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byeomtori · 6 months

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the only exception | beomgyu x reader

pairing: beomgyu x female reader

content: love at first sight au, summer love thingy, lots of reference to paramore's the only exception and txt's our summer, pda

tw: mentions of fight and blood

words count: 12k

notes: reposting because of high demand (lol)

preview:

you were not the type to believe in the existence of love. to you, there was no such a thing as true love; no such a thing as unwavering, unbreakable, and unparalleled fondness and devotion for someone. to you, people love to get something they desire in return — money, power, status, pride. your parents were a living prove of that

the day you were old enough to understand the lack of love and affection between your parents to each other, and to you; you swore to never grow that feeling to anyone — family, friends, partner. anyone. because to you, love did not exist.

you were content living that way for years, not happy, but content.

the absence of love in your life protected you from attachment, heartbreak, sorrow — those negative emotions that you deemed unnecessary and unworthy to be sitting inside of you.

life was okay without love, you thought.

until you had to spend the rest of your summer with a distant relative whom you've never met in your entire life, in a small town with an ocean view, where fate had brought you a boy whose eyes shine brighter than any stars in the night sky.

and maybe, just maybe, love does exist.

a comforting smell of freshly brewed chamomile tea wafting in the air as you make your way inside the unfamiliar home — the one you will be spending three months in because your parents are way too busy flying around across the globe to be taking care of you.

"come on in, y/n." the woman in front of you speaks, her voice soft, the type of voice a kindergarten teacher would have.

maybe she was one, you have no idea. in fact, you know nothing about the woman standing in a yellow dress in front of you. she is pretty, even though it is evident her aging is slowly creeping up to her from the way her skin wrinkles on the corner of her eyes when she smiles. but to you, she is pretty- the mother-like kind of pretty. the kind of pretty that makes you feel warm inside.

but again, you know nothing about her. have never seen her in your entire life. never even heard her name from any of your parents until today.

aunty sue.

that was the name your mom had told you in the car this morning when she was dropping you off at the train station, she couldn't even make some time to drive you straight here, and telling you the woman is a distant cousin of hers whom she hasn't met in a long time. and that was also the name the said woman had introduced herself to you.

"do you want some tea, honey? or anything else?" she asks, making her way into the kitchen as you trail behind her like a little lost puppy.

"tea is fine," you reply.

leaning against the kitchen counter, you roam your eyes around the room. some parts of the walls are painted in pastel green while another part is decorated with a plaid wallpaper with the same color — just a shade darker. the counter tops are full of kitchen appliances, cookbooks, sunflower patterned dishes, and freshly washed vegetables along with some other things. there are random little trinkets on the windowsill — a wooden carved statue of a cat, a line of herbs in old tomato cans, and a sun catcher being hung at the corner of the window making tiny little rainbows refracting inside the kitchen.

the furniture of the dining area does not match with each other — one wooden chair with a striking blue cushion, a yellow wicker chair and another two plastic chairs in white. though everything is mismatch, it doesn't look weird. it feels right, even.

it feels like home.

very different from your house where nothing is ever out of place. the countertops made of slick white marble, picked personally by your mother, are always shiny as if no one has ever touched it. truthfully speaking, they kind of are. no one is ever cooking in that kitchen. you bet the only stains that has dirtied that counter was that one time you spilled your morning coffee on it. the stove, it looks brand new compared to the one in front of you right now which looks like it has been in service for more than a decade with how rusty it looks.

everything in your house is perfect to the tee. a façade that is what you like to think — to mask the family's imperfections.

a house that never felt like a home.

"i'm going to keep my stuff in my room first, i'll be right back," you say as you pull your luggage with you.

"sure, honey. your room is the second door on the right."

honey.

not even your own mother has ever called you that.

you haul your bag with much difficulty up the stairs, cursing yourself mentally for overpacking, before making your way to the said door. the room is spacious, not as big as your own room back in the city, but still enough to fit a queen-sized bed in the middle, a study desk by the window and a two doors wardrobe in the corner.

the glass sliding doors that lead to the balcony are being left slightly open, the warm summer breeze blowing the white sheer curtain. leaving your luggage by the bed, you make your way over to the balcony — pushing open the sliding door wider as you step out into the outdoor.

to say you are astonished is an understatement. the view in front of you is breath-taking — the house is located on top of the hill, overlooking the neighborhood and the ocean, the season's bright sunlight is making the scenery even more spectacular.

you breath in the air, inhaling the smell of the blue sea with your eyes closed.

there is someone, other than aunty sue, downstairs — you can clearly hear the sound of a male voice which is a little bit too loud to be ignored, talking to the woman in the kitchen about how his mom had forced him to deliver cake to all the houses up the hill in the middle of the day.

"y/n, honey! are you done? come downstairs, please." opening your eyes, you let out a soft sigh as you walk back inside, keeping your eyes on the ocean outside as you close the glass doors.

it's okay, you have the whole three months here. you tell yourself as you make your way back into the kitchen, the guest is still going on about how his little rant.

"i mean, don't get me wrong. i love summer, but to deliver all of them under the sun? god i felt like-.." and as he turns to face you who is standing at the entrance of the kitchen, your breath hitch in your throat.

you're not sure is it the iridescent illumination from the sun catcher beaming on him, or the glow of his skin that is glistening with sweats from biking under the summer rays, or the sparks in his eyes as he stares at you;

but oh god, he is beautiful.

not pretty, but beautiful. the angel-like kind of beautiful. the kind of beautiful that would make people turn their heads. the kind of beautiful that would make you steal glances at him if you were to sit in front of him in a train. the kind of beautiful that makes the ocean view you saw earlier lose its' price.

the once in a lifetime kind of beautiful.

"y/n, this is beomgyu, his mom owns a bakery down the hill."

"oh, this is the girl that you've been telling me about!" he says excitedly as he makes his way over to you, "she's pretty."

and you almost choked on your saliva. how can he be saying things like that so casually?!

"hi, i'm choi beomgyu," he says, extending out his hand for a handshake. "aunty sue told me a lot about you so i'm kind of excited to be your friend, that is if you want, of course."

you look down to his hand, lifting your own as you slowly put it in his. "im y/n,"

though it feels rough, his hand still holds a certain kind of warmth that makes you feel secured. you can feel calluses on his fingertips, too. does he play the guitar?

you're not even sure why you feel bashful under his gaze. you don't understand the warm fuzzy feeling you're getting when he keeps his hand in yours. you don't get why your heart is beating so fast when he says your name, the syllabus rolling perfectly on his tongue like it was made for him and only him to say.

"well then, i look forward to hanging out with you, y/n."

the conscious side of your brain is already blaring an alarm, telling you to turn him down, telling you that no, you don't want to hang out with him. that no, you don't look forward to spending your summer with him.

but despite that, you find yourself nodding to his words. "me too, choi beomgyu."

it has been three days since you have first arrived, and you have concluded that choi beomgyu is a man of his words.

you didn't think much when he told you that he looks forward to hanging out with you, thinking that he was just being nice to a newcomer and to act friendly to you.

because that's all you have ever known — people acting nicely to you.

you remember when you used to associate in a group of girls back in middle school; it was one of the worst times of your life. eleven years old you were so naïve (read: stupid) to realize that those girls were just using you for your unlimited amount of cash — always inviting you to go shopping, forcing you to throw fancy sleepovers — until one day one of them literally had to scream in your face that they were only hanging out with you for your daddy's money.

and since then, you have never tried to befriend anyone and those around you never approached or asked you to hang out, either.

so, it is a surprise to you that choi beomgyu stays true to his words.

yesterday, he had come over early in the morning looking as beautiful as you had remembered the first time you saw him; asking you if you want a little tour of the small town. you had declined, telling him you still had a few things left to unpack, leaving the boy pouting. you had felt slightly bad, just slightly.

you are in the backyard with aunty sue, picking up some ripe tomatoes from the small garden. she told you she has been tending this small part of her backyard for almost seven years now, planting

various kinds of vegetables, using the excuse of she doesn’t like the ones sold in the market, when in reality she just really loves gardening and watching her plants come to live day by day.

“is the tomato that interesting to you?”

you jump in surprise as you hear a low voice speaking next to your ear. turning around, you find a grinning beomgyu looking down at you. he peeks under your straw hat, trying to have a better look at

your face. “you look like a tomato yourself.”

you frown, “what do you mean by that?!”

he bends, hands resting on his knees, now being eye to eye level with you. humming, he continues to study your face.

there is always something about him that never fails to make blood rush to your face. yesterday it was the way he dressed — white sleeveless top tucked messily inside his black jeans. it was simple, nothing outstanding about it but to you, he was breath-taking. and today; it’s the way he’s looking deep into your eyes, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks with every blink.

the rational part of you is telling you to push him aside or to move away, to break the eye contact. but the other part that you have no idea existed inside of you until you met him few days ago, is telling you to keep staring into his sparkling eyes, to play along to whatever little game he has put on.

the rational part of you won as you take a step back, creating a safe distance between your figure and his. you can feel your cheeks flushed, fully blaming it on the warm temperature as you had been

standing under the sun for quite a while now.

“your cheeks are so red, like a tomato.” he giggles, “are you hot?”

you look away from him, hiding your face under your hat as you whisper, “k-kinda…”

he was about to move closer to you again, hand reaching over to your hat, but it stops mid-air when aunty sue is calling over for the both of you. thanking the lord and savior, you quickly make an escape

from him as you walk over to where your aunty is standing with a plate full of freshly cut watermelon in hand.

you sit beside her on the porch, while beomgyu is standing right in front of you. “tell your mom i say thank you for the watermelon,” aunty sue says and the boy just hums, hand reaching down to pick up two pieces of the sliced fruit, handing one over to you.

you thank him quietly and he smiles down at you, “you will never find a watermelon as sweet and juicy as the ones that my grandfather planted.” he boasts, and aunty sue make a sound as what sounds

like she is agreeing with him. “that’s right, mr.choi planted the best watermelon in the country.”

the scorching heat of the sun calls for you to take a bite of the fruit – it is sweet, just like what beomgyu had said. “it’s so good,” you speak under your breath. you’re not sure how he manages to hear what

you said but he did, as the smile on his face grow wider. “right? i told you!”

he waits for you to finish the slice in your hand before handing you another one, all the while still towering in front of you.

“sit down, beomgyu.” your aunty says to him to which the boy just shakes his head. “i’m protecting y/n from the sun,” he replies casually, taking a bite of the watermelon “she looks like a real tomato

right now.”

both you and aunty sue look up to him in sync. he is, indeed, covering you away from the sun — being tall makes it easier for him to shield you away from the direct sunlight of the summer rays but his back

is taking up all the consequences of his action as you can see droplets of sweat forming on of his neck, sliding down to his back.

you glance to aunty sue, a coy smile on her lips. “j-just sit down!” you scold him, pulling him down by his wrist to sit beside you on the wooden veranda.

aunty sue giggles, “talking about tomato, do you want to bring some home, beomgyu?”

he shakes his head, “thanks, aunty sue but no one in that house enjoys eating tomato.”

“but i do want to ask for your permission to steal this cute tomato away from you for the night,” he says as he pokes your cheek with his index finger to which you move slightly away. “my friends are doing a bonfire by the cliff later, i was thinking to bring y/n along.”

you hesitate, gaze moving from his face to your aunty’s. “you can go, y/n. it’s much more fun to hang out with people your age rather than spending time with me,” she ensures you.

you look back to beomgyu, his eyes hopeful as he waits for your answer.

“okay, then.” you finally give in, a wide smile making its’ way across his face.

he stands up, one hand in the pocket of his pants as he bends down to look at your face, again.

“see you tonight then, tomato.”

one conclusion you can come up after spending a good half an hour with choi beomgyu is that he does not have a sense of personal space — not that you mind, at least for now when you are surrounded by unfamiliar teenagers laughing and chattering around the bonfire.

you’ve been stuck to his side since the moment you reached the cliff. it’s not like you are that comfortable with him but out of everyone here, he is the only person you know. despite that, choi beomgyu looks like he is that comfortable with you — hand on the small of your back while walking, wrapping his flannel around your waist so that you won’t get your shorts dirty (when in reality he just doesn’t like the way the other boys are looking at the exposed skin of your legs), sitting too close you can feel his shoulder brushing against yours as he moves.

truthfully, you would have been so annoyed. but this is choi beomgyu. he is choi beomgyu and you have no idea what’s about him that makes you feel so protected. even now when he has his hand on top of your right knee while he’s talking to his friends, you don’t feel irritated.

it feels right. he feels right.

“beomgyu!” someone calls him over from behind. he sighs, “i’m gonna go talk to him for a while, you’ll be alright here, right?” he asks to which you just nod your head.

what is he expecting you to say answer? no, don’t leave me, beomgyu. as if you would ever say that out loud.

the warmth of his palm leaves your skin as he gets up, making his way over to the blue-haired boy that was calling for him. your let your eyes linger on him, watching as he gives the guy a fist bump before

both of their gaze move to you and you quickly look away.

“you’re y/n, right?” a guy who is sitting in front of you speaks.

you nod, “hueningkai, right?” you ask, remembering his name after beomgyu had introduced you to him earlier. and you glad you did from the way his eyes lit up when you get his name right. years of

attending charity events and parties where you were forced to talk to random people by your parents has thought you to imprint people’s names on your mind easily.

“heard you’re from the city. how is the life there? i really want to live there someday, it’s really boring here,” he pouts. “the nearest mall is like, miles away.”

“i think it’s fun here,”

“yeah? and why is that?”

you go quiet for a moment. why is that? — there are various reasons why you think the town is not as boring as hueningkai believes. for an example, the ocean. there is no beach in the city, the nearest one being a whole hour drive away. the air here is cleaner too, not as polluted with vehicles smokes as the city. the weather here is nice too; though it’s summer, the heat here isn’t as bad as it is back

home.

and as your mind try to come up with another reason why you think the town is fun, your eyes move over to the brown-haired boy laughing along to whatever joke the blue-haired one has said to him.

even in the darkness of the night — the only source of light coming from the fire in front of you, he is still beautiful. the way he throws his head back as he laughs, the way his eyes are sparkling under the

night sky, the dimple that appears on his cheek as he smiles.

“it’s fun because there’s beomgyu, right?”

you turn your attention to the boy sitting across from you, his eyes on the same person you were staring few seconds ago.

“do you like him?” hueningkai asks, out of sudden.

“w-what?” you look at him, bewildered. “i don’t know what context of like you are talking about, but he is a good fr-…”

friend.

you so badly wanted to call beomgyu your friend, but you don’t even have the slightest idea of what a friend is — you never had one, at least not a real one. all through your school years, you have never

really had someone you can call as friend. sure, you talked to your classmates, but they felt more like acquaintances than friends. and you never bothered to get close to anyone because you know there

are always something they want in return — money, gifts, invitations to fancy parties, rich kids from your family’s circle to date, the list goes on.

so, you stop yourself from labelling beomgyu in that way. he is not your friend, not after only three days of knowing each other.

“he is a good guy, of course i like him. what kind of person doesn’t like good people?” you say, shifting in your seat to which hueningkai just shrugs his shoulders, “i think he likes yo-…” he stops talking midsentence when someone throws their arm around his neck, holding him in a chokehold.

“taehyun is calling for you,” beomgyu says as he smiles down wickedly at the younger. hueningkai knows his friend is lying but he just rolls his eyes and walks away to where taehyun is sitting.

“let’s go somewhere,” he extends his hand over to you.

“where?”

beomgyu grumbles, “just come.” taking your hand, he pulls you up to your feet.

following him from behind, you have no idea where he is taking you as you both walk further and further away from the group, until you’re climbing down the cliff.

he offers his hand to you, and you gladly accept, “be careful.”

holding your hand in his, he wraps his arm around your waist as he pulls you down to the ground with an ease. the night is pretty chilly compared to the sunlit afternoon earlier, but beomgyu’s hand still

hold a certain kind of warmth. and even though the temperature is low, you still can feel heat rushing up to your face when he keeps his arm around your waist even after you’ve set your feet safely on the

sandy beach — you’re glad it is dark, you don’t think you want him coming up with another vegetable related nickname for you.

“i wanted to bring you here yesterday, but you were busy unpacking. and i wanted to do it today too, but you looked so tired from helping aunty sue,” he says. “i know this is not the best time to be coming

here since it’s so dark but i just thought maybe you would want to see the ocean at night too.”

you move your gaze from his face to the moana in front of you. the water is calm, small waves crashing along the shores. no one else is around, only you and him.

you were about to walk over to the water’s edge when you feel beomgyu tugs on your hand gently. “take off your shoes first, pretty girl.” bending down, he wraps his hand around your ankle before

slowly pulling the white alexander mcqueen off of your foot. beomgyu is surprised, to be honest, to the fact that you casually wear a very expensive pair of sneakers to a lame bonfire party. then again,

these shoes probably didn’t cost that much for you.

“all done, you can go now.” he stands up straight again and he can’t help but notice the pink shade decorating your cheeks even in the inky night, “tomato.” he chuckles, pinching your left cheek.

you gently swat his hand away, blushing deeper, before walking to the water again. you smile as you feel the sand seeps through your toes as the waves crash on the shore. turning around to beomgyu, you see him with a soft smile in his face as he watches you from a distance.

“join me,”

and he can’t seem to decline your offer when you’re looking so ethereal underneath the moonlight, a gentle smile on your lips as you move your feet around to play with the wet sand.

abandoning his cheap pair of sneakers beside your expensive ones, he runs over to where you’re standing back facing him. he pretends to push you further to the ocean to which you react faster, shoving him — making him fall into the water with a big splash.

“hey!” he shrieks, quickly getting up on his feet. you take that as a sign for you to run — in which you didn’t manage to escape far enough when you feel his arms circling around your waist before he pulls you down along with him into the water.

“beomgyu!” you whine while splashing more of the salty water towards him while giggling.

and that night, while you both are walking home, soaked from head to toes with your wet clothes sticking disgustingly on your skin, laughing and giggling, you thought; maybe this is what friendship feels like.

“aunty sue, i’m going out for a while!” you call out your aunt in the kitchen as you’re running down the stairs toward the front door.

she peeks her head from the kitchen’s entrance, “where are you going, honey?”

“beomgyu’s mom’s bakery!” you reply, already stepping outside and you failed to catch the tender smile your aunt is throwing your way as you are busy putting on your shoes. “i’ll be back before dinner.”

when you push open the gate of the house, beomgyu is already waiting for you on his bicycle, a hat in his hand as he offers it over to you. “put it on, it’s too sunny.”

you accept with no question, putting the white hat on. it smells like him — like a mixture of frangipani blossoms, toasted coconut, and bergamot waters. it smells like summer.

he smells like summer.

beomgyu watches as you put his hat on, holding back his smile to how adorable you look trying to tighten the hat’s straps to fit your head’s size. his hand reaches over to your face, tucking a few strands

of your hair that have come loose from your braids behind your ear. “pretty,” he whispers under his breath.

you look away from his eyes, quickly moving to sit on the backseat of his bicycle, wincing as the exposed skin of your thighs come in contact with the burning metal of the seat.

“sorry, chieko has been out in the sun for a while,” he says, referring to his bike. “you good?”

“yeah,” you shift on the seat, trying to find a comfortable position. “you name your bicycle with a dog’s name?”

he hums as he starts paddling, “my grandfather got this bicycle from a japanese owned shop. the owner used to have this really cute golden retriever by the name chieko, i loved him, hence the name.”

he explains, “is it weird?”

“kinda,” you reply to which he just laugh it off.

it has only been a week of summer break and beomgyu had come up with so many plans for the both of you. he has promised to make this, as quoted from the man himself, the best summer of your life

— to which you just responded with a raised eyebrow. you don’t mind spending the whole three months of break with him, you don’t mind at all. in fact, you would really like the idea — but he doesn’t

have to know that.

one of the plans he had come up with is; baking. and that is how you find yourself in the back of his mom’s bakery, with a baby pink apron tied around your waist and beomgyu going around in the

kitchen looking for the ingredients for the fruit strudels he had promise to make with you.

