Yep. Jay came to me immediately, obviously, and I broke up with her right after.” He shrugs. “We weren’t together for that long.”

“It was weird because she did act like she knew me.” You set your cup down on the counter and approach him again. Wrapping your arms around him, you place your head on his chest. He squeezes you closer to him.

“Jay and I talked about you all the time,” he reminds you. “C’mon, you’re our favorite person. Of course, everyone in our lives would know you.”

“You two have always loved to talk, that’s for sure.” You grin up at him, and he feigns annoyance and pokes your side.

It becomes an unspoken rule between the two of you that you’ll start trying to let things happen as naturally as possible. Living in a small town makes it nearly impossible to keep gossip from spreading, so any time you go out together, you make it look as friendly as possible. Regardless, people were going to talk anyway.

You and Chenle are halfway through a bottle of wine at dinner when both your mom and his mom show up. Chenle shares a panicked look with you, but you scoot over to let your mom sit down.

“What are you two doing here?” you ask.

“Yu Baeyoung said she saw you here.” Your mom nudges your arm.

You chuckle. “Yes, I’ve been around for almost a month and a half now.”

“No, silly, she means here. With Chenle,” his mom interjects.

Chenle’s face scrunches up. “Let’s not do this right now.”

“Do what?” Your mom’s brow raises.

“You guys have done this to us our entire lives.” You scratch the top of your head. “Can’t two friends enjoy dinner without meddling?”

“This is a nice place for a couple of friends to hang out.” His mom gestures to the wine. “Drink choice doesn’t seem friendly either.”

“Would you prefer us slamming shots of tequila?” Chenle presses his lips together in a thin line, but he’s incredibly stiff.

You decided not to tell your families about any of this for this exact reason—they’d get way too far ahead of themselves, and the last thing you need is for this not to work out and both sides asking hundreds of questions.

“Baeyoung said she’s seen you guys around together a lot, actually—”

“Mom, please.” Chenle lets out a long sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. “If we had something to tell you, we’d let you know. And if you did think we were here for…I don’t know, whatever, why would you butt in instead of letting us continue?”

You grab your wine glass and finish off what’s left in it.

“We’re just curious.” Your mom pouts and crosses her arms over her chest. “I think you’d be good for each other—”

“For the love of God, you were saying you wanted me with Jay for years just last week. Can I have friends ever? I really think you should go.” You don’t know what part of that sinks under your skin and picks at your soul, but you’re already on a tightrope with your mother.

“Oh, don’t be like that.” She waves you off.

“All due respect, but we’re trying to be normal after our best friend died, okay?” Chenle scoffs and taps his fingers on the table. “The three of us used to go out like this all the time. We’re learning to live without Jay, and it sucks, so if you could not assume things this fast, that’d be great.”

Guilt sinks into your heart, and you drop your head into your hands. You wish you knew what Jay would think of all of this. If he’d call you both crazy for trying to be together when you’ve lost him, a pivotal piece of this friendship circle.

“Chenle, that’s a bit much, don’t you think?” his mom asks.

“It’s not. It’s really not. And not only was he our best friend, but he was the first…passing we’ve experienced. So, we need space if you guys are going to keep assuming things that don’t even matter to you. Even if we were dating, we’re grown adults and we’d tell you when we’re ready.”

You gape at Chenle. He slumps back against the booth and sighs. Your mother shifts next to you, and Chenle’s mom’s smile fades quickly. You’ve done well thus far in distracting yourself from Jay. The days don’t get easier, but they seem shorter, at least. Having Chenle by your side helps. He was right when he said it would never get better, only that you’d learn to adjust to it. Instead of a sharp, stabbing pain every time you think of him, the knife gets a little duller every day. That, or your heart steels in resolve a little bit more.

“He’s right.” You nod. “We’re not teenagers anymore, guys. You don’t need to know everything about us, or gang up on us at dinner. We’re adults trying to navigate life, and you need to give us the room to do that.”

“I never thought of it that way. This was all lighthearted fun, dear. We thought it might help to keep you guys distracted from everything, but we’ll leave you alone if that’s what you want us to do.” Chenle’s mom puts her hand on his shoulder.

Your mom murmurs an agreement, and then after a confirmation from you and Chenle, they get up and leave the two of you to your dinner. You empty the wine bottle between the two glasses and raise your eyebrow at him.

“I like when you stand up for us like that,” you say, leaning back against your seat.

A smile forms on his face as he rolls his eyes. “I can’t believe they just date crashed us. Maybe we’ll be able to go out without the town out to get us one day.”

“Doubtful. But hopefully, we’ll eventually know what this is.” You sip your wine. “Then, it won’t matter what everyone knows.”

His gaze softens and trails over you. “And we’ll be fine either way.”

“That we will.” You raise your glass and smile as he clinks his against yours.

When you get back to Chenle’s house, he guides you inside with a hand on the small of your back. He helps you take your jacket off, and the warm of his touch down your arms sends goosebumps along your skin.

At this point, you’re pretty sure it’s real for you. That your feelings aren’t a product of losing a friend and clinging onto normalcy, but the start of something beautiful you could have with Chenle.

You take a step toward your room, and he grabs your wrist to pull you back to him. He asks, “Where are you going?”

“To change, you loser.” You chuckle. “I’ll be there in a sec.”

“Can’t you just wear something of mine?” He wraps his arms around you. “I like when you wear my stuff.”

“Just say you wanna watch me take my clothes off, you freak,” you tease him.

His eyes widen, and he takes a step back while his cheeks redden. “I wouldn’t just ask you to do that, but if you wanted to—”

“Oh, my God.” You laugh abruptly. “You wanna see me naked.”

“Well, I mean, not if you don’t want me to.” He clears his throat, glancing up at the ceiling.

“You’ve seen most of me already,” you remind him.

“Context matters, you know,” he interjects. “Like, yeah, I’ve seen you in bikinis and stuff, but it’s not like we were gonna do anything about it back then. Am I even making sense? Sure, I’ve seen you pretty close to naked, but it wasn’t because of me? Please don’t let me say anything else.”

“Your awkwardness is slightly endearing.” You snort.

He pouts. “Ass.”

You take a step closer to him, wrap your arms around his shoulders, and press your lips against his. He reciprocates immediately, the gentle movement making your brain malfunction. When you pull away, he’s smiling at you.

“You kissed me.”

“Yes, I did,” you confirm. “We’ve kissed quite a bit the last few days.”

“We have, haven’t we?”

You chuckle and grab his wrist to pull him to his room. He follows you without hesitation and closes the door behind you both before he heads to his dresser. He pulls out a shirt for you and one for himself. You turn away from him and switch the top you’re wearing with his T-shirt. The fabric stops right below your ass, and you reach beneath it to unbutton your pants and push them down your legs. Once they’re off, you turn to get into his bed.

You find him in the exact same spot. His lips are slightly parted as his gaze travels down your body. Your entire life you’d been able to admit to yourself that you found Chenle attractive, because you had eyes. Of course, he was. But for him to not only be attracted to you, too, and also be vocal about it has your mind in shambles.

He watches you closely as you climb into his bed and pull the covers over yourself. You avoid looking at him as he changes, and within moments, he’s shuffling closer to you. He leans over you, pressing a kiss to your cheek, to your temple, to your jawline. Nerves spring in your stomach, but you turn your head to see him.

“Is there something you want?” you ask him.

“This is probably the worst time to say this,” he whispers. “But this is real for me. I know it. These feelings keep getting stronger and I—I wasn’t going to even say anything yet, but I had to tell you in case…”

You suddenly feel embarrassment rise to your cheeks. Chenle’s your best friend, but you did just get into his bed wearing his shirt and an admittedly skimpy pair of panties. You turn to face him.

“Before anything serious happened, I wanted to be sure.” He gulps. “Because that’s obviously…a big deal for us both, you know? And regardless of what we said, I think it’d be hard to go back to the way we were if we had sex and weren’t good for each other.”

“You ramble when you’re nervous,” you say.

“I do.” He chuckles.

“It’s real for me, too,” you whisper. Despite it being the complete truth, a lump forms in your throat. You’re not sure where it came from, but you fight it the best you can.

Relief relaxes his facial features, and then he leans forward slowly until his lips brush yours. His eyes threaten to close, but he waits for you to make a decision. You’re not entirely sure what comes over you, but all you know is that you’ve never needed someone on the level you need Chenle.

You complete the kiss, weaving your fingers through his hair as you shift closer to him. Immediately, it’s like everything around you catches on fire, and it’s much too hot to stay as you are. You gasp into his mouth when his hand trails beneath your shirt, his touch leaving those same flames all over your skin. He grabs your ass and squeezes, a shiver rolling down his spine when he swallows your moan.

“You had to know what you were doing with these,” he murmurs as he slides his fingers just beneath the hem of your panties.

His words sink in, but nothing about this feels awkward to you. You’d be embarrassed if he knew how wet you were from his simple touches. All of that is background noise—all you care about is getting closer to him.

“Why isn’t this weird?” you whisper as you slide your hands beneath his shirt to get him to take it off. “We used to cringe at the thought of—”

“Would you kiss me, damn it?” He pulls you back to him, but instead of the urgency you expect, he kisses you gently, his lips slowly moving on yours. You roll, tugging him to take him with you.

Then he’s on top of you, slotted perfectly between your legs with your shirt riding up to expose more and more of your skin. His eyes scan over you, and he moves his hand up your side until you’re lifting yourself up to remove the fabric. A slight pause befalls both of you.

“What is it?” you ask him.

“I just…can’t believe I’ve never realized this before,” he whispers, eyebrows pinching. “How well we work together.”

You smile. “We’re pretty fucking great.”

“This probably sounds cheesy as hell,” he begins and scoffs at himself. “But you’re the most beautiful person I know.”

“Oh, come on.” Your cheeks heat up.

“No, I’m serious. I’ve always known that. You’re fucking radiant on the outside and warm and kind and loving on the inside. Nothing has ever or will ever be able to take that away from you, and I…” he trails off, swollen lips parting as he searches for what he wants to say next. “Don’t ever leave me. Please.”

You reach up to cup his cheeks. “Lele, I’m not going anywhere. It’s you and me now, okay?”

“I’ll be here as long as you want me,” he murmurs as he lowers himself down. “No matter what.”

Chenle kisses you again, softer this time as if this energy between the two of you is fragile. You slide your hand into his hair and allow yourself to melt. Spreading your legs a little further to accommodate him, you pull at the hem of his shirt. He moves away from you only to take it off, and then he presses kisses on your jaw, down your neck. You’re gasping for air by the time he makes it to the swells of your breasts. He leaves open-mouthed kisses along the edge of your bra, allowing his teeth to graze you.

You let your head rest back against his pillows and sigh as he travels further, stopping once he reaches your navel. Your fingers clench the sheets as you prepare yourself for whatever he’s going to do next.

“This is okay?” he hums against your skin.

“Yeah,” you say breathlessly. “Perfect.”

Being in the dark with only the shine of the stars to illuminate the room has this feeling much more intimate than you thought possible. You’d never imagined yourself in this position—literally—with Chenle, but now that you’re here, you wouldn’t change it for the world.

He tongues along the hem of your panties, and you have to stifle your gasp. The chill of the air contrasts with the wetness left on your skin, and goosebumps travel up your body. His fingers loop through the waistband, and without any words from him, you lift your hips up to help him remove them.

Chenle’s lips find your inner thigh, and you can’t hold back the noise that leaves you. It’s been a while since you’ve craved someone’s touch, and you never want his to leave your body. He already feels so different than everyone else. He’s still your best friend, but now he’s so much more, too. You trust him inexplicably, and this moment will change the trajectory of your lives forever.

You feel his breath against your core, and you drop your head back. He shifts and brings his hand up to hold your body down to the mattress, his thumb sliding between your legs to gently nudge your clit.

“Relax,” he tells you. “I’ve got you.”

He seems nervous himself, but after another shuffle, his fingers slide along your entrance. Your back arches as he pushes them inside. His breath shudders as he feels your walls fluttering around him.

“You’re…perfect, (Y/N),” he says, entranced as he slowly thrusts his hand. “So perfect.”

You whine, squeezing your eyes shut as you adjust to the feeling. When he kisses your clit, you grasp harder onto the sheets. Knowing the man pleasuring you is the one person in the world that knows you the most, that knows who you are within your very soul, has you immersed in every movement he makes. Nobody has ever made you feel this way before.

Sounds of your arousal follow his fingers, and he finally wraps his lips around your clit. You let out a loud moan, your back arching at the overwhelming sensations. He sucks on your sensitive bud, flicking his tongue back and forth in a matching pace with his hand. You squirm below him, and your legs begin to shake at the sensation.

He moves just a little faster, his other hand flat on your stomach to keep you from moving too much. You fear any sounds louder than whispered pleasure might shatter this moment between you and Chenle, but as he brings you closer to the edge, you struggle to hold back.

He curls his fingers to find your spot, and your body jerks. When he repeats the action, he moans, the vibrations against your clit sending you to euphoria. You gasp and your eyes roll back. He aids you through your high, carefully bringing you down before pulling away from your core. You practically slump on the mattress, but you lift yourself up to look at him. He sits up on his knees to get a better look at you, and you watch his every move as he lifts his fingers up to his mouth and sucks your arousal from them. 

You gulp at the sight of him like this, his length straining against his boxers as his darkened eyes travel over your body. His tongue swipes along his lips one last time, and then he’s climbing over you again. You welcome his kiss despite the taste of yourself.

“I need you,” you tell him, pushing at the band of his boxers. “Can’t wait anymore.”

“Are you sure?” he whispers. “You can tell me if you change your mind.”

You shake your head. “Please, Lele.”

He inhales sharply, and then he’s assisting you in pushing the last barrier of clothing off. “Do we need a condom? I have some.”

“I—” Your face heats up. “I’m on birth control, and I haven’t slept with anyone in…um, a long time, so I’m clean.”

“I got tested recently,” he replies. “I’m clean, too. But this is up to you. Whatever you want is cool with me.”

“Waste of time. I want you now.” You pull him in to kiss him, and he sighs against your mouth.

He reaches down and strokes himself a few times before lining himself up with your entrance. His eyes travel along your body, almost as if he’s verifying you’re real. Slowly, he pushes inside, watching your expression carefully to ensure you’re alright.

Your heart thuds in your chest as he continues to move forward, burying himself deep inside you until he’s flush against you. He gives you a bit to adjust, leaning in to kiss down your neck. His hand snakes beneath your body to unclasp your bra, and you arch to assist him in taking it off.

“‘M good,” you reassure him. “You can move.”

“Just need a second like this,” he returns, dropping his head on your shoulder. “God, you feel so fucking good.”

His words send shivers up your spine, and you put your arms around his shoulders. He kisses you again, and pulls out slowly to push back in. The sensation of him rubbing against your inner walls has you gasping. His pace is slow but you’ve never felt so heavenly in your life. As his tongue parts your lips, you wrap your legs around his waist.

When you call out his name, he curses under his breath. Every time he thrusts in, you lift your hips to meet him, despite how you begin to shake from the intensity of all of it. His chest brushes yours with each movement, and his teeth sink into your bottom lip to pull at it.

Never in your life has anything ever felt like this. As if Chenle was the last piece of the 1,000 piece puzzle you deemed life, and you finally found it after all these years. His soft moans have your toes curling, and despite the knot tying in your stomach, you don’t want this to end.

As if he knows every last thought in your mind, he reaches between you and rubs circles on your clit. You shudder in his grasp and dig your nails into his shoulders. He moves faster, and once his tip slides into your spot, you crumble around him. You throw your head back, a moan tumbling from your lips as you fall apart.

Moments after you, his hips falter as he approaches his high. You kiss him hard, and he groans into your mouth, pushing as far into you as he can to finish. The sensation has you gasping all over again, but you hold onto him for dear life.

He thrusts a couple more times to bring you both back to reality, and as he slows to a stop, he peppers kisses on your face. Neither of you move yet. You bask in the feeling of him inside you, and his hand rubs up and down your thigh.

He carefully removes your legs from around his waist, and then he sighs as he pulls out of you slowly. “Let me grab a towel. Hold on.” With a quick kiss to your forehead, he stands up and slips his boxers back on before walking out of the room.

An inherent sense of peace overwhelms you, and once he comes back, he cleans up the mess between your legs before climbing in bed next to you. He cradles the back of your head to his chest, and he hums quietly.

“Try to get some sleep,” he whispers.

With him close and his heart beating beneath your ear, you don’t even have to try.

The birds chirping outside the window wake you up. You’re still tangled up with Chenle, blanket snug around both of you with you curled into his chest. Shifting closer, you think about going back to sleep until he’s ready to get up, too.

“Morning,” he mutters, voice hoarse from sleep.

You shake your head. “More sleep.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He squeezes you and lets out a sigh of content.

Peaceful silence takes the two of you over, and you can’t help but smile at the thought of how far you both have come. You’re on top of the world—your feelings for Chenle are real, and you’ve discovered something you never thought would be possible.

His fingers trace up and down your spine, a deep hum escaping him. “This is real.”

“Mhm,” you reply. “We’re naked right now.”

“And you’re so fucking soft.” He sighs. “Is there any reason we need to get up today?”

“Wouldn’t matter if there was. Not moving.” You kiss the base of his neck.

“Sounds good to me.”

Despite the prospect of being wrapped up in each other all day, eventually, both of you get hungry. He takes you to one of the local diners for breakfast, and you study him closely while he sips his coffee and looks through the menu.

You expected some aspect of your relationship with him to be awkward at this point, but nothing has changed between you. Well, with the exception that every time you see his fingers, heat rises to your cheeks. Besides that, you’re perfectly normal.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks without removing his eyes from the menu.

“Who, me?”

He finally glances up, a smile playing on his lips. “Yes, (Y/N), you.”

“Well.” You clear your throat. “I’m just…thinking.”

“I put that together.” He tips his cup to his lips again.

“What do we do from here?” you blurt out, immediately dropping your head into your palm.

He chuckles and clasps his hands together over the table. “I was waiting for you to bring it up. But if we both know it’s real, and we’ve…gone as far as we have, um, I was hoping we’d be together.”

“That doesn’t scare you?” you ask.

“Does it scare you?” he counters.

You shake your head. “Not at all.”

“Full transparency, then. That’s what I want. I want us to be together and, as insufferable as they are, I want our families to know, too. And I want it to be us against the world, (Y/N). We can do whatever we want.”

“I guess that also brings us to what happens next month.” You look down at your lap. “When I’m supposed to go back to work.”

He gulps but waits for you to continue.

“What if…What if I didn’t go back?” you start. “Think about it. We could stay here.”

“You want to come live here?”

“I…I guess I just—” You pause in an attempt to gather your thoughts. “After everything with Jay, it made me realize how long I’ve really been gone. And being back here…I missed it a little. You and my family and the town itself. I don’t want to miss any part of anyone else’s life. I really did Jay a disservice by not coming around as often as I should’ve.”

“You’d give up all of that work you did for me?” He frowns.

“It’s not just for you, but yes. I don’t fully enjoy what I do. It’s all work and it takes up all my time. Why do that when I could do something around here and get to spend actual free time with you?”

He reaches across the table and grasps your hand. “There’s always room for you with me, but I want you to be sure about something like that. You’ve worked so hard, and if you’re changing your mind because of us, I don’t want to come between you and your dreams.”

“I’ve been thinking about it before we started this,” you tell him. “From the second I heard about Jay. I certainly don’t want you out here by yourself.”

“Don’t think we could swing long distance?” He cracks a smile.

“Ridiculous.” You scoff and take a drink of your coffee. “We have some time. Let’s think about it later, alright?”

“Agreed.”

After breakfast, Chenle leads you out of the restaurant with your fingers intertwined. You try not to blush at the simple gesture, but you can’t help it. He leads you to the passenger side of his car, and you lean back against the metal. The distance between you two is almost non-existent, and his hand rests on your waist.

“You’re sure you don’t care if people know?” he asks.

“Positive.” You grin.

He cups your cheek, smiling back at you as he strokes your skin with his thumb. After, he leans in and kisses you. Oxygen is stolen from your lungs, but you relish in the feeling of him. The sun feels warmer, the day a little brighter, and your heart a little fuller.

You never expected this to be the answer—for you to find a different kind of solace in your best friend, but you’re here anyway.

He winks at you once he pulls away, earning him a slap on the chest. After you roll your eyes, he opens the door for you and guides you into the car.

By the time you make it back to his house, he leads you inside. You’re barely a few feet within the door when both of your phones start buzzing. He takes his out of his pocket, shows you it’s his mother calling, laughs, and tosses it on the couch. You follow his lead, and then he grabs your hand and pulls you towards his room.

“If you thought you were going to make it out of here for long, you were mistaken.” He wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you flush against him. “I have plans for us today. Our schedule’s booked actually, and it mostly involves us in my bed.”

“Luckily for you, that’s exactly what I was hoping for.”

“Oh, good. Hopefully, they don’t decide to come here. Probably not the show they thought they’d be signing up for.” He ponders the thought for a moment.

“Shame on them for not respecting our privacy,” you mutter, grasping onto the back of his neck. “Maybe it’ll teach them to back off a little.”

“You’re so right,” he replies, leaning in to kiss you.

Tugging you closer, he whirls you around to walk you back toward his bed, where you’re more than ready to spend the next few hours.

Later that night, you and Chenle are ready for bed, with you curled into his chest. He runs his fingers through your hair, humming quietly. You don’t recognize the melody, but he relaxes you all the same.

“Do you think this ever would’ve happened if Jay were still here?” you ask him as you trace shapes on his shoulder.

He purses his lips in thought. “I’d like to think so.”

“Me, too,” you admit. “This feels…like things were always supposed to be this way.”

