#it could also just be bc i have a new tv and like all shiny new hd tvs it seems to make my old tv stuff look even worse somehow
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Sat 31st Dec 23
Ending 2023 on a high after a long, stressful Christmas week. We ended up staying at Matt's parents' from Christmas Eve through to yesterday bc they only live 5 mins from the nursing home where his grandma was dying. So we went to sit with her every day to look through old pictures, talk about her favourite memories, and towards the end just to keep her company and hold her hand because she was too exhausted to do anything or even speak. It was so sad and the one thing she said was that she just wanted to drift away peacefully so it was awful to see her distressed and uncomfortable for almost a week as she deteriorated. But I think it meant a lot to her that we were all there at some point every day just so she wasn't alone. She died the 28th so we spent the 29th with his family and tbh everyone was just so relieved she wasn't in pain any more. And because they knew it was coming they had already come to terms with it. So it kind of felt like a peaceful day rather than grieving. We all just relaxed, I just sat around reading my book all day bc I had been doing as much housework at our house as I could to avoid us coming home to an actual bomb site, and also at his parents' so they didn't have to do it after spending 8 hours at a time at the home. We came home last night to have one night together in our own home with our shiny new TV that all Matt's brothers chipped in for us for Christmas bc our old one was really on its last legs. Matt was working a late shift at the hospital so I spent all night unpacking, doing laundry and cleaning to get the house straightened up a bit.
Today though, we had a lie in together (got up at 8.30!!) and woke up to a gorgeous sunny day so we both took Mags out for a lovely long walk. Had lunch and a cuddle on the couch, then Matt went up to do some uni work before we go to his brother's for NYE tonight with the rest of the family. I did more housework and then finally got to work out - I've been craving exercise all week but had an awful period and walking Mags for 20 minutes at a time was painful enough, and obvs we were spending as much time with family as we could. Despite everything, we did actually have a lovely Christmas Day. Just my dad was a dick both times I saw him over the holidays which is exactly what I expected therefore not worth getting upset about.
Anyway, it felt great to have a more normal day today and to get a proper workout. I did legs - strength followed by 25 mins on the bike which I'm just finishing up as I'm typing bc I need to go get ready for tonight.
Outfit for tonight after about 10 changes
Hope everyone has a great NYE with your loved ones!
#fitblr#health blog#personal#fitness blog#christmas#new year#ootf#leg day#cardio#workout#exercise is therapy#holidays
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oh my god i'm drunk with power slamming this ask button again & again -- Seal does Dani do anything to celebrate Halloween? the very thought of her in a cute dorky costume or chickening out of a haunted house/horror movie bc it's too stressful is making me COMBUST. please share your valuable insight, tsym (:
Spooky Season
Word count: 1.1k
Warnings: F!Reader, some suggestive stuff (nothing explicit but still), otherwise pure fluff
Summary: Glimpses of the Halloween celebration you and Dani have together.
A/N: Ask and you shall receive >:) Happy belated Halloween, guys! I couldn’t choose between a fic and a list of headcanons for this one, so I’ve decided to try something new and kinda did a blend of both. Hope you enjoy!
“Hey, quit squirming!” you throw your hands in the air, pretending to be exasperated, as Dani struggles not to laugh. “You’re running my hard work. I simply cannot continue in such dire conditions.”
“Dire? Seriously?”
“Well, not that dire,” you wiggle your eyebrows. “But, y’know. I could use some cooperation.”
“Can you blame me, though? It’s been half an hour…”
“You can’t rush art, miss Ardor. Now sit tight or it’ll be, like, ten more hours and that’s a promise.”
She huffs, pretending to be annoyed, but you know she doesn’t mean it. You can’t imagine Dani ever being seriously angry at you, especially without talking it out.
A few silent minutes pass as you keep drawing shiny scales on her cheekbones. Some face paint here, some glitter there – everything to create a perfect make-up for a mermaid costume. You’ve designed a whole thing yourself too, in just a couple of hours.
Dani’s very inspiring, what can you say.
“Thank you, by the way,” you look up, only to be met with her gentle gaze, shining with bashful adoration. “For this. I know it's silly, but-”
“You make it sound like a favor,” you murmur under your breath, returning to you work. “And not like a blessing it is. So… Can’t take it, sorry.”