“oh, you must be y/n.”

you turn to the source of the voice, and you quickly bow your head, “ah, yeah. nice to meet you.” the woman in front of you have the same dimple as the one on beomgyu’s, and the way she smiles warmly remind you of her son too.

“you’re really pretty, just like what beomgyu had told me.”

“mom, where’s the peach?” he asks, stopping his mom from exposing him further, as he is rummaging inside the fruit basket on the counter.

the woman giggles, “is our beomgyu shy? is he embarrassed if his mom is going to tell the pretty girl all about the things he had talked about her?” she continues, emphasizing on the pretty girl.

you look over to him and notice how his ears has turned slightly red from his mom’s teasing. you’re not sure why he is acting that way when he has called you with that specific nickname so many times

already.

“mom~” he whines, all the while avoiding your eyes that are fixated on him.

his mom lets out a loud laugh — now you know where beomgyu got that from — as she walks over to the fridge behind you. “i keep them in the here, baby.”

“oh,” he says, taking the peaches from his mom’s hand. “thank you, my lady.” he leans down and kiss his mom’s temple to which his mom playfully pushes him away. the gesture tugs a string in your heart

— a feeling of longing. you can’t remember when was the last time you hugged your mom, or your dad. heck, you can’t even remember when was the last time they asked you about your day.

“have fun baking, y/n. i’m only a shout away if you need something, okay? in case beomgyu burns the kitchen down,” she jokes again before walking out to store again.

beomgyu sighs, “sorry about her. she can be a bit… overbearing sometimes.”

“no, she’s fun.” you says, stepping closer to help him with the fresh fruits.

and that’s how you spent your thursday morning; baking various fruits strudels — peach, strawberry, mango, blueberry. well, it was beomgyu who did most of the work but nevertheless, you had fun

cutting up the fresh fruits.

the oven digs, indicating the pastries have been baked. beomgyu pulls the tray out, before setting it on the flour-covered counter. “oh, it smells amazing!” you exclaim excitedly.

“wait until you taste them, they are,” he looks down at you, making a chef’s kiss gesture to which you just giggle. “well, we have to let them cool down first before putting the cream and the fruits. wanna

go up to my room while we wait?”

you hesitate, never ever in your life have you ever stepped a foot in a boy’s room. despite that, you find yourself nodding to him, “sure.”

he nods, taking off his apron and waits for you to take yours off before snatching it from your hands, hanging them on the hook by the fridge.

following him up to his room which is located at the second floor just right above the bakery, you notice the picture frames decorating the wall going up the stairs. family portraits, baby pictures of

whom you assume are beomgyu and his brother, wedding pictures of his parents, a picture of beomgyu’s kindergarten graduation. it’s like the family’s own little hall of fame.

imagining your house in your mind, you don’t think you have any other picture being hung on the wall aside from that one huge family portrait in the living room — the one where you were looking so rigid

sitting in between your parents. you hated that picture, and you still do. family portraits are supposed to be a symbol of happiness, a symbol of affection, a symbol of a healthy family relationship but your family does not have any of that. the picture that was taken in the fancy film studio in france was just another attempt to cover the family’s despair. it’s pathetic, really. how hard your parents are trying

to come off as a happy married couple with a perfect daughter. throwing the money away for material things that can cover up the lack of happiness in the household. it’s pitiful, the only thing they need to be raising a happy family is the one thing that they lack in life.

a loud chirping at your right as you step onto the landing of the second-floor surprises you. you turn your head to look at the green-colored parrot in the cage. it has its’ head tilted as it stares up at your

unfamiliar face.

“this is toto, my pet.”

“your pet?”

he nods.

“out of all the animals you can have as a pet, you chose a parrot?”

he shrugs, “toto is everyone’s best friend in this house.”

you blink, and he does too.

“oh, okay.” you say and he nods. “come, my room is this way.” he leads you over to the door that has a messy scribble of ‘choi beomgyu’ in colorful crayons, opening it for you and urging you to take step inside. “after you.”

his room is surprisingly neat. well, it’s not like you have seen a guy’s room before but you did assume beomgyu to be a little messy kind of person — the usual clothes on the floor, comic books scattered

on the bed, snacks wrappers on the desk. but his room is clean, no used clothes on the floor, only a round foldable table in the middle of the room.

“how long are we supposed to wait for the pastries to cool down?” you ask, taking a seat on the floor by the desk. “around half an hour,” he replies. “you know what other baked goods i’m really good at?”

you shake your head, “tell me.”

“pumpkin spice cupcake, but we don’t have any in the store now. it’s not autumn yet so finding for pumpkin is quite hard this time of the year.” he explains.

“how am i supposed to have a taste then?”

“that means you have to come here again during autumn,” he says. “i’ll bake every autumn desserts for you. beside, don’t you want to see my pretty face in a different season too?”

you grimace, “what difference does your face make in autumn?”

he laughs before reaching over to his guitar that was leaning against the wall beside the door.

so, he does play the guitar.

“do you want to hear a snippet of the song i wrote?” he asks while tuning his guitar.

“you wrote songs?”

“yeah, for fun though. i’ve never really let anyone listen to it, aside from the guys.”

“sure,” you say, holding in your excitement.

“i wrote this a few days ago, it’s not finished yet but i’ll try to give my best.” he gives you a smile before he starts strumming his guitar strings softly.

and when you thought choi beomgyu is already beautiful from the way he smiles, from the way his eyes twinkle under the summer sunshine, from the way his whisker dimples form on his cheeks when

he laughs — here he is giving you another reason to think that he is the most heavenly person you have ever came across when he opens his mouth to sing.

your fresh fragrance, your sparkling eyes

makes me feel better

reality loses its power, even the earth dies

the moment is eternal

you’re not sure is it the way the sunlight shining through the open window or the way his eyes are fixated on you while he sings, but you can feel the blood rushing to your face, leaving your cheeks feeling so warm.

no matter where you are, no matter what season

if we’re together, feel like summer

“this is getting boring.” says hueningkai as he throws the uno cards on to the floor before plopping on his back on the ground.

“agree, we should be doing something else.” taehyun, who has been scrolling on his phone since half an hour ago finally spoke.

beomgyu, with his four other friends along with a few others are sprawled out in choi yeonjun’s basement. they’ve been doing everything that they deem fun to do in the last four hours — the video games, board games, card games, truth or dare (in which beomgyu had successfully dodged every single question and dare related to you).

“let’s hit the diner, i’m kind of starving,” one of yeonjun’s friends, minho, suggest to which the other boys agree without any objections.

“nah man, i’ll pass for tonight.” beomgyu says, already standing up from his seat, “think i’m going to go home and sleep.”

“really, sleep?” minho asks, smirking up to beomgyu. “or are you going to see that girl, what’s her name again? y/n?”

beomgyu raises his eyebrow, “what does y/n got to do with this?”

sensing the shift in the air, soobin quickly nudges minho in the rib. “hey, shut your mouth.” says the older.

“i don’t know, beomgyu?” the blondie continues, “i barely see you hang out with your friends lately. every time i ask them where’s beomgyu, their answers were always the same; hanging out with y/n.” he pushes his tongue against his cheeks, clearly enjoying how extremely annoyed beomgyu looks.

“you don’t even have time for your friends anymore now? why? too busy fucking that little rich bit-…” and the next thing beomgyu knows is he is on top of the guy, throwing punches across the blondie’s

face as both soobin and yeonjun try to pull him away.

“don’t you fucking dare say that word.” he yells out loudly, throwing another blow on minho’s cheek.

minho forcefully pushes beomgyu, making the latter falls on his back as the blonde-haired boy climbs on top of him, punching him on the corner of his lips before yeonjun had to (literally) throw hands

towards minho to make him stop punching his younger friend.

there’s a loud ringing in beomgyu’s ears, his head spinning.

he was never one to resort to violence when it comes to anything. aside from that one time he accidentally kicked a girl in elementary school while trying to show off his hapkido skills, beomgyu has never hurt anyone physically. but there is something about the way your name rolls on minho’s tongue that make him sick to the core.

he gets on his feet after regaining his vision again, blood trickling down from his lips. he gives his friends one last glance before running up the stairs of the basement, slamming the door loudly as he walks out.

wiping his bloody lips with the sleeve of his hoodie, he curses under his breath, thinking he can’t go home with bruised lips and blood stains on his hoodie — his mom would make a big deal about it.

so, he continues walking — passes the front of the bakery, up the hill. feet moving according to where his heart wants him to go. to find comfort.

and it wasn’t a surprise to him as he stops in front of your aunty’s house, looking up to the second floor where your room is. the lights are out, total darkness surrounding your room. of course, it’s half

passed midnight, of course you will be sleeping by now.

beomgyu is not sure why did he came here. it’s not like he wants you to see him in this state — bruised lips, fresh blood still oozing from the cut, tousled hair, red stains on the sleeve of his yellow hoodie.

no, he doesn’t want you to see him looking this miserable. he was just trying to look for comfort, and to him, his comfort comes in the shape of a girl in an oversized blue t-shirt standing across from him.

“you scare me!” he says as he finds your figure standing in front of the gate of the house.

“what are you doing out here?” you ask.

“what are you doing out here?”

you cross your arms on your chest, “i saw you from the window.” though the only source of light shining on him comes from the dingy lamppost above him, you’re still able to make out his busted lips.

stepping over to him, you gently take his face in your hands. at that moment, beomgyu knows coming here to actually see you wasn’t a bad idea when he can feel the heat from your palms engulfing his cheeks.

he wanted solace and apparently you are his.

“what happened to you?” you ask softly, afraid that if you raise your voice any higher it might hurt him.'

“i fell…” he says, “for you.”

you take your hands off his cheek, slapping his arm to which he jokingly winces in pain. “how could you slap me when i’m already this wounded?” he pouts, “i did fell, okay? i tripped while coming up

here. the hill can be pretty steep sometimes.”

“you’ve been going up and down this hill your whole life, how can you suddenly fell today out of nowhere?”

“i don’t know? people make mistakes, y/n.”

you roll your eyes, “come on, i’ll clean it up for you.”

beomgyu didn’t hesitate to follow you into the house, up the stairs and into your bedroom. you lead him over to the bathroom, trying not to make too much noise and waking up your aunt in the room

right across from yours— you don’t think she would appreciate you bringing a boy into the house in the middle of the night, and the last thing you want is her thinking there’s something passionate going

around between you and the baker’s son.

taking his face in one hand gently, you blow onto his cut. “it’s going to sting a little, okay?” he hums, enjoying the cool breeze from you on his open wound.

he watches you tentatively as you dab the antiseptic on his skin. “does it hurt?” you ask to which he just shakes his head no. “okay. phew, this is kinda scary.” you giggle as you lean closer to his face again, your nose a few inches away from his.

beomgyu roams his eyes all over your face — your eyes, your nose, and your lips. he observes the way your long eyelashes flutters against your soft cheeks with every blink you make. the way your pupils dilate as you are so focused on attending his busted lips. the way your nose scrunches up occasionally when he lets out a low groan of pain. the way your lips are pull into a pout while you’re busy nagging to him.

even under the ugly fluorescent light of the bathroom, with you wearing the most basic clothes — no fancy summer dresses, or blouses, or expensive sneakers – with your hair messily being put up into a bun, face free from any kind of make-up, to choi beomgyu; you are the most beautiful.

and in the daze of post-punched and being in your presence, he lets the words slip out of his mouth.

“you are so fucking beautiful, y/n.”

the saying of time flies when you’re having fun is actually true. days have turned into weeks, and weeks have turned into months — it’s already been two months since you first arrived in this small

town with the ocean view.

the past months have been filled with many new things you’ve never experienced in your life — going hiking to see the sunrise with beomgyu, harvesting vegetables and herbs with aunty sue, helping

beomgyu’s mom in the bakery, binge eating snacks at the convenience store past midnight with beomgyu and his friends, barbecue party with the townspeople.

and the most precious thing you’ve encountered during this summer break is friendship — not only with beomgyu, but his friends too. you’ve come to get comfortable with yeonjun, soobin, taehyun and

hueningkai along the way after spending time with them. beomgyu had brought you along to hang out with them a few times, and you had grown to enjoy the boys’ company, too.

and beomgyu has stay true to his words about making this summer the best three months break of your life.

“you look pretty already,” aunty sue says behind you as you’re busy fixing the strands of your hair framing your face.

turning to look at her, you pout. “i’m not.”

“beomgyu thinks you are.”

you blush, looking into the mirror to avoid your aunt’s teasing eyes. “i’m done, let’s go.”

“you’re not going with beomgyu?” she asks as the both of you are walking down the hill, a rattan basket in your hand.

“he said he’ll meet me there,” you explain. “he has to help his mom with the bakery booth.”

“ah, right. i forgot about that.”

another new thing you get to experience in this small town is their annual summer festival. aunty sue had told you that the town’s mayor came up with the idea of making the festival around a decade ago

in an attempt to give some sort of entertainment for the kids and teenagers, and also the adults, in the town during the season. it was a great success the first year it was being held — with more than

thirty booths of various foods and games. hence, why the summer festival has become the town’s annual event now.

as you reach the festival’s venue which is being held by the beach, you see soobin and yeonjun chattering at a booth near the entrance. you hand aunty sue the basket before excusing yourself to talk to the boys.

“yeonjun! soobin!” you call out, running up towards them. “oooh, y/n! you look so cute!” soobin exclaims excitedly as you stop in front of him. “but not as cute as choi odi, though.”

“choi odi?” you question and the boy nods “my pet.”

“a cat?”

“no, a hedgehog.”

you grimace — what’s with this group of friends and their weird animals as pet?

“what? you don’t think hedgehogs are cute?” he asks.

no, they look like rat — is what you wanted to say but you don’t have the heart to voice those words out from the look soobin is giving you. “yeah, they are… not bad.” you say before moving your gaze

away from him.

yeonjun notices the way your eyes are scanning around for the familiar mob of brown hair in the sea of visitors, and he chuckles. “his booth is on the other side,” he says. “want us to show you the way?”

your cheeks flushed from being caught but you thank him, anyways. “it’s okay, i’ll go by myself. i’ll see you guys later, then!” you say, walking away from them while waving.

you were about to walk around, trying to find his mom’s bakery booth when you hear your phone’s notification inside your bag. pulling it out, you smile as you read the name of the sender.

beomgyu: where u at, pretty girl? i saw your aunt but not you.

you quickly type in your reply.

you: i’m at a cotton candy stall near the entrance, omw to find u

beomgyu: stay there. i’ll go to u.

after waiting for a while, you spot him walking over to you — dressed in a white button up shirt, tucked inside his black jeans. hair slightly dishevelled from the ocean breeze. he has a smile across his face as

he keeps coming closer to where you’re waiting for him.

even in the sea of people, choi beomgyu is the only one that caught your eyes. you could be in a big ballroom of a masquerade party and the only one that has your attention is still choi beomgyu — there’s

just something about him that you can’t seem to explain that make you only look at him and him only.

you look up to him when he stops in front of you, the smile from earlier getting wider. “hi, pretty.” he says before his hand reaches up to your face, tugging the strands of hair behind your ear neatly. this

has been a little habit of his that he really loves doing whenever he sees your hair getting on your face — never once have you told him that you purposely let those strands untied.

“the firework show will be at 8pm, so we will have around,” he checks his phone, “hour and half to walk around. what do you want to do?”

“you’re not helping your mom’s booth?”

“my brother is here, so he’ll be helping mom for today.” he says, peeking to the stall behind you. “wanna try the cotton candy?”

there is already a line of children waiting for their turns to get the sweet treats in various shapes —heart, bunny, flower, and even a unicorn. when it reaches your turn, beomgyu asks you what shape

you would like for your candy, and you eagerly point at the bear on the menu sheet.

“here’s your order, mr. lover boy.” the man says, handing the stick of the bear-shaped cotton candy to beomgyu. “enjoy your time here, lovebirds.”

“we’re not-…”

“thank you, we will.” taking the candy from the man, beomgyu put his hand on the small of your back, leading you away from the line.

you look up at him, blush evident on your cheeks. why didn’t he deny the man earlier? lovebirds? love, really? “beomgyu, why didn’t you-..” you pause mid-sentence when he hands you the cotton candy.

looking up at him, then down to the cotton candy that is still in his hand, then up to him again and down to the candy again, you let out a laugh.

he furrows his eyebrow questioningly, “what so funny?”

taking out your phone, you open the camera app. “stand still.”

he complies, standing still with the cotton candy in hand all the while you’re giggling and snapping multiple pictures of him. “are you done?” he whines.

you show him the photo on your phone screen, swiping right to let him see the rest of his pictures you’ve taken. “the bear looks just like you!”

“is it funny to you?” he asks, wrapping his arm around your waist as he tickles your side. you squirm in his hold, laughing harder. “it is, because it looks exactly like you- ah! beomgyu, stop tickling me!”

he holds onto the stick of the cotton candy tighter as his other arm is still wrapped around your waist. beomgyu has always known of how beautiful you look when you smile and laugh, but, oh god. right

now, where you’re laughing to your heart’s content, in his arm, dressed in the loveliest white summer dress he has ever seen, with the warm glow of the sun slowly setting, he swears nothing else is as

beautiful as you. not even close.

“beomgyu, please stop. i’m going to pee.” you beg, tears from laughing pooling in your eyes. he lets you go slowly before handing the cotton candy to you which you gladly take.

“let’s go,” he says as he takes your free hand in his, pulling you into the gleeful summer festival.

you spent a good hour touring around the festival — eating tanghulu and few other famous street foods. playing random games at the game booths even though you knew they were all rigged, it was

still fun — beomgyu did won you a small teddy bear keychain from the dart game.

you visited your aunt’s stall too, where she’s selling little handcrafted trinkets. you couldn’t ignore the cheeky smile she sent you when she saw the way beomgyu was holding onto your hand.

then, you went to his mom’s booth where you met his brother for the first time. you were kind of expecting the teasing from him, but you didn’t know it would be so bad to the point you had to ask beomgyu for a glass of water, afraid you might suddenly pass out from the excessive blood rush.

it was fun. you don’t think you have experienced this much fun in your life. the last time you felt happy was when you had visited disneyland back when you were ten. with your maid, not with your parents. you don’t think you would have enjoyed it as much if you did go with them.

“we have 10 more minutes before the fireworks show.” beomgyu says as he leans his side against the railing. he had suggested to go up the cliff to have a better view of the firework. you thought it’s going

to be a packed spot but surprisingly there are only three other people there, sitting distance away from where you and beomgyu are standing.

you can feel his stare from the corner of your eyes, making your cheeks flushed. god, is it possible to lose one’s life from immense blushing? if it is, then you’re in a terrible danger.

“have you ever been in love?” he asks suddenly.

at that moment, the only thing you can hear is the loud ringing in your ears. gone the sound of the festive happening down by the beach, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, the sound

of the people behind you chattering. the sound of beomgyu’s voice.

have you ever been in love?

have you? you want to say no. you want to tell him that you don’t believe in love — that you would rather believe in the existence of a flying elephant rather than believing in love. you want to tell him

there is no such a thing as love in this world. there is no such a thing as sincere love. people love to get what they desire in return — money, power, status, pride. your parents are a living prove of that.

you want to tell him if there is one thing you are so fucking afraid of in this world, it is to love.

you want to tell him that you don’t think love is worth taking the risk, you don’t think it’s worth fighting for. love is not a real thing. you’ve seen so many people from school getting heartbroken over a

breakup with their lover, only to jump into a new relationship a week after that. if love is a real existing thing then, how could you move on so easily like that?

you so badly want to tell him, but no words come out from your mouth as you stare into his sparkling eyes.

