#you don’t know how GLEEFUL I was getting to talk about this playlist | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kimnjss · 3 years

Text

boyfriend material | kth

⤑ series: kinda hot

⤑ pairing: campus flirt!taehyung x sweet girl!reader

⤑ genre: fluff !! // nd some smut!

⤑ rating: explicit

⤑ word count: 6.7K // unedited.

⤑ warnings: cursing, dirty talk, biting, spitting, fingering (f. receiving), squirting, hair pulling if you like squint.

⤑ A/N: hiiii! this is wicked late nd i’m lowkey annoyed bc i did not plan for it to be - buuut i really hope you like it . as usual let me know what you think !! x

FEBRUARY 6TH, 2021 | 17:40

“This is for you,” Tae's grinning on the other side of the door, an assortment of flowers in the shape of a teddy bear held out in front of him. You're cooing, eyes focused on the gift. “It's cute!” The pure gleeful tone of your voice has a chuckle passing his lips.

Taking the bear from his grasp, you lead him inside your house. Jimin is sat in front of a muted TV, doing a terrible job at pretending he wasn't listening to everything the two of you were saying. Luckily, Jungkook had stepped out to pick up their dinner – no telling how much more obvious he'd be.

Setting the bear down on the counter, you're finally taking in Taehyung entirely. Handsome. Not like that was much different from how he normally looked. But handsome with effort tonight. He even went so far as to put some product in his hair, defining the permed curls that usually laid messily.

“You put on a suit!” Hands curling around the lapels of his pale mint jacket as your fingers smooth over the fabric. Standing this close to him, you can clearly see the blush that darkens his cheeks. A bit surprised at the new effect you have on him, but you don't let it show.

Fingers steadily bouncing up his chest until your able to tap your index finger onto the tip of his nose. “You look adorable. Let me go get my bag,” With you no longer clouding his senses with your sweet lavender scent. Positive it's the body wash lotion set he bought you for your birthday last year.

Yet, he doesn't remember it smelling this intoxicating in the store.

He had been so flustered before that he neglected to tell you how beautiful he thought you looked. Nearly lost his balance when you were opening up the door, standing a few inches above your normal height. Makeup done nicely, he's spent enough time on FaceTime watching you practice to guess how hard you worked on this look. And it paid off.

“Are you nervous?” Jimin's carries from the living room, proper up on his knees to look over the back of the couch.

Taehyung lets out a tsk, hands sinking into the pockets of his dress pants. Leaning back slightly, feigning nonchalance. What did he have to be nervous about? The facade only lasts two seconds before his shoulders are slumping and his brows are furrowing. “Is it obvious?”

Jimin's barking out a laugh, head tilting back as the sound of his laughter fills the room. “Oh, unbelievably. You can relax, though. She's excited,” That was the truth. Despite the fact this date wouldn't be something you'd chose for yourself, you were still excited to be going out with Taehyung.

And the fact that he had put so much effort into at least trying to impress you was reason enough for you not to complain. He was trying! Exactly what you asked him to do. It was going to be a learning process for both of you, but it would be fine. Determined to have a good time with him, no matter what.

“Okay. I'm ready to go!” Stretching out the last syllable of your words, hopping from the second step to the landing. Taehyung is straightening at the sight of you, plucking up your jacket from the back of the couch and draping it over your shoulders.

You thank him with a smile, stepping in front of him. “Bye, Jimin! Tell Jungkook to stay out of my room!” Blow a dozen kisses over your shoulder at him while Taehyung leads you out the door with a gentle hand on your back.

He's parked in front of your house, moving quickly to pull the passenger's side door open for you. Just from a quick glance, you can tell that he's cleaned up his car a bit. The small pile of empty water bottles gone from the backseat, his scattered gym clothes tucked neatly in his duffle bag. He even went as far as to vacuum the seats!

Dark eyes trained on you as he leans against the side of the door, his lower lip tucked into his mouth, tongue running over it. “You look gorgeous, Tiny.” He says with a slight nod of his head, eyes traveling from your face to your shoes. “Breathtaking, actually. It's insane,”

The giggle you let out is real and one hundred percent involuntary. A weird warmth spreading throughout your body at his compliments and the way he's looking at you. He just might drive you mental before you're even your driveway. He takes your flushed expression as your thanks, pushing your door closed with a large grin.

“Play something you like,” He's handing his phone over to you just after securing his seatbelt around his waist. Quickly tapping his code onto the screen and watching while his apps fall into place. The playlist that he with all your favorite songs is still saved among the rest of the lists.

So of course you're hitting shuffle on that.

He's whooping at the starting notes of the first song that plays, both of you passing lines of the song to each other as he turns on to the highway. He breaks into a fit of laughter as you breeze through the chorus, letting the whole highway know exactly what WAP stands for.

Laughter and screeched lyrics fill the car, you find his look of accomplishment each time he's finishing a verse oddly attractive. He's skidding to a stop fourteen minutes later and you're taking a moment to glance around outside. A look of confusion taking over your features.

“This isn't the restaurant?” With squinted eyes you're taking a better look at the building, turning to look over at him. “This isn't even a restaurant,” An abandoned building from the looks of it, a few stories tall. He doesn't seem as confused as you are, no, he's actually getting out of the car, pulling your door open.

You take his hand as he offers it, allowing him to pull you from your seat. The largest of grins on his face as he sets his hand on the small of your back. “You know I can kick your ass, right?” A little reminder as he leads you into the dark building. He's laughing, hand gliding from your back to your hand, loosely holding on to your fingers.

“Relax. Just trust me,” And because you'd follow Taehyung... well, into a creepy abandoned building, you let him lead you all the way to the old-fashioned elevator. He's pushing a few buttons and pulling a lever before the thing is rattling to life.

Shaking as it goes up and you lean against the railing to keep from tumbling over. His hand is reaching out to steady you, secured around your waist as he pulls you into his side. “Where did you even find this place?” It's way too comfortable in his arms, you don't move even when the shaking stops.

“It used to be a hotel... or a brothel or something,” He says with a shrug.

The elevator carries you all the way up to the highest floor and he steps out in front of you. “Wait, we're eating at a brothel?” Despite the begging questions begging in your mind, there's a laugh mixed in your words as he takes hold of your hand again.

“Something like that,” And that's all he says as he leads you down a narrow hallway, to the door at the end of it. He's pulling it open to reveal a set of stairs, gesturing for you to walk ahead of him.

He's all smiley and giddy, rushing you to get to the top of the stairs. And when you are, you sure the grin he's looking at you with could split his face. His hand on the doorknob as he bounces on the soles of his feet. “Are you ready?” Not even sure for what, but you're nodding.

No idea it was possible, but his smile grows as he pushes the door open. He's cute. Full cheeks lifted, both rows of teeth showing, his lips forming that boxy smile on his that you liked so much. With a sideways step, he's revealing what has had him bouncing since you pulled up to this place.

The first thing you notice is the lights. Dozen little fairy lights strung along the ledge of the building. There are candles too, lit and scattered around the floor and the edge. Flower petals scattered around, adding pops of color to the warm glow. A neatly set table in the middle of it all, besides it a cart holding a bucket of ice. You don't even have to look to know he's got your favorite drink cooling in there.

“You did this?” Right in front of your eyes, but you still can't believe it.

He's pulling you further on to the rooftop, stunned that you almost forget to move. Never has someone ever done anything like this for you. It was so simple and so nice. Private in a way you thought a dinner date should be, you couldn't believe it. “Did you really think I'd take you to some stuffy restaurant?”

You're sinking into the seat he pulls out for you, peaking down at the menu that's placed on top of your empty plate. “Tae's Five Star Restaurant,” You read the bold print out loud, gawking at the fact that he even printed out his own menu. Albeit, there was only one item to choose from, but still, this was amazing.

“I promised you five-star dining and I don't lie to you,” He's flicking the page open to point at the one item listed: 'Yn's Specialty Sampler'. “Entrées are small here too, but that's only because it's all your favorite foods,” He looks so proud of himself.

And you're in complete utter shock. “You made all of my favorite foods!?” Honestly, any more of this and you might burst into tears. When did do all this? How and why? What made him want to do this... for you?

The large plate he sets in front of you is exactly as he described it, a small taste of all the foods that you've ever told him were your favorite. From noodles to nuggets. He has his own personalized dish ready for himself, it's almost identical to yours considering you share a lot of the same favorites.

“I know you hate surprises, so I told Jungkook. I'm surprised he didn't spoil it,” You're thinking back to how adamant he was to keep you from saying anything to Taehyung about this. How he hammered in the fact that Tae should figure it out on his own, all while knowing that Taehyung had already figured it out on his own.

Props to Jungkook for keeping this one to himself. “I'm glad he didn't spoil it. I like this surprise,” You say with a smile that has the corners of his lips lifting, eyes squinting into his grin. It doesn't falter when he's leaning down to take the first bites of his food.

You're doing the same, surprised at how good it all actually is. Taehyung wasn't really the best of the best when it came to cooking, he had one really good dish and everything else was edible at best. So many times you've tight-lipped smiled through a meal he wanted you to try.

This was nothing like that. “This is wicked good!”

“Right? Jin helped me,” Something about him going to one of your friends for help putting this together warms your heart. A certain type of care that was tied into the simple action that has you swooning, eyes no doubt in the shape of hearts as you watch him from across the table.

He's focused on mixing his noodles around, brows furrowed and nose scrunched to make this real cute look of concentration. He's pushing a large bite into his mouth, lips poked out in a tiny pout as he chews.

Tongue poking out to lick his lips before he's reaching for his glass to gulp down some water. And you're staring at him the entire time like he's hung the stars. You realize after a moment, shifting in your seat and turning the focus on your own plate again.

“What should we talk about?” Silent moments never really happened between the two of you, not even the comfortable time. Both of you always had something to say and there was always a rebuttal follow after.

Maybe it was just you, but sitting across from him in this romantic setting, full knowledge that you were on a date... like a potential boyfriend date, had stolen all the conversation topics straight from your brain. It had been different when you were in the car, it was light and friendly, platonic. But sitting across from him, being forced to take him in as a man made it feel awkward(?) for some reason.

He's shrugging his shoulders, lifting a napkin to wipe at his lips while he leans back in his chair. “Why don't you tell me something new about you?”

“There's nothing new,” Soft laughter breaking through your words. “You know everything about me,”

Taehyung is sitting up in his chair, elbows resting on the table and chin finding his palms. “Tell me twice then,” He knew there were quite a few things missing in his mind when it came to knowing you. Of course, he knew the obvious things, your favorite foods, favorite movie, embarrassing middle stories, but he was quickly finding out there was a lot that he overlooked.

He wanted to know that.

It was oddly endearing to hear. Seeing how interested he looked, ready to hang on to every word of yours, even if he's heard it already. So you're quickly searching your brain for something to tell him, something that he may have been oblivious to.

Face lighting up when you're thinking of something. He had been with Ailee at the time, in the early stages of their relationships when she was able to convince him to 'back off' with spending time with you. That entire week was filled with so much recklessness one would not believe.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I got banned from a Cinnabon?”

FEBRUARY 6TH, 2021 | 19:18

Okay. So there was a lot Taehyung didn't know about you. The tiny bit of exhibitionism laced in all of your stories was something he was quickly picking up on. Actions screaming 'look at me' in such an obvious, he couldn't believe that he didn't notice until now.

He shares a lot of things about himself too. The shit he and the guys get into when you're not around to be the voice of reason (the job usually falls on Joon, but he's nothing with a few drinks and Jin on his arm). Drag racing to the edge of a cliff would be where you'd draw the line.

The look of pure horror on your face as he recounted the events is funny to him.

Dozens of stories follow all the way through your meal and moments after. It's comfortable. But the obvious drag of the toe over his shin keeps things from slipping too far into the friendly side. You play with the idea of going higher, wondering how his reaction would change the higher you go. But, you keep it in your head.

Barely halfway through the date, you couldn't just be jumping his bones because he impressed you with dinner.

“So what's the romantic walk in the park?” You ask when you're riding back down in the old elevator. Tae's got an arm slung over your shoulders again, using the rattle of the machine as an excuse to hold you close.

With the surprise turnaround of dinner, you're excited to see what else he's put together. Almost feeling bad that you had complained about tonight before it even happened. So sure that it was going to be something to roll your eyes at, but you were thoroughly enjoying yourself.

Which was inevitable whenever you were with Taehyung.

“You'll see,” He says in a sing-song tone, taking your hand and leading you out of the building. Fingers wrapping around yours the entire walk to his car where he's pulling the door open for you and guiding you inside.

He's moving to the backseat once you're door is shut, rummaging around on the floor before he's pushing the door closed. Sliding in beside you with a pair of your black platform sneakers in hand, extending them out to with a simple nod of his head. “Put these on,”

You're in shock because these are the same shoes you saw Jungkook take out of your room this morning. Ignoring you when you asked where he was going with them. And now you can't help but wonder just how many of your friends he recruited to make this date happen. It was sweet.

“Did Jungkook give these to you?” Speaking while undoing the tie on your boot, tugging it from your foot with ease.

Taehyung nods, hands moving to push the car into gear. “I asked to grab them after he said I should be sure walking around was comfy since you get grumpy so easily.” It's pretty obvious that Jungkook delivered your message about not wanting to walk around a park in heels in the most subtle way he knew how.

“I do not get grumpy easily,” You're saying with a roll of your eyes, bent forward to tie the laces on your sneakers that you miss the look on his face. But you hear the unconvinced scoff he lets out. “You threaten to beat one of us up at least three times a day,” He's pointing out with a chuckle.

You ignore his fact, extending your leg out in front of you to admire the shoes on your feet, twisting your ankle to give yourself the full view. “Well, you guys always deserve it.” Dropping your leg back down, you turn to face him. Arms crossed on the middle console, face leaned toward his. “So when you say romantic walk do you mean like a string quartet following our every step? Or have you arranged for dozens of shooting stars to appear at the end of our trail?”

Tae's letting out a laugh, hand lifting so he can use his finger to push your face away from his. “Yeah, cause I control the stars,” Forcing his attention to stay on the road to keep the urge of wanting to kiss you at bay. Something that he has been doing for the majority of this date. Date Yn was cute in a whole different light.

Alluring beyond imagination. He nearly lost it when he first felt the tap of your foot against his leg. Not wanting to make a huge deal out of it, so he sat there silently wishing you'd push it up higher. Putting way more focus than necessary on the words that were coming from your mouth.

And now you were leaning in close to him, intoxicating him with your sweet scent and soft voice. Trying to guess what awaits the two of you, each idea more outrageous than the last. You're moving closer with each one until your nose is pressed against his cheek. Car pulled to a stop at a red light, so your lips are puckering brushing against his skin.

“Tell me?” He's shaking his head, lips tucked into his mouth. The lips of your fingers bouncing from his wrist to his bicep, poking at it gently. “Please?” He thinks the pout on your lips is adorable and insistent way you press your lips to his cheek has his brain short-circuiting.

Not used to you like this. But not complaining in the slightest bit. He liked Date Yn. Although, he couldn't help but wonder if this was you on a date or you on a date with him. He doesn't think too hard on it, letting himself enjoy the feeling of your lip on his skin. Breath hitching when your mouth is reaching his neck.

You notice the sigh he lets out, just as your teeth are scraping against his skin. Tongue smoothing over it slowly and it has his fingers tightening on the steering wheel. You're pulling back with a laugh, head tilting up to look at him. Jaw set and eyes glued to the road in front of him.

“Please?” He's a bit ashamed of how his pants tighten at the sound of the begging in your tone. Ignores it as he ignores you, hiding the smile that pushes on his features as he's pulling into a parking spot. “You can relax, we're here.” He says it but doesn't mean it.

Seriously considering taking a few laps around the block if it meant having you kissing up on him like that. Your attention is shifting from him to where he's brought you. Which looks more like a normal park than anything. Before you can pester him for more answers, he's slipping out of the car, going around to open up the door for you.

Within the park is a bridge, couples scattered along it. Walking and holdings hands, sitting close and leaning over the trailing to look at the water. Street lamps creating a pretty glow underneath the night sky. The warmth of Taehyung's arm circling around your waist spreads throughout your body.

Easily being tucked into his side. “There's no crazy surprise, just thought you'd want to look at the water for a bit,” He's walking the both of you to the railing, arm dropping from your body to hold on. Peaking over the edge, you spot a few turtles paddling through the water.

“You know they scream when they fuck?” He's pointing ahead of you at the turtles in the water. “It's like...” He's imitating the loud screechy squeal they let out, loudly. Stealing the attention of some couples close enough to hear.

Hand punching against his chest as you shush him, the sound of your laughter pulling a soft giggle from your lips. “People are gonna think I'm out with a weirdo,” His smile is the prettiest thing you've ever seen.

His arm drops onto your shoulder to tug you toward him. “You are out with a weirdo,” He didn't even say anything particularly suggestive, but the tone he uses and the look in his eye has a chill running down your spine. Tae takes his time looking you over now that you're much closer to him, eyes scanning over your features.

“Did I already tell you how good you looked?” Arm looped around his and head tilted up so you're getting a better look at his face. “You might've mentioned it,”

Soft lips curling into a smile, he's reaching up toward your face, pinching your nose gently. “Good, then I only need to tell you that you're my best friend,” You're interrupting with a large smile. “I already knew that too,” He's used to the smart-ass look on your face, never knew how attractive he found it until now.

“And... there's more,” His arm is moving from your shoulders, fingers lacing around yours. “You're my best friend and I like you a lot. You know that too, but I meant it when I said I'd make it easy for you to see that. You're special to me and I'm not going to mess this up,” He's got this look on his face that you've never seen before.

Riddled with seriousness, not an ounce of playfulness hidden in his features. He was being genuine. And you could feel it, in some unexplainable way you knew he was telling you the truth. Not sure if it was the pretty dinner he had set up for you or being under the night sky and stars, but you could feel your guard melting away.

You don't bother to talk yourself out of it as you're leaning up on your toes, nose nudging his as your arms wrap around his neck, easily pulling him down to press a kiss to his lips.

FEBRUARY 6TH, 2021 | 20:59

You're walking back to his car hand-in-hand. Back pressed on the door while his hand rests above your head. Face inches from yours and it takes a lot of willpower not to lean up and kiss him. His hand glides up the side of your body until he's able to grasp your hip, pushing your hips back slightly.

“Should I take you home or do you want to spend more time with me?” The two of you had spent a gross amount of time walking along the bridge. Switching from holding hands, to linking arms, to being attached to each other's sides. Kissing breaks against the railing mixed in.

Now he's offering to drive you home, but you've had such a great time with him tonight that's the last thing you want to do. “I don't want to go home yet,” Mouth forming into a slight pout, your hands lifting to link wrists behind his neck.

His lips are sticky with your gloss, forming a slight smirk as he steps in closer to you. “So then that means....?” His brows lift expectantly, waiting for you to fill in the blank. “I want to spend more time with you,”

Pretty dark eyes shine at your words, even though he knew they were coming. Hand dropping back to curl around the door handle, he's carefully pulling the door open, moving you to the side. “I was hoping you'd say that,” He's ushering you back into the car before moving to the duck in on his side.

It's another fifteen-minute ride back to the abandoned building from earlier. You're way less sketched out this time around, following him in without a bit of hesitance. Cuddling close to him as the elevator rattles up and leading him up the stairs to the roof.

The lights are still up, sparkling prettily against the cloudy sky. Candles blown out, but the flower petals are still scattered around. The table is gone and in its place is an assortment of blankets laid out on the floor in front of it a projector propped on a few boxes. “Tae. There's no way you came up here and did this without me knowing,”

He's grinning from ear to ear, obviously proud of himself as he pulls you further out. “I had Hobi come and do it. He helped set up for dinner too,” There's a laptop set up beside the projector which he's walking to, fingers typing against the keyboard before the title screen of Howl's Moving Castle is appearing.

Standing straight, he's calling you over with a wave of his hand. And you're letting out a sound that would be embarrassing in front of anyone else, excitement building throughout your body as you bounce over to him. Both of you getting comfortable on the sheets as the movie starts.

You last a good twenty minutes.

His arm had been set behind you, your body cuddled into his side but you're deciding that's not enough. That you want to be closer. It starts with your arm wrapped around his torso, but a few minutes pass and you're not satisfied. So you're moving to sit between his legs, which is better.

Much better. Long legs caging you in and arms wrapped around your waist. You can feel the hammer of his heart against your back. He's trying hard to focus on the movie to not think about the way your ass is smushed against his dick and one wrong... or right move would have him standing at attention.

Just as he's finished his silent prayer that you don't move again, oblivious to your true intentions, you're shifting. Twisting in his arms until you're facing each other, legs spread and outstretched over his thighs. His eyes drop, catching a glimpse of your cotton panties, visible because of how careless you're being in your skirt.

“I've seen this movie a million times,” Hands slipping underneath his jacket to travel from his chest to his neck. He's kicking it into gear the moment he's seeing the look in your eyes, hands dropping to rest low on your hips. “Me too,” He's agreeing, visibly having a conversation in his head before he's letting his hands drop.

Watching your face as he squeezes, the flutter of your eyes, and the drop of your jaw does something to him. Effectively setting his body on fire and it only gets worse when you're leaning down to suck his lower lip into your mouth. “Wanna make out?” You're asking, but not really, tongue already toying with his lip.

“Yeah,” He breathes, just to hear the pretty moan you let out. Attaching your mouth to his, tilting his head back as you shift onto your knees. It's extremely hot how in control you are, never would've expected it coming from you – but he was learning to expect surprises when it comes to you.

You've got a fistful of his hair, swallowing every grunt he lets out into the sloppy kiss. Free hand reaching back to take hold of his, dragging it all the way up to your chest. Hand over his, you're closing his palm around your boob. His hand is much larger than yours, it's an obvious difference.

He's boldly swiping his thumb where he suspects your nipple to be, grinning against your mouth when he's sure he's found it through your shirt. His other hand moves quickly from your ass, secured around your waist as he easily whips your body around. Loud laughs leaving your lips as Tae swiftly flips you onto your back, positioning himself between your legs.

Again.

Large hands gripping the edge of your shirt, hurriedly untucking it from your skirt. His mouth is quickly finding your ear, teeth nibbling at the skin. You're not sure if you should concentrate on that or his hands slipping underneath your shirt. Mind made up when he's wiggling his underneath your bra, tweaking the nipple he had just teased.

“You looked so pretty, tonight. Who'd you get all dressed up for?” The answer to his question so obvious that it could be rhetorical. But, you know better. The breathy deep tone of his voice pressed right against his ear, being one indicator.

Tae pulls a moan from you by sinking his teeth into the little juncture between your jaw and neck. Nipple pinched between his middle and index finger and your eyes are fluttering, legs spreading. “You, Tae.” Sighing, your head lulls back as his tongue swipes against your skin. Hand moving to continue his assault on the other side.

“Just me,” He's mumbling, so you wouldn't have heard him if he wasn't so close. His head lifts to get a better look at your face, watching the way you bite back your moans as his fingers toy with you. “My tiny,” Leaning down, his nose bumps against yours, just before he's pressing a soft kiss to your lips. “I want to hear you,”

His hand glides down your stomach, fingers meeting the piece of jewelry attached to your navel. It's just a thought, a passing one that he laughs at the moment it's popping into his head. But he checks anyway, shocked to see he was right.

Years and years ago, when you had just turned sixteen – he had gone with you to get your belly pierced. Joked about you getting a 'T' piercing since he was the one that drove you and paid for it. He bought it, as a joke of course. Asked you why you never wore it, still as a joke. But here you were six years later, wearing it. And just from the instant way his body reacts, he knows it was never a joke.

“God, you're fucking perfect.” Head lifting so he can see your face when he says it. The blush that takes over your features, that wasn't there when he had his hand up your shirt. Only appearing when he complimented you.

That's cute.

With a hand buried in his messy hair, you're pulling him down toward you, mouth capturing his again. Tongue pushing in his mouth just as he's slotting his hand between your legs, feeling out the wetness. “Shit, you're fucking soaked.” His words come out more desperate and needy than he intended, plagued by thoughts of how it would feel to be inside you.

“Bet I'd slide right in,” The tip of his finger traces over your entrance as he speaks, poking at the fabric just enough to have you thinking he'd finger you that way. “Think you'd be able to take all of me?” He's pushing his hips forward, hard cock pressed against your thigh.

Hips slowly rolling just so you can feel the entirety of him. “Fuck, please. Tae,” You gasp, lower back arching off of the blankets. “Shh, baby. I got you,” Easily nudging your panties to the side, the first thing he does is find your clit. Circling around it with the tips of your fingers as you squirm, screeched moans filling the air.

Neither of you hears the first crack of thunder. Barely notice the first few droplets that hit your bodies. He's more focused on slipping a long finger past your walls, to the knuckle. “Oh, fuck!” Body moving like a jolt as he curls his finger inside of you. Only pulling back to slip another one in along with the first.

He's picking up the pace, pumping his fingers in and out of you while quickly circling your clit with his thumb. The droplets of rain that have soaked his hair, rolling down his face is what has you realizing that it's raining. The thought knocked out of your head when he's pushing a third finger in, the slight pain of the stretch mixing with the pleasure beautifully.

No one's ever looked hotter, you're sure of it. Hooded eyes zeroed in on the movement of his fingers, teeth cutting into his lower lip. Hair damp and sticking to his forehead, the steady flex of the muscles in his chest is visible through his soaked shirt. A soft groan leaves his lips when he feels your walls squeezing around his fingers.

Dropping back down to pull your lips into another desperate kiss, teeth, and tongue clashing as the strokes of his fingers grow bolder. Shoving you toward the orgasm you're chasing. Your hips lift to grind into his hand, fingers curled around his ears to hold his head steady against yours. He's swallowing every gasp and whimper that leaves your mouth, grinning because he knows he's the cause of them.

“You wanna cum, baby? All over my fingers.. do you want me to make you cum?” It's almost like he's taunting you, tips of his fingers teasing that rough patch of skin deep inside of you and ripping a strained cry from your throat. “Please!” He's pressing down harder on your clit, thumb matching the pace of his fingers.

So close you can almost taste it, but it's quickly melting away with the slow of his fingers. Hands shooting to wrap around his wrist, keeping him from pulling all the way out. “Please, what?” He prompts with this maniacal look and you feel like your head is about to explode.

“Please, please make me cum, Tae. Please, I need it... wanna cum all over your fingers,” You hear him curse under his breath before he's pressing his mouth to yours again. It only takes a few strokes of his fingers, thumb pressed against your clit to make you fall apart.

Mind turning to mush, incoherent sentences flying from your lips as your hips grind into his hand. Riding out your orgasm and his fingers don't stop, in fact, he's pushing deeper inside of you, teasing your g-spot.

The dull pressure in your stomach intensifies, spreading throughout your limbs. It's not until his thumb is quickly moving around your clit do you realize what he's trying to do. Eyes going wide as the second wave rips through you, leaving your body in a stream that's forcing his fingers from inside of you.

He almost came at the sound of your scream, the breathless giggle that follows, a sound that he's not even sure you're aware you let out. His fingers are covered with your arousal, so of course, he's pushing them into his mouth to suck the taste off. You watch through hood eyes, the hollow of his cheeks as he sucks, pink tongue slipping out to leak between them.

You're reaching for him with weak arms, mouth open to silently ask for a taste. You half expect him to kiss you, but he's full of surprises tonight. His jaw moves and lips pucker, a glob of spit slipping out and landing on your tongue. Finger tapping at your jaw and you're quick to clamp your mouth shut, swallowing with your eyes on him.

Making a show of opening your mouth to flaunt its emptiness. He's laughing, even more, convinced of your perfection. Lips nearing to pull you in for another kiss, only to be interrupted by the quick shove against his chest, head bowing as you sneeze.

Once. Twice. Three times. He had noticed the rain before, but only now is he putting together how soaked you were... not in the good way. The tip of your nose red from the cold, hair that you spent an hour straightening falling in wet waves.

“Aw, baby.” He coos, reaching to pushing a few damp pieces of hair out of your face. “Let's get you out of the rain.”

FEBRUARY 6TH, 2021 | 22:37

“You sure you don't want to come in? You can change and spend the night,” Taehyung denies with a shake of his head as his car skids to a stop in front of your house. He'd want to fuck you if he was coming up... spending the night. Safe to say you want the same with the way you haven't let go of his thigh since he's started driving.

Not a complaint.

Fucking you was something that he wanted to do. Thought about it more times than he'd like to admit. But he had a small listen of things he wanted to do first. Tonight wasn't planned but could be excused because it was about you.

He had more things set in his mind to do to prove that he was boyfriend material. To you and to himself. He wanted to get this right. Needed to because it was you. You deserved the best, more than that. You deserved perfection. Because that's what you were.

“I'll call you tomorrow morning,” He promises.

Your face beams, not even bothering to mask your excitement. “Okay,” It's cute how giddy you are at the promise of a phone call.

Tae shoves the car in park so he can lean back to reach into the backseat. Rummaging through his gym bag, presenting a towel after a few minutes. Slightly used, but dry enough to shield you from the rain. He's handing it off to you, just before you're pulling the door open.

“Use that,” It smells like him. It surrounds you as you drape it over your shoulders, head tilting to look up at him.

He's close, large hand at the top of your head and thumb stroking soothingly against your scalp. “Bye,” He mumbles, but doesn't give you any space to move. And you're just as bad because you repeat his words, but don't make any moves either.

Just sat there staring at each other with these lovesick doe eyes, not saying anything. And it's not weird, or awkward. It's comfortable. Comforting. You don't want to move.

