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shushiyuii · 3 years

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Subject T0M au

This is an Au I’ve had stockpiled for a while wkakdnknak. It’s going to multiple parts too, once I get to working on those. If you have any questions you’re welcome to ask!

I hope you guys enjoy it (Also gimme your fucking requests UwU /lh)

Warnings: Experimentation, injury? And Horror elements (It’s mainly fluff i promise :3)

Words: 3K

Document – T0MMY1NN1T

Assigned to: Doctor Wilbur Soot Watson

Description: Subject T0M was once a [REDACTED] by the name of [REDACTED] [REDACTED]. His age is of kin to an elder teen, probably around the age of [REDACTED] to [REDACTED].

The appearance of Subject T0M is like a human, they have blonde hair and pale skin. Their most common height is 6’3 on average but can change depending on the form. Their face, arms and legs are covered in a black substance of unknown origin, it mainly takes on half of their body and appears to be almost liquid.

Their face is completely black, the only thing apparent is their fangs like a wolf when they open their mouth to feed, multiple fangs, the only other feature on Subject T0M’s face is their light blue eyes that glow in the dark.

Subject T0M isn’t very intelligent, they have some semblance of human intelligence, understanding simple language and commands.

They’re quite approachable as well but Subject T0M is to be approached with caution, as they could be quite dangerous. If angered there’s no knowing what Subject T0M is capable of.

Their abilities consist of being able to manipulate the material of their body, being able to change shape and size, their favourite is to mimic those around them. It is not an exact copy; it is apparent that Subject T0M is themselves because the material of their body will still be there even if they changed forms.

They can also create weaponry and different things from their material but again not exact copies, they’re quite harmless usually.

Subject T0M is to be assigned to Rookie Doctor Wilbur Soot. Under the watch of Philza Watson.

Entry 01 – 02/09/20—

So today was my first-day researching Subject T0M, from what I can say so far is that they’re quite interesting but so far besides the examinations, they haven’t shown much behaviour. Only staring at me from a distance.

Also, I’m not used to this sort of thing like writing documents and reports, not my favourite thing in the world but it’s not the worst thing either. So, Subject T0M already has a lot of his abilities recorded, I’m just here to see if he develops any noteworthy changes and watch over the guy.

Currently, there is no change in behaviour, he just stares down at me at a distance, like I’m the most interesting thing he’s ever seen, perhaps that’s the case?

He seems so lonely in that containment cell, it’s just an empty white box surrounded by glass, perhaps at some point I could request an upgrade to higher-ups for the lil’ fella? That way he can have a more comfortable place. Rather than a highly lit, bland, cold box.

Entry 02 – 05/09/20—

So Today, Subject T0M did something quite interesting, it’s a drastic difference from the last few days by just staring at me through the windows of the cells.

You see, instead of just watching me from the other side of the office, as usual, it can get quite boring in the office once you finish the days' assignments of reports, schedules, contracts and more and having to watch this guy and do the usual routine gets quite boring so I decided to work on some personal things and bring my guitar, so I could work on my songs, practising the guitar and stuff.

So, I played some things, the next thing I know is that one moment I’m singing, the next in shock as I look over in disbelief. Subject T0M had moved over towards the window, his hands and face on the glass, dead staring me in my eyes, they were filled with curiosity and interest like an infant listening to music for the first time.

A way to describe it would be that Subject T0M seemed so much happier, but when I stopped, he looked almost disappointed, I stared at him in amazement for a moment and I started to play again, and his expression went back to being amazed.

My music seems to interest Subject T0M so perhaps I should do more research and experiments with different kinds of music to see which they prefer?

Not only that but it’s nice to have someone rather than my dad that enjoys my music. They’re almost my second biggest fan. I’m looking forward to seeing more of this kid.

Entry 03 – 06/09/20—

As of now, I have started the experimentation of music with Subject T0M, he seems to prefer rather upbeat, pop music and general music.

I also played him some songs from popular games, one of them being The Able Sister’s from Animal Crossing, he really seemed to enjoy that one.

Besides the experiments, I’ve started to talk to Subject T0M as it does get lonely here, plus he’s the only other guy here in the department. Although he doesn’t talk, he’s a great listener, nodding whenever I state my opinion and even trying to communicate verbally from time to time, even though he doesn’t seem to have the ability to speak.

And I’ve also seemed to have started a habit of calling Tom or Tommy, it suits him! He’s also been showing more personality, he seems more aggressive like a gremlin but not in a bad way, he’s just displaying more emotion it seems.

Entry 04 – 09/09/20—

So, the experiments and communication of Tommy have made significant progress. He’s become feistier and more vocal, he’s not aggressive in a physical sense, just annoyingly loud. He’s like a fucking child.

And today was another experiment with Tom, with the test subject being myself since it seems safe enough, so need to gather others or security over it.

I entered his containment cell, and the moment I did, Tommy showed no difference in behaviour, to begin with, just a somewhat surprised expression on his face. Probably because this was the first time, he had seen me so close.

I carefully approached at first but then a thought came to me. So far I’ve been treating him like a human so maybe treating him the same way now would have the same effects?

I sat down next to him and started talking to him as usual, and he slowly started to move closer to me, cautiously. He seemed almost nervous, but his focus was on me, rather than himself. I found it rather odd, maybe something is wrong?

Again, he tried talking back but of course, it sounded like a fucking crack pipe, so it didn’t quite work. But he was talking and for some reason, it just brought a smile to my face.

I felt like an older brother would be a way to describe it, I made a promise in my head to protect him. We even tried singing together, it was a lot of fun, I look forward to spending more time with him.

Entry 05 – 12/09/20—

The past couple of days have been a lot of fun with Tommy like I’ve gained a friend. You see, growing up I was always a bit lonely, I was social, but I never found myself clicking with anyone because nobody had the same interests as me, so I turned to focus more on my studies, science in fact like my father told me too. And look at me now!

I’m a training researcher in the same facility as my dad, as this place is one of a kind opportunity, so I guess I got pretty lucky. And it seems Tommy agrees maybe, he reminds me of well me, I don’t want him to be lonely like I was, maybe I could arrange a meeting between other monsters?

Entry 06 – 14/09/20—

Tommy and I have been bonding a lot more lately and I’ve also improved a lot myself with finishing work sooner and taking up more assignments.

Speaking of which my father said if I keep this up, I may get more recognition in the facility, maybe even a promotion which I’m happy about. I’ve sent in a request to the higher-ups to allow Tommy communication of other monsters to which I hope they approve.

Besides that, I was talking to Tommy as per usual and he displayed a different emotion, excitement. He seemed eager to show me something and when I asked, “What is it?”. His form changed to be slightly taller and more of his black substance covered his body but after a while, his form changed to be similar to my own, he tried copying me.

Like physically. It was quite surprising if I’m honest, my shocked expression to Tommy made him realise the situation and immediately changed back and tried to reassure me, I felt bad and tried to reassure him it was okay. It’s funny to look back on.

Entry 07 – 15/09/20—

I got approval from the higher-ups, probably getting special treatment since my dad is one of the higher-ups, others aren’t normally so lucky. Dad, or should I say Doctor Philza? He said we could have a meeting between Tommy and his subject, R4NB00 or as he says Ranboo.

Dad said that his subject Ranboo does need to socialise more since he appears to have symptoms of social anxiety so maybe this will do them both some good since they both seem to be around the same age. Like Tommy, Ranboo only socialises with him and another subject T3chn0, or the blade, blood god. He’s got quite a reputation around here.

Anyways, I’ll say what I know about Subject R4NB00 as of his report, so I know to look over it in case of emergency.

R4NB00 is a tall humanoid standing above 8 ft tall. They have a black and white fur coat, a thin fur coat to be described as silky. Their coat is black on one side and white on the other, their hair is the same but in the opposite way to his fur.

They have heterochromia in their eyes, one being green and the other a bright red. They also have horns of small height; they aren’t sharp and rather small so they wouldn’t hurt anybody with them. They also have a thin tail, with it being fluffy at the end.

Subject R4NB00 isn’t the biggest fan of the regular attire assigned to all subjects, they rather wear a tuxedo embedded with the facility’s logos. They are also timid, avoiding conflict whenever possible. They also can speak but prefer not to due to being shy, they will only communicate with a select few.

Their abilities consist of having the ability to teleport at will and communicate in an unknown language. They also have weaknesses being unable to touch the water and having a state of mind of when they aren’t in control of themselves, they talk in their unknown language in this state and teleport randomly, they are to be awoken as soon as possible unless they are in this state for a test.

Report 16/09/20-- - Meeting of Subject T0M and Subject R4NB00

Today was the meeting of Subject T0M and R4NB00. Both were properly secured successfully and safely in transportation cells with the required security of 5 guards each in each truck and successfully transported to the meeting facility without stress or failure.

Both researchers were safely secured behind the required monitoring window.

The meeting was rather successful between the two creatures. To begin with, when the two saw each other they both maintained distance, for Subject R4NB00 it was because they were anxious about meeting another creature and for Subject T0M, meeting somebody else rather than their researcher.

Subject T0M was the first to contact Subject R4NB00 by trying to communicate verbally with them, it was unsuccessful and resulted in Subject R4NB00 being confused. The two sat in silence for a moment longer until Subject T0M attempted another move of contact by cautiously approaching Subject R4NB00, which resulted in them backing up into a nearby wall and trying to get away from Subject T0M.

Subject T0M then backed off and changed their form to mimic R4NB00, this is theorised to be Subject T0M trying to either comfort or entertain Subject R4NB00, they then changed back into their regular form.

Despite being confused, Subject R4NB00 seemed to notice that Subject T0M meant no harm and then tried to approach subject T0M. Subject T0M did not move.

When Subject R4NB00 approached, there was approximately 1 meter between the two, Subject R4NB00 looked at the two researchers to look for approval to which he got from Doctor Philza via a thumbs up.

Subject T0M curious looked to where R4NB00 was looking and noticed the two researchers and made a noise of happiness towards his researcher, to which Doctor Soot responded with a smile and a thumbs up.

Both Subjects looked back at each other and sat down beside each other. Subject R4NB00 began to communicate with Subject T0M, Subject R4NB00 introduced themselves and made small communication, to which Subject T0M responded positively too, as they couldn’t communicate back. After that, the meeting was concluded.

After their meeting, when asked about the meeting by their researchers. Subject R4NB00 responded positively to seeing Subject T0M again and talked positively about them despite not being able to communicate.

Subject T0M appeared upset a few moments after the meeting, scratching at the windows of his cell, whining. When asked if he wished to see Subject R4NB00 again, he responded positively. Another meeting between the two has been arranged.

Entry 08 – 17/09/20—

Tommy seems to miss his new friend quite a bit but it’ll be a while before the next meeting between them as it has to be approved again and it’ll be a while.

Doing our normal routine keeps him happy for a while but if I leave him for more than 15 minutes he begins to whine again. I wasn’t quite sure what to do as I couldn’t keep him company all day.

On my lunch break I talked to my co-worker Doctor Puffy about the matter, she’s a smart gal and rather motherly, she reminds me of my mom at times. She suggested that I give Tommy a gift, like a plush bear to befriend so he wouldn’t feel so lonely while I was gone.

So, I quickly made my way to a store, it was rather odd to see myself, an adult in a toy aisle but I found a decent plush. It’s a Minecraft spider plushie. I gave Tommy the plushie and introduced him to the plush, when I asked him what he wanted to name the plush he responded with a sound, it honestly sounded like he said shroud, so I suggested it. He responded happily so I guess we now have Shroud the spider.

Now I’ve got the peril of getting medication for my father as he’s somehow gotten sick.

Incident Report #19283 – 18/09/20-- -

No staff or other creatures were harmed during the containment breach, minor damages to the building, broken walls and broken windows within the cell. All to be fixed within a minimum of 3 hours. Subject T3CHN0 was successfully contained in a holding cell as we interviewed him as to why he breached containment, to which he responded that “Nobody told me where Phil was.”.

Doctor Philza was then contacted to talk to Subject T3CHN0 to explain his current predicament of being sick, to which Subject T3CHN0 huffed in response and refused to cooperate with us further.

Subject T3CHN0 escaped containment in a rampage, the reasoning being as he was not informed of his researchers’ location, as Doctor Philza was sick for the past two days before the incident. Both researcher and creature are rather close with each other, as to why the Subject was upset.

Prior to the incident (recorded by security cameras), Both Subjects of Doctor Philza were speaking to each other about the current location of their researcher, both concluded that neither of them had any idea of where the Doctor was, both subjects ask their temporary carer as to where their researchers’ location was, to which the carer wouldn’t respond so Subject T3CHN0 decided to find his answers.

Subject T3CHN0 broke through his containment cell’s window and then proceeded to break through multiple walls trying to find his researcher.

(The document then goes into detail about what T3CHN0 did during his rampage before he was contained)

During the rampage, Subject T3CHN0 broke through the walls of Doctor Soot’s office and his creature, Subject T0M. As Subject T3CHN0 entered the office, Doctor Soot was frightened at the unexpected visitor as tried to get away from the approaching Subject T3CHN0, Doctor Soot demanded that he get away, to which T3CHN0 huffed in response.

Subject T0M took some time to register that his researcher was in danger, but when he heard he did, he sprang into the action of defending his researcher.

His form changed into one of being described as fearsome, they changed heights to one over 15 ft tall, his hands turned into claws, long sharp fangs became visible, a sharp tail and pair of horns after appeared with this form. (Doctor Soot has been requested to do further research into this form)

Subject T0M roared in warning towards the other, then proceeded to pounce through their containment cells window, shards of glass scattered throughout the room.

They then ran towards their researcher and in a crouched position, picked up his fallen researcher and held him close to his chest, growling furiously at T3CHN0.

The two Subjects stared at each other for a moment until T3CHN0 began to communicate verbally by asking where his researcher was, Doctor Soot was too much in a state of shock to respond.

Subject T0M held his researcher closer and tried to comfort him in a way of purring, even nuzzling his researcher for a response, to which Subject T3CHN0 left due to being impatient.

Subject T0M continued to hold onto his researcher and eventually Doctor Soot snapped out of his state to stare in awe of Subject T0M, When Subject T0M saw their researcher responding he made worried sounds to them, to which Doctor Soot responded with a laugh and said: “I’m fine buddy”.

Subject T3CHN0 was then contained shortly afterwards.

#mcyt g/t #mcytg/t #dsmp g/t #sizeshifter!tommy #tiny!ranboo #tiny!wilbur #giant!tommy #giant!techno #tiny!phil #Shushi's writings #Subject t0m au

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moondustis · 3 years

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on the way (m)

pairing: seo johnny + reader genre: angst, smut | word count: 10k summary: “There’s a few ways you could tell this story. The tale of how you met one Seo Johnny, and how it all went down. But maybe there's no better way to do it than from the beginning.” or A love story told in 5 acts.

a/n: hello! yes, finally a new fic and yes it is college!au with a hint of fwb. i have been writing this for around 4 months now and i haven’t read some parts in awhile so it’s probably all around the place. if something doesn’t make a lot of sense, well... it is what it is lol. but yeah, hope you guys enjoy it!

act 1: messy affairs

See, there’s a few ways you could tell this story. The tale of how you met one Seo Johnny, and how it all went down. But maybe there's no better way to do it than from the beginning.

It’s a friday night, just like any other that happens after a mixture of weekly stress and the weird need to let it all out. It’s common, routine even, how you apply your makeup, pick your best outfit and scroll mindlessly through tinder in wait for your friends to arrive for a pre-game. It's common but not that usual, at least not until recently.

Your last year of college had brought a lot of feelings that you didn't think you were ready to deal with yet. A nostalgia that arrived too soon, when you would catch yourself thinking that a moment shared with roommates would be the last one. An uncertainty of the future and a constant stress between writing a thesis that somehow is supposed to summarize the entirety of the knowledge you had gotten in the last year.

And lastly, the reason why you're doing this: the unwavering fear that your life is just about to start. The same feeling you got when college just started, of freedom and new beginnings. But now, instead of the excitement and thrill, it's replaced by anxiety and the heavy weight of adulthood about to start. That's why you look into the mirror, again, applying your lip gloss with the screen of your phone still illuminated by a picture of a person just waiting to be swiped left or right. You just need to have fun, like you never will again.

It's that a too harsh way to start this? Well, back to Seo Johnny.

It's a friday night and your friends arrive, flavored vodka in hand, the cheap kind that tastes like it's not alcoholic at all. A shot for each and then you are all laughing and joking to pass time.

"Why do we have to pre game? I'm sure there will be plenty to drink." Sarah, a blonde girl with friendly cheeks asks. She tips the shot on her hand back anyway, despite the question.

"Hell no I'm not going to drink frat booze again, they are cheap." Ela, tall and smart and majoring is Social Politics, says.

You hum and Sarah asks "And we are not?"

"No, we have our dear friend making us drinks." Ela gestures wildly at Nicole, the bartender of the night who's wearing a dress that only battles your own in the matters of shortness. "We are fancy."

"She's mixing vodka with sprite." These statements make you laugh loudly.

Tinder is just a distraction as you all sit on the couch, a good way to find an easy date for the night and when the he in question shows up, a black and white picture on the illuminated screen of your phone, it earns a shriek from your friends that go on and on about how hot he looks.

"You should swipe right." Ela says, eyebrows dancing but you don't see it because you're busy rolling your eyes at your phone. Johnny stares at you.

"He's my friend." You say as if it's obvious but it's really not. The word friend feels a little weird in your mouth but how else could you describe it? College was good for you in the social aspect, you have a lot of friends, people you talk to in class, or that you meet at parties because you ran in the same circles. It usually doesn't go deeper than that, than a blunt shared or a joke about a teacher, but that's friendship anyway you conclude.

And Johnny , well, he was someone you knew, not well, but sometimes he would text you a joke that made you laugh, ask for help with an assignment, talk to you about anything during a party. He was fun, a friend, and an acquaintance. Whatever, that didn't matter and honestly neither did the way you met, through a mutual friend at a kickback. It was that and nothing more.

"Please, he flirts with you every chance he gets." Ela rolls her eyes right back at you.

"He flirts with anyone, I think." You argue, because it's true. Johnny is one of those people that just have this aura to them, that can make anyone interested with just a few words. He's naturally flirty, that's something easy to point out.

"Well he's hot." That too.

"True." Nicole says and it earns a deep sigh from you.

Acting on impulse or peer pressure, you don't know exactly, but you swipe right and then nothing happens. So you shrug and throw your phone away to down another shot.

✿

When you get to the party, it's already absolutely trashed, with freshmen spilling their drinks on the floor as some annoying EDM song blasts loud enough that you’re not very sure the thin windows of this house can handle. Frat parties were always the same, mildly boring and filled with people that didn't know how to act. It often escaped you the reasons why you continued to attend them.

You and your friends dance a little, laughing when the songs change to one that is even worse than the first one. Ela, despite her words from earlier, finds a bottle of vodka and proclaims loudly that a night can never end badly when it starts with shots, a statement you strongly disagree with but you down it anyway when she offers it and then another one just for good measure. Because it’s a friday, you deserve a little fun, right? Right.

Too tired of dancing you had found a place on a couch that was probably too old. Johnny finds you there when the shots just start to hit and you feel bubbly, like you're on a cloud.

"Hey there." He says with a blinding smile and if you weren't out of it you'd probably find it weird that he came to you, because most of the time you talked at parties was because you somehow ended up bumping into each other.

"Hi." You reply, elongating the word more than necessary and it seems to amuse him.

"Why are you sitting here by yourself?" He asks.

"Don't feel like dancing anymore." You say shrugging. "And what are you doing here sitting with me?"

You watch as he laughs slowly and fishes for his phone in his pocket. "See, I wanted to show you something."

It’s endearing, really, even more when his hand starts to wander, fingers barely ghosting your skin as he keeps his gaze glued to your face.

He kisses you deeply, head tilted to the side as he holds you close with both hands on your cheeks and you can’t do anything but let him take control. Is when he sucks on your bottom lip that you have to let out the moan you had been holding, embarrassingly too soon and only urging him on even more as he licks at your lips, asking for entrance that you so gladly give, letting his tongue slide against yours slowly. The feeling of his hands moving to your leg makes your head spin and want for more.

He kisses the breath out of you, quite literally, and you both have to part to catch it back with silly smiles, gasps of air and pecks still being pressed on your lips.

In your drunken haze, you smile when he rests his palm on your naked thigh, squeezing just slightly to test your interest. And you’re crazy, absolutely out of your mind because you show it by parting your legs just a little, just to tease, the smile never leaving your face as he mimics it with a subtle raise of his eyebrow.

And god forgive you for being such a stupid horny girl that just falls gives in so easily, taking Johnny’s wandering hand in yours and dragging him to the closest place you can find, which happens to be someone's bedroom. How nice and polite of you.

There’s not much beating around the bush. He pushes you into the bed, hovering over you and finally kisses you again, with hunger, hands on your neck and tongue sliding against yours in movements that are not shy from being desperate. And you love it, enough to have your mind swimming with the need to have him touch you anywhere that will make you feel good.

When you grip at his hair a little too harshly, he lets out a moan that goes straight to the bubble of arousal on the pit of your stomach. He’s a sight, with puffy lips and hair a mess as he drops to his knees in front of you, something you weren’t exactly expecting but will definitely not complain about.

He looks up at you, hands moving to rest at your thighs and oh, so gently parting them so he can fit in between. “Can I?” You almost die at the voice he asks for your consent in.

You nod, head spinning a little when you move to help him get yours panties off, the offending cotton fabric being thrown somewhere inside this poor person's bedroom.

A couple of things happen afterwards. Johnny parts your legs further, placing a misplaced kiss on your inner thigh. Then he goes for it with a tentative lick, as if testing the waters and just slightly as if he’s a little unsure of himself. You blink slowly in expectation.

“How do you like it?” The question makes you confused until you realize that he’s teasing you, a grin splattered across his face when you groan and try to move your hips but he keeps a grip on your legs.

“Asshole.” You mutter in what sounds more like a whine.

Which is a complete lie, because you’re already shivering in your skin and he knows that by the raise of his eyebrow in defiance. But still, your words spark something and he finally goes for it.

The first press of his tongue flat against you has your hands moving to grip at the bed sheets. He works in a pace that clearly shows that he knows what he’s doing, swirling his tongue a little to tease and then licking a stripe from your entrance to your clit to gather the wetness there.

He kisses your cunt the exact same way he did your lips, messily and desperate with the squelchy noises filling the room and setting your cheeks in heat from embarrassment. You don’t even need the long fingers he adds, slowly and then matching the pace of his sucks.

It’s a very quick orgasm, in the sense that it doesn’t take you half the time you thought it would to happen. He does a little thing with his tongue, flicking your clit and you’re crying out with your body arching from the bed as he continues to eat you out as your body trembles.

“Was I good?” He asks afterwards, words muffled because he’s still pressed against your bare center. He’s grinning, you can see it as well as the wetness that drips on his chin.

You don't reply, instead you push him upwards and kiss him again, tasting yourself on his tongue. You can feel his erection press against your hip when he brings you closer and it makes you want more.

He breaks the kiss then, palm comes to rest on your cheek, thumb on the other side of your face as he keeps you looking at him. He likes being in control, you have realized that even in this short interaction, and you apparently liked giving it to him.

You shiver when he brushes his thumb on your lips, getting them to part for him. “There you go, open your mouth.” He whispers, eyes glued to it. “Be good."

Parting your lips, you lick at his thumb before you’re sucking it, earning a grunt from him that almost makes you smirk. You put on a show, trying to get him as worked up as you are, your eyes not leaving his face.

“Fuck. You’re so hot.” He mutters, pressing his thumb on your tongue and you moan a little over it. “You want my cock on your mouth?”

You nod, smiling as he removes his wet finger from your mouth. “Yes.” Your voice is breathless, eyes glassy as you stare at him.

That earns you a smile and you feel a little pride in your chest. “That’s a good girl.” He taps your face. “Get on your knees then, baby. If you want it so bad.”

You do, positioning yourself in the middle of his parted thighs when he sits down on the bed and your mouth almost waters from anticipation.

Lifting his shirt a bit, you start by pressing kisses to his navel and he lets out a deep breath. Reaching down to unbutton his pants, you help him pull them down alongside his boxers and the sight of him hard for you is what really makes your mouth water. He's big in a way that you're sure you won't be able to fit it all inside without putting in some work.

You tease him just a little bit, placing just the small kiss at the tip before licking it slowly. He’s far less patient then you are, hand immediately moving to grip your hair. “Put it in, baby, don’t be bad for me now.”

Parting your lips, you put him in your mouth, going as far as you can go, wrapping your hand on what you can’t reach. He moans lowly, curses falling from his lips.

He lets his head fall back when you swirl your tongue around, bobbing your head slowly the way he likes. “That’s it, baby. Takin’ me so well.” You hum around him, earning yourself another moan.

You try to get him as far as you can, swallowing when you reach your limit and he grips your hair tighter. You can feel him pulsing inside your mouth and it makes you squeeze your thighs together.

He comes on your face, painting your cheeks and making you gasp a little in shock. "Fuck, I'm sorry." He mumbles, quick to search for something to clean you up with.

"It 's okay." You say, throat feeling sore and you try not to think about how that was the first time that ever happened for too long. "I liked it."

That makes him give you a look, and then he's saying with a laugh "You'll be the death of me."

act 2: ungodly hour

Maybe the fact that nothing really changes should be a sign by itself.

Johnny still nods to you when you pass by him around campus, and still asks you to ‘help a guy out’ by sending him pictures of your notes like you guys are nothing but good almost-friends. Because, well, that’s what you are and that’s good enough for you.

His face stays there on your tinder matches, no acknowledgement of it beyond his stupid joke back at the party happens and the only reminder you have of that night is the insatiable thoughts that cross your mind in the middle of a boring lecture. Because why would you pay attention to whatever your teacher is saying when you could remind bit by bit of how Johnny fucked you on his tiny dorm room, while maintaining a resting face.

Weirdly those memories don't hit you the next time you see him, because you’re too busy thinking about strawberry milkshake.

The line behind you is not even that big, considering it’s 3am and most drunk college kids prefer to go to the burger king, but the cashier has an annoyed look on his face as your friend slowly reads the menu as if there’s plenty to choose from at a place like Mcdonalds. “Hmm, we’ll have two large fries, a coke and...”

“A strawberry milkshake!” You try to go for whispering but it comes out louder and the cashier just hums.

There's just something about being slightly shit faced at this hour and at this place, that makes it all seem like it's not actually happening. Like you are in a dream that only gets better when the server calls your number and you are sipping on the milkshake you kept on talking about since leaving the club you went on.

Funnily enough, if this was in fact in a dream, it wouldn't be the first time Johnny showed up on one of yours.

He's sitting in a booth by himself, scrolling at his phone. His hair is pushed back by a snapback and your mind twirls for a second with the thought that he looks too good for someone who's here in an hour like this.

Maybe it's the remnants of alcohol still buzzing on your system. Or maybe it is the fact that you seem to have been losing your self consciousness more and more these days. Whatever it is, it leads you to the stand in front of Johnny with a smile on your face and your hand freezing from holding the milkshake.

It doesn't take long for him to notice you, a smile that makes you feel warm inside ready on his lips as you take a place right across from him like it was meant for you all this time.

