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sour--disposition · 3 years

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End Of The Road

harry lewis x fem!reader

please check my masterlist to see if my requests are currently open

You’d met Harry whilst on a trip to Guernsey with friends from university and you’d never really gone home. You were visiting the hometown of one of your flatmates, after they’d boasted about the beautiful sea views that everyone had to see at least once.

And then you met Harry.

To you, Harry was the goofy kid you’d met in one of the hidden beach coves you’d been taken to. He was where you went on your holidays from university, wherever he was. You felt like you’d found a future in Harry, with Harry, on that beach that day.

Harry would fly you out to wherever he was as soon as you had time off from your studies, he’d pay first class train fares for you to come to London and get you the best tickets for a ferry over to Guernsey. Harry’s friends and family had made you feel welcome and loved and wanted, almost as much as Harry did.

Until you tried to surprise him.

Harry knew you were due to finish university soon, but you’d never given him an exact date of when to expect you. You’d given him excuses about moving out and seeing friends now that you had the time, all the while planning on coming down to London to surprise him as soon as you could.

You’d arranged it with Cal, who knew when you were coming. Even some of his friends knew when you were coming down, but you only told them if they promised to keep it a secret from Harry. And, so far, they’d held up their end of the bargain.

You were trudging through the middle of Kings Cross station, battling your way to the car park pick-up where you were expecting to meet your Uber driver. It felt like the day was trying to annoy you. Your train had been delayed before you’d even gotten to the platform, and then you had to wait in the rain since the waiting rooms at the station were closed, someone had taken your seat on the train so you had to argue with them over that, and now your suitcase seemed to slip into every single minute crack in the floor.

Once you slid your way into the back of the Uber, you let out a deep breath. The next person you saw would be Harry. You would see Harry and Harry would see you and all of the palaver you had been through would be worth it because, as much as the two of you tried, it had been weeks since you’d seen each other. FaceTime calls seemed to be getting less and less, too, but you chose to chalk that up to an over-critical, overactive mind.

You zoned out as you were whisked through the dark streets of London. A long final semester followed by a long day of travelling mixed with a dash of (possibly imagined) relationship doubt had started to take its toll on you. You wanted nothing more than a long, hot shower and to curl up into bed in Harry’s arms and sleep for a week or two.

Even though Cal had already told you he’d be out for the night, you sent him a text when you arrived at the apartment building, just so someone would know you’d made it into London safely.

You couldn’t help but tap your foot and fiddle with anything that was in reaching distance once you’d made it into the lift. The pent up anxiety and exhaustion mixing together was a strange feeling in of itself. You counted the floors and the lift rose, not taking your eye off of the moving counter until it drew to a slow stop, the doors sliding open in front of your face.

You walked down the hall to Harry’s flat, letting yourself in with the key he’d had cut for you as an anniversary present. You left your stuff quietly by the door, sneaking through the flat in the direction of Harry’s room.

You could hear noises coming from in his room, but you presumed he was editing a video or filming something for either his second channel or one of the Sidemen channels. You opened the door slowly, hoping not to make too much noise as you snuck into his room.

You turned around, expecting to see Harry lounging on his bed or hunched over his computer. You didn’t expect to see him with his tongue down another girl’s throat.

“What the fuck?”, the girl screeched when she moved her head and saw you standing there, eyes wide and already flooding with tears. “Who the fuck are you?”, she asked you accusingly.

Harry pulled his face out of the girl’s neck, expecting to see Cal or an intruder. “Y/N...”, he trailed off quietly. “It’s not what it looks like”, he started, “I didn’t realise - you said - you never told me-”, Harry stumbled, trying to stand up.

“It’s not what it looks like!? It looks like you’re about to fuck some other girl, Harry”, you all but shouted at him, shocking both him and the girl still awkwardly in his bed. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted to surprise you, because I haven’t seen you in weeks”, you told him. By this point, the tears that were building up had begun to spill over, slowly rolling down your cheeks.

“I-”, Harry started, mouth hanging open as he tried to find the words to say. “I think you should go”, he said quietly, turning to face the girl who was trying to awkwardly straighten out her clothes without making too much of a commotion.

She nodded, standing up and gathering her things before slipping out of the room. She mumbled a soft ‘sorry’ to you as she walked past, causing you to scoff and glare at Harry.

“Are you going to try and explain, or are you going to stand there looking like a fish out of water?”, you asked him accusingly. Harry’s face darkened.

“Explain? What do you want me to tell you? You’ve barely spoken to me the past few months, and when I’ve seen you you’ve been ‘too tired’ to do anything. You don’t want to spend time with me anymore, Y/N!”, Harry shouted at you.

“Harry, you’ve known since we met that I’m at university. I was juggling a long distance relationship, a part-time job that was asking too much of me, job hunting for once I graduate and writing my final year dissertation. What did you want me to do? I can’t be in two places at once, Harry!”, you shouted, moving your arms around in anger.

“You made me feel like shit, Y/N. Like you don’t fucking love me!”, Harry hurled at you accusingly, like this was somehow your fault. “I always made time for you, whether I was at home or here or somewhere else”.

“Are you forgetting how many days I sat here in the flat on my own or with just Cal because you were at shoots? I never said a fucking word about it, because I knew I’d signed up to that when I fell in love with you. You think walking into the room and seeing you all over some other girl made me feel loved? Made me feel appreciated?”, you yelled, ignoring how cool your tears felt on your burning skin.

“This isn’t my fault. Y/N!”, Harry yelled, storming over to you. You flinched slightly, making Harry stop short. “What? You - You think I’d hurt you?”, he asked quietly, recoiling into himself.

“Well, you clearly have no fucking problem hurting me!”, you snapped, wrapping your arms tightly around your body.

“I’d never hurt you, Y/N”, Harry murmured into the silence of the room.

“Really? Then why the fuck did I walk in here to see you with your tongue down someone else’s neck, Harry. That’s pretty fucking hurtful, if you ask me. And then you have the fucking gall to tell me it’s not your fault? Nobody made you bring her here, nobody made you cheat on me!”, you spat.

“It’s not been going on that long. Now that you’ve finished uni you can come down here and we can work on us again, right?”, Harry asked, awkwardly reaching out to you.

You took a step back, making sure he couldn’t reach you. Anger swirled inside of you, demanding to bubble up and lash out at Harry, and at this point to were too tired to even attempt to rein it in. “Oh yeah, sure”, you snarled. “I’ll just uproot my life and move down to London to be with a man who’d rather cheat on me than ask if everything’s okay between us”. You looked at Harry, waiting for him to say something, but he kept his mouth shut, looking around awkwardly. “Is you telling me it’s not being going on for long supposed to make me feel better? Woohoo, you’ve only been cheating on me for a month or two, not our entire relationship. No, Harry. We’re over. Done. You can’t come back from this”, you told him bluntly.

You turned around to leave his bedroom, storming down into the living room, coming face to face with Cal. “What’s going on? The neighbours called to ask if everything was okay because they heard yelling, you weren’t answering your phone so I came over”, Cal said softly, taking in the tears running down your face and neck.

Harry scoffed behind you. “And I’m the cheat, yeah?”, he snarked. Cal’s eyes widened before his face filled with fury. You put your hand on his chest.

“Can you call Freya and Josh to come pick me up? From the kitchen? Please?”, you asked, instructed him, pointing him over to the kitchen. He nodded, glowering eyes not leaving Harry until they had to.

“I wouldn’t dare cheat on you”, you snapped at Harry. “Every time you left me here to go film, I had no one to talk to but Cal. If me having the audacity to not sit in silence on my own for hours on end when I come and see my boyfriend makes me the unfaithful one here, then sue me. But last time I checked, the only person I’ve gotten into bed with in the last 18 months is you. You can’t tell me the same thing”, your voice raised as you spoke, your words all but nailing Harry to the wall.

Cal came over slowly, “They’re on their way over now”, he told you.

You marched back up to Harry’s room, collecting up everything that belonged to you in your arms. “What are you doing?”, Harry asked you from the door, voice sounding more fit for an innocent 5 year old.

“Getting my stuff”, you replied bluntly.

“Why?”.

“What about this situation makes you think I ever want to see you again, Harry? I could never trust you, ever again. You’ve ruined us. What about ‘we’re over’ doesn't make sense to you?”, you asked him incredulously, slipping past him to walk back downstairs and put your stuff into a bag.

“But - We can fix it, right?”, he asked, voice small.

“You blamed me, Harry! You said it wasn’t your fault! You think I don’t already feel bad enough? I know things have been rough and I know I’ve been distant and God, I feel like shit about it. I’m exhausted, Harry. I’m trying my best and clearly that’s not good enough for you, but don’t you dare go blaming me for that girl being in your bed. That one is all on you”, you told him sternly.

A knock on the door interrupted whatever Harry was going to try and say. Cal walked over, letting Josh and Freya into the apartment. “Y/N?”, Freya asked softly from the entryway. You turned away from Harry, walking over to Freya and into her arms.

For the first time that night, you let yourself cry. Heaving sobs were released into Freya’s chest and she held on to you, held you together. Over yours and Freya’s shoulders, Josh glared at Harry. A glare filled with anger and disappointment that made Harry shrink into himself even more.

“Come on, you need something to eat and drink and some sleep, you look shattered”, Josh told you. As Freya ushered you out of the door and to the lift, Cal handed Josh your bag and coat and pointed out your suitcase to him.

“Tell her I’ll speak to her in a bit, yeah?”, he asked Josh, who only nodded and showed himself out of the apartment, following you and Freya to the lift.

Cal took one look at Harry, his dishevelled appearance and the lost look in his eye, scoffed, and picked up his phone. “What do I do?”, Harry asked as Cal started to walk away.

“I’m not gonna start giving you advice, Bog. You’re one of my best mates but, man, you fucked up. Y/N is good, she was good for you. She would have moved heaven and earth for you if you needed her to, would have done anything you asked without a second thought. The one time in the 18 months you’ve been together she needed to be selfish, you were too pathetic to take it on the chin and you went and pulled someone else into your bed”, he told Harry.

“You like her, don’t you?”, Harry accused, no heat behind his words but the attempt was there.

“Of course I do, I have since the day I met her. But she was your girlfriend, I was just the accommodating best friend and flat mate who kept her company and bought her pizza when you abandoned her for days at a time for shoots”.

“I’ve really fucked up”, Harry whispered. Cal made a snarky noise in agreement, before turning his back and walking off to his room before he did or said something to Harry that he would regret in the long run.

At Freya and Josh’s, you’d showered and changed into sweats and a hoodie and were wrapped up in a blanket between the two of them on the couch as you all but cried into a bowl of Chinese food.

“I don’t want to lose of all you guys”, you whimpered quietly.

“You won’t, you silly goose”, Freya tutted. “You really think me, Gee and Talia would let you get away that easily. Or Josh and the other guys? No way. Sure, things are gonna change a bit, but just because...”, she trailed off, not wanting to even say Harry’s name. “Just because circumstances change, doesn’t mean we don’t love you, Y/N”, she told you, reaching over to squeeze your hand.

You had a long road ahead, there was no doubt about that. But with the friends you’d made over the last 18 months, you knew that you would never be taking that road alone. Freya was right, you couldn’t leave her, Gee and Talia now, you’d become too close. The boys were like family as well, albeit it a very dysfunctional family.

But, like all families, you’d find a way to make it work.

#harry lewis imagine #wroetoshaw imagine #w2s imagine #harry lewis x reader #wroetoshaw x reader #w2s x reader #harry lewis #wroetoshaw #w2s #sidemen #sidemen imagine #sidemen oneshot #calfreezy #josh zerker #freya nightingale #uk youtube imagine #uk youtube

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elsanna-shenanigans · 3 years

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August Contest Submission #18: The Concrete Rose

Words: ca. 5,500 Setting: mAU Lemon: No CW: Angst, brief Hansanna

October 12, 2019

From the second Elsa saw her roommate, she knew she would become her muse.

Douglas Academy of the Arts produced hundreds of graduates every year already with an astounding, artistic reputation. Anyone that had a future in the arts ran through Douglas Academy first. But that prestige came at a price, success at all costs meant that almost everyone was cold and cutthroat; no one was a classmate, everyone was competition.

It was a mantra that all the students bought into except for two people: Elsa and her roommate Anna. From a simple handshake and a peace offering in the form of a chocolate bar (“The vending machine accidentally gave me two, how lucky is that?!”), Anna stood out from everyone else in Elsa’s eyes.

They became quick friends despite how drastically different they were. Elsa was reserved and stayed in her head a lot, Anna loved people and spoke every thought that came to her. Elsa was constantly second-guessing her decisions and had a keen eye for details, Anna was more impulsive and loved seeing the bigger picture. Elsa was a sculptor who kept her works secret until they were finished, Anna was a dancer who would always post videos of her practicing for her latest performance.

The one thing they had in common was their need to support the other.

One day well into their first semester, Anna barged into Elsa’s room with a flyer that she’d gotten in almost all her classes: an advertisement for the 3-D Art Showcase in three weeks. “You’re doing this, right?” she asks, pushing the flyer in front of Elsa’s face. “You’re entering a thingie into the thing?”

Elsa plucked the flyer out of Anna’s hands and turned back around in her chair, “Not a chance. I heard first years get eaten alive at these showcases, I’ll wait until next year.”

“Oh come on! You’d kick so much ass if you entered something. Remember that clay canary you made me?” Anna pressed her palms against Elsa’s shoulders, which almost knocked the pencil out of the unexpecting sculptor’s hands.

Elsa shook her head, “That was different. I’d have to make like… something fancy and intricate if I want to even be considered for the showcase.”

“Well, can’t you at least try? Please?” Anna slid her hands down so she could wrap her arms around Elsa’s shoulders from behind. “I can help you just like you helped me while I was rehearsing my first interpretive dance.”

It took a while for Elsa to get used to Anna’s touchiness, but she learned to accept it. This was just another thing that added to Anna’s eclectic personality, and besides Elsa was a big fan of the rosemary body wash she was using. “Anna, all I did was press play on your speaker.”

“Which helped out a lot!” Anna assured her. “You know how much energy I could have wasted doing that myself?”

“… not a lot?”

“Just think about joining, okay? Knowing you, I bet you probably have like five ideas running through your head and when you pick one, I’ll do whatever I can to help turn that idea into something concrete.”

Well if thinking about it was all that Anna was asking her to do, then Elsa could do that. Less commitment that way. And she was right, of course, there were five ideas floating around in Elsa’s mind but none of them she could latch on to and say that that was the one to work on. “Alright fine,” she said after a dramatically heavy sigh, “I’ll think about it.”

“That’s my girl! Oh shit, I’m gonna be late for rehearsal!” Anna sprinted out of Elsa’s room to grab her dancing shoes. Before slamming their shared door shut, she said, “If you eat my spaghetti, I’ll kill you!”

November 5, 2019

There was something that Anna told her that day which stuck with Elsa much more than she thought it would.

Turning an idea into something concrete.

What if she sculpted something out of concrete? It was a near guarantee that a lot of the sculptors entering the showcase would be using clay, recycled metals, or wood; using concrete would probably help her stand out and better her chances of being picked. After a researching how to make this work, and some choice words of encouragement and dancing from Anna, Elsa set to work getting everything she needed for her crazy idea.

There was still, of course, one glaring problem: What was she going to sculpt?

Her answer came to her during Anna’s first performance of the semester. It was an interpretive dance that told the story of a young gladiator fighting for the freedom of his sister who was enslaved by a vindictive landowner. Her ability to tell this story without words (not even in the song she chose) wowed the audience and inspired Elsa as she waited for every beat of the story she’d seen Anna tell maybe a hundred times in their dorm.

Elsa decided to recreate one of the poses Anna did where she jumped in the air and punched her arm out like she was thrusting a spear into an unseen adversary. It was a painstaking process that tested her dexterity and her patience even more so, she shut herself in her room until it was finished. In the end, the sculpture was much smaller than she wanted it to be because she underestimated how much concrete mix she actually needed. And a piece of Anna’s skirt chipped off because it refused to stick to the wire mesh. Still, overall she was very impressed with herself.

And so it seemed was the showcase committee, because she was given one of the last remaining spots on the showcase floor.

Elsa somehow found a way to keep Anna from seeing it beforehand, so when she went with her roommate to the showcase, her reaction was genuine.

Anna gasped, “Holy shit, is this me?! She’s so pretty!”

Everyone in the building looked at them with judgmental glares, especially the judges. Elsa didn’t mind all that much, she wasn’t expecting to take a ribbon home, this was more about proving she could hang with Douglas’ best and to thank Anna for supporting her these past few months.

“I ran out of time to add details to the face, so I kept it blank,” Elsa explained. “I hope it doesn’t look too creepy.”

Anna shook her head, “No, I love it! It’s like… it fits so much with Henry’s character, the gladiator I mean. He presents himself as this nobody that could be anybody, like Henry is just a faceless idea, but he stands for justice and integrity, which can speak to anyone.”

Elsa smiled, her heart fluttering from the feeling of being understood. “I’m glad you were able to see that. I think I’ll steal that explanation when the judges come over.”

“Fine, but if you win a ribbon then you’re buying me dinner. For believing in you and for being your muse.”

“Pssh, you are not my muse.” How in the world did Anna already know that?

Anna squeezed Elsa’s shoulders and smiled, her eyes seeing right past Elsa’s thin resistance. “Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Michaelangelo.”

The judges came around a few minutes later to ask her some questions and write notes on their clipboards. Anna wanted to talk her roommate up so badly but settled on providing moral support right next to Elsa as she answered the questions concisely and with the professionalism that got her into Douglas Academy in the first place.

She didn’t win a ribbon, but decided to take Anna out to dinner anyway.

December 26, 2019

“I think concrete should be your thing,” Anna said before taking another long sip of her hot chocolate.

“My thing?” Elsa asked.

“Yeah, like the thing that makes you stand out from everyone else. The thing you’re known for. Da Vinci had his inventions and paintings, Degas painted ballet dancers, you could be the concrete rose.”

Elsa chuckled, “Concrete rose? That sounds more like you than it sounds like me.”

Anna gasped, “Why Ms. Elsa, you best be careful or I might just take that as a compliment.”

“Uhh you should because it was.” Elsa gently kicked her foot forward to keep the front porch swinging. They drank their hot chocolates in silence, relishing in that post-Christmas bliss. Elsa’s family was always a little more dysfunctional around the holidays, but when Anna told her she’d be spending her Christmas in the dorms she knew that couldn’t happen. Her best friend deserved a real Christmas for the first time in forever.

When their mugs were empty, Anna spoke again, “Thank you for letting me come with you. I… maybe I would have felt a little lonelier this Christmas. And I’m happy that I’m not.”

“Anna, you’re my best friend- heck, you’re like the sister I never had. I can’t leave my sister hanging, you know?” The confession is so raw and unusual for Elsa that it doesn’t feel right coming from her lips at first, but the more this moment sat the better it felt.

She looked to Anna, her red cheeks were a sign that the cold was finally getting to her. “I had a lot of foster siblings growing up… none of them liked me all that much.”

“Well that’s their loss.”

“Thank you, Elsa. Really. Everything you do means a lot to me, I hope you know that.”

Elsa smiled and tapped her shoe against Anna’s, “Everything you do means a lot to me too.”

Anna brought the empty mug back to her lips. “So, if we’re sisters, does that mean I get to steal your clothes and burst into your room to tell you stupid nonsense?”

“You mean you don’t already do that now?” The force that Anna pushed her with almost sent Elsa off the porch swing.

October 21, 2020

Elsa and Anna complemented each other’s strengths in a way neither of them ever expected. The 3-D showcases happened four times a year, and Elsa entered every one of them with the support of Anna. There were also four major dance performances throughout the year, and Anna entered every one of them with Elsa’s support.

Anna had taken second place for interpretive dancing at the last competition, but Elsa was still looking for her first major win. She felt confident, however, in her entry for the upcoming showcase.

“I mean I love it of course, but it’s ambitious,” Anna said while looking over Elsa’s sketch. “How are you gonna carve out the bird and the cage at the same time?”

“I was thinking of making the cage and bird separate, and then putting them together,” Elsa answered. “If I get the dimensions right, I can hammer some nails underneath the cage so it stays put.”

“Hmm, alright well you sound like you know what you’re doing.” Anna handed back the sketch. “And I’m gonna support you a hundred percent. No matter what.”

“I know you will,” Elsa said while putting her arm around Anna’s shoulder. “… I think this is the one.”

“I think so too,” Anna said proudly. “And when you come back with a ribbon-”

“You’re buying me dinner.”

Anna gasped and wriggled out of her best friend’s arm, “Rude!”

Elsa rolled her eyes, “Oh please, half my budget is spent feeding you. I’m sure you can afford to buy me dinner one time.”

She saw the gears turning in Anna’s mind, trying to come up with a rebuttal, but in the end she groaned and said, “Fine, I’ll take your bum ass out for dinner, sis.”

Elsa worked harder than she ever had before, inspired once again from seeing Anna’s latest performance. It was a soliloquy in dance form, about a bird who’d spent their entire life on the move and in the hands of many owners, but never once being allowed out of its cage. It paralleled Anna’s life story: the foster child from New York who was only getting her first taste of freedom now. She paid special attention to the bird’s eyes, wanting them to emulate the longing and ambition she saw in her best friend.

The process resulted in a lot of tiny cuts and a couple of sleepless nights, but it was all worth it in the end. She won second place at the showcase.

True to her word, Anna took her out for dinner that very night on the condition that Elsa wear the obnoxiously huge, red ribbon. They had to stick it on her shirt with a safety pin. “Alright, where does Madame Second Place want to go for dinner?” Anna asked, dressed in an adorable skirt and blouse combo.

“I was kinda joking, you know?” Elsa said. “You don’t actually have to buy me dinner.”

“Oh please, you can’t get cold feet now. I mean you’re already wearing the ribbon, that’s like… I don’t know, it’s like when your high school prom date puts the corsage on you. It’s official, no backing out.”

Elsa raised an eyebrow, “What so you’re my prom date now?”

Anna pursed her lips, “Well maybe not for prom, it’s too late for that. But I’ll be your date if you want me to.”

That answer leaves Elsa speechless.

“Ooh, I know where we can go!” Anna added before Elsa could finish catching up to the millions of thoughts running through her mind. “There’s this really good Mexican place downtown. I heard they sell this burrito that’s the size of your forearm, and I have long forearms so I wanna see that. Sound good?”

Elsa blinked and said absently, “Yeah, let’s go.” They walked side by side to Anna’s car, all the while Elsa pretended she wasn’t seeing her best friend in a brand new light.

May 15, 2020

It’s a scary feeling to know that you’re in love with your best friend. Even scarier when you’ve considered them your sister for almost two years now. It’s like being strapped in to the world’s best roller coaster against your will. Sometimes it’s exhilarating and you think maybe this isn’t so bad, but most of the time you’re screaming and want to get off.

Elsa’s been on the same damn ride for months now and it hasn’t gotten any easier. But she’s accepted it, which is something she never expected.

All of Anna’s errant touches, her smiles and glances, and even just the way she says “we”… Elsa has second-guessed each and every single one of her behaviors. And yes, she would probably stop overthinking if she’d just talk to Anna but she doesn’t know how. It’s hard enough trying to have a regular conversation with her now, it’s nearly impossible approaching her with a talk about their feelings.

And even so, she’s accepted the fact that she’s fallen in love with her best friend. For the past two years, they’ve been nearly inseparable, there’s no one in the world she knows better or cares about more than Anna. Falling in love with her felt almost inevitable.

But did Anna feel the same way? Well, she’d find out soon.

For the last 3-D showcase of their second year, Elsa had been working on a particularly special project. It didn’t have to do specifically with Anna’s last performance, but it was dedicated to her nonetheless.

Rising from a slab of concrete, she sculpted out a finely detailed rose, complete with a realistic crack where the stem breaks out and defined petals spiraling into the rosebud. It represented Anna’s ability to grow and flourish from a life of a constantly uncertain home life and rough nights on the streets.

At the base of the concrete slab, she wrote ‘For Anna, for everything’. When Anna notices the inscription, that’s when Elsa would tell her how she feels.

She shut herself out from the world for a particularly long time; Anna only saw her when they were walking to classes together, and even then Elsa remained tight-lipped so as to not spoil the surprise. Her patience had to be rewarded, she figured, or else this would have all been for nothing.

When the showcase finally arrived, Elsa waited anxiously for Anna to show up. She said she would be running late because she needed to meet someone, but that was fine because it gave Elsa more time to figure out what she’d say to the judges. Which in turn helped keep her from pacing around the showcase floor like a lonely, lovesick puppy.

When the judges came, she defended the lack of complex expression and vibrancy of her piece by quoting Henry David Thoreau’s opinion on simplicity. And she covered the etching with her hand because that was one question she’d rather not answer just yet. At least not to them. The judges looked impressed with her answers and one of them even mentioned that she had a knack for giving life to her sculptures. The high from that compliment should have lasted her throughout the entire day, but it was shot down almost immediately.

When the judges left, she saw Anna walking towards her. But she wasn’t alone, she was with a guy.

And they were holding hands.

“I’m so sorry I’m late, I was waiting for this guy to get his fucking shoes on.” Anna patted the guy’s chest with a coy smile. He was tall, proper, and with fashionably thick sideburns. The way he wore his t-shirt and jeans looked awkward, as if he was ripped straight from a 19th century portrait and was forced to wear modern clothes to blend in.

“Hey in my defense, I didn’t know I was going to the showcase until you texted me like half an hour ago,” he said while wrapping her arm around Anna’s shoulders.

“Lies. And propaganda.” Anna turned to Elsa with a softer smile on her lips, which was just another hit to Elsa’s already bruising heart. “Again, I’m sorry I was late but I figured it was time for you two to meet. Elsa, this is Hans. We’ve been dating for a month now.”

A month?

A… a month.

Elsa’s doing her best to remain polite and cordial, but it’s hard when her entire body feels like it’s crumbling onto the floor. She extends a hand out anyway, wincing when Hans takes it with more strength than she’s expecting. “It-It’s nice to meet you, Hans. Anna’s lucky to have you around.” The words come out of her mouth like a rejected poison.

Anna talked some more, so did Hans, and maybe Elsa nodded and smiled when she needed to, but for the life of her she couldn’t tell you what the hell they talked about. When it came time for the… couple to examine Elsa’s sculpture, Anna beamed at her with that same pride that was on her face since day one and Hans said she did a good job. Elsa kept her hand over the inscription the entire time.

She won another second place ribbon. When Anna noticed the inscription, Elsa said it was a thank you for being a wonderful friend. Each word felt like pulling teeth.

September 4, 2020

They met at the campus coffee shop while Elsa was isolating herself. Ironically, Anna was going there to get a hot chocolate to surprise Elsa.

She brought Anna and Hans together.

It was a very lonely summer for Elsa. Since Hans lived in New Jersey, it wasn’t that hard for him to visit Anna whenever he wanted, which is exactly what he did. They spent almost every moment of the summer together, and while Elsa pretended to be happy with getting texts, the occasional phone call, and a surprise weekend visit from her best friend, none of it could stop the constant ache in her heart.

Move-in day for their third year was especially brutal, she unpacked absentmindedly while listening to Anna and Hans joke around and kiss when they thought she wasn’t looking. She tried all summer to let go of the feelings for Anna and to just be happy for her, but it felt like the more she tried, the more she held on.

“Alright, that’s the last box.” Anna wiped her hands on her jeans and looked at Elsa and then at Hans. “Let me just change out of this gross, sweaty shirt and we can get something to eat?”

“Of course, babe.” Hans kissed her and walked out of the girls’ dorm, Elsa finally let go of the breath she’d held since they started moving their stuff in.

“You’re coming with us, right?” Anna asked.

Elsa wasn’t expecting her to to talk to her, and she had to take a second for her mouth to catch up with her mind. “Uh no that’s okay,” she finally replied. “You two enjoy yourself, I want to unpack all of my stuff before I eat.”

Anna raised an eyebrow, “Are you sure? If you’re worried about being a third wheel, trust me it’s not gonna be like that.”

Elsa tapped her fingers on the stacked boxes in front of her. “No, I’m just not hungry yet. That’s all.”

“Well… alright, but I’ll bring you back some food and I won’t take no for an answer.” Anna peeled off her shirt and disappeared in her room to find a new one. From somewhere inside the room, she added, “We’ll hang out sometime soon okay? Just the two of us.”

October 1, 2020

'Sometime soon’ turned out to be nearly a month later. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but with the third year at Douglas being notoriously difficult, they needed to spend a little more time adjusting to the bigger workload and busier schedules. And any free time Anna did have was taken up by Hans…

Elsa continued to pretend to be okay, and she actually relished how busy their third year was going to be because it gave her something else to think about. A six-page essay on contour ate up time she was going to spend thinking about the sexual innuendo Hans was 'accidentally’ adding to him and Anna’s conversations.

The busy times couldn’t last forever, though, and Anna and Elsa finally found some time to spend together- just the two of them- one night on top of one of Douglas’ parking garages. It was a place they’d gone to many times just to get away from the staunch air of pressure and competition in every corner of every building underneath them. This was a place for them to breathe, a home away from a home away from home.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around as much lately,” Anna said, breaking the silence from their lack of conversation. “It’s just that this is the first relationship I’ve been in and… I don’t know, it’s exciting and new. Not that things aren’t like that with you, it’s just-”

“Anna, you don’t have to apologize. Whatever time I get to spend with you is just fine.” Elsa bites her tongue before she can say that she still wishes she had more time with Anna.

“I just don’t want you to feel like I’m neglecting you, that’s all.”

“Well, you’re not, so it’s okay. I’m okay.”

“Okay…” Anna scooted closer to her, their bare elbows touching made the nerves in Elsa’s arm tingle and send shockwaves through her entire body. “Sooooo, you want to know what I’m doing for my next performance? You know, so you can start figuring out what you’re gonna do for the showcase.”

Elsa looked away, “I don't… I think I’m gonna skip the showcase this time.” She wanted to say she was going to skip the showcase this year, but that would have set off too many alarms in Anna’s head. She could deal with the one alarm she saw going off behind her best friend’s eyes.

“How come?” she asked.

“It just looks like it’s gonna be a real busy year, and I think I need to focus on getting through it. Once I can do that, then I can start thinking about sculpting again.”

“I… see.” Anna looked out across the campus. “And that’s the only reason?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” Elsa wondered if there was something she said, or some visible part of her full of pain that she’d forgotten to cover up.

Anna shrugged, “No reason. Just wondering.”

Elsa didn’t have it in her to pry, so she also went back to looking at the buzzing nightlife of Douglas Academy. With luck, they wouldn’t have to address this ever again.

November 30, 2020

Luck remained on Elsa’s side for nearly two months, and then they returned from Thanksgiving Break. Anna had declined her invitation to spend Thanksgiving with her, and instead she spent it with Hans’ family. Who, as it turned out, was exceptionally rich.

Anna spent a good hour gushing over their massive house with the hot tubs (plural) and rooms as big as their whole dorm, and then talked about all the people that were there for Thanksgiving dinner and how amazing the food was. Knowing Anna’s struggles, Elsa tried to remain supportive while she gushed over Hans and his family and his really nice house. And then she said something that should have remained a thought.