“Wanna go on another date?” Taehyung is the one to break the silence, a question that has your stomach filling with butterflies. Despite the fact, you've just ended a date with him. Haven't even left the car. “Can we go tomorrow?” It's eager and needy, but you don't care.

Care even less when he's nodding. “Yeah, okay. Bye.” He still doesn't move and neither do you. Correction, you do move, but only to get closer to him. Your goodbye dying on his lips as you pull him in for another kiss.

— you’ve always been cute, soft, tiny in taehyung’s eyes. but that’s changing one night when you’re accidentally sending him a naughty picture. forcing him to realize, maybe his best friend is kinda… hot?

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kythed · 4 years

Text

circus mirrors & stereo hearts

sugawara koushi x reader

this one goes out to my new friend, @twat-101 :) it’s a bit long, but I hope you still like it ! sending lotsa love your way <3

synopsis: (y/n) is struggling with her mental health so her best friend suga-san invites her over to study. general chaos and dumbassery ensues.

warnings: some swearing, mentions of mental health struggles, suga’s tone deaf singing.

word count: 4,226

Koushi always kept his windows open. Always.

In the winter, this transformed his room into a tiny Antarctica, replete with stray snowflakes, but in the summer, it meant cool tradewinds cutting through the typically stifling heat, creating a little pocket of the ideal climate. You often found yourself there in these warmer months, perched on the corner of his bed, contently listening to him blithely gossip about his teammates or playing a giggly game of Connect Four rife with not so subtle cheating.

Today, a sunny August Saturday, was no different. Koushi sat cross legged on the carpet. Sprawled out across his pale blue comforter, which smelled of fresh linen and that familiar Old Spice he’d been wearing since the eighth grade, you listened to him recite a chapter from your history book, something about post World War II foreign policy. Struggling to remain attentive, however, you found yourself spiraling into those cheerless resignations of hopelessness that had been far too frequent for you lately.

“--which resulted in Europe’s economic recovery chiefly in terms of raw materials, food, and fuel. The Soviet Union soon attempted to replicate a similar plan but ultimately-- hey, (Y/N)?”

You blinked hard and sunk back into reality, turning onto your cheek to look Koushi in his big brown eyes full of rather matronly concern. “Hmm?”

“Do you know what we’re learning about right now?” he asked, sounding both amused and disapproving. A strand of grey fell in front of his face and he quickly blew it away, smiling slightly. “Because it seems like you’ve been zoning out for the last ten or so minutes. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, but Mr. Shishido specifically said this chapter was going to be on the test.”

“Uh… something about muzzer Roosia?” you joked with an exaggerated accent.

Koushi rolled his eyes and flicked your forehead. You yelped and glared at him reproachfully. “We were talking about the Marshall Plan. The United States’ recovery aid program for Western Europe after wartime devastation.”

“Right, right, I knew that,” you protested as Koushi tugged on your forearms and you toppled off the bed, nearly landing right on top of him. With a soft laugh, he extracted his limbs from yours and plopped his head into your lap like he used to when you were kids, resting beneath the boughs of that little oak tree in his backyard, listening to a choir of cicadas croon under a late afternoon sun. The ghost of a grin flitted over your face as you looked back on those halcyon days of your childhood. Usually Koushi’s mom would come out onto the porch with a couple of already-melting lemon popsicles in hand, and the two of you would scramble out of each other’s embrace and tear towards her, breathlessly racing for a priceless reward of sweet smiles and sticky hands.

What you wouldn’t give to go back to that time of gleeful oblivion, before your world became characterized by that all too persistent self-consciousness and excruciating anxiety. What you wouldn’t give to once again feel worthy of Koushi’s innocent adoration…

“--(Y/N)!”

For the second time today, you shook yourself awake. Koushi gazed up at you, brows furrowed. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“I was asking if you needed to take a little study break. Obviously, you do. I swear, your attention span gets shorter every day.” He pointed somewhere behind you. “Mind grabbing my phone? It’s on the bed.”

You leaned over as far as you could without disturbing Koushi’s position, head still nestled in your lap, and swept your hand over the covers before it bumped into his phone, which you promptly snatched and dropped onto his stomach. He gave a soft “oomph” at the impact before pulling up his Spotify and selecting a playlist, the cover of which was a selfie of the two of you at last year’s spring carnival. A blurred sakura tree provided the perfect backdrop for your smiling faces pressed cheek-to-cheek to fit in the frame. Sugar dusted the corners of Koushi’s mouth, the last trace of the powdered donut you’d shared right before.

“What’s that? I don’t think I’ve listened to that one before.” You reached for the phone, but Koushi held it out just out of reach as music began to play, batting your hand away. “I look awful in that picture; you could’ve chosen something a little more flattering.”

“Oh, shush. You looked pretty that day, wearing that blue sundress with the little flowers on the hem… blue really suits you, you know.” Koushi smiled fondly at his screen, and you blushed despite yourself. “It’s a compilation of all our songs. I listened to this a lot last summer when you were in France with your family for a month. Whenever I missed you. You were off climbing the Eiffel Tower or making croissants and I was lounging around here, bored out of my mind and wishing you were home so we could be bored together.”

“You sappy bastard,” you said, though you really felt quite touched. “I didn’t even realize we had a song.”

“Not just a song,” he corrected. “Songs. Plural. Most of the songs we’ve ever listened to together, I reckon. Anything that reminds me of you, I put on here.”

“Why in the world would you do that?” you asked, aghast at his effort.

Koushi laughed at your surprise. “You’re my best friend, (Y/N). And believe or not, you mean a lot to me. I just like remembering the stuff we’ve done together.”

You nodded slowly, letting your fingers rest on his forehead and gently play with his grey locks. His eyes closed as you settled into a brief, comfortable almost-silence, tainted only by the soft, muffled melody trickling from tiny phone speakers. You cocked your head. “What song is this?”

“You don’t remember?” Koushi asked, sounding almost offended. He turned the volume up a few notches and held the phone closer to your ear.

Let's Marvin Gaye and get it on

You got the healing that I want

Just like they say it in the song

Until the dawn, let's Marvin Gaye and get it on

“I don’t know if--” you cut off as it dawned on you. “Wait… no way. This isn’t…?”

“It is.” Koushi laughed as your face flushed a vivid crimson. “Uchimura’s party.”

Though embarrassed, you grinned, remembering that night. “The song that played at her twelfth birthday while we were in the closet during seven minutes in heaven.”

“We were way too young for that dumb game,” Koushi said with a smile, shaking his head. “God, I was so nervous. That was my first kiss, you know.”

“It was mine too,” you admitted. You remembered sitting on the carpeted floor of Uchimura’s rather cramped closet, knees touching, just barely able to see the outline of Koushi’s face illuminated by the smallest sliver of light shining through a crack in the door. He’d leaned forward, taking your hand in his own small clammy one. “It was really just a peck, though. It might not have counted.”

“It counted,” said Koushi firmly. “Whenever I get asked about my first kiss, I say it was ours. I say it was the best one I’ve ever had, too.”

You shook your head with a soft laugh. “Now, I know that’s a lie. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

“Neither did I,” agreed Koushi. He caught your eye, crinkling his nose cutely. “That’s what made it so sweet. It was innocent. I tasted your bubblegum chapstick on my lips afterwards.”

“Bubblegum chapstick, huh?” You rolled your eyes and poked him softly in the ribs. “I couldn’t look you straight in the eyes for like three weeks after that.”

“I remember. You kept running away whenever I tried to talk to you.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not sure we would’ve even stayed friends if Ms. Miyato hadn’t partnered us up for the volcano project at the end of that month.” You recalled those afternoons spent in Koushi’s kitchen, newspapers covering every visible surface and a huge, paper-mache volcano resting on the dining table, splattered with orange and yellow paint and smelling strongly of Elmer’s glue and vinegar. Oftentimes, work sessions would dissolve into paint fights, staining your school uniforms with small, colorful hand prints.

“Nah,” said Koushi confidently. “I wouldn’t have let you go that easily.”

“Maybe you should’ve,” you said under your breath.

Koushi stared at you for a second, sighing. Then he reached up to grasp your hand, interlocking his fingers with yours and softly stroking his thumb across your palm. “You know, it was Uchimura’s eighteenth last weekend. You didn’t come.”

“Yeah. I had to study.” That was a lie. You just hadn’t thought anyone really wanted you there. Uchimura had been a friend of yours for years, but she had plenty of other friends to celebrate with. Probably didn’t even notice you weren’t there…

“She asked me where you were,” Koushi continued. “I said I didn’t know because you didn’t answer my texts that night.”

“Sorry,” you said quietly, avoiding eye contact. “Studying.”

“On a Friday night?” You didn’t answer, and Koushi squeezed your hand. “I had to choose Daichi for my charades partner… do you have any idea how shit he is at charades? He flopped on the ground and started convulsing, so I guessed ‘epilepsy.’ Guess what the word really was.”

“What?”

“Orgasm. The word was orgasm. You’d think he could just execute a simple pelvic thrust and make a face, but no, he had to go ahead and act like my great uncle Kaito when he had that heart attack at his ninety-fifth birthday last year.”

You cracked a small smile, imagining Daichi violently wiggling on the floor like a fish out of water. “Sounds like I missed out, then.”

“You really did,” said Koushi, eyes twinkling. He suddenly got solemn. “I missed you. Would’ve been a million times more fun with you there.”

“I doubt it.” You fiddled with the edge of your shirt, smile fading. “I can be a real killjoy sometimes.”

“Not to me,” said Koushi. “Whenever you walk into the room, suddenly that’s the only room I wanna be in.”

Your breath caught in your throat and you swallowed thickly. “Koushi… why are you telling me this?”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said simply. He took your hand again, the one that had been playing with his hair, and held it to his chest. You felt his heart beat erratically beneath your palm. “You’ve been avoiding all our friends in general.”

“That’s not true,” you protested, though your heart sank. He had noticed. You wished you didn’t have to drag him into all your problems. “I’ve just been busy.”

“Busy with what, (Y/N)? Homework? Our physics teacher came and talked to me at my locker after school, asking if you’ve been struggling with any personal issues, because apparently you haven’t been turning in your assignments.” Koushi glanced up at you. “It seems like you’ve just been locked away in your room whenever you’re not in class. Not doing work, not going out. Remember a couple weeks ago, when I asked if you wanted to go see that movie with me at the drive-in? You said you had a family dinner in town, but later I passed by on my bike and your bedroom light was on. And today, it took four separate phone calls before you finally picked up and I managed to invite you over… I’ve been worried.”

“Maybe I’m just changing,” you protested weakly. “That’s a thing that happens. People change.”

“I agree, you have been changing. Just not for the better.” Koushi squeezed your hand again, his skin warm on your own. “I haven’t seen you smile, really smile, for ages. You’re always faking these days. What’s going on?”

“I…” you trailed off, trying to think of some excuse. The last thing you wanted was for Koushi to see what was really going on inside your head.

“The truth, (Y/N).”

You relented, shoulders sagging. “Just been tired, I guess.”

“Tired of what?”

“Tired of…” Your eyes grew moist despite your best efforts and you fought to keep from choking on the sob rising up your throat.

“Tired of…?” he pressed on, eyebrow raised.

Your next words tumbled out in a rush. “Just tired of being me, okay? It’s like… it’s just like, whenever I look in the mirror… I don’t like what I see. I don’t like myself, so I don’t want to be me anymore. I’m so tired of it. And I feel like everyone else is, too. Everyone is tired of my shit, so I thought I’d just do you all a favor and disappear.”

Your words stunned Koushi into silence. He remained resting in your lap for a few long seconds before he felt something hot and wet roll down his cheek. A tear. But not his own.

He looked up just in time for another one of your tears to land on his face, right underneath his eye. Quickly, he sat up and tenderly cupped your face in his hands, gently brushing the tears away with his thumbs. “Oh, (Y/N)... c’mere. That’s such bullshit.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you hiccupped as he pulled you into his lap by your waist-- facing him-- and gingerly tucked your head into the crook of his neck. “I’m sorry you have to see me like this. It’s gross, I know.”

“It’s not gross,” said Koushi, fiercely hugging you to his chest. “It’s much better than watching you try to pretend like you’re fine. I don’t care if your snot gets on my shirt-- that’s a small price to pay. So long as I can be there for you right now.”

You cried harder, immense guilt racking your body at his inexplicable kindness. “I’ve been treating you terribly these past few months, but you’re still so good to me. Goddamnit, Koushi. I don’t deserve you.”

Koushi pulled you back by the shoulders, narrowed eyes searching your face, though tears continued to stream down your cheeks. “(Y/N). You don’t have to earn my love.”

“I-- love?” you asked, eyes wide. You snatched a tissue from Koushi’s bedside table and blew your nose loudly.

“Yeah,” he said firmly, without missing a beat. “I said it. I love you. And don’t ask if I mean in a friend way or a girlfriend way, because the answer is neither. I love you like you’re the person I wanna spend the rest of my life with. I don’t care if that means as, like, your husband or just as your best friend. Whatever I can get, I’m happy with, because I love you like you’re a part of me. Unconditionally. I thought you knew that.”

“Please, don’t say that,” you sobbed, covering your face with your hands. “I’m not good enough for you. I’m really not.”

Koushi pulled your hands away so he could look you in the eye. “What don't you understand about the term ‘unconditional love’? It’s unconditional. There is literally nothing you nor anyone else can say or do to change that. Unconditional love is not a feeling, it’s a choice, and I’ve made that choice. I’ve had nearly two decades to think about it, so now I’m telling you I will love you no matter what. I always have, alright? This isn’t exactly how I wanted to say it, but it’s true.”

You stared at him, disbelieving. You hadn’t known he’d felt this way. Of course, you two had been partners-in-crime your entire lives, and you couldn’t count the number of times he’d materialized at your side as soon as you were in the slightest bit of trouble. Whenever you were a dollar short at the canteen, he’d stuff a five in your hand and push you towards the front of the line. That time you went camping with his family and you forgot your sleeping bag, he’d given you his and spent the night shivering. He always carried an extra pen for you because yours often inexplicably ran out of ink in the middle of a test. He’d been there for every crush, boyfriend, and breakup, cheering you on and drying your tears when the time came. He’d been there when your pet dog died and you planned a funeral in your backyard, complete with a little cardboard headstone, holding an umbrella above your head when it began to rain but you weren’t done mourning. He’d just always been there when you needed him.

You’d tried to be there for him, too, because, as you had begun to realize, his pain was your pain and vice versa. That time when you were six and he’d lost his favorite stuffed animal (a giraffe) it had felt like you’d lost yours too. That day in junior high when he fell out of the oak tree trying to retrieve a stray frisbee and broke his arm, you swore you felt the same pain in yours. Last year when he got dumped outside the gym on Valentine’s Day and you found him sitting in a corner, trying to hide the fact he’d obviously been crying-- you’d stayed late to crack stupid jokes and eat the chocolate he meant to give to his girlfriend, because he deserved a girl who would eat the damn chocolate. Not stomp on his heart and leave it to bleed. I love you like you’re a part of me. You understood.

“It’s okay to not be okay sometimes, but it’s not okay to bundle it all up and bury it deep inside when you have someone right next to you wanting to help you bear that burden.” Koushi’s voice shook just slightly. “It just… it hurts to see you like this, okay? (Y/N), if you love me back, then let me help you. Let me be there for you. Please.”

You were silent for a moment, staring into his pleading eyes. Those beautiful brown eyes.

Then you took a deep breath and started laughing through the tears. You were sure you looked insane, puffy eyes, red nose, and mascara running down your cheeks, but it didn’t matter. “I do. I love you, too. I love you. I didn’t know I loved you before, but now I do, because if you were torn away from me that heartbreak would probably kill me. No, it would definitely kill me. And it would hurt like a motherfucker while it did.”

Koushi let out the breath he’d been holding then, after a brief pause, began to laugh with you as you laced your arms around the back of your neck. “Oh, yeah? Well, losing you would probably hurt like a father-fucker to me.”

“Is that worse than a motherfucker?” you asked, giggling at the ridiculousness of it all. Here you were, bawling on the floor of your best friend’s room while you confessed your love to one another and cussed each other out at the same time.

“For sure. It’s a million times worse than a motherfucker. It’s like, if something hurting like a motherfucker is the equivalent of getting shot by a Nerf gun, something hurting like a fatherfucker probably feels like getting run over by a tank.” Koushi intertwined his fingers with yours yet again and smiled.

“You’re a dumbass,” you said, but you laughed anyways as Koushi looked proud of himself.

“I know,” he said softly, affectionately. “But I’m your dumbass.”

You sighed and shook your head. “I’d love you to be. But you could still do so much better than me--”

“Will you stop saying that, already?” Koushi took your face in his hand, stroking his thumb right beneath your eye. “You’re the most radiant person I’ve ever met. Notice how I didn’t say ‘beautiful’ because the word beautiful doesn’t even begin to cover it. Although you are that, too.”

“Oh, goodness. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again-- you’re so sappy.”

Koushi rolled his eyes with a smile. “Yeah, I am. You like it though.”

“You caught me,” you said as he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead. You leaned into it, savoring the warmth of his lips on your skin. “I do.”

“But really, (Y/N),” he said seriously. “It astounds me that you don’t realize that.”

“Don’t realize what?”

“That you’re cool! You’re so cool and fun and awesome. And a zillion other adjectives I could sit here and list out for hours. You’re the only person who can make me laugh when I cry, and you make the best hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted, and you’re a literal god at Mario Kart, and you’ve got the prettiest eyes I’ve ever had the privilege to look into.” You flushed as Koushi thought for a moment, chewing on his lip before his eyes widened. “It’s kinda like a circus mirror, I think.”

“What?” You furrowed your brow.

“The way you see yourself is like someone looking into one of those circus mirrors. It makes you look too tall, or really squished, or just bent out of shape in general. And if that was the only mirror you’d ever looked into, you’d probably think that ugly, distorted reflection is how you actually look in real life. You can’t see yourself for how amazing you really are-- but everyone else can.”

“Well, aren’t you just full of relevant analogies today?” you teased. A circus mirror. Now that was something new. You had to give Koushi credit for the comparison-- it actually did kind of make sense.

“What can I say?” he said, puffing out his chest. “I’m a poet.”

“So I guess that would make you my real mirror then?” you offered shyly. Koushi looked confused for a second. “If the way I see myself is supposedly ‘distorted,’ then you can reflect to me how I supposedly really am.”

“Oh, yes!” he said happily. “I’m the mirror. I like that. Quit talking like you don’t believe me, though. You’re incredible. A little thick-skulled sometimes, yes, but incredible nonetheless.”

“It’s going to be hard for me,” you said quietly, gently running a hand through his hair. “Really hard. I haven’t liked myself for a long time.”

“I know. I know. But someday, you’ll be able to understand what a beautiful human being you are. I’m sure of it. I need you to promise you won’t give up until that happens.”

He held out his pinky for a pinky swear, something you two did frequently as children. You smiled and laced your pinky with his. “Alright. I promise.”

“Good.” Koushi stood up, brushed the wrinkles from his pants, and offered you his hand. You took it and he pulled you up. “Listen. Do you remember this song?”

His little playlist had been playing this entire time. You hadn’t noticed. You strained to catch the lyrics. “Turn it up a little, I can’t quite hear.”

...a stereo

It beats for you, so listen close

Hear my thoughts in every note

“Koushi.” A slow smile spread across your face. “Tell me this isn’t Stereo Hearts.”

“Oh, this is Stereo Hearts alright!” he responded gleefully. He took your hand and spun you around like a ballroom dancer, catching you before you tripped over his bedside table. “You remember when we--”

“When we performed it at the junior high talent show and got booed off the stage?” You giggled, remembering that awful night that was somehow hilarious in retrospect. “I still have nightmares about that.”

Koushi continued to swing you around in some sort of clumsy dance, pulling you this way and that while you laughed wildly. “It’s ‘cause you were such a shit singer.”

You gasped in mock offense. “No way! You’re a much worse singer than I am. At least I can carry a tune.”

Koushi just rolled his eyes and grabbed a hairbrush from his shelf, using it like a microphone. He sat you down on the edge of the bed and began to serenade you in his terrible, tone-deaf manner.

Make me your radio

Turn me up when you feel low

This melody was meant for you

Just sing along to my stereo

“God, you really do suck at this,” you said, but he just smiled and kept singing. You had to admit, it was sweet. As silly as the memory associated with the song was, it remained a nostalgic favorite even now. You had to join in a few times, just for memory’s sake.

I only pray you never leave me behind

Because good music can be so hard to find

Koushi sat down next to you and wound one arm around your waist, leaning close.

I take your hand and pull it closer to mine

Thought love was dead, but now you're changing my mind

You turned and leaned in too, nearly touching noses.

“Hey,” he said in an almost whisper. “(Y/N) (L/N), I love you.”

“Hey,” you whispered back, gaze flitting down to his lips and back up again. “I love you, too, you sappy bastard.”

...so sing along to my stereo

“I know.” He closed the remaining inch of distance. Your hand tangled itself in his hair while his tugged your body a little closer.

The kiss was almost as good as the one in Uchimura’s closet all those years ago. Almost.

#haikyuu #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu x reader #anime #sugawara #sugawara koushi #sugawara x reader #sugawara koushi x reader

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oftenderweapons · 3 years

Text

Mold Me New (4) – Taehyung

A Small Town Swoons story

Pairing: Taehyung x reader (nicknamed Frog — for now)

Wordcount: 4.7k

Genre: ceramic artist!Taehyung, divorced!reader, Strangers to Lovers, Fluff, Angst, Slice of Life

Rating: 18+ (for future smut and explicit thoughts)

Hello to my readers!!! Welcome to the Small Town Swoons Universe!🥰✨

In this episode: Frog and Taehyung have become very comfortable around each other, getting used to each other’s presence. Their bond grows even more once a ghost from the past comes back to haunt Taehyung. His natural response is growing even closer to Frog, relying on her completely for comfort and… a distraction.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Angsty themes in the second part (an “ex girlfriend” comes back, Taehyung puts up a wall, just a little). Frog starts asking herself questions about sexual attraction. There are some innuendos here and there. Taehyung receives unwanted attentions that make him deeply uncomfortable. That should be all.

The parts that look good were edited by the miraculous @joheunsaram (I recced one of her pieces right here in my main blog 💜)

In case you like my writing, here is my directory for idol!AUs, scenarios and imagines. Here is Tae and Frog’s music companion (spotify playlist, the playlist in case you wanna create it on other platforms)

Enjoy 💜✨

Navi: Chapter 1 — Chapter 2 — Chapter 3 — Chapter 4 — Chapter 5 — Chapter 6 — Chapter 7

Taehyung had become a comfortable addition to your life. He was steady and reliable — from your bi-weekly lessons, to drinks with his friends on the weekend.

Terry had extraordinarily managed to stay friends with both Jimin and Hoseok, occasionally taunting them, but overall keeping things neutral and platonic.

However, the one who was struggling with friendly, platonic feelings was you. It was difficult not to notice the way Taehyung always managed to predict your objections, your movements and your needs.

You felt a connection that made you feel weak, queasy, like clay gently sprinkled with water.

His lessons had become a secret guide to people and relationships.

The first time he had actually placed you at the wheel, helping you throw your first small bowl, he had given you the epiphany of a lifetime.

“Don’t let it dry too much. Too much water will mess it up. It will become too pliant and it won’t hold up.”

A revelation had struck you just then and there. That was it. The rule to love. You had bathed your ex husband in reassurance and affection, and just like that he had melted underneath your touch, and he had turned into nothing. And the love had run out.

“Every shape has its specific requirements,” Taehyung had explained, dipping your hands in the basin and letting the droplets fall from your fingertips. “Wet hands, but not drenched,” he had reminded you from the previous lesson. With a small nod he had invited you to press down the pedal lightly. “See, here we go. The clay will show how much water it needs. Easy on the pedal. Very slow. You’re warming it up. Be gentle. You’re not sure it’s good. Just like with people. Easy at first, and once it works you speed up,” he had smiled at the material underneath your hands.

“Gentle. Easy,” he had corrected you, his sinewy fingers gently leading your hands, recalibrating the pressure points. You had watched the greyish water stain his hands as he helped you. “That’s the secret to good things.”

In the following lesson he had taught you the importance of separation and remotion.

“It's been a few hours* what you have right there it's a leatherhard*. It's hard enough to withstand some pressure, but not ready to stand on its own,” Taehyung had shown you how to cut the bowl from the base, to turn it around and let it dry evenly.

“Still it wouldn't survive the kiln yet,” he explained. “You need all the water out. Water weakens the structure and your piece would crumble. And you would need to start anew,” Taehyung's delicate fingertips had lifted the piece, turning it around. “They're like children. One wrong move and, bam, you lose their trust and you need to earn it back, from ground zero. Yes, Frog. Just like that, easy with the pressure or you'll leave fingerprints,” he had scolded you, exhaling and closing his eyes once he noticed the damage had already been done.

You had looked at him with a sheepish grin, smiling apologetically.

What you didn't know is that he had scowled at the realisation that he simply could not keep a long face at you.

Taehyung had discovered an even weaker spot for you.

He had realised he liked you a lot.

You were quiet, observant, and incredibly intelligent.

And he liked chatting with you on your nights at the pub. And he liked your fashion sense.

He liked leaning his head against your shoulder, he was just extremely sorry he had to be half drunk to be brave enough — or to be somehow excused for the excess of clinginess.

He liked you, the cheerful and polite smile you wore while talking to Jimin and Terry indistinctly, like they had the same importance to you, no matter you had known Terry for ages and Jimin for a few weeks.

He liked the way you trapped the tip of your tongue between your lips while you focused on a piece, or the fact that once he had stopped by the bookshop, only to spot you curled up on an armchair with a fuzzy blanket on your shoulders while you read a book.

He had studied the sleepy smile you had offered him as he handed you a cup of tea that had just been brewed in Seokjin’s café. Taehyung had felt young and foolish as his smile mirrored yours. He’d wandered around the few shelves in your shop, studying a few books and asking questions about the organisation of genres on the shelves.

He asked for recommendations and chuckled as he noticed you growing increasingly chatty, disrupting your streak of quiet to passionately discuss authors and plots and publishing houses, little naive art books and detective novels and half unknown poets from entirely unknown countries.

It had been an amazing morning, with a lazy yellowy light floating in from the large windows.

After that, his visits to the bookshop had become more frequent, even stopping by during a reading date — which of course was not the two of you having a date, but rather other people coming in, mostly couples from university, to explore the shelves together, have that niche romantic academia experience, which sometimes meant that professors also came in with their husbands or wives. The loveliest of them all was the Ancient Greek professor, a seventy year old man who always came in with his wife, opening the door for her and walking around with her hand in his, usually stopping in front of the Russian section to see if they could find anything they liked. Taehyung had helped you create some artsy reading nooks that your customers truly appreciated.

The last month or so had been a blessing, for the both of you.

You both liked the steady, warm presence you could offer each other: he liked having you around because he felt less lonely, and because it was so easy to focus on you rather than the discomfort of loss; you enjoyed his respectful guidance, like a toddler still stumbling on their feet finds comfort in the parent walking right behind them; you felt free to move autonomously, but you also felt him there, never looking away in chase you needed a hand to hold. You had found a companion.

And with that many things started getting out of your control.

One in particular.

It was Tuesday afternoon and as usual the bookshop was closed. You parked your bike in Taehyung’s driveway, grabbing your tote and blushing a little as you fixed a classy, old school ribbon in your hair, covering the hair tie of your ponytail. You felt fickle and juvenile.

You felt romantic.

You felt ready to be pampered with tender guidance and soft touches, still strictly limited to your hands, always after mannered glances asking for your permission. With eager joy, you opened the door to the studio, only to notice an extra wheel beside the usual one.

And one extra person.

A woman.

Currently running her hand down Taehyung’s arm, toying with his fingers.

You blinked a couple times before you rebuilt your happy facade. “Oh, hi! Hello there!” you greeted with a smile.

Taehyung immediately took half a step away from the woman.

“Hello Frog, how are you today?”

“Happy,” you chirped in a way that had Taehyung warning immediately. He knew that kind of gleeful tone was dedicated to other circumstances — books, your friends, squealing when you managed to make a good piece. He frowned also because you weren’t one of those easily excited people.

What could have possibly made you want to show off so much happiness all at once?

“I’m glad,” he commented before noticing the extra wheel and suddenly remembering the guest.

“This is Dolly. Dolly is a fellow artist. She’s from a small town nearby. She is designing customised tableware for a resort cottage nearby. She’ll work with us today.”

You nodded, grabbing your apron — the only apron, you noticed — and got ready for the task of the day.

“Would you like to try making a plate for today?” he asked, taking out some premixed clay and preparing it on the table for you to wedge. “Or we could do some glazing while Dolly does her thing.”

“No, I could use two teachers,” you replied, trying to be inclusive, shushing all the unmotivated jealousy. How unreasonable!

“She won’t let you get away with things just because of your cute smile,” Taehyung warned, the stern reprimand sugared by the half hidden compliment.

“I almost don’t make mistakes anymore!” you complained before walking to the table, rolling up your sleeves and beginning to pat the corners of your piece of clay.

“Do you need me to do that?” he asked, feeling twice as apprehensive as usual.

“You could wedge some for me, Tae?” Dolly called, preparing a large disk and bringing it over to the table. “Please?” she cooed.

