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mrpenguinpants · 3 years

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Genshin: University AU [V1]

I love modern au. Or any “everything is fine, no one died, it’s just a fever dream” au. Half of me is thinking, damn maybe I should answer this serious- LOL HAHA no. That’s not happening. Time to crack my knuckles and let my brainworms take over again.

Once again, this is 90% crack 10% content. I want to switch up my characters from the last brainworm post but I included Kaeya and Diluc.

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Today’s appreciation post goes to twistedwishes. Hey! I’ve been seeing you pop up a lot lately and thanks for the support 💕💕 I hope things are going better for you and you’re doing alright^^ I feel kinda bad for making appreciation posts on crack fics but hopefully this is somewhat funny haha.

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Genshin: Holding Hands [V1]

Genshin: When you’re cold [V1]

Genshin: Roommate [V1]

Genshin: Royalty AU [V1]

[Masterlist]

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[taglist] <- if you want to be added, please read this first.

@mikeysbike @hanniejji@unionwitch @musekala @twistedsunnshiii @stanzastic @akaasea @xoneaboveallx @adoring-ghost @asheseiler @childelover @dilucsz @dai-tsukki-desu @thicmitten @youaskedfurret @diaxfeliz @wintergreen-aix @dandelily @thegayrubberducky @lovelykittycatmeow @yuunoagivesmelife @dokidokisama @simpygrimoire @minakohasmanyhusbandos @strwbrry-lia @tigerpriestess @yuu-yuukurotsuki

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Diluc

Absolute pretty boy who has braincells, but only if Kaeya is not there. In his mind, Kaeya’s presence makes his room loose 40% of their common sense. He can’t prove it just yet but he’s working on it. He majors in accounting but also has a minor in marketing, logistics’ management, fia- he majors everything business related. He’s going to become the next Elon Musk through smarts or by getting the competition drunk. There can be no contest if he’s the only candidate. He’s actually a hard working guy that overworks and stresses way too much. You have daily “Diluc recharge” evenings where he just hangs onto you while you go through your day.

“Don’t fucking talk to me until I’ve had my coffee,” except there is no coffee - he drinks grape juice out of juice boxes and his only energy boost is when he meets up with you - and that’s his constant mood. So he usually only hangs around you and Jean, since she has childhood friend status and is actually an angel. By default, Lisa is added and Diluc doesn’t mind her but if he see’s Kaeya, it’s full on war paint mode. If he's not busy with work or studies, he's usually with you either in your dorm or his apartment.

He has a fanclub and he seriously hates it and tries to do everything in his power to get Ningguang to take it down. Shouldn’t this be against his rights? But she refuses for whatever reason and makes a whole speech about free will. No matter what he does, someone manages to take a picture and it get’s printed in the university’s newspaper. The only bonding time he has with Kaeya is every Monday, where they collect and burn all the universities newspapers before anyone can get their hands on it. You always bring marshmallows to make smores during their arson activities.

“When I graduate I’m going to burn this school down to the ground. That’s not a threat it’s a promise.”

Ningguang

Is secretly the leader of the Diluc fanclub - not that she likes Diluc, she’s in a questionable platonic poly marriage with you and Beidou - but it was the easiest way to gain funds for the student council. Which she is the president of, so rip Diluc the fanclub stays. Ruthless business woman I tell you. But she can run in heels so her danger factor rises by at least 20%.

Majors in social sciences and law but more specifically the political science & government. She saw the Imperial State Crown that the Queen of England wears and says yes, that’s mine now. If she’s not with Beidou and you planning on “how to infiltrate the state government just for lols”, then she’s with Keqing, Ganyu, and Zhongli discussing student council things. Should they or should they not tell the student body that they can see everyone’s search results? Sit back and relax as the school goes into chaos.

She’s probably the scariest person on campus No, she is the scariest person on campus. She’s the scariest person on campus. But secretly she’s popping 20 aspirins just to make it through a night. She has the digestive system of steel. She still holds the title of "seriously do not try and beat her in a drinking game it's never going to happen" and that's her proudest achievement in life but sadly she can’t put it on her resume. Kaeya is still trying to beat her out of spite but so far it hasn't been working. You’re seriously concerned for her when she get’s challenged but Beidou gives you a way-to-hard slap on the back and cheers her on. If Ninngguang somehow get’s alcohol poisonings she’ll somehow find away to make a profit out of it.

"I'll let him die, I'll get the insurance money."

Kaeya

One day he chugged too much mouth wash, passed out, and somehow woke up in university majoring in law. His idea is that if he is apart of the law, he can therefore stand above it. To be fair, his only goal in life is to say “I am the manager” and he can go live the rest of his life in bliss or as a hermit. He’s secret best friends with you but wouldn't be caught dead beside you. He will stab a bitch if you ever get hurt but will still trip you on the way home. Seriously, you have no idea why people find him attractive. Your guess is it’s the eye patch or the clap of his ass cheeks that keeps alerting everyone.

He’s apart of the newspaper club and if anyone asks: No, he has no idea who keeps taking all the newspapers and burns them in the back of the campus. Originally, he joined because he was nosy and needed to join some type of club for his resume. He sometimes feels bad for his junior assistant Amber because he keeps tricking her and says that Diluc is secretly a demon that is trying to steal all the jobs and is apart of the lizard government hell bent on eradicating the human race. He even brought out a whiteboard for this joke, he’s dedicated to his job ok?

The type of guy to try and be humble and say his work is “okay” but will choke a bitch if anyone agrees. He tends to leave everything last minute and says that it’s his drug since actual drugs could land you one year in prison and a maximum penalty of $2,000. You have to awkwardly hold in your concerned mother head shake when you see him speed running his assignment literally right when the professor is walking around to check if students finished.

“I was taught how to lead not to read.”

Mona

Broke wallet #2. Zhongli is broke wallet #1 but Childe simps for him so is he really a broke wallet at this point? In this essay, I Mona Megistus, will explain why I have the rights to the title “Broke Wallet #1″...

Believes that astrology should be an actual career path but refuses to take astronomy as her major. I can read the stars not a textbook that tells me how to calculate the mass of the sun divided by the fucks I give. Instead she went into Philosophy and cries to Albedo, who is an actual prodigy genius- sir lend some braincells to everyone else please?, that her professor keep turning her paper down because “star reading” is not an academic source.

Fischl wants her to join the occult club because, surprisingly, Mona is very good at telling people’s fates through her crayon sketch ouija board. She thinks first year Fischl is cute but is put off by the cosplay roleplay that she has going on. She would join except that stupid hat wearing gremlin in her lit class would make fun of her if he found out.

You gave her half your lunch one day and bought her a doughnut "because she seemed upset" and "out of the goodness of your heart" whatever the hell that means. She thinks you pensioned it but once that thought comes she takes a bite. Poison from a doughnut is not the worst way to go out, classes are hard enough. She’s waiting for the lord to strike her down anyways.

“Its not about passing, its about doing better than everyone else.”

Venti

Slept through most of highschool and people question how he got into university. He’s a music major (wow how fucking original is that), and if anyone asks him to serenade someone or just do anything, he’ll do it for the right price. Or if you buy him alcohol because he still keeps getting ID checked. He’s banking on Kaeya actually becoming a lawyer or being on good terms with Diluc so he can finally stop being arrested for looking like a toddler.

Takes one step into classes and quickly nopes out and goes back to bed. Professors have no idea how he hasn't dropped out or failed. He just has some god given talent. He does whine at you to pretty pretty please with a cherry on top tutor him because you're such an angel and would never leave your poor but awesome best friend hanging right? He needs to get this essay down but how he is suppose to explain how the number 10 is symbolic and connects to the universe or the meaning of life. Do you think he can just say it’s apart of his culture and make up some random myth to pretend it looks like he knows what he’s doing?

He’s honestly going with the flow and put his brain on the back burner all of highschool and only now realizes wait, I actually have to use my brain?

He’s been banned from most club chats since Venti has the no chill card. Someone says “lol I look ugly today.” and he’ll respond "yup, you look like a cow." and he get’s banned. Zhongli keeps a speed run timer on his phone just to document these occasions.

"Sad spelled backwards is das and das how it be sometimes."

Childe

An actual dumbass that somehow does well. He eats sandwiches with the crust off, this heathen. Surprisingly he’s studying to become a physical therapist but most of his experience has come from breaking his own bones. You’re scared how he's going to be if he actually becomes a therapist. If he'll make bets with his patients or try to one up whatever crazy injury they get into. Everything is a challenge to him that sometimes the best way to deal with Childe is to knock him out.

This man really knows the way to a Zhongli’s woman's heart. Through micro transactions. Mona saw him accidently drop $20 and just shrugged and walked off. She has never been both spiritually and physically offended in her life. She did take the $20 though. As much as you hate leeching on Chile when he’s basically a walking wallet that probably uses bills as tissue paper, you can’t help but give him puppy eyes while planning on how to get into his will. If he even plans on having one, he might honestly write “whoever wins in a gladiator style duel in my funeral’s tournament, they will get my fortune.”.

Any sport the university offers Childe is probably in it. Which is how he met Zhongli, challenged him to a fight, proceeded to have his ass handed to him, got a backhanded compliment, and screamed to you he was in love and how he found his soulmate. He's secretly very sappy and has cried and watched every Disney and Pixar movie at least 28 times.

"IM NOT TOO SPICY! I’M A TINY BIT ABOVE MILD IF ANYTHING!”

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God if it isn’t Scaramouche, it’s Childe that ruins the aesthetic. This is why I hate you. Why do you people enable me like this, it isn’t even good. This is pretty much a @ yourself moment and I vibe hard with Venti. This entire post was just to make a joke about the clap of Kaeya’s ass cheeks alerting the guards.

This week might slow down since I have classes and assignments. My reply’s are gonna be late too, sorry;; (oh and thank you to everyone that was so supportive and nice when I mentioned it. All of you. Beautiful 💕💕 )

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drakewalkerfantasy · 3 years

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Six Sentences Sunday (It’s more, much more)

Dear Anon, it’s probably not what you asked for or kept in mind, and I know Tatum wanted back because of his mum and this being his dream, but I somehow got here and this being related to his feelings to MC:( I may rewrite it like 2000 times anyway. But at the moment I share it as part of Six Sentence Sunday together with something I may have no balls to post anyway :-D

I have 6 WIPs Under the cut:

1. Unnamed (Anon’s request Tatum’s POV for why he wanted to be reassigned back to army)

“Shit...,” cursed Tatum standing in front of Claire’s suite. The crumpled job offer in his fist, while piles and piles of rejection letters were kept in a neat stack at home on his table.

This was only his first day at work and he already hated it. The first day and some paparazzi already tried to breach through to the campus ground in a hunt for some pictures of Claire to see something juicy or twist a story. Making him feel irritated at himself for not getting there faster, somehow feeling responsible for the fact that Claire needed to deal with that herself.

The face flashing in front of his eyes... the face he tried so hard to forget but couldn’t. The face of the girl who kept his mind occupied during the lonely nights at war... the face of the girl he was best friends with all these five years ago... too long ago, thought he. But not anymore, he firmly reminded himself. He isn’t a friends with Claire Montgomery anymore she is his assignment and no matter how hard it would be, he will need to make sure that that is the way how it will be kept. Trying to push away her face, trying to make himself to remember that he is here not to be friends with her again, but to keep her safe.

The sounds of her laugher reached his ears, the melodic ringing of the tiny bells on the wind and his heart thumped involuntarily, peaking up the pace, while he cursed under his breath softly. Remembering the same laugher she shared with him so long ago. Remembering how desperate he always was to protect her, knowing that she never will be his to protect.

But now when he was assigned to protect her he hated it. The army changed him, and the memory of what he could done for his country, for her, changed him as well. The thought of how proud his mother would be of him if she only knew... if she only would be there to witness him in his soldier uniform and how disappointed she would be now, knowing that all that hard work gone for nothing, occupied his every thought. Making him want to turn around and run until he will have nowhere to run to. Making him want to go to the Madam President and request the reassignment for him, getting his free ticket back to the army. The place where he could be himself, the place where he could be worthy for both his mother and her... the girl who occupied his every dream, the girl who he swore to protect.

2. Unnamed (more likely will remain WIPs forever since it’s so OOC for Tatum, don’t hate me for that)

“Come on, Tatum. This is the last one. I promise. Pleeeeeease,” whined Denise seemingly drunk, while her eyes were eyeing the good looking guy she spotted when they just came to celebrate his return from the army.

“You said that exact same thing a few songs ago,” said Tatum, rolling his eyes, while his hands went to her hips swaying with her in the rhythm to music. Her hands around his neck while she arched her back, they bodies grinding against each other making him swear softly, feeling how his dick twitched from the sensations. “Sorry he mumbled...,” while she continued to dance writhing in his arms, her hips swaying in time with music, making a soft grunting sounds to escape his lips.

3. Please stay (Tatum x MC) (Tatum’s POV chapter 15)

“Tatum wait!” He heard a familiar voice calling for him. The voice with a notes of desperation and panic. The voice that sounded so out of breath that it seemed that the girl who it belonged to was running and he stopped dead, slowly turning to face Claire. The girl he didn't want to leave behind. The girl who ran as quickly as she could toward him, scanning every gate and open seat before her eyes met his.

“Claire? Demarco? What’re you doing here?” asked he, feeling how his heart skipped a beat, while he was standing in line to board the plane, watching the two people he didn’t expect to ever see again to approach him. Stopping just a few step away from him.

4. The Truth of Healing (Tatum x MC), could be renamed

“Mendoza, you cannot just enter like that,” hissed one of the bodyguards’ trying to reach for Tatum to stop him right outside the door.

“Miles, just try and stop me,” seethed he, whirling around with an angry glare in his eyes before throwing the door open and marching inside without another glance.

The blood roaring in his ears, but even through the rage boiling his blood he still could hear two gasps and exclamations following his entrance.

“Hey,” exclaimed Blaine, when the door opened hiding a smirked behind a shocked expression. “Didn't your mom teach you that you have to knock before you enter?” asked he while making a show from the way how the covers slipped from his naked torso, while another pare of hands firmly hold it over her blossom.

“Claire, stand up,” roughly said Tatum ignoring Blaine, his eyes unmoving on her, while hers widened and move around the room looking anywhere but him. Guilt? Fear? he thought, knowing that even if it was it still wasn’t what everyone would assume happened. He knew her well enough to know that.

5. My little angels (Tatum x Claire) (Anon request 43 from 50)

“I cannot... I cannot...,” whimpered Claire, when another contraction followed by a pain shout through her, knocking the air out of her. Her breath elevated hitching slightly and she could feel how the tears started to burn the corners of her eyes with another inevitable bout of pain and a sob tearing through her. But before she could say anything else or feel another fit of pain reaping through her, she felt two strong hands gently wrapping around her bringing her closer to a firm muscled chest.

6. Fluff ABC (Letter A: Alex and Blaine)

Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

Blaine and Alex not really affectioned to anyone but each other. He always make sure that Alex knows how much she means to him and when they are on public her hand always hooked through his or his is placed on the small of her back. Alex in turn leans closer to him every time when he shares some information about the dignities or politicians they are about to meet. Sometimes making jokes about them or sharing rumours.

Apart from that he always cooks dinner and breakfasts for her when he has time. He learned how to do that after he learned that she is foodie. For lunch they usually do take away or go some places together. He also always makes sure that every day she has a fresh bouquet of her favourite flowers on the table. And no matter how busy they are, they both always make sure to find the time for each other, even if to simple video call to see and hear each other.

Tagging: @choices-bound @jamespotterthefirst @mercury84choices @k2624 @thefrenchiemama @choicesreal @starrystarrytrouble @boneandfur @walkerswhiskeygirl @sophxwithers @ramseysrookiex @suitfer @gardeningourmet

#six sentence sunday #six sentence game #foreignaffairs #anonymous request #tatum x mc #blain x oc

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brelione · 4 years

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The Surfer And The Siren

Chapter Three:The Conspiracy Blog,The Investigation and The Shitty Sister In Law

Chapter One Chapter Two

Warnings:Mentions of racism,homophobia

S0rry that this chapter is kind of short.The next one will be longer.

You didn't understand how you had never found out about this.The article was from 2012 by a conspiracy blog.There were dozens of photographs of you,a bright red circle showing where you was in group photos that were taken in the fifties and more from the seventies.There were a few photos of your large scales the size of quarters that had been found on coral reefs and posted on facebook with captions asking for someone to tell the finder what animal the scale belonged to.Another photo showed a photo of your fluke splashing out of the water.In some your hair had been tucked into your old red hat so the mess of blue waves wouldn't be seen.But somehow those photos had been linked to others from the bridge of your nose and the color of your skin.You kind of missed the old days before all the facial recognition technology.

You went through the photos to see paragraphs and paragraphs with quotes from the interview with Linden. “Linden Sislip,sister of poet and former pawn shop owner claims that her brother was in love with the sea monster of Outer Banks.For decades a murderous mermaid-like creature has haunted the waters and supposedly lured multiple men to painful water related deaths.Outerbanks is known as Paradise on Earth and is home to countless millionaires AKA the sea monsters preferred prey.Some think the creature has migrated elsewhere because of a string of similar deaths closer to California.What do you think?”That article had to be the most bull shit thing you had ever read.Luckily most of the comments agreed,calling the photos fake and saying the scales were that of a tuna’s.

That was pretty insulting to say the least but at least they didn't actually believe you were a serial killing sea monster.That made you feel better but knowing how much Linden hated you definitely hurt a bit.She had hated most people though.She hated the poor,people of color,lgbt+,cats and babies.What kind of sociopath hates cats and babies?You couldn't wrap your head around the fact that somehow she was raised by the same parents he was yet she ended up like that.He was ahead of his time.He was respectful and kind and he loved everyone regardless of social status,race or sexuaity.That’s what made you feel so close to him.Linden had always stared in disgust when he bought extra newspapers to bring to people who couldn't afford them or when he saved his food to bring to children whose parents worked three jobs and still couldn't pay for a decent meal.

You pitied Linden,you couldn't even imagine being that closed minded and ignorant.Things were much worse in the South for sure but you tried your best to get to people.After he had passed away Linden had forced the rest of the family to completely shut you out.You couldn't go to the funeral or even go into their home to grab things that you could remember him by.She blamed you fro his death when she should have blamed herself.It was a terrible thought because in reality there was noone to blame but he had spent so much time in his life trying to convince her to be a good person and convince her to respect people.It had been a waste of years trying to wear her down and make her good but you cant help them all.

The interview didn't really shock you that much.She had always been bitter about you and your origins bit what did shock you was the fact that she had a son in 1950.A son named Bellamy Maybank. “Shit.”You whispered under your breath.Richard waited for you to explain your shock but when you didn't say anything he grew impatient. “What?”He asked.You just nodded,trying to form words.This was real life.This wasnt some weird dream or a conspiracy.This was actually real.This article was published 8 years ago and you had never seen it.

How could you have never seen it?You wondered if Richard knew and had hid it from you but that couldnt be.He knew just as little as you did. “You were right...but theres a time gap.How good are you at investigating?”You asked.A wide smile came across his mature,wrinkly face. “Are you forgetting about how I sunk Ward Cameron’s boat and completely trashed his plans in like...two hours?”He asked.You laughed quietly.Richard had always been so proud of that. “God,how could I forget?”You grinned,looking back up at the TV. “So what do you need me to find out?Make me a list in my notes app.You know which one the notes app is,right?”He teased.You rolled your eyes,opening the app and making a new note.

Close the time gap (after 50-now)

Learn about JJ,Pope,Kiara and the other one.

Check up on Ward’s plans

It had been a hot minute since you had Richard investigate someone.Last time had been nearly 20 years ago.Turns out Ward Cameron was hunting you down in attempt to kidnap and sell you.he was a fucked up son of a trout and you would most definitely say that to his face if given the chance.You placed the phone down,looking back up at the tv.The main character was threatening a rude looking blonde boy with terrible fashion sense. “Could we drive around for a while?”You asked.He nodded,standing up from his chair.His feet were sore but he always pulled through for you.You two went back out to his car.He turned on your favorite CD that belonged to Billie Eilish.So much had changed since just a few years ago.Someone like Billie would absolutely be an outcast back when you were her age.

Something about the way that cars moved made you happy.It was strange to see the world shifting around you.How poor people rode horses and the rich had cars and how the tables had turned.You had seen so many wars and so many deaths yet you had watched multiple births.You watched segregation end and witnessed people of all races and ethnicities get the right to vote.You had seen the day that the lgbt community finally got rights.And you had helped with it all.You had experienced the life of the poor and of the filthy rich and you were only a quarter through your life.You had been a friend to Marilyn Monroe and saw the day that JFK was assassinated.You had seen so much that no one else had experienced.

You had heard so many old folks complain about the music of today and how it had been so much better back in their day but you could not disagree more.There was no reason to bash the modern ones music.All music is good music except for country music,of course.Richard drove through figure 8 so you could gaze at all the houses.It was quite disgusting that there were only an average of three people living in huge mansions with six bedrooms that they didn't need yet there were families of eight suffering in tiny houses made for three people maximum.The rich were greedy,bitter and overall selfish and annoying.

The poor were generous and grateful for everything they did have and were more likely to be kind and understanding.It was really just a sad place but you didn't want to go anywhere else.A lot of other areas had water that was far too polluted but definitely had better people and a better atmosphere on land.It didn't really matter how great the land was when you could only see it once a month anyways.Plus OBX had a great cave system and pretty nice weather.Richard turned his car,going back to The Cut.If you were to live anywhere in Outer Banks it would most definitely be The Cut.It had an all around better atmosphere,friendlier people and better hiding spots. “So how are the naiads?Have you heard from them?”He asked,purposefully driving slowly.You sighed,turning down the radio.

“Not really,the only river entrance got blocked off by a ton of fallen branches.I haven't gotten any calls from them though so thats good.Its not that I don't like them or anything but they're just….god,they're so annoying.”You leaned back in your chair.He chuckled. “Does Esmerelda still have a crush on you?”He asked,turning down the dirt road.You nodded. “She’s just….she’s cute but she’s annoying,you know?”You asked.He nodded. “That ones always been kinda strange in the head.”He agreed.Once you got back to the house the sky was lightening up which meant you had such little time.You sat in the backyard in one of the camping chairs with your paper bag in your hand and the drawstring bag hanging off your shoulders.Blue sat with his head on your knee,staring up at you with his big shiny eyes.

He knew the drill by now,his drool making a dark puddle on your jeans as he whined for attention before you had to leave again.Richard had tried to bring the dog out to see you before but it never worked out.Blue got eager and excited and walked to fast for Richard and it wasn't safe for a dog to walk along rough and bumpy rocks.It wasn't exactly safe for an elderly man either but it sucks to suck.You stared up at the sky,wiggling your toes while you still could.As the sun began to come up over the horizon a similar aching pain spread from your heels to your thighs,your body feeling heavy. “I’ll see you next week,(Y/N).”Richard stood up to hug you.You hugged him back,tears pricking at your eyes.

Blue pawed at you,licking your jeans.You kissed his forehead lightly before limping down to the water.You dragged yourself into the water,collapsing when you were at your knees.Your legs tingled,your head slipping under the water as your legs knit together in a painful mess.From below your hips your tail grew,your hair falling in your face as all evidence that you had been human left you.Your hend clenched the deteriorating paper bag as you swished your fins,gaining control over your body again.The sun was now reflecting off the water,nearly blinding you.You ducked under the water,going deeper and deeper.

If you’d like to be added to the taglist comment a smiley face

@milamaybank @drewswannabegirl @teamnick @unmotivatedwritings @danicarosaline @sexualparkour @asaks6082 @mac-daddy-210 @prejudic3 @n1ghtsh4d3-67

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grimelords · 4 years

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I have been unbelievably busy for all of 2020 so far. Starting a new job and crunching to finish an old one, it's been very good but it has also meant that I haven't had the downtime I'd have liked in order to write long screeds about when drums sound good in songs so my December and January playlists unfortunately never got finished. They will exist as 'lost' playlists in the grimelords canon where you will simply have to listen to them and have your own thoughts about the songs instead of having your judgement clouded by me saying things like 'this sounds nice' and 'I love when the guitar goes woo-eee'.

You can listen to them here:

December https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4crPEVSPwftPpWl14xUrXF

January https://open.spotify.com/playlist/25MP7onYLCwWRYBIi0u3yc

As far as this, my February playlist goes: It's great! It's two and a half hours. The songs sounds nice and the guitars go woo-eee. I was worried I wouldn't be able to listen to as much music with my new job but it turns out I'm listening to more than ever which is extremely nice. Please enjoy, and if you'd like to subscribe to this playlist please do so here: https://tinyletter.com/grimelords

Listen to this playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZraEZOeS6qvVxfnz3AJS9

Ballad Of The Skeletons - Allen Ginsberg, Paul McCartney, Phillip Glass and Lenny Kaye: I had a dim childhood memory of this 1996 Hottest 100 funny skeleton song that my sister randomly brought up this month and was was shocked to find out that somewhere deep in my brain the part where the electric chair skeleton says “hey what’s cooking???” was still stored. I was also shocked to find out that the funny skeleton song I remembered from when I was a kid was actually a collaboration between Allen Ginsberg, Paul McCartney and Phillip Glass and was an unexpected hit on MTV and Triple J in 1996 for an as yet unknown reason.

I Can Go With You - Sam Burton: This song came up in my Discover Weekly, and I was so excited to listen to more of this 70s singer songwriter I've never heard of before who has no doubt had a long and illustrious career and was shocked to find out that not only is this song from 2020, it is also the first and so far only release by Sam Burton and his debut album is coming out sometime this year. I love how plain it is, and the first time I heard it it made no impression on me until a couple of hours later when I realised I was humming the melody to myself. It has this decepitive simplicity to it, and it sounds like a song you've always known which is really about as good a compliment as you can give a song. I also love this statement from him: “I was writing a song a day for 30 days as a personal challenge to myself. I Can Go With You came near of that practice and I considered it a throwaway at the time. After recording most of the album I still needed a couple more songs and decided to throw it on and we recorded it live followed by two others. When I listened back it ended up being one of the tracks I was happiest with on the record.” I love when artists are asked about songs and they have no divine inspiration to relate, just a process of daily work where they're like "well, I wrote it, like I always do. Did the chords and the words and everthing just like normal. I write hundreds of these things and this one came out pretty good. I don't know what else to tell you."