“you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he says after sensing the discomfort on your face.

“have you?”

“yeah,” he says, now facing the sea. “i’m in love with a lot of things — my family, my friends, toto, my bicycle.” he says, shifting on his feet, “i love helping my mom in the bakery, i love writing songs even

when no one listens to it. i love this town, no matter how boring it gets sometimes, i still love it.”

“i love summer,” he says as he turns to face you again. “i love summer because it brought you to me.”

you were about to say something to him when you hear the announcement from the speakers that the fireworks will be going off in the count of three.

ignoring the proclamation, you keep your eyes fixated on his. he is staring at you endearingly, a soft smile on his lips as he takes a step closer towards you.

three

he takes another step forward, until the tips of his shoes are meeting yours.

two

he tugs the strands of your hair behind your ear like he usually does, only this time he didn’t put his hand down, keeping it on the soft skin of your cheek. he rests his other hand on your waist, pulling you slightly closer to him.

one

he tilts his head, leaning down towards your face before stopping, leaving a small gap as he waits for you to make the next move, an unspoken sign of asking for your permission.

and as the fireworks start shooting in the sky, you stand on your tiptoes. hands resting against his chest as you lean forward, closing the gap in between your lips and his soft ones.

it started off with you gently resting your lips on his, until he starts to pull you closer by your waist — where he deepens the kiss.

it feels magical.

the way his lips are massaging softly against your own, the way his thumb is caressing your cheek in the gentlest manner, the way he tightens his hold on your waist — not hard enough to hurt you but

strong enough to keep you in place, the way his heart is beating so fast under your palm. the way the sky is glowing and shimmering brightly with the non-stop fireworks.

he is magical.

it’s not like you have ever kissed a boy before but the way beomgyu is kissing you with so much care, with so much affection, so endearingly, with so much love — you know the kiss is perfect. you just know it is.

because you don’t need a flawless kiss for it to feel complete, all you need is choi beomgyu to be the one kissing you.

to you, choi beomgyu is the epitome of perfection.

the ringing of your phone wakes you up from your deep sleep. reaching over to the vibrating device on the nightstand, you pick up the call without checking the caller id.

“hello?” you say, voice hoarse.

“y/n?” shoot, it’s your mom. “are you still sleeping?”

“uh, yeah. i just… woke up.” you sit up on your bed, eyeing the clock on the wall – 12:04pm. if there is one thing your mom hates, it would be tardiness — in anything, including the time you wake up from

sleep.

“i slept really late last night,” in which you did. after the summer festival, and the whole kissing thing, beomgyu had walked you home. not forgetting to give you another kiss, which felt more like a peck,

before he left. and you had stayed up until almost four in the morning replaying that particular scene on the cliff over and over again in your head.

you hear your mom sighs from the other end, “how you been doing there?”

oh, that’s new.

“it’s been okay,” you twirl the end of your blanket. “aunty sue is a very war-…”

“listen, y/n. i’m kind of busy right now. i just called to remind you about your leave after the summer break.”

and that is when reality hits you.

“your dad thought it would be a good idea if you come home this weekend. to make early preparations.”

shit. how could you forget?

“i’ll send a driver to pick you up this sunday,” she says, and you can hear rustling from her end, “i gotta go.”

when the line goes off, you remain holding your phone against your ear.

how can you get forget? did you forget because you’re too busy having fun here? did you forget because you finally found something, or rather, someone to share your happiness with? did you forget

that you’re only here temporarily, to take a breather from the crowded city? did you forget that you’re not supposed to be attached to anyone?

you’re leaving. you’re leaving the country in september. you’re leaving for a university on the other side of the world. you’re leaving your home. you’re leaving this town.

you’re leaving beomgyu.

beomgyu.

these past months, you have been engulfing yourself too much into whatever temporary fantasy he had created for you. you were so into it that you started to brush away all of your beliefs that have

been your pillar your whole life. you were so blinded by the happiness he had brought you that you started making an exception for him.

and for the first time in two months, for the first time since you have arrived in this small town with an ocean view, for the first time since you met the boy whose eyes shine brighter than any stars in the night sky — you want to be anywhere but here.

you know you’re being a jerk to beomgyu — ignoring his calls and text messages, lying to him about coming down with a fever, forcing aunty sue to make up whatever excuses she could think of

whenever the boy stopped by to catch a glimpse of you, pretending to be sleeping whenever you saw him standing under the lamppost outside of the house at night.

you’re being irrelevant and you know that better than anyone else. but you can’t find any other way to explain to him about everything — you’re not ready and you don’t know how to. you know he’s in

love with you, and maybe, just maybe, you do harbour the same feeling for him as well — but you're in denial.

love does not exist.

that’s what you’ve been telling yourself every day.

you’re going back home tomorrow, and you have successfully avoided beomgyu up until this point. until aunty sue had to (almost) beg on her knees asking you to deliver an official government letter to

the choi’s place. she had come down with a summer fever herself, making you feel bad if you refuse to help.

and that’s how you find yourself inside the the bakery’s kitchen that saturday afternoon, a brown envelope in hand. you are glad it is saturday — meaning beomgyu is not around as he always spends

the day at taehyun’s place.

you peek around the kitchen, no one in sight. there’s no one behind the register in the bakery too. is the shop closed?

you hear footsteps coming down the stairs, turning around with the envelope still in hand, “mrs. choi, aunty sue asked me to-…”

you blink, hands coming down to your sides.

leaving the brown paper on top of the counter, you were about to make an escape before you feel his hand wraps around your wrist, tugging you back to him.

“y/n,”

“let me go,” you say under your breath.

he pushes you against the wall, trapping your body. “are you okay?”

out of all the things he could be saying to you right now, he’s asking you if you’re okay? out of all the mean things he could be spitting to you right now for ignoring him without explanation, the words

that came out from his mouth are those of endearment.

you avoid his eyes, afraid that you might break if you catch a glimpse of his sparkling eyes. “i’m fine.”

“then why have you been ignoring me?”

“i wasn’t feeling well.”

“then, that means you’re not okay.” he says softly, “look at me, y/n.”

you look up at him, tears pooling your eyes. “why are you being so difficult?!” you didn’t mean to scream in his face, but at this point, your brain has lose control — your body moving according to your

heart.

beomgyu is taken aback by your sudden outburst, “what?”

“why are you making it a big deal that i’m not talking or hanging out with you anymore?”

“how am i supposed to not make it a big deal when the person i’m in love with is pushing me away?” there, he said it.

“love?” you say, while trying your hardest to keep your tears from falling. “there is no such a thing as love in this world, beomgyu.”

“are you saying my feelings for you are invalid? of course, there is. there’s love everywhere in this world.”

“no, there’s none!” you scream again, “how can you fall in love with someone within, what? two months? that’s unrealistic, beomgyu.”

“you don’t need years to fall in love with someone, y/n. you can be by someone’s side for decades, shares one roof, sits at the same dinner table and sleeps on the same bed for years and years onwards

but if there is no love then there will be no love until the end.” he raises his voice slightly.

you finally let your tears fall as images of your parents cross your mind — of how unhappy they are with each other, of how their eyes never hold any kind of affection for one another. they have been

married for almost two decades now — live under the same roof, eat at the same dinner table, sleep on the same bed, wear the same silver bands around their ring fingers – but the love was never there. it’s never going to be there.

if there is no love then there will be no love until the end.

they are the reason why you’re acting the way you are now.

"i don’t need years to fall in love with you, y/n.” he wipes the tears on your cheek gently, “the moment i saw you that one summer afternoon, i knew i was falling head over heels for you.” he pauses,

searching for your eyes. “i knew that i’m in love with you.”

“tell me, y/n… did i do anything wrong? is it the kiss?” he asks, “i’m sorry i stepped over my boundaries.”

“it’s not the kiss,” you whisper.

“then? what’s bothering you, baby?”

more tears come out of your eyes at the nickname, “this whole thing,” you gesture to him and you, “you know it’s not going to last, right?”

he shakes his head, “no, i know you’re going to back to the city after the break, but we’ll make it work. it’s not even that far. you know people do anything for their loved ones, right?”

you take a deep breath, before wailing loudly, not caring about anything anymore. “you’re not gonna love me anymore after i leave, beomgyu. and i’m not talking about going back to the city. i’m leaving the country soon, to the other side of the world, for four fucking years, choi beomgyu!”

“i’ll wait for you, i promise.”

“no one is that stupid enough to wait for someone for that long. why take the risk of waiting years for someone? what if i suddenly came back with a boyfriend, or a fiancé?”

“you worth all the risk in the world, y/n.”

“why are you making things difficult for me?” you push him off of you before you make a run for the door. you continue running up the hill, tears still spilling out your eyes.

you stop, looking back to where you came running from. he doesn’t come chasing after you.

and a part of you wish that he did.

“is this the last one?” your driver asks as he loads the last of your luggage into the car’s boot.

you nod, thanking him to which he replies with a nod of his head. turning to face your aunt, you take her hand in yours. “thank you for taking care of me in the past two months.”

she smiles, rubbing on the back of your hand with her thumb. “are you sure you don’t want to see him first?”

you shake your head and the woman just nods hers before pulling you into a hug. it’s warm. she has always been warm, ever since the first time she picked you up at the train station. she has treated you

like nothing less than a family member, though you and her are very distant relatives.

“i’ll miss you.”

“i’ll miss you too, honey.” she caresses your hair. “come back soon, hm?”

you nod, moving away from her warm hold. “bye, aunty sue.”

as the car drives past the familiar bakery, you look down to your lap, droplets of tears wetting the thin fabric of your skirt.

and just like that, your temporary happiness ends.

the leaves start to wilt, slowly turning brown as the season transition from summer to autumn. the temperature getting colder and colder as each day passed by. no more scorching sun, no more clear

blue sky, no more children running around by the beach.

he stands on the cliff, overlooking the ocean. nothing much has changed since three years ago — except some parts of the railing has awfully broken down. honestly, he prefers it that way — the town not

changing. the way the town looks boring to an outsider, but actually holds a lot of hidden wonders.

the town holds a lot of dear memories to him. this is the town he has grown up in, the town that taught him all the life lessons that made him the person he is today, the town that brought him a girl

that he could never forget, even in his next life.

he looks over to the sea. if he swims far enough, would he reach the other side of the world? to where you are right now?

three years.

it has been three years since he last heard anything from you. it’s not like he didn’t try reaching out to you, he did, multiple times. he tried calling your phone, only to be greeted with the same bot telling

him that the number is no longer in service. he tried looking up for your social media — facebook, instagram, anything. but nothing ever came up with your name aside from a profile website of your

family, a picture of fifteen years old you under the words ‘daughter of a successful businessman and the uprising fashion designer’. he thought you look adorable in the picture, despite the lack of life in

your eyes.

three years went by and you still haven’t come back.

three years and all he could think about every day is you.

you, you, you.

his friends have been telling him to just let it go, telling him it was just a summer fling, telling him it’s time for him to move on, to go meet new people in college.

but he didn’t. he knows what is worth it in his life — you are worth the wait, the risk, everything.

he tugs his hands inside the pocket of his coat, the air is getting so chilly despite it being only september.

“thought i would find you here,”

he turns his head so fast as he hears the familiar voice, he thought he might get a whiplash from it. but as he stares at the figure standing across from him, he thinks he is experiencing more than a whiplash right now.

there you are, standing five feet apart from him. he roams his eyes over your smiling face, and he wonders how is it possible for someone to be this beautiful. you look different from the last time he

saw you, in a good way.

your hair is slightly shorter compared to three years ago, you have lost the baby fats on your cheeks too, making your cheekbones stand out when you smile, and your eyes, they no longer look like the one he saw on the last day he saw you, or in the picture from the internet. your eyes are filled with life now, sparkling under the grey sky of the autumn morning.

“i went to your mom’s bakery but you weren’t around. figured you would be-…” you didn’t get to finish your sentence as the man takes a long stride towards you before pulling you into his arms.

he holds the back of your head with one hand, pressing your nose against the base of his neck while his other hand is wrapped around your waist.

he still smells the same — a mixture of frangipani blossoms, toasted coconut, and bergamot waters.

even in a different season, he still smells like summer.

you wrap your arms around him, “sorry i took too long.”

shaking his head, he wraps his arm tighter around you figure — afraid that you might suddenly evaporate into thin air, and this is just another night dream of his. “no, thank you for coming back.”

“thank you, too. for waiting for me.”

he pulls you away from his neck, staring deep into your eyes. “i promised i would wait for you, didn’t i?”

you nod, smiling up at him happily. you notice how he had grown few inches since the last time you saw him that one afternoon in the back of his mom’s bakery, from the way your neck is straining so

much looking up at him. his hair is no longer the deep shade of brown anymore, it's ash grey now.

he leans down, tilting his head as he nudges your nose with his — waiting for you to close the distance between his lips and yours, just like what he did that one summer night, in this exact same spot.

and as you finally rest your lips upon his — you think about how choi beomgyu is worth all the risk that you’ve took. the arguments with your parents because they kept opposing the idea of you dating a

nameless boy from a small town, the cramped semesters because you wanted to cut one semester off so you can come back to him a year sooner, the longing and aching feeling for him you got whenever

your friends in university talk about their partners. at the end, there were all worth it.

choi beomgyu is worth it.

you are still a firm believer of love does not exist. it’s hard to get rid of that idea when you’ve been sticking to it almost all of your life. and given that your parents’ eyes still lack of love and affection for

each other even after being married for a whole two decades now, it’s impossible to accept that there is love out there for everyone.

but to you; love exists in a form of a boy whose eyes shine brighter than any stars in the night sky, and that is all that matters to you.

and to choi beomgyu; even under the cloudy and gloomy autumn morning sky, with wilted leaves dancing around in the air with the wind, with the temperature getting colder and colder as day passed

by, it feels like summer to him — because it doesn’t matter where he is, or what season it is, whenever he’s with you, it feels like summer.

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thebearer · 9 months

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when teddys like two or three months you and carl are in a patch of him not being around and he comes home one day and she gives him no reaction or loves, and someone she sees frequently she is gummy smiling at them

oh this would wreck him. like the freezer scene has nothing on what this would do to him.

so the bear is doing really well. like really, really well, but they've got some competition. this new restaurant is moving closer and a little too close. they already tried to take marcus and syd, and carmen is stressed, falling back into his old ways. he feels like in a way he got himself here bc he had a baby and got lazy in a way- distracted, is more like it. as awful as that sounds, that's how he felt.

teddy's about six months and carmen's been at work non-stop. comes home late, if you go to the restaurant he barely has time for you, he's tightly wound and hateful- loses his temper quickly. richie tried to talk to him, tina, too; and he told them the same thing- to mind their own business.

you miss carmen, you do. but when you tell him that, he tells you he's here now- now being when he's practically collapsed in bed beside you.

it's the roughest patch the two of you had ever been through, and carmen doesn't even seem to realize it. until one day. the other restaurant got moved to the other side of the city- something about the building being mysteriously shut down for shoddy wiring (uncle jimmy had nothing to do with it!!)

carmen's feeling good. feeling like he can breathe again.

comes home early and you're surprised. he's happy and excited, but when he goes to teddy, she cries.

that tiny baby cry for you, just a little whine of sorts that she does when a stranger tries to hold her.

a stranger.

"teddy," carmen coos, trying again. "it's daddy, teddy bear."

teddy just turns into your shirt, whimpering and clinging to you. you watch carmen's heart break- the fall of his face, eyes widening into horrified realization.

"i think she's cranky, carm. it's her nap time-"

"she doesn't even know who i am." carmen's tone is hard- hurt.

"no, she's just a little sleepy, carmen. look, teddy, look," you coo, bouncing her lightly to coax her out of your chest. "look, baby, it's daddy."

teddy seemed to recognize the word, eyes lighting but she didn't relate carmen to that. blinking and looking around like she was looking for her dad. carmen's face crumbled, running his hands over his face to keep himself from sobbing in front of you.

you didn't know what to do, how to make it better. "i'm going to smoke." carmen rasped, voice tight with emotion, snatching his cigarettes off the table and going outside.

he called the only person he knew to. richie. breaking down, raw and emotional, begging him for any sort of advice on how to make it better.

"cousin, she's a baby. you got time to fix this. she won't even remember this-"

"-she doesn't even remember me." carmen sniffed hard, knee bouncing as his chest bubbled over with that familiar painful panic. "my own kid doesn't know who the fuck i am. what the fuck richie? what's fuckin' wrong with me. all i ever do is fuck everything up-"

"-hey, cousin, i'm stoppin' you right there, ok? let me be honest with you. this ain't about you, ok?" richie huffed. it was mean and cutting but it was true. "this isn't the time to be feelin' all sorry for yourself and shit, ok? you left your wife alone with that baby and you've been a real jagoff- like i said."

carmen hated it, hated that he was right, hated how he felt.

richie continued. "instead of sittin' in there like an asshole, why don't you go inside, take a few fuckin' days off, and get your shit together."

"cosuin, i-i can't do that-"

"- holy fuck, carmen. ok, let's try it again, alright? go inside. quit being a self loathing jagoff piece of shit, and take a few days off to be with your wife and kid, ok? i got the place for a few days." richie snapped.

"richie, we're booked for the next-"

"-look, do you trust me or not?" richie snapped.

"yeah, yeah, i trust you, c'mon." carmen muttered.

"then i got it, alright? if i need you, i'll call you, but for right now- your family needs you. if this was tiff or eva, i wouldn't even think twice about it. go be with your family, and fix this shit, you dumbass." richie huffed.

carmen took richie's advice. finding you in the bedroom, folding teddy's teeny tiny baby clothes. it made carmen sob. heavy heaving cries and mumbled apologies while he clung to you.

the next four days, carmen wouldn't leave the house. wouldn't leave your side or teddy's. he'd gotten her hesitantly out of the crib, eyes red rimmed when he cooed at her and changed her. she didn't cry this time, even giving him a tiny gummy smile that had him emotional all over again.

#thebearer #carmen berzatto #dad!carmen berzatto x mom!reader #dad!carmen berzatto #dorothea “teddy” berzatto #dilf!carmen berzatto #richie jerimovich #bearblahs #carmen berzatto x reader #carmy berzatto x reader #carmen berzatto fluff #carmy berzatto #the bear #carmen berzatto fic #carmen berzatto angst

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reignof-fyre · 2 months

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I'm gonna say it: it's aemond's own fault he lost his eye in both the show and the book. Both times, he snuck out to claim vhagar. In the show, he wasn't stopped. In the book, three year old Joffrey Velaryon was with his dragon because he was an early riser and told Aemond to stay away from Vhagar, so Aemond - who was much older - pushed little three year old Joffrey over and, in his fear of being caught because he knew he was doing something his parents would like, claimed Vhagar and flew her for the first time.

Baby Joffrey, all of three years old, then of course runs to get his big brothers, likely crying and terrified. Because he's, y'know, A BABY.

In the show, Aemond claims Vhagar and with arrogance and smugness returns to the castle, high on the fact that he'd just claimed Vhagar, uncaring of how rude/insulting it may have been to claim Vhagar on the night of her previous riders funeral, like A NORMAL PERSON.

When, in the show, Rhaena and Baela confront Aemond with Luke and Jace, they're clearly upset. Their mother has just died, its her funeral, and their last tether to her - Vhagar - has been claimed by Aemond. They say he stole her, and while dragons can't be stolen, he did use underhanded tactics to obtain her and bond with her. And his haughtiness afterwards, towards the daughters of the woman whose dragon he just claimed, is what makes the altercation his fault.

Baela, upset: Vhagar is my mother's dragon!

Aemond, uncaring: Your mother is dead, and Vhagar has a new rider now.