Taehyung agreed, feeling more comfortable at your side, both your foreheads growing sweaty with the warm spring weather and your arms getting sore as you worked the clay until it reached ideal plasticity.

“How was yesterday? I didn’t manage to bring you breakfast,” he mentioned almost casually as he started giving the final twists to the clay body.

“Oh, it was okay. Slow Monday. A couple teachers brought in some stuff to print. One of my parents’ friends asked me to grammar check her dissertation. I had a few books brought in for safety rebounding. Same old,” you said, sitting at the wheel and throwing the clay down. “How should I go about the plate?” you asked, looking up at Taehyung.

He was suddenly enchanted by your beauty as you looked up, a few rebellious locks escaping your hairband and making you look so unreal, so breathtaking and young.

Sometimes he forgot you were young.

Sometimes he even forgot he was young himself.

He was living the kind of fondness his grandma had always told him about, the kind of fondness she had met once sixty, ready to conclude her earthly struggles by herself. Instead, she had met an honest man, a widower who understood her past and her present.

The two had shared a quiet, tender feeling until she left. They were friends, they talked about the weather and gardening, went on walks, had picnics and went to church together. He always held her hand and kissed her forehead with a reverence Taehyung had never met.

Except for you.

He knew the only love he would never doubt was the one that accompanied his granny through her last days. He knew she passed a happy woman and that relieved him immensely.

Being the son of a single mother meant many complicated things, which included his mom moving half a continent away when he turned fourteen, chasing a man he barely knew.

He was glad he had his grandmother then, and the guys. Jimin and his family, although very complicated.

Taehyung didn’t understand the inner dynamics of relationships, and his lack of experience during high school had definitely not helped.

It’s not like he hadn’t tried, but he didn’t feel comfortable. He was always trying to learn while all the girls he had dated expected some sort of latin lover for unknown reasons — probably because of a rumour started by Jimin and Jeongguk, which had clearly, miserably failed.

All he could do was show kind devotion and gain continuous inspiration by the women in his life.

Pottery itself was an art he had learnt from his mother, who in turn had learnt from her mother. He had liked it from day one, like he had been called to it, made for it, even.

“Taetae please, could you help? I think I’m stuck,” Dolly whined, stopping to look at her attempt of dish. “What do you think?”

You tried to ignore the way her voice hurt your ears, leaving some clay aside to handbuild fruit for decoration to add later. Once done, you remodeled the amount for the plate in a round ball against your apron before throwing it a bit too aggressively on the wheel before starting to center.

“See, I’m not sure about the lip. Should i give it a wider edge or make it a bit… I don’t know. I kind of wanted it flat, with a slightly raised lip,” she pouted through her words, but you kept your focus, centering the piece flawlessly, repeating the procedure a few times, feeling the movements terribly familiar and comforting.

“It’s a good idea,” Taehyung confirmed, “a bit of a modern twist.”

“Aw, you’re so nice!” Dolly cooed, batting her lashes at him just as he turned to look at you.

“You’re still centering? All good?” he asked, noticing you stuck on holding the half dome under your palms, ready to bring it up again.

He let you go through the motion, finding himself the excuse of checking your technique only to stare at your strong but precise hands.

You went on without answering, letting the clay grow against your palms before feeling it peak and changing your grip, pushing your thumbs across and down.

“Good job, Frog,” he praised you, watching your face light up in a shy smile while you kept working the ball onto a large, thick disk.

“It’s a lot more than usual,” you commented with a sheepish grin.

“You’re doing perfect,” he reassured you. “Keep it even. Remember the ashtray-turned-jewellery plate?” he asked.

You nodded.

“Use the side of your hand. Press down harder,” he directed you. “Use your whole body, Frog. You’re handling a lot there, you need to be a bit more aggressive.”

He bit his lip before testing the waters. “Make it wetter, Frog.”

You felt yourself freeze for a second. You swallowed and dipped your dominant hand in the water.

“Don’t make it drip,” he corrected you.

“I’m gonna drench it,” you replied.

“Taetae—”

“Just a second, Dolly,” he replied absentmindedly. “Drench it, Frog.”

You obeyed.

“Gonna touch your back,” he warned you before you felt his forearms on your shoulders, pressing you down. “Use your whole weight. You need to make it to three inches. The thinner the easier.”

You felt his voice close to your ear.

“When it starts to drag, it’s too dry. Hug the side,” he rose and placed his palm against yours. “Just hold it. No pressure. Lovingly.”

“Tae—” Dolly called again.

He closed his eyes. “Just keep pressing,” he told you. “Tell me.”

“Can you help me with the lip?” Dolly asked, batting her lashes.

“First, make the base wider. Flatten it nicely, till the edge, then pinch the wall up. It will fall a little as it dries, but maybe we can find a way to secure it. If you make it short enough it should hold,” he explained professionally.

“Could you show me, please?”

He nodded. “Wait, Frog, stop there. Watch,” he commanded curtly.

You slowed down the wheel before stopping, holding your hands for a second before making sure that your piece didn’t get out of control.

“Okay,” you told him once you were ready.

“Come up here, I need you to see the details.”

You reached the two other people, Taehyung taking Dolly’s spot at the wheel. He fixed his stance before he wet his hands. Instinctively, his left palm went to hold the side while his right fingers grabbed a needle, measuring the thickness of the plate. “Just around two inches. And here it goes thicker, you see? Around three inches,” he showed, sticking the needle in.

“Did I do wrong?” Dolly asked, awfully dramatic.

“You just need to make it thinner,” he commented, already dipping a small sponge in the plate before squeezing it in the plate, still being very careful.

“Now, Dolly first used her fist — the side of it — and pulled it toward her to spread the clay lower. Repeat that several times. At least six or seven, based on the pressure you manage to apply. Then she used her fingertips, center out. Like this,” he said, showing the motion.

You felt ready to throw yourself out across the glass wall head first.

His middle finger pressed down with such firmness that you couldn’t not think of it doing very inappropriate things to your body.

You felt dumbstruck at the sudden thought, like it was some sort of exceedingly vivid dream, too realistic to actually be a dream.

“Rib next. Dolly didn’t use the rib properly here. She was too light.” He corrected the woman’s mistake, using his chest to press down, exhaling loudly as he did. “You have to go deep, Frog. Stay there. Be a bit stubborn.” He grinned. “Hold position.”

You nodded, licking your lips.

Dolly’s eyes were glowing with arousal next to you, his brow arching once he put down the rib after five minutes or so. “Wet fingers,” he reminded you, wiggling as gimey, grey water rolled down his wrists, the vision unfairly erotic for the dirt covering his hands, dripping down the hypervascular back of them, the veins of his forearms significantly thicker.

You shook your head with a grin as he wiggled his digits. “You put one inside, on the outside and press them together. Make sure you dig deep with the one on the inner side. You’ll want to press down firmly to collect all the material you’ll need for the lip. In this case, we keep pushing out, to further widen the plate and give it a short, erect lip.”

You were out of your mind, nodding just in hope to get away from torture.

“Oh, so that’s how I need to do the lip! Thank you Taetae!” Dolly exclaimed, giving you a way out.

You caught the chance immediately, sitting back at the wheel, drenching your hands before reapplying water to your piece.

“Wetter,” Taehyung called immediately.

Oh.

Your brain froze as you realised that wetter you were, indeed.

“Make a fist,” he ordered as he poured more water on your piece. “Press the side of your pinkie knuckle in the middle.”

You looked at him, crouched beside you, his mop of black hair tumbling back as his dark eyes met yours.

They hid so much longing, so much need for comfort. You read them immediately, nodding.

He placed his hand on top of yours. “Push down, Frog,” he murmured, in a way he hoped only the two of you would hear over the sound of the wheels’ engines. “Harder, lovely.”

You held your breath, his fingers and palm swallowing your fist entirely as he slipped his thumb into the hole created by your index and thumb. “Pull it towards you now,” he spoke softly. “Hard and slow, Frog,” he reminded you.

Your brain was far, far away, filled with questions about how you now found yourself comfortable about seeing Taehyung as a potential partner.

Duh. Because he knows you, dummy, the reply came instantly

Because he seemed to do everything just right for you, and when he ended up making a mistake, he seemed to know exactly how to ask for forgiveness and actually learn from his previous wrongdoings.

“Do I keep going?” you questioned, looking at him.

His face lit up slightly. “Yes, darling.” He let you go slightly after, cleaning up his hand.

You missed his guidance, but you convinced yourself you could do without.

“Slow down. Test the thickness,” he reminded you, offering the needle. “You did perfect, Frog,” he murmured with a fond grin.

“Really?” you reacted incredulously.

He confirmed, nodding as he stuck the needle along the side. “We need to work with your fingertips along the sides, here,” he showed, closing down the small puncture.

You wet your digits and placed your middle and ring finger on the center, slightly angled, letting them slide all the way to the edge as the wheel turned.

He assisted your outer hand, supporting it and showing how much pressure was needed.

“Keep going like this for a couple minutes. Make sure that it slims out. Just a few minutes—”

“Tae, do you think this is right?” Dolly asked with her squeaky voice.

His left hand grazed yours reverently as he parted from you.

Taehyung cruelly realised he was head over heels for you.

“It looks just fine to me, Dolly. I think you could give it a last test and then let it dry.”

“Yes, maybe you could give me some hands-on guidance with the next one. I could learn from a… master like you.”

You almost scoffed, giving a choked snort before you could actually control yourself.

“Uhm… I’m sure you just need to refine your timing.” Taehyung tried to evade the request.

During the rest of your lesson, you managed to throw two plates, even building a few decorations that would be added once the clay was leatherhard, in about twenty-four hours.

“I’ll add the decorations tomorrow,” Taehyung told you as you washed your hands. “Unless you want to stop by during lunch break.”

You dried your hands, thinking about his suggestion. “I think I’ll be busy tomorrow. You know, the Spring fair is soon and there’s some stuff I need to do.”

He pouted and nodded. “I’ll trim and decorate then,” he agreed. “If we’re having our Friday lesson, we can bisque them.”

You smiled and agreed.

“Maybe I can throw some plates for you and show you how to decorate while the kiln is working,” he reasoned, helping you to remove the apron once he noticed you were stuck in it.

“That would be lovely, if it’s not too much work for you!” you replied happily. You deposited the apron and caught your bag, fixing it on your shoulder. “It was a pleasure, Dolly!”

“Likewise!” she replied with a smile so sour it would have made milk curdle. “I’ll see you again!”

“Yes, for sure!” you cheered back, making your way out.

Taehyung accompanied you, almost as if you didn’t know the way. “I have a book to return,” he said, making you frown. He didn’t borrow any book from you.

“Uhm,” you started, trying to understand his intentions.

“Come in, I have it in the kitchen,” he said, leading you through the backyard.

“Taehyung,” you called, once you reached the door to his house, keeping your voice low. “Are you okay?”

He opened the door and led you through. His house was incredibly traditional compared to the way you had expected it to be.

“I’m… I just needed to check in on you. Dolly can be a very… loud… presence,” he said, grabbing a glass and a pastel pink porcelain pitcher. “Lemonade?”

You shook your head. “She is indeed very… loud.”

“I’m sorry,” he sat down and drank. He looked sad. Worried. “Are we okay, Frog?”

You stood at his side, looking at him before delicately placing your hand on his shoulder. “I’m okay, but are you? You look terrified of being in there with her.”

He placed both elbows on the table and held his head. “I’m just very tired today.”

Your hand moved to his nape, feeling the corded muscles. “Tell her you’re tired and that you’re calling it a day. I can make up an excuse for you.”

You were reminded just how much he had clung to you for the whole lesson. If she was giving him special attention, he clearly didn’t want it.

“Would you do that?” he asked, suddenly hopeful.

You frowned. “Of course?” you reacted, playfully disappointed in his lack of faith. “We can stay here. I can read, you can nap or watch the tv. We just need to make her understand it’s time to go. I’ll hide my bike and wait for you here. You’ll go in there and tell her Jimin or someone called and they need your help.”

“Are you sure you want to spend the afternoon like this? I mean, it’s your free day.”

You shrugged. Your plans were going home, getting rid of the awful tension running down your back and possibly going to the shop for some cleaning, maybe work on that dissertation… “You’re my friend. And yes, I want to help you.”

Taehyung knew that some people would have been highly disappointed by being called ‘friend’ by their crush, but that made him feel warm, like he was wrapped in a cosy comforter. “Go hide the bike,” he said, grinning like a child.

You grinned right back at him, starting down the corridor with long strides. He helped you choose a nice spot, hiding your bike between the house and the bushes tracing the outline of the garden.

After fifteen minutes or so, you heard Dolly’s annoying voice as she said something like “call me if you need help with Jiminie”, dramatically bidding Taehyung goodbye.

From the window, you watched her get inside a car in front of the house, Taehyung appearing a few minutes after. “We. Are. Free,” he panted theatrically as he flopped on the sofa, throwing his head back.

“Why did you let her come?” you asked, staring at him from your spot by the window.

“Because she’s an old friend. I met her way before she became like that,” he admitted. “I hadn’t seen her in ages. And now she’s clearly trying to get back in my life, using the commission as an excuse.” Taehyung rubbed his temples.

For half a second you wondered whether it was a good idea to ask. Would it make any difference? You realised it would. “Were you… In a relationship?”

“If for ‘relationship’ you mean ‘let’s fuck him so I can complete the friends collection’, then yes.” Taehyung propped his forearms on his knees, exhaling heavily.

You hissed, feeling slightly uncomfortable. You didn’t know what to do. “If you’d like to rest, I can go home,” you said, looking at him with cold, uncertain eyes.

He met your stare, suddenly feeling confused, scared even. He frowned and crossed his arms, trying to put some distance after he noticed his refuge turn hostile to him. “You can go,” he said, shrinking within his shoulders, trying not to show how much he feared being alone.

What he didn’t know is that you could feel the hurt in his voice and the pain in his eyes like needles sinking in your skin. You walked to him, touching his hair hesitantly, feeling wary about not receiving spoken permission.

You watched him bloom under your touch, his lungs inflating with a large inhale. He exhaled way more slowly, taking his time. “Do you want me to go?” you asked, letting your hand slide down the side of his face.

He shook his head, placing his hand atop of yours, holding it there just in case you foolishly thought he didn’t need your touch anymore. “Can you stay?”

You placed both your hands on his hair, cupping his face. “I’ll read, you take a nap.”

He watched you move your free hand away, putting down your tote and grabbing a book. He grabbed your wrist, staring at you with his dark puppy eyes. “Can you sit here? Close?”

You smiled and nodded, settling at his side before he grabbed a blanket, spread it wide and laid down, nuzzling closer, inch by inch, until you found his head on your lap.

“Can I?” he asked, adorably, his cheeks puffy and his eyes glittering vivaciously.

You smiled back at him and nodded. Fondly, you moved your book aside, watching him close his eyes contentedly as your thigh became his pillow.

After a couple pages, you almost thought he had fallen asleep already, only to realise you were mistaken once he reached for your free hand and brought it to his hair.

“Cuddle?”

You smiled even brighter, tracing the shell of his ear before starting to hand-comb his soft, dark locks.

“I’ve got you,” you whispered gently, barely holding back as you looked at his face, peacefully relaxed.

Your heart was a messy thing, but in that moment you realised that, could you have a new one, you would gift it to him and never ask for it back.

Taglist is open

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#taehyung fluff #taehyung x reader #kim taehyung fanfiction #thetruthuntoldnnet #thebtswritersclub #taehyung strangers to lovers #taehyung angst

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silverkoushi · 3 years

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haikyuu!! headcanons

⇢ scenario: how you’d spend the holidays with them!! | read pt.2 here! ⇢ feat. : suga, hinata, & kageyama (karasuno) x gn!reader ⇢ wc & warnings: 1.7k, none ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ this is me trying to psych myself up for the holidays aha... thinkin of doing more if i get the inspo and make it in time ><

sugawara koushi ୨୧ ˻˳˯ₑ*॰¨̮ the holiday spirit with him is unsurprisingly soft and domestic!! he’s the kind of guy that loves to uphold traditional celebrations like the holidays, your birthdays, new years— things like that because it’s important for him to create memories that you can look back on many years later. you bet the holiday decorations will be up mid-november, so once you see him struggling to hang multi-colored lights along the exterior of your house, you have no choice but to laugh at him at first but eventually help him out!! his cheerfulness and child-like excitement nearing the holidays becomes contagious so the two of you start matching everything: penguin sweaters, (ugly but comfortable) red/green pajamas, mugs that have those cringey couple labels on them— basically, you name it, you and suga have two versions of it to wear/use!! suga would be in an extra-baking mood, too!!

if there’s a holiday party (probably at the school he’s teaching at) that you would be attending with him, suga will volunteer to be in charge of baked goodies! sugar cookies, brownies, donuts with cinnamon sugar, maybe even a raspberry choco cake roll?? the possibilities are endless with your pastry chef of a man, and ofc you make it your duty to help him out in the kitchen!! baking til 2 or 3am, sometimes just goofing off with the flour, cookie dough on the tips of your noses, and suga stealing a kiss (or a lick) here and there. all the while your favorite holiday playlist hums in the background of your colorfully lit home, pictures of the two of you hanging around a tree, santa hats bouncing up and down atop your heads the way you dance everywhere, his arms snug around your waist. while you wait for the last batch of cookies in the oven, suga has already prepared his original hot cocoa for the two of you, making sure he adds extra mini marshmallows in your elf mug tonight— you sit by the couch overlooking the decorated frenzy of your surroundings. and you know you made the right choice spending it with him. :) when the actual party happens, o god the kids love you!! calls you his partner for lifey!! sth cute like that and u don’t know if suga taught them that or they just made it up lol either way, you’re so very excited to see how the love of ur life interacts with his students as, you guessed it, he’s so so good with them!! they run up to him, bouncing up and down just to get a bite of his baked goodies and while he’s handing them out, he also gives them a handwritten card. for each n every one of them!! when did he do that?? you question to yourself, but when he seesn you giving him an incredulous look, he just sheepishly smiles and says, “when you fell asleep on the couch last night, i wrote them last minute.” o,, that’s why when you woke up, u don’t even remember lying down in the bed but you surmise suga had carried you all the way there too :’)

they sing a lot of holiday songs, play those party games like trip to jerusalem or once the music stops, you have to stop dancing or you’re out type of game and just overall lots of fun filled moments and you feel thankful for witnessing such a pure, innocent sight right around the holidays!! ofc once it’s all done and he bids them goodbye with a hug, a hi five or a pat on the head, suga doesn’t forget about you and puts up a mini mistletoe by the door when everyone had left. he has that teasing smirk on his face and you’d do more than just kiss him bec of it but uh, you’re still in the classroom so you give in with a chaste yet sweet kiss on his lips. he returns it a little deeper, but you push his chest off playfully, and boop! him on the nose. “later, sir,” you reprimand lightly, yet cheeks blushing at your interaction with him in his workplace. he shows that toothy grin, and intertwines ur fingers together as u walk to your car and finally spend more time together again <333 his most favorite part of this season!!

hinata shouyo ୨୧ ˻˳˯ₑ*॰¨̮ be prepared for a very hyper and energetic holiday week with this guy!! imagine you two are still in college, he has a break from playing professional volleyball to spend these times with his family. and he chooses to spend most of those days with you!! he is actually very excited to bring you home to meet his mom and (not-so) little sister, and it’s very nerve-wracking knowing that it’s an important holiday for them to be together as a family— and then you’re just gonna crash it like that??? BUT sho doesn’t see it that way! he already sees you as a person he’ll definitely experience even more holidays the next year, and the one after that, but in order to ease up the anxiety that has been building up in your system, he tells you of his extravagant plans for the two of you before going back to his parents’ house!! think amusement parks in the winter, ice skating in frozen lakes, walking on boardwalks with two styrofoam cups of hot choco for him, and a peppermint mocha for you!!

o, and if there’s some downtime with your adventure, he’ll drag you outside where the snow is ankle deep, tells you to take a picture of him in the cold, earmuffs hugging the sides of his temple so warmly that you find so adorable. you’re about to pull your phone out until you feel cold, wet, melting ice smacked onto your cheek!! “SHO, WHAT THE HECK—” you don’t even have time to protest because WHACK, one more snowball, but he missed and it got to your jacket this time. luckily, your phone was still okay but your boyfriend definitely won’t be once you find him as he had started running, your voice calling out to his name in the breezy wind. so that whole afternoon, you were seen having a ridiculous snowball fight around campus (you guys stayed in the dorms until you were ready to leave), laughing when you threw one directly at his open, cackling mouth. shouyo started choking on the snowball, but you were still wiping tears from your eyes at the hilarity of the situation. “STOTPF IM LITERALYLYL DYUINGGG” “don’t be ridiculous” “JDFSKFDJH” and that’s when you actually run towards him, patting his back rather forcefully because oh god what if you did make him choke and his family won’t have a son coming home this time around?!

while you worry in your head, shouyo had already tackled you to the ground, snow engulfing your bodies together. “let’s take a picture here, this is the perfect spot!” he’d chuckle, peppering you with winter kisses, sending shivers down your arms not just because they were cold but also wow, you’re so lucky to be with a guy like him during this season. suddenly, you anticipate meeting his family :)

kageyama tobio

୨୧ ˻˳˯ₑ*॰¨̮ you know what you’re very excited for that kags isn’t? his birthday falls on the week of christmas, and any other normal person would just think, “ah, i can just combine his gifts into one!” but for you that’s a big no-no. and kageyama knows it, and he’s flustered and shy because everyone in his life up until the point he’s met you had always just given him a 1 for 2 type of gift. not that he minded, that’s all he’s ever known in his life so when you promised him a big birthday bash and a special holiday gift, he’s scared for what’s to come,,, although, you know he’s not big on surprises or bigger gatherings, but you wanted to see his reaction as to how you planned it all out! in reality, you just wanted to spend precious time with your bf on his bday and an early christmas before he leaves to go visit his family :(

after tiring hours of vball practice and finals (he’s gotten better at studying, don’t underestimate this guy!) he sleeps in on the day of his birthday, not even realizing the night prior he’s turning a year older that day!! you creep up to his dorm with the spare key he has given you, place the milk and berries cake you ordered yesterday on his desk, and surreptitiously clasp the paper birthday hat on his sleeping head. the guy doesn’t even stir!! stifling your laughter, you pull out your phone and snap a picture of him and you together, your lips puckering to kiss his cheek and— you forgot to turn your phone into silent mode! apparently the click was loud enough for his eyes to flutter open, and when he realizes you’re next to him he feels a sense of relief, but at the same time the rubber around his face became bothersome… only when you start singing happy birthday did it dawn on him… and he can’t get mad, it’s you, how can he??

you eat a piece of the milk n berries creme cake on his bed, talking about the day you’re gonna spend with him.. and you ask what he wants to do bec it’s his special day!! this gets him blushing since he thought you had this elaborate party with lots of people come, and now he feels guilty and grateful as to how thoughtful you’re being for him… he asks if he can sneak in a practice session for vball for at least an hour and you agree, guessing that would’ve come up sooner or later. anyway, aside from that his birthday was spent strolling around the town center near campus, snow underneath your boots and snowflakes showering your hair,,, he places his beanie on yours so it doesn’t get messed up and you thank him with a nose kiss… rudolph, is that you??

you take him to shops so you can buy matching sweaters <3 and he OBLIGES, seeing the gleeful expression in your eyes and smile, how can he resist the beauty radiating off you today? this is the best birthday gift he can ask for. you end the day by grabbing some milk tea, spending the rest of the night getting cozy under blankets, and watching cheesy romcoms to which kags just shields his eyes away… the embarrassment!! >< you end up sleeping in his arms, the ending credits with christmas music playing in the background. the next day, you both wear your holiday outfits (he has polar bear and yours is a panda!!) and take lots of pictures bec you know you’ll miss him when he goes back home :(( he immediately makes one of the selfies u took as his lockscreen: the two of you squish yourselves in between the snowman you both created. your face is lit up with utmost happiness, and kags is just looking at you with a loving grin to his smile as well. :)

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taeyongdoyoung · 4 years

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summary: you are a mermaid and you save a handsome man from drowning but little do you know it’s not his first rodeo when dealing with mermaids. seonghwa, a former prince, is currently hongjoong’s first mate and boyfriend. hongjoong is the captain, the pirate king of the most savage crew across the seas. and you want nothing to do with them. not because they’re pirates, but because they’re humans…

ship: mermaid!reader x prince/pirate!seonghwa x pirate!hongjoong

genre: little mermaid!au, pirate!au, romance, ANGST, fantasy

warnings: manipulation, betrayal, lying, jealousy, insecurities, death mentions, to sum up: everyone suffers a lot and i have no excuse

author’s note: actually nah, yeosang & soojin are living their best lives

word count: 3.5k

chapter one ☠️ chapter two ☠️ chapter three ☠️ chapter four ☠️ chapter six ☠️ chapter seven ☠️ chapter eight ☠️ chapter nine ☠️ chapter ten ☠️ chapter eleven ☠️ chapter twelve ☠️ chapter thirteen ☠️ spotify playlist

Hongjoong’s POV

I couldn’t take it anymore. The more time passed, the closer Seonghwa got to Y/N. It was destroying me slowly. I wanted her out of his life, out of my life. Everything was perfect before. But my boyfriend was spending more and more of his free minutes in her company. And it was so damn frustrating. Because these minutes were supposed to be mine.

I was the one he was supposed to cherish. But he barely paid any attention to me. I wanted to get rid of her so fucking badly. At first, I considered killing her. But then, I changed my mind. If Seonghwa ever found out, he would hate me for it. He would end things with me for good. It would have an opposite effect of what I wanted to achieve.

So, instead I came up with a different plan altogether. I wanted her out of the picture, right? I just had to convince her to leave on her own terms. To convince her that Seonghwa wasn’t good enough for her. And I knew just the thing that would make her walk away. Well, technically, she would swim away, but whatever.

A smile appeared on my face. It was perfect. I just had to figure out how to get her alone. Whenever she swam by, Seonghwa was always quick to go to her. I needed him to be distracted by something so that I could accomplish my plan. An idea was already forming in my head. But I needed Yeosang’s help. And I couldn’t tell him the truth about my intentions, because he might tell Seonghwa and then everything would go to hell. So, naturally, I improvised.

“Sangie, will you help me with something?” I cooed in the younger boy’s ear while he was cooking something.

“What is it, hyung?” Yeosang asked.

“Well, you remember what you suggested a while ago? About having more than one lover…”

“Oh my God, did you finally make up your mind? You’re going to stop being jealous of Y/N?”

“M-maybe,” I lied. “But I want it to be a surprise for Seonghwa. And in order to do that, I need to talk to her first. Alone.”

“What do you need me for?” Yeosang inquired, eager to help. Poor boy had no idea he was being deceived.

“I need you to distract Seonghwa while I’m discussing it with Y/N. Can you do that for me?”

“Sure thing! I’ll tell him there’s an emergency in the kitchen next time she swims by and make him come with me while you’re talking with Y/N.”

“Really? That sounds great. Thank you so much, Sangie!” I responded, trying not to sound too gleeful about it.

“Of course, it’s no big deal,” Yeosang replied. “I really hope things work out for the three of you. It’d be so nice for you to finally get along with Y/N. She really isn’t a bad person.”

I restrained myself from pointing out that she wasn’t even a person at all.

🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️

Reader’s POV

During the past few weeks you’d been swimming to the pirates’ ship every day. Talking to Seonghwa about his adventures was the highlight of your day. You called his name as soon as you reached the ship. You were surprised when he didn’t show up immediately. So far, it had never taken him so long. A couple of moments later, you were greeted by Hongjoong, the captain of the ship and Seonghwa’s boyfriend. You frowned in suspicion, because he never regarded you. So, what changed? Why did he suddenly want to communicate with you. It was weird.

“What do you want?” you huffed. “Where is Seonghwa?”

“Unavailable at the moment, I’m afraid,” Hongjoong informed you.

So strange…

“Listen, I can tell you two are getting closer so I felt it’s only right to warn you.”

“I don’t need to hear anything from you,” you groaned in annoyance. “I know you’re jealous I might steal your boyfriend away. Whatever you say, it won’t stop me from wanting to be his friend.”

“I might as well go ahead and say it, then,” Hongjoong laughed. “If you’re so sure it’ll change nothing.”

Your raised an eyebrow in curiosity. What was he getting at? Did he actually have anything worth talking about or was he just bluffing for whatever reason?

“Go ahead,” you gave him permission needlessly, because he was already intent on telling you something very important.

“Didn’t you ever wonder how Seonghwa knew about Ariel?” Hongjoong suddenly questioned you.

“Many humans have heard the story,” you didn’t think much about it. But now that he mentioned it…Seonghwa had looked particularly heartbroken whenever Ariel’s name came up in conversation. You wondered…why was that?

“You’d be surprised what Seonghwa knows and hasn’t told you.”

You tilted your head slightly in confusion. What was he talking about?

“Shouldn’t I be asking him that?” you challenged Hongjoong. “Why should I trust you? All you’ve ever done since we met is be jealous.”

Hongjoong shook his head.

“Seonghwa’s not the man he claims to be. He’s hiding a terrible secret from you.”

“Stop being so ambiguous!” you were getting angry. “Just say whatever lie you’ve made up and leave me alone!”

Hongjoong nodded.

“Alright, then. You want a lie? The truth is Seonghwa is the reason Ariel turned into sea foam. She loved him,” he said, causing you to flinch. “That’s right,” he kept going. “He was the prince who abandoned her. She gave her voice, her tail and her life for him and he tossed it all away. Is that the kind of man you like?”