Wild Dogs - Colter Wall: This is a song by Billy Don Burns who you can probably expect to see on this playlist next month, and who as I understand it is one of these 'real' country guys that have been around for a million years and only ever had success when other people sang their songs. So it's very nice of Colter Wall to continue that tradition for him. I love the way this song takes the metaphor to a place of almost uncomfortable literalism, a tryst metamophising into something private, bloody and feral. The subtle way the lap steel whines slowly along in the background before stepping out and taking centre stage once the song picks up steam near the end is a marvel too.

Tom's Diner - Suzanne Vega: I had a live version of this randomly recommended to me by youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkYPge6ZKSQ and it made me see this song that I'd always been sort of aware of in a new light and really properly appreciate it for the first time. Somehow I'd never noticed the last verse where it moves from literalism to memories, and of course that's sort of the moment that ties the whole song together. What I really appreciate about the acapella arrangement is that it feels like this is a song that's existed a million times before but she's the first person to actually write it down and record it. Everyone's made up a little dishwashing song or a little walking song, reciting some to-do list in your head. It's an entire genre that exists under people's breath for a few minutes and gets immediately forgotten.

If You Don't Know Now, You Never Will - Drugdealer: I could have sworn this was a Tobias Jesso Jr song. I really just assumed it was until I looked at the credits. It's such a nice song though and I'm glad this sort of 70s californian vibe is making a quiet comeback because it is just uniformly pleasant and it's nice to hear these sorts of arrangements, with the accenting violin runs and things like that. All the extra decorations and ornamentations that have sort of disappeared.

Crimson Tide - Destroyer: I absolutely love this new Destroyer album because it just feels like such pure uncut Destroyer. I’ve always thought of him as a sort of 400 year old vampire lounge singer who is just amusing himself at this point and so the cover art has really confirmed my suspicions on that front. The lyrics through this whole album are so good, the sort of stream of consciousness strangeness like ‘when lightning strikes twice the funeral goes completely insane’ that takes a on such gravity because he sings it with complete deadpan seriousness.

Truth (feat Alicia Keys and The Last Artful, Dodger) - Mark Ronson: I didn't really give this album a chance when it came out but ever since I found out Alicia Keys is good now (Time Machine) I've been looking for more good Alica Keys work and found one here. The Last Artful, Dodger is one of the worst artist names I think I've ever heard but she absolutely kills it on the way she says biiiiitch so I'll forgive it.

Surf & Turf - Boldy James + The Alchemist: Alchemist's production on this whole album is so incredible. He really just lets Boldy go and doesn't get in his way like good production should. Especially on the opening verse where Boldy James sticks with that loping flow for so long in 3s over 4 that matches that arpeggios in the beat, it's just a perfect harmony of rapper and producer.

Fat Mac - Duke Deuce: Misogyny in rap is a real issue that nobody seems really allowed to talk about because it's obviously very complicated, and this song some real classic 'stay in the kitchen' type woman hating in it and is basically incredibly callous and cruel throughout. However this beat is hot and there is also a part about a third of the way through where he says "fuck her till that pussy fart" and then makes a big fart noise, so.

Set It Up (feat. Trina) - Kamaiyah: I only found out about Kamaiyah's fantastic 2016 album A Good Night In The Ghetto about two weeks before her new one came out so I've been on a real Kamaiyah hype for a little while now. She's just fantastic. I love this song because I love the part where Trina seemingly out of the blue threatens to piss in my mouth. The first time I heard it I said 'wow!' out loud.

Come As You Are - Greg Phillinganes: There's something going on with the pop math in this song that I just can't put my finger on. It feels for all intents and purposes like this should be a hit. The melody is great. The big synth voice is great, it's got extremely fatty bass. It's great! But something about the structure of it is just off, it's got too many sections or something. Which kind of makes me love it more really.

Devotion - Pure Bathing Culture: What surprised me the most about this song is the secret shredding happening throughout. It feels like a sort of clean and cool guitar that hasn’t existed in the wild since the Lethal Weapon soundtrack and it adds such an energy to this already completely wonderful song.

Paper Cup - Real Estate + Sylvan Esso: The production on this song is just so beautiful. The violin melody and the pillow soft synths really add such an extra dimension to it. The tone on everything really. The guitar in the solo. Every time I listen to this song I just want to listen to it again because it goes down so smooth.

Mark Zuckerberg - Nap Eyes: I’m a very big fan of the way this song transitions from a sort of TMBG novelty song halfway through into a lonely and beautiful thing instead. It’s like he got distracted and wandered off in the middle of his set but the camera followed him. I also haven’t heard a lyric in a long time that made me bark laugh so instantly as “And what does he do with all that sand? He collects sand right? I think I read that somewhere. Seems innocent enough.”

Viking Hair - Dry Cleaning: I fell in love with this band immediately on hearing this song. The way the spoken lyrics sit in a place of almost coherence, dipping between mysterious phrases and earnest admissions feels like Life Without Buildings for a new generation. I love the feeling of a huge crush at the centre of this song that comes through achingy in every single word, even when she's talking about abandoned refrigerators.

LeBron James - Do Nothing: This is my number one song this month I think. I've listened to it every single day and I cannot wait to see what this band does once they've got more than a couple of songs out. It's my absolute favourite kind of lyrics: the kind that sounds like you just wrote down every one-sided phone conversation you overheard on the bus and then the music is some halfway point between Black Midi and Franz Ferdinand. What else do you need!

Can I Receive The Contact? - The Spirit Of The Beehive: The Spirit Of The Beehive's album is one of the best I heard this month. The way the production incorporates sound collage and samples without diluting the immediacy of the songwriting is really something special that feels hard to pull off in a rock context but sounds effortless through this whole album. The way this shifts at the end into the odd time section is so great and really the way the whole album flows like one long track is just amazing. Please listen, I'm obsessed.

An Air Conditioned Man - Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever: There is so much space in Rolling Blackouts songs. They just go and go, sitting in this great jam space without feeling shaggy. The tempo across the album stays pretty consistently at this breezy, upbeat, driving speed that makes it feel like as soon as one song ends the next one just picks up exactly where it left off. It almost feels like a studio confines them and they'd be better off just recording their album live at a show where every song can go for 8 minutes like it wants to.

Leak -Truth, yesnoyesnoyes- - Boris: I got to see Boris and Merzbow this month, which was a great treat for me but it was also at a seated theatre venue which was a very strange choice. Sitting down and clapping politely as Merzbow pressed the screaming button feels odd, like being at an 1800s World's Fair show about the wonders of electricity or quite literally like being the guy in the chair getting blown away by the speakers in the Maxell ads. I bought earplugs for the show but ended up pulling them out for the last three songs or so to properly experience it, and it was fucking great. Something I was thinking about after the show is that it's interesting how Boris mostly have clean vocals, and really approach metal as an idea from and angle that's more shoegaze than Slayer. Aside from the immense volume, there isn't a lot about their music that I would describe as agressive, even most of what Merzbow added to the set was just extra feedback frequency noise, not atonal agression. I don't mean this in a trve kvlt way, more like it's interesting how they've taken the aesthetics of metal and refined them into pure amplifer worship, in their words, by either playing straight drone, or just playing normal hard rock at inhuman volumes. Boris are very good is what I'm saying, and I can't wait to listen to more of their extremely large discography.

Nameless Streets - Defeater: I've never really listened to much hardcore and I'm not really sure why. I've listened to Defeater's first two albums to death though so maybe it's time to branch out. What I love about this song, and this band in general is the vocal delivery. In a lot of agressive music from metal to screamo, because the agression and emotion is always sitting at a 10 the nuance can get lost and it becomes a sort of white noise, but Defeater have a nice way of backing off musically and vocally here and there to let the hard hits really hit hard. The outro to this song is also some absolutely world class snare work, building a tension bed in the simplest way thats relieved when the rest of the band comes crashing back in.

Boys In Town - Divinyls: I love the true desperation in this song. The trapped in a small town, surrounded by fuckers stress that gives way in the second half to just screaming "get me out of here!!". I am also interested in the evolution of the phrase 'too much, too young' and would like to know whether this song is referencing the song by The Specials, and if the Defeater song on this playlist is referencing this song or The Specials song, or if all three came up with it independently. It's a simply enough phrase, I suppose they could have. Who cares, really.

Body By Crystal - Spike Fuck: Come on a journey with me and imagine a world where Alex Cameron makes good music. That's Spike Fuck! The sort of burned out, past their prime singer desperate for a hit in any sense type of character - except actually put together with some heart and emotion and not an 80s comic book writer's understanding of human lows. I cannot wait to hear more from Spike Fuck.

Rogue Wave - Aesop Rock: It is something of a marvel how consistently high quality Aesop Rock's work is. For all his verbosity and expansive vocabulary he seems to never veer into white guy rap god flexing for the sake of it. Even a song like this that's 3 minutes of dense verses with nothing resembling a hook doesnt feel exhausting, it just feels like a series of extremely pleasing words and images like "take it where the warlocks lock horns, soda pop, popcorn / top notch gore set to Bach over fog horns" that makes my brain go "nice".

Momentary Bliss (feat. Slowthai and Slaves) - Gorillaz: I love the strange rollout Gorillaz are doing for this album, building the tracklist one song at a time. It's a nice way to force close listening, especially in songs with odd structures like this. I love hearing how different prouction changes Slowthai's approach; on this and Deal Wiv It that he did with Mura Masa it feels a lot brighter than anything on Nothing Great About Britain and there's a playfulness in his flow that comes through accordingly. Gorillaz are always moving around musically but I love how much of a live band feel this has compared to the more studioy sound that killed their last album for me.

We Will Always Love You (feat. Blood Orange) - The Avalanches: I am so excited at the possibility of a new Avalanches album already, and this is the perfect song to have as a lead single because it functions more like a teaser. Like 'would you like an hour more of this kind of beautiful, loving dream?'

Tar Sequence - Lalo Schifrin: I found out a little while ago that the local news theme when I was growing up was actually this song from the score to Cool Hand Luke, and according to a bunch of other guys in the youtube comments it was the local news theme for a lot of stations across America as well. The scene is of a prison road gang working under the blazing sun, and I'm sure someone could write a thinkpiece about the soundtrack to the nightly news, and really the platonic ideal of news themes in general stemming from the score to a scene about prison labour. But not me! I'm just going to write this little post and say we all owe Lalo Schifrin our lives for inventing the sonic pallette of kung fu AND the news, which is an incredible achievement whichever way you slice it.

When You - Tha Pope: It's a little bit of a shame that footwork is 'over' now but I suppose that's the way of things. The intro to this song is an absolute all timer for me. The delay soaked tag, the extended organ lick and then a total gear shift into this shrieking vocal sample that sounds like something has gone wrong but is revealed in actuality to be the centre of the whole track. I absolutely love Pope's little adlib at the start, and halfway through when he brings it back - it injects some real humanity into this cacophonous, volatile song and lets you know someone's done this on purpose, they've not just turned every dial to 10 and pressed play.

Jonny/Jonny (Reprise) - Faye Webster: I am absolutely in love with the tone of Faye Webster's voice and especially the way she slowly slides up to the note at the end of every line in the verse. This is a song that belongs to the great genre of songs that sound like they were entirely written and performed while laying on the floor and staring at the ceiling. The reprise here comes back at the end of the album and I love it so much. It feels like a Sex And The City monologue set to music, an underexplored genre I'd definitely like to hear more of.

Holes - Matt Berninger: Matt Berninger of The National covered Mercury Rev's Holes for a series of charity 7"s that Planned Parenthood are doingand I really love his take on it. It's a difficult song to cover because it is so beloved, and I think he does really well to not smooth out the arrangement into any sort of easy listening version. The rumbling piano and the extra vocals that mirror the original saw sound near the end are just wonderful. The part that always breaks my heart in this song is the "bands" line at the end and he really does it perfectly without being overdramatic.

Ta Aro - Nadia Reid: I love the way this song is just soaked in tension and potential energy. She has a beautiful way of holding a note just past the edge of her breath, like when she sings 'glory hallelujah' or 'I am stronger' and in the wordless refrain that just draws me in. Then the way it all closes in on itself and shadows close in at the end while it swells to this beautiful thunderstorm of sound. Just great.

Purify - Neurosis: Someone had a tweet a while ago that was like 'listen to a new album every day in February and write about it' and I thought 'fuck it why not' and started doing that. I kept a little note in my phone of every album I listened to that I'd never heard before, and I ranked them out of 5 so I could remember which ones I liked. I ended up listening to 49 new albums which surprised me, and it was surprisingly easy to do as well so I've decided to keep doing it in March as well. Highly recommended. A nice side effect of constantly searching for new things to listen to is it's given me a chance to hear bands that I've always heard about and know the name of but never actually listened to for one reason or another, which is how I got to Neurosis. It's nice to hear this kind of industrial 90s metal that I'd only ever previously heard in Tool from another angle, and it is especially nice to hear bagpipes in a drone metal context - a thought I'd had independently about a week before hearing this album and was glad to have willed into existence before me.

Shallow Sun - Real Estate: Time! I love a song about aging that mentions specific years and ages so you can count along on your fingers. '25 in 2010... so he was 24 when they put out in their first album.. 39 in 24.. so he's... 35 now.. and i'm 28... which means I'm... 3 albums behind..'

Quand Vas Tu Retrer - Melody's Echo Chamber: I'll listen to any song in 5/4. It is simply groovy. This song is so beautifully textured it feels like you can just get completely lost in the sound while the groove moves it along.

Living Through Another Cuba - XTC: I think I've posted this song on one of these playlists before but fuck it, the more time passes the more I think this might be one of the best songs ever written and a complete and total encapsulation of the cold war mood. The absolute maniac resigned powerlessnes on full display, screaming and shouting about pullings fins from an atom bomb and the absolute certainty that even if the world isn't destroyed this time it'll all come around again soon enough anyway.

Time - U.S. Girls: I am a huge proponent of the long song at the end of the record as a concept, and really I believe every song should be the long song at the end of the record if at all possible. This amount of colour in this jam is just incedible, it never gets weighed down or waylaid it just keeps moving though an ever shifting kaleidoscope and I absolutely love it. It also reminds me of Los Bitchos who were on one of my secret lost playlists from December so it's nice to have their vibe represented here at least. This song also interestingly ties into a thought I was having this week about the limits of music wherein time is the only immutable constant. In all of life music is an inescapable constant of course, but in music especially compared to visual art or written art, time is an inexorable force. You simply cannot bend time in music, a song or performance will always have a duration that will define it, short or long, which cannot be muted or played with in the same way that rhythm or tonality can. 4'33" is a good example of that, being devoid of everything except time. When there is nothing, there is still time. Canyons of time.

Bad Magic - Weyes Blood: I got to see Weyes Blood a couple of weeks ago and I feel extremely blessed that I did. She's just amazing. She played this song solo as her last encore, and she's in a sort of interesting position of blowing up majorly on her fourth album so people (myself included) weren't overly familiar with her older stuff. So when she said 'this is a song called Bad Magic' everyone clapped politely and one woman right up the back screamed "oh my GOD??" which is the kind of personal, just for her, singular experience I'm always here for. Hearing this song for the first time in that setting has really made me fall in love with it. The thing that's always alienated me a little abot Weyes Blood's earlier work, and the thing she changed so dramatically on Titanic Rising is the structuring of her songs. Titanic Rising embraces pop songwriting so wonderfully where her earlier work was so much shaggier and harder to access as a result - but in this song I love it. This song is meandering and long and wanders around in circles and I'm here for every second of it.

Listen to this playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZraEZOeS6qvVxfnz3AJS9

#playlists

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stylesfics-xx · 4 years

Text

Chapter Eight: A Whole New World

Forever? Masterlist

16th January 2017 “Harry what do I wear?” Ashley asked her best friend bluntly from the other end of the phone as she riffled through her chaotically messy wardrobe.

“You woke me up at five in the morning to ask me what you should wear? I thought something serious had happened.” Harry mumbled, his head resting comfortably on his pillow.

“Harry this is a very important day, I need to look the part.”

“Ash, you do know it’s radio, no one is going to see you.” Harry assured her, “But if you want my advice, wear the red roll neck jumper, with those ripped black jeans and Doc Martens.”

“I knew I could count on you Harry.” she sighed.

“I hope it goes well today love.”

“So do I,” she sighed, before proceeding to hang up the phone.

The tube was eerily quiet compared to Ashley’s usual journey to work, when she worked in the office her shift was 8 till 4, meaning hitting rush hour was inevitable, but getting to work for before 6AM meant an early tube, dropping Daisy off at the childminders on the way. Ashley was grateful that her journey was now somewhat more bearable, even despite the early wake up time, the only other commuters were those travelling in to the city for early starting jobs, and the people who had got drunk the night before and had spent the whole night asleep, travelling the whole length of the northern line. She hurried through the empty tube station, making sure not to be late. In an attempt to make a good impression on her fellow colleagues she stopped off at a nearby bakery that had just opened for the early morning rush, picking up a variation of croissants, pastries and donuts.

Ashley hadn’t felt intimidated by the Capital FM offices since the day she started the internship, she hurried through, most desks were empty as the majority of people didn’t start work until what was deemed a more ‘sociable’ hour of the day. “Morning Ash, how are you feeling?” Roman greeted her as she entered the office kitchen, placing the box of pastries on the side, and continuing to make herself a cup of tea.

“Nervous, but in a good way I guess,” Ashley told him, taking a bite on a pain au chocolat.

“You’re going to be great, I’ll make sure to ease you into it, I’ll introduce you and you can talk as and when you feel comfortable, there’s no pressure, I promise.” Roman assured her, picking a croissant from the box, “The big bosses have also said can we call you Ash when we are on air? Something about coming across as more relatable.”

“Sure, everyone I’m close to calls me that anyway, I mean you’ve called me that ever since I have worked here.”

“That’s great, you have about fifteen minutes to sort yourself out before we go live,” He explained.

“Alright Ro, cheers,”

“Good morning, you are listening to the Capital Breakfast show on a wonderful, yet slightly murky Monday morning, with me Roman Kemp, and for the first time, my new co-host Ash Hanson.” Roman chimed, resulting in cheers and woops from the producers and tech team who were present in the studio, “Ash, I’ll let you introduce yourself.”

“I’m Ash. I’ve worked at capital for about a year now. I’m originally from the North of England, and most people probably know me for being good friends with a curly haired member of a little British boy band, who you might have heard of.” Somehow talking about Harry and the band made her nerves disappear.

“So Ash, can I assume that with you being so close to the One Direction boys, you have a few stories that would make the lives of me and my fellow One Direction fans a lot better?” Roman asked her.

“I won’t lie I’ve seen a lot, particularly at the after parties, but they are all sound lads, there’s some stuff I probably can’t tell you on air, because frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them is listening.” Ashley told him.

“And obviously we’ve heard a bit of solo stuff from Zayn, Louis and Niall, if you had to pick one of the boys based on their solo music who would you choose?” Roman asked.

“That is a tough one, I think based on what we’ve heard so far, I’d have to say Niall.”

“Well on that One Direction related note, here’s This Town, on Capital Breakfast.” Roman said, before flicking a switch that meant their voices were no longer heard on air.

“Was that alright?” Ashley asked, taking a quick swig of her water.

“You’re doing great, you’ve got the knack of it already.”

“Taxi for Miss Hanson.” Ashley looked up as she exited Capital, seeing an all too familiar Audi parked outside, Harry stood leant against it, wearing a black trench coat over a grey hoodie and black skinny jeans, with a pair of sunglasses on top of his head to push back his messy hair.

“What are you doing here?” She asked, approaching her best friend.

“Can’t I pick up my best friend after her first day of her new job?” He asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

“It’s lovely of you to come down here, I just wasn’t expecting it, that’s all.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“I mean I guess I wouldn’t say no.”

“Good, because you need to line your stomach.” Harry explained, as the pair of them climbed into his car.

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“We’re going out tonight.”

“There are two major factors that go against that Styles,” She told him, “Firstly I have a six month old daughter who is far too young to be left home alone, secondly I have work first thing in the morning.”

“Firstly, Daisy is going to have a sleepover at Auntie Gemma’s house, Secondly, you can stay in my spare bedroom, I’ll drive you to work in the morning.”

“What am I going to wear? I’ve spent the last year in tracksuit bottoms.”

“Well after our brunch, we’re going to Oxford Street to get you a new outfit.” Harry explained, parking up outside The Ivy.

“What’s all this in aid of?” Ashley asked, leaning her head back against the headrest.

“You Ashley Hanson, need to get laid.” Harry smirked.

“When did you reach that conclusion?”

“Well you aren’t coming to America for my birthday, so I thought we’d celebrate early, and I could wingman you.”

“Why don’t we try and get you laid instead?” Ashley insisted.

“Oh darling, I do not need any help in that department.”

“I’m so happy for you Harry, but frankly I’m not at a point in my life where getting laid is something I want to do, Daisy is my main priority.”

“Can we at least go out for my birthday tonight? Pretty please?” Harry asked, looking at her and fluttering his eyelashes.

“Alright! But I want to go to a nice bar, not some mad club.”

“It’s a deal.”

“Are you sure about this Harry?” Ashley asked, looking herself up and down in the full length mirror in Harry’s bathroom.

“We’re going to have a great time.” Harry assured her from his bedroom, next door to the bathroom.

““You really think this looks okay?” Ashley asked, entering Harry’s bedroom, she had gone for a black glittery bodycon dress paired with red heels.

“You look beautiful,” Harry told her, taken aback by his best friend who stood before him.

“I’m not sure about this dress, I’ve still got mum tum from when I was pregnant, and my boobs haven’t been the same since I started breastfeeding.” Ashley sighed, shrugging off the fact that Harry calling her beautiful made her stomach flutter.

“Love you wouldn’t even know you had given birth six months ago, and there is nothing wrong with your boobs,” Harry assured her.

“Have you been looking at my boobs Styles?” Ashley questioned, turning to look at her friend.

“Taxi’s here.” Harry replied, making a quick exit downstairs.

As promised Harry took Ashley to a swanky North London bar, the sort that you could only get into if you were well known, and with Harry being Harry, that was easy. Ashley and Harry’s previous attempts at nights out hadn’t ever really ended well, there was the night out in LA when the paparazzi gave Ashley a hard time, and Harry had to effectively cover her, and there was Ashley’s 18th, which resulted in a fight between Ashley and a fan. “Why are we here Harry?” Ashley asked him, taking a sip of her pornstar martini.

“To celebrate my birthday obviously.” Harry replied.

“I mean you’re Harry Styles, you could take literally anyone for drinks, but you chose me, a single mum, who lives in a one bedroom flat in South London and most of the time has either baby sick or milk on my clothes.”

“I didn’t want to take literally anyone out, you’re my best friend, you always have been, you always will be, I find it hard to trust people Ash, I’ve been screwed over by so many people who want to be friends with Harry the celebrity, not Harry from Holmes Chapel who would rather spend the night in watching a cheesy romcom than go to some overly prestigious party, and I’ve never had to worry about that when it comes to you,” Harry explained.

It was almost midnight when they arrived back at Harry’s, both of them feeling a little bit tipsy from the several cocktails they had consumed, “Ash, lets dance,” Harry took hold of his best friend’s hand, leading her into the kitchen.

“Harry, I have work in like six hours,” Ashley whined.

“Please, if it was my actual birthday we would be dancing together,” Harry begged, holding both of Ashley’s hands in his.

“Alright one song, then I’m going to bed.” Harry opened his phone shuffling his music, the first song that blared out of his surround sound was Still The One by Shania Twain, Harry took hold of Ashley, one hand on her waist whilst he used his free hand to hold her hand, the pair swayed along to the song, Ashley’s head resting against Harry’s chest, breathing in the smell of his aftershave mixed with the alcohol from the cocktails he had drunk. Ashley smiled up at her friend, his smile beamed back at her, edging his face closer to hers, their lips mere millimetres apart, she knew exactly what was about to happen, “No Harry, we don’t do that, you’re drunk.” She stepped back from his embrace.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s fine, I’ll see you in the morning,” she muttered before quickly exiting the kitchen.

“I meant it, I am sorry.”

“Good night Harry.”

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ibelieveinharrystyles · 4 years

Text

Chapter Eight: A Whole New World

Forever? Masterlist

16th January 2017 “Harry what do I wear?” Ashley asked her best friend bluntly from the other end of the phone as she riffled through her chaotically messy wardrobe.

“You woke me up at five in the morning to ask me what you should wear? I thought something serious had happened.” Harry mumbled, his head resting comfortably on his pillow.

“Harry this is a very important day, I need to look the part.”

“Ash, you do know it’s radio, no one is going to see you.” Harry assured her, “But if you want my advice, wear the red roll neck jumper, with those ripped black jeans and Doc Martens.”

“I knew I could count on you Harry.” she sighed.

“I hope it goes well today love.”

“So do I,” she sighed, before proceeding to hang up the phone.

“Nervous, but in a good way I guess,” Ashley told him, taking a bite on a pain au chocolat.

“Sure, everyone I’m close to calls me that anyway, I mean you’ve called me that ever since I have worked here.”

“That’s great, you have about fifteen minutes to sort yourself out before we go live,” He explained.

“Alright Ro, cheers,”

“I’m Ash. I've worked at capital for about a year now. I'm originally from the North of England, and most people probably know me for being good friends with a curly haired member of a little British boy band, who you might have heard of.” Somehow talking about Harry and the band made her nerves disappear.

“And obviously we’ve heard a bit of solo stuff from Zayn, Louis and Niall, if you had to pick one of the boys based on their solo music who would you choose?” Roman asked.

“That is a tough one, I think based on what we’ve heard so far, I’d have to say Niall.”

“Well on that One Direction related note, here’s This Town, on Capital Breakfast.” Roman said, before flicking a switch that meant their voices were no longer heard on air.

“Was that alright?” Ashley asked, taking a quick swig of her water.

“You’re doing great, you’ve got the knack of it already.”

“What are you doing here?” She asked, approaching her best friend.

“Can’t I pick up my best friend after her first day of her new job?” He asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

“It’s lovely of you to come down here, I just wasn’t expecting it, that's all.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“I mean I guess I wouldn’t say no.”