“I can’t imagine it any other way now.” He takes a deep breath. “I needed this. You. And I can’t believe there was a time where we weren’t like this.”

You move so you’re resting on top of him, chests pressed together. He clasps his hands together over the small of your back.

“He’d be happy for us, right?” You scan over his face, tracing over his cheekbones with your finger.

“Of course,” Chenle says without hesitation. “I think he’d be asking a bunch of questions right now. Like how we knew, what we were gonna do about all of this, if he’s going to be the man of honor or the best man.”

“God, he so would.” You laugh.

“And he’d be insufferable about it, too.”

“He’d be the man of honor, by the way. I was his favorite.”

Chenle’s smile grows. “I love you.”

Your heart stops in your chest, and your lips part as you stare at him in shock. Although, you should’ve expected it. You fell for him, too, but hearing it verbalized is a whole new story you’ve never considered before.

Hell, the two of you frequently told each other those three words, but you know now they hold much more importance than they ever have.

“You…”

“Yeah, I do.” He nods.

“Like…romantically?”

“You’re such a loser,” he teases you. “Yes, romantically. Don’t make me take it back now.”

“I’ll be sad if you take it back, ass.” You narrow your eyes at him. “And I love you, too, if that wasn’t clear.”

He squeezes you tightly, chuckling when the air rushes from your lungs. While you never quite expected things to work out this way, you wouldn’t change what’s become of your relationship with Chenle. He was—and is—your best friend, and for some reason, all you can do is look forward to the future, where he’ll be more. Best friend always, but also the one you love.

The last couple weeks before you’re supposed to return to work are hectic to say the least. It feels as if you and Chenle are rushing to figure things out—where the two of you will stand when you leave and what you’ll do in the meantime.

So, in an attempt to get your minds distracted, you opt to go have a couple drinks with Jay. Of course, you had to stop and get his favorite beer—the same one you’d always hated and that Chenle’s not too fond of, but for Jay, you would endure it.

He brings a blanket. When you find Jay’s headstone, he spreads out the fabric and waits for you to sit before he joins you. You grasp onto his hand, and his knee bumps yours, but that’s the only physical contact you have with him.

Chenle opens up three cans—one for him, one for you, and one for Jay.

This isn’t the first time you’ve done this together, but it very well be the last. You don’t want to leave him. Not really. But he refused to let you give up what you’d worked hard for. You escaped the town, and he didn’t want you to even think about coming back when you’ve got so much left to do in your new city.

Chenle sips the drink, cringing at the taste. “Can’t believe he liked this shit.”

“He had peculiar tastes, that’s for sure.” You chuckle and refrain from touching your own. “You think he can really hear us when we’re talking to him like this?”

“Stranger things have happened,” he replies.

“That’s the truth,” you tease him and nudge his shoulder. “Maybe we should break the news to Jay.”

He takes the third can and dumps some over the grass. You both watch as it absorbs, and once Chenle’s satisfied, he purses his lips.

“You’ve missed a lot, dude.” He lets out a long sigh. “Almost three months without you feels unreal.”

You squeeze his hand and send a soft smile his way.

He continues, “But I seriously think you’d be pissed at us if we admitted we were still sad, so…(Y/N) and I are…together. Like, we’re dating. And to be honest, we’re both not too sure where it came from, but we keep each other sane after all this stuff.”

You loop your arm through his and rest your head on his shoulder. Fighting back tears, you realize how much you’d missed as well. There were stories you had yet to hear. Some you’d never get the chance to.

“I’d like to think you’d be happy for us.” You chuckle and take another drink. “You and this God awful beer.”

“I can almost hear him defending it right now.” Chenle sends a dazzling grin your way, and you watch him fondly. You never imagined coming back home would lead to all of this.

You and Chenle talk to Jay for a while. The sun shines pleasantly against your skin, warmth seeping into your bones. Chenle tells the story of you two falling for each other, how it was gradual and unexpected. Things had simply shifted, and everything became much more than you’d ever imagined.

When the sun begins to set, you wrap up your time with Jay. All three cans are empty. You grab them while Chenle folds the blanket, and then you head back to his car. His arm is firmly around your waist, and you fight the urge to melt into him.

As soon as you’re inside his house, he drops the blanket and takes the objects from your hands. Next thing you know, you’re wrapped up in one of the tightest hugs Chenle’s ever given you. You reciprocate the best you can, threading your fingers through his hair to soothe him.

“You okay?” you ask him.

“Yeah. Just wanna hold you for a sec.”

You hum in agreement, allowing yourself to melt into his grip. He kisses the top of your head, and when he pulls away to look at you, a fond gleam appears in his eyes.

“I’ve been thinking,” he says.

“Uh oh,” you interject, fighting your grin as he purses his lips in faux annoyance.

“What if I went with you?”

You recoil. “What?”

“I’ve wanted to get away from this place. You made it out. Let’s go together.” He looks at you earnestly as he awaits your response. “I love you, (Y/N). Being apart from you isn’t exactly what I want at this point.”

“You want…to move with me?”

“If you’re okay with it.” Chenle nods. “Think of the life we could build together. A real one that’s not influenced by the crazy ass people in this town.”

You flounder for words to say. This is the last thing you expected from him, but maybe you should’ve thought of this yourself. Chenle had run into a hard time because he’d wanted out for so long. You could help him.

“I don’t want you to give up everything you’ve worked for. Living here isn’t in the cards for you right now, and I understand that. But we both have an opportunity here. You keep doing what you set out to do, but this time, we don’t have to be apart.” He fiddles with the seam of your shirt, almost nervously avoiding your gaze.

“Okay.” You take a deep breath. “If you’re sure that’s what you want, come with me.”

He grins so widely, you’re almost worried it hurts. Cupping your cheeks, he kisses you hard, and you almost stumble backwards.

This was the beginning of a new journey for both of you. Neither of you were sure what to do without Jay around, and you wouldn’t feel right leaving Chenle all by himself. If he wanted to come with you, you’d be more than happy to have him.

You’ll get him out of this town he’s come to resent, and he’ll be by your side for every success and failure.

There’s something special about falling for your best friend—about loving someone who you’d already loved and known so thoroughly, it’s mostly as if nothing changed at all. Maybe this part of your relationship with him was always there, and you’d both been too blind to see it.

All you know is, after a clear shift in energy, things between you and Chenle became real.

You wonder about Jay. If he sees the two of you, if he’s proud of you. At the end of the day, you could spiral until your brain gives out, but if there’s one thing you could expect from Jay, it’s that he’ll never stop checking in on you and Chenle. Your group is incomplete without him, but you’ll learn to live in a different manner.

With Chenle by your side, there’s not a damn thing in the world that could bring you down.

#nct dream #chenle #nct #nct dream smut #nct imagines #nct smut #chenle smut #nct scenarios #chenle angst #chenle fluff #nct dream fluff #nct fluff #nct dream angst #nct angst #nct imagine #nct scenario #chenle scenarios #chenle imagines #chenle imagine

[iwillneverforgiveyousunghanbin]

bully⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

friday, kim taerae— select choir

⋆˙⟡ zbully1 smut series masterlist! hanbin, jiwoong, hao, matthew, and taerae included. game day (group) chapter here. all 7 endings here.

⋆˙⟡ wc: 2.7k

⋆˙⟡ reader: just one gn!reader version for this (no pronouns are used at all to describe reader; reader is describe as having a "pretty" mouth but no gendered or femme language)

⋆˙⟡ series summary: five bullies. six days. it's gonna be a hell of a week, babe. stay hydrated.

⋆˙⟡ friday summary: it's the end of the most bizarre week of your life. last year, you would've been overjoyed to spend time in select choir with your friend kim taerae. but that all went down the drain after hanbin recruited him into his group of incessant jerks... and he's desperate to officially be one of the guys.

⋆˙⟡ warnings: explicit smut. 18+. minors do not interact. please read specific smut warnings under the cut! swearing. angst. slight dub-con. bullying. the lore for taerae is so SAD. i'll make sure his ending is happy, i promise. also we've got a ft. hanbin chapter but just in digital form.

⋆˙⟡ bully scale: ★★★★★ (5.0)

(idk the bully scale is subjective but like imagine your best friend saying this shit about you WHY IS HE DOING THAT OMG jk i know why and soon you will too)

EXPLICIT SMUT 18+ WARNINGS: oral, (taerae receiving), throat fucking (reader receiving), brief handjob and heavy petting (taerae receiving), cumming without warning in mouth, filming of sexual act, voyeur!hanbin, slight dubcon but like for both of them kind of idk you'll see but it's slight, bullying, the usual.

friday.

you should be elated that this week is nearly over. and you are. mostly, anyway. 

but there was an indescribable thrill to all this that you couldn’t seem to shake. all that talk of ravens yesterday had got you thinking...

 why did you dislike ravens in the first place?

thinking. crying. haphazardly finishing all of your assignments due friday that you’d procrastinated the whole week. urgent texts to and from mina after her ✨jiwoong oppa✨ stood her up for their date.

one thing was for certain: you desperately need sleep.

that’s why you’re currently falling asleep sitting up, hard-back music folder open in your hands as professor yoo works with the bass section. the lowest notes of “requiem” are soft and soothing and, for you at this sleep-deprived moment, very dangerous. 

luckily a sharp elbow to the shoulder jolts the drowsiness right out of you.

you look to your left to find kim taerae giving you one of the most judgmental glares you’ve ever earned in your life.

you would expect nothing less from him.

at one time a judgmental glare from taerae was the equivalent of a hug. you returned the gesture happily. and also threw in some hugs whenever he’d let you. he squirmed a bit, but the big smile that would grow on his face made it all worth it.

but there’s no warmth behind his eyes now. just a sharp elbow pointed at you, threatening to strike again if you didn’t shape up quick enough.

“you’re gonna get yourself in trouble,” he warns with a frown.

you roll your eyes. “why do you care?”

“because, unfortunately, some people still think we’re friends,” he says, making thin lines with his pencil on a page of his sheet music. “and i don’t want to suffer the social consequences of your embarrassing actions.”

“mm,” you agree wordlessly. “guess i should’ve thought of that myself.”

he doesn’t respond for a few moments, eyes focused on his sheet music until an audible sigh comes from his direction. “why are you so tired anyway? s’not like you.”

“for all you know, it could be,” you retort with a huff. “maybe i’m a real night owl now. maybe i’m out partying or smoking or... something.”

taerae snorts. “jiwoong hyung was not lying about those tragic acting skills.”

“oh, fuck off,” you reply.

his eyes widen. and then promptly squint with suspicion. “since when did you swear like that?”

you frown, trying to discern what he could mean. hadn’t you always been this uninhibited with your tongue? 

the answer was no. you hadn’t. and this new speech pattern of yours had a very specific origin: monday afternoon. you exhale a chuckle. maybe you had yet to realize the full extent of how this week has changed you.

and how your desire to change back continues to dwindle.

you just shrug, returning your focus to your music. you feel taerae’s eyes on you as you track your vocal section’s part in “requiem”.

you and taerae had purposefully chosen seats next to each other in choir last year so that you could goof off together during every possible free moment. it was also convenient for your parents, who always wanted to get pictures of you two together during concerts ever since high school.

now you wish you went to different universities altogether.

ironically, you might’ve had a better chance of remaining friends if you’d had distance. but you and taerae disagreed quite adamantly at the time.

halfway through your two-hour rehearsal, you’re allowed a fifteen minute break to grab water and stretch your legs. you always wander off down the empty storage hallway, where your favorite vending machine is hidden in plain sight— the one with the oreos and cheez-its and bugles in it. 

pulling out your debit card, you insert the chip into the machine and punch in the number for the snack of your choosing. you watch happily as it falls down from it’s spiral prison into the dispenser below. you start to bend down when a hand reaches in before you and grabs your snack.

“hey, what the—…” you trail off as you come face to face with a cavernous dimple. “give it back. now.”

“you’re so touchy today,” taerae condemns with a click of his tongue. he holds your snack high above his head, dangling it in a challenge. “seriously, what’s gotten into you this week?”

“oh, you know exactly what,” you huff, reaching for the snack in vain.

taerae laughs. “i guess a better question would be: what hasn’t gotten into you this week?”

“you’re so fucking funny,” you snap, fingers finally closing around the wrapper as you yank it down. 

taerae’s brow is raised in surprise, not really caring about the repossession of the snack. “seriously, i’m not used to you swearing like that. i’m not sure if i like it.”

“i assumed there was nothing you liked about me anymore,” you retort, tearing open your snack and shoveling the processed glory down your throat.

“that’s not true,” he replies, hand suddenly reaching to your face. he brushes his thumb across your bottom lip, a crumb transferring from you to him. he brings his thumb to his own lips and tastes it. “i still like your pretty mouth.”

when you finally manage to pick your jaw up off the ground, you shake your head. “i know you don’t think of me like that.”

“uh...” taerae mumbles awkwardly, glancing at the row of shelves behind you. “sure, i do.”

“oh yeah? how about mina’s pool party two years ago? when we—.”

“OH, actually you—,” he interjects urgently, glaring at you to shut up. normally you would. but after this week, you no longer feel bound to quiet compliance. “you don’t need to—.”

“—were playing spin the bottle and it landed on me and you threw up in the pool because you were so disgusted by the mere thought of kissing me—”

his lips crash onto yours, hand cupping your cheek. it’s a demanding, yet tentative kiss and you’re even more confused when it ends.

you take a step backward, folding your arms across your chest. 

“can you just—...” taerae grabs your arm and pulls you closer to him, glancing again at the row of shelves behind you. “yes, that’s perfect.”

“what’s perfect?” you ask with a frown, starting to grow immune to strange behavior after the week you’ve had.

“oh, um.... you,” taerae answers after a moment with a smirk. “you were always so perfect, (y/n). perfect grades. perfect manners. perfect body. i used to jump at the chance to sleep over when your mom would let me. you used to beg her until she finally said yes, because she knew you'd never misbehave. remember, honey?"

eyes wide at the dark shift in his tone, you nod slowly.

“you were so innocent... you slept shirtless, for fuck's sake. peacefully dreaming, while i pretended to be asleep on the floor,” he continues, brushing his thumb across your cheek. “hoping i wouldn't wake you up if i just lifted the covers to get a peek."

when you thought the worst of your pain this week was over…

“tae,” you breathe, eyes watering— pleading for this not to be true. it couldn’t be. at least... not in the vulgar way he was describing it. "you don't mean that."

at the sound of your despair, there's a momentary flash in his eyes. regret. you still know him like the back of your hand.

“why are you doing this?” you ask, hands flying to cup either side of his face. he flinches, trying his best not to look you in the eye again. trying not to let you see. “you don’t have to be my friend anymore if you really don’t want to. but i don’t know why you want to be like them when you’re miles better than they’ll ever—.”

“alright, that’s enough.”

the muffled, tinny voice comes out of nowhere. you look around your immediate surroundings, trying to discern where it came from.

“c’mon, you were doing so well,” the voice rings again. “you said you had this under control, bud. was i wrong to put my trust in you?”

“no, hyung,” taerae answers, shaking his head. “i—… i can do it.”

“hanbinnie?” you ask and then cough awkwardly to cover up the fact you just called your arch nemesis so affectionately. yesterday must’ve gotten to you more than you know. “i mean, hanbin-ah! what the actual hell is going on?”

“no need to worry about it, sweetheart,” hanbin’s voice dismisses again. taerae’s eyes dart towards the shelves behind you once more. you follow his gaze— jaw dropping when you see two camera lenses staring back at you. 

“what—...” you fumble, shaking your head in disbelief as you look at the back of taerae’s phone— propped up with a black music folder. “you’re recording this!?”

“afraid so,” hanbin answers for taerae. “i didn’t really think he could follow through without some supervision. don’t mind me though. unless you just can’t help yourself...”

while at the beginning of this week a situation as perverted and bizarre as this would’ve had your whole nervous system shutting down, you’re still standing tall. present in this strange moment. you smirk.

“aw, tae,” you coo mockingly, turning to your former friend. “how sentimental of you...”

a brow arches in confusion back at you. “what are you––?”

“of course you’d wanna capture such a special moment on camera,” you continue with a patronizing nod. “it’s not every day that you lose your virginity.”

“HEY THAT’S—…” taerae starts to yell at you for sharing this embarrassing personal detail that you’re sure he never disclosed to hanbin. “that’s… that’s not true.”

“oh come on, it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” you twist the metaphorical knife as hanbin stifles a laugh. “i’d be happy to help you out with that, since i was the one who had to listen to you whine for four years about how you were still. a. fucking—”

two fingers are down your throat in an instant. you gag, trying to step backwards, but taerae’s hand finds the back of your head— holding you in place. he removes his fingers slowly, pupils dilating when you whimper in fear.

“i’ve decided i don’t like the swearing,” he says, a sickening hint of sweetness in his tone. any upperhand you had is now gone as he traces your lips with his thumb. “such a pretty mouth. those filthy words shouldn’t be coming out of it.”

“y-you don’t get to decide that,” you stammer unconvincingly.

“so that’s what you really want, then?” he asks, sticking his thumb further into your mouth. you suck obediently. “you wanna have a filthy mouth?”

you nod, his thumb still pressed against your tongue— cheeks hollowed out as taerae bites his lip hungrily.

“then you can have it,” he says before removing his thumb from your mouth and pressing down on your neck and shoulder— forcing you to your knees in front of him. you guess joining the soccer team had really improved his strength. “just remember it’s what you said you wanted.”

taerae unbuttons his jeans, pulling the zipper down. he freezes, clearly unsure of what to do next. maybe this is your opportunity to wiggle your way out of this. if only your curiosity wasn’t equally as strong.

“we––... i have to audition after this,” you protest weakly. “when break’s over, i have to audition for the solo i’ve been prepping for so i want to keep my voice warm right now and—.”

“ah, that’s right. i did forget about that,” he affirms, looking up at the ceiling in thought before smirking back down at you. “but i think i can help keep it pretty warm, actually.”

your attempt to level with taerae only seems to encourage him as he pulls down his jeans and boxer-briefs. you inhale sharply as his hard cock comes to eye-level, so close you can really examine it. though it’s slightly smaller than hanbin’s, it’s thicker and you need to know immediately how it feels in your hand.

“whoah, you—,” taerae stumbles, eyes wide as you take him eagerly in your hand. he stares at you, lips parted as you start to pump him. “holy shit.”

“you’re sure you wanna do this?” you ask, pausing your motion to make eye contact with him. you can tell he doesn’t want you to stop, but there’s conflict lingering there that he just can’t seem to hide.

taerae clears his throat, shaking his head as he resumes his tough guy act. eyes cold once more, he shrugs. “a hole’s a hole.”

after a year of judgmental berating from your former best friend, it was almost comforting to know that he was capable of being even meaner than he already was. it meant that, for whatever reason, he usually didn’t want to be any meaner to you.

he takes both of your hands in one of his, keeping you from using them as his other hand finds the back of your neck again— guiding your face towards his cock. taerae doesn’t need to give much guidance though. you’re aching to get a taste and the way your lips sink down around him nearly knocks the wind out of him.

back pressed against the side of the vending machine, his thumb presses into your cheek— feeling himself inside of your pretty mouth. you swirl your tongue around his tip, causing him to moan softly.

there’s a little bit of rustling coming from where taerae’s phone is propped up on the shelf. you wonder if hanbin’s enjoying this. if he’s touching himself— wishing he was throat deep in you instead.

“c’mon, bud. is (y/n) running this show or are you?” hanbin asks, tone laden with frustration.

“i—... i am,” taerae asserts, grip tightening across the back of your neck. 

he starts to thrust gently into your mouth, an action that you’re not so familiar with. it rattles you a bit— loss of control after feeling like you were gaining it back.

“this is what you asked for, baby,” he reminds you, shallow thrusts starting to venture a bit deeper. “remember? you said you wanted a filthy mouth. so i’m gonna make a mess of it.”

you find the right rhythm to breathe through the thrusts. the tip of his cock is dangerously close to entering your throat, sending another wave of anxiety through you. but it’s not for long. 

your eyes meet taerae’s and, though he’s the one putting you in that danger, you suddenly feel very safe. you let out a sigh, the vibration causing him to mewl. he scratches at your neck affectionately, putting pressure against it to feel himself inside you as he fucks your throat.

“see, keeping that throat nice and warm,” taerae coos as his breathing gets heavier— and his moaning gets louder. “take me so well, i—.”

“shut the fuck up, dude,” hanbin scolds, his own breath growing labored. “do you wanna get caught before you can win the—?”

before hanbin can finish his thought, you feel a warm, sticky liquid begin to pour down your throat. you pull off of taerae, sputtering and coughing as you try to swallow it down. wiping your mouth, you look up at taerae who is looking at you like he wants to dive straight into the han river and never return.

“for fucks sake, are you actually a virgin or something?” hanbin asks angrily. “is that really all you can last for? and, jesus, you’ve gotta warn someone before you do that.”

your throat is starting to burn and you’d love to be able to say something, anything, but the rasp that comes out isn’t pleasant-feeling. you rub at your throat with your now-free hands as taerae’s expression just turns more horrified.

“did i... did i hurt you? fuck, i didn’t mean to—,” taerae starts to babble uselessly until hanbin claps loudly.

“good work, team!” he says as he finishes his round of applause. “mvp definitely goes to me, for coming up with this idea in the first place. i’ll see the campus activities secretary at the big game tomorrow, right?”

“mm,” is all you can croak out. you wish it sounded angrier.

“and i’ll see you at practice tonight, man. i—,” hanbin cuts himself off with a confused look. “wait, where did he go?”

you face forward, expecting to see taerae standing next to the vending machine but... hanbin’s right. he’s vanished.