Tears began clouding your sight. This couldn’t be real. Hongjoong was lying.

“If he’s as terrible as you say he is, why are you with him?” you asked rightly. “Why would you feel threatened by me?”

Hongjoong laughed bitterly.

“You got it all wrong. I’m just as terrible as him, that’s why we belong together. I’ve killed people, Y/N. Seonghwa has, too. But you don’t belong in our world. You should save yourself before it’s too late.”

You couldn’t believe this. It had to be a lie. Right?

“After all, you don’t want to end up like her, do you?” Hongjoong dealt the killing blow.

By then, your eyes were filled with salty tears and your hands were shaking.

“Ask him if you don’t believe me,” Hongjoong chuckled sarcastically. “Unless…you’re afraid to hear him say it.”

“I’m not afraid of anything!” you screamed in frustration and returned where you have always belonged – to the bottom of the sea.

☠️☠️☠️

Seonghwa’s POV

I always warned Yeosang not to cook by himself, because it usually ended in disaster. So, naturally, I got a bit annoyed, because he didn’t listen to me. Of course, I couldn’t let him deal with the consequences all by himself and gave him a helping hand, whenever he needed assistance with his cooking adventures.

It wasn’t his fault that he burned something in the kitchen the minute Y/N came by to see me. However, by the time the chicken issue was dealt with, Y/N had already vanished without even talking to me. I felt a bit bummed out about that, but yet again, it couldn’t be helped. It was just an unpleasant coincidence. But when she didn’t show up the next day…and then, the following days, as well, I started to get worried.

I asked Yeosang if he knew anything about that, but he simply responded that Soojin hadn’t appeared recently, either. So, he was as concerned about our mermaid friends as I was. When a whole week passed without any trace of them, I knew that something had happened. This wasn’t like them at all. During the past month, Y/N and Soojin wouldn’t miss a day without interacting with us.

Their sudden disappearance was troubling, to say the least. When I couldn’t take it any longer, I reached out to Yeosang once more in hopes of finding out why they were no longer around. This time, he told me something different, which surprised me.

“Hongjoong was the last person who talked to Y/N before she and Soojin vanished.”

“Hongjoong?” my eyes narrowed in suspicion. “That doesn’t make any sense. He doesn’t even like Y/N. Why would he talk to her?”

“That was my thought, as well,” Yeosang exclaimed. “It was supposed to be a surprise, but he asked me to distract you, while he was having a conversation with her.”

“What for?” I kept pressing Yeosang for information. This situation was getting really frustrating.

“He…wanted to convince her that he was okay with her being your lover. It was my idea, actually.”

“And what, you think Y/N found that idea so displeasing that she would leave without talking to me? And Soojin, too. Something doesn’t add up.”

Yeosang nodded, agreeing with me.

“Now that I think about it, Hongjoong seemed awfully cheerful about making peace with her.”

“Out of character much, no?” I frowned.

“Precisely. I don’t want to get in the way of your relationship, hyung, but it’s highly possible, he tricked us both.”

I bit my lips anxiously.

“I’m afraid you might be right. I have no choice but to ask him myself.”

“No, hyung, wait,” Yeosang made an attempt to stop me, probably because he didn’t want me to get hurt, but it was already too late, because I was determined to find out what exactly Hongjoong had told Y/N to make her leave without even bothering to say goodbye to me.

☠️☠️☠️

Hongjoong’s POV

Things were going great. Ever since I told Y/N about Seonghwa and Ariel’s history, I had my boyfriend all to myself. My plan had been executed so perfectly that I couldn’t help but worry it was too much of a good thing. I mean…Seonghwa would occasionally ask around if anyone had heard anything from Y/N. But I was certain he’d forget her soon enough and move on. Right?

Well, to put it simply, I was wrong. And I messed up so fucking badly I wanted to punch myself.

“What did you tell her, Hongjoong?” Seonghwa yelled at me angrily, grabbing me by the shirt, his face dangerously close to mine and not in the way I was used to and loved. He was furious. And he had every right to be. I was such an asshole for telling her. He’d trusted me with such a big secret and I’d betrayed him. I wasn’t sure he would ever forgive me for it. So, I played dumb.

“What are you talking about?” I feigned ignorance to the best of my abilities.

“Oh, don’t pull that shit,” Seonghwa rolled his eyes sarcastically. “Yeosang told me you were the last person on this ship who was seen talking to Y/N. Don’t make me ask again,” he threatened.

I gulped nervously.

“Why would I talk to her? It’s not like we have anything in common,” I lied.

“You have me,” Seonghwa chuckled darkly. “So, cut the crap and tell me...unless you want me to go to the bottom of the sea and ask her myself.”

I sighed. That was exactly the kind of thing I was trying to avoid. What was the use of me talking to Y/N if Seonghwa was going to go after her anyways? I was such an idiot it was embarrassing.

“Hwa, baby, I’m so sorry.”

I didn’t even need to verbalize what I’d told her. Seonghwa already knew.

“Please, tell me you didn’t,” he pleaded, his voice on the verge of breaking.

But I did. How could I deny it? So, instead, I just looked him in the eyes, my own were filled with regret.

Seonghwa shook his head in disappointment.

“How could you do this to me, Hongjoong? I trusted you and you betrayed me.”

“I could ask you the same thing,” I replied, immediately going on the offence, because it would hurt me less than admitting I was in the wrong. “Do you know how it feels to watch you watch her? It’s killing me, Hwa, it’s killing me that you’d rather be with someone else if you could. That I’m not good enough for you.”

Seonghwa flinched away from me as if I’d struck him with my words.

“You were good enough. But honestly, I’m looking at you right now and I can’t even recognize the man I fell in love with. I never did anything wrong, Hongjoong. So don’t project your insecurities onto me, because you and I both know I’m not the one who broke your trust.”

Fuck. I knew he was right but what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t take back what I’ve said or done. And if he hadn’t given me reason to question his loyalty, I wouldn’t have gotten this far.

“Fine. You didn’t do anything wrong, but you thought of it.”

“It’s not the same!” Seonghwa screamed. “Damn it, Hongjoong. If I think about killing someone, it’s not the same as actually killing them.”

“Are you thinking about killing me right now?” I asked him, my voice cold and devoid of any emotion. Inside, I was burning alive.

“I don’t know,” Seonghwa responded. “But I’m thinking I don’t want to stay in the same room with you.”

I nodded in understanding.

“That’s fair.”

And then, he walked away, taking the shattered pieces of my heart with him.

🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️🧜‍♀️

Reader’s POV

You had spent the last week trying to distract yourself by doing all of your favourite activities. Collecting starfish with Soojin, observing corals, catching fish, dancing with dolphins, orchestrating concerts with the seagulls. Anything and everything that would take your mind off things. You were so desperately trying to forget everything you’d learned from Hongjoong that you forgot your initial plan. You were supposed to hear Seonghwa’s side of the story. You supposed that Hongjoong’s judgement was clouded by jealousy and he may or may not have exaggerated the extent to which Seonghwa was guilty of Ariel’s death. And yet, something was telling you that he was telling the truth...for the most part.

At one point, Soojin couldn’t put up with your refusal to talk to Seonghwa ever again.

“We have to go up! You guys should discuss this. Instead you’re just shutting him out without allowing him to explain.”

You scoffed.

“Oh, please, you just want to make out with Yeosang. You don’t give a shit about whether Seonghwa was actually responsible for our cousin’s demise.”

Soojin slapped your hand lightly, obviously offended.

“How could you say that? I cared about Ariel, too. But I don’t think Seonghwa is the type of guy who’d hurt her on purpose.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? Hongjoong told me everything. And who, if not him, would know Seonghwa’s secrets best? Seriously, Soojin, sometimes I think you live in an imaginary world where everything’s perfect and no one gets hurt. Well, wake up, sweetheart! Reality sucks and we have to think twice before trusting some dumb pirates.”

Soojin was getting even more angry with you.

“Even if it’s true, isn’t it only right to hear Seonghwa admit to it? You said it yourself. Hongjoong was jealous of you. What if he lied to you, huh? Wouldn’t you like to know for sure? And yes, maybe I do miss Yeosang. Like…a lot. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you or Ariel. You know I have always had your back, Y/N. I’m on your side and I just want you to be happy again. Please, just give Seonghwa one last chance.”

You closed your eyes, trying to numb the pain. Soojin had a point, of course she had. But realizing it meant you had to admit you were wrong.

“Fine,” you finally conceded. “But if I don’t like his explanation, I’m going back here for good. You can do whatever you want with Yeosang but you won’t drag me with you ever again.”

“I swear you won’t regret it, sis!” Soojin vowed solemnly.

“I hope, for your own sake, that you’re right.”

She gave you a tight hug and made you promise not to act rashly and consider every side of the story before making a final decision. You said that you’d try your best to be more patient and she seemed pleased enough by that. All that remained now was to actually put this plan into practice.

☠️☠️☠️

Seonghwa’s POV

I knocked on Yeosang’s door lightly, hoping he’d answer. I was so angry and upset with Hongjoong that I couldn’t imagine sleeping in the same bed as him. How could he do this to me? At first, I hadn’t planned on ever telling Y/N about my love for Ariel. But the more I got to know her, the more I wanted to be completely honest with her.

It was my secret to tell. He had no right to take that away from me. He had no right to drive her away. I was willing to bet he hadn’t presented the facts, as they were. I should have seen this coming. I should have anticipated his jealousy leading him into making this decision. I shouldn’t have trusted him.

“Hyung?” Yeosang murmured sleepily and rubbed his eyes as he opened the door to his room.

“Can I stay here tonight?”

“Sure,” he stepped aside to let me in. “Did something happen?”

“Just go back to sleep, Sangie. I don’t want to talk about it,” I responded.

“Oh, okay. Well, you don’t have to talk,” Yeosang sat down next to me on the edge of the bed and wrapped his gentle arms around me. A silent tear rolled down my cheek as I tried to restrain myself from crumbling. Why did it have to hurt so much? “It’s okay, hyung. Everything will be okay.”

“T-thank you,” I mumbled and squeezed his hand tightly. “For being there for me.”

“Try to get some sleep, yeah? You’ll feel better in the morning,” Yeosang advised me and in that moment, I felt like I was the kid and he was the parent. Oh, how the tables have turned.

“When did you get so wise, huh?” I joked.

“I take it after you,” Yeosang smiled sweetly.

☠️☠️☠️

Yeosang’s POV

I couldn’t possibly kick Seonghwa out, not after what he’d been through. In a way, I related to the way he felt. After all, Soojin wasn’t anywhere to be seen, either. I couldn’t help but worry about her. Though I wasn’t a 100% sure of what Hongjoong had told Y/N that would drive the two mermaids away, I had a suspicion that was most likely correct. Naturally, I couldn’t talk to anyone about it. It wasn’t my secret to tell. But what I could do was be there for Seonghwa. Right now he needed a friend who wouldn’t betray his trust. And as much as I respected and cared for Hongjoong, I had a feeling he had done just that.

Seonghwa was sleeping uneasily, tossing and turning, obviously tormented by something. I wished I could make him open up and make his problems disappear just by listening to him talk about them. But after what I suspected he’d been through, I was fairly certain he’d a have a very difficult time ahead of him. I couldn’t do much but support him in my own silent way. It would have to be good enough.

Wondering about all these things, I couldn’t get any sleep. Which was somewhat fortunate, because if I had been asleep, I probably wouldn’t have heard Soojin calling my name in the middle of the night. I hurried out of my room, trying to be as quiet as possible, because I didn’t want to disturb Seonghwa’s already troublesome dreams.

“Soojin!” I whisper-yelled at her in the dark and jumped out of the ship, swimming towards her without thinking twice.

“Yeosang!” she greeted me happily and wrapped her arms around my neck. “I missed you so much!”

“What happened?” I asked her immediately, not wanting to waste any time in needless formalities.

“It’s so terrible. But I can’t tell you yet. It’s not my se-“

“Secret to tell,” I finished instead of her. “I understand.”

“All I can say is it involves Seonghwa’s past,” Soojin couldn’t refrain herself from sharing that piece of information.

“I figured as much,” I confessed. “You think Y/N will want to talk to him again?”

Soojin shook her head.

“I’ve been trying to convince her to hear him out for the past week. But I don’t know. Maybe she will, maybe she won’t.”

I nodded.

“Well, enough about them. I’m happy you came, I was worried sick.”

“I’m fine,” Soojin reassured me. “But I was terrified you’d think I left you on purpose or something.”

“Something was telling me that wasn’t the case, darling.”

It was too dark to see but Soojin’s warm face against my chest suggested to me that she was blushing. I smirked.

“I missed you, too, you know?”

“Of course you did, I’m awesome,” she giggled playfully and gave me a quick peck on the cheek.

“And humble, I see,” I teased her and stroked her hair.

Soojin laughed and if someone asked, I’d tell them that sound was my favourite song.

To be continued…

#ateez #seonghwa #hongjoong #yeosang #seongjoong #seonghwa x reader #ateez angst #ateez x reader #soojin #(g)i-dle #pirate au #mermaid au #writing

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nightglider124 · 4 years

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RobStar Week 2020: Day 1

Tis RobStar Week, guysss! Ugh. Yas. That means content for the week of my two disgustingly adorable children. We love to see it.

I do believe it runs from 5th July - 11th July so check the robstarweek tag each day for some robstar joy :3

So, I haven’t written anything really for a while. Especially not based in the TTA universe. But, I’m mildly happy with this one. In theory, it doesn’t actually have much of the kids but it has Robin talking bout his crush with Wally.

Confession... I don’t love the prompt of destiny/fate/star-aligned... all of that. Idk why cos like in essence I believe it. My babies are destined for each other. Buuut, as a prompt, I just never am a fan. So, I tried my best, I swear! XD

This oneshot is set after ‘Titans Together’ but before the movie, ‘Trouble In Tokyo’.

Uh, I know Robin talks about when Starfire kissed him and I know that he doesn’t discover that she learns languages through lip contact until the movie but like... c’mon. Robin is a smart guy and would have thought about it in the time since they first met. I don’t think he would bring it up cos he awks but I think he would put two and two together. So, when it’s mentioned, he is just kinda speculating and then it’s confirmed in the movie. That’s how I’m viewing it anyway. XD

Hope you like it. Happy RobStar week! ^.^

________________________

Star-Aligned/Destiny

The upbeat music drifted and pounded around the whole tower, with the epicentre of the noise coming from the main room, which was fairly packed with Titans from all across the globe, enjoying their Friday night.

It had been about a week since they’d taken down the Brotherhood of Evil and put all the criminals that had been affiliated back in their rightful places within penitentiaries across the world. The ordeal had been difficult on each and every one of the Titans and it had taken a lot of time and energy to ensure that the threat was dealt with and the Brotherhood were dismantled for good.

So, when Beast Boy and Cyborg had approached him about having a party to relax and say thanks to the whole Titans Network for their help in defeating the long standing villains, Robin had been reluctant to say no. He felt that a little fun was well deserved and decided it wasn’t often that they all let loose and just got to act like normal young adults, even if it was only for one night.

He felt good as he sat at the counter, dressed in civvies for the first time in a long time, with a glass of cold soda tantalizing his lips. He knew that some of the boys had snuck in a bit of alcohol and since all of the Titans were technically 18 and over, they were legally allowed to drink in private locations, according to Jump City law. So, he was letting it slide, but that didn’t mean he was about to consume it himself. Robin was all for unwinding but… he still had his wits about him, just in case any alerts came through.

Of course, in the morning, there were a few individuals who he wanted a word with regarding how they purchased the alcohol but he resigned himself to waiting until tomorrow, rather than putting his leader head on right now.

Robin cocked a small smile as he scanned the room from behind the safety net of his mask. He may well have been in casual clothing but the mask always stayed put; an unkickable habit of his, he mused.

Cyborg was over by the sound system, setting up playlists upon playlists with Bumblebee at his side, helping to sort through the music. He could see from where he was perched, every time she saw a song that she clearly didn’t like, she would delete it from the playlist when Cyborg wasn’t looking. It’d provided Robin a good few laughs throughout the night to see his cybernetic friend become confused, scratching his head and wondering if he had had too much to drink, despite only really having about one beer.

Beast Boy was lounging on the sofa, game station controller in hand; his gleeful chuckle echoing every now and then as he challenged those around him to a racing game that he’d practically lived on for the better part of the past year. Herald, Hot Spot and Killowat were huddled around him, each trying to gain the upper hand on the changeling who had won the 4 games prior to the current round.

Robin turned his head, noticing Red Star was talking with Aqualad, Pantha and Argent over near the windows with all of them holding a beverage each and laughing, getting to know one another better since they were all teammates and they’d never really had a chance to interact with one another until now. Robin saw tonight as a good opportunity for the Titans Network to get a little more acquainted with one another so that they had a good roster of friends and colleagues for future events and missions, if necessary.

Directly ahead of him, Gnarrk and Wildebeest were sat at the table, conducting an arm wrestle to see who had the superior strength with smirks so smug that Robin could feel the bravado permeating the air around them. Kole was standing by her best friend’s side, offering quiet encouragement; believing in his abilities wholeheartedly. She smiled as Jericho turned to her, seemingly signing to her, his faith in Gnarrk to win as well; a gesture that made Kole turn a rosy pink and Robin couldn’t help but wonder if there was a bit of a connection brewing between the two.

Behind Wildebeest, Thunder and Lightning were cheering loudly, waving their hands and hooting in favour of the humanoid chimera who simply grunted in acknowledgement of their vocal support.

Robin chuckled quietly to himself and took a sip of his drink, minutely shaking his head as he inwardly wagered on who he thought was more likely to come out on top of said arm wrestle.

In the right hand corner of the room, Robin could see Jinx who looked less than thrilled as she was effectively sandwiched between Kid Flash and Mas Y Menos who were, by the looks of it, having a lengthy debate about who had the faster abilities.

Scrunching his face up, Robin took a moment to consider how that conversation was going considering he knew for a fact Wally didn’t know much Spanish, if any at all.

He shook his head and his eyes travelled over Speedy and Bushido who seemed to be talking and sharing fighting tips, with Speedy making gestures with his hands to explain the types of arrows he used when he battled.

Robin sighed in content, happy for the warm atmosphere surrounding them all. When he’d first started recruiting the people in the room to be a part of their hero network, he hadn’t even considered what it would mean for them to gel together but every single Titan in the tower had proved that they could work effectively with one another, without really even knowing much about those around them.

He was proud of his teammates and friends and he felt confident that if more threats on a larger scale were to ever crop up in the near future, then they would be prepared and ready with a strong force in place.

Tapping his fingertips against the side of his glass, a lingering silver laugh caused him to pause; a tingle descending down his spine with a simultaneous heat prickling his skin. He lifted his head and his gaze inadvertently fell upon Starfire who was sitting on the back of the sofa, her long legs dangling down with her ankles crossed over one another.

Her hands were clasped and in her lap as she talked animatedly with Raven, who in turn, was responding in her usual way of nods and small smiles, only speaking here and there.

Robin gripped his glass a little tighter as he watched the alien Princess shrug her gorgeous mane of ruby hair over her shoulder, pooling down the length of her back.

It had been futile to try and ignore how she looked tonight with Robin deciding how well Earth clothing suited her. She wore a lilac playsuit with a white floral pattern printed all over the fabric. The spaghetti straps of the garment fell perfectly on her shoulders with the rest of it hugging her body comfortably without being too tight or loose enough not to flatter her.

Although, Robin rebuffed that thought immediately. She could wear a trash bag and she’d still make it look amazing.

It was a short faux dress outfit but it was far from distasteful considering it was longer than her day to day uniform. The light frills at the hem were a nice touch, giving the illusion of it being a dress when in fact it wasn’t.

All in all, Robin had a tough time keeping his eyes off of her and it had been that way since the party started earlier in the evening.

He exhaled quietly to himself as he lost in himself in a momentary trance, with Starfire being the pinnacle of it all. Every single thing she did was endearing and he finally understood what people meant whenever they would compare a person to that of sunlight.

Starfire was the epitome of a ray of sunshine; constantly smiling and being her bubbly self, no matter who she was around. She could be around the grouchiest person in the universe and she’d still be able to coax a grin from them, without so much as even trying to.

She was just so naturally inviting; like moths to a flame, Starfire was a friend to all and he could honestly admit that he had never met someone as kind and carefree as her which in his eyes was what made her so unique within their world of heroes.

Robin stared after her, watching the way her jade eyes would shimmer whenever Raven said something remotely funny or something that Starfire could relate to. Her orange skin seemed to glow with every thousand watt smile that found its way onto her cupid bow lips.

Just beneath his rib cage, Robin felt his heart rate start to increase; a quiet thumping of his chest, the longer he stared after her.

Swallowing heavily, Robin averted his eyes, instead choosing to stare down at his bubbling soda. Despite this, his mind remained rooted on the one thing in the room he took the most interest in. He couldn’t help but inwardly dwell on his feelings for the Tamaranean girl, no matter how hard he had tried over the years to refuse and deny what his heart had been singing all along, since she first crash landed on the planet they called home.

It was a constant struggle for him; trying to figure out if it would be worth the risk or if he should remain stoic and unfeeling like another vigilante he was familiar with.

A sudden gust of wind enveloped him, causing his hair to rapidly fly out of place. Staying still, Robin merely sighed and blinked in annoyance, already aware of who was now leaning against the counter beside him.

“Wally…” Robin muttered, reaching a hand up to sort his hair out, casting a scowl in the speedster’s direction.

Kid Flash chuckled and pulled up a seat beside him and nudged his shoulder, “Hey Dick.”

“Do you have to do that every single time?”

“Duh. Think of it as… a privilege of being best friends.”

“Pretty lousy privilege.”

He made a ‘psh’ sound and gave him another shove, “You get what ya get.”

“Uh huh.” Robin replied, leaning forward to take a swig of his drink, feeling the cold liquid slither down his throat. Despite his best efforts to stay inconspicuous, he was unable to stop himself from stealing another glance at Starfire who had moved from her spot on the back of the couch with Raven.

She was giggling with Bumblebee and Argent, swaying her hips and dancing to the music that was swirling in the air; a catchy beat that seemed to be luring quite a few Titans into dancing now.

He could feel his face heating up as he registered that Wally was staring at him with a teasing smirk laced upon his lips. He cut him a scathing look and attempted his best batglare, making Wally snort.

“C’mon. When has that look ever worked to make me stop?” He laughed, taking a gulp of the beer he was holding,

Robin took a deep breath, awaiting the onslaught of jabs. He’d known Wally for most of his life, ever since he’d gotten adopted by Bruce on account of his links with the league.

It’d taken just one encounter with the redhead on a visit to the watchtower and they’d been inseparable.

Of course, that changed somewhat after he left Gotham; the communication dropping with Robin being more so to blame, after effectively shutting those around him out.

It picked up again though, once he had become more established with the Titans, going as far to offer him a spot on the team. Wally had declined at first, unsure how he felt about being with a team but after a while, he came around.

It helped that he happened to run into Jinx whilst he was still mulling over the decision.

Robin sighed and half turned his body towards him, “What are you doing over here?”

“Just wanting to catch up with my bud… obviously.” Wally replied, trying to appear aloof but failing miserably,

Leaning back, Robin spied Jinx still standing where Wally had been beforehand, staring at the twins in bewilderment as they babbled to her in Spanish.

“You know, you’ve basically abandoned Jinx.” Robin muttered,

There was a mischievous glint in his lime eyes as he waved a dismissive hand, “Bah, she’s fine. She needs to socialise with good guys more anyway. Needs to build on her newfound hero ways.”

Robin shrugged and tilted his chin downwards, eyes on the counter top to avoid any more fleeting glances at anyone in particular.

“So…” Wally drawled, in that tone.

Sighing heavily, Robin looked up at him, “What?”

“Star’s looking hot tonight.” He taunted and it took everything Robin had not to react in the way Wally clearly wanted him to,

“Mhm. She looks great.” Robin mumbled, not really in the mood for this kind of conversation. He had been feeling pretty mellow but he could sense that slipping away and being sent spiralling into the mess of emotions he experienced from time to time where Starfire was concerned.

“Dick… c’mon.” Wally persisted, levelling with him, “Your crush on her isn’t exactly subtle.”

“Well… she doesn’t know so it seems to be working so far.”

Wally snorted, “To practically everyone else, it’s obvious that something is going on.”

Dick took a deep inhale and gripped his glass with both hands, preparing himself for more of Wally’s insistence, “Well, there’s not. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Dude.” He paused and leaned into him, his tone shifting into a more sincere one, “Maybe there would be something if… y’know… you made a move on the ol’ Princess?”

Whilst it was in his nature to deflect anything to do with feelings; especially romantic ones, at all costs, there was something gnawing at him; encouraging him to open up a bit. It was Wally, after all.

“I can’t.” Dick sighed, loosening the grip of his fingers around the glass,

“Sure you can. Just get up, go over there and ask her to dance or… I don’t know, smooth talk her.” Wally suggested,

“No… I mean… I can’t. I’m the leader of the Titans… Bruce always taught me not to get involved that way with a teammate. It causes rifts in team dynamics and-”

Wally cut him off with a scoff, “Who cares? If you feel that way about her, which you obviously do, you deal with those kinds of things and work it out as you go along.”

Dick sighed for what felt like the hundredth time in the past 10 minutes, “It doesn’t matter.”

Sensing that he was retreating into himself again, Wally tried an alternate route, “You know… with all the doe eyes you make at her, you never told me how you actually met.”

Without really even being aware of it, a soft smile graced Dick’s lips, “Uh… I’d just got to Jump and was dealing with this thief and saw this… streak of green across the sky. I went to check it out and turns out, she’d quite literally crash landed to Earth.”

“That must’ve been so cool, man.” Wally laughed,

Dick inclined his head a little, “It was… different to anything I’d had in Gotham.”

“Yeah, but Starfire is… sweetness and joy.”

The ebony haired hero chuckled to himself, “Uh… not at first. She…” He paused and glanced at her, gauging just how much he should leave out about where she came from on that day, “She was… being held prisoner by these aliens… Gordanians are what they were called. Long running warfare between them and Tamaran and… a few other planets.”

“Prisoner?” Wally queried, clearly vying for more information,

“Let’s just say… she was forced from her world and it… wasn’t because of any crimes.”

Wally stared at him for a long moment before something softened in his expression and he nodded, “So… what was she like?”

“As you can imagine… she didn’t trust any of us. Hissing and seething and blowing shit up.”

“Badass.” Wally grinned,

Dick chuckled, “Yeah… she didn’t know English either so… couldn’t exactly explain to her that we just wanted her to stop.”

“How’d she get so fluent in the language then?”

His cheeks turned red almost instantly and he cleared his throat, willing the blush to dim until it vanished, “Her people can learn languages instantaneously through uh… lip contact. I think.”

“You think?”

“Well… after she… did it… um… she spoke English… so I just assume…”

Wally blinked in surprise, “Wow. That’s a useful trait-” He cut himself short as he recognized the discomfort on his best friend’s face, “Oh my god. She learned it from you, didn’t she? You got a kiss from her on the first day you met her!”

Dick snapped his head in Wally’s direction, “Can you shut up, please? We’ve… never talked about it. Kissing isn’t a thing on her world… and I never brought it up.”

“She knows what ‘lip contact’ means on Earth though, right?”

“She knows now… I mean she must know, considering how many romance movies we’ve sat through on movie nights.” Dick shook his head, “Like I said… we’ve never talked about it so… I don’t know what she thinks on that front.”

Wally chuckled, “No wonder you’ve been smitten with her since day one. I would be too if a hot space girl kissed me in the middle of telling her to stop ripping a city apart.”

Dick was about to protest, but relaxed and smirked, “Yeah… well… she made an impression, to say the least.”

“Sounds like… Mm… I don’t know.”

“What?” Dick prompted,

“You’ll just wave it off but… I mean… maybe it was meant to be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“People who are meant to be in your life don’t just fall out of the sky on a day to day basis, Dick.” Wally droned, looking at him like he was an idiot,

The Boy Wonder chewed on the inside of his cheek; his mind a bubble of thought, “It’s… not the craziest thing.” He paused and looked at her again, still dancing around without a care in the world, “She brought us together… we know for a fact… she’s the glue that keeps us together; the heart of our team… without her… we wouldn’t last.”

“See? That, my friend, is fate.” Wally surmised,

“I don’t know about that, Wally. It… just so happened we were all in the area at the same time.” Dick rebuffed,

“Listen… whether you want to admit it or not… don’t you think it seems a little too coincidental that you all met Starfire on this one day and it basically set out your futures for the next few years at the least?” Wally asked, raising an eyebrow at him,

“Okay, fine. Let’s say that it is… fate or whatever… are you saying that the same applies to how I feel about her?” He challenged,

Wally scoffed and flailed his hands around slightly, “Duh! I’m telling you, there is no way that you ‘just so happened’ to meet Starfire and your team, start a network of teenage heroes that extends across the world and end up falling for the one who caused this… cataclysm… just by chance. It just doesn’t happen.”

Remaining silent, Dick felt the urge to mock him ebbing away, the more he tried to reason with him.

He was probably the furthest thing from a believer when it came to things such as fate and destiny, having turned cynical shortly after his parents were murdered.

By Wally’s logic, everything in life happened for a reason, with the goal of eventually fulfilling the path set out in stone for you when you’re first brought into existence.

“Wally…”

“The universe didn’t exactly have you meet her to just be ‘best friends’ for your whole life. You wouldn’t stare at her or think about her or want her the way you do, if it wasn’t supposed to happen dude.”