“Oh,” Dani’s voice cracks. She blinks a few times. “That’s- That’s really beautiful.”
“That’s just how it is,” you move away, giving Dani’s face a one last look-over. “Speaking of beautiful! Not to brag or anything, but I think this is my magnum opus. If you dragged me to the bottom of the sea, I’d just thank you.”
“That’s a siren, not a mermaid.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I’m not an expert in, uh, mermology,” you revel in a small giggle she gives you. “Then what? You’ve sold your voice to the sea witch to see the human world?”
“Yeah, right. To see a very…” Dani looks away, blush still obvious despite all the makeup. “Um, special part of it.”
Now it’s your turn get flustered. You stare at her lips; a glance not stolen, but gifted freely.
“Well then. Better give you a true love’s kiss really quick.”
“What about ruining your hard work?”
“Eh, who cares? There’s always more glitter.”
***
“Is it over?” Dani peeks at the screen, only to immediately hide her face in the crook of your neck again.
“It didn’t even start! That’s literally just two people talking.”
“Yeah, for now!”
“Oh, come on,” pausing the horror movie the two of you are watching, you let out a soft laugh. You’re not even looking at the screen anymore and you don’t need to– you know how it goes. You’ve seen it way more times than you’d like to admit; it’s cheesy and the special effects didn’t age all that well, but it’s still dear to your heart. Also, it’s not scary at all.
Well, not for everyone, apparently.
“You know,” you whisper in Dani’s ear, feeling her shiver at the proximity of your warm breath. “If you just wanted to cuddle, could’ve just said so.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh, so you didn’t want to cuddle?”
“No, I- That’s not- Ah!” she hides her face in her hands with a groan. You don’t reply, opting for a kiss on a cheek instead. “You’re so annoying, I swear.”
“And yet here we are,” you murmur, earning a content sigh from Dani. “I love you so much, y’know? Don’t you forget.”
“Don’t think I can.”
An image of a rubbery-looking monster peeking from the shadows lingers on the TV screen for hours, forgotten.
***
“Alright, so trick or treat?”
Dani rolls her eyes, attempting to grab the bowl of leftover candy you’re holding, but you’re quick enough to pull it away. It’s dark outside; the kitchen is illuminated with all the candles you’ve managed to find around the house, the soft orange glow outlining cardboard bats and plastic skeletons. You were aiming for “scary” when you’ve set the decorations up. Still, “romantic” fits better anyway, love shining through the playful horror.
Honestly, you can’t complain.
“Pretty sure that’s not how it works.”
“It is now!” you put the bowl in one hand, placing the other on her forearm. “Come on, baby, humor me for a minute. Trick or treat?”
“Alright, alright, uh…trick? I’m scared already.”
“That’s the point of the holi- Hey, not so fast!” you cut your girlfriend’s another attempt to steal candy from you short, grinning. “Tell me. What did a skeleton say to her girlfriend after a date?”
“Can’t even imagine. Wait, don’t you dare say ‘let’s bo-”
“Let’s bone.”
“Oh my God,” Dani buries her head in her hands as you cackle triumphantly. “This is awful. Get out.”
“You’ve chosen it, not me!” reaching into the bowl, you pull out a Twix and hand it to her. “Here. A whole bar, you deserve it.”
“Thank you.”
Without another word, Dani grabs the candy from you and unwraps it, handing you one of the sticks. You put the bowl down; for a moment, the both of you are too busy with your sweets to talk, but you can tell there’s something on her mind. That little frown of hers, made all more adorable by the fact that she has no idea about it.
“Okay, no- I’m curious now,” Dani brushes the crumbs off her mouth with a quick gesture. “What would be a treat?”
“Want a trick and a treat?” you move closer, your voice dropping to a sultry whisper. “Your wish is my command. What did I say to my girlfriend after this date?”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Worked so far.”
Dani doesn’t answer. Instead, she leans in and you comply happily, drowning in her soft embrace. Sweeter than any candy, warmer than any candle.
“Y/N, it’s…” Dani whispers, pressing her forehead to yours. “It’s really nice.”
“What is?”
“This. You,” she kisses you, smiling against your lips. “I mean, it’s so- Can we do this next year? Please. I’d really love that.”