“Sounds like you dodged a bullet not joining me for Thanksgiving.”

Anna pounced on that out-of-character remark immediately. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gosh, what could she say that wouldn’t sound passive-aggressive? Elsa decided on, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that. I’m really glad you had a good time on break.”

For a second, that looked like it would work. And then Anna closed her eyes and sighed, “Oh god… you don’t like Hans.”

Elsa didn’t say anything, which is the worst thing she could have said.

“Elsa, we’ve been going out for months now. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I…I guess I…”

Anna sighed and waved her hand, “Never mind, I guess it doesn’t matter. Look, I like you both so I don’t want things to feel awkward or whatever. What can I do to help? I want you to like Hans so that things don’t suck between us.”

There’s nothing Anna needed to do, this was a problem that Elsa had to deal with on her own. That’s what she wanted to say to her best friend. But instead, there was another disconnect between her brain and her mouth and she said something that was bound to make things worse, “You don’t even know why I don’t like him.”

Anna nodded, “You’re right. So why don't you like him?”

Elsa wrung her hands together, “Anna, we shouldn’t talk about this.”

“What? But you’re the one that brought it up.”

“I know, but it’s just not… this won’t end well.”

“Is this one of those things where the protective older sister hates every guy her sister dates and thinks that no one’s good enough for her?”

“No,” Elsa replied. And under her breath, she muttered, “I wish.”

“Elsa, we’re the only two people in your room. I heard that.” She scooted across the bed to get closer to Elsa, their fingers nearly touching were enough for Elsa to feel like her arm was on fire. “Just… tell me what’s wrong. Please?”

Though it felt like the wrong thing to do, Elsa pulled her hand away. “I don’t know if I can,” she replied. “Can we drop it please? For now?”

“… okay.”

December 13, 2020

This was the longest time Elsa and Anna had gone without talking to each other. Sure, they were polite and fake when Hans was hanging out in their dorm, and they still said good morning and whatnot to each other, but they hadn’t made an effort to really talk to each other in two weeks.

Knowing this was her fault, Elsa set out to craft an apology to Anna. After deciding on recreating the canary she made her during their first year, this time in concrete, she went to work quickly on creating the mesh outline for it. One night, during this process, she heard a knock on her door. A knock that could only belong to one person.

She took a deep breath and then opened her door. “Hey Anna,” she said far too generically.

“Do you love me?”

Elsa tensed up so much she almost tore her doorknob off. Any answer would have been a good one, but instead she remained frozen in silence.

“Hans and I had a fight and he said…well I mean he thought that… areyou in love with me?”

Still as a statue, much like the concrete rose Anna’s holding in her hand, Elsa somehow found her voice long enough to say, “Anna, I didn't…”

Anna nodded, and in the darkness of their shared loft Elsa could finally see that her best friend had been crying recently. “I should have known. I’m sorry.” She walked away, pressing the concrete rose closer to her chest, and disappeared into her room.

January 20, 2021

Though their relationship had hit an all-time low, Elsa felt it was wrong not going to Anna’s performance. She still very much wanted to support her best friend even if they still weren’t talking all that much. But Anna smiled at her the other day and that… gave Elsa hope somehow? Either way, it was enough to get her to stop being a coward and show up to the performance.

She arrived at the auditorium just in time to see Anna walk on to the stage, but not with enough time to find a seat. So she stood by the entrance awkwardly as the music began playing through the speakers. What conspired for the next five minutes was the most poignant expression of heartbreak and longing that Elsa had ever seen in dance form.

It started off as a simple ballroom dance, and though Anna had no partner you wouldn’t realize it in the way she moved. But her mystery partner continued to pull away no matter how many times Anna chased after them. When the partner disappeared, Anna continued to dance alone and while her moves were perfect and calculated, she let her posture slump with every break in the song. By the end, she’s nearly dragging herself along the floor hoping to make it to the end of the song, all the while reaching out for someone. Something. The song ends with her laying on the floor breathing heavily and the audience erupting in applause.

And for the first time in a very long time, Elsa felt a jolt of inspiration.

February 15, 2021

Elsa sat by the base of her sculpture. The judges had come to talk to her long ago and spectators were slowly trickling out of the building, but she couldn’t leave yet. In fact, she’d wait all night long for Anna if she had to. The note she left underneath Anna’s door even said so.

This had to be the fastest yet most detailed sculpture she’d ever created and there were no doubts as to what inspired her. Time continued to tick away, and Elsa continued to sit.

Finally, after an eternity, she saw the familiar silhouette of her best friend walking through the door. She was wearing the same skirt and blouse that made Elsa fall in love with her in the first place.

Quietly, Anna closed the gap until they were a couple of feet apart. “I got your note,” she said softly.

Elsa nodded, “I watched your performance.”

“Oh, I… I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”

“I was in the back of the auditorium. But it was beautiful, I’ve never seen anyone move like you do. I’ve never seen anyone express heartbreak like you did.” Elsa wrung her hands together, “I’m sorry if this is inappropriate, but did you and Hans…”

Anna nodded, “A couple of months ago, actually. But my performance, it… wasn’t about him.”

“It wasn’t?”

“No, it…” Anna took her first glimpse at Elsa’s sculpture and it completely threw her off. “Oh my god.”

Immortalized in concrete was Anna in a stunning ball gown, her face content while she swayed in the arms of her dance partner. Except unlike the gladiator sculpture, Anna’s partner was completely visible.

And it was Elsa.

“I know it’s a little forward, but it didn’t feel right having you dance alone,” Elsa replied. And with much less confidence, she added, “Is that okay?”

Anna looked at her, confusion settled on her face. But then that confusion chipped away slowly but surely until a beautiful smile was seen in its place. “It’s perfect,” Anna replied, “Y-you did it again.”

Elsa blushed, “Well, I do have a pretty wonderful muse.”

“Well, I think that muse owes you dinner. What do you say?” Anna reached out her hand, eyes telling her that this was what she wanted.

“She doesn’t owe me anything.” Elsa took her hand and a lovely, warm feeling enveloped her. “But I’d be glad to go with her.”

Anna squeezed her hand and said, “Then it’s a date.”

Elsa’s sculpture won first place that day.

#elsanna #submission #august 2021 contest #prompt: flowers

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eyezari · 4 years

Text

math tutor (tsukki x f!reader)

you’ve been annoying tsukishima to be your math tutor considering he was the top student and he keeps rejecting you,, one day you finally give up and ask the second top student for help and he clearly was not happy about it

consider this!!!

→ gender-neutral y/n!

→ little angst.... if you squint..

→ possessive tsukki?? is this even a warning

→ not punctuated correctly

“just this one question? surely...!” you plead, holding tightly onto your textbook. you were so close to failing this semester and you really needed your average to be lifted through the upcoming exams. when everyone thought it was the easiest subject, you found it the most difficult.

so you’re back again, the next day. tsukki was used to you coming up to him every lesson to ask for help,, in fact its been going on since the beginning of the year. and he never helped. not once.

you don’t know why you kept coming back and begging him when you knew damn well he was gonna give you the same harsh answer. he would say things like, ‘are you dumb? of course not.’ or ‘not in a million years.’ and his personal favourite, ‘please come back during business hours.” (you still don’t know when that is)

yamaguchi, who sat next to him looked at you two amused. “please! this is probably the most difficult one yet. khan academy didn’t help. i’ve tried everything.” tsukishima didn’t even bat an eye, he didn’t even spare a glance and his head down onto his page. you sigh.

“y/n, who do you take me for?” he finally said and you sigh again. you were seriously lost and the math teacher is always out of the room doing whatever. the revision notes, you just didn’t understand. and your friends just gave you shallow explanations.

the reason why you went to him in the first place is when you overheard him teaching another girl in class. she didn’t understand anything but it’s like he adapted her learning method and explained it to her like it was the easiest thing in the world. after that, that girl never failed to get good grades. ‘why doesn’t he wanna teach me?.. it’s just one question..’ you thought.

to be honest, your heart would just ache whenever you thought about it. he decided to help someone else and they passed the whole year but couldn’t give you a single answer. you groan, scratching your head when you read the question again. then you turned to hinata, “hey, tsukishima has helped you guys out before right?”

“tsukishima? yeah but he gave up after and refused to teach us anymore, lol.” he smiles at you before going back to playing with his volleyball keychain. oh. so it was really just you who he refused to help. maybe it’s because you’re not close? no, you’ve known each other for quite sometime.. as.. friends. wait, no.. acquaintances? your jaw dropped as you realised, ‘does he not even think of me as a friend......bruh..’

you shook your head and just kept doing the rest of the practice test, skipping questions that you were unsure of.

the next week after you marked your practice test; you realised you were still way behind. you barely passed half of it, with an underwhelming score of 30 out of 58. you still didn’t understand most of it. not even photomath explained well. you sneak a peek at tsukki’s paper... 58 out of 58.. huh. interesting. he recently went on a training camp for volleyball club and still managed to study well. you stood up to stand in front of his desk which was next to yours.

“tsukki.” you try and get his attention, but with his headphones on his head, it might be difficult. you repeated his name several times, nervously fidgeting with your fingers. you noticed he was in a sort of sour mood after his volleyball training camp and you couldn’t help but to feel bad you were disturbing him.

with a scowl on his face, he removes his headphones. “what now?”

you became even more nervous now that his attention was on you. “um, can i just ask how you did the quadratic relations part.. i just don’t quite understand.” you said quietly.

he only glared at you. “y/n, you must be fucking with me.” he said suddenly, catching you off guard. “how many times do i have to say no? it’s been too long. don’t you know how to give up? you’re so annoying honestly, get it through your brain. i’ll never teach you anything” those words hit you like a truck. especially because they came from tsukki.

tears stung at your eyes and honestly, you were at a loss for words. you wanted to apologise and explain yourself but you couldn’t. a thought went through your head, ‘maybe it is annoying to constantly ask him for help..’

you muttered a “sorry” before quickly returning to your seat, not to mention that yamaguchi was quite shocked too and gave you an apologetic smile. you felt extremely embarrassed he just said that in front of the whole class. a few minutes later, you excused yourself from class and ran to the bathroom just to fix yourself up. somehow, you were choking on your tears.

it really shouldn’t have hurt you this much, but knowing you made tsukki dislike you even more just hit a different nerve.

the next few days, you’ve been trying hard. but clearly not hard enough since you are still barely passing the revision. you were extremely disappointed in yourself since you did make an effort to learn but it simply wasn’t enough. you really wanted to apologise to tsukki but knew it would make things worse so you didn’t even try to talk to him. but you were hopeless, you just needed the explanation to the topic because you didn’t have anyone around you to ask.

then you had an idea... the second top student named saiki came back from his trip. surely he’d help you just a little bit. you glance to your right, to where his desk was. and he did attend school! working up the courage to ask him, you turned to him. “welcome back.” and he smiled at you, waving at you.

“how are your studies?” he said, resting his head on his palm.

you groaned, “bad. i am literally hopeless at this. do you mind just explaining the parabola thing? i just don’t get it.” this caught the attention of many people around you. especially tsukki. your classmates suddenly thought it was weird you weren’t bugging tsukishima, maybe you have finally learnt your lesson.

yamaguchi’s ears perked up as well, and suddenly everyone was lowkey trying to listen. “yeah!” and you smiled brightly. saiki moves his desk to get closer to you and he starts explaining the problem. at first it was confusing, but he tried to dumb it down for you as much as possible. you were seriously grateful because you understood most of it.

“thank you so much, jesus christ.” you sighed in relief. “so it opens downwards and the directrix is 2?”

“yup. good job.” he pats you on the head. you smiled back.

“wrong.” someone called out randomly, and you turned to your left to see it was tsukishima. “it’s 4.” he looked displeased. extremely.

saiki looked lost. “hm, i wonder where i made the error. do you mind explaning it to me then?” he asks tsukki.

his face darkened. “i do mind,,” and saiki just smiled awkwardly.

“y/n, it’s been a couple weeks. i’ll teach myself and i’ll get back to you later. is that fine with you?” saiki offered, returning his desk to the original position.

“yeah, thank you.” you grinned. you turned to your left again and saw tsukishima basically frowning.

why is he so rude today? what’s going on? is he okay? your head fills with random thoughts as you worry about him.

the lesson seemed to go for hours and the heavy atmosphere between the two of you grew and it was excruciating. when you were finally dismissed, you had to stay back to clean the classroom. but you didn’t expect tsukki and yamaguchi to stay back too, considering they have club activities.

“hey yamaguchi, don’t you guys have club activities?”

“yeah, we do but tsukki is on class duty. i’m about to leave soon.” he said sheepishly, grabbing his bag.

so coincidentally you were on class duty with tsukishima. out of all days, you sighed heavily.

you two were left in the class and he didn’t hesitate to start moving the desks. but you stood still, and stared at him. he was so pretty.

heat rose to your cheeks as you recollected your thoughts and started packing up. it was an awkward silence as you two tidied the room. you were in the middle of wiping the board when he suddenly said, “open your textbook.”

you were taken back. “what?”

“you heard me.” he said bluntly. “open your textbook.”

“but why?” you stuttered a little bit.

“do you want me to teach you or not?”

your face flushed. teach you? your mind blanked. “hnnn...” you couldn’t form coherent sentences “yes.. please.”

he began to tutor you the study material. tsukki was obviously frustrated trying to teach you. it was like teaching a cat how to do dog tricks after all. you scratched your head at one question, still not getting it.

you pursed your lips. it’s been 10 minutes and you’re not past the first half of the question. tsukki groans. “what you do is..” he explained it perfectly. but it went straight through your ears. you were too busy staring at his features, he was so close to you.

this was the first time you realised how hard you fell for him, and tears pricked your eyes as your cheeks began to turn red. holy shit. i really like him. but chances are, i’m just a nobody to him.

“y/n. are you even paying attention? this is why i didn’t wanna teach you.” he pinched his nose in stress. your heart sank. you didn’t want to inconvenience him any further.

“we can stop now, it’s getting late and you still have club activities right? i can buy you snacks tomorrow. thank you tsukishima.” you said with a sheepish smile.

he furrowed his eyebrows. you just used his real name and not his nickname. he just found it odd how you wanted to stop so soon. you started packing up your things.

“it’s not even past 5. you need to learn this chapter.” he said abruptly.

you stood up and grabbed your bag. “no, no seriously, it’s okay. i’ll just study tomorrow and-”

he grabbed your wrist and pulled you down. “and let you talk to saiki? no thanks.”

you were speechless once again, face red once more. “only i can teach you. understand?” he looks at you right in the eyes and all you wanted to do in that moment was to disappear. reluctantly, you nod.

‎ ‏ ‐ ‑ ‒ – — ―

you can clearly tell my language is eu/au LMFAOO its the ‘surely’ for me GUYS COMMENT PLS ! I NEED INTERACTIONS

#tsukishima x reader #tsukki #tsukki imagines #haikyuu imagines #jealous tsukki #smh i love him #possesive haikyu #haikyuu #haikyuu fluff #tsukki x reader

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welcometophu · 3 years

Text

The Meaning of Home, Chapter 1

The Meaning of Home Chapter 1

Tags for all Welcome to PHU novels will be available at the PHU tag list on Pillowfort. This list is under construction as of Sept. 5, 2021.

[ First | Next ]

Even knowing that he’ll see him at the end of the trip, it’s strange for Pawel to be driving to his childhood home without Conor in the car. Usually his son would be requesting music changes, playing videos so loud that Pawel could hear them even with Conor’s headphones in place, or generally talking up a storm. Even after cranking the radio up to fill the silence, Pawel feels alone in a way he hasn’t felt in a long, long time.

He can’t blame it entirely on Conor. Yes, as a single father he hasn’t had much, if any, time to himself in the last nine years. But this past academic year has been chaos to the point where it seems strange not to have one of his students in the car as they head off to save the world.

Students, yes, but he’s not that much older than most of them. Some of them are friends as well.

Rest. Take the summer and rest.

The voice in his mind sounds suspiciously like Mac, and he hears Carolyn’s soft, aggravated huff not long after as she adds, Get normal amounts of sleep. Take a shower. Eat real food.

Spend time with your kid, imaginary Mac adds.

Great. He’s back to being that only child who used to have conversations with invisible friends, except now, as an adult, it’s advice about self-care from real people who aren’t even here.

The thing is, they’re not wrong. He knows he has a tendency to focus intently on the one most important thing at hand and tune out everything else. Since fall semester—for the first time in nine years—that wasn’t Conor, and he still feels guilty about that. He feels the kind of guilty that means there are two brand new games for Conor’s handheld system in a bag on the back seat, along with a cooler holding freshly butchered grass-fed bison steaks as a thank you for his father for helping him out.

Pawel exhales.

Maybe he’s having a little trouble letting go of the chaos. In a way, it felt good to be busy. To fix things.

They saved the world.

Nobody knows it, but it happened. And Pawel knows, so he should be satisfied with a job well-done.

The question is: what can he do now?

Rest.

For all that they’re imaginary, the voices of his students are right, and he knows this. It’s just hard to let it all go, to accept that the chaos has ended and he can do that. But he’s clean-shaven, and his hair is neatly trimmed, even if he didn’t go back to his buzz cut. He looks older in the mirror than he remembers being when the school year began. He might even look his age, which would go a long way to gaining respect from incoming freshmen in the fall.

He just needs something to do with himself while on vacation over the summer.

Maybe his old dojang would let him step into a taekwondo class or two while he’s visiting Dad. It’d be nice to be the student rather than the instructor for once.

You couldn’t let go of control that much.

“Shut up.” He says it as if imaginary Mac would even listen.

One song ends, and for a second, the silence in the car echoes before the next song begins.

This isn’t working.

He reaches out to touch the button on his radio dash for the phone, then presses Mac’s number from his contact list.

“Aren’t you with your family?” She starts speaking without bothering to greet him.

He adjusts the volume so that her voice isn’t quite so loud. “Hello to you, too. I’m almost there now. It’s quiet in the car. No Conor. Not even any grouchy almost adults grumbling about saving the world, or muttering about sparring.”

Mac snorts softly. “I’m only a few years younger than you, Pawel. And out of us all, Rory’s probably got the oldest soul. I take it you’re bored?”

“A little,” he admits. “Pels’s family moved into the house on Friday, then left for Burlington. As far as I know, everything’s gone well up there; they weren’t back before I left the house today. Anita’s got my number in case she needs anything for the house while they’re renting it out this summer. Traffic’s been decent, so I’m maybe fifteen minutes from my Dad’s house now, and the silence is killing me. How’s your summer break going?”

There’s a delay before Mac replies, and her voice sounds determinedly cheerful when she does. “It’s a break. I’m thinking about my research, and the fact that my advisor is in Italy until the end of June and told me I can’t work without him there. Which means Mom thought I should come home for a while, and right now things are… awkward… with me and Dad. So. There’s that.”

When Mac says it, Dad means Senator Delwin Palmer. Pawel knows what that meant to Mac as a part of a secret government training program for Talented children, before she came to PHU. He knows that everything they learned about the government involvement in the creation of the soul-destroying Shadows has only made her relationship with her stepfather more difficult.

He makes a small noise. “Are you going back to PHU soon?”

“Mid June, so I’ll be here about three weeks. I’m going to take my brother to the festival when Rory and Thorne are in DC in a couple of weeks, and I’m spending most of my time in the museums and libraries in DC until then.” She exhales. “I’ve thought about going to see my father, but I think that’ll be the weekend that I drive back up to PHU. I’ll just stop in to visit him in the city while he’s got some time off work.” Mac hesitates, her words more forceful when she asks, “How long are you planning on staying with your dad?”

Fine, Pawel will accept the change of topic, changing conversational directions at the same time as he takes the exit into town that will lead to his childhood home.

Sort of. It’s not the same house he grew up in, but it’s close to the same neighborhood.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I’m on leave for the summer. It’s not a sabbatical—they don’t do that for less than a year, and right now they won’t let me go for a whole year until the department has more experienced faculty. But it’s a paid leave and I’m supposedly researching my next book. The thing is, Dad doesn’t have a lot of space since he moved into the retirement community. I’m going to be crashing on his couch. Conor’s got the bed in the guest room.”

“Sounds great for your back.” Mac laughs. “You’ll probably still sleep better than you did for most of the spring.”

“Probably,” Pawel agrees. “I think—” He stops abruptly, because that makes it sound like he has a plan in place. “I’m going to play it by ear. Conor’s made friends there, although he’s clearly missing Alan and home, too. Everyone keeps telling me that I need to just stop trying to fix things and take a break. Including a voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like you.”

“Good to know my voice has infected your brain, like the way I hear yours saying ‘commit to the kick’ whenever I’m sparring and going for that head kick against a much taller opponent,” Mac says dryly.

“They’re all taller than you.” Pawel takes a series of turns, remembering to turn left instead of right at the critical intersection. He slows down; there’s no one else on the road behind him to annoy, and he’s not quite ready to arrive yet.

Mac sputters. “Rude.”

“True.”

“Fine. True,” she agrees. “Taekwondo is a sport for tall people. I’m just a good jumper, and before you say it, no, I’m not teleporting to get there. Most of the time.”

He rolls down the road towards a four-way stop. There’s a sign across the way proclaiming the entrance to Hart Acres. If he turned left, he could make his way to the police station where his dad works, and right would loop him back behind his old neighborhood.

Straight takes him into his dad’s new life in a retirement village where half the people who live there aren’t actually retired. His dad’s been living there for a year, and Pawel’s not sure when he’ll finally step down as Police Chief. He likes his work far too much to give it up.

Dad says it’s easier to keep working when he doesn’t have to worry about the little things like mowing the lawn. Hart Acres takes care of that for him.

Pawel’s pretty sure Dad’s going to work until he has both feet in the grave, and then he might just keep going.

“Hey.” Mac’s voice is low. “Did I lose you?”

Right. He was having a conversation.

“I’m just about there,” Pawel admits. “There’s an old lady walking her fluffy dog down the street. I guess I should hang up. Focus on finding the place and not hitting the two people that are in the middle of the road having a conversation.”

No exaggeration. Now that he’s pulled into Hart Acres and is following the first traffic circle he encounters around to the second exit, there are small knots of people gathered everywhere. Including two smack dab in the middle of one of the side streets.

They see him looking and lift their hands in cheerful synchronized waves.

“I am really not ready to see my dad as the kind of guy who needs to be surrounded by old people looking for a social life,” Pawel mutters. He makes a disgruntled noise when Mac snickers.

He’s in front of the house before he can say anything else.

“Go,” Mac says. “Hug Conor for me, and tell him to work hard. He’s still in school, right?”

“Another three weeks, yeah,” Pawel says. “I might take him out for a day on Friday to head up to Buffalo for Rory and Thorne’s tour, though. It’s a holiday weekend, so maybe the school has the day off—they do weird things with snow days sometimes. Although the weather was strange this winter and they might not have the extra days.”

“Nikki would apologize if you need her to,” Mac says. She’s quiet for a moment. “Hey. You really should take the time to rest. Let your dad be the parent for a little while. Enjoy being home, and with your family. You don’t have anything you need to save right now. The world isn’t ending. Just have fun for the summer.”

“Only if you promise me that you’ll rest, too,” he responds. He wants to say that he understands that it’s not that easy. He understands that talking to Delwin Palmer is going to be complicated, and that putting herself back in that environment only brings the PTSD out in full force. “You can always call me if you need someone to talk to.”

“I’ll let you know when I’m back in the area,” she says. “Maybe we can get together and spar. I’m taking a break from organized classes while I’m home.”

Her old dojang isn’t full of happy memories like Pawel’s is.

“Sure, we can do that.” He catches movement out of the corner of his eye; the door to his father’s unit nudges open. “Conor’s coming out. I need to go.”

“Bye, Pawel. Rest.”

“I will,” he promises.

The music blares for a moment after she hangs up; he turns the key and silences it. He manages to get out of the car as Conor races around it and slams into him, hugging him hard. Pawel wraps his arms around him, and exhales as he feels the familiar crackle of Conor’s magic around him.

“I missed you,” Pawel murmurs. His hand is between Conor’s shoulder-blades, and it feels higher than it used to rest in this same position. “Did you grow in the last two months?”

“An inch since he arrived.” Dad stands on the lawn next to a girl about Conor’s age that Pawel doesn’t recognize. Her mouth is pinched and her brows furrowed. She has her arms crossed tight across her chest as she leans forward, a myriad of braids falling forward across her shoulders and down her back. Dad puts a hand on her shoulder, and she straightens up, shoulders relaxing. “I started a growth door for him here. We’ll need to get a mark on it for you so he can see what he’s aiming for.”

There was a piece of trim in Pawel’s childhood house that had marks for every few months of his age, from toddlerhood to adulthood. He wonders if the new owners painted over the careful notes made in his mother’s hand, and the messier ones his father wrote after she passed away.

“I had Dziadziu put Emma on the door, too.” Conor slips from Pawel’s hold and grabs his hand, dragging him towards Dad and the girl who still watches warily. “This is Emma. She’s in my class, and she’s a Weather Witch, and she’s my friend. We’re both new here. She’s talked to Alan with me.”

“I know they’re married,” Emma says with a heavy sigh and an eyeroll. “Conor’s not my boyfriend. I don’t want a boyfriend.”

“You say that like people have been trying to tell you that you can’t be friends because you’re a boy and a girl.” Pawel stops in front of her and holds out his hand solemnly. “Hello, Emma. I’m Pawel. And don’t worry, I understand that most people are full of shit. Right now my best friend is a girl and I can assure you I have no romantic intentions towards her whatsoever. And if I did, she might kick me in the balls.”

Dad makes a strangled sound.

Emma tilts her head, brow still furrowed. “I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t say that people are full of shit.” She takes his hand and looks at their joined hands in some confusion, then drops it again. “But you’re right. They are. Come on, Conor.”

“I think you’d like Mac,” Conor says as he walks by Emma’s side and they disappear into the house. “She’s small but fierce. She used to be a gymnast and now she kicks ass.”

Pawel should say something, but he did just tell them that people are full of shit, so maybe he can cut him some slack for language this time.

“I did say that someday you’d be lucky enough to have a kid just like you,” Dad observes. “That said, Conor’s been a good kid while he’s been here. Getting good grades, getting his work done. He and Emma bonded straight off—her parents disappeared not long before you did, so they had something in common. Except, of course, you’re back and they’re not. She’s living with a foster family here.”

There are a dozen potential things wrong with everything Dad’s just said. Pawel rolls the thoughts around in his mind as he heads back to his car, opening the doors so that he and Dad can both take several things into the house. “Do they know she’s Talented?” he asks.

“You know where the guest room is.” Dad points through the living room and kitchenette to the small hall beyond. “Right at the end there. Just take Conor’s stuff down. We’ll put your things to the side in the living room for now.”

Conor pops his head out of his room just as Pawel arrives. “What do you mean for now? Aren’t we staying all summer? I thought we’d stay here all summer, Dad. Dziadziu said we could.”

There are times when Pawel wonders what their family looks like from the outside: three generations having three separate conversations in tangled instances, answering questions in random order. He can see where Emma sits on the bed, Conor’s tablet in her hands. She doesn’t seem concerned.

“I’m sleeping on the couch, Conor. We’ll stay in town, but we might need to get a hotel room. I’m going to need a bed eventually,” Pawel points out.

“I’ll move in with Emma. Her dads wouldn’t mind.”

“I don’t think they’d even notice,” Emma says dryly. “I like Conor better than Matt.”

“She has four foster siblings,” Conor stage whispers.

Emma looks up, gaze pinning him. “They aren’t my siblings. I’m an only child. We’re all just fosters in the same house, except Nevaeh and Jennie. I think they’re almost as good as adopted. Jennie doesn’t even remember her parents.”

For once, Pawel is the one getting whiplash from the swift turns in conversation.

“Is everyone Talented?” It’s the same question, asked a different way, and this time he throws it out there for anyone to answer. He drops the bag of Conor’s summer clothes on the bed, next to where Emma sits.

“Her dads are both Talented!” Conor bounces up onto the bed, almost knocking the suitcase off. “One’s Clan and one’s—”

“They aren’t my dads,” Emma snaps. She drops Conor’s tablet on the bed and stands up, her body shivering so hard that her braids shake. “My mom and dad are coming back. They aren’t my dads at all. I’m just staying there until—”

“My dad can find them.”

Emma’s mouth is slightly open, her voice a small squeak. “What?”

“My dad is really good at everything about Talented people. He’s an expert.” Conor nods quickly. “He’s so much an expert that he teaches people not to be stupid—uninformed,” he corrects himself, “about what it means to be Talented. He knows everything.”

“Not everything,” Pawel tries to stay, but Conor steamrolls over him.

“He just saved the world, and he’s friends with Clan and with Mages, and we know this entire commune of Mages up in Burlington and if anyone can find your parents, he can,” Conor says firmly. “You’ll do it, Dad, right?”

“I think I’d need a little more information before I can promise that,” Pawel says slowly.

“Your father is supposed to be resting.” Dad stands behind him, and Pawel doesn’t need to turn to know the look Dad gives Conor. He was on the receiving end of that look himself many times as a child. Dad continues, “The last time your father got involved in something, he disappeared and you came here.”

Conor’s mouth snaps shut, lips pressed and his cheeks flushed. “He came back,” he mutters. “He always comes back.”

Emma pats the bed and when Conor sits, she puts her arms around him and holds on. “Maybe mine will come back, just like yours did. Then your dad won’t have to go find them.” Her whisper is too loud to be entirely secret. “I don’t want your dad to disappear again.”

“Me neither,” Conor admits.

“Emma.”

“Dziadziu!” Conor interrupts him. “Did you ask Emma’s dads—”

“They’re not my dads.”

“—if she can stay over tonight?” The sadness is gone from Conor’s expression as he bounces on the bed. “She’s got stuff in a drawer from the last time she stayed. She can get on the bus with me in the morning, and we can play games with Alan online later.” His gaze skates to Pawel. “If you say it’s okay, of course.”

It’s only been a couple of months, and Conor has somehow built himself a routine here. Pawel isn’t entirely sure how he fits into it.

It’s strange thinking about Conor growing up and growing apart from Pawel when his son is only nine years old.

“I talked to them,” Dad assures them. “But that means sleep tonight. It’s a school night, and I’ll be checking. No magic after dark. No surprise storms. No more rain indoors.”

“That was once!” Conor protests.

“Lights out by half past eight, and I want you asleep by nine,” Dad says in a tone that brooks no argument. “You’ve got plenty of time before then; we haven’t even had dinner yet. You might even be sick of each other by then.”

“Never!” Conor and Emma chorus.

Pawel has to wait for Dad to move before they can both slip out of the room, leaving the door cracked. “I’m glad he’s made friends here,” Pawel says quietly. “He and Alan are—well, I’d almost call them codependent sometimes. I was worried. But they both seem to be doing well.”

“Conor’s fallen on his feet, that’s for sure. He’s a lot like another child I once knew: just starts talking until he finds his spot to fit in. Might even have a bit of a savior complex.”

Pawel gives his father a dark look. “I do not have a savior complex. If I did, I’d have followed you into law enforcement, rather than going into academia.”

Dad smiles. “You’re still saving people. You just go about it in a different way on a daily basis. But it seems to me like you didn’t even hesitate when you found out your students needed your help. You can’t resist a puzzle.”