“Good, because you need to line your stomach.” Harry explained, as the pair of them climbed into his car.

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“We’re going out tonight.”

“Firstly, Daisy is going to have a sleepover at Auntie Gemma’s house, Secondly, you can stay in my spare bedroom, I’ll drive you to work in the morning.”

“What am I going to wear? I’ve spent the last year in tracksuit bottoms.”

“Well after our brunch, we’re going to Oxford Street to get you a new outfit.” Harry explained, parking up outside The Ivy.

“What’s all this in aid of?” Ashley asked, leaning her head back against the headrest.

“You Ashley Hanson, need to get laid.” Harry smirked.

“When did you reach that conclusion?”

“Well you aren’t coming to America for my birthday, so I thought we’d celebrate early, and I could wingman you.”

“Why don’t we try and get you laid instead?” Ashley insisted.

“Oh darling, I do not need any help in that department.”

“I’m so happy for you Harry, but frankly I’m not at a point in my life where getting laid is something I want to do, Daisy is my main priority.”

“Can we at least go out for my birthday tonight? Pretty please?” Harry asked, looking at her and fluttering his eyelashes.

“Alright! But I want to go to a nice bar, not some mad club.”

“It’s a deal.”

“Are you sure about this Harry?” Ashley asked, looking herself up and down in the full length mirror in Harry’s bathroom.

“We’re going to have a great time.” Harry assured her from his bedroom, next door to the bathroom.

““You really think this looks okay?” Ashley asked, entering Harry's bedroom, she had gone for a black glittery bodycon dress paired with red heels.

“You look beautiful,” Harry told her, taken aback by his best friend who stood before him.

“Love you wouldn’t even know you had given birth six months ago, and there is nothing wrong with your boobs,” Harry assured her.

“Have you been looking at my boobs Styles?” Ashley questioned, turning to look at her friend.

“Taxi’s here.” Harry replied, making a quick exit downstairs.

“To celebrate my birthday obviously.” Harry replied.

It was almost midnight when they arrived back at Harry's, both of them feeling a little bit tipsy from the several cocktails they had consumed, “Ash, lets dance,” Harry took hold of his best friend’s hand, leading her into the kitchen.

“Harry, I have work in like six hours,” Ashley whined.

“Please, if it was my actual birthday we would be dancing together,” Harry begged, holding both of Ashley’s hands in his.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s fine, I’ll see you in the morning,” she muttered before quickly exiting the kitchen.

“I meant it, I am sorry.”

“Good night Harry.”

#harry styles #one direction #harry styles imagines #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfiction #one direction memes #harry styles one shot #harry styles best friend fic #harry styles blurb

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dhufflebee · 4 years

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when I see you like that (a Glee fanfiction)

One-shot Fandom: Glee Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Jesse St. James & Andrea Cohen; Jesse St. James/Rachel Berry - mentioned (and at this point very much one-sided) Characters: Jesse St. James; Andrea Cohen Additional Tags: rambling phone calls; basically just Jesse moping a lot; Friendship; Pining; Self-Worth Issues; rated T for some swearing

Read on: AO3 | ff.net Summary: After the loss at Nationals, Jesse can’t face his Vocal Adrenaline students, and calls his friend Andrea instead. Talking with her, though, painfully reveals his well-concealed sense of inadequacy—and his unquenchable feelings for one Rachel Berry

This fic is basically 3k words of Jesse moping, in a weird half-dialogue half-rant format. I’ve felt the need to write this since I’ve rewatched ‘Nationals’: that three-second shot of Jesse on the verge of tears has been haunting me, and I had to get the story out of my system. Most of all, I needed him to get some of the love and validation that the show deprived him of.

In my mind, it isn’t at all out of character for Jesse to be this miserable in private. He is crazy talented and he knows it, but he also has deep self-worth issues (due to his demanding and not very loving upbringing), for which he compensates with pride and overconfidence. He also has his (in)famous showface that rarely goes away, and he doesn’t feel comfortable being emotionally vulnerable. Except with Andrea—and, well, with Rachel.

By the way, I know Jesse and Andrea's friendship is mostly fanon, but I like it very much nonetheless.

Jesse had never felt so upset in his life. His heart, his mind, his guts were telling him conflicting things, and his knees were starting to give way under him as the adrenaline of the competition slowly went away. He barely managed to close the door to his room before he had to sit on the bed. He was feeling lightheaded, with black pushing at the edge of his vision—the way he would feel after a long training when he hadn’t eaten enough. But it wasn’t low blood pressure, Jesse knew that. It was the same dreadful mix of emotions and thoughts as that damn day two years before, but somehow a hundred times worse. Then it had been divided loyalties, two shattered hearts, and the gut punch of feeling like an utter bastard, but now… damn, he’d added so many failures in the past two years that he had no idea how his showface was still so good. He was starting to feel like a hollow husk at times. Something had definitely broken back then, and the constant, cyclical reminders of what he’d stupidly lost weren’t doing him any favors—that evening after Nationals, the castle of cards that had been Jesse St. James’s so-called adult life was a breath away from collapsing, once and for all.

Jesse kicked off his shoes, threw the suit jacket haphazardly on a chair, and lay down on the bed, trying to steady his breath against his inner turmoil. After a while, he felt blindly around his legs for his phone, until he found it lying precariously near the edge of the bed. He then flung the duvet up over his head and snuggled under it, shirt and nice slacks be damned. He unblocked his phone and opened his recent calls, dialing his best (only?) friend’s number.

“Victory boy! Hey!” a chipper voice answered.

“Andrea…”

“Ah. You didn’t win, then.”

Jesse sighed. Andrea’s reaction made him realize he sounded as dejected as he felt—something he’d long learned how to conceal, but the Chicago air must have jinxed him or something. Or maybe he was simply beginning to crumble under the pressure of his feelings. Whatever.

“I feel like crap, Andy. I should be with the guys, drowning our disappointment in ginger ale or what-have-you, but I don’t even have the energy for that. I barely managed to tell them I was proud of them—and I am—before I had to get out of there. They were crying, Andy, and the looks on the seniors’ faces… I just—I couldn’t stay.”

Jesse knew he was rambling, but a big part of his and Andrea’s friendship had always been taking turns in unloading while the other listened and then offered some honest advice. No one else in his life had ever made him feel safe enough to be so open and vulnerable—except for Rachel, but he’d thrown away his chance to have her at the other end of the line again, hadn’t he?

“I’m sure they understand, Jesse. You told them you were proud, and that’s what matters. Remember how nice it felt when they would tell us? Eased the disappointment of losing somewhat, no?” Andrea asked, a tinge of wistfulness in her voice.

“Yeah, well… god, they worked so hard for this. I really thought we’d win, you know? I honestly miss the high of victory—as I’m sure you do, too,” Jesse said with a smirk, getting a chuckle from Andrea in response. “Nevertheless, Carmel High is going to kick me out the minute I get back to Akron, as they so candidly told me they would when I got the job. And I guess they have all the rights to do it—what kind of failure am I, four-time champion and I can't even coach fucking Vocal Adrenaline to victory? I wouldn't want to keep me around either."

Jesse heard himself getting whinier by the minute, and he hated it, hated how earnest he ended up being while talking with Andrea (and with Rachel, too—he never quite managed to keep his walls up for long with her either… Stop! Stop thinking about that!). Andrea hesitated and exhaled, and Jesse could imagine her shaking her head as well.

"Why didn't you win, though?" she asked at last. "I've seen those videos you sent me: the choreo was incredible! What happened?"

"A ragtag bunch of misfits, that's what happened," Jesse answered, trying to sound mean but only managing desolate. Figures. "The New Directions really busted their asses this year, apparently. You should have seen them, everyone performed at a level they'd never reached before—and you know how they've always been so endearingly energetic. I loathe to admit it, but they were great, and I guess they did deserve to win. Probably. Couldn't tell that to my guys, though," he chuckled, gloomily.

"I'm glad to hear that," Andrea said, with a careful, knowing tone that Jesse instantly dreaded. "Is that it, though? This whole call just because the New Directions finally snatched first place after years of trying?"

Jesse didn't answer. He couldn't, he wouldn't tell Andrea the real reason of his moping—besides, he knew she could easily guess it.

"Unless..." (There it is.) "What about Rachel, Jesse? Did she sing?"

Jesse was thankful the conversation was happening on the phone, Andrea at one end of the nation and himself buried under a duvet in a hotel room in Chicago. He wouldn't have been able to sustain her gaze, otherwise. At least on the phone he didn't need his showface, and his instinct to flee from emotional vulnerability was somewhat tamed (but not much).

"Jesse?"

He squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the phone more tightly, hoping to keep at bay the flood of emotions that he could sense coming. At last, he whispered: "Yeah, she did. It's All Coming Back to Me Now".

"Oh."

And that was it. Andrea’s understanding tone was all it took for the floodgates to open and for Jesse’s rambling, vulnerable side to come out in full force. Tears threatened to escape his eyes, but he them firmly shut—he would not cry.

“God, Andy, when she sung that song—it felt like she was saying all those things to me!” Jesse’s voice traitorously cracked at that last word.

“I don’t think that’s—”

“I know!” Good lord, he was whining again. “I know that it’s ridiculous! that I’m reading too much into it, that they chose the song way beforehand and Rachel has much better things to think about than me… But what if she was singing about us after all? The words are rather fitting, and she knows that—same as she knew we were bound to meet here tonight. It’s there, Andy, the whole story! Me being an idiot, all my mistakes and the hurt I inflicted her—she was reproaching me, and I cannot blame her because I deserve it. And I especially deserve to hear it from her magnificent voice, even if god knows I don’t need to be reminded of what I did to her.” Jesse was breathing heavily, almost unable to articulate his feelings, his words spilling out at an alarming speed.

Andrea remained silent for a few seconds, then answered with a deliberate yet soothing tone—the one she reserved for Jesse’s rare mopey moments. “I don’t think your history with Rachel had anything to do with the song, Jesse.” He scoffed lightly, but she ignored him. “Besides, you were a teenager back then, and you were forced between a rock and a hard place. Shelby was a bitch that manipulated you and treated both Rachel and the parents of that baby like dirt. Sure, you were a bit of a dick, but you’ve got to cut yourself some slack. You were not stupider than the average teen in love, all things considered.”

Jesse tried to scoff again, but what escaped his throat sounded more like a sob than anything else. “Andy, you don’t understand,” he pleaded, pressing the heel of his free hand on his eyes. “I threw away the one truly warm thing in my life because Shelby threatened to take away my scholarship to UCLA, and look how well that went,” Jesse laughed bitterly. Ah, the familiar taste of self-deprecation. Saying all that out loud felt better than just mulling over it constantly, though. “I’m such an imbecile—I got college handed to me on a silver platter, and I couldn’t even manage to float just above the pass grade? Or, I don’t know, use my fucking brain for a change? And to think I would be so conceited about it, as if I could ever hope to accomplish anything intelligence-related…”

“Jesse, stop!” Andrea interjected vehemently. “You’re spiraling and you’re starting to sound like your father. You’re not stupid, you’re not brainless—you’re smart, and the most brilliant guy I know as far as musical theater is concerned. And don’t start with how acting or singing or whatever is bullshit, because I’ll come down there, slap you, and then find your dad and punch him on his ugly mug.” At that, Jesse felt a sharp surge of affection for his friend, regardless of her proclivity for mild physical threats. “We all sweated blood in Vocal Adrenaline, but we were happy and good—you above all, because performing is your passion and your talent. Who cares if you didn’t pass gen eds? You’re wonderful, and you will take Broadway by storm soon.”

“Ms. Tibideaux didn’t seem to think so,” Jesse replied, dejectedly.

“Who?”

“Carmen Tibideaux. NYADA?”

“What does she have to do with anything now?” Andrea asked, confused. “That was years ago.”

“Yeah, right—the first of my many failures.” Jesse’s tone was more bitter than he expected. He intentionally hadn’t thought much about his audition since, but he guessed disappointments never actually stopped stinging, did they?

“Come on, Jesse…”

“I didn’t get in, okay? No point in sweetening the pill. I was good but apparently not enough—and I always knew that, but now I have confirmation from the woman’s own voice that I ‘showed promise’ but couldn’t overcome the obstacles to be the best. So really, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with my life.” Was he being overdramatic and overly self-critical? Absolutely. At that moment, though, Jesse had no idea how to stop.

“Enough!” Andrea exclaimed. Deep down, the rational part of Jesse’s brain had realized he was being maddening, but he also had to admit he didn’t mind Andy’s forceful tone. It felt strangely soothing, being told to get a grip from someone who cared about him.

“I can’t believe you are saying this,” she pressed on. “I’ve already told you: you are incredible, and I won’t let you wallow in this kind of negativity. The audition was years ago, and believe me, I’ve seen you get absurdly better in the meantime. Ms. Tibideaux said you showed promise, and that’s good! You did and you do, and you will reach even higher that she could ever imagine.”

Jesse hummed, not entirely convinced but certainly relieved that someone else was eager to vouch for his talent. He knew he was good (okay, very good), but that didn’t mean he wasn’t, from time to time, afraid he’d been deluding himself due to his own arrogance.

“When did you speak with the woman?” Andrea asked.

“She was here to see Rachel perform. And when I went and told her she shouldn’t let Rachel slip through her fingers, she remembered me and made a list of all the flaws in my audition. Lovely experience, really,” Jesse said, with a bitter chuckle.

“Aw, you put in a good word for Rachel—that’s so sweet! Did you tell her?”

“I can’t! Are you crazy? She cannot know ever. I don’t deserve her knowing, if anything I owe her.” Jesse replied, his voice half-strangled. (Pathetic.) “Rachel and I bantered for a couple of minutes before the competition, and it almost got me punched by Finn, in addition to giving me some serious doubts about my ability to function properly.” He smiled at the memory. Rachel’s red dress was still incredibly vivid in his mind. “God, Andrea, you should have seen her—she was radiant. I’d ever seen her inhabit the stage so perfectly. She is the one who deserves to take Broadway by storm and who will. She’s a powerhouse, and she’s absurdly talented, and tonight she looked so beautiful with that smile of hers, and then she sang Céline and I couldn’t—”

Jesse heard Andrea exhale, as if ready to answer, but he rambled on, unable—unwilling—to stop now that someone was there to listen to him for once.

“I just—I miss Rachel so much. She earnestly thought I was worth all the fuss. Even with Shelby, it’d always seem like my work was barely acceptable, and that all the trophies were just due to luck and the power of a good routine or something. Which yeah, I guess is true, but—honestly, Andy, except for you, Rachel’s the only person who’d always tell me how much she liked when I performed, and how good I was. I was starved—I am starved for that, Andy. D’you know my grades improved while I was in Lima with her? I actually had to study, and I wasn’t half bad at it. All thanks to her. God knows why she stayed with me after the initial razzle-dazzle, because she was way better that I could ever deserve. And she definitely deserved more than yours fucking truly,” Jesse spat out.

“And I guess she will have it,” he continued, barely taking time to breathe, “since she’s getting married soon to Finn. And sure, I hate him and he hates me, but I can see how Rachel looks at him, and he looks at her the same way. I mean, he’s a rhythmically-challenged dumbass, but I can’t deny he makes her happy—that’s the truly important thing. I ruined everything, and I know I’d never be able to make her feel that way. I think Rachel could really be the one, you know? I feel it in my bones, I’ll never be as happy with anyone else as I was with her… But it doesn’t matter. All that matters is Rachel won’t have a fuckup like me beside her, who’d just end up wiping her wonderful smile away.”

Jesse had to stop—his throat was aching due to the strain of putting one coherent word after another, of trying to talk as fast as his inner turmoil demanded. Tears were escaping his eyes and running down his cheeks and in his hair. He didn’t care that he was crying, though: he already felt like an utter failure, another embarrassing thing wouldn’t change anything. Besides, it was nice, having a friend listen to him while he moped and pined. Crying is good, right? It helps get the toxins and the sadness out, doesn’t it? A good cry and I’ll stop feeling like shit—

“Oh, Jesse…” Andrea whispered after a beat, and that shattered Jesse’s attempts at regaining his composure—he started sobbing uncontrollably, burying himself more and more under the duvet.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me that?” Andrea asked, softly. “God, Jesse, I wish I was there to hug you. Believe me, though, Rachel is right—everything she told you and everything she thinks about you is true. You’ve had a lot of shitty people in your life, but never for a second doubt that Rachel was sincere and saying things as they are. You’re brilliant and very talented, whether you believe it or not,” Andrea added, in a decisive tone that drew a wet smile from Jesse, “and no amount of Shelby or Ms. Tibideaux or your asshole of a father can claim otherwise. All that hard work and dedication… you do deserve the world, Jesse.”

Calming his breath enough to answer took Jesse a moment—his gratefulness to Andrea and his longing for Rachel were a killer combination, and he didn’t want to start bawling again.

“Thank you, Andy,” he finally managed to say. “I just wish I’d made fewer mistakes, you know? Maybe then I wouldn’t always feel like such a failure, maybe I wouldn’t be so lonely all the time and it wouldn’t hurt this much… I know things between me and Rachel probably won’t ever be mended, but gosh what I wouldn’t give to sing with her on a real stage, to have a partner that inspires me to be better and lets me share the spotlight with her.” Jesse exhaled shakily, willing himself to not cry until he had finished talking. “It’s too late now, though, and it’s all my fault, no point in denying that. I just wish for her to be as wonderful and captivating as she was tonight, forever—she lit up the whole place. I really hope I didn’t make an ass of myself with Ms. Tibideaux, and that Rachel’s dreams will come true. No, scratch that: I know they will. I just pray I’ll be able to get a glimpse of her happy as can be.”

Andrea’s silence at the other end of the line was almost deafening, but Jesse pressed on, feeling that he’d never have another chance (nor the nerve) to admit to it all out loud.

“Sorry for the rant, Andy. We lost Nationals and it hurts like hell, but it will pass—it’s going to be a nifty addition to the You’re A Failure pile, though,” Jesse mused, with a self-deprecating chuckle. “I have no idea what my plans for the future are going to be, after Carmel High parts ways with me. I guess I could finally try and go to New York for real. It’s just that, you know, seeing Rachel again really threw me for a loop, even after all this time, and I’m not sure why—”

“It’s love, Jesse,” Andrea interjected. “The way you talk about Rachel—you love her.”

Jesse inhaled sharply. Repeating that to himself was one thing, but hearing someone else say it so matter-of-factly felt real, definitive. (Scary.) “Hurray for me, then,” he muttered, at a loss for words to describe how his heart was ablaze, dismayed, and longing at the same time.

“I really hope you and Rachel will put your cracked pieces back together, Jesse,” Andrea said, sounding softer than she did at any other point in the phone call. “You both deserve a great life, and to have your talents shine—you and her alongside each other? Musical theater won’t ever be prepared, let me tell you.”

“Thank you, Andy.” Jesse’s eyes had filled with tears once again, and he’d once again buried himself under the duvet, in hopes of preventing the onslaught of painful memories he was sure would come. But it was no use—he thought back to Rachel singing, and a loud sob escaped his lips. Tears started falling freely down his cheeks and neck, reaching his hair and the collar of his shirt. “I wish. I’m not sure I believe that, but god, I wish.”

#glee #jesse st james #andrea cohen #fanfiction #pining #glee (tv)#my fics #i've finally written this after obsessing over the episode and this whole plot bunny for more than a week #the format is wwird and it's rambly but i like how it turned out #i needed to get it out of my system and to give jesse some much needed love #me

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welllpthisishappening · 4 years

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More Than You Could Ever Know

It’s the perfect plan. So, she told the new guy at work that she was already married and couldn’t date him. Fine, no big deal. Emma has someone more than wiling to pretend to be her husband and a friend more than willing to do her pre-party hair. She’s certain everything will work out. The very last thing she expects is for Killian to be jealous. Because she might have picked the wrong Jones brother to play doting husband.

----

Rating: Teen Word Count: 5K an almost respectable amount AN: Today’s Festive Fic Prompt A Thon story comes from a very lovely anon and is "why wasn’t i invited to your wedding?” Which apparently is...a parenting prompt on this list, but my mind went to fake dating and here we are. There’s fake dating. Just not with the people you’d expect.

|| Also on Ao3 if that’s how you roll ||

“You’ll want to be careful, your face may freeze like that.”

“That’s not how human faces work at all.”

Emma clicks her tongue, not quite able to get enough frustration in the sound to be actually threatening and there’s far too much Christmas music playing anyway. She can’t be threatening at Christmas. It’s against the rules.

Of, like, humans.

Probably.

“That is a very weird sentence,” she says instead, dropping onto the edge of the couch in Belle and Ruby’s apartment with a pair of drinks clutched in her hands. Killian doesn’t move.

And that is...unexpected.

He doesn’t move his head, doesn’t stop staring straight ahead like there’s something there only he can see, the tip of his tongue obvious where it juts against the inside of his cheek. Emma should not be thinking about Killian Jones’ tongue.

Particularly in Belle and Ruby’s apartment.

At Christmas.

Or anytime, really.

“Seriously,” Emma continues, “I’ve barely even seen you tonight. How come you didn’t let me know when your train was coming in? I would have bought you lunch or something.” “Weren’t you at work?”

“Well, yeah—but I like you.” A muscle in his jaw jumps. “I didn’t want to bother you. I know how to get around the city and it was a weird time, anyway.” “You’re really pulling at straws. Did you try some of the cookies yet?”

“I also know better than to do that. Belle tried to do something with gingerbread, but it does not look the right color.” “Isn’t gingerbread generally brown?” “Yup,” Killian says, popping his lip on the word and Emma nudges at his shoulder.

“Here—c’mon, take this, I can’t drink while I’m holding your stuff.”

That gets him to move his head.

Figures.

Except. It’s not so much a movement as it is a loll, neck rolling in a way that can’t possibly be comfortable and Emma is certain she hears something crack and she’s going to say something about, she is, but then Killian’s fingers are brushing hers and he’s absolutely freezing cold and the music is getting louder, she swears and—

“You didn’t have to get me a drink,” he mutters.

“Well, you’re doing a pretty good job of putting down some roots here, so I figured you weren’t going to get it yourself and—” “—Do you honestly not know how biology works, or…”

Emma sneers. “When’s the last time you stood up?”

“Roland was trying to steal some of the cookies Ruby hid on the top shelf of that one cabinet and I made sure he didn’t break anything in the process.” “For real?” “For real,” Killian echoes. “But that was a few hours ago and the sugar rush ended pretty quickly and now—” He leans around Emma, that stupid tongue thing still happening. “—He’s found better company, it seems.”

She glances over her shoulder, another sound that isn’t particularly human rising in the back of her throat. Roland Locksley is asleep. On top of Will Scarlet. And it’s painfully cute and, somehow, a little festive and Emma almost forgets that she’s barely talked to Killian since he walked into the apartment.

That’s also unexpected. Because they’re—well, she’s not entirely sure if there is a word for what they are. He’s her brother’s best friend and a guy she’s known forever and half the people in that apartment are only there as branches of that friendship tree, and Emma desperately needs to learn basic biology.

Of humans.

And presumably trees.

Because she and Killian are—it really doesn’t matter. She’s just happy he’s here, a week off from work for the holidays and Boston isn’t really that far from New York, but there’s something about this time of year that makes those miles seem like light years and she’s just…

She’s happy he’s here.

That’s it.

Honestly.

Emma takes a drink. It makes her shiver.

“Lightweight,” Killian mumbles over the top of his own glass, a glint in his gaze that hadn’t been there all night.

“What’s your deal?” “You can’t hold your liquor.” “That’s because liquor is gross.” “Did Ruby not buy your fifteen-dollar wine?” “That sounds very judgmental.” He shakes his head, another drink, but Emma is admittedly a little distracted by the way his hair shifts when he moves. The music is definitely getting louder. And someone is singing along to Michael Bublé.

She can’t believe Ruby is playing Michael Bublé.

“No, no,” Killian says, “I appreciate that you’re such a cheap drinking partner. It’s definitely one of your better qualities.” “You’ve got to work on your compliments.” “Mmmhm.” They’ve both finished their drinks already.

Unexpected, part three.

Emma narrows her eyes when Killian's fall back to his empty cup, thumb tapping almost impatiently against the plastic. She feels a little lightheaded, a distinct buzz under her skin that’s partially because of the alcohol and partially because of just how close Killian is and that’s—

Fine. It’s fine.

She’s— “You’ve got to tell me what’s going on,” Emma mutters. “Ruby definitely bought that rum you like. I know she did because I told her she had to, and I just poured it, so—what?” Killian jerks his head up so quickly something else cracks, and that can’t possibly be healthy, but his eyes are wide enough to be disarming and Emma nearly swallows her tongue.

She’s got to stop making these jokes. No one is laughing.

“I’m a little disappointed, you know.” “In the rum? Was it a mixing thing with the Coke? You are so weird about that.”

“Why wasn’t I invited to your wedding?” Killian asks, and there’s just enough of an edge in his voice that Emma flinches. Even through her half-drunk state.

She really can’t hold her liquor.

Maybe she’ll just go buy fifteen-dollar wine.

“Wait, what?” she stammers, confusion rattling down her spine and threatening to pull her onto the floor. Killian lifts his brows, eyes managing to get even wider and Emma doesn’t remember when she decided to stop breathing, but then her lungs are burning and her stomach is twisting and—

“How did you find out about that?” “Please,” Killian scoffs. “I got texts. That was the first thing Lucas told me as soon as I walked in. Elsa showed me the pictures when I dropped my stuff off and—” “—You’re staying with them?” “I am related to them.” “Yeah, but—” Emma shakes her head, a questionable amount of oxygen rushing out of her. There’s no way her lungs are functioning correctly. He told her he couldn't stay with her. She'd offered. And her head starts spinning, a mix of confusion and that frustration she’d been missing before and some more confusion just for good measure because the way Killian’s knuckles have gone white around his cup do not make sense.

Liam and Elsa are standing a few feet away, barely any space between them and an impossibly cute kid draped over Liam’s chest.

“Was it a fun party, at least?” Killian asks.