“I think that’s how that ‘holiday’ thing wo- Ow!” with a giggle, you steal another kiss, closing your eyes in pure joy. “Of course we can. Happy Halloween, baby.”
#dani ardor#dani ardor x reader#dani ardor imagine#florence pugh x reader#florence pugh imagine#midsommar#seal writes
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5 (yukari) + 12 (kaveh) + 23 (ayumu) + 30 + 46 (zizel) !!
(5) — a memory with family / those you considered family
YUKARI ; i guess this is for S.E.E.S. my feelings for them were very mixed for a while, only because i didn't really want to be in that situation and just made it an excuse to escape other problems. there was a time though that i felt like, huh, i could really treat these people as my family, and i did just that. because the fact is we were all losers and outcasts in some way, and in a twisted sense i felt as if i had found my people. sure, some of them were pretty hard to deal with, but it's times better than what i had and... hey what do you know, saving the world is a family activity! i'm glad i walked the path i did with all those guys.
(12) — a memory of home
heavy warning // KAVEH ; wow ok see, i. also had extremely mixed feelings about my home. i mean, i think i had a pretty good life there, for what it was worth. my parents loved me, and i loved them too. when dad died and mom spiraled, i was only 10. i still had my drawings of us on the walls, but i tore them down for mom's sake. she left when i was 12 because she saw her husband in me and couldn't bear it, i dyed my hair but nothing worked, so i let her go. i could deal with my own grief, but i can't bear to see her like that. the house felt so empty every time i came back to it, and, well, what's a home without the people in it? some might judge me for selling it for quick money but 'home' has always been a fond memory, not a building. if i could, i'd want mom and dad in the family room with me again, but it's a distant image at this point haha. besides, i found a new home with my person, so it's not all that bad.
(23) — first memory you can recall
AYUMU ; volunteering at the animal shelter with yuu-chan! there was this cute pair of rabbits that looked so cute but were so fierce, they nearly bit my hand off rbbdkfd... it's that orr seeing myself on tv for the first time, maybe. it's just such a surreal experience seeing yourself being aired to everyone across the country like is this real life?? i always struggled with confidence so i also saw it as a significant startup in my path as an idol! nothing would hold me back anymore !!!
(30) — someone you didn't expect to kin and/or someone you knew you would kin immediately
someone i knew i would kin immediately is kokomi. i keep saying this but i am literally the first kokomi kinner i mean it. dating all the way back to late 2020 when we knew her as mimi. therefore i am gatekeeping this identity no one else can be kokomi. jokes but not jokes ^_^ and also march 7th to a lesser degree, i knew about her only a bit before i jumped straight into hsr and went “yep, yeah, uhuh” asdhjkhd.
someone i didn't expect to kin is like... ai hoshino, i eyed her for a while but didn't really see it even though i did have that “overconfident idol who's not as confident as she acts” type streak bc of rise until i found out how she struggles with love which is like. oh! (plus it's not a great source but i don't take pride in it anyway.) mmmaybe kaveh too, since i wasn't going to kin anyone in sumeru but Things Happened. highkey hate how he's a really common kin bc apparently “gnc suffering artist who struggles with self-worth, family, and belonging finds a home in another person and maybe himself too” resonated with a lot of people and i mean. ok. im fine with this (im not)
(46) — your favorite things
ZIZEL ; floral tea, ribbons, dresses, lolita fashion, satin and silk, flowers, shiny trinkets like gems but also jewelry, most things feminine, i also like “rich” things if that's any definition, but not money because it's of no use for me. and claire :)
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Hi Lane!!
Omg I forgot about the time zones haha. When I wrote that message, I still had December 8th. I understand why you didn’t watch live performances and it's okay! I can't watch some bands perform, especially if they don't exist anymore for some sad reason. INXS is an amazing band! Have you seen the TV series about them?
This glam festival promises to be really memorable! I really hope Michael will be there.
Omg!! The piercing master is great! Do you have any favorite types of piercings?
I hope I can see a picture of the Bandit! 200 playlists in Spotify is great. if you don't mind, I would love to explore your playlists because I feel tired of my music and I need something new. I understand about the Warrant albums! albums with Jani after Dog Eat Dog are not available in my country and now I want to order a CD, but it will have to wait a couple of months.