“that kid’s a piece of work,” hanbin says, shaking his head. “you think he’d be more grateful after i took him under my wing and made him popular. i even got him a spot on the soccer team after a lot of private coaching. i mean, he’s benched for life, but still!”

you’re a saint among men, is what you wish you could say. instead, you just roll your eyes.

“just take his phone and give it back to him in class, will you?” hanbin asks as you stand up and make your way toward the shelves. “and drink some hot tea for that throat, okay? throw some honey in it and you’ll be good as new for tomorrow, i promise.”

you sigh. and you nod. and you pick up taerae’s phone and end the video call. 

and you go back to choir and sit in your black music chair and wait for taerae to come back, but he doesn’t. and when it’s time to audition for the solo you’ve been preparing for, you stay seated and quiet. 

seated and quiet.

like you’ve been for so long.

and when practice ends and the choir room is empty and you remain seated and quiet in your black music chair and tears begin to well up in your eyes, you don’t cry.

you smile.

you stand up.

you shout (briefly, so as not to disturb anyone in neighboring classrooms).

at some point or another, you forgot how to do these things. or you were made to feel like you couldn’t or shouldn’t. 

but that’s who you really are.

who you were always meant to be.

not a juliet. not a violin. not a goalie. not a bird. not a pretty mouth.

you.

you pick up your bag off the floor (and taerae’s) and throw them both over your shoulder, making a beeline toward the door.

absolutely, hanbinnie, you think. you’ll see me at the big game.

#zb1 smut #zerobaseone smut #zb1 #zerobaseone #zb1 fics #zb1 imagines #zb1 x reader #zerobaseone fics #zerobaseone imagines #zerobaseone x reader #kim taerae smut #taerae smut #kim taerae x reader #kim taerae fics #kim taerae #taerae fics #taerae x reader #sung hanbin smut #sung hanbin #hanbin smut #seok matthew smut #seok matthew #kim jiwoong smut #kim jiwoong #zb1 angst #jiwoong smut #jiwoong #zhang hao #zhang hao smut #hao smut

[ash5monster01]

Learning to Love Part 10

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x FemReader!PlusSize

Warnings: 18+, langauge, angst, fluff, mentions of bullying, body image issues, fat shaming, fake relationship, eventual smut, minor enemies to lovers trope.

Summary: It's not uncommon for you to be shamed for your size, it is however uncommon to be told that no one would ever date you because of it. Rafe on the other hand is used to being called a jerk, that is until he is accused of seeing people for only what's on the surface. It's purely coicidental you two meet right after these accusations are thrown your way. So even though you two don't know each other, and probably never would've looked the others way before this, now you're both going to prove a point. It's simple really, prove others wrong and don't fall in love. Easier said than done.

word count: 2.1k

Part 9 ←→ Epilogue

Masterlist

When Rafe had received that text and the realization settled he instantly called you. The tragic thing about that was the phone didn’t even ring before informing him he could no longer contact this number. You had blocked him and he had absolutely no idea as to why. He had just slept with you, had the best night of his life, and was determined to make this thing real. After that night it had to be real. Yet something happened between then and now and he wasn’t entirely sure what. He woke up with you missing and a dead phone. He decided to get some work done and now you no longer wanted to be with him.

Had he taken things too far? Were you drunk and felt like he had taken advantage of you? Maybe you were drunk and hadn’t intended to ever sleep with him and regretted it. Rafe was drunk too, but there was no way in hell he could forget that night after yearning for it for so long. The sounds you made and the way you tasted was burned in his mind and now you just expected him to forget about you? Move on and find the girl of his dreams when he already had her? Yeah right.

So Rafe was now on a mission. Determined to change your mind which is why he drives to the bar and stumbles his way inside. It’s towards the end of the lunch rush but when he spots Mila behind the bar, he instantly perks up and rushes towards her. When she spots him the glare she gives could burn him entirely. So Rafe slows his pace but still moves towards her in search of answers he’s so desperate for.

“She’s not here!” Mila says over the touch too loud music filling the bar. She wiped the counter, not daring to look him in the eye.

“Then where is she Mila?” Rafe fires back and the brunette girl rolls her eyes before dropping the rag and looking up. Her arms cross over her chest in defensive and Rafe feels guilty even though he is still unsure of what he has done.

“I’m not telling you, she wants to be alone” Mila tells him, starting to work on a drink for a customer who has flagged her for another.

“Why Mila? We were fine, I was going to come see her after work. We, we had a good night. Everything was going so well. I don’t know what went wrong!” Rafe argued and as Mila passed the drink to a customer she finally saw the distraught look on his face. All she knew is he had done something wrong. All you had said was you’d explain everything to her later but she knew that look in his eyes. He loved you and was panicking because you cut him off with no explanation. A famous move of yours to avoid confrontation.

“Look Rafe, I know as much as you don’t want to hear it but when Y/N decides something like this it comes with reason. When I get home tonight I’m gonna figure out exactly what you did even if you don’t know it. Until then, give her space. Take the rest of your Sunday and just relax” Rafe could tell she was being sincere. Her eyes held care for the both of them in this moment and as much as Rafe would lose his mind spending the rest of the day wondering what he did wrong, he was going to respect Mila’s wishes.

“Just, promise to text me. Please, she blocked me and I need to know what I did” he pleaded and Mila sighed before grabbing her phone and unlocking it.

“I’ll take your phone number but I can’t promise a text. If she doesn’t want me to contact you I’m going to respect that. She’s my friend first” Mila says with a stern tone and Rafe nods as he grabs her phone and anxiously types his number in. He fights everything in him to not text himself so he’d have her number as well and hands it back across the bar. He wanted to respect you as much as he could.

“I really care for her you know, it was always real” and he knows Mila doesn’t understand what he’s saying but she nods as Rafe turns to leave the bar and somehow survive the rest of the day without you.

It’s late when Mila finally walks through the door to your shared home. Randy was kind enough to drop her off even after he was kind enough to cover your shift. Mila couldn’t thank him enough. She’s forgotten all about it though the minute she finds you curled up on the couch with tears streaming down your cheeks. She knew you were upset, with the way you had cried on the phone, and told her you were going home. So she doesn’t ask any questions while she sits beside you and pulls you into her arms.

“It was fake you know?” you whisper out after a moment, voice raspy with tears.

“What was?” she asks, a hand running through your hair and providing a sense of comfort.

“Me and Rafe, we were fake dating. We made an agreement so it was never real” you whisper to her, your hands coming to brush some tears away which was useless since more came.

“I don’t understand, why would you need to fake date?” she questions and you sigh as you turn and look at her with glossy eyes.

“I just wanted to show the people around me that I was good enough to be someone’s girlfriend and he wanted to prove he dated girls for more than just their looks” the way your voice cracks tells Mila you had carried that burden with you to whole time. Knowing Rafe didn’t find you attractive and was using you to prove a point. Yet maybe that wasn’t entirely true, not after the hundreds of times she’s seen the way he looks at you. Even today when panicking about losing you.

“But, you guys had sex. Why would you sleep with him if you weren’t really together?” and you don’t have to answer with the way your eyes search her own. It’s written all over your face. You fell in love. You can’t say it out loud.

“What happened when you went back there?” she asks after pulling you into a hug and the harsh words you had overheard return to your mind.

“He wasn’t home so I went to his work. A coworker of his was with him, a girl he had previously dated. She was questioning him about me, saying it didn’t make sense. Then she mentioned their sex life in present tense. He had been sleeping with another girl the whole time. The last thing I heard him say was he was never attracted to big girls-“ you take a few heavy breaths, wiping the tears from your eyes before continuing. “We slept together, I thought it was real. That there was a chance we could actually be together and instead I was just another notch on the bedpost. Some one to get him off all while I trusted him”

“Oh my God, Y/N you should have told me it wasn’t real from the start! I could’ve helped you, gotten you out of this before all of this happened” she tells you with sincerity and you shake your head. Sleeping with someone was the test of ultimate trust for you and Rafe had broken that. The sad part was, it didn’t change how you felt. You still loved him even when you knew you shouldn’t.

“It’s okay Mila, I don’t regret it. Not entirely. I got to feel exactly what it was like to be loved for who I am even if it was fake. At least it felt real” and Rafe’s words ring through Mila’s head. Quickly the realization dawns on her. It was always real. You had to of misunderstood, missed some context to the conversation. Rafe said himself that it was real for him too.

“You know you deserve to be loved just the way you are? It doesn’t have to be fake” Mila tells you and as much as you want the words to be true they’re not. Yet you do what you’ve always become accustomed to when someone says this.

“Thanks Mila” and you hug her because the sentiment is cherished but after a long time of never being accepted for who you are, even the words from the people closest to you can become meaningless. After all how can you believe her when what she just said had never become true?

“Want me to stay up, we can watch a movie and make ice cream sundaes!” she offers and even though you know she’ll do it you can see the exhaustion on her face. You knew better than anyone exactly what it was like to work in that bar. So you give her a soft shake of your head.

“Don’t worry about it, I kind of want to be alone. Get some sleep” you tell her and she pouts before nodding, standing, and stretching her arms.

“If you need me, you know where to find me” she says before leaning and kissing your head. “I love you Y/N”

“I love you too Mila” you returns and she smiles before shuffling down the hallway where she more than likely would fall asleep before she could even change out of her work clothes.

Now left alone in the dark you click on the TV, surfing channels in hopes to find a romcom with a happy ending or even a sad one. You weren’t entirely sure what you wanted at the moment. That is until your phone vibrates to life, the screen illuminating your face. You can’t help but be hopeful it’s Rafe but how could it be when you had spent an afternoon blocking him on everything you had, tears blurring your vision, and making it hard to see the screen. Instead it’s an unknown number, one you had forgotten about.

unknown number

You debate even texting back, knowing you’ve been sad all day but isn’t this was you and Rafe had agreed upon. Seeing others and finding the one. You and him were officially done and never real so why should it matter if you pursue Tanner right away. You deserved to be happy after all, even if it would take a while to stop loving Rafe. So you respond to the text anyway.

It’s flirty, sure, but what did you have to lose?

Tanner

And you find yourself giggling at your phone, feeling giddy for the first time since Rafe and the first time for real in a while. Your heart may be broken but at least you were confident that you could move on. Not all hope was lost and wasn’t that comfort enough? You had been strong this whole time, lived a whole life yearning for the kind of love you deserved, and at least there was still time. It would just have to do for now.

Mila hadn’t gone right to bed though, she knew what she had to do. Yes she was upset with Rafe but she was fully confident most of this was misunderstanding. Maybe it was all fake but Mila had watched you two, seen the way you looked at each other and heard the way you laughed. You trusted him and he trusted you, it was fake but how much could you truly pretend in a relationship like that? So even though she hadn’t promised anything she pulled her phone out anyway.

She didn’t need to say who she was. She knew Rafe would know when he received that text into the late hours of the night. What she hadn’t expected was his immediate response back.

Rafe

And maybe Mila didn’t know Rafe as well as you but reading this text she knew it to be true. It’s possible Rafe had broken many promises in a lifetime but this is one she knew he’d keep.

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#rafe cameron fanfiction #rafe cameron x female reader #rafe cameron x you #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron fic #rafe cameron #rafe cameron smut #rafe cameron fluff #rafe cameron x plus size reader #rafe cameron x plus size #rafe cameron x smut #rafe cameron x y/n #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x oc #rafe cameron series #rafe obx #rafe imagine #rafe fanfiction #rafe x you #rafe fic #rafe x reader #rafe outer banks #drew starkey x y/n #drew starkey fluff #drew starkey fic #drew starkey x reader #drew starkey fanfiction #drew starkey x you #drew starkey imagine #drew starkey

[folkloresthings]

northanger abbey + sebastian vettel + enemies to lovers or at least one sided enemies to lovers because rbr!seb was a little shit and he was so cocky and this trope made for him 😭😭

rbr!seb was so hot. im also a sucker for a teammates trope. also female!driver <3

SCARED TO LOVE. ❨ sebastian vettel x reader ❩

when you joined formula one, snatched up by red bull, it made headlines. a female formula one driver — the third to race in a grand prix in history. it was a heavy weight on your shoulders, a weight met with backlash and criticism.

too delicate, too emotional. not brave enough, not built the right way. you had dominated your formula four, three and two seasons. you were just as qualified as the men you raced against, but you were not a man.

red bull were a little more forgiving. but you knew there were still whispers about your position, if you really deserved it. your new teammate, sebastian vettel, was at the heart of them. he had a reputation for being a womaniser, a line of girls waiting for him after every race.

“what do you think of your new teammate?” he was asked one day, after your first race together. you’d come P5, a shock to everyone. sebastian didn’t mind having a female teammate, but a teammate who could be better than him? that was a threatening prospect.

“oh, y/n?” sebastian smirked. “i’m just glad i have someone pretty to look at every day at work.”

it was a low blow, joining the swarms of people who diminished you to only your looks. but you were used to it, unfortunately, and knew how to handle such prejudice. you kept your distance from sebastian, no matter how much he teased you. he was irritating, and he found you prideful. two teammates couldn’t have clashed more. frankly, you hated him.

it didn’t help that you were beating him significantly in all of your races. on the podium, right beside him, taking P1 too many times for his liking. it made him look bad, like he was falling behind. behind a girl, of all people. while sebastian swore he didn’t agree to the misogynistic narrative that painted formula one, he couldn’t deny how he despised you.

but you carried on. you did your duty, won points for the team, smiled for the photos. but everyone could tell — you and sebastian couldn’t hate each other any more.

it hadn’t stopped raining in budapest since you’d arrived. the track was wet, wheels spinning through every practice and qualifying race. but the FIA insisted it go on. sunday was just a wet, if not more, and the track was barely visible as you raced around it.

but you were in pole position, and held it strongly. it would be another good race for you, and for red bull. not so much for sebastian, who was stuck in P4. you had to keep pushing, ignoring the warnings in your ear.

then, it happened before you knew it. the wheels spinning out of control, your grip on the wheel helpless. the car was spinning too, upside down and back again. it was loud, your radio crackling in your ear, bangs of the metal scraping against the ground deafening you.

when it fell quiet again, you could barely move. your seatbelt was jammed, the smell of gasoline and smoke rising. your heart was hammering in your chest, the real world sounding distant and blurry in your mind.

the sight was terrible. your car sent hurdling along the track after skidding against a puddle. the crowd was silent, quiet gasps and mutters rising after a minute or two. the engineers got to work quickly, deploying the safety car and as many medics as possible. your radio wasn’t working, so no one knew if you were alright.

“fuck!” came sebastian’s mic, watching the scene ahead with wide eyes. instructions came through his radio, but he paid them no heed. the other red bull car, pulling up behind the tragic sight of yours, screeching to a halt. clambering out, sebastian practically sprints to your car, ignoring the smoke to reach into the drivers seat, pulling you out of the crushed car without a second thought.

“y/n!” he called, cradling your weak body in his arms once he’d safely removed your helmet. he didn’t care who was watching, or telling him that he needed to get back in his own car. you weren’t responding, but he couldn’t bare letting the medics take you from him. “please, talk to me.”

your eyes fluttered open, coughing up some smoke that had gotten trapped in your throat. a silhouette cleared above you, one that looked awfully like your teammate.

“oh, thank god,” sebastian nearly cried, cradling your head, a paramedic kneeling now at your other side. you didn’t look at them, eyes fixed on sebastian. strangely, he was the only face you wanted to see.

“i crashed,” you said, voice hoarse. “you could’ve won if you kept going.”

sebastian shook his head, laughing a little at your comment. “i don’t care about that. i just — i needed to make sure you were okay. you’re okay, right?”

you nod, straining a little as you sit up. “i’m fine, i think. thank you.”

he has to let you be taken away now, into the ambulance to be checked. as much as he wanted to hold on, keep you close to him and away from any danger. he looked around, all eyes on him, and sighed. what had come over him? he hated you, had since the moment you stepped into the red bull garage.

but the second you were in danger, he was afraid. afraid of losing you, afraid of never really knowing what he felt. he knew now, everyone did. he loved you, too much to have ever known.

#🍾 ﹐ becca hits 1k! #🌙 ﹐ drabbles. #i’m a sucker for these kind of fics #formula 1 #formula 1 imagine #formula 1 x reader #sebastian vettel #sebastian vettel x reader #sebastian vettel imagine #sebastian vettel blurb #sebastian vettel drabble

[itsthislake]

Shen Yuan transmigrated as a Spirit Cat AU (part 2)

First chapter.

---

The rest of the examination, all dutifully narrated by Mu Qingfang, passed in something of a blur comprised mostly of internal screaming and a great deal of cursing, and he only came back to reality when he was picked up by a pair of warm hands.

Shen Yuan flinched and looked up at the man who could only be Liu Qingge, the War God of Bai Zhan and older brother of Best Wife, Liu Mingyan. Living proof that this was a time before the protagonist joined Qing Jing Peak.

Liu Qingge died by Shen Qingqiu’s hand sometime around then, after all.

“Come on,” he said, easily settling Shen Yuan on the crook of his arm and starting to walk like this was an established routine of many years instead of something that had happened twice so far and once under duress.

Distracted as he was, Shen Yuan didn’t bother to question it until they were already flying on— on Cheng Luan again. This sword was as cool as he had imagined, now that he looked at it properly. He smacked Liu Qingge’s arm with his paw until he got his attention, then meowed in question.

Liu Qingge stared for a second before seemingly realizing what he was asking.

“We’re going to see the sect leader, Yue Qingyuan,” he explained. “I need to give him my mission report. And inform him of your presence on the mountain.”

“Meow?”

“Cang Qiong has a rule about bringing in any Spirit Cats that we find. For protection,” Liu Qingge clarified, giving him an unreadable look. “There aren’t many left, so Spirit Cats sell high in many circles. None that our sect supports, of course.”

Huh. Shen Yuan hadn’t known that, even after jogging his memory post realizing which world this is.

He remembered Colored Claw Spirit Cats being mentioned in one of the later chapters of PIDW, something about how they had all gone extinct because of human greed and whatnot. He thinks it might have been wife #629 who complained about how tragic it was to Luo Binghe before the protagonist comforted her with his tried-and-true heavenly pillar. In hindsight, that was probably the last bit of actual worldbuilding Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky had given them before deciding to write terrible papapa and needlessly convoluted harem shenanigans for the next sixty or so chapters before the end of the novel.

What Shen Yuan hadn’t known, however, was that Cang Qiong Mountain Sect actively rescued and protected Spirit Cats. Of course, with the sect long since destroyed and most of the Peak Lords dead or integrated into the harem and promptly abandoned, there was no reason whatsoever for that to come up at that point in the novel.

Regardless, it was an interesting detail of this world, as well as an incredibly convenient fact for him now.

“Liu Qingge,” Liu Qingge said abruptly. Shen Yuan blinked at him, watching the red slowly creep up his ears with slight fascination. Woah. He even blushed prettily, how unfair. “My name. It’s Liu Qingge. I realized I didn’t introduce myself earlier.”

Oh, that was very polite of him. Which was a little strange coming from the guy who chased him through a village for almost four hours earlier that day and who he just saw kick his shidi’s office door in for no real reason. Shen Yuan huffed, then rubbed his face on the man’s arm, purring pleasantly.

“Hmm. Do you have a name?”

“Meow!”

“I see.”

What do you see? Shen Yuan wanted to ask, genuinely confused as to what Liu Qingge thought he understood. Alas, for lack of the vocal cords necessary for human speech, he just settled back down instead and decided to enjoy the ride.

Flying was kind of fun, he was learning.

---

Yue Qingyuan met Shen Yuan’s sudden presence on his mountain with a not inconsiderable amount of polite confusion.

Then, after Liu Qingge explained the situation, including the results of Mu Qingfang’s examination that Shen Yuan had missed almost entirely and was thus glad to hear summarized now, the sect leader just rolled with it with as much grace as his character in the novel took anything unrelated to Shen Qingqiu.

So far, Shen Yuan’s first impression of the sect leader was very much in line with what he already knew from PIDW.

Afterwards, Yue Qingyuan helpfully elaborated on Cang Qiong’s policy on Spirit Cats that Liu Qingge had mentioned earlier. Apparently, the claws of adult Spirit Cats sold very high among a significant number of cultivator circles because of their special properties, and the declawed creatures were usually sold as ‘exotic pets’ to nobles, where they would inevitably die from either improper care or health issues brought on by the loss of their claws. If caught by the wrong people, young Spirit Cats like himself would most likely be caged and tortured to quicken the awakening of their special abilities.

Because of this massive traffic that was both somehow legal and absolutely horrid to think about, the number of Spirit Cats left had been on the decline for many decades now, and none had reached a point in their cultivation where they could take a human form in over three centuries, as far as anyone was aware.

Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, as well as a number of other sects, strictly forbade the abuse of Spirit Cats and the use of their claws to further their cultivation, as well as offered sanctuary for any that they found in the wild or rescued.

“It has been many years since the last time a Spirit Cat resided in Cang Qiong,” Yue Qingyuan said regretfully, tone somber. “When this lord was still head disciple, he had the privilege to meet with one. Master Zhou’s meridians had unfortunately been crippled before he came to our sect, so he never managed to cultivate to a human form despite achieving immortality. This one was told that he was the youngest of a trio of siblings who were rescued together, but that his older sisters had already been declawed and thus did not manage to survive long even in our care. Lan Qingyi, the current Lord of the Shan Shou Peak, was the one who took care of Master Zhou during his final years.”

Listening to Yue Qingyuan’s recounting felt like a bucket of cold water had been dropped on him. All the terrible, horrible things that had made PIDW’s worldbuilding engaging were now real. It was his reality, and that of the people who were here now and had been here before him. The reality of Master Zhou who in the end was unable to reach Ascension, of his sisters who suffered so much and died long before their time. It caused Shen Yuan’s fur to stand on end as he listened to the sect leader speak.

However.