“No, it was a shitty party, that’s why Liam offered to go with me.” “Did he just?” She stands up. That’s not an active decision either, but Killian’s glaring at open air and Emma can’t seem to catch her breath. “Yeah, he did,” she sneers, doing her best not to shout. She doesn’t want to wake Roland up. “It’s—well, there’s this guy and—” “—What guy?” Nothing about this conversation makes sense.

Michael Bublé has transformed into A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack. Anna is dancing. Badly.

“A guy at work,” Emma explains, “he’s a total dick. Just started this month, thinks he’s God’s gift to bail bonds and he keeps asking me out.” Killian blinks. That’s it. Emma wishes that weren’t so disappointing.

“Anyway,” she continues, “he kept talking about Christmas and the holiday party Zelena was throwing and so I just—I don’t know, I told him I was married.” “To my brother?” “No.” Another blink. This one is a bit more stunned than the last. Emma takes that as a victory. “I don’t—I don’t understand.” “There’s nothing to understand,” Emma says, and her voice is starting to rise of its own volition. Or so she will argue. “Walsh is a dick. He’s constantly bugging me and I needed something to get him off my back, so I told him I was married, but then he started talking about meeting the husband—” “—He called it the husband? Verbatim?” “How many times can I tell you that he is a dick before that makes sense to you?” One side of Killian’s mouth tugs up. “I think we’ve reached our quota.”

“I wasn’t even planning on going to the party. It’s—Zelena’s always trying to prove something with these things and it’s always stupid fancy, but then I was whining about it to El and she kind of...well, if I showed up at the party with a date in the form of a husband, then Walsh would have to shut up, right?” Killian shrugs.

“Your support knows no bounds.” “You said Liam offered, though,” Killian mumbles, and Emma doesn’t mistake the tone of his voice for anything except the jealousy that does not make any sense at all. Still. “How did that happen?” “He’s got a wedding ring. He didn’t have anything to do that night. He knows me well enough to make it seem like we’re—”

“—Married? This is insane, you realize that?” “No it’s not,” Emma argues. “It totally worked. And El thought it was hysterical. That’s why she took so many pictures.”

“Insane.”

Emma groans. “I like hanging out with Liam. That’s all it was, plus he’s here in New York and if we went together, then El could do my hair too and I didn’t have to pay for that, and—we made fun of the food and kept terrible rhythm while we were dancing and honestly, you should have seen him, he totally geeked at all the art displays. Tried talking to me about lines and meaning. I’ve got a couple of pictures of his face and he’s just...you’ll have sibling ammunition for the rest of your life.”

The joke falls flat. A paper-thin joke. That joke wasn’t funny either. “Your holiday party was at an art gallery?” “Zelena,” Emma says, like that’s a reason and it kind of is and Killian’s heard enough about her job to know. Everything except Walsh. She hadn’t mentioned Walsh.

Like, ever.

She didn’t want him to worry. Or, something. She can’t rationalize it. And Elsa had been very quick to point that out as well.

“Did you have a ring?” “No.” “And that was—” “—Not everyone wears wedding rings,” Emma interrupts. She’s starting to get annoyed. At both Killian and the lack of alcohol in her cup. “All that mattered was that there was a guy who claimed to be married to me, hung out with me all night and—” “—And?” Killian all but barks out the question, pushing to the edge of the couch. His spine doesn’t actually grow — Emma is at least positive of that — but he somehow looks a bit taller than he did just a few seconds before, feet flat on the floor like he’s using the fake wood as leverage in whatever argument they’re staging.

Unexpected, the grand slam version.

“And what?” Killian huffs, head falling like his neck had simply given up. Emma isn’t even aware of the state of her stomach anymore, too preoccupied with her heart’s intention to beat its way out of her chest.

“Nothing,” Killian mumbles. “I just—no, nothing.” “Why are you so pissed about this?” “I’m not.” “Once more with feeling.” “I'm not,” Killian repeats, standing so quickly Emma stumbles back a step and she knows she doesn’t imagine the way his left arm jerks at his side. Like he’s stopping himself from reaching out.

For her.

Her heart might explode.

Maybe she’ll buy two bottles of wine.

“It worked,” Emma says again, and they’re going in circles. That would, at least, explain her dizziness. It certainly doesn’t have anything to do with the specific shade of blue Killian’s eyes go. Or the tongue thing.

Definitely not the tongue thing.

“The dick hasn’t said anything else to you?” Killian asks.

“Nuh uh. He’s very convinced I’m very happily married. Can’t even glance my direction anymore without turning bright red.” “Ah, well, that’s—good. I guess.” “You guess?” “I guess.”

“This was a stand-up thing Liam did! And it’s not like I had a ton of other options for fake husbands! You do not live in this city.” Killian’s eyes bug. “Right.” “I’m going to punch you in the face.” “You’ve already had too much whisky for that.”

“Stop it.” “I can’t believe you guys thought this was a good idea,” Killian says, voice going low. “I would have—you know what? It doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t have had to do that, love. Come up with some fake thing and not tell me and—the dress looked good.”

Whatever sound she makes at that is somewhere between a gasp and a groan and Emma is all too aware of the stares they’re drawing—Mary Margaret’s gaze practically broadcasting its way into her brain, but then there are footsteps too and Killian’s chest shifts when he inhales.

Sharply.

“I’m going to...I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

He walks away before Emma can even begin to process formulating a response, her jaw dropping and Ruby is wearing tinsel in her hair. “So, uh,” she drawls, slinging an around Emma’s shoulders, “on a scale of one to eighty-billion, how bad was that?” “I have no idea what you're talking about.” “I’m going to say somewhere in the realm of seventy-six billion,” Mary Margaret grins. She hands Emma another glass. It’s water.

“What the hell is this?” “You really can’t hold your liquor,” Mary Margaret reasons. “And I’m pretty sure you’ll want to be sober for this.” “Why do I have the gnawing suspicion that this is some kind of plan?” “Aw, we want to use gnawing in this situation?” Ruby asks, tugging on the side of Emma’s dress in an effort to get her back on the couch. “Sit. I know your knees aren’t going to handle much more of this. Also—seventy-six billion, really?” Mary Margaret hums. “It obviously was bad because they’re both idiots, but it can’t be totally bad if he’s admitting to things.”

Emma collapses into the couch.

It’s not dignified. She spills water on the front of herself.

“Oh,” Ruby sighs. “Did we not actually get to public declarations, then?” Emma opens her mouth. And closes it. She does this several more times, but nothing changes and her dress is still damp and Mary Margaret is staring at her like she’s the world’s biggest charity case.

Which seems oddly appropriate at Christmas.

“We should probably take that as a no,” Mary Margaret murmurs.

Emma’s lips pop when she opens her mouth, that time, trying to quell whatever feeling is bubbling in the pit of her stomach and it’s mostly more confusion, but it’s also a bit of hope and—

“What do you think you know?” Ruby grins. Slow. Measured. Exceptionally wolf-like. “Way more than you do. And it’s kind of because you’re an idiot and kind of because he’s an idiot and—” “—Who? Killian?” “No, the other guy you’re stupid in love with.”

The plastic in Emma’s hand cracks. It’s honestly the most impressive display of strength she’s ever shown.

She’s disappointed Killian isn’t there to see it.

That is...dumb.

“Ok,” Ruby says pointedly, “should we start at the beginning, then?” Emma doesn’t answer. She can’t. Mary Margaret laughs. “It’s a very good place to start.” “Do not quote things at me, that is not a Christmas song.” “Well, no, because that’s not My Favorite Things, but—” “—Speak words,” Emma shouts, and Will practically hisses when Roland stirs in his lap. She grits her teeth. “Sorry, sorry, I just—what is happening right now?” “Aside from you and Killian being the single most obtuse people on the planet?” he asks.

“The guy has a point,” Ruby nods. Emma might be dying. She figures it’s a byproduct of her exploding heart. “Let’s not say the word gnawing anymore and then talk about how going to your holiday Christmas party with Liam Jones is Killian Jones’ literal worst nightmare.” “Only we won’t harp on the hyperbolic use of the word literal,” Mary Margaret adds.

Emma’s mouth has gone dry.

Ruby rolls her eyes. “Yeah, thank you, Mrs. Nolan, I’m sure grammar will come up a lot when Emma is realizing that Killian’s also stupid in love with her—” She cuts herself off, pausing so she can laugh uproariously. “Look at her face.” “You’re not making any sense,” Emma whispers.

Mary Margaret sighs.

“But, that’s—” Emma fumbles, trying to find the right words and there aren’t any right words and her whole body appears to be systematically shutting down now. “Killian doesn’t live in New York.” “Yuh huh.” “He lives in Boston.” “You’re just saying facts now,” Ruby points out. “The love thing was also a fact. Everyone knows that. How do you not know that?” “This is why she used the word gnaw before,” Mary Margaret says. “Em, for what it’s worth, we did not agree to this negative an intervention.” Emma tilts her head. "Just a generic run-of-the-mill intervention, then?” “Did you honestly not think that Killian wouldn’t react to you pretending to be married to his brother?” “We’re not actually married! His brother is married! Already! For years! I helped set Liam and Elsa up!” “You’re going to wake up the whole block,” Will complains.

There is not enough oxygen in any known atmosphere for Emma to exhale as dramatically as she’d like to. She tries anyway, a huff and heave of her shoulders, wide eyes that are starting to water for more reasons than she’d like to acknowledge.

“Emma,” Ruby says, leaning forward until their foreheads are nearly bumping, “my friend, my love, my dear. You are an idiot.” Mary Margaret clicks her tongue.

Ruby ignores her.

Will’s cackle is going to wake up Roland.

“He’s been glaring at open air all night,” Ruby continues, “because he couldn’t wrap his mind around your plan—” “—Which was only kind of idiotic,” Mary Margaret mutters.

“No, totally idiotic. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the dick isn’t asking you out anymore, but, also you probably should have mentioned the dick to Killian and told him about the plan because he wasn’t happy.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Emma argues. “Nothing happened! It wasn’t real, it was—Liam is—” “—Some kind of quasi older brother figure because you’re, as previously discussed, stupid in love with Liam’s younger brother and maybe eventually we’ll get into actual familial relationships, but…” “No rush on that,” Mary Margaret adds. Emma can’t see straight. “You should probably date first or something.” “Or something,” Will echoes.

Emma shakes her head slowly—like that will help settle the thoughts bouncing around her brain, but it only seems to rattle her brain in her skull and Mary Margaret tugs the glass of water out of her hand.

That’s for the best.

She’d look like a crazy person running out of the apartment building with a glass of water. And they’ve already established that she’s pretty firmly entrenched in the idiot realm.

“I’ll be back,” Emma announces.

Mary Margaret and Ruby are both going to dislocate their jaws from smiling so wide, Will still laughing softly when Emma dashes by him.

“No, you won’t,” he calls out behind her. She barely hears. She doesn’t grab her jacket.

Honestly, idiot.

Emma spins on the spot, but there’s no one else on the block. It’s starting to snow. She’s going to take that as some romantic sign, already sprinting uptown and she’s got a hunch and a feeling and a very enthusiastic right arm.

A cab skids to a stop almost immediately.

That’s another sign, she’s positive.

“70th and West End,” Emma says, out of breath and excited and the driver only grumbles a little bit about having to drive so many blocks the Saturday before Christmas.

It takes forever. Red lights and gridlock and people crossing the street at inopportune times, Emma's right boot threatening to tap a hole through the cab floor. There are goosebumps on her arms.

And she barely swipes her card before she’s racing back onto the sidewalk, sprinting up slippery steps with a balance she did not possess a few hours earlier, reaching into her back pocket to find— “Ah, fuck.” Her keys are in her jacket.

Fifty blocks downtown.

“Killian! Killian, I know you’re in here! Open the door.” Emma bangs her fist, kicks it a few times as well, curious tourists glancing her direction. “Killian,” she shouts. “Seriously, come down here, I don’t have my keys!”

She almost falls over.

The door swings open, Killian standing on the other side of the threshold with a thunderous expression and sockless feet.

Emma tugs her lips behind her teeth.

“You have keys to Liam and Elsa’s apartment?” “I babysit your nephew a lot,” she mutters. “You going to let me in? ”He waves an arm, taking a step back and Emma does her best not to jump when the door slams behind her. Neither one of them move.

There’s garland in the lobby.

Anna very likely had something to do with that.

“What are you doing here?” “I told you," Killian says, “I’m related to them.” “You didn’t even tell them you were leaving. You didn’t tell me you were leaving.” The tips of his ears go red, fingers finding the hair at the nape of his neck. “Yeah, that was—well, it was admittedly kind of shitty, but I—” “—Why were you pissed about the holiday party?” “I wasn’t. You should go back downtown, Swan. It’ll be more fun than here and—” “—Yeah, I’m not worried about fun. I’m worried about you and I just…” Emma trails off, a quick shrug and more nerves than she expected because Ruby was right and Will was right and the whole thing was patently idiotic.

“It’s such a stupid thing to be mad about,” Killian mumbles, quiet enough that Emma barely hears it. Especially when she’s gasping. “I don’t—El showed me the pictures and she was laughing the whole time and I—Swan, it felt like every nerve-ending in my body short-circuited.” Nothing. She can’t respond.

She’s biting her lip.

“It was like something was clawing at the back of my brain,” Killian says. “God, that’s a disgusting word. Don’t fault me for that word.” “I said gnawing before. So.” Emma shrugs again, trying to smile. His eyes definitely get bluer.

There’s a distinct draft in that lobby.

“Yeah?” “Yeah, I, um—well, we had an audience, I guess and people with some pretty scathing opinions.” “I can only imagine what Liam’s going to say. He keeps rolling his eyes whenever I’m within five feet of him.” “Jerk.” “Nah, that might be me.” “Might be,” Emma agrees. It’s easier to smile at that, Killian rocking into her space and he lets his fingers graze her side that time, a barely-there touch that leaves more goosebumps exploding on her skin.

“You said you would have,” Emma presses. “That, uh—you would have done...something? You didn’t finish the sentence.” “It’s a frustrating habit of mine.” “I could threaten to punch you again.” “Please don’t do that.”

Killian huffs, moving his hand out of his hair so he can drag it across his face instead and his tongue swipes across his teeth in a move trending so close to obscene that Emma nearly melts on the spot.

Whatever friendship title they’ve claimed before has evaporated.

More science.

“You don’t live here,” Emma whispers, not sure why she’s still talking. “You live in Boston and we’re, I mean—I wouldn’t want to make you play—” “—I don’t want to be your fake husband, love.”

“No?” “No,” Killian repeats, crowding into her space and there’s a wall behind her. Emma is only aware of it when her head bumps plaster, swallowing down the sudden lump in her throat and hoping he can’t hear the thud of her pulse. “And I would have gone to the party with you. Any party, really. That’s—God, I want that, Swan. You and me and—” He licks his lips. Emma still has not melted. A Christmas miracle. “I don’t want to be your fake anything, Emma. And I don’t want anyone else to be, least of my goddamn brother and I—” “—I love you,” she interrupts.

They both move at that, Emma’s head colliding with the wall again. She lets out a soft gasp of pain, but that also might have been because that string of words in that particular order was not part of any plan.

It should have been.

And she was never going to date Walsh. Because he was a dick. Or anyone else. Ever.

“Oh,” Emma groans, “That’s—God, that’s so—” They both desperately need to finish their sentences.

She’ll worry about that later. Presumably after the kissing.

Killian’s head drops, a hand finding the small of Emma’s back so he can pull her closer and the tongue thing is better when she’s on the receiving end of it. She arches her back, trying to stand where he is, like she’s also trying to crawl into the center of him, which is admittedly a little disgusting, but it kind of circles her around and he’s already taking up so much space in her soul that she assumes it’s a two-way street.

His fingers keep moving, drifting up her spine and carding through the ends of her hair until he’s cupping the back of her head and keeping her exactly where she is.

As if she’d be inclined to move.

She tilts her head. He catches her lower lip between his teeth. She pushes up on her toes. His hand finds its way under her shirt.

It’s a little bruising and the complete opposite, a weird contradiction that Emma wants to hold onto with both hands, like chocolate and peppermint and everything good and great and something about Christmas miracles.

It’s not a miracle.

It is...inevitable, maybe.

And she’s not sure how long they stand there, breaking apart to catch their breath before they find each other again, swaying slightly until Emma’s grip on his shirt threatens to tear the fabric.

“So, uh,” Emma mumbles, “that was ok?” “Should we make out some more?” She laughs, giggles, really, rolling her whole head, which is exactly how she manage to glance up—at the mistletoe hanging above them. “Did you see that?” “God, Anna is a decorating menace.” “Not an answer.” “No,” Killian grins. “And I love you too.”

Emma doesn’t quite freeze—not after her own declarations and his misplaced jealousy and the exceptionally good making out, but she does make another vaguely surprised noise and Killian kisses the bridge of the nose.

The butterflies in her stomach are powerful enough to take over several governments.

Peace on Earth, goodwill to men.

“I love you,” he repeats. “Forever and I was—god fuck that guy in your office—” “—Less romantic, honestly—” “—Stop interrupting, then.” Emma’s calves object to the strain she’s putting them under, but she doesn’t try to move, just presses soft kisses to the curve of Killian’s jaw and the side of his neck and she’s going to claim the shudder that runs through his whole body as a both a sign and a victory. “I love you, Emma,” he says, “And I knew I was also being a dick about this whole thing, but I—this thing that we’ve got, I don’t...you are the most important thing in my life, you know that?” She blushes, can feel the heat of it rising in her cheeks. “That’s very romantic.” “That was the goal, yeah. I don’t want to mess this up, but then Liam was talking about parties and fake marriages and—like I said, my brain short-circuited and I kept thinking about everything I wanted and I’m sorry.” “Sorry?” “I did realize at some point that you weren't ruining my brother’s marriage.” “El probably wouldn’t let me babysit anymore.” “Yeah, and then they’d have to pay someone.” “It’d be a whole thing.” He chuckles softly, breath warm against her skin. She’s never going to get rid of the goosebumps. “A ridiculous thing.” “So, uh—what happens now?” “There’s wine upstairs. It’s very fancy.” “I won’t like that.” “Ah, that’s true. You think anywhere is still open?” “Only one way to find out, right?” Emma shrugs, hoping the question isn’t as two-fold as it sounds.

Killian kisses the top of her hair. “Let’s get you a coat first.”

They do eventually get wine, but they’re also very good at making out and Emma’s got priorities. Or, whatever.

And she’s not sure when exactly they fall asleep, curled against Killian’s side in the corner of a different couch, but her eyes flutter open when she hears a far-too-knowing laugh, Liam standing there with his arms crossed and a wry smile on his face.

“So,” he says, “do I get credit for this, or...how does that work?” “Fuck off, Liam,” Killian grumbles, not bothering to open his eyes.

“Coal in your stocking.” “Go away.”

“You know you should take him to that art gallery, Em. See how much better I am at picking up on little intricacies and allusions to emotion.” Emma throws a pillow at him. “Go away, Liam.” “We do have beds in this apartment, you know.”

Killian’s head snaps up. He doesn’t look at Liam. He stares at Emma—blatant hope and even more obvious want and Liam gags when she presses up to kiss Killian.

“My keys are at Ruby’s anyway,” she reasons. “No point in leaving now.”

“We can go get them tomorrow,, Killian says.

Liam throws the pillow back at them. “The romance is palpable. Seriously, get off my couch. Go to bed and then we’re baking cookies tomorrow. As a familial unit.”

“Aye aye,” Killian grouses, but his lips quirk up anyway and his hand finds Emma’s when they stumble down the hallway.

She takes more pictures while they bake.

And sends them both to Ruby and Mary Margaret.

#cs ff #captain swan #captain swan ff #captain swan fic #cs fic #festive prompt a thon #at first i was going to do straight emma and killian fake dating #and then i was driving to my game last night and my brain was like WAIT #W A I T #and then his happened

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imaginepirates · 5 years

Text

Confusing Relations

For @ilikebritsandbands, who gave me my first smut request, and I was more than happy to oblige. Basically, the reader is in a relationship with Jack, but you both see other people. What you don't know is that two of your partners have gotten together. Things get...embarrassing. :)

WARNINGS: smut ahead, my friends.

@bonjour-frens @tesserphantom

~3500 words

~~~~~~~

You had been in a relationship with Jack for a long time. Nobody knew that, of course, because it was a bit scandalous to have a pirate as a partner. The relationship was an open one. You both saw other people, but you agreed that such things were okay with both of you.

You were with one of these other partners now. She was beautiful; freckles covered her body, and there was a playful look in her eye. You could spend hours with her, and not only in the bedroom. She was an interesting girl to talk to. Often, you laid in bed for hours, talking about whatever struck your fancy. Any time with her was time well spent.

Perhaps it was a part of who you were, doing scandalous things. Dating a pirate, for example. Fucking the Governor's daughter, for another.

Elizabeth wasn't innocent in the act, either. A feisty, adventurous thing such as her needed experimentation. She also needed satisfaction, which you were more than willing to give.

Currently, you were working on removing the clothing that hid her form. You'd already taken advantage of the low neckline of her dress, sucking small bruises into the soft skin between her neck and shoulder. She was skilled at covering the marks with powder, leaving you to attend to her however you saw fit.

You saw fit to divest her completely of her dress. The lacing on the back was infuriating. It was taking you much too long to untie, though perhaps that was due to the fact that you were rather distracted by her mouth on yours.

You hummed when she broke away. "You taste good. What did you eat before this?"

"Admittedly, a chocolate tart. I hoped you would notice."

"Ah. Well, you taste delicious. In more places than one, if my past experiences are any indication. But I can't seem to get this damn dress off you."

"Well." She pushed you out of her lap and rolled onto her stomach. "We must remedy that."

Quickly as your fingers would let you, you undid the laces of her dress. You helped her wriggle out of it, to your mutual amusement. Unfortunately, her wriggling was making you more needy between the legs.

Once the dress was off, you had to deal with the corset. That done, you kissed her back through her shift. She was hardly a sheepish person, and though you loved to have her bare before you, you wanted to take your time. Besides, it was rather fun to tease her.

She flipped over underneath you, trying to pull her dress over her head. You grabbed her hands, shoving them over her head.

"Don't even think about it. Not yet." You straddled her hips. With one hand, you held hers above her head. You let the other roam her body. You massaged her breasts, and she let out a little contented sigh.

"This really isn't fair," she mused. "You're still mostly clothed."

You wore trousers with a shirt tucked into them for convenience. Not only were they easier to move around in and more comfortable than dresses, but they were easier to take off.

"I'm sure you can restrain yourself from touching me for a few more minutes." You winked. In truth, you wanted her hands on you. You had to wait just as much as she did.

Slowly, you pushed a hand up her skirt. You traced her skin with your thumb, inching higher. She squirmed underneath you, hips bucking up into yours. This action wasn't helping your self control.

Your thumb rubbed circles in her upper thigh, and she whined in frustration. So pretty. You let your fingers dance over wet underclothes. After a moment more of teasing, you rubbed her through the lacy fabric. She moaned in response, only making your own need greater.

You decided against wasting any time. You released her hands, and they undid the front of your shirt as you tore the slip over her head and the underclothes from her hips. There was a moment of frantic movement as you struggled to divest yourselves of clothes completely.

You disappeared between her legs, biting at the sensitive flesh on her thighs. Her hands flew to your hair, gripping and pulling. You moved to her core, licking over her folds. With one hand, you held down her hips. She tended to squirm under your ministrations. Your other hand was on her thigh.

It didn't take long for her to come. Her voice made you want to satisfy her all the more. Her moans were the only choir music you were bound to get.

After calming down, she flipped you over, intending to do the same for you. It was your favorite part of sex with her; you loved watching her on top of you. She loved to tease you, too.

As if reading your mind, she leaned down to whisper in your ear. "You're so wet."

"That's what happens when I get to watch you under me." You weren't ashamed to give her a reason for your need.

"I like to think I have such an affect on you." She smirked.

"Don't get cocky."

"Not to worry. I don't have one."

You both laughed, though it was a bit husky, voice filled with lust. Then, much to your pleasure, she began.

~~~

It was quite a while later that you slipped out of her room. Her servants hadn't discovered the two of you yet, and you weren't about to give them the chance. You'd stayed a while to cool off and cuddle, that way, you didn't look like an absolute mess. You just looked a bit more disheveled than when you entered. You left through the servant's entrance as not to be seen. Her father didn't know you even existed. What he doesn't know doesn't hurt him.

You wandered back to Jack's. You stayed with him in a little house you shared. It was by no means a luxury, but it was comfortable.

He wasn't home. You guessed he was either seducing women or doing something piratical. He had, for some time, talked of procuring a new ship. His old one had been taken by a mutinous first mate. Sometimes, especially when drunk, he got mopey about it.

You sprawled out on the bed. You could use a nap after all the excitement that was Elizabeth Swann. You couldn't sleep with her; you had to keep an ear out for servants.

You debated what to do later in the day. You vaguely pondered meeting up with someone else, but you decided against it. Instead, you decided to go shopping. There wasn't much food at home, and you weren't about to go hungry.

You pulled yourself out of bed an hour later, throwing on some clothes. You weren't sure if they were yours or Jack's. Then, you headed out, meandering sleepily through the city.

People bustled about, taking care of their daily chores. Others were taking strolls, arm in arm with a partner. It gave you mixed feelings. You and Jack would never be able to walk together down the street. Unless he somehow received a pardon, he would remain a known criminal most places you went.

The public market was one of your favorite parts of the city. It was always full of people, and it sold wares from around the world. There were exotic spices, strange foods, and tools whose purposes were wholly unknown to you.

You made your way to a vegetable stand, intent on buying something fresh. Jack didn't have much money, but you worked odd jobs. There was nothing he could do but lie low. You didn't mind; the two of you didn't need that much money to begin with.

You stocked up on fruits, vegetables, breads, and meats. You believed that one of the best things in life was a good meal, and you were always intent on making them. Jack was a better cook than you had imagined; he'd picked up some skill while in different countries.

You were just finishing up when you noticed a familiar face a few stalls away. It was the blacksmith's apprentice, an attractive boy around your age. He was the sweetest young man, and in all aspects of life, a gentle person. You would know.

You approached him as he eyed a jewelry vendor. You thought it strange, but didn't dwell on it. "Will!" you called. You intercepted him near a food vendor. "How are you?"

"I'm well, thank you. And you?"