Dick blinked, “This is the most philosophical way of telling me to make a move that you have ever used.”

Bursting into laughter, Wally lifted his shoulders and smiled, “Yeah, you’re probably right. But you know what I’m saying, at least on some level, makes sense.”

The Titans leader evaded admitting something like that, “Mm… what I know is that you’re only spewing destiny related stuff because of one beer too many.”

Wally looked scandalised for a long moment before he shrugged, “Okay, I might be a tad tipsy but it’s still relevant, Dick.” He sighed and threw an arm haphazardly around his best friend’s shoulders, “I’m trying to push you… for you. Whether you wanna believe me when I say it’s some kinda fate or not, the fact is… you can’t expect her to wait forever.”

Tugging himself away, Dick pulled a sour expression and turned to him, “And what if I do and it blows up in my face, huh? What if I go over there and ask her out and she says no?” He deflated and looked down at the counter top, “I doubt she sees me that way anyway so what’s the point?”

Chuckling almost instantly, Wally rolled his eyes and looked at Dick with a raised brow, “Seriously? Dude, I’m not even on your immediate team and I can see that she likes you just as much as you like her.”

Dick cleared his throat, his cheeks turning pink on their own accord, “You don’t know that for sure.”

“Okay well, it comes across pretty clearly except to you, apparently.” Wally paused, “Besides, aren’t you basically our biggest risk taker? You love that whole thrill of not knowing.”

Dick grunted, “Not on this kind of thing.”

“Right, right because it makes you all vulnerable and junk.” Wally drawled, earning another glare from the masked hero but choosing to ignore it, “Dick… I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to. I don’t think anyone can since you’re stubborn as hell. But… just remember… Starfire is beautiful and super sweet. You’re not the only guy in this hero network that thinks so… and if you don’t move your ass and at least make it known to her you’re interested… you might lose your chance altogether.”

Opening his mouth to protest, Dick was cut short from doing so as Wally lightly nudged his shoulder and stared pointedly across the room, waiting for Dick to follow his line of sight as well.

Over near the large glass window panels, Starfire was standing, looking happily flushed from all the activity buzzing around her; something she constantly thrived on whenever parties were in full swing. Her smile was soft and patient as she bobbed her head, laughing at what was being said to her.

Dick felt his stomach lurch and his heart started pounding painfully within his chest as he noticed who was standing alongside her. Speedy was grinning at her, talking and making jokes about god knows what. He watched as the archer took a step towards her and gently touched her arm.

Starfire appeared unbothered by the gestures but it greatly unnerved Dick, considering he could tell from Speedy’s posture that he was attempting to ‘woo’ her.

He bolted up from the stool he’d been sitting on at the counter, his fingertips pressing against the surface of it so hard, they were turning white. He could feel his chest constricting as his breathing turned harsh, an odd type of panic overtaking him.

“Hm… strange reaction for someone who doesn’t have feelings for her…” Wally murmured sarcastically before taking a long sip of his beer,

Narrowing his eyes, Dick turned to scowl at him, “How long has he been talking to her?”

“Only about 2 minutes. Though… he sure looks like he’s getting comfy with your girl there…”

Taking a deep breath, Dick let his hand slide off of the counter and he cleared his throat. He felt nervous but there was a knee jerk reaction in him that was yelling to get over there and interrupt Speedy’s attempts at romancing his best friend.

His gaze fell on Starfire who seemed oblivious to the obvious signals Speedy was sending towards her. Dick cocked a half smile, glad that she wasn’t playing into it. It gave him a rise of hope that maybe she wasn’t responding like a typical girl because she already had feelings for another guy that was possibly him. Maybe.

“What… what should I do when I get over there?” Dick queried, suddenly feeling the confidence drain from him,

“I don’t know. Ask her to dance?” Wally smiled sympathetically at him, “Dick… it’s Starfire. Isn’t she like… the one who makes you feel the most at ease?”

Dick swiveled his head back towards the auburn haired beauty, “She is.”

“Then it’ll be fine once you get over there.” Wally encouraged, tipping his beer bottle in his direction,

Nodding, Dick offered him a slight smile, “Thanks… Wally.”

“You know me, man. I’m a man of loveee.”

Dick sighed, “And there’s the idiot.”

With that, he picked up his soda and made his way through the strings of Titans as casually as he could, without appearing as though he was desperately wanting to get between that tiny space that was still between Speedy and Starfire.

Watching through bright eyes, Wally smiled to himself as Dick reached the two. Speedy looked to be quite put out about his appearance but the speedster wasn’t paying much attention to him.

Rather, all he could see was the way Starfire lit up at Robin’s emergence. Her smile stretched from ear to ear, her emerald eyes shining with joy as she clasped her hands around his upper arm in an exuberant greeting.

In return, Dick grinned back at her, talking with ease and a relaxed aura about him. Speedy looked effectively closed off and shut down, which if it were any other girl, Wally would feel pretty bad for him.

But, he knew how long Dick had had a thing for the alien Princess. He just hoped he would actually get it together and do something about it before it was too late.

“Well done, Grayson.” Wally chuckled to himself, before taking another sip of his drink and scanning the room for a certain pink haired sorceress.

#robstarweek #robstarweek2020 #robin #starfire #robstar #teen titans #fanfic #oneshot #day 1 #star-aligned/destiny #queued #nightglider124

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the-bottom-of-the-abyss · 3 years

Text

A Playlist on Paradoxical Love

This is a true story about the abuse I suffered from a past relationship that I wrote for a college class. I feel that sharing may help me but also others in identifying abuse and/or helping others heal.

I have no idea if anyone will ever read this but it was so, so hard to write but in the end, getting my feelings out in one place seemed to help

HUGE TRIGGER WARNINGS: nongraphic sexual assault, mentions of rape, mentions of suicide, emotional abuse, gaslighting, manipulation, coercion, self deprecation

The Night We Met

The Night We Met by Lord Huron; This was our song, one that we thought was of love and fortune, but turned out to be of love and regret. The lyrics rang truer the longer we were together.

It was a warm and sunny day when she first met him. He was a new student from California, coming to her small town in West Virginia and happened to be in the percussion section with her in band. His voice caused butterflies to make a home in her young heart, igniting a spark she had not felt in the fifteen years she had been alive. He made her feel like she was something to want, always listening when others would not.

The week she met him other members of the band were going to a Drum Corps International show in Pittsburgh. Seeing it as an opportunity to get to know one another, the girl volunteered her mother to drive the girl and boy.

Her mother obliged, picking them up from the school parking lot and listened to the conversation being had in the backseat. The boy told the girl of a family full of abuse and an absence of love. The young girl felt her heart grow heavier with each story he recounted. He told her about his stepmother clawing his face, leaving the scar beneath his left eye. She wanted nothing but to heal the pain he held in his heart, to absorb all the hurt he felt.

By the end of the night, he had asked her to be his girlfriend to her delight. After dropping the boy off at his house, her mother turned to look at her with knowing eyes. She didn’t want her daughter hanging out with the boy; he was only trouble. The girl did not listen, deciding that her mother didn’t understand him. She wasn’t there when he made her laugh or looked at her like she hung the stars.

Her adamancy to be with him only grew. As a gift celebrating one month of being together, he gave her a box of things that reminded him of her. Inside, there were the type of mechanical pencils she liked with the thin lead she insisted on using. He picked out colored pens, knowing her obsession with collecting them and also put in scented hand sanitizer, knowing that she was running out of the bottle attached to her purse. To top it off there was a king size Kit-Kat bar, her favorite candy. The girl had never received a gift so thoughtful from anyone. No one had ever spent the time to curate something just for her.

He swept her off her feet and she couldn’t have been more infatuated.

***

Sometimes I look back to that girl and wonder how she didn’t see the danger. I was naïve then, so young and unafraid of the world. Other times I know her naivety wasn’t her fault. How was I supposed to know that the person that told me they loved me would become a monster?

His words were like honey, always promising to give me the world and more, appealing to my doe-eyed view of his love. He would listen to my ramblings and musings about life that most people I knew avoided for the sake of saving time. His touches were soft and gentle in a way I could have only dreamed of. I couldn’t have known that those sweet words would turn to phrases that felt like poison, subtle when spoken but deadly when left to linger. I couldn’t have known that the same ears that listened to me would become the same that ignored my pleas for him to hear what I was saying and not twist my words. I couldn’t have known that those hands that held mine would become the same that forced me to please him after I told him no.

My mother was right and in typical teenager fashion, I ignored her advice.

Tennessee Whiskey

Tennessee Whiskey by Chris Stapleton; We went to Tennessee but in addition to that, the lyrics of the song spoke to how warm and cared for he made me feel.

The sun-kissed days of summer gently rolled into the cool, crisp season of fall. While the breeze strengthened day by day, so did their relationship. She swore she had never been so happy, standing tall by his side, feeling like a goddess in his cornflower blue gaze. When it was announced the band would be traveling to Nashville, she excitedly waited for the day for the charter buses to arrive in the cracked parking lot of her school.

October had granted them a clear day for departure, and she sat in the seat next to him, watching mountains she grew up in turn to flat plains of the Midwest. The bus was loud, filled with gleeful voices of their peers, but talking to him made it fade into the background.

She suggested taking a small nap, to help pass the hours of driving straight ahead. He declined, explaining he was an insomniac, and told her to rest without him. The girl convinced him to lay on her lap and decided to sing softly to him, as he did tell her once she had the voice of an angel. Somber tones of “The A Team” by Ed Sheeran floated from her to him for an hour before his breathing evened out.

The first day in Athens of the South flew by, taken up by the bone-tired exhaustion of the long trip and unpacking. On their second day, she dressed in her jazz band uniform, preparing for their recording in Studio B. The boy complimented her red blouse and dress pants as she stepped out of the hotel elevator, making her blush. She thought the uniform was unflattering and too formal to be worthy of his praise.

After the recording, the boy hugged her and told her how good she did and how proud he was. Proud. Someone was proud of her, of her performance. People had told her that she had talent and extended their compliments but none of it meant as much as his.

When the trip ended, she was woeful wishing for more time to escape any commitments back in her hometown. She reminded herself that there was always the Friday night lights that graced their football field and the memories it would bring. The girl was so excited to spend those nights on the field with the boy. The band would dive into the halftime show and afterwards, she could show him what a pepperoni roll was.

*** I sometimes look at pictures I still have from the trip to Nashville. I looked so happy and sure of myself. I thought of myself as a true grown-up back then, not knowing what the future would bring. He was so good to me, and even though there were signs here and there, nothing stood out as dangerous. There was no blaring siren, screeching to evacuate before the ship went down. We had only been dating a few months then, but he told me he felt like he knew my soul from a past life. He knocked on the door to my heart, and I opened it without a second thought, believing every promise he made.

I’m Your Puppet

I’m Your Puppet by Gregory and The Hawk; the lyrics “and I’ll undress, if you need it. But please don’t need it” is an accurate way to tell how fucked up my psyche was after this.

They were on the way home from a friend’s graduation party; it was exuberant, a great celebration of their mutual friend. The boy asked the girl if she wanted to pull over somewhere and fool around. It wasn’t even close to being the first time they had been together like that; they were actually each other’s first times. She was a little reluctant, hesitating to do anything that may land her in trouble. He told her that everything would be fine, so she relented, and the car pulled behind a small row of storage containers.

They both climbed in the backseat. A kiss was shared between the two, only lasting a few seconds before the boy pulled away from the girl’s shining lips.

“Can you give me a blowjob?” He asked her, looking with pleading eyes. “I don’t really want to,” she said, evading his piercing gaze, “I’m not really feeling it.” His face twisted, showing his disapproval at her response. “Come on, you never want to.

What happened to the girl who said she’d always be down to do stuff like this?” “No,” she told him, “I don’t want to.” The girl only had done it a few times, but she had almost thrown up once, and she didn’t want a repeat of that. She hoped that refusing again would make him stop asking.

He rolled his eyes and scoffed, “This is what you do when you’re in a relationship.” The girl went to object but didn’t get the chance. He opened the door and got out of the car, pulling her with him so they were standing in the gravel.

“I don’t want to,” the girl said, feeling panic rise, “let’s just have sex instead.”

“It won’t take very long,” he urged with a forceful edge that made her insides twist. With that, he put pressure on her shoulder to have her sink to her knees.

He said it wouldn’t take very long but it felt like eons to her. The rocks in the gravel pushed into the skin on her knees and that’s what she focused on. If she focused only on the pain, maybe everything else would cease to exist. She knew the boy saw tears rolling down her cheeks and heard the small, muffled sobs that escaped her. He only looked at her with lust, not giving a damn about how she was terrified, how he was making her feel.

After he finished, he pulled her up off the rocks, and helped her back in the car. Only once she felt the leather below her did she begin to full out sob. Instead of the harsh figure from moments before, she was met with the boy she knew, the one who loved her.

He pulled the girl into his lap and rocked her as she cried. “Shh,” he cooed. “I’m so sorry, I never should have done that. Please forgive me.” The girl nodded and buried her face in the crook of his neck, letting herself be calmed by his soothing voice. “We don’t have to do anything else,” he said.

To prove to him that she forgave him, she shook her head. “No, it’s fine,” she sniffled, “I’m fine.”

Once it was over, they drove home in complete silence.

***

That day still haunts me. It wasn’t the first time he had coerced me into something. It was far from the last, but it was the one time he legitimately forced me to do something I didn’t want to do and acknowledge it.

I blocked it out for a long time, trying to go on with life as normal. I only realized how wrong it was when I talked to a friend of mine who went through something similar. Even then, I brushed it off and told myself he didn’t mean it. It took even longer for me to see it as sexual assault. I still only remember the overview of what happened, the rest is somewhere in my mind, somewhere that it can’t hurt me. The one thing I remember is the gravel on my knees. The indents I saw when I got home that afternoon were the only things showing that it had truly happened.

This point marked when he knew he could manipulate me. I was so scared of doing something wrong, of disappointing people, disappointing him. At the notion I was beginning to become something he didn’t like, I tried my hardest to become what he said he needed.

If I think about what happened too much, I feel sick, like I need to take a scalding shower and scrub the memory out of existence.

Poison

Poison by Sofia Mills; This song brought me back to the hazy feeling of being high out of my mind and believing my person was the one pushing the drugs into my hands.

She had never gotten high before. The boy once told her he would never touch a drug, but that statement faded into explanations about how he wanted to live life. She was wary, weed was very different from the nicotine they both let swirl in their lungs. He told her for two months about how great it was until she agreed to try. She lied to her parents; the couple had been dating for a little over a year, but the girl’s parents still tried to limit their time together. Instead, she told them it would be a few of her friends from band sleeping over and that the boy wouldn’t be there.

The smoke burned in her chest; it left a distinct aftertaste she wouldn’t forget. Everything was fine until her body started to reject the hazy feeling trying to overtake her. She got sick, a feeling she absolutely loathed. Her friends gave her water and she sat curled in a ball on a chair outside, shivering as the high feeling started to crescendo. The boy stayed outside and told her she’d be okay. He grabbed a wet washcloth and dabbed her clothes before cleaning the hair framing her face. It was in that moment that she only thought of him.

No one else would ever do this for me, she thought. He loves me more than anyone ever has. I am so lucky.

*** That wasn’t the last time I got high. We would smoke at our friend’s house every weekend, spending lazy evenings in each other’s’ arms. That night in particular, I felt so special that someone other than my own mother would clean me up after getting sick and later help me feebly crawl up the stairs.

Wrong Direction

Wrong Direction by Hailee Steinfield; the lyrics “Every time you burn me down, don’t know how, for a moment, it felt like heaven” kind of explains what it was like when looking back on abusive relationships. Back then, the moment of the apology felt like a huge act of love, but now it’s obvious it was just an empty promise.

She had just gotten off a shift at work and got into his car, the clock showing a time around ten at night. The girl already told him that she felt too tired to do anything, but she would be alright for just cuddling before he drove her home. He nodded and drove across the street to the abandoned K-Mart and parked in the middle of the barren lot.

They got in the backseat and she leaned her head on his shoulder and told him about a tough customer she had to deal with. The boy listened to her and waited until her rant flickered into silence.

“Are you sure you don’t want to do anything?”

“Yeah,” she replied, “I’m so exhausted, I’ve been on my feet all day and worked an eight- hour shift.”

“Come on,” he urged, “we never do anything anymore.” She felt exhaustion seeping into her bones, and for the first time, didn’t give in, “No, I am too tired, I want to go home and sleep.”

Instead of agreeing she should get some sleep, he shrugged her head off his shoulder. She tried to reach for his arm, but he yanked it away from her and harshly rolled his eyes. “Babe?” She asked, not fully understanding what was happening.

The boy ignored her concerned gaze and opened the backseat door, loudly slamming it shut before getting into the driver’s seat. The girl took it as her cue to get into the passenger’s side. As he started the car, she once again reached for his hand that rested on the gear shift. Without looking in her direction, he moved his hand to the steering wheel, so quickly that it seemed as though her touch burned him. A permanent scowl took resident on his face and she tried again to talk to him.

“Babe? Please talk to me,” she pleaded, feeling the dread crawl into her throat. With no response, tears started to fall. The road to her house felt so much longer, filled with continuous pleas for him to talk to her, to say anything.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, “I was just really tired. I’m really sorry, please forgive me.” There was no mistaking the sorrow in her voice, the boy knew she was crying, even if he refused to look.

He pulled into her driveway, looking straight ahead as she gathered her coat and purse. Before getting out she tried to lean over to kiss him, but he leaned away.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated before getting out, “I love you.” To her surprise, he didn’t respond. When she shut the door, he immediately backed out, leaving her tear-stained and feeling helpless.

When the boy apologized to her the next day, she forgave him immediately.

***

I have read that emotional abusers utilize the silent treatment because of how effective it is. After refusing him, the stonewalling struck me at my core, my worst fear coming true: becoming something he didn’t want anymore. I never stood my ground again after that. When he would want sex after that night, it would go one of two ways. I would still say no about ten times before he pulled a line that made me so full of guilt that I did what he wanted, or I promised “next time.”

In My Veins

In My Veins by Andrew Belle; This song really emphasizes the pain of the hole that is left when someone with such a stable place in your life. It feels like all that is left is their ghost.

“I don’t think we should be together anymore, Emily.” “What? What are you even talking about?” “I just need to find myself.” “What the fuck does that even mean? How can you just leave? I love you, please, we can work it out.”

“I’m sorry, I just think it’s for the best.”

*** The first time we broke up was over the phone while I was on a weekend vacation. It came after I kept pushing him to apply to college since he was going to be graduating later that year. I calculated what it would cost for him to live off minimum wage while paying rent and he got so angry. He broke up with me because he was getting annoyed with my insistence on going to college or a technical school. He hated when I got on him to not skip school or to stop smoking so much weed. He made me feel like I was so awful for trying to help him succeed. No one has ever made me feel like a burden in the way he did.

A week after, he came to my house and told me that he didn’t realize what he had until it was gone and I ultimately took him back, truly believing he would change.

Terrible Love

Terrible Love by The National; this point really marked the realization that I was in a toxic cycle of what I thought was love.

It was about thirty minutes before the girl was to perform with the jazz band for a Christmas concert. She had asked the boy to come, but he said he had plans already. This wasn’t surprising considering he left early from school on her birthday to get high. The girl settled for texting him instead.

She asked him what he was up to and he replied that he didn’t want to tell her, as she would get upset. Immediately, the girl felt worry build. Thousands of possibilities fleeted across her consciousness of he was indulging in. After pleading for him to tell her, for her own sanity, he relented and told her that he was going to be doing MDMA for the first time with a mutual friend he lived with. The girl felt irritation mixed with desperation bubble up inside her. He swore he would never do anything besides smoke weed but once again, he trampled over any promises ever made.

She texted him a long paragraph about how irresponsible it was and that he could get into so much trouble. He told her how uptight she was and how she was keeping him from living his life. The girl was fed up and told him not to text her for the rest of the night. It was a justified reaction, but her anxiety only told her she was a shitty partner for not indulging him.

She was so upset, so anxious about what he was doing and how in the recent months had been throwing his life away. He had recently began insisting that he would be fine living off of her in the future until he figured out what to do. The night went on with her panic staying at a fever pitch.

The next day the girl texted her best friend, the same one he was with, and ranted about the situation, hoping that the friend would see why she was so torn up. They had the following exchange:

The girl: He even said I wasn’t going to like what you guys were going to do. Because he knew I’d be super against it. But he said it was fine and it wasn’t a big deal and that I was overreacting. I don’t think I am. I just needed someone to talk to last night because I cried and just went over in my head what the hell I could do to help him. It’s not just this. It’s all of it. He doesn’t do his homework, skips school, or leaves because he feels like it, has no motivation and no desire to do the things he needs to. When you love someone so much all you want to do is see them succeed. Idk maybe I’m just an uptight bitch and a shit person but I do know I want the best for him.

Friend: You act like I want to see him fail. I don’t, Emily. I want him to succeed just as much as you do but I also want him to live his life to the fullest. Everyone needs to have quality of life or it isn’t worth living.

The girl: I never said you wanted to. I know you want to see him succeed just as much as I do. But I know for a fact if he doesn’t get himself together, there’s not much of a life to live. It sucks but life is hard and it’s not easy. No matter who you are, it’s never going to be easy. If he doesn’t graduate high school, there’s not much he can do. Even fast-food places can only pay minimum wage without a high school diploma and to be a manager you need a high school diploma. I’m looking for his future, not the next few months. If he wants to live in an apartment, he needs money. His dad isn’t always going to give him that. To get money, a decent job is required. Minimum wage won’t be enough. And he just doesn’t care. I try to make up for it and I try and try to push him to do his homework, to study, to make good grades. But it never works.

Friend: I’m upset rn so I’m not going to respond atm. I will text you later and we can talk about it then, okay?

The girl: Okay be safe. Please don’t show him all this unless you think necessary. I don’t want him to be mad at me because it makes me feel like the shittiest person on earth when people are mad at how I feel and like I shouldn’t tell people how I feel anymore.

*** It is hard to explain the way I felt when he told me he was going to do MDMA. My reaction wasn’t due to the drug itself, but more about the stereotypical, lazy deadbeat he had become. He once tried to impress me by telling me he brought up an 8% to a 32% in an easy class.

I felt responsible for the way he was. I thought I could fix him, that I would be able to pull him out of the headspace he was in and bring him back to who he used to be. Back then, I didn’t realize he had always been that way, only getting more obvious because I never called him out on it, save for a few times.

I recently found those texts while drafting out this paper. Reading them teleports me into the headspace I once held. Back then, I believed that I needed to help him along with the small voice that told me he was right, that I was overreacting. Now I know that my reaction was justified, I should’ve held him accountable by breaking up with him on the spot. But like many times before, I didn’t. I clung on to the hope that not all was lost, there was still time.

Honey and Milk

Honey and Milk by Flower Face; there are some lyrics in this song that really frame how the end of such a toxic relationship felt like. “And the love you made me fight for was never love at all. The red light shines through the window and I’ve got a black eye for every bed you’ve made. The honey and milk on my fingertips was never enough to make you stay.”

It was mid-April, spring out in full force when she couldn’t get ahold of him. Most days, she would have chalked it up to him deciding he wasn’t in the mood to go to school, but the day before, he swore he’d be there.

Halfway through the day, she saw him approaching in the hallway. The relief that filled her didn’t last long, though.

“We got busted last night,” he told her. “What?” “Yeah, we got caught with weed in the car and I got a drug charge.” The girl shouldn’t have been so shocked, but she was. Even worse, she shouldn’t have felt relief that he was handing her a reason to leave him on a silver platter. She finally had enough of the coercion in the bedroom, his confidence that she would never leave, and feeling like a burden.

“I can’t believe this,” she stated, shaking her head. “I’ll talk to you later; I need to think.”

The girl called him later, knowing that if she saw his face, she wouldn’t go through with it. She told him that she was done. He cried for the first time over her and told her that he wanted to take his own life. He went on for hours about how he was going to kill himself without her. The girl felt guilt settle in the forefront of her mind. She told the boy it was going to be alright and comforted him, trying to keep him calm, truly believing that he would leave his blood staining her hands.

She cried for hours after hanging up the phone. But she wasn’t crying for him, she was crying for the girl she used to be. It was almost two years that he had her in his clutches, two years of playing into his twisted games.

While she did feel used and irrevocably damaged, she could finally breathe. She was free.

*** I never went back to him, but not for a lack of him trying. I got myself as far away as possible and it was the best decision I ever made.

New Person, Old Place

New Person, Old Place by Madi Diaz; I struggled for a long time for a song that captured at least something close to my real feelings. This song captures the sadness, the trauma, and the moving on. I think that it really adds to the feelings of realization of how much I sacrificed for him: “I used to take all of your shit and carry it on my back. I’d leave what I needed behind to make room for whatever you had. I believed that I had to be strong just for you, so you wouldn’t crack”

I have thought again and again what I was going to end my story with. The optimistic and empathetic part of me yearns for a happy ending. I want people to know it gets better and feel hopeful. But the much larger, aching side of me wants to tear down the mended façade I have built and scream out all the hurt.

Most days I feel that I’m made up of an alphabet soup of emotions I couldn’t even begin to decipher. In one moment, I feel okay again and understand that I didn’t deserve what happened, but it is over. The next is filled with visceral recollections of all the worst parts that reignites every antagonistic thought. It truly feels like my psyche is in a never-ending pendulum, swinging between healing and absolute and total self-destruction.

While my thoughts on the matter are contradictory from one day to another, I think I have come to a few conclusions. I know that I am not okay, and I probably won’t be for a while. I cannot lie to myself by saying the shaking in my hands that accompanies thinking back is due to the cold instead of a physical reaction to trauma. I also have come to realize that I am so fucking angry, and I am allowed to be. A lot of people say that forgiveness is the way to healing but I think that is bullshit. I will never forgive him for what he did to me. He stole my naivety from underneath me and forced me to thank him. How can you forgive something like that?

Many don’t understand why survivors stay in abusive relationships if it is so awful. The problem is that it wasn’t always bad. There were times that I felt like I was on top of the world and others where he yanked me down to hell. I believed I deserved what he did, that I wasn’t worth anything more. He made me believe he was the only one that would love me.

It’s funny how trauma works. While he assaulted my body and tortured my mind, I mislabeled it as love, as flaws that I needed to accept since he loved mine. I didn’t start to notice the way he changed me until months later. Even now, almost two years since the day I left, I’m still tormented by the aftereffects. Over the course of writing about my ordeal, I tremble for hours, physically reacting to reliving the experiences, no matter how healing it is.

Suffering from abuse at such a formative age, fifteen to seventeen, left its mark on my psyche, etched deep inside. Because of this, I want others to know how to escape and that no one is responsible for the actions of others. Even if he was abused himself, he chose to continue the cycle and use me as a scapegoat for all his problems in life. I am grateful for one thing though; I will never, ever let myself be treated like that again. I would rather be alone than suffer the way that I did.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that most stories don’t have a happy ending; instead, most end in a nameless limbo between good and bad. My story falls into that majority. Many bad things happened, and they continue to come back again and again, like a stray that only found shelter in my mind. There is still so much that haunts me daily, but I also know that it is not all bad.

My soul is still covered with the ominous clouds his presence brought but every day, more slivers of sunlight poke through, causing flowers to bloom where it was once barren. One day, a full garden will grow and take over the parts of me that he singlehandedly ripped apart. One day, I will not feel so empty about the ordeal.

One day, I will be okay again.

#Trigger warning #tw #tw abuse #tw r*pe #tw sex assault #abuse #emotional abuse #trauma #intimate partner violence #domestic abuse #gaslighting #toxic relationship #abusive relationship #actuallytraumatized #coercion

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chappedandfadedvds · 3 years

Text

Jan 16th, Saturday 15:16

Jens was actually laughing.

Genuingly laughing, when Lotte told them some really bad joke she had heard in school. A dumb pun. But it had been the fourth in a row and they had finally reached the breaking point.

He sat at the table, an half emptied plate of apple slices between him and his little sister, while Lies roamed the kitchen to write down a list of groceries to buy on her way home. She planned to visit their mom and it had weighed heavy on her, when she had admitted this to Jens early that morning infront of the bathroom mirror.

Lies had told him, how much it hurt to live so far away and unable to travel and come home. She would have loved to help Jens over the past year, even if it would just have been for a week here and there. It was the reason why she had been so desperate to secure the position to be send to Brussels.

Not that it been an actual problem, her wokrplace knew very well about her family situation. Still, Lies had said, that the moment she had recieved the plane tickets only a week ago, she had broken down in her boss’s office.

Lies was here though now, thankful for the opportunity to bid farewell to their mother in person at last.

Jens understood the relief his older sister had explained to him. He couldn’t even entertain the thought of not being able to see his mom, while prohibited to visit inmidst the pandemic.

„Oh, I know! There is this one dish Theo and me always make as comfort food. Quite easy, but really nice in winter, with a good hearty broth. I’m going to do that.“ Lies declared vague from where she stood behind the opened door of the fridge. Mumbling something under her breath, while she noted things down on the piece of paper on the counter next to her.

„I don’t know if I should trust you to actually cook something delicious.“ Jens mocked, reminded of the many times that Lies had simply ordered take-out on every evening she was watching her siblings. Cooking was for loosers, she always had said, and simultaneously implied that she was at an absolute loss in the kitchen.