"Hey there." He says, voice playful and you wonder if he had a few drinks himself before coming here. He must have had. "What's up?"

You shrug, a smile painting your own lips. "Nothing much." You say and for some reason you feel silly, in a way that makes you want to scream a little from excitement. Like a teenage girl with a crush. "Strawberry milkshake. You want some?"

Johnny laughs a little when you offer him the cup with the slightly bitten straw. "No, thank you. But it looks good."

"It is." You smile with lips closed around it.

For a moment, but not an uncomfortable one, you two just stare at each other. The sweet taste of your drinks fills your mind and makes you feel a little less dizzier.

"Had fun night?"

"Hmm, not really. Sorority parties suck." He nods in agreement. Most parties sucked anyway, that's why everyone had to get so wasted to be able to enjoy it while the high lasted. You liked feeling pretty after getting ready more than the whole rest of it. "What were you up to?"

"Got to DJ at this party with Mark, it was nice." He says it like it was no big deal, like it was something he did every other day. You had never actually seen Johnny play before, but from the way his instagram page was filled with posts about it and links to soundcloud songs, anyone could figure out it was at least a bit important to him.

You found it weird, that you didn't know much about this or anything else about Johnny besides what he would let you know. And vice versa. But at the same time it's nice getting to know it bit by bit, without a rush.

"That's really cool." Your voice is a little more excited than you expected it to be. "I really wanna see you play someday."

"Sure." He smiles sideways. Bashfulness doesn't really suit him. "I'll let you know the next time."

You nod, then you share a look. Someone screams at their friend about something you don't really care about because you're too busy watching Johnny as he watches you finish your milkshake. Is it chemistry that people call this? Because there is nothing very appealing about the drink you're having, or about the white light at this place, but there's tension in the way you can't really look away.

He looks like he wants to laugh but is too scared to break whatever is happening. You finish your milkshake with one last swallow of artificial sweetener and lick your lips. He finally breaks.

"Stop looking at me like that." He says it in a way that suggests something that it's already as clear as water.

You bat your eyelashes. "Like what exactly?"

He laughs, sweet and deep, then raises one eyebrow in challenge. "Like you want me to fuck you in the middle of this mcdonalds."

The scandalousness of the statement makes you laugh too, your words sounding half joke half true between smiles. "Well, maybe I want to."

"You don't really strike me as the type." He says it like he's unsure of it, like in the back of his mind he could actually believe you would do something as shocking as that. Truth be told, you don't even know it yourself. There's not a lot you have done when it comes to this and sometimes you even think back to him coming on your face, like it is the wildest thing that has ever happened.

"I could be." He raises his eyebrow again, this time not as a challenge but as genuine curiosity. You would like to know whether that is true or false as well.

Deep down you know that there are not many things you wouldn't let a guy like Johnny do to you.

He laughs, then pauses for a second and taps his fingers on the table as if looking for something to say. "You should let me take you out someday." Is what he decides on.

For some reason you don't think much of that at the moment. "You gotta take someone out before fucking them in public place?" You continue the joke, earning a low laugh and a head shake.

"I'm being serious."

How serious can someone really be at 4am with some alcohol on their system. This time you are the one raising your eyebrows, in pure doubt. He doesn't seem like the type who dates girls they fucked at a party once, or the type who dates girls like you. But thinking about it you don't really know what type of person Johnny is. Or what kind of girl you really are.

You click your teeth before smiling. "We'll see about that."

act 2: la petit mort

It’s not a text you get but instead a facebook invitation. It makes you laugh because men are truly all the same. Liking an old instagram picture, reacting with an emoji to something you post on stories. Never a message being straightforward, it’s like they are all physically incapable of that. You wonder if it’s because of fearing rejection.

See, dating it's not really your thing, never has been and the proof can be found in your few failed attempts. It just made you nervous, constantly on edge because it always involved a lot of confusing moments, of not knowing where it's going or what the other person is thinking. People are usually bad at the most important thing when it comes to this, communication. And you hated to be either on the side of conflict or of creating expectations too early.

But Johnny, well, he has got you interested. In a way that’s dangerous because it doesn’t happen very often, at least not with someone who seems interested as well or even the slightest bit possible.

And danger is not your area of expertise, not as of lately, but still you click on the green button and when saturday comes you’re walking inside a very underground party outside of campus.

You know it's the right place because there's some people outside smoking and the door is slightly open. You walk inside the two floor flat, the small bottle of wine you had brought shaking a little in your bag while you pass some people.

There's music playing but the sound of conversations is louder than that. The scent filling the room is undeniably familiar and it makes you wonder if there's a least one sober person in the room at the moment. You had been to parties like this before, not nearly as loud as the ones that happened on campus and with a lot less people. An amount that by the end of the night will have shrunk and the ones left will gather around the very old looking couch, share one last blunt and say unnecessary deep things and profess their deep affections for each other.

They were fun parties.

You don't talk to anyone because no one really attempts to talk to you first. That's just how you worked, social interactions never came as easy as it seemed to other people. You usually waited for people to approach and if they were nice you would cling to them. Sometimes you even practiced smiling in the foggy mirror after you showered. You practiced saying an icebreaker, smiling fakely after it, but you never really put it in practice.

You see Johnny before he sees you, surrounded by two boys that look particularly close. He looks effortlessly good, like he always does, with a black sweatshirt and light blue jeans. It makes you want to go there and hold his hand, lean against his chest, feel him loom above you and then kiss him in front of everyone as if it was normal, as if it meant nothing. You got this feeling a lot.

When he sees you he smiles big and makes his way to you with long and quick steps that don't take longer than three blinks from you.

"I thought you were going to DJ tonight." You say when he reaches you holding a bottle of beer.

He shrugs, standing very close to you now. "Nah, this is not that kind of party."

His eyes stay glued to you and you fight the urge to fix your hair. You wonder if he thinks you look good on the dress you chose.

"Hmm, it's not the kind of party I thought I would ever see you on." You point out, looking around as someone screams asking for them to play some song by an artist you don't know.

"To be honest this is much more my scene." He explains and this small piece of information he gives you about what he's really like makes you feel giddy for some reason. "The only reason I go to frat parties is because of Jaehyun."

Jaehyun was a dude that played on the football team and looked too good for his own good. Him and Johnny were always together, like they would break if someone separated them. "So that's who you got this weird frat boy aura you got from."

He laughs loudly. "Sure. But what about you? What's your scene?"

You pretend to think for a while. "I don't really know. I like very specific things that I only know I'm actually enjoying at the moment." It's a pretentious reply that you hope he finds funny.

He seems amused by it. "So, a moment type of girl."

He takes a sip of his beer and you take that moment to get the bottle of wine out of your bag. He laughs at it, as if the thought of you carrying wine around is very funny to him.

"Sure." You take a sip of your own. "You seem very keen on figuring out what kind of girl I am."

You enhance your question by raising your eyebrows as he starts leading you to a small empty couch. "Well, you're mysterious so I got to work with what I get." He says while sitting down and you follow, laughing because the last thing you would consider yourself is mysterious in any way.

"Trust me, you would get a lot more information if you just asked."

He nods, doing a whole scene of thinking of something to ask. "Ok then, why psychology?"

You almost laugh at the question because does anyone actually know why they chose their major? "I guess I like that the mind is the only thing that can understand itself." You say it in a pompous way so he knows you are not really that serious about that. "What about you? Why did you choose business?"

He looks forwards and moves as if to get more comfortable on the couch. It makes him get closer to you and your legs touch. "I don't know. Money, status, easier to get a job later on."

That makes you snort. "I don't think right now getting a job is easy in any area." You pause to drink some and then say, "You don't seem like someone who cares about those things, anyway."

He laughs just a little. "My parents do."

By his voice you can tell he doesn't really want to talk about that. Not right now at least.

"Well, at least when you are a famous dj the gossip magazines will be able to mention that you got a business degree you never used."

He leans into you when he laughs.

✿

The rest of the party is fun. You meet some of Johnny's friends that are too high to keep an actual conversation but are fun enough that you have a good time.

Johnny makes you laugh a lot and by the time you finish your wine you feel more drunk in his presence than on the alcohol itself.

There’s just something about Johnny’s presence that makes your legs go a little weak and your heart beat just a little faster, like you have a silly crush. He’s just funny, in a way that comes natural to him, and he makes you feel special, seeming interested in the things you say in a way that has your heart swoon. And on top of all that, like he couldn’t get any more perfect, he’s a whole 6’0 of man, all broad shoulders and always looking down at you with cute smiles.

It doesn't take you two long to reach his dorm, or for you to get on his bed. And when it’s like this, with him hovering over you, thrusting into you in a pace that has you seeing stars, the effect he has on you becomes painfully obvious.

It’s kind of embarrassing, really, how having him on top of you makes you feel so small and safe. How him hitting so deep inside when he gives you a sharp movement of his hips turns your inside into jelly. And all you can do in return is look up at him with glossy eyes and parted lips.

“God, I dreamed of fucking you.” He knows what he’s doing. Even worse, knows how to get to you with just a few words. “Do you like it, baby?” He asks, voice hoarse and lips turning into a barely not there smirk.

“Huh?” Is what you can reply with because you’re way out of it to make sense of his words. It just makes his smirk grow wider, hands moving to grip at your thighs so he can get your legs to open wider.

When he fucks into you faster, his cock hitting the spot that has you absolutely and completely losing your mind, he tries again. “Do you like how — Fuck— How big I feel?” His words are barely a groan from being just affected as you are. He sounds cocky but in a way that makes your eyes cross.

And you nod, enthusiastically so, because you do. It makes you shy, saying it out loud, but he seems well aware how much you love having him inside of you, the feeling of being full, the only thing that swims around your mind.

“Hmm, can you feel me here?” This time the question is accompanied by his palm on your lower belly, where a hint of a bulge forms when he gives you a deep thrust.

“Y-Yes.” You practically wail, body tingling from being so close. “You feel so —- Ughnnn.”

His chuckle is a mix of laughter and a moan, his lips coming down on yours in a kiss that’s as messy as it is desperate. “Are you shy, hmm? C-Can’t even say you like my cock inside of you.”

Your eyes roll to the back of your head. “Ah. I like it. I like it so much.”

He groans deep in his chest, hips still working. “You’ll drive me crazy one day, know that?"

What he doesn’t say but you know it’s true, it’s that he likes it as much as you do.

✿

What it becomes, is something you don't know exactly how to describe. All you know is that you spend a lot of time in Johnny's dorm these days. So much that you decorated every detail from it, from the fancy music equipment to the posters on the wall.

He fucks you in every way possible and it's weird that someone could know exactly how to please you, how to get you screaming. And then the two of you talk for hours, something putting on something to watch on his notebook while sharing ice cream, other times just laying down in silence until you fall asleep.

It's something you're not quite sure to navigate. How easy it feels when you are with him, and how right it feels. You two navigate this uncertain thing very smoothly and the need to put a name to it, asking the 'what are we' question escapes you often.

Right now you two lay down on his small bed, bare legs touching and the thin sheet on top of you barely covers anything. It was a rare thing to feel this comfortable with someone.

He's talking about something his mother said to him on the phone, about drinking green tea and you just listen, enjoying the sound of his voice until he stops and looks down at you with a small smile.

"Every time I talk about my parents you get this look." He says and you make a weird face at him.

"No I don't." You defend yourself and he chuckles.

"You do." He accuses. "Are you analyzing my parental relationship?"

You scoff, turning around to face him better. "No. I'm just friendly, feeling sorrow because of the fact you didn't get to choose what to study."

He looks back at you, looking soft with the late afternoon peeking in from his half closed window. "It's fine, really. I can study engine sound later on, there's no expiration. Besides, they did so much for me this is the least I can do."

You fight the urge to point out that he doesn't really owe them anything. It was hard sometimes to make sense of the way other people navigated their parental relationships. So all you say is a small "Yeah…"

"What about your parents? What are they like?"

"I don't know. They are divorced, so I haven't really talked to my father in a while." You hope he doesn't see this as weird. Every time he talks about his family they seem so normal, that it makes you envy him a bit. You always think that if you talk about your parents, people will think you're somehow messed up because of it, so you always keep it short. Johnny doesn't seem to mind it. "My mom is cool, I guess. She's funny."

He hums "I would like to meet her someday." It sounds like a bold statement. Something that means something, but he says with an ease that makes the thought of it seem pleasant. You realize you would like that to happen as well.

"She would like you." Is what you say with as much ease as he did.

A comfortable silence feels the room then, with only the low sound of the fan turning filling your ears. You don't think about how the room smells like sex, or about how summer is approaching and you'll probably not be able to see each other for a while.

"Are you going home for the summer?" You decide to ask.

He turns to look at you again. "Yeah, what about you?"

"I'm gonna start my internship. Work on my thesis." You had talked about both these things before, how important they were for you and the mention of it makes him smile.

"That's really nice." He says and you give him a tiny smile.

You swallow a lump in your throat then, the 2 months you'll stay apart hitting you and you just let the words escape your mouth. "I'm gonna miss you. Really."

He says it back by kissing you, softly and then with meaning. It happens naturally after that, like there wasn't anything else that made more sense than being as close to each other as possible right now.

When he enters you, you look up at him in what you think is awe. Your eyes hazy, barely able to keep open and lips parting in yet another moan.

It’s a nice view, in your defense, of Johnny hovering over you, looking so big as he fucks you so well you’re sure your second orgasm of the night is already approaching. You’re not embarrassed to say that most of the times this happens you go a little dumb in the head, your mind swimming in the gooey feeling of pleasure and all you can think about is him. Johnny, Johnny, Johnny.

“Oh, oh… oh my god.” You sigh dreamily yet broken enough that it makes him smile when a sharp thrust makes your hips raise a little. He’s always proud of being able to get you like this, to be the only one who does so.

He hums as if agreeing with a very thorough statement, moving his arms so he can press his chest to yours as he fucks into you with calculated thrusts . You can barely move with his weight on top of you, with how he seems to lock you in place with his hips and it’s enough for another broken sob to fall from your lips.

“Good?” He asks in a groan and with a nice slide of his cock inside of you to punctuate the question. You nod frantically because he’s as deep as he can get, knows this very well, and the feeling is something that makes you flutter around him in the desperate need to come.

He kisses your cheek then, two sweet but filthy enough with his heavy exhales against it. His pace never gets too fast, just hinting at it but he maintains a speed that leaves you on the brink of your release. But, you only reach it when he pinches your clit with his fingers, circling it until your lips part in a silent scream and you’re coming again.

And the sounds he makes when your walls squeeze just a little more than he can handle are something else. A deep groan and a pained little sob that you find extremely endearing and hot at the same time, his face contorting as he quickened his pace just enough to push him over the edge, finally coming inside of the condom.

“You look so pretty like this.” He’ll say afterwards when he’s still inside of you, too lazy to move as you brush the hair out of his face.

And you’ll smile, in the way he seems to like so much, and say “You look pretty all the time” just to get him to smile at you.

act 3: yellow light (hit the brakes)

The rain was predictable. It had been raining every other day the entire month, on your way to work early in the morning you always ended up stepping on a pool and ruining your entire day because of your wet socks.

Not a lot of the people you knew had a car, or would willing to go out of their way to give you a lift. Your finger had hovered on top of Johnny’s contact for a while, not out of confidence that he would help you because you knew he would. But you hadn't really talked since summer started. There were random interactions, like replying to one of his instagram stories commenting on how intelectual posting pictures at The Louvre made him look and him making a joke about it or sharing a trivia about french people.

Besides, bothering people made you uncomfortable, as if that somehow put you in debt and in a state of vulnerability with the person.

But Johnny doesn’t look like he’s going to hold a grudge against you over a lift. Instead, when you apologize for making him come all the way there, he says “I was in the area anyway.”

Which you doubt, but you don’t say anything so you just smile and thank him again.

It's somehow weird that you don't even expect him to mention what happened last term. You fight the urge to say it out loud, mention a small detail about the whole thing just for him to laugh and somehow confirm to you that it really happened. It scared you sometimes how things were so momentary, as if life was supposed to be just a collection of things you would remember about and feel sad about.

But it’s easy with Johnny, had been from the start. In a way that makes you think that some people are really meant to meet if only for a moment.

You had expected the casual friendship you had with the other friends you had met at college to fade slowly, which had happened. Without the bond of parties and fun there wasn’t much left there, and that was fine, you were never really lonely because you didn’t have a lot of time to be. Your mind was also set in a routine and state of tiredness that anything out of that seemed to set it in a frenzy and it would just shut down, making it hard to make conversation naturally.

Work was usually quiet, but sometimes the girl that was also accepted for the internship would try to strike conversation about her thesis and while she was talking your gaze would be focused forward while your mind went somewhere else. She never pointed that out, probably because she just wanted to talk and not really listen. You were fine with that.

But with Johnny the silence is not the kind that makes you wonder if you should say something. You think that if you were to get in a daze right now he would try to pull you out, ask what you were daydreaming about, or maybe that’s you building your other life, the one you think about before going to sleep.

You watch the window wipe, swiping away the raindrops as Johnny picks a song. It’s just a little past 6 but the clouds make it look much later.

“How is the internship going?” Johnny asks after he sets on a song you don’t really know.

You shrug. Not long ago you had told him how excited you were for this, as if you thought your life would start with this idealized career you had created in your mind. At the time having to watch people your age sign forms about how depressed they are didn’t seem that bad. “It’s fine, not that busy at night so I get to work on my thesis when they give me those shifts.”

That involves a lot of reading multiple times the same page of articles written by pretentious men that think using difficult sentences makes them smarter. You think your advisor expects the same from you, fancy nomenclature but the human mind is already complicated enough by itself.

“And how is that going?” Johnny has no idea what you’re writing about, no one actually does. Sometimes you even doubt yourself, does it really matter to talk about something that feels so specific to your reality? Because it does seem like everyone else is doing a good job at living and not feeling like they are disconnected from reality.

You scoff and shake your head missing the way his lips corners lift just a little. “The best way it can, I suppose.”

“Good enough.” He says in his cheerful voice. “When are you going to become that kind of person that can't stop talking about what they are studying?"

That makes you laugh a little. If there was something you were familiar with, it was people who loved to talk about their thesis as if they would come up with the solution to all of the world's problems. "I don't think that really suits me." Just mentioning it made you actually a little sick.

"Yeah, because you are mysterious and all."

And there it is. Just this small reference to a past conversation you had with him, alone in your small dorm room, makes you feel giddy. You could even blush if you thought hard enough about it.

"Exactly, a box of surprises." You say, in a funny voice and his laugh makes you smile.

Outside the rain is still going strong and you can see students running around trying to find shelter while laughing and using their backpacks as improvised umbrellas. The sky is completely dark now and it makes you want to be in bed, safe and sound.

You go to ask Johnny about his summer in France, but he beats you to it. He had always been better at conversations, anyway.

"I saw that friend of yours, Ela I think." He mentions casually. "She's dating a friend of mine."

You knew that because of the numerous pictures on your instagram feed, but for some reason you pretend to be mildly surprised "Oh really? I haven't really talked to her in awhile." A shrug. "We don't have much in common, turns out."

He hums sympathetically. "Yeah that makes sense. But they both seem happy."

"Yeah." The topic doesn't really interest you. You can't barely remember a time where your past friends' love lives had any affect on you, now it's just a piece of information you'll forget about in a few hours.

"What about you, seeing anyone at the moment?" The question makes you raise both your eyebrows as you let out a laugh that sounds suspicious. It's a weird thing for him to ask but at the same time not really.

You sigh and he looks at you with a funny face, as if he's amused. I don't think I have the energy for that. What about you?"

He shrugs, turning his face to the front again. "Not really."

Months ago you think you would have made a flirty commentary about that. Something along the lines of 'That's good, I get jealous easily.' and it would have made him laugh. But now you just hum, not out of interest but because you are not sure how you would react to the potential outcome.

It should've felt obvious that he would somehow mention your relationship. You always thought that when you two talked about it, it would be bringing up the months you would see each other every day, and how you spend more time at his place than at your own. But what he says is, "Remember when you refused me?"

He says it in a funny voice, like old friends reminiscing on the past. You get confused with the pace of the conversations and ask "What?"

"At McDonalds. I asked you out and you said 'We'll see about it.'" He says it laughing, which means he's not hurt by that.

"I didn't think you remembered that." You mutter, because you really didn't. "And please, I wasn't rejecting you."

The last part is a lie. At the time you didn't think he was serious about it. Now, you don't know exactly what you think.

"Right, right. When you put me down nicely."

That makes you roll your eyes, laughing alongside him. "Yeah, right."

When the laugh dies down you watch as he taps his fingers on the steering wheel. You feel a weird sensation in your chest.

"Why did you?" He asks, voice not much more serious but the question has weight that his past sentences didn't have.

You could tell him the truth, of what kind of person you thought he was and how that changed. You definitely couldn't open up about what kind of person you were. So you settle for this: "I don't know, I think.. I mean, I'm not sure we would have worked out back then."

He hums loudly, then clicks his tongue. "Yeah. I don't know either." His voice is soft then, mixing perfectly with the muted rain sound and the song still playing. "You can never know."

You turn your face to look at him. There's no way to do it without him noticing that you are staring, but you do it without a hint of shame.

If you thought about it hard enough, about everything that happened, you would still not be able to point out exactly what would have happened if something more serious took place. And that's a weird thing to think about, because there was never a point in your relationship where neither of you decided it was meant to be casual, that's just how it turned out to be.

Later at night you will think about how there's nothing really casual about the way you can perfectly picture Johnny when you close your eyes, laying on your bed shirtless, hair a mess and face illuminated by the sun peaking out your window. How there's nothing casual at all about the fact that it has never felt like it did with anyone else.

But now, you just look at him with your heart ready to burst and you say. " We should watch a movie together someday."

He laughs, looks at you for a second and says "Yeah, we should."

act 4: what’s going on?

You didn’t feel particularly fond of mondays. Having to let go of the leisureliness of the weekend behind and welcome another week ahead never felt like a good idea when your phone alarm would start ringing at 7am.

It's not that the weekend was much better than that. All you ever did was read books that made your head ache for hours and then write never ending paragraphs that you hoped would make sense for anyone besides yourself. It was easy to become some sort of alienated when you stayed focused inside your room for so long, and having to remember that there was a whole life outside was a little painful.

When you walk inside the clinic the sound of the coffee machine being turned on reaches your ears and you mutter a small good morning to the psychiatrist that usually took the morning shifts. She was tall and always looked put together with a blazer jacket and red lipstick. Her friendly face made you suspicious for some reason.

"Good weekend?" She asks as you place your things on the front desk and you spare a smile to make her think you are interested in talking about your weekend.

"Yeah, sure." You turn on the old computer they got for you to use. A blue screen greets your eyes, then it glitches for a second like it always does. "What about you?"

It might sound like you're not a very nice person if you say you don't really care how her weekend went. Or that you would wish the conversation would have stopped at the greeting. But you really don't. These days talking to people takes a lot of effort and most of the time you wish you'd be just swallowed by silence and left alone.

"It was great, thank you." She says while adding sugar to her coffee. You are sitting down now and she turns to look at you with a sympathetic face. "Listen, I have a free spot this morning, if you'd like to talk a little."

You blink slowly, taking a moment to process the words she said, but it really doesn't take a genius to understand she's offering you counseling. Most likely because she thinks you need it.

And you're not about to argue that you don't, because you more than anything else know that you do, but you feel like you're not ready for it yet. As if you have things to figure out first. "Oh, that's very nice of you to offer." You say, uncertain how exactly to handle this. "But I have some things to get done."

The lie is accepted easily but she still raises her eyebrow a little. Still, she says. "Alright, then. Just remember I'm one door away."

You thank her, smiling politely until she finally leaves to her office. The computer is still loading and you let out another deep sigh, considering drinking a cup of coffee but deciding against it to not trouble your anxiety any more.

What happens next couldn't possibly be predicted. You take your phone out of your bag and open instagram out of habit, to pass some time. Johnny's profile is still the first one that shows up on the stories board, probably from all the time you spent messaging each other in the past.

It had been a while since you two talked to each other, but you kept up with his whereabouts from looking at the pictures he posted with friends and of random things. More often than not you fought the urge to reply to them, as if you didn't really know each other anymore.

You don't expect to see him with a girl when you click on his photo. But there he is, with arms around her and a single heart. You tap on to the next one and it's a repost from someone else's instagram, of a picture of him and the girl kissing while laughing.

There's a few words you can use to describe how you feel. Your heart drops and you go cold, blinking very slowly as the pictures change to another person's stories and for a second it's like it didn't happen. Like it was just a trick of the eye.

Would it be silly to cry over this? You think it would so you take a deep breath and try to not think about it anymore.

✿

It wouldn't take a genius to figure out that you probably loved him. Or at least felt a deep kind of infatuation. Sometimes at night you lay in bed and wonder what exactly went wrong and you can't really find an answer to that. It just naturally happened.

Maybe you should have said something, maybe if you did things would've stayed the same. You wish that at the time you knew what to say but now it was a little too late.

You stare at your blank ceiling, your skin tingling where it touches you sheets. Looking at couples always made you feel weird, with jealousy maybe because you never thought that was something for you. Being in love has always been something that other people got to experience, and you got to watch it but never try it for yourself.

Maybe there was something wrong with how you worked, how you viewed this whole thing. You wish you knew what so you could fix it.

Sometimes when you close your eyes you imagine someone wrapping arms around you, with a familiar cologne that makes you feel at home. the person doesn’t complain when you hug them tighter, probably knows this is what you need.

You think of all the men you had dated, the ones who disappeared out of nowhere and the ones who treated you like shit because you allowed it. You didn't really know how it really had to work until you met Johnny.

It had never felt like that. Gentle and soft and easy.

How to separate true loneliness from the mere need to feel something, to have someone want you? That’s a trick question and you think about it until you fall asleep.

✿

For you last month in college, you don’t do much.

The internship ends with the old lady that was in charge of the clinic telling you what an amazing job you did, and how she knows for sure you will exceed in the area. She writes a beautiful recommendation letter, mentions a few professional names and then sends you away.

A week before its deadline you send out your finished thesis to your advisor, after spending half an hour staring at your email until you can press send. You got a reply two hours later with pleasantries and a date for your final presentation.

As you wait for it there's nothing a lot to do. Some days you walk around campus without a real destination in mind, stopping by the cafeteria and the library on your way. There's not many people around this time of the year, most have gone already and the ones that stayed spend time rehearsing for presentations or hanging out with friends.

You get texts from people you haven't talked to in months, wishing you good luck and inviting you to parties that you attend once or twice just to get one last taste of it.

It’s weird that you don’t feel the deep sense of realization you thought you would. You lay down on the small bed you slept on for two years, stare at the empty walls of your dorm now that you’ve put all your things away, and you feel almost normal. Sure there’s a little ball of emptiness and excitement on your stomach alongside pride for finishing this and for having grown up so much since freshman year. But besides that you just feel normal.

Maybe this is what being alive is, experiencing life changing moments and not feeling like they mean much. Maybe some moments are just meant to be remembered as special, and not lived as such.

Your presentation goes well, you don’t trip over your words and your teachers compliment your great work afterwards. You cry, in front of a bunch of people you don’t know, and let out a deep breath of relief.

Ten days later you graduate, wearing the usual attire and walking on stage with a smile on your face when your name is called. No one screams your name or cheers loudly because plane tickets were too expensive for your parents to attend. The claps from your classmates are still nice.