It also felt a little bit like hope. Because, see, for every trafficker out there, for every cruel bastard out to get his kind, there was also a person willing to protect them. Willing to give Spirit Cats a place where they could grow and live peacefully. 

And those people were here, in Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, offering him that help now as well.

Huan Hua Palace, on the other hand, was perfectly fine with capturing Spirit Cats and using them as they saw fit. There were even rumors that the Old Palace Master had kept one or two declawed Spirit Cats as pets not so long ago.

Needless to say, Shen Yuan had dodged a massive bullet there. It was nothing short of a miracle that Liu Qingge was the one the villagers asked for help and not a cultivator from Huan Hua Palace, seeing as it was literally their territory.

Shen Yuan had seen Huan Hua Palace disciples flying around, for fuck’s sake.

Liu Qingge’s other hand had come up to rest lightly on top of him at some point during the story and Shen Yuan silently leaned into it, rubbing his cheek against his palm in an instinctual, soothing motion as he tried to burrow his body deeper into the crook of his arm.

“This conversation has taken a dark turn, my apologies,” said Yue Qingyuan softly, when the silent became too heavy. “I’m afraid that this topic is not one that can be avoided for long and it is better to be aware of the dangers sooner rather than later. This master would like to formally extend Cang Qiong Mountain Sect’s protection to the esteemed spirit, as well as an invitation to stay here for however long he wishes.”

Shen Yuan meowed quietly in agreement, and watched as the sect leader smiled gently at him. Then the man nodded, reaching for a brush and some paper.

“We’ll need to record your arrival and arrange everything for your stay,” he informed them. Even if the heavy thoughts lingered in his mind, for now the dark atmosphere seemed to have lifted as they moved onto another topic, for which Shen Yuan was grateful.

Yue Qingyuan paused, as if only now remembering something, and looked up at them curiously.

“Ah. We require a name for the paperwork. Since it was Liu-shidi who found and brought him to the sect, perhaps he could name the esteemed spirit as well?”

Without a moment of hesitation, Liu Qingge shook his head.

“He already has a name,” he informed solemnly.

“Oh?” Yue Qingyuan raised his eyebrows, looking expectantly at him. Shen Yuan also stared, wondering what he would answer. He obviously never told him his name and he was certain that the War God couldn’t read minds.

(Well. Mostly certain, anyway. Great Master Airplane was hardly reliable when it came to developing characters who weren’t wives or Luo Binghe past a certain point in the novel, or any characters at all past another point just slightly ahead in the novel, and Shen Yuan wouldn’t be surprised if he’d somehow forgotten to mention such an important aspect of this awesome character that he’d killed off-screen.

Would he be angry? Of course. Disappointed by the wasted potential? Most definitely. But surprised? After reading that whole godawful story? Ha! As if. Shen Yuan knew exactly what he was in for when he paid for each chapter.)

“He did not tell me what it is,” said the man who, as expected, could not read minds.

Liu Qingge! Shen Yuan cried in his mind, a little exasperated.

“Ah. Of course,” said the sect leader, smiling politely at both of them. He looked like he wanted to sigh but was too polite to do so and had instead defaulted to smiling. “However, I still need a name for the report. Until he can tell us his name, how does the esteemed spirit feel about having a nickname?”

Liu Qingge frowned at the same time that Shen Yuan perked up.

“A nickname?”

“Yes. Something simple and easy to remember that we can use in the meantime.”

Shen Yuan meowed pointedly, tapping Liu Qingge in the arm. The man just stared back silently, clearly deep in thought, before he nodded.

“The children at the village called him Xiao Maomi,” he declared.

“Xiao Maomi?” Yue Qingyuan repeated, looking at Shen Yuan for confirmation.

Shen Yuan considered it. It was very on the nose for a nickname, likely because it was a bunch of little kids who thought of it in the first place, but ‘little kitty’ wasn’t too terrible all things considered. He could have gotten stuck with a name like Doudou or Danhuang. Now that would have been embarrassing.

Therefore, he meowed positively. It was only temporary anyways so he didn’t care much.

Yue Qingyuan smiled politely, reaching for a brush. “Very well. We’ll put ‘Xiao Maomi’ down in the paperwork for now. It can always be changed at a later date.”

While Yue Qingyuan wrote, Shen Yuan looked up at Liu Qingge, considering. Then he wiggled out from under Liu Qingge’s hand, earning himself a curious look that he ignored, and used his claws to quickly climb up his arm and settle on the man’s shoulder, head resting on the collar of his robes.

The reason why the children of the village had taken to calling him ‘little kitty,’ as opposed to only ‘kitty,’ was immediately obvious to anybody with working eyes. This body of his was quite small even for an average cat’s, even a kitten’s, which had worked in his favor while he was sneaking around the village and against him during fights.

Shen Yuan had originally attributed this to a lack of proper nutrition coupled with a young age, but even after months of stealing food he remained around the same size. Now he wondered if maybe it had something to do with him being a Colored Claw Spirit Cat. He made a mental note to find more information on them later.

Right now, however, his small body meant that he was the perfect size to lay down on Liu Qingge’s shoulders and not have to worry about falling, something he intended to take full advantage of.

Liu Qingge huffed quietly, but made no moves to stop Shen Yuan.

Eventually, the sect leader set down his brush and looked back at them with a considering expression.

“In regards to Maomi-xiansheng’s new living arrangements,” he began lightly. “Normally, all Spirit Cats would be sent to the Shan Shou Peak where they’d be able to settle down and live their lives comfortably. However, Peak Lord Lan is currently in seclusion, and this master is uncertain whether any of her disciples are equipped to house and care for Maomi-xiansheng, as they are all quite young and inexperienced still.”

Ah, Shan Shou Peak, the Beast Taming Peak. One of many places that only got one or two lines when Luo Binghe joined and later destroyed Cang Qiong in PIDW. Shen Yuan had always been curious about this particular peak and all the (obviously wasted) potential it held, something he had ranted about on many occasions in the comment section. Infuriatingly, that hack author had once replied to one of his comments with, “okay okay chill dude, I’ll describe more of the sect in the next chapter,” and then spent six whole paragraphs describing Xian Shu Peak’s bathhouse and all the shijies in it.

Shen Yuan had never genuinely considered murder in his past life, but by god did he get close that day. He was sure his comment, written in a fugue state of pure rage, had reflected that.

“Doesn’t Lan Qingyi have Hall Masters on her peak?” Liu Qingge said, and though Shen Yuan couldn’t exactly see his expression from his position, he got the impression that the man was scowling as he said that.

“I believe they are occupied caring for all the creatures already in-house and teaching the disciples during Lan-shimei’s absence,” Yue Qingyuan answered, tone as close to exasperated as possible while still remaining polite. “Lan-shimei’s approach to her duties as Peak Lord is very different to Liu-shidi’s, after all.”

Shen Yuan had no idea what that was about, but he could almost feel the self-restraint it took Liu Qingge not to huff. The sect leader continued before he could question it.

“Nonetheless, with Shan Shou Peak not being an option, Maomi-xiansheng will need another place to stay, at least until Lan-shimei is back. Since it was Liu-shidi who brought him here, perhaps he wouldn’t mind housing Maomi-xiansheng until then?”

“En,” Liu Qingge nodded, after a moment of thought. “I do not mind.”

Yue Qingyuan smiled in response.

“Thanking shidi.”

And thus, Shen Yuan moved in with Liu Qingge.

#Shen Yuan transmigrated as a Spirit Cat AU #part two #svsss #svsss au #svsss fanfiction #Shen Yuan #shen qingqiu #liu qingge #yue qingyuan #lake's musings #not a lot happens in this one #it's mostly exposition but eh #sy's internal monologue is so fun to write this man is wild #TW: mentions of animal abuse #also don't declaw your fucking cats #Random notes: #Shan Shou Peak is the Beast Taming Peak #善 (Shan) = good 獸 (Shou) = beast #Lan Qingyi is their peak lord and also my favorite oc lol #adding xiansheng after a name is like saying Mr #already explained in the text but just in case #Xiao Māomī or 小猫咪 means little kitty #sy really is a little meow meow lmao #Doudou and Danhuang are more common cat names in china taht i found online #doudou meaning beans and danhuang meaning yolk #that's it i think

[st-eve-barnes]

Burn (Modern AU Aemond x Fem Reader/OC)

Summary: It's Christmas Eve and you're stuck in the library with one other visitor: the quiet and mysterious Aemond Targaryen.

Warnings: 18+ for Explicit language and content, mild angst and comfort, some Christmas feels.

Word count: +3700

So my obsession with this man isn't going anywhere soon, I just can't get him out of my head and I had a real craving for some Modern Aemond this week.

Poems used in this fic are from Lang Leav and one of my personal favorites, Pablo Neruda.

(All my fics are also on AO3)

Darkness fell over university campus that December evening. Thick soft snowflakes covered the grounds and the buildings with a peaceful white carpet, just in time for Christmas. Inside the library the only lights were coming from the small reading lamps on the tables and the colorful festive lights from the big tree in the middle of the hallway. 

You sat by one of the tables, tucked away in your warm winter sweater, nose stuck in your books, oblivious to the weather magic outside. There had been a few other people here tonight when you had arrived but by now they had all left, one by one, leaving you alone with the librarian, a young lady who was always more interested in playing games on her phone than in the many enchanting stories in the books surrounding her.

Sometimes you didn’t understand people. 

Your head had been buried in poetry books all week, rereading old favorites and discovering new gems, highlighting sentences that spoke to you, anything to find that spark and become inspired but so far all they left you with was that heartbreaking feeling that you were incapable of feeling anything. 

Your pink marker moved across the page over another favorite : “There are days when the melancholy settles on you like a sudden change in weather. The kind of sadness that is intangible. Like the presence of an ache where you can't pinpoint exactly where it hurts, you just know it does.”

You sighed deeply.

It was Christmas Eve, you could have been with your family, surrounded by your brother’s dumb jokes and your mum’s traditional Christmas roast, drinking too much before unwrapping the presents and then passing out on the couch while some sentimental Christmas movie you’d seen a thousand times played on the old living room tv. No, it wasn’t a big deal or anything, the whole night wasn’t even that special but you had always been a sucker for nostalgia and right now your heart ached for just a little glimpse of home.

Instead you were here and the smell was not one of Christmas turkey but of old books in an old building, a continent away from everyone you knew and loved. You wrapped  your arms around yourself to fight the cold chill running up your spine. 

Focus. You came here to write so why weren’t you writing?

You looked up to see the hands on the big clock ticking away, the page in front of you still as empty as it was 3 hours ago. You stretched your arms up over your head and let out a deep breath.

That’s when you noticed him, seated two tables away from you.

Aemond Targaryen.

You’d seen him around campus before but he was the last person you expected to see here tonight. 

You wondered why you hadn’t noticed him before now because everything about him demanded to be seen. From his long legs covered in black jeans and black leather boots to his long blond hair and pale beautiful face. Tonight he had traded his usual black leather jacket for a black fuzzy sweater, making him look softer than usual. 

And of course the eye patch…you’d heard the rumors around campus but nobody seemed to know exactly what happened except that it had been a violent, tragic accident in which he lost one eye at a very young age.

Aemond was leaning on his elbow and kept his face down, buried deep into his books. Not Literature and Poetry like yours but History and Philosophy. 

His family was one of the richest founding families of the town, everybody knew who they were and who he was. But Aemond wasn’t like the other Targaryens, he never displayed his wealth, he was quiet and usually kept to himself. An outcast almost, everyone knew who he was but nobody seemed to really know him. Every single time you’d seen him around campus he’d been alone. 

Much like yourself.

God, you were getting distracted again. Focus.

You returned your attention back to your books, reminding yourself why you came here tonight. To find that spark, that one little nudge that would kick your writing into gear. The story was right there, in the back of your mind, it just needed to come together and find its way onto the paper.

You leaned forward in your seat, head in your hands and staring down hard at the empty page, willing it to come to life.

You had nothing. 

And the hopelessness set in again. What were you even doing here? Did the world really need another uninspired writer?

You pushed yourself out of your seat. Maybe taking a walk would help clear your mind.

**

Your fingers brushed over the hard covers of the poetry books in the back of the library. It would be closing time soon, there was no point to this anymore. You could read a thousand poems and it still wouldn’t change a damn thing. You had no muse. How could you write a love story when you didn’t even know what love was? How could you write about desire when it was a concept so foreign to you?

You placed the last of the books you borrowed back in its place when a shadow moved behind you, startling you.

When you turned around you found him leaning against the book shelves, arms crossed and a curious look on his face as he watched you. Aemond.

“I apologize, I didn’t meant to frighten you.” His voice was deep yet strangely soft and you realized you had never actually heard him speak before.

“That’s okay, you didn’t."

He gestured to the last remaining book in your hands,”May I?”

“Oh, it’s…”

“Pablo Neruda,” he read, quirking his eyebrow.

“I was just…looking for some inspiration."

He opened the book and started browsing, giving you time to study him without him noticing. His pale long face, full lips and sharp cheekbones, the eye patch you so desperately did not want to focus on but couldn’t help yourself, the blond hair resting on his shoulders. Everything about him was exquisite. His frame strong but thin, his long legs…

“Hmm, I like this one,” his voice pulled you from your thoughts and without looking up at you he started reading the poem:

“While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me, my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running. So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes, and over our heads the gray light unwinds in turning fans. My words rained over you, stroking you. A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body. Until I even believe that you own the universe. I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.”

He looked up to meet your eyes before reading the last sentence, voice dropping even lower as he whispered,”I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

You were frozen in your spot, mesmerized by the raw sensual tone in his words and the way he was looking at you as if he wanted to devour you.

Desire.

That what had been unattainable to you suddenly right here in your grasp, as unexpected as it was undeniable. And he sensed it.

You turned away from him, needing a moment to catch your breath. Aemond didn’t give you one.

Even with your back towards him you could feel his eyes on you, feel him move closer until his hand was on your shoulder. You shivered, no longer from the cold, in fact you were no longer cold at all. He caressed your shoulder gently, then your arm, fingers tracing patterns into your sweater, making you wish you could feel him on your bare skin. When he reached your hand, his fingers brushed against yours…electricity like you’ve never felt.

He waited for your response. You had none, your entire body was burning up and he had barely touched you.

He laced his fingers with yours, thumb circling your skin softly, caressing you as if you were already lovers. His voice a whisper in your ear,”Tell me to stop and I’ll walk away.”

You could feel his warm breath in your neck and you thought you might die if he stopped now. You had never needed anything as much as you needed him.

Your voice was barely even a whisper, but it was all he needed to hear. “Please, stay.”

He pressed his body against yours, his chest to your back, trapping you between the book shelves and him. He grabbed the hem of your sweater with both hands and pulled it up, over your head. 

Then his hand was in your neck, pushing your hair to one side and pulling your top down just enough so he could kiss your shoulder blades. Soft and delicate at first, easing you into it, letting you get used to his lips and his touch. You sighed against him, leaning back against his chest, silently asking for more.

When his lips moved up to your neck his kisses were no longer chaste, he was all tongue and teeth now, needy and wet and you felt so high you were afraid you’d never come down again.

His hands grabbed hold of your waist, keeping you close, lips curling up into a grin when he became aware of his effect on you. He caressed your hips, your stomach, up to your breasts, cupping them softly through your top. You arched into him, starved for every touch.

Neither of you seemed worried about being in a public place where someone might come in at any time and catch you.

But there was no one, there was only him and him was all that mattered. His hands were so warm on your skin, a comforting fire you would gladly get burned by. His lips still on your neck, marking what he claimed as his now.

“Aemond,” you moaned, unable to hold back.

He spun you around to face him and your lips were on his instantly, returning the fire with which he’d kissed you. His teeth grazed your lips while his tongue refused to untangle from yours, kissing you deep and slow and so incredibly passionate. He licked into your mouth as if you were giving him life. 

You wanted his tongue in between your legs. 

Your hands pulled at his fuzzy sweater, desperately needing  to get rid of the layers still separating you two. He took the hint and pulled it over his head, leaving him in just a black t shirt. Your hands roamed over his strong chest and stomach, pulling. More. Closer. God, you needed him so much closer. Your hips involuntary rocked against his and he bit down on his lip, his erection now pressing hard against your inner thigh.

Impatiently he pulled his own shirt over his head, offering you more skin and you eagerly took it, licking his neck and kissing his shoulder while your fingers moved down over his stomach. He hissed when you reached his happy trail and when you started unbuttoning his jeans he quickly grabbed your wrist to stop you.

“Nuh-uh. You first,” he breathed and he pulled your shirt over your head and unclipped your bra.

You had no time to feel self conscious because his mouth was on your breasts right away, sucking at your nipples until your back arched  and you had to bite your lip to keep from moaning so loud the librarian would hear you. His fingers started fumbling with the buttons of your pants, pulling them down and letting them drop to the floor. 

The sudden cold made you shiver for a moment but it didn’t last when Aemond’s lips found your ear again,”May I taste you? Please?”

“Yes,” you breathed, biting your lip in anticipation”God, yes."

A smirk on his face when he added in a low whisper,”I want to lick you until you cum on my tongue.”

You couldn’t speak or function when he dropped down on his knees in front of you, his eye looking up into yours and you realized this was the first time you really looked at each other.

Time stopped.

He was so beautiful, the intensity in his stare made you feel all kinds of things you as a writer should be able to describe better but there were no words for him. No words at all for how he made you feel except that for the first time in a really long time you felt. 

Your hand slipped into his hair, caressing his head softly.

He never took his eye off you as he slowly pulled your panties down and started putting soft kisses on your inner thighs. Your leg was pulled up over his shoulder, giving him all the access he needed. 

That first flick of his tongue on your clit sent shivers right down your spine. He drank you in as if you were the best thing he ever tasted, the soft whimpers and moans falling from your lips encouraging him. His hands searched for yours, finding them and lacing your fingers together as he held you, his mouth pushing you closer and closer to your release.

When he suddenly pulled back you whined at the loss. “Don’t stop!”

He smirked up at you,”I’m not going to stop, but you need to be quiet for me or we’ll get kicked out.”

“I’m sorry,” you couldn’t help but giggle.

He squeezed your hands,”Can you be quiet for me, sweet girl?”

You nodded and bit your lip. Aemond held eye contact for a moment and then his mouth was back on your clit. And you could see stars.

You wanted to scream but you didn’t make a single sound when he made you come undone, hands squeezing yours hard, giving you an anchor to hold onto as your entire body started to shake around him.

You weren’t sure how long it lasted but it felt longer than ever before. The next thing you knew Aemond’s mouth was back on yours and you could taste yourself on his tongue. His fingers now exploring your folds, not giving you time to recover, teasing, circling, you were so wet and he revelled in it. That satisfied smirk back on his beautiful kissable lips. And then he slipped two fingers deep inside your walls, stretching you, making you bite your lip again just so you would keep quiet.

He was struggling to open his jeans and get rid of his boxers, “Fuck, I need to be inside you, right now.”

This time he was the one fighting to keep his moans quiet and the desperation looked insanely attractive on him. You couldn’t explain it, this pull he had on you, you barely knew him and you doubted he even knew your name. But none of that mattered, if he didn’t fuck you soon the world would end.

“You want it?” he breathed into your ear and teased your entrance with the head of his cock.

Your legs wrapped around him and he lifted you against the book shelves, pushing in slowly while his lips found yours in a sloppy kiss.

“Tell me if it hurts,” he spoke in between kissing you, his voice as soft as his lips ,”I don’t want to…”

“I want you,” you whispered and to encourage him you moved your hips with his,”I don’t care if it hurts.”

He moaned into your mouth and then grabbed hold of your hips, fucking you slowly but more urgently with every thrust. He was big and he didn’t hold back but you could take it. You would take anything he would give you, you were so lost on him.

“Look at me,” he breathed,”You doing okay?”

You nodded and wrapped your arms around his neck, holding him close,”I’m okay.”

His hand moved up to cup your cheek, eye seeking yours and holding eye contact as he started fucking you harder. His forehead pressed against yours. Did he feel it too? This need to be even closer to each other. You whimpered when your orgasm started to build.

“That’s it, my darling, give it all to me, let me take it,” he moaned softly into your mouth,”That’s it, you’re doing so good…so fucking good.”

You were gone after that, not only did you see stars but the entire universe was right there when his hand moved between your legs to find your clit again. His dirty words in your ear pushing you closer and closer to the point of no return. He was as lost as you were, slamming you into that bookshelf and biting down on your shoulder to keep his moans quiet when your walls squeezed him so hard he fell apart.

You couldn’t come down from it, and you didn’t want to. Right here in his arms, with him still buried deep inside you, is where you wanted to stay. 

Aemond’s breath heavy against your skin, hands caressing your face and hair, putting soft kisses on your forehead. You wanted to disappear right there.

***

“Hey? Hello? Sleepy girl? Wake up.”

Your head moved up from the table, confusion on your face when you found the librarian looking right at you, both amused and slightly annoyed.

“What?”

“You dozed off about an hour ago," she pointed out.

“No…I was just…I,” the reality of the situation dawned on you, especially when you noticed Aemond sitting in his seat, still buried deep inside his books, not even looking up. He hadn’t moved, and neither had you. “Oh, no…”

“You’re drooling a little there,” the librarian teased when she noticed you staring at him.

“Oh, god,” you covered your face,”Was I…loud?”

She gave you a little smile,”No, don’t worry about it. I just came to warn you we’re closing in an hour, so anything you still want to get done, now is the time.”

She left you alone and you buried your face into your hands. For a few minutes all you could do was sit there, trying to get the dream and Aemond out of your head and come back to reality. Then you realized you couldn’t, and maybe you shouldn’t, maybe you should just use the gift your imagination had given you.