Wow, that's so cool!! And what do you like to draw? handmade T-shirts, in my opinion, are a very cute and memorable gift.
I hope you will be able to make all your travel plans come true! Do you have any fav sights that you would like to see?
Oh I'm really sorry that you are experiencing a lot of stress at this time :(by the way, when is your birthday? And how is winter going in Australia?
🎄If you could talk to any musician, who would it be?
🎄Do you play any instruments or would you like to learn?
🎄 How do you like to celebrate Christmas?
Your Santa ⛄️🎄
hey santa!!!
sorry for a later response i’ve been at a family christmas event all day 🥲
i didn’t even know there was an inxs tv series? i’ll have to check that one out!
glamfest lineup just came out about an hour ago as i’m writing this and the lineup is killer! slaughter and lynch mob are headlining which is awesome so i think i may just get vip… no michael monroe but thats ok! if he comes to australia separately that’d still be cool but if not it’s fine
i think my favourite type of piercing to do on other people is a helix piercing at this stage, but on myself my fav is just any type of nose piercing, bc i can do anything with them!
i’ll link my spotify HERE so feel free to check that out :3
& yeah it sucks that ultraphobic - under the influence is just so widely unavailable its like they just kinda want people to see their discography go from dog eat dog to born again which sucks because theres so much good stuff on ultraphobic, belly to belly & even the few new songs on greatest and latest (bad tattoo, keeping up with the jones, southern comfort) like… pls warrant i beg of u to let me listen
i had some fun doing drawings of shiny stuff - cutlery specifically i guess??? i think that was fun! & yea the silly shirts were also fun! i made one for my dad that just said “i am bald” which he hates but i think it’s hilarious
for the meantime travel is going to have to wait because i am saving for a surgery but i am hoping to see a tattoo artist in melbourne victoria to do a portrait tattoo eventually! in europe i’d love to see some ancient stuff & i’d also like to see some of italy’s vineyards :)
it’s actually summer right now for australia so aside from the general christmas present buying stress i’m actually not too bad rn it’s june-august where i get more stressy but again time zones and hemispheres are wacky so i understand the mixup - my birthday is feb 11! so a month and a half away!
summer is sooooo hot rn it was 38° yesterday (100° if you’re a fahrenheit user) i was just laying in the aircon sweating my ass off waiting for the heat to take me out but thankfully it wasn’t AS bad today
where are you from btw?
if i could talk to any musician… i’ll give you two answers because you didn’t specify dead or alive
dead: jani lane bc i love him and i think we’d relate on a lot of things
alive: patrick stump from fall out boy because he seems like such a sweet and intelligent guy and fall out boy got me through a lot of my teen years and i also think he’d get me
i do play a few instruments! bass is my main one that i’m best at but i also play guitar (planning on restarting lessons in the new year now that i have a job that pays me better), piano (sometimes), ukulele (again sometimes), and i have background playing small wind instruments (recorder, harmonica). i would love to learn the drums though! i also (try to) sing a bit but only rly in front of ppl when i’ve been drinking a bit and we do karaoke
christmas is the same every year really, we do a couple of extended family events in the lead up & then on christmas eve we each get to open ONE thing from under the tree. on christmas day we have lunch/dinner with my mums side of my family, which switches between three houses (our house, aunts house, mums cousins house). we do a secret santa for gifts at this but if you’re under 18 you get a present from every family. we used to go to church on christmas eve but since my dad’s not religious and me and my sister kinda stopped believing & my mum isn’t rly a fan of the catholic church as an organisation (shes still christian she just doesnt like the church) we dont do that anymore)
sometimes we drive around on christmas eve and look at the lights that people put up on their houses! a lot of people do that in my area btw just in case that sounds creepy
thanks for the message!!!
p.s. cat tax here is a pic of the boy
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Rewatching Love, Victor season 2 and all I can think as I’m watching is that Benji is cooonstantly putting his own feelings aside and instead striving to put himself in Victor’s shoes and empathize with Victor. Victor, for his part, gladly takes that from Benji and then proceeds to fail to put himself in Benji’s shoes in return. (We’ll leave Benji’s issue with conflict avoidance/not stating what he wants aside for a second but we’ll get to that shortly.)