You don’t expect to see Johnny there, but he shows up wearing a suit that looks alien compared to the clothes he wears daily. He looks good, familiar and it makes a lump form on your throat.

You hadn’t really talked to each other in a while. It had been a natural thing to happen, for the two of you to fall a little apart. But still, when he waves at you, you make your way to him easily.

“Finally got your ticket out of this place, huh?” He jokes with a smile on his lips that you can’t help but mimic.

“Yeah, I’m finally free.” You joke back.

You inhale softly when he hugs you, so close that you can hear his heartbeat. He surrounds you with him and you think you would drown right now if he allowed you to. “Congratulations, ____.” He says quietly, almost whispering your name.

You’re both smiling when you part. “Soon it’ll be you.”

Before he can reply a familiar face makes her way to where you two are. Johnny circles her waist when she gets close enough and you fight as to not let your smile fall. He introduces her as his girlfriend, a biomedicine student that smiles big when she congratulates you on graduating and expresses how she can’t wait for her turn to come.

She’s very pretty is what you keep thinking about as you make small talk that feels a little painful.

After some time Johnny says “Well, we should leave you to go talk to your family. It was really nice to see you, ____.”

His words sound genuine and you smile when he hugs you again.

You don’t tell them there’s not really anyone you know for you to talk to. Instead, you walk to your dorm with your heels clicking on the asphalt.

act 5: old friend / late spring

Your feet hurt a little from standing too much and not even the coldness of the beer you’re having can make you ignore it.

The truth is that you really wanted to be home right now, eating leftovers while you watched a movie. But instead, you’re in the bar your colleagues always attended after work to share a laugh and complain about mundane things while enjoying the 2 for 1 deal they had on friday for happy hour.

Working in an office with people wearing suits hadn’t been what you had envisioned yourself doing two years after graduating. You had always dreamt of having your own clinic, becoming a therapist or even working at a hospital. But times were hard and the human relations department of a marketing company had been what you had to go for.

It’s not as boring as it sounds, and you get to know about every gossip firsthand so you settle for it very easily. But having to be at a bar after a whole tiring week was not on your favorites list.

You excuse yourself from the group when they start talking about something you were tired of hearing. A gossip about the boss sleeping with someone from the finance department that you knew about months ago.

You walk to the bar, cursing your heels until you finally sit on a stool, ordering another beer that you know is gonna be your last before you decide to escape. There’s loud conversation happening all around you and a song playing over it. Your back hurts a bit and you wonder when life has become so mundane.

Lost in your thoughts, you don’t notice the man that sits right next to you until he’s ordering a beer and the voice seems familiar.

Your heart jumps out of your chest when you look at him and Johnny stands there in all his glory, with blonde hair and a very fancy suit. “Oh my fucking god.” Is the only thing you manage to mumble.

For a second you think you might be dreaming, but when he turns and looks at you his face contorts in the most amusing expression of surprise.

Maybe this is what being alive is, experiencing life changing moments and not feeling like they mean much. Maybe some moments are just meant to be remembered as special, and not lived as such.

The two of you hug while laughing and he keeps muttering something that sounds like a ‘no way.’

“I can’t believe this! What are you doing here?” You ask excitedly and he laughs.

“I’m working on a office a few blocks from here.” He explains. “Just started a few days ago.”

“I work around here too.” You exclaim and it’s like you could buzz from how excited you feel about this.

You talk about things easily, both sharing what you have been doing for the past years.

“This is crazy. I haven’t heard from you since college.” He says and it makes you freeze, blinking slowly but it doesn’t last long until you are covering your surprise by chuckling. Suddenly you’re hit with memories from those years and everything that happened between the two of you. Your eyes meet his and it strikes you that he’s probably thinking the same thing as you are.

You shake your thoughts away, leaning on the counter with one elbow and then resting your face on your palm. “Who would’ve thought we would reunite after those years in a sketchy bar.” You joke, in a playful tone to keep the conversation going.

He chuckles, bringing his hand to his face before he replies. “I would have never guessed this was your kind of scene.”

The way he says it makes you snort. “It’s definitely not.”

“Yeah.” He nods while laughing, “Still a moment kind of girl then?”

You nod then, making an amused sound while you take a sip of your beer. “Seems to me like you still got me all figured out.”

“Do I? I used to think that I did but after all it happened I wasn’t so sure anymore.” He says avoiding your eyes a little and a lump forms on your throat. “To be honest I don’t really understand what happened.”

You nod, turning to face him. “I think it wasn’t the right time.” It’s what you decide to say and he hums.

“When is ever the right time for anything?” He asks and it makes you laugh loudly.

You share a look then, one that says more than you could ever do with words. He smiles and then you smile back, like old friends would. “Maybe we met again for a reason.”

Deep down, you know this is one of those moments happening. One that you’ll look back on the future and remember that it is where it all began. Again.

#johnny scenarios #JOHNNY SMUT #nct smut #nct scenarios #neowritingsnet #i honestly think this is bad lol #but well ENJOY

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writtenonreceipts · 3 years

Note

I saw this prompt for feysand and i would love to see your take on it - I get stuck with a late class that doesn’t end until 9pm and I’m always anxious about walking across the campus to the dorms, so you offer to walk with me and one night, I find out that it’s in the exact opposite direction that you need to go in

I've really been enjoying your writing!!❤

AN: I took it and ran, and ran, and kept running. Thank-you so, SO much for sending it my way! This was a great prompt that had fun with. I’m glad you’ve been liking my stuff, it means a lot! ~5.5kwords

TW: Brief talk about death, anxiety, depression, fear.

Worth It

Seated at a canvas with paints or pencils in hand, Feyre was unstoppable. She could create landscapes with ease or depict a simple still life and turn it into something far greater. Art was where she lived.

Not in a basement classroom learning about Prythian history.

There wasn’t anything wrong with history, especially when it was as rich and vibrant as Prythia. But talking about wars, treaties, and assassinations could only be discussed for so long.

Of course, it didn’t help that Feyre was dyslexic, but she didn’t talk about that.

She glanced around the room, trying to see if anyone else was as bored as she was. It was the first day of class and she was the only one not taking extensive notes. Well, she and a guy at the front of the room. All Feyre could see was the back of his head. His hair was dark as midnight and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up as he sat at his desk. He didn’t even have a textbook with him.

Feyre forced herself to pay attention as the Professor finally shut down the slide show presentation.

“Make sure you look of the syllabus,” Dr. Wesson addressed the class. She was a small woman with rich brown hair and a plain green dress. “It outlines the schedule of tests and essays. None of the dates will be altered. My TA will be at your disposal.”

Dr. Wesson nodded to the guy with the black hair and gestured for him to stand up.

And just like that, the class was the most fascinating thing in the world.

He was tall, taller than he’d originally appeared. His warmly tanned skin made his violet blue eyes bright and eager. A sly sort of smile traced his mouth as he observed the class.

“Call me Rhysand,” he said, “I’m working on my masters specifically in the historical aspect of how literature was shaped by wars in the land. I’m always glad to help with your questions. Just make sure you email me to set something up.”

The girls next to Feyre whispered to each other, exchanging significant looks. Feyre exchanged a significant look with the amount of reading and writing that was required.

Hell. It was going to be a long semester.

The class dismissed right at nine o’clock, much to Feyre’s relief. While most of the students flocked to the front of the room to either gawk at the TA or further discuss issues with the Professor, Feyre left the class. Already she could feel her dread pooling into anxiety. Her heart rate quickened and the muscles in her left hand twitched.

She just needed to get home and sit down with a canvas and paint.

As soon as she made it outside the Humanities Building however, the dread continued to tug at Feyre. It was far too dark. With far fewer lights than she’d expected for a college campus. Or maybe it was because there was a thick layer of clouds sagging down and threatening rain.

“Feyre!”

Snapping to attention, Feyre clutched her bag to her chest and found the source of her name.

Her friend, and roommate, Alis waved at her from a path diverging deeper on to campus. Her dark hair hung in waves down her back and the jacket she wore was flattering against her curves.

Feyre let out a long, releieved breath and plastered a smile on her face. Quickly, she moved toward her friend.

“Hey,” Feyre greeted and accepted a hug from the smaller girl. “What are you doing here?”

“I know you had a late class,” Alis explained, “and I knew it was with Wesson. I heard the woman is miserable. So intense. But--I mean--you’re going to do great. Your always so creative with everything I’m sure she’ll love you. Anyway, I was finishing up buying my books for the semester and thought I’d meet up with you.”

Feyre smiled as Alis spoke, grateful for the small distraction. Even if it was slightly horrific in thinking about trying to get on a professor’s good-side.

“Thanks,” Feyre said, “I appreciate it. It was a bit intimidating.”

“I think everyone just likes making freshman miserable,” Alis said. Alis was technically a junior, but had changed her major four times and couldn’t decide on a minor. She was not on track to graduate when she’d originally thought, but wasn’t at all concerned.

Feyre wished she could be more like that than the raging mess she felt she was.

Behind them, leaving the Humanities Building, the TA appeared leading an entire gaggle of girls.

“Let’s go,” Feyre muttered. “I’m exhausted.”

By the third week of the semester Feyre came to better understand her relationship with exhaustion. And it was not a good one.

She was fairly certain her body consisted of ninety percent caffeinated beverages and ten percent hot pockets. She’d never been one for eating much. Growing up had always been a struggle in keeping food in the fridge and a decent pair of shoes on her feet. Feyre knew by now how her body functioned.

It wasn’t healthy, not in the slightest. And there was a part of her that recognized that. And another part that ignored it.

Two nights a week, Feyre found herself stuffed in the basement with little enjoyment. Other than getting to stare and Rhysand when Dr. Wesson turned the class over to him for brief instruction.

And looking at him was enjoyment. He was far different from any other guy Feyre had encountered. His hair was kept neat and short sweeping easily back out of his face, a charming smile, and warm brown skin. Not to mention the tattoos.

Feyre had never really considered tattoos as being attractive. Perhaps it was the artistic side of her that couldn’t get enough of them. On him at least. The way the black in swirled on his skin and swept up his arms. It was a shame he never wore short sleeves or unbuttoned one extra cutton at his collar.

Hell.

Mentally shaking herself, Feyre forced herself to pay attention.

Rhysand was discussing scores from the test last week. And, to put it mildly, was not impressed. Oh, there was plenty of good to say. Some of the students were engaged in the topics at hand. Some of the students displayed an obvious grasp of complicated topics. Others did not.

Feyre found herself sinking deeper into her seat by the end of class.

He hadn’t called her out by name, but truly--it felt like he had.

“That’s it for today, enjoy the weekend,” Rhysand called out at the tick of nine, “and remember essay proposals are due by the start of class on Tuesday.”

There was a quick rustle of the students getting up and gathering their things. It was a glorious Thursday evening and Feyre had somehow managed to keep her Friday’s clear of classes. At least something had gone right.

“Feyre?” She whipped around to meet those stark violet eyes. Hell. “I needed to talk to you about the questions you had on the proposal assignment.”

Feyre bristled. And not just because some of the girls shot her angry looks for being singled out by the hot TA. She hadn’t asked any questions. She was just trying to skate by on this class and be done with her prerequisites so she could get into her Art Major.

She set her bag on the floor once more and went to the front of the class. Already most of the students were leaving, far too eager to be done with school for the night.

As Rhysand answered a few last questions and dismissed the rest of the students, Feyre approached. Already she knew what she was going to say.

“I don’t have any questions.” The words fell from her mouth with ease. “I already know what I’m writing on.”

Lie. But a well-practiced one.

Rhysand’s mouth curled in a smile. He hefted a small stack of papers in one hand and leafed through them. Feyre froze realizing that they were the tests from last week. He pulled one of the stapled bunches out before setting the rest down.

“Honestly, I was surprised while grading this,” he said, “I mean, you’re obviously smart. I saw that you were awarded the Starfell Scholarship, not an easy accomplishment. Not to mention your always engaged and taking notes.”

Feyre wished her skin wasn’t as pale as it was. Her skin flushed under his scrutiny, but she tilted her chin up and met his gaze.

“And?” she asked. “I take my education seriously.”

Somewhat. When she actually liked the work.

Rhysand handed her the test. And she saw the grade.

Hell.

Her stomach churned. Roiled actually. Maybe she was going to be sick. That was just what she needed.

“So?” she asked instead. “It was the first test of the semester.”

“And yours in the only outlier,” he replied.

His eyes never left hers and Feyre felt more and more inclined to throw something at him. Who was he to talk to her about her grade? He was just the damned TA.

“Dr. Wesson doesn’t like picking up the slack of grading or talking to students about it all that much,” he continued, literally reading her mind. “I’m just concerned about you falling behind.”

Feyre stiffened and pursed her lips.

“I grew up learning Prythian history, I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she said stiffly.

Another lie. She knew enough that basic education taught and what she’d heard and listened to. But reading about it? Her mind couldn’t grasp it. It had been hard enough getting decent SAT scores to get accepted in the University let alone writing that damned Starfell essay.

“Of course,” Rhysand said slowly.

And Feyre had the sense that he was assessing her. Analytically, carefully. In the was that one would size up an opponent or scrutinize a strange recipe. He was trying to understand her.

Feyre handed him back the test.

“Thanks for the concern,” she said, “but I’ll be fine.”

Perhaps he was just being nice. Perhaps he was merely trying to fulfill his duties as TA. But she had seen the way he acted in the class. At times rebuffing boys and girls alike. Not to mention seeing him around campus tossing a football around with two other boys. She’d also seen him get kicked out of the library for a parkour prank challenge.

In all honesty, Feyre had no idea what to make of him. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

He didn’t seem to believe her. Not with the crease forming between his brow nor the frown turning down one side of his mouth.

Well, that was his problem.

“Have a good night,” Feyre said. She spun on her heel before he could say anything and grabbed her bag and was out the door.

Once she was outside, she could breathe again. Strange. She often found the darkness, the night, to be so suffocating. It wasn’t long before Feyre realized something was off about the night. And then she realized. Alis was nowhere in sight.

Feyre dug her phone out of her pocket and found a missed text.

Sorry chica, caught up at study group. Probs gonna spend the night at Nuala’s too. See you tomorrow!

Of all the nights Alis could get serious with her girlfriend.

Feyre swallowed stiffly and stared out over the pavilion that stretched between the humanities building and out to the mathematics building. A few pathways branched off to different parts of campus and then there was the main one that would take her to the dorms. And of course, most of the streetlamps were barely flickering to life.

She’d never liked the dark. Never liked what could hide in the shadows. Nor what could sneak in silence. Perhaps it was childish to still hold onto that fear. She was almost nineteen years old after all. Nearly fifteen years later and here she was.

Feyre’s hands shook as she clutched her phone. She could call Elain. Nesta. Even just to talk to as she walked. Though Elain lost her phone even when it was in her hand. And Nesta was at work.

But it was fine. Feyre knew it was fine. Because all she needed to do was walk. And shed been walking for long enough that putting one step in front of the other was natural. Easy. Simple. Yet here she was. Standing.

When Rhysand spoke, she didn’t even start.

“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

Myself. “No.”

Silence.

“It’s getting late.”

“I know.”

Silence.

How strange it was, to hear only the hum of crickets and breath of night.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Rhysand asked.

Feyre glanced at him. Even in the shadows she could see him clearly. It was like he was made of night, of dark, of the mysteries that she could never lay her hand on. She shook her head. Focus, Feyre.

“Of course I am,” she insisted, a little too sharply. “Maybe I like having time to think.”

“At nine-thirty at night. Outside the least exciting building on campus.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I heard that last year a group of boys nearly got suspended for trying to host a snowball fight, indoors.” Feyre couldn’t help but grin when she saw how Rhysand flushed.

“Technically, I’m not the one who brought the snowballs inside the building,” he said defensively.

“Oh, no, you’re just the one who built an entire fort in front of the main entrance to the building,” Feyre said.

It had actually been pretty hilarious when she’d heard about it from Alis. It almost made her wish that she'd been around last year instead of taking a year off.

“Technically,” he said again, the word making Feyre’s brow arch, “it was my brother who instigated the fight. He couldn’t let his reign be challenged.”

Feyre snorted a laugh and looked out over the quiet campus. It almost didn't look so dark and cold as she'd thought it had. But still, she felt her heart continue to hammer out unevenly in her chest. She couldn't walk home alone. Even the thought of taking one step forward had her clench and unclench a fist over the strap of her bag.

Rhysand continued saying something, but Feyre was only half listening. She was mostly focused on the thought of walking home. She could cut through the Science building. If it was still open. Or she could full out sprint.

“Are you alright?” Rhysand asked.

Flushing, Feyre pushed her hair out of her eyes and nodded. “Fine, yeah.” She knew she had to ask him. Knew that it was her only option despite how embarrassed she might feel. “Could you--this is stupid, so you can say no--could you walk with me to the dorms?”

Rhysand was quiet for a moment. And in that moment Feyre was certain he was going to sneer at her. Laugh. Tell her to get over herself. Just like the others before him.

"Where do you live?" Rhys and asked suddenly, cutting Feyre off before she had the ch

“The dorms on the west side,” she said.

“Alliance Dorms?” Rhysaid confirmed. When Feyre nodded, he flashed her a small smile. “Absolutely.”

Relief pounded through Feyre.

“If you tell me what the deal was with that test.”

“You’re an ass.” The words were out before Feyre could stop them. Not the best thing to say to the TA of a class she was likely going to flunk.

Scowling, more to herself than him, Feyre started walking towards the dorms. She was a strong confidant woman. She did not need him to walk her home.

But Rhysand with those damned long legs kept stride with her easily. And he was laughing. Feyre was half tempted to knock an elbow in his side for laughing at her, but his next words caught her off guard.

“I like you Feyre,” he said, “you are rather interesting.”

She glanced up at him. Was he serious? She’d insulted him. She’d barely exchanged ten words with him at this point. And was scared of walking home alone. Granted it was a valid fear for a young woman on a college campus these days.

“Insane is the better word for it,” she replied, mostly under her breath. That’s what everyone back home said at least. In the small town where nothing was supposed to go wrong. But everything did.

“Interesting, curious, vibrant,” Rhysand listed off. “Far better words I think.”

Feyre had never been good with words. Like now. She couldn’t find the energy to respond to him. There was a spark in his eye that almost challenged her, begged her to continue the banter, the little game.

She remained silent.

She’d heard it was a far better mask for her to wear anyways.

The first paper she turned in for the History class was returned with far too many red marks. Far too many question marks. Far too many. So Feyre merely folded the thing in half and stuffed it in her bag.

She could burn it later.

Dr. Wesson ended the lecture right at nine and dismissed the class. Feyre had almost disillusioned herself into thinking she could avoid a conversation with the Professor. With Rhysand. But just as she was trying to maneuver around the giggling pack of girls that sat next to her, Dr. Wesson’s voice called out for her.

“Oh Miss Archeron, a word please?”

Feyre froze. She could feign a phone call. But then next class session the same thing would happen. So, Feyre braced herself for what was to come and went to the front of the class.

As usual, Rhysand looked perfectly unruffled. Despite the fact that Fall was quickly slipping into the winter months, he still wore a simple black button up tucked into slacks, the sleeves rolled up.

“Feyre,” Dr. Wesson said as she approached, she reached out a hand and gave Feyre a firm pat on the arm. “I know Rhysand spoke to you last week about your test. I wanted to follow up, especially in seeing how this essay went. Now, there is still plenty of time left in the semester, but I worry you aren’t grasping the things you should be.”

Blood pounded in Feyre’s ears. She could hear her heart beat throb, feel it in her veins. Her entire body flushed with embarrassment, stress, horror. Everything bubbled to the surface even though she’d tried so hard to tamp it down.

She tried to open her mouth but found her teeth were grinding together so bad that her jaw hurt.

“I think,” Dr. Wesson continued, “that you would benefit from spending a bit of extra time with Rhysand. Just to make sure you’re where you need to be in the class.”

Feyre found herself nodding and agreeing. Her voice was relaxed, calm even. But far too close to breaking.

After thanking the Doctor for her uncharacteristic kindness, Feyre stared and the poorly erased whiteboard over Rhysand’s shoulder for a long moment. With a slow exhale she finally met his gaze.

Rhysand met her eyes with such intensity that Feyre nearly lost her breath all over again. She shook it off and rolled her shoulders.

“Shall we get started tonight?” she asked. “Or I’m sure you have plans.”

“Nah, only kicking Cassian’s ass at Mario Cart,” Rhysand replied. He flashed her an innocent sort of smile. Feyre wasn’t sure if it was one out of kindness or mockery of some sort.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and stuck it out for him. “Just give me your number and I’ll let you know when’s a good time to study.”

Rhysand hesitated on a moment before accepting the phone and adding his details. As soon as she got her phone back, Feyre changed his name from Rhys to Prick. It seemed to fit better.

“It’s not a big deal you know,” Rhysand said.

He followed Feyre out of the classroom. His steps were confident against the carpet that had to be at least thirty years old. Truly Rhysand was an enigma with his ease, grace, and elegance when pitted against the drab interior of the Humanities Building.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Feyre said.

Once outside, the cold night air nipped at her skin and even through her jacket she could feel goosebumps rise. Just like the night last week, Feyre waited just outside the building doors. She stared into the night; across the courtyard she could see a few pale lights from the Math Building. None of the lampposts had been fixed which left most of the walkways in shadows.

Nothing about the night was out of place. It was calm, still, and everything lingered on Feyre’s mind. And just like last week, Rhysand waited beside her.

Overhead, Feyre could just make out the stars. Only a thin veil of clouds hung over the sky allowing a small bit of freedom to pierce her heart. But not enough.

“Could you walk with me again?” she asked quietly, unable to look at Rhysand.

“Only if you talk to me this time,” he said. That cheeky grin returning. And despite how much she hated it, it put Feyre at ease.

“Fine.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets and began walking. “What made you pick history? There had to be something else. You don’t seem the type for old stuffy books or maps.”

“And who do you peg me for, Feyre?” His voice was practically a purr.

“High and mighty sitting behind a desk,” she replied drily. “Running some company somewhere. You certainly have the personality for it.”

He laughed unamused. “If my father had any say in the matter. A degree in history only puts off the inevitable.”

“That’s a rather bleak look on things,” Feyre said. It sounded like something she would say.

“Only if I didn’t enjoy what I was learning so much,” he said. In the flickering light of the lamps, they walked beneath, Rhysand’s expression brightened. “Between the wars and legends surrounding what shaped the country...it’s always been curious to see what we became. What we can become.”

His response seemed so honest, so genuine, that Feyre nearly stumbled. She barely knew him, had barely spent any time with him, yet she was beginning to feel that she knew him.

“So you devote all your time and attention to it?” Feyre asked.

They passed by the last of the campus buildings. A brisk wind scattered fallen leaves on the sidewalks and crunched under their steps as they walked.

“Don’t you have something you love? Something that you feel has changed you and you’d never want to give it up?”

A box of paints. Brushes that she’d had since she was ten. A canvas only half finished. She’d thought she could complete the image but it had been almost a year since she’d even looked at it. But art…art had changed her. Art had loved her just as she loved it.

“I guess you’re right,” she admitted. Tilting her chin up, Feyre caught sight of a small patch of stars amid the inky black sky. Dim but shining still. “There’s always something.”

If he heard the sadness in her voice, he said nothing. Which was partially surprising, but Feyre would roll with it.

“The tutoring,” Rhysand began.

“No,” Feyre cut him off. “Not right now.”

“So you’re just going to ignore your problems?”

“It’s not a problem.”

“Seems to be.”

Feyre stopped causing him him to move a few steps ahead of her. When he turned back towards her, he waited.

“I’ll admit to needing a little extra help to help my tests and essays, but I don’t see what else you’d need to know.”

“It’s alright to talk,” Rhysand paused, something else on the cusp of behind heard. But he restrained, his voice trailing off softly.

Feyre ignored the comment. Talking had never been her strong suit. She was more of action. Less idle, more work. Ever since she was a child it had been that way. She knew why, of course. It was obvious when she thought about it. So she never thought about it.

“What are you planning on studying?” Rhysand asked when she made no effort to continue on the topic of her test.

“Art,” she replied immediately. “I’m an artist. But my sister wanted me to get more of an education that could support me. So I’m just working on my prerequisites.”

“Art,” he repeated. There was a lilt to his voice as if he really were actually interested in what she was saying. “Sketching? Sculpture?”

“Paint and canvas,” Feyre said. “Since I was little. After my mom died, my sister bought me my first set of brushes and paint and everything I could need. She was only nine. I think she stole my dad’s credit card to do it.”

The reality of that had Feyre laughing softly, but Rhysand gave her look that was a mix of horror and confusion.

“It’s fine,” Feyre said quickly, “I’m fine.”

It was a lie of course. If she really were fine, she wouldn't have asked him to walk her home. She would better know how to control her fears, her anxiety. She would be happy.

“My mother died ten years ago,” Rhysand told her, his voice quiet and contemplative. “She’d been sick for a while and we knew it was coming. But for a ten-year-old boy, it was hard to understand. My father certainly didn’t. Still doesn’t.”

They reached Feyre’s dorms then, floodlights illuminated the front street and made it seem as though it were day. Feyre turned toward him and found herself smiling, just barely.

“Thank-you,” she said sincerely. “And I’m sorry you have to be a part of the dead mother’s club.”

“You too,” he said.

Feyre wondered if there was something else she should say. Wondered if he would even want to hear it. It was strange, that little flame of comradery that she felt towards him. But it was gone in an instant as Alis came running out from the building.

“Feyre! Get inside, it’s movie night!”

Shaking her head, Feyre offered Rhysand a small wave and headed into the dorms.

With three weeks until the next paper was due in that miserable class, Feyre spent her free time studying with Rhysand. It wasn’t as miserable as she’d been expecting it to be. Not when she realized he was far more laid back than she’d assumed. And then she’d met his best friends who were essentially like his brothers.

It was far easier to study in the relaxed environment that Rhysand created. And far easier to be herself around him. Of course, it had taken Feyre a while to decide that maybe they could be friends.

“Summarize what the chapter from last night’s reading discussed,” Rhysand said one night as they were studying. It was well after ten o’clock but they’d been given permission to stay in the building.

Feyre pursed her lips. She’d done the reading of course. As well as she’d been able. Most of had been hard to understand. No matter how she tried to focus or train her mind, her dyslexia always got in the way.

“Right,” Feyre said slowly. “It was about the last king of Hybern.”

“And?” Rhysand prodded.

“And he was a jerk,” Feyre added.

Rhysand’s fixed her with a look. Long and hard but still underlined with compassion.

“Feyre,” he said, just a bit more seriousness to his voice.

She sighed heavily and tugged at the sleeve of her shirt. “I read it. I just didn’t understand it.”

Silence.

Feyre shot him a scowl but didn’t meet his eyes. “I’m dyslexic. And History tends to be a bit harder for me to understand.”

Rhsand blinked. Once. But nothing else. No laugh or scoff of scorn. Instead, he smiled and pushed to text book toward her.

“Then read.”

“Read?”

“Aloud, preferably,” Rhysand said. He shrugged. “You want to be ready for the paper and subsequent test?”

“Prick,” she muttered. But she dragged the book towards her and began.