Your fingers found the keyboard and you started typing. You didn’t stop until the library closed an hour later and you had written 10 pages without even really trying. The characters were there, and their love story…it was dripping with passion, still foreign to you somehow though not so much anymore now. Your lips curled up into a smile at the thought of him. Even though it had been nothing but a dream you could still feel his lips burn on your skin.

While you were gathering your stuff and putting on your coat you’d noticed Aemond had already left. You couldn’t help but feel your heart ache a little. For what could have been, for what he might have meant to you, if only it could have been real. But he would never know, nor would he ever know you or even notice you.

You braced yourself for the cold when you opened the library door and stepped outside but instead of the biting chill of winter you were met with soft small snow flakes falling down on your head while you could hear people sing Christmas carols in the distance. Another involuntary smile curled around your lips and suddenly your eyes were feeling teary. Who knew it would turn out to be a magical Christmas Eve after all?

You should call your mum in the morning, wish them all a merry Christmas and let them know you were doing okay. Not entirely there yet, but okay.

When you continued walking the path away from the library you noticed him. Black leather jacket over that fuzzy sweater, hands deep in his pockets to fight the cold. For a moment you froze, unsure of what to do. Should you approach him or just ignore him? But then you noticed he was already walking straight towards you.

“Hey,” his voice came out a little hesitant, almost shy even,”I…um…I noticed we seem to be the only two people on campus tonight.”

“It would appear so,” you hid in your scarf but looked up to meet his eye and gave him a smile,”Hi.”

“Hi,” he returned your smile with one of his own,“I’m Aemond.”

“Yeah, I…I know who you are,” you confessed,”I’m Y/N.”

Another smile on his lips.“Hello, Y/N. I saw you in there,” he looked back at the library,”Actually I’ve seen you in there a few times but…you always seem so immersed in your books I couldn’t bring myself to disturb you.”

His eye held your gaze.

“You wanted to?” you carefully asked,”Disturb me?”

He smiled shyly again and you thought he never looked more beautiful than he did right now, staring at you with such softness on his face as the snow kept falling down around you both.

“Can I…,” he hesitated, searching for the right words,”Can I buy you a coffee or something? Or a very late Christmas dinner?”

You laughed and his face lit up.

“Yeah, okay,” you nodded,”Both sound very nice actually but…can you do something for me first?”

“Of course. What do you need?”

“Can you pinch me?”

He looked a little confused at your request. Confused but not unwilling to do as you asked. 

He stepped closer to you and carefully reached for your hand, letting his fingers brush against yours ever so gently before lacing them together and giving a soft but firm squeeze.

His touch…electricity like you’ve never felt.

“Like that?” he asked, his voice now just as deep and seductive as you remembered from the dream and you couldn’t look away from him.

“Yeah, exactly like that,” you smiled softly and then bit your lip. Neither of you broke eye contact nor did he let go of your hand as you both started walking.

#aemond x reader #aemond smut #aemond x female reader #aemond x oc #aemond imagine #aemond

[di-writes-stuff]

Sad Beautiful Tragic

Phillip Graves x Reader

A/N: I need to write more angst in a way I can’t quite describe.

TW: References to Graves betrayal and all that entails. War stuff, canon typical violence, suggestions of smut but no real descriptions. No happy end.

Summary: In which you look back on your relationship with Graves during his court hearing.

“Hang up, give up, and for the life of us we can’t get up.”

I hate him.

You’ve been forcing yourself to remember that for the past few hours. Watching that damn bastard, the sly smirk on his face every time he knows he’s winning the case. The same one you used to find endearing, now just puts a pit in your stomach that makes you wish you hadn’t eaten breakfast this morning.

You could scream. You want to scream, about how it’s not fair, about how you could’ve loved him, how you did love him. You want to pound your fists against the ground, throw the cup clenched in your hand at his stupid, handsome face. Marr it until you don’t feel that nagging, instinctive affection every time you see him.

The one that quickly fades—for the most part—when you remember what he did. That he prioritized being Shepherd’s little bitch over his comrades.

Over you.

Anger’s powerful. It’s a great, if not the greatest motivator in the world. But coupled with passion? With a love so fierce you would have died for it?

That burns. Drips through you like hot acid at any reminder of betrayal from the trusted.

And that is exactly what you feel when you look at him. The hurt comes first. The shell shock from what he did that still hasn’t quiet faded. Then the anger, and then the melancholy. The kind of animalistic need to get back to how it was before he ruined it. The clawing, desperate kind of fight you’re waging everyday just to believe the lie you think yourself to sleep with.

I hate him.

And yet, it always seems to end the same. The glaring correction at the end that you can’t admit to anybody around you, or yourself.

I miss him.

Overwhelmingly. Painfully. It keeps you up at night. It exhausts you in the day. It separates you from every other member of the task force. Because they can do it. They can hate him for what he did without a second thought.

It’s not as if they don’t see it. The tears that pinprick the corners of your eyes every time his name comes up. It really shouldn’t come as a surprise. From the very start, he’d been chasing you, and you were standing still.

For what felt like the hundredth time today, you were laughing. Smiling. Happy, really, truly happy. All thanks to Phillip Graves.

From what everybody said, you’d really hadn’t thought you’d like him very much. Cocky, horribly flirtatious, stubborn, and risky as all hell. All true, of course. Although, from where you were standing, it seemed like the whole “flirt” part was understated, extremely.

A smirk played on his lips as he stood just too close to you at the control panel of the helicopter, breath fanning over your neck as you drop yet another bomb onto the currently empty base. The mission was simple enough, bomb the enemy base, wipe all their supplies, intel, everything. Without anybody around to retaliate.

Well, it was supposed to be simple. You’ve found focusing has become quite difficult with constant flirtatious praises falling from the lips of the man behind you. “Atta girl.” His voice is husky behind you, a soft chuckle leaving him as you exhale shakily at his comment.

You’re sure you’ll get plenty of shit for this back at base, after all, you aren’t trying very hard to disguise how much you’re enjoying this. At the very least you manage to respond to this comment rather than the breathy laughter he’s been receiving. “You wanna take over? I wouldn’t wanna take all the credit.” You force yourself to meet his eyes, ignoring the way your stomach flips when he smiles at you.

“I think I’ll let ya have this one, doll.” The pet-name sends you snapping your eyes back to the control panel, trying to calm the vivid blush spreading across your face. The self satisfied smirk on his face only growing wider at your response. You clear your throat, your words coming out a bit shaky. “Very generous, Commander.”

He leans in a bit closer, his lips ghosting the shell of your ear. “Oh, I always am.” The suggestion held in those words sends heat pooling in your stomach, the skin he barely even grazed burning after his touch. Later, he’ll give some proof to that statement.

And God, he was telling the truth.

Your attention is suddenly brought back to the court in front of you, and you’re back in reality. Snatched away from the pretty memory you’d allowed yourself to live in for just a moment. From before he did what he did. Before he ruined everything.

The judges question sends a hush over the room, the one everybody had been waiting to hear Phillip’s answer to. “Did you act on those orders, Mr. Graves?”

Your breath hitches in your throat as you remember that night. Those orders, the ones to kill you and every other member of the 141. The warnings he’d tried so hard to give you, without ever really telling you the truth. Phillip Graves was not the pleading kind, but for you? He’d do it. He did do it.

“Please, baby, I’m begging you. Don’t do this job.” He asked for what felt like the millionth time, trying to keep quiet as to not be heard through the thin walls on base.

When he’d asked to come over, you’d thought it was for the normal reasons. Apparently not, because rather than tangled under bedsheets, you two were fighting over his strange request that you didn’t understand in the slightest.

“Phillip, I have a job, I’m gonna do it.” Your voice is stern, unyielding to his pleas. You can’t help but feel unnerved by the look in his eyes that looks an awful lot like terror. Pure, unbridled fear that he refuses to explain to you.

He takes your hands in his, kneeling down to be eye level with you as you sit on the edge of your bed. His eyes are bloodshot, supposedly from crying. Something you’d never seen the man in front of you do. “Please, sweetheart.”

“I can’t have you on this job.”

Except you were on that job. There to see the horror in his eyes as he realized that along with everybody else, he’d have to betray you too. That he’s have to ruin everything you had.

You still remember the way you’d screamed at him that night, as Ghost dragged you away into the temporary safety the city provided.

“I hate you.”

The words that were ripped from your throat by him, the ones you never wanted to say, but you did. The ones you couldn’t convince yourself of anymore. You’re not even sure if they were true then. Although, you think you come close to it as you hear him answer the judge.

“No…Absolutely not, sir.” Gasps and whispers sound throughout the court, but the only thing you hear is his words repeated over and over in your mind. You try to find the lie, to find some loophole to make his claim false.

But the worst part is, he’s telling the truth. He didn’t kill you, nobody in the 141 was dead, or even seriously injured. Soap walked away with a few new scars, but that was about it.

He didn’t act on the orders.

It should make you feel better, that technically, he refused. That maybe, you could forgive him. But you know you won’t. You know you can’t. Not after all this. Not after the things he made you feel in such rapid succession.

First, love. Burning hot passion that took over your every thought. Then hatred, feigned or otherwise. Then grief as Soap came back with the news that Graves was KIA. Everybody still remembers the way you’d sobbed, animalistic gasps for air coming up from your throat as tears poured from your eyes. They’d heard it all from the closet you locked yourself in. But at the very least they’d had the decency to pretend they didn’t.

Now, you don’t even know what you feel towards him. You can’t exactly say you don’t still love him. Not honestly, at least. A part of you hates him, but not enough to make it true. Not enough to deny the relief that flooded you once you saw him in front of you that day, breathing, whole, alive.

It took every bit of strength in you not to react as he walked into view on the call with Shepherd. That same smirk on his face that never seemed to leave fully, but faltered a bit as his eyes landed on you. You, who stood seemingly emotionless, you who prayed he couldn’t see the tears forming in your eyes over the call.

You, who couldn’t take it anymore as he cracked the same kinds of jokes that used to make you laugh as he whispered them to you in the middle of the night, your head laying on his chest. Everybody noticed the way his smile dropped for a second as you stormed out of the hangar. Because despite his own ego, despite his constant need to please, the only approval he ever wanted was your own.

It’s the same reason now that he risks turning around to look at you, to see if any hint of approval, or even love still lingers in your eyes.

The same reason his heart shatters as he sees what he’s been dreading this whole time. Hatred, written all over your face as you stare him down. Of course, he’s oblivious to the war being waged inside you just to keep your expression still. To the way his eyes locking with yours still sends shivers running down your spine. Memories flooding back of his hands on your body, his eyes locked with yours as hushed, strained whispers fall from his mouth in between groans.

You don’t even think he realized he’d said it that night, too focused on the feeling you gave him to even notice the words he was saying. It wouldn’t be outlandish to think he hadn’t meant it. To think it just slipped out in the midst of his euphoria, triggered only by the high you were both so rapidly approaching.

Although, now that memories are all you’ll ever allow yourself to have of him, you like to believe he meant it. That deep down, those whispered words were true, unlike the ones you’ve been trying to convince yourself of.

“I love you.”

A/N: Sometimes I’m writing and it’s just like lalalala silly little angsty fanfic 😇✍️ and then all of a sudden this deep, grumbly little demon voice pops up out of nowhere, a single word accompanying it.

👹dick👹

digital footprint goes wild.

- di <3

#fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic writer #fanfiction writer #call of duty #cod #call of duty mw2 #call of duty mw3 #cod fanfic #cod mw #modern warfare #cod mw2 #cod mw3 #phillip graves #phillip graves x reader #phillip graves x you #phillip graves x y/n #commander graves #call of duty fanfic #call of duty modern warfare

[filthforfriends]

Chapter 1: Checking In

The Sun is the Center of Everything

See Author's Note (CW: addiction)

Word count: 3.5k

Damiano David x Y/n

His family and his friends, mutual and otherwise, made tepid comments about Damiano’s wellbeing. They knew they didn’t have the right to ask anything of you, not anymore.

“Just checking in! I know the breakup was tough.” Tough. The word choice made you outright laugh. It was something you’d say to a child who just lost a football game. I know that was tough, buddy. 

“Hey, checking in, hope you’re doing well.” 

“I wanted to check in and see how you’re doing, y/n.”

“I know I checked in on you earlier, but I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” I was forced to choose between my sanity and my relationship, but God granted me neither.

“I’m doing fine, all things considered.” “Checking in” was their excuse to call, it was a transition to statements like, “We all miss you alot. Hope we’ll see you soon, sweetheart.” “Well, I’m glad you’re doing well, since I know Damia has been struggling.” “Have you heard from Dami? I was gonna call and ask how he’s doing as well. I heard he’s not coping well.” “You were such a force for good in his life. I think he really needs that.” “I wish I knew how to get Damiano closer to being fine, too.” That last one earned a real life eye roll. At least his friends had the etiquette to feel guilty for dragging you back into it. 

You were certain that your heart couldn’t bear to love someone hellbent on self-destructing. You were certain that Damiano wasn’t going to get sober of his own volition. He’d lose his temper when you’d bring up those two years of not drinking. Articles, books, podcasts, speeches, YouTube videos, TV, movies, therapy, support groups, doctors, even a sobriety coach. You spent more time on resources for his addiction disorder than you did self-care, or hobbies, or some days, even work. Your life revolved around stopping this behavior before he became a tragic stereotype and left a black hole in your life. Damiano’s life revolved around Maneskin’s unrelenting schedule. 

He’d do anything to reclaim his autonomy, but the options were slim. The documents from Sony US hadn’t been translated with nuance and you wondered if that might void some of it. Hoped, really. He’d signed his life away to realize his dream. Now all he could do is show his handlers that they’d bought a faulty machine. In fact, he was self-destructive enough that he’d do it just to spite them. 

The first time Damiano was hospitalized with alcohol poisoning, you found about a dozen ways to reassure yourself that everything wasn’t falling apart. He’d been sober for two years so his tolerance was low. Damiano was probably drinking the same amount. Then you found out it’d been hard alcohol, no mixers. Now the excuses were he didn’t remember when to stop. He had to relearn how to self regulate when drinking. 

Ethan had been the one to call the first time, when they’d managed to contain it. The second it was his head of security, Ronnie. In a totally normal and healthy way, you combed through Twitter for an hour. The knot in your stomach said the news would break and it did. Splashed across tabloids was a haggard looking picture of Dami that you tried to date based on his outfit. Your therapist called your behavior “obsessive,” but followed it up with a surprising amount of empathy.

“Tough love can be equally painful on both sides.” You’d never told her you still loved him. It was obvious. For the first time, carrying around all Damiano’s secrets felt like a burden. You’d never betray his confidence, despite how poisonous he’d been towards the end. SME had you sign a non-disclosure agreement in early 2021. You’d insisted it wasn’t necessary, that there wasn’t enough money in the world to pay you to talk to the press. Sony had simply said, “for now,” prompting Dami’s stereotypically Italian temper to flare.

Ronnie was more concerned with you telling Damiano that he’d relayed this information, clearly against your ex-boyfriend’s wishes. 

“Be honest with me, are you breaching contract by calling me?” There’s a very long sign on the other end of the line.

“Technically, no. He hasn’t taken you off his emergency contacts. I’m more concerned about the disruption it would cause.”

“Disruption?”

“Explosion. Whatever he’s ingesting has made him volatile, constantly on edge. The edge of rage, that is. We’ve stopped hoping for good days and started hoping for some good hours every few days, ideally around showtime or interviews.” 

“Wow, okay. I know he has a temper –”

“He’s never not angry. It's always simmering under the surface.” Through the silence, you can hear the sounds of the hospital. Layers of anxious voices and the constant beeping of some machine.

“You didn’t do this.”

“I know,” you respond automatically.

“Y/n, you didn’t do this. He did this to himself.” Dami had violated boundary after boundary as you set them. He became less recognisable, until he wasn’t the person you fell in love with. Full of creativity, light, good humor, who loved art and comradery more than he did any substance.

“I mean, I don’t think the breakup is why he’s so angry. The depression is probably from the alcohol. That’s actually why I’m calling.” Ronnie has the same tone of voice as those who are “checking in.” “The decision has been made, that he’s going to rehab.”

“Good.” With your back braced against the wall, you slide down onto the floor with relief.

“That decision has been made without Damiano’s consent.”

“Can’t you consult him?”

“No,” Ronnie says firmly. “Addicts aren’t rational.” It was the first time you’d heard someone call Dami an addict. Before now, that word had only existed in your own head.

“I can’t believe it got to this point so quickly.” Your cat, Princess, senses your anxiety and rubs against you. Dami had picked her out as a tiny kitten. When would she start wondering where her dad was? Maybe not yet, he was gone for long stretches of time on tour. Princess doesn’t know he isn’t coming home, and that thought both makes you jealous and sob hysterically. 

“Y/n? Y/n? You still there?”

“Yeah, sorry,” you sniff, eyes burning.

“SME is using the full weight of its influence to force Dami into rehab. He might call you and say anything he can think of to get out of it. Don’t believe him. You can’t trust him right now.” The thought of Dami calling and begging you to fly him home, only to go on a bender makes you sick.

“Should I block his number and Whatsapp?”

“That's up to you.”

“You called to tell me it's up to me?”

“I called you to warn you. So you could steal yourself. So you’d know about it before the tabloids.”

“I suppose now that Dami’s hospitalization is public, someone is also gonna leak that he’s going to rehab. Cover their own asses?” Ronnie falls silent. “You know, going to rehab in privacy would be a fuck load more effective. Let them wonder.”

“I wish they would.” Here was the impasse you always reached. Damiano treated as a doll to be flung around for profit, as if he didn’t have a soul. 

“Fine. Thanks for calling me.” Each time, you tried to tell them not to update you in the future, and each time your tongue refused to form the words.

“Y/n, I have a feeling that something is really not right with him. That it could get much worse before it gets better.” Now, he’s managed to tick you off.

“Ronnie, I tried everything in my goddamn power to keep him from crashing and burning. More than anyone else! I devoted hours to –”

“Y/n, I know.”

“I couldn’t stop him from self-destructing. I tried!” The sound of tears creeps into your voice. “I couldn’t stand to watch it anymore. I don’t know if he was refusing to get better or was unable to, but either way I…tried.”

“No one questions that. I mean that Damiano might need for things to get worse for them to eventually get better. He’s stubborn and short-sighted. I want you to be ready.”

“How much worse?” you whisper.

“He might need to bruise his ass on rock bottom to stop idealizing self-destruction.”

“‘Live fast, die young’ sounds a lot like I’d rather stick it to the man than grow old with you. My ego is bigger than my love for you”

“I don’t know that that’s true, y/n. For some people it's a matter of time before they become addicts when they’re put into this pressure cooker. I’ve seen it before.

“And?”

“Only Damiano can pull himself out of it.”

“So I just wasted my time,” you respond bitterly.

“Showing Damiano how deeply and unequivocally you loved him might save him still.”

“I thought he had to save himself.”

“You’re telling me that after five years he’s not a part of you and vice versa?”

“No.” No, I’m not telling you that, because I know the opposite to be true so viscerally that it has almost destroyed me. The part of Damiano that lay in your heart should be withering in his absence, but it remained very much alive. How do you move on from someone you hadn’t broken up with? The version of Dami that caused you to end it wasn’t truly representative of his character. He was still in there, progressively buried under the rubble of this revolt. The man you loved was unreachable which also made it impossible to move on. Every day he held you in his hellish limbo. 

Damiano did his 30 days. Then 30 hours after discharge, he overdosed in Milan. You started buying a train ticket as soon as you saw Ronnie’s contact on the screen. 

“Is he alive?” 

“Yes, but he’s on a ventilator.”

“God damn it Dami,” you whimper, doubled over and on the verge of screaming into your hand. “What's happening?”

“That's literally all I know. Someone found him in the bathroom of a bougie nightclub and gave him Narcan, thank god. His lips were purple, so…” For a moment Ronnie’s voice is drowned out by a sob. “It’s gonna be messy. The ambulance was photographed.”

“Christ.” This would make international celebrity news. Every asshole who’d typecast Dam after Eurovision would be competing for the most public validation. 

“We don’t think it was intentional.”

“But how bad was it? Like would he think he was gonna die in the moment? Was he alone? How long was he conscious? What – what about organ failure. What if –”

“Y/n, I don’t know,” Ronnie says slowly. “I will call when I have more information.” You’d been on the train for 20 minutes before your phone rang. He was going to be okay. You balled up your coat and screamed, using it as a gag.

“Turns out, to compensate for the hangovers, he’s been doing cocaine.” Never has irony been more painful. “He wasn’t testing his drugs. The coke was laced with fentanyl. Another line might have killed him.” Only then does the possibility that Damiano could end his own life become apparent. It swallows up every other aspect of your reality, until you’re standing in the doorway of his hospital room. 

Thomas’ girlfriend Mia sees you first and runs in for a hug. Ethan and Vic were sleeping in their hotel rooms. Ronnie’s jacket is crumpled in a chair, forgotten after drifting off to sleep probably.

“Hey! Ronnie said you might come, but…” But I’m not Damia’s girlfriend. Perhaps he’d found someone new, and you were encroaching on their territory.

“Shit, I just thought that, um…is he dating –”

“No.” The amount of relief that provided was just evidence of how damaged you were. “He’s been in a coma for almost three hours, lots of good brain activity. He should wake up soon.”

“Coma?” you squeaked. In Tom’s eyes you saw how taxing this new Damiano had been. You weren’t the only one that loved him unconditionally. 

“Yeah.” Thomas rubs his face and sighs. “Fuck. We have so much shit tomorrow.” SME had scheduled a press tour as soon as Damiano was discharged, to make up for lost time. Everything was pushed back because the band couldn’t release something they hadn’t done publicity for.