„Says the person who had managed to let noodles get burned to crisps while boiling them.“

„I was ten.“ He defended, cackling when Lies snorted and their gazes met. So much time had passed, but Jens was assured that the loving arguments between them would never cease to exist.

„But Jens is really good now. He makes like a super good riceotto“ Lotte chimed in, the wide smile on her face somewhere between amused and puzzled. She hadn’t much memories of Jens and Lies together, so it was reasonable for her to be unsure why it was funny. Their little sister had been only five when Lies had left.

She had cried for a whole week, but with time passing, she had stopped even mentioning Lies alltogether. She knew her, yes, but she couldn’t tell what they had done or talked about together any longer. And maybe it was a little sad, Jens thought, but it also meant that Lotte wouldn’t miss Lies as much as Jens sometimes did.

„Risotto.“ Jens corrected, while he leaned a little over to ruffle through her hair. She slapped his hand away, stucking out her tounge at him in jest.

„Well, maybe Jens should cook then. I won’t complain.“

„No way, you are the oldest now, you cook.“ Jens quickly proclaimed his flawless reasoning against the mere suggestion Lies had voiced. His older sister barely contained herself from laughing again, instead nodded along, as she continued to write even more things down.

Jens knew that she had come with a rented car from the airport, but the list just grew and he wasn’t sure, if he should tell her off. It looked like she wanted to stock the kitchen for an entire month.

The mood turned a little quieter, only Jens’s spotify playlist filled the house with some comfortable noise, while Lotte sketched some abstract scenes on paper. Jens’s eyes flicked over every once in a while, but it appeared like there wasn’t much reason behind it.

He yawned and stretched his arms, a loud cracking sound in his shoulder earned him a gleeful glance from Lies, who he flipped off. Despite it, he felt younger today. He felt lighter. His breathing wasn’t hurting as much, his thoughts came easier.

Lies and him had talked for hours yesterday. He had forgotten how close they used to be. Which was wierd given their age difference and them not even being the same gender. But somehow they always stuck together. Jens wished she would stay.

The day they had bid goodbye at the airport had been locked somewhere into his head. Even after three years he didn’t dared to touch it.

This all would be easier if he had Lies to live with them. But it wasn’t reality and Lies had made him understand that it was okay to be scared. She had admitted at three in the morning, when they had headed to bed, that it had taken her month to figure out how to live on her own. Especially after she had moved to a different continent, while leaving her family behind. Jens could do this too.

He still had all of his friends around. He had this house. He had Lotte.

He just had to start somewhere.

„I think I’m going to call Lucas.“ Jens suddenly said. For a moment he had considered the possibility that he hadn’t spoken aloud at all. However, it became clear that he had, as both his sister’s heads spun towards him in an instant.

„Really? That came out of nowhere. But good for you. I think you should.“ Lies said, a little startled by his surprising change of demeanour. Only this morning he had still sat depressed and hunched over in pity in front of his breakfast. Jens wasn’t even sure himself where the urge to do it had popped up from.

„Yes!“ Lotte followed up quickly with bright wide eyes. Of course she would be excited.

„Okay. I’m going to do it.“ He declared, more to will his confidence in excistense than aynthing else.

He was nervous. Maybe Lucas wouldn’t even pick up? Jens wasn’t even sure, if Lucas’s mom was still around. This was a bad idea.

The whole conversation from thursday sprung back into his mind. The hurt in Lucas’s eyes and the anger in his words. All caused by Jens. What if the other boy needed more time? What if he wouldn’t even pick up?

The fear must have shown on his face. Jens was sure, because Lies stood suddenly next to him, to push his phone into view. He had been starring at the surface of the table, unmoving, even when Lotte had come closer too, with a hand resting on his shoulder.

„Come on. Call.“ Lies demanded, despite the gentleness in her voice, it still made him take the phone into his hand.

„Alright.“

„Do you want us to leave?“

Good question, Jens thought, unsure how to answer. But then, he wasn’t planning on having the needed conversation over phone anyway. He was scared that words would get twisted and intentions screwed by the missing connection one had face to face.

So he shook his head.

The phone rang four times.

Nothing.

He tried again. Just this second time and then he would put it away again.

It merely managed to make a sound, before the call was answered.

„Jens?“

He sat at the table, his breath on hold, as he listened to the boy on the other end. Jens wouldn’t cry from solely his name being spoken by the person he missed so much for only a couple of days now. He wouldn’t.

That was at least what he desperately told himself.

„Jens? Are you there?“

There was worry in the voice and Jens didn’t trust it. He didn’t deserved it. But he was on the phone, he remembered. He had been the one to iniiate the conversation. He should probably say something.

„Hi.“

Jesus. His voice had certainly cracked, like some fifteen year old teenanger going through puperty. This was embarrassing. But it also helped. Lucas was definitely snorting on the other end of the call. And the three siblings all fell into laughter, with Lies wheezing at her brother’s pitiful attempt to make things right. His sister’s really tried to keep quiet, but it kind of was in vain. Lucas must have heard them.

It took Jens a solid minute to speak again.

„Sorry, about that.“

„It’s alright.“ Lucas said as he took an audible deep breath to calm down to continue. The faintest amusement in his voice still there, even if the mood had turned serious again. „I am really glad that you called.“

It was the earnesty that struck Jens the most. It came unexpected. He had planned to force Lucas to hear him out if he had to. In the strong assumption that the younger boy didn’t wanted to talk to him in the first place. Apparently Jens had been wrong. Again. Like so often. It seemed to become a habit.

„I’m glad you picked up.“

„Of course.“ Lucas replied without any hesitation, it made Jens smile a little. It felt so good to hear him again. To hear him at ease. Jens pushed away the intruding thought in his head, that told him that it probably had to do with Jens’s absence. He hated that he somehow could belive it.

„I thought, maybe we can talk?“

There was a brief pause on the other end, as the call fell silent.

„I’d like that. When?“ Lucas asked and Jens noticed that he hadn’t thought that far ahead.

„Uhm, when?“

„Yes, when?“

The amusement in the younger boy was back. Jens could imagine Lucas shaking his head at the silly and ungraceful awkwardness Jens presented. There was a hand in his view, that lead him to look up at Lies, who tried to get his attention.

„Tomorrow.“ She whispered, nodding her head quickly, while she pointed a finger to herself. „I can watch Lotte.“

Jens loved Lies so much, it was ridiculous.

„How about tomorrow? I could come over to yours.“

„Okay. Be here at one maybe?“

„Yes, that works.“ He affirmed in a heartbeat. Jens would have agreed to any proposed time. It wouldn’t have mattered as long as he got the chance to talk to Lucas. He had an idea what he wanted to say after last night’s conversation with Lies. He knew that it wouldn’t be perfect or maybe even work in his favour, but it would be a start.

„I’ll see you tomorrow then.“ Lucas said.

„Tomorrow.“

They sat in silence for a moment. Usually Jens would have told him that he loved him. But it didn’t feel right, even when the feelings were clearly there. It felt too much to voice it. They hadn’t broken up yet, but it wasn’t as if they were in a relationship still either. So he simply waited.

And then there was a clicking sound and the call was ended.

__ __ __ tagged: @odi-et-amo85, @tayspots

#week 13 #wtfock #skam #vds #jens stoffels #lucas van der heijden #chapped and faded #final week #picking up the pieces

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cottonloid · 4 years

Text

Cotton Playlist: Unicorn

I wanted to write about Vocaloid songs I like, so I did. Here are my thoughts on Teniwoha and their latest song, “Unicorn.”

UNICORN, by Teniwoha

On February 7, 2020, Teniwoha uploaded “Villain” to their YouTube channel. Their previous song, “Bradbury,” had been uploaded in August 2019, and has at time of writing raked up a respectable 261,500 hits. Although Teniwoha had been uploading music to YouTube since 2014, only one song, “Meitantei Renzoku Satsujinjiken” had managed to break the million-view barrier. That song was uploaded in 2016. Teniwoha’s songs over the next four years received decent attention, with a few surpassing 100K and even 500K in views. But other songs languished with fewer than 50K views. Even “9,” a collaboration with emon(Tes.), has only managed to net 33,000 views.

I don’t know why Teniwoha received relatively little YouTube attention during this period. Maybe it was the state of the Vocaloid community during this time. Maybe they were not favored by the fickle gods of the YouTube algorithm. Maybe their songs missed the musical zeitgeist. Whatever the reason, the dry spell ended with “Villain,” which performed like no Teniwoha song before it. At time of writing, it sits at 4,850,000 views on YouTube. That’s not counting covers.

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I’ve been a fan of Teniwoha since 2014, and I’m glad “Villain” was a big hit. I love “Villain,” even though it’s not my favorite Teniwoha song. But I’m not here to talk about “Villain” (even though I will actually be talking a lot more about “Villain”). I want to talk about “Unicorn,” which I like a little more.

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How do we quantify the success of a song or an artist? I’ve been throwing out a lot of statistics, and sure, we can say that’s a measure of popularity. By that measure, “Unicorn” is the dark horse to “Villain.” Uploaded three months after Teniwoha’s biggest YouTube hit, it currently has 322K views. Not bad. But at this point, it’s not going to replicate the statistical success of “Villain,” despite the similarities between the songs. And there are quite a few similarities. Both videos feature illustrations by Nekoko. Both are about marginalized (pretty clearly queer) identities and create joy out of subversion and adversity. Both have an industrial-rock sound to them.

Comparing the two songs, I think it’s clear why “Villain” was the hit. It has a catchier, dynamic chorus and a badass keyboard riff. In comparison, the chorus in “Unicorn” kind of drifts downwards, then up, then down, then up again, before finally hitting that punchy, “Now! I’m a unicorn now!” “Villain” actually pulls a similar trick in its chorus—after the keyboard comes in, the vocals float back in to sing the title of the song. It’s neat. But it doesn’t blow me away quite like “Unicorn.” The chorus leading up to that part is less flashy, though the jeering/cheering sound at the beginning is a nice addition. But it builds up to a show-stealing synthesizer, and instead of the song’s title sounding like an afterthought, it bursts gleefully forth—“I’m a unicorn NOW!” This part sounds like a prancing horse (complete with clip-clop sounds in the background), and I love it.

It’s the bridge between the verse and chorus that really stands out. It shows up with force and confidence, taking what has until that point been a rhythmically measured song and propelling it forward. The tuning is great, and this is coming from someone who often does not like flower. The little squeak Teniwoha puts into their voice is extremely satisfying. Teniwoha deftly utilizes flower’s gruff low/mid-range, and there’s a tremoring quality to some of the vocals that feels appropriately horse-y (hoarse-y?).

But I don’t actually know shit about music. The real reason why “Unicorn” just barely edges out “Villain” for me is that it’s slightly more playful. And I think play is Teniwoha’s biggest strength. So in “Unicorn,” he gets to show off.

If I had to describe Teniwoha as an artist in two words, those words would be “playful” and “versatile.” Teniwoha primarily makes rock music, but if you listen to his backlog, you’ll hear a wide variety of styles. I’d name some, but again, I don’t know shit about music. And I don’t think all of Teniwoha’s songs fit neatly into genre conventions. For instance, they described their song “Onomatopetenshi” as “neo rakugo funk music.”

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“Onomatopetenshi” is kind of the perfect Teniwoha song. It is basically a vessel for them to make a song entirely of puns. My Japanese language skills aren’t good enough to fully appreciate it, and to my knowledge, nobody has translated it. For obvious reasons. For instance, there are lyrics that translate roughly to “drunkenness, a good slave, old age, spirit fire.” That doesn’t make a lot of sense. But those lyrics (酔いどれ良い奴隷養老霊火) are pronounced, “yoidore yoidorei yourou rei hi.” Sure enough, the vocals yodel. (Skip to 0:33 in the song to hear it for yourself.)

In another song, “Kyuubi goryoue mystery ~tenketsu~,” Teniwoha pens the infuriating line, “Look in fear upon the bon festival.” Which is fine in itself. But that line (恐れ見よ盆挿話) is pronounced “osore miyo bon souwa,” and is phonetically similar to “o sole mio, bonsoir.”

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I think a witch cursed Teniwoha to make them write puns for the rest of their life.

Anyhow, my point is that Teniwoha can write a range of songs and have a great time doing it. My favorite Teniwoha songs are the ones that revel in their own deviousness. “Devious” feels like an appropriate word to describe someone who makes as many puns as Teniwoha. Ironically, “Villain” is a song that is textually about being devious. But it’s kind of heavy, thematically. The song finds its joy and soars in some places, but it’s a joy that is painfully earned. Embracing the role of the villain can feel empowering, but it’s a role other people have chosen for the song’s narrator.

As in “Villain,” the narrator in “Unicorn” declares themselves to be a unicorn. But it’s less clear that other people forced the narrator into this role, so this declaration reads to me as self-affirmation. There’s still a sense of bitterness in this song, but it a little more playful, a little more weaponized. (Like a unicorn horn???) The vibe is very, “Feeling abandoned by god? Cool. Let’s burn everything down.” It’s the difference between “hated life/蛇蝎ライフ” and “the joys and sorrows of life/苦楽ライフ.”

Teniwoha also gets to do a little more wordplay in “Unicorn,” rhyming English words like ark/mark/dark, melancholy/holy, and unicorn/you become/unison. Then there are some cross-language puns like “smile” and “数mile” (pronounced “suu mile”). The poetics of these lyrics are just generally great. There was some of that in “Villain,” of course, but the tone of the song is maybe a bit heavy for too many puns. I think that due to the slightly lighter tone in “Unicorn,” Teniwoha gets to flex their lyrical muscles a little. And write puns.

This wordplay also works thematically. Teniwoha bends linguistic meaning while his lyrics challenge a black/white binary. The unicorn’s very existence makes a mockery of this binary, just as puns throw linguistic sense into gleeful confusion. There’s a new meaning being made here.

Of course, this also happens in “Villain” to an extent. As always, my preference is simply a matter of taste. Both “Villain” and “Unicorn” are great queer anthems. But the spiteful jubilance of “Unicorn” matches my mood a little more right now. Or maybe I just like that the song sounds like a horse. And really, I’m just glad that more people are listening to Teniwoha now. After six years, they deserve it.

Now please go stream Teniwoha’s “Mononoke Mystery” album. It’s on Spotify, and it’s their best work.

#vocaloid #teniwoha #villain #unicorn #cotton playlist

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oh-boleyn · 4 years

Text

dreams of her

words: 4007, one shot, language: english. f/f (parrlyn)

tw: alcohol, drowning, angst, if I forgot one just tell me

Catherine Parr met Anne Boleyn on a rainy midnight, while passing through the tower of London.

Anne’s dress was a mess, all white and out of fashion. Still Parr couldn’t stop watching the girl. She had bright green eyes, and long dark brown hair that almost got to her waist. A lost, confused look on her face got Catherine worried.

“Are you okay?” She asked. The girl saw her and smile.

Her smile was so bright it could light up the world.

“Yes, yes I am.”

(…)

Writing poetry is not quite a Catherine Parr thing, but she still does it.

Something about the white dress in the middle of the night that she can’t shake, not without pouring it into words.

(…)

It’s over a week before she sees the girl again. Just like she remembered her, but this time a choker on her neck catches her attention. Is white, the whole look is, just like last time. It matches almost perfectly with the porcelain skin.

“Good night.” Parr tries to sound casual, cool.

“Good night.” The other replies.

Cathy turns, heading to the tube. Without wanting to do that again, and lose back the gorgeous girl, she gives a glance back, but can’t find her again.

(…)

She dreams of her, which is something completely weird.

There is so much detail on the dream, things she can’t even quite put a finger on. They couldn’t possible have exchanged more than seven words, but in her dream, she knows exactly how the brunette would laugh and talk.

Even more strange, she wakes up with an ache on her neck.

(…)

Catherine hated having to cover in the bar, one of the advantages of being the goddaughter of the owner was having the best hours, and escaping dealing with drunk guys past ten. But since Jane had his son, little Edward, she had been pleading for a change of hours and Parr couldn’t just say no.

Staying in the bar late meant she had to write there, hiding behind the counter, wishing to be in her way too small apartment with the peace and quiet of her favourite Spotify playlist. Between college, bartending, and trying to write at least one good thing before finishing her studies she was constantly on the border of a mental breakdown.

The only thing she was glad about, was that apparently every time she made extra hours the white dressed girl would be standing near the tower of London. Catherine wished to be able to talk more to her, but was too anxious to create any more conversation that just casual greetings. Like written on stone, every night she would see the girl, a dream about her would come.

(…)

“Goodnight!” Cathy screamed, passing beside the other girl.

“Wait!” The paler responded. “I was wondering if I could have your name.”

“Yeah.” She is taken aback, slowing her peace. “I’m Catherine Parr.”

The writer extends a hand, which the other takes without hesitation. The touch is soft, almost like silk, but so cold that it could be ice.

“Anne.”

Anne fits her. Even if Catherine is not sure if the name fits her or the way she says it, pronouncing slowly, needing the time because every part of it is important. It’s a really short name, but still sounds so elegant and distinguished coming from her. Parr is sure she is not going to be capable so pronounce a name so elegantly ever in her life.

(…)

“What are you thinking about, Cathy?” Anna asks.

“What?”

“You have your head in the clouds, what’s going on?” The German questions again.

“Nothing it’s just I’m having crazy days. With changing hours with Jane everything became catastrophic.” Parr excuses herself. “Do you want the usual?”

“It’s almost too late for that, I would prefer something stronger, what you got?”

Catherine smiles, mischief clear on her face.

“We have a new drink, it’s called bridge. One of these and you will be on the other side.”

She takes a long glass and starts mixing different alcoholics beverages, plus some other stuff like sugar and some fruit juice. Anna drinks it quickly, not bothering by the name of it.

“It is not that strong.” Cleves accuses Cathy.

“Try to stand up.”

The German does it quickly, stumbling on her feet and guiding a hand to her forehead in an attempt to drown the sudden numbness she feels.

“You were right.”

“I always am, linda.”

(…)

That night Anna is uncapable of standing up by herself, less to go home alone. Catherine dismisses her early, under the promise she will take her friend back to the apartment. Going through the streets of London with a really drunk woman, who is at least half a head taller than Parr it’s not quite easy task, but she manages.

“Friend of yours, Catherine?” Anne asks, smiling.

She almost shines, her white dress floating with the cold wind of the night. The clouds above them are grey, almost black, announcing a rain coming, but Catherine can’t bring herself to care, not even when Anna moves towards a trash can.

“Yes, you can say so.” Parr says, before adding: “She is your namesake, almost. It ends with an A.”

“Well, I’m Anne with an E.”

Cathy laughs.

“Why are you laughing?” Anne questions.

“You made a reference, to that show.” Cathy responds.

“What show?”

The girl seems confused, and for a second Catherine feels like that too, but when Anna takes her arm and request to please go home, the smaller complies.

“Good night, Anne!” She screams.

(…)

When the storm breaks, Catherine had barely time to get back to her house. She luckily didn’t catch the rain, or else her house would probably be a mess.

She wonders about Anne, Anne with her white dress and precious smile. With her cold touch and pale skin. Anne who is just as enchanting as anyone could be, elegant but still playful. Just thinking about her name makes Catherine have her head over heels.

Catherine Parr was not one to fall in love so abruptly, a first sight. Her love was usually slow, getting used to the person, knowing them completely. But it was not the case, outside the things she could got from their short talks, she knew nothing about Anne.

But she was still falling.

(…)

“Goodnight, Catherine!” Anne calls, voice clear in the not so populated street.

“Goodnight, Anne.”

(…)

There was something strange, a sickening feeling when Catherine got closer to Anne.

Just the sight of her pale, even slightly green, skin made Parr feel giddy and shaky. Her hands would start tremble, and her mouth would run out of words quicker than it usually did. Even the temperature seemed to get lower near her.

Catherine still felt attracted, an uneasy feeling of belonging. A need to get closer, even if it sickened her to the very core, letting her so tired that the only thing she could do when arriving home was sleeping.

And have nightmares about her.

(…)

“Yes, godmother, I’m getting to the bar right now.” Catherine says on the phone.

Arriving, she takes the key to the back door, letting herself in the vast place. Cold hits her skin while she changes into her uniform. Going into the bar, the music starts sounding more and more loud, until she shows up there.

A girl with brown and pink hair is singing for the karaoke night, totally careless but hitting the notes.

“There you are.” Catherine of Aragon calls. “I thought I had lost you to your books.”

“Funny.” Cathy said, straight-faced. “Who is that?”

“I’m not sure, Katherine something, but she is good.” Aragon explains. “You should go and sing.”

“I don’t think so.” Parr replies.

“Whatever you say.” She makes a pause. “I was wondering if you were going to take again Jane’s turn.”

“Yes, yes I will.”

(…)

Walking back home makes her stomach turn when thinking about watching Anne. It must have been a prediction, because when she finds the other woman, she doesn’t exactly look like always.

Her green eyes are not bright and gleeful, instead there is something obscure apart from the tears falling. Her white skin is left untouched, not a single mark of redness, still it is puffy and demonstrates signs of crying. The white dress is different, looking like a dirty white, almost grey, and the choker is thicker, wrapping itself tighter on her neck.

“Anne?” Catherine asks, getting closer. “Are you okay?”

“I’m so lost.” The woman cries. “Have you ever felt like that? Like you are slowly drowning? Is like there is just so much water weight on me, my lungs can’t take the pressure.”

Parr slowly moves, sitting beside her, she wonders for a moment, before putting a hand on Anne’s back. As expected, her skin is freezing, but the other doesn’t care. Slowly drawing paths in her back, she waits for words to come out, but they don’t.

“I am just so tired.”

“Let’s go out.” Catherine suddenly reacts.

“What?”

“Let’s do something. Right now. We deserve a free night.” Catherine slowly guides a hand to Anne’s face, attempting to dry the tears with her thumb. “What do you say?”

A timid smile appears on Anne’s face.

“I think you are right.”

Catherine quickly stands up, offering a hand.

“Lady…”

“Boleyn.”

“Lady Boleyn, would you do me the pleasure of being my companion for tonight?”

“Of course, your majesty.”

Both of them interlock their hands, while laughing at their silly manners.

Walking the streets of London never felt more magical to Parr. Everything seemed prettier, brighter. In her dream like state, everything is better, and she is no longer tired. She wonders if it is another fantasy of hers, but decides against it, even if it was, everything was just so wonderful that it wasn’t worth it to not relish it.

They get to a club, with dark lights and loud pop music. Anne smiles at Parr, who takes her lead. They start to make silly moves in the middle of the dance floor, not caring about the consequence of embarrassing themselves. Anne’s eyes have a certain gleam, shining every time she smiles for a move Cathy makes.

The atmosphere makes Cathy feel drunk, everything brilliant, dazzling, under the blue lights. People are moving in a blur, and the only static thing are green eyes watching her, attentive at every move she makes. It feels right, she keeps telling herself so, but at the same time an insanity to the whole situation keeps her out of that train of thought.

“Would you like to drink something?” Catherine questions, to which Anne gives half a smile.

“Of course.”

“I think I know a better place.”

Taking back Anne’s hand, they start making their way outside. An hour has already passed, and even less people can be found in the streets.

“Tell me about yourself, Catherine.” Boleyn questions.

“I’m not an interesting person.” The shorter claims.

“Don’t say that.” She fakes pouts. “Please, I want to know.”

“Okay.” Cathy laughs. “Where to begin? I am the oldest of three siblings, and we used to live in the north, in Cumbria to be more exact. I am good with languages, since I really love anything that has to do with words.”

“You sound like a bookworm.” Anne proclaims.

“I am! But really, I just love it.”

“I am not good with languages.” The taller explains. “But I speak French.”

“For real? I do too, and Italian. And Spanish. And I can translate from Latin but I haven’t practiced in a long time.”

“How long? Since somebody actually cared and talked Latin?” Anne mocks her.

“Shut up! It’s really interesting, and important. A lot of languages come from it.”

“What is your favourite word? In Latin, I mean.”

“I think vigil. It means sentinel.” Cathy makes a pause and signals the sky. “It can also mean stars. You know, they watch us.”

“The starts watch us?”

“Totally. So does the moon, and the sun.” Catherine slowly strokes Anne’s hand with her own. “I moved with my godmother when I was still young, departing was really hard. My mum told me that starts will be everywhere, watching over me even if she couldn’t. It was good to know, like a protection.”

“I used to live in France, my dad sent me there for boarding school.” Her voice grows darker. “I didn’t saw any of my siblings for a while and it was… It was really lonely. Still I found comfort in the sky too. I don’t think starts can see me, but I do think I can see them. Like stars, the moon. It doesn’t matter where you are, the moon is always the same.”

Anne hides her face.

“That’s a nice thought.”

“It’s dumb, Catherine.”

“It’s not.” Cathy reaffirms with a squeeze to Anne’s hand. “It’s something good to think. Like every person that has ever been on earth has known the moon. A million of civilizations, people we don’t even know their names. Every hero and villain saw the same moon.”

“The moon is beautiful.”

“No more than you.”

Anne gives a surprised look to Parr, who looks away.

“Keep telling me about you.”

“I told you I love words. I want to be a writer.”

She is trying hard to keep her breath under control, but deep inside her heart is racing. The sickening feeling makes her feel that she could overshare at any moment, which is something she would rather not happen.

“I am currently in University, and I am trying to write this book, but it is just so much and so hard. It’s like I can write a thousand pages, but when I proof read it, I hate it.” Catherine explains.

Way to go with no oversharing, Parr. She blames herself.

“I think you are probably just too perfectionist.” Anne’s voice is sweet, familiar. “I used to write, and I loved it, it was messy, a strange kind of poetry.”

“Really?” Cathy questions. “Since I met you, I have been writing little poems here and there. I was never one to write literal poems, maybe sonnets but nothing more.”

“That sounds really structured from you, Catherine.”

“Why do you always call me Catherine?” She burst out.

It’s Anne’s way to say here name, pronouncing it whole, making her feel so important and personal. Maybe it was something about living in France, having another language for so long, but still it doesn’t quite explain why.

“It’s your name; isn’t it, Catherine?”

There is a playful smirk on her face, which brings Parr to her edge. Saying her name into the conversation feels so intimate. She considers that the only other way to make her feel like that would be if Anne ran her fingers through her arms, through her face. It is confidential, affectionate.

“Yes, but people call me Cathy.”

“Well, I am not people.”

Fortunate or not for the shortest, the moment Anne finishes saying it is when they arrive to Aragon’s bar. Nobody is there, counting that the clock indicates 2AM, and it closes at one, but the mess is still there. Some chairs out of its places, while others are neatly sitting in tables. The floor is dirty, and there are glasses still sitting on the scenario.

Still, she can’t appreciate it more, with the fairy lights, and Anne by her side, the chaotic scene looks like something irreal, out of a dream.

“Welcome to my job, you wanted to know about me? I’m here most of the time.” Cathy grabs a clean glass. “What do you want to drink, milady?”

“What do you recommend me?” Catherine nods, but doesn’t say a word. “So, bartending. I couldn’t possibly have guessed it.”

“Well, it’s not my ideal job. I don’t enjoy crowds to be honest, but my godmother is the owner and I used to do my homework in the back, so I’m used to being here. It’s good.”

“Is it? Really?”

It takes Parr for surprise, how easily she asks, a smirk on her face. A nervous feeling creeping on the back of her mind.

“It is. Really.”

“Would you be a bartender forever?”

“Of course not!”

“Then why is it good?”

Catherine stays in silence while she finishes preparing the drink.

It feels tense, the atmosphere getting heavier instead of better, and none of them talking. Anne has a stern face, with her eyes fixed on Cathy’s hands. From being intimate, the talk became invasive, way too much for both of them to take.

Catherine finishes the drink, and hands it to Anne. She takes a sip, and makes a face.

“That was too much salt.” She jokes, a slight smile appearing on her lips.

“That was a great done margarita. If you can’t handle salt, I hope I see you trying to manage your tequila.”

“Alcohol and salt are two different things, Parr!” Anne slams her first on the table, dramatically. She makes a pause. “I’m sorry if I made things weird.”

“It’s alright, I don’t care.”

“It’s just… Lately nothing is what I expect. I wish I made things because they made me happy, and not because I felt obligated to.”

“I know that feeling.” Catherine explains. “I feel like I’m constantly running out of time, as if I sleep when I wake up there will be nothing there. It keeps me at edge most of the time, like I can’t just experience one moment, I have to do something else, and when I finish there is another thing to do. I think this is the first night I feel alive and living the moment in a while.”

“I feel the same Catherine.” Anne explains. “And you are a great bartender.”

“If you keep calling me by my whole name, I will start to feel important.”

“You should feel important, you are.”

Anne Boleyn was most definitely a flirt.

She didn’t sound forced, or uncomfortable, but it was rather just a way to be. With her long eyelashes, frisky smirk and porcelain complexion, it was impossible to resist. Elegant movements, a way with words, and the warm feeling she irradiated even if her skin was icy.

Catherine could feel herself painfully falling.

They talk about it all, play silly games with the cups and dancing slow dodging tables.

Deciding it was more than what Catherine could take, they opt to go and grab coffee at her apartment. The chill of the night still present, Parr gives Anne her jacket. Light revealing it was almost time for the sun to shine again, something dreadful for them, knowing their night off was about to end.

When they get to the spot where they usually part ways, the sky starts turning a pink colour, indicating the dawn.

Anne stays for a moment, watching the reflexion of the light on the river. She looks almost like a statue, firm, almost as if her chest is not breathing. Catherine takes out her phone, taking photos of Anne, until she realizes and turns her head, smiling.