It became habit. A rhythm they fell into for the next several weeks. Rhysand helped Feyre study and prepare for the paper, the test. He walked her home, remaining the perfect gentleman. And Feyre, Feyre relished the time.

It was because he was genuine. Honest. There was something about him, deeper than the intensity he displayed on the outside. And for the first time in a while, Feyre found herself laughing with him. For the first time in a while, she was living for more than just expectations.

He was actually turning into her friend and it was strange thought indeed.

“Alright students,” Dr. Wesson announced towards the end of class on the last day before Thanksgiving break. “I have your midterm tests and papers graded. So now you can either relax or stress even further. Depending on the grade.”

A weak laugh bubbled around the room. Feyre gripped the underside of her chair tightly. She wasn’t ready for this. Not in the slightest.

Dr. Wesson slowly made her way around the room delivering both test and paper. Feyre, by some stroke of cosmic affair, didn’t get her paper until last and the entire room was empty aside from Dr. Wesson and Rhysand. Why was it they always ended up here?

“Well done, Miss Archeron,” Dr. Wesson said. She handed two packets of paper to Feyre and smiled. “I love to see improvement.”

Gaping, Feyre looked between the two grades. Heart hammering, she looked over the scores, brilliant red B’s shined up at her.

“I don’t usually offer extra credit,” the doctor went on, “but an exhibit is coming to the University about the Prythian Wall and it’s destruction. If you can come up with a project to demonstrate what it entails, I might be convinced to help you keep your grade up.”

Feyre could only nod as the professor bid them goodnight and left.

“Well done.”

Feyre looked up to see Rhysand beaming at her and she couldn’t help but grin. She leapt out of her seat and flung her arms around him in an embrace.

“Thank-you!” she whispered. It took her perhaps a moment too long to realize that a hung might not have been the best of plans. She hurriedly pulled back. “Sorry. That was uncalled far. I’m just really excited.”

“As you should be,” Rhysand said. His smile hadn’t dimmed but there was something in his eyes that Feyre couldn’t quite read. “It wasn’t an easy test.”

“And now we have a full week off for Thanksgiving,” she said. It was the best news she could have been given after getting her grades back.

“If you want,” Rhysand said, “my brother’s and cousin and I are having a game night, with pizza. If you want to come.”

A spark of excitement ignited in Feyre’s chest. She didn’t know when she’d developed a stupid little crush on Rhysand, but it was slowly starting to simmer out of control. She should have said no. Or come up with an excuse of some kind. Insead she found herself nodding.

“I’d like that,” she said.

They collected their things and left the building. Feyre took a few steps down the path they usually took to get to her dorm when she paused. She turned back to Rhysand and frowned.

“Where do you live?”

Rhysand looked a little sheepish. “Oh, I live over in the Court Apartments.”

Feyre blinked. “That’s in the complete opposite direction from my place.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been walking me home for practically a month.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Feyre asked, practically waving her hands in the air. “It’s basically a two-mile walk from my place.”

Rhysand shrugged. “You asked for help and I wanted to give it.”

Feyre stared at him. Her coat and scarf bunched around her neck, even though the night was perfectly clear. It was clear enough that she could see the billions of stars overhead. She could see them sparking in the black night. And for one she wasn’t overcome with her usual anxiety. Her usual fears. Instead, all she would do was stare at Rhysand.

“Why would you do that?” she insisted.

Rhysand opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Because you were worth it.”

His simple words hung between them and Feyre had a hard time knowing what to say or how to react. So she merely smiled and hooked her arm with his.

“Tell me about game night. Am I going to wind up on some snipe hunt?”

“Oh no, you and I are going to gang up against Cassian and beat him at Mario Cart.”

Feyre laughed. “Sounds like a plan.”

And she realized that she wouldn’t mind if that’s how the rest of her nights played out. Late hours of laughs and friends, being around people--one person--who made her feel better than she had in a long time.

No, she wouldn’t mind it at all.

thanks so much for reading!

tags:

please reach out if i missed you and let me know if I put you on the wrong tag list/want to be removed. it’s generally going to be easier for me to just have basic acotar/tog lists and not go into too much worry about that, so just and fyi...anywho

tags: @tottenhamboys20 @aelinchocolatelover @more-espresso-less-depresso-xx @bamchickawowow @ladywitchling @ireallyshouldsleeprn @courtofjurdan @sassys-world @sleeping-and-books @superspiritfestival @chieflemming @julemmaes @lysandra-ghost-leopard @harrymoncheri @firestarsandseneschals @emikadreams @rapunzel1523 @booksofthemoon @highladysith @fangirlprincess09

#feysand #feysand au #anon #prompts #answered #acotar #feyre archeron #rhysand #acomaf #sjm #fanfiction #feysand fanfiction

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wisteria-lodge · 3 years

Text

snake primary + snake secondary (bird model)

Hello! I recently discovered your blog and really love the thought you’ve put into the nuances of the SHC system. I’m super into these kinds of personality analysis systems (I’ve probably been through them all at this point) because I think it’s interesting to know how people tick - I also think self-awareness is important so that you know why you do what you do, essentially. I took the SHC quiz and it told me I was a Snake Primary with a Bird Model, and a Bird Secondary with a Snake Model. I agree that I’m probably a (somewhat petrified) Snake Primary with a strong Bird Model, but I’m not sure which is my true secondary and which is the model. Maybe you can help?

I can sure try :)

Some things about me: I’m an oldest daughter, and I’m almost 100% sure my dad is a Bird Snake and I *idolized* him as a child - I thought he had it all figured out. He was the Zeus to my Athena in my child’s eyes, and I think I got my Bird primary model very early from copying him.

I mean, I know what you mean in a “sole creator” sense, but there is no *way* Athena thought Zeus had it all figured out.

My two younger brothers are a Lion Snake and a Lion Badger, and my mother is possibly a Double Badger, though I’m not as sure about her - maybe she just thinks that she *should* be a Double Badger. I think all that is important to help illustrate that I didn’t really feel *at home* when I was with my family, though I loved them, since I was the only Snake. My parents also had a terrible relationship and are now divorced, so there’s that as well. I think the only time I have ever been truly morally outraged was the revelation that my dad had engaged in infidelity against my mom, and then again when he started dragging his feet over a promise the he had made my youngest brother. We didn’t speak for a long time after that incident, but I was really cut up over dropping him.

Oh yeah. That’s very Snake primary. Morally outraged because your People are getting hurt.

We eventually started to reconcile, and the only reason we did was because he called and said he was driving through my city one day, and even after all of that, I said yes to meeting up because I felt sad that I had dropped him. I think this family dynamic, plus some other childhood stuff, led to me sort of “checking out” and petrifying pretty early.

Just a theory - I think it’s possible that this hit your secondary more than it hit your primary. You seem pretty strong and confident in your Snake primary so far. Even the fact that you can identify it coming from such a non-Snake environment, and don’t feel guilty about it, is big.

I had a lot of trouble making friends in school.

I’m thinking this might be more of a secondary thing.

and generally ended up with like one friend who was the other weird girl, and who I always sort of kept at arm’s length emotionally. I moved schools several times as a kid and after the first best friend (who was the daughter of my mom’s best friend and was like a sister to me until she moved away), I really didn’t try too hard to make new “best” friends.

Hmm. See, this reads like a *default* friend to me, not a friend of choice. The other weird girl. The daughter of your mom’s friend. That’s an easy friend to have… and not one that you necessarily sought out. I’m not surprised that your primary didn’t latch onto her with that Snake intensity.

Even now, though I definitely have concentric circles of loyalty and a significant other who is my “top person”, I’m not sure I have that blind Snake I-would-literally-die-for-you loyalty toward anyone - I’d kill or hide a body for my top circles

That *is* Snake loyalty. Snakes aren’t going to die for someone else, are you kidding? That’s a sucker’s game. They value themselves too much.

I would give up a lot of my own comfort for my significant other. Maybe I’m just afraid to let myself feel that unquestioning loyalty, though I want to feel it, or maybe I’m really a Bird and just want to be a Snake because that would mean I could be un-broken eventually.

Let’s talk about your secondary, I want to hear about how you think you’re broken, because so far you seem fine. Congrats on the SO!

I don’t think I’m an Idealist though - I’m surrounded by them and I know I don’t care about “principles” the way they do. Then again, maybe I’m a Bird whose truth is that moral relativism is the truth lol. Anyway, I think for my primary, I’m probably a petrified Snake with a Bird model unless I’m totally wrong about myself.

I think you’re just a Snake who… is a Snake.

(you’ve got that Birdy influence though, from your dad, and they do like to complicate things.)

As for my secondary, I loved to read (everything - all kinds of fiction, especially sci-fi/fantasy/mystery and, like, Victorian sci-fi/horror adventures, nature books, medical texts, etc. Wikipedia was a revelation when it came out), and I was smart and good at taking tests and knowing the answers in school, so at a certain point I think I just defaulted to being “the smart one” and used that as armor to help keep people from getting too close.

yep yep yep, welcome to the ‘fun Bird model’ club, we have snacks

I do genuinely love to learn, and I’ve always been known among friends and family as the one who either knows the answer or will look it up. I love pop culture trivia and nature facts. I also love and am good at debate, but not really when real feelings are involved - I more love the “battle of wits” aspect, where I can match up against a person to see if my knowledge and ability to adapt my argument on the fly can stump them.

I also would argue the unpopular point, or the point I didn’t agree with, just for sport. Fun Bird secondary model.

I developed terrible anxiety and probably some depression as well in high school.

Okay, now I’m seeing the problem.

and now that I’m older, I suspect that I may have ADHD, though I haven’t been officially assessed. I didn’t discover my executive function issues really until college, when suddenly being smart and being able to figure out the test answers through context clues and what I remembered from lectures and readings + whatever trivia I had gathered about the topic wasn’t enough anymore.

I suspect you’re right about being ADHD. Or at least being neruodivergent.

I am horrible at studying! I would plan out my study sessions and make these nice little cheat sheets (these were allowed on exams) and they didn’t work at all! I did very well in my literature minor though, because all the graded assignments were papers rather than open-answer tests, and I could get my thoughts out better and with more resources at my disposal if I forgot something and needed to go back to the book to check.

Oh ouch. Yeah, I’m not even relating this back to a secondary, because I’m reading this as a working memory thing? Like ugh tests are such a terrible way access knowledge. What is even the *point* of memorization anymore? You should have been able to have a college career that was completely writing papers, like I did.

I was at one point very jealous of my Lion Snake brother, who I felt could do “whatever he wanted” with minimal consequences, while I always felt constrained by being “good” and not rocking the boat too much with my family.

Yep. That’s being an oldest daughter.

I couldn’t understand why he didn’t seem to care about being considerate to everyone else in the household (especially my chronically overworked, can’t-say-no Badger mom lol).

It’s because he’s the youngest. Mine’s the same.

This attitude was definitely influenced by my anxiety issues at that time, since I had (and still have) a lot of trouble asking for anything - help, permission, whatever. I’d rather do things and explore on my own, without anyone watching, so I don’t have to ask and don’t have to explain.

Did you low-key raise your younger siblings? Because it sounds like you raised your siblings.

I feel better with a little bit of distance, and definitely wear masks in most situations. I’d say my masks are half conscious and half reactive - I do have some idea of how I’d like to be perceived, but it’s only kind of systematic.

That makes me think Snake or Badger secondary.

I have a few “characters” that I use as touchpoints when I’m going into a new situation, but once I’m there I mostly just act nice and funny and see what happens.

So far I’m going with Badger secondary (be nice and and assume it’ll be fine is very badger) with a fun Bird secondary model, that you can do an Actor Bird thing with. Although liking to “just see what happens” is pretty snake.

The characters are really just costumes I use to give off a certain first impression, although I do really like the costumes and find them fun. I love clothes, makeup, and perfume too, because I enjoy the idea of making multidimensional costumes for different settings. I actually enjoy the mask a lot of the time - I have tattoos that are purposefully in places that I can cover easily, because I enjoy the idea that there’s something under the professional mask that people only know about if I show them. I’m a bit socially awkward I think (I repeat myself and talk a lot), but most people tend to either like me or tolerate me, and I don’t get into a lot of interpersonal conflicts.

Hm. Either Courtier Badger or Snake secondary, fun Bird secondary model. However. Especially after talking about your Actor Bird in such fun, positive, happy language… I am going to call you out for “socially awkward” and “people tolerate me.” Which tells me you don’t have as much faith in your social skill set, and it’s *maybe* a little burnt.

(Also, not to get too armchair psychologist tell-me-about-your-mother, but if your mom has a “chronically overworked, can’t-say-no” Badger secondary… that’s going to affect how you see Badger secondaries.)

Right now I work in a very Badger/Bird workplace, and it’s really a terrible fit, even though I can squeak by enough to fool my superiors into thinking I’m doing a good job.

oh we’ve got some imposter syndrome, that can also be a burnt secondary thing.

It’s all long-term planning and daily maintenance tasks, and I really don’t like it. I change most of my plans partway through, but I’m not sure if it’s because I’m really an improvisational secondary at heart, or if I’m truly a Bird that’s just bad at planning for all of the variables.

I’m going to say you’re not a Bird. Making cheat-sheets (which is a very Bird secondary strategy) also did not work, and you feel confined by, not comforted by plans. You’re not a Lion, you enjoy keeping your true self to yourself too much. You could be either a Badger or Snake. And if you really hate daily maintenance tasks… that could be coming from a few places, but it makes me lean Snake.

I love being in situations where I can iterate on a plan, or make a new plan on the fly. I love escape rooms and am pretty good at them; I still get stumped and need hints sometimes, but when I *get* a puzzle, it sort of just clicks for me? I don’t think in a very linear way and am not a good chess player, but I also have never studied chess so perhaps I just am at a knowledge disadvantage in that game.

This is also you using Bird to have fun, and we know you *love* using Bird to have fun.

One of my proudest moments

okay this is definitely going to be helpful

was when I was on a day trip with my significant other, and we needed to find a place to buy food quickly so we wouldn’t miss a specific ferry and then a specific bus - we were on an island, and near the ferry station the restaurants were all too expensive and we were worried they would take too long anyway. He was starting to get frazzled, but I was able to think on my feet, and we just grabbed a calming beer (lol) at a creepy neighborhood bar, then got on the ferry and bought microwave meals at a 7-Eleven by the bus station. It was awesome and I was very proud of myself for staying calm and looking around myself for options.

Well that is VERY Snake secondary.

I generally take a long time making decisions when it’s not a crisis situation, because I have to *weigh all the options*, but I often end up in analysis paralysis. Crunch time is where I really shine as a decision-maker.

Snake again. From what I’m seeing, your Bird is a fantastic toy, but actually kind of makes you miserable when you have to depend on it for the important stuff. (studying, your job, making important decisions)

All of this long post is to say, I’m not sure whether my Bird secondary is a fun model that got repurposed into an executive dysfunction compensation tool and anxiety/depression soother to supplement my Snake secondary

I think you hit the nail straight on the head right there.

or if Bird is my true secondary and Snake is a model that I learned from my dad and brother + characters I admire in media

oh your favorite characters are Snake secondaries are they? That’s a big tell.

and that I use when I fail to plan adequately given my executive dysfunction.

Executive dysfunction is a whole thing, but you don’t have to “”plan adequately”” for everything.

I find both fun and both useful, but I’m not sure which is innate and which is the model!

My money is on snake secondary, Bird secondary model.

#submission #sortinghatchats #wisteria sorts #sortme #double snake #snake primary #snake secondary #bird secondary model #family dynamics

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onceuponaloonatic · 3 years

Text

so it turned into 8K oops... anyway this is like a samihyo prequel of sorts? please enjoy !!

tw: panic attacks, mentions of abuse, separation anxiety, and vomit

Mina wouldn’t say she loved her job. She didn’t hate it, of course, she had been the one who had decided to become a Japanese literature professor in the first place, but she didn’t love it either. She liked teaching, and all of her students had always raved about how good she was at lecturing and how she always took the time to properly answer their questions. She was fine with writing and grading tests, she always tried to write fair game tests that were designed with the idea most of her students could pass it, provided they put in the work to pass. None of those things ever really bothered, there was only one thing Mina absolutely hated about her job. And that was grading essays.

Since she taught a literature class, she knew she had to assign essays. The logical part of her knew they were important educational tools to help her students further their understanding of literature, but the illogical part of her never wanted to assign them. Because grading them took so much energy and always took so long. “You look like you're having a good time.” She loved Sana. She really did. But she couldn’t help but want to wipe that stupid smirk off of her face as she looked at Mina. Sana taught physics, so essays weren’t something she had to assign very often if at all. Of course Sana still had to grade homework assignments and tests, but they usually were a lot quicker to grade than essays. “I hate you.” Mina rolled her eyes, flipping to the next page. The essay she was grading had so many issues, she could tell it was written at four am probably after a couple cups of coffee. This was one of the reasons she hated teaching the lower-level classes, the essays were always so messy and rushed. “You know I’m joking right?” Sana wrapped her arms around Mina from behind. “I doubt it sometimes.” Mina sighed, relaxing in Sana’s arms. “Did you need something or are you just here to hug me?” “Hug you,” Sana answered easily. “Jihyo is busy with office hours and I needed to hug one of you or I would go crazy.” “My office hours start soon too Sana.” One quick glance to her clock and she knew they would be starting in fifteen minutes. “Don’t you have a lecture soon?” “I do.” Sana yawned. “Just a little longer. You know I didn’t sleep well last night.” “And who’s fault is that?” Mina questioned with a raised eyebrow. “Last night was your idea.” “Well I wasn’t the one who got carried away now am I?” Sana giggled. “I would have been satisfied after one.” “You're lying and you know it.” Mina rolled her eyes. “Anyway, you have a doctor's appointment after your class today.” “Oh fuck.” Sana cursed. “I forgot.” She let out a loud whine as she tightened her grip on Mina. “I wanted to go home and nap.”

“We can reschedule.” Mina nodded.

“No. This is important.” Sana sighed. “We’ve been at this for so long. There’s really no point in giving up now.” “I know.” Mina sighed, tilting her head back to look Sana in the eyes. “This isn’t your fault, you know that right?”

“I know. Who knew having a baby was so difficult.” Sana did have a point. They were already almost four years into trying to have a baby. Originally, Mina had tried to carry, but after running some tests they found out she was infertile. She really hadn’t been expecting that, and it had absolutely crushed her when she found out. They had taken some time away while they decided what to do next. Jihyo had been infertile ever since a car accident when she was young. They had known about that long before trying to have a baby, so they knew if they wanted to have a baby biologically Sana was their only real option. After a while, Sana decided to start trying to get the procedure. They were all already in their mid-thirties when Mina had first tried to get pregnant, and now four years later Sana had reached the point that if she did get pregnant it would be a geriatric pregnancy. It didn’t stop her from trying, but it had inhibited her fertility quite a bit. Waiting to have kids had sounded like a good idea for the three of them when they were young. Since all three of them were professors, they didn’t start with all the money in the world. Over time, it had accumulated and now they were quite comfortable, but it hadn’t started that way. Mina and Jihyo had both been on the fence about kids in the first place, and they had agreed only once they felt completely ready. Sana never wanted to rush them, so she had been patient. Of course, their friends had all had kids already. They would babysit them quite a bit, which usually fulfilled Sana’s desire to be around kids for a while. Once they finally were ready, things were suddenly much harder. They had wasted almost a year and a half with Mina, and between that and deciding to start again with Sana, time had just made things hard. They had agreed that if by the time Sana turned forty she wasn’t pregnant they were going to give up and try to find another way. Adoption was always still possible, they had to remind themselves of that sometimes. “Tell me about it. Who knows though, maybe this time things will be different.” Sana giggled at her statement, kissing her forehead. “It’s nice you think that,” Sana whispered. “I should be getting ready for my class. I love you.” “I love you too. I’ll come to get you after my office hours end and we can walk over to the architecture building together okay?” Sana nodded happily at her statement. The two of them had lucked out, the physical sciences building and the literature building were right next to each other, so seeing each other was always easy. Jihyo on the other hand wasn’t as lucky, as the architecture building was all the way across campus. They all still made an effort to see each other at work, but it was difficult sometimes when Jihyo was almost a fifteen-minute walk away. “Yup. See you then.” Mina gave Sana another kiss as she left.

Mina had gotten to Sana’s classroom just in time to see the end of her lecture. She had always loved watching Sana talk about physics. Her wife was always so passionate about it, and she always looked so happy talking about things Mina could barely begin to understand. A lot of people were confused when Sana told them her job, thinking she didn’t look like or act like the type to be a physics professor, but Mina knew they were wrong. Sana loved physics, and teaching it had been a life dream of hers. Honestly, it was sometimes funny how different her and Sana’s jobs were. They were both professors, but how their classes were run and what they did was completely different. Sana did research projects, labs, and lectured while Mina did the opposite. She wrote and read theses, read essays, and spent most of her classes debating things with her students. Even the type of student they had were completely different. Sometimes one of Jihyo’s students would end up in one of Sana’s statics classes if she was teaching it that semester, and they could talk about the student at home. Mina sometimes felt jealous, but she also knew it would probably be weird for their students to have both of them when they were married. She also knew it would be weird if one of her students took a class with either of her wives, considering how completely different their departments were. “And make sure you finish problems 10 through 29 before the next class. We will be having a quiz next week over electrostatics and superposition so be sure to study. Have a good weekend!” And just like that students started to rush out of Sana’s class. It was a Friday afternoon, so Mina was sure most of them wanted to get home and let loose for the weekend. Her students were always like that on Fridays too. Some of them hung around after class to ask Sana questions, but Mina just waited for them to eventually trickle out to enter Sana’s classroom. “Hey darling.” Sana greeted her in Japanese. “Give me a moment to get my stuff.” “Of course.” Mina smiled at her, playing with the wedding band on her finger. “Take all the time you need.” Sana gathered a stack of papers off her desk, putting them safe in her work bag before going to erase the white board she had used to write one. Mina would offer her help, but she got a little lost just looking at the whiteboard. Sana’s handwriting was very neat, and she was sure if she had even the slightest clue what was happening in her wife’s class, following along with her work would be easy. But since physics had always gone so far over her head, she was just left to stare at it in confusion. Mina had sat in on one of Sana’s classes once, and she just spent the entire time so confused and struggling to keep up or pay attention. To be fair, the one time Sana sat into one of Mina’s classes, she fell asleep. Neither knew what was going on in the others subjects, but they enjoyed it.

“Are Hyo’s office hours over yet?” Sana broke her out of her trance. She noticed the whiteboard was completely clean and Sana had her briefcase in one hand. “Oh they are about to be over. You know she always has to have long ones since she is dealing with senior design projects.” Mina looked at her smart watch. Sana and Jihyo had gotten it for her for Christmas. She had recently taken up working out with Momo, and it was nice for keeping track of that type of stuff. Though Sana and Jihyo would always make fun of her when she would obsessively stare at how many calories she burned a day or how many steps she took. She just told them it was nice to know those types of things. “Since it’s the end of the year I’m sure she has an office full of seniors freaking out about their projects.” “Probably. I’m happy the physics department doesn’t have senior design projects. I think Nayeon Unnie’s department has them too and she always gets so stressed this time of year. You think the kids would learn to stop procrastinating.” Sana yawned. “Didn’t you write your entire thesis like a few days before it was due?” Mina giggled at her wife.

“No. I wrote it two weeks before it was due.” Sana rolled her eyes. “Plus it was good anyway.” “It was good.” Mina knew nothing about physics but she knew it had been good enough to get published in some fancy physics journal. She had helped Sana edit it, but still to this day knew nothing of what her thesis was about. Something about string theory. Mina honestly still had no clue. “But you shouldn’t judge the students. You were the same way in college.” “Well I got away without having to panic and go to my teachers’ office hours at the last minute.” Sana mentioned, eyeing Mina. “I’m just that naturally intelligent.” “Uh-huh.” Mina rolled her eyes. “Naturally intelligent. Yeah that’s one way of putting it.” “Hey!” Sana pouted. “I’m kidding. You are very smart baby.” Mina leaned in to kiss Sana’s cheek. “Thank you.” Sana smiled. “You're very smart too.” “In a different way though.” Mina mentioned. “Physics has never made any sense to me.” “Well it’s not like literary analysis is something I have ever been able to do.” Sana giggled. “Literature classes were the bane of my existence in high school.” “I remember. You would always whine to me you had no idea how to write an essay.” Mina laughed, swinging their hands. “I still don’t.” Sana nodded, taking in a deep breath. It was starting to get warmer as summer was fastly approaching. With Mina’s birthday about a week in the past they knew that the weather was just going to get warmer and warmer. “You have written papers that have been published before.” Mina rolled her eyes.

“Yes but those aren’t essays. Writing those is fun, writing essays is not.” Sana answered.

“You sound like my students. They hate essays too.” Mina giggled.

“Who doesn’t?” “I don’t.” “You hate grading essays.” Sana pointed out. “Grading essays is different.” Mina nodded. “Grading essays involves reading through so much bullshit, it always is so easy to tell who has no idea what’s going on. Plus I hate giving people bad grades.” “Even if they really deserve it?” Sana joked, getting her keycard out once they approached the architecture building so they could get in. “Yeah even then. Failing people isn’t fun.” “Well no it’s not fun, but there’s always that one student who doesn’t take your class seriously and doesn’t do any work and bombs all the tests. They deserve to fail.” Sana swiped her card and they went in. The doors were normally unlocked but since it was late on a Friday not all of them were. Some of the doors had been left unlocked for the students, but only really the ones by the main entrance. Since they always entered at a side entrance closer to Jihyo’s office, they always had to use their faculty key cards to get in. “Well yes I suppose. There was that one kid in my class who never turned in a single essay and left most of his final blank. I obviously had to fail him.” Mina had always liked the architecture building. The outside looked like all the other buildings on campus, but the inside was really pretty. She supposed that made sense for the college of architecture, but it was still nice to see. Jihyo’s office was right by the entrance, and there was a student in her office when they approached. She waved to them through her open door before turning back to the giant sheet of paper in front of her. The student looked tired and stressed, and Mina and Sana could both sympathize with her. Whatever she was working on looked like a lot. After a few minutes she seems to get her question answered, thanking Jihyo and leaving, her paper gathered in her arm and a cup of coffee in her free hand. “Hey baby.” Sana was the first one to give Jihyo a kiss on the cheek. “All done?” “Yup.” Jihyo nodded, stretching her back and looking Sana in the eyes. “Are you ready for your doctor's appointment?”

“I think so. We’ve done this so many times before I honestly think I’m on autopilot with these things now.” Sana giggled. “Check in, go take a pregnancy test, get a negative, talk to our doctor, get a shot, hope it works, and then go repeat the process when it doesn’t.”

“You never know. It could work this time.” Mina spoke up as she came in, Jihyo gesturing her over to her side so she could give her a kiss on the cheek. “It could.” Sana blew a chunk of hair out of her face. “But we say that every time.” “We never know though, Mina is right. It could work this time.” “Yeah.” Sana sighed. “We’ll see.” “Giving up is the worst thing we can do. Just stay positive.” Jihyo rubbed Sana’s leg affectionately, giving her the most positive smile she could. “It has to work eventually right?” “I suppose.” Sana hugged Jihyo tighter. “I hope it works soon.” “Me too darling.”