“Apple didn’t fall far from the tree, I get it,” Pawel mutters. “Fine, fine. We’re all peas in a pod, and a hundred other trite descriptive phrases. The Szczek men have similar traits.”

“Mm.” Dad leads the way outside, so they can retrieve the last few things from Pawel’s car. “Some of us have learned how to ask for help,” he says quietly. “Conor’s made himself at home in Emma’s foster house. He’s spent more than a few nights there, and yes, before you ask, I trust her foster fathers completely. One of them works with me. But that’s something you might want to think about this summer, Pawel.”

Pawel shoulders the backpack with his computer in it, and closes the door to his car. “What’s that, Dad?”

“You don’t have to do everything on your own,” Dad reminds him. “For the summer, you’ve got me. Think about what to do when you get home. The fate of the world doesn’t need to rest on your shoulders alone.”

It seems like everyone’s got something to say about his bad habits. The thing is, Pawel’s got help at home. He’s a single father; he knows he needs assistance sometimes. He’s got Alan’s family next door. Emily’s always willing to help out with Conor. But he’s also got… a lot of responsibility. He’s a professor, and a dean, and he leads Coven and the taekwondo team.

Who the hell else is he going to rely on? Pawel does the things no one else is available to do.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” he says, because he knows it’s what Dad needs to hear. “I’m not going to overwork myself again. I’ll make sure I’ve got help.”

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oimoi-op · 3 years

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when were you diagnosed with t1d?

Ok, so storytime! Short answer is, as of today, barely over two months ago.

(Very long post warning y’all, contains hospital mention and extensive, possibly upsetting descriptions of health conditions, specifically DKA)

My family doesn’t really have a history of T1D or even T2D, though my second-cousin-once-removed has had T1D for over a decade now. So, there was never any reason for me to try and get tests done for it. The only sign I really had up until last semester was two copies of a variant of an HLA gene that I knew about from a 23andMe report (which, according to the report, put me at a higher risk for celiac’s and nothing else), but of course at that time I had no idea that that could mean anything serious; after all, that sort of thing only happens to other people, right?

My college started in-person classes in the latter half of August. By October, I started feeling tired, having a lack of appetite, and needing water very, very badly. I actually went to my school’s clinic, and my erratic heartbeat prompted the doctor to recommend me for a Covid-19 test. My school’s protocols meant that I had to quarantine at my home (since I live within two hours of campus) until I got a negative test result. At home, I was drinking water all the time and sleeping constantly, and my parents had commented on how I’d been losing weight. I thought these were all good things. I had been slightly overweight at my high school graduation, and I’d always heard that drinking a lot of water is good for you, so I thought I was actually in excellent health even if I kind of felt like shit most of the time.

Well. Uh. I was wrong.

When finals came around in mid-November, I was just fucking tired. I’d get a decent eight hours of sleep and still have to take naps during the day. Hell, I was even late for work because I slept through one of my nap alarms. Studying was a pain in the ass. Attending classes was a pain in the ass. Staying awake for Zoom classes was a pain in the ass. I was waking up at 5 am to go to the bathroom, and then I would drink the rest of my water, refill it, drink half of it again, and then go back to sleep. Finally, November 20th rolled around, and I got to leave campus. It was my birthday (yeah I am a Scorpio and that weirds all of my friends out lol), and my parents took me to Fusion. And I just...couldn’t eat at all? I love hibachi, but I couldn’t even eat half of my food. The chef even got me a delicious banana split that I had to basically bully my younger sister into eating with me.

For the next week, I was sleeping about 18 hours a day. I didn’t think this was weird because I’d just had finals so yeah, it makes sense that I would be tired after exams and whatnot. I went shopping with my mom, sister, and sister’s bff. We were only out for a few hours, but I was fucking wiped out y’all, like in pain. Thanksgiving arrived, and again, I love food, I love eating, but I was not hungry in the slightest. I basically had to force myself to eat some of my favorite holiday foods just so I wouldn’t offend my mom, and then I didn’t eat for the day.

The very next morning, I was puking my guts out.

This started a pattern for the next few days: I would eat chicken noodle soup or some other food, sleep like the dead, and throw up every morning and every night. I started chugging large bottles of Gatorade constantly (which, if you know about diabetes and its health complications, did not help my situation in the slightest). I started breathing erratically after very little exertion. Like, I’m talking standing up and stretching brought about heavy, labored breathing. I weighed myself on my parents’ scale, and I was under 130 lbs. Now, for some people this might seem like a lot, but due to my height and build I could fucking see some of my ribs. That was when I started to realize that something was very, very wrong, but “losing weight is good” and I didn’t want my parents to laugh at me for voicing concerns (though, for all their faults, in hindsight, I doubt they would’ve). Yeah. Don’t do that, folks, that’s not a good mindset to have.

On Sunday, my mom took me to town to get tested for Covid. This was despite me saying that I didn’t have symptoms (which I knew very well due to some of my friends catching it at school). Rapid test came back negative, so I did a culture test. Hell, while I was sitting in the damn chair, I was about to pass out. I asked for a nausea pill but my mouth was too dry for it to dissolve. I got a cup of water, downed it all, and felt like my throat was on fire. For the rest of the day I felt so, so awful. At some point I was walking toward my bed in my room and I fucking fell. I’m fucking lucky there was carpet.

Regarding the rest of that night, things start to get blurry, for the lack of a better term. I legitimately cannot recall everything that happened that night or the following two days, so I will just try to explain it in the way I remember it best.

Around...midnight or one??? I was on fucking fire, so I went to my bathroom and decided to lie on the floor. The floor was hardwood and not at all cold, and it wasn’t fucking comfortable even in that state, but I was just in so much pain I didn’t even care. My mom must’ve heard because she found me there and asked me what I was doing. I said something about the floor. She asked me to go back to bed, but I must’ve scared her because she asked me if I wanted her to lie in the bed with me. I don’t remember what I said to her, but we were in the bed and she was trying to hug me, but she was too warm and so I told her to stop. I kept feeling this burning just below my chest, like there was acid in me (which I guess wasn’t too far off), so I would randomly sit up to try and alleviate the pain and not cry. I remember asking my mom to take me to the hospital in the morning.

My mom put me in the truck (I think around 5 am is what she told me). I remembered hearing my dad. I was lying down. Then I was awake, but I was on the floor. I thought this was wrong so I tried to tell my mom that but I guess I couldn’t talk. Then I was in a hospital bed, the ER I assume. My mom gave me some water with a sponge, and I was just so fucking thirsty. Then I was in the ICU hooked up to a bunch of machines. I didn’t know what was going on, but my mom kept giving me water with that sponge. That is all I remember from Monday.

I remember a little bit more from Tuesday. My mom said something about diabetes, but that didn’t make any sense to me because I wasn’t “fat” and I’d been losing weight, even! What had I done to get diabetes? I was thirsty and tired, so I slept a lot. At some point I really needed to use the restroom so I unhooked my IV???? (I mean I must’ve disconnected myself somehow but I can’t remember the details) which set off a shit ton of alarms and people were Very Concerned and kept asking me Why Did You Do That? But I just needed to go to the restroom, and they told me to use the Red Button to Call the Nurse (it was already there, and I now realize that we’d probably had a similar conversation about the Red Button to Call the Nurse possibly multiple times before this) in the future. A Chopped Teen Tournament from 2017 was playing on the TV nonstop. There were commercials for CGMs. I thought that God wasn’t being very funny about the whole thing.

As of now I remember even less of Wednesday, but I know that felt better. There was this diabetes specialist who kept talking about insulin and life at college moving forward, but I wasn’t really there, either because of being so out of it for health reasons, disassociating, or a combination of the two. My mom told me she had emailed a professor so he would give me an extension on an assignment that was due by then, and I remember crying because I thought that was just so nice of him. That night, this guy got me in a wheelchair and put me in another room, which I would later learn was the ACU. My night nurse was this nice woman named Tanya, who had a very thick Eastern European accent. She got me orange juice to take some potassium pills, but it felt like swallowing rocks. I didn’t really get a lot of sleep, so I was awake when the nurses changed shifts. I remember one of them expressing surprise that I was out of the ICU so early.

My mom took longer to come that day because nobody had told her I’d been moved. I’d had plain Cheerios and orange juice for breakfast, but I couldn’t really eat because my throat hurt so badly. I talked to a lot of doctors. I guess at this point or somewhere near it I accepted that I had diabetes, but it wasn’t really real until the same diabetes specialist was going over carbs. I thought I was never going to eat shit I liked ever again. I really wanted a fucking McChicken sandwich. I signed some papers for Medicaid because I had aged out of the CHIP while in the hospital. I finally texted my friends and explained to them what had happened. I was so fucking tired.

I got out the next day, so that was Thursday. Normally, I would’ve been in the hospital much longer (especially because my Medicaid hadn’t been approved, meaning no insurance had approved of my insulin yet), but Covid cases were on the rise and the hospital wanted me out of there. The diabetes specialist and one of my nurses snuck me two fast-acting and two basal insulin pens, and I was out. I ate half a McChicken, a small fry, and drank my first Diet Coke. It tasted like diesel mixed with piss.

That’s the gist of it. The hospital staff was very nice and thoughtful the entire time, I think. I felt as though everyone involved cared about my health a lot.

For those of you who aren’t T1D or just don’t know, what I experienced is called DKA, short for diabetic ketoacidosis. To simplify, I was very close to entering a diabetic coma. My sister later told me that our dad had said (I assume a doctor had told my mother, who, in turn, had told him) that I was “approximately 45 minutes” away from death. DKA happens when a diabetic (usually a T1D like me) has too much blood sugar in their body due to them lacking the insulin necessary to break the sugar down, so their body breaks down their fat reserves and muscle to get the energy it needs. This is why I lost around 50 pounds over the course of a few months (I was 118 lbs. when I entered the hospital, the lowest I’ve been since grade school). I was officially diagnosed with T1D on November 30th, just ten days after my 19th birthday, which is a little older than normal I believe. It’s...well, it’s not fun, but I feel very grateful for my large support system, and tomorrow I’m trying out a CGM for the first time and applying for both it and a pump, so things are really looking up

#personal #iamapincushion #t1d #type one diabetes #type one diabetic #dka #diabetic ketoacidosis #tw hospital #tw dka #i don't think you meant me for to respond with such a long answer #but #well #it's something i've been wanting to post for a while now and this seemed like a good opportunity

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unproduciblesmackdown · 3 years

Text

even more prompts catchup

April 5th: What was school like for you, or what is it currently like for you if you are still in school? Elementary, high school, post-secondary?

i Hate/d school lmfao......like i do Like To Learn and Know Shit, and of course Sometimes / on some occasions it was like, hey i'm having a good to pretty great time at school, but those were usually Special occasions or teachers going out of their way to give us you know, fun projects / go beyond the Standardized Testing curriculum, which natch they couldn't always do / did require sort of going Above & Beyond, rather than being the constant, guaranteed experience of like hooray for school......it's like, oh hooray re: the Play Scenes my fourth grade english class did that was like, an Extra thing, where we got to audition and i just had a great time like oh right, clearly Theatre in retrospect, or hooray re: the field trips, or projects we did In Class, since i hated homework.......i was always that accursed (i mean, not accursed for Me, but) combination of "really a terrible student but also gets great grades" lmao i forever do things Last Minute but like, when i was At school, in class, i'd just power through whatever work there was then & there usually, and in middle school would sometimes do hw on the bus, as i was the last on the bus route to be picked up in the morning or dropped off in the afternoon, but as soon as i got home i was in Home Mode and yknow. didn't just sit down and continue School Stuff asap. also hardly ever Studying unless it's the night / morning before a test lmfao but i had a great memory for that stuff, so studying that last minute was like "yep, i Do remember this from going over it 2 seconds ago" so yknow, despite hating school / no good Study Habits(tm) or anything, i did fine. i also read a ton, at home or at school and at any other point. so i was also like, quiet and generally ~well behaved~ or whatever lol (the like "how are kids (or anyone) supposed to stay focused and on task for 7+ hours a day..." thing), segue into next paragraph

i also remember like, 3 day a week preschool being the first time i was, you know, in some sort of School and also around other kids that much, i did have this sense that like, somehow there were Rules that i wasn't following, not re: Classroom Rules or something, but wrt socializing with peers, like that everyone else had something going on in how they interacted which i wasn't gonna get right, & i had this sense of like, not really being Allowed to interact lmao, even being 4 years old i have a few distinct memories re: this of like, a) choosing to play by myself in the classroom or when outside, and b) my "best friend" being the one person who just like, chose to hang out with me lmfao, but i was like oh cool Having A Friend lmao, like i didn't Not want to have friends, i was just already aware of like, i don't feel like i can just up and interact w/these people and i don't feel like they want me to, and c) re: that being aware of whatever Rules Of Interaction existing and that i wouldn't meet them / abide by them and thus there'd be some kind of repercussion for not meeting those rules, and not being allowed, i remember that like. there was this other indoor playspace in the lower level and there were toys i wanted to play with but Refrained from, and it was like, why did 4 yr old me get the idea i Wasn't Really Allowed, and most of what i can theorize is that it was like, well other kids might want to play with that, and the Normal / Better kids should get priority lmao, and/or being nervous that it just might otherwise lead to some sort of Interaction i wouldn't feel ready for.....and d) sitting at a table with like whatever 4 or 5 other kids or something and amongst ourselves someone was like "oh put your foot in the middle if you're [x]" and i tried to join in on a technicality lmfao and also just in, you know, active efforts to be Participating with these other kids on their terms, and it did not pay off, something that repeated uhhhhh, forever i guess lol. insert that post like can allistic people be normal for 5 seconds.....

like in elementary school i wasn't really making friends either, incredibly, i was Amicably Tolerated by many people then & like, again also at any point after at least lmao (and it helps that i was generally in teachers' good graces, not that i narced on anyone ever, but i had like, my Niche as the Academically Successful One, and also i was the kid who draws, another shoutout to some post and tweet about how being The Drawing Kid was like, some measure of respect but also disdain lmfao...) and sometimes people would again like. choose to interact with me repeatedly, and i'd sort of be nonplussed at best b/c it's like, okay thanks but in this situation i didn't Choose this any more than i choose [Trying to be in the group but being rejected/excluded], so it's kinda weird, i was friends with someone for a few years in elementary school but we just were Coincidentally in the same class for those years, when we were in different classes in 3rd or 4th grade and just weren't seeing each other it fizzled out, in middle school i made another couple friends where we were all being Funny lmao, but i didn't go to high school, so once again we weren't seeing each other, and [At School] was where i always had most Interactions with people, didn't see people much outside of school even if we were hanging out / being friends During school, for [a whole tangent] reasons, so. guess the good news is i'm still in touch / friendly acquaintances with some people from school from college, but even then, there was Some more social success or whatever, but not all That much, and i was still unhappy like, not having many friends, often being like "i'm going to the cafe a block away b/c i have no social occasions here and i want to get out of the dorm / be around people," that if i was with more than one other person i could end up the third wheel friend lmao or nobody is paying attention when you talk or oh no i put myself out there hanging with a friend group but maybe people thought you were a joke or something, thanks. smh

and that like, speaking of college, i went early but this was, for my part, truly primarily driven like "well i hate school so if i can Not go to high school, okay" and like, while i got in and everything it was still like "tf is college, i've never known what i Want To Do so i wonder if i'll figure this out, but i'm not expecting to last past the first semester / year b/c this is college and i'm a terrible student actually lol" but then turns out i kept doing well enough like A's & B's like oh woops i guess i'm still here, then, hope i can figure out what tf "credit hours" means (finally did lol).....then sophomore year was a bunch of just Agonizing over "what tf do i major in," something i never figured out, wherein i might bring something up & it got parentally shot down like "never heard you talk about that" like what tf Did you hear me talk about? are you thinking i had my life figured out by age 9, b/c i didn't think that, i'm only 15/16 even Now, even being the Regular college age it's like, nobody's figuring their life out then. also i didn't tell my parents things, so. and then i settle on something that sure, Might've been of interest, but also it was like, a) a program that barely existed and req'd taking classes at a like 30 min away campus and also the head of department had Just retired and the most heinous teacher in the related fields was now in charge, brilliant and b) the sort of thing you'd just wanna start taking prerequisites for like as soon as you set foot on campus, like, great. and c) i was like, hardly feeling all the Academic Ambition anyway b/c i never had, b/c i hate/d school, and b/c i still didn't Know what i wanted to major in, and i was stressed n depressed and also realizing oh right, i'm not cishet, and oh right, i'm never going to get along with my family b/c [long tangent] reasons and that's kind of concerning, here i am impending Being 18 and like, how do i get out of this b/c it's becoming clearer that i'm not just gonna start getting along with the 'rents now that i'm not an elementary schooler and also now that i'm realizing the Reasons being at home sucks. guess i learned stuff in college lol but also it was like, the experience of getting to be Away From Home and existing every day without parents literally / figuratively over my shoulder at some point every day, and getting to do shit on my own and figure things out while Not At Home.....i also had a lot of fun taking a couple classes from this one music prof lol. he was this weird really enthusiastic and really knowledgeable guy lmao like great, these evening classes where we go over to the arts building and he plays things on the piano off the cuff and tells a lot of tangential stories while we're learning about like, beethoven technically, or folk music. didn't need those classes but they were great, i've had these teachers who were totally into whatever they were teaching and had a great time with that

also acknowledgment to the fact i was a No Extracurriculars person all through school, k thru 6 and college alike really, although i took dance class for that k thru 6 period, just that was separate from school actually (and another fun "being away from home" thing and Theatresque performance thing i enjoyed) but besides that it was like, how do i figure out what i want to do without committing to joining this whole thing, i don't know How to sign up for stuff really either, and it'd probably entail "asking for stuff" and needing to coordinate more rides and etc and that's just a hassle, and i wanna go home from school asap anyways, and then like, when it came to college, i was again at first thinking like "well idk what i'm doing and i hate homework so i'll probably mess it up in this first year anyways" and figured that doing anything Extra outside classes was just gonna be too much, and also, it's like, i've never been in these kinds of groups before and why am i gonna start in college, where there'll probably be all these people who Have done this stuff before, and are also 18? e.g. even though it was like "hey you're away from home and don't have to ask/tell anyone else anything to do this club stuff or whatever!" supposed ideal environment for trying stuff out, it was like, maybe i'm theoretically interested in auditioning for the fall theatre production, but the last acting experience i had was like, "2 month drama class in middle school" or "that 4th grade [section of a] play" so like, not really Any education or experience or Training re: any of that stuff, and a bunch of 18 yr olds who might've, or [age peers] who were theatre people who had already done stuff so they weren't getting Lead Roles or anything but they were getting cast / taking classes / joining an a capella group while i'm like right on, i'm over here with some sort of Grade Honor Society (??) saying my gpa qualifies me to join and be able to experience some further academic rigor/requirements lmfao and i'm like absolutely not. get away lol. anyways so bit of a chaotique Post K12 Zone Education Experience there lmfao, all kinds of things i'd Like to Learn and even take classes on, but didn't like, right i love learning languages but never took classes, love math and shit but only got to a certain level of calc and even then seemed to miss some Lore, never did anything re: theatre, etc and so on. so you wonder if some advantages re: high school would be like, more chances for those extracurriculars (or regular curriculars) but, as though i wouldn't have the same qualms about getting in on any of it, and as if i wouldn't've still hated school but also still been at home, F. and i think people can be a lot more normal to each other when it's college and you're Not stuck in one building together 8 hours a day lmao, got some gentle "occasional Bullying style attention" in middle school, but had juuust enough like, [that Niche of good grades / kid who draws] and people who Were friendlier to me that it was you know, unpleasant, but didn't have to be that huge a deal, and then i was outta there soon enough. also, in college many people are 18 or older, as opposed to 11 to 13. anyways the rest of my school story was that in the end the problems were "i don't know what i want to major in and also now's a worse time than ever b/c i've realized my existence At Home is untenable, and naturally i am quite depressed & stressed about things, and i gotta say absolutely virtually every adult presence was either totally unhelpful to Counterproductive here lmao, like, not much anyone could do really but it's helpful when someone is like, i'll treat you like a person vs simply just going 'uh why are you not doing the academic stuff good enough'" lmfao like. the whole time Not having friends i'd wanna talk to through class and happening to get good grades in part b/c i somehow Could as easily as i did and also i was afraid of getting C's or worse b/c "tfw i wasn't even yet in a grade that gave you A thru F grades yet but my older sister caught shit for getting a C

like :/" and etc means adults are like My Student Is Fine, and also, what are you gonna do even if they aren't, i guess. i just had to figure out completely for myself Why and How i really wasn't Fine and that was quite difficult and also took a long time. then there was a mutual prank of "i drop out of college at the tail end of things" and "now i have to be at home with parent/s more resentful of your obvious Waywardness (insert: not being cishet, and the fact it occurs to me that my being autistic was always causing 'problem' behavior i was getting shit for like, the whole time lmfao, even if nobody knew / labeled it like oh this is for ND reasons, or if it was both true i tried to come out (smh, thought i Had to b/c that was part of Not Being Cishet) and it was simply ignored / unaddressed and yet it sure fueled further specific resentment of my not Performing Gender properly, or "worse," so that went well, in that i eventually abruptly left and did not maintain contact, in the interest of "the levels to which i was thriving was like, that if i bailed and like died 50 hrs later it'd still be what i want to do," true to that i did not / don't regret it. and what do you know, i was first able to bail to a relatively nearby friend from college's home, whose family also liked me lmao. shoutout to school still being where i made Any friends, except a friend i made who was a coworker of several years. and Online Friends, which, another school connection, that like, i can more readily Connect w/people via talking about interests, something that happened Sometimes at school in person lmao but not much, but also that i Talk About Interests in a way through Drawing, which, well shoutout to doodling in the margins of papers throughout school lmfao, it didn't hurt! that's my saga.

oh and that footnote, i also really enjoyed the "in middle school you either take language classes or 4 Electives you rotate through each year" and those electives sure featured some more varied and hands on activities i had a great time with. shoutout to like, cooking, and to shop class, my Car Designs were great apparently, idk how. shoutout to my Intuition re: engineering or something lmaoo.....very fun to just end the schoolday in that big garage space where you could actually open that garage door right to where all the buses were, beautiful. Oh, and that's another footnote, when my last class of the day in 8th grade was english, i'd sometimes finish work early and my teacher would let me go to our spacious library, with the v nice librarian who'd recommend books to me she thought should be checked out more often b/c she knew i liked to read that much, and also just generally had teachers / other adult staff kinda wandering in at the end of the day, talk about "i don't really relate to other ppl my age" where i did generally prefer to be around adults, so that was fun. oh and also shoutout to hating school lmao wherein during like, middle school when the schoolday started at like 7:30am or smthing disgusting and i just learned to like, view whatever time it was in a "at least it's almost [x]" like well okay, first period is math and that kinda sucks but at least once it's over this hardest part of the day will be over, then next class is kinda more chill at least, and then it'll be the last period before lunch, etc etc etc where i could sort of keep up that stamina like telling myself at any point it was Almost [a more encouraging time of day] lmao like. kinda fucked up to have to be dragging yourself through the weekdays like that, but

Oh! goddamn and i didn't even get into that if i ever got in ~trouble~ in elementary school it was stuff like Not Paying Attention, but where half the time that might be some other kid beside me messing around lmfao and i'm not gonna be like "uhhh follow the rules!!!" (and that even when i was In Trouble like go sit in the chair where you have to be quiet there for like 10 min i might say something to some other kid in that zone and they'd be like "um it's the quiet chair you have to be quiet!!" or "uh we're getting into the next lesson and you have to put that book back asap" like wow these other kids are dweebs about Rules lmfao) and there'd just be times like, it's 1st grade and i know how to read pretty well already but we're going over the alphabet like stoppp i know the Phonics already........or the ways ND people can kind of Intuit some stuff more successfully, like in third grade learning multiplication i neverrrrr studied but just broke it down like, okay i remember the Fives b/c of telling time, i know the 2x table and stuff, i know the commutative property, if we're all the way at the 8x and i haven't Memorized stuff, i can still like, break it down to say, [5 x 8] + [8 x 2] or something when i see 8 x 7, even if it takes a second lmfao.......and stuff like the tragedy of when i Did make a friend in like, 2nd grade, who i think we didn't even talk to each other ever?? i was playing legos or smthing by myself once during Indoor Recess and she just started playing agreeably along with me, aka someone socializing on My Terms apparently as our Introduction, and we just were friends past that but one time, not even during a Lesson Session, we were messing around quietly making each other laugh as the incredibly important process of "put papers in your folders" was going on, and since we were Not Paying Attention for some reason the teacher made a whole example of it where i had to carry my desk across the classroom for the Shaming Element of it and also so that i had to permanently sit way further from that friend, so that was kind of discouragement re: interacting at all. thank you to that teacher, who'd later once Gesticulate to me from across the gym that i should put my arms down at my sides rather than being crossed (we were rehearsing some class performance) & i had no idea what she was trying to convey, so afterwards she told me i had to have Reduced Recess Time or some shit because of Ignoring her instead of putting my arms down lmfao. and i was irritated at having been misinterpreted / my Intentions dictated to me and punished like that, but i was also used to it from adults lmfao and did not bother explaining myself lol like yeah god forbid i left my arms crossed on purpose and now i have to read some more during recess. tl;dr school has so much nonsense & i def had some Times re: being autistic & also just being someone who hated school forever lmao, think it was Also 2nd grade where one arbitrary sunday night i just cried out of frustration at having to go back for another normal school week. classic. oh and that also, while i wasn't like "oooo booksmart people who hate not having a Definitive Correct Answer to things &/or ohhh autistic ppl So Good at math, in a way everyone hates and disrespects, but they suck at Literature/Arts which requires you to reflect on humanity and shit," like, not only was i the drawing kid but i was also apparently ahead of the curve as it were at like, Literary Analysis lmfao where there was a few times in elementary school i'd be the kid providing the Interpretation like "what's this poem about / what's the theme or Symbolism in this story," but from elementary school to college it's like, for god's sake don't ask me to come up with a story / work with some really open ended prompt, i don't Invent in that way, and when i try to draw on Inspiration i'll get stuck on some specific source and be unable to do anything but just rip it off really lmao. but then again i was prolific in "it's 1st grade and you write and illustrate a little short story or smthing in these booklets

that we then have a simple little binding process for" like ohhh fancy, i got a tootsie roll lollipop at Awards Time for writing a shit ton of those lol. but that's like, when you're too young to have that much of a Creative Process anyways lmao. but then, my older sister, whose Thing was writing, has an incredible 2 Volume like, noir mystery saga from those elementary school times, it's a classic lmao. anyways once again so much to say about School lol closing the door after meandering on that one for this long lol

April 6th: Are you able to drive? If so, was it difficult to learn? What was difficult about it? If not, do you use any alternatives?

i did learn to drive, tbh just universally it's like, at any point you're driving there's A Lot to pay attention to at once, even if you think you're Good At That or whatever, which i sure don't think i always am lol, and it's pretty wild we just, you know, let everyone go around as fast as they want in machines that can kill you or someone else, and this is also Unnecessary b/c like, let's have accessible & reliable public transit so that everyone can travel without Needing to have a car / someone else who will drive them. i didn't think i had too much trouble learning to drive, but it had to help that i just took it very seriously from the start lmao like, well, i'm quite aware i could kill someone with this. the driving classes i took were alright, i remember the instructor being pretty chill and friendly lol. rip to the fact i could be tense when driving with parent/s, when driving a manual i'd always like screech the tires when accelerating out of a Stop, until all at once it was like "and i'm driving that manual car alone on a road trip & wouldn't you know it, only literally once did i have that issue of not getting out of a stop smoothly enough" lmao like the Anxiety......really like yeah i had an alright time learning and think i'm solid enough at driving / like doing it, theoretically, but Driving Is Wild just in general and let's have that public transit

April 7th: How are you with sarcasm and/or metaphors/figures of speech? Do you interpret things very literally?

i think i Usually get what people mean with these Devices but i can't really say lol, but anytime you know, someone is being more Implicit in what they say, plenty of times i can infer one implication and only later realize they probably meant a different one, or yknow, i make whatever initial inference i make and can be stuck like "???" and have to like, mentally run diagrams about the interaction lol......meanwhile i'm not always remembering that like, if i'm shifting context mentally that's necessarily able to be inferred by whoever i'm talking to lol, whether it's about getting into some adjacent topic or like, i don't think it tends to be very clear even in person when i've started being sarcastic lmao, like i know that can be true for anyone but it's like well, guess i gotta make it clearer i'm doing a bit......flipside of that or something lmao that people are more Obvious than they think they are sometimes about like, idk, when someone is sort of making some sarcastic remark to you but the sarcasm is also sort of only to themself, aka just like okay i know you mean this more dismissively / disparagingly than re: what you're saying just at face value lol like. just always fun >:/

#30daysofautismacceptance #2021 #you know that Read More means especially a saga even by my standards lmfao

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gayreddie · 4 years

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middle of adventure, such a perfect place to start

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hi i never use tumblr to post my own stuff so idk how this layout is gonna look lol but i’m starting a little nsfw reddie ficlet. its only 3 chapters, and i just put out chapter 1, so the link to it is right under the summary! leave kudos if u don’t hate it hehe

title

middle of adventure, such a perfect place to start

summary

Nobody wanted to room with Richie Tozier. He was a loud mouth who came across as only tolerable for a couple of hours, if that.

When little Eddie Kaspbrak shows up at his door with a copy of his “Roommate needed” sign, Richie is taken back as ever.

Who was this precious pixie boy with soft chocolate hair and summer freckles that lived across his cheeks? And why did he want to live with Richie?

read it here or below the cut!

Richie Tozier loved to have sex.

He loved having people come over to his flat in the late hours of the night so he could release everything that had been building up in him that day, as loud as he liked. He loved going out to nightclubs with his fake I.D. which states that he was 21, a year older than he really was, and finding someone to take to the bathroom stall within minutes. He loved talking about it with his best friends the next day and getting groans, eye rolls and pleads to shut the fuck up.

His first two years of college ensured him plenty of that. He had his own flat right outside of Derry University, where he lived all alone. The underclassmen years flew by pretty quickly, but Richie had been positive they have been the most eventful years of his life. That all changed when he got into a bit of a financial situation with his father. Richie had gotten in trouble because of his low grades, a result of his party years being active and taking over. Wentworth Tozier decided to cut him off for 3 months as punishment.

The only way he would be able to pay for the upcoming rent was with a little help. So, he cleaned out the extra bedroom full of dirty clothes from his hookups, expired snacks, and video games, and turned it into an extra bedroom available to rent.

Nobody wanted to room with Richie Tozier. He was a loud mouth who came across as only tolerable for a couple of hours, if that.

When little Eddie Kaspbrak shows up at his door with a copy of his “Roommate needed” sign, Richie is taken back as ever.

Who was this precious pixie boy with soft chocolate hair and summer freckles that lived across his cheeks? And why did he want to live with Richie Tozier?

He’s standing in front of Richie’s door in a jumper. An extra large white jumper on top of his maroon short shorts. His hand that wasn’t holding the paper was by his side, the tips of his fingers reaching the white hem. Richie stopped peeping through the hole and opened the door.