Rhaena: she was mine to claim!

Aemond: then you should have claimed her. Maybe your cousins can find you a pig to ride. It would suit you.

Rhaena then hits Aemond, provoked into this by his cruel words and actions. Was it right? No. But it's literally the night of her mums funeral, Vhagar has been claimed by someone who clearly doesn't care about her mother, and he just insulted her. Aemond pushes Rhaena to the ground, so Baela slaps him in defense of her sister, and he punches her in the face.

Aemond: come at me again and I'll feed you to my dragon!

Now aemond is threatening to murder his cousins, which is par for the course for hid character. He always had kinslaying in him.

The fight devolves even more, and Jace and Luke get involved, defending their cousins. Luke, a little kid, is whacked and shoved to the ground, so Jace jumps in. Then Baela decides to help, and she and Luke - both of them younger and smaller - start wailing on Aemond (u go kids).

Aemond kicks Luke off of him, throws Baela off, and stands only to grab Luke - only five - by the throat and hold a rock over his head and threaten him.

Aemond: you will die screaming in flames just as your father did, bastard.

Luke, terrified and upset: my father is still alive!

Aemond, amused: he doesn't know, does he? Lord Strong.

This is when Jace pulls his knife, literally the size of my thumb, and attacks. Jace us quickly unarmed by Aemond, who is still holding the rock, and Luke sees the blade. Aemond holds the rock over them, smirks at Rhaena and Baela, then gets sand thrown in his face and Luke slashes at him wildly, not even aiming for his eye, just aiming to stop Aemond from hurting Jace and himself and his cousins, because at this point Luke has heard death threats, and seen Aemond take on him and the other three easily and win, so of bloody course this terrified little boy used a weapon to defend himself when it became necessary.

After, Alicent makes the situation about her because she's a poor uwu baby (gag me with a chainsaw, I loathe her) and attacks Rhaenyra as though Rhaenyra and her kids were in the wrong? Gurl.

Aemond will then go on to use him losing his eye as an excuse to use his war dragon to chase fourteen year old Luke on tiny baby Arrax and have the FUCKING AUDACITY to look shocked when it went wrong? Aemond is still at fault for Luke's death even if "he didn't mean it" or "he lost control" (he's not a true dragon lmfao)

In the book, Joffrey - who is three - returns with Jace and Luke, who grabbed wooden swords - they won't help against Vhagar bbys - in defense of their brother.

Despite it being three on one, Aemond was winning the fight until Luke slashed him, and good thing he did otherwise Aemond wouldn't have stopped in my opinion. He'd have kept going, beating the boys to bloody pulps. It was stable-boys who had to end the fight, where were the guards? Cole was probably simping over alicunt tbh.

Also, Alicent was the first to demand Luke's eye in recompense for Aemond losing his soz not soz ya uwu Queen is a cunt heh

Aemond will then, years later, attack Luke because of this and kill him and start the Dance of Dragons in full because not only did he cause the events that took his eye, but also the worst war in history, all because he's a little bitch baby sociopath with genocidal tendencies lmfao

Also, Aemond got off lightly, merely losing his eye - do u know what the punishment is for people who attack a princes' daughters and the heir to the throne sons? Calling them bastards, which is treason!!!! Death. Bitch shit should be exuberant that he merely lost an eye. Unfortunately viserys is a bitch and didn't send Aemond to the Wall like Jaehaerys would have for fucking real lol

#pro daemon targaryen #anti aemond targaryen #anti alicent hightower #anti alicent stans #anti aemond stans #anti team green #pro rhaenyra targaryen #pro blacks #team black babey #pro Jacaerys Velaryon #pro Lucerys Velaryon #pro baela targaryen #pro rhaena targaryen

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superhoeva · 2 months

Note

Bunny's sick and exhausted but doesn't want to bother Carmy. He comes back from the bear to see her curled up in blankets with a mountain of tissues and immediately starts pampering her

the lump on his bed is bigger than usual, forcing carmen to stop in his tracks. just about all the blankets he owns are tucked around a shivering figure.

"bunny?"

there's a tiny croak that sounds from under the covers. one that has his face squeezing into a frown and legs hurrying him to the side of the bed.

"bunny," carmen tries again, peeling back to bedspreads to reveal his shivering partner surrounded by a littering of tissues. "what're you doin' under there, huh?"

a thick sniffle tells carmen everything he needs to know.

"shit, baby," carmen whispers, a hand on bunny's forehead. his huffs at how warm she is. "you're burning up, why didn't you call me?"

"didn't wanna bother you," bunny shakes her head, tears wavering the little voice she has left.

carmen's heart aches a little as he pulls a drowsy bunny into a seating position. she immediately slumps against him, melting her body into his. she sniffs again, this time from the tears.

"bunny," he coos, kissing at her temple with a hand cradling her head. his voice lowers into a whisper, words filing out into the quiet. "i wish you'd called me. i'd drop anything for you, you know that... how long you been in bed?"

bunny's answer, around an hour after he left, has carmen sighing. he squeezes her tighter. she should've called him.

"'m cold, bear," bunny whimpers out, and he's pulling up a blanket around her faster than her slow blink.

"i got you," carmy promises, peeking down to see that bunny's eyes have fluttered shut. he gazes at her for a second, pulling the phone from his back pocket as carefully as he can without disturbing her.

・゜゜・．

"how's she doin'?"

richie asks the question quieter than anyone will ever hear him as he sneaks inside the door. his hands, full with a few bags that he passes off to carmen.

"okay, for now. gave her some meds–which she fuckin' hates the taste of, but i don't care–and she's in there pouting. might move her out to the couch to keep an eye on her when she goes back to sleep. fever's at 101 the last time i checked. gonna take her to the doctor if it gets any higher."

richie sighs, shutting the apartment door.

"want me to bring her out? set her up all cozy and shit on the couch while you start on that soup or whatever?"

carmen pauses on his way to the kitchen, thinking to himself with his gaze pointed down.

"yeah, actually," he finally nods. "yeah, that would be great."

richie shakes his jacket off his shoulders with a nod. just as he turns to hang it on the rack–

"cousin?"

the taller man turns back around, eyes wide with the muted fear that he's already done something wrong.

"thank you... for coming out here. i just–i didn't wanna leave her by herself while she's like this. been home alone all day feelin' like shit, and i didn't even know 'til now."

"all good, cousin," richie tells him, letting out a relived huff. he watches as carmen resumes his walk before easing down to the bedroom.

richie pauses in the doorway at the sight of the lump on the bed. he grins a little, rapping his knuckles against the door softly.

"anybody home?" a snicker leaves the man as a head pops out from under the covers. "there she is."

a weak pat atop the mattress from bunny has richie shuffling in and to a spot on the edge of the bed.

"hey," bunny rasps out, turning on her side to face him.

"hey, bug," richie sighs. "should've called us."

bunny begins to laugh, but stops at the aching feeling it brings to her throat. "you sound just like him."

"yeah, well." it's richie's turn to shrug. "sometimes–very fuckin' rarely–our guy in there can be sort of almost a little bit right. don't tell him i said that, though, 'kay?"

the both of them share a small smile that's interrupted by a cough from bunny.

"okay, no more talking," richie orders, standing gently. "let's get you out to the couch and back to sleep, okay? carm and i wanna keep an eye on you and your fever."

bunny's too looped out from her fever to rebut. she's also too out of it to remember how she got to the couch when her eyes open again. she blinks herself awake, eyes falling upon the two men sprawled out on the floor in front of her.

they've moved the coffee table to the side, stares cemented on a golden girls rerun. sharing a smile at one of sophia's lines.

"bear?"

carmen and richie's head whip around to her.

"can i have some water?"

richie is up before carmen can answer, muttering something about how she should probably eat something, too. the head of curls turns all the way to bunny as carmen shuffles to sit against the couch.

"why're you guys on the floor?"

carmen shushes her gently, checking her fever again.

"still pretty warm," he informs her. "hate to say it, but i might have to steal some of these blankets away, gorgeous."

bunny shakes her head as much as it'll let her, clenching the comforter she's currently buried under.

"i know, baby, but we gotta get your temp down." carmen frowns when bunny flinches away from the peck he tries to give her.

"no, don't wanna get you sick," she tells him, letting at least one blanket be tugged from grip. her shiver is instantly covered by a swarming carmen.

"who gives a fuck if i get sick," carmen mumbles distractedly as he raises from the floor, more focused on piling all but one blanket down to the other end of the couch. he maneuvers into a space next to bunny, guiding her under his arm. "need richie to get anything else? he brought some fruit and blue gatorade, too. keep you hydrated."

carmen runs a tender hand across bunny's warm shoulder while he speaks, and it lulls her eyes shut without an answer.

"alrightly," richie announces as he re-enters, balancing a tray of items. he bends to set it on the coffee table before turning to look at bunny. he pauses. "oh."

carmen's lips twitch at the look on his face. "sorry, man–"

"'m not asleep," bunny mumbles onto carmen's sleeve, pulling her eyelids open to search for the water. richie is quick to hand her the glass from the try. "thanks."

"yeah," richie nods. "also got some soup here when you're ready for it. carmen made it, so.. you know, might be okay, i guess."

carmen smiles through his fuck you, pulling a weak grin onto bunny's face.

"there's gatorade, too. and some fruit. didn't know what you wanted, so i just brought a little bit of everything."

if she could, bunny would get up and gift richie with the biggest hug. instead, all she can manage is a small smile and mouthing of thank you. he winks at her before clearing his throat.

"well, i, uh..." he trails off, hands on his hips, "you guys seem to be pretty set, so i guess i'll head out. got the house to myself tonight so think i'm gonna catch that new episode of... that one, um... that one new show. with that one guy."

richie swallows after the painfully embarrassing ramble, scratching the back of his head with a fast glance at the door.

"or you could hang here for a while," bunny shrugs, sipping at her water. "bear could use someone to talk to after i pass out again."

richie shakes his head with a kind smile.

"it's alright, bug. been here too long already–"

"sit your ass down, richard."

a silence follows carmen's command. richie blinks at carmen, whose gaze has trailed back to the television. after a moment, he huffs.

"fine," he surrenders, slinking to sit on the other side of bunny. "don't call me richard, though. fuckin' hate that. you sound like uncle jimmy. additionally, the only reason i'm staying is 'cause bunny suggested it."

carmen hums back sassily. "mmhm."

"mmhm."

"guys."

they both apologize at the same time, making bunny grin to herself as she slings a leg across richie's lap and rests her head on carmen's shoulder.

"sorry."

the bunny and the bear au || bunny!reader and bear thoughts? <3

#this trio gives me life #carmen berzatto x reader #richie jerimovich x reader #au: the bunny and the bear

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thinkingaboutjaedyn · 2 months

Text

i'm your biggest fan [j.shaw x morgan!child!reader]

prompt: after jaedyn's great performance at the game against argentina, you become her biggest fan.

author notes: been trying to get back to writing more and finally got some inspiration. i have been wanting to write a child!reader fic forever, blame @/woso-dreamzzz because im in love with her child!reader fics so bad. this is me trying to make myself feel better after that shit ass usa vs mexico game 🤗 so enjoy! P.S. the reader is like around five in this.

you're standing on the pitch after the usa vs argentina, happily following around your soccer aunts. this game was one of the best lately. your throat was dry from all the shouting and cheering you have been doing. especially when your mother scored a banger in the nineteenth minute. of course you weren't only cheering only for your mommy, getting loud for all your soccer aunts too. like blondie lindsey and tiny rose. that doesn't mean you haven't been focusing your attention on the new girls though; they are officially your soccer cousins now since they are all too young to be aunties in your opinion.

one new girl in particular has caught your attention. the way she has been performing so strongly throughout the whole match has you obsessed with her. not that you understand soccer tactics or anything, but even a five year old knows good play when they see it. you screamed her name the loudest (right after your mommy's of course); jaedyn. not only was jaedyn the cool new girl who your mommy says is going to the next big thing for the team, but she also wears the number above your mommy's new one. you honestly hated the new number because your mommy is number thirteen, not seven but you can't seem to understand whatever rule your mom told you about because it's too much for your brain so you don't think about it. the only good thing that came out of the change is the fact your mommy's cubby is next to jaedyn's.

the moment you spot the girl in the question as you follow around lynn, who just stopped to talk to crystal about the game, you slip off to where jaedyn is which wasn't a hard task. just having to go through a few legs with some quick "hi!"s in-between.

finally you make it to where jaedyn is sipping on her water bottle. she looks so cool even when just standing around. it seems jaedyn doesn't spot you, so you just do the ol' tug them by the shorts trick and her eyes look down at you.

"oh? hey mini morgan," her smile is like the sun to you. her tone sounds so chill and cool that you try to copy her. "hi big shaw!" you say. your words coming out way less cool than hers but it was worth the effort. the american player lets out a short laugh, ruffling your hair that's in pigtails. making it a bit messy, but you don't really mind. it's jaedyn doing it so why would you?

"big shaw? i'm the only shaw around here, so shouldn't it be shaw the first?" you nod at her words already. "okay, shaw the first, can you teach me how to shoot a banger?" you ask. looking up at her with high exceptions already. the way you say your words make her laugh loudly which confuses you. why is cool girl jaedyn laughing? is it because she thinks you can't score a banger too? or maybe she's like a magician and can't reveal her secrets.

you lean more towards the magician theory, saying, "i promise i won't tell anyone about it! so you can keep your shooting superpower hidden." jaedyn just shakes her head before crouching down to your height. "you don't have to keep it a secret. i think everyone already knows," she whispers, "but yeah i'll teach you. just make sure to ask your mommy." you let a excited gasp as you whip your head around. looking for your mom across the pitch. your expert alex morgan finding eyes locate her easily. turning your head back to look at jaedyn with a smile. you hold out your pinky finger, "pinky promise?"

"pinky promise," jaedyn accepts your declaration of confirmation as she locks her pinky finger with yours. "thanks shaw the first!" you shout at her after pulling away. already running quickly to go ask your mommy to let jaedyn to teach you how to score bangers. hopefully she doesn't question why didn't you just ask her since you wouldn't want to break it your mommy that jaedyn is just cooler. your mommy is still one of the coolest though.

you almost bump into the legs of naomi on your way to your mommy, but dodge quickly with your great dodging skills. naomi even said you might be a defender in the making once. the loud voice of yours can be heard to everyone around you as you finally reach your mommy.

"can big shaw teach me how to score bangers, please!" you shout out happily. your mommy just chuckles before patting the top of your head, "of course, baby."

and that was possibly the path to you being a future forward. all thanks to big shaw.

#uswnt x reader #alex morgan x reader #jaedyn shaw x reader #jaedyn shaw #alex morgan #woso x reader #woso fanfics

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the-swift-tricker · 1 year

Text

breaking down the members of the batfam:

bruce wayne (emotionally repressed autistic dad/tired but loving/"i'd die for you. ask me to die for you.")

alfred pennyworth (beloved grandfather and backbone of the house/"cool you were in the circus too alfie?" "a different type of circus master richard"/the most flexible on the whole no killing rule thing)

dick grayson (embarrassing "stay silly" older brother/eldest child/self-titled "bruce's little angel")

barbara gordon (adopted bruce more than he adopted her/this family would not survive without her it support/only one who knows how to work the router)

jason todd (the try hard wanna be cool accidentally cool but not in the way he meant brother)

tim drake (gifted child syndrome overachiever middle-child-and-mentally-ill-about-it bisexual nerd)

damian wayne (asshole baby man with a heart of absolute gold and a closet full of swords/tiny and feral/why does he have so many swords??)

stephanie brown (the goldilocks of the family/showed up one day and refused to leave/heartbreaker/know-nothing know-it-all, "get your feet of the furniture, stephanie")

cassandra cain (the darling daughter/autistic queen/"cuddled nicely" and "bit my ass" rolled into one/don't look directly at her too long or you'll fall in love)

duke thomas ("finally someone normal around here"/"oh no he's just as bad"/the day shift/probably does way too many light related puns)

selina kyle ("hot milfs in your area"/bruce's lover on the down low that literally everyone knows about/enamored by his autistic swagger/not married to bruce but would take the kids in the event of divorce)

kate kane (fucking rad lesbian wine aunt/kicker of ass, spoiler of nephews and nieces)

harper row ("alfred where did this punk child come from?"/"SHE'S GOTTA GUN"/best music taste out of any of them/once turned a lawn mower into a drag car/it was awesome)

lucius fox (other grandpa/ twead wearing dad/"bruce you need to pay your taxes"/"bruce getting shot point blank in the back is not advisable"/"bruce the hague tends to frown on child soldiers")

lucas fox (conceivably he should be smarter than getting mixed up in all this/still got mixed up in all this/"don't you think batwings a little too...on the nose?" "says the guy that calls himself batman")

helena bertinelli (cranky cousin that is beloved by a few and feared by all/"why doesn't her boyfriend have a face?"/"SHE'S GOTTA CROSSBOW!")

harley quinn (bisexual vodka aunt that's really just bruce's friend from college/has invited herself over for every hanukkah ever since finding out bruce is jewish too)

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oathkeeper-of-tarth · 5 months

Text

So, I was curious about this tidbit from the Patch 5 notes and I haven't seen anyone talk about it. Turns out one of my favourite new bits of content related to my favourite character is hidden behind betraying her in the most horrid way possible. Ugh.

It used to be that if you sided with Lorroakan in the Nightsong quest, you, him, and all the elemental myrmidons (and possibly Rolan) would just fight Aylin alone - a fight that obviously lasted one round, tops, and I think could only serve to make you feel bad about what you've just done.

Now, however, a really cool thing happens - Mum Gets Fucking Pissed. And four of Aylin's cool older celestial cousins (a nice new take on Slivers for my ol' 3e heart) come down to help her in the fight.

Amusingly, they put Aylin in timeout in a moon-flavoured Globe of Invulnerability every turn, which also makes her unable to attack or do much, even with her trusty moonbeam.

So you need to break their concentration (often on more than one of them at a time) in order to be able to even touch Aylin. Everyone being very angry and protective of her is A+++.

A good roll of that 12d12 can just delete characters instantly. Beautiful.

Aylin also gets some very direct buffs, primarily Hug From Mum, and we have waited far, far too long for that:

I just found this oddly touching, that she gets to have at least this bit of very outright reassurance, even if it is under rather horrible circumstances. And ironic, of course, that if you help her and triumph with her in glorious combat (Lo!) against yet another bastard would-be captor, she doesn't, and is left to grapple with her anger and doubt and nascent feelings of abandonment:

Player: Let his demise serve as a warning to anyone else who'd seek you out. Dame Aylin: Let him be the last. If my dear mother has any mercy, she will ensure it. [Trying to stay her usual self, but her mask is cracking a tiny bit here. Privately, Aylin is dealing with a great deal of anger toward her mother, the goddess Selûne, but she's not yet willing to face it. How could her powerful mother let all this happen to her?]

Or the more determined-sounding but depressingly "no rest for the glorious Sword of the Silverlight" variants you can get if Isobel is alive:

#selune please your kid needs a fucking break #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #dame aylin #nightsong #lorroakan #bg3 spoilers #i had to load a save and betray her myself to see this it was awful #THESE HANDS WILL NEVER BE CLEAN AGAIN #me seeing those buffs: IT'S WHAT SHE DESERVES #something something my mother is the moon... that's rough buddy #anyway the way she delivers that “...and ever must be” rips directly at my heartstrings

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httpiastri · 1 month

Text

bunny bandaids and forehead kisses – jmm21

your boyfriend is tough when he's out on track – but not as much in real life.

genre: fluff fluff fluff

pairing: reader x pepe marti

warnings: mentions of a scrape and tiny bit of blood but that's it

word count: 1k

requested: hm not really but the ppl have been asking for pepe fics so 🤭

author's note: hello hello!! finallyyy posting this :) loved writing abt him, and will definitely write more of these short types of fics for him again in the future. thanks for all of the love and the pepe asks, giving me so much energy <33 and big shoutout to my fave cutie @norrisgrl for proofreading the spanish 🫶🫶 hope u all enjoy reading !!