Sana had established a routine at the doctors appointments. They went the same every time, and after doing this for nearly two years they had just become habitual. At first she was a lot more emotional and excited for them, but now she had learned getting her hopes up too much would just hurt her in the end. She wanted it to work, she wanted it to work so badly, but she also knew she had no control on if it worked or not. The appointment progresses exactly like Sana predicted it would. She had been through this so many times, and who knew how many more times she was going to have to go through it. After it’s over, she makes Mina and Jihyo take her home so she can nap before she has to grade homework and eat dinner. They both happily let her nap, Jihyo going over some projects while Mina prepared dinner. They were used to this, Sana usually got tired after the procedure. They never knew if it was a side effect or it was something more emotionally based, but letting Sana sleep had always been good. “How was your day?” Mina hummed as she cooked. She had always enjoyed cooking, but cooking for the loves of her life was even better. Sana was a horrible cook, and they tried to only let her in the kitchen when it was something so easy even Sana couldn’t mess it up. Jihyo was better, and she would cook when Mina was tired, but she would be the first to admit she couldn’t even hold a candle to Mina’s cooking. Mina had grown up cooking with her mom and brother, it was something she just loved doing. She hoped their child would cook with Mina one day. “Okay.” Jihyo giggled as Mina worked. It was always so funny seeing Mina like this, being so adorable and domestic. Jihyo had loved it when they first moved in together, and she still loved it now. “Senior projects have eaten up my time again, like they do every year. What about you?” “Well I’ve read almost a hundred absolutely terrible essays about The Tale of Genji and a couple not so bad ones. No outstanding ones, but most of my students are burned out juniors, so that’s to be expected.” Mina answered honestly. “Teaching juniors is always so interesting. Most of the ones in my department are just trying to suck up to me because they seem to think I can get them an internship.” Jihyo laughed, putting her pen down and walking over to Mina, hugging her from behind. “But besides that, do you think it worked this time?” Jihyo and Mina always had conversations like this the day Sana got the procedure. They would wait until she was asleep to slip into the other room and ask each other if they really think it worked this time. They didn’t want to stress Sana out too much, so they tried to keep their honest opinions for quiet discussions when she was asleep. “I’m hopeful. The doctor said we have a fifty-fifty chance this time.” Mina nodded, her shoulders relaxing as Jihyo held her. “What do you think?” “I think it worked.” Jihyo answered honestly. “Well I mean we won’t know that for a while- but this time I feel lucky.” “You’ve said that before.” Mina giggled when Jihyo kissed the side of her neck, her hand twitching from where it was stirring the soup she was cooking. “Well I really believe it this time.” Jihyo retorted, leaving another butterfly kiss to Mina’s neck. “Just wait, you’ll see. I’m just worried about Sana, I’m scared she’s giving up. You know it will never work if she gives up.” “Well I hope you're right about it working, but I think Sana’s fine. She’s just trying not to get her hopes up too much every single time, I know she would do that when we first started and I think it became too much for her.” Mina was about to turn around and give Jihyo a kiss when Jihyo’s phone lit up, buzzing violently on the counter. Jihyo eyed it with an annoyed expression before Mina pushed her towards her phone.

“It’s just Nayeon.” Jihyo rolled her eyes, rejecting the call and putting her phone down.

“You should have answered it. It could have been important.” Mina giggled at her wife’s annoyance.

“It’s Nayeon, it’s never important.” Jihyo sighed when her ringer went off again. “I swear that woman doesn’t know when to give up.” “Well you may as well answer it. You know how Nayeon is, she’s going to keep pestering you until you answer.” Mina pointed out. “Fine.” Jihyo grumbled, accepting the call and putting Nayeon on speaker.“What do you want?”

“Jihyo guess what?” “No.” Jihyo answered, causing Mina to giggle. “Rude. You were supposed to say what.” Nayeon huffed. “Anyway, we got another dog.” “You got a what?” Jihyo asked in disbelief. She knew Nayeon and Momo were both impulsive, but sometimes it astounded her how they were able to make big decisions like this so easily. “Yup. His name is Boo. Kazumi found him on her way home from school and begged to keep him.” Nayeon happily recounted. “You know you really should stop spoiling her.” Jihyo caught Mina’s eyes as she talked to Nayeon. She picked up her phone and brought it over to where Mina was, wrapping her arms around Mina’s waist from behind. “We don’t spoil her. We just make her happy.” Both Jihyo and Mina had to roll their eyes at that. Kazumi was spoiled. They loved their niece to death but they both knew it. Haneul and Jae were too, but Kazumi was especially spoiled. “Besides she said she’s going to take care of it.” “Do you really think she will?” Jihyo asked, tightening her grip on Mina. “She’s twelve, I doubt she is going to be the best at taking care of a dog.”

“Agree to disagree.” Jihyo could tell Nayeon was rolling her eyes at her. “Anyway, because of the new dog-”

“No.” Jihyo didn’t even have to hear Nayeon’s question. “You didn’t even let me ask.” Nayeon pouted. “Im Nayeon I have known you for almost thirty years now, I know you were going to ask me to babysit your pets when you and Momo went out for some kind of romantic getaway.” Jihyo rolled her eyes. She turned when she heard some movement behind them, finding Sana standing in the entrance to their kitchen with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her hair messy. She giggled at Sana’s half asleep appearance and waved her over to them. Sana was always so clingy right after she woke up. Every morning she had to hug both of them for at least a few minutes. Mina and JIhyo were used to it, just budgeting some extra time into their morning for Sana’s hugs.

“No, no I wasn’t going to ask that.” Nayeon’s tone became a bit more serious. “Actually, I was going to ask if because of the dog I could come grab a few things from your house. I know you have some of Kookeu’s stuff lying around and we didn’t have time to stop at the pet store.” Jihyo immediately noticed Nayeon’s change in tone. She wasn’t telling Jihyo something. Even Mina could tell. “You can come over whenever you want Nayeon.” Mina spoke up for the first time. “Oh hi Mina.” Nayeon giggled when she heard Mina’s voice. “Thanks. You're amazing. Jihyo is always so mean to me.” “I am not mean to you.” Jihyo pouted. It melted quickly, once Sana got her attention with a little yawn. “Morning.” Jihyo whispered to Sana. Sana smiled at her and pulled her into a kiss.

“Yes you are. You’ve been bullying me since we were little.” Nayeon huffed. “I have not.” Jihyo rolled her eyes. “Anyway, come over whenever but don’t bring the Kookeu or the new dog-”

“Thank you so much, bye Jihyo!” Jihyo groaned as Nayeon hung up on her. “She’s bringing the damn dog isn’t she?”

“I don’t understand why you hate Kookeu.” Mina hummed as she continued cooking, chopping some carrots up for them.

“He always bites me.” Jihyo pouted. “It hurts.” “They are barely love bites.” Mina giggled. “You are adorable, I know you secretly like him.” “I do not.” Jihyo pouted. Sana gave her another kiss and she melted immediately. “Yes I know you're still here.” Jihyo giggled as her attention was turned to Sana. “So needy.”

“M’ not needy.” Sana pouted. “Just want kisses. Mina doesn’t kiss me when she’s cooking anymore.”

“Yeah I learned that one the hard way.” Mina giggled. She couldn’t count the number of times innocent kisses while she was cooking had ended in disaster. Especially when the kisses involved Sana. Jihyo was tamer, but she could also be a disaster when she wanted to. “You can go back to sleep if you need, dinner should be another twenty minutes at least.” “No. I need to grade homework.” Sana yawned, kissing Jihyo again. “Need help?” Jihyo offered.

“Baby you haven’t done physics since you were nineteen.” Sana nodded. Jihyo had taken some physics classes in college, but nothing like what Sana had taken. “I can still help. Did you make an answer key?” She doesn’t know why she asked, Jihyo knew Sana did. Sana had always been the type to go the whole nine yards for her students, anything she could do to assist their learning Sana did. Jihyo had always admired Sana for that. “Uh-hum. But it’s okay. It’s just homework, it shouldn’t take too long. I give them one hundred as long as they finish, I just like correcting their work when they are wrong.” Sana nodded, yawning once more before walking over to the kitchen table and sitting down. “But, after dinner.” “Work can wait until after dinner.” Jihyo smiled at Sana and then turned back to Mina. “Need any help?”

“Sure.” Mina smiled at Jihyo before moving to let her help. Sana smiled at the scene of her two wives, she really did get so lucky to have them.

Nayeon comes over before they finish dinner. Sana gets up to greet her, a blanket still wrapped around her as Nayeon comes in. “Hi Sana.” Nayeon giggled at Sana’s appearance. She had Kookeu with her on a leash, having walked him from her house over to theirs. “You look tired. Rough night?” Nayeon winked at her and Sana smiled. “You know it.” Sana played along. “Was your appointment today?” Nayeon let Kookeu off of his leash, the small dog running over to Sana’s leg and sniffing it. Sana smiled and bent down to pick the little furball up. “Yeah.” Sana yawned, using her free hand to pet Kookeu behind the ears. “How did it go?” “They always go the same Nayeon.” Sana answered, her smile slowly fading. She didn’t like talking about this much, but she knew she couldn’t hide from Nayeon. Nayeon had known her since she was eighteen, and now that she was nearing forty they had been through just about everything together. Sure, Nayeon was closer to her wife, but it didn’t mean she didn’t do everything for Sana too. “I know, but you know it can take a while for this stuff to work. We were at this for three years before we had Kazumi.” Nayeon gave Sana a reassuring smile. “It will work out.” “I don’t know… I’m older now. The chances just keep getting smaller and smaller.” Sana let Kookeu down when the dog started squirming. “Trust me, just keep with it. I almost gave up before we had Kazumi. But things worked out then and I think they will now.” Sana immediately noticed something was off about Nayeon. Of course her words were nice, but the bags under her eyes and the forced smile were starting to show through the longer she was in their house. “Thank you… But Nayeon, what’s wrong?” Sana didn’t like dancing around subjects. “I-” Nayeon sighed. “Momo and I fought again.” Sana thought it was strange Momo didn’t contact her about that. Usually when they fought Nayeon would run to Jihyo and Momo would run to Sana and Mina. Sana had known Momo since she was born, she never kept anything from her. Momo was as close to a sister as Sana had ever gotten, and the two had never kept anything from each other. “Again?” Sana asked. “This happened recently?” All couples fought. Sana, Jihyo, and Mina fought. Nayeon and Momo fought. It was normal. But Sana hadn’t heard about the two of them fighting recently. “I- I’ll tell you over dinner.” Nayeon sighed, rubbing one eye. “Who invited you to dinner?” Sana teased. “I could just take Kookeu and make you go home.” “You wouldn’t.” Nayeon rolled her eyes. Both knew she was right. Nayeon and Momo had been coming over for so long, for as long as they had been together. And Sana was fine with that. She loved having the two of them over.“Are your wives in the kitchen?” “Yeah.” Sana nodded. “Dinner should almost be ready.”

“Did Mina cook?” When Sana nodded Nayeon let out a small thank god before going off towards the living room. Sana trailed behind her, smiling when she saw her wives. “Woah.” Was the first thing Jihyo said to Nayeon. “You saw me this morning.” Nayeon rolled her eyes.

“I thought that was just grumpy morning Nayeon. This is not what I was expecting.” Nayeon had always been good at pretending she was okay. Especially over the phone. She had done it countless times and it always frustrated Jihyo to no end. She wished Nayeon could just tell her when she was upset. “We left the dog stuff on the table. Is it okay I put Kookeu outside?” Mina asked.

“Is the gate closed?” Mina nodded in response. The table had already been set, and Mina had just wordlessly added an extra plate for Nayeon. They had been here a million times, and Mina guessed they would be here a million more. Not that Mina minded. She liked helping their friends. “Then it should be fine. He’s been restless all day and I think he’s a little mad. All the kids' attention was on the new dog and not him.” “I would be mad if I was him.” Sana giggled. “He’s always loved attention.”

“Yes well I’ve always loved giving it to him.” Nayeon eyed the glass door to their backyard. Kookeu was running around with a chew toy he had left the last time he had been over to their house. “Thank you for dinner.” “Im Nayeon? Thanking me? There must be something wrong.” Nayeon nearly elbowed Jihyo but held back. “I fought with Momo.” Nayeon started, her fingers pausing as she looked over the food. It looked good, it always did. Mina had always been such a good chef. “You two fight all the time.” Jihyo rolled her eyes. “No. We fought for real.” Nayeon sighed. “We have been talking about maybe adopting again but we can’t really agree on it. Last night everything just kind of exploded. We said so many bad things- I said so many bad things. I know Momo is just being realistic and is looking out for us but I feel like she isn’t listening to me. haneul heard us, we thought she was asleep, but she heard us. And I guess- I guess we set her off. We try not to argue in front of her and Jae- well Kazumi too but you get it. I spent almost the entire night calming her down and this morning Momo wouldn’t even look at me.” All three of them had to take a second to think about everything Nayeon had just told them. haneul had always hated yelling. Jae was better, but Haneul had always struggled with yelling. Even now, years since they had adopted them she hated it. “When she came home today she was ignoring me. I know she was probably angry about the dog too, but Kazumi… She was so insistent on us keeping Boo. She can be so stubborn sometimes. Momo was just so mad at me. I needed an excuse to leave.” “You know… I think Momo is just afraid.” Surprisingly enough Mina was the first to voice it. Nayeon would have expected that forward of a comment from Jihyo or Sana, but never from Mina. “Haneul and Jae, and honestly Kazumi too, have all been through a lot. Kazumi less so than the twins… But you know losing Momo’s mother was hard on her. It was hard on Momo too. I think she’s just afraid that if you guys adopt again it will be difficult for them. I know you think they will probably be fine because they are older, but think about last night. Haneul had a panic attack because of yelling, what if you guys adopt a kid and they accidentally set her off? Jae and Kazumi know not to do anything like that because they grew up with Haneul, but I think Momo is afraid that introducing a new person into that equation might be stressful for Haneul. And there’s also the feat they may think you guys are trying to replace them.” “Mina is right Nayeonie. Adoption is so incredibly complicated. Yes it’s worth it, but there’s also so much that goes into it. Momo has always been afraid of change. And I know it’s partially my fault, but it’s how she is.” Sana spoke up after her wife, taking one of Mina’s hands and squeezing it.

“You should give Momo a bit of space. Let her speak. You really didn’t help things by bringing a random dog home.” Jihyo joked, poking Nayeon’s side. “Look, we are happy to let you stay here for a night or two, just to give Momo some space to think. Give you some space to cool down. You probably haven’t taken some time to yourself since this all happened. I think it’s for the best you do.” Jihyo mentioned taking one of Nayeon’s hands similar to the way her wives were holding hands. “Thank you… Momo didn’t want me to talk to you guys about any of this. She said you guys had too much stress and I shouldn’t bother you… That woman always has this habit of bottling things up at the worst times.” Nayeon sighed. “But she does have a point, I know you guys are going through a rough time.” “I wouldn’t say it’s rough.” Sana spoke up. “It’s just tiring. But we aren’t too stressed, at least I don’t think we are right?” She looked at Mina and Jihyo with such wide eyes both of their hearts ached. Having a baby had been so difficult on all three of them, but they had tried to stay calm for so long. All three knew internally they were going to reach a breaking point soon, none of them were just ready to admit it yet. “Right.” All three of them hated lying, but they didn’t know what else they were supposed to say.

“Momo?” Sana had been surprised when Momo had called her. Jihyo had texted her saying they were going to keep Nayeon for the night according to her Momo had just texted back a thumbs up emoji. Sana knew Momo would want to talk to her eventually, but knowing her she expected that to be tomorrow. Momo had a nasty habit of stopping by Sana’s office at work. Momo didn’t usually have too much to do during the day, as her studio only had a few classes during the early part of the day. Sometimes she would come to Sana’a office under the guise that Nayeon had kicked her out of hers and she was bored. Others she would come to complain about Nayeon. Sana never really minded, most of her students were absolutely terrible about coming to office hours and she was bored sitting there by herself grading. It was nice to have someone to talk to sometimes, and god knows how many times she had showed up at Momo’s studio to complain about something Mina or Jihyo did. “Aunt Sana?” “Kazumi?” Sana asked, a bit confused. “Why are you calling me?” “Because my moms don’t think I’m ready for a phone. Can you put my mom on? I want to talk to her.” “Sure.” Sana sighed and stood up from the table. She was still exhausted from earlier and really was ready to sleep, but she had to finish her grading today. Mina and Jihyo were also grading various students' work, all three of them slumped over their living room table with mountains of work to grade. They had been there hundreds of times, and Sana wouldn’t say she hated it. It was just, kind of boring. Nayeon was in the other room, watching a drama on her laptop. Sana sometimes cursed the fact the mechanical engineering department had so many TAs willing to grade. The physics department had TAs too, but there really weren’t that many compared to the mechanical engineering department. The mechanical engineering department was much more competitive though, and had a lot more students, so there were more of them that wanted to be TAs. Sana got her attention and handed her phone to her immediately. “Hm?” Nayeon asked.

“Your daughter wants to talk to you.” Sana was a bit confused as to why Kazumi had called her instead of just calling Nayeon. She knew Nayeon could be bad about charging her phone sometimes, so the thought crossed her mind that Nayeon’s phone could just be dead. Sana decided to give them some privacy as she went back to the grading table. “Who was it?” Jihyo hummed and wrapped her right arm around Sana, holding a pen in her left.

“Kazumi. She wanted to talk to Nayeon about something.” Sana answered. “I’m guessing she’s just a little stressed Nayeon is gone. ”

“She has always been pretty clingy. When she was little, babysitting her could be difficult if it was overnight.” Mina hummed. “It was always weird to me because Haneul and Jae seemed fine, but Kazumi would always throw little fits until we called one of them and they calmed her down.”

“Some kids are just like that. She’s growing out of it. Slowly. I’m sure tonight it was scary for her because Nayeon was there earlier and never came back. ” Jihyo remarked. “Hey… Do you think our child will be clingy?” There was a heavy silence that came over them when Jihyo said that. They tried not to talk about it too much, what their child would be like. They had a lot in the beginning of the process, but now years later they knew that would give all of them false hope. This entire situation was a careful balance of being hopeful and realistic. “Knowing Sana, yes.” Mina was the first to speak up, a teasing smile on her face. She was doing her best to lighten the atmosphere, she didn’t want to get into this right now. Not with Nayeon here. “Hey.” Sana whined. “I wasn’t that clingy when I was little.” “So it started when you were older? Or did it start when you met us?” Jihyo tried to be as careful about the topic as possible. Sana hated talking about the past before she met the two of them. She hadn’t known Sana for as long as Mina did, and to be honest even now she felt like she didn’t know as much about Sana’s past as Mina did. Mina had met Sana in high school, and Jihyo didn’t meet either of them until college. Mina had been there at one of the lowest points in Sana’s life, and Jihyo didn’t meet her until later.

“She really wasn’t this clingy in high school.” Mina commented. “Well when we were asleep she would always try to cuddle up to me or Momo, but other than that she really wasn’t clingy.” Mina eyed Sana with baited breath. Sana didn’t like it when they talked about high school too much, but she seemed fine, still looking over papers. She was wearing her glasses (thankfully, Mina had argued with Sana so many times to just wear them), her attention on the paper in front of her. Sana’s face when she was concentrating was always so adorable. “It really all started when we started dating.”

“Cute.” Jihyo giggled, knowing they had completely lost Sana’s attention to the paper in front of her. Nayeon comes back into the living room later, giving Sana her phone back and tears on her face.

“What did Kazumi say?” Jihyo asked. She had finished grading, and was now waiting for her wives to finish so they could get on with their night. “She asked me if we were getting a divorce.” Nayeon sighed, slumping down on the couch. “She said she’s not little anymore so I shouldn’t lie to her. And that she’s seen how we haven’t been as affectionate lately and how much we’ve been fighting. And then Jae took the phone from her when she started crying.”

“That’s a difficult subject when you're twelve.” Jihyo nodded, getting off the floor to slump onto the couch with Nayeon. “Do you want to get divorced?” “God no- no. Not over this. We can work it out. Kazumi is just overthinking.” Nayeon sighed. “Is she?” Jihyo asked, looking into Nayeon’s eyes. “I-yeah. She’s always had a bit of separation anxiety. Momo says she’s growing out of it- but I’m still worried. I’ve been talking to the twins therapist about her, and she thinks it might be good for her to start seeing her if she starts to get any worse.” Nayeon commented, seeing Sana and Mina still working. “It’s nothing to be worried about. I promise.” “Okay.” Jihyo nodded, opening her arms for Nayeon. Nayeon accepted them and relaxed in her embrace, letting her oldest friend hold her while she thought about what to do next.

Nayeon and Momo work things out (like they always do) not two days later. Jihyo had always admired the two of them for that. Even if the fight seemed to be really bad, both were good about talking about how they were feeling and what they needed to do to resolve the issue. From what Jihyo understood, they were going to wait a few years before trying their hand at fostering for a little while. It seemed like a good compromise. Nayeon had always loved children and just wanted to help all of the ones she could, Jihyo had always understood tht and she honestly thought it was so sweet her friend was so excited to help kids out.

In terms of their own relationship, things were only getting worse. It started with little comments here and there about how if it had worked Sana would start feeling symptoms by now since it had been almost two months since and that they needed to book the next appointment. Sana didn’t seem too jazzed about that. And when she expressed that, they had erupted in a huge argument. They hadn’t yelled at each other like that in years, and honestly Jihyo thinks it might have been the worst argument they had ever had.

“You're giving up? After all this time- all this money we’ve put into this- your just going to give up?!” Mina was by far the most upset, which was triggering both of them.

“I can’t keep doing this Mina! We’re just- we keep pretending we’re fine but we all know that we aren’t!” Sana responded. Her hands were clenched and tears were brimming at the edge of her vision.

“Stop! Just- stop it. Yelling isn’t going to solve this.” Jihyo could feel a headache coming on. “But you agree with me right?” Mina asked, teary eyes as she looked at Jihyo. Jihyo knew Mina had been the most hurt by this entire process. First she was told she was infertile and then it wasn’t working with Sana- she had a lot to be stressed about. “We’ve invested so much in this- we can’t just give up!” “I can’t do this anymore Mina! It hurts me so much to see a negative test- to have a period! To see how sad it makes both of you! I can’t keep failing you both! I can’t-I can’t-” Jihyo could tell Sana had reached her breaking point. Honestly they all saw this coming, but it was still difficult to watch.

“Breathe Sana,” Jihyo tried to take one of her hands but Sana shrugged her off. “Don’t touch me!” Everything was silent after that. Mina grabbed her coat and left, but both of them knew where she was going. Mina was going to cool off at Jeongyeon and Dahyun’s house while Sana and Jihyo tried to not scream at each other anymore. Sana was in the corner of their bedroom, curled into a tiny ball and shaking. Jihyo knew this pose, this was Sana trying to calm herself down. Sometimes Jihyo forgot Sana had grown up in an abusive household, but times like this served as a painful reminder that her wife had been through so much when she was young. Jihyo watched her carefully as Sana’s breathing evened out and she pulled a blanket around herself

“Sana?” Sana ignored her. “Hey baby, can I touch you?” Sana spared her a look at that, slowly nodding. When Mina was like this, she didn’t like being touched. Jihyo had gotten used to waiting to touch Mina until the younger one intatied. But Sana wasn’t like that. She liked being touched when she was like this. Jihyo wrapped her arms around Sana and held her close, smelling the shampoo she had always loved. She knew what it was now, her and Sana had been sharing a shower for almost ten years now she was familiar with her wife’s shampoo brand, but it had always smelled so good to her. “M’ sorry.” Sana muttered after a while. “No-no sweetie I’m sorry.” Jihyo sighed. “I wasn’t thinking about how stressful this all must have been on you.” “Why hasn’t it ever worked?” Jihyo’s heart was breaking at Sana’s tiny voice. She felt her shoulder getting wet from where Sana’s face was buried in it, but she didn’t mind. “I don’t know… No one said this was easy.” Jihyo muttered, tucking Sana’s hair behind her ear. She went back to their screaming match from earlier, thinking of everything Sana had said. “You know this isn’t your fault right?” Sana stayed quiet at that. “Sana… This isn’t your fault. You are not a failure. You have absolutely no control whether or not this works.” “But- I- it feels like my fault. You guys want a baby so bad- I want a baby so bad but I can’t- I can’t do it and that’s frustrating.” Sana muttered. “I know it is sweetheart. It is. But it’s not your fault. You are doing so good. I’m so proud of how hard you have worked so far, but if you are done… Let’s be done.” Jihyo whispered. “We can take some time away. Maybe reconsider adopting. But I think we should take a little break before we do that. How does that sound to you?” Sana nodded at that, cuddling closer to Jihyo. Jihyo had always been the rock in their relationship. Of the three of them, she was able to keep her emotions in check the most. She never really had outbursts, and she was able to keep her composure in situations like their fight. “Good.” Jihyo kissed the top of her head. “We can talk to Mina about this tomorrow. You know how she is- she was just really invested in this. But she will be okay, she wants us to be happy more than anything.” “Mina won’t leave us?” If Jihyo’s heart wasn’t broken before it was now. Sana had healed a lot from when Jihyo first met her, but there were still times where her old insecurities would bubble back to the surface. “No.” Jihyo nodded. “Mina won’t leave us.” She hoped to god that was true, but she knew Mina. Mina wouldn’t leave them over something like that. Sana looked ready to fall asleep against her shoulder, but suddenly she was pulling away and jumping out of bed. Jihyo was spooked by the sudden movement, following Sana with a rapid heartbeat as her wife ran to the bathroom.

It wasn’t much later that Sana threw up. Not just once, multiple times. Tears rushed down her cheeks as Jihyo held her hair back and rubbed her back. Jihyo thought this was probably just a side effect from earlier, but she couldn’t stop the thoughts about how Sana had never thrown up from her panic attacks before, and the other implications to sudden sickness like that. And she wasn’t the only one thinking about that.

Mina didn’t come home the next morning. Jihyo knew she needed more time to think and sort through her emotions, but she was still worried. She texted Jeongyeon and Dahyun, and they said they were taking good care of Mina and that she was eating and safe. Jihyo was relieved at that, because honestly that was better than Sana.

Sana threw up again the next morning, and after she had refused to eat breakfast. By lunch, Sana was understandably starving and ate more than Jihyo had seen her eat in a while. She was happy about that, but that food had just caused Sana to throw up again. They had monitored her for signs of a fever, but it seemed she didn’t have one.

Sana made Jihyo go to work that afternoon. Both had taken the morning off, but Jihyo had been expected to work in the afternoon unlike Sana. Sana had practically forced her to go, promising to eat more and that she would be fine by herself. It didn’t stop Jihyo from obsessively texting her before her class started. Sana liked the time away from Jihyo. She knew her body better than anyone else, she knew something was wrong. And she knew it was one of two things either one she was coming down with a stomach bug for the first time in ten years or she was pregnant. Honestly even if the latter made more sense, they couldn’t help but think the former was the one that was true. She knew it was the less likely option logically, but she just couldn’t get her hopes again. Especially since it had all been so sudden. Sure she had felt a bit nauseous a couple times in the past few weeks but she had never had anything like that. It just seemed so sudden. They had a stash of pregnancy tests under their sink. Because they had been through this so many times before, and it had never worked, not even once. Sana didn’t know why she was even doing this. It never worked. But she pushed herself to do it anyway. Sure she felt a bit off, but she had also been through a lot lately. Plus her period had never been regular. That didn’t mean she was pregnant. It couldn’t have worked now. There was no way. When Jihyo got home, she found Sana on the couch crying. When she asked why, she said they would need to wait until Mina got home for her to tell her why.