For once, Richie was at a loss for words. Eddie Kaspbrak was the first to speak. “Hey,” he looked up into Richie’s eyes. Which were too high for Eddie to see to get a good look at. 18 year old Eddie Kaspbrak was a whopping 5 feet tall and everyone he grew up with swore he would not be able to get any taller after ninth grade. He straightened himself up as much as he could, but it was little help. Richie Tozier leaned against his door frame and smirked down at the boy, from 6 feet and 4 inches off of the ground. Eddie gulped. “I-I saw you needed a roommate…” he trailed off and looked behind Richie while clutching the paper a little tighter. Anything to get away from the burn of the taller man’s eyes.

Richie snatched the application from the boys hands and pretended to pull down his glasses to read it. The fast action made the boy jump back a bit. Richie began to read out loud. “Eddie Kaspbrak. 18 years old. Freshman. Majoring in nursing. Minoring in linguistics…” he read the next line on the paper then pulled apart to look Eddie up and down. “Hm. Scorpio.. blah blah blah study time blah blah blah sleep times… Can you supply the six hundred a month?” He crosses his arms as he leaned now. Eddie pursed his lips and eagerly nodded.

“Good boy,” Richie let out, unknowingly. He caught himself immediately after saying it and hid his face behind the paper again. He’d hope Eddie would take that as a playful thing and not think too much into it. Little did he know Eddie was flushed on the other side of the paper and his eyes had gotten a little darker.

Richie looked him up and down one more time, focusing on his fresh summer tan. The fall semester was just about to start and this boy looked like he spent everyday at the beach for the past three months. He was so dark, Richie almost wanted to say he looked latino. “You got the job, kid.” He handed the paper back to Eddie. Eddie smiled to himself as he asked if Richie could help him unload his luggage from his car. Richie jokingly asked him if he would be giving him a tip. Their playful relationship of roommates flowed pretty easily from there.

Eddie had morning classes. Richie had night classes. They never really had to interact during the week unless it was the afternoon. Even then, it was sometimes a quick “hello,” and “goodbye,” and one giving the other a longing stare.

Some weekend nights, they’d have movie nights. Eddie would pick one week, Richie the next. Richie would never admit it, but he’d turned down offers to grab drinks with his friends just to sit down and eat dinner with Eddie for multiple nights. He found the boy so interesting to talk to… not to mention how easy he was on the eyes. Definitely not to mention that.

Eddie liked to lounge around in his signature shorts and oversized shirts everyday that one day Richie finally pestered him about it. “Do you have any other clothes? You always wear the same style.” Anyone else would have taken that with offense, but not little Eddie spitfire Kaspbrak. He leaned his head back on the side of the couch to be eye to eye with the boy standing in the kitchen, eating a strawberry pop-tart. “Why are you fixated on the clothes on my body?”

Richie dropped his jaw a bit. “Jeez, I just notice things. You can always wear things my friends have left here, they’re all in a box in the linen closet…” he stood up straighter and walked closer to Eddie. Eddie sat up now to look up at Richie standing in front of him. “How kind of you, offering me your ex-hookups’ dirty bras and panties.”

Richie snickered. “It's washed. Besides, It’s not all girls stuff. I have boxers and briefs, too.” He nonchalantly took another bite of his pop-tart, still eyeing down Eddie. His toes in his tall white socks were squirming against the dark couch. Eddie felt red in his face. “Briefs… in your ex-hookup box?”

It was Richie’s time to be cocky with a sly nod. He had been playfully flirty with Eddie whenever he could, winking at him when he caught him staring, saying he looked extra cute on certain days and sitting a little too close to him on movie nights, but he never admitted that he was actually into boys. All of these actions only had reactions of an annoyed Eddie brushing him off, assuming he was messing with him.

“Ooh, better yet-“ Richie hurried and turned around, rushing to his room and back to bring a different box that did not read Ex-Hookups, but Old. He sat it in front of Eddie, on the coffee table. “Take my old clothes. I don’t need any of this stuff,” Richie smiled at Eddie as he paced around the living room. Eddie, silent, raised an eyebrow, before standing to sort through the box. There were oversized hoodies, sweats and band T-Shirts. Richie waved him off with, “Keep the whole box,” before he walked back into his room with his pop-tart, closing the door behind him. Eddie was already changing into the black hoodie.

Five weeks into rooming with him, Richie had thought this boy was the cutest person he had ever laid his eyes on. He would go meet his friends most nights at the local bar, and none of them cared to hear about Eddie. None except Beverly Marsh, Richie’s other spitfire in his life. His best friend since last year, mentioned that he was in her biology 101 class, usually a freshman class, but she had just gotten around to taking it. “You better leave that boy alone, Richie Tozier, or I will never hear the end of it. He’s my partner for Christ’s sake and all he can blab about is you some days..” This sparked Richie’s interest.

“Really?” He sat up straighter and ignored Stan Uris, Mike Hanlon and Bill Denbrough’s side conversation about an upcoming party. He leaned in next to Beverly. “What’s he say?” He playfully asked, batting his eyelashes. Beverly was unamused. She took another sip from her martini. “He says you always leave a mess for him to clean in the kitchen,” Richie interrupted. “I do the cooking, he does the cleaning, we agreed to that!”

Beverly talked over him. “He says you play your music way too loud in the afternoon when he’s trying to study,” Another interruption. “Yeah, I’m trying to distract myself from how attractive he looks when he’s sprawled against my couch in those fucking shorts.” He snorted, but it was too true. Beverly sternly looked at him before continuing. “He hates- well… nevermind, actually.” She took another sip.

There was no way she was getting away with that. “Tell me now, Red. You know he’s close friends with that big Ben you have a crush on, I could ruin you like this,” he snapped his fingers for emphasis. Beverly bit the bottom of her lip, she never knew when Richie was kidding. “He... he hates that you constantly have guests around. Something about germs.”

Richie furrowed his eyebrows. Guests? The only person he had over was Holden from Calculus… and Piper from the frat party. And Wren from the night club. And Stella from… Oh shit. Richie stopped his thoughts. Eddie had been aware of his ongoing late night hookups.

Richie tries his best to keep his sex life private from everyone besides his friends. He loved sex but he thought it was meant to be personal. He tried his best to keep it quiet, but obviously Eddie was aware of the noises from down the hall at 3 in the morning.

“Well, it’s not my fault my dick is so irresistible... Besides if he wanted to have someone over, he could. As long as he cleans up behind himself, I don’t care. I’d give him his space…” Beverly smirked at this. “Is that so, Tozier?”

Richie nodded as he blankly stared across the room. He downed some more whiskey. “Because I happen to know…” Richie’s eyes quickly fixated on hers. “That he has someone over right now.” She sadistically smiled at him.

After staring at her for nearly 10 seconds, Richie’s first reaction was to laugh. No way did Eddie have it in him to be the hook-up type. He and Eddie would stay up late and talk after movie nights. He knew Eddie had only had sex a handful of times, and that he wasn’t looking for anything at the moment. Richie respected that. Deep down, he found it in him to be okay with that and try and give him his space. This would change that. “No, Beverly. You’ve got the wrong short stack.”

Beverly was scrolling through her phone before she stopped on a photo of broad shouldered, golden locked, Damian Scott. Richie’s fist tightened. He had walked by Eddie’s rooms multiple times in the late night to hear Eddie giggling on the phone. “Damian, oh my God! Why would you do that?” Oh, you’re just so funny, Damian. Richie rolled his eyes in his head before walking into the bathroom.

Richie was up before he knew it and the rest of his friends looked up at him, waiting for him to announce something. Beverly raised her eyebrows. “I… have to go...” Is all Richie said before taking off towards his Mercedes Benz in the parking lot. His friends shrugged it off before continuing drinking, figuring Richie would blab about whatever was going on next time he saw them.

When Richie parked outside the flat, he had his headlights off. His car made the smallest sounds against the gravel, and he closed the door with just enough force to make sure it closed and wasn’t too loud at the same time. He looked at the window. Eddie’s room was dimly lit. Candles were sat near the curtains. Richie could see it in the shadow.

He quickly got in the front door, tiptoeing and shutting the door with more grace than ever before. He could have laughed, he was sneaking into his own apartment.

Then he heard it.

The deep voice. The grunts. The squeaking on the bed.

His roommate was getting fucked.

Richie could not explain what he was feeling. He crossed his arms over his chest. Was he mad Eddie had someone over and didn’t tell him? Was he annoyed that jock asshole Damian Scott was in his flat of all people? Did he wish he was in there giving Eddie a fucking he would never be able to forget? Drinking in his whimpers and teasing his little body in ways that would make him shiver?

He quickly shook it off and reached into his cabinet for his own bottle of whiskey. He shrugged his jean jacket off and rolled up the sleeves on his peach shirt, which truly did flatter him, and his dark curls against his dark jeans. As he downed one more, he heard one loud (hopefully final) groan from Damian himself. Richie’s grip around the bottle was tightening so hard he could have broken it.

He took the bottle with him to the couch. Eddie’s bedroom door creaked open to reveal a still slightly gasping Damian Scott with a handful of clothes slowly closing the door behind him. When he turned around and was met with Richie, his face went red and he stopped in his tracks. Richie gave him a dry smile. “Hey, Damian.” He said low enough so Eddie couldn’t hear.

Damian’s hands were clammy. He only had his pants on in front of Richie. Richie Tozier, who, besides being a loudmouth, had a history of getting into fights. Whether it be a bar fight or a frat party fight. He just had sex in Richie’s place, even without knowing about his tiny fixation with Eddie, that was scary enough. “Richie.” He acknowledged as he walked towards the door, a little pep in his step.

Richie abandoned the bottle that shattered on the ground and quickly ran towards the door right as Damian had his hand around the knob. Richie tightly grabbed his wrist and roughly pushed him against the door, leaning down to whisper in his ear. Because although Damian was 5’7, which was 7 inches taller than Eddie, he was still 9 inches shorter than Richie.

Richie reeked of alcohol and he knew it. He didn’t care as his hot breath spoke out the following words. “Make the hell sure you never fuck Eddie again. He can’t go see you, and you sure as fuck can not come here again. Spread the word to your worthless posse as well,” Damian was silent and his chest was heaving up and down. He nodded. “Go.” Richie finally demanded, and Damian could not have scurried away quicker. Richie watched as he ran to his car parked on the street, pulling his shirt over him as he ran.

He proudly smiled to himself for a moment. Then it fell. He turned to look at the mess on the ground. What the fuck had gotten into him? He closed the front door. Then the bedroom door creaked open for a second time in the past few minutes.

Eddie was wearing one of Eddie’s band shirts. Sublime. It dropped to the middle of his thighs, which were becoming a little chubby. Eddie was experiencing a small Freshman 15, and God, did it look good on those golden thighs. He rubbed his eyes, and his hair was a mess. Richie was reminded of what just happened and felt his blood boil again. He didn’t want to react and scare his roommate, because what the fuck was he supposed to say? So he took a deep breath and let out a, “Happy Saturday,” with a smile. Whatever that meant.

Eddie was confused. He dropped his hand from his face. “It's not Saturday, yet,” his soft voice insisted as he checked his phone in his hand. 1:36 am. “Oh, I guess you could say it is Saturday,” he yawned and stretched a little, his hands going high above his head. Richie dreamily stared for a little too long. Eddie spoke up again. “So, what happened here?” He motioned to the shards of broken glass on the floor.

Richie was brought back to life. “Oh, nothing. Your friend accidentally broke something on his way out, but I told him it was no problem. No worries.” He smirked as he walked to grab a broom and dustpan from the closet. He avoided Eddie’s face as he began to sweep, and Eddie was thankful because his eyes had nearly fallen out of his head. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I’m sorry. I thought you were gonna be out with your friends tonight. That’s what you said… and usually you don’t come back until like 3 in the morning with friends of your own, so I thought…” he trailed off as Richie stood up and dropped the broom, he walked closer to Eddie, keeping his demeanor cool.

“So you didn’t think you could ask me for permission before you bring some stupid jock over?” Eddie backed up closer to the wall little by little as Richie got closer. “He’s n-not stupid. He’s very nice. Did you talk to him on the way out?” Richie saw small bits of fear in Eddie’s eyes, so he decided it was too late to stop now. Eddie was already seemingly scared of him. “Of course I did. Now he knows not to come back or mess with you again. You’re welcome.”

Eddie’s back was finally against the wall and Richie wasn’t far behind him, putting his arm on the wall next to Eddie, and getting closer than they ever had before. Eddie shuddered as he looked deeply into Richie’s dark eyes. “You can’t do that. I have just as much of a right to fuck people in here as you do. You bring girls and boys here nearly every night-“ he was cut off by Richie bringing his abnormally large hand to Eddie’s small sides of his hips. Richie loved being this close to Eddie. He loved seeing how small he looked, both emotionally and physically next to him. Eddie was squirming under his touch now, his thighs shifting back and forth.

“And you’re always welcome to be one of them, baby,” Eddie’s lips were parted now as Richie brought down his hand from the wall to drag his rough fingers across Eddie’s swollen lips. Again, Richie is reminded of why they were swollen and gave the plumper bottom one a little pinch. Eddie whined under his touch and leaned his body more flush against Richie’s. “Yeah. I’d love to get these pretty little whore lips around me,”

Eddie was holding back a moan. He hadn’t come close to reaching his orgasm all night, but right now he was over half hard with his roommate barely touching him. Richie continued. “How big was Damian huh?” He leaned down much closer to Eddie’s face and whispered. “I bet you don’t even have it in you to take all 9 inches of me.” Eddie shut his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. His imagination was running wild right now, and his hips were rocking back and forth to get friction with Richie’s own cock. He could feel it against him from time to time, if he leaned his hips high enough. It was thick, hot and ready to pop out of those jeans. Eddie pulled Richie closer to him by his shirt.

Richie chucked at this. “What is it baby? You wanna use me to get off?” Eddie bit his lip. “So quiet and good for me now, huh? Damian didn’t fuck you right, did he baby?” All these questions and Eddie did not have it in him to form an answer to a single one. He could feel wet spots forming at the front of his underwear, and if he shifted the right way he could hear his precome spreading across his dick. “You want to be full of me, don’t you? You want to feel me all over your fuckable little body. You’re so small and tight, I know you’d suck me right in. I’d give you the best fucking you ever had, Eddie.” All this rambling, and Eddie finally let out a full blown moan at Richie saying his name. “Richie… please…”

Richie watched him. The face that looked so desperate, with his deeply parted lips. Richie pushed his right index and middle fingers through and Eddie instinctually sucked on them. He eyed Richie as he did. He gathered a little saliva on his tongue and gave Richie the most innocent look he could. He was already looking up at Richie because of their size difference, and Richie’s fingers looked big enough inside his tiny mouth to nearly resemble a dick. Richie’s cock was begging to be in the place of his fingers.

Eddie brought his hands up from his shirt to his arm that had the fingers down his throat to lightly grab it and shove it down further till he gagged. Holy fuck. Richie got red at this. Eddie smirked a little. To get the look off his face, Richie started shoving them at a much faster pace. Hearing constant gags and gasps for air as tears began to prick in Eddie’s eyes. Hmmmph. Eddie let out a little moan as a tear rolled down his cheek. He pulled his thigh up to wrap around Richie’s legs and pull him closer. Eddie gave small, weak thrusts against Richie’s cock, squirming as much as he could.

Richie got the hint. He finally released his fingers from the tiny ones mouth and wiped the strings of spit across Eddie’s lips. He already looked so fucked out. Richie could have came at the sight, but that was nothing compared to what he saw when he lifted up his own shirt on Eddie.

Eddie had worn a pair of baby blue lacy panties and his red cock was aching against the material. It was begging to be touched. Richie went hungry at the sight. He looked into Eddie’s dreamy, teary eyes before gently pulling down the material and harshly grabbing his cock.

It fit perfectly in the size of Richie’s hand. Eddie hissed. “Yes, fuck,” Richie devoured those fucking sounds as he leaned down to mouth against Eddie’s neck. He made a heavenly sound as he leaned to the side to give Richie more to work with. He moved his hands to the tops of Richie’s biceps, which were surprisingly strong. He held on to the muscle as Richie kept a fast pace up and down his cock. His giant thumb teased over the head and between the slit. “Since when have you been wearing those panties, princess?” His fingers massaged around the head a few times and that made Eddie let out another whine. Eddie’s mind felt hazy, but Richie ensured he wouldn’t avoid his question. He let go of his cock all at once.

“No!” Eddie grabbed his hand and attempted to drag it back, but that was hard when his whole hand had the weak ability to wrap over just Richie’s thumb alone. Richie scoffed. “Don’t think you’re in control for a fucking second, Kaspbrak. Answer me.” Eddie hummed at the thought of how powerless he felt, and could cry at how much he missed feeling Richie on him already. “Since you told me to. When you gave me the box with the panties…” His eyes were still shut, but Richie happily smiled down at him again.

“Yeah? You like wearing them around our place?” He placed his hand back on Eddie’s eager dick and made sure to watch his face as he did. “You like knowing I could potentially see them if you were bent over? You like rubbing your little cock against them as you listen to me fuck someones brains out right next to you?” Eddie pulled Richie much closer by his shoulders at that, and Richie let him because of how pretty the moan was that he let out. It sounded like something that had been building for weeks. Richie slid his precum up and down his dick at a much faster pace now.

Eddie stuttered. “C-close…” Richie scoffed again. Eddie’s thighs were shaking at how hard he was about to come. “You didn’t answer me,” Richie started slowing down his strokes. “No, no! Rich…” Eddie protested. Slower and slower until he pulled away again. At the loss of the sensation, Eddie broke, opening his eyes to get a good look at the tall man in front of him. “Yes! I do. I love the feeling of you staring at me whenever you see my ass-” Richie harshly grabbed his right ass cheek as a result of that. Eddie purred before speaking again. “I love hearing you fuck people next to me. Hearing you whisper that your roommate is sleeping when girls let out their fucking screams when you make them come…”

Richie was all ears now as Eddie honestly rambled. “When you bring boys home, I get especially jealous. I wish it was me you were fucking into everytime I hear the bed thump against my wall…” Richie was at the brink of coming in his fucking pants. Eddie spoke one more time. “The whole time Damian was fucking me, I was imagining it was you, but it was so hard,” Richie grabbed both of his cheeks now, kneading them in a way that would get Eddie talking some more. “You’re so much bigger. So tall…” he dreamily let out. “So big and perfect for me.” He looked up at Richie with pleading eyes. “I want to be the one you fuck, Richie. I’ll be so good for you...”

Richie felt more content than ever. This little hothead wanted him to fucking ruin him. He’d wanted it for a while. He’d probably gotten off to hearing him fuck everyone he brought home and now he wanted to be one of them. Richie thinks of Damian Scott. He talks before he thinks. “You should have thought about that before you let Damian stick his five inch up you,” he harshly let go of Eddie, placed his dick back into his panties, pulled down his shirt, and began to walk towards his room. The broom, pan and glass remained on the ground. “Make sure you clean that up. Goodnight, princess.”

Richie slammed the door. Eddie could have screamed.

#reddie #notsfw #smut #bottom eddie #gay little eddie #height difference #roommates #ficlet

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beca-mitchell · 4 years

Text

we are the wild youth (2/5)

chapter 2: don’t leave me tongue tied

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Chapter summary: Tutoring is going well, all things considered.

Again, rated M/E for depictions and references to coitus. Chapter title is from Grouplove’s “Tongue Tied”.

Word count: 4,536

Read below or on AO3.

Beca knows Chloe is intelligent. Beca wouldn’t hold it against her if the opposite were true because Chloe also wants to work hard. She just knows it.

It’s just that Chloe seems hell-bent on making Beca’s life particularly hard.

“Okay, I know you understood this just a few days ago. I watched you do that entire set of problems.”

Chloe grins at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Beca stares, baffled at the array of papers before her. “I don’t know how you did this.”

“I just really don’t understand it,” Chloe says in a completely convincing tone.

“Your father—”

Chloe’s expression darkens immediately. “I don’t care what he wants,” she says quickly. "He doesn't control my life." She stands from the chair pulled up to Beca’s desk and instead moves to lie down comfortably on Beca’s bed, looking supremely comfortable.

Beca rolls her eyes to her ceiling and prays for patience.

It is only the second week—end of the second week, really—of tutoring Chloe and she is already near her rope’s end. “You have an assignment coming up. I can’t help you with that, Chloe.”

“I know.”

“It’s worth like...a fifth of your grade. That’s twenty percent.”

“I know what a fifth is, Beca.”

“I’m really not sure what you know anymore,” Beca exclaims, pointing out the mess of formulas and half-completed equations. “What else are you taking this semester?”

“A literature course and some other elective,” Chloe answers, still staring blankly up at Beca’s ceiling. Beca pulls up patience from the last ounces of her reserves.

“Are you purposefully failing those classes too?”

At that, Chloe sits up. “What are you talking about?”

Beca straightens and attempts to look tall. “I know you’ve taken all these classes before. The math ones at least. They’re literally the only ones you have left to get your degree. You could have graduated by now,” Beca points out unnecessarily. “Maybe with two degrees, somehow. Or at least you would have made use of the fact that you have two majors going on.”

Chloe sits up, looking thoroughly disgruntled. “Oh, you know everything about my life, do you?”

“Why are you trying to stay?” Beca asks, somewhat incredulously. “Don’t you want to get out of here? Make something of your life?”

Chloe shoots her an annoyed glance. “You literally sound like my dad right now. Wow.”

Beca blinks and suddenly feels as if she is floating back into her own body. “Chloe, I’m not—”

“You are. It’s okay. I’ve heard it all. From him, from my mom. It's...whatever.”

It isn’t that Chloe sounds overtly defeated but the words themselves are enough to make a pang rush through Beca’s chest. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t appropriate,” she murmurs.

I know the feeling all too well.

And another thought—

We’re the same.

With that in mind, Beca returns to her own work, unable to do more than file that away for later. Maybe never to return to that thought. It’s a lot for a Thursday afternoon.

Chloe tucks her bottom lip between her teeth as she contemplates Beca from her perch on Beca’s bed. She begins to sit up slowly. “You could totally make it up to me though.”

“How?” Beca asks distractedly, writing down some corrections and explanations to go through with Chloe later. “Wait,” she says quickly. “I don’t have to make anythi…” she trails off upon actually looking up and catching the very pointed and heated expression Chloe is shooting her. “Uh,” she fumbles with her pen. “No,” she says firmly. “I’m not going to…” she glances at her door as if wary that one of her roommates is about to walk past. “I’m not going to have sex with you again,” she hisses.

“Uh huh,” Chloe says, standing slowly.

Beca puts down her pen. “I’m not.” She quickly crosses her arms over her chest, not missing the way Chloe’s eyes drift down to her chest. “Chloe,” she warns half-heartedly. “Chloe Beale.”

“A break,” Chloe suggests, reaching out to rub Beca’s shoulders as she moves to stand behind her, leaving Beca’s line of sight. Beca’s heart races uncontrollably despite the pleasurable sensation flowing through her shoulders. “A short one.” Her breath ghosts Beca’s ear as she leans down. “Or a long one, I don’t mind.”

Beca’s posture slackens as Chloe’s fingers knead into her shoulders expertly. “You’re going to get us in trouble.”

“With who?” Chloe asks softly, leaning down to press a kiss against Beca’s neck, then another when Beca doesn’t protest. “Nobody’s here. Just you and me,” she whispers. An intimate secret between the two of them.

Their own little world.

“Just…” Beca’s eyes flutter shut as Chloe’s hands move down to cup her breasts with achingly precise movements. “Make it quick,” she rasps in a last ditch attempt to regain some control on the situation. With each heaving breath she takes, she presses her chest into Chloe’s hands, much to Chloe’s delight.

Chloe’s laugh is playful, yet dark. It makes all kinds of heat shoot straight between Beca’s legs. “As the tutor commands.”

- - x - -

Thus far, Chloe has barely taken instruction from Beca seriously, so Beca isn’t sure why she had expected it from her at all.

Her earlier make it quick demand had been nothing but a smokescreen. It had been a show, a farce perhaps, of Chloe letting Beca think she had any authority near her when there was a bed so close to them.

If freshman-year Beca could see her now.

Chloe is anything but quick. She is thorough and precise, with how deeply she presses her tongue between Beca’s legs.

“Please,” Beca begs, not recognizing her own voice, laced with all kinds of desire and lust. “Chloe, please.”

Chloe hums, nipping around the soft skin of her inner thigh. Her teeth, blunt and even, drag across Beca’s flesh leisurely like Chloe has all the time in the world to do this. To taste every last drop of Beca.

“Please what?” she murmurs after kissing her way back up Beca’s body. “Tell me. Tell me what to do.”

Beca’s mind stutters to a stop, suddenly unable to form coherent words of any kind. A deep, pitiful whine escapes her instead when Chloe’s hips settle firmly between her legs, parting them further.

“How about this?” Chloe suggests, dragging her fingers up Beca’s slit teasingly before rubbing firm circles against her aching clit.

Chloe is full of good suggestions, Beca thinks as a final parting thought before she is nodding vigorously and pulling Chloe in for a deep, messy kiss. As surely as Chloe's tongue pushes into her mouth, Chloe's fingers gently ease their way through Beca's folds with familiarity. Beca groans deeply, arching her body right up into Chloe's, trying not to pump her hips too impatiently. She tries, but she's not much better at being patient.

Chloe nips along her jaw, alternating between sharp grazes of her teeth and soothing strokes of her tongue. Beca can vaguely make out a pattern of sorts, trying to ground herself in a rhythm of some kind.

"Stop thinking," Chloe mumbles before she captures Beca's lips again.

Somewhere behind them, Beca’s notebook flutters from the wind gently blowing through the open window.

- - x - -

It is only later that Beca accidentally picks up Chloe's phone. She sees a long message from Dad and the length makes her think that it is her own phone. It is only as she sweeps her hair back and focuses her bleary eyes on the message that she sees words like 'clinic' and 'responsibility' and 'disappointment' that it occurs to her that this is in fact not her phone. She glances over her shoulder to see Chloe watching her tiredly, much of the previous bliss now wiped completely from her face.

"Sorry," Beca murmurs as Chloe curls an arm over her. She thinks Chloe is reaching for the phone. "I didn't realize..." she trails off as Chloe casually loosens Beca's grip from her phone and lets it tumble to Beca's carpeted floor.

"I'll respond to him later," Chloe says, putting her hand low on Beca's abdomen. "I'm busy right now."

Beca can't disagree with that and soon forgets about anything else.

- - x - -

One-on-one time with Chloe isn’t what Beca anticipated for her final year at Barden.

Chloe gives Beca the impression that she has dreams of her own.

Beca would never presume that a person didn’t have dreams, but there is something about Chloe that Beca longs to figure out; something that she longs to unlock.

It’s in the way Chloe’s gaze unfocuses sometimes. How she stares at her textbook without really looking. It’s in the way Chloe sighs and pulls out a novel on dreary days, reading instead of studying despite Beca’s feeble protests. It’s in the way Chloe smiles when she listens to music, like each emotion courses through her freely—the most free she’s ever felt.

The last one, Beca identifies with the most. She sees a lot of herself in Chloe’s demeanor. She forgets often that Chloe is older than her by three years—it seems like nothing, after all, in the grand scheme of their lives.

She slips sometimes in her own thoughts, wandering and wandering until she finds herself imagining what Chloe would be like as a friend.

She longs to ask—longs to ask between hurried trysts, books shoved to the floor in Beca’s living room; longs to ask when Chloe’s breath washes across her neck in steady deep breaths—she longs to ask whether they could be friends, even as they slip further and further from any sense of normalcy.

“What?” Chloe murmurs, barely looking up from her calculator.

Beca bites her lip. “Nothing,” she replies quietly.

It really is nothing. Beca intends on keeping it that way, at least.

- - x - -

Chloe hey, want to grab a coffee?

Beca we don’t have a session today

Chloe i know, dork

Beca ok

- - x - -

"I'm not really a fan of coffee anyway," Chloe murmurs before she presses a deep, lingering kiss against Beca's waiting mouth. Beca, still trying to catch her breath, stutters out a gasp, arching deliciously against Chloe's body like she has nowhere else in the world to be. Somewhere, faintly, she knows they should stop. She should stop Chloe's hand from travelling down between her legs again. She should stop her own body from reacting so insistently; she should stop herself from spreading her legs further, but she can't. She can't do more than be helpless for Chloe's touch; she can't do more than crave this visceral form of intimacy. The primal urges that well up from deep within her whenever she gets so much within touching distance.

"Beca?" Chloe asks, voice low and wanting.

Beca breathes out deep, more awake than ever. "Yeah," she murmurs.

"Tell me you want me again."

"God, yes."

Beca can't say that she's a big fan of coffee anymore either.

- - x - -

“I didn’t know you were into this stuff,” Chloe says one day in November. As it nears the end of the Fall semester, Beca finds herself more frantic than ever, thus more clumsy. More accepting of people like Chloe specifically into her life and into her personal space.

Like now, with Chloe lounging at Beca’s bedroom desk, making herself comfortable at Beca’s computer.

“Hey,” Beca chastises. She stands and pulls her headphones away from Chloe’s head. “No touching.” She quickly closes her laptop, feeling a strange rush of embarrassment despite the knowledge that all she wants to do is share music with the world one day.

Somehow the thought of Chloe’s judgment means more than anything Beca could have ever imagined for herself.

Chloe pouts. “Sorry, it was open.” Beca frowns a moment longer. “I’m sorry,” Chloe emphasizes, looking apologetic and sincere. “I didn’t mean to be so nosy with your stuff.”

“Well that ‘stuff’ is my future, okay?” It bursts out of Beca before she can stop herself and she flushes, embarrassed. Not many people even know about this, with the exception of Jesse, Luke who graduated, her dad, and like two other people whom Beca deemed worthy (and who had wanted to listen to her music).

“I didn’t mean...” Chloe trails off, correctly assessing that Beca isn’t one to dwell on embarrassing moments or outbursts. Beca appreciates that. “Did you ever play this while you were the campus radio host?” Chloe asks. “Or other…” Chloe contemplates her words. “Mixes?”

“Some,” Beca says vaguely. When she looks up she realizes Chloe is watching her intently, causing her to blush furiously under all the attention Chloe is giving her.

“Why aren’t you still working there this year?” Chloe wonders.

“Because I’m leaving and it isn’t worth tying myself down to that place,” Beca replies shortly.

Her words strike a chord between the both of them, harsher than Beca intends but words were never her forte, hence the multitude of lyric-less arrangements she has sitting on her harddrive.

In the ensuing silence, Beca hesitantly looks up to meet Chloe’s eyes from across the table. Chloe looks unphased, which is unnerving on its own.

But Beca realizes that she looks sad.

“I—”

“Oh, it’s just—” Chloe laughs and cuts her off quickly. “Bummer, I would have enjoyed hearing your shows. Nice study breaks. I think you’re very talented, by the way. Just an observation.”

Beca isn’t sure what to say to all of that, so she chances another glance at Chloe who looks even more embarrassed.

Chloe looks away, an atypical blush creeping across her cheeks.