‎‎‎ ‎‎‎ ‎‎

"big breaths now, okay?"

your voice is soft and low, eyes following the way the antiseptic pours onto the rag you're holding. pepe nods, inhaling deeply through his nose as you take his wrist on one of your hands, holding his palm up. you think he's prepared, but when the rag meets his still bleeding skin, his eyes squeeze shut and he can't help but hiss. you let out a chuckle – nothing about his injury is funny per se, but there's something so cute about your usually so tough boyfriend acting like this.

when he crashes a car at several hundred kilometers per hour, there's no issue. he'll walk away without even looking back.

but when he falls onto the ground and scrapes his hand on the asphalt while playing with his five-year-old cousin, he's like a baby. he needs your help instantly.

you're both at pepe's grandparents' house for the weekend, for you to get a chance to meet his extended family for the first time. you had been chatting with his mother and aunt out in the sunshine when pepe came over to you, showing off his hand and asking if you could help him out. you obviously couldn't help but agree to clean him up, knowing that he's way too clumsy to fix it by himself.

so here you are in one of the bathrooms of the house, with pepe propped up on the lid of the toilet as you're crouched down next to him with the supplies you've managed to find in the cabinets. you've gotten the tiny rocks and most of the other dirt out of his skin already; now you just need to clean it properly so it doesn't end up infected, since an infection would be a complete nightmare when he needs to be wearing those stuffy racing gloves for hours upon hours.

pepe lets out a small groan when you press too hard on his skin, face twisting in pain. "sorry, baby," you say, your free hand coming up to caress his cheek. "just a little more now…"

just as you're about to brush his cut with the rag again, the sound of the door behind you creaking open meets your ears. when you look over your shoulder, you find pepe's cousin peeking in through the crack in the door.

"marta," you hum, plastering a soft smile onto your lips. "do you want to come in?"

the girl stays quiet and doesn't move an inch, seemingly not daring to even open the door enough to stick her head in through it. pepe lets out a short sigh. "primita, come here."

the little girl would never disobey her favorite cousin, so it doesn't take long before she waddles up to him. "pepe," she whines, a pout prominent on her lips. your boyfriend's hands reach for her sides, lifting her up easily and placing her down sideways on one of his legs.

"what is it, hm?" he asks, eyes soft when he looks down at her. she's staring at the ground, feet swinging in the air, a worried expression on her face.

"i'm sorry for… hurting you..." marta is already teary-eyed when pepe tilts her chin up and makes her look at him. he shakes his head instantly.

"cariño, you didn't hurt me, okay?" his hand moves from her chin to wipe away her tears with his thumb, before wrapping his arm around her back to hold her close. "just like i told you out there, i'm fine. i promise." her pout still hasn't disappeared and she doesn't seem convinced, so your boyfriend holds up his bruised hand to her. "look, it's just a little scrape. and besides, i've got auntie y/n here to help me out."

her gaze darts to you. "are you a doctor?" she asks, seeing the rag and bottle of antiseptic in your hands.

your eyes flicker between marta and the smirk on pepe's lips, and you can't help but nod. "sometimes, yes." anything to ease her mind right now. "i just need to clean him up a little so it... feels better."

the way she bats her eyes up at pepe makes his heart melt. "does it hurt?"

"not if you hold my hand."

the boy holds his uninjured hand out to her, and she instantly places her own much smaller hand in it. he wraps it around hers, giving it a squeeze, before nodding to you that he's ready again. this time, pepe only winces slightly but stays otherwise calm when you clean the little cuts on his palm – the bond between the two of them apparently really is that strong.

when he's finally all cleaned up, you begin looking through the cabinet for some bandaids. "okay, we have..." you start, pulling out three boxes. "regular bandaids, spiderman bandaids, or," you look up at marta with a grin. "bunny bandaids."

"bunnies!"

you've pulled it out and ripped off the wrapper of the bandaid before pepe can even begin to interject, and you hold it out to the little girl. "can you put it on for me?" you ask and she nods, her eyes twinkling as she grabs the bandaid.

you briefly shift your focus to discard the wrapper and put all of your supplies into the cabinet again, and you turn back just in time to see your boyfriend lean down, pressing a sweet kiss to marta's forehead. "thank you, cielo," he says, before glancing up at you. "and thank you."

with his free hand, he reaches forward to the back of your neck, pulling you down to his level. then, he places a kiss to your forehead too, a big smile on his lips when he pulls away and looks between you and marta.

"mis chicas favoritas."

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harrysmimi · 1 year

Text

Baby Talk

Synopsis: Harry wants to try for a baby but is hesitant to tell his girlfriend

CW: Smut and a shit load of fluff.

Series Masterlist | More of my work

Ever since Harry had come back home with YN.

The first thing they did was go to Brielle's baby shower her sister-in-law hosted for her.

YN was very excited to see her friend pregnant, she even called dibs for baby sitting before Alec, which got him pissed for the moment there.

Now it was three weeks later, Harry wasn't working but making a music video which would be done by the next day. He had a magazine interested yesterday and the Photoshoot is arranged on the weekend. That meant he was free and home today.

He scrolled through Instagram, when YN's post popped up on his feed. Yes, he followed her private account. It was a little photo dump from her friend's baby shower. The first picture was of her and Brielle recreating the Hadid Sisters pictures from a long time ago. And the next was YN's hand on her friend's bump all surprised, he reckoned it was that moment when YN felt babies kicking inside for the first time it has her gasping and her friend laughing. And next two were of him and her together and rest of it were random little videos and to end it all, she had a funny pictures of Brielle using her bump as a table for her plate of cake taking a huge bite. Just ten likes on her post from ten people out of fifteen who follow her.

She had removed very many people from her follower list (especially her cousins) and switched her account to private recently since Harry decided he wanted to follow her, and turned off her DMs. Apparently the hate was increasing since he talked the second time about her recently. It was going to be inevitable, but she thought it was going to be best option there.

He liked it and commented a little red heart, and pouty emoji.

Now seeing that post had his heart racing. Especially remembering how good she was with Brielle's nieces and nephews that day, everyone loved her for some reason. She was surrounded by little kids the whole time there. Even her own niece and nephew loves her, no wonder why! He loves her too!

Especially Brielle's three month old nephew. Apparently the infant was way too infatuated by YN that he would start to cry every time she tried to give him to his dad.

"Hey, come on Mateo." Brielle's brother urged his son back to him but the little baby started whining. It is indeed very difficult to figure what is going on in an infant's mind. Mateo was meeting for the first time and he already didn't wanted to leave her.

"It's okay, I don't mind hanging out with him." YN assured the red head.

"You sure?"

"Mhmm, I'll go find you or your girlfriend if he starts to get fussy." She nodded. That's when Harry saw her approaching him with the baby as he went to get a drink of water. "Harry look."

"Oh who is that?" He cooed, watching the little lad staring up at his girlfriend like she's made of twinkling stars with his big blue eyes. He doesn't blame the little lad but he's just little baby. "Hello, darling!"

"This is Mateo, Brielle's nephew." YN introduced the little human to him, "and Mateo this is Harry, my boyfriend." The little boy just squirmed shyly in her arms making the pair laugh. "He's so cute!"

"He is," Harry agreed, "how old is he?"

"Three months." She gasped, distracted watching the little boy smiling at her. "Sorry, I just..." She looked up at him sheepishly.

"It's alright, love." Harry smiled, dimples denting deep in his cheeks. "I don't blame you, he is very adorable."

For the next three hours the couple hung out with little Mateo until he fell asleep and YN had to give him back to his parents. The little sad pout on her face was the most adorable thing she's seen. She really wanted to hang out with that tiny human more!

That nailed the image in his head for good.

Now that he's had more free time on his hand, he's got to thinking. He does want all of that for himself too. Especially now when he's got someone who he loves to much and she feels the same way.

He had watched his friends meet the love of their life, fall in love, get married and have family of their own. He's experienced that first hand with Sarah and Mitch. Is it too bad he wants that for himself too?

Hell, they haven't had the baby talk yet and here he is already picturing everything.

A little baby to love on in a way which seemed much more magical to even think about. No doubt, his YN would be the best parent to their kiddos. If they have any!

Two years is enough time right? To give a thought about wanting a family with someone.

Harry has never found talking about anything this difficult. For the first time they had indulged into something sexual, he had her sat down to ask what she wanted from it, what she thinks would be comfortable for her and what not as it was her first time. They even talked more about the moving in together part, he wanted to be sure that it's something she wanted too and she did now they're living together.

He doesn't know if that's something she really wants, his assumptions and him thinking she's going to be the most amazing mother to his kiddos won't be relevant if she doesn't want any kids. Maybe she doesn't want to get pregnant. Maybe she doesn't want to have kids at all.

He's not getting any younger. Especially since her brother have pointed out that he's quite older than his baby sister though he doesn't see a problem with that, it made him insecure. Even if it was just tiny bit. It has never been an issue for either of them.

He's just beating himself up for no reason, he knew that. All it is going to take is talking to her about it. If he tells her about his tiny insecurity she's going to give him a good talk about how it was definitely fine with her, how she shouldn't be insecure around her because she loves him and would never judge him or make him feel bad about himself in all her consciousness. The click of the door opening caught his attention, making his heart beating like he just ran a marathon.

"Hazza, I'm home." YN's little mumble traveled through their small living room with a sound of door clicking close she appeared in his sight.

"Hello darling." He smiled, already rushing to greet her. She had a little bag of groceries with her. "How was your day at work?"

"It was good, surprisingly we didn't had any Karens coming in today." She beamed putting away bottle of Orange Juice in the fridge.

She seemed in a very good mood today. Should he talk to her?

"Do you want to start on with dinner?" YN suggested, "I need to go take a shower, spilt coffee all over my pants today."

"I thinking we should go on a date." He suggested, making up a plan on the spot. They both haven't been on a proper date in a while now. Her eyes lit up in instant on the mention of a date night.

"Yeah, we should." She agreed.

Harry took her to the same restaurant they went on their first date, it was the first time since then.

He stalled the whole night to talk about it. Wanting to take advantage of her being in a good mood was thrown out the window as soon as both of them came back home. He'd put on the movie both of them wanted to watch for ages. Not giving into her little touch of affection and kisses. It's him who takes things further unless she's making it very obvious.

In the morning, YN slept past her alarm. She was rushing to leave for work, he had to go get last shots of his music video done too. Everything happened so quickly that he didn't even realise how fast the time went on and she was kissing him bye for a few hours like every day before heading out.

It took him extra long to get shots for his music video done today. He was stuck thinking about how he should have just told her instead of stalling and basically turning her down for having sex without saying a word. That wouldn't have been the first time he's told her he's not in the mood, she's nothing but understanding. But he saw her face today.

She woke up before him, didn't stay in bed for their morning cuddles. She hardly talked to him. Yeah, she was in hurry to get to work but still he felt so guilty.

But to his surprise, he was greeted by a squealing YN at home. "Harry, Harry, Harry, I have to tell you something!" She grabbed his hands and drag him to the living room with her. He sat down to have her basically sat on his lap giggling at her excitement for he doesn't know what.

"What's got you so excited?"

"So you probably don't know her, but my co-worker Emily's cat had an unexpected litter like a little over two months ago." She started, "you think we can get one kitten from her, please?"

"You want to get a kitten?" He was surprised.

"Yes! Half of them have already got their new homes. I wanted to talk to about it but I forgot. Please!" She hopped on her spot like a toddler asking for candy.

"Of course we can get one, baby, you don't have to say please." He chuckled. Honestly he wouldn't mind adding a pet to the mix. He's been wanting to try to have a literal human kid!

"I love you so much!" She attacked him with a bear hug with her arms wrapped around his neck. With an umph Harry almost fell back but held onto her before she could fall down on the floor.

"I love you more!" He pressed a kiss on her cheek. "When can we go bring one home?"

"She said she wants to keep the kitten with their mum for another week just so they're litter trained and all." YN shared, "her husband's a vet so he suggested the kittens get their vaccinations before they go to their new homes."

"Mhmm, that gives us enough time to prepare for one, doesn't it?" He suggested.

"Yes!" She nods her head jerkingly, "you sure you want a cat living with us?"

"Of course baby, we'll have to keep an eye on Mr. McFish though. Cats and Fishes don't quite get along, do they?" He's grown very attached to her pet fish there. He cleans up the aquarium, feeds the fish and all that stuff himself. He just doesn't let her do that when he's home.

"He'll be fine, his aquarium has got a secure lid and all." She assured him.

"Okay." He agreed.

"She sent me pictures of the kittens who haven't been adopted yet." YN picked up her phone from the coffee table and opened up her recent chat with her co-worker. There was a message from YN's side saying she needs to talk to her boyfriend first.

That made it everything all the more legit to him. He's never been in a serious relationship like this before. She cares enough to ask for his opinion. Even show him pictures of kittens. He shared with kitten's personality he liked through the little videos. No doubt of the kittens were adorable, he liked the one with the more energy, it was more rowdy bullying it's other siblings.

"I was thinking..." He trailed off when YN finally put her phone away being done with showing him all the pictures.

"Hmm?" She sounded giving him all his attention.

"I, I don't know how to, ehm, say this." He stuttered, running a nervous knuckle under his nose.

"What's wrong?" She asked, concerned all of a sudden.

"Nothing, nothing's wrong. I'm just nervous to say this!" He sighed.

"Harry, did you do something? What did you do?" She didn't know why she was asking this but it felt like he did something and how he wants to confess to her. A crease between her eyebrows grew tighter.

"No, no, baby I didn't do anything." He rushed, "I just want to ask if you like ehm, want to, uhhh... start trying to have a baby?"

"I, uh, what?" She was so surprised by his question she didn't know how to even process it.

"I know we never actually talked about it. Do you want to have kids? With me?" He asked but quickly realised, "I shouldn't say it this way. I, YN, I really, really, really love you if it's not obvious until now you know. And I've never had what I have with you by my side, I mean I've never lived with anything, never had a pet with anyone before, never had anyone care for me in the way you do before. I want more of it. Just a little bundle of our love to love upon for the rest of my days. I've been thinking about it since we were in New York, and especially since last couple of weeks. I don't know how to approach this conversation 'cause it can be bit sensitive for some. Don't know if that's what you want, I won't even ask you again if you tell me."

His heart was hammering in his ears as he felt his cheeks heat up.

"Harry, I..." She trailed off to add to his fear. "I do want to have kids. Especially if it's with you. I understand what you're saying, I'm not gonna say no to that. God, you don't know how much I want my own little ones! But not when still not married."

"What's wrong that? We already have sex." He shrugged.

"I just don't want to deal with mu family Harry, I honestly don't care when we start a family, you know?" She asked, her voice as soft as it can get, "you already know how my parents are after me because they know we live together. It's already hard enough for me to put up with them. If they got to know we're having a child together, I don't even want to think what my parents will do after. You know it's still not acceptable where I come from to have kids before marriage, people talk complete shit which I know I won't be able to take. But we can, after we're married."

"I understand." He nodded, because he really did. Her word to have a baby with him was enough to put him at ease and hold him off until they're actually married. Which he thinks is not too far enough in the future.

"And having a baby is a lot of work. We'll need to get a place with an extra bedroom for the little one, unless you don't mind having a little cot in our room here." She shared.

"They will be sleeping in our room untill they're big enough, baby, but I don't mind if it happens in this home. But we can look for a house close by here if you want?" He suggested.

"Mhmm we can do that." She agreed. They would have to discuss more on financials, because YN had just turned in her last installment of ger house loan (collaborating with Harry came in a huge help for her with that) and had very little in her savings to chip in. Even though Harry would be able to get a house all by himself, she'd want to be a part of the financial process too. "How many do you want."

"Let's think about one first." He chuckled sheepishly.

"Mhmm." She teased him, "I was thinking maybe I wanna have two or four."

"You want an even number of kids?"

"I just don't want a middle child." She chuckled. Even if they did ended up having an odd number of kids she'd treat her middle child the best she could like the others.

"Awh!" He cooed sadly pulling her in an embrace, he pressed a kiss sloppy on her cheek with a loud smooching sound.

"Are you okay, though?"

"Mhmm, I am." He sounded, "why would you ask that?"

"You, ehm, last night, you basically turned down to have sex." She stuttered, "that was very unusual, especially coming from you."

He cracked a smile picking up on the humour in her last sentence, that's true though. "Was just thinking about all this, that's all."

"I thought something happened, are you sure you're okay?" She pressed.

"Yes baby, I am sure. When have I ever hid being sad or low from you, hmm?" He scooted closer to her, nudging his nose against her, "especially when I know I'll be getting loads of cuddles and kisses from you."

She chuckled, "I can give you kisses and cuddles whenever, Haz, you know that."

"Yeah?" He rubbed his nose against hers in feathery touches, "would you give me kisses and cuddles now?"

"Mhmm." She agreed, her eyes shuttered closed as she leaned into close contact with him.

"Come close to me then, pretty." He urged her to straddle his thighs, she did, her mouth already buttoned onto his taking him by surprise. He sucked in a deep breath through his nose as he pulled her closer. He couldn't help the groan of a whine which left his mouth when she pulled away, feeling her fingers slip through his hair on the back of his head in gentle, soothing strokes of her finger tips. He leaned into her touch.

"What do you think? You think we'll have a girl a boy first?" She asked.

"Hmm," he signed ad his hands rested upon her hips, "I mind with either. We'll love them for who they are!"

"Awh!" She cooed. "But I think you'll be a better suit for a girl dad."

"How so, baby?"

"She'll know that how she is to be treated, our daughter I mean which is nothing but like a royalty. I know you'll treat her like a queen." She shared, "I can already imagine that."

It warmed his heart, "that puts on a lot of pressure on me."

"No, it's okay." She rushed, "I didn't mean it that way, I'm sorry. You're going to be an amazing dad to our babies, Haz!"

"I'm just teasing baby, I know we're gonna make mistakes on our way which is okay." He chuckled at her reaction, "but what if we have a boy?"

"Then you're gonna be the best influence, he's gonna grow up to be - hopefully - comfortable in himself and be the most respectful person just like our daughter would grow up to be." She smiled, pressed another sweet kiss on his mouth which he so gladly returned to her. "But I want you to tell me whenever you're not in mood okay? I feel so bad, I was being all touchy-touchy. I'm sorry if I ever made you feel uncomfortable."

"No, you didn't my love, I love it when you touch me. In any way." He assured her, "you know I'll tell you when I'm not in mood. But now I certainly am in the mood." With a cheeky smirk he buttoned his mouth on hers, feeling her smile he tightly wrapped his arms around her.

"Well, good thing," she mumbled, "because I am too."

"Yeah?" He taunted, "always so needy for me, aren't you?" He stood up all of a sudden to her surprise. His hands supporting bum with her legs wrapped around his hips he made his way to their bedroom. "Need to wash my hands first. Baby, please!" Just when he'd put her down on their bed he was pulled down with her a huff.

"Oh, okay." She realised releasing her arms from around his neck.

"Be right back," with a peck on her forehead he rushed to the bathroom, he's touched his car door, then the lift button, fiddled with his keys and touched the main door before she was dragging him to the sofa talking about getting a new kitten, he also washed his dick just to be safe. Got a towel to splay on their sheets, he knows that they'd be tok tired to change the sheets later even jf they're yet to have their dinner. Took him all long three minutes to return, already unbuttoning his the white dress shirt he had on. "Hi."