Mina comes home after dinner. Jihyo could tell she was trying to be careful around both of them, but can tell she’s calmed down. They all know they need to talk, but they spend most of the night dancing around the subject with small pleasantries until Sana practically forces them to talk. “I’m sorry.” Mina sighed. “I was just frustrated, I should have listened sooner. If you want to give up for now, it might be for the best.”

“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have yelled.” Sana mentioned, her finger twirling together that way they always did when she was nervous. Jihyo knew Sana was keeping something from them, she just couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was. “I’m sorry to both of you. Screaming was not the correct response.” Jihyo sighed. “I think taking some time away might be for the best. We can think and come up with a plan for maybe looking into adoption.” “That sounds like a good idea. This has been bothering all of us for a while. As scary as it sounds time away might be for the best.” Mina agreed, noticing how fidgety Sana was being. “What is it?” “I agree we shouldn’t do the procedure again… But I don’t think we should look into adoption.” Sana confused them both with that. Sana had talked to both of them in the past about how if the biological thing didn’t work she was open to adoption, so the change felt both sudden and unexpected. “What do you mean?”

“Adoption is great and all, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to be looking into it right now.” Sana looked at both of them before taking each of their hands. “Because I’m pregnant.”

Mina and Jihyo had both never been more shocked. “I-Is this a joke as a punishment for yesterday or-”

“No.” Sana stopped Mina’s rambling. “I’m actually pregnant.” Jihyo didn’t say anything, just tackled Sana in a hug and rained kisses on her cheeks. “I love you so much.” Jihyo whispered. “Me too.” Mina couldn’t stop sobbing as she joined the hug. “I love you both so much too.” Sana had never been happier than that moment, except maybe on their wedding day, but honestly, Sana didn’t think that counted. This was her happiest moment.

#twice #minatozaki sana #myoui mina #park jihyo #namo #im nayeon #hirai momo #this is basically a fic chapter oops #misahyo #misahyo au

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bedlamsbard · 3 years

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600 words written today, concept writing. I’m not...braining very well. I mean, I obviously haven’t been for a while now and today honestly probably wasn’t worse than the previous days -- given the way the past week has gone for me, it was definitely better than most of the immediate days previous. I’m still spending a lot of time off the computer because my eyes hurt and I’m a bit headachey, which I think is helping on some fronts. Reading for fun, anyway, that’s always nice. Had to go up to campus for the weekly covid test, messed up my “actually getting up” timing enough that I couldn’t eat beforehand. Just, my schedule is a mess right now. My anxiety is coming down from where it was at a few days ago but jumped again in the evening. My anxiety has always been pretty bad, but I feel like it used to be at least slightly less fucked up and moderately more functional? I don’t know. I’m very tired. (Like, my coping mechanisms (in terms of Doing Work) are...still not an option, since I developed some new ones but they’re not as functional as the old ones. Sigh.)

Snippet from reluctant roommates AU concept 1.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

Hera just stared at him.

The silence stretched out between them, unnerving in its emptiness; Hera cast wildly around for something to say when the Inquisitor didn’t break it, and finally said, “We should be arriving at Barzhun in about fifteen hours. It’s – it’s not on any of the major hyper-routes, which is why it’s taking so long.”

“All right,” he said, nodding.

Hera bit back her urge to flee and said, “We can go over the files and make a plan closer to our arrival time. I don’t know what kind of field experience you have –”

“Some,” he said, hesitating briefly before he added, “Mostly not on this sort of op.”

Hera mentally translated that as mostly I spent my time killing people for the Empire, which might or might not be accurate.

The Inquisitor bit his lip, then admitted, “One of the reasons I got this assignment is because none of the others work well with the regular service.”

“Do you?” Hera blurted out.

“I’m human and I don’t kill anyone who looks at me sideways,” he said. “Presumably at least one of those helps.”

“What did they tell you about me?” Hera said quickly, before she lost her nerve.

He raised his eyebrows. “Nothing.”

#this whole concept is 'I am extremely anxious so hera is extremely anxious' so sorry about that #it goes with my 'I am extremely depressed so hera is extremely depressed' concept from like...2019?#daily fic snippet

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #479

“war sends our sons to slaughter / another failed attack; there is no turning back”

Have you ever boycotted something? Yes: Chick-fil-A. Homophobic, transphobic pieces of shit. Has anyone ever borrowed something from you, and not returned it? Yes, a video game when I was little. I was so mad, lol. Do you vent a lot on social media? No. I don't want people to get annoyed with me. What was your first bill you started paying on your own? I haven't been responsible for any bills yet. What is your favorite charitable cause to donate to or volunteer for? I can't/don't do either really, but if I could, I'd probably donate to uhhhh... suicide prevention organizations. As for volunteering, definitely something with animals. Have you ever dated someone who wasn’t at all your usual type? No. What is something you have no patience for? Waiting at the doctor's office. Have you ever received a misdiagnosis? Yes. What’s that you’re listening to? I'm watching Gab play The Evil Within 2. What kind of relationship do you have with the last person you kissed? We're a couple. What is your biggest accomplishment in life? Still being alive. What is one thing that you really wish you could understand, but don’t? Political stuff. Economics. Have you ever been tutored or tutored someone yourself? I had an Algebra tutor the last time I was in college, and I had to strangle an anxiety attack down because I wasn't understanding the material AT ALL and felt so dumb and annoying. I never did it again. What was the last thing you said out loud (singing doesn’t count)? "It's really embarrassing," to Mom. It really is fucking humiliating that my ankles are swollen from walking/standing more and pushing my desk chair back against the resistance of the carpet. That's pathetic. I'm trying to focus on the fact it's good my body is even reacting to moving more, though. Is everything you have on actually yours? Yep. Do you ever just randomly drive around when you’re upset about something? I don't drive, but if I did, that would NOT be my method of de-stressing. What was the last act of creativity you displayed? Writing an RP post. What’s your favorite department in Wal-Mart? Uh, I guess where you can go see the plants and flowers. Do you find kite flying boring? I LOVED it as a kid. I'd still probably find it kinda fun. Do you have any interest in visiting Japan? Yes, but it's not a massive interest. I've heard the humidity can kill a bitch, and I am NOT into that. Have you ever run a cash register? Yes. I sucked. Have you ever worked as a server? No. Have you ever done the Bratz challenge on YouTube? No, but I saw James Charles do it and it was v unnerving, holy shit. Would you rather paint or carve a pumpkin? Carve. What was your worst experience in high school? My depression as a whole. How much did your senior prom dress cost you? I don't remember. Have you ever been in a serious romantic relationship? Three, if you include my current one. Which part of your body is the most muscular? Uh, nothing? What is the first site you check when you get online, generally? KM. Are you good at creative writing assignments? That's my forte. In elementary school, I actually won a I think county-wide creative writing short story assignment. Not to brag, but I've always been very proud of that, ha ha. Or would you rather just do an informative essay? That's easy for me too, but I prefer writing creatively. Are you more attracted to the badasses, or the goody-goody types? Definitely the goody-goodies. The "bad guys" have never appealed to me romantically. Do you raise your hand or participate in class? I did if I really wanted to ask something or was confident in an answer. What is something BIG you want to do with your life? Make a difference, somehow. What do you think of people who own wild animals? Do NOT just casually take in animals from the wild. That's selfish and just generally disgusting. If you're going to keep an animal generally described as wild and undomesticated, you'd better have a license and deserve that license. Know what you're doing and be certain that keeping the animal in captivity is in the animal's best interest for its unique case. Are you good at explaining things, in general? NOOOOOOOOO, I suck at that. Do you like visiting the mall? Why or why not? Not our mall, no. Its stores suck/are extremely limited, and SO much crime has happened there. Do you like window shopping? Why or why not? YESSSSSSS, mostly on Morph Market, a mostly reptile selling hub online. You can browse TONS of breeders and literally thousands of reptiles, especially ball pythons. They even have a tarantula section I like to look at sometimes. If you lost your job/home/etc., who would likely help you? If I'm losing my home, I'm assuming my mom is gone, so my dad. Why did you first kiss the last person you kissed? We were a couple and I felt like I was supposed to. At that time I didn't see him romantically, but I desperately wanted to. Funny how we're back together and I've no reservations against kissing him now. Feelings change, for sure. Plans for tonight? Girt and I will probably play some WoW Classic together. We've started playing that together, and it's lots of fun with him. :') Has anyone seen you kiss the last person you kissed? Actually, no. Have you ever been kissed in a car? Yeah. Do you think anyone has feelings for you? I know Girt does. Is there anyone in your life that knows right away something’s wrong with you? My mom. Who last made you smile? Girt, 'cuz he's a sweetheart. Where is your mother? She's in bed in her room. She feels like shit. Like, you would think she WASN'T vaccinated, though her long-time doctor has said she'd probably be dead without it while having Covid. Would you rather look at clouds or stars? Stars. Think about your biggest mistake, would you go back and change it? I absolutely would. Are you dating the person you last kissed? Yeup. What is the most immature item you own and actually use? Um. Idk. Do you always take a shower after you have sex? I... didn't know people did this? Like I know women are advised to pee after sex, but full-on showering? No. Do you like chocolate popsicles? Oh hell yeah. Are your parents proud of you? They claim to be. I don't see how. Are you interested in the ocean? Yeah; it's inarguably so fascinating. Hot dogs or hamburgers? I prefer burgers. Have you ever been to a Chinatown in any of the cities you’ve been to? No. Have you ever been to couple’s counseling? No. Do you have any dietary restrictions? No. Have you ever turned down a job offer? No. What’s the largest animal you’ve ever had as a pet? A dog named Cali that was a boxer mix. Do you ever pray, even if you don't believe in God? What exactly is the point if you don't believe in God...? Anyway, I don't. Have you ever been to Mexico? No. Have you ever gotten stuck in quicksand before? No. What's the shortest or longest length you've ever had your hair grow? To around the small of my back. The last nest you saw - was it a bird nest or a hornet's nest? I think a bird's? Do you enjoy Jeff Dunham? I don't know if I'd like him as a person, but I do think he's a funny comedian. Who is your favorite character from Frozen? I was never into the movies. I do think Elsa is kinda cool (no pun intended, lol), though. I like that she has her flaws. Did you finish high school? If not, do you plan on doing so? I did. Have you been in a simulator that mimicked a submarine or rollercoaster? A rollercoaster, yes. How often do you go out to eat instead of cooking for yourself? Mom and I try to avoid fast food for our health. We do a pretty good job at it, but sometimes for convenience's sake, we do eat it. What is the largest family of siblings that you know of? This is probably gonna come across as very judgmental, but... it really bothers me. I don't know how many kids she has now, but one of the dance moms from the studio has SO many children; I've completely lost count. Now if you want that many kids and can provide for them, that's cool. But that's not the case. She uses the "if God wants me to have a baby, then it will happen" mentality, and I'm just like... um, no hunny. Poor choices are leading to kids you're not adequately providing for. She uses no methods of protection and literally has twins whose room is a fucking closet. Ugh it just really bothers me. What foreign languages were offered to you at school? A whole lot. Only Spanish and I believe French were offered as in-school courses, but there were lots of online classes. If you were required to take a course right now, what would you choose? Photography. Team Biden or Team Trump? Over my dead body would I have voted for Trump. My vote went with Biden. What is an animal native to your country that may not exist in others? Bison are factually exclusive to North America. Note that bison and buffalo are different. What are some of your favorite autumn activities? Taking pictures of fall scenery. <3 What are some of your favorite winter activities? Going out in the snow. :') Especially with a camera. Do you eat a shit-ton the week before your period? uuugggghhHHHHHH yes Wendy's, McDonalds, or Burger King? Wendy's. What's the weirdest question you've ever asked Alexa? I've never asked Alexa anything. Do you prefer your apple cider to be warm or cold? I've actually never had it. Do you prefer your coffee hot or iced? Y'all know the story of me and coffee. Can you sing the alphabet backwards? I can't. Have you ever sent flowers or chocolates to yourself before? Ha ha, no. Is there any meat that you won't eat? Yeah, fish and ANYTHING that comes from a wild animal. Does your cat use anything other than it's scratching post as a scratcher? When we got him a scratcher WITH CATNIP, the lil butthead ignored it. -_- He scratches the carpet instead. Did you go through a vampire craze before? Are you still going through it? Nah. Have you ever forged your parents' signature on a poor test paper, etc? No. Has a bird ever pooped on you before? Omg, no. I'd die. Have you ever been sprayed by a skunk before? No. Are black jellybeans delicious or disgusting? I HATE them. Have you ever rolled down a grassy hill before? I have! I miss that.

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''black rain'' by ozzy osbourne

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thepatricktreestump · 4 years

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Crush pt2 - peter parker imagine

crush masterlist

part 2 – an apartment in queens

The following weeks you found yourself sitting at Peter Parker’s lunch table nearly every day. You slowly got to know him better, understanding his passion for photography, his love for Star Wars, and of course, his obsession with science puns. Alongside him, you also got to know his friends, MJ and Ned. MJ was more laid back and careless than Peter, messy hair and doodling in class, dark humor and straight-to-the-point conversation. She wasn’t like the other girls you knew who liked to gossip about drama or swoon over boys. Instead she talked about true crime and conspiracy theories. Ned was a lot like Peter, minus the anxiety. He was a goofball who enjoyed LEGOs and read comic books and was always excited to announce whatever latest movie just came out or NASA’s newest discovery. His friends were interesting and cool, and you enjoyed hanging out with them a lot too. Of course, they weren’t nearly as charming and polite as Peter was, but you liked the company all the same. MJ was reliable in recommending you good music and Ned in showing you memes he thought you’d appreciate.

As far as Peter goes, when you weren’t sending silly selfies to each other or texting paragraphs back and forth over the phone, you both made an effort to spend time together at school. Study hall slowly became a regular thing between the two of you. After the dismissal bell rang, you would meet at the cafeteria vending machines to grab snacks, and then spread your textbooks out on a library table and breeze through your homework, sharing jokes and stories about the school day or whatever else was going on in your lives at the time. However, approaching the library that evening, both of you instantly pouted at the notice posted on the door.

“Closed for SAT prep,” Peter read aloud. “Uh oh.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you stared at the piece of paper taped to the entrance, letting out a small huff. “We have a test tomorrow and to be completely honest, I haven’t even read the last two chapters yet.”

“I have,” Peter piped up. “I can fill you in if you want, you can borrow notes.” He turned to face you and narrowed his eyes. “Although it’s not like you to be slacking on an assignment. What’s up?”

“I’ve just been helping my dad with this uh, this project lately,” you replied. “I’m trying to figure out how to improve computation time through admissible heuristic-”

“A* yeah,” Peter blurted, recognizing your words, and you paused, thoroughly impressed.

“Wait! Parker, you’re telling me you know algorithms?” you stood there, jaw still hanging in surprise.

“Sure, I am a computer geek after all,” he chuckled softly, flexing a humble brag. “I have a bit of experience in computer science, if you ever want a helping hand.”

“Holy shit,” you blinked, thinking to yourself, as if he couldn’t get any hotter?

“Anyways, you should really get on those chapters. You know this exam makes up ten percent of our grade for the quarter.” He pauses to think for a moment and then his eyes light up with an idea. “Let’s hang at my place and I can catch you up,” he offers, and you look at him incredulously, practically delirious at this point.

“Y-you want me to come over?” you raise an eyebrow and he stiffens, hesitant.

“Uh, I mean, if you’re okay with that,” he explains. “I just thought since the library was closed, you know, we could find a different place to study. It doesn’t have to be my place we can go to a coffee shop or the park or something-”

“No, no your place sounds perfect,” you insisted, head reeling at the fact that your crush just invited you to their house.

“Awesome, cause I know a really good pizza place on the way,” he grins and you think you could melt on the spot right there.

Peter doesn’t live very far from Midtown at all, just a couple transfers. And as far as pizza recommendations go, he knows the very best spot in town. It’s obvious he’s a Queens kid, the way he walks about the city and interacts with the people, it’s like there’s nowhere else he could ever possibly belong. It’s heartwarming, to see the way he talks about his favorite shops and people, pointing out little things like good climbing trees and perfect awnings for being caught in the rain. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he created the city himself, the way he was familiarized with everything. It was impressive.

Your dad didn’t really let you out of the tower to roam much. Happy usually escorted you around a in a car or he insisted you take a taxi rather than the subway. When you did go out, it was usually in his company, to a fancy party or a conference hall, a five-star restaurant or a prestigious academy. Being raised surrounded with such success and wealth was a blessing, and you were ever grateful for it, but it was times like these when you wondered what it would’ve been like to just be a normal kid. To be able to explore and meet others and know the city as well as Peter does, every little hideout and bodega, the best spot to watch the sunrise or grab a sandwich.

“Well uh, this is it,” Peter clutched onto the straps of his backpack, giving a nervous smile. “It might not be much, but it’s my home. It’s just me and my Aunt May, she’s the one who pretty much raised me so…” He shrugged and then opened up the door, you being sure to take everything in.

“Oh my gosh Peter! Hi! How was school today? Oh! And you brought a friend!” a bubbly brunette with glasses greeted both of you, scooping up Peter in a hug, and you instantly knew she must be Aunt May. “Hi dear, I’m Aunt May and you are?”

“This is y/n, remember?” Peter introduced you and you raised an eyebrow at that last part, noting the way that he must’ve mentioned you to her before. You tried to hide the blush rising to your cheeks.

“Y/n? Oh yes, how could I forget your-” May paused immediately upon Peter’s terrified eyes and nodded slowly. “Your uh, your?”

“My friend,” he smiled. “She’s my friend, May.”

“Right. Awesome,” she looked at you and you could sense her suspicion, that they were hiding something, but you dismissed it and smiled back. “I’m so glad you could come visit today, Miss Y/n! Peter’s told me so much about you.” You looked at Peter and he gave you terrified eyes, making you laugh. “Oh, was I not supposed to say that?” May turned to you and you laughed harder, reassuring her it was just fine, but inside, your head was reeling. Peter had talked to her about you before? You just hoped it was all good things.

“Anyways… We’re gonna study for our test, so we’ll be in my room. Just knock if you need me,” Peter explained, and to your surprise, grabbed you by the hand and led you down the hall, heart fluttering in your chest every step of the way. He dumped his bookbag on the ground and shut the door, flopping onto his bed, sighing. “Sorry that’s my Aunt May, she can be a little overbearing at times.”

“No, no, you’re all fine,” you reassured, taking a seat next to him at the edge of his bed. “I get it. My dad can be a lot like that too. Lots of questions and pestering- it’s just cause they care about us, you know.”

“Yeah, I appreciate that,” Peter smiled softly, leaning up and looking at you, noticing the way you pressed your lips together, waiting to ask something. “What?”

“You told her about me?” you wondered, and he swallowed nervously, clearly embarrassed.

“I mean, uh… Yeah. I did…” He paused, staring at the floor. “Is that okay?” he asked, scared. “I mean, I tell Aunt May about everything, she’s sort of my best friend- but not in a weird way, she’s my aunt you know, but-”

“You’re fine, Peter,” you laughed. “I’m just giving you a hard time.”

“Oh,” he grew quiet, letting out a soft sigh of relief as you laughed a bit harder, smiling at him. He looked back at you, face reddening, hazel eyes softened. “You have a nice laugh, you know.”

“Really?” you cocked your head to the side, growing self-conscious. “I always thought it was a bit too obnoxious.”

“No, it’s genuine,” he shook his head, insisting. “I like it a lot.” He looked down towards his feet and started to pull out some textbooks from his backpack, and you could’ve sworn you heard him mumble. “I could probably listen to it all day.”

Reading classic English literature was never the most exciting way to pass time, but with Peter, it instantly became your favorite hobby. Both of you impersonated characters and made fun of the old dialect, as well as sprinkled in vine references at every appropriate moment. While writing notes, you doodled cartoons in the margins and decorated them with stickers. It was like hanging out with Peter outside of school made doing school related things much less nerve wracking. It gave you the freedom to be laid back, boisterous, and most of all, handsy. Throughout studying you found yourselves guilty of seeming to find any excuse to touch the other, whether it was poking, tickling, pulling hair, slugging a shoulder, or tugging on a sleeve. At one point, Peter even leaned against your side, resting his head on your shoulder and watching as you scrawled down notes, making your head dizzy.

A notification went off on Peter’s phone and he sighed, walking over to where it was charged on his desk before staring intently. “Woah,” he held his phone screen up to you with the displayed time. “I didn’t even know it was this late! I’m sorry.”

“Oh no,” you glanced at your own phone, spotting the several missed calls and texts from your father, sighing. You didn’t want to leave, but you knew you had to. You didn’t want to dig yourself a deeper hole. Shooting your dad a couple texts and asking Happy to come pick you up, you groaned, realizing there was no avoiding explanations on this one. The school library wouldn’t have even been open for study hall at this time if you said you were there. “Shit, I’ve got to go. I’m sorry, Peter.”

“It’s okay,” he insisted, although you could sense his disappointment too. “Maybe another time?”

“Definitely,” you grinned. “I think I like hanging here much better than the library. You even have a periodic table up on your wall for reference.”

“Exactly!” he pointed out, overexcited, and you giggled at his enthusiasm. “The library’s got nothing on us.”

“It’s a lot quieter in here too,” you added. “Which is ironic, because you’d think a library is the quietest place there is.”

“Not in a high school it’s not,” Peter shook his head and you laughed alongside him.

“You got that right,” you agreed.

Gathering up your things into your bookbag, you joked back and forth with him, until you were about to head out the door and he stopped you, making you freeze. “C-can I ask you something?” he wondered and you stared up at him, wide eyed, nervous. “I’ve sort of been meaning to ask you but I get nervous sometimes and I didn’t know how you’d react but uh-”

�� “What’s up, Parker?” you smirked, having a feeling that whatever was about to happen could only lead to something good.

“Well you see, there’s this dance coming up, next week actually, and me and Ned were talking about it. Um, it’s the homecoming dance. I was wondering, if it’s okay with you, and it can be as friends or maybe more than friends but well, maybe, I was thinking…” he stopped rambling and sighed, looking at you, frustrated and terrified of himself all at the same time. “Would you like to be my date to the homecoming dance next Friday?”

“Peter-” you stared at him, fireworks exploding in your chest. “Yes! Of course!”

“Wait, really?” his eyes lit up and you nodded eagerly, dropping your bookbag and rushing up to hug him.

“Really,” you insisted, wrapping your arms around him. You had never hugged Peter before, but he was warm and comfy and he smelled like fabric softener. You buried your face into his shoulder, squeezing tight, muffling your giggles. Both of you pulled back and he was smiling ear to ear, you as well. “I wish I could stay longer, but um, I’ll be sure to shoot you a text when I get home.”

“For sure,” he kept smiling at you like a fool, and you couldn’t say anything because you bet you probably looked the exact same.

Waving goodbye to Aunt May and closing the door behind you, you took a step before instantly hearing Peter excitedly ramble on to his aunt. “I asked the question May- the one to the dance. And she said yes! She said yes, holy shit- I’m gonna need a suit. And a corsage. Where do you even get a corsage?”

“Woah, slow down there, kiddo,” Aunt May chuckled. Trying not to eavesdrop any longer, your entire face flushed, heart fluttering, fuzzy feeling enveloping you as you walked down the hall. You were falling for Peter Parker. And you were falling hard.

The car ride home with Happy was pretty quiet, and you knew you were going to get another talking to, you could just feel it. It wasn’t that you were purposely trying to be rebellious or anything, sometimes you just genuinely lost track of time. It was easy to be distracted when you were with someone like Peter. Your attention seemed to effortlessly gravitate towards him, you couldn’t even help it yourself. Making your way up to the elevator, half of you was still buzzing with excitement from your night at Peter’s, but the other half was dreading the rest of the night to come dealing with the repercussions from your dad.

“It’s nine o’clock, y/n. Where in the hell were you? And don’t even start with study hall,” your dad folded his arms, already exhausted.

“I went over to a friend’s house to study,” you explained. “I’m sorry, I lost track of the time and I just-”

“Was it a boy?” he looked at you, narrowing his eyes from behind his glasses and you sighed. “The boy?”

“What does it matter?” you whined.

“It matters because you’re the type of girl to get into trouble,” he argued and you did a doubletake, offended.

“Excuse me?” you stared at him. “I get perfect grades, dad! I’m on the honor roll! And you think that I’m going to get myself into trouble?”

“You’re my daughter, y/n. There’s no way in hell that you aren’t,” he shook his head. Tony sighed, looking you up and down, and then pursed his lips. “Does he treat you right at least? This boy?”

“Y-yeah,” you blushed, nodding, slowly feeling your agitation fade away. “He’s really sweet.”

“Is he smart?”

“Super smart. He competes in the decathlon, dad. Plus he literally studies computer programming for fun.”

“So he’s a giant nerd.”

“No! Okay, maybe. But he’s a cute nerd.”

“Alright, alright,” Tony nodded slowly. “So are you two dating or is this a crush type situation?”

“He asked me to the homecoming dance,” you told him, blushing furiously just at the thought of Peter Parker in a suit and tie, hair gelled back, swaying with you on the dance floor.

“I better get around to meeting this kid then,” he insisted. “If he’s inviting you over and going to the dance with you and all.”

“I’m sure you will, dad,” you smiled sweetly. “The dance is coming up soon and he’s obviously going to pick me up so, you can have a couple words with him then. He’ll be dressed up and everything, it’ll make a good impression.”

“Right, right,” he laughed. “Well just be careful, alright? I can’t have my daughter’s heart getting broken out here. He should know he’s messing with Iron Man’s daughter, I’ll kick his ass if he ever wrongs you.”

“I know, dad,” you rolled your eyes, giving him a big hug. “But I think we’re safe with this one. He’s a really good guy. I can feel it.”