“You are giving me a breath, Catherine. I never thought I would see another night like this one, but I can’t be any other thing that thankful.” She plays with her hands. “I know it was so brief, only a night when a year have so many, but there is nothing more I could’ve ask for.”

They stare at each other eyes.

“One last night.” She mutters, not loud enough for Catherine to hear. “I have to go.”

“Can I get a kiss?” The other one wonders.

Anne impacts her lips with Catherine.

The world suddenly goes on mute. There is no other sound, except the blood running through their veins. Anne’s lips are soft, softer than what Cathy remembered lips were, and her skin feels as if might break if she grabs it too hard.

Still, it is tender, caring. So warm despite everything being so cold around there.

Anne is the first to pull away, giving Catherine a smile.

“I hope the best for you, Catherine Parr.”

Catherine takes just a moment to get her eyes open again, and Anne is no longer there.

(…)

It drives her almost crazy at first, doing research about Anne Boleyn, but there is almost little to no information about her online, nothing about the past few years.

The pictures on her phone are still intact, and it is the only thing that keeps her from thinking it was a dream.

She waits for hours at midnight on their usual spot, but Anne never shows up again. There is no sight of her white dress or kryptonite eyes.

There’s nothing, as if she never existed.

(…)

Katherine Howard becomes a regular on the bar, singing almost every night.

She is young, around eighteen years, but she still becomes friends with Catherine and Anna. Aragon even becomes fond of the girl, offering her a weekly payment in exchange of singing. Jane is enamoured with her, but opinion biased since Edward was probably in love with her, not crying when he was on her arms.

(…)

Catherine has nightmares about it, followed by the feeling of being underwater.

She has nightmares of Anne, both of them lost in the middle of a sea, or a river, and when they are about to reach each other, they can’t. She can’t even clearly hear Anne talking on her dreams, but instead it is so much pressure on her chest she might faint from it.

But at least she remembers.

(…)

Times goes away flying.

It’s been two months, and Catherine haven’t seen Anne.

She almost even prayed to see her again, to hear her voice, a sight of her smirk, but it never comes, all she has is nothing, and three photos of that night. Parr wonders if she moved back to France, if that was why she was crying. If she is alright, writing poetry on a café. If her dress is still white and her choker still wraps around her neck.

Her mind can’t stop missing her.

(…)

“What’s up with that face, Cathy?” Katherine asks, Anna rolls her eyes.

“She has been painfully pinning on this girl for almost four months now, even if they only went out once.”

“Shut up, Anna!” Catherine bickers. “You don’t understand.”

“Keep saying that, is not my fault you dearest Anne Boleyn isn’t anywhere to be found.”

“Wait, what?” The younger’s face is pale, drained from any colour. “What do you mean Anne Boleyn?”

“Do you know her?” Cathy wonders, hopeful. “Look, I have these photos.”

She quickly goes through her gallery, showing the three pictures.

“Where do you get those?” Kat’s voice is panicking, and she is not bothering to hide it.

“Near the river, four months ago, why?”

“Anne was my cousin.”

“Was?” Catherine asks.

“She has been dead for seven years.”

(…)

Catherine can’t process it at first, but then it starts to make sense.

Weird dreams.

Not knowing a show from three years ago.

Pale skin.

Disappearing.

Always cold.

Never blushes.

Is like there is just so much water weight on me, my lungs can’t take the pressure.

Catherine feels sick to her very core, almost as much as she felt when she was with Anne.

(…)

It is the morbid thing to do, but Catherine begs her namesake to take her to Anne’s grave.

The cemetery is cold, rows and rows of grey pieces of stone laying around. The grass is almost as green as Anne eyes, and Catherine has a bouquet of white margarita flowers on her hand.

She wants to believe it is just another dream.

Dreading the moment, they get to stay on front of a grave, which clearly says Anne Boleyn, stating her death on the 19th day, of the fifth months of 2012.

What comes as a surprise is Parr’s jacket sitting on the grave.

“I hope you the best for you too, Anne Boleyn.”

#six fanfiction #six fanfic #six the musical #anne boleyn #Catherine Parr

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artificialqueens · 4 years

Text

wild flower, chapter two (shalaska) 2/10 - freyja

A/N: Thank you all so much for the support chapter one got! Thank you so, so much to frey (aka Thorpe) for betaing!! This wouldn’t be where it is without her. I also thought I would share the playlist I made to listen to for inspiration!

Anyway, chapter two: in which Alaska realizes she is a little more than stuck with Sharon.

🌸

“I have acted fearless and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than be hypocritically immortalized.”

— Davy Crockett

🌸

They ride for what could be minutes or hours in silence, Alaska never taking her eyes off of the horizon even long after the orange blaze surrounding her uncle’s mansion is gone. She barely registers the blessedly cool wind against her face, or how hard she’s gripping the horse’s saddle, deep in thought and very confused.

She’s not scared.

She knows she will be, once she has the time to really comprehend what happened, but for now all she can feel is guilt. Guilt, because her reaction to her uncle’s house burning, after the initial horror, was relief. How could she? Her uncle’s livelihood is gone, her uncle is gone and likely in danger, she’s been kidnapped - likely in order to be tortured for information - and all she can fucking think about is that she doesn’t have to find a husband anymore.

Sharon flicks the reins, and her horse suddenly jerks into a higher speed, forcing Alaska to grab onto Sharon’s waist in fear of falling off and breaking her neck. Sharon cackles at her, and Alaska flushes, embarrassed and suddenly feeling heated. It makes her angry.

Anger feels a hell of a lot better than guilt, and she gives into it without hesitation.

“Fuck you,” she snarls, right into Sharon’s ear.

“Sorry, what was that?” Sharon shouts, voice nearly whipped away by the wind. “‘Thank you?’”

It is entirely plausible, maybe even likely, that Sharon hadn’t heard her. But the presumption - the fucking nerve–

You can’t hear me? Alaska thinks viciously, glaring at the sharp angles of Sharon’s cheekbones. How about now?

She sucks in a deep breath, and she screams straight into Sharon’s ear.

It’s childish, but Alaska has never been afraid of being childish, especially when it gives her such great results.

Sharon jumps, cringing away violently, jerking the reigns and making her horse jerk along with them. For a second, Alaska allows herself to hope that they would slow enough for her to safely jump off of the horse, but Sharon corrects him too quickly for her to even have a second of the time she’d need.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Sharon snaps, her tone a startling contrast to the gentle way she pats the horse’s neck. “What the fuck?”

“Can you hear me now?” Alaska asks, sneering. She relishes in the anger on Sharon’s face, gratified by her ability to take the other woman down a peg, but it fades away too quickly for her liking. Instead, Sharon’s pressed lips turn into a smirk, and she doesn’t even grant Alaska a glance when she says,

“Surprised you didn’t do that back at the house - the lawmen might have heard you in time to help.”

Alaska looks at Sharon incredulously. “Town is three miles from – oh, fuck you!” she grits out, the realization dawning with Sharon’s laughter.

“Don’t you mean thank you?” Sharon shoots back, and Alaska desperately wants to hit her, rage nearly overwhelming her.

“Why - how would I ever thank you?” she snarls. The apathy in Sharon’s expression only makes her blood boil more. She tears her eyes away from the other woman, instead staring stubbornly out at the Rockies. She can feel tears welling up in her eyes, and she curses them. She needs to be strong for this. “You - you kidnapped me, you burned my home, you killed-”

“Your home?” Sharon says sharply.

“Does it matter?” Alaska spits.

“Yes,” Sharon says bluntly. “That wasn’t your fucking home. Don’t accuse me of that. That was the last place you wanted to be - I could see it in your eyes. You were at the stable for a reason.”

Alaska flushes at the reminder of their first meeting, suddenly aware of the way their bodies are pressed together - the way Sharon’s waist feels firm under her arms. She almost pulls away, but her sense of balance forces her to remain attached.

As if reading her mind, Sharon places a hand on Alaska’s wrist, which rests against her ribcage. “Got a good grip?” she says lowly, and Alaska jerks her wrist away, cheeks burning. Sharon laughs, letting go easily, and Alaska replaces her arm with less reluctance than she should have felt.

“I loved it there,” Alaska says petulantly. Sharon ignores her point, hand returning to the reins.

“I saw something else in your eyes as well,” Sharon continues softly, and her tone sparks an uncomfortable squirming in Alaska’s belly, the places she’s touching Sharon too warm. “You want something more.”

“Don’t presume to know what I want,” Alaska says, voice shakier than she would like it to be. She feels seen - exposed.

“You want more than a man, but a man is all a woman’s good for in society,” Sharon says, and a new bitterness colors her normally gleeful laugh. Alaska frowns at it.

“A man is what I need,” Alaska tells her, trying to work her anger back up and failing. She’s falling into Sharon’s intrigue again, fascinated by the mystery of her.

“Not out here,” Sharon says, and her voice is softer than Alaska’s ever heard it. It startles her; frightens her, even.

“I’m not like you,” she says quickly. She resents how close they are.

“Oh,” Sharon says idly. Alaska can just see the edge of her brow quirked up from the angle she’s at. “You’re wrong. I’d say stop lying to me, but I think you’d have to stop lying to yourself first.”

Alaska lapses into silence, unsure of how to respond. She feels raw and vulnerable in a way she didn’t expect to feel in the presence of a bandit.

Sharon doesn’t scare her the way Alaska thinks she should, and she hates her for it.

They spend the rest of the ride in silence.

🌼

Alaska uses the silence to plan her escape, and by the time they start slowing down, sliding off of Sharon’s horse - “Cerrone”, she’d heard Sharon call him - and running immediately upon arrival is out of the question.

They’re over four hours away from Coady, at least half an hour more from the house, and she has no idea where she is. They hadn’t passed any signs, or at least Alaska hadn’t seen them in the dark, and they’ve been weaving through thick pine trees for longer than Alaska could keep track.

She suspects Sharon had avoided roads, or at least stuck to those less traveled, and the fact that she has no real way of knowing is terrifying.

She’d end up lost in the woods if she took off on foot, and probably dead because of it.

The only other option would be escaping on horseback, and that takes a little more forethought than leaping off of Cerrone and running as fast as she can. She needs the time to figure it out, but she doesn’t know if she’ll get it.

Stories of the tortures people go through when kidnapped by bandits crowd her thoughts, the tales concerning women even worse, and she’s just beginning to work herself up back into a panic when Sharon speaks suddenly, snapping Alaska out of her spiral.

“Welcome,” she says, voice warmer than Alaska expects it to be, “to Silverbar Overlook.”

They round a curve in the dirt path to reveal a small camp of about six tents and wagons, a decent fire lit up in the center of it. Women fill the space with talk and hoots of loud laughter, and Alaska can’t help but stare at them as Sharon pulls Cerrone to a stop by some crooked posts. Where are the men?

Sharon swings down with ease, taking Cerrone’s reins and tying him to one of the posts. She smirks at Alaska as she does so, making no attempt to prevent her from running right then and there. Alaska hates that she doesn’t need to.

“Like it?” Sharon says, dusting off her hands. Alaska sneers at her, fear and fury a fire in her stomach.

“No,” she says shortly.

Sharon seems unaffected. “Time makes the heart grow fonder,” she says, holding out a hand for Alaska to take, “and you’ll certainly be spending a lot of it right here.”

Alaska resists the urge to slap the hand away, remembering just in time that Sharon has a gun and the quickest draw she’s ever seen. Instead, she ignores it in favor of sliding down herself, relieved when she lands solidly on both feet.

Sharon grabs her arm none too gently as soon as she’s on the ground, even her arrogance not so hubristic to leave Alaska with both arms free. Even so, she gives Alaska an appreciative glance.

Alaska flushes under her gaze, keeping her eyes stubbornly ahead.

“Went to the stables often?” Sharon questions, and Alaska presses her lips together at the insinuation.

“Fuck off,” she says sharply, and Sharon laughs.

“Jinkx Monsoon!” she calls, not bothering to respond to Alaska. An old affection colors her tone, and a red-headed woman by the fire stands up, grinning.

“Fresh meat?” she asks, approaching them. She’s pale, with sad eyes and a crooked smile. Her hair is down, tangled like Alaska’s gets if she leaves it down for more than two seconds, and she sports loose pants that bunch up where they meet her boots.

“Not quite,” Sharon says, jerking Alaska a little to emphasize her point. “More of a hostage.”

Jinkx frowns, clearly taken aback. “Hostage?” she asks, examining Alaska closely, squinting in the dim light cast over them from the fire. Alaska glares back, meeting her gaze as defiantly as she can muster. Jinkx raises an eyebrow in response. “She’s in with Solomon? She’s in a brand new dress.”

“I am not with him,” Alaska snaps, disturbed at the very idea. “I hate him.”

“Enough to give us the information you have?” Sharon leads, and Alaska presses her lips together.

As much as she hates Solomon, she hates Sharon that much more.

Both of Jinkx’s eyebrows are up, now. “Want me to tie her to the post?” she asks, and Alaska’s stomach drops somewhere around her ankles. Jinkx jerks her head back to a post at the edge of the clearing, where a pile of ropes and a poker in a bucket of water sit. Alaska freezes up at the sight.

“No,” Sharon says, but her eyes don’t leave the post for another moment longer.

“So she is a new recruit,” Jinkx says, and the suggestion sparks the fear in Alaska’s chest into anger.

“I’d rather be tied to the post than a new recruit,” she spits out, and Sharon’s grip tightens around her bicep. She stills, heart pounding.

“No,” Sharon clarifies, ignoring Alaska. Her silent warning is frightening enough, and Alaska has no desire to see how it might escalate. “I don’t tie civilians to the post.”

“She needs to sleep somewhere,” Jinkx says. “And I’m pretty sure you don’t want her unguarded.”

There’s a brief pause. “She’ll have to sleep in a tent,” Sharon says, and Alaska just barely keeps a protest from escaping her lips. Jinkx voices one, anyway.

“In a tent?” Jinkx asks incredulously. “Where people sleep? Where they’re most vulnerable?”

Sharon snaps her fingers, seemingly ignoring Jinkx. “Detox and Roxxxy,” she says.

Jinkx gives her a skeptical look.

“Alaska isn’t a threat,” Sharon says, and Alaska nearly jumps at the sound of her name. She hates the false intimacy that the use creates, and she never wants to hear it said again. Her skin crawls at the idea of Sharon knowing enough about her to use her Christian name. “Detox could break her in half if she wanted to.”

Alaska very much does not want to sleep in Detox and Roxxxy’s tent.

“Why not the post?” Jinkx asks again. She looks worried, and it’s clearly getting on Sharon’s nerves.

“Because I created this camp, and I said so,” she says, an edge creeping in on her tone.

Jinkx is unmoved.

“Jinkxie,” Sharon says, and Alaska glances at her for an expression, unable to read her tone. She seems urgent, pleading, maybe, but it’s hard to decipher.

No matter the expression, however, a silent exchange clearly occurs between the two, and Jinkx’s expression softens. She looks at Alaska, who sneers.

“I’ll take her to their tent,” Jinkx says after a moment. She looks back at Sharon. “Willam wants to see you. Something about a letter?”

“Shit,” Sharon swears, and she lets go of Alaska’s arm. Alaska nearly takes off immediately, but she stops herself, eyes catching on the gun slung at Jinkx’s hip and thoughts returning to Sharon’s own. She’d have to be patient, even though she’s never been good at it.

“I completely forgot about that,” Sharon continues, although it sounds like it’s more to herself than the other two. She looks somewhere to their right, and Alaska follows her gaze, spotting a young blonde woman in a low cut dress giving Sharon the finger, leaning against the post of one of the tents. Sharon looks back at Alaska, lips pressed together, and Alaska quirks an eyebrow.

“See something you like?” Alaska says, and Sharon’s eyebrows raise. She pointedly glances at Alaska’s arm, where she had been holding her.

“I do,” she says, and Alaska flushes. She grits her teeth, frustrated with the way Sharon can render her speechless. Sharon’s smug smirk isn’t helping matters.

“Alright, take her to Detox and Roxxxy. Make sure they know what’s going on,” a thoughtful look at Alaska, “and make sure they know they need to be on watch.”

Alaska tries and fails not to be flattered that she warrants a watch, even though it makes her plans for escape that much more difficult.

“Got it,” Jinkx says, and with a nod - Sharon leaves, heading towards who must be Willam with a sheepish grin on her face. The expression would be endearing, if she hadn’t just kidnapped Alaska after destroying her uncle’s life.

“So,” Jinkx says, smiling startlingly sweetly at Alaska. Alaska doesn’t quite know what to do with the sudden change of pace. “What do you think of the camp?”

Alaska gives her a deadpan stare. “It’s dirty,” she drawls, feeling more confident with Sharon’s absence. She feels above this woman, with her short stature and sweet smile, and it’s easy to let that leak into her tone. “Small.”

Jinkx’s smile shrinks, fading into something that screams ‘unimpressed’. “You’d think a wealthy woman would have better manners,” she says, and Alaska blushes a little.

“Ladies don’t initiate,” she says, willing the blush to go down. “They reciprocate.”

Jinkx is quiet for a moment, expression sympathetic. “Jesus. I’m glad I’m away from that.”

Alaska falls silent, something like shame turning over in her gut. She’s thought the same thing before, but only in her fantasies, and not for a long time. The reminder of her own lack of freedom, compared to these women’s abundance of it, is startling - it’s something that she hasn’t thought about in years. The disparity is embarrassing, and for a moment, Alaska wonders what right she has to feel superior to these women. What is money when compared to freedom?

She tries to scrape the idea away from her mind, reminding herself that the law is powerful, that it isn’t freedom when you’re being chased, but the thought sticks like glue.

“Come on,” Jinkx says after a few moments, frowning at Alaska. “It’s just over here.”

Alaska follows her quietly, still a little shaken, and Jinkx looks back at her with a strange expression on her face. “Alright,” she says. “Maybe Sharon has a reason for treating you special.”

“You mean she doesn’t do this often?” Alaska asks. Jinkx laughs, a soft sound that fits strangely on someone deemed a criminal. They come to a stop in front of a tent, but Alaska hardly notices, she’s so wrapped up in the conversation.

“Let’s just say, she must like you. Sharon’s had no trouble tying people to that post, even in the middle of winter.”

“No,” Alaska says, rejecting the idea with a vehemence that surprises even her. “She’s trying to entice the information out of me, and it isn’t going to work.”

“The day Sharon Needles chooses enticement over violence is the day pigs fly,” a new voice says, and Alaska immediately tenses up, phantom aches blossoming along her arms where they’d been held back.

Detox emerges from her tent, an amused quirk to her mouth, and the blonde woman who’d slid in through the window during the ambush comes out after her. This must be Roxxxy, but Alaska is far more concerned with Detox.

“Guess you’d better get your binoculars ready,” Jinkx says dryly. “Because they’ll be taking to the skies any second now.”

Detox looks at her, confused. “What?”

Jinkx lets out an exasperated breath, placing a hand on Alaska’s back in a reassuring manner. It doesn’t work, and Alaska shrugs it off as quickly as she can. “She’s sleeping in your tent tonight. Please don’t ask me why.”

Detox looks even more bewildered, but she doesn’t protest, which Alaska supposes is a good thing. Or maybe not - maybe she could have ended up in someone else’s tent if Detox had thrown a fit, someone with warmer eyes. That, or someone much worse.

Most things, Alaska is realizing, are going to be a game of roulette. She’s just going to have to roll with the punches, because gambling has never been her strong suit, and now is certainly not the time to be practicing.

“Alright,” Detox says slowly, and Jinkx relaxes into a smile.

“Thank you,” she says, eyes darting to Roxxxy, “for not being difficult.”

The expression on Roxxxy’s face suggests she spoke too soon.

“Why not the post?” she asks, clearly annoyed.

“I don’t know,” Jinkx says, and Alaska can hear the suppressed frustration and exhaustion in her voice. “Sharon doesn’t like to share, and despite popular belief, I can’t actually read her mind.”

“Try,” Roxxxy shoots back. “You know her better than anyone else here.” She makes no attempt to hide the bitterness underlying the words. Detox shoots her a look, but Roxxxy appears not to notice.

Alaska finds herself wanting Jinkx to come back just as quickly, to put up a fight, but the slump of Jinkx’s shoulders tells her that she’d rather avoid it. “Maybe she wants to try enticement and see if it works better.”

“Sharon’s never needed to cajole anything out of anyone.”

“Jesus,” Alaska blurts out, frustrated and defensive. “Maybe she just isn’t up for beating the shit out of anyone today. It must be exhausting work.”

All three women stare at her, and she shrinks down, suddenly afraid. Years in society have taught her to only speak when spoken to, and while she’s always chafed under that rule, the potential consequence for breaking it has never been quite so high. She shouldn’t be snapping at bandits like this - especially in the company of three, all with loaded pistols.

Detox’s delayed scream of a laugh makes her jump three feet into the air.

“Jesus Christ!” she says, and the other two women crack smiles as well. “She’s got nerve for a hostage!”

“A hostage sleeping like she’s one of us,” Roxxxy corrects, a tinge of the argument still there, despite the smile on her face.

“She’s sleeping here,” Jinkx says. She’s looking at Alaska thoughtfully, something twinkling in her eyes, and Alaska relaxes despite it. She’s still in the clear, somehow. “But just so you know, Ms. Needles usually waits a few days before really going in on ‘em.”

“She’s patient,” Detox agrees. It’s lighthearted, but Alaska still spares a glance at the post, eyes lingering on the poker stick. Clearly, Sharon’s patience runs out. She doesn’t know if the fact that she’s patient at all is really that comforting.

“I’m tired and I’m going to bed,” Jinkx says. “Sharon wants you two to take turns watching her.” Detox nods. Jinkx turns to leave, giving Alaska a reassuring smile. “Have fun,” she says, ominous, and she starts off towards Sharon and Willam, who can be seen just inside of the tent Willam had been waiting in.

Alaska is sorry to watch her leave, not quite understanding the comfort she’d provided until she was gone.

“I think you should lie between us,” Detox says, glancing at Roxxxy, who only looks slightly less sullen from her argument with Jinkx. “Makes watching you easier.”

Alaska nods, heart sinking at the idea. She feels like all of her confidence left with Jinkx, and her plan to escape feels impossible to execute. With each of them taking watch, and having to sneak out from between them, it seems improbable that she can leave the tent without detection. And if she was caught - she knows how strong Detox is, and Roxxxy certainly hasn’t proved herself to be friendly.

“I’ll take the first watch,” Roxxxy says, ducking into the tent. Detox motions for Alaska to follow, and she does, after a moment of hesitation. “I’m not tired yet.”

As Alaska lays down, she steels herself. She has to make an attempt, all of the risks be damned. She owes it to her uncle.

She owes it to herself.

🌸

Roxxxy falls asleep two hours after they all lie down, and it’s like the universe is telling Alaska to get the hell out of there.

It’s been a struggle not to do the same herself - it has to be around three in the morning by now, give or take a few, and she is exhausted.

She takes a moment to just stare at the roof of the tent, feeling all of the aches and pains of the night throb. Her first meeting with Sharon feels like it was weeks ago, not hours, and Cassidy’s visit to her uncle even further away. She almost doesn’t want to get up, heart and head heavy with exhaustion.

But she has to.

She understands fully well that this is, truly, her only shot at getting out of this unscathed. By some miracle, Sharon had been foolish enough to leave her loose, taking her lack of physical strength as a sign of weakness, as a sign that she wouldn’t run. But Alaska has always been wily, and she can snake her way out of most things.

Most things were usually balls and formal dinners with suitors, but she’s pretty sure she can get out of being the hostage of bandits just as easily.

Again: she has to.

Detox is snoring, so Alaska’s watching Roxxxy’s face for any signs of wakefulness as she slowly gets into a crouch, listening for a change in Detox’s breathing. She’s careful not to knock aside Detox’s pistol, which lies in her loosened grip.

She has no doubts that Detox would be glad to shoot her the moment an excuse was given, and the thought only pumps more adrenaline into her veins. She’s shaky with nerves, and she takes a moment to breathe in and out, eyes on the tent flap not three feet away. She can do this.

Alaska steps daintily over Roxxxy, holding her breath. She freezes once she’s over her, cringing at the light sound her boot makes when it lands.

She waits.

She lets out a long breath after ten seconds pass with no movement, and she takes the last step forward, carefully curling her fingers around the canvas of the tent flap. She lifts it painfully slowly, hardly daring to breathe, and the moment there’s enough room, she shoots out of the tent, exhaling harshly as soon as she’s out.

For a moment, she feels a sort of giddy relief. She made it. She snuck past the guards. For a moment, she fancies herself able to escape from federal prison, but one thought of being in a chain gang brings her back down to Earth.

It’s not like she’ll ever be in a position to escape from federal prison, anyway.

She looks around, looking for the horses and at every single tent, watching for activity. The fire is now just a few glowing embers, so she relies on the Moon to tell her. She doesn’t see anyone, and she allows herself a moment to admonish herself for jumping out of the tent without looking, before she starts towards the horses, which are hitched near the mouth of the path into the camp.

Maybe she’ll even ride away on Cerrone, and take something from Sharon in her escape. Convinced of this plan, her heart starts beating with anticipation, and she’s about halfway to the first of the horses when a voice makes her heart stop in her chest, and the rest of her freezes along with it.

“Going somewhere?”

“Yes,” Alaska says, and without thinking, she starts to run towards the horses, all thoughts of Cerrone flying off the table and the first horse she can grab her only destination.

She barely makes it two steps before Sharon jerks her back by the bustle of her dress, and Alaska realizes just how strong the other woman is. It would be frightening, except she’s more used to Sharon than she has any right to be in this amount of time, and she has just heard a ripping sound.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Alaska hisses, jerking away from Sharon and turning to face her. She backs up a few steps, drinking in Sharon’s surprise. “This dress is pink satin. Do you understand what that means?”

There’s a beat of silence, before Sharon lets out a disbelieving laugh. “I had to stop you somehow,” she says. “The information you have is a little more valuable to me than pink satin.”

“Well, now that you’ve ripped it, sure,” Alaska sniffs, fingering the fabric. “It was my favorite, too.”

“It’s a dress,” Sharon says, exasperated, and something in Alaska snaps.

“It’s the only thing I have left!” she cries out, clenching her hands in her skirt, arms stiff at her sides. She feels a strange sense of loss over the dress, even though the skirt is still functional and, in all likelihood - easily mendable. It feels like Sharon’s just ruined the last thing tying her to her home, her life, and it’s maddening.

“Fine,” Sharon says, voice now quiet. “Fine. But the information is still more important.”

“Two more of these dresses and I guarantee they’d be worth more than Solomon’s entire operation,” Alaska shoots back. “You could have had more if you hadn’t burned the rest.”

“It’s more personal than money,” Sharon says, and Alaska frowns.

“What’s the point of ‘personal’ if there’s no money in it?”

Sharon laughs again. “You are so goddamn suited for this!” she says, and Alaska feels her chest warm at the praise before she shuts it down, confused at the feeling.

“I’m not,” she snaps. “I’m meant for a life worth living.”

“What?” Sharon says dryly. “Like marrying a man you feel nothing for and spending the rest of your life kept somewhere you don’t want to be? You want to die having accomplished nothing other than a couple of kids?”

It’s like she’s been stripped naked, all of her thoughts and feelings seen by someone she doesn’t trust, and it makes anger well up inside her like a balloon. “Don’t act like you know what my life is like,” Alaska snarls. “Don’t act like–”

“Alaska,” Sharon says, and Alaska deflates.

“Of course I don’t want that,” she admits, and it’s simultaneously a relief and an effort. Baring herself to a criminal is hard, but letting her feelings out into the open is so incredibly freeing. It’s addictive, and she finds herself sharing more, nearly tripping over her words in her haste to get them out. “I’ve never wanted that. But it’s necessary. My father - he needs me. His newspaper is struggling. We need money.”

“And marriage is the only way to get it,” Sharon finishes, and Alaska stares at her, fighting back the lump of tears that has lodged itself in her throat.

“He needs me to do this,” Alaska says, Sharon’s sympathy giving her hope of release, but Sharon’s expression hardens.

“He can get himself out of his own mess.”

“I’m his daughter.”

“Being a daughter has nothing to do with it,” Sharon sneers, and Alaska stiffens defensively.

“Being a daughter has plenty to do with it,” she snaps. “I have duties I need to uphold. I don’t have a choice.”

“Don’t you see?” Sharon says, eyes earnest. It’s attractive, and despite herself, Alaska finds herself listening rapturously to the passion in her voice. “You don’t need to do anything. This is a choice.” She spreads her arms at the camp, at herself. “Be here, with us. We don’t - society hates us. Society favors white men, and the rest of us are just there to make life better for them. We can be who we want out here. You don’t have to marry a man you don’t want to. You don’t have to be with a man at all.”

Alaska hesitates, allowing herself a second to imagine a world without responsibilities, without rules or eyes that watch her every move. It’s a dream.

It doesn’t exist.

Sharon is lying. To make it seem like an easy option isn’t fair - to be ‘free’ comes with a cost, and Alaska isn’t willing to pay it. Not when it involves taking money, taking lives.

“Fuck you,” Alaska says venomously, and she spits on the ground. “You’re full of shit, and you’ll get what’s coming to you.”

Clearly, this is the wrong thing to say.

“I’m sure I will,” Sharon says coldly, expression suddenly closed off. The reaction knocks Alaska off balance - she had expected another smart comment, somewhere on the edge of playfulness, but Sharon had clearly taken Alaska’s words to heart. Alaska knows she should be glad that her words have finally had an effect, but all she can feel is guilt. It’s not something she wants to be feeling, but her emotions have never bothered to listen to her.