Beca exhales at the sight—an intriguing and appealing sight to be sure—and tries to will away the heat rising in her cheeks as well. She’s sure her cheeks are red. “Thank you,” she finally murmurs, keeping her emotions in check.

So much for normalcy.

“I do think you’re very talented, by the way,” Chloe says before she leaves that evening. “I didn’t mean to pry, but I think it’s cool. Like super cool that you’re committed to what you want.”

“I...yeah. I, sorry for snapping. I guess I kind of just don’t really share this stuff with people.”

Chloe smiles at her, leaning against the doorframe. “Well, if you ever need another pair of ears.”

Beca swallows, unsure where the sudden urge to kiss Chloe comes from. She tamps it down and stares at the center of Chloe’s nose. “Thank you.”

Chloe grins at her for a few moments longer before she slings her bag over her shoulder and finally makes her way down the hallway. “Bye Beca,” she singsongs from down the hall.

- - x - -

Beca can hear Chloe in her music. It’s in the melodies and the harmonies. It’s in the downbeats. The offbeats.

It’s in everything, permeating through the very essence of her work.

She pulls her headphones down around her neck, pressing her forehead against her palms.

Shit.

- - x - -

“I have an idea,” Beca says, dropping her bag by Chloe’s feet. She stands over Chloe who is hunched over her books in her favorite corner of the library.

“What’s that?” Chloe asks, lifting her head slowly to smile at Beca. Her gaze tracks down Beca’s body slowly making Beca somehow feel severely underdressed despite the thick sweater and overcoat she’s wearing.

She frowns, drawing the lapels of her coat closer together. “A proposition, if you will,” Beca drawls.

Chloe’s eyes seem to glimmer, making Beca’s heart race more than she could have ever anticipated given their surroundings. “What is it, Bec?” she repeats in a less suggestive tone. The nickname tumbles from her mouth easily, like she had been saying it all her life. Beca can’t say she minds.

“I...made some study mixes for you,” Beca says, feeling her face grow hot at the immediate and excited smile that stretches across Chloe’s lips. She immediately holds her hands out in front of Beca, expectation written in her eyes. “But, I’ll only give you a new one each time you finish a practice exam.”

Chloe groans, dropping her hands. “Beca,” she whines in a tone that reminds Beca of just two weeks ago. Chloe’s voice echoing in the communal shower stalls. Beca’s heart racing at the thought of being caught. Beca’s heart racing at the sight of Chloe coming apart beneath her hands. “Come on, I got this.”

“It’s incentive,” Beca argues.

“It’s torture,” Chloe replies dramatically. She sighs. “But something is better than nothing. Gimme.”

Beca, pleased by the reception to her idea, hands Chloe the precious USB. It touches her more that Chloe wants to listen to her music—that Chloe wants to hear what she has to say. Granted, it’s through music, but Chloe, more than anybody thus far has proven to be a staunch supporter.

A cheerleader, even.

A friend.

Though the definitive period at the end of that assessment feels less and less like a period and more like a question mark. Beca is pretty sure that even if she weren’t considering the extremely inappropriate circumstances under which they are continuing to sleep with each other, she’s sure that they aren’t just friends anymore, if they ever were.

It’s frustrating.

“Hey, Bec?” Chloe asks while pulling out her laptop. Beca tries to clear her head and hums in response. “My...parents are wondering if you want to come over for dinner sometime next week. Probably Wednesday or Thursday night. I know you don’t have night class or anything.”

It isn’t what Beca is expecting at all. “They what?”

“It’s just, um...I guess they want to thank you? For helping me.”

“They’re already paying me.”

“Just come, Beca,” Chloe says with a gentle smile. “They won’t bite. Much.” She laughs, a little hollowly. “They might not even notice you’re there if I’m being honest.”

Beca wants to inquire more, but it is that moment when Jesse materializes at her side, smiling at both her and Chloe like they’re all great friends. Beca chances a glance at Chloe and notes her carefully-neutral expression.

“What?” Beca asks, attempting not to be abrupt. She tries, really, but she’s still kind of reeling from the fact that Chloe asked her to literally meet her parents. She feels hot all over and quickly pulls off her scarf.

“Bec, it’s USC. They got back to me. I’m in. Early admittance. And since—”

“They what? Oh my God! Jesse, that’s amazing!”

She pulls him in for a hug, uncaring that a passing library staffer shushes her. Behind her, Chloe giggles.

“I—I guess you just weren’t answering your phone and you mentioned you had tutoring, so…” Jesse steps back and smiles again at Chloe, albeit a bit more hesitantly.

“That’s me,” Chloe says. “I’m the tutoring. Congrats by the way,” she says sincerely, with no small measure of kindness. “I don’t really know you that well, but that’s amazing, friend of Beca’s.”

“I know,” he says, relieved. “I mean, I guess I didn’t know until just now. But I’m getting out of here.”

“That’s—yeah. Wow,” Beca murmurs.

“You will too, Beca.”

“I have to,” she says without really thinking about it.

Something shifts in the air, but it is only perceptible to Beca. Or so she thinks. She forces a smile on her face and when she turns back to face Chloe, she sees the same expression mirrored back at her.

She forgets to give Chloe a response.

- - x - -

Chloe Titanium?? You really shouldn’t have

Beca what do you mean

Chloe That song used to be my lady jam ;) if you know what i mean

Beca …

Chloe it’s making a comeback tonight, i guess

Beca Chloe! Do not use my homework-incentive music to get yourself off!

- - x - -

(It is admittedly kind of hot, the thought that Chloe gets off to that song. Hotter still, the thought that Chloe’s going to get off to Beca’s spin on the song.

It’s kind of hot because she can see Chloe vividly - the flush in her cheeks and the swell of her lips. Somehow more swollen even without Beca’s ministrations because she’s biting her own lip and trying not to cry out or scream or moan or whimper.

It’s the kind of hot that makes Beca put her music on, bite her lip, and slowly push her hand down her underwear.

That kind of hot.

But Beca kind of just wants to know if Chloe likes her music.

It’s weird.)

- - x - -

(To be fair, things have been increasingly weird and Beca has no idea how to deal with it.)

- - x - -

Beca isn’t sure how to explain it, but the rift between her and Chloe only seems to grow over the next week. Chloe cancels tutoring and Beca begrudgingly agrees only because she knows Chloe actually does understand the content. The more selfish part of her wants to see Chloe, however.

She misses her.

It’s weird.

What’s weirder is that she does end up seeing Chloe on one of their scheduled tutoring days and it is completely accidental. Beca ends up volunteering at the community center at the behest of one of her Residual Heat co-workers. Well, she had started volunteering over the summer. It ended up carrying through to the rest of the semester.

She’s still brushing glitter off her hands, a sneak attack from one of her more rowdy students (and she’s dreading cleaning the glitter off her laptop when she gets home), when she sees Chloe through the glass doors leading to the dance studio.

Chloe, with her hair up in a messy ponytail, wearing a plain white t-shirt and black leggings, somehow looking more attractive than ever.

Beca gulps, watching Chloe gently guide a little girl’s arms into the right positions, clapping excitedly when her student seemingly succeeds in nailing down a specific series of moves. Beca gapes, unsure where her surprise comes from really. It’s not really that she has trouble merging this image of Chloe with the one she has in her mind (relaxed demeanor and leather jacket, easy smile to send Beca’s heart into a tailspin), but it’s just that this is so…

This is more like Chloe Beale—both the image of her in her mind and the Chloe she has come to know slowly over time. It is indescribably sweet and tender, the way Chloe exudes a certain gentleness.

Beca finds herself smiling the more she watches Chloe, so much so that she doesn’t even realize Chloe has spotted her until Chloe raps sharply on the glass pane and raises an eyebrow at her. Beca startles and mouths a hello at Chloe, waving awkwardly. Chloe waves back, albeit hesitantly and glances around like she isn’t quite certain if she wants Beca to know this about her.

“I’ll just go,” Beca says quickly. Chloe frowns, gesturing at her ear. “Oh,” Beca says awkwardly. She gestures with her hands. “I’ll just—” she points towards the exit. “Go,” she finishes lamely.

Chloe shrugs, waving at Beca and returning to her class.

The thing is, Beca ends up waiting for Chloe. She waits because for some reason, a force compels her to stay and she’s kind of tired of fighting it. It is only fitting that Chloe rounds the corner just as Beca finishes listening to a new song she had been tinkering with over the past week—it is fitting because the song, like so many others, reminded her so much of Chloe.

Chloe is surprised to see her waiting on a bench right by the exit with her bicycle. “You stayed,” she comments as she nears.

“I’m uh…” Beca grips her bike to steady herself. “I didn’t know you taught here too.”

Chloe’s cheeks are flushed, not from the cold, but from embarrassment. As if she has just been caught doing something she shouldn’t. “It’s just for some spare change and I enjoy it.”

“That’s…” Beca still sees the vision of Chloe bending down, ruffling her student’s hair, looking cheerful, affectionate, and most importantly, carefree. Beautiful. “Nice,” she says instead. “That’s nice of you,” she reiterates.

Chloe pauses like she expects Beca to say something else, but relief crosses her face when nothing else comes. “Thank you.” Chloe’s brow furrows and some tension appears to leave her shoulders. “What were you doing here?”

“I volunteer at the community center.” Beca shrugs. “Just to pass time. Teaching kids how to use Garageband. It’s almost like I work in an Apple store, but less fancy. They spend most of their time figuring out if there are fart noises in the stock audio.”

“You’re an angel aren’t you?” Chloe reaches out to squeeze her cheek, an action that Beca finds herself not shying away from to her own surprise. “Do you have another mix for me then?”

Beca swats her hand away playfully and leans out of Chloe’s grasp. “No, because you haven’t given me your completed practice exam.”

Chloe grumbles and draws her sweater around her shoulders. “I thought they were made specially for me.”

They are, Beca thinks immediately but quickly stifles the thought by clenching her fist in her jacket pocket. “With conditions,” she says instead, attempting a grin. “Need a ride?” Beca asks when she notices Chloe simply stuffing her hands into her pockets.

Chloe eyes her bike. “On that?”

“You can wear my helmet.”

Chloe mock-gasps, but accepts the helmet nonetheless. “Fine,” she says. “But only because I live like two blocks away and you seem responsible.”

“I’m very responsible. As your tutor, your safety is my responsibility.”

“Is it now? I thought education was your responsibility.”

“I’m making it my responsibility,” Beca declares. “Get up here.”

“You do care!”

More than you can imagine.

Somehow they manage: Chloe tells her where her apartment is; Chloe sits on her handlebars and Beca peddles as steadily as she can; it is quiet for the most part, save for Chloe’s giggling whenever Beca swerves to avoid a rock; it is oddly romantic.

Beca isn’t afraid of falling, not with her chin hooked over Chloe’s shoulder so she can see as best as she can.

Her heart pounds nonetheless, with Chloe’s warmth enveloping her.

Chloe smells like cherry blossoms and sunshine.

It’s a different kind of falling.

“Come in?” Chloe asks, eyes bright with promise and more.

Beca knows she shouldn’t—she really shouldn’t. Not when all these feelings, new and old, ripple inside her with a multitude of swirling uncertainties.

She shouldn’t take Chloe’s hand and follow her up to her apartment. She shouldn’t let Chloe’s lips latch onto her neck while her hands hastily push at the clothes on Beca’s body. She shouldn’t let Chloe guide her gently into the shower—she shouldn’t beg for more when Chloe’s fingers slip inside her aching cunt.

She shouldn’t, but her body cries out for Chloe in more ways than one and she helpless to do anything more than be swept away by the tide of her emotions.

Beca shouldn’t stay overnight, something they have been careful about not doing in the past, but she does. She folds herself into Chloe’s arms and falls asleep to the sound of Chloe’s deep, even breaths in her ear. She lets her body sink into Chloe’s touch.

She stays because she’s tired of fighting the one thing that has made her feel the most alive she’s ever felt in her four years at Barden.

/end chapter 2

read the rest: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

#bechloe #fanfiction #pitch perfect #mine #my fanfic #text #we are the wild youth

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starchild--27 · 3 years

Text

tag game

Rules: answer the questions and tag people you’d like to get to know better. Thank you, dear Feli @kafkascupcake 💕

What do you prefer to be called name-wise?

you can call me literally anything - selma, selmi, starchild, make something up. whatever you like best ^-^

When is your birthday?

may 1

Where do you live?

germany, switching between my parents’ house and my dorm room in the city i study in

Three things you are doing right now.

- watching black panther on tv

- sitting in the yellow armchair where i watched all the epiodes of exo showtime shortly after we moved and didn’t have wifi yet

- craving milk tea lol

Four fandoms that have piqued your interest?

kpop, Star Wars, the MCU, Harry Potter i guess are the major ones but that changes from day to day xD

How has the pandemic been treating you?

i am healthy, my family and friends are healthy, so i consider myself lucky. i miss going to places, i wish i could explore the city i moved to more, i wish i could meet up with the other people from my classes. i’m probably feeling like everybody else right now. this year in general was marked by changes and insecurities about the beginning of my actual life. and everything turned out different and in a way nobody would have expeced. i don’t know if i would feel better or be at a better place mentally without all the conditions the pandemic brought. i don’t know if this really answers the question, i don’t know if i actually have an answer for this question. but yeah, here we go.

A song you can’t stop listening to right now?

many, none, i don’t know. i just take my miced playlist as it comes these days.

How old are you?

18 1/2

School, university, occupation, other?

university student in the 1st semester, who is still really not sure about her major fml 😶

Do you prefer heat or cold

depends on my mood. rn i really enjoy the cold weather outside, i like the feeling of breathing in and actually feeling the air in my lungs

Name one fact others may not know about you.

this is super random now: i was hit by a car when i was 12.

Are you shy?

yes. i blame it on the overthinking.

Pronouns?

she/her

Biggest pet peeves?

making spelling mistakes in my notebook 🙊

What is your favourite “dere” type?

i don’t really have a favourite. i just probably read to little magas/watched to little animes to really know 😅

Rate your life from 1-10, 1 being crappy and 10 being the best it could be.

a solid 5.

What’s your main blog?

this one.

List your side blogs and what they’re used for

@wolveswithblackpearls which you should ckeck out if you like exo/kpop and moodboards - my friends and i are finally amnaging to be activ again

@starchilds-creative-output where i collect creative stuff i shared here on tumblr, hoping it would be less messy than my main blog. but what can i say... i probably should just make a masterlist for it

Is there something people need to know about you before becoming friends?

i have major issues with approaching people, so yes, i consider you my friend and i probably think more often about you than you can imagine, i’m just really bad at making the first step or starting a conversation.

Tagging: @shadoukiti @yeolkisses @pajamas-lipstick - only if you want to of course <3

#tag game

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sope-and-shine · 4 years

Text

Christmas Special: Day 6

-> Pairing: Hoseok x Reader -> Teacher AU! // Fluff -> Word Count: 3.4k -> Summary: You and Hoseok are hallway neighbors and flirt constantly outside of your classrooms everyday. You’re students are honestly tired of seeing you both beat around the bush. That’s why this years pep rally will be one to remember. ->Warnings: None.

“Alright, everyone! Let’s go over the plans for the rest of the time we have together!” You call out, grabbing the attention of your students. “With your midterm next week, I will not be putting any pressure of having homework until we all come back from break.” Your students cheer and you take that as the go ahead to grab the papers on your desk. “However, I do have a study guide that you can complete, and anyone who takes the initiative can use it when we take our test next week.”

“Are you serious?” Haechan asks, his eyes wide with anticipation.

“Very serious. Consider this an early Christmas present.” You say, flashing a smile.

Jeongguk and the corner of the room seems to be elated over the news, so elated he can barely form a real sentence, “I’m not going to fail...I’m not going to fail!”

“You have to do the study guide correctly to not fail.” Jiin reminds him, stopping the rambling boy in his tracks only so he could stare blankly ahead with wide eyes. You should probably send him to the nurse for that.

“He has to do it in the first place.” Jae laughs next to him. He’s amused until he hears Wonpil in front of him, “You’re one to talk.”

Jisoo sighs in relief, “This will be the easiest grade of my life.”

High school is a place many people don’t imagine returning to after they leave. The cold hallways, the judgemental stares, the looming fear of not knowing what to do with the rest of your life. Of course, there are students that plan to be teachers, but most want kids that are either younger or way younger than a bunch of rowdy and hormonal teenagers that would rather be anywhere else learning so many different things.

That was how you started anyways.

You planned on getting your teaching degree in English to work with elementary schoolers between the ages of 5-10. You of course had the credentials to teach older students, but high schoolers were never in your final picture. When you were interviewing with the board, they had originally offered you the elementary position like you wanted, but they had asked if you would cut a deal with their - at the time - current high school English teacher who’d been facing illness. You had agreed, but it was only supposed to be a temporary position until they figured out what to do next. The only thing is, as you spent more and more time with the students and got to know and enjoy them, you couldn’t even imagine leaving them.

Taehyung raises his hand, “Miss. (L/n)! Can we bring in food next week if all we’re going to do is study?”

“Of course you’d be thinking about food.” Lisa grumbles.

Yugeom holds his hand out to the girl next to him, “Wait, let’s not turn him down so fast! Can we bring in anything?”

“Miss (L/n) didn’t even agree yet!” Wendy reminds them.

“Please, Miss (L/n)?” Chenle asks.

“You can bring in food as long as there is enough to share with everyone. I’ll bring in cups and plates if you all want to handle the rest.” You agree. There was no way you could turn your students down when they were looking at you with so much hope. The bell rings around the room to end your class, your students wasting no time to pack their things. “Food next week, okay?”

Jeno rushes through the door with Jaemin, “For once I’m actually excited about spirit week.”

“Jisoo, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Lisa asks, already planning how she, Jennie, and Rose would split the work amongst the four of them.

“I’m bringing in nuggets!” Jae announces, running out of the room and cutting off the dazed Jeongguk being led by Jimin and Taehyung.

Despite the chaos they brought with them, there was no denying how charming they all could be. This specific class was in middle school when you joined the school staff, and this was their second year of high school with you as their English teacher. You hated to admit it, but they were definitely your favorite class of the day. They were a nice mix of responsible and absolute chaos with no inbetween. But you didn’t mind as much as you’d thought you would before you started. Kids like them were what made you stay. It didn’t help that the Korean Lit teacher across the hall was a sight for sore eyes.

You follow the group to the door, bidding them one last goodbye. Across the hall from you, the Korean Literature teacher, Jung Hoseok, is doing the same with his class of students. He’s wearing fitted, light grey dress pants with black belt, a plain black sweater tucked into the front, and black dress shoes with short black socks. He was always dressed well when he came in for work, and you had to thank whoever created this man for giving him a taste in fashion. His dark brown hair is styled, slicked back on the right and his bangs framing the left side. He looks just as good as he does every other day you see him, and you can’t help but let your stare linger just a little longer than it should.

“Well, you still look as lovely as ever even after 4 classes!” His voice pulls you out of your trance, and your brought back to the dazzling grin of the man you couldn’t stop dreaming about. He’s leaning back against his door now, hands in his pockets as you both wait for your next round of students to come from their previous class. “I trust your day hasn’t felt too long, Miss (L/n)?”

“They never do when you’re across the hall, Mr. Jung.” You flirt back playfully. You catch the pink hair coming around the corner and turn your attention to your student, “Good afternoon, Rose.”

“Afternoon.” She smiles.

“You know,” You turn back to Hoseok as he begins, “I’ve been thinking about starting study sessions for next semester to prep for finals. Would you be interested in helping me out?”

You sigh, “I’ll think about it, but I do have to work it around my club schedules.”

“Yeah, of course! Please take your hat off, Mr. Kim.” Matthew removes the hat from his head and Hoseok gives him a polite nod of appreciation before he returns to you, “Will you be offering anything for next week’s pep rally if the students hit their goal? I personally have agreed to dye my hair cherry red this year.”

“But the orange looked so good last year!” You tease. Last years pep rally was great despite the penalty you face, but the bright orange hair that he was stuck with for months was the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Apparently Hoseok didn’t feel that way, “The orange was a disaster and you know it.”

“I’m letting Hyuna decide for me this year. Last year, I could only think of dressing up in that ridiculous costume and dancing to popular dances.” No matter what they gave you this year, nothing would be as terrible as the inflatable fat suit your were in.

“Hey, I thought you did a great job! So great, that I think we should get some coffee later, if you’re up for it?” He asks, an eyebrow raised. His question for coffee wasn’t new, but he rarely ever meant it. Even if he did, the bell answered him before you could. He sighs, “That’s the bell. I’ll see your beautiful face in an hour, Miss (L/n).”

“I guess that means I’ll be seeing you as well.” You bid him goodbye and close your classroom door to begin your class, seeing all of your students staring at you with bored expressions. Teachers would find that normal if this class of students wasn’t you’re second loudest of the day. “What?”

“Are you and Mr. Jung dating yet?” Jennie asks, cutting right to the point.

“Mr. Jung and I are just coworkers. Nothing more, Lisa.” You protest. It’s not that you didn’t want to be more than friends, but Hoseok was strictly just friends with you.

“But he’s so into you!” Hongseok argues. Mark next to him nods in agreement, “Don’t be blind to his love, Miss (L/n)!”

“He tells you you’re beautiful everyday, I can’t even get Hyojong to have my back in gym class.” Hyuna admits. Said blonde boy takes a break from drinking the banana milk he brought to class to shrug, “It’s a dog eat dog world, babe. I can’t help you if I’m out of the game.”

Your students continue their rave, throwing more and more arguments about ‘how much Mr. Jung likes you!’ and ‘You obviously love him too!’ They kept going and going, until you’d had enough of their comments.“Even if Mr. Jung and I had a romantic relationship, our personal lives should be none of your concerns. What you should concern yourselves with is pulling out the homework I gave you yesterday.”

Their groans of frustration but compliance sets you back on track, letting you move on from this conversation. Hopefully for the rest of your life.

----

Outside the school walls, in a nearby park covered in white snow, a group of teenagers sit under a gazebo. All had agreed to meet there Saturday morning when they were sure no one would catch them. All were dressed in their warmest clothes, and some had even brought something to write on just in case.

Taehyung huddles as close to Jimin as he can possibly get, “Why did we have to do this outside? The library is just as good a place to talk about this.”

“Because all of us are way too loud to do this in the library.” Jennie reminds him, wrapped in a blanket with Lisa.

“Besides, Miss (L/n) spends her Saturday mornings at the library with Mr. Kim - the math teacher - doing their grading.” Lucas says, sitting in between Haechan and Jisung. How he knew that information? Nobody knew. But nobody would question it if it were helpful.

Chenle pipes up, untucking his scarf from around his mouth, “Are we sure we’re right about her and Mr. Jung? What if we have this all wrong?”

Hyuna shakes her head, confident in her people reading abilities, “We don’t, okay? I know for a fact that we have this right.”

“So, what do we do?” Wonpil asks, leaning against the wall of the gazebo, “We can’t just ask them to go on a date together.”

“Technically, we can.” Jimin says.

Jae sighs, “Okay, yeah, but I don’t see that working for us if Mr. Jung can’t get it to work for himself.”

“Honestly, if I were Miss. (L/n), then I probably would brush him off too. He tries just a little too hard when it comes to her.” Rose shrugs.

Johnny chuckles, “Have you seen Miss (L/n)? I’d try hard too.”

“Gross.” Lisa scoffs.

Wendy stands up, “People! Let’s think about this! What is the best way to get them together for the holiday?”

“Miss (L/n) is having me choose her punishment for next Friday. What if we get Mr. Jung involved?” Hyuna asks, ready to rearrange everything they had planned.

Jaemin shakes his head, “Mr. Jung already has a punishment.”

Jisung nudges his side, “But he wants that punishment. Let’s plan something that will ensure they both get together.”

“Okay, but what?” None of the teens knew exactly what they could do or how it could work. How could they possibly get their teacher together?

“I think I have an idea…” Jeongguk pulls out his phone and places it against his ear, waiting for an answer.

“Who are you calling?” Hyojong asks.

Jeongguk smiles, “Someone that I know can help us out with this. The only person who can get this done.”

----

It’s the next week, well into the Holiday Spirit week the students had planned. You’re students have been doing wonderful at their review, and you could only hope that they passed their midterms tomorrow. The teachers lounge was a breath of fresh air after the long day you’ve had. But no more kids now, just papers to grade and hand back at the beginning of the New Year. Everyone in the room seemed to have the same agenda. Namjoon was sat at the corner table with Yoongi and Taeil, eating the cookies Seokjin brought from his last class of the day while still decked in their holiday themed attire. Amber was for some reason chilling on the floor with Eric surrounded by essay after essay from her history class, her reindeer antlers long forgotten somewhere on the floor. Taeyong, Doyoung, and Seokjin were busy cleaning up the counter discussing amongst each other, each one of them having coordinated their costumes as three different Elsa’s from Frozen. Everyone was in their own groove and just relaxing after such a long week.

The teachers lounge door bursts open, Jung Hoseok appearing with his signature smile and temporary white chalk to go with his snowman theme today, “Guess who has the results for our demise?!” The other teachers groan in annoyance, most choosing to ignore their fate while some actually give the excited man attention, “The truck just came to pick up all the donated items and it looks like the students surpassed their goal by a longshot.”

“You’re joking.” Jin turns so fast you could see coffee fly out of his cup. He was so shell shocked that he didn’t even feel it hit his hand, “I should never have agreed to kiss a pig. Where do I find a pig?!”

“You think you have it bad? I agreed to dress up as a girl!” Namjoon groans. Yoongi nods next to him, already accepting his fate but still not ready for it to be real yet, “Yeah, no I remember, we made the pact together.”

“Well, Eric, it looks like we’re going to be having that watermelon eating rematch after all.” Amber says, nudging his side. Both of them looked way too excited for what was supposed to be a punishment. “I won in college, Amber, I will win again!”

She laughs, “Yeah, and I’ll watch you throw it up again in the trash can outside of the gymnasium.”

“Can we focus on the fact that we let Haechan choose our punishments?” Taeil shouts. He turns to the two men beside a sulking Seokjin and places a hand to his chest, “Men, this may be our final year of life.”

Hoseok takes a seat next to you, letting himself relax into the comfort of the couch. He sighs, “Anyways, did you think about my offer? I really need an answer before the New Year.”

“Which offer? The study group or the coffee?” You ask, continuing with your grading.

“Both.” He smiles, his cute dimples popping out for the first time today.

“Study group? Yes. Coffee? Not a chance.” You smile. Hoseok’s hand moves to his chest with feigned hurt, “Ah, you’re playing with my heart, Miss (L/n).”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Jung.” You tease.

-----

At this point in the day, the Pep Rally was already in full swing. Sports teams were prepped and ready to battle against each other, students in the bleachers rowdy and ready for the day to be over, and the schools band playing loud and proud above it all. Student council members run around the gym directing the flow of events for the day, making sure students in the bleachers and on the court listened as they should.

Everyone had taken their punishments like champs, especially Namjoon and Yoongi who still wore their outfits. Taeil, Taeyong, and Doyoung all let their faces get pied, pies courtesy of Seokjin’s morning class. But hey, he had to kiss an actual pig, so why not? Then there was Hoseok who got his hair lightened by his sister when he got home the other day, allowing his students to make his hair a bright fire engine red instead of the usual brown. Amber and Eric definitely threw up in the trash cans outside of the gym, even though neither one made it through half of the watermelon.

Then there was you. Your students definitely wanted you to give show, only they prepared a Santa costume this time around. The embarrassment was already filling your bones, but there was nothing else you could do at this point. This is what you promised them, so you might as well give it your all. And you can honestly say that you wrecked that floor with the different dances they put on for you, one student even throwing money onto the floor where you were dancing. You’re just relieved when the music stops so you can leave and get back into your holiday sweater.

“Not so fast, Miss (L/n)! There’s one more part to your punishment~ No Santa is good without a Mrs. Claus, so why don’t we get one for you?” Hyuna waves over towards a massive amount of students where the still slightly damp, red haired Hoseok appears in a red velvet dress, a white frilly apron, and a white bonnet, “I’d love to present to you, Mrs. Claus!”

Watching Jung Hoseok strut onto the floor wearing a dress was something else. Especially since the last thing you expected from him was for him to suddenly start break dancing in his get up. But you were no loser, especially not to your supposed Mrs Claus.

And that’s how you found yourself in a dance battle with a man in a dress while you wore a heavy fat suit covered in velvet. You were in no way trained to be a dancer like Hoseok had once been, but you were not about to lose to him like this. That was when the students decided to strike. All at once the music playing stopped and a slower, more romantic song started. You were extremely confused, especially when students started bringing over flowers and a mic to Hoseok while he removed his get up to reveal the dress pants and dress shirt underneath of it.

He walked towards you with the most sincere look you’d ever seen on him, “I know this is really sudden, but you can thank our students for this mess. Miss (L/n), I would be overjoyed if you would let me take you on a date.”

And just like that everything blew up all at once. Students were screaming, your friends were pumped and cheering you on from afar, and Hoseok was looking at you with such hope that you were honestly too stunned to respond. You knew what you wanted to say, but you couldn’t find yourself saying anything at all. He’d always joked about wanting to go on a date, but you didn’t think he actually meant it! He was ungodly handsome and intelligent, and you were...you.

Your students were not shy about what they want either, “We as your students want you to be happy, and we know that you both like each other no matter how much you may deny it. Please consider accepting Mr. Jung’s offer.”

What were you supposed to do, say no? Not anymore.

You take the mic from his hands and flash him the brightest smile, “I’d love to.”

----

“You invited Mr. Jung here?!” Rose asks.

“He’s our best option!” Jeongguk argues, “If anyone is going to get her to say yes, it’ll be Mr. Jung with a grand gesture. She won’t be able to say no!”

“Okay, but if she does say no, then we’ve just embarrassed the hell out of him!” Jae yells. He takes a look towards Hoseok and bows quickly, “Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t worry about it Jae.” He holds up a hand and takes a well needed breath, “I know this is weird, but Jeongguk said you guys wanted to help. This would be a big help to me.”

“Do you think she’ll say yes?” Renjun asks.

Hoseok sighs, running a hand through his hair, “I’d love to think she’ll say yes. But I know that I’ll need help from all of you to get it done. I hope you’re all up for the challenge.”

“Anything for love!” Jimin says. The others agree with him, adding in their own comments here and there.

Despite them wanting to meddle into his life, he couldn’t find it in him to be angry with them when all they wanted was to get the two of you together for the holiday in the name of love. How could he ever be angry with them? This was the Christmas present he never knew he wanted, nor did he realize he needed.

But it turned out to be the best one of all.

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jackbabewang · 5 years

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At first sight...

Pairing: Jaehyun x Reader Genre: College au, Fluff, That library crush theme Word Count: 2,554

It can be hard to seduce someone in total silence.

Final exams are approaching, so now you are spending a great deal of time in one corner of your room at a clustered study desk, constantly reviewing notes, and grumbling. There are just too many distractions to interrupt you at the dormitory. The residents above are deliberately harassing you by stomping on the floor, classical music blasted from the room next to yours making your unit feel like some strange musical theater of the absurd and then there is your bed. So so inviting. You have enough points going into the exams to pass easily, but the pressure has not lifted because you are keen to scoring the highest possible marks. Well, that is just you being you. To pry yourself away from disturbance, the university’s library seems to be the ideal place for better concentration. And so, your routine begins.