“I’ll sit with him for a while,” you reassure. Mia helps Tom up out of the chair. After exchanging appropriate greetings, they exit the room, whose door remains open. Now you had to look at him. The ventilator emits rhythmic rushes of air, so your eyes find the source of the sound first. Then you follow the tubing until it enters Damiano. He’s gray, sickly looking like he had COVID again. Surely they already tested for that. 

The concern had been damaging his voice, like the tobacco and weed hadn’t already put his vocal chords on the edge of irreversible harm. How damaging is a plastic tube shoved down your throat? Alcohol caused esophageal cancer and coke eviscerated your sinuses. What would those do to his singing voice? 

You’d refrained from watching his gigs, but now you have the compulsion to find a video of this morning’s interview. It was just the talking portion, no performance. That was Sony’s idea of easing back into the public’s eye. In the thumbnail, he doesn’t look like an addict. Damiano’s skin had aged backwards while in rehab. He was beautiful, pale from so much time in doors, but healthy. The fact that he’d managed so much damage in a matter of hours made you nauseous. 

You sat in the bathroom while the feeling passed. The pale green tiles were cold. Should you leave? You couldn’t even work up the bravery to touch him. But if you left, Dami could wake up alone with a tube down his throat, confused that he wasn’t dead. Meanwhile, the fluorescent lights illuminate details in the reflection of the mirror that you’d prefer not to be made aware of. After pondering some adult acne, you decide that you aren’t the type of person to abandon someone, just because they abandoned you.

Upon exiting the bathroom, you startle the nurse at Damiano’s bedside.

“Geez, I didn’t know you were in there!” She brings a hand to her ample bosom while taking a deep breath.

“Shit, sorry. I was just…having an existential crisis.”

“Ah, so you must be the girlfriend, then.”

“Yep,” you answer automatically. After five years, that response was ingrained into your frontal lobe. This would have been the first time you answered no.

“I’m Maria and I’m gonna be your nurse this morning.”

“Morning?”

“It is…” she checks her smart watch, “5:04. So early morning.” Her chipper tone gives you cognitive dissonance. “I’m just gonna take some blood, just to monitor how his organs are functioning. Unfortunately a tiny amount of fentanyl can wreak havoc.” 

“His organs are failing?”

“No,” she answers firmly, going so far as to round the bed and pat you on the shoulder before putting on latex gloves. “He’s young and it's his first OD. He could bounce back quickly, but a coma is the body's last ditch effort at keeping itself alive. He’s lucky.” She gives you a knowing look. “I can recommend some great treatment programs, now that he officially has his Substance Use Disorder diagnosis.”

“Um.”

“Maybe we’ll tackle that around breakfast time. Now why don’t you hold onto his hand.” She ties a purple tourniquet around his bicep on his left arm while you gingerly take a seat. “Mhm, go ahead,” she permits, completely oblivious to the war raging inside you.

“Does – does it help?” Your left hand quivers, half an inch above his, close enough to feel the heat.  For some reason, you expect Dami’s skin to be cold too, like a corpse. 

“It can be difficult to find a good vein after an overdose.”

“Are his veins damaged?”

“We didn’t find any evidence that he was using intravenously. Unfortunately hypoxia, A.K.A. oxygen deprivation, is a result of –”

“Will he have brain damage?”

“You’ll have to ask the doctor that question.” 

“Does Narcan hurt?”

“No, but he’ll probably have a headache.”

“Does overdosing on fentanyl hurt?”

“It’s heavily sedating.”

“Would he know that he was overdosing?”

“Depends on how experienced of a drug user he is.”

“I’m pretty positive that this is his first overdose.”

“Then probably not.”

“Would he be scared then?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

“Would he be afraid of dying?”

“Honey, hold his hand.” Maria pats you on the shoulder as you finally set your palm against Damiano’s. His skin is warm, as always, and he feels sturdy. The sensation of his hand in yours brings back so many memories that you’re fighting not to drown in them. It's strange, him not responding as you squeeze down. Dam loved to talk about marriage, how the ceremony would go, the reception. You’d debated matching rings. Now you watched the blue line of his heart rate on the beeping monitor.

“Okay, all done,” Maria announced, smoothing adhesive labels over vials of blood. “The doctor will be in shortly and – oh.” She freezes, then presses the call button.

“Is he okay?” Your heart falls from your chest to stomach, out your ass, and lands on the linoleum floor. 

“Yep, looks like he’s coming out of it, actually. Stand up,” Maria requests, pulling on your arm. “Make sure you’re in his line of sight. Waking up on life support can be quite disorienting.” Damiano’s face looks the same, but then his pupils move under his eyelids. You’re the first thing he’ll see and that pressure is impossible to bear. 

“I can’t! I’m so sorry.” You rub your eyes then stand up, grabbing your purse and overnight bag. Maria doesn’t protest. She lets you leave in a flurry of movement and tears, throwing the door open so forcefully that it hits the wall. Once outside of the hospital room, you immediately feel compelled to go back. Dami had never done anything to warrant being left alone at such a pivotal, terrifying moment. You knew with absolute certainty that if the roles were reversed, he’d have never left your side.

“Okay.” You take a deep breath upon re-entering the hospital room, holding Dami’s right hand in both of your own. “Okay, I’m here. What now?” 

“We wait,” Maria answers, as a doctor enters the room. There's the medication given, vitals taken, brain activity analyzed. The waves on the monitor become closer together, then more drastic. Medical personnel may be accustomed to it, but the rapid beeping elevates your anxiety.

“We’re bringing him up out of it gradually, so he doesn’t hurt himself,” narrates a young doctor. “Mr. David will have regained a level of consciousness by now. Probably thinks he’s dreaming.” How would a person not startle while waking up with a tube in their throat? It’d been almost three months since you’d last seen him, but if you thought about it that way, you’d just run. Instead, you imagine that you’re waking Damiano up from a bad dream, even though it was typically the other way around.

“Will he recognize your voice?”

“Of course.” The response comes out defensive when you didn’t intend it to be.

“Talk to him.”

“I…okay.” You lean down, getting closer to his ear. “Dami, it’s y/n. It’s y/n, I’m really here. It's me, baby.” That last word gets stuck in your throat. It’d be so long. How many messages had you missed? He must have tried to contact you.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t answered. I don’t know the right things to say. I don’t know if saying something is the right thing.” Maria and the other nurse in the room are looking at you with a bit of judgment, but the doctor is focused on the monitors.

“Great. That’s great.” You raise a shaky hand to Damiano’s cheek and brush your thumb back and forth.

“As soon as I heard, I got on a train. I still think about you everyday, even more than when we were together. Hopefully you won’t remember any of this, me babbling on. I’d call it pathetic, but you wouldn’t like that.”

“Page whatever respiratory therapist is on call this morning, please. Thank you.” For another couple minutes you wait for improvement, signs that your boyfriend still existed in this body. The doctor is enthralled in what appears to be unchanging information to you, and administers another dose of something. 

“I always thought it was kind of sudden,” you confess. “Damia, if you can hear me, come towards the surface.”

“He can definitely hear you. I’m Dr. Williams, by the way, or just Paul.” The young physician never breaks focus. “Common misconception. If waking up from sleep isn’t instant, why would waking up from a coma be,” he chuckles. Damiano’s hand twitches at the wrist, like a muscle spasm.

“He just moved!”

“Mm-hm.”

“Is everything okay?” Ethan exclaims, having walked in while all your focus was elsewhere. Someone herds him into the hall and closes the door. Then Dami squeezes down on your hand, properly, like he intends to. His eyes flutter and you feel his presence enter the room.

Notes: Chapter 2 posted on Sunday. Let me know if you find this fic interesting/compelling so far. I'll be posting two short chapters a week, word count ranging from 2.9 - 7.3k. Hello to the new members of my taglist!

-XOXO Eden

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[patheticgirlsteve]

Hihihihi!! so, i haven't written fic in like 3 years and also i've never written stranger things fic so keep that in mind if you read this, BUT i saw this post by @babyboymunson and i just had to write it!!

i was gonna write something short and just reblog it onto that post, but this ended up being 3k so. i did not do that. also i did not proof read this at all. ok bye i hope you enjoy

(this is on ao3 now!!)

Steve never used to have strong feelings in any direction, positive or negative, when it came to sleeping. He spent most of his life taking a good night’s sleep for granted, just like every other normal person would. And why shouldn’t he? He had no reason to think that he would ever find himself going days on end without sleeping for more than three hours at a time. 

He never thought he’d be waking up screaming or sobbing (or both) because he had had yet another dream about his best friend getting tortured by Russians under the mall in their small town, about the kids he babysat (the kids he loved a ridiculous amount but would never admit to their faces) putting themselves in harms way to try to save the world yet again, about his… Well, about Eddie dying in Dustin’s arms as Dustin sobbed over him.

And hadn’t that been just another kick in the teeth, on top of everything else? His feelings for Eddie had hit him like a battering ram and at the worst possible moment. Realizing he was maybe a little bit (a lot) into Eddie Munson right after he had basically sacrificed himself to save Dustin had felt like when you’re blowing up a balloon and just when it’s almost full you give it one last puff, and it pops in your face and the snap of the rubber stings against your skin.

Steve honestly didn’t like to think about it. Everything had ended up working out, relatively speaking. The details didn’t matter much to him, everyone was alive and mostly whole, so who cared about the rest? Plus, he and Eddie had ended up with matching demobat scars, which Eddie said was metal.

(“Like Ozzy?” Steve had asked the first time Eddie had said it when Steve had been helping him replace his bandages after having been discharged from the hospital. He didn’t know much about metal, but he knew who Ozzy was. Kind of. Okay, not really, but he knew that Eddie thought he was a badass, which was what mattered to Steve.

“Yeah, sure, Stevie,” Eddie had laughed softly, with a smile that made the butterflies flutter in Steve’s stomach. “Like Ozzy.”

Steve had smiled weakly at Eddie, looking up from where he had been very carefully unwinding Eddie’s old bandages from his side.

“You know,” he had started slowly, wondering if he was about to make a mistake. But Eddie had been sat there on the bathroom counter in front of Steve, letting Steve help him, letting him see the real Eddie, the Eddie that wasn’t just for show. “I’ve never actually listened to Ozzy,”

Eddie had scoffed, “Yeah, I know, Harrington. We really need to work on your taste in music, it’s absolutely tragic.”

Steve had nodded and shrugged, hoping it came off as casual. “Okay, so teach me.”

Eddie had stared, mouth slightly open and eyes wide and shocked. “What?”

“Teach me,” Steve had said, his heart beating wildly in his chest. “You’ve got plenty of records and tapes, and we’ve got plenty of time. This is the perfect chance for you to teach me everything I need to know about Ozzy and Dio and the rest of those metal guys. Who knows, maybe you’ll convince me to become a metalhead like you.”

Eddie’s shocked expression had quickly turned into something much more gleeful and mischievous even as a slight blush had dusted his cheeks. “Oh, you’re gonna regret saying that, Harrington. I’m gonna educate the hell outta you!” He cackled, clearly already planning the perfect musical education curriculum in his head.

Steve had just smiled, thinking, No, I don’t think I’ll regret it at all.)

Steve always just nodded along with Eddie when he called their scars metal. 

(Even after all of his music education lessons with Eddie, which had eventually devolved into makeout sessions with Iron Maiden blasting in the background, he hadn’t really gotten it. He knew why Eddie liked it, it was loud and expressive, just like he was, but it just wasn’t Steve’s taste. Eddie had sighed deeply and dramatically when Steve had told him this, but Steve knew it was just an act. They each had their own tastes, and that was fine. Even if Eddie still complained about having to listen to ABBA in Steve’s car.)

Steve liked having matching scars with Eddie, as fucked up as that might have been, but he felt it connected them profoundly, and they served as a reminder that it had been real and that they had survived. That they had made it out.

Sometimes, that reminder was more necessary than others. Like when the nightmares got the better of him, waking him in a frozen panicky fear after only a couple of hours asleep alone in his parent’s house, he would call Eddie.

(“You can always call me, Stevie, it’s not like I’m sleeping either, anyway.” Eddie had said over the phone, the first time Steve had called him in a panic at 3 am to make sure Eddie was really alive, that the nightmares weren’t real. “So you’re not gonna wake me up, and, even if you did, I wouldn’t care, anyway. I want you to call me, okay?”

Steve had nodded, before remembering that Eddie couldn’t see him nod over the phone. He was tired, okay?

“Yeah, okay. Yeah. I’ll call you,” Steve had whispered. “You know you can call me, too, right? When you can’t sleep either?”

Eddie had paused, and for a moment Steve had thought that maybe he was overstepping. Yeah, they were friends now, after everything, but maybe they weren’t that close. Maybe Steve had just been imagining the looks he thought Eddie was giving him when he thought Steve wasn’t looking. Maybe the lingering hands on his shoulders, his back, his arms when they were hanging out with the rest of their friends were nothing. Maybe it was all just wishful thinking, and Steve was messing up one of the two age-appropriate friendships that he had managed to create.

And then Eddie had said, sounding almost unsure, “Okay. We’ll take care of each other?” Steve had hated the way it sounded like a question.

“Yeah, Eds,” he had promised. “We’ll take care of each other.” ) 

And then Eddie would drive over to the Harrington’s house, pull Steve back to his bed in his room with the hideous plaid wallpaper that everyone loved to tease him about, and settle Steve against his bare chest (it was summer in Hawkins, and it was hot, okay?), and wrap his arms under Steve’s, breathing comfort into Steve’s hair as they fell asleep together, Steve cradled like something precious in Eddie's hold.

It felt safe, sleeping in Eddie’s arms, even before they got together. Being held made him feel small, sort of, but not in a bad way. It made him feel like, well, like he could rest for a moment, that he didn’t need to be the shield, the protector. He could just be Steve, asleep in his boyfriend’s arms, with Eddie’s scars lined up behind his own. He just felt safe.

Steve couldn’t remember the last person who made him feel so protected. He thinks maybe it’s only been Eddie.

Steve wonders sometimes if Eddie even knows how safe he makes Steve feel, when he holds him like that. He kind of thinks maybe Eddie does know, even though Steve has never managed to say it out loud. When they’re alone, Steve coming over to spend time with Eddie at the new government-funded trailer that he and Wayne have moved into, he would sit on his bed (and his new mattress, not stained, thank you very much) with his back against the headboard and his legs open wide enough for Steve to take his place in between them. 

Steve loved when Eddie would wrap his arms around him, letting him relax into his boyfriend’s hold, and pick up whatever book they had been reading lately to pick up where they had left off last time, Eddie reading it aloud to Steve, doing different voices for each character. Right now they were reading The Two Towers. With anyone else it would have felt embarrassing, being read to like a little kid, but it wasn’t, with Eddie. Steve wanted to read Eddie’s favorite books, he wanted to understand the jokes and references that he and the kids made with each other and to be able to enjoy it with them, but he just couldn’t. 

It wasn’t that Steve didn’t like reading, it was just that it was hard for him, harder than it should have been. He tended to avoid reading on his own, because staring at the tiny words just made his head ache and his eyes tired. That was okay, though, because Eddie had been more than happy to narrate the Lord of the Rings books to Steve, anyway. Since they had started reading it together, Steve had begun to understand exactly why people liked it so much. The text was dense and Steve was very impressed that Eddie was able to pronounce all of the names and stuff. And the story was good, great, even. He liked Aragorn a lot, and when he had told this to Eddie he had laughed and kissed Steve’s cheek, saying, “Yeah, sweetheart, I know.” Anyway, this Tolkien guy was kind of a genius, in Steve’s opinion. 

Often, they would spend entire days just laying in Eddie’s bed, Steve sprawled on his chest, reading together. Steve would always insist that they take breaks so that Eddie could rest his voice and drink some water, and Eddie would always drop a kiss into Steve’s hair and call him sweet whenever Steve stopped him for a break, which never failed to make Steve blush. He wasn’t used to being called sweet, but Eddie never let him argue over the statement.

Steve thought about this as he opened the door to the trailer, letting himself in without knocking, knowing that Eddie was probably just waiting for him to walk in. He had called Steve at Family Video earlier in the afternoon during a brief pause in the Saturday rush to invite him over when he got off work. 

It had been unusually busy at the store today, even for a Saturday, and at noon Steve was already tired of dealing with rude teens and even ruder adults for a minimum wage paycheck. So when the phone rang, he had groaned and turned to Robin, who had been looking just as tired as he had been feeling.

(Robin had seen him start to ask her to answer the phone and cut him off before he could get a word out, shaking her head forcefully and glaring at him. “No way, dingus, it’s your turn to answer the phone. I’ve answered the last three calls!”

“Yeah,” Steve had let his drop onto the counter and closed his eyes against the ringing of the phone in his ear. “You had to because I was busy dealing with Shannon Simmons trying to flirt her way into a free rental, despite the fact that I was clearly not interested!” He protested.

Robin had just quirked an eyebrow at him, turning back to sorting the returns before the next rush started. “Answer the phone, Steve.”

Steve had groaned again, before dragging his limbs up to a standing position and picking up the receiver. “Family Video, this is Steve speaking, how can I help you?” he had droned in the flattest tone he could manage, ignoring the kick in the calf this earned him from Robin.

“Wow, such enthusiasm for the job, Stevie,” Eddie’s voice had drawled sarcastically over the phone, and Steve had perked up immediately as he recognized it. “Employee of the month material, right here! Somebody give this guy a raise for his excellent customer service skills!” Eddie had continued, and Steve had heard the grin in his voice through the line.

“Eddie,” Steve had smiled, feeling somewhat energized by his boyfriend’s voice. Robin had turned her head at this and waggled her eyebrows suggestively at him, which Steve had waved off with an eyeroll. “What’s up, Eds?”

“Hmmm, not much,” Eddie had hummed in answer. “I was just thinking of you and wanted to ask if you wanted to come over and read chapter four after your shift later. You can say no if you want, I know you’re probably gonna be tired.”

“Of course I wanna come over, I’m never too tired to spend time with you,” Steve knew it was a stupidly sappy thing to say and that the lovesick tone he had said it in probably didn’t help, but he hadn’t cared. He had heard Robin pretending to gag, but he had ignored her in favor of hearing Eddie’s cooing noise.

“Such a charmer, sweetheart,” Eddie’s voice had been teasing, but Steve knew that he was probably blushing on the other end of the line. “Okay, I’ll let you hang up before you get in trouble for using the work phone to talk to your super hot and wonderful boyfriend instead of doing your job. Tell Robin I said hi!” 

Steve had rolled his eyes fondly and said, “Okay, I’ll see you after work, Eds,”

“See you then, sweetheart! Love ya!” Then Eddie had made a kissy noise that made Steve laugh and then there was a click and Steve put the phone back as he heard the dial tone signaling that Eddie had hung up.

“Eddie says hi,” He had said to Robin, and as she had opened her mouth to say something mocking back to him, the bell over the door had rung as a group of loud teenage boys walked in, saving Steve from her teasing.

Back to work, but at least he had plans with Eddie to look forward to now.)

As Steve shut the trailer door behind him, he toed off his shoes and slipped off his work vest, hanging it on the hook by the door. He liked that there were places in Eddie’s home specifically for Steve and his things, it made him feel like he was at home here when Eddie made room for Steve in his life.

He didn’t bother fighting down a yawn as he moved down the hall to Eddie’s room, it had been a long day and he was looking forward to unwinding with his boyfriend. He saw Eddie’s door open and he smiled at the sight of Eddie lying on his stomach with his head propped up on one of his hands at the end of the bed, his other hand holding his beat up copy of The Two Towers. Eddie looked up when he noticed Steve standing in the doorway.

“Well, hello there, handsome,” Eddie smiled up at him and started to shift from where he was laying to get into their reading position.

“Hi,” Steve crossed over to Eddie on the bed and kissed him softly, sighing into it when Eddie’s hand cupped Steve’s cheek and kissed him back for a moment before Steve pulled away. He went over to the dresser to pull out his favorite pair of Eddie’s sweatpants and a Black Sabbath tour shirt to change into. “Were you reading ahead before I got here?” 

“Stevie, baby,” Eddie said, watching as Steve stripped out of his work shirt and pants, eyes lingering on the scars on his stomach. Steve tried not to blush as he stepped into the sweatpants. “I’ve read this book a million times, I don’t think it counts as reading ahead if I already know the entire story by heart,”

Steve pulled the shirt over his head, not caring at all that it messed up his hair as he pulled it down. “Yeah, but this is your first time reading it with me,”

“That it is, sweetheart,” Eddie nodded happily and reached out his arms as Steve came to the bed. “That it is.” He opened his legs for Steve to lay down between.

Steve hummed contentedly as he snuggled into Eddie’s chest placing all of his weight on his boyfriend as he leaned in, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s torso and closing his eyes as one of Eddie’s came up to wrap around him.

“You’re pretty sleepy tonight, baby,” Eddie said quietly, fondly. “Are you sure you wanna read tonight? We can just go to bed, if you want.”

“No,” Steve protested, his eyes still closed against Eddie’s shirt. “I wanna listen to you read, gotta find out what’s happening to Merry and Pippin in the forest,” He insisted. Steve liked the hobbits a lot, especially Pippin, who kind of reminded him of Dustin. Not that he would ever tell Dustin that.

Eddie chuckled softly and Steve enjoyed the way the laugh vibrated in his chest. “Okay, I’ll read, but it’s okay if you fall asleep, yeah?” He picked up the book from where he had placed it on the pillow next to him. “It can be a bedtime story tonight.”

“Okay,” Steve murmured, already starting to drift now that he was settled against Eddie, being surrounded by his boyfriend’s long limbs. As he thought this, Eddie’s legs wrapped around Steve’s and he rubbed a hand against Steve’s arm.

Steve knew what the warm feeling in his chest was. It was some mixture of safety, trust, and a not inconsiderable amount of love for Eddie.