"I'm alright. How has work been?"

"Busy as usual."

You continued on with some small talk. You hadn't seen each other in weeks. Usually, your meetings were few and far between. He wasn't particularly interested in having sex regularly, but you knew how much he liked having you in his bed every so often. You had to admit, you enjoyed the meetings too.

He shifted nervously, running a hand through his hair. "I was wondering if you might like to meet up later tonight? I know my room at the forge is small, but…" he trailed off.

"I'd love to," you said.

He blushed. "Ah, um, good then. See you later?"

You winked. It still surprised you how bashful he was outside of the bedroom. Jack and Elizabeth were so unashamed of everything; you weren't used to people being shy about it. Judging by his behavior, nobody would guess that Will had even had sex before.

You wondered if twice in one day was too much, but decided it hardly meant a thing. You could allow yourself a little indulgence, right?

~~~~~

You lay on the grass with Elizabeth, staring up at the clouds. This meeting was purely innocent. Sometimes, it was nice to just talk girl to girl.

From the time you first met, the two of you shared things with each other. Now, you were practically her confidante, and she was yours. You loved her secrets, and she loved yours. Life was so much easier when you knew you weren't alone.

"Can you believe she had the audacity? Right then? I thought it was amusing, and I admit to giggling, but I have been informed that my timing was 'inappropriate'." Elizabeth continued your earlier conversation about a ball she had just attended. Finishing her story, she rolled over onto her stomach, her head right next to yours. "I have a confession," she whispered.

There was a joke between the two of you. When one person needed to tell the other a secret, they'd pretend to be at confessionals in church. It made everything more amusing and less serious.

"I'm in a secret relationship."

You faked a gasp. "You? The pure and innocent Governor's daughter, in a secret relationship? It will be the scandal of our age!"

She snorted. "As it turns out, I'm not that pure and innocent. You've made sure of that."

"I suppose I have. Now, tell me, who is this relationship with?" You asked.

"Oh, I can't say. Not yet. If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret, and I simply must keep it secret for a little while longer."

"Oh, absolutely." Elizabeth had a very entertaining flair for the dramatics. You secretly loved it.

The afternoon continued, and you gossiped well into the early evening. It was one of your favorite times of day, and you could watch Elizabeth outlined in golden light.

When you drowsily headed home, you found the bedroom door ajar. Jack was sprawled out across the bed, though he wasn't asleep. He'd been gone for a few days. You were glad to have him back.

"You've returned! Miss me?" You teased.

He climbed out of bed, steering you backwards towards a wall. "I'm not ashamed to admit that I did, love." His voice had taken on a low tone, and he was close to your ear.

You let one hand explore his body, lightly tracing the crotch of his pants. He was deliciously hard. "Have you been touching yourself while I've been gone?" You purred.

He hummed into your ear, bucking slightly against your hips. You let him untie the front of your shirt, trailing kisses along your neck. He flicked his tongue over the little marks he left.

Soon, his hands were at your thighs, lifting you to pin you against the wall. You wrapped your legs around his back. Your hands were busy trying to take off his shirt, though he made it difficult by refusing to remove his lips from your neck.

"Jack, would you please let me undress you." You'd done this too many times, but he still left you breathless.

"I bet you'd like that," he growled, hips grinding into yours. The action made you impatient.

"I would."

Suddenly, he turned, supporting you with his hands. He carried you to the bed, tossing you down before straddling your hips. You wasted no time in ridding each other of your clothes. His hot mouth attacked your chest, sucking dark bruises into your breasts.

You grasped his hair, tugging at the long locks. He growled into your skin, pushing himself up to capture your lips in a possessive kiss. His cock pressed against your stomach. He had his body flush against yours, and the warmth of it spread through your chest.

You reached down, intent on taking things further. Your fingers wrapped around his member, lazily stroking. Jack groaned, burying his face in your neck. He let you go on, moving his hips a little in response to your touch.

You positioned him so his cock was between your legs, still fingering him. He pushed himself onto his forearms and stared into your face.

"Can't wait any longer, love?" He purred. It sent a small shiver down your spine.

He moved one hand down, massaging your upper thigh. He stuck one finger inside of you, then another, scissoring them back and forth.

You moaned. You wanted him inside you, and not just his fingers. You bucked up, intent on making him know what you wanted.

"You really are impatient." Jack withdrew his fingers, shifting to a better position.

You wished you could tell him that he was the one who had needed you so badly in the first place, but words failed you. He thrust into you, not roughly, but quickly enough to make you gasp.

He began moving, slowly, as to begin comfortably for the both of you. You could feel your walls stretching to accommodate him. You felt full.

He sped up, breath quickening as he went. You felt your own breath speeding up, and it was getting harder to focus on any one thing. You were bound to come undone.

With one particularly sharp thrust, your body shuddered with release. Jack's hips still rolled into yours, helping you through your orgasm. Your grip on him slackened. Your body felt boneless, and you knew you weren't going to be moving much any time soon.

He came quickly after. He rolled onto his back to steady his breathing. As you both cooled down, your hands found each other. You only released him to get a towel and clean you both up.

Climbing back into bed, he pulled you onto his chest. You didn't know what to expect; your experiences after having had sex with Jack were wildly different. Mostly, you both fell asleep, but you occasionally held conversations.

"Did you know," he began, "that dear William has a girl?"

Ah, and here I wanted to sleep, you thought. "Another one? He has me already."

"Not like that. Like…" Jack struggled for an analogy. "Like us."

That made you blush. "Like us?"

"Someone that you spend most of your time with."

"Right." You thought back to when he had been looking at jewelry in the market. "Any idea who the girl is?"

"None."

Something at the back of your mind clicked. I'm in a secret relationship. You sat bolt upright in bed. Jack stared at you with wide eyes, but you ignored him in favor of your newest revelation.

"Elizabeth!"

"The Governor's daughter? The one you've been…" he wiggled his fingers. "Seeing?"

"That very one," you said. "She told me she was in a secret relationship, but wouldn't say with whom."

"Interesting," Jack mused.

"Very."

"I'm proud of dear William. Good for him."

You had to agree. Elizabeth was the dream catch of a thousand men.

William and Elizabeth had ties to both you and Jack. Jack and Will were old friends, though Jack had only ever seen Elizabeth in passing. Both of them had been over to your house before. Sometimes, Will came over to speak with Jack. You'd never seen each other at the house; you didn't even think he knew you lived there. Elizabeth just enjoyed the privacy of being in your home without anyone around to see you.

There might have been more you and Jack wished to say, but you were both exhausted. You settled back onto his chest. You fell asleep to the feeling of his fingers running gently through your hair.

When you woke again, you noticed Jack's prominently hard cock against your thigh. He was already awake, humming some tune. He must've been waiting for you to wake so he could suggest another round.

Suggesting another round was exactly what he did. You quickly agreed, letting him position himself atop you.

Dutifully distracted, neither of you heard the knock on your front door.

It was a true blessing that blankets existed, and that you were under them. Someone entered your room, gently pushing the door open. Light streamed in over the both of you.

You were relieved that you and Jack hadn't started fucking quite yet. Two silhouettes were outlined in the door. When their faces came into focus, you realized they were, in fact, Will and Elizabeth.

You and Jack stared at them from your positions in bed. The situation was awkward, to say the least.

"Y/N?" This was Will, whose eyebrows were sitting at the top of his forehead. "Jack?"

"Well," Elizabeth began, regaining her composure. "This is certainly a surprise."

You nodded, though you doubted either of them could see it from your position under Jack. As if reading your mind, Jack rolled so that he was beside you, laying down on his side.

"I didn't know that the two of you saw each other." Will fidgeted with his sleeve.

"William, my dear boy." Jack's voice had a strain of impatience to it. You expected that other parts of him were feeling similarly. "Y/N and I have been in an open relationship for years. What, may I ask, are you doing here?"

"I knew Y/N lived here," said Elizabeth. "I didn't know you did- actually, I'm not sure I know you."

"Not exactly the best time for introductions." You tried covering more of yourself with the sheets.

"I suppose not." Both Elizabeth and Will stared at the floor.

"Can you give us a moment to get changed?"

"Of course." The pair left the room, shutting the door behind them.

You rolled over. "Looks like this is going to have to wait." You gestured between the two of you. Jack did not look pleased.

You stepped out of the room, now fully clothed, though looking disheveled. Will and Elizabeth waited for you at your small table. Both of them still looked embarrassed, and so did you. What were you supposed to say?

"What did you come here for?" You asked.

"Well," Elizabeth began, "I wanted to tell you about that relationship of mine. Will wanted to tell one of his friends, too. We didn't know you lived together. Really, there were a lot of things neither of us knew."

You didn't know what to say first. "Congratulations to both of you. I think you'll make a lovely couple." You fidgeted with the untucked end of your shirt. "You…you didn't know that I was with both of you, did you?"

"No," said Will, "we did not."

Both of them had known you had multiple partners, but there was still an unreasonable fear inside you that they'd be mad with you.

"It isn't a bad thing," said Elizabeth quickly. "It's just a surprise. And a rather major coincidence." Her eyes flicked between you and Jack.

"I'm happy for both of you." Jack stepped over to both of them. "Will, I'm glad you've found a girl. Elizabeth…I suppose congratulations are in order, even though I don't know you. I'll trust Y/N's opinions of you. All that being said, Y/N and I were in the middle of some business, and I'm eager for it to be attended to, if you catch my meaning. Savvy?"

Will had the good graces to look mortified. Elizabeth, however, looked amused. They left, shutting the door behind them.

Jack stalked over to it, locking it. "I'm never forgetting to do that again."

"Back to business?" You suggested.

"Back to business," he agreed.

#pirates of the caribbean #potc #jack sparrow #elizabeth swann #elizabeth #captain jack sparrow #william turner #drabble #x reader #writing #fanfic #request #jack sparrow x reader #smut

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nottragedies · 4 years

Text

“I’ve already told you.” Faberge says, firmly, dangerously close to annoyed. “I’m not interested in holing up in a houseful of people I barely know.”

“That’s so dumb.” Hyo bites back from the other end of the line. “There’s no reason for any of you to not get along.” They’ve had this argument before, which is likely why she stops at that. “Then at least let me come over.”

Faberge audibly groans. They’ve had this argument before, too. “I’ve already told you.” She repeats with added emphasis. “I’m not inclined to have to explain you to my parents.” She knows that Hyo is going to say something about how long they’ve been ‘talking every day’ so Faberge doesn’t give her the room. “When we’ve barely spent any time together in person.”

“We’re not ever going to at this rate!” Hyo snaps, and Faberge has had enough.

“Well, that’s too bad, then.” She says, plainly. At this point, she’s not the only one who can predict the others' responses, because from her phone she can hear ‘Don’t hang up on me!’ the very moment before Faberge does exactly that, tossing her phone aside and going to bed.

When she wakes up in the morning, it quickly finds it’s way back into her hand, her ‘Good Morning💖’ text already waiting for her.

Good morning~ She sends, waits a beat, then clicks to type a new message. I have an idea.

One benefit to The Pandemic is that Faberge can get away with waiting in the car instead of being whined at to come into the house to converse with everyone. Instead, Hyo comes scampering out, practically flinging her bag into the back of Faberge’s Barbie Dream Jeep before joining in the front. Hyo doesn’t even have to remove her mask before Faberge can tell she’s beaming. (It seems a bit overkill for her to be wearing it just to go to the car, but from what she can tell of Nina, she wouldn’t be surprised if it was to appease her at least somewhat.)

Beyond that, Hyo clearly put extra effort into looking especially cute. Braids, sun dress, and of course, the Faberge Egg charm that, ever since Faberge’s impulse to have delivered to Hyo, she has never seen it missing from around her neck, not in a single one of all the selfies they send between them.

The drive is pleasant, even with Hyo babbling on about her morning so far. Faberge is pretty much used to it. It’s odd even to her how little she actually minds it. Maybe it’s because Hyo has always been more than willing to listen to Faberge in return, about everything from what she had for breakfast to ferociously ranting about all the ways Jaeger had wronged her.

Though, it’s not as though Faberge ever gave much mind to fairness before. So maybe it was just a side effect of quarantine.

They soon arrive at their destination, and Hyo leans forward to get a better look out of the windshield. “Whoa. Cool.”

Faberge hums in response. Hyo reaches behind her to the back, already grabbing her bag to pull into the front. When she notices Faberge is still in place, hands on the wheel, looking out to the building before them, Hyo lets it land in her lap. “What?” She asks with concern. “What is it?”

Faberge lets out a long, heavy sigh. “He may be here.”

Hyo blinks. “Why?”

“He works in the shop.” She motions to the side of the building it’s on. “And has at least one room. Maybe he’s keeping the spares in case he decides he needs side pieces for that one, too.”

“Gross.”

There had been a good chance Hyo could have been mad at Faberge bringing her somewhere it was possible to run into her ex so easily, but there’s only the slightest of edge to her voice. Still, Faberge can’t help but explain herself. “This was my parents spot.” She slams her hands into the wheel, gripping. “There’s a good chance I was conceived here! And why should he get it in the break-up, regardless?”

“Yeah!!” Hyo agrees, straightening her posture in her fierceness. “Fuck that! Don’t let him take anything from you!”

Faberge nods, her determination growing. “Let’s go, then.”

Later, after settling into the new room, which, naturally, didn’t occur until after Hyo’s wide-eyed fascination at the over the top decor, Faberge finds herself in the bathroom, putting on a new face after having already put on a new outfit. She wraps up the finishing touches, adding an extra layer of shine to her lips, and examines the final product in the mirror.

Of course she looks good, but now that she’s made it this far, it’s starting to feel a little ridiculous. Seeing as she has come this far, though, she steps back out into the room anyway. Hyo’s sitting on the bed, had obviously been poking through the gift basket on the bedside table, but having heard the bathroom door open immediately turns away, toward Faberge, blush blooming on her face.

Faberge can’t help but smirk, cocking her head in interest, but to Hyo’s credit, she does a decent job of deflecting (if she’s even trying to) by taking in the sight of Faberge, all dressed up in the same dress she had previously worn to Valentines. “You’re right.” Hyo says. “That outfit was wasted.”

She knew that, already, voicing so was what started the conversation that led to this happening, but it’s still satisfying to have someone agree to it, so Faberge offers a pleasant hum in response. Hyo stands, offering a full view of her own outfit, decked out in shiny white with added sparkles of gold, boots nearly up to her knees, flattering her legs. This is her cue, she knows, but offering out compliments unprompted is not something she’s used to, and Faberge is stubborn.

But so is Hyo, who doesn’t avert her gaze, smiling. “And how do I look?” She asks in practically a sing-song, shifting her posture as if to give Faberge a better look, before her hands fall to toy at the hem of her own skirt.

“You look good.” Faberge admits, and Hyo’s grin scrunches her nose, and then she turns, finding her phone. Faberge notices the speakers set up only moments before Hyo clicks a button on her phone, filling the room with loud, upbeat music.

Hyo steps back over to Faberge, taking her by the hand, and it seems to occur to both of them that this is essentially the first time they’ve had any sort of physical contact in months. Or at least, that’s what Faberge can only assume Hyo is thinking about as she pauses, because she doesn’t say anything, but soon she’s tugging on Faberge’s arm.

Faberge knows what she wants, but doesn’t budge. Hyo blinks. “What?”

“This is stupid.”

Hyo’s face falls. “What are you talking about? We’ve been looking forward to this for months.”

“No.” Faberge argues. “We had been looking forward to dressing up to go back to Nucleus for months, but they’re not open again yet. It wasn’t until I said I’d bring you here that you said we could make do with that. But turns out it’s kinda lame.”

“No it’s not! How is it less embarrassing to dance by ourselves in privacy than it would have been in public?”

Because it was too intimate. “It’s corny.” Faberge insists, doubling down.

“Oh my god.” Hyo huffs in frustration. “It’s only corny if you let it be corny. Do you want to record it?”

Faberge blinks. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Because maybe if you think of it like you have an audience then you can own it. If there’s witnesses to you not caring about corniness, then it becomes cool, right? But then if you still don’t like it we can stop and no one will have to ever know.”

Faberge is annoyed that it makes sense to her, but it annoys her even more that Hyo’s able to read her like that, when all they’ve been doing everyday for the past months is talking. Every single day. Often multiple times. But that’s not the point. There’s a part of Faberge that wants to continue putting up a fight just for the sake of it, but instead she finds herself huffing out a ‘fine.’

In her head, it was supposed to be sexy. The plan was to go to Nucleus, have a drink or two, end up on the dance floor. In her head, there she would lay on all the moves, the crowd would force them close together, and Faberge would make careful, specific choices about where to place her hands, would know all the moves to get their bodies to touch just right. And then, at the end of the night, take Hyo home, and that would be that.

But now that they were here, in a sleazy motel room, with no one around but each other, and the pandemic having had a weird effect of both slowing down and somehow speeding things up simultaneously, the vibe is just all together different. Hyo’s reasoning ends up making even more sense, because it’s only a matter of time before the corny truly is fully embraced, and attempts to be sexy are soon replaced with having fun.

Before Hyo, Faberge could barely remember the last times she felt anything like fun before, especially not directly related to anything sexual. When she first became friends with the Carlisles, maybe, but even that had ended up dissipating in a way.

So, somehow, the night turns into essentially a glorified slumber party. Even when Hyo’s satisfied with how much she’s made Faberge bounce along to her music with her, and she whines about being hungry, when the room service arrives they go as far as to eat it on the floor, Hyo’s laptop open to display their favorite movies (currently it’s Faberge’s, Clueless.) though it’s nearly forgotten about, not unlike their now discarded shoes.

Over the course of the night, Hyo winds up closer and closer, until there’s barely any space between them at all, their knees practically touching. Hyo’s leaning against the foot of the bed, looking up at Faberge like she’s got something to say, but has yet to actually do it.

It’s gotten late-ish, late enough for the sun to be completely gone, the only light the dull neon that seems ever present, the street lights coming in from the sliver of open curtain, and the glow from Hyo’s idle computer. As Faberge looks back at Hyo, she feels a twinge of endearment. She’s debating what she wants to do about, calculating what she wants to do about the rest of the night from here, when Hyo moves forward, pressing her lips to Faberge’s. It’s simple, soft, and yet completely catches Faberge off guard.

It doesn’t take Hyo much time at all to notice Faberge’s lack of response, and pulls away. “Oh, no. Was that too soon?” She asks, genuine concern evident. “I’m sorry.”

The truth was that Faberge had not even considered not making the first move, had been counting on laying everything out in a specific, controlled manner. And with just a little peck, Hyo had come along shaken all that up. It has an expected effect on Faberge. Hyo’s still waiting for Faberge to say something though, and shifts herself in a way that seems to imply she’s readying to distance herself. Faberge doesn’t say anything, but instead goes back in for another.

Hyo is immediately kissing back, moving one hand to settle her slender fingers under Faberge’s ear, letting out a little, happy noise.

That has an unexpected effect on Faberge, too.

Months and months ago, when this whole thing had first started to bloom, Faberge had told herself one thing, that she wasn’t going to make the same mistakes that she had with Jaeger.

And yet here she was.

Hyo lays beside her, sleeping soundly, meanwhile Faberge remains wide awake, looking at her phone. Earlier in the night, Hyo sent over a collection of files she had taken over the course of the night, some of the videos from earlier, along with some quick, random ones she had roped Faberge into being in after. There were also pictures, some nothing more than simple snapshots from the night, along with one that had been posed for to capture their dress-up, but the one that currently stands out to Faberge the most is one taken outside, just before entering the throb, Faberge’s jeep sits in the background, the two girls side by side before it, donning their apocalypse masks. As the result, they appear nearly expressionless, and that makes the image of them radiate a powerful energy that is causing Faberge to have something of a revelation.

Despite the thrill Faberge got from tormenting him, her and Jaeger were never anything even close to compatible. It wasn’t that Faberge ever deluded herself into thinking they were, it’s that it had never mattered. He was fun to play with, at least had been at first, and in Faberge’s mind, the fact that she took the time to do was alone enough to make her worthy of his worship and devotion, and when he turned out to be the farthest thing from devoted there was, Faberge couldn’t even wrap her head around the idea.

But Hyo’s not easy as that. Hasn’t been from the start. It became apparent incredibly soon that Hyo could be a raging, insufferable brat. She wasn’t afraid to challenge Faberge when Faberge did or said something Hyo didn’t like, and that could result in anything from miniscule frustration to explosive arguments. But the interesting thing about this was how little that mattered in the long run. In fact, there was a part of Faberge that almost appreciated Hyo having the nerve to fight back, after having dealt with someone so cowardly he merely found shelter in others’ beds instead of confronting Faberge head on.

But even beyond that, it was strange to examine the aftermath of the conflicts. When she’d gotten angry at Jaeger, or even Porcelain, or Lambert and Levy, the rage had a tendency to linger, to sizzle under the surface, collecting itself in a pile that would build and build with every instance.

With Hyo, it didn’t have the same effect. Even when they’d have their worst rows, no matter who won, if either of them even did, after the dust settled, that was that. Faberge had yet to come out on the other side feeling any less valued. If anything, it was the opposite. Hyo had a determination, not just against Faberge, but for her, too. They had only been on a few dates before the world nearly ended and everyone was told to lock themselves in their homes, and then months and months followed.

Months and months where the only contact they had was through their phones, and yet throughout that process Hyo got to hold witness to nearly every side of Faberge there was. What started out as flirtations to keep Faberge entertained turned into a rhythm of conversing with Hyo nearly constantly, whether she was feeling pleasant, or bored, or grumpy, or devious. Even sides that probably no one even knew Faberge had. There had been times where Hyo somehow managed to make Faberge laugh or smile in a way that even she herself didn’t know she was capable of being genuine about.

Throughout all of that Hyo remained… well, patient wasn’t exactly the word, if Faberge were to take all the nights of the other whining or stomping into consideration. Unfaltering in her determination to see this thing through. And if the sounds she’d made earlier in this very bed were anything to go off, Faberge would guess Hyo would say it was worth it.

So now the question that remained was for Faberge herself, what about her? The fact that Faberge was even extending this much thought was an answer in itself, really. She looks down at the photo once more as it all falls into place. It was simple, and, if she was being completely honest to herself, a little frightening.

When it came to Hyo, it wasn’t about Faberge having someone under her. It was about having her beside her.

#c:#probably goes without saying but obviously this was is a little backdated #i just finally found the drive to finish it #also the usual disclaimer #I LOVE JAEGER #Ge DOES have a right to feel wronged but also obviously sees things through Ge tinted glasses #and that's part of why we love HER right? >.>#I do v_v that's my giiiiirl #anyWAY #hyoge

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jaeminlore · 5 years

Text

I Will Be There | Haechan

playlist | pt. 1 | pt. 2 | pt. 3

summary: and there is no mountain too high, no river too wide. sing out this song; i will be there by your side.

words: 5.9k

category: prince!donghyuck, fluff, angst

warning(s): crying, panic attacks(ish?), very minor character death, slight bullying(?)

When spring hits the Eastern Kingdom, everyone seems to awaken from a deep slumber. The quickening streams and babbling brooks rise again as their once smooth floor is now trodden upon by the many boots of nobles and villagers alike.

This is perhaps why the crown prince has found favor in the stream behind the palace. His pants are rolled up to his knees, as his shirtsleeves are to his elbows. When he bends down and grabs a few pebbles, his braces slip off one of his shoulders.

"Your Highness," you manage a sigh as you look up from your current task of unclipping white sheets off of the clothesline. The many clothing pins clipped to your apron begin to feel heavy, but you can't feel bothered to move them. "Please watch your wardrobe. The matron will have my head if I return them in such a disarray."

Prince Donghyuck finds humor in your small request. In defiance, he clips his braces off and tosses them ashore, laughing at your distress. "There. Now you don't have to worry."

The robin's egg blue shirt he wears is wrinkled, and while you know the matron will have your head, seeing the bright smile on the prince's face keeps you from making any more requests. You simply move the baskets of clean laundry away from the spring that he insists on splashing everywhere.

Prince Donghyuck's smile is as wide as the river itself. After a bleak winter of frozen ponds and lakes, it's no wonder that everyone who can is determined to go for a morning swim. After all, the spring sun is quite pleasant in the Eastern Kingdom, warming the water and the grass into a pleasant playground.

You regret wearing your heavier wool dress outside. But it's only the first day of spring, and you weren't sure if the weather would've gotten the memo yet.

The prince, however, puts all of his trust in the sun and it's warmth. This is why his guard is down, the coat his guard must've made him wear is discarded in the grass with his boots. He's a sight to behold, with his brown curls stuck to his forehead and fists filled with whatever pretty pebbles he keeps picking out of the mud.

You can only imagine how dirty he'll be by the end of the day. Somehow, being a maidservant of the Eastern Kingdom seems so much easier than being Prince Donghyuck's personal guard. He has a knack for dirtying up anything he wears, sure, but he's wonderful at getting into trouble.

All you have to do is protect the prince from grass stains on his royal trousers. You don't have to protect him from his own curious self.

You fold the last of the sheets and spare him a quizzical glance. He seems to be one with the brook, one with the small currents as they lap at his ankles. Even his joyous laugh carries through the woods in a similar tone to the rushing water.

It almost makes you roll your eyes at the irony. How convenient that a prince would embody the very symbol of his kingdom.

"I should return to the palace," you say to yourself, tired of pining for a boy you can never have.

So you do.

❀

There is a festival in the main ballroom of the palace. Spring is worth celebrating, as the queen and king often speak of.

Flowers in their assorted colors hang from the ceiling like a floral sky, concealing nobles in an aromatic haven. You briefly hope the kitchen boy, Jisung, doesn't come up here. His allergies would be no match for this kind of scenery.

Lively music, like the harp and flute, play a tune that has many noblemen on their feet, asking their chosen lady for a brief dance.

Indeed, you watch as Prince Donghyuck himself steps forward to ask a noblewoman of the Northern Kingdom for a dance. She accepts with a short giggle, and you watch as he pulls her towards the middle of the floor.