Day 1

Unknowingly excited. Your nerdy self got a seating in a booth that offers the most privacy. Though the library is crowded with students studying frantically, it is still quiet. Your body sinking into the cushioned padding, laptop opened, bookmarks orphaned on tables, highlighters and pens began their labour.

Day 3

Still going strong. Probably. You need some fresh air and a break from your studies. After a couple of hours sitting hunched over books, you are worried that you can even try out for the role of a hunchback. You decide to take a walk outside on the campus park. You miss warmth, the heat of the sun on your skin, needing the light for some kind of photosynthesis.

By the time you return to the library, there sits a paper cup on top of your table with a square note beside it written, ‘Hey little fighter, soon things will be brighter!’ There is no name, no initial that gives away the identity of the alleged person who left it there. A small smiled etches on your lips as you reach for the source of warmth, the tip of your fingers have turned icy cold the second after you walked in. A string of white steam escapes through the small opening, turns into vapour around your nose, kinda dumb of you to take a sip without hesitation. The intense heat burns your upper lip and you wince in reaction. “Fuck!”

Day 5

Your enthusiasm surely died down. Two days away from the first paper, you are feeling the tension in your shoulders, in the air, when you come across topics that you are unsure of. The ink runs out in your flimsy pen, the cheapest in Target, and your writing fades away into almost invincible marks on the paper, until you reluctantly switch for another. Consequently, you are feeling numbness in your head after reading, with pressure in temples. Faintness and migraine give you a ready-made and honest reason to excuse yourself from the books momentarily. A short walk to the water fountain or the upper floor toilet will do.

It seems like deja vu all over again when you come back to the same paper cup but with a different note this time, ‘Wish you luck for whatever you’re struggling with :)’ Kinda creepy… not going to lie. The idea of someone watching you has the hair on your neck prickles. However the ever encouraging words compensate for your terror.

Fifteen minutes prior to closing time, the librarian makes an announcement and requesting patrons to leave. The sun has already set, and the moon is slowly peeking in the darkened sky. That is when you realize you have been staying in for approximately eight hours.

You make your way out immediately, the drink from an anonymous individual in your hand left untouched and disappointingly you have to throw it away.

“Hey!”

Your hand stops in mid air, head turns to the rippling voice. A guy in gold rimmed glasses jogs over. With a closer look, he has a strikingly handsome face and you are left wondering what exactly did you associate with a fine man like him.

“Glad I caught you,” he says, panting slightly. His eyes flitting nervously back and forth between you and the paper cup. “Do you… Do you not like hot drinks? I’ve got you hot chocolate this time since you weren’t drinking the coffee…”

“Oh.” So he is the secret delivery guy.

There is an uneasy silence in the air. He rubs his collarbone and then the back of his neck, looking almost embarrassed. “I guess you don’t.”

“No, no! That’s not it. I just- Don’t get me wrong. I don’t wish to catch myself heart attack cause I had two shots of coffee earlier.” Well, the pounding of your heart should be stopped by now but it does not seem to. Weird. “And this… hot chocolate?” You pause for confirmation and is rewarded with a nod. “Is kinda too sweet to my liking and it’s not such a great idea to get jazzed when I’m wracking my brain.”

He chuckles, mumbling coherently to himself that he has understood girls wrongly. Little did he know, you are no ordinary girl. You are a girl of determination; a girl of the new millennium. Sugary-sweet desserts work no effect, and you do not fawn upon pick up lines and impassioned gestures. You are too, too difficult to please.

“So…” You look everywhere except in his eyes, feeling awkward in the presence of this stranger, a hot stranger to be frank.

“I- I was asking if you wanna have… dinner with me?” Gulping so loudly he can hear himself, enough for you to hear it too, and you can see his Adam’s apple moving rapidly.

“Sorry… I’m going back now, though…” And have yourself a bowl of bland oatmeal with fresh-cut fruits. Now, however, your stomach grumbles on cue, reminding you that you have not been eating since morning.

He chuckles again, a pleasant throaty sound, and humiliation nips your skin like sand fleas. “Let’s go. I believe it can’t wait.”

This is just odd. What has gotten into you to come into agreement with someone you have known for less than an hour. Anyone else will figure you are a pair of couple just by walking together shoulder to shoulder, and if anyone among your circle of friends were to find out, they are definitely going to be nosy about it.

“Hey, I may be strange, but not weird! There’s a difference.” Jaehyun is his name, and he sure has the balls of steel. Let us put it that way. That is cause the guys in your classes are incomparable, they get intimidated by you while he does not even flinch in the face of the wolf (for some reason they gave you the nickname).

As much as you hate to admit it, the more time you spend with him, the more you enjoy his company, his wit, and his willingness to discuss anything—whether it be politics, Ironman versus Captain America, or Joji’s latest track. He is courteous, ambitious, and attractive, and he can dance with the best of them. Most of all, he does not seem to mind your independent ways of thinking.

“Are you going now?” He is probably pushing his luck, since he certainly does not want you to leave just yet, but he has to ask.

“I am.” You can swear you see disappointment flickers in his eyes and if you are not mistaken, his bottom lip sticking out slightly in a pout. But it is gone so fast when, “I can stay for… a bit longer.”

“Great. Follow me.”

Without another word, he turns and stalks up the stairs. On the third floor landing, he stops and looks back to make sure you are still following closely behind. An amused smile emerges as he watches you panting breaths, and a blush blooms like hothouse roses in your cheeks. Past the hall and into the narrow passage, thence leading to what you assume is the back door which he has already broke open with a flexible plastic ruler. Flipping the light switch, turning on the lights, illuminating the space, and you come to realize it is the abandoned classroom where you attended tutorials for Business Communication last semester.

“We could’ve taken the elevator!”

“It won’t be fun then.”

“You mean, it won’t be fun if you don’t have me to laugh at.”

“Besides, nobody saw us. We can’t be seen in here.”

He proceeds to scramble around like he has done it before, maybe not a lot, but a few times at least. He connects his phone to the stereo system and soft, soothing music drifts lazily on the air from hidden speakers. He then joins you at the table, sitting beside you, closer than your very first meeting.

“I didn’t know this was possible until now.”

“Oh, they’re a lot I haven’t shown you yet,” he says, wriggling his eyebrows lasciviously and giving you a cocky grin. You just have to have a pep talk with yourself that if Jaehyun is not hinting something else—you can imagine.

“Do you always bring people here?”

“What do you mean?”

You shrug your shoulders, turning sideways and lean against the chair back with him mirroring your posture. “You know… Girls… Is this how you impress them with your lockpicking skills?”

“Are you, perhaps, a wee bit jealous?”

You scoff at such a ridiculous prospect. In fact, you might get salty if you figure you are just one of the chicks he brought over this place. You are not going to fall for him and his antiques like the stupid bitch they are.

“No. I never bring women here. I don’t bring anyone here. You’re a first.”

Your interested gaze transfers to him. “You don’t?”

He shakes his head.

“But… why?”

“Policy.” He glances at you, sees you frowning and says, “Don’t worry about it, okay?”

Yet for long the study session is either neglected or long been buried and forgotten, the mood of the times is a very different one. You continue to talk, and really got to know each other well, not romantically but just as good friends. Suddenly your conversation is broken with the sound of keys jingling, followed by a quick turn of the knob coming from the far side of the corridor.

It is the security guard patrol.

Immediately you scutter about the classroom, switching off all the lights, locking the door while he runs to unplug his phone, making sure to return the place to its original state. You find yourselves under the table and stealing glances out of the small window and the crack beneath the door until it passes.

Though the guard has already left, it does not seem as if Jaehyun has any intention of moving an inch. He is too close—so close you can smell the musk of his cologne, and he smells so damn good. He is too close—so close you can feel the heat of him, and your backside is all but paralyzed from the uncomfortable position. It is dark, but you can still make out the twinkle in his eyes. The tall guy seems fascinated by you, looking you up and down, then openly studying your face.

The thought must have form in both your minds at the same time because your eyes flutter shut as he leans forward, kissing you gently on the lips. A deep, lingering kiss that have you wanting more. This kiss is so soft that it’s like a memory of a kiss, so careful on your lips that it is like someone running his fingers along them. Slowly, gently, the tip of his tongue traces your mouth, outlining your lips with exquisite, excruciating care. A growl of pleasure escapes him when you part your lips in welcoming at the first prod of his tongue. The lemon drop he had before adding flavor to a kiss that is already the sweetest of your life.

One of his hands settle at your waist, the other cups the side of your throat. His thumb slides beneath the neckline of your jacket to stroke the hollow beneath your collarbone. On a soft moan, you plunge into the mindless whirl of your senses and allow yourself to feel. Just feel. For the first time in your life, you finally understand that one kiss can helplessly seduce. And if your heart has not been racing earlier, it now goes into overdrive, hammering against your chest.

Jaehyun knows he should not be kissing you. He has told himself he cannot let it happen so soon. But something about you calls to him. Every rational thought vanishes as he gives in to the sensations rampaging out of control. He holds you close, relishing the feel of your breasts crushed against his chest. Sliding his hand down your back to where your skirt has ridden up, pushing his hand beneath the fabric, gliding it up your thigh. A firm squeeze on the curve of your flesh making you yelp and jolt. The loud collision when you banged your head against the desk above bringing you both to your senses.

“Shit, sorry.” He is breathing hard, his eyes fierce with arousal, his lips red and moist and a little swollen from that hard kiss. You believe yours appear just the same as well.

Deep in the foggy recesses of your mind, Jaehyun has crawled from under the table and turned away with downcast eyes as he seemingly adjusting the sudden tightness in his pants.

What just happened?

“Are you coming out, or not?” He offers his hand, you blink before sliding your shaking one around his.

Talk about awkward. His shirt is a wrinkled mass from your gripping fingers, your hair swept to the side still you can feel his delicate touch on your skin, both your faces flushed a luscious crimson from the passionate moment.

“I- I should get going…” You nervously clear your throat. Actually, you are ashamed of yourself about it all. You have never thought of yourself as needy, thereto committing to the blind decision of having a hookup with an incredibly gorgeous man. God must have sent a guardian angel to knock out your head before it takes on another level.

However all these thoughts are gone when he says, “May I see you again?”

“… Sure.”

“Tomorrow?” Boy, he sure is eager.

“Patience.”

“Right, that’s why I said tomorrow. I want to see you again in another hour. But I’m willing to wait.”

Has he always been this sweet and smooth? His words, eye contact, and all body gestures operate in the fashion of sweet talking and alluring you, to really basically falling for his suave, smooth ways. This has never been you.

Unfortunately, the following days should not be possible because you have to keep your mind active and your sanity intact.

“After finals?”

He lets out a deep guttural groan. On a second thought, he wants to take back his words, he is not willing to wait for a week, let alone a day. He wants to greet you with a kiss on the back of your hand and a bouquet of fresh flowers, he wants to take you out for a proper date at an exclusive cafe, he wants to pay for the meals— The list goes on.

“Right. After finals.”

#nct jaehyun #jung jaehyun #nct scenarios #nct fluff #nct imagines #nct stories #jaehyun fluff

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dutten-does-the-fanfic · 4 years

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I Want You Here With Me (Is It Too Much to Ask for Something Great) ch. 5

Title: I Want You Here With Me (Is It Too Much to Ask for Something Great) ch. 5 of 14 (ch. 1) Pairing: Isak Valtersen/Even Bech Næsheim Word count: 8450 Warnings: Language, mental illness, internalized homophobia

AO3

Summary: The one where it’s been two years since Isak last saw or spoke with Even, and no one knows that Isak ever knew Even at all.

Present

Despite having attended classes with these same thirtyish people for two semesters, Isak never actually went through the effort of learning their names. He’d thought that was going to be a reason for anxiety when their tutor read out who was supposed to be working together, but turns out he was wrong about that.

Because the guy who looks too much like he just rolled out of bed and doesn’t give a flying fuck has paired him up with Sana. He is paired up with Sana. He is going to be doing experiments, group projects and study sessions with Sana.

Who, Isak is sure, is a lovely – or at the very least a good – person. She just so happens to scare the shit out of all of their classmates.

Isak will deny it till the day he dies, but the stereotype about boys who are getting a science major not being able to talk to girls like they’re actual human beings applies to about half of the guys in this room – not something Isak can relate to, but he has his own reasons for that. The rest of the people in here either find her completely unapproachable, don’t want to be on the receiving end of a backstabbing, gut punching comment Sana has become known for after a guy wouldn’t take no for an answer at some party, or they throw out xenophobic and religious discriminatory comments like nobody’s business.

Isak spent about 97% of his first year not caring about anything that didn’t end up with him being drunk out of his mind, so he’s never actually spoken to her. The only reason he knows her is because Eva, Jonas’ sort-of-half-the-time-more-so-a-fuck-buddy girlfriend, is friends with her, and by proxy Isak has heard about her.

She doesn’t seem as scary when he’s heard an account of how fiercely she’ll protect her friends and of the lengths she’ll go to to cheer one of them up. Then again, she is currently sending him death glares that makes Isak dig his toes into the ground.

“You probably already know each other,” the tutor says, makes himself comfortable behind the screen of his laptop, “but go on and sit with your partners, introduce yourselves, make nice, all that jazz.”

Isak sighs as he gathers his coat, laptop and backpack. Dammit, he’d gotten the best seat in the room as well, the first seat of the row right by the door so he could be in and out within seconds. But Sana isn’t moving by the looks of it, so Isak’s just going to have to bite the bullet.

“Hey,” he greets, trying to plaster on a smile even as Sana glowers at him. “I’m –“

“I know who you are,” she interrupts.

Isak has to bite his cheek to keep from giving a retort back of his own. It won’t amount to anything good, and despite how shit this year’s kick off has been, he’s determined that this is his year, and Ev- someone’s sudden appearance and Sana’s bad mood will not be deterring him from completing his goal.

“Alright, then,” Isak slumps onto his seat.

It’s fine. He doesn’t need to make new friends. He has Jonas, Magnus, and Mahdi and that’s more than fine, it’s pretty much more friends than he’s ever had before.

He looks up to see Sana glaring at him.

“What?” he snaps.

“You might be willing to slack off and practically waste away your life, but I’m here to get an education,” she bristles at him. Her eyes look darker with the heavy ring of eyeliner around them. “This is important to me and I will not be the only one doing all the work only for you to get credit as well, you got that?”

Isak’s mouth snaps shut after it had fallen open from the indignation of being spoken to like that.

It’s, he’s reluctant to admit fair enough that she believes this of him. His first year hadn’t exactly been productive, even if he had ended up passing he had spent way too long getting drunk and partying and trying to forget about everything. There hadn’t been room to focus on anything but, and that meant homework went unfinished if he even started on it, and he’s pretty sure he never actually spoke with his study group.

“I know I don’t have the best track record,” Isak hisses, magnanimously ignoring Sana’s amused huff, “but this is serious for me too. Okay?”

“’Okay’,” Sana imitates. It sounds more like a ‘prove it’ than an agreement.

Isak doesn’t call her out on it. So be it on her if she doesn’t believe him, or doesn’t want to believe him. Isak’s not going to let that hinder him from turning this year around.

They’re painfully silent and it’s only amplified by everyone else in class talking around them. It sounds a bit too cheerful and carefree for being about possible topics, but Isak isn’t bothered enough to start listening in on mindless chatter.

Still, he should probably say something to Sana. He’s going to be working with her for six months, and he isn’t going to let it bother him, but mutual animosity rarely rakes in the 6’s.

“So,” Isak clears his throat. Sana looks up at him, not in a glare, but not particularly friendly either. “Evolution and genetics. Is there… something in particular you like?”

Sana shrugs. Helpful, thy name is Sana.

“Depends,” she finally settles on when Isak is about to lose it – or he isn’t, because he isn’t bothered.

“On?”

Maybe he’s a little bit bothered.

“Well, we could always focus on evolutionary genetics,” Sana suggests. She opens up a blank document on her computer, “but I have a feeling most of the other groups are going to do that.”

Isak snorts. Understatement of the year. He might not know any of their names, but he can already tell just from looking that half of these people are just going to settle on a topic that’s a variation of the name of the class subject instead of examining all the other topics they have to review.

“Right,” Isak agrees. “So what’s left? We have genetic mutations, heritage, we could do something on evolutionary processes?”

“Maybe.” Another shrug. “I quite like topics like behavioral genetics, you know, the topics in that area.”

Isak’s heart skips a beat and bears his fingernail down on his the skin of his thumb to avoid just blurting out ‘No. No, no, no, absolutely not’.

He manages to utter a, “Cool,” instead, but it sounds too stiff and Sana picks up on it and raises a disbelieving eyebrow at him with a frown.

Isak winces. Fuck, so much for playing it cool.

“We don’t have to do that.”

“No, no, I know,” the tone feels foreign in his mouth. He’s not usually the one to placate somebody, that’s Jonas’ territory. “It’s a good idea. Write it down.”

Anything to get her to look away from him again. Behavioral genetics hits just a tiny bit too close to home, if Isak’s honest. Sure, he’s already done a ton of research on it in his spare time, even if it has been a couple of years by now, so they would have an advantage that wouldn’t go amiss.

Still, he isn’t sure if he can go through with it.

“We should consider some more evolution-heavy topics as well,” Isak suggest. He skims the table of contents in their main book. “Maybe something like patterns of human evolution or genetic databases. Those are quite alright as well.”

Sana nods as she dutifully types, but she doesn’t look enthused, so Isak tries to suggest something else closer to what she wanted to do.

“Maybe we could find some more within genetic heritage,”

“I’m hearing a lot of talking, yet not a whole lot about science!” A voice overpowers everyone in the room.

Isak’s and Sana’s heads snap to attention. Yeah, alright, they’ve only started brainstorming, surely he isn’t expecting them to have an outline ready just yet –

“I know it’s exciting to talk about whatever celebrity it is I can hear you talking about, but try to focus now!”

Wait – celebrity?

Please, let it be an actor, a singer, hell, a politician everyone is obsessed about and not –

“Honestly, it’s not like they don’t know Even Bech Næsheim is from Oslo,” Sana mutters as she turns back to her computer.

Oh, damn. This is not happening. This is not happening.

“You a fan then?” Isak’s tongue nearly trips over the words from how it feels like it’s glued to the roof of his mouth, but the garble of noises that comes out is at least intelligible enough that Sana answers.

With an infuriating shrug. “You’re not?”

No, Isak wants to bitterly snap, but he doesn’t. Just shrugs back. “Don’t really care that much, to be honest. One of my roommates is crazy about him, though.”

That’s good, divert the attention away from himself. If only he could the topic away from Even at all.

He always feels like he’s being so goddamn obvious, like he’s practically screaming out ‘Even, Even, Even!’, always has felt like that no matter how hard he tried to make it stop. It’s stupid, because there’s no reason why anyone would even think about him and Even in any relation to each other, there’s no reason why he should be worried or suspicious, but every time his name mentioned, Isak’s mind goes off on a tangent of they know, they’ll find out, they’ll know.

“Oh, yeah – Magnus, right?”

Isak startles slightly, sliding down in his seat before he pushes against the edge of the table to stop it. God, that’s weird Sana knows that, but then again, Isak knew about Sana, so…

“Yeah,” he stutters. “Magnus.”

Sana doesn’t even look over at him, just writes down another topic and asks him what he thinks about that one.

OOOOO

It doesn’t get better the rest of the day.

Even during the lecture, people can’t seem to stop buzzing at the news. Every sentence either starts with ‘I was there’ or ‘my friend was there’ or ‘did you hear’ and Isak thinks all of it is not only overrated but entirely exaggerated because, sure, Even is famous, people love his movies and there aren’t a whole lot of people who haven’t at least heard of one of the titles, but still. He isn’t an actor, he’s a director, and Isak hasn’t really ever heard of any other director creating this sort of frantic commotion.

Just his luck, huh?

Yeah, alright, he gets it. Oslo isn’t LA, or New York, or, hell, even London. There aren’t a ton of celebrities just wandering around on the street, let alone showing up at a university party. It’s natural that some people would be talking about it. Not this amount, though.

Isak ends up slamming the door to the bathroom shut so harshly he can hear it echoing out in the hall, but he doesn’t stop moving until he’s locked up in a cubicle and has sat down on the closed toilet seat, ignoring the voice in his head talking about the amount of germs.

His skin feels too tight and he tries to alleviate the pressure by tugging harshly on chunks of his hair, grabbing onto one of the bigger curls to make it easier.

It doesn’t help. It just leaves him with a slight headache that was already too close to forming from stress and anxiety.

He turns on the sink too high. The water splatters onto the porcelain so forcefully it lands on his shirt. The cool water doesn’t even help, it just makes him too aware and he ends up dry heaving for a good ten minutes before he tries to take a sip of water and compose himself enough to go back to the world.

This wasn’t how he planned on his year starting out.

“What do you think he was doing there?” is the first thing he hears when he steps out of the bathroom.

Two girls are walking near the end of the hallway, but they’re talking loudly enough that he can still hear them.

“He used to go to UiO for film, didn’t he? Maybe he was just visiting some old friends.”

“Don’t think he was looking for a girlfriend, then?” the girl on the left playfully nudges her elbow into her friend’s side until she starts laughing and pushes her away.

“Pretty sure he already has a girlfriend.”

“Who, his PR or PA or management or whatever else she does? Sonja something?”

“Yeah, weren’t they –“

Isak runs to his right, away from the girl, and takes two steps up the staircase. If he doesn’t get away now, he’ll just have to go back into the bathroom until he really does throw up.

He can do this, he tries to convince himself even as he stumbles over the last step and nearly faceplants in front of a group of people. He ignores the snickering as he passes them and tries to focus on remembering the next auditorium he has to be in instead. He just has to focus on his coursework, on meticulously taking notes – more so than he already does, thank you very much – even when it’s boring or he’s already understood the subject.

He’s a good student, he knows that – has always been one apart from last year. Now he just needs to prove it to everyone else.

Isak sits through a lecture he doesn’t understand shit of. It doesn’t help that all the people around him are nodding and agreeing and acting like this is basic knowledge you should already know when applying for this program, and Isak is just sitting there, staring at the slides the professor runs through.

Everything being said goes in through one ear and out through the other, and Isak only manages to rile himself up even further at the thought of how many hours he��ll have to stay up tonight to read through the content until he understands it.

He tries to get out of the hall quickly, but he’s stuck behind a couple of stragglers blocking off his only exit, so he has to stand there awkwardly as they finish packing away their stuff. It’s just his luck that there’s a group two rows in front of him talking about Him, and then there are curious inquiries as to what is going on, what happened, who is it they’re talking about, and before Isak’s managed to get out of there, people are throwing around whatever bullshit they’ve heard.

Isak’s pushing his lips together in irritation to all the rumors as he bounds out of there, catching the tram right before it leaves. He’s winded and a bit sweaty, but the carriage is mostly empty, so he takes a seat the furthest away from the two teenage girls near the back.

He also shoves his ear buds in for good measure. The girls might be talking about some boy at their school right now, but before you know it, it’s all about the latest gossip and Isak can’t, he can’t handle hearing that stupid, goddamn name again today, he can’t.

Like that name hasn’t been floating around in his head for goddamn years, now it’s also being thrown at him from every single direction, and Isak feels like screaming. And crying. Isak feels like crying, can feel the lump in his throat grow so big he can’t breathe, can’t swallow his own spit, but much to his own surprise he doesn’t break down in tears. He doesn’t cry at all.

He feels so fucked up, so messed up and torn apart, like a tornado has gone through him, and it feels just as bad as when Even left in the first place, because back then he’d thought he’d gotten it right and he had finally started to think that again with his boys, that he could be someone’s friend and not fuck it all up, but he was wrong about Even and he’s apparently wrong about this as well, because he hasn’t gotten it right. Had he ever, or was this just something that had been waiting to happen?

He’s fucked up being a friend, has fucked things up with his boys, had nearly fucked up his entire first year of university, that’s two whole semesters worth of fucking up. The first one he’d spent most of simply black out drunk, and the next one he’d spent slightly more sober, but still unable to connect with anyone and not be a complete asshole. He hadn’t been able to focus on his classes at all, but had at least been able to spend his sleepless nights studying instead.

Jonas had tried so hard during their breakfast to pretend everything was normal, and Magnus and Mahdi had tried as well, but Mahdi had been more careful with his words than he has been since Isak first met him, and Magnus had constantly switched between not being able to stop staring at Isak like he’s never met him before and not being able to look at Isak at all.

It’s awkward and Isak feels awful about it even as he knows he shouldn’t. Or, partly, because part of it is his fault; he wouldn’t have worried them that badly if he hadn’t run off like that and stayed away for so long. He wouldn’t have been in this mess if he’d only –

Isak stops that thought by getting off the tram so quickly he nearly falls over when he trips over his feet going down the stairs.

The thing is, even though Isak hasn’t told them about – not even about Even, about himself – he considers those three guys his best friends. He doesn’t think he’s ever had friends as close as those three, not counting Eskild and Even, because Eskild had always been a bit of the older ‘guru’ despite only being four years older than him, and Even, well Even was just in an entirely different league of his own, so he shouldn’t, doesn’t, count either.

Isak hates how much he’s still like that fifteen, then sixteen, then seventeen, then eighteen, then nineteen year old who didn’t want to tell anyone that he doesn’t like girls. Sometimes it feels like he’s supposed to have had some type of character growth that the movies always make out to be so important, but he’s just been stuck for five years in the same mindset, with the same fears and worries, and he still doesn’t want to tell anyone.

There’s a small voice in the back of his head whispering to him how good it is that he hasn’t come out, because if he had, wouldn’t the boys have come to the conclusion that the reason Even knows him was because he ‘knows’ him? Isak tries to convince himself that he doesn’t hear that voice, even as it’s the only thing filling his head.

It’s not something he’s deliberately keeping away from them and only them, it’s everyone Isak doesn’t want to know that personal fact about him, and that’s fine. He’s allowed to not want to share everything, even if this is a bit bigger than taking the last bit of milk and forgetting to buy a new carton.

They had all moved in together because they wanted to move in together, the four of them, ‘Just how it should be,’ Magnus had crowed into their ears as he’d folded his arms over their shoulders and drawn them into a hug that smelled too much of beer and sweat to be as pleasant as it was in Isak’s memory.

But ‘just how it should be’ most certainly isn’t this. It isn’t Jonas biting his lips before saying something, it isn’t Magnus acting oddly around Isak, and it isn’t Mahdi being so goddamn reserved. It’s putting Isak on edge, more than he already is, which at this point is quite a lot, actually, and he shouldn’t be walking around feeling like this in his home.

He has tried so hard. He has been trying for so many years now, and for just a moment in time, he thought he had it. He had friends, he had a home, he had a home with his friends, and it had finally felt like life was turning around for him, and now he’s left with tension and more difficulties and Isak doesn’t know what to do.

There are pictures of them together scattered around the living room, originating back from when Eva had come around and scolded them and said this place needed to feel less like a pigsty and more like a home, that they were grown-ups and their house should ‘reflect that’.

The most grown-up things they’d been able to think of buying were pictures and sofa cushions, so now their grey sofa has yellow and orange cushions, and there are pictures hung up on the walls and scattered around on whatever flat surfaces were left. They’d gone to IKEA and gotten the frames and then printed the pictures off of their Instagrams on the university’s printer.

There are the stupid pictures of them fooling around, then there are the sweet group pictures where they’re all smiling. There’s one of Isak studying in their kitchen, the sun behind him, there’s one of Jonas and Mahdi shouting at the camera and holding up bottles of beer, and there’s one with Magnus smiling dopily at an out-of-frame Vilde. Isak’s picture is the only one with no smiles to be seen. Isak tries desperately not to reflect on that.

Just like how he doesn’t reflect on how in each of their individual rooms the others have put up pictures of their families, their current friends, the friends they don’t see as often because of life. Jonas has pictures of him and Eva and Eva alone, and Isak has nothing. Not a single picture.

He doesn’t think about the shoebox, whose contents feel forbidden, that he has hidden away in the top back of his closet, on the only shelf there. It’s stuffed underneath a pile of clothes and behind stacks of books from his previous semesters that he’ll probably never use ever again. It’s the perfect hiding place, because even if the boys decide to brave the contents of his closet, there’s no way they’d even think of going up there.

Isak’s doing a lot of that lately, of carefully strategizing, of hiding, of faking, of pretending – all of which he hates and has berated whoever was close enough to hear after a few too many drinks about, and here he is, doing the same shit as always.

It feels like he’s always doing it, never stopping. He never gets a reprieve and he hates that he desperately wants to blame Even for it, but he can’t. First of all, it’s not fair – this particular case excluded, because Even showing up in Oslo after having been away for so long has certainly been the catalyst in Isak’s rapidly declining wellbeing, but other than that, it’s all Isak’s doing.

That just makes him feel worse. The fact that it’s himself who is causing all of this pain makes Isak feel dizzy, his stomach swooping uncomfortably.

Stepping in through his front door makes his stomach curl in on itself instead. For a moment, Isak seriously contemplates just not walking in, just walking back out onto the street and never coming back. Would it be easier? Would it be better?

It wouldn’t. He can already tell himself that, at least. It wouldn’t be better, even if things are so incredibly shitty right now, leaving would do no good for Isak.

So he steps inside. His keys rattle in the lock, but not so loudly that the guys hear him before the door slams shut behind and he yells out the customary “Hello?” they always do to check who is home.

Fifteen minutes. He’d gotten a fifteen minute break between leaving the university and arriving home, and now he’s right back to pretending that everything is alright, that there isn’t a giant fucking pink tutu-wearing elephant dancing around in the room that Isak put there.

Isak’s pretending when he tries to smile at the boys. He’s pretending when he’s listening to them talking about their day, about whatever parties are coming up, about the girls they want to get with. He’s pretending when he’s in school and he’s pretending when he’s at home and he’s pretending with the people he’s supposed to call his closest friends, the people he considers his closest friends, even if they might not consider the same about him.

He’s pretending that the boys aren’t all pretending as well when they skirt around topics, when even Magnus refrains from talking about movies or his coursework, because media studies and Even might be too closely related to each other for Isak not to freak out again.

He only stops pretending when he closes his bedroom door behind him quietly, but only so much that he isn’t putting on a fake smile for everyone, because in truth he never really stops pretending, even around himself. He pretends, because maybe if he keeps on doing it for long enough, it’ll be so engrained in him it’ll be the truth, the only truth.

He slumps down against his door, sliding all the way down until his bum hits the ground with a too loud bump. He puts his head in his hands.

He still can’t breathe.

Past

Moving into the Kollektiv goes surprisingly seamlessly.

Isak can chalk it up to how everything leading up to it, how it’s been his dad leaving, the tirades of religious zeal, his mom being sick enough to being moved into a facility care, the constant worries and self-destructive behaviors Isak has picked up on over time, has been so much more difficult than anything Isak has ever experienced before, that the process of moving that everyone usually complains about just doesn’t really compare.

A lot of it is also because of Even – lovely, lovely Even who is spread out on his bed, laptop open on his stomach as he’s typing away. Isak doesn’t know whether it’s homework or ideas or an actual script, but they’re nearing midterms and Even is a senior, so Isak hopes it’s homework he’s working on.