Long-ass post, prepare yourself :P
Example exchange: in ep 6 after Isabel is so nice to Rahim and Benji fails to be #stoked about it, Benji comes up to Victor at the coffee shop the next day and says something like hey, sorry I wasn’t supportive when you were so excited that your mom was being nice to Rahim. And Victor just goes thanks for saying so yeah she was really being nice to him and I think we made some real progress yesterday!
Like. Okay. rewind noises
Let’s do that whole exchange over again but in the way a healthy couple would, shall we?
Benji: Hey Victor. I’m sorry I wasn’t supportive yesterday when you were excited about your mom. I know you wanted me to be excited with you. Can I tell you a little bit about my own feelings around your mom?
Victor: of course you can.
Benji: Okay. To be honest, I feel really hurt when your mom gives me the cold shoulder. And that’s been something I’ve been dealing with for a while now. So, as much as I want to be supportive of you and excited for you when you see her seeming like she’s making some progress, it’s hard for me. Because it would hurt for me to get my hopes up that she’ll treat me better, only to be disappointed.
Victor: Damn. Wow. I’m so glad you told me how you feel about that. That makes a ton of sense. I would really like your support, because I love my mom and this whole thing with her is hard for me, but I understand now why it would be painful and complicated for you to get too excited. Now I get it. Thanks for telling me. I’ll keep that in mind when I bring it up to you from now on and we can navigate all of it together.
fast forward noises OOC cause I just wrote that as I thought about what I would say in a similar situation, but you get the idea.
Returning to Benji for a sec. I’m a cliiiiinically conflict avoidant person, and I recognize a lot of myself in Benji. He doesn’t want to take up space. He makes funny stories and jokes out of his trauma (strip club, crashing car into Wendys). He doesn’t stand up for himself even if he has a legitimate reason to be upset - he finds reasonable reasons to apologize for his part in the situation and tries to make amends. (Certainly not always a bad thing, just can definitely be a conflict avoidant thing.) I mean, we saw him behaving this way even in s1. Think about on their anniversary when Derek said “can we just go catch that show” and Benji said “you go ahead, I’ll catch up” instead of “hey, I know you don’t care about anniversaries but I do. This means a lot to me. I want to spend time together.”
So yeah, Benji has some serious issues with avoiding talking about his own feelings, standing up for himself, etc if it basically doesn’t “go with the flow” of what the other person is thinking or feeling. Conflict avoidant. He doesn’t want to rock the boat. I don’t know why, yet. I don’t think we as the audience know why at this point, but I hope the writers will get into it. Probably isn’t “because alcoholism” - rather, I think the alcoholism is another symptom of the same issue.
Victor, for his part (and I’ve touched on this in another post), probably has spent so much of his life being the fixer for his family that he kind of unconsciously latches on to people who will give him a break from that and take care of him (think Simon, for instance??? Lol). And he forgets that it’s not black or white, it’s not one or the other: care or be cared for. In a relationship it goes both ways. I really think he got this massive crush on Benji, put him on a pedestal, made him out to be perfect; almost saw him as kind of a savior. Someone who could come, sweep him up, and make everything okay. Fulfill all his fantasies. Victor doesn’t seem to see Benji as a real person yet. And he doesn’t seem to realize that he needs to proactively take care of Benji, not just let Benji keep taking care of him. That they need to meet each other halfway.
And speaking of avoidant people, Victor does seem to have a pattern with this behavior doesn’t he? Dates Mia -> not working out -> run to someone who is new and seems perfect. Dates Benji -> things are complicated and hard -> oh look a handsome boy who is wonderful in every way (runs to someone who is new and seems perfect) (and will fix all his problems). Boy needs to stop running off to the next person who’s gonna “fix all his problems”. He needs to invest in his current partner. He needs to invest in being the one to care about his partner, being the one to put in the effort. Not just being the one to be cared for. He needs to stop waiting for someone to come sweep him up and fix all his problems. It’s not realistic, Victor. Get yer shit together & learn how to be a better bf. For reals. Smh
That went off on a little tangent lol, but honestly, at the end of the day, none of this is really even either of these guys’ faults - yes Victor puts Benji on a pedestal and is just beginning to see him as a real person with complexity and flaws, but to be fair Benji basically did the same thing: put Victor on a pedestal. “I broke up with him. I just want to be with someone where I can be myself and that’s enough. That’s how you make me feel, Victor.” = a really similar pattern to what we’ve seen Victor do. Relationship failing, abandon ship for the shiny, new, and better-seeming option. I’m not saying that that’s always the wrong choice. I don’t think that it is. But I am saying that both Benji and Victor are experiencing something very natural: having big crushes, letting infatuation and rose-tinted glasses go to their head, and then experiencing whiplash when their partner isn’t perfect. Honestly I think we’ve all been there to some extent.