“Okay, so, we left off at chapter three,” Eddie said as he flipped through the pages to get to where they had left off last time. He found it, and cleared his throat dramatically before he began to read aloud.

“ ‘Chapter Four: Treebeard. Meanwhile the hobbits went with as much speed as the dark and tangled forest allowed, following the line of the running stream, westward and up towards the slopes of the mountains, deeper and deeper into Fangorn. Slowly their fear of the Orcs died away, and their pace slackened. A queer stifling feeling came over them, as if the air were too thin or too scanty for breathing…' ”

Steve didn’t last very long, he knew he wouldn’t. He was tired and he was safe, and that combination, plus the soothing sound of Eddie’s narration, was more than enough to lull him to sleep. He stopped fighting, and let himself relax fully.

As he slipped into sleep, he barely registered the kiss Eddie placed on his head.

“Good night, love,” Eddie whispered. “I hope you have sweet dreams,”

And Steve did.

#hi i hope it's ok that i tagged you in this #feel free to ignore this if you want lol #steddie #steddie fic #steve #eddie #my writing #anya.txt

[mixelation]

i wrote more reborn au help

“It’s five now,” Matron told them grimly.  

A week ago, there had been six shinobi clans in Sound Country. Matron didn’t describe what happened to the sixth one. She didn’t have to. Most of the orphans have already been sent out to see the war themselves. 

Tori picked at a thread on the hand-me-down yukata she’d been given. It was a mustard yellow that probably would have looked lovely on another child but just made her skin look oddly gray. They hadn’t made her do anything yet but help lug water out to the aftermath of a battle once. She was only four. 

“This is why it’s important you train hard,” Matron concluded, before dismissing them into the yard. 

It wasn’t fair, Tori thought as she plodded along at the back of the line, that she had to be reborn into this stupid universe and didn’t even get to be born into a cool family. She would have liked magic eyeballs, maybe, or being taught to read minds. This clan did have a kekkei genkai that involved screaming like a bat, but she wasn’t one of them. She’d been born to a civilian family that had been the tragic victims of the Third Shinobi War, and the clan had taken her along with any other orphan kid they found.

The poor shmuck in charge of orphan training today was a teenager who didn’t seem to have any real plan in mind. He instructed them to practice hitting each other with sticks, and Tori was handed a bamboo pole and paired off with another girl, a couple years older. 

Tori didn’t want to hit anyone with a stick, much less another little girl. She’d rather be taught how to fight alongside a dog partner, and Tori didn’t even like dogs. 

The other little girl was shaking. She was new, and like Tori’s new-timeline family she didn’t even remember, her parents had been farmers. The Matron promised them every morning that they were training to be shinobi just like everyone else in the clan, but the clan relied on parents or older siblings teaching their children individually or in small groups, and the orphans just got whoever was around and free on any given day. This girl had never had to fight anyone in her life. 

(There were barely any children over the age of eight, because eight was the age they decided it was okay to start sending people out into the battlefield.)

“You can come at me first,” Tori offered, squaring her shoulders and holding the pole in front of her the way she thought they’d told them to do it a month ago. 

It additionally wasn’t fair that Tori didn’t seem to be any more physically gifted than in her previous life. She seemed to have the exact same body as before, complete with a head of runaway curls that the Matron seemed confused by, and that meant physical activity didn’t come easily to her. 

The other girl hesitated a few moments, and then half-heartedly smacked her pole against Tori’s. She didn’t even aim for Tori herself. The teenager in charge of them was busily sharpening some kunai and not paying any attention to the hollow thwaps of incompetent children hitting things with bamboo poles. 

Really, really unfair, Tori thought. 

xXx

Medical supplies were perpetually low, and so the welts now across Tori’s knuckles would go unbandaged. They had soap, at least, and plenty of well water. Tori had even gotten to help an ancient kunoichi make the last batch of soap. 

Tori examined her hand as they waited in line for a lunch of plain rice porridge. She must be holding the pole wrong, for a seven year old to accidentally hit her knuckles like that. 

(This was one advantage Tori had over the other orphans: she didn’t mind getting hurt. She preferred not to be hurt, obviously, but she’d lost a lot of the natural human fear of pain.)

They were also short on most kitchen supplies, so Tori had to share her bowl with two boys. They’d just sat down on the edge of the main house’s engawa when a group of shinobi bounded into the yard in excitement. 

“We got one!” one of them cried, holding something over his head. “Where’s the Old Man? We found one!”

Whatever it was, a group was rapidly forming around the shinobi. The two boys Tori was to share with got up to go see themselves, and Tori pulled the bowl into her lap. Their loss. 

Tori ate as fast as she could while she watched the proceedings. The Clan leader eventually appeared, and the crowd parted for him. The shinobi knelt as he presented the leader with… some sort of kunai?

“We were scouting a battlefield of the Yellow Flash, as you commanded,” one of the shinobi reported. 

Ah, shit, Tori thought as horror dawned on her. 

“It has some sort of fuinjutsu on it,” the shinobi was saying as the Clan Leader carefully flipped the three-pronged kunai over in his hands. “If we study it, maybe he can learn one of his techniques.”

Tori set the bowl down on the engawa and hopped to her feet. 

“Excuse me,” she called, approaching the gaggle of people around the Clan Leader. “Excuse me, are you really sure that’s a good idea?”

The Clan Leader looked at her like she was some sort of insect. 

“Don’t speak unless spoken to, girl,” the Clan Leader responded.

Tori ignored the warning. “Doesn’t the Yellow Flash, like, teleport? Do you really want to risk him teleporting here?”

The teenager who’d been in charge of them that morning was commanded to take her to a back training ground and hit her ten times with one of the bamboo poles. He only hit her eight times, all on her back. 

“The next person won’t be as nice,” he warned her. 

Tori had to lay on her belly to sleep, crammed into a room with twelve other orphans. In the morning, she was excused from ninja practice and sent to help the ancient kunoichi who made soap with laundry. Tori considered this a bonus. The soap kunoichi was the only person she really liked. 

“This does need to be wrapped,” the kunoichi diagnosed her back, clicking her tongue. “Why did you speak up, you foolish child? Here, lie down and I’ll help.”

Tori laid down on her belly again, and she twitched only a little as the kunoichi pushed chakra into her back. 

“I was right,” Tori mumbled into her arms. “That kunai is dangerous.”

The kunoichi sighed. “Always too clever for your own good, girl. Of course it’s dangerous. Trust your elders to know how to contain dangerous techniques.”

Tori craned her neck, turning her head to look at the kunoichi. “Really?” she asked. “How?”

The kunoichi clicked her tongue again. “No technique a brat like you will understand.”

“I understood the soap,” Tori countered. “Didn’t you tell Matron once, that a failure of one person to explain isn’t a failure of another person to understand–”

“Oi!” the kunochi countered, moving her hand to pinch an unblemished part of Tori’s side sharply. “The mouth on you!”

She did explain, though. The clan possessed a special chest, which was adorned with a special seal the clan had spent generations developing. It made the chest unbreakable, and so the kunai was harmless as long as it was inside. 

Tori doubted this, but she also doubted Minato would have a reason to come attack this little clan specifically. Then again, what did she know? She knew the date this war had ended in another timeline, and she knew at some point before that date the five Sound Country shinobi clans would unite as one village, but she didn’t know if she could expect things to proceed as they had before. She didn’t know what she’d changed, if anything, just by being here. 

One problem at a time, Tori decided, getting to her feet to go find some clean rags for the kunoichi to dress her wounds.

#reborn au #my writing #i decided tori probably DOES know some key dates and historical happenings #she's not super into history but she does spend all her spare time reading and watching TV in plasticity #so even if she's not reading history books specifically... she does expose herself to the culture pretty consistently #so she knows when the third war ends lol #but she doesn't know what happens to this specific clan oops

[frankenstein-ate-my-left-shoe]

okok so i was listening to remains of the day and i could not stop thinking of corpsegroom!eddie and victor!steve from @undreaming-fanfiction's Corpse Groom AU

Aneta, ilysm!! i hope you don't mind me adding onto your au!!! 🫶

---------------

Steve awoke slowly, blinking up at three (surprisingly) familiar faces. 

His kids.

Okay, not actually his kids, but the ones he took care of not that long ago. They had the same sort of blue tinge to their skin as Eddie did, but it was still them.

Wait...Eddie!

Steve sat up, way too fast, causing his head to spin.

“Whoa, slow down Steve.”

“Dustin? Dustin, what’s happening? You died! Years ago!” Steve frantically looks over the round faced boy, looking for any indication that this really wasn’t Dustin, but nope. He still looks exactly the same from the top of his curly-haired head right down to his feet.

“Yeah, I did. It’s not that big of a deal.” Dustin waves his hand nonchalantly and sits back on his heels from where he’d been kneeling over Steve.

“Not that–Dusty, buddy, I was crushed when you died. When all three of you did.” Steve looks at the other two, a red-headed young girl named Max, and the tall, lanky, and kind, Will. “I couldn’t believe you were all gone..”

“Well, it’s not like we meant to.” Max gripes at him, sitting cross-legged on the stone floor of…wherever this is.

She’s right, of course, the sickness that had shot through the kids of their small town had taken many under its cloak, but luckily only scurried away to the afterlife with a handful. Steve had found out half of his beloved group of kids (friends?) he’d watch over passed when he and his parents returned from holiday. Having skipped over the short-lived plague by happenstance.

He would’ve taken any of their places in a heartbeat.

“O-of course,” Steve stutters out, “I didn’t..”

“It’s okay Steve, we know you didn’t mean anything by it.” Will pats his leg and stands up, offers Steve a hand. “But the real question is, why did Eddie drag you down here.”

Steve lets Will pull him up, and he’s surprisingly strong, maybe it’s a symptom of being dead. Undead? Do you get stronger when you un-die?

“Eddie…Eddie! Where’s Eddie?” Steve looks around for the boy–nope, not really ‘boy’ any longer. The corpse that clawed itself out from under that tree definitely looked older than when Steve first knew him all those years ago.

Looking around the place, he meets the curious eyes and empty eye sockets of the other souls of this world. All those whose skin hadn’t quite gone had the same blue tinge as Eddie and the kids, and some still bore the marks of the events that’d taken them here. To this pub.

Is the afterlife only a run-down looking pub?

Dustin interrupts his scanning of the bar’s patrons. “We really need to play catch-up here, how do you know Eddie?”

“We–I–how do you know Eddie?” Steve retorts.

Max rolls her eyes. “Met him down here, of course.”

“He took us under his wing, helped us adjust…kept us out of too much trouble.” Will smiles.

“So, back to the original question, how do you know him? Dustin asks again. 

Steve lets out a long breath. “I knew him when I was young. Younger than you lot. He taught me to play piano.” Steve smiles at the memories of Eddie humming and singing along to whatever tune Steve’d make up. “He was a very good friend to me, until I just…stopped seeing him around. Whatever happened to him?”

Dustin winces minutely. “It’s kind of a long story..”

“And what a story it is!” A booming voice calls out from behind them.

Steve whips around, finally laying eyes on Eddie again. His arms are held wide as he’d come through the doorway to the bar, but the dirty, rumpled suit he wore and his full head of curls, now filled with debris, did nothing to staunch the glow coming off him. 

He’s so beautiful… and apparently just as much of a showman he’d been when Steve had known him, a fact that made him smile.

“It's a tragic tale of romance, passion, and a murder most foul.” Eddie continues, his low story-teller’s voice cutting through the background noise of the bar as he stalks toward them.

Max elbows Steve in the ribs and says, “This is gonna be good.” at the same time Steve catches Dustin grumbling, “..please don’t.”

Steve gulps. “Did he say ‘murder’?”

Max nods enthusiastically, obviously having heard this story before, while Dustin and Will grimace and nod unenthusiastically, also obviously having heard this story before.

“You all know how this begins, with little ol’ Eddie being cordoned off to his own side of town after getting caught befriending a Harrington.” Eddie begins his tale, speaking to and winding through the tables of patrons. “Can’t have us low-lifes on the ritzy side of Hawkins now, can we?”

Ouch. That stung a little.

“Life moved on, Eddie grew into a dashing young man,” Eddie stands straight and flashes a charming smile over the bar, one hand comes up to his chest and the other flings half of his dark mane over his shoulder. “Dashing enough to even make a deal with a more well-off family perhaps?

“A deal was bartered with the Cunninghams, to wed their only daughter to the once-distinguished Munson family.”

Steve knew of the Cunninghams, their only daughter was shipped off years ago to be wedded to the Carver’s first-born son in the next town over. He’d never heard that she’d once been thought of for marriage to Eddie, though he had been forbidden from knowing anything of the long-haired boy he’d met after his father had found out.

“But alas, the lone Munson heir was not one to choose the company of ladies, as lovely as Christine was and likely still is. She was his best friend, and he would not put her through a loveless marriage. Especially not when he had a love of his own.

“SO!” Eddie jumps up onto a rickety-looking chair with the exclamation, “He did what he thought best and he planned to run away.” he steps up further, onto the small wooden table, much to the apparent excitement of the skeleton seated there. “He took what remained of his family’s money, leftover dowry from his mother’s marriage to his father, and fled.

“That was the plan,” Eddie continues, plodding across the closely placed tables as he went. “Take the money and run, elope with his beloved; they’d already picked a meeting place, so he asked Chrissy to send word to his lover to meet that night, in the graveyard by the old oak tree.”

Oh no. That’s where he first found Eddie.

The crowd reacted together in a combined wail of “Don’t go!” as if rehearsed, all of them hanging on his word.

“I must!” Eddie replied, as if this was a play and not the tale of his own murder. “My darling dear will wait for me and we will flee to my only remaining family!”

“No!” the patrons yell again.

“Yes! We will go to Uncle Wayne, we’ll elope, start anew…we’ll get to be together.” Steve’s chest starts to constrict hearing the story-telling tone leaving Eddie’s voice. This was real. This is what he’d actually thought back then, back when he was alive, still full of hope.

“Oh no..” comes Will’s whispered voice beside Steve.

There’s a single beat of silence where Eddie seems to collect himself at the same time the crowd waits on baited breath (at least they would be if they had any) for him to continue, knowing what happens next.

Eddie jumps from the table he’d been atop to the nearby stage, spins around, and starts again, voice fully back in story-mode, and many-times-repeated words spill from his mouth.

“So there I was, next to the graveyard by the old oak tree, on a dark foggy night at a quarter to three. Ready to go! But where was he?”

Another round of call-and-answer picked up across the dingy bar, the entire place calling out, “And then?”

“I waited…”

“And then?”

“There!” Eddie points off to the side of the stage, “In the shadows, was it him?!”

“And then?”

“My poor little heart beat sooo loud….” Eddie clasped both hands over his un-beating heart.

“And then?!”

Eddie’s chest was heaving.

Steve took a step forward on instinct, not knowing if the panic on Eddie’s face was just for show.

“And then…everything went black.” The crowd gasps at once, all still seeming to be horrified by the turn of events no matter how many times Eddie may’ve told this tale.

Eddie starts speaking again, gaze far away, back in time. “When I opened my eyes, I was dead as dust. The meager amount I had on me, gone, along with the sound of my heartbeat.”

He starts back across the tables toward their little group, voice gaining confidence again as he recites his story. “So I made a vow, lying under that tree, that I’d wait for my true love to come set me free. So long I’ve been waiting for someone to ask for my hand,” He quick-steps down to the floor from a chair so generously pulled out for him by a kind looking woman more skin-and-bone than flesh.

“Then out of the blue comes this beautiful young man,” Eddie’s directly in front of Steve now, and reaches for his hands. Steve lets him take them, takes in the man in front of him, every last detail he can.

He’s just as beautiful as Steve remembers, even through the lens of crushing on someone much older than you; his hair was just as wild, his eyes as fiery, his hands much colder than the ones that used to guide his fingers along piano keys, but just as soft, just as sure.

What had not been there before was the dark purple, crumpled looking gash on his forehead, just under his hairline. The sight of which had pure rage boiling in Steve’s gut at whoever decided it was his place to take such a soul from the world.

“He who vowed forever, to stay by my side.” Eddie all but whispers.

Steve looks down at their hands and his heart squeezes in his chest at the sight of his ring on Eddie’s finger. He looks up with a smile, squeezing Eddie’s fingers in his and suddenly, the panic is back on Eddie’s face. For a fraction of a second, then replaced by one fully-cocksure. 

Steve’s hands are suddenly empty, Eddie spinning around to the crowd, “That’s my story. The story of your resident corpse groom!”

Eddie flings his arms wide, like he had when he first returned to the bar, and gives the raucous crowd a low bow. 

The muted claps of the corpses’ skin on skin, and the rattling ones of the skeletons around him are drowned out as Steve steps forward to place a hand on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Eddie, I–”

“No worries Stevie, I’ll get you back up to the surface again, no sweat.” Eddie takes a step backward, then another, his face under the grin falling sharply, “I gotta go find Elder Gutknecht, he’ll know how to get you back, no ties still tethered here.” then he turns and all but runs from the room.

———————-

ahhh!!! i couldnt get the idea of eddie, the story-teller he is, being the one telling his own story in remains of the day 🥺

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #st #st ficlet #st au #corpse bride #corpse bride au #dutin henderson #max mayfield #will byers #chrissy cunningham #steve x eddie #steve harrington x eddie munson #steveddie #emily corpse bride #victor van dort #emily x victor #noelle writes

[saint-siren]

A World For Her Alone | 'Never again' is a prayer, not a promise

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

cw (chapter specific): illness, death, pregnancy, birth, depression, absolutely nothing good happens to reader

pairing: claude x fem!reader

summary: the progression of Diana's illness and the birth of reader's child

author's note: sorry for the long gap in between updates, it will probably definitely happen again. anyway, who’s excited to place bets on Claude again? no one?

You had heard, the week after the news arrived at your home, that Diana managed to hold out but still her situation was precarious. Her condition was unstable and required round the clock supervision. Always, at her bedside, there was someone looking over her.

In the months that followed, the mansion was deprived of Claude’s presence. He was by your little sister’s side and as pregnancy drained your body, you could not follow him. Your body ached and the pregnancy was a tumultuous one, if you set off immediately in a carriage which was prone to bumps, hard stops and shaking, you might miscarry. It didn’t matter, though. He didn’t want you there, didn’t want you robbing his time with Diana. An intruder in the scene, a foreign object hanging over a lover and his tragic heroine.

He had only visited once, in earlier days of your pregnancy, when you were not so tired. Claude rushed in, probably only to finish work since he had stayed at your parents for so long, ignoring you even as you stood at the foyer. You turned quickly and called his name. “I apologize, I have work to do,” He said, flatly as he turned to leave. “I’m with child!” You blurted, desperate to have a moment to tell him. You clearly wouldn’t get another. Claude stalled and turned slightly so that he was looking back at you but his body still postured as if he would leave. His face was emotionless for a moment and then a smile touched his lips. That smile didn’t reach his eyes, which still looked lifeless. “Is that so?” He responded with much difficulty, you could tell. The voice that spoke those words barely sounded like him, a voice straining itself, gravely with the effort of holding back sadness.

His expression…one of regret. This child that you knew could never be celebrated by him in such a situation, was already being regretted by him. You knew that it was the probable outcome all things considered. Even so, knowing something that will happen in the future is not the same as knowing how you will feel when it arrives. You hadn’t expected to wound him so deeply with those words, you would not have expected that instead of his anger or his irritation, you would face his wavering form racked with sadness and regret. Yet again the illusion of ever having such a thing as a tie other than marriage to Claude was broken.

And then he disappeared upstairs.

You mused to yourself in bed, curtains drawn, your arrival would perhaps cut through the spell casted by them alone. Alone, they could pretend you were no one of consequence, that there was only their love and nobody else would be needing and wanting them. No greater importance. Your presence was yet another tragic layer, a reminder that they could never be. An omen of the real world. Even though you alone were not what was keeping them apart, per se – you would function as the symbol. For you were his wife. Standing next to Diana you were the chief reminder of duty over love, the weak, beautiful and needing Diana next to you. It was almost a call for rebellion, wasn’t it?

Your mind roved with thoughts about your husband at your little sister’s bedside humming sweet words of assurance while every ache and pain of your body could only be comforted with your own voice. “Everything is going to be alright,” You whispered in the darkness of your room, hands on your small bump, caressing it as if it were a touchstone for hours, unable to sleep. You lost yourself in that large room, lit only by a small lamp. Mindlessly, feeling your bump with some unknown exhaustion and with some desire to simply let the weight piled onto your shoulders droop while you were alone, you contradicted yourself. You whispered to yourself, not even expecting to hear the words aloud. “I believe that it isn’t.”

Nevertheless, your strength did improve some later in your pregnancy and with no help from your mind. On none of those days did Claude come home and you felt every single one of them. Even so, you were tended to by your servants who would of course preserve the health of Claude’s heir. Your days passed without incident, monotonously. Until you received a request from Claude to come to your parent’s mansion.

Your hands shook holding the short and curt note with Claude’s initials. You thought about what front you should take. What expression, what words would be proper in this situation? If you had truly been a devoted sister, you would have already been there regardless of the threat it posed to your health. That was the ideal big sister. But in part, perhaps you had stayed home all this time because you knew that with just one look at her, you would reveal your resentment. Even if you said nothing, your eyes would cast the blame.

You got out of bed and prepared to leave, although you were not nauseous or in pain as you used to be, it was still difficult. Even the effort of dressing in proper outside clothing winded you. The carriage ride was slow, for your sake but still uncomfortable. Still, you could not refuse to see your husband who for months avoided this house. You could not help but follow him when he allowed.

Your escort knight, who had silently accompanied you since you became a young lady, held out his hand for you to steady yourself as you walked. “My lady,” he murmured, signaling you to allow him to help you. His hands were warm and you were glad for their strength, glad that regardless of every anxiety inside you, they pulled you along slowly. You ignored his blue eyes, plied with pity at the state of you.