"Hi." She chuckled watching him knee his way towards her on their shared bed, pushing away their blanket as he layed the towel down. He gave her another quick kiss before he was shrugging off the shirt off his shoulders but it got caught in his necklace. "You're going to break it." She reached for his necklace and carefully freed the button stuck in the chain making him giggle as he threw the garment on the floor, he was initially aiming for the laundry basket.

"Only fair if you take your shirt off."

"No!" She whined in her pretend disagreement.

"Yes!" He mocked her as his hands reached for the hem of her turtle neck at her hips, daring to dig his fingers just enough to make squirm before he was pushing the fabric up. She'd let him pull it over her shirt revealing the black lacy bra she was yet to take off, but the neckline got caught in her earring. "Oh, don't move!" He carefully slipped off the piece of jewelry from her earlobe as it was just a hook. "You alright?"

"Mhmm." She nodded.

"These are cute!" He chuckled seeing the clay charms of cats hung on the hook, he placed the pair on the side table once she handed him other. Her friend got those for her saying the piece of jewelry reminded her of her. He hovered over her as he lied her down carefully, managing to fit perfectly in between her thighs as his lips brushing in feathery touches just under her earlobe, like a pain relief kiss.

YN's hands dipped inbetween both their bodies reaching his core, her hand was met with his hard on. Just a squeeze on his bulge had him grunting against her neck as his teeth sunk into her skin.

God, she'll have to wear turtle necks for the rest of the week now!

Harey definitely loved leaving his marks on her, in the places only he can see. On the swells of her breasts and in between, on her hips, on soft skin of her inner thighs closer to her glistening cunt.

"Oh fuck!" He moaned heavily breathing, "you're gonna make me cum just like that."

"Can I, please?" She asked, stuttering shyly, "I want to suck you?"

"Yeah? Go on baby love, you know I'm all yours." He lifted his head up from her neck to look at before he pressed a soft lingering kiss on the full of her mouth.

He had moved every pillow to be piled up on the headrest of their bed as he's planning to get her in the same position in sometime. He got his pants and boxers off, his prick proud and hard up right.

"I love you!" She mumbled giving him another kiss on the cheek, as she sat on her heels next to him. Trailing her hand from his chest, down his tummy following the happy trail below his belly button.

"I love you mo-" he gasped at the touch of her hand on his cock, feeling sensitive for unknown reason today. He watched her moments as he wrapped her small hand around his shaft, on the second stroke and a swipe of her thumb over the tip had him throwing his head back. Breathing heavy.

She decided to cut to chase when he felt her warm mouth wrapped around his tip, her tongue pressed flat getting the taste of the pre cum. He swore he could be cumming any moment when he felt soft vibrations of her humming around his cock taking him further down, using her hand to cover what she couldn't take.

"Gahh! Fuck!" He moaned, his voice went extra deep mid orgasm which she seemed to love so much, he took her free hand in his lacing his fingers through hers in a gentle hold. She pulled away with a pop sound of her sucking hard on his cock to catch for breathing, reaching to cup his balls, playing with them just how she's figured he likes it. She took him back in his mouth bobbing up and low on gis length. "Fuck, just like that baby. You're so - ugh! - so good to me!" That earned another moan from her around his cock.

"Fuck I'm so close baby, just like that make me cum. Please!" His breathing got heavier which had his heart thumping against his chest, he whined at the lost of contact when she pulled away.

"Cum for me, Haz." She requested. Just as she had her mouth back on him, his release warmed her up. Taking all she could as the rest of his cum dripped down her hand with each bob of her head, making his cock go softer. She felt his legs shake on her side, a hand on the back of her head.

"C'mere." He breathed, without any hesitation he pulled her to smear his lips onto her spit-cum slick ones, slipping his tongue in her mouth.

"You good?" She asked.

"Yeah, just need a moment, you made me cum so hard." He nudged his nose next to hers, "I want you to sit on my lap, get on." YN listened to him, raising up on her knees to get closer to him. "Pants and knickers off, sweet girl." His demand caught her off guard.

First of, she was wearing her comfy panties when she changed after she got home, they had little pandas printed on them. She wasn't planning on letting him see those as he's teased her once about the same pair before, it was going to be am embarrassing in such a sexy moment. And second off, she haven't shaved since her period stopped this month. Though he's made it pretty clear he doesn't care, but she does. Somewhat.

"What's wrong?" He asked, finally being able to breath at a steady pace. "What? Are you wearing your pink panda panties?" He smirked.

"Stop, they're comfy!" She scoffed moving on her spot, feeling the slickness of her own folds with each move.

"Come on, I don't mind. It's my turn now." He urged her. Hesitating she followed his demand, shimmying her swears and panties off, "come to me!" He made grabby hands towards her making her.

"You sure you want to go again?" She enquired, he still looks blissed out, his pupils still blown out.

"Mhmm, plus I have other means to have you screaming my name." He smirked, resting his hand on sides her bare thighs moving his hands up to hest on her hips.

"Daddy chill!" She rolled her eyes.

He knew what she was doing there, bringing up his one kink they hardly indulged in now.

"Now, now angel, don't be a brat." His made a semi-hard contact with her bum causing her to jolt in surprise.

"What was that for?" She gasped.

"You heard me." He raised a challenging brow at her, causing her to laugh throwing her head back. He'd figured she can't be serious like this which he found adorable. "Don't be a brat if you want Daddy to make you feel good."

"Oh then I'm definitely gonna be one." She nodded her head, biting onto her lips to hold back another laugh. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" She couldn't, letting her head drop on his shoulder for a moment she giggled. "I'll be serious now." Blinking her eyes twice she put on a serious which now had him giggling at.

Usually he's the one incharge in bed, as cliche as it sounds that's how both of them work. But none of them felt the need to verbalise the power dinamic in a kinky way, maybe it was a thing at the very start but for some reason they both stopped it. And now joke about it here and there. But it had his cock almost jumping up again when she called him that.

The little joking around made it all the more real for her, that sex or intimacy isn't always picture perfect as it is usually portrayed in the media. It was so much more enjoyable that way, seeing him actually make an effort to wash his hands so she wouldn't catch any unwanted infections or shit that happens to people with uteruses, or the way he makes her to feels so comfortable in her own skin even though she doesn't fit into the conventional mold made the society. That was the most sexiest thing she had experience!

"Your tits look amazing in this bra." He commented, blatantly staring at the swells of her breasts right in front of his face, as he raised his hands along her sides to rest on the curve of her waist before one slipped up further on her back in no time garment was unhooked. He's way too slick with his movements in moments like this. He further slipped down the elastic straps from her shoulders, leaving her now in the same state as him.

"Way better!" Tugging down the flimsy garment made of lace off her hands, Harry tossed it accross the bed to join rest of their clothes. Dipping his head forward, he pressed his lips onto her neck leaving the soft trail of kisses down her sweet spot, making his way down to her collar bone. Working to deepen the mark he left on her a couple pf days before. One of his hand squeezing onto her breast rolling the hardened nipple in between his thumb and forefinger, whilst reaching down to wrap his lips around the other. She whimpered under his touch, feeling the wetness just grow further in between her legs.

Harry could only imagine how full her breasts would be once they're finally have a baby, excited see and go through all the changes by her side. That had him dipping his hand in, finger tips brushing up her wet folds. He smirked feeling her gasping, leaning back into the pillows to look atthe way he had her whimpering under him.

He was already getting at her sight. "Hmm, so wet." He spared a glance at his fingers working onto her sensitive cunt, "for me baby?"

"Mhmm." She nodded, hands halting onto either on his shoulders to keep herself steady. All her teasing him went out the window just at the touch of his finger tips on her sensitive clit.

"Words, sweet baby, I need words." He teased as he rubbed slow circles on her clit.

"God, it's for you, Harry!" She bleated.

"It's what now, darling?" He urged her to say what he wanted to hear, halting his move.

"Ah! Please don't stop," he was going to annoy her with this now as he shot her a cocky look, "please daddy!"

"That's my girl." A dimple dented his cheek as his smirk grew wider.

"Please I want you inside Harry," she shot him a puppy face, "I've been holding off since yesterday."

"Yeah? That's what took you fifteen minutes extra in shower this morning, baby love?" He was enjoying it now, teasing her.

"I told you was washing my hair!" She whined, that was the truth. It's not as good as it is with him, she'd rather wait for him when he's close to her than do it herself.

"Then what are you calling me tonight?" He reminded her.

"Daddy," she nods her head jerkily, "daddy, please!"

He chuckled, "I'm just teasing baby, you can have me. You ready now?"

"Mhmm, mhmm!" She agreed. Wrapping his fingers around his cock, it took him just few strokes to get himself fully hard again if he wasn't already. Nudging his tip in her fold he urged her to take control.

"Come on, baby, you wanna ride Daddy's cock?" He suggested.

"Mhm-" before she could say anything his tip was pushing past her slit. She still can't get used to him, especially when they go a day or two without making love some times. She slowly sunk on his cock, feeling him fill her up to brim. Her head fell to the crook of his neck.

"Take your time to adjust baby," he sighed feeling her tightly wrapped around him.

"Need a moment." She shared.

"Yeah, why don't gimme a kiss baby?" He suggested, already cupping her jaw with one of his hand to bring her down, buttoning his mouth on hers pushed his tongue past her lips. He hummed at the contact trying to pull her more closer, as if he wasn't inside her already. The sound of their lips moving together came to halt when YN pulled away just to speak.

"I, I, can move now." She shared, feeling streched enough around his prick.

"Go on baby," he urged her. YN slowly started rutting her hips against his, with a pair of his hands on either sides of her helping everything to keep her steady. He never held back his moans, voice two times lower and deeper as he pressed his forehead onto her chest.

This was his favourite thing to do, making love with her.

Feeling her clench around his cock, or his fingers, especially when she's enjoying it. He felt so proud lf every time they made love, seeing her grow more and more confident and comfortable in herself. He pressed a kiss on her chest where her heart is.

"Fuck!" He heard her mumble quietly.

"You enjoying it baby?" He asked, moving behind , "you feel so— fuck!— so good wrapped around my cock, so warm and tight. So good for me."

"Fuck. Ye-yes!" She nods her head jerkily. The coil in her stomach tightened to the point it was close to coming undone any moment. "I'm so close, daddy!" It the slipped.

"Wait for me baby," he warned her, making his grip firm on her hips to quicken her movement, "you want me to cum inside you?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Yeah? Gonna fill you up so good, baby!" He announced, his own high was reaching up making his brain go all mushy. "Cum for me, will you baby? Cum around my cock."

"I, I am. I am." She nodded. Finding right words in the moment was something she couldn't do. Her rutting against him because sloppier and sloppier making her shudder as she came clenching around him. Have him fill her up with his cum. Just on the last thrust she sunk back on his cock before feeling him soften up again. It hit her hard, her orgasm there unexpectedly.

Their bedroom filled with their heavy breathing and sighs of pleasure. YN snuggled into Harry with him still inside her. Her taking on birth control was the best decision she'd made, and this was one of many reasons why on the list. The feeling she couldn't comprehend in words.

Especially now that he'd finally help nail another reason for wanting him cum inside her every time with his baby talk. Was it weird that she was thinking how great of a father he would be to her kids in a moment like this? She could careless. Because that's what she would want her kids to have.

"You good, my love?" Harry asked. His voice sounded extra honey sweet to her right in that moment.

"Mhmm." She sounded, "it was amazing."

"It was, honey love." He breathed out as he was too tired in the moment to even laugh with having two orgasms back to back. Somehow, he reached for the blanket to wrap around her so she won't get cold. He hiked up his legs at his knees so she is cradled against him.

"This okay?" She enquired for his consent about what he knew exactly.

"More than okay, darling." He assured her. Who was he to lie he didn't enjoyed a bit of cock warming here and there? "You know, I love you so much!"

She giggled tiredly, "I love you so much, too, Haz!"

They sat there cuddled up with their blanket wrapped around them. Until YN realised she was hungry and that she hasn't eaten anything since breakfast.

"Harry?"

"Yes, love?"

"I am hungry." She shared, just to make it more clear her tummy rumbled.

"Oh no, baby." He gasped softly, "let's get you fed now, yeah?" He rubbed her back twice before reluctantly pulling away. He slowly slipped out of her, completely aware how sensitive she gets every time. "I'm sorry, I brought you in here before we had our dinner." He shared.

Harry takes it very seriously if she's had her meals or not, especially since he picked on her not so well relationship with food. She's recently started conversing when she's hungry and she wants to eat.

"I'm too tired to cook anything."

"We'll order take out." He urged her off their bed and to the bathroom so he can help her clean up. He even rushed to get a change of clothes. He had already put on a pair of sweats.

"I'll do this," she said, "please order something. I didn't had my lunch today." Taking the another pair of panda printed panties he got for her, she slipped them on and his sweatshirt next.

"YN!" He let a scolding whine, "did you not take your afternoon medications then?" Pulling out her hair from the neck hole of her (his) sweatshirt she shot him a look of her puppy eyes. "No, don't look at me like that. You know you shouldn't have those medicines without having some food in your system, love. Then you get all dizzy and nauseous, that's not good for you."

"I didn't get the time to today." She explained, tailing behind him as he made his way in the kitchen, "we were short on staff today. So I just took my medicines in hurry thinking I'll get time to eat after."

"Don't do that next time, okay?" He warned her, "you were short staffed doesn't mean you can't take fifteen minutes to yourself to eat. If that happens again I'm gonna have to have a chat with the owner myself."

"No, it won't happen again. I promise." She rushed. He was putting some frozen fries in the air fryer, she noticed. He disapproved thay she actually ate those, but at least she'll have something in her stomach till their take out is delivered to them. It was quick to make.

Who's gonna stop her from eating french fries? That too the frozen ones, no one! That's why he brought over his air fryer from his house when he moved his stuff to their flat.

"You're making me fries." She pointed out, wiggling her brows at him with a teasing tone.

"Stop, you haven't eaten anything in last thirteen hours." He rolled his eyes. She stood there next to him watching him make her a snack, there wasn't a point in teasing him more there.

He looked so pretty, standing there shirtless. Sometimes she forgets how much taller he is that her that she really have to lift her head up to look at her gorgeous features. Yeah, he's that all over her and obsessed that he's constantly clinging onto her for her realise. She's got all to herself there. Not even in dreams had she imagined to have a partner as loving amd caring as him. A soft place to fall back to when it becomes inevitable to not feel low.

Now he's stood there in all his pretty glory making her something to eat as she hasn't had anything since morning, scolding her a little for it. It warmed her heart.

Pressing a soft kiss by his ship tattoo, she went onto sit on the counter whilst he's done putting her snack together. After he was done, Harry rushed to get his phone opening up the food delivery app he stood next to her. He pulled up the cuisine page.

"What would you like to eat, my lady?" He enquired, showing the options.

"Hmm, let's see." She scrolled through down to the option. And of course she picked up Indian food.

"I'm feeling butter chicken." He shared.

"Look at you!" She cooed booping his nose, "I'm a good influence, aren't I!" Flipping her hair back proudly she picked up her favourite restaurant in town, smiling ear to ear. He swore he saw her eyes sparkle.

She hung the moon and the sun. For him, she did.

"That's all you want?" He noticed she'd already added his favourites in the cart.

"Mhmm."

"Okay." He took his phone but added her favourite desserts too before he placed the order paying with Apple pay.

"Haz?"

"Hmm?" He placed his phone down on the counter beside her, giving her his undivided attention. His girl was sat there with her hands on either side of her thighs clutching onto the lip of the counter, swinging her legs.

"Let's get married."

"You want to?"

"Of course I want to." She nods, "so we can finally try to have a baby."

"I don't want you to feel pressured by this baby." He started, "it is going to be a big commitment. I know we live together, but it's going to be completely different to be married in living together. I can wait, we can wait till you're ready."

"I am not feeling pressured." YN assured him, "now that you've said it, that's something I really want. I've always wanted that, you know to have my own little family... Getting married has always been important to me, so I cam assured that I'm not feeling pressured. I know it is going to different. But ready for it."

"Yeah, you are?" Harry beamed at her, shifting to stand in between her thighs. He placed her hands on his shoulders, his lips were smeared over hers. First time he kissed her after their love making session.

"Mhmm." She sounded, "I have this image of you with our baby now. A little daughter. I can't seem to shake that off."

He chuckled, "I bet you'd team up with her against me."

"No, you'd be the one teaming up against me with her." She countered, arguing about who'd they're unborn (still unconceived) child would team up with.

"Touché." He giggled cheekily, earning a gasp and smack on his shoulders from her.

"So..." She raised her brows

"So?"

"When are you asking me to marry you?" She asked.

"I'm not telling you!"

"Why not?"

"It won't be a surprise." He shared, "even though I want to marry you as soon as I can. Still want to make it special baby, for us. But soon, yeah?"

"Yeah."

He pressed another kiss on her mouth, before the air fryer started beeping.

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butterflydm · 13 days

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The Queen of Attolia (plus some WoT comparisons)

Haha, it's been a few months but I got my chance to read the next book in the Queen's Thief series and it was so good! I am going to have two sections in this review -- my overall thoughts and then some specific thoughts that are mostly for @markantonys due to the series being her recommendation and I have a lot of thoughts about the comparisons between the Queen of Attolia x Eugenides and Mat Cauthon x Fortuona, because you can really do a point by point comparison, though I don't think it was intentional -- I think that Megan Whalen Turner and Robert Jordan were both going for the same idea but Turner was, imo, wildly more successful than Jordan at it.

But first, thoughts that don't particularly relate to The Wheel of Time:

We open with a tense cat and mouse chase between The Thief and the Queen's guardmen and that is really the heart of this book when it comes down to it -- a cat and mouse game between two extremely complicated people, and how they have to navigate in the world that they share.

Turner is really good at writing these fun action scenes where you're very much in the PoV of the character.

The (apparent) foundation that is laid here (that later gets overturned because Gen got to me again and he was once again acting on personal information that he kept from me for the majority of the book, lol, love him for it) - is very much beginning as enemies who have respect for each other's skills. At this point in the book, I knew that they would end up married due to spoilers and I know that it's considered a good romance, so I was really looking forward to seeing the journey, especially since I did get spoiled about the huge upcoming traumatic event.

But we start from this strong narrative place where they are aware of each other and have respect for each other but they belong to two separate counties that have some political tensions and they are both important parts of those countries and can't set that aside.

Because of how bold Gen is, Attolia has been backed into a corner by his actions and we actually see this affirmed by Gen's cousin (the Queen of Eddis) and her thoughts on the matter -- she is aware that Gen going into Attolia's country to spy on her is a dangerous thing for him to do.

And then the cutting off of his hand. This is brutal, and it feels brutal, and then we also get these hints of Attolia's reaction afterwards (that we get into more later) but especially her reaction when he begs her not to hurt him anymore and you can really see her feel the impact of what she did. She doesn't allow herself to show her remorse but even this early on, we're getting hints of it as readers.

Then when Gen goes home, we actually see that the Queen of Eddis also maintains a mask in public, just like Attolia does, so we see another hint here that Gen understands that kind of masking. Eddis looks just as cold and impenetrable to Attolia's guards who return Gen to her, as Attolia looks to everyone else.

I really appreciated how long the recovery time was after the loss of Gen's hand and how much time we spent with him to feel him get used to the changes (and how economically Turner is able to pass that time). We get these tiny looks at Attolia as well, and her difficultly sleeping at night, which we expand on later.

Then we get the return of the Magus from Sounis! It was really nice to see him again, dropping in to visit Gen, but he's also here to give us that continuation of the division between personal and political -- as a person who genuinely likes Gen, the Magus was upset about what Attolia did to him, but as the advisor to the king of Sounis, he knew that they would be able to use Eddis's reaction to Attolia's act on the political stage.

But what a way to learn that the two countries are at war!