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nad-zeta · 4 years

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Match up! (◠‿◠✿)

hiya!! can i pls get a matchup for ikesen, if its ok? 💞

bi girl i prefer guys! ambiverted intp, gryffindor, n true neutral. i have an older twin sis n i love/hate her sm lmao!!

i have medium-length straight-ish black hair (w/ a side bang to the right) & dark brown eyes!! im 5'5-ish, fun fact: im a filipina!

sooo im a complex daydreamer!! i NEED attention/affirmation or ill feel unwanted/sad. emotional scorpio, im quite sensitive. anxiety, i overthink too much! quiet w/ people im not close w/. easily annoyed but guilty after ‘cause im soft-hearted. im like half funny/playful/kind & half deep/mature/awkward- hopeless romantic! i have a way w/ words, sorta poetic? i wanna be the best! sorta socially anxious, i have a fear of judgement. im not innocent but ppl think i am at first. i look fine but deep down im a big mess. rlly smart & knowledgable. vv passionate, big nerd actually! im like a kid w/ my twin but w/ others im more mature. im the type to do fun stuff and loosen up but would also just cuddle and have long convos. im vv good w/ technology! very imaginative, i come up with stories a lot- around others im very quiet because i literally have no idea what to say. actually a big history fanatic, hehe. i act confident but im not rlly, actually vv insecure and i regret a lot of things.

a habit of mine is that i tend to drift away and just… think? i also tend to care a lot abt my appearance! i get competative but there are also times when im just chill. i get vv embarrassed when i lose control tho n i regret it sm :(( i have loads of trouble asking for help even if i like to help others a lot! i like being organised but i tend to be… chaotic.

hsjsh- fun fact: there are times where im just,, super hyper n say the weirdest things? im good in school but,, im lazy yknow- i love math (surprisingly, i got a natural talent?), science (esp abt stars n space), history, and english (actually my 2nd languange but im very fluent) the most. bilingual but im also learnin french! wanna learn latin too tho but id break down- i have the fear of the unknown, failure, n loneliness! im scared of the future cause its beyond human ability to know,, the only guys ive rlly talked to r family members so my awkwardness goes 100x hsjsjs

oh, i rlly love affection, but i need a lot of space too, tho! girls gotta have privacy- games r a hUge part of my life, so is technology and the modern era! i actually like sports too- not very good at em tho :((

some likes: gaming, jokes (esp corny/stupid/puns), space, stars, weapons (esp swords/guns), philosophy, psychology, testing myself, affection, animals, doing exhilirating things, music, movies, books, writing, astrology, astronomy, learning new things, & mythology.

some dislikes: too much heat, school presentations, creepy dolls, being under pressure, dirty things, blind faith, & annoying people.

tysm! omg i hope this isnt too long- i think this is too long?? yIkes i hope that this is ok!! love ur writing btw! stay safe 💞

Hi hi love! thank you so much for the request! You sound like a wonderful person and omw it soooo cool that you have a twin! I actually think she sent in a request right after you did lol! Anyways sorry for making you wait sooooo long and i hope you enjoy it! @x-joie-x

So i match you with...................... Mitsuhide

The first time you meet this sneki boy, you were quiet and reserved. War council had just ended and you were named as a princess of the Oda forces. You were super socially awkward, and anxiety was slowly starting to creep in, as the curious warlords started to surround you. It wasn’t until Mitsuhide had pulled you away in a teasing manner to save you from the crowd that you finally started to calm down. He had noticed this new little mouse had been on edge since arriving. However, he didn’t suspect you of being an assassin or spy as, during the whole council, your hands shook, and you could barely speak up against Nobunaga’s demanding and commanding tones.

Mitsuhide had found you incredibly amusing from the first moment you walked in, you caught this foxes eye. He didn’t know if it was the innocence or naïve purity that just seemed to radiate from you, but for some reason when he was looking at you, he found that he simply couldn’t look away.

It took all of one day for all the warlords to officially drop all suspicions of you. You were just such a sweetheart how could they not instantly love you and feel the need to protect you. You had started helping a few of the maids that first morning after you were named princess. You didn’t want to be a freeloader, so you worked hard to earn your keep and soon, the maids were fighting over who would get to work with you cause all of then just loved and adored you so much.

You got annoyed with Hideyoshi when he first found you helping the maids, as he was 100% started micromanaging you. You lost you cool and raised your voice at him, TBH Hideyoshi didn’t think anything of it, but it wasn’t until you had pitched up at his manor an hour later to apologize for being so rude to him that he realized what a sweet and sensitive person you truly were. Of course from that moment onward you had gained yourself a big doting brother.

All the Oda forces agreed that you were too sweet and naïve for your own good, so Mitsuhude was assigned to give you princess lesson to prepare you for your new life as Oda princess. You were super excited when Mitsuhide had told you that he was going to teach you a variety topics such as economics, politics, history and self-defence. You even managed to impress the sneki boy, by getting all the questions correct on the first test he had handed you. You had found that first test incredibly easy as you were a bit of a history buff, and all the questions had been based on Nobunaga’s history. This low key shook the sliver kitsune a little bit, as this proved that not only were you pure and naive but you were also super smart. You kind of reminded him a little bit of Mitsunari, a cleaver professor with their head in the clouds.

Mitushide praised you for your ability to pick up on concepts quickly and work diligently as a student, “I dare say little one, you are the best student a teacher could ask for.” You spend masses amount of time with sneki boi, and through that time you realized just how sweet Mitsuhide truly was, although he was a massive tease leaving you a blushy mess almost every day after lessons with his teasing comments. And naturally, the more time Mitsuhide had spent with you, the more in love he fell. It was also noted by the fellow warlords that, Mitsuhide always wore a soft gentle expression when it came to you, and in your experience he had been a kind gentle patient teacher. SO naturally you found yourself more and more drawn to this mysterious man.

Through all the time spent with the kitsune, you found yourself opening up more and more. He was one of the few people that got to see your playful side. You now would make the puniest, corniest jokes he has ever heard, leaving this kitsune in a fit of laughter mid-way through a lecture. Not only that, but he loved loved loved your competitiveness side.

This side of you slowly started to surface after the 3rd or 4th self-defence lesson when you started challenging the kitsune to rematches whenever he would pin you down, ultimately beating you in your little makeshift sword fight. Boy oh boy, don’t even get me started on the shooting lessons, once you were able to fire the rifle, you were straight-up challenging this boy, the best marksmen around to a shoot-off. “Come on Mitsuhide, the first one to get 100 bulls-eyes in a row wins, and the loser has to buy tea.” Needless to say, you always lost and even though every day you would make that exact bet, Mitsuhide would always insist on sticking you for tea and lunch as reward for being such a good student.

He really enjoyed spending time with you and would absolutely insist on holding your hands whenever the two of you were on your way to the tea house together after your lessons. “I can’t have my clumsy little mouse tripping and falling now can I.” Every day without fail, he would say that to you as he wraps his big hand around your small one, while leading you to your favourite tea house.

The two of you would talk about everything and anything over tea, these topics ranged from you making stupid jokes, to talking about random topics such as philosophy and psychology. Either way, Mitsuhide loved to spend time with you. He would always listen to and hang on to every word you said, storing every word in his memory.

You were his precious little mouse, and he knew you were an extremely sensitive creature. If anyone dared say a single bad word to you or make you sad, they would face the wrath of this very protective kitsune. Like one time, one of the visiting daimyos had talked down to you for accidentally bumped into him. You were busy cleaning the windows when you accidentally lost your balance and bumped into him. He was so disgusted that a mere maid had touched him. He started yelling at you and insulting you, this escalated to such a point that he even had his hand raised ready to hit you for getting dirty window water on his shoes. That’s when sneki boi decided to intervene. Mitsuhide legit stood protectively in front of you with his rifle pointed at the man’s heart, with the full intention to shoot. “Golly me it appears like you are quite the troublesome little mouse, my dear.” He then turned his sharp gaze towards the daimyo “I do suggest you apologize to the Oda princess, lest you want to answer for your crimes directly to Nobunaga.” The man simply scoffed and walked away. Mitsuhide then turned to you and enveloped you in a warm hug while kissing the top of your head, “Are you alright, my dear little mouse?” Mitsuhide looked into your beautiful eyes and gently took your hands in his, “Come little one, I have something I wish to show you.”

The two of you walked hand in hand to Mitsuhide’s manor, Mitsuhide led you out into his garden, where you saw something so beautiful you could cry. The garden was filled with flowers and candles and in the centre was a table set up, with a feast laid out op top of it.

Mitsihide had told you that night that he was hopelessly in love with you. He was overjoyed when he had discovered that you like him, was also a hopeless romantic and that you had an incredibly poetic, romantic way with words. You handed him a letter in which you had expressed your feelings for him in the form of a beautifully written poem. You were actually intending to leave the poem on his desk as a way of confessing your feelings. This instantly melted sneki bois heart into a giant puddle and he couldn’t help but pull you in for a sweet kiss.

After diner Mitsuhide had led you deeper into the garden where a fluffy blankie was sprawled out on the grass, he guided you to sit down and the motioned for you to lookup. Above you, a thousand stares were shooting across the sky in a big meteor shower. Mitsuhide pulled you into his arms and kissed your cheeks as the two of you watched the sky. He always remembered every detail you had told him about yourself, so when you revealed that you loved the sky and the stars, he knew he had to incorporate this rare meteor shower in your date somehow.

This had sparked a new tradition between the two of you, to stargaze and spend the whole night in deep conversation. These nights were full of love and affection as Mitsuhide would pull you into his lap and just hold you there for hours and hours as the two of you talked and watched the sky

Of course sneki boi also had a bit of a spontaneous side, and would take you on exhilarating trips around Nobunaga’s territories. They were mostly missions but after you had nagged Nobunaga to give you permission to go along on the missions, you and Mitsuhide would finish the official work asap so that the two of you cuties had plenty of time to enjoy yourself in the new environment.

Mitsuhide loves everything about you from your slight messiness, to your love of learning new things. He also knows that his sweet little mouse sometimes needs some space and alone time and will be sure to give you as much alone time as you need to recharge. He knows that you will seek him out when you have had enough of your own company. He will always welcome you back with outstretched arms when you have had enough alone time, and shower you with endless amounts of affection.

Whenever you are feeling insecure or worrying about the future Mitsuhide is right there by your side, whispering words of affection and reassurance in your ears. He makes sure to remind you every day just how perfect you are and just how much he loves you.

Often you can be found in sneki boys lap with your head resting comfortably in the crook of his neck as he soothingly strokes your hair. Don’t be surprised if this sneaky kitsune drops a few kissed on your nose, cheeks or lips during these quiet and peaceful moments, just as a way to convey how much he loves and adores you.

Other potential matches……………..Masamune

I hope you enjoyed it dear and i hope you have the best day!

#ikesen matchup #matchups #match ups #matches #akechi mitsuhide #ikesen mitsuhide #ikemen sengoku mitsuhide #mitsuhide akechi #mitsuhide ma #submission

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kuriboo · 4 years

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YuGiOh GX Month 2020

Day 22: Stop Blowing Holes in my Ship!!

This is the rarepair day, and I, predictably, have chosen to write about Jesse Anderson/Chazz Princeton. I think about these two more than anyone really should, by this point. Decided to write some season 1 content; I like to think Jesse was enrolled in North Academy while Chazz was, and there was some reason he just wasn’t at the school at that time. This is just one possibility... But, well, this is canon divergent territory so whatever I say goes anyway, I guess.

This is obviously very late... I have lots of opportunity to write these days, but not a ton of time to put it up anywhere, and I honestly only decided to write this a week ago, or maybe two, after looking at the prompt list again in my Bastion Erasure messages. I also plan to write one more, for the Arc V day, but it’a not gonna be done in September, sorry about that. I’ll probably have it up on October. I’ll put the ao3 link for this one in the notes!

⁂

"What a week it's been, huh?" Jessed asking the bug on his shoulder

The past week had been intense. Normally, Jesse would be in class right now at North Academy. After building his deck for the entrance exam, he had risen high up in the ranks, even though he was just a freshman. Maybe it was because he had bonded with his new bug deck so quickly and so well, rather than pure dueling ability, but it still had caught someone's attention. A few weeks ago, that fella in charge of Industrial Illusions, Maximillion Pegasus, invited Jesse and his bugs to this big tournament with all these duelists he ain't met before. Today had been his second duel in the tournament, and these duels were at least as hard as the duels at North Academy were, those duels being the hardest Jesse had ever faced. He'd managed to win the duel, but it wasn't easy.

For whatever reason, though, whenever Jesse looked out to the audience, he always saw Pegasus looking at him. Pegasus always looked like he was mulling something over in his mind, but he was always looking at Jesse when Jesse saw him. It was a little strange, but Jesse wasn't going to let it throw him off. He was going to give this tournament his best shot and try to leave without regrets.

He couldn’t let himself get distracted now, anyway. He was already thinking about his next opponent in the tournament, and how to face whatever strategies they might use. He was back in the room he’d been assigned to stay in for the duration of the tournament. It was fairly simple room; there were a few chairs, a bed, a closet, and a TV. It sure was comfortable, though.

When the door to his room opened, Jesse nearly jumped out of his chair. “Whoa, that sure spooked me,” Jesse said quietly to himself as a staff member entered the room.

”My apologies.”

”It’s fine, I definitely ain’t upset or nothing. It’s not time for my next duel already, is it?” Jesse asked. He knew he would be dueling more often as the tournament progressed, but this was sooner than he’d figured it would be. His previous duel ended not long ago. Yet, it was strange for someone from the tournament staff to be here otherwise.

”It’s not time for you to duel just yet. We received this today. It’s for you.” They gave Jesse an envelope with his name written on the front.

Jesse smiled. “Thanks!”

As the staff member left, Jesse opened the envelope, his bug friends crowding around to all try to read it at the same time. It was from Chancellor Foster, from North Academy; the date the letter was sent was written in the top right. It’d been sent out not long after Jesse left North Academy. He’d set off for the tournament almost as soon as he got the invitation, since the trip itself took over a week. It wasn’t a surprise to see the mail travelled slower. Even so soon after he left, it was a letter updating Jesse on how much had happened in North Academy between Jesse’s departure and when the letter was written.

Apparently, a lot happened in a short time. A freshman from the main branch of Duel Academy had transferred to North Academy just before Jesse left for the tournament. Why the transfer occurred wasn’t clear, but it wasn’t any of Jesse’s business. As it turned out, that freshman had reached the top rank of North Academy after putting their new deck together, as part of North Academy’s entrance exam. Jesse rose his eyebrows as that. This duelist must be really good, ranking as the top duelist with a deck full of cards they’d never used.

It sounded like this duelist was going to represent North Academy in the upcoming duel against the main branch, too. Jesse wouldn’t be able to see it in person since he wouldn’t be back to the academy yet, but he couldn’t wait to hear the results.

”Chazz Princeton, huh? I’ll have to remember that you.”

As good as this Chazz Princeton was, Jesse still hadn’t dueled them yet. As soon as Jesse returned to North Academy, it would be time to change that.

A duel later, not long after dinner, Jesse was practically vibrating with excitement.

The next duel, just 36 hours away, would be part of the semi-finals. He was so excited to be in the tournament, to have made it this far, that he couldn’t think strategy right now. He didn’t know what to do with himself, but if he couldn’t get himself to prepare on the upcoming duel, maybe watching a duel on TV would help him think of new ideas? Seeing other duelists’ decks and strategies and all? Jesse turned on the TV and began flipping through channels to find a duel to watch.

He stopped when he found a duel that immediately captured his attention. It looked like the duelists were around his age? That was odd, since students usually didn’t weren’t broadcasted, especially on a live broadcast like this one.

A few minutes later and Jesse found out that this was apparently the big duel between North Academy and the main branch. He blinked. Did he forget this duel would be televised? He didn’t remember hearing that it would, but...

It looked like the main branch had chosen a duelist, too, which made it hard to figure which duelist represented which school, but after a couple of moments he was able to figure it out. The duelist in the black jacket was Chazz Princeton, dueling for North Academy. Duel Academy’s duelist had a red jacket on; it sounded like his name was Jaden. Both students had interesting cards. Jaden had these cool looking hero monsters, they seemed like fun friends to have. Chazz looked like he was using North Academy’s legendary Armed Dragon deck. The deck could appear weak at the beginning of the duel, but Jesse knew better to judge it by that. The biggest lesson any student at North Academy learned was that there were no truly bad cards. All cards could be good, as long as you knew how to use them.

Chazz had just summoned Armed Dragon LV 7. Soon anyone who was unaware of the deck’s power would no longer underestimate it. Beyond it’s powerful stats, it also had the ability to destroy all its opponents monsters, making it a force to be reckoned with. This deck was legendary for a reason. Soon, Jaden was able to defend himself from the direct attack without losing life points, but it was close. He’d barely been able to keep himself in the duel.

This was a close duel. Jesse was on the edge of his seat. Even if the situation looked bad for Jaden, Jesse knew he couldn’t count out Duel Academy’s rep just yet either.

A few turns later Jaden was able to destroy Armed Dragon LV 7 with a card effect, proving Jesse to be right. Jaden had less life points, but he now had the upper hand.

”I hope Chazz can pull through still,” Jesse muttered to himself. “It’d be nice to see North Academy win this year...” Of course, this was Jesse’s first year, so he hadn’t been present for last year’s duel. But as the school had prepared for this year’s duel, he’d quickly learned North Academy lost last year. It wasn’t a close match, either. The school’s moral, especially the chancellor’s, had been hit hard after that.

Plus, it was clear by now that Chazz’s status in North Academy had been no fluke. He was a good duelist and definitely deserved to win. Not that Jaden didn’t deserve the win either, Jaden was fairly good himself, but... Besides just wanting his school to win, Jesse wouldn’t deny that Chazz was kind of cute. That fact definitely had him leaning even more for Chazz’s victory.

After Chazz’s next turn, however, something changed.

All the sudden Jaden was telling Chazz about how dueling for fun, not for the win itself. Jesse knew Jaden was absolutely right. Jesse hadn’t even questioned whether they were both having fun. Yet, looking now at Chazz, it was clear he was stressed. Jesse frowned. He knew Chancellor Foster and the other students wouldn’t put this much pressure on Chazz to win this duel, so who was? Someone else?

Was Chazz putting some of that pressure on himself?

Many people experienced test anxiety, even people who excelled in what they were tested on. Jesse had seen it before, and experienced it himself in the past; slap the word ‘test’ on anything and people get nervous. Suddenly, people forget the answers to questions they otherwise knew. Maybe this duel could be considered something like a test. Maybe this was a bad case of test anxiety.

No matter what, Jesse hoped Chazz would be able to relax and pull through. Duels weren’t made for stressin’.

Chazz told Jaden to surrender while he still could, but Jaden was having too much fun to even think about it. Jaden hoped that during his next duel with Chazz, Chazz would be able to have fun, and Jesse found himself hoping that, too. Chazz didn’t deserve the pressure he was under.

Jaden’s next turn came, and the broadcast lost its signal as Jaden attacked. That attack would’ve left Chazz with no life points, and there was definitely no was for Chazz to avoid it. It was weird that it cut right then, but Jesse didn’t need to see anymore anyway. He already knew how the duel ended.

Both duelists were only in their first year of school, but it was clear they both were skilled duelists. Bringing out Armed Dragon 7 and devastating Jaden’s life points with a direct attack was not an easy task, especially someone using Armed Dragon for the first time. Destroying Armed Dragon was no easy task, either. Jaden, as the winner, was very obviously a good duelist.

Chazz, though? No one should think any less of him because he lost; Jesse sure didn’t. That’s just the way the cards played out sometimes. No one could win all the time.

Jesse had already been interested when he heard Chazz was the top duelist in North Academy right after transferring. Now that he’d watch Chazz duel, he really wanted to duel against Chazz. He couldn’t wait to meet him.

Though Jesse had a feeling he would want more, all he could hope was that he and Chazz could at least be friends some day. Not today, not with this tournament still to finish, but some day.

Chazz at the very least was not going to get out of a duel with him.

#gxmonth2020 #gx month 2020 #tater writes #yugioh gx #tater.txt #thanks for hosting this cool event!! Wish i hadn’t been too busy for it!

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autisticpeterparkerheadcanons · 5 years

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They say if you can’t find content for something, then make it yourself, so here’s autistic!Peter Parker headcanons that literally no one asked for. I’ve seen some, but they all seem to be very similar, and I need MORE and also I have a different take on it, SO. (My brain that needs Categories for Things doesn’t know what to do with this exactly because it seems that a lot of people think the common labels are too ableist and I don’t disagree, so I’m calling this stealth!autism because it’s Not Obvious And Undiagnosed But Still Relevant, AKA me, lol.)

Under a cut because this monster weighs in at just over 2k words. Oops.

Also, ya know, a little bit AU because I hate that Tony sold the Tower. :P

Tony was the first to realize anything was different about the kid, after he started spending more time actively mentoring him after the Vulture fiasco.

It was small things at first. He didn’t think much about it. The first couple of months, most sarcasm went completely over the kid’s head (which, okay, Tony’s brand of humor isn’t really mainstream anymore, he thinks -- he doesn’t speak meme -- and maybe that was the problem because the kid does slowly catch on to it, and fewer and fewer awkward moments ensue as time passes). He stuttered and didn’t often make eye contact, but he wrote that off as more nerves than anything. He rambled about one topic non-stop sometimes, but he wrote it off as anxiety -- a need to fill the silence. His hands were always busy, if not with anything productive, then a constant fidgeting. Once again, probably just nerves.

But as time passed and Peter became decidedly more comfortable around him, none of those things disappeared. Maybe he stutters a little less, but nothing about his mannerisms changed. And the longer he knows Peter, the more little things come to his attention.

Peter has a hard time taking verbal instructions. It’s not that he’s not listening or focusing. It’s more like he just doesn’t...comprehend? process? It just doesn’t always stick. And that’s okay. Tony can work with that. He makes Peter repeat instructions to make sure he’s got it, or he writes it down if he can’t just show the kid himself. Everybody learns differently, after all. (Tony would know.)

Peter often stayed for dinner when he came to the Tower, and Tony noticed the things he liked to eat and the things he wouldn’t. “You don’t like mushrooms? Uncultured!” -- A shrug. “I don’t mind the taste, but I can’t stand the texture. Same goes for shrimp.”

(He files that information away for safe keeping. Do Not Make Shrimp.)

And, really that was just the start. The seemingly ‘little things’ piled up.

One night, after Peter had left, Tony was puzzling everything over. Trying to figure this oddly eccentric kid out. Pepper offered a listening ear.

“It sounds like he could be on the spectrum? It’s a lot of little things, but they add up. It fits.”

And, oh. That made sense actually. But... “Why would he not tell me that?”

“You’re still his hero. He probably doesn’t want you to think any differently of him.”

So Tony doesn’t say anything. There’s no tactful way to ask something like that, after all. Peter will tell him when he’s ready to -- if he ever is -- Tony figures. But until then, he’ll just keep adjusting. Life is probably hard enough to navigate, no need to make the workshop that way, too.

Peter doesn’t know. He’s always been aware that he’s different, sure, but he has Ned and -- more recently -- MJ as friends and (most of) the Decathlon team, so it’s okay. He doesn’t mind, not really.

(He didn’t present in the ‘normal’ ways when he was little, so, just like Tony, all the adults in his life wrote off the ‘little things’ as something else.)

And then everything happens and suddenly he’s spending a lot of time with the Tony Stark and getting to work in his lab with him, and if the Tony Stark does’t mind that he’s kind of weird and awkward, then he must not be that weird or awkward. Tony doesn’t interrupt his rambles or look annoyed by them. He doesn’t comment on the fidgeting or stuttering. Peter doesn’t know when the hero worship ended, but he thinks it probably had something to do with the sheer amount of patience the man has for him and his oddities.

(And, don’t get him wrong, Tony is still his hero, but it’s different now.)

Besides his aunt and Ned, he thinks Tony might just be the most comfortable person to be around.

Second semester starts, and he finds out he needs to take an elective instead of a free period in order to stay on track to graduate. Unfortunately there’s only one class that’ll fit in his schedule as is and he doesn’t really want to mess around with the placements of his other classes, so he ends up taking some sort of health class, but not the fun home-ec ones where you get to cook and eat the stuff you make. He’s not exactly dreading it, but he’s not looking forward to it either.

Instead of having an exam for midterms, they have a project, the topics assigned at random, things like depression and anxiety and ADHD. Peter’s topic is Autism Spectrum Disorder. Like most people his age, he has a vague idea of what that is, but he thinks it’ll be interesting to learn more about, so he’s at least not dreading doing research.

He starts with the basics, what it is and how it works and the ‘markers’ of how you can tell if someone is. Which leaves him vaguely confused. Because some of these things sound like him? But he’s not, so.

He ends up in forums, because he knows that the strictly medical side of things often doesn’t actually do it justice with how it is to actually live with something. On every forum he slogs though there’s always at least one thread about not being formally diagnosed at all or not until adulthood. And he always reads those because how could something like that get missed? But he quickly finds out it’s really pretty common (or, at least, more common than he thinks it should be).

He goes to blogs, too. Between the two, he finds a million and one things that people on the spectrum deal with that ‘official’ sites don’t tell you. Actual people relate what it’s actually like, and suddenly there’s this seed planted in his mind because holy crap does he identify with this and suddenly a lot of things make more sense.

He’s not sure how he gets there, but he ends up on an online AQ test and he takes it. He doesn’t technically score high enough, but he’s borderline (and the higher end of that, even, barely missing the lowest number, and if he’s honest, a couple questions he wasn’t entirely sure how to answer and that may have made a difference), and the site itself says, “89% of those who fall in the borderline category are diagnosed” and...

He doesn’t really know what to do with this information. He’s almost 16 and he’s old enough to understand this kind of stuff so surely if May knew she would have told him. But how the heck do you even ask about something like this? “Hey, May, am I autistic?” just wasn’t going to cut it. And if she didn’t know, that would be even more awkward. So he doesn’t. He buries the thought and ignores it the best he can.

But Tony notices because of course he does. He asks if Peter is alright and spends an awful lot of time staring at him with that expression no matter how many times he says he’s fine. Eventually, Tony does drop it with a quick “I’m always here to listen if you need to talk -- no judgment” and Peter appreciates that more than he’d like to admit, but just like with May, how the heck do you start a conversation like this one? So he still doesn’t.

For a while after, everything is fine. He turns in his project, gets an A on it, and he puts it out of his mind.

Finals pass, and summer vacation starts, which means he has more time to swing around Queens and more time to spend with Tony in the lab. This is going to be the best summer ever he’s pretty darn sure.

It’s late June, and Peter is staying the weekend because May is out of town and any excuse is a good one. AC/DC is playing over the lab’s speakers, just like normal, and he’s rambling about something when he suddenly becomes very aware that that’s what he’s doing, that he’s actually info-dumping, and -- he cuts off mid-sentence. Because he hasn’t thought about this in months, but it’s back again. What if...?

He zones out, he’s not sure for how long, but the music clicks off and suddenly Tony is sitting directly in front him, obviously concerned. Very concerned, because he’s not even trying to hide it. “Peter? What’s wrong?” No nickname? Tony is definitely on to him, and he’s not going to get away with saying ‘nothing’ this time. He stares down at his hands, and he can’t help but rub his fingers together (he doesn’t really have anything else to fidget with at the current moment so).

He’s very aware of the silence and that Tony is still waiting for an answer. But he doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything.

(To Tony’s credit, he doesn’t so much as shift or sigh. He just...sits and waits. He’s not usually such a patient man, but Peter is different. He can be endlessly patient with Peter. Pepper says it’s because Peter is practically his kid, and he’s not so sure about that, but whatever.)

The silence is uncomfortable and he can feel himself starting to panic, but he forces himself to breathe and try to unscramble his thoughts. Because whatever he says, he’s determined to not say it bluntly. There has to be a subtle way of asking...maybe...right? He’s determined to try, anyway.

In the end, he settles on a mumbled, “Mr Stark? Do you think I’m... different?”

(And Tony has to steel himself because he’s known for more than six months at this point and he’s just been waiting for this conversation so you’d better not mess this up, Stark.) “Maybe. But that’s not a bad thing. Normal people don’t accomplish things worth remembering.”

“You don’t think I’m...weird? or awkward?”

“You’re a teenager. ‘Weird’ and ‘awkward’ are kinda part of the job description.”