At least in s3, now that they’ve seen some low times and their rose-tinted glasses are off, they should get a chance to create a deeper bond if they choose to do that (I feel confident that they eventually will). Benji needs to own his conflict avoidance and start advocating for his wants, needs, and feelings. Victor needs to recognize that although Benji seemed like a dream boy and is way more experienced yada yada, he’s not there to save or take care of Victor - he’s just a person, who also needs to be taken care of sometimes, and Victor needs to meet him halfway in their relationship and do that for him. They need to be able to exchange care as equals.
There I fixed their whole relationship you’re welcome afhffjhgfgjfgjg
(…….oh god I just realized how the writers are gonna have Victor figure out that sometimes he needs to take care of Benji too, and it’s totally gonna be bc Benji relapses with alcohol. Probably. Sounds like a TV-show move, doesn’t it?)
#not me wondering if I’m gonna write a fix it fic for this convo now#oh dang I……. I might just#or actually I think I’m gonna write another scene from s2 but from Benji’s perspective….. hmmm. someone hold me to this#also am I processing the things I’m learning in therapy through these fictional characters? you bet your ass#venji#victor salazar#benji campbell#love victor spoilers#love victor#lv spoiler#love victor season 2 spoilers#love victor season 2#love victor analysis
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About that Fox post: i absolutely love you for writing it, thank you for that
Also, for your consideration:
- Where were you during the zillo beast attack?
- throwing a surprise birthday party for him?
- going shopping together
- I have a scenario that him dating an investigative journalist would be very chaotic, any thoughts?
- what's the friendship with his brothers like?
- why do i fell he would be good with kids? Like your nephew or something
- on that note, does he get the dad genes from Jango?
- post-war AU? in the timeline where Palpatine chokes and dies like he's supposed to
- Getting!! Married!! (eventualy)
many Fox thoughts today, many thoughts
sorry this is so long, I have little self control and a lots of love for fox. i love u so much for asking this and letting me explore what a life with fox would be like.
also I apologize for being a h*rny bitch and not controling myself, so nsfw thots are marked like this so if u wanna skip that's fine.
and uh, first I'm gonna answer the investigative journalist hc and base everything about this in that solely thought because that's a galaxy brain thing to say.
I have a scenario that him dating an investigative journalist would be very chaotic, any thoughts?
AHDJSJ I LOVE THIS. okay okay but I feel like because of this job this is exactly why you guys met, like you needed some info and you asked some shiny but he didn't know a thing and you were like "is there someone I can talk with about this?" and when he's about to reply, Fox enters in action and he's like "need anything?" but sO COCKY.
he hates journalists mostly because some of them treat the clones very badly and never talk about the casualties or that kind of stuff about war, right.
like, it would turn into this-- banter filled with sexual tension that would've ended up in a make out session if 1. fox didn't have that much of self control and two if he weren't wearing his bucket.
it'd be like
"listen man-"
"it's commander for you." a pause, "or sir."
or like
"i need to do other things if you don't mind."
"i can think of a few you could be doing right now." and the way your eyes run through his entire body, even if he's all covered in plastoid but damn you if he isn't the hottest man walking, and he actually shivers, and gulps, because it's not like he wasn't thinking about that either, pushing down your pants and railing you right then and there in that fucking filthy alley. he is well aware how his suddenly codpiece feels too tight, but you only smirk and go, "you know, like giving me the information I need?"
KDJSJ IMAGINE THE POWER. THE POSSIBILITIES.
it'd be so ridiculous, but you also caused this impression on him that when you turned away to go on your business he was dEVASTED, but he didn't want to let u know he actually liked you. He's stubborn, that man.