The prince has always loved festivals. Of course, it's when he has the freedom to dance and sing as he pleases, while all the elders get too drunk to notice.

You love the festivals too, mostly because it's your job to carry around trays of appetizers and flukes of white wine. You love it because it gives you an excuse to look at the prince, and if anyone asks, it'll be because you were simply wondering if he'd like a drink.

Dancing would make anyone parched, of course.

His shirt is untucked under his embezzled coat, and while you want to chide him for wrinkling a shirt you spent so long steaming, you can't help but find it all too adorable. Besides, no one else seems to mind; why should you?

When a new song plays, the queen announces the official start of spring. This is perhaps the best part of the spring festival, because this is where the servants hand out flower crowns to everyone.

Prince Donghyuck grabs the one specifically made for him. The blood red roses and powder pink carnations look absolutely mesmerizing sitting atop the prince's brown hair. He laughs at something the noblewoman says, and a piece of your heart jolts.

You ignore it and survey the room.

No one starts a drunken fight or makes any unnecessary messes. Instead, it's a bright and happy celebration that ends in small talk as royals sit upon cushions and lazily sip their wine. Flowers drop from their once-secure places and onto the floor, which brings about a roar of laughter from the prince himself.

He should get to bed. He always stays up late and then spends his mornings gallivanting around the palace, complaining that his servants should've made him sleep earlier.

And you would agree, truly, but he seems so alive at night, beneath the candlelight of the palace. He shines as if it is the dewy morning, and his subjects the awaiting clovers. It's a different sort of beautiful and you don't particularly want to interrupt it.

So you don't, and you suffer the prince's obsessive whining the next morning, bouncing off the walls and into the kitchen where you work most mornings. Somehow, it seems worth it.

❀

"It's Y/n!" Prince Donghyuck's jovial voice makes your heart stir in reckless adoration. Part of you thinks he shouldn't know your name at all, but another part of you remembers that the prince has always had the tendency to make friends with anyone, despite their title.

It's more peculiar that Prince Donghyuck's voice is coming from above you, and that's because he's climbed one of the cherry trees in the royal orchard. The sticky-sweet juice of the Eastern Kingdom's bright red cherries drip down the prince's chin. He wipes it off with his sleeved elbow, laughing at your blatant distaste for the way he treats his clothes. "Is it cherry picking day already?"

Something tells you the prince knew this already. He always has had a knack for bothering servants at work. "It is," you say. "So if you want any cherry-related treats this weekend, you'd better stop eating the ingredients."

The prince ignores your empty threat and jumps to the grassy floor, knees almost immediately staining a wicked shade of green as he tumbles. He giggles and tosses his cherry pit behind his shoulder. "I'll keep you company."

Everything about the prince is so absolutely breathtaking to you — especially up close — that you have no courage to refuse any of his suggestions. After all, he's offering to spend time with you, and perhaps that's what makes your chest feel so warm despite the cool breeze.

The sun cuts through the prince's hair, almost as if he needs golden highlights in his copper-toned hair. When he turns back, tosses a cherry to you, and sends a playful smile your way, you think he's an embodiment of the spring itself. He's as warm as the sun and as playful as the breeze. You think he's perfect.

"When the village has their cherry blossom festival, are you going to go?"

You twist the rope handle of the bucket in your hand. "Most likely. It's one of the most exciting times for those without noble decent."

The prince grabs another few cherries off of a low-hanging branch and pops them in his mouth. "I was hoping you'd say that. You see, I want to sneak in."

And it occurs to your enamored heart that perhaps the prince is using your low position to get away from his responsibilities. But he's using you, so it feels justified.

"Okay," you whisper, unable to keep the heat away from your neck when the prince is smiling at you like you've just given him the best gift.

❀

The prince can sing, and you aren't sure how you didn't know before. He has an excellent voice too; it reverberates off of the castle walls and floats towards the starry sky as if the universe itself is leaning in closer just to hear a snippet. He's singing a shanty — one of old about a sailor's love. It's ironic to you, because it's a song that you feel empathetic too. It's a song you think you should sing about him.

You're only in the garden at midnight because the palace cat has yet to come in, and her kittens need their mother to nurse. Eight loud and howling kittens don't help any of the maidservants get to sleep. Of course the matron made you go find the mother.

You had just been monologuing to yourself about how unfairly you — as one of the younger maids — get treated by the matron, as if it's your fault you are more youthful than she. You were distracted and not really expecting to hear the sound of a boy's voice, gentle and smooth, carry through the rose bushes.

"I'll swim and sail on savage seas With ne'er a fear of drowning And gladly ride the waves of life If you will marry me."

Prince Donghyuck is sitting atop the garden wall, knees stained with mud and boots discarded who-knows-where. The mellow rise and fall of your voice makes you forget why you've come here in the first place. Like a siren's spell, Prince Donghyuck's song puts you in a trance. His voice is absolutely mesmerizing.

"No scorching sun nor freezing cold Can stop me on my journey If you will promise me your heart And love me for eternity."

"Have you seen Spots?" You hate to interrupt him, but you've forgotten your shawl and the night breeze is a lot harsher than it's daytime counterpart.

The prince doesn't seem bothered at all that you've interrupted him. His smile is sleepy, but it stirs your heart up just the same. "Y/n!"

Suddenly you feel self-conscious about the fact that you haven't even washed up from the day yet. "Your Highness," you curtsy anyway, thankful that the prince is obviously not one to dwell on outward appearances. "Spots... Have you seen her?"

"She's over by the koi pond," the prince confides. "'Been staring at those fish for an hour now."

You pander to the section of the garden he's talking about and pick up the mother cat, still full of milk and whatever leftovers she's managed to steal from the underside of the royal table. Prince Donghyuck has always been guilty of serving the animals food when he isn't supposed to.

The prince in question has decided to spread out on his back, eyes up towards the dark sky. He still sings, though it's more of a silent ballad to himself now.

You can't even make out the words he's singing anymore, but it carries the same beautiful connotations. "Your voice is beautiful."

He turns his head in surprise, lips twist in what looks like confusion. Even his golden-colored cheeks appear to be turning rosy under the moonlight. "Oh. Thank you."

He seems genuinely caught off guard, and you think of his colored cheeks as you place Spots back with her kittens and accept the loud praise of your fellow maidservants.

It occurs to you later, in your bed, that it was your words that made the prince blush. The very thought has your stomach turning in meticulous want for the royal. How you'd love to compliment him every day, if only to see the flustered look on his face.

❀

"I like to think we're friends, Y/n." Prince Donghyuck is wearing a silver dangly earring that curves from the shell of his ear to his ear lobe. The stark change of silver against his darkened skin has you distracted.

So, when he says these words to you, it's almost hard to comprehend them. "F-Friends?"

"Aren't we?" The prince pouts, and if it's only to tease you, it's done it's job. Your eyes drift to his ruddy-colored lips as he continues to speak. "I mean, we certainly talk a lot, and you don't chide me about how dirty my clothes are. Plus you're sneaking me out of the castle right now, which has to be like treason or something."

"It's not treason," you assure him. "It's more like if we get caught I'll be given kitchen duty for a few weeks and not be allowed to talk to you."

Prince Donghyuck pales. "Let's not get caught then. I like talking to you."

The way he says heart-fluttering things so casually makes your head spin. Then he does the absolute unthinkable: Prince Donghyuck holds your hand.

His fingers slot between yours so perfectly that you'd almost like to file a complaint to the Creator Himself for doing something so torturous to you. First you fall for the prince, of all people, and now your hand fits inside his like you two are meant to be. And maybe it's just the crush talking, but you feel like it is certainly more.

You like the way his palms are warm and slightly sweaty. You risk a look at your intertwined fingers and you can see the dirt smudges on his wrist. You can feel the callouses on his palm. You can feel the scab from where he got pinched by a hermit crab just last week on his thumb—

"Y/n, are you listening to a word I'm saying?" Prince Donghyuck squeezes your hand, and suddenly the spell is over.

You glance up at his knowing smile and feel your ears turn warm. "Sorry... what?"

"I asked if we should get some cherry tarts to eat while we watch the fireworks."

"We're staying for the fireworks?" You manage to look serene, though your mind is reeling again because fireworks are romantic. At least, in the village where you grew up, it was the time when lovers would find a place of solitude and share a kiss under the exploding lights. Just the thought of kissing the prince makes your chest feel heavy and light all at once.

Prince Donghyuck smiles. His cheeks lift and his eyes are almost nonexistent as they firm into crescent shapes. There's a sparkle in them that seems to you brighter than any firework could ever be. If given the choice, you'd look into the prince's eyes far longer than you'd watch the fireworks.

"I've never seen fireworks so close. I'm really excited for them."

And you're excited for him. Any new experience Prince Donghyuck wanted was an experience you'd like to give to him. "Okay. Let's see the fireworks, then."

❀

"The matron is pregnant," you deadpan your greeting to the prince.

"Spring babies," he answers with a knowledgeable nod of his head, as if it explains everything.

"More work for me," you correct with a grunt, flopping to the grassy floor. You lean against the large oak and wince at the way the bark scratches your back through your thin clothes. "Seriously, I don't know why that woman insists on working me ten times harder than all the other maids. With all her ridiculous demands, I wouldn't be surprised if she asked me to breastfeed the baby."

Prince Donghyuck snorts and closes his book — The Eastern Dynasty and Other Important Families — before looking at you. "If she works you so hard, how have you got time to complain to me?"

You sputter. There was no way you were going to tell the prince that you spend your very short breaks with him instead of getting the rest your breaks are for originally. "Just let me be dramatic, will you?"

The prince laughs and switches his position. Shuffling to lie across the grass, he rests his head on your lap and looks up towards the crown of leaves above you. His book (that is most surely for his lessons) lays disregarded and dog-eared for another day.

The action itself makes you freeze. The prince has always been openly affectionate with his friends; you can recall a time when Prince Mark visited from the Northern Kingdom and was subjected to Prince Donghyuck's clingy arms and annoying persistence.

Rather than choose to freak out over it, you decide to try and enjoy the moment. Tentatively, you reach down and let your fingers card through his brown curls, brushing the strands away from his forehead.

He hums in contentment and closes his eyes. "I hope your matron doesn't find you for a long time, because I might fall asleep."

His words ring true just moments later, when his head lulls to the side until his cheek is pressed against your stomach. Quiet snores escape his heart-shaped lips, and it makes you want to laugh — if only he didn't look so peaceful. You secretly hope the two of you will stay hidden forever, and no one — matron or otherwise — would find you.

The prince trusts you, that much is certain. That fact alone makes your heart beat wildly against your chest and your cheeks warm with fondness.

❀

"As bright as the very cherries in our orchard," you describe the new article of clothing to Prince Donghyuck.

He accepts the silk shirt and traces the ruffles that appear throughout the red fabric. "It's really pretty. What's it for?"

"The Southern Prince's wedding," you say. "I've been working with the tailors for weeks to make it perfect, I'm thinking some black pants — the one you wore to your cousin's birthday gala — will do nicely with them."

"Oh, yeah, Prince Yukhei," he quips. "I'm letting him borrow one of our seaside cottages for their honeymoon."

You grin. The thought of spending a week or more with the one you love the most on a beach you love the most would surely be a dream come true. "They'll love it here, surely."

"I certainly think so," Prince Donghyuck laughs as he begins to unbutton his shirt.

"Your Highness, what are you doing?" You squeak and hide your face behind your hands.

"I'm changing," he says matter-of-factly.

You hesitantly peak through your fingers and see that he's already got his arms through the sleeves of the silk shirt. You were right when you discussed the color with the tailors; red does look best against the prince's dark skin. The color pops even more.

You do your best to ignore his lean and tanned stomach, turning around and heading for the door. "Just take it to the tailors if anything is too big or small, okay?"

"Okay!" Prince Donghyuck says happily, ignorant to your flustered state.

❀

The shirt is ruined in less than a week. The matron runs around the laundry room in a frantic state; most of her anger directed at you. "How could you let him get away with that?"

"I'm not his guard," you reply, "and when has anyone ever been able to tame His Highness?"

The matron growls at your words and points her finger at your chin. "You had better get him another shirt before the wedding or you're fired. Understood?"

You sigh. "Understood."

Prince Donghyuck is laying under the cherry blossoms when you approach. The shirt you had worked so hard to get for him is wrinkled and frayed. There are grass stains on his elbows.

He looks like a disaster. A tornado rushing up the hill during harvest season, complete with wind howling and petals scattering everywhere. He is a disaster, though naturally and beautifully so. His spirit stirs up anyone who gets too close, knocking the wind straight out of their chest.

He's striking.

"I can't leave you alone for a day."

The prince holds up one finger. "Actually, I didn't stain the shirt until yesterday, so you can leave me alone for at least five days."

"I'll make a note of that."

Prince Donghyuck turns and gives you a bright smile, eyes nearly closing from the lift in his cheeks. "But I personally don't want to have to wait five days to see you."

You're sputtering and blushing; unable to answer while the prince runs off, laughing.

❀

Sometimes the matron is too honest. Sometimes she is too mean. Sometimes her words cut through your thick skin and you find yourself struggling to work under her gaze.

Sometimes you want to disappear.

Tonight it's worse, and maybe it's the matron's pregnancy hormones or maybe it's the fact that you never seem to do anything right, but there are tears. They're hot and prickly right behind your eyes as you run from the servant's quarters. Your lip trembles as you stumble through the castle, hoping to find the person you're looking for.

You don't know why you think of the prince first. Maybe it's because you're hurt and upset and homesick, but home is too far away for you and right now Prince Donghyuck seems to be the closest thing to comfort that you have in this castle. Maybe it's just the fact that you like him.

Your vision is hazy, clogged by tears by the time you reach the prince's chamber door. The night guard stops you from entering. His grip on your arm hurts and makes you only want to escape further from this place.

"Please," you choke out, "Just let me see him, I–"

"Y/n?"

The door opens, and the prince steps out, looking sleepy. He blinks a few times to adjust to the dim corridor lights. That's when he notices your crying. "What's wrong?"

You feel your face crumble. Your chest feels heavy and your heart hurts. Everything inside of you is screaming for some kind of comfort. You lunge forward and wrap your arms around Prince Donghyuck's neck. "I–"

"Shh," his voice is soft, and the warmth in it only makes you want to cry more. "Let's go lay down, okay?"

He dismisses his guards and ushers you into his room.

You focus on Prince Donghyuck's warm hand. It's pressing against the small of your back, centering you and reminding you that he's here. Prince Donghyuck is here, with you, and everything is going to be okay.

At least that's what it feels like when he pulls back the covers gestures for you to lay down on the peach-colored sheets. It's reaffirmed when he slides under the covers and wraps his arms around you. His warm breath tickles your neck when he speaks. "It's okay."

The prince is the sun, and you feel as if you skin is snow; melting, melting under his touch. You feel as if every gentle word he whispers against your skin peels back a layer of pain and replaces it with life. It feels good and wonderful and soft and safe, and you think briefly about how much you don't want this moment to end.

Just the thought of this time with the prince being temporary is enough to send you into a fit of sobs again. You try to remain quiet, because you don't want Prince Donghyuck to worry. However some selfish part of you wants him to worry a lot, and just for you.

"What happened?" His voice is coaxing in the same way that the springtime coaxes flowers to blossom.

"Th-" you struggle to stop crying, "The matron. It's just a lot. She scares me and intimidates me and makes fun of me and she's loud and abrasive and terrifying and—"

"Okay, woah woah woah," Prince Donghyuck runs his hands down your arms. "You've never talked about her like this before."

You sniff. "How could I go complaining to anyone about a woman who's been here far longer than I have? Who would care?"

"I would." Prince Donghyuck says it with a firmness in his voice. It's steadying, and it makes you think that maybe there's one person out there willing to listen to you. And if that person is the prince, than maybe you'll be okay. "I care about everything you have to say, and I'm so sorry I didn't see the signs sooner. I'm sorry it got this bad."

He's being so heroic. You think you're overreacting, but now that it's out there, heard by the prince himself, you can't take it back.

You sigh. Years and years of silence and now you feel as if you've said too much. Maybe the anxiety is just fermented into your chest, and refuses to let go. Maybe it's more than just the matron. Maybe it's a lot of things all piled up into one until you're finally done. Until you finally decide to give up.

"Stop thinking so hard," he says.

"I can't help it."

Prince Donghyuck hums playfully. The vibrations tickle the back of your neck. "Well I'll tell you about our foreign affairs and it can distract you for a bit. How about that?"

"Fine. Tell me about foreign affairs."

You think it's going to be boring, but he tells you about a fleet of pirates that have been fighting over the eastern sea lately. He tells you about a lost treasure — the siren's treasure — that the pirates are fighting over. Apparently no one knows where the key is, or the map. It sounds like an adventure novel instead of a true story. "When I turn eighteen," he says, "I'm going to go find them. Jaemin wants to come with me."

"Isn't he the son of a duke?"

"Yeah. The prince manages to sound nonchalant, "We really aren't supposed to talk about pirates. It's kind of taboo in the kingdom."

"Why?"

"Because it excites people and makes them want a life at sea." Prince Donghyuck says it like he's thought about it; like it's more personal than he wants to admit.

"If you and Jaemin become pirates, will you let me be on the crew?" you whisper hesitantly. You wonder if you're crossing a line here: discussing pirates with the royal prince.

But his eyes light up in a way you've never seen before, and he squeezes you just a little bit tighter. "You can be the first mate."

You fall asleep, forgetting the matron and her harsh words. Instead, your mind is somewhere else entirely. Somewhere where the wind meets the waves and there's no one to tell you what to do.

❀

Prince Donghyuck comes back from the wedding with a light heart. He finds you in the laundry room, folding sheets. "Y/n!"

Before you can process what's happening, the prince is holding your elbows and steering you out of the laundry room. You can hear the matron's voice get louder as she screeches for you to return to your station, but Prince Donghyuck doesn't give you a chance to reply. "Sorry, Matron! I need Y/n for the day!"

You can't help but feel elated at the prince's return. It was hard not seeing him for a full week, and even worse when the matron decided to make you work overtime since she didn't want to. You wanted to complain to her that she didn't have to go and get pregnant, and that she could take leave, but you'd prefer not to be put on spit-up duty when the baby does come.

Prince Donghyuck's palms are warm against your skin. His breath smells like mint when he leans close to you and whispers excitedly about all that happened during the wedding. "—it was just so cute to see two people so in love. Not during the wedding of course — there was a lot of political divide in the chapel, you see — but the reception was outstanding. And once the bride's mother was on her way back to her land, you could just see the bride light up at the prince. Truly, I wish I could've taken you and introduced you to her. I think the two of you would've been friends."

You end up in the prince's bedroom, and he sits you on his bed while he makes his way to his wardrobe. He dramatically looks through his casual clothes before grabbing an outfit and disappearing behind the dressing screen. "Grab some comfy clothes, Y/n! We're gonna cuddle and talk about our week spent apart!"

He says it so excitedly that while you're pulling a spare nightshirt over your head, you feel the warmth of something deeper settle within your chest. You can't remember anyone ever sounding so thrilled to be able to simply talk with you. It feels like for once someone cares about you personally, not because you're working for them or doing something they asked, but because they genuinely enjoy your company.

It makes you fall for the prince even more.

Once you're both decent, the curly-haired boy grabs your hand and pulls you back towards the bed.

You land on your back and Prince Donghyuck is quick to shuffle right next to you until your shoulders are almost uncomfortably pressed together. The top canopy of his bed is covered in stars, stitched from a golden thread. You stare at them for awhile until Prince Donghyuck begins to speak.

"My mother had the canopy made for me when I was a child. She always said the moles on my face looked like Ursa Minor. It made her begin to study astrology, in the hopes of revealing my future as king."

There's a sort of yearning in his voice that reminds you of the separation between him and his parents. Nothing major; strictly political in the sense that he and his parents have very different jobs in the palace, and they barely ever cross paths anymore.

It's something that's widely known to many employees of the palace, but many subjects of the Eastern Village have no idea that the prince is already fulfilling his kingly duties. The fact that the three have to put their family bonds aside to take care of the kingdom breaks your heart often, so you can only imagine how it must hurt Prince Donghyuck.

He sniffles once. Before he can make up some excuse about the sound, you're turning on your side and pulling the prince as close to you as you can.

He shakes and lets a sob escape his lips, startling you. It occurs to you that the prince doesn't really have any close friends. Prince Mark lives an entire ocean away, and Jaemin's not exactly allowed to be around the prince for more than a few hours every week. Perhaps you're Prince Donghyuck's only close friend. Perhaps he isn't even Prince Donghyuck to you anymore—maybe he's just Donghyuck.

"Donghyuck, it's okay," you say. "It's okay."

He curls against you and nuzzles his face into your neck. Your skin grows wet with his tears, but you're more worried about why he's crying, and if he'll be okay. "I'm sorry," he croaks, "I'm just tired and sad and it's hard to deal with when I'm alone for a long amount of time like this trip and I just—"

"Shh." You wipe his tears with the pad of your thumb. "I understand. Just let it out, okay?"

He does. He cries for nearly an hour, and when the clock strikes four in the evening, he's gone limp with sleep against your chest.

Part of you is relieved that Donghyuck seems to depend on you just as much as you depend on him. You think this admiration for the prince has tumbled into a beautiful friendship that you wouldn't trade for the world. You absolutely wouldn't dare leave the boy, just as you couldn't picture him leaving you.

❀

The matron dies during childbirth. It's a huge surprise to the entire palace, but the birth complications weren't anything the palace physicians were used to.

You and the other laundry maidens work together to take care of the child. The little girl is to be sent to a nearby nunnery in the hopes of living a safe and pure life there. No one in the castle has time to pause everything to care for a child, and with the threat of pirates on the shore, it's just safer that children stay away from the capital.

Still, you take a liking to the child. The matron had a name planned beforehand, and little Anne is a perfect little baby. Part of you feels guilty, as if your taunts against the matron caused her untimely death. You are afraid to mention your concerns to Donghyuck, afraid that he'll think you're trying to get more attention, but in the back of your mind you know he would never think that. In fact, you think Donghyuck might know how you're feeling, and that's why he's let you take over caring for the child the first few weeks.

It takes a bit of the guilt off of your shoulders.

The funeral is prepared in the matron's birth village. As sad as the event is, you're glad that Donghyuck gets to see his parents for a moment. You wish they were under happier circumstances.

You meet the nuns that will be caring for Anne, and only a few tears fall as you give the child away. You promise to visit soon. Surprisingly, you find yourself wanting to take the child yourself and care for her. Maybe you're just lonely. Maybe you're delusional, because there's no way you could care for a child on your own.

Donghyuck finds you in the palace garden, dressed in black. "I know what you're thinking. It wasn't your fault."

"That's not what I'm think—"

"—and you don't need to raise the matron's baby to apologize for what happened."

You blink at him before turning towards the rose bushes. "Oh."

"We should go away for a bit, you and me." Donghyuck grabs your hand as he says this. "The cottage by the sea, remember? I'll get it prepared, and I'll bring my work so nothing gets forgotten. But it could be just us for awhile. I mean, if you wanted to."

Your chest fills with a new kind of warmth. You think of a world where it's just you and Donghyuck for a few days. It would be paradise.

"I want to. I'd love to."

❀

You never get to.

Donghyuck was preparing the cottage when the pirates evaded the shore. Too far away from the palace's safe house, Donghyuck has no choice but to hide in the cottage while the pirates raid the kingdom.

You were in the palace, waiting for them to leave when the news came.

The feared pirate, Mortem, took Prince Donghyuck, and there was little chance he'd be seen again.

Alive, at least.

#seasons au #prince!donghyuck #nct au #nct aus #nct scenario #nct fluff #nct angst #haechan fluff #haechan au #haechan angst #haechan scenario #destwrites

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chloebeale · 5 years

Note

Bechloe.. “Nothing Really Matters” by Mr. Probz. Every time I hear this song I just think of Beca writing it for Chloe.

1) I’d never heard this song before, so thank you for bringing it to my attention, it’s adorable! 2) I don’t know how this took the direction it did, but I hope you like it ♡

(Thank you for the prompt!)

RATING: T (angst) | WORDS: 3,926 | (ao3 link)

“Next up, we have a brand new entry from Beca Mitchell! She’s really on fire this year, isn’t she? This is Nothing Really Matters, brand new this week.”

Normally, the name has Chloe’s head snapping up, it has her heart racing. But not this time. It’s almost like she’s getting used to it by now, to hearing the name Beca Mitchell wherever she goes. It’s not surprising really. Her ex-girlfriend, the woman who is arguably the love of her life, is really making a name for herself. She’s an incredible singer, an incredible songwriter. Honestly, she’s an incredible talent, and she’s getting everything she deserves.

“And we’re changing the station!” Aubrey chirps, hurrying in from the kitchen. There’s a pink apron tied around her waist, flour spattered across the middle. It’s an almost comical sight really.

Chloe shakes her head, not bothering to look up from the book she’s reading.

“No, it’s okay,” she promises, finally tearing her eyes from the words on the page in front of her. She isn’t really taking them in, anyway. She really couldn’t tell you what happened in the last couple chapters. “Leave it. I haven’t heard this one.”

Aubrey looks skeptical, and with good reason. The last three months have been a nightmare for everybody. There have been numerous tears shed, countless nights where Chloe has fallen asleep sobbing into Aubrey’s shirt. Presumably, Beca doesn’t feel the same way. Then again, what does Chloe know? She apparently doesn’t know Beca the way she thought she did, anyway.

In spite of her obvious reservations, the blonde simply nods her head, before disappearing back into the kitchen, and leaving Chloe alone with her book and the sound of the most beautiful, most familiar voice filling the room.

“When she’s okayThen I’m alrightWhen she’s awakeI’m up all nightAnd nothing really mattersNothing really matters.”