Peter almost smiles. He knows Tony is joking with him, but... “No, I mean....” He cuts off. He doesn’t know what he means, really, and trying to figure it out is exhausting. “I don’t know. Never mind. It’s not important.”

“If something is bothering you, that makes it important to me.”

Peter isn’t sure what to think of that, and silence drags on again.

For a hot minute, Tony thinks he blew it. But then Peter speaks up again, and when he finally starts, he rambles it all out and doesn’t even try to sort it out. He just...wants it out. “I just... I don’t fit in, Mr Stark, and I’ve always known that and I’ve been okay with that because I’m just me, ya know? And if other people don’t like me, that’s on them not me, or at least that’s what I’ve always been taught and everything, it’s just I’m weird and I know it, and I’m just...” There’s a pause, and he’s not sure Tony even hears what he ends with, “I think there’s something wrong with me.”

(At this point, Tony realizes that Peter probably didn’t have any idea until a couple of months ago. Oh. Well.)

When Tony replies, it’s not how Peter thinks he will. “Does this have something to do with that mid-term project you had to do?” He finally meets Tony’s gaze again, and Tony adds with a smile, “You were acting kinda like this then, too, kid.”

He looks back down at his hands and mumbles. “Autism. That’s what my project was on.”

“And you think you are?”

Peter can’t even find it in him to nod. He just...keeps staring at his hands and waits for the other shoe to drop because surely this is it, this’ll be the thing that’s too much on top of everything else, and Tony will boot him out because he doesn’t want to deal with it.

It’s only quiet for a moment before Tony says casually, “You wanna know who else is on the spectrum? Einstein. Or, I guess I should say was, but that’s irrelevant.”

Peter is looking at him again, because What???

Tony smiles at the look on Peter’s face. “I’m serious. People who know far more about it than I do say he probably was.” He shrugs. “So your brain works a little differently. So what? It just means that you’ll see answers no one else will. So the way I see it, that just means you’re gonna change the world, kid.”

Peter decides maybe he can live with this after all.

(They go back to work, the music clicks back on, and it’s a solid ten minutes before it dawns on Peter. His head snaps up and over to where Tony is working a few feet away, and says, “You already knew, didn’t you?”

Tony just laughs and says, “Pep guessed before I did really, but I guess you could say that. I’ve had a hunch since around Christmastime.”

And that puts him more at ease than anything yet. Tony knew and still treated him exactly the same as before. He decides maybe this is okay.)

(Not a week later, when Peter shows up at the Tower to work on stuff, he finds a box on his workbench. Inside are various fidget toys. All he can do is stare as Tony comes up beside him.

“Try ‘em out. Let me know what you like. That way I can have a stash because God knows you lose things like no one I’ve ever known.” It’s all said with a fond smile, and Peter knows it’s true -- he does lose things like crazy.

Peter decides he likes the cubes, and Tony is true to his word. “This one stays here, on your table. Here’s another one that stays on your desk at home. This one is a spare for your backpack, and this one is to carry around wherever. I also have three more in the drawer over there for when you inevitably lose one.”

They’re all superhero-themed, and he’s pretty sure Tony commissioned the designs especially for him, though he can’t prove it.

At some point a weighted blanket appears in his room in the Tower after a movie night where Tony pulls out his and Peter comments how AMAZING it is. He gets another one for home for his birthday. Both are also custom-made superhero-themed colors.)

#actuallyautistic #autistic peter parker #MCU #autistic headcanon #tony stark #irondad and spiderson #respectfully asking to not tag as st//rker please and thank you #because it's only intended as irondad :)#also there will be more with like May and Ned and MJ #and the other Avengers because #Canon who? never met her lol

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hayesit · 4 years

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matt’s 2019 year in review

here it is! and it’s late because i had other/better things to do (and procrastinating), was recovering from hangovers (also procrastinating), and recovering from being sick (procrastinating).

i’ve been doing these year in review posts since 2016, so here is my fourth installment. every year i look back through my google calendar, my camera roll, and my bullet journal as a gratitude exercise and to chart my own development as an adult.

here is my spotify wrapped 2019!

the beginning of this year was off to a good start: i met two friends that i know through the internet! i met my friend riley when she visited boston (i met her through a mutual friend and through overwatch league twitter) and my friend jimmy that i’ve known for…. 6 or 7 years (?!) through tumblr and designed the logo for me and alex’s late podcast, hardly tea, may she rest in peace.

i moved dorm rooms in between the fall and spring semester, and once again i was not happy with where i lived. i lived with 4 rando’s that i was placed with and the 5 of us barely even talked with each other. my direct roommate i saw for only two weeks, and for the nights he slept over in the bed (that he was paying room and board for) and had the worst snoring humanly possible that not even earplugs could kill (video below). i hardly slept while he was there and roamed the halls of riverview suites like a ghost due to the anxiety i felt about my lack of sleep (we love a vicious circle)! he disappeared after those two weeks without notice and i lived in fear of him returning for the rest of the semester (which he didn’t), but returned to my normal sleep schedule.

youtube

that semester was my first semester of full-time grad school. i got a poor grade on an assignment that had a note from the professor that said she knew i could do better and it hit me how much different grad school is from undergrad and how much more effort and dedication it requires. after crying in my professor’s office, my work ethic has improved since then, but it’s not anywhere near where i’d like it to be (more on that later).

now to more positive things for the spring semester: i met some friends that semester both ~on and offline~ that made the semester far more bearable AND i did however truly pop off in every last one of my powerpoint presentations for class. i looooove making powerpoints and just fuckin telling jokes about my research topic and have ppl tell me that they are looking forward to my presentation & that i should teach college classes :)!

me and 4 friends had a social group in which we’d drink and play board games and forget about the board game and drunkenly talk shit called cabam after all our first initials! i always looked forward to that and dug the group chemistry a lot.

during this semester i grew a “ beard “, otherwise known as i chose not to shave just to “ see what would happen “ (praythatitfilledin). sorry about that!

the overwatch league was something that i had to look forward to watch every week and i had my experience enhanced through sideshow and avast’s unofficial companion streams, which guaranteed lots of laughs. i have bought tickets to two boston home games in 2020 which i am very excited about! analysts have predicted boston to be in 20th place this year (there are 20 teams) but i’m still excited for the 2020 season anyway!!

i can’t have a year-in-review of 2019 without mentioning game of thrones. due to the show’s final season being undeniably weak, i enjoyed the camaraderie with the other people that watched thrones during those six weeks. i haven’t thought about the show or its universe for quite a while, unfortunately. i truly was quite into the world of westeros, but the weakness of the end of the story cheapened the journey of each of the characters, in a way. such a shame.

while i got my diploma in december 2018, i walked across the stage of umass lowell’s tsongas arena with my bachelor of arts in psychology (and minor in theatre arts). it wasn’t as emotional or triumphant of an experience and just felt weird, considering i had already gotten my diploma and was going to remain in the clutches of rowdy the riverhawk as i am staying for my masters degree in applied behavior analysis/autism studies. i brought a ceramic monkey to graduation. it didn’t have any symbolism, but i just wanted to see if they’d stop me (which they didn’t)

this summer was better than most summers of mine go, i hung out with alex nearly every weekend, got my very first iphone, and got a data plan. the combination of these three things got me back into playing pokemon go, an unexpectedly fun pastime! went on lots of walks!

my favorite day of summer was going to a lake with alex and our friend gianna, who i grew closer to after meeting her during macbeth last year. fond 2019 memories with gianna include: doing simulation patients with her, watching movies with her and alex, and the halloween party. what a great gd person and a great gd friend! big fan and eternally rooting for her.

fire emblem: three houses came out on the switch in august and is, without a doubt, my game of the year. there’s truly so much to love about the game: the world, the characters, new changes made to the series, things that were gone but returned, interesting micromanaging, and best of all, how huge my brain feels when playing it.

i got a 6-week summer job as a paraprofessional at an extended-school-year program for children with developmental disabilities at a preschool in haverhill which taught me a lot of lessons, such as: i hate cleaning shit off of children.

then i had feelings that didn’t make much sense for about a month! whoops!

my full-time job i currently have is working at my old high school as a behavior specialist. i provide consultation and work on programs to lead to more appropriate behavior in students, primarily ones with developmental disabilities. so far it’s been fairly rewarding, some days are more challenging than others, some days are a lot of sitting in meetings, and some days are a lot of running around. some days there is not much to do at all, which has its obvious upsides and downsides. working at the high school isn’t something that i want to do forever, but it’s a good place to start with. i’m definitely learning a lot and there are a lot of benefits to working here. sometimes i can work on my grad school work (which is all online until the 2020 summer semester) which is definitely huge. and my commute is either a 15 minute walk or 3 minutes if my mom drives me!

a ~complex~ thing about working in my hometown is that it makes the most financial sense to live at home because it’s so close to work. this is my first time living at home full-time since high school and i’m not enjoying that part too much. most weekends i visit alex in lowell, but being stuck at home with no car (going to retake the license test in the spring when the ice melts!) and having to go to bed so early definitely hurts. sure, i have what is likely the lowest amount of expenses i’ll ever have in my life (no car-related payments, no rent, no groceries), but i feel landlocked. i feel like a teenager with minimal freedom, which is in part because my mom doesn’t quite understand yet that i’m a 22 year-old that should have a lot more freedom than i do now. the most i really do on weekdays after work gets out (2:30p) is go to savers with my mom if it’s tuesday (senior citizen day), maybe go for a walk if it’s nice out (which for most of the school year, it isn’t), or be on the computer watching bon appetit videos and playing overwatch, fire emblem, or pokemon, eat a bland dinner at 6, go to bed at around 9:30. sad! truly not a situation that i want to be trapped in that much that much longer!

i think the best and most important part of this year was becoming closer with alex. as i mentioned before, we see each other most weekends, to our great benefit. our living situations have flip-flopped, with me living at home and alex living in an apartment near campus, which in both similar and different ways have taken their respective tolls on us. having each other while going through changes and stagnations in our lives has been immeasurably important. thank you alex for providing a place to be myself other than my own head. thank you for being my best friend.

now i come to the thing that i’m most excited about for 2020. not 2 suck my own horn but i have cobbled together a fuckin dream team of five friends (me, alex, chris, kelly, and molly). the two times we have all gotten together it has been so satisfying in such a wonderful and otherworldly way that i am filled to the brim of happiness being around them. the craziest thing is that i met chris and kelly through twitter! TWITTER. and they’re real-ass people and my real-ass friends! i haven’t been so pleased with something in my life like this for so long and it feels so good to have adult friends that i have chosen rather than friends by circumstance. it’s truly a crime that we can’t see each other more often, but we already have a day picked out for the next time we all do something together. feeling emotional writing this paragraph bc i love me gd friends so much!

there is a lot of uncertainty about this new year for me. i sure as fuck don’t want to live at home more than i have to but don’t know where to go, my practicum class starts for me this summer which means i’ll most likely have to change jobs (fine by me, but will be exhausting), i recently began my search for therapists and hope to find one soon to help me ~unpack things~, my thesis begins in the fall semester and i don’t know what to do for it, and i’m not 100% dead-set on working in special education. it’s been hard transitioning from living on campus and going to school full-time to the life i have now.

#year in review #personal

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pixel-pumpkins · 5 years

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6 games this year alone - post mortem

At the beginning of this year I made a plan to make 6 games in 2019, one being released every two months. My initial idea was that I use the first month to plan everything, and then use the second month to make everything, with the release happening on the last day of the second month.

I released two games this year under varying levels of success of hitting those deadlines: Saltwater Shells and Reach Out (and grab a hold of your goals). I was beginning to work on a Yume Nikki fangame for YNFG Jam, but I never finished it beyond a few early areas and messing with the tile design and minor animations.

The goal of this plan was to release more games than I had released in 2018, which was a grand ol total of 3. I was hoping, with giving myself deadlines that were not just like a week long jam, having 2 months would let me create something that was a little bit more thought out and well articulated.

Such is the nature of game design that I don’t think I really hit my goals all that much. I’m still happy with what I made to a certain extent, but the extraneous issues with the games and their release are what I think I need to work on.

Going chronologically, Saltwater Shells really tested my metal in the best of ways, and I’m pretty happy with a lot of it. I think I was overly ambitious but almost everything I set out to do is in that game. The only things that got cut was additional NPCs that you would’ve been able to interact with and give a little bit more narrative to the action of collecting sea shells. I think the game works without it, but that’s mostly everything I cut out from that game.

The release of Saltwater Shells was delayed by 10 days. A large bulk of the asset work for Saltwater Shells was done before then actually, it was just the final code that I was working on that needed to be in place so, you know, the game was actually playable. Also around that time was when I left my previous job and started at my new one. I had initially planned to be done with the game earlier since I was going to have a week off between jobs, but then it turned into just a weekend between jobs. I had to travel to Wisconsin, got a really terrible cold the day I traveled, and then travel back over the course of 3 days. I was still sick at my new job when I started it too and it was a lot of things to juggle really quickly and I still wasn’t done with the game.

Saltwater Shells still released though. I’m really happy about that. But the deadlines ended up being something that I kept having problems with. This ends up being a recurring issue, if you could believe it.

The second game was Reach Out (and grab ahold of your goals). I planned it from the start to be a crane game style game, and maybe a little bit more depressing in terms of your inability to accomplish life necessary things due to executive dysfunction or what have you. I also tried using Construct3 for the first time. So it was a learning curve of getting used to a new engine, as well as trying to pull off my plan. I used Construct3 because I really hate coding guys. Like I really hate it. I will code because I have to and I have the skills to do it, but if there’s one thing I would love to not do for the rest of my life, it would be coding. I experimented with trying to use a couple of other engines for this game, but what appeals to me about Construct was it’s pretty painless 2D physics, something that really trips me up in Unity constantly.

Being able to make a crane game was really rewarding, but really difficult turns out. This game ended up being delayed by 10 days from its original April 30th planned release date. I was really hoping to be able to get the game out on time this time, but I got sick again, and the physics method I was using was literally breaking everything or made the game unplayable.

The way Reach Out looks now is cut down significantly from where it originally stood. There was going to be at least 5 more levels and different goals per level of the crane game. There was also going to be a better method of gamifying your energy score vs. what it exists as now. I just ran out of time again.

I didn’t make any other games after that. My Yume Nikki fangame was going somewhere, but I got occupied with playing a lot of dungeons and dragons, and even wrote my own campaign. I didn’t get very far, but I liked what I had made but my energy to make games was waning after Reach Out.

I don’t like Reach Out as a game. I like the crane game part of it, because I love crane games. But it just serves as a grim reminder of my own inability to take care of myself, ironically, something the game tries to promote. My mental health went to hell before Reach Out came out and I don’t know if I’ve really recovered from the headspace I put myself in trying to finish that game. I really hurt myself mentally and physically trying to produce something that I knew was the antithesis of the product I was creating. I hate lying and dishonesty more than anything and I was being entirely dishonest with myself and my audience putting it out there under the conditions it was created in.

Promises and deadlines are the enemy to my success I think in a lot of ways. I really hate putting deadlines on things, for some reason time sensitive activities have always driven my anxiety up a wall that paralyze me. “How did you survive school?” a lot of procrastination and likewise bad mental health places. I put a lot of pressure on myself, and I think self-imposed deadlines hurt me much more than those others assign to me.

Knowing myself and my limits, I don’t want to think that this project was some kind of self flagellation, trying to push myself into a bad crunch corner that games so often perpetuate just to meet a deadline. I did QA for games, and crunch fucking sucks. I do QA for a photography company now, and crunch still fucking sucks.

The worst part about all of this is that I've been trying to write more scripts for games, I’ve been trying to learn how to use ren’py and some other game engines I’ve come across. I want to make games because I still really love them, but there’s like some kind of negative spike in the back of my head that doesn’t want me to make another game right now.

I’ve been taking a break the past couple of months from feeling pressured to create something, I have been chilling, drawing stuff for dnd, reading sherlock holmes stories, and watching a lot of youtube videos. I’m trying not to think about it and let myself recover from… some kind of hell I created for myself.

This post-mortem kind of sucks because all it really shows is that I learned I can’t beat myself and should try to work within my limits. I think that’s valuable but I really want to make a game right now. Anyway, I’m writing it also as a way to explain what’s been going on in my head lately surrounding making games. Games are fun and I’m glad you guys all like the weird ones I’ve made. I hope when I post a new one you all will enjoy it.

thanks for being here. I’ll be back when I’m ready.

#feel free to read this #its kind of an update but also a post mortem on the first part of this year for me #6 games this year alone plan

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welcometophu · 6 years

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Not Your Love Song: Chapter 18

Marked Book 2: Not Your Love Song

Chapter 18

[ Previous | First | Next ]

Rory is awake far too early on Sunday. Alaric convinces him to stumble down into the dining hall for breakfast, but Rory doesn’t bother to shower first. He just wants to go back to sleep after breakfast, when Alaric leaves for OPT.

It works for a little while.

His phone starts buzzing a little after noon. Rory would guess that Alaric just hit the road in Dax’s minivan to go home, so he’s not surprised by the onslaught. He rolls over and grabs the phone, unlocks it to find three text threads waiting for him.

The oldest is from Darrik, and Rory can’t imagine why he’d be up at just past six in the morning on a Sunday.

I forgot to text that I got in okay last night after the movie. Had a good time. Bet you’re still sleeping.

At that hour? Definitely. The nine o’clock breakfast was too early as it was.

I was, Rory replies. I’m awake now. You surviving after your late night?

While they’d seen the first movie showing of the night, their group had all gone out to Teas Please after, and Darrik had dropped Rory off at just past one before heading back to Valiant. It wasn’t all that late for Rory, but for someone who works in a high school on weekdays, it had to be past his usual bedtime.

He switches to the next conversation in the list, a little surprised that it’s just Kit and him, and not the group chat with Shane, or the larger one that includes Dax and Darrik as well.

We just hit the road. Carolyn looks like she’s going to puke. Corbin is loud and he and Drea are kind of disturbingly cute. There are two people we knew in high school going with us, and having their car behind us is like having the past on our tail.

It’s a poetic image, the idea of the past literally hunting a person down, following them down the highway. Or back roads. Rory grabs a notebook and writes it down before he sends back, Is that imagery up for grabs?

Give me a shoutout when you sing it, if it makes it that far, Kit replies.

That’s easy enough. I can do that, Rory agrees. Is Alaric bored and sulking about having to go home?

I think he’s talking to Dax about football. Why? Is he texting you, too? You guys are really good friends, right?

Like family. Rory doesn’t need to think about it, or qualify it in any way. We got lucky. I think he was dreading having to room with a Mage. I didn’t know what to expect from Clan. People are so different. There’s Alaric, and then there’s Darrik.

It’s a cue, maybe, because a notification pops up to add to the trail of texts he has from Alaric. It starts with a series of apologies for waking him up early, trails into a discussion of just how thrilled he is to be heading home, and meanders into a dry commentary on public displays of affection between his sister and his best friend. It’s easy to imagine Alaric’s voice for each of the texts, and Rory’s laughing at the end. You could just tell them to quit it, he suggests.

Do you think I haven’t tried? Do you know how many Mages are in this van? And two more in a car behind us. Drea says she talked to our parents. I don’t think it matters that they’ve been warned. It’s not going to go over well.

Do you have a plan for Theobald? Rory asks.

Yeah. I’m distracting him with politics. I have a whole printed contract with Dayton’s Clan, specific to her and me allying, not the older generations. I also want to arrange a visitation for spring break. Our whole alliance plans to meet there, including the Mages.

Rory rolls onto his back, phone held above him. That’s going to be a hell of a distraction, yeah. I don’t have to worry about him trying to kill you or something, do I?

I’m all he has left.

Rory knows exactly how Alaric says it, how lost he sounds with those words. He also knows it’s not true. There’s Drea. There are other families among their Clan. There are options. He’s not sure what, exactly, keeps Theobald from stripping this away from Alaric. But something does, and Alaric’s going to continue to push his limits as long as he can.

I’m doing okay. The message pops up from Darrik, and when Rory switches conversations there are dots like Darrik is still thinking through what he wants to say next. I had fun last night, Darrik finally sends. I like your friends. I’d say I’m looking forward to Wednesday, but I’d be lying. I am looking forward to seeing you and your friends, though.

That statement makes sense to Rory. Did you talk to Lora’s parents and the people at Sunnyview?

Not yet, Darrik admits. I did try to call her parents, but they’re out. They do brunch sometimes, so I’ll probably get hold of them this evening. I’ll let you know when everything’s set. Do you need anything special for the ritual?

Rory switches conversations, pulling up the group text with Kit and Shane and staring at it for a long time before deciding he’s not typing anything there right now and switches back to Darrik. I don’t know yet, but I’ll let you know. I think it’s going to be all Kit’s focus and me and Shane trying to supply direction, and we’ll go from there. Hopefully we can reach her.

Hopefully.

There’s nothing more than that one word from Darrik. Rory shifts from conversation to conversation, ignoring what he’s been sent in favor of looking for another reply from Darrik. When one doesn’t come, he bites his lip, tries to decide what to send back.

This was a rough weekend. Are you okay?

I’m going to be. The response comes back like he didn’t have to think about it, like maybe he was expecting the question. I’ll send you info as soon as I know it for Wednesday. And probably text you when I’m bored in study hall.

Rory smiles at Darrik’s attempt to lighten the mood. I’ll look forward to it. And keep my phone on silent so I don’t get in trouble for texting my boyfriend during lectures.

This time when there’s no reply right away, Rory lets it go.

Alaric put his phone away. I can almost feel his anxiety. He’s the one who doesn’t like Heather, right?

Kit’s text comes through while Rory is talking to Darrik. It’s been several minutes by the time Rory gets to it, but he figures that’s fine. It’s not like Kit’s going anywhere; he’s trapped in a car for at least a half an hour.

Yeah, he doesn’t like Empaths. I was just talking to Darrik. He’s going to talk to Lora’s parents. He’s not looking forward to reliving any of that mess again, but he liked you guys. So he’s looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Jess won’t be there, Kit replies. But I liked her. She’s got a lot of energy, doesn’t she? But quiet energy. Like a mountain. With freckles.

Rory has to look through his photos to find one from last night, because he doesn’t have a clear mental image of Jess, and he doesn’t remember the freckles. They’re there, though. She’s tall, broad-shouldered, taking Shane’s weight when he leans on her.

He hopes Kit never actually calls her a mountain; he’s pretty sure she’d find that offensive. But he understands the reference, that kind of solid, stable energy that lies in the earth. I get it, he replies. Did you get to talk to Serina at all today? You guys seem to be doing well.

It’s only been a week. Ish.

Rory frowns at the phone. Is that your way of saying it isn’t serious? Or that it’s not a thing? Or that it’s not working? You guys seemed good last night.

I think we’re okay.

Kit’s response comes quickly, but it’s followed by a series of dots and Rory waits to see if Kit’s going to finish the thought. He reaches for his notebook, scribbles notes to himself about the idea of the past chasing as they drive down the highway, the car close behind. What happens when you stop, and the past catches up… yeah, that’s a thought.

I really like her.

The phone buzzes to let him know Kit replied, but it’s just those four words.

I think she really likes you, Rory replies.

I know. We get along really well, and she’s fun. We talk a lot, and we make out some.

Rory winces, because this may be starting to verge into TMI territory. Not that he hasn’t handled that since Thorne hit puberty, but still. He doesn’t really think he has that kind of friendship with Kit, yet.

I like kissing her. I think I like kissing in general. Which is good, right? I’m just not sure… I haven’t really wanted to move past that. She hasn’t said anything about it, which is also good, since moving past kissing starts getting into other things. But I don’t know if not wanting more is a me thing, an us thing, or maybe it’s just life.

Rory is not qualified to be having this conversation. He wants to ask if it matters right now, but he figures it must matter to Kit, since he brought it up. And maybe it matters to Serina, maybe it doesn’t, but Rory certainly isn’t going to go knock on her door to ask.

He looks at his door like it’s about to burst open on cue. Thankfully it doesn’t, but he gets out of bed anyway, just to check and make sure the door is actually still locked.

Is it something you need to figure out right now? he asks.

No, but I

The text ends there, as if Kit was interrupted or just decided to stop, and Rory isn’t sure which it is. Alaric’s gone silent, and Darrik never responded to his last. It’s as good a time as any to toss his phone on the bed and go looking for something to wear.

Rory tosses dirty laundry into a hamper; there’s enough that he probably should throw a load in while most of the world is either still sleeping off the Saturday night drunk, or getting brunch downstairs. Apparently it’s long overdue since the only t-shirts left in his drawer are the ones he wears when he doesn’t really give a shit. And every single hoodie could use a wash, so he has to decide which one is least offensive, or else just not leave the building.

He does a sniff test and decides that not leaving the building is the right answer. Clean pajama pants, an old t-shirt, and hanging out in his room finishing up assignments and working on music. He can do that.

He takes the hamper down and separates it into two washers. He walks cautiously past Serina’s room, as if she somehow knows what he’s been talking to Kit about and is going to pounce on him with her side of the story.

When he gets back to his room, he grabs the phone and checks it.

Maybe I’m just being stupid, Kit says. If I like her, shouldn’t I want to do more? Shouldn’t I be interested in

He cuts off again in that text, but another one has already come through.

I just want to know if it’s me, or if it’s because it’s her, or if it’s something else entirely. I’ve never had a girlfriend before, and maybe it’s just a time thing.

Rory closes his door, twists the lock. Have you ever kissed anyone before Serina? he asks. He strips down to his underwear and wraps a towel around his waist while waiting for Kit to respond.

Once. In seventh grade. During one of those stupid games that I honestly didn’t believe that anyone actually played at middle school parties.

I didn’t like it. But I figured it was because he didn’t know I was a guy, so it just felt weird and wrong. Most of seventh grade felt weird and wrong. Adolescence sucked in a major way.

Rory’s starting to wonder if maybe he is the right person for Kit to be talking to. He leans back against the bed, fingers sliding over the keyboard as he types. I’m not personally a big fan of kissing. I like cuddling. There is nothing better than having another body in bed with you, honestly, but it’s nothing sexual. I snuggle people I trust. Kissing always feels weird to me, and I definitely don’t want to do anything else with anyone.

Hm. Rory imagines the way Kit’s brow furrows. I do like

He cuts off again, and Rory swallows a laugh. It’s like talking to someone who’s been bleeped out.

You can like getting off without wanting to do it with another person, Rory says, his cheeks bright red even though no one’s there to see it. Or it’s possible she’s just not the right person for you. No matter what popular media says, not every guy wants to get into every girl’s pants. And not everyone is thinking about sex all the time. Even people who like it. Thorne’s an outlier. Most people are a lot more subtle about it.

Thanks for talking to me. I know you’re not a fan of sex. I appreciate it, Kit replies.

Rory does laugh out loud at that. I am betting I’m the only ace guy you know, so I’m okay if you want to talk to me about that. It’s one of those things that a lot of guys don’t understand. And Kit? It’s okay if it’s also just because you’re anxious because of everything else. That’s something you’ll figure out. Just don’t worry about rushing it, okay?

He leaves the phone on the bed when he heads to the shower. Kit should be arriving in Haverhill soon, and Rory thinks that maybe he’s had enough awkward but encouraging conversations about sexuality.

There’s a song in that somewhere. It might even have to do with the past chasing…

Huh.

He hums under his breath while he showers, and by the time he gets back to his room, lyrics are starting to form.

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