So by some miracle when you're investigating something, you guys run into each other bc he's on patrol or something and he's GIDDY. but also frozen in place bc he didn't think he would ever see you again, mostly because Coruscant is big and has too many people in it. and you're like
"ah, commander fox, isn't it?" and he quickly resumes to say something that shows how aNNOYED he pretends to be, but he ends up tagging alone because "these parts are not safe"
"oh?"
"you'd need protection."
and the smirk you have is sO ARROGANT because it's not your first rodeo.
"you wouldn't want to have a civvie getting killed or something on your watch now, would you?" and he clears his throat and nods sharply. and you give him this innocent eyes and bat your lashes, "my hero."
and if you think those words didn't do aNYTHING to him, you're mistaken u hear me, he's instantly hARD.
so anyways after that YOU ask him out, and he's like, stuttering and saying yes and all.
now some random thoughts on this magnificent hc.
• if it can't be himself, he would always have the men he trusts the most going on patrols around the zone you're around in case something happens.
• he lOVES when you rant about something new you discovered, and when he asks for mOre info bc he's a, how do you say chismoso?, he loves gossip??? anyways and you're like "nu huh, you gotta wait till tomorrow, foxie"
• he aLWAYS makes sure to read/see your job, either if you work for some newspaper, magazine, etc or if you're on the TV he nEVER misses it.
• if you work for the TV, his brothers are always like "fOX YOUR GIRL IS ON THE HOLONET LIKE RN!!!" and he gives them this bitch face because he kNOWS THANK YOU.
• alright but imagine going on dates with him and being like "did you know there was an investigation last year around this part that–?" ROMANCE AT ITS PEAK.
• if his shift ends before you even think of going home, he definitely joins you on your investigations.
Where were you during the zillo beast attack?
uhh, I think you'd be home, like maybe you turned in early and fox maybe didn't know, so he was almost in tears when he called you after the whole thing happened because he was so worried.
of course, during the attack, he tried to push the thought aside, bc I think all clones have this, uh, switch, that makes them not worry during missions that much? just like, have this thought here and there but nothing serious that would make them paralyzed and have a panic attack right there. but every second he thought of you and hoped you were alright.
unlike you, that were worried sick because you saw the chaos unfold, the troopers arriving in shuttles and the jedi doing whatever they were doing and you just heard destruction. you DID cried a bit and when fox called you, you cried even harder. and he was like "it's alright, I'm alright baby."
that night he hold you SO tight, whispering sweet nothings on your ear and never stopped kissing you once. you barely got any sleep because you were so afraid of waking up only to find out the other died on the attack and it was all a dream.
throwing a surprise birthday party for him?
AAAAAH THIS IS SO CUTE.
now, clones don't exactly have a birthday???? but he did all these nice things for your birthday (he and the boys baked you a cake that was sO UGLY and tasted a bit weird) so you thought you could surprise him too.
it's most likely he gives you the date when he graduated from Kamino or something and for all the years you're with him, you never miss his "birthday" at first you did something quiet, like a dinner at your place, bought him something nice, gave him a bath or something and spoiled the shit out of him.
so for the second year, you threw him a party in his office, made him this cake or whatever and decorated with red and white balloons and invited a few troopers that wanted to help you and he was stoic for a moment, but then you were like "hAPPY BIRTHDAY!" and hugged him so tight and he relaxed under your touch and whispered this small "thank you baby"
everyone congratulated him and he was a bit awkward but when they start telling all these stories of them and fox on the job, he starts to loosen up a bit, so while everyone is eating cake he hugs you from behind and chuckling lowly in your ear as he listens to his brothers.
he dOESNT like pda like I said but he forgets for a moment because he just loves you sO SO SO SO MUCH. it's also easier for him to whisper filthy things into your ear and mumble how good you are for him, that he doesn't deserve you, that he can't wait for everyone to leave cause he wants to have his present (you) nipping your earlobe and making u all hot and bothered and would def fuck you nice and hard on his desk. yup
going shopping together
imagine, jUST IMAGINE, he'd look like your personal bodyguard 😭😭 like, he'd be behind you carrying most of your bags and people would look at you wondering who are you, why are you sO important to have the commander of the Coruscant guard with you???