It takes some time for Gen to really believe that Eddis went to war over him, and we see him processing that over the course of the book as well, and they talk about it more. I do think that Gen does not always realize how deeply other people care about him.

Turner really is so good at giving us these pieces of information that reframe the earlier story -- now we know that during all those snippets of Attolia that we had earlier, she was also dealing with realizing that her actions with Gen led to the war that she's currently embroiled in.

The progression of the war was really well done (again, Turner is very economical with her narrative here), with what details she chooses to focus in on, and we see that Gen, even though he has gained more of an ability to have that cold and impassive mask like Attolia has, still does things like make sure that no one is on the ships that he's destroying, because he doesn't like getting people killed.

Turner also does a really good job showing how destabilizing the war is to all three countries involved, and how the war is hurting everything.

We take a little mythology story break here in the narrative, which was a fun story about love and choice, both of which are very relevant. This story definitely does end up applying pretty heavily to Gen and Attolia in the themes, and I like the style that Turner tells these stories.

I love how perceptive Gen is once he's been apprised of the situation and we get to see the thought process that leads to him blaming the emperor's ambassador more for the loss of his hand than he does Attolia herself, because he sees that ambassador understood that seeing Gen maimed and returned to Eddis would be more like to spark a war than just killing him would, and a war is exactly what he needs in order to try to justify getting his troops onto Attolia's land. All the politics here are pretty complex but I feel like the book does a good job explaining the reasoning.

And this is also the point where it's really confirmed that Attolia knows that the ambassador is underestimating her, and that she also understands a lot of the things that he thinks that he's pulling over on her. But because of the fragile position that she's in, she needs to entertain the ambassador's advice and his attempts to sidle in on her country.

Quote about Gen: "It was like him that if he had to have a thing, to have the fanciest thing of its kind."

I really like all this about the cost of war; the price of war; and why this outside party has been trying to urge war on the three countries.

We also get Eddis admitting to Gen that she thinks that she could have possibly controlled herself and not started a war if he had only been killed, rather than treated in a way that she finds so insulting, and that it made her so angry that she made a choice that had now brought a lot of damage to their own country that she wishes could be avoided. And Gen can see, basically, that the ambassador of Medes is the one who put both Eddis and Attolia in this trap, and he was used as the tool to start this war.

We really move into Attolia's PoV and we get the story of the broken amphora (she thought about it when she saw Gen after she'd had his hand cut off) -- it was, essentially, the moment that marked when her life changed and she couldn't be a young girl anymore.

This really is a heartbreaking story -- how after her brothers died and she was the heir, her father essentially sold her off to be married, and her fiance was actively plotting against her father and how to suck her country dry for his own benefit after they were married. And how she kept herself quiet and small and just listened, but then poisoned him at their wedding feast, also having her captain of the guard kill the next man who tried to force her to marry him. We also see here that she only trusts loyalty that she can buy in gold (because every other kind of loyalty failed her).

Then we finally get the big reunion! This scene is so tense, with both Attolia and Gen wearing these cold masks (we later realize that Gen has pretty much directly modeled his mask on Attolia's) and we get this private negotiation that is only for the two of them. And this moment when it is literally just them, together on a boat, with no one else to interrupt them... just exquisitely done.

It's been implied before, but this is where we get our confirmation that Attolia has been just as haunted by Gen this entire book as he's been haunted by her. They've been separated for most of the book but constantly haunted by each other. I gotta share the quote:

"He was too young to have bones that ached. No matter what he thought of himself, he was hardly more than a boy. A boy without one hand. She reached up to push the wet hair out of her face, wondering when she had sunk so low that she had begun torturing boys. It was a question she had asked herself night after night, lying awake in her bed or sitting in a chair by the window watching the stars slowly move across the sky."

We've been seeing her do those things the entire book, but this is the first moment when we're told what she was thinking about in those moments.

We also get our Big Revelation here that Gen has had feelings for Attolia since before the events of The Thief! How does he hide these things from us so well! Gen! We learn here (and we get even more detail later) that he's been feeling drawn to her for literal years. That part of the reason that he made those trips that she thought were mockery was because he wanted to be close to her and get a look at her and see if she really was the monster that their spies reported that she was, or if she was just a woman who was being forced to make difficult, maybe impossible choices.

And then we get our story reversal where Attolia gets 'rescued' by the ambassador and his people, and we get to see how she behaves in these circumstances where she doesn't believe that she can trust Gen (sure, he said he loves her, but she cut his hand off! And he's a known liar! how can she trust him?) vs this dude that she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that she absolutely cannot trust.

The moment when she tells her handmaidens not to put on her golden bee earrings, I knew exactly what she'd done, especially when we got Gen's reaction. The writing doesn't have to tell us in the moment what's occurring (that she put on the earrings that he left for her one time and that she said she would only wear if she'd decided to marry him) for us to know, and I love that. This coded sign that only he will understand.

It's the most unique and fascinating marriage proposal I've ever read. Well done. Haha, and I did guess that the gray-haired man that he fought so well with was his father. <3

Love the moment when we see him process that marrying the Queen of Attolia is going to mean... that he'll be the King of Attolia. He just wanted to marry her because he liked her! <3 <3

And everything after that was just so delightful. Working together for the double-cross and then the process of Eddis and Attolia working out the treaty and Eddis trying to convince Gen that they can have the treaty without the marriage, and his rejection of that, and then essentially testing Attolia with that offer as well.

I also really like one of the moments when Attolia realizes that she can trust Gen, which is when Eddis tells her that of course Gen also lies to her. Constantly. And I feel like that reframed a lot of her interactions with Gen for Attolia. Realizing that Gen wasn't being maliciously deceitful towards her; he's just Like That With Everyone. Plus, I can't forget the moment when, after the battle is won, Attolia and Eddis return to where Gen is being held and Attolia believes for a moment that he's been poisoned as a parting shot by the Medes ambassador and we can literally watch as her heart completely shatters and she is completely undone and devastated in her head and even shaken where people can see her. It's beautifully written.

And we get the moment with the gods (who are very real in this series but very carefully choose how they interfere) and it's just as well done as it was in the first book. The windows in the palace shattering as the goddess responds to Gen's sacrifice! And basically laying out to him that his suffering was required to reach this ending and would he trade it back if he could -- if it meant that Attolia would have been forced to make that deal with the Medes ambassador. And Gen would rather have Attolia in his life and wanting to marry him than have his hand back.

Just that whole final section that leads up to the ending of the book, with Attolia really being able to believe Gen when he says that he loves her... it's so good. How the narrative (and Eddis and Gen) are able to tease out Attolia's feelings for Gen, and how we end on that final quiet moment between the two of them. Really powerful ending.

It's a really good book and it's a really good romance. Gen and Attolia are both fantastic characters and even with all the twists and turns and revelations, their relationship felt incredibly captivating and believable. I really believe that Gen wants to break through Attolia's walls and, just as important, I feel like there's a person on the other side of those walls who is worth being loyal to and loving. You understand why Gen wants to be Attolia's husband, even after she ordered his hand cut off, which is very impressive storytelling.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to read the The King of Attolia soonish, and not in, like, four months.

And now onto the Wheel of Time/Mat & Tuon comparison section of the review for @markantonys 💖

It really does feel like a point-by-point improvement on Mat & Tuon, though I suspected unintentionally (it looks like this book came out 3 years before CoT).

Starting with the characters: wow, Attolia really is so much the person that I would have wanted Tuon to be. And she feels like the person that Jordan wanted readers to believe that Tuon was. Every place where I was going through my WoT reread and going "footage not found!" about something the narrative tried to claim about Tuon is something where the footage is very much found for Attolia. While Tuon's potentially heartbreaking backstory really is just backstory and ends up have zero impact on her active storyline, Attolia's tragic backstory is the entire spine of what her character is going through and what Gen can help her with.

We get to see and really experience Attolia's context, which is not something that we got with Tuon. Jordan makes an attempt, I guess, with Karade's sob story about Tuon and the doll, but he made the bizarre choice to frame this story in Karade's PoV (Tuon's slave), not from Tuon's PoV. For whatever reason, Jordan always insisted on making Tuon the most insufferably smug person in the world in her own PoVs.

With Attolia, we get those breaks in her mask that I kept desperately wanting us to get with Tuon but we never did. Again, this is mostly only for the reader, not even for Gen -- the reader gets to see behind Attolia's mask. And so Attolia is captivating and fascinating and I understand why she felt like she had to do these horrible things.

With Attolia, we actually get her being removed from her power base and feeling helpless, which Jordan never had the guts to do with Tuon (when Mat kidnaps Tuon, he lets her take her slave along with her, and then some of his allies decide to support Tuon over him despite having zero narrative or character-based reason to do so), which means that when Attolia regains her power, it has a much bigger impact on the narrative, while it felt like Tuon never really lost hers. Attolia and Gen both manage to be scrappy underdogs, in their own way, and that's something that Tuon never was.

Both Attolia and Tuon commit horrific acts, but while we see Attolia's remorse and how it torments her, Tuon always seems to shrug off the horrible shit that she does. It doesn't ever affect her emotionally and she never seems to think past it after it's done. She is a character without remorse or reflection (I think she vaguely thinks that it's a shame one time when she's pondering how she will break Mat's spirit but that's about it). And Attolia has those two qualities in spades. Attolia feels like a real woman to me in a way that Tuon never did. We see the brave face that she puts on, we see her regret and remorse, we see her loneliness, we see her jealousy over the Queen of Eddis, who is able to trust the members of her court in a way that Attolia has never felt she could trust her own. Tuon just feels really shallow in comparison to Attolia.

Even in the first cat and mouse scene with Attolia and Gen in this book, you can see the push and pull and the narrative equality of the characters. Gen has been in and out of four different strongholds of hers, and she feels that he's pretty much taunting her with his abilities. There's a mutual respect for the other person which was one of the big things that was missing for me with Mat and Tuon. In her final PoV in KoD, we learn that she has not had an ounce of respect for him during this entire journey -- it's not until she sees how the Band respects him that she considers whether or not there may be more to him than just being a pretty and dumb sextoy. And the big problem with that is that was the period when the 'romance' was being developed. During the time when she didn't have any respect for him as a person. And that makes it very difficult to find their relationship compelling, even apart from the fact that I found Mat himself profoundly unlikable in CoT & KoD.

Now, Mat being a terrible person (in CoT & KoD) and Tuon being a terrible person (always and forever) are not things that would stop me from shipping them in general. I am capable of finding Awful4Awful pairings compelling (like Louis and Lestat from Interview with the Vampire). They don't have to be good people, but there has to be something in the relationship that grabs onto me at any level, and that's where Mat and Tuon failed.

We can see in Attolia's thoughts that she envies the relationship that Gen has with the Queen of Eddis -- she envies that loyalty and wishes she could have something like that of her own. That sort of envy was also missing from CoT & KoD (I am going to mention, briefly, that some of these elements were present in the Mat & Tuon relationship in AMoL but at that point, it was just too late for me to give a shit about their relationship, because CoT & KoD thoroughly killed any interest that I had in them). Whether because of his own personal kinks or because of the plans that Jordan had for the Outriggers, Jordan made Tuon too much of an island; too much of an wall. The way he wrote her made me feel like nothing Mat could do would ever really matter to her in any way; that she was content to use him up and then throw him out and that's just not my thing. It may have been Jordan's kink but it is not mine.

So I definitely understand @markantonys's point about this feeling like a well-written version of Mat and Tuon! It really does feel like this is the sort of relationship that Jordan wanted to write with Mat and Tuon but didn't have the skill at romance writing to pull off. Something like Mat and Tuon is Hard Mode Romance and Jordan wasn't even always good at Easy Mode Romance.

Two of the key elements that really makes Attolia and Gen work for me is just getting to sit and exist in Attolia's emotional reactions to the wrong that she has done to Gen; and Gen acknowledging and processing the harm that she'd done. And both of those things were desperately needed with Mat and Tuon, both as characters and as a romance.

A major major part of why Mat and Tuon failed for me is because I didn't feel like Mat was actually reacting to her realistically for the vast majority of their page time together; she threatens to invade a city and he laughs it off, she assaults his companions that he freed from slavery and he thinks it's hot?!?, she talks about how she likes to torture women and he ignores it.

If Tuon had cut off Mat's hand, the way that Attolia cut off Gen's, it feels like Jordan would have just had Mat shrug it off and then buy her a puppy as a reward or something as his response. Here, we get Gen begging Attolia "please don't hurt me again" after she cuts off his hand and then we have months of separation and recovery and processing before the narrative takes him anywhere near her again. And Attolia is forced to reckon with what she did, first by being haunted by the memories of him crying from the pain and loss, and then she has to face it directly by seeing his stump, seeing the pain that he's still in (because of her). She has to admit (not just to herself but to him) the damage that she did before they can move forward together. This is something that Tuon never shows herself capable of on any level. Tuon is never allowed to grow as a person the way that Attolia is, or to be vulnerable with the audience or with Mat.

I definitely still really felt the Mat-Gen comparison in this book too. Lots of places, but there's a great moment in the meadow with him, Eddis, and the Magus, where Eddis explains that Gen has deliberately made people believe that he can't fight but he also still gets miffed sometimes if people fall for his carefully constructed facade.

And the moment when Gen tells Eddis that he plans to steal the Queen of Attolia. It really feels, again, like this is the sort of vibe that Jordan wanted us to believe existed between Mat and Tuon: "She may be a fiend from hell to make me feel this way but even if I've got to hate myself for the rest of my life, this is what I want. I dream about her at night." This intense draw and this pull that he feels towards her. Jordan appears to want us to believe that Mat feels this kind of draw towards Tuon at the end of KoD but has not created any kind of foundation in Mat's characterization as to why.

We also got the long separation between Attolia and Gen where they are haunting each other with their absence. Attolia and Gen just get the time that is needed to develop this relationship in a way that's believable. Time in the story, not page time. This book is shorter than CoT & KoD, and probably shorter than if you made a "Mat and Tuon" novella out of their scenes in those books. It's the actual 'in world' time that matters, that gives Attolia and Gen time to think about each other and miss each other in a genuine way.

For another comparison -- Gen 'steals' Attolia to marry her like Mat kidnaps Tuon, but the context is so incredibly different on every level. Mat gets, essentially, tricked into kidnapping Tuon by the 'finn (it never would have happened if he hadn't heard that prophecy) while Gen acts with intention the whole way through. Technically, in both cases, Gen and Mat are 'saving' Attolia and Tuon by kidnapping them, but we feel the weight of it with Gen and Attolia in a way that we don't with Mat and Tuon. And a lot of that is because the bulk of Gen and Attolia's build-up happens before the kidnapping, during the times when they're separated and haunted by each other. So once the kidnapping happens, it's quick-paced and moves the plot forward rather than, you know, just fucking around with a circus for a month.

We also know that Attolia has complicated feelings about Gen already. I talked about this with @markantonys but that really is something that needed to happen with Tuon so much sooner than it does in the books (there are two big Mat & Tuon scenes in AMoL that desperately needed to happen back in CoT, imo -- Tuon trusting that Mat isn't trying to kill her; and Tuon going wild trying to protect Mat in the command tent).

Attolia and Gen also genuinely have things that they can each offer the other person, while with Mat and Tuon, none of the things that Tuon offers are things that Mat actually wants (slaves bowing to him; being dressed up like one of the Blood; being formal at all times - these are things that some of Mat's fans want for him, but not things he wants for himself) and she just feels like this ravenous black hole that constantly takes and takes and takes and gives back nothing of value. When Gen is startled at the realization that marrying the Queen of Attolia makes him the King and he'll have to actually be a king, it's this incredibly sweet moment, because it illustrates so clearly that he wants Attolia for herself and not her country. When Mat reacts against the idea that marrying Tuon makes him royalty, it just kinda makes him look dumb, because we've been given nothing of value in Tuon herself as a person, and no reason for Mat to care about her.

With Tuon, Mat talks about how she's better than other nobles, but nothing she actually does on the page is better than any other Seanchan noble. It's all 'footage not found'. By contrast, every single positive thing that Gen says about Attolia is backed up by the text and we even get shown additional positive qualities that no one needs to talk about because it's right there in the text.

With Tuon, it feels like Mat is attempting to gaslight me (and himself?) into believing that an interesting character exists there despite all the evidence against it, while Attolia simply is a compelling character based on what happens on the page.

That fact that there are so many raw similarities between the two pairings, but my reaction to them are so different really does illustrate the importance of execution, imo. Attolia and Gen's romance manages to travel so much further than Mat and Tuon's, while also being considerably more economical with how many pages it took to get us there.

The point-by-point comparison (aka WoT's failure of execution):

Tuon's interior life is poorly illustrated in comparison to Attolia's; because she starts off as an even worse person than Attolia but so much less character work is done on her than on Attolia, who is haunted this entire book by how she has "sunk so low as to torture boys" (on that note, Turner's choice to make Gen the younger and more openly vulnerable one really works here).

Seeing that Attolia's handmaidens are genuinely affectionate and protective of her at the end of this book is so incredibly touching, because she had no expectation of their loyalty (she believes in the loyalty of gold, and gold alone, for the most part). Tuon, otoh, has slaves that she expects to be subservient and loyal unto death, so her slaves' affection for her (that was trained into them) is something that completely fails to move me. This difference in the expectations of the character also makes a huge difference in how their PoVs come off -- Attolia's walls are due to her internal vulnerability and we get to see that vulnerability in her PoVs; while Tuon comes across as full of herself and incredibly arrogant, taking everyone around her for granted.

We're told that Tuon is smart and perceptive but rarely get any evidence; while Turner shows us Attolia's intelligence and how she sees a lot more than people like the Medes ambassador believe that she does. We get to see Attolia's intelligence in how she tricks the Medes ambassador into believing that she's so much less perceptive and intelligent than she truly is. This is another place where Jordan's unwillingness to ever place Tuon into a genuinely vulnerable position really hurt the character. Turner wasn't afraid to make Attolia the underdog and knew that it wouldn't undermine her as a character, it would strengthen her, because we would get to see who she was in adversity. The set-up of Crossroads of Twilight should have led to us seeing Tuon in adversity but Jordan was allergic to allowing her to be truly vulnerable, and gave her people to hide behind (Selucia & Setalle Anan) the entire time.

Mat as an agent of chaos is wildly downplayed in comparison to Gen as an agent of chaos. The Seanchan end up getting spared the chaos that the end of the Age brought to pretty much every other society, even though Mat seems clearly positioned to bring their society crashing down even as late as Winter's Heart. Gen's actions, otoh, are constantly throwing other people's plans off.

Mat does not behave realistically to the horrible things that Tuon says and does -- with Gen, even though we find out towards the last third of the book that he was already in love with Attolia before the book begins, we still get his raw reactions to her doing things that hurt him. He has nightmares after she orders his hand cut off, his pained begging of her not to hurt him again, and how he develops his own mask of impassiveness that is modeled on her own. Gen also never throws away his moral code in order to try to force himself to be at peace with the relationship -- he grows and changes as a character as a result of his trauma, but he stays himself at the core.

Something else that Jordan could have used more in the books that would have helped develop an understanding of why Mat believes that something exists beyond Tuon's 'cold Empress mask' would have been to make the comparison between Rand's mask and Tuon's mask more clear in the narrative. Because there's too much separation in time between Rand and Mat's interactions with Mat and Tuon's interactions. In this book, seeing that Eddis also needs to put up a queenly mask of not caring about Gen at first (in front of the Attolian guards when they return him to her after his hand has been cut off) helps illustrate why Attolia needs the mask that she uses -- Eddis doesn't trust the Attolians, but Attolia feels like she can trust absolutely no one, and so she always needs the mask and feels like she can never take it off. That's compelling! It could have been compelling in Tuon too, if it had been written better.