You arrived at your family’s mansion, your body sore. Your parents did not waste time with greeting, they simply beckoned you in and explained Diana’s current situation. They did not comment on your protruding belly, nor even cast a fixed look at you, their eyes were always directed away from you. The mansion was quiet, nothing except your footsteps could be heard. It was as dim as Claude’s mansion and your parents also seemed washed out. Everything was cast in ashes and deprived of the glow it took on before.

Claude himself had asked that you go to your sister’s room, saying she wanted to see you. It was an absurd situation, having your husband be the one already there, beseeching you to see your sister. But you went along, words lost to you.

When you went into Diana’s room, it was as shrouded as the rest of the house. That thing, that which washed away all color, was the shadow of death. Diana was in bed, weaker than ever, her breathing labored. Her eyelids drooped, under her eyes was colored nearly red as her irises. She laughed pitifully when her ruby eyes fixed on you. “I’ve recovered somewhat, I can sit up now if mother helps me.” What lay underneath that statement, the words to be left unsaid were “It won’t be long.” And you could see it, death had Diana in view.

Even so, she did look very beautiful. Even as the sight of her conveyed pain, she was still beautiful.

Suddenly, she had grown grim. Her small smile dropped. “I’m sorry.” She said, voice wavering more than before.

What could you answer to that? What would a sister who prioritizes her little sister say? You tried to conjure some half hearted words to comfort her and to make yourself seem less like a hollow husk of something born brittle.

“I love Claude” She confessed. Diana confessed her love for Claude as if she were asking for redemption before a statue in a temple. Her fingers, bony and fragile as twigs, clasped each other as if she were praying. Tears rolled down her cheeks which had changed from their natural, sweet blush, into pure ivory.

“I don’t have much time left here.” Though the room was quite warm, you thought surely there must be a draft in the room. It chilled you to the bone.

You could smell, mixed with Diana’s medications, the lingering scent of Claude in the stuffy room. It still remained even with the comings and goings of doctors, even with the seeming stream of air. That was how long he spent in her room.

“I’m afraid to be alone. I don’t want to die alone.” You have never felt more numb. Is it that you must forgive her because she’s dying? No matter what, must she be forgiven? The words passed through you like the reach of a ghost.

You couldn’t, even just shallowly without any intentions, say those words. You left as silently as you came, proper words alluding you just the same. That night, back at the mansion, Claude confronted you as soon as he had come home. He informed you that Diana had cried.

“What did you say to her? She was fine until you came.” His expression was cold.

“Nothing,” You answered lamely with the literal truth.

“Don’t lie to me,” He scoffed “Everything you’ve done so far to other people, how can I believe you? You used that same face while scheming against others without a thought.”

“That child you’re carrying, is it even mine?” He continued, words sharp as blades and aimed to cut you open the same.

In that instance, the world turned white as a snowstorm. Those words were the gentle murder of you. Everything collapsed into itself. And for a moment, you were watching from outside of your own body, passively replaying that voice.

Who knows how long that went on? You blinked and you were in bed again with the doctor in front of you.

“Madame…you’re unwell. Your body is at risk because of this pregnancy. If we act quickly, you can be saved. But that is only if you give up on having this child” The doctor grimly told you. It was clearly unpleasant to serve such an ultimatum but there was no other way it seemed.

He held your hands, his were warm like before. “No.” Your voice was thin as a weak breeze but resolute. If you could only give birth to your child, you could show Claude. That child would dispel his worst suspicions.

…Therein lies the problem. That was why Claude said what he did. You had stepped over others and became stronger for the sake of your love for Claude. You were even willing to use your child to prove your loyalty. You had schemed against many as if it was nothing. Because living otherwise, it would have been hard to protect yourself, protect the fragile semblance of a life you two had. And no matter what, you had to follow that path.

You gave birth months later after much struggle. The strain was enormous to your body, so much so that you thought you may die before the baby was even born. But when the child was finally born, it had the same golden hair as Claude. However, you never saw if the baby had his eyes.

Your vision was hazy and your life was ever diminishing with each moment. No one had even given the child to you yet, you had been watching the midwives clean them off. An impossible yearning, a doomed desire overtook you. You did not even know if it was a boy or girl but your arms would never hold them. Your eyelids grew heavier and it would seem that there was a doctor saying something to a midwife but you could hear nothing but a droning ring inside your head.

Claude had not returned home, not even out of suspicion, to see his child being born. Not even as a marquess, to see his successor. Not even as a ghost. Not even as a hallucination.

In the end, there was no one to look to. Claude was tending solely to Diana even on the day his child was born. Diana had said she was afraid to die alone but Claude had been by her side all this time. You were afraid too. Uselessly afraid of what was before your eyes.

You didn’t want to be brought back. This time was enough to show you that you were not meant to live in this world. You never wanted to again.

tags (i'm doing this on desktop so forgive me if it's not right on mobile): @kage-tobiuo @kreishin @rosephantomhive @yeahdrarry @splaterparty0-0 @dear-dairiess @qluvrv @hafsuhhh @eissaaaa @ayolk @doan-19 @fourcefulcupid @ariachaos @cerisearan

Next

#claude x diana #claude de alger x reader #claude x reader #wmmap claude #claude de alger obelia #wmmap x reader #wmmap fanfic

[cambion-companion]

WE are NOT the ones “uwu-ing” Aemond. The showrunners took book Aemond and wrote him into a way more complex character. Yes, they did that by amping up his trauma. That’s how a lot of people like to write their “tragic downfall” characters.

They made it a point to show him looking sad as a kid, they made it a point to show him being bullied and lamenting to his mother, they said multiple times in interviews that he was “bullied mercilessly, treated cruelly, made to feel powerless,” and THEN, they added more trauma on top of that.

They had him lose an eye unfairly instead of how it was in the book (Luke actually did save Jace from being cruelly beaten in the book. It was self-defense). But in the show it’s Aemond that gets jumped by four kids and fights them off. He gets his eye cut out after being disarmed by sand in his face.

Then the writers decided to give him daddy issues by having Viserys ignore his injury in favor of Rhaenyra. They had Viserys neglect all of his children with Alicent, leaving those kids with clear issues because of it. Aemond’s cold look up at Viserys when the old man demands answers as his king was no throwaway shot. That kid hated his father.

But the writers weren’t done yet. They then decided, “Hey! Aemond has childhood bullying, physical, and parental trauma? Let’s give him sexual trauma too! Hahahaha!”

It was his 13th birthday when Aegon took him to that brothel. Kids can’t consent. Once again, Aemond is a mirror of his mother in that he was pressured into inappropriate sexual relations in his early teens. He was 13. Alicent was 14-15. And people think his discomfort around that older woman at the brothel isn’t real. The writers just threw that in and they ultimately didn’t have to, but now it messed up Aemond further.

And the cherry on top? Because these writers apparently hadn’t had enough with their “uwu” fav? They made Luke’s death an unintentional consequence of Aemond’s angry outburst. It was a mistake, and now Aemond has to go through even more as he is branded a kinslayer, likely ruptures his relationship with his mother, loses his toddler nephew and his sister to madness. He’s going to snap under the weight of his guilt and agony. THAT is when you’ll all get your book Aemond, the maniacal cutthroat that burns the Riverlands to ash.

But even then, I doubt he’ll be completely unsympathetic. His relationship with Alys Rivers will likely be another way to add depth. Even crazy book Aemond was smitten with Alys, so something’s gotta give.

Again, this is the writers. Not us. We’re just talking about it and speculating. Show Aemond was shown to be kind and loving with his mother and sister. He was shown as being reserved and quiet as a kid, not cruel. They made his dragon claiming scene feel heroic.

He even seemed willing to be friendly with Jace at Laena’s funeral, and his famous “lost an eye, gained a dragon” line was softened by his, “Do not mourn me, Mother.” That changed the line from being a boast to being a consoling statement for his mom, who had sworn to him that he would have a dragon one day. The version of show Aemond is a beautiful and tormented character, destined to have a tragic downfall. People should be celebrating this, not getting mad at it.

😍 hi Anon, I'm kissing you on the mouth rn.

#aemond targaryen #house of the dragon #answered ask #aemond one eye #aemond stannies #game of thrones #hotd #hotd aemond #prince aemond #aemond #aemond one eye targaryen #prince aemond targaryen #aemond hotd #pro aemond targaryen #pro team green #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #dance of dragons #george rr martin #house of the dragon aemond #house targaryen

[ash5monster01]

Goes On Chapter Twelve

Pairing: Charlie Dalton x OC!FemReader

Warnings: 18+, depression, mentions of suicide, heavy topics, eventual smut, slow burn romance, fluff, gender themes/stereotypes.

Summary: Against his best efforts Charlie has to start at a new preparatory school after the tragic events that took place at Welton. The very events that led to the loss of his best friend and getting expelled in the first place. He has no plans to make friends let alone get close to anyone ever again. That is until he meets Evelyn and her interesting group of friends. No matter how hard he tries to push them away he finds it to be impossible. So he caves and in the end learns that life can still be enjoyable even if it feels like everyone is against you.

word count: 2.9k

Eleven ←→ Thirteen

Masterlist

Ridge Academy, NY

3/26/60

Dating in a private school could be difficult. Evelyn had listened to Violet complain about it for years but until now she hadn’t realized how true it was. It had been a month of dating Charlie and every day people still gave her a hard time and she felt like neither of them had any privacy. Even the dates at the cafe on campus didn’t feel real due to so many peering eyes. It was like animals in a zoo and Evelyn was tired of it. Especially since she still felt like she was getting to know Charlie. There was still so much there he hadn’t given her access too and she partly blamed it on this damn school.

So she had been grumpy. Which wasn’t usual for the girl but she was just annoyed. Sick and tired of waiting for the world to finally let her have and enjoy something for once. She finally found someone she enjoyed being with and liked, so why the hell couldn’t the universe provide her with a break? Allow her a chance to date her first boyfriend like every girl should. Not with the overlooking eyes but with an innocence that comes with experiencing all the things you hadn’t before.

“If you’re not careful your face’ll get stuck like that” Charlie muttered, leaning toward her on the couch and rubbing a thumb over the crease between her brows. Evelyn’s face instantly softened, heart yearning for the boy beside her.

“I’m sorry” she told him, legs shifting in his lap. The library had become a sort of safe haven for the two, cradling their budding love between the stacks of hundreds of books. At first Evelyn thought it was romantic but now she just felt annoyed that this was the only place she felt any privacy with the boy beside her.

“Don’t be, what’s on your mind?” the chestnut haired boy asks and Evelyn sighs, head leaning back against the couch.

“I just wish we could be alone” she tells him and Charlie chuckles, eyes glancing around the semi empty space around them.

“We are alone” he says and she groans, head shaking against the back of the cushions, brunette tresses falling in all directions.

“No I mean alone away from this school. I feel like everywhere we go there is someone we know. Relationships shouldn’t be so monitored” Evelyn counters and Charlie gives a understanding look because he knows exactly what she means. Even now there is a librarian twenty feet away and if he sneaks into her room at night it’s only bound to be interrupted by Violet or her be there the entire time. When he had wanted girls to attend Welton he had never considered the watchful eye factor, people like Nolan and Mr. McAllister watching your every move. He could see himself now sneaking his girl out to the old Indian Cave just to get some alone time, and then it hit him.

"What if we just left campus" he says and a shocked look paints Evelyn's face quickly.

"We can't, not without written permission from a parent and I don’t know about your parents but mine would definitely not sign off on me running around with a boy" she defends quickly and Charlie laughs, pulling her closer and hoping the librarian doesn't look up to bust them both.

"I didn't say anything about asking for permission" he grins, mischief sparkling in his eyes and the gears finally start turning in her head. It wouldn't be impossible. A few right moves and they both could be off and into the night, returning in the mask of the dark, and no one would know a thing.

"Okay, let's do it" she agrees quickly and he smiles wide, squeezing her as he presses a soft kiss to the side of her head.

"What do you say about 7:30, meet past the gate and behind the tree line?" and the nerves start to bubble in Evelyn's stomach but she smiles and agrees anyway.

"Perfect, but now I have to get ready!" and before Charlie could protest, Evelyn was up and out of her seat, scurrying in the direction of the dorms so she could get dressed for her first very real date. Sighing he leans back into the couch, a smile on his face from how much he adored her. Only once in a while did he feel despair about getting so close when he had promised himself not to. Those were only during the dark moments though, the moments where he couldn't stop his mind from thinking about how much he would miss her if she suddenly went away and then those thoughts would bring him right back to Neil. He wished he had appreciated him more when he was here. With this thoughts now swirling in his head he did the one thing that always made him feel better.

"Yeah, hi. I'm calling for Todd Anderson" Charlie said once the phone line picked up and whatever twelve year old blazer boy answered was off in search of his meek friend that could be the only one to calm him down during this time.

"Hello" Todd said after a few moments, voice coming out staticky from the phone and hundred miles inbetween them.

"Hey Todd, it's Charlie" he responded quickly, trying to keep his voice even as he tried to get the panic and sadness to go away.

"Hey Charlie, what’s going on? It's not Wednesday" Todd said, confusion laced in his voice and Charlie chuckled, a little sad because he could picture exactly what the boys face looked like right now. The overbearing weight of wanting to be back at Welton swallowing him whole. How torn the world must be if he still wished he was back at that dreaded school.

"I know, it's just- I have a date tonight" Charlie spoke softly and Todd grinned wide on the other end. The image of his overcondienct and cocky friend coming to mind. The one he knew, not knowing the new person he had become.

"Hey that's awesome Charlie, is it Evelyn?" Todd questioned, coming to know the girl from how the boy had talked about her. He knew it would only be a matter of time before he couldn’t stop himself from going after her. Todd was starting to get used to always being right.

"Yeah it’s her, it's just-.." and Charlie clamped his mouth shut, suddenly feeling silly for feeling this way. He was Charlie Dalton for Christ sake, he was confident, smart, and a womanizer. Why would he be calling quiet Todd Anderson about it?

"You can tell me Charlie" Todd spoke, finally sensing the discomfort coming from the boy he hadn't seen in person since before Christmas. Charlie took a moment, collecting himself before responding.

“What if I get to close and lose her too?” He whispered, voicing his worries out loud for the very first time. Todd was taken aback, shocked to hear the words that just left his mouth. Then it dawned on him that Neil was Charlie’s best friend, the one guy who had been by his side for the entirety of his days at Welton. Todd had only known Neil four months for him to become important to him, he couldn’t imagine a lifetime. Neil had already been gone more than half the amount of time Todd had known him but for Charlie it was different. For Charlie it was losing the one real person who loved you your entire life.

“Does she know?” Todd asked, curious if Charlie had disclosed the tragic event that had all changed them entirely for the rest of their lives. Yet Charlie’s silence was enough of an answer in itself.

“No one does, well except my room mate. I just didn’t want it to define me” Charlie finally told him, realizing the weight in his chest he has been carrying this whole time over not grieving properly. He had yet to be comforted for the loss of his friend and that had made it hard to get over. Hard to move on.

“You should tell her, it won’t change anything but until you do, can she ever really begin to understand you?” and Charlie remembered exactly why he had called Todd in the first place. He had become his new voice of reason since Neil died and he knew the exact right thing to say.

“I just don’t want her to see me differently” Charlie admitted and Todd wished he was there to give his friend a hug. He remembered not liking Charlie much at first. He thought his outgoing spirit was dangerous and that it put him in a position to be targeted amongst the group. Yet he failed to notice just how loyal the boy was and now he wished that during the time they did spend together he got to know him better.

“You are different Nuwanda. What matters is if you own it” Todd told him and Charlie chuckled lightly, fighting the tears that burned at the back of his eyes.

“I’ll tell her when I’m ready, I promise” he finally said and Todd accepted this answer not wanting to push him too far, so he decided to leave him with just this.

“Just remember you may never be ready” Todd says knowing his own grief had changed him entirely as a man. He was still living out his punishment with Nolan. It was funny how Nolan used to be annoyed with how outspoken he was but the moment he speaks up he gets silenced.

“Thanks Todd, I’ll talk to you later” Charlie smiled, feeling much better than before about this date.

“Good luck” Todd bid him goodbye and then the receiver clicked before indicating the dead line and Todd was gone, leaving Charlie no choice but to get ready and face his fears.

It’s not long until 7:30 hits, Charlie had been hiding in the tree line since 7. Wanting to lessen the chances of both of them getting caught and take the time to prepare himself for a real date. He may have always been cool with the women but he had truly never been on a proper date before. Especially with a girl like Evelyn, she deserved to be swept off her feet. He jumps when the sound of a branch snapping fills his ears but he quickly calms when he sees the foot is one with a kitten heel and not loafers that belonged to a teacher ready to bust him.

“That was thrilling” Evelyn whispers despite not needing to. They were far enough away now that no one would be able to hear him. Yet her words don’t register in Charlies head because as his eyes move up from her feet they find leg. Lots and lots of leg until right at her knees he is met with baby blue tulle, the skirt making her look like an angel on a cloud. It gets even better when he meets the sweetheart neckline, strained over her chest and looking so inviting. The silver chain necklace around her neck makes him shiver. Finally his eyes meet her own, just in time to spot the grin she wears from watching him check her out.

“I’m beginning to regret this idea of going out and not staying in now” Charlie says, shifting a little as he prepared to approach her. Evelyn just shook her head and reached for him anyways, not giving him much choice in the matter.

“I already convinced Violet to stay in Marty’s room until at least 3am, so we have time” she whispers before pulling him close and capturing his lips in her own. Charlie hums as she kisses him soft and sweet, agonizingly slow and leaving him wanting more. “Right now I just want my boyfriend to take me on a date”

“Then let’s do it” Charlie smiles at her, stealing one more kiss before lacing his fingers through her own and starting them on the walk.

It takes only a mile before they’re met with the sight of town, one Charlie had only been in a handful of times since coming here. Evelyn takes lead on picking the restaurant considering she had been in Ridge much longer than he ever had. It’s no surprise when she picks the small diner opposed to somewhere nicer. People gave the pair looks walking in all dressed up just for some burgers and shakes but neither of them minded when they finally found a booth. Floor sticky and table greasy, it was perfect for two kids just beginning to fall in love.

“I’ve never been on a real date before?” Evelyn admits, taking the red and white stripe straw between her lips and taking a sip of her chocolate shake. Charlie just smiled, his own strawberry shake in his hand.

“You’re telling me none of those guys in that co-ed school snuck you off campus to take you on proper date?” He teases, voice full of amusement as he looks at her.

“No Charles, they haven’t. Yet that’s the thing about co-ed schools. The boys don’t understand to appreciate it more” she says, thinking about all the boys she grew up with who never learned to be gentlemanly or even nervous in her presence.

“Idiots, I didn’t talk to a girl until I was thirteen” Charlie says with the shake of his head, smiling as the waitress sets down burgers and fries for them both. He grins at the way Evelyn has one fry shoved in her mouth before it even hits the table.

“How come you’re not nervous around girls then?” Evelyn inquires, grabbing some salt to put on her fries and on Charlie’s before setting it down.

“I figured there was never any reason to be. If I wanted to have a fighting chance I couldn’t just gape at a girl like a fish, I had to snag her before some other idiot did” and Evelyn’s laughing loudly at the explanation, other customers looking over and chuckling at the young kids on their night out.

“Well lucky for you no other idiots in that school liked me and I learned to accept that a long time ago” Charlie’s stiffens as the words leave her mouth, thinking of his friend who was probably in their shared dorm wondering where the hell he was. His friend who was the only one to know anything about him here. If only Nate had said something before he had fallen for the girl but now it was far too late.

“Idiots indeed” Charlie agrees before grabbing his burger and taking a large bite. Evelyn just smiles, mimicking his movements and doing the same. When some mustard gets smeared on Charlies cheek she’s quick to giggle and wipe it away.

As the night progresses the conversation continues to flow, laughter and smiles filling the space between them. It’s not long until plates are empty and stomachs are full. At some point Charlie even ends up on Evelyn’s side of the booth, arm wrapped around her as he recalls tales from his Welton days. Evelyn particularly likes the ones about Knox and all the things he did to gain the attention of Chris. Sadly it was getting close to curfew so Charlie threw some cash on the table and led the girl out the booth and back in the dreaded direction of the school, feeling guilty for still not telling her the truth about his past.

“That was much easier than expected” Evelyn says, swinging their interlocked hands between them. Charlie just laughs, eyes glancing down at her in the moonlight.

“It’s not over yet, now we have to sneak back in” Charlie informs her and she just rolls her eyes, leaning closer to him the closer they get to the school.

“I almost don’t want to go back in” she says when the gate comes into view and Charlie glances at his watch, noting there still was just forty minutes until curfew. Before Evelyn can say anything more he has her pressed up against one of the trees and he doesn’t miss the sharp breath she takes in.

“Then let’s not, at least for a little bit” he tells her and before she can agree he has his lips on hers, tipping her head back and against the tree. Evelyn settles into the kiss fairly quickly, hands coming to rest on his chest. Charlie finds his own comfort in the kiss, keeping a hand at her waist and the other on her face, making sure she kept access for him. He loved how she still tasted faintly of chocolate shake and how she relaxed into his arms. He hadn’t kissed many girls in his lifetime but none of them could ever compare.

“That was the best first date” Evelyn mutters when he finally gives her a chance to breath, lips trailing down her neck and to the top of her chest that he could barely keep his eyes off of all night. When his fingers tangle into her necklace he finally begins to pull away.

“Agreed, what do you say we do it again?” and Evelyn giggles as his lips meet her neck again. Smiling she reaches to tangle her fingers in his hair and memorize this moment to keep in her heart forever.

“Anytime Charlie”

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