but like, you don't care and fox doesn't even notice, and he'd be so attentive, faking to be both annoyed and uninterested but he'd see this nice shirt or dress or whatever and grumble something like "you'd look good on this" i just-
and like when you pass by the lingerie store, dUDE, he'd make you model for him, him sitting like he fucking owns the place, getting harder and harder every time he sees you in a new pair of underwear and when you show off this cute little red set. damn.
if you go to the market or something, he'd always love to show you these things like "look at that" or just pull you towards this stall and you'd adORE to show him stuff like, "ohh, fox here try this" or "what you think about this?" and stuff like that.
what's the friendship with his brothers like?
i think it'd be very easy-going and light, they would tease you sometimes, but they really like you, mostly because they see fox isn't as stressed as before and they see how happy he is when around you.
they think he deserve it, to have somewhere where he's free and loved, so yeah.
they sometimes ask him about you and never miss a chance to say hi when you stop by the office.
the boys absolutely ADORE you.
why do i fell he would be good with kids? Like your nephew or something. does he get the dad genes from Jango?
HE WOULD AND HE DOES.
like, I think at first he'd be very hesitant when it comes to children, like he'd be nervous when you introduce him to your niece and when you ask him if he wants to hold her, he says a quick no and just prefers to watch you, heart feeling funny when you make faces at the little baby in your arms.
at some point he dOES hold her, with such care and a gentleness that makes your heart flutter, and he coos softly as she sleeps soundly in his arms, rocking her with a delicacy you thought impossible from such hard man, and when he looks at you his eyes shine with this flash of something you can quite place but makes your heart skip a beat and think of how much you'd love to have this, with him, a little family, a baby that has his curls and maybe your eyes, a mix of your skin color with his and maybe his stubbornness completed by your charisma. a perfect little thing for you two to hold and care and love.
he'd be such a good dad, but then again every clone would be the most fantastic dad bc it's literally in their genes.
if you have a nephew that is, u know, older but still a kiddie, like 5 or 6, the lil boy would be aMAZED by fox, he'd love him so much, like imagine, always asking for the commander, wanting to play with him, asking fox to carry him eVERYWHERE, and at first fox would be like, shy and uncertain and he wouldn't know how to act until he accepts the fact that this little boy really likes him and looks up to him and fox becomes The Cool Uncle™
post-war AU? in the timeline where Palpatine chokes and dies like he's supposed to and Getting!! Married!! (eventualy)
well, in my post-war AU, clones get Rights™ and get paid and have vacations and stuff, sO, maybe you get to have Fox for a little more time and his schedule isn't as bad as it was during the war, so maybe after the war you get home to a nice dinner and fox using this silly apron and sometimes you come home early just so you can cook with him.
maybe you go on holidays to these nice places, going to the beach or the woods and finally settling somewhere quiet, start a family in this nice house or if you don't want kids then it's just the two of you and maybe a few pets.
i think the wedding would be officiated in Coruscant, of course, so his brothers and your fam can go, he'd definitely cry when he see you walking down the isle or when you put the ring on his finger and he'd be so so so happy, dancing with you all night, being so clingy because he's just Over the moon, y'know, kissing your cheeks and neck, whispering how lucky he is and how much he loves you, and how good you look, never leaving your side and always leaning over with pouty lips for you to kiss him.
when he proposed it was during one of your sweet, soft times with him, maybe in the aftertaste of your sexy times, as he holds you close to his chest, fingers running up and down your skin, as he stares at the ceiling and the question comes out as if he were talking about the weather, his heartbeat is slow and steady and it's one of those times he feels confident and sure.
you have talked about a future together, so he knows you'd say yes.
it's more a statement than a question, really.
"marry me." he would say, so quietly, almost a whisper. and when you look up you only find this beautiful emotion filling his eyes.
"what?" you just want to make sure you heard right, he'd smile softly, cup your cheek and as his thumb caresses your skin he'd whisper.
"will you marry me?"
you oBVIOUSLY say yes while ugly sobbing.
#ANYWAYS#i love fox#i love him your honor#I LOVE HIM#commander fox x reader#commander fox#headcanons#ted talks with ari
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hi<3 okay i am finally writing the new kotss chapter, and once again here is a lil contemplative snippet of