Isak doubts it, but there’s a first for everything.

He can’t tell if it is schoolwork or not Even’s working on. They don’t attend the same high school and they don’t follow the same study line. Even goes to Bakka while Isak goes to Nissen, because he for sure won’t be going to any of those pretentious-ass schools – he’s not an obnoxious hipster and he isn’t rolling in wealth. Still, he’s looked over Even’s shoulder enough that at this point, he probably knows enough to be able to do Even’s program at Bakka, but beyond Even, Isak’s not interested in movies or media in the slightest, so Nissen will have to do.

It also helps that Elias and his crew of tormentors don’t go there, so it not only physically but also mentally felt like a new beginning, a fresh start.

Isak chances a look at Even’s screen, but Even’s flying through documents and tabs and browsers and videos faster than Isak manages to grasp. Honestly, Even can’t possibly be taking any of it in, either. Then he’s back to a document, typing away for a second before he repeats the process.

It’s… quite a bit more than what Even usually is, but Isak has only been living in the Kollektiv for nearly a week now, everything is still new and a bit exciting, so it’s understandable why Even is more wired than Isak has previously seen. It’s not like it’s a lot, just more in some way.

Plus, there’s also the extra added factor of nervousness at Eskild catching Even in his room. They already have a cover in case it happens – friends from school – but that excuse doesn’t really work if Eskild catches them during the night and asks why they’re cuddled up to each other half-naked.

Not exactly what ‘just friends’ do.

“What are you working on?” Isak asks as he turns off the lamp at his desk. His Norwegian essay can wait until tomorrow.

The joints in his back pop when he stretches back to look at Even, who is already watching him, smiling coyly as he lets his eyes linger over the length of his torso, his arms. Isak flushes, which only makes Even’s grin widen, but he lets it lie and looks back at his computer instead.

“Hmm?” Isak tries again when Even still hasn’t answered.

Isak’s twisted around on his desk chair – or, Noora’s desk chair. It still feels weird that he’s essentially using someone else’s furniture, someone else’s belongings, but Noora hadn’t been able to bring anything with her to Spain, and it’s not like Isak had a lot of his own that he wanted to bring instead – so he can look at Even, his arms resting over the back on the dark blue padding.

“Is it a secret?”

Even’s smile takes over his face, like that in itself is a much better story than whatever he’s working on. Isak can see the thoughts flying around in his head as his mind comes up with endless possibilities, but Isak isn’t really interested in all of those for a change.

It’s causality; Even smiles so Isak smiles, no question of correlation here. It makes something in Isak’s stomach twirl happily as he rests his cheek on his folded up arms.

Even hums noncommittally. “The most secret of secrets.”

The sun is hanging low on the sky, just barely shining in through Isak’s windows. It makes the white walls look golden with white patches in the shape of the window frame. Gold and red leaves frame the glass and all of it is positioned just so perfectly that the sun shines directly on Even while his face is blocked off. It makes his hair a lot more golden than it really is and Isak thinks he looks ethereal.

“So not your homework, then,” Isak teases and hides his smile in his arms when Even leans his head back up against the wall and groans dramatically.

“What are you, my mother?” Even groans.

No, Isak thinks to himself as he gets up off of his chair. I’m your boyfriend.

It’s not as difficult to say in his mind anymore, but actually saying the words out loud? Yeah, that’s not going to happen, no thank you.

It’s like Even hears him anyway, because his eyes go soft and he gets that look on his face Isak always endlessly teases him about, even if it means Even gets to tease him right back for the similar look Isak gets whenever he sees Even.

Isak vehemently denies he looks at Even with anything that could be described as ‘fondness’. He is a rock, a cold, hard rock – none of that mushy stuff for him.

Isak pads across the distance between the desk and the bed on socked feet until he can knee his way up the mattress, up over Even’s body. Even accommodates him by pushing the laptop off of his stomach and onto the bed. His breath leaves his body in a harsh ‘umph’ when Isak drops his torso onto Even’s legs so his face is pressed into Even’s stomach.

“You comfy?” Even wheezes, but Isak can feel him breathing so he knows it’s pretend.

Isak hums and nuzzles his face into Even’s stomach, following the flat planes and the dip of his bellybutton. Even’s hand reaches into his hair, twirls around a few strands to tug. It makes Isak’s toes curl and he looks up to smile shyly at Even.

Who looks at Isak like he’s pretty sure he’s actually a mirage. And then reaches over and starts typing something onto his computer.

“Sudden inspiration?” Isak teases. He presses a kiss on Even’s stomach through his t-shirt. The click-clacks of the keyboard pause for a second before Even continues.

It’s been less than five hours since Even had poured out a soliloquy about why he was showing up right now, because Isak seemed to be his muse and it was of utmost importance he was around him to work properly. He’d promised Isak he would dedicate odes to his entire being, to which Isak had reminded him he wrote manuscripts, he wasn’t a poet. Even had tutted at him and talked about artists and working in different art forms, and Isak had silenced him by kissing him until Even started talking about what he’d come over to do.

Honestly, it was more down to luck than knowledge that Even had showed up exactly when he did. Usually, they work off of precise time schedules that calculate when Eskild will be either a) busy – doing what, Isak does not care nor does he particularly want to know – or b) out of the building entirely and Linn is a) out or b) asleep so that Isak can get Even in and out without either of them noticing Isak has someone over to visit.

“Absolutely,” Even agrees, typing some more. “So if you could just stay there and be absolutely adorable, that’d be a real help, dear.”

Isak’s nose scrunches up in disdain. “’Adorable’,” he huffs, sinks his teeth into Even’s shirt just hard enough Even will be able to feel the scrape on his skin. “Piss off. I’m not adorable in the slightest.”

Even’s hum tries to be placating, but Isak isn’t fooled into believing him for even a second, so he presses another bite further up on Even’s ribs.

“Hey,” Even shudders, reaches out to grab onto Isak’s hair again. He tugs once a bit harshly, but he doesn’t direct Isak’s head away from his torso. “Menace.” And then he launches into a ramble about plot points and key elements and Isak doesn’t actually know which story he’s working on, so it all flies over his head.

Even’s also talking so quickly it’s difficult to keep up with, even if Isak had known the thoughts and theories behind it.

Isak grins as he rolls off of Even to land heavily on the free bit of mattress along Even’s side. It’s cool to the touch and it feels nice again his cheek, but it’s quite like the same temperature as the rest of the room in general. Isak should really get to asking Eskild about the heating situation before it’s dire or he’s already gotten ill for the first time this season.

Still, it feels nicer when Even curls his arm around Isak’s shoulder and pulls him in close until he’s more so lying on Even than on the bed.

It’s so easy to let his body relax completely, something Isak rarely lets himself do. It’s so easy to just close his eyes and breathe, because Even is warm underneath him and is happily rambling at him and it just feels so easy.

It’s definitely easy enough that he’s about to fall asleep.

Even must be able to feel it, some type of extra heaviness on his chest from Isak, can probably feel his breathing evening out to these deep in- and exhalations.

He doesn’t let him, though. Instead, Even sits up, forcing Isak to sit up along with him, and he doesn’t stop no matter how much Isak groans and tries to shuffle his nose into the crook of Even’s neck, right against his collarbone. Even just presses a kiss to his forehead and starts tugging at Isak’s sweatshirt, helping him get his arms in order so he can pull it off of him.

With enough persuasion, Even gets Isak to stumble onto his feet and go to the bathroom and brush his teeth for the night. The tiles in the shower are still wet, so either Eskild just left or Linn is home and probably asleep by now. Either way, they’re not going to be disturbed.

When he gets back to his room, Even is still lying on the bed, gazing out of the window like there’s something more important out there, something that should have his focus other than Isak, and Isak obviously can’t allow that, so he flops face-first sideways onto the bed. His stomach ends up over Even’s thighs, and he more so knocks out his own breath than amounts to have any impact on Even.

Even just laughs and scoots up the bed until he can pull his legs free and roll Isak over onto his back.

Isak’s limbs already feel sleep heavy, despite the brief pause to the bathroom that usually would’ve had his brain and body awake and ready to go again for at least two hours. He’s lethargic when Even pulls him up to sit so he can slide his t-shirt off of him in a similar manner as he’d done with the hoodie.

Next goes his jeans, once Isak has flopped back onto the bed, bouncing twice before he settles. Even presses a kiss to his bare stomach, right above the hem of Isak’s jeans. It feels nice, so Isak make sure to hum his appreciation as he scratches his nails along the nape of Even’s neck.

The bed is still warm underneath him from where they’d just been lying and where Even has been for the past couple of hours. That makes it so much easier to just sink into it, even as Even starts tutting at him to cooperate.

Isak doesn’t do much more than lie there, but Even still manages to work his jeans down his legs and discard them. The button clangs slightly against the floor, but Isak only just hears it over Even getting him to shuffle up to the pillows and under the covers.

“Go to sleep, baby,” Even cards his hand through Isak’s hair. It feels nice and Isak is quite fond of this bubble that’s seemingly formed around the two of them where they’re safely tucked away in his room.

“Lay down next to me, then,” Isak counters.

Even rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling and complies with Isak’s wishes without a single protest.

Isak falls asleep to the feeling of Even getting up again.

There are times where Isak wants to shout out that he likes Even, that Even likes him back, that Even is his boyfriend, and just as quickly as the impulse comes, it dissipates and Isak is left with the urge to huddle up in his room with Even behind closed doors.

He doesn’t know if that makes him a coward or if it makes him smart. There’s no one around for him to ask, no one to get a second opinion from, and that’s fine, really, it is. For every second that Isak gets the urge to just say it, he has hours and days where he’s so inexplicably relieved that no one knows yet he still gets to go home and be with Even.

It’s a system that works for them. It’s no one’s business but their own, anyway.

Isak falls in and out of consciousness for the couple of hours the night lasts. He wakes up whenever Even starts moving around, going from the bed to the floor to the desk, whenever Even gets so excited about whatever his mind has managed to conjure up that he can’t keep the laughter in or he just has to say that line out loud.

When he wakes up for longer than just a few seconds, the sun has started to peek in, and Isak can feel that it is way too early to be up, even if it wasn’t the weekend.

Isak stretches lazily as he turns over on his side so he can look over at Even who is sitting by the desk, laptop open and fingers flying over the keys. There’s nothing that tells him Even knows he’s awake.

“Even,” Isak whines, pushes his bottom lip out a bit in a pout to exaggerate but also entice. “Come and lie with me.”

Even twists around on the desk chair and Isak can see it forming on his lips, the rejection, the explanation that he just has to finish this next bit, Isak, and Isak’s already bracing himself for it.

But then, when Even really looks at him, it’s like something in his eyes softens and he kind of slumps a bit in his seat. Exhaustion is probably catching up to him, Isak thinks, and he stretches backwards to scoot his body further back, leaving a warm spot on the bed open for Even to curl up next to him in.

“Alright,” Even agrees – he’s rolling his eyes at Isak’s theatrics when Isak can’t help but grin widely at having gotten his way, but Isak has gotten his way, so he doesn’t feel the need to call him out on it. “I’ll lie with you until you fall asleep.”

Isak’s pout returns. He knows Even hasn’t slept the entire night, but there is something about him, some restless energy buzzing around in him that just won’t settle.

Even raises his arm so Isak can curl in close up against him, his own left arm curls around Even’s chest as his head comes to rest on Even’s shoulder. Isak’s still sleep warm and Even’s slightly cooler temperature feels nice against him, like a fresh change that makes his eyelids fall heavy as it becomes a struggle to keep his eyes open.

“Noooo,” Isak sighs, nuzzles his face against the hard line of Even’s shoulder. “Tell me about what you’re writing.”

Isak doesn’t have to be looking at Even to know how he looks right now; that fond look that simultaneously makes Isak both want to curl up in bed with him and look around nervously to see if anyone’s paying attention to them. Still, it makes him feel warm and safe and Isak might, might, be falling too hard too fast.

“I’m not telling you if you’re going to fall asleep halfway through,” Even pushes gently at Isak’s body, making him rock back and forth a couple times before he settles again.

“I won’t,” Isak protests, but he knows he will. He’s already struggling to stay awake, and having Even’s voice almost narrating what’s going on in his head will set him off even quicker.

“You will,” Even tells him matter of factly, but he still launches into the story he’s working on.

Isak stays awake halfway through. He gets out a murmur of, “You still owe me a beach story,” before he’s out like a light.

He wakes up again in the middle of the day. Even’s still being a busy bee, but now it’s from beside Isak on the bed and he’s scribbling something on a notepad so he wouldn’t have to move to get the laptop still perched open, screen dark from inactivity or maybe lack of battery, on the desk.

It’s so late that Isak can hear both Eskild and Linn bumbling around in the flat, and it makes his heart pick up a beat too fast. Even notices he’s awake.

“Yeah,” Even says in lieu of a good morning. He does bend down to press a kiss to the top of Isak’s head. “Didn’t want to wake you up before them. You’re too beautiful when you sleep.”

It’s risky doing this – any of it, really, but not getting up before Eskild and Linn are stumbling around the flat is almost like asking to be caught. Isak knows this, Even knows this, and Isak can feel his stomach starting to twist up in anxiety already. Any thoughts he’d had yesterday about his room being a bubble for just the two of them has popped at the prospect of other people’s proximity to them.

Isak doesn’t tell him it’s fine, because he isn’t sure if it is. It’s Sunday, probably around midday judging by the light, and Isak knows Even has plans with his parents this afternoon. Plus, it’s not like they’re able to just hide Even away in Isak’s room for an entire day, as nice as the thought is.

Isak does tilt his head back until Even appeasingly bends down to press a lazy kiss to his lips.

As uncomfortable that Isak is that Even has stayed, he’s also incredibly pleased that he got to wake up to this.

Even presses another kiss to his forehead and then turns back to whatever he was doodling on the pad of paper. When Isak turns to look at it he can see it’s some type of storyboard, but it’s too doodle-y for him to see what the story is actually about. It could be aliens, it could be penguins, Isak can’t tell.

He can the leftover strips of ripped papers see by the edge of the pad, revealing just how large an amount of papers that have hastily been torn out while Isak was sleeping.

Glancing over his room, it’s quite easy to see that Even hasn’t been sleeping next to him this entire time.

It looks a little bit like a very small hurricane has swept through while Isak was asleep. There are scrunched up paper balls littered all over the ground, discarded ideas of Even’s, but some of them look like they’ve deliberately been placed there, with Isak’s school books set up like walls of a mini-set, and every single blue article of clothing Isak owns strewn out on the middle of the floor in something that could vaguely resemble waves.

Isak doesn’t really know what to do with any of this.

“Did you get some sleep?” Isak asks even as he’s 100% certain of the answer being negative.

Even doesn’t even give him a proper answer. He grins like he’s just let Isak in on a funny secret and kisses him until he has to go.

The next ten minutes pass with Even humming theme music for spy movies under his breath, grinning whenever Isak hisses for him to stay quiet as he goes into the hallway to figure out where Eskild and Linn are in the guise of going to the bathroom.

They’re both in the kitchen which means Isak hasn’t got a chance of sneaking Even out of the front door or the backdoor. Shit.

“Alright,” Isak whispers when he ducks back into his room. His hear is pounding and he tries to convince himself it’s just from Even and nothing else in order to calm down. “I’ll have to go keep their attention on me. Then you can sneak out the front door.”

“Proper Romeo and Juliet, don’t you think?” Even kisses Isak again before Isak can protest that now may not be the time to do anything but focus on getting out without bringing attention onto themselves.

Still, it works and Isak feels his body slump down a bit in relief of being so near Even. They can do this, they have to.

Isak sneaks out into the hallway, but he has to pause before he enters the kitchen to suck in a deep breath. He can do this.

“Hey.”

Eskild jumps from where he’d had his back to Isak, one hand flying out to clutch the kitchen counter, the other to grab onto his chest over his heart like the dramatic ass he is.

“Jesus,” Eskild whines. “You’re going to end up giving me a heart attack! Make some noise when you enter a room, why don’t you?”

Isak snorts and doesn’t apologize as he goes over to get a cup of water. His heart is pounding as he simultaneously tries to think of something to say and to listen out for if he can hear Even get out safely.

“Don’t need to when you make enough noise for two,” Isak teases, chugs the water and opens the fridge to see if they have any juice as well. God, does this count as a tell that he’s hiding something? Drinking a lot?

Linn snorts, but she turns away from the sink to look over at Isak, finally facing away from the entrance to the kitchen. “Fucking hypocrite, you are. What, have you been redecorating your room? You look a bit too well-rested to have spent all of it awake.”

Isak tilts his head to the side in confusion. What on earth is she talking about?

“Oh,” Isak breathes out. Shit, had Even been making so much noise? Not enough that Isak woke up from it, but enough that Linn would? “Shit, sorry.”

He should probably tell her to come knock on his door the next time it happens, so he won’t keep her up again – he probably would’ve had it only been him in his room. The problem is it’s not just Isak in his room.

Linn huffs loudly enough the sound of the front door closing isn’t audible.

Isak’s heart doesn’t stop pounding until he has finished grabbing a bite to eat with his housemates and has checked the entire apartment for Even, just in case.

OOOOO

Two days later, Even shows up at Isak’s front door.

It’s too early. Isak knows Even’s class only finished ten minutes ago and the tram doesn’t leave for another five minutes after that. He looks at him questioningly, but Even doesn’t say anything, even as he probably knows that Isak’s realized he has played hooky.

Even’s swaddled in a winter coat that looks too warm for the just chilly air outside, and he looks tired.

He still smiles sweetly at Isak and kisses him hello, but afterwards he falls into bed and sleeps for eleven hours straight, barely tossing and turning like usual. Four times, Isak curls in close to him for no other reason than to check he’s still breathing.

When he wakes up the next morning, Isak jokes that he must’ve been tired, teasing him that he shouldn’t spend so many nights awake just so he can write. Even gets a distant look in his eyes at that and his smile seems more like he’s putting on a mask.

Isak can’t help but feel like he’s missed something, a bigger part of the story, the clue that foreshadows the climax, exactly what Even always berates him about needing to be the most advanced and difficult thing to write, to perfect.

Isak bites his tongue, looks at Even sleeping in his bed and reminds himself that his life isn’t a movie and that he shouldn’t think of it as plot points that perfectly fits into the Narrative Arc.

Next part

#Something Great #Evak #SKAM #SKAM Norway #Dutten-does-the-fanfic #Evak fanfiction #Skam fanfiction

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nosleep-justcode · 4 years

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08.04.20

Ok...it has been an EXTREMELY long time since I have even attempted to make my own post on this blog. Firstly, sorry for being so inactive, but I was doing the thing that I hoped making this blog would help me do...which is study. I really will try my hardest to be more active this upcoming semester even if it means having a queue to give off the impression that i actually am more active lol oops.I hope everyone is staying safe during these times. So just some updates:

I’m in my final semester of school! Graduation is so close I can practically taste it. Of course this semester is going to be a bit weird for all us considering a majority of us are going to complete this semester fully online, me included. In spite of everything happening around us though, I have a good feeling about this semester, personally. I’m only taking 14 credit hours this semester that’s split into 2 4-hr classes and 1 3-hr class.

I am planning to start digitally taking my notes. I’m getting a new 2in1 laptop soon and I get the stylus with it. Does anyone have the HP Spectre x360? How do you like it? I originally wanted a new computer so I wouldn't have to lug my 5 pound one around campus, but now I’m just getting a new one anyways lol. I plan to use OneNote 2016 to take my notes, and Notion to keep my schedule.

Lastly, I lost my father in June to covid. We were extremely close. This is by far the hardest thing I have ever dealt with, and the summer has honestly just sped past me since then. It’s been so hard for me to feel motivated, and I’m going constantly remind myself to take it easier this upcoming semester. If you’re suffering from a loss in your family, just know I can relate, even when it can feel like nobody else can, and I truly am sorry.

I have been reblogging stuff here and there but I guess this is me officially saying that I’m back! I hope I can interact with everyone more 😊

#amy speaks #studyblr #(in case anyone cares lmaooo)

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thatmultifandomhoe · 5 years

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Strawberry Cream and BBQ - 22

Pairing: Hybrid Hoseok and Human Reader

Overview: Your best friend knows she can count on you for anything, so when she asks you to watch her hybrid while she’s gone for a study abroad trip for four months, you can’t say no. But when these four months are over, things have changed in a way no one expected.

Word Count: 7,484 (holy fuck y’all)

Genre: Hybrid AU, Fluff, Future smut, Angst, Best friends to Lovers

Warning: Angst and Fluff for this week y’all.

Master List

Sneak Peak - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15 - Part 16 - Part 17 - Part 18 - Part 19 - Part 20 - Part 21 - Part 22 - Part 23 - Part 24 - Part 25 (Final) - Move in Day: A SC&BBQ Drabble

Sipping your coffee, you followed Johnny as he led the way to the library. It was taking longer than expected. Apparently, your ferret hybrid friend was more popular than you realized, having to stop so he could have a brief conversation with each person who came up to say hi and catch up.

“I don’t even know this many people,” you whined after he had stopped yet again to talk to someone.

Johnny shrugged, holding the library door open for you. “What can I say? The people love me.”

You snorted. When he narrowed his gaze at you, you took another sip of coffee and pretended to be interested in the DVD’s that were in the bookcase next to you.

“Anyways,” quickly turning on his heel, he headed towards the Stacks, his footsteps echoing in the empty stairwell. “Thanks for coming with me. I swear this research paper is going to kill me.”

“You’re not allowed to die on me until the semester’s over.”

That got a chuckle out of him. “Will do. By the way. How’s Hoseok?”

Raising an eyebrow, it was your turn to lead Johnny, showing him the way to the hybrid section. He had recruited you for this sole purpose, along with allowing him to bounce ideas off of you and to keep him company.

“He’s good.” Making a left and going up another staircase, you waved your hand to the bookcases that were specifically about hybrids. “He has work today, and then he’s staying late for practice. His solo in the show is coming up and he’s still honing in certain moves, so I’m bringing dinner to him tonight.”

“Aww,” Johnny ruffled your hair as he walked around you, his gaze immediately searching for the books he wanted. “The two of you are so cute, already acting like a mated couple.”

His play on words made you laugh as you walked further, setting your purse and coffee down on a table that was nearby and claiming it. “I wonder why that is,” you joked, tying your hair up into a ponytail, making the mate mark visible.

“Looks like it’s all healed now.” He handed you a stack of books he was holding and without being asked, you brought them over to the table for him. Out of habit, you reached up to gently rub the mark, softly smiling now that it didn’t hurt to the touch.

“I know. I was kinda getting worried. It just seemed like it was taking so long to heal.”

“Well he did bite you,” Johnny explained, snickering as you smacked his arm once he joined you at the table, setting another pile down. “Again, it’s different for everyone receiving the mark. Nobody has the same body type, and since you’re not a hybrid, your body heals at a slower rate than ours would.”

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, and it wasn’t until Johnny glanced up at that he continued to explain. “Since our DNA is combined with that of an animal, we heal a little faster than humans. It’s nothing special though. It’s not like if I were to get a cut on my leg that it’d be gone in an hour.”

“Oh, so not like the werewolves from Twilight then?”

Johnny pressed his lips together, staring down at the book he had open, his head shaking as he made a tsking sound. “Damn Twilight for ruining our hybrid lives.” Looking up for a moment however, he grinned “Why don’t you go ahead and try telling that joke to Hoseok? He is a dog hybrid after all.”

You giggled, reaching over the table for your coffee again. “Nah, my friend Namjoon is a wolf hybrid. I’ll tell them both that.”

The ferret erupted into laughter, nose scrunching up as he leaned back against his chair. “They’ll be hardcore judging you.”

“But their reactions will be worth it,” you pointed out, stealing another sip of coffee before hunkering down into helping him. “So, what are you planning for this paper?”

Hoseok whistled as he walked down the hall to where the front offices were. A week or so ago, an email went around to the dance instructors asking if anyone would be interested in teaching an extra hip hop dance class. It was an afternoon shift and was one of the many free classes that the Dance Studio offered. He wasn’t sure how many kids were planning on showing up – the email mentioned anywhere from ten to twenty – but he knew from past experiences that wasn’t always the case. More often than not, a majority of the kids didn’t show up for fear of being judged, whether it was because they couldn’t afford the class when there would usually be a fee, or because they were hybrids.

Walking into the air-conditioned office, he smiled at his coworkers as he passed, a mixture of humans and hybrids. The class itself didn’t start for another hour, which meant that he had free time to check his emails and eat a snack or two before getting ready to teach. All that time he spent attending the classes the Dance Studio offered, he never once thought he’d be on the other side as an instructor. As much as he owed his life to you and Sue, dancing was his first love.

The way he was able to close his eyes and feel the way his body connected to the music and moved on its own. He loved that while everyone heard the lyrics of the song playing, he heard something else. He heard the emotions, the desperation, the love, the empathy, and he was able to physically portray the story he was being told in a way for others to see. Then when the audience cheered him on, the roaring of the crowd and their applause, well…that’s how he knew he did it right.

He loved every second of it.

“Have you offered him some water?”

Blinking, Hoseok frowned as he turned in the swivel chair to face Jennie. She was a newly hired office assistant and this was only her third week at the Dance Studio. With a file in her hand, she nodded to Carrie, the other office assistant that sat next to her.

“He said he didn’t want one.”

“Who’s this?” Hoseok gently asked, not wanting to be rude about interrupting them.

Jennie just glanced at Hoseok, then pointed out the window to the hallway leading to the front door. Following her finger, his eyes landed on a kid. He was sitting on one of the black chairs with a green backpack held to his chest, staring at the door.

“He’s been there for over an hour,” Jennie said. “He said he was waiting for someone to pick him up.”

Pressing his lips together, he crossed his arms across his chest. The kid had on a red beanie, so the girls weren’t able to realize what he was. But as Hoseok took a deep breath, he could smell it.

He was a hybrid.

The longer he watched, the more he noticed. Every time someone walked by, his grip on his bag would tighten and as the hallway grew loud with the sound and chatter and sudden laughter, he would flinch. His shirt had dirt stains on it and he was willing to bet that the fabric was thin to the touch.

A pang hit his heart as he stood, exiting out of his emails at the same time. His sudden movements surprised the girls, but he waved away their question. “I’ll be back.” He told him, feet already moving towards the door. “I’m gonna walk him home.”

“You know him?” Carrie asked.

Hoseok shook his head. “No, but I know where he lives. Seen him around a few times.”

That was a lie. It was however, enough for Jennie and Carrie to accept his answer without that sympathetic look in their eyes. He made a short detour to his locker, retrieving his keys and wallet while grabbing a few Cliff bars and water bottles along the way.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his coworkers, but he remembered back when he first started coming to the studio. In fact, he had heard more conversations that started with:

“That’s Hoseok. He lives at the shelter, but he’s here more often than not. If you have any questions and don’t know who to ask or where to go, ask him. He knows where everything is and all the regulations.”

Or some variation of that. There was always that mention of him living at the shelter. He came to the Dance Studio to forget that he didn’t have a place to call home, not to be reminded of it.

Double checking to make sure he had everything, he made his way back out to the hallway entrance, not surprised to see that the kid was still sitting there. The closer he got, the easier it was to notice the small lumps underneath his beanie that concealed his ears. “Hey bud,” Hoseok gently spoke, slowly crouching down in front of him so as to not scare him.

The kid flinched as he stared at Hoseok, his small hands clutching the backpack to his chest. He didn’t look to be much older than ten. If he was even that.

Hoseok wet his lips, offering the kid a smile. “It’s alright. I’m Hoseok, one of the instructors here. What’s your name?” He patiently waited for him to answer, not minding that he was staring at Hoseok’s ears or glancing down at his tail. These were the very things that set them apart from the rest of society, but to each other, it made them equals.

“Samson,” the child softly spoke, his arms relaxing around his backpack as his nose scrunched up for a brief moment.

“Well Samson,” Hoseok repeated, smiling at him. “Do you like to dance?”

Samson nodded, briefly looking down at the floor. “I’m not that good at it.”

Tilting his head, Hoseok sniffed, finally catching a feline scent coming from Samson. “Now don’t say that. I bet you’re really good at dancing.”

He shrugged his tiny shoulders, reaching down to play with a loose string coming from the side of his jeans. The beanie he wore started to slide back, revealing blond hair and when he looked back up, his eyes were a deep blue that reminded Hoseok of the ocean.

“Did someone say you weren’t good at dancing?”

Samson’s bottom lip trembled long enough before he pressed his lips together for Hoseok to figure out on his own. His mind went in multiple directions, trying to figure out if it had been another student and what classes had been offered this morning that Samson could have gone to.

Reaching a hand out, he wiped away the tear that fell down Samson’s cheek. “Hey, it’s okay buddy. Did an instructor tell that to you?”

Despite flinching when Hoseok first arrived, Samson leaned into his hand, the hybrid instincts in him taking control. Even though they were different hybrid breeds, Samson was still a child who needed reassuring. “N-no.”

“Was it another kid taking the class with you?” Hoseok gently prodded, noticing how Samson wasn’t as guarded. With another nod from him, he sighed. The Dance Studio didn’t usually have issues with bullying, normally when working with kids they tended to be more understanding and opening to people and hybrids, but there was always a handful that would come in and they would have to have discussions with the classes about bullying.

“She told me only girls can do ballet.”

Pulled from his thoughts, he was surprised that Samson volunteered this information without having to be asked. Ballet though, that did make a little sense. “Well she’s wrong. Boys can do ballet if they want. You know, one of my best friends has been studying ballet since he was really young. He’s branched off into contemporary dancing, but he started with ballet.”

With a little sniff, Samson leaned off of Hoseok’s palm, reaching up to rub at his eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah, Jimin loves to dance. He sometimes stops in when he can and joins in on a class or teaches one.” Getting an idea, Hoseok smiled at the kid. A part of him wanted to reach up and ruffle his hair – he was an adorable child – but he figured Samson was wearing the beanie to hide his ears. “How about this? I can talk to my friend and see if he can come in sometime and help you out. Does that sound like a good idea?”

His blue eyes widened at Hoseok’s suggestion, almost as if no one had ever promised him such a thing before. Like no one had made him a promise, ever.

“But-” Hoseok quickly added, pointing a finger at Samson. “You gotta promise me that the next time someone tells you that you can’t dance, that you won’t listen to them. You shouldn’t stop doing something that you love just because of someone else’s opinion. Okay?”

There was a hint of hesitance in his eyes, but as he stared at Hoseok, Samson found himself nodding with a soft ‘okay,’ and a smile. Maybe it was because Hoseok was a hybrid like himself that he was relaxing, nowhere near as tense like he had been when he first sat down an hour ago.

The front door to the Dance Studio opened again, a stream of sunlight entering the hallway and covering Samson and Hoseok in the light before it closed shut, a group of people walking and chatting towards the locker rooms. It reminded Hoseok of why he originally come over in the first place.

“Samson, do you want me to walk you back to where you’re staying?” He purposely avoided the word home. He wasn’t one hundred percent positive, but he was pretty certain that Samson lived at one of the Adoption Centers. He was too young to be living in the Homeless Center, and Hoseok hoped that he’d never have to live there. That was a life he never wished on anyone, hybrid or human.