“I’m sure I will,” Sharon says again, drawing herself up to her full height. She’s still shorter than Alaska by a good few inches, but she still manages to look intimidating, with her long black coat and mean expression. “But I think you should take a turn first.”

“What?” Alaska asks, and then suddenly Sharon has both of her arms twisted behind her back in an iron grip, frog marching her clear to the other side of camp. Alaska stumbles with the forcefulness of it, startled into silence up until she catches sight of the post, a coil of rope waiting innocuously beside it.

“Fuck,” she says, trying and failing to struggle out of Sharon’s grip as they reach their destination. Sharon slams her against the pole, pulling her arms to the other side of it, but Alaska can’t help but notice that it’s not nearly as violent as she’s sure Sharon is capable of. “Sharon–”

“You want to be the unwilling hostage?” Sharon asks, tone heated. “Here you go. Now you can tell everyone how evil we were, and you won’t even have to lie about it.” She finishes tying Alaska’s hands with the rope, tightening it aggressively. She rounds the post to look Alaska in the face, lips pressed tightly together. Alaska glares back.

“Thanks,” she drawls, giving her wrists an experimental tug. “I won’t even have to fake the rope burns.”

Sharon’s expression falters, looking vaguely concerned, before the wall goes up again. Alaska wants to poke at it, intrigued, but Sharon suddenly leans forward, resting her hand against the post just above Alaska’s shoulder. It puts their faces far too close together, and Alaska’s heart starts beating a little faster.

Sharon doesn’t hesitate to look Alaska straight in the eyes, and Alaska glares back, refusing to back down.

“Give me the information, and I’ll let you go,” Sharon says, and Alaska keeps her mouth stubbornly shut, staring definitely into Sharon’s eyes. She does not think about how blue they look in the moonlight.

Sharon presses her lips together in annoyance. “Have a nice night,” she says coolly, turning to walk away and disappearing into the tent nearest the post.

Alaska sinks down into a sitting position, all of the tension in her body leaving along with Sharon. She gives the ropes one more tug before sighing, defeated. At least it’s a pleasant night, she thinks, staring up at the stars.

She feels her face crumple, exhaustion and fear catching up to her all at once, and she lets out a sob before stopping herself from crying any more, concerned that Sharon might hear her. She has to toughen up if she wants to get through this. Crying isn’t going to help her.

She needs a plan. She can’t outsmart Sharon, and that means she can’t escape. She’s going to have to give them the information she has at some point, before things escalate more than they have. Sharon has proven herself to be somewhat volatile, and capable of treating Alaska as less than a civilian, despite her previous reluctance. Alaska doesn’t want to push her into treating her as an enemy.

The thing is, if she gives away her information, she gives away her only protection. She doesn’t trust the welcoming hand Sharon had extended her before - she doesn’t even know if it’s still extended. The situation feels hopeless.

She’s going to have to think of something, though.

The thought is an exhausting one, and she decides that she’ll think of it in the morning, after a few hours of rest. She doubts anything she comes up with in this state will be viable, anyway.

She wills herself into an uneasy, much needed sleep, the pole hard against her back, and the mud soaking into her skirts. She tries not to mind - the dress is already ruined. It’s better than sleeping next to Detox and Roxxxy, at any rate.

She never thought she’d long for her uncle’s mansion, but there’s a first time for everything.

#rpdr fanfiction #sharon needles #alaska thunderfuck #jinkx monsoon #detox icunt #roxxxy andrews #shalaska #western au #lesbian au #cowboy au #wild flower #freyja #tw violence #tw kidnapping #tw guns

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lovelylogans · 4 years

Note

I just came up with just like the worst prompt for a sideshire file: adult, sensible, reasonable Virgil finding out MCR is back and flipping out

the black parade

we’ll carry on, we’ll carry onand though you’re dead and gone, believe meyour memory will carry onwe’ll carry on

-welcome to the black parade, my chemical romance

part of the wyliwf verse.

ao3 | read my other fics | coffee?

warnings: food mentions, remus mentions, grief mentions, cryptid mentions, emotionally dealing with a deceased parent, let me know if i missed anything!

pairings: logince, moxiety

words: 4,824

notes: how dare you call this absolute gem of a prompt “the worst” also did i schedule this to come out on the day of the concert YES!!! the timeline is kinda hand-wavey on this one, so let’s just say it happens shortly after the main storyline and it makes sense for mcr to announce that news on that date and for it to fit in with the narrative i’m telling here, okay? okay! (the song roman is listening to is “bombastic” by bonnie mckee, and honestly sub in any mcr instrumentals for any song virgil is mentioned to be listening to this oneshot.)

patton first hears about it, surprisingly, from his son.

though logan isn’t quite as in tune (well, patton thinks it’s funny!) with the music scene as the sanders’ significant others—roman with pop and musicals, and virgil with his more eclectic taste—he is, of course, the most in tune with the news.

the mcr reunion certainly qualifies as news.

when patton opens the link his son has texted him, he stares at it for a few seconds, and says aloud, “ah.”

so, virgil is probably going absolutely feral.

back when patton had first gotten to know virgil, his interest in music had been surprising—the diner usually played soft music, jazz or old-timey songs or instrumentals, non-offensive songs that usually everyone could tolerate and talk over without noticing it very much, playlists swapping up so that employees on the same shift wouldn’t want to plug their ears if they ever heard buddy holly again.

now he knows that virgil doesn’t that over into his personal life, and that he mostly plays that music because it’s the kind of music his parents played when they ran the diner. when patton first sees virgil’s music collection, he was surprised, and then he thought about it more and it made sense. why else would he always be listening to music on his headphones, even when it was just the two of them?

now, it’s weird to even think that he’d thought virgil’s taste was ever, well. tame, he supposes. mainstream.

patton checks the time. it’s probably early enough that he can pass this off as a coffee break, and not to check that virgil has passed out in the midst of the diner.

patton’s trying to formulate the best way to ask “so, have you heard the news?” question in case patton is somehow the one to break it to him, but when he walks into the diner and listens to the music for a couple seconds, he doesn’t even need to bother asking. it speaks for itself.

to virgil’s credit, he isn’t blaring the entire mcr discography.

he is, however, blaring instrumental covers of what seems like the entire mcr discography.

or at least, the diner is—virgil’s nowhere in sight. patton just kind of assumes that he’s back in the kitchen, so he goes to sit at the counter, waiting for him to emerge with a tray or a rag, maybe not grinning, except for maybe that soft secretive smile he does sometimes, but probably humming along.

he doesn’t come out for a while—that’s pretty normal, this time of day, it is the early dinner rush—but then patton puts in an order for hot cocoa/coffee.

and he actually gets it. and he can smell that it’s not decaf. which means—

patton leans over the counter, and smiles at jean. “where’s v?”

“kitchen,” jean says.

“and he actually gave me something caffeinated at this time of day? are we sure this is virgil?”

jean laughs. “i guess he’s in a good mood, then.”

patton smiles down at his mug, tracing his pinky around its rim. “guess so.”

patton sips his way through about two-thirds of his mug before virgil emerges from the kitchen, towel swept over his shoulder, a carafe of coffee in each hand. which is mostly normal.

except he’s humming, and grinning, and instead of his usual purple flannel or hoodie, he’s wearing all black. there’s the flash of a band tee underneath the black hoodie he’s got on. patton hides his grin behind his mug.

“oh, hey,” virgil says, snapping out of his haze.

“so i guess i’m not about to break the news to you, huh?” patton teases.

“nah, you’re not,” virgil says, smiling still as he replaces the coffee carafes before he leans on the counter. the other servers, used to this, scoot around him in their quest to deliver food back and forth.

“we could time a visit to chris to go, if you want,” patton says. “since he lives in california.”

virgil looks incredibly tempted, before he says, “let’s think on it?”

patton nods and leans over the counter to kiss virgil on the cheek—a new thing he’s been doing lately, now that they’re dating—virgil ducks his head, flushing, like he does every time. patton can’t help the smile that springs onto his face, every time.

“i’m happy you’re happy about it, darling,” patton says.

“you’re ruining my street cred,” virgil mutters, blushing still.

patton fights his own grin. yeah, virgil’s street cred, his reputation rife with hoisting kids into his arms so they could better see the pastry display, and well-known for opening his door to anyone who had a last-minute stitching or alteration emergency, including a number of teary-eyed brides who’d invite him to their wedding on the spot, regularly slipping extra tips to his workers who were struggling, would definitely be harmed by his boyfriend—partner?—kissing him on the cheek.

what he says instead of any of that is, “you’re marathoning punk rock in the diner right now, honey, i don’t think your rep’s gonna get harmed from anything i do.”

virgil tilts his head, acknowledging this point. “you sticking around for dinner?”

“should be,” patton says. “i’ll text logan that i’m here.”

“mkay,” virgil says, and digs around in his pocket, fishing out his notepad and pen with a flourish. “wanna order now or later?”

patton probably shouldn’t use virgil’s good mood for his own benefit. he really, really shouldn’t. but he’s got a real craving, so…

“refill of hot cocoa/coffee, cheeseburger, fries?” patton tries, keeping his voice extra blasé.

a soft hum of acknowledgement as virgil scrawls it all down, and says, “cheddar cheese, right, or do you want colby jack?”

patton smiles. “cheddar cheese, please. oh, and some french silk pie?”

virgil tilts his head at patton with a look, fond and irked, and patton gives him a sheepish grin.

virgil sighs. “and french silk pie,” he grumbles, adding it on, and patton nearly crows with victory. he loses that battle when he can’t contain a soft “ha!” as virgil tops off his mug.

virgil rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile clinging around the edges of his mouth as he disappears back into the kitchen.

patton digs out his phone. get to virgil’s he’s just given me junk food AND caffeine AND a dessert!!!!!!!!!

He added vegetables, surely?

NONE!!!!!!!!!!!

a pause. I’ll be there shortly.

patton grins and tucks his phone back into his pocket. even if logan was better with nutrition than he was, logan was still weak for a good, artery-clogging meal once in a while. virgil handing them out on a silver platter? a rarity that practically demanded to be taken advantage of.

when his phone buzzes, and the bell jangles, patton turns to see logan and roman filing into the diner. patton picks up his mug of hot cocoa/coffee, and heads back to join roman and logan in a booth, sitting across from them.

“hi, roman,” patton says.

“i heard virgil is handing out junk food like it’s candy,” roman says excitedly. “i want to see if i can talk him into giving me endless soda refills, for once.”

“he’s refilled my hot cocoa/coffee,” patton says, gleeful. “my caffeinated hot cocoa/coffee.”

“chances are good!” roman practically cheers. “i wanna get, ooh, um—um, breakfast for dinner! like a platter of breakfast for dinner!”

“it’s worth a shot,” patton says. “logan?”

“me too,” logan decides. “i want pancakes.”

“trade you bites of french toast for bites of pancake?”

“deal.”

roman and logan fall into discussing the latest happenings around the town—stories about the little kids in dance classes, the latest courant goofs, the hottest pieces of old-lady gossip—and by the time virgil re-emerges from the kitchen, patton gets to watch him blink, bemused and a little startled, at the absence of patton at the counter.

biting back a giggle, patton leans out of the booth so virgil can see him more clearly, and virgil nods, maybe saying “ahhh” under his breath, and emerges from behind the counter.

“hey, what can i get—“

a moment, a brief moment, one that patton isn’t sure that roman or logan even notice—when they both turn, roman grinning and logan… looking polite, at least—virgil falters, eyes widening, and he swallows, eyes flashing with… something. and then—

“—you two?”

“hot cocoa/coffee and a stack of pancakes,” logan says, looking at virgil sidelong, and virgil nods, eyes wide and… strangely attentive? not that virgil isn’t usually attentive, it’s just that virgil looks like… well, virgil looks like something’s struck him and he’s realized Something and he’s paying even closer attention. or something.

“how many?”

“um,” logan says, and glances at patton, who mouths go for it so logan says, “five?”

“five pancakes, hot cocoa/coffee, got it,” virgil says, absent, and then he swallows again. “roman?” he says gruffly.

“i want the breakfast combo with bacon, and french toast, and waffles, and hashbrowns, and instead of the regular toast side thing can i do biscuits and gravy?”

“bacon, french toast, waffles, hash browns, biscuits and gravy instead of toast, got it,” virgil says, staring at him still. “drink?”

“cherry coke?”

“yeah, of course,” virgil says, strangely choked, and then he just kind of—does something weird? even by virgil standards. wait, especially by virgil standards.

virgil awkwardly puts a hand on roman’s shoulder, removes it, and then puts it back on his shoulder again, and when roman looks up at him with a bemused kind of smile, virgil leans in, halting and jerking, and then just kind of—hugs him?

it might actually be generous to call it a hug. he sort of wraps roman up in his arms, and his arms just kind of end up circling roman’s head, because he’s standing and roman’s sitting, and roman, bewildered, manages to reach up and pat virgil’s shoulder, and virgil pats roman’s hair in a reciprocal moment of oddness before he lets go of him and says “um, right, okay, i’ll put those orders in and get someone to bring out your drinks” and speedwalks away from any semblance of a lingering awkward moment.

“um,” roman says, and flicks his hand to correct his hair from where virgil mussed it up. “that was… kind of weird? that was weird, right?”

“that was strange,” logan agrees, at the same time patton says, “yep, definitely weird.”

the conversation moves forward slowly, and jean ends up dropping off their drinks (and! giving! patton! a! third!!! refill!) and then jean ends up… bringing out their food, too? with no healthy alterations, which is good. virgil even gives him some ice cream with his pie, so that patton can combine it in a slightly disgusting but very delicious mess.

and by the time the check comes, virgil hasn’t re-emerged from the kitchen. which. okay. it’s dinner rush. sure.

but usually, he at least comes out to say goodbye.

so patton digs out his phone, and sends him a you’re free to drop by the house once you close up! text.

and then he ends up walking home with logan and roman. or, well.

“um,” logan says, when they’re about fifteen feet from the prince’s studio and apartment, “dad?”

“huh?” patton says, distracted, before the look that roman and logan exchange clicks, and the whole “walking someone home” thing clicks, and his own teenage experiences, and he says, “oh! oh, right! right, right, right.”

“dad,” logan groans.

“you wanna get me out of the way so you two can do cute couple-y teenager things, right, i get you,” patton says, grinning still, backing away slowly. “your old man’s still hip, you know.”

“dad.”

“don’t mind me, i’m just gonna,” patton says, grinning still, and waves a hand vaguely. “i’m just gonna stare real closely at the, um, the town decorations over there, and, uh, you can come and tap me on the shoulder when you’re ready to keep walking home, yeah?”

patton turns his back at the same time logan makes a strangled, embarrassed noise, and roman giggles, and he hears logan say “i’m sorry about—that” and roman giggle and say “don’t be. you’re cute when you get all huffy, you know” and then patton’s out of earshot and stares very intently at the wreaths and garlands dotting the town.

his baby has a boyfriend. it’s cute. it’s puppy love. it’s the kind of tooth-achingly sweet first relationship and the subsequent milestones that patton could have ever hoped for his son, even if the concept of “logan” and “dating” were still two very strange concepts to combine. it also provides patton his lifetime quota of “good-natured teasing of my child” that was bestowed upon him the moment he became a dad.

there’s a tap on his shoulder, and he turns to see logan, who’s blushing, just a little bit.

“we really need to coordinate our walks home so this never happens again,” logan grumbles, already walking past him, and patton picks up the pace.

“aw, hon, don’t be embarrassed,” patton says. “it’s perfectly natural to—”

“no,” logan complains, and patton laughs even as he starts to croon, “logan and roman, sittin’ in a tree, k-i-s-s—”

“dad!”

⁂

patton’s humming quietly to himself by the time he hears his front door open, and he smiles.

“hey,” he calls, setting aside the book he’d been reading. well. attempting to read.

stomp, stomp, stomp, virgil clearing his boots of any lingering wetness that might track onto patton’s carpet. the susurrus of virgil taking off his bulky winter coat and tucking it in with the others in the coat closet. a kiss dropped on the top of patton’s head.

“hey,” virgil murmurs, and patton shuffles aside, tugging up his blanket, so that virgil has space to settle in beside patton, as most of the other spaces in the living room are taken up by laundry or books. this way, patton can cuddle him. patton may have plotted a little bit to ensure this development happened.

patton sighs happily as he tosses the blanket over virgil and snuggles into virgil’s side.

“rest of the shift go okay?” he asks, voice soft.

“yeah, it’s fine,” virgil murmurs, adjusting a little so that his arm settles soundly over patton’s shoulders.

“good,” patton murmurs, rests his head on virgil’s shoulder and fights off a yawn. the yawn is afforded a narrow victory. “that’s good.”

“you haven’t been staying up for me, have you?”

“nuh-uh,” patton fibs, and then, “okay, yes, but i got your text and i didn’t wanna be rude by just being asleep when you got here.”

“i wouldn’t have been offended by you being well-rested,” virgil murmurs.

“you’re gonna say that i should—”

“—get ready for bed, yeah,” virgil finishes, sounding amused. “you know, i bet you’re so tired because—”

“don’t say it,” patton complains, even as virgil’s standing and tugging patton to his feet.

“—because of caffeine crash,” virgil finishes triumphantly. “you got way more caffeine than you’re used to this time of day, and—”

patton groans as he stamps up the stairs, even though he’s holding virgil’s hand the whole way, pulling him all the way into his bed.

“stay here,” patton commands. “i’m gonna do what you want.”

“you say that like i’m not just asking you put on your pajamas and brush your teeth,” virgil says, amused, and patton rolls his eyes even as he bends to kiss virgil.

“the next one will be minty-fresh,” patton informs him, before he flounces off to the bathroom. the last thing he sees is virgil sitting on his bed and bending to remove his boots, a smile playing about his lips.

when he comes back, virgil’s tugging on a t-shirt, one he’d left the last time he spent the night, and patton flops happily onto his bed, watching as virgil smooths down the hem. virgil turns, and patton pats the other side of the bed.

“minty-fresh, huh?” virgil asks, as he lifts the covers and slides into place.

patton grins at him. “shameless,” he teases, before he leans in to kiss virgil, and patton can taste that virgil had brushed his teeth, too, probably before he’d even come over, the kiss soft and sleepy, and patton smiles as they pull back.

“love you,” patton says, and presses a kiss to virgil’s shoulder for emphasis.

“i love you too,” virgil says. “lamp off?”

“yeah, sure,” patton says, and virgil leans up. the room’s doused in darkness. patton reaches for virgil and settles his head onto virgil’s chest.

“your shift was really okay, though?” patton asks, shifting in place to get comfy.

“yeah, ‘course,” virgil says, and adjusts slightly himself, settling his hand on patton’s shoulder blade.

“you sure?”

“why wouldn’t i be sure?”

“because,” patton says, “and, no pressure whatever you decide, but you got kinda weird with roman, and i’m wondering if it was just a momentary fluke of weirdness or something that you maybe wanted to talk about.”

virgil freezes. patton feels him tense.

“oh,” virgil says quietly. “that.”

“yeah,” patton says softly, and leans a little so that he can try to see virgil’s face with the slivers of light slanting through his blinds from the half-moon tonight.

virgil chews his lip for a few seconds, before he blurts out, “remus liked mcr.”

oh. roman’s dad.

patton had met him once, one time, if you could even call it meeting—he’d accidentally eavesdropped on a conversation between virgil and remus, and that’s how he’d known that remus was going to become a father. patton had asked virgil about him, after, and virgil had said he was an old friend, promised to introduce patton to him, maybe introduce remus’ kid to logan, once he was out of the womb.

and then he’d died. and virgil hadn’t talked about him very much since.

“yeah?” patton prompts, voice gentle and soft.

“yeah,” virgil says, a little rough, and he clears his throat, squirming a little. “uh—he mostly liked stuff that most people… didn’t really like, i guess. stuff outside of the norm. he had the biggest cd collection of anyone i knew. metal, punk rock, screamo, witch house.” a flicker of a smile. “medieval folk rock.”

“medieval folk rock?” patton says, voice edged in a laugh.

“if it was weird, he liked it,” virgil says. “god, the things he’d play on the radio, sometimes… we’d be going to egg someone’s house or something, and he’d be blaring slavic polka or ectofolk or just—” virgil snorts, “—one time, he just kept playing it’s a small world. for a week. i could’ve strangled him.”

“he sounds like he was funny,” patton offers.

“you’d have to have a very specific sense of humor to find him funny,” virgil says.

“did you?” patton says. “find him funny, i mean.”

“mm. sometimes. some things he said, i thought he was funny. others… others kind of scared me,” virgil says. he clears his throat. “remus didn’t particularly have a filter when it came to gross, taboo ideas, and he wasn’t shy about sharing them. doing them, sometimes. he was voted most likely to go to prison when he graduated from sideshire high.”

patton doesn’t really know what to say to that. so he just says, “ah.”

“i’m not sure if you would have liked each other,” virgil says.

“hey,” patton says, frowning.

“oh, you would have tried,” virgil says. “remus would have seen you were trying. he’d say something as a test, something you’d get uncomfortable with. you’d be polite about it and try to change the subject. but remus probably would have seen that you were uncomfortable with the stuff he said, and he would have delighted in grossing you out even more.”

patton considers this, before he says, “like boys on the playground who chase people with a worm on a stick to get everyone to squeal, or something?”

virgil huffs out a laugh. “sure,” he says. “that’s a good enough way to put it. tame, when it’s applied to remus, but… yeah. that’s the gist of it.”

“so,” patton says. “mcr.”

“and seeing roman, sitting there…” virgil says, and exhales a huge, gusting sigh. “face-wise, he looks so much like his dad.”

“face-wise?”

“remus was taller,” virgil says. “i know roman’s not done growing yet, so they might even out, but—but remus had a longer torso, shorter legs. different ears. remus always had dark under-eye circles. there’s something about the hands, too, i think. he was clumsier. had a less muscular build. remus wasn’t much of a dancer—well, he could lift isadora, but that’s about it, and i think that’s mostly because she’s tiny.”

“got it.”

“plus, i mean, remus was white, and since isadora's mexican, roman clearly isn't white, but—but roman’s face… i mean, slap a mustache on there and a white streak in his hair, and put that plotting look on his face that he gets sometimes, and i don’t think i’d be able to tell them apart.”

“like the plotting look like he had at dinner tonight,” patton realizes quietly.

“yeah,” virgil says, then, again, a little choked up. “yeah.”

patton wiggles closer and hugs virgil tighter.

“you could tell him about him,” patton suggests quietly. “roman about remus, i mean. i bet he’d love to know.”

“maybe,” virgil says. “i spent most of shift thinking about it. i just—you know.”

“miss him?”

“yeah.”

patton isn’t very familiar with grief; his grandparents, barring his granny lorelai, all died either before he was born or when he was a baby. the handful of funerals he went to were for people that he didn’t know very well—relatives he’d seen three times before, old “family friends” that his parents had fallen out of touch with, a couple business partners of his father’s—and so the only part he’s familiar with is this part. the comforting part.

“i’m sorry,” patton says quietly. “is there anything i can do?”

virgil let out a shaky exhale, and his grip tightens. “this is good.”

“okay,” patton says, and holds him tighter. “okay.”

⁂

i came to win, win, win, better show me what you goti came to bring the fire ‘cause you know i like it hotgonna win, win, win, ‘cause i’m full of tiger bloodi’m vicious like a viper and i’m ready to turn it on!

roman bops his head absentmindedly, headphones soundly on his ears, focus… maybe not quite so sound, but he’s at least holding a pencil and looking at his homework, so he thinks that counts as an attempt at focus on this stupid homework. like, who even needs proofs in real life?

so when a cup that looks like it’s full of soda is set in front of him, roman’s eager to hit pause and set down his pencil, looking up at his deliverer.

“uh, hey,” virgil says. “you busy?”

“not really,” roman lies brightly, pushing aside his homework. virgil’s eyes narrow when he sees it.

“you’re doing homework.”

“it can wait,” roman says, putting down his pencil. “seriously, it can wait. i want it to wait.”

“yeah, kid, that’s half the problem,” virgil retorts, tilting the textbook a little so that he can read, and his brow furrows. “geometry proofs?”

“like i said,” roman says, shoving his papers into the textbook before he closes it, “it can wait.”

“yeah, i guess,” virgil says, and he slides into the seat across from roman, holding onto his own beverage—a mug, probably with decaf coffee, or something—which he’s tap-tap-tapping his fingernails against. “uh. still not a math person?”

“yeah, archi-melancholy, because most people going into dance and theater and the fine arts are so well-known to be math people,” roman quips, and virgil smiles, just a little.

“archimedes joke?”

“i tried,” roman says. “again. not a math person.”

he takes a sip. cherry coke. the actual good kind with caffeine and full sugar and everything. which means that either virgil’s good mood has lasted two days—doubtful, considering he’s fidgeting with his mug—or he’s about to attempt a vague Emotional Talk, or something. he’s pretty sure he picked up the habit of giving people food they like as a special treat whenever there’s the possibility of upset from patton. or maybe it started with patton. who knows.

“so, uh,” virgil says. “what’re you listening to?”

“pop song,” roman says. “after your time. i think it’s too young for you. and it’s also, like, slightly cheerful and confidence-boosting.”

“what’s that supposed to mean?”

“you’ve been sneak-playing mcr for the past two days,” roman says accusingly.

“they’re a good band,” virgil protests, and then, with an affected, forceful casualness, “your dad liked them too.”

roman pauses. hearing about his dad is kind of like… well, honestly, it’s kind of like hearing about bigfoot, or mothman, or yetis, or some other kind of cryptid. sure, people might have seen him. roman never had. sure, people had interacted with him. roman hadn’t. sure, people had stories about him. roman didn’t. sure, people might have blurry, strange pictures that roman had touched, stared at, seen his whole life. roman didn’t have one with him, not even his dad holding him as a baby. remus duke is almost a larger-than-life, obscure piece of sideshire mythology. remus duke, the famous horror author, with the tragic death, who’d once been the mysterious partner in crime with local loner virgil, who’d bravely volunteered to co-parent with the fearsome isadora prince. people might have seen him. believed in him.

roman feels like a cryptid hunter, sometimes. like he’s doomed to always be questing out into the mysterious unknown, searching for some evidence, some form of personal connection, some story that’s his. he’s almost always come up empty.

doesn’t stop him from turning back for another quest.

he takes another sip. and, in an affected, forcefully casual tone, he says, “did he?”

virgil clears his throat. “yeah. uh—yeah.”

“that’s… cool,” roman says.

“i kind of—“ virgil coughs. “i mean, i, uh. sorry for the whole awkward… hugging thing. i just—you know. i think he would have been happy. to hear they were back together.”

roman swallows and looks down into his cup. “oh.”

he would have been happy. roman hears that sometimes. apparently, his dad would have been happy that he turned out dancing like his mom. apparently, his dad would have been happy that he had once tackled a mean kid at sideshire for calling logan annoying. apparently, his dad would have been happy that my chemical romance reunited.

it’s not like roman would know.

roman taps his fingernails against the cup and looks back up at virgil, before he says, “were they his favorite?”

“huh?”

“my chemical romance,” roman elaborates. “were they my dad’s favorite band?”

“ah, no,” virgil says. “no. he, uh—he liked a lot of bands. his favorites changed a lot. but he liked, um—he liked the residents, and captain beefheart and the magic band. oh, and rockbitch.”

roman’s lip twitches. “captain beefheart?”

“it was a band from the sixties,” virgil says. “lots of experimental stuff. he liked everything as long as it was weird.”

“yeah, i’ve heard,” roman says.

virgil hesitates, before he says, “once, he just played it’s a small world on loop for a week.”

roman cringes at the very idea. virgil laughs.

“yeah, i think that reaction was half the reason,” he says. “i think i, um. i think i’ve still got his cd collection in some boxes, stored away. he had the biggest music collection of anyone i’d ever met. i think the idea of spotify or music streaming the way we’ve got now would’ve given him heart palpitations.”

“of stress?”

“of excitement,” virgil corrects, and his lips twitch up in a bittersweet kind of smile. “he would have hacked the diner playlist and stuffed it full of rickrolling and a ten-hour gregorian chant remix and cotton eye joe and peanut butter jelly time and some pirate shanties, with, like, jesus take the wheel and that one song about christmas shoes thrown in for color.”

roman laughs, and virgil looks relieved.

“but, i figured,” virgil says, and shrugs. “i think you like music even more than him, maybe. so if you’ve got a stereo somewhere, you could—you could take any cd you want from it. i’m sure your mom would be thrilled to hear the dulcet tones of tuvan throat singing blaring in the apartment again.”

“okay,” roman says, and his voice comes out more eager than he means it to. “i—yeah, okay. i’d like that.”

“yeah?” virgil says.

“yeah,” roman says.

“uh, virgil?” jean calls. “the oven’s doing the smoking thing again!”

virgil curses under his breath, getting to his feet, before he taps his fingers against the table. “just—let me know when, yeah? i can show you the mcr album he doodled all over. practically gave it new cover art.”

“okay,” roman says.

“and do your homework!” virgil shouts over the din of concerned customers, even as he’s heading for the kitchen.

roman sighs, but tugs his textbook closer and opens it again.

the smile reappears on his face when, a couple songs later, a g-note rings throughout the diner.

#the sideshire files #ask #my fic #anonymous #sanders sides fanfiction #sanders sides

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