On that note: Turner personalizes the damage that Attolia's cold mask and her ruthless defense of herself/her country is doing by having her hurt Gen directly, and that being something that she struggles with over the course of the book. With WoT, Jordan basically did everything he could to hide away the damage that Tuon/the Seanchan were doing from Mat in order to try to justify why he could ~fall in love~ with her (was it intentional? to set their relationship up for a fall later in the Outriggers? we'll never know) without ever actually changing Tuon/the Seanchan for the better, which also meant giving Tuon no reason to have any internal struggles over the choices that she's made.

Gen and Attolia get another thing that Mat and Tuon desperately needed but that Jordan refused to give them: privacy. They negotiate getting married (after Gen has kidnapped Attolia in a much more narratively satisfying kidnapping than Mat and Tuon's!) in privacy, just between the two of them; when we get the conversation about their feelings at the end, again it happens in private. That makes a huge difference. Jordan being unwilling to ever actually yank Tuon away from her full power base and her slaves was a huge hindrance to ever allowing her to be vulnerable. And I do chalk this up to unwillingness and not failures due to plot set-up because there is no good reason to have Selucia tag along on the kidnapping and then it's even more bizarre in CoT & KoD, when the character of Setalle Anan goes from being fond of Mat to all of a sudden acting like he's the worst person in the world and she must protect poor helpless baby girl Tuon from him.

Both Attolia and Tuon get tricked by their respective love interests about who they are as a person because of the facade that they put up, but Attolia still has respect for Gen and his skills, even as she doubts his character, and it is Gen's own actions that show her who he really is and make her believe in him; while with Tuon and Mat, she spends over a month with him and still refuses to look past his surface until she literally has her face rubbed into it by seeing the Band's reactions to him. This difference is a key one in making Attolia's failure to see Gen as a failure due to the protective walls that she has up; while Tuon's failure comes across as her just not being very perceptive or intelligent. And the fact that we don't get the moment when Tuon begins to have even the faintest shred of respect for Mat until the end of Knife of Dreams just meant that I felt even more like all the pages time that Jordan spent on the two of them in CoT & KoD was a complete waste of my time.

We got to have genuine reactions from all of Gen's loved ones about the relationship! This is a huge place where, I guess, Sanderson is the one who failed for a change instead of Jordan because wtf was Perrin's "lol you married now bro? haha" reaction to Mat being married to a slaver? Though Jordan also does this to a certain extent with Thom, who we are supposed to believe is in love with Moiraine, and yet who never calls Mat out on courting a woman who would enslave and torture Moiraine if she had the chance. By contrast, Eddis is genuinely hesitant and worried because of everything they've heard about how cold Attolia is, and because she's the reason that Gen's hand was cut off.

We get to see Attolia and Gen develop a shared language and see behind each other's walls. The moment when she wears the earrings that he left for her, and he knows that it means she's chosen to marry him of her own free will is such a huge and impactful moment, and the only people who are aware of what it means are Attolia and Gen! This is really a failure that happens based on earlier failures of execution: because Mat and Tuon are never allowed to be alone together, it's impossible for them to develop this kind of shared coding and shared language.

12. We also have the 'footage not found' issue, where one of the characters (mostly Mat) tries to tell me something about Tuon but the narrative completely fails to back it up: this is the case with Tuon being intelligent and perceptive (in the narrative shown to us, she never picks up on anything until her nose is forcibly rubbed in it); and this is case with Mat thinking near the end of Knife of Dreams that Tuon belongs in the same 'better than other nobles' bucket as Talmanes when she has never shown herself to be willing to make better choices than other Seanchan nobles: he is still, at this point, worrying that she might enslave him and turn him into her cupbearer; she has not only threatened but actually assaulted his companions; whenever she's placed in a position of power over other people, she takes advantage of it and them. We're told that she's not a child but she also throws a tantrum (and pottery) at Mat at the start of Crossroads of Twilight. This could have worked if Jordan had leaned into the fact that Mat is deliberately lying to himself in order to make his marriage bearable, but that's where things like randomly having Setalle Anan go over to Tuon's side messes with that narrative.

13. When Jordan has Mat think about how Tuon dying would be a deep loss to him, it's just baffling because she has not done a single thing the entire 'courtship' that has shown why in the world Mat would feel that way. All of the attempts at reaching out during the courtship are Mat's, while Tuon just smugly accepts it as her due. Because Attolia doesn't just accept Gen's love as her due, because she actually doesn't believe him and challenges him on it, we get to hear his justification of it and why he feels that way, and then we also get to see her reciprocation. The relationship is a two-way street in The Queen of Attolia.

14. Which ties into the fact that Jordan chose to make Tuon not just a slaver but an enthusiastic slaver who enjoys the slave-breaking process and that is an incredibly dark place to start a character but it could have worked if it had been the beginning of Tuon's character arc and we'd actually watched her change and grow from that position. And she had the narrative set up for it! In her very first chapter, the reader learns that Tuon has the ability to learn to channel! She was created with the narrative juice to have a compelling arc about accepting the truth about herself and her people. And then Jordan gave that arc to Bethamin instead, lol.

15. In both of these stories 'fate' does kinda serve up Gen/Mat to Attolia/Tuon on a silver platter, but the execution of the storylines makes the reveal that fate was acting to push the two of them together so much more effective in The Queen of Attolia. Choice is a much larger consideration in Attolia and Gen's relationship than it is in Mat and Tuon's. There are elements of the higher powers of the world at work in both relationships, but Attolia and Gen have to put in the work themselves and have to face hard emotional truths in order to get us to the satisfying ending. I get the impression that Tuon wouldn't know an emotional truth if it spit in her eye. We actively see both Gen and Attolia consider and reject the idea of solving their main problem (about the war) without needing to get married; we see them choose their marriage and each other.

With Mat and Tuon, this is a lot more muddled. Fate/the Pattern/the 'finn want them to marry each other but we never get any kind of payoff as to why, and this is primarily because of Jordan's other storylines imo. He should not have had Rand already willing to make peace with the Seanchan in his separate storyline. Convincing Rand to be willing should have been Mat's job (because that also would mean that Mat would need to make the arguments to convince the readers). Jordan showing at the end of KoD that Rand is willing to make a deal with the Seanchan, even at the cost of giving in on the matter of slavery, basically completely voided any narrative reason for Mat and Tuon to get married, but without the satisfaction of seeing the two of them grow to a place where they would actively make that choice rather than being motivated by what they believe is necessary (due to prophecy).

There really were the bones of a potentially compelling story with Mat and Tuon, and I really do hope that the show (when we get there) is able to take those bones and turn it into a genuinely compelling story.

#the queen's thief #butterfly reads tqt #butterfly book club #wot book spoilers #a memory of light #wot #wheel of time #seanchan cw #wot meta #my wot meta #irene of attolia #eugenides #mat cauthon

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jadeylovesmarvelxo · 1 year

Text

Hey There Jealousy.

You're part of Hellfire with a big crush on Eddie, he doesn't feel the same and you deal with unrequited feelings until a date with someone else triggers unexpected reactions. ✨

Warnings; Angst, jealousy, fighting, fluffy goodness. Not S4 compliant.

Please like or reblog, etc if you enjoyed this ❤️🌸

I don't give anyone permission to copy my work.

❤️❤️

You had been in Hellfire for the last two years, it was your senior year and things were going pretty great.

When you first joined the group you didn't know what to expect, Gareth was the one who had found out that you were a huge dnd fan and always played with the kids you were babysitting at the time.

One of them happened to be his younger cousin Dave who raved about you to Gareth, it was then decided you would tag along to Hellfire.

None of your friends could understand why you wanted to join but you ignored their doom-filled predictions of it being a cult or whatever bullshit they heard from Jason.

Eddie was hesitant at first until you played your first campaign and knocked everyone's expectations out of the water.

Now you were one of Eddie's valued teammates and the tiny itty bitty crush you had on Eddie when you first met? Now it was full-blown feelings and you were screwed.

Because he didn't think of you like that, he had crushes on Chrissy Cunningham, other cheerleaders, hookups with girls in bands and at The Hideout where he would play with his band Corroded Coffin.

It hurt, seeing him with those girls hurt, it was expected though. You were just his friend, he was older and in a cool band and despite what Jason and his Neanderthal friends thought and called him- "the freak" garnered a lot of intrigue.

He was also gorgeous, with beautiful brown doe eyes, shaggy brown hair, tattoos and dimples. Eddie was fucking hot.

So yeah, you were screwed.

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Dustin never thought he would be speaking one and one with Chrissy Cunningham. He knew you were friends with her and Eddie a little bit too but it still felt surreal.

You and Eddie. That was the reason the two of them were conspiring together in the first place.

"Look, I like Eddie, he's a sweet guy but the fact that he doesn't notice how gone my girl is for him is frustrating" Dustin nods.

"What do you want to do about it? If he's not interested then you can't force him to be Chrissy" she nods.

"I know. Eddie Munson despite what yn seems to think isn't the only guy in the whole universe, others have noticed how cute she is"

This intrigues Dustin. Was it Steve? He knew Steve thought you were hot.

"You know Matt? He's on the basketball team? One of Jason's friends. He's one of them" Dustins eyes widen.

"So what do you suggest we do?" Chrissy smiles.

"We don't have to do anything. Matt is going to ask her out. Either Eddie feels something or he doesn't, either way..."

Either way, you would either get your dream guy or a chance to move on for good. Dustin liked you a lot and wanted you to find happiness, whether it was with Eddie, Matt or whoever you wanted to be with.

He was nervous but ready to see what happened.

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"Hey" You're shocked into silence as Matt comes over, he's like one of the most popular guys in school besides Jason and yeah you're meant to be tutoring him tonight but you didn't expect him to want to hang out beyond that.

Did he want to hang out with Hellfire? Immediately you notice Eddie tense, defences up and you don't blame him, the basketball team has a few jerks in it.

Besides Lucas of course. You adored Lucas as well as Mike and Dustin.

Matt has never been hostile though so you smile encouragingly while Eddie glares at the newcomer.

"Hey, I know we were meant to be studying tonight but I saw on your bag that you like horror movies, there's a showing of some classic horror movies tonight. You wanna go?"

Okay, this you weren't expecting. He rests his hand on your arm and his thumb strokes over your shoulder, it tingles and you feel flustered and also acutely aware of Eddie's raised eyebrow as he watches you both.

Chrissy is watching too giving you a thumbs-up gesture and you make a decision.

"I'd love to" you find yourself saying and Matt grins.

"Cool, I'll see you after class" You watch him go feeling like you're in some strange dream.

"Did that really just happen?" you ask the others who look between you and then Eddie.

"You've been swayed to the dark side. Yeah, it did" Eddie huffs and you roll your eyes.

"I have not. He is cute though" You sigh dreamily, it's nice having someone notice you.

"He was all over you in Ms O'Donnell's class. Someone's got a crush" Jeff teases and the others join in on the light hearted teasing.

Except for Eddie, who's quiet and munching on a bag of pretzels while he glares in the direction of the Jock table.

"We were just talking, he was asking me for help studying. I help Eddie so why not?" Gareth grins.

"Mmm and now you're off to the movies, a horror movie. That you'll not be watching because of all the... He makes a kissy face and you giggle.

"Dingus" would that happen though? Your belly flutters.

"Shut up! " Eddie snaps and the others quieten and your heart rate spikes because he looks so annoyed and you wonder if it's about you and Matt.

"We were discussing the campaign" he points out and your heart sinks, right Hellfire. It was silly of you to think he might be jealous. Why would he be?

After school, you meet up with Matt to head to the cinema.

Maybe this will be a good thing and you will be able to finally move on from Eddie?

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Eddie was invited to tag along with Robin and Steve to see The Blob.

How was he supposed to know that you would be at this movie with Matt? He felt like an idiot for staying and semi-spying on your date.

He tried to leave but the harsh twist of his heart when you laughed at Matt's jokes kept him rooted to the spot as well as Steve and Robin who wanted to see the movie.

Eddie didn't know why the sight of you and Matt together made his stomach bottom out but he was beginning to get a good idea.

He couldn't concentrate on the movie. It felt like that time that you were crushing on Steve for weeks and that kick started Eddie's dislike of the dude.

Until he got to know him and realized he was a pretty cool guy, Dustin's hero-worshipping of Steve too had stuck in his brain.

"Dude you didn't tell me that yn was looking to date someone. Could have asked her myself" Steve nudges him and nods to you and Matt.

Wait so Steve liked you as well? The urge to dislike Steve comes racing back. He kinda wants to hit something.

"You like her?" he asks Steve who shrugs.

"Dude, she's hot. You've never noticed?" he thinks about this and he's always known that you're beautiful, he's never liked anyone noticing you but assumed it was just him being protective.

Eddie doesn't think the pain in his chest could get any worse until Matt kisses you and he finally understands what it feels like to get his heart ripped out.

Stumbling out of the cinema he's joined by Robin and Steve, he feels like he can't breathe and the image of Matt kissing you won't go away.

"What's wrong with him?" Robin panics and Steve pats his back.

"Think he just realised he's in love Robin"

Love? he was in love with you? At first, he's like when the fuck did that happen.

Then be thought about it and maybe it was every time you smiled or you laughed or when you would fall asleep on his bed after helping him study and look so beautiful he was mesmerized.

Maybe it was your kindness, the way you played a kickass game of Hellfire or the way you looked at him on nights when it was just the two of you in his bedroom while he strummed on the guitar and taught you how to play.

Jesus Christ, he was an idiot.

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Eddie had been weird for the whole week and that was all you could think about tonight.

Your date with Matt had turned into a second and now this third date.

It was nice you kept telling yourself along with the fact that Matt was a lovely guy.

That's why you were at this party instead of at Hellfire, though you'd rather be with the boys and Erica in the middle of a campaign.

Despite Chrissy being here which made you feel more relaxed you knew this wasn't your thing at all.

It didn't help that after half an hour Matt was already drunk and he kept trying to feel you up even you told him no.

Your good opinion of him was rapidly fading with him acting more and more like a douche bag.

You had said no three times now and you were pissed.

"Come on babe" you shake your head and when he almost knocks you over and you hit your side on the table creating a rip in your dress you decide you've had enough of the party.

And of Matt.

"I said no! God, we are so done" You snap and tug out of his arms, you ignore him and stalk away, you're so upset that you don't realise how far you've walked into the woods until you can't hear anything from the party.

Shit.

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You hadn't shown up for Hellfire and that was Eddie's first distraction of the night, many more were to come but this was the first and all he could think about was you with Matt.

Jealousy coils around his gut and once again he curses his stupidity for not realizing his feelings sooner. It made him pissed off, it was hard to concentrate and he wasn't happy.

Eddie startles out of his DM mode as Lucas comes running into the drama room, he's just about to unload on him for missing half an hour of Hellfire but the look on his face stops him.

"Sinclair what's wrong?'' that's when Lucas tells him you were at a party with Matt, he's drunk and you're missing.

Then Chrissy comes in and rushes over to Dustin, it's like he's in some episode of the Twilight Zone.

"Dustin! Big mistake with Matt, he's an asshole he kept trying to grope yn at the party and she left and I can't find her" Chrissy was panicking and Dustin looks to Eddie freaked out.

Trying to tamper down the thoughts of beating the shit out of Matt he assures Chrissy, Dustin and Lucas that he will find you.

"Jordan said that she ran into the woods, Eddie" Lucas tells him and Eddie high-tails it to his van.

He had to find you. It was starting to rain and you could get sick or anything. What if you got lost? What if you tripped and injured yourself or you... He freezes.

What if the monster that stalked Hawkins Woods got to you? Normally he would have said that it was a load of rumours and shit but everyone knew Hawkins was one strange little town.

All the deaths. He couldn't risk you being hurt and he drove even faster. Desperate to get to you.

❤️❤️

You're shivering and chilled to the bone but you manage to find a clearing in the woods that leads back to the party.

It feels like you've been lost for hours but it probably hasn't been that long and you're relieved when you see a bunch of parties goers

That's when you also see Eddie, flashlight in hand and he shouts your name in relief.

He runs to you and you stumble into his arms sobbing in relief. The feeling of familiarity of Eddie's arms around you immediately makes you feel safe.

"It's okay princess. I've got you, you're safe" he checks you over and you assure him you're fine.

"You're soaked and look at all the rips on your clothes," he says worriedly and shrugs off his jacket placing it around you. The rain is fiercer now, a storm is brewing and you look anxiously at him.

He will catch a cold just standing in his Hellfire shirt and jeans, you try to tell him that but he stubbornely refuses to take his jacket back.

"Chrissy and Lucas explained everything. If I see that douchebag Matt he better run the other way" Eddie seethes, you've never seen him this angry before. It's not like him.

Well, that's a lie you tell yourself as you know how protective he is of you. How many scrapes he's gotten himself in for you, even if he had no chance in winning, he would defend you.

Even when he knew you could take care of yourself he still protected you.

At that point, possibly in the worst timing ever Matt stumbles over to you.

Eddie stiffens and Matt glares at you.

"You finally decided to have a go after all huh? Instead of acting like a frigid bit... He didn't get a chance to finish that sentence as Eddie socked him in the mouth.

He wines flexing his hand which is now bruised and sore.

"Fucking worth it" he announces, puts his arm around you and leads you to the van.

❤️❤️

You had never been so glad to see Eddie's Uncle Wayne in your life. He takes in the rips on your outfit and the bruise on your arm and scowls.

"What boy is my nephew beating up this time honey?" you would smile if you weren't so cold.

Eddie comes in and you immediately take his hands in yours and inspect his bruised knuckles.

"Are you okay?" you ask him and he nods still looking pissed off. He softens as you clean and bandage up the knuckles.

"Never mind me, sweetheart. Are you okay?" he asks you and you nod still a bit shivery. Uncle Wayne gets you a blanket and you cuddle into it.

"I'm better now. Should have never gone to that party. The whole time I was there I just wanted to be at Hellfire but I thought Matt was a nice guy and wanted to stick around for a bit, then he got drunk and acted like a dick"

Tears fall down your cheeks, frustration and just total exhaustion from the night's events.

Eddie deftly leads you to his room and shuts the door. Once you are inside he holds you close to him.

"I thought I had found a great guy and that he liked me when all he wanted to do was get in my pants. He didn't want to get to know me, not really" Eddie rubs your arm soothingly

"Maybe the next guy will be better huh?" you say hopefully and Eddie goes still which confused you.

"Eddie?" he swallows as he stares at you and you clasp his hand in yours.

"I don't want there to be another guy sweetheart. I want there to be just one guy. I want to be that guy"

What? He continues speaking and you can't believe what's happening.

"I know it took forever for me to realise and I've been so fucking jealous all week of Matt because he doesn't get how special and kind and beautiful you are and how lucky he was to be with you and the dude messed it up? What a douchebag"

"Eddie," you say again and he looks at you with those pretty brown eyes all wide and nervous.

"You don't feel the same right? Shit, forget I said anything and.." you call his name again and this time he quietens.

"Kiss me" He doesn't need to be told twice his lips are on yours and he grins as you kiss him back, he pulls away briefly.

"I'm sorry I didn't realise sooner princess" You rest your head on his chest as he pulls you into a hug, arms wrapped tightly around you as you sit on his knee.

"Hey less apologizing and more kisses" He laughs and kisses you again, his thumb stroking your cheek as he presses tender kisses to your lips.

"I'm an idiot. Should have been kissing you like this for weeks, feels so good sweetheart, it's never felt like this, just so right"

You smile on cloud nine knowing what he means, kissing Matt while nice and all never felt like this. However all thoughts are wiped from your mind when you straddle Eddie and his breathy moans cause the ache in your core to deepen.

"I love you and I'm gonna be kissing you forever sweetheart, hope you know that," he tells you and the thought of forever with the man you love sounds heavenly.

"I love you Eds, and that sounds perfect to me"

❤️

#eddie munson fluff #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x you

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