He didn’t respond right away. Instead, his small hands clutched at his backpack again as he looked down, prolonging his answer. It was a sight that made Hoseok’s heart crack. He was just a child who deserved much more than this society was giving him. He shouldn’t be living in a place that held so much uncertainty, but in a home filled with love.

Finally, he looked up with hopeful eyes. “Can you carry me? Please?”

Hoseok pressed his lips together to suppress the wave of emotions that wanted to overcome him, not just for his benefit, but for Samson’s. The sadness would have been too much for him to handle. “You bet I can. And before I forget, these are for you.” He held up the Cliff bars that he had almost forgotten about and the water bottles, handing them to Samson.

He watched as the child put them in his bag, and while he did so, Hoseok was able to see in the backpack. Extra clothes, a blanket, and a stuffed teddy bear lay packed away. Just enough to fill the bag but not too heavy that he couldn’t carry it. Please don’t let him live at the Homeless Center, he thought to himself. He’s just a kid.

Once zipped back up, Hoseok had Samson wrap his arms around his neck and as he stood, Samson wrapped his legs around his torso allowing Hobi to hold him tightly. He ignored the whispered conversations that the employees were having about the two of them, instead simply focusing on getting the kid in his arms back to where he was staying.

“So, Samson,” Hobi quietly asked after they were outside. “Do you always hide your tail and ears?”

The little boy had his head resting on Hoseok’s shoulder, tired from the dancing he had done earlier, only now just feeling it since he was relaxed and felt safe enough in Hoseok’s arms to do so. “Yeah. People always stare when they see them. Kids always tug on them too.”

Hoseok winced in sympathy, remembering all to well the tugs he had suffered through growing up. Carly may not have tugged on his tail, but the friends she had over tended to do whatever they pleased to do. Back then, his cries had fallen on deaf ears. “I used to hide my tail and ears too,” he murmured, gently rubbing Samson’s back.

Stopping at the cross walk, he leaned his body weight on his left foot as he pressed the button. The weather was finally warming up and everyone was walking in shorts and tee-shirts, gleefully abandoning the winter jackets for the brief moment. It was just one freak heat wave before the temperatures went back down again.

“Really?”

“Really. For a long time, I was scared. Being a hybrid nowadays isn’t like how it was when I was a kid.”

The light turned red as a white walking figure appeared on the light post across the street, but Hoseok still looked both ways to make sure that there weren’t any speedsters before walking across the street. “It wasn’t until three years ago that I got adopted. She’s really nice and took me in when no one else would look twice at me, and because of her, I was able to meet my mate.”

Samson squirmed and Hoseok tightened his grip on the boy until they were safely back on the sidewalk. He had shifted so that he was no longer resting his head on Hoseok’s shoulder, but straightening up so he could look up the older hybrid. “Mates are real?”

The question was so pure and innocent, that it had Hoseok chuckling. “Yes Samson, mates are real.” Glancing up, he could see the Adoption Center from down the street. With a nod towards the building, Hobi pointed at it so Samson would see what he was gesturing to. “Is that where you’re staying buddy?”

Samson barely glanced at the Adoption Center before quietly nodding, resting his head back down on Hobi’s shoulder as a very soft, cat like mewl came from him. Only ten feet away from where they were standing was an empty street bench. The area wasn’t crowded with foot traffic, so making a change in his plans, Hoseok settled down on the bench and moved the little boy onto his lap.

There was a sniffle as he curled against Hoseok’s torso. Despite the situation they were in, Hoseok couldn’t help it when he smiled. Samson was very much like a little kitten. Hugging him, he gently kissed the top of his head, and waited. What Samson didn’t know, was that the Adoption Center that he was staying at, was the last one that Hoseok had lived in before he decided he had enough. If his memory served him right, it was a fairly decent place with nice people working there. He had simply been at the end of his rope.

“Do you wanna know why I dance?”

It was a random question to pose to a child, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Apparently, that worked, because Samson was looking up at Hoseok with watery eyes. He gently wiped away the tears with his thumb. There were multiple reasons why, but he always remembered the main reason he started dancing in the first place.

“Because it made me feel like I was in control.” Leaning back against the bench, he set Samson’s backpack next to his thigh. “I got sent to multiple Adoption Centers growing up. I was always moving around, and the people, and hybrids, weren’t always nice to me. But when I danced however, it felt like I was the one making the choices and not someone else who thought they knew what was best for me. It eventually led me to meeting people who enjoyed dancing too, and they understood what it was like to randomly bust a move when the right song came one the radio. Dancing is ultimately, what gave me my first family. They weren’t people who decided that I was the right fit for them, but they were people who made me feel like I belonged, and I wanted to be with them. Does that make sense to you Samson?”

Hoseok wasn’t sure how much of this conversation Samson would remember, or even understand despite his attempt to make it simple. But if he had someone tell him something like that – or anything along those lines – when he was younger, it would have made sleeping along in the bedrooms at the Adoption Center a little easier. It would have hurt a little less all those times when families would come looking for a hybrid to adopt but walked right by him.

The fabric of Samson’s jeans bunched up as he leaned forward, bringing his backpack into his lap. Eyebrows scrunching together, he carefully unzipped the backpack, but to Hoseok’s surprise, he didn’t take anything out. Instead he slid the beanie off his head to reveal two small blond and orange cat ears. They twitched after being cooped up in that hat, flicking in every which direction to capture the sounds of people walking, the fluctuation of voices, and beeping of cell phones.

It wasn’t until the beanie was in his bag and was zipped up again that Samson looked at Hoseok. “There’s a guy and girl in dance,” he softly spoke. “And they’re nice to me. They like the Avengers too.”

Giggling, Hoseok hugged Samson to his chest and kissed the top of his head with a scratch at the base of his cat ears; the vibrations of Samson’s purr going through both of their bodies. “That’s good Samson, that’s really good buddy. Next time you come to the Dance Studio, just ask for me and I’ll come visit if I’m not teaching. We can hangout during breaks, and you can bring your friends if you want too.”

After a few more well-deserved scratches, Hoseok gathered Samson on his hip once more and slung the backpack over his shoulder, heading towards the Adoption Center. Upon entering, Hoseok was hit with memories that he hadn’t been expecting. It was exactly like he had last seen it.

The walls were painted a light sky blue as white shelves with trinkets and collars for hybrids lined the walls, organized by specific breed of hybrid. The counter was in the right-hand corner with the register. Behind it, a grandmotherly woman sat on a stool with a clip board in hand as she filled out paperwork. He knew that to the doorway on the left led to the rooms that the hybrids lived in, and from there if he went straight and made a right, he’d be in the common area.

“Samson, wasn’t Angie supposed to pick you up?” The grandmotherly woman raised an eyebrow as she stood up, surprised to see the child being carried in by another hybrid.

Samson simply shrugged, his arms tightening around Hoseok’s shoulders for a brief moment. “I don’t know, Carrie brought me there, Mrs. Gilly.”

Mrs. Gilly sighed, sparing a glance at Hoseok. It wasn’t until then that she really looked at him. There was something different about him, a nagging feeling in the back of her mind, but she could have sworn that she recognized him. Hybrids were always coming in and out of the Adoption Center, so it was possible that he may have stayed there, but it was more than that.

Hoseok however, remembered Mrs. Gilly. Her curly grey hair was now straightened and pulled up into a bun on the back of her head, a pair of pencils stuck in to hold it together. Wire framed glasses sat on top of her head, and a coat of red lipstick was painted on her lips. If he got any closer, he’d be able to smell the all too familiar baby powder that was her scent. He was never sure if that was just Mrs. Gilly’s natural scent, or the scent that all old people acquired after turning sixty. She had been one of the few bright memories that he was able to recall from his moving around in the Adoption Centers.

“It’s alright Mrs. Gilly,” Hoseok intervened, not wanting Samson to get into any trouble. “He had been waiting for someone to pick him up, but our staff noticed that he had already been waiting over an hour, so I volunteered to bring him back.”

His voice struck a chord with Mrs. Gilly. She knew that voice, but back then, there had been such resentment lacing his voice. Reaching for her glasses – it took a couple pats above her head before she was able to locate them – Mrs. Gilly slid them back on, and blinked.

“Hoseok? Is that you?” Placing her hand on her chest, Mrs. Gilly smiled as she stepped closer to the counter.

It was his turn to smile, nodding as he moved next to the counter to set Samson’s backpack down. “It’s me, Mrs. Gilly. How have you been?”

“Still doing the same job even though I should have retired about ten years ago,” Mrs. Gilly joked.

Hoseok laughed. Any tension that had been there when entering the Adoption Center slipped out of his shoulders. “You kidding? If you left, this place would never be the same.”

Mrs. Gilly raised an eyebrow, taking a moment to look at Samson before meeting Hoseok’s. “Samson, why don’t you go to your room? You look tired hun.”

Samson, not catching the look that she had given Hoseok, nodded in agreement. He was tired, there was no doubt about that, and taking a nap didn’t sound like a bad idea. With one last hug to Hoseok, and then one to Mrs. Gilly, Hobi lowered him to the ground and handed him his backpack, watching him fondly waddle through the doorway before finally disappearing from sight.

“How did you get him to take that beanie off?” Mrs. Gilly figured that he had something to do with it. “He never goes outside without it on.”

She hasn’t changed a bit, he thought, licking his lips as he scratched the base of his dog ear. With a shrug, he smiled. “Just that I had once been in a similar situation, and that he shouldn’t be ashamed of who he is.”

Mrs. Gilly, a woman who had a heart of gold, gently patted his hand. “Just like how you needed someone to tell you that?”

If there was anything that he knew about Mrs. Gilly, it was that she was always straight to the point, and somehow, she always knew more than what was being said. Crossing his arms, his smile softened as his gaze went back to the doorway. He wondered if his feet would automatically recall the path to his old room that he used to share with the other hybrids at the time. “Honestly, if I hadn’t of left, I don’t think I’d be where I am today.” Without missing a beat, his thoughts wandered back to Strawberry, Sue, his friends and coworkers at the Dance Studio.

He didn’t see it, but Mrs. Gilly was smiling at him. It was obvious that a good life followed Hoseok. Maybe not right away, but it came to him eventually. There wasn’t that resentment in his tone anymore, and if she was seeing correctly, there was a glow around him that came from happiness and love.

Straightening up, Hoseok looked back at her, prepared to ask about Samson, when something caught his eye. There was a rack of brightly colored pamphlets on the wall behind her with bold print. One advertised adopting a hybrid, another for fostering. There were multiple ones for what to do when your hybrid is going through heat or expecting and various other things, but one in particular caught his eye. It was a simple green pamphlet, but what it was advertising made his breath catch in his throat.

What Happens When Your Hybrid Finds Their Mate?

“Uh, Mrs. Gilly? Can I um…can I see that pamphlet? The green one.” He didn’t usually stutter, but his mind raced with all the possibilities, and with everything that had been happening lately, this could very much have an affect on his life with Strawberry and Sue.

Looking over her shoulder, Mrs. Gilly gave him a curious look, but retrieved them pamphlet for him. “For you or for a friend?”

“For my mate and I,” he answered, opening up the pamphlet. “She’s human.”

The pamphlet was broken up into equal sections. The first explained what a mate was to the hybrid and what was expected to happen. The second went on to discuss what would happen if the owner was the mate to the hybrid, but the third…the third was exactly what he was looking for.

What Happens When Your Hybrid Mates with a Human or Another Hybrid?

It is common for hybrids to mate with fellow hybrids, but hybrids can also take humans as their mates.

There are TWO paths that you can take with your hybrid.

The First path, also known as The Mate Act, states the following:

As the owner, you are agreeing to become a guardian to the hybrid.

The hybrid will carry documentation stating who his owner was, but is mated to their mate and lives with them.

The hybrid and their mate are (in the hybrid world) married, so they will be considered a married couple, especially if the mate bears the mate mark.

Any future decisions will be made between the hybrid and their mate.

Paperwork for The Mate Act can be picked up at the Courthouse, doctor’s offices that specialize in hybrids, Adoption Centers, and Homeless Centers for Hybrids.

Signatures from the owner, hybrid, and the mate are required for the paperwork to be processed and can be returned to the Courthouse between the hours 9am-5pm during the week.

The Second path, while not ideal and is for only extreme cases where the owner believes the hybrid will be in danger, is known as The Hybrid Owner Act which states the following:

The owner remains as an owner and retains their rights to the hybrid.

As the owner, you are agreeing to limited contact between the hybrid and their mate.

The hybrid will not live their mate, but will instead continue living with the owner even if the mate bears the mate mark.

The exception to this is when the hybrid is experiencing their heat.

Any future decisions will continue being made by the owner.

If this path is decided, after a period of time for discussion and thinking over, paperwork for the Hybrid Owner Act can be picked up at the Courthouse, doctor’s offices that specialize in hybrids, Adoption Centers, and Homeless Centers for Hybrids.

Signatures from only the owner and hybrid are required for the paperwork. If the circumstances are extreme, only the owner’s signature will be required to be processed and can be returned to the Courthouse between the hours 9am-5pm during the week.

Hope had been building up in his chest when he first started reading, for once it seemed like the law was on the side for hybrids. There was actually a chance for him and Strawberry. The further he read however, it felt like a sledgehammer was hitting his body at every angle possible. As much as he wanted to have faith in Sue, to trust that she would be understanding and accepting, he was afraid that with the option of the Hybrid Owner Act, she would take him away without listening.

Without thinking, he slammed his fist into the counter, eyes squeezing shut in an attempt to calm down as his tail repeatedly hit the back of his leg in anxiety.

Mrs. Gilly jumped at the slam, deciding that it was best if she remained quiet for a moment and letting Hoseok have the chance to think. With that in mind, she opened the drawer underneath the register, shifting through the many packets of paperwork the Adoption Center was required to have on hand. It only took a few seconds to locate the one she wanted, and without speaking, set it next to his hand.

“You know,” Mrs. Gilly softly spoke. “Even though we’re required to have all copies of each form, I always tell people that we’ve run out of the Hybrid Owner Act. There’s no reason for an owner to have that much control.”

Hoseok blinked, seeing the paperwork for the Mate Act sitting in front of him. “She already has my mate mark,” he whispered, his voice cracking as he ran a hand through his hair in a weak attempt to collect himself. “Strawberry…she’s my entire world. I love her, and she loves me.”

Mrs. Gilly, who tried to keep her emotions together for the sake of the hybrids, felt her own eyes water up as she watched that sliver of hope being ripped away from Hoseok. She didn’t know the specifics, but it was obvious from his reaction, that things weren’t exactly perfect at the moment between his owner and mate.

Giving his hand a squeeze, she waited for him to look at her. For a brief moment, it was like she was seeing the old Hoseok. The one who had run away from the Adoption Center all those years ago because he felt unwanted, and wasn’t meant to be loved. “Then you fight for her Hoseok,” she firmly told him. “You fight for your mate, and you never stop.”

An earbud was in each ear playing your favorite song as you entered the Dance Studio that night, carrying a reusable bag in each hand. One held the lasagna that you had finished making for dinner, the other carried the salad, sodas and dishware.

It was around eight, the building was empty as your footsteps echoed in the almost quiet hallway. The music that you had been playing wasn’t very loud, the earbuds were noise canceling but you were still able to hear the music that Hoseok had pulsating in just the hallway.

Carefully removing the ear buds, your footsteps fell on deaf ears as you entered the room without bothering to knock. As enhanced as his hearing was, there was no possible way that even he heard you knocking with the music as loud as it was. Unlike the last time you came with dinner, this time there was a table against the mirrorless wall and two desk chairs.

Hoseok was still dancing as you set the bags down. The lasagna was plenty hot enough to sit out as he finished practicing for the upcoming show. There were only two months left. The music he had playing was unfamiliar, and it was only when you focused on trying to understand the lyrics that you realized it wasn’t even in English, or his typical rap music. It was catchy and you found yourself nodding along anyway, finishing up with the setting the table and tossing the bags under the table as your hips swayed to the beat.

While you were preoccupied, Hoseok was grinning while he watched you dancing in the mirror, trying his hardest to suppress his laughter. He never liked telling anyone that they couldn’t dance – he literally told Samson to never let anyone say he couldn’t dance – but watching you in the mirror, he knew there was no dancing ability running through your blood. Although, his eyes lowered until they solely focused on your hips. You did have a little rhythm going on there.

The song was nearing its end but he hit replay with the remote, smirking when you didn’t notice what he’d done. From the way you were moving your body like the music was controlling your soul, it was obvious that you weren’t expecting him to sneak up behind you. But when you were moving like you were, how could he not?

Only a few steps behind you, he reached out, pulling you against his body by your hips. You jumped at his sudden presence, but he felt you quickly relax, melting against his chest at his touch.

“Shorty give me whip-whiplash,” Hoseok sang into your ear, laughing when you weakly slapped him.

You didn’t turn around. Instead you kept dancing, not caring that the professional was probably hard core judging you and decided to keep going. The song was catchy as hell. Plus, why wouldn’t you want to grind against your mate?

His groan didn’t go unnoticed when you purposely moved like that against his crotch, his grip tightening on your hips as he buried his face against your neck to nibble the mark.

A spark of heat ignited inside at the touch of his lips, your eyes closing as you leaned even more against him. Every time Hoseok touched you, it felt like you were experiencing summer for the first time, feeling the way the sun kissed your skin and made you feel alive. If this was what it was like now, you could only imagine how it would be five, ten, hell, thirty years from now.

The song slowly came to an end, dragging the two of you out of the music haze that you welcomed, bodies coming to a halt until the only thing to be heard in the room was heavy breathing. Breathlessly giggling, you finally turned around to kiss Hoseok, his arms wrapping around you as the two of you shared brief, but multiple, kisses. The only reason you stopped kissing him was because of your smiles that broke almost every one.

“Well hello to you too,” Hoseok teased, stealing one last kiss.

“Come on,” taking his hand, you pushed him in the direction of his chair and sat down in your own, cracking open a can of Coke. “Let’s eat before you decide to give me a dance lesson.”

He scrunched up his nose and shook his head, eyes scanning the food that you spent the last hour or two putting together. “I don’t know baby; I think you may be a little too far gone for lessons. You do know how to move your hips though, and I was very impressed with your show.” His lips curled into his signature heart smile, the same one that sent your heart racing as he held his hand out for your plate to scoop a piece of lasagna onto.

“Shut up,” you shyly spoke, the large smile on your face saying otherwise as you filled a bowl with salad before passing that over to him. The whole scene, while filled with sexualized energy only seconds ago, was still intimate. Intimate in that having a late homemade dinner at Hoseok’s work felt like normal. Like Johnny had pointed out earlier in the Stacks, it reminded you of married life.

You never wanted this feeling to end.

Sensing content and happiness coming from you, Hoseok relaxed even more knowing you weren’t stress or worried in some shape or form. He wanted that to last before he told you the news he discovered. The pamphlet in his front pocket suddenly feeling like a million bricks were sitting on his thigh as he ate. However, that was a fleeting thought.

“Any stories from work today?” You innocently asked. You shifted in your seat, bringing your left leg up onto the chair so your elbow was on your knee as you worked on your salad. He usually saved a few stories about the kids that he taught, whether they were his regular kids or new ones that came in for a specific class, or came in for the first time to dance in general. Plus, after being cooped up in the Stacks with Johnny for the majority of the day, you were curious how his day had gone.

Well, there was a kid, and there was a story, but he wasn’t sure how you’d react to the ending. Pushing around a tomato, Hoseok sighed, leaning against the wall when he finally looked up at you. There was no prolonging the happiness that you were radiating. Reaching into his jeans pocket, he pulled out the folded pamphlet and opened it to the side that pertained to the two of you, setting it next to your plate. “I went to the last Adoption Center that I had stayed at earlier today,” he softly spoke, watching as you took it with curious eyes. “They’re called, The Mate Act, and The Hybrid Owner Act.”

You tilted your head and glanced back up at Hoseok before looking at it. The font was large enough to scan the top part in seconds, gasping as you looked back at him. “Hobi…this…this means that-”

“That Sue would no longer be my owner but my guardian, and I wouldn’t have to live with her.” He softly interrupted. He leaned forward and slid your hand between his palms, a gentle smile making his lips curl up at the corners. “It means that we can live together, that we can move if we decide to, have the traditional wedding like I know you’ve always wanted, and even start a family of our own. That is, if we can take The Mate Act.”

“If we can? Why wouldn’t we take it?”

It was the perfect option for the two of you. This Act guaranteed a future with Hoseok, why wouldn’t you take it?

“Because we need Sue’s signature. But Sue doesn’t need your signature for The Owner Act, and if she decides to take that one, she doesn’t need mine either.”

Blinking in confusion, you watched as Hoseok’s smile slipped until it completely disappeared. In your excitement you had skipped over the second half of the pamphlet, which included The Hybrid Owner Act. Your grip slackened on Hoseok’s hands as you read, and reread, even reading it a third time to see if this was real.

“The Hybrid Owner Act doesn’t apply to us,” you argued, holding the paper up with your free hand. As much as Sue seemed to be acting unlike herself, she wouldn’t…at least you hoped, she wouldn’t go so far to the extreme to cut off contact between you and Hoseok.

Hoseok swallowed the lump in his throat, looking away from you and at the food set out. You had worked so hard to make dinner and bring it to the Dance Studio, working around his practice schedule and understanding how much the annual show meant to him.

“I just want to be prepared,” he answered, his voice strained when he looked back up, revealing how watery his eyes had gotten. “Baby…Strawberry, I don’t know what Sue is going to do. I don’t know if she’ll be pissed or happy, and I am hoping, god I am hoping, that she’ll be understanding. Neither paperwork needs to be signed right away – if need be, we can wait so she can adjust – but if for some reason she picks The Hybrid Owner Act…”

Wetting his lips, he raised your hand to kiss your knuckles repeatedly. He absolutely hated having to have a backup plan for if the worst happened. But all he could think about was what Mrs. Gilly told him back at the Adoption Center. “We’re gonna get a lawyer, and we’ll fight. We’ll fight and if we have to, we’ll fight to have you become my new owner, so that we can be together. But this is only as a last case scenario. Trust me Strawberry, I’m really hoping that we’re only overthinking everything and she’ll understand and be happy for us.”

Your grip tightened in Hoseok’s hold for a second before releasing it. His eyebrows raised at your actions, but when you stood and made your way around the table, he shifted in his seat and opened his arms as you sat on his lap. With a gentle kiss to his forehead, your fingers slipped through his hair to gently scratch the base of his ears. The sensation had him as a puddle at your touch, coming to rest his head on your chest while hugging you. For the first time since your relationship started, you were the one comforting Hoseok, and not the other way around.

“I’m going to fight for us Strawberry,” Hoseok promised, taking your hand to kiss your palm. “I will always, fight for us.”

To say that you weren’t scared was an absolute lie. But as you held Hoseok, you pushed back the tears and focused on him, on being there and reassuring him. “I know babe,” you murmured instead, leaning your cheek against his head. “I know you will.”

It warmed your heart to hear him say that, but you were hoping that it would never come down to that.

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yeosangs-horizon · 5 years

Text

Coffee Beans (Hyungwon x Reader) Barista!AU

Genre: Fluff Word Count: 1.9k Member: Hyungwon | Group: Monsta X

Once again you were off to your daily classes at your university as you rushed out of the house with a bagel in your mouth and rushed off to your nearest cafe to get a coffee since you were addicted to caffeine and needed it to stay sane throughout the day. You pushed your way through the frigid winds and into the coffee scented place. A small gust of warm air conditioning hits your face instead of that sharp cold gust. You scan the area as you normally do for the line and to your luck, there was nobody waiting to for their order to be taken at that very moment. You look up after dazing out for a second to march forward to give your order when you notice the barista that was going to be serving you was new and you had never seen him around in the months that you had been moved to this town for university. You gaze at his genuine smile, as if he loved to work there already and heard his deep melodic voice asking, “What can I get you today?”

You return that smile and snap out of whatever trance you fell into and replied, “I’ll have my usual, a large warmed caramel macchiato,” He input your order into the electronic screen and nodded his head. “That will be $5 please.” You handed him over the money as you also prompted to say, “My name is (Y/N) and I come here pretty often, so expect to see me here every other day or so.”

He tilted his head and replied with a soft tone, “It’s nice to meet you (Y/N), I’m Hyungwon, and I am pleased to know that you will return.” You gazed at him before taking your drink and turning away. He was tall, and quite adorable you thought. You weren’t interested or looking at anybody in particular since you were always taught to focus on your education first but your mind might sway a little after this particular encounter and possibly later on in the future. You shrugged off the thought as you rushed out after giving a hint of gratitude towards him, checking the time and being anxious that you might be late yet again to your first class of the day.

You exit your classroom after an hour or so of a boring biology lecture from your professor whilst reading over the assignments that were due that night. You were stressed and the caffeine high was slowly dissipating into the void. You decided to head over to the lunch hall in order to relax your mind a bit before returning to your apartment to be enslaved with work for hours. You turned the corner with a blind eye and rammed your head into what seemed to be somebody’s back. You looked up and you were met with the same man that you had seen in the morning. “Hyungwon?” you mumbled with a shock while stepping back and bowing as an apology. “Sorry! Just was kinda-- lost in my thoughts,” you excused while he held his hands up. “(Y/N), what a nice surprise to find you here, didn’t mean to hurt you though, you alright?” he inquired with a soft tone. You nodded and continued,”I was just about to have lunch before doing a buttload of homework.” “I was about to head in actually, do you want to come with me?” You nodded in delight as you walked side by side with him. What a strange encounter, you thought as you walked through the double doors that lead into the pleasant smell of food. You had already been in uni as a first year but you hadn’t met anybody who you really clicked with so far. You were surprised that somebody like him actually wanted to have lunch with you, but you decided not to think too much into it.

You both grabbed what you both desired and headed towards an empty table. You sat down and let out a sigh, already feeling the stress starting to lift. “So are you a student, or staff, or something else…?” you trailed off, gazing into his flawless features. He let out a subtle chuckle and replied. “I’m just a student don’t worry, second year hence being able to find time to work at the cafe as well. You nodded and a smile lit up. “What’s your major? I’m trying to get a degree in (Y/M).” He nodded understandingly. “I’m in photography right now but I’m really thinking about changing it into some sort of music major. I’m really into making music as well as DJing.” Your eyes lit up just a bit and a smile formed. “That’s so cool, do what you love I really like that!”

You guys both finish up your meal and you stand up, ready to depart from the lunch hall. “I have a class right now but it was really nice hanging out with you,” Hyungwon remarked. “And I have a bunch of homework to slave over until who knows when,” you laughed. You waved to him as you headed towards the door in the direction of your apartment but before you could make it out, you hear footsteps running and a tap on your shoulder. Hyungwon had his eyes down but he directly shoved a small piece of paper with what seemed to be scribbles on it before blurting out, “Text me, let’s meet up again.” You took it but as your eyes gazed from the number he had written down back to his figure, he was already walking away in the direction of his class. You felt a small tint of blush form in your cheeks while thinking about the new friendship that would form, or maybe even something more.

Days turned into weeks as you stopped by the little cafe every morning in hopes of seeing Hyungwon. A nice friendship had formed in between the two of you, your first real friend of university thus far actually. You took out your earbuds as you entered the cafe for your daily coffee run before your first class of the day. As the bell chimed, Hyungwon would turn around and embrace your figure with his eyes. “One warm caramel macchiato?” he inquired with a smirk, knowing your order. You nodded and proceeded to take out your card to pay for your coffee but he held out his hand and remarked,”It’s on me today (Y/N), don’t worry about it.” “No, don’t do that, it’s alright save your money for tuition!” you joked. “Really it’s on me today,” he soothed as he turned around to make your warm coffee. Nobody had really done this for you, ever. You felt a bit special, and the tiny confused emotions you felt for him began to surface more than you would have expected.

The weeks passed quickly and the two of you grew even closer, spending time at each other’s apartments after learning he lived in the complex just across the street from you. It was one of the coldest days of winter at this point and you finished just about half your finals and good god, the rest of the semester seemed to stretch on forever and you were beyond stressed. Going to the cafe in the morning was buried deep into your routine and you’d see Hyungwon practically every time you came in. You grabbed the door handle and swung it open, expecting to see the adorable familiar face you’d see on the same basis. Instead, you saw an older gentleman that you used to see when you went during different times of the day. Your heart dropped, wanting to see him. “What can I get you today?” he asked with a gentle tone. “Uh, sorry but is Hyungwon not working today?” you blurted out, wondering if he was alright. He texted you every day, and night just to say goodnight to you and when he got off his shift at work. “He’s super sick with a fever today so I had to cover for him, the winter is so brutal this year,” the gentleman commented. You nodded and replied quickly,” Thank you so much! I’ll order something later!” You dashed out the door, feeling your heart pound, hoping that Hyungwon was alright. It was not like him to miss work and school, you know him to be a dedicated person to any aspects of his life, even to you.

You feel the cold winds gashing at your face as you lightly jog to his apartment complex. You rush up the stairs to find his door and tried your best not to aggressively bang on it in a spur of the moment’s worry. The door slowly opened and you saw Hyungwon peek out from behind. “Are you okay?! I heard you were sick, sorry if I seem frantic because I was, I was just worried…” you rambled on. A small smile creeped out from the corner of his lips. In a raspy voice, he responded,”I’m fine (Y/N), it’s just your average fever. It means a lot that you came to check up on me though. He started to hobble back to the couch that he was relaxing on when his knees buckle. You rushed in to save him from collapsing on the floor. You slowly set his body down onto the couch and pulled the covers on top of him in a worried frenzy. “God Hyungwon, you’re not alright,” you mumbled as you rushed to go grab a cold washcloth for his heated forehead. He seemed to be passed out at this point and you sigh in relief at your decision to make sure he was surviving through the fever. You gently place the washcloth on his forehead and gazed upon his immaculate features.

You smiled as you mumbled to yourself. “You’re so gorgeous, I couldn’t imagine my life without you. You’ve made my life so bright…” you trailed off as you ran your fingers through his hair. You undoubtedly fell in love with him as a whole for his personality, features and ethics. You never thought you’d be in a position where you were taking care of him, because for a long time it felt as if he was taking care of you. You whispered under your breath, “I guess I do love you, Hyungwonnie.” You didn’t mind skipping a study session for him, just to make sure he was recovering. While being lost in your thoughts, you felt a large soft hand ghost over yours. “You’re too sweet (Y/N). I as well, love you too. Sorry I couldn’t get you your caramel macchiato today, I promise I’ll make it up to you after my fever goes away.” You felt a blush creep towards the surface of your skin. He had heard you. “I- I’m sorry, this was a terrible time for you to hear that, just ignore everything I said!” you mumbled flusteredly. His lips tugged upwards as he opened his eyes to gaze at your adorable worried stare. “Please be mine (Y/N), you’ve done so much for me. You keep me going everyday,” he confessed. You practically sobbed at this point. “Of course, but just relax and focus on yourself right now. Seeing you so ill makes me feel so helpless,” you plead. He squeezed your hand as you gently pecked him on the cheek. “I’ll be the one to make you the caramel macchiato this time,” you mused as you savoured the moment with your now boyfriend, only stressing for his health and nothing else.

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