Most, if not all, of Beca’s songs are love songs. It almost seems a little unlike her, because to the outside world, Beca is really not the hopeless romantic type. But Chloe knows her better than that. Chloe knows just how sweet, how dorky, how utterly romantic her ex-girlfriend can be.

Until recently, until their breakup, most of Beca’s songs have been dedicated to, or at least influenced in some way, by Chloe. Oftentimes, she has tried to deny it, but Chloe has always picked up on the subtleties, the lyrics that have related entirely to them, and Beca has quickly caved, because she can’t lie to Chloe. Chloe knows her better than anybody in the world, she’s absolutely sure of that.

“I see her faceAnd in my mindI seize the dayWhenever she’s nearbyIt’s like nothing really mattersNo, nothing really matters.”

This song is catchy, Chloe notices. It’s the first time she’s hearing it, but already she can tell that it’s going to be a hit. She tries not to think about the emotion behind it, about how it’s likely written with someone new in mind. Not that Chloe knows if Beca has moved on yet, although she knows she will at some point. They both will. They both have to. Except Chloe knows that it’ll be a long time until she’s in that place. For now, she’ll get lost in books. She’ll transport herself to another world, a whole imaginary distraction. If she could focus on the words, anyway.

“I know what it feels likeSwimming through the stars when I see herAnd I don’t need air ‘cause I breathe her.”

Chloe pauses. Her eyes are down on her book, on the open page with the story in which she has absolutely no idea what’s happening, but they glance upward at that.

She replays the line over in her head, and then Chloe’s lids are closing, and she’s lost in a memory. The most beautiful, vivid, dangerous memory.

—-

“God, it’s so hot,” Beca whines, the flannel wrapped around her waist now discarded with an overly dramatic throw onto the ground.

Chloe giggles as she watches the other woman.

“Did that help?” She questions, eyeing the discarded garment, then returning her line of sight to her girlfriend.

“Nope.”

“Didn’t think so. You should come sit in the shade with me,” Chloe suggests, setting down her open book in her lap. She reaches out a hand toward the shorter girl, who looks at her with a small pout, one that Chloe can’t help but mirror. Her book closes itself, and she has no idea which page she was up to, but she doesn’t care. Beca is much more interesting to her, anyway.

“It just seems pointless,” Beca frowns, though she stands in spite of her words, picking up her laptop and carrying it over toward her girlfriend. “A beautiful, sunny day and we’re sitting in the shade?”

“Every day’s a beautiful, sunny day with you around, my love,” Chloe grins, and while she’s teasing, intentionally being completely cheesy, she does actually mean it. Beca responds with a playful eye roll, but Chloe notices the way her cheeks darken a shade as she plops down onto the end of Chloe’s sun lounger. She has pulled her feet up to make room for her girlfriend.

“Besides, you probably shouldn’t have your computer out in the sun like that.”

This is a pretty standard, typical Sunday for them. Chloe always has her lesson plans completed at the start of the weekend, giving herself the rest of the time free to relax and hang out with her girlfriend. She’ll sit out here and read, while Beca works on new music beside her. With her red hair and pale skin, the California sun is really not Chloe’s best friend, but this is where Beca’s management is, it’s where her career is thriving. It’s where Chloe has her teaching job now. So she doesn’t mind.

For Beca, she doesn’t mind.

She watches the other woman as she stares down at her laptop, and Chloe knows that face. She knows that expression.

“Babe, why don’t you take a break?” She offers the brunette a small smile. “Your focus is off right now, I can tell.”

“It’s the heat,” Beca sighs, tilting her head back in defeat. Chloe, as usual, just thinks she’s adorable.

“You could take a dip in the pool? That’d help cool you off a bit.”

Beca’s nose wrinkles as she looks over at her. “Are you forgetting your glitter explosion?”

Of course she’s not, and Chloe can’t help her soft laugh at the memory. She’d been carrying a stack of art supplies after work on Friday, and she’d somehow managed to miss her footing and dropped everything into the pool. They’d been able to fish everything out… Other than the glitter.

“It won’t hurt you,” she grins, motioning over toward the pool, “It’ll just make you sparkle a little bit. It’ll be like swimming through the stars.”

Despite the fact that Beca rolls her eyes, Chloe can see the small smile tugging at her lips. “How do you manage to make everything sound adorable, Chlo?” She questions, and Chloe knows that look, too. The one where she’s suddenly taking all of her in, overcome with that same swell of love Chloe knows all too well herself.

“Just a talent, I guess,” Chloe shrugs, setting her book down on the ground, then pushes herself up from her seat. “Come on.” She holds her hand out to her girlfriend, who looks up at her with a raised brow.

“You want to turn me into Edward Cullen?”

Chloe shakes her head. “No way, I’m team Jacob. Come on.”

“We don’t even have bathing suits. They’re all the way upstairs.”

“What, are you worried about me seeing you naked?” Chloe teases, already beginning to peel off her shirt. She tosses it down onto the lounger, and takes subtle pride in the way she sees Beca gawking at her newly exposed chest.

They have been dating for almost four years now, living together for two. But still somehow Beca looks at her like it’s the first time really seeing her, and Chloe can’t help the way her teeth sink into her bottom lip in response.

“Stop it, perv. You were already playing with them in the shower this morning,” she grins, going back to undressing. She quickly unfastens her shorts, tugging them down her legs, and then her underwear is coming down, too.

“Ugh, you make it real hard to say no to you, Beale,” Beca groans, though her arms are crossing in front of her until she can lift her own shirt up and off. Like Chloe, she also isn’t wearing a bra, and the redhead makes sure to appreciate the view as she backs toward the pool.

It’s a good thing their backyard is so well hidden from passers by really, because there’s now an international superstar and her girlfriend completely naked for all to see. But neither is too concerned about that. As usual, they’re pretty wrapped up in each other.

As Chloe approaches the pool, she can see the glitter shimmering in the water. The sight causes her to laugh quietly, until she’s sitting down on the edge and lowering herself carefully into the ripples. It isn’t exactly cold; the sun has seen to that. It’s definitely cooler than standing around outside of it, though. Chloe dunks her head under, then emerges again a second or two later, pushing her wet hair back out of her eyes.

“Your hair is full of glitter,” Beca frowns, hands planted on her hips as she stands beside the pool.

“And yours will be too in a minute,” Chloe grins, lifting her arms out of the water by her sides and admiring the way her skin glistens with tiny flecks of gold and silver glitter.

Beca rolls her eyes yet again, but she doesn’t protest, and soon she’s jumping into the water, too. She lets it cover her entire body, her head disappearing under the waves caused by her abrupt jump, and then she’s reappearing a moment later, slicking back her glittery hair the same way as Chloe.

“Better, right?” The redhead smirks, allowing herself to float onto her back. The water ripples gently around her, and she feels herself relaxing into the serenity.

“I thought it’d itch more than this,” Beca says, beginning to glide through the water.

“I told you,” Chloe shrugs, glancing over at her, “It’s like swimming through the stars.”

“Sure it is,” Beca teases, pausing beside her girlfriend. She stands in the water, her arms slipping underneath the other girl until she can turn her around. Chloe watches her with amusement, letting her move her, until her arms are wrapped around Beca’s neck, legs comfortably around her waist.

“Told you this was a good idea,” Chloe beams, nudging the tip of her nose gently against her girlfriend’s. Beca responds with a soft, contented smile, until she’s leaning forward to press a delicate kiss to Chloe’s lips, one the redhead happily returns.

“I still feel like Edward Cullen,” Beca smirks, her arms wrapped around Chloe’s waist. She’s drifting backwards toward the side of the pool, holding tightly onto her girlfriend.

“Right. But only if Edward Cullen was swimming through the stars,” Chloe points out, moving one arm from around the shorter girl to wipe a speck of glitter from under her eye. Beca gives Chloe that same playful look as usual, eyes rolling and lips arched into a smile.

“Say it,” Chloe instructs, eyes on her girlfriend. Beca looks at her with a raised brow.

“What?”

“Say it’s like swimming through the stars with me.”

Beca’s brow arches higher, amused smile dancing on her lips, but she doesn’t respond.

With the hand still not around Beca, Chloe flicks a splash of water at her. Beca tries to duck out of the way, but it hits her in the face. Fortunately, her eyes close in time to stop any glitter from getting into them.

“Say it!” Chloe giggles, flicking more water the brunette’s way.

Beca cuts her off with a laugh, eyes finally opening. “Okay, okay. It is.”

“It is what?” Chloe asks, subtle smirk settling back onto her lips as she wraps her arm around Beca’s neck again. Her grip tightens, and Beca’s does the same.

“It’s like swimming through the stars with you, baby.”

—-

“Chloe?”

Aubrey’s voice startles her awake.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were sleeping.” There’s an apologetic look on the blonde’s face.

It takes Chloe a second to snap back to reality. She had evidently fallen asleep on the couch, her book still open in her lap. There’s a song playing on the radio that she doesn’t recognize now. It’s not one of Beca’s.

Aubrey perches down onto the side of the couch, bringing a hand up to brush a chunk of hair softly behind Chloe’s ear. “Why don’t you go lay down for a bit,” she suggests, voice soft and reassuring. She offers Chloe a sympathetic smile, one she’s grown all too familiar with lately.

Chloe responds with a short nod of her head, before pushing herself up from the couch.

Stacie will be home soon, anyway. Chloe adores both Aubrey and her girlfriend, and she’s eternally grateful to them for allowing her to stay with them until she gets back on her feet, but she has to admit, it’s difficult seeing them all over each other. She’s happy for them, she loves how in love they are, but Chloe doesn’t have that anymore, and she can’t deny that it hurts.

She retreats to the guest room. Her room, for all intents and purposes. Her laptop is laid on the end of the bed, where she’d left it this morning. Chloe had been doing some lesson planning, but she’d lost her focus, and she’d gone to sit downstairs with Aubrey.

When she takes a seat on the bed and opens the laptop’s lid, she minimizes her earlier work quickly, and instead opens up Spotify. It’s really no surprise that Beca Mitchell is one of her most recent searches.

Chloe scrolls to the new addition, Nothing Really Matters, and hits play. She turns down the volume some, not wanting Aubrey to hear.

“I know what it feels likeSwimming through the stars when I see herAnd I don’t need air ‘cause I breathe her.”

She hadn’t been imagining it. She hadn’t dreamt it. There it was, loud and clear.

“Swimming through the stars when I see her.”

Against her better judgment, Chloe clicks on the iMessage application, pulling up her last text message thread with Beca. It has been over a month since they’ve spoken, and the thought causes Chloe’s heart to ache.

Chloe, 4:29PM:I heard your song.

For a good ten minutes, there’s no response, though Chloe finds herself continually clicking back onto the conversation, eyes moving to the chat window. She’s about to close the lid again when the chat bubble appears, and Chloe’s heart begins to race.

Beca, 4:41PM:Which one?

Chloe, 4:43PM:Your new one.

Beca, 4:46PM:Oh.

Chloe waits a moment, wondering if there’s more to come. Apparently, there isn’t. And something about that angers her, but what can she do? She simply lets out a long sigh, before closing the laptop and flopping back against the pillows.

The backs of her eyes begin to sting, so Chloe closes them, shaking her head slowly and willing herself to woman up. She needs to stop crying. It’s been three months, she has to stop crying over Beca Mitchell.

She doesn’t know what time it is when the sound of her phone wakes her. Honestly, she didn’t even know she’d fallen asleep again, but the room is dark now, and Chloe blinks into the stillness, her phone still buzzing on the mattress beside her. She reaches for it blindly, squinting at the name on the screen.

BECA MITCHELL

And just like that, Chloe’s heart is in her throat. It’s against her better judgment that she hits accept on the call.

“Hello?”

There’s silence for a moment, followed by the quiet sound of Beca’s voice. “Chloe, hey. It’s me.”

Her tongue flicks over the part in her dry lips, and Chloe swallows back her emotions. “What do you want?”

More silence, almost like she’s hesitating. “You’re still staying with Aubrey and Stacie, right?”

Chloe doesn’t understand the point of this phone call, but she humors it. “Yeah, I am. Why?”

“Okay,” Beca responds simply. She clears her throat, and Chloe is certain she hears the sound echoing. It causes her to sit upright in the bed, her free hand running through her messy hair. Beca continues. “Can you come outside?”

Chloe’s heart was already racing, but it speeds up further now. Her body seems to be working without her mind as she rises from the bed. “What?” She questions, pulling down the sleeves of her oversized sweater. They engulf her hands, and Chloe appears smaller somehow, almost more vulnerable.

“Just come outside.”

Chloe doesn’t respond. She licks over her lips again as she makes her way slowly to the window. The guest room is at the front of the house, and she looks out to see Beca standing awkwardly outside in the evening light. Her phone is held to her ear, her free arm wrapped around her middle. Chloe sees the way she glances up, and she knows Beca has seen her.

“Please, Chlo.”

It’s pathetic, the fear she’s now filled with. Because Beca Mitchell is not scary. Beca Mitchell is not this negative presence she has started to become. She’s the love of her life, she’s her person.

But Chloe doesn’t have her anymore, and maybe that’s what makes this all so terrifying.

She moves through the house quietly, not wanting to catch Aubrey or Stacie’s attention. She can hear them in the living room, they’re laughing quietly at something on the television, though Chloe doesn’t stop for long enough to see what. She has hung up the call by now, her phone still on the bed, and she thinks she hears it begin to buzz again. She ignores it, and instead quietly opens the door, the underside of her white socks definitely suffering as she pads out into the evening, cautiously closing the door behind her.

“Are you mad?” Beca questions, and suddenly Chloe can see that same fear in the other girl’s eyes. It causes her chest to tighten, her stomach to clench.

“About what?” Chloe asks, approaching even more cautiously than the way she’d tiptoed down the stairs.

“That I’m still writing songs about you.”

Chloe licks over her lips. She doesn’t have a response, at least not a verbal one. Slowly, though, she shakes her head.

“Why are you writing songs about me still, Beca?”

“Because I’m an idiot.”

The response is almost like a punch to the stomach. She knows she isn’t supposed to be Beca’s muse anymore, not now they’re broken up. But to hear her calling the very idea idiotic is genuinely painful.

“For all of this, I mean.”

Chloe pauses, gaze trained on her ex-girlfriend.

She doesn’t respond, but it’s almost like the invisible rope tied around Beca’s limbs has suddenly loosened. Her emotions are rising to the surface, and she’s no longer glued to the spot. She shakes her head as she takes a step forward, and it seems like she’s daring herself to reach out. Eventually, she does, and the soft touch to her arm causes Chloe to flinch slightly. Beca recoils, but she’s soon reaching out again, this time for Chloe’s hand. The redhead doesn’t stop her.

“Chloe, I’m so sorry,” Beca says, voice thick with emotion. Chloe can hear the way it’s cracking, she can imagine the stinging sensation behind the other girl’s eyes, because she can feel it behind her own, too. She bites back a pathetic sob as Beca continues.

“I’m an idiot,” the brunette repeats. “No one has ever been as supportive or as amazing as you are. You never asked me to choose between you and my job, you never would. And I’m so sorry that I let myself get so caught up in the whole Hollywood thing. I just…” Beca pauses, swallowing back the lump in her throat. “It’s just a lot, you know? Paparazzi following us everywhere? Zero privacy? I hated doing that to you, Chlo. I hated dragging you through all of that with me.”

It doesn’t matter how well she tries to hold it together, Chloe is crying now. There are slow tears rolling down pale cheeks, and without her even realizing it, her fingers are laced with Beca’s.

“That wasn’t your decision to make,” she sobs quietly, shaking her head. Beca’s thumb is brushing softly over the back of her knuckles, and Chloe takes comfort in the familiar feeling. “I didn’t care about any of that. That’s your job, that’s all apart of it. And I didn’t care because I was with you.”

Beca takes a moment to compose herself, and Chloe sees the way her cheeks are glistening. She instinctively reaches out with her free hand to brush a tear from the shorter girl’s cheek with the pad of her thumb; it’s like the pool and the glitter all over again.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Beca finally says. “I don’t want to do this without you, Chlo. I know that when I ended things, I know I hurt you, and I know it was so selfish of me. But I need you to know that you’re literally the love of my life. Nothing really matters without you.”

Chloe doesn’t have a response. She’s too choked up, and she just stares at the other woman through tear soaked lashes.

“I’m going to fix this, okay?” Beca continues, tugging gently on the redhead’s hand, until their bodies are pressed closely together. Beca lets go, but only to wrap her arms around her waist. “These last three months have been hell. And if you’ll let me make it right again, I will. Because you’re it for me, Chloe. I want everything back the way it was. I want to fall asleep beside you every night, I want to wake up with you every morning. I want to do cheesy crap like putting flour on your face when I’m pretending to be bored when you’re making me bake cookies with you—”

Chloe cuts her off. “Or pouring glitter in the pool and swimming through the stars?”

Beca responds with a soft laugh, in spite of her tears. She nods her head in response. “Exactly. I want us to be in love again, Chlo.” She quietens, almost like she’s afraid to continue. Afraid to ask the question. “Do you think we can?”

Chloe’s teeth sink gently into her bottom lip, and in spite of the tears still rolling down her cheeks, her lips curve just slightly upward at the corners. “We never stopped, Bec. I’m always yours. I was always yours.”

The brunette’s lids flutter shut, and Chloe sees the way a couple fresh tears spill down her cheeks before she’s leaning up to delicately connect their lips, a feeling Chloe has been craving for the last three months, an action she returns without hesitation. Their tears are staining one another’s faces now, but neither one cares.

“I’m always yours too, Chlo,” Beca mumbles softly as she pulls back, lids fluttering open again to look up at her. Blue eyes meet gray, and the look is so familiar, so comforting.

“I was always yours.”

#beca mitchell #chloe beale #bechloe #bechloe fic #anonymous #question #mine #mine:writing #swimming through the stars

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kinsbin · 5 years

Text

Babysitting

Title: Babysitting Ship: Alexys/John Doe [Joker] [Self Insert/Canon] Word Count: 2125 Summary: Bruce convinces Alexys to help him out with watching a couple of Selena’s cousins after he gets scheduled for an important gala event. John decides that he wants to help her out too.

A/N: A commission for @bad-blue-moon-rising with her and the Joker again! An adorable couple, honestly, I'm always happy to write for them ;u;

“No.”

“Alexys please-.”

“Bruuuuuuuuuuuce.”

Bruce rolled his eyes at the weak-willed whining of his best friend as she all but threw herself against the plush interior of his luxury card, limbs flailing as she stretched across the upholstery in an effort to take up as much room as possible. Bruce, unphased, leaned back in his own seat to avoid the set of limbs blindly flinging themselves around from a variety of directions. Alexys pouted back at him, as if upset she had somehow missed his form in her flailing efforts. She probably was upset about that, Bruce realized with a roll of his eyes as he held his hands up to try and continue his discussion with the woman before her.

“Selena asked me to help and I answered before I knew my full schedule,” He had explained in a last ditch plea towards his best friend, “But something came up on the day of and, now, I don’t think there’s any way for either of us to reschedule.”

“Why didn’t you just ask Xena then?”

“She’s out of town on a gallery conference in Metropolis,” Bruce’s voice echoed a more pleading tone as he practically pouted at Alexys, whose arms were now crossed hard over her chest as she leaned back in the seat in a proper, upright position, “You know I wouldn’t ask you unless I was completely out of options, Alexys, I really am sorry but…”

Alexys sighed and gave an accepting nod, her fate being sealed within a moment of her begrudging agreement. Bruce had rarely asked favors of her in their entire friendship, a sort of basis built up on trust and communication as any relationship, platonic or otherwise, should be. The favor was not the worst at any rate either. Selena had asked Bruce to help watch a couple of her cousin’s kids while she was away on business. Alexys was sure that the ‘business’ she was away on was either going with Xena to Metropolis (god forbid either of those two leave their girlfriend alone in another city) or a job of thievery that would prove to last a few days longer than she had expected it to. Regardless, there was trust in asking Bruce to do it. And more trust in Bruce asking her to do it and not spill the beans to the woman who had made her boyfriend promise he would take good care of them.

It was how she had found herself in the small, but homey area of downtown Gotham. The street cars roared at the bottom of the five-story apartment building, windows shut to muffle the endless white noise of the city as Alexys sat with the twins before her, their eyes wide and curious at her as she introduced herself with a wave and smile.

“I’m Alexys. Bruce sent me to take care of you both, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Why didn’t he come himself?”

Despite being seven, the words were eloquent. The girl, with short hair matching that of Selena’s, quirked a bushy eyebrow while the boy at her side nodded eagerly, hoping it was enough to back his sister up on her wording. Alexys was...perhaps moderately surprised at the wise indications of the children before her, but, it faded quickly. They were related to Selena, after all, and as such were bound to inherit some of her intense intelligence above all else. So she kept a smile on her lips as she shrugged, crossing her legs in front of them where she sat and sighed.

“He got busy with adult, rich, billionaire things and decided it was best to leave us all alone with his credit card.”

“What a jerk!” The boy quipped up at last, “Let’s buy a bunch of toys to make him pay for it!”

Alexys felt the laughter leave her before she could stop it, the giggles echoing from her mouth as the idea of putting several toys-r-us and target runs on Bruce’s credit card filled her with mischievous glee should it not promptly end their friendship in one way or another. The laughter was contagious, apparently, as the two before her began to giggle in unison. This increased Alexys’ laughs until the group of them were cackling together on the ground, clutching their chests as the banter of what they should buy with esteemed billionaire Bruce Wayne’s credit card continued in their group.

It was at that moment that her phone rang, the tune of a classic song that had come with her phone’s generic ringtone setup blasting on full volume through the entire household. Pausing in her fits of giggles, Alexys checked the caller ID to identify just who it was ringing her up in this moment. Her mouth only split into a wider smile when she realized that John’s name, displayed pleasantly before her with the accompaniment of hearts and a small flower, made her heart skip a beat. Answering it took no hesitation as she held the device up to her ears and vibrated as she spoke.

“Hey, John!”

“Alexys, hey!” The man cheered with delight upon her voice reaching his own ears, “Where are you, Doll?I was hoping we could spend some time together today, since you were free!”

Her heart dropped as she bit her lip, looking on at the curious children before her with an apologetic gaze before answering back into the phone with a tone that matched the look, “Oh John, I’m so sorry...But, Bruce needed my help last minute in watching some of his fiance’s niece and nephew, so, I volunteered and am looking after them. I can’t go anywhere today…”

The softest ‘oh’ of contemplation echoed against the receiver before silence enveloped the situation, the quiet filling her soul with guilt as she pursed her lips, prepared to apologize again and promise softly that she would make it up to him another time. Probably with a lot of kisses and a gentle encouragement of why she loved him so much for cure. Instead, her words were cut off by an echoed snap noise and then her boyfriend’s excited intonation practically yelping into through the speaker:

“Let’s watch them together! Where are you at?”

“Wh-What? No, John, it’s okay you really don’t have to take time out of your day to-”

“Come onnnn, I want to spend time with you! If it means helping you watch some of your friends kids then, heck, baby me up, Doll!”

The awkward way he litingly phrased the encouragement sent a fit of giggles bursting from Alexys’ throat as she rolled her eyes, looking on at the children before her as they gazed intently at her conversation, as if trying to hear through the phone to the other end so they could see just who she was talking to. With a smile, she gave them both a thumbs up before asking her own question:

“How would you both feel if I had someone over to join us?”

---

Truth be told, John was a bit nervous.

Maybe not a bit nervous. Maybe really nervous.

Children were...interesting. Not in a bad way, but, in a they held nothing back sort of way. In a ‘they would tell you your honest opinion of you’ certain way. Unlike adults who dodged questions and faded answers to other answers in a trained and precise way, children were always upfront with their opinions on the world around them. On the people around them. What if these children, in front of Alexys no less, disliked him? What if they hated clowns? What if they didn’t find any of his jokes funny?

The horror of reality caught up with him only after he had made the impulsive decision to drive down to the address Alexys had eagerly given him, his hand poised over at the door with a pale look of shock as he remembered just what he was about to do. Taking a deep breath, there was a moment where he lowered his hand to give himself a pat on the back, literally, his hand reaching over to caress what shoulder blade it could reach as he shook his head.

“Come on, John, it’ll be fine. It doesn’t matter what some kids say, she’ll still like you...Unless, well, she doesn’t-but-she always says that she does! Why would she change that over a nice and nephew she just met? It would be stupid...or honest...or would it? Hm-”

His self ramblings were shut off when the door clicked open. Alexys, having seen him standing in the doorway, rushed to pull it open before he could truly knock on it. Her smile sent his heart fluttering up to his throat as her beauty, as it usually did, took the breath away from him. His own smile creeped up against his lips as he gave her a light wave.

“Alexys, good to see you!”

“You too, John-” She leaned forward to hug him, pressing a kiss to his cheek before ushuring him inside, “Come meet the Kyles! They’re incredibly sweet.”

John ignored his clammy hands as the two children approached him, both eyes widening at the slicked back green hair he sported and pale source of makeup blushed across his face with careful application. When names were exchanged (“This is Arthur and Mary. Arthur and May, this is John.”) a silence followed, disturbed only by the echo of the grandfather clock in the living room hall.

Arthur pointed to John first, his lips curling into a smile.

“You look cool.”

The words strung the guitar strings of his heart like a guitar, the music playing from the compliment in his mind like a melody to his psyche. Slowly, surely, a sheepish sort of blush spread across his chin as he let a hand raise up and rub the back of his neck with a bright laugh.

“Why, thank-you! The hair is all natural, I promise. And if anyone says otherwise, they’re just jealous because green is the rarest hair color in existence.”

The girl giggled now, May’s hands falling to her mouth as she laughed at the absurd way he spoke about it. The boy joined in soon, the two children laughing in delight while John leaned down to get close to them both, face flushing at the cute way they seemed to stare at him. Their eyes, full of curiosity for the new being who had entered their home, were ready to take in whatever he said next with the utmost attention. John felt his grip on his own palms ease and his straightened shoulders relax as he tilted his head, tapping a finger to his chin as he hummed.

“Hey! You kids wanna hear a joke?”

Alexys felt her heart flutter as they cheered.

It was how the rest of the night seemed to progress. Little by little, Arthur and May seemed to warm up more and more to the man they now affectionately referred to as ‘Mr. Green’. Jokes went smoothly, sending them all laughing as pizza was ordered and eaten along with video games acceptable for all four of them to play on. Mario Kart ended with John dramatically flinging himself onto the floor, as if acting the fact that he had come in fourth place was the death of him. Arthur jumped on him in return, sending his breath winding itself out of his stomach while May laughed through the events. Alexys felt something...warm in the center of her stomach as she watched John’s gentle hands move against the children he already seemed to consider family.

It wasn’t until they were asleep that she brought it up. Both had their heads in John’s lap, his fingertips stroking through their short locks as Alexys cleaned up the remains of a pillow fort long since collapsed.

“I didn’t know you were so good with children.” She mused with a smile, sending another blush on John’s face as he chuckled in a whisper.

“They find things funnier than adults...And, well, most people say I act like a child. Maybe it’s just who I fit in with best.”

Alexys paused to press a kiss to his temple, feeling the stretch of his skin as he smiled tiredly through the motion. A pause. A meaningful gaze. A whisper.

“You’d make a wonderful father, John...Do you think you’d ever want to be one...someday?”

John Doe looked at Alexys with shock in his gaze before his lips parted to a warm, honest grin. Reaching one hand up, he stroked her hair and brought her in for another close kiss, the soft snoring of the children on his lap echoing his decision as he murmured it against her lips.

“With you? Definitley.”

#self insert #self shipping #self ship #kinley writes #telltale joker #batman self insert #telltale batman

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imagineaworlds · 7 years

Text

Caught In Your Eyes (Part Two)--Billy Hargrove

Written by @rune-of-a-writer

Part One, Part Two

Request: Hi. I love your work. I was wondering if you could do a billy imagine where the female reader is new to town and she’s a bad girl and billy instantly falls for her and tries to get with her. Thank you!!

Warnings: cursing, alcohol, drugs

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x fem!reader

Summary: You meet Billy’s sister. Then when you and the group go to a party, things go wrong.

Word Count: 3,003

A/N: The picture is of my bby Froy Gutierrez as a FC for James.

Once school had ended, you found yourself trapped by your locker. James, Vance and Chris were towering over you, desperately trying to get you to go to a party this coming weekend. It was still a few days away, but James was persistent. His body was slouched against the locker beside yours, his shoulder pinning yours down as he lay his head on your chest in order to look directly up at you.

“Come on, (Y/N/N),” he whined, throwing his arm out, “It is quite literally, the first party of the school year. I’m pretty sure everyone is going to be there. And I can’t say that if you’re not there!” you had to bite your lip harshly in order to keep back a laugh. You had already decided to go to the party five minutes ago, but watching James’ theatrical attempt to persuade you was too good to pass up.

“Then I guess everyone isn’t going to be there,” you sighed just as dramatically, pushing yourself off of your locker, causing James to nearly fall to the ground had Chris not caught him.

“Oh come on! I’ll pay you in adoration and compliments,” James yelled down the hallway as you walked off, laughing quietly to yourself.

“I’ll be expecting those tomorrow morning! You have a week to woo me over, Tullen!” you yelled back, smirking over your shoulder. Pushing open the school doors, the sun nearly blinded you by it’s brightness. It was hotter than it was this morning and the snow and ice on the ground was practically gone.

You noticed the ginger haired girl by the Camaro again, Billy’s car. They didn’t look alike in the slightest but you knew they had to be related somehow. She seemed bored, twirling her skateboard on its edge while glancing up at the doors every few minutes. It had been 15 minutes since school had ended, which meant Billy was most likely doing some other activity that you didn’t care to enlighten the girl about.

Walking over, you tossed your backpack onto the trunk of your car before heading towards her. “Hey, kid!” you called out. She looked up at you, instantly narrowing her eyes. Yup, definitely related to the Hargrove guy.

“The blond is most likely in detention right now,” you lied, standing in front of her with your arms crossed. An annoyed huffed left her lips while she threw her head back. You eyed her board and gave her a smirk. “I can chill out here with you while you wait? I know how to skateboard, and I can show you some stuff if you don’t already know them,” you offered, watching as her eyes instantly lit up.

“Yeah, that’d be cool,” she grinned, slamming the board down and instantly jumping on it. The parking lot was empty thankfully so there wasn’t much of a worry that the younger girl would get run over. Hopping onto the trunk of the Camaro, you watched her as she skated back and forth from the steps of the school’s front doors and back to the car. She showed you what she knew how to do: a couple of kick flips (she managed to do three in a row before stumbling), kneeling down on the board and coming back up smoothly, turning the board in a circle, and other things.

“Nice job, kid,” you grinned, pulling your knee onto the trunk and leaning on it, “Do you know how to do a strawberry milkshake?” you questioned.

“I’ve been practicing. I haven’t gotten the full hang of it. My step-dad got a little upset when I came home with my jeans tore up because I fell off the board,” she explained, and held up her arm to show off the scar she had along the back of it. You nodded in understanding and watched as she tried the trick.

The two of you were so focused the you didn’t hear the school doors open.

“Here, lemme show you,” you said after a few minutes. You hopped down and she handed you the skateboard, carefully watching. You explained your feet positions and slowly moved the board as if you were doing the trick. “Like that,” you told her before actually doing the trick in full motion so she could see how it was done.

“Woah, that makes more sense!” she yelled out, quickly taking the board and doing what you said. First she completed the trick in slow motion like you did so her feet would get accustomed to the motions, before attempting the full trick. Which was a success. “I did it!”

“Yeah, and you didn’t ruin your clothes this time,” a voice sudden called out, causing the both of you to jump. You quickly turned around, coming face-to-face with the idiot from earlier. The girl rolled her eyes and picked up her skateboard.

“Exactly. That’s the point,” she snapped at Billy before giving you a grin and getting into the car, leaving the two of you alone.

“So, you decided to teach my sister how to skateboard?” he questioned, a smirk playing on his face, “Trying to woo me over?”

“She already knew how to skateboard,” you scoffed, rolling your eyes, “I was just making sure she didn’t get killed while her asshole brother was off doing who knows what,” Billy took another step closer, the two of you staring at eachother.

“Well then, how can I thank you when I don’t even know your name, princess?” he growled, his tongue darting out to run across his lips rapidly.

“Sounds like something you need to figure out,” you retorted, pressing your own tongue along the points of your k9’s. “However, you seem fond of ‘princess’. Maybe that’s all you need to know,” Billy’s grinned widened at this, letting out a low chuckle.

“Hm, ‘The Princess and The Asshole’? How’s that sound?” he snickered, taking another step closer. You crossed your arms and chuckled, shaking your head.

“I already know your name, Billy Hargrove,” you watched his face fall, “So really? It’s just ‘The Princess’, isn’t it?” you hummed, tilting your head to the side, parts of your (h/c) hair falling into your face.

“I’ll be calling you plenty of other things, princess, once I figure out who the hell you are,” he growled, his hands clenching inside the pockets of his jean jacket.

“Yeah, like ‘The Bitch Who Knocked Billy Hargrove Off His Pedestal’,” you grinned before walking backwards towards your car. “I’ll be lookin’ forward to it, asshole,” you smirked before turning around, grabbing your backpack, and getting into your car.

James had not only managed to convince you to go to the party that Saturday night, but he also managed to convince you to pick him, Chris and Vance up from his house. You didn’t mind, you had grown close with them the past week and they had become great friends. Pulling up outside James’ house, they were already waiting outside. The three of them rushed over, quick to get in and relish in your car’s heater.

“Jesus fuck,” Vance moaned out, “It’s like 2 degrees outside!”

“Don’t worry, once you’re plastered you won’t feel the cold,” Chris snickered and the four of you laughed.

The party wasn’t too far out, only about 10 minutes or so. And once you got to the street it was obvious to tell what house the party was being held. Light streamed out from every surface, music blaring down the road and the laughter of teens echoing all around. Parking the car, you all got out and headed over. Many people yelled out for you guys, the soccer team recognizing James and Vance and the baseball team recognizing Chris. Others yelled out for you since you had become well known the past week as well. Regardless, the four of you stuck together and weaved inside the house.

“I’m gonna go grab drinks,” Vance yelled out over the music before breaking off and heading towards the refreshment table.

The rest of you migrated towards the living room, luckily finding an empty couch. None of you were into dancing until you were thoroughly fucked up, so you had all agreed to chill for the beginning of the party. You were grateful for that because as much as you enjoyed parties, you didn’t know too many people and didn’t want to risk getting stranded. You curled up in the corner of the couch, tucking your knees under you and turning your body towards James and Chris. Vance found the three of you soon, drinks in tow.

“Alright! I’ve got a Pepsi for our DD,” he yelled, handing you the drink, “A Strawberry Kinky for the kinky one,” he yelled out, handing the vodka to James and causing him to shout in embarrassment, “Fireball and coke for the boring one,” he handed the drink to Chris, “And my own specialty,” he declared finally, squishing himself between James and Chris. The three of you stared at him expectantly, waiting for him to tell you what his drink was.

“You gonna tell us how much alcohol you’re drinking? Or are we just supposed to find out when you go on an hour-long rant about classism, and end it by making out with Barry Feller preceded by throwing up in a house plant?” James questioned, taking a gulp of his drink in order to keep himself from laughing.

“Oh my god, you didn’t,” you gasped out, not being able to contain your laughter.

“Listen!” Vance yelled out, face bright red as you all laughed loudly, “I can handle my alcohol, I swear!”

“Alright baby,” Chris cooed mockingly. You guys all laughed and shared more stories from drunk and high mistakes, their drinks allowing them to get more bold with their stories.

At some point, a crowd had formed. All the couches and chairs were taken up, the floor had disappeared due to the mass of bodies and the alcohol and soda bottles had found themselves on the coffee table. The music was just as loud, but none of you noticed. By now, it wasn’t just James, Chris and Vance drunkenly sharing their stories. Everyone else had pitched in their own embarrassing moments of intoxication. The first time they drank or got high, that one time their mom caught them, that time they ended up naked in the baseball field 10 minutes before school started. Nobody was holding back. Your attention was entirely focused on the group before you. Which had been a mistake.

You had always been a hyper-vigilant person, especially after your old school. You always knew what was happening around you, just in case something went wrong and you had to step into action. But with 30+ people all laughing and sharing their stories, you had totally forgotten about your drink. You had placed the half empty cup on the stand next to you, forgetting about it almost immediately after. However, when your eyes passed over the Pepsi bottle on the coffee table, you suddenly remembered. So when you did grab it take a well needed drink, you were shocked when it tasted different.

Of course you knew what Pepsi tasted like. It was your favorite thing to drink. And it didn’t taste like this. Your first thought was that you grabbed the wrong drink. But after a second inspection, you noticed it was the only drink on the stand. Furrowing your eyebrows, you stared into the drink, swishing it around. You couldn’t see anything within the dark syrup, so you took a tentative, second gulp. You let it sit in your mouth for a few moments before swallowing. Yeah, definitely not Pepsi. Deciding that a mix up had most likely just happened, you put the cup back down and focused on the group. You listened quietly as Talia spoke about one of her stories. But you couldn’t hear her all that well. Her speech was slow and muffled. You picked up your head to ask if she was okay, when you noticed that everything sounded like that. The music, the laughing, everything. Looking around, everything was getting blurry. It was happening slowly, not a sudden change.

‘What the fuck,’ you thought to yourself. You rubbed your eyes, blinking a few times to see if that helped anything. It didn’t. “Hey,” you whispered over to James, “I’m gonna go get some air.”

“Alright,” he nodded, looking at you briefly as you got up, making sure not to trip over anyone. Once you had successfully gotten through the crowd, you were slightly surprised to see the familiar shock of blond curls come through the front door. Instantly everyone called out for him, yelling at him for being late and telling him to join the crowd.

The two of you made brief eye contact, you attempting to send him your usual playful glare (though you're sure it came out as a grimace) and him sending you a confused, yet concerned frowned. As you brushed past him to go outside, he put a hand on your leather-clad shoulder, stopping you.

“You alright there, princess? Leavin’ just as I get here?” he joked, smirking down at you. You scoffed up at him, trying to shake the dizziness from you.

“Nah, just tryna get some fresh air. Your stench is overpowering.” you snickered, before stumbling past him and outside. Once the cool January air hit you, you felt a little better, but still not entirely there. You sat yourself on the porch steps, putting your head in your hands. Your (h/c) hair fell over your face as you tried to calm your breathing. Things were getting blurrier now, and even though you weren’t moving everything else was. You felt like you were going to fall down, and your body was getting harder to hold up. You had to lean yourself against the wall to keep from tumbling down the steps.

A sudden hand on your shoulder caused you to look up. Normally the person would’ve found an elbow in their throat, but you couldn’t even bring yourself to tell them to fuck off. You could hardly see who it was. You recognized blond hair and a leather jacket similar to your own. Hargrove.

“Fuck off,” you got out finally, shaking his hand off of your shoulder. He was saying something, you could hear the sound of his voice but not all of the words.

“What-wrong-fuck?” when you didn’t respond to him, he moved his hand to your face, grabbing your jaw and turning you to look at him. You hissed at the intrusion, not enjoying when people touch you, especially someone you barely know. “Who-come here-?”

“James,” you mumbled out, being able to put two and two together, telling him who you had come here with.

---

Billy looked down at your slumped body, barely able to keep you from falling down the steps. Your usual confident, strong demeanor was gone when he had walked through the door which had confused him. So when you hadn’t returned after 15 minutes, he decided to check on you. Billy moved you farther away from the stairs before quickly going back inside to find James. He had never talked to this kid before, so he had no idea how this was going to go.

He found him in the kitchen, washing out his solo cup. James didn’t look too sober himself. Billy groaned, rubbing his forehead. Since when did he have to end up the sober, responsible one at a party?

“Ay, you,” Billy called out, getting James attention. “You came here with that one girl right?” he still hadn’t figured out your name.

“(Y/N)?” James asked, letting the cup drop into the sink. Finally.

“Yeah. (H/c) hair, leather jacket. You know the one. Listen, she’s out front, practically dead on the steps. You should take her home,” Billy said, taking a glance over at the loud crowd. He knew the party wasn’t going to last much longer and if you were left out there, not only would you get trampled over, but your barely-started reputation would get ruined.

“Woah, what?” James asked, narrowing his eyes. “I can’t drive. I don’t have a license and I’m not sober.”

“You’ve go to be fucking kidding me.”

“I’m not. Neither does Chris or Vance,” James said, his words slightly slurred. He swung his hand, vaguely motioning towards the crowd, which wasn’t helpful to identifying the two in the crowd. Then, James’ eyes widened and he punched Billy’s shoulder. Billy grabbed his wrist immediately, glaring at the smaller kid.

“Don’t. Do. That,” he warned, causing James to step back.

“Right. Sorry. But listen, you do. We all know you do with your fucking car. You can take us home, or her home, and then she can get her car in the morning,” James grinned as if it was the brightest idea in the world.

“And why would I do that?” James stopped to think.

“Because then she’ll stop calling you ‘asshole’?” he tried, giving Billy a questioning half smile. It worked.

“Grab the other two. Come on,” Billy growled, letting go of James’ wrist finally. James quickly jogged into the living room, telling Chris and Vance what was going on. They nodded quickly, jumping over the couch (Vance falling) before stumbling behind Billy.

Billy had prepared himself to have to pick you up when he got outside, but when the four of them walked out of the house you weren’t there. Billy’s eyes widened, quickly jumping down the porch steps.

“Yo, what the hell?” Vance called out, looking over the porch. “This some kinda prank Hargrove? I’ll kick your ass!”

“You couldn’t take him on,” Chris grumbled, jogging down the steps.

“It’s not a prank,” James called out. He had gone around to the side of the house to see if you were there, but instead he had found your jacket. He came back to Chris, Vance and Billy, holding it up.

“Where the fuck did she go?”

#rune-of-a-writer #billy hargrove #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove fanfic #Stranger Things #stranger things imagine #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction

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commander-yinello · 6 years

Text

Trying to be better (than we used to be)

3 AM and I can’t sleep, looking up pictures of MM. Me: Hey it's Echo Girl Me: Ugh so childish Brain: Maybe in the future she'd feel bad about what she did Me: Ooh like Yoosung. Yoosung also grows out of it Brain: ... What if Me: Wait no Brain: Yoosung x redeemed Echo Girl? Me: No. That makes no sense. That is crazy and I’m going to forget about it. Me after 2000 words: Fuuuuuuuuuuu-

So yeah. ;;;; I have no excuse for this, I wrote a fic for a total crackpairing. I figured I should post it in case I can make at least one person suffer with me. xD More under the cut because this is longer than it should be orz.

There was something familiar about her. Yoosung knew he had to have seen her before, because her large eyes and wavy brown hair tugged heavily at his brain, which desperately wanted to remember.

Her blue blazer was currently being showered by fur as her poodle did her best to jump as high as possible, more excited than her owner. A poodle which had eaten something they shouldn’t have, which was typical for a young dog. Their reactions were normal too, but Yoosung had trouble finding his voice to send them on their way.

“Was it difficult to remove the ring from Lady’s stomach?” the young woman’s question pulled him out of his thoughts.

‘Come on Yoosung, get your shit together,’ Yoosung thought. She was the last one of the day, he could go home and play some LoLoL. Though he didn’t play it for hours like he used to as a student, it was still his favorite way to unwind.

Putting on his red reading glasses, he scrolled down the dog’s data on his computer. “Not at all, we simply gave her something to make her throw up and…” He wanted to make a joke about her puke being diamonds, as he liked to share terrible jokes, when his eye fell on the name of the poodle’s owner.

[Kyungju Choi]

His silence was starting to make her visibly worried. “Well?”

“You’re Echo Girl,” Yoosung said softly, removing his glasses and placing them on the desk. She had tied up her brown hair, exchanged her Sunday dress to a fashionable casual work outfit and her face lost some of its roundness, but it was unmistakably her.

The last time he saw her was at the RFA party where they stopped her from destroying Zen. How scandalized she had been when her plan got ruined. Her expression of shock matched hers back then. “How… do you know?” she asked, after a minute of silence, eyes darting to the door and back to him.

“Your name. I recognize it,” Yoosung confessed.

She narrowed her eyes. “Almost no one knew my real name back then.” Her poodle sat next to her, all smiles and tail wags.

“I had looked it up, together with what other information I could find about you.” He realized he sounded like a stalker, and quickly added: “Y-you accused my friend Zen of sexual harassment some four or five years ago. He asked me to help him.”

Her angry expression faltered as she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh shit, you’re Zen’s friend…!! Oh my fucking God, you must hate me so bad.”

It surprised him to hear her swear so easily. “No no no!” he quickly waved his hands. “I don’t, I really don’t! I-”

The sound of the door opening on badly-oiled hinges interrupted them, his colleague poking her head inside. “Doctor Kim, are you almost done?”

“Y-yes, I will lock up, see you tomorrow,” he promised her, and she waved before leaving. He turned back to Kyungju who bit her lip, hand clenched tight around her dog’s leash, and felt bad for making the situation awkward. He could have just acted dumb about her name.

Just as he was about to, she spoke. “Are… you available for coffee? I would like to explain myself… and apologize, i-if that’s alright with you.”

Yoosung blinked and answered before he could think about it. “Sure.”

***

He doubted bringing her to Jaehee’s café at first but decided that he would need support from the wisest member of the RFA. There was no doubt that Jaehee recognized Echo Girl right away the moment they walked through the door, and he shot her a look that said: ‘Hi remember Echo Girl she’s actually not evil now don’t kill her for what she did to Zen also I accidentally revealed I know her and we are going to have an awkward talk please help’.

Somehow Jaehee managed to pick all that up and maintained a calm and natural composure behind the counter after serving them their coffee, nodding whenever he looked her way. The white poodle lay dutifully next to their chairs, already napping on her front paws.

Kyungju stirred her coffee many times before she broke the silence. “So… Doctor Kim, how is Zen? If that’s okay to ask.”

“Please, call me Yoosung.” His fingers touched the leather jacket he had hung over his chair, preferring it over the stiff white coat he had to wear for work. “And he’s doing great! Still acting and… you know.”

“Oh. Good, that’s… good.”

Silence. Yoosung took a sip of his espresso and tried not to stare at the table.

She didn’t look up from her drink. “Did you know I swore vengeance… again, after the party? I acted like it was all okay as I performed the musical, but inside I wanted nothing more than to hurt him and Jumin Han and the RFA.”

Chills ran down his spine and he was about to say something when she continued. “However, after that musical, my parents told me my agent and all the sponsors had left me. I was ruined. The paparazzi got so bad, my parents decided to move to Europe. I was furious, of course, I didn’t care about reporters or my reputation, I just wanted payback. In the end… it may have been the smartest choice they made.” She sighed. “Echo Girl was… nothing, not anymore.”

He felt a small pang of guilt. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” she said, locking her eyes with his, glaring with the same intensity during that RFA party. “It was my fault. Everything I did was fueled by my crush on Zen, and my parents’ money allowed me to arrange things normal idols couldn’t. I was… well, I guess I was a bitch, to say politely.”

Yoosung was sure she had thought about her actions for a long time. “That is not the word I would use.”

“I would. I can’t believe how much I took for granted being able to act alongside Zen. I took so much for granted. There is no other period in my life that I regret more. It took a while, but I got over my anger. Took some modelling jobs. Met some people who wouldn’t accept my shit and even helped me.” She smiled and Yoosung copied her automatically, glad that it was a real smile instead of an anxious one. “Long story short, when my parents wanted to move back to Korea, I said yes because I missed my home country but… I don’t miss my old self.”

She took a sip from her coffee and put the cup back down with a satisfied sigh. Jaehee’s coffee never disappointed. “I’m surprised you remembered me. No one else seemed to have. I was fine with that.” She looked at Yoosung expectantly, a finger tapping the empty cup. “I’m genuinely sorry for what I did to Zen and to his friends. I can’t ask you to forgive me, but I don’t want anyone else to know who I am. If you want money for your silence, I can arrange that.”

Yoosung’s jaw dropped. “Whoa, it doesn’t have to come to that! Please, I’m sure Zen and the others have forgiven you ages ago. Or at least don’t care anymore.” He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he accepted a bribe. “It’s fine. I have no problem keeping a secret.”

Kyungju took her time, inspecting Yoosung. “You’re a good person, aren’t you?”

That took him off-guard. “Not at all. In fact, I relate to your story more than you think.”

“Oh?”

“You don’t know him but… for the longest time, I also hated someone so much I wanted him to die. It… it was wrong of me to think so.”

An image of a teal-haired man came to mind and he felt queasy. He had accepted that V wasn’t fully to blame for all the terrible things that had happened to the RFA, and surely he could admit V was a kind man. Yet talking about past mistakes so openly rattled him, even after all these years. Suddenly he found himself wondering if things might have gone better had he been wiser, more understanding.

Warm fingers gently touched his hand.

“Hey. It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I know it’s hard.”

Yoosung hadn’t been aware of his vision blurring. Eyes focusing once more, he wasn’t prepared for Kyungju’s sympathy radiating off her. It was such a stark contrast from who she used to be.

“You’re a better person than I am.”

Her blue eyes went wide, and she pulled her hand back as if she burned it. “Fuck no!” she yelled, causing most people of the café to turn towards them. When they minded their own business again, she repeated herself, face slightly pink. “I’m not. I just… grew up.”

Yoosung chuckled, toying with his reading glasses. “More than me.”

Her face was glowing now. Yoosung could see Jaehee in the corner of his eyes, frowning as she wondered what in the world Yoosung had said. “W-what are you talking about?!” her speech stuttered. The way she held her hands in her lap, unable to look at him straight, Yoosung couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I mean it,” he pushed. “You’re almost a completely different person. I look in the mirror and see a dumb teenager in a grown man’s body, and no one’s discovered it yet.”

“Don’t be dumb, you’ve got a great job and great friends because of who you are,” she pouted angrily, old Echo Girl shining through. “Don’t pull yourself down like that.”

One of the waitresses stopped by, whom Yoosung knew was a student as Jaehee often hired them part-time. “Can I get you lovebirds another coffee?”

Yoosung wasn’t sure who squeaked louder, him or Kyungju. “We’re not!” they both said in unison, confusing the waitress. He coughed. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, same.” Kyungju said. The waitress smiled and walked off, acting like nothing had happened.

Lady yawned and whined a little, grabbing their attention. “Ah, I should go. I need to feed Lady before she tears the café apart,” Kyungju joked, grabbing her purse.

“I’ll pay,” Yoosung immediately offered.

“Fuck no. I’m a modern woman, I’m paying.”

“I suggested this place. Let me pay for you.”

“I was the one to suggest coffee!”

“Ahem,” said Jaehee, suddenly next to their table. “Might I suggest both paying half?”

Both blushed, Yoosung more so knowing Jaehee was going to grill him once she left. “Y-yeah, that’s a good idea,” Yoosung said, reaching for his wallet.

Money in hand, Jaehee left them alone. Kyungju picked up her purse, getting up slowly.

“I will let Zen know.”

Stars appeared in her eyes, dazzling him. “I’ve always wanted him to know, so thank you. It means the world to me.”

He fiddled with his jacket zipper, staring at Lady who stared back. “I hope I don’t see you again.”

Confusion crossed Kyungju’s face and Yoosung instantly panicked. “I-I mean, not at the clinic! I wouldn’t want to see Lady at the clinic! Wait, I mean-” He facepalmed with both hands. Was he really an adult?

Only when he heard her giggle did he dare look through his fingers. “I can’t guarantee Lady won’t eat anything strange.” She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “But I’m glad something good came out of it. I’ll see you around.”

She waved goodbye, heading out with Lady in tow. Strangely, he felt a little somber. Yoosung watched her go and wasn’t aware of another person seating themselves across him until he heard them.

“You’re right, she is a different person.”

He nearly jumped out of his chair. “Jaehee!” he yelled at the café owner who raised an eyebrow. “You heard?”

“Everything.” She raised another eyebrow, chin resting on her hands. “You two seemed rather friendly from the get go.”

He shrugged. “She’s nice and she happened to bring her dog in. I will probably never see her again.”

“I very much doubt that.”

Yoosung cocked his head. “Well, I suppose dogs tend to eat strange stuff a lot, but I’m not the only vet in the city.”

Jaehee let out the loudest snort. “I don’t think she wants another vet. Tell her I’ve got new latte flavors soon, she might like them.”

Before Yoosung could question what that meant, Jaehee got up, leaving him to scratch his head.

#what is even the ship name #echosung #I guess?#mystic messenger #mysme #what am I doing with my life #fanfiction #echo girl #yoosung kim #kyungju choi #yoosung x kyungju #I wrote this a while ago but I was scared to post it #because it's just so... out there o_o #but my friends said I should xP #feel free to tell me if I'm crazy #because I will totally accept that xD #If this even reaches 10 notes I will laugh #now back to my gay sons and my sanity #kidding I have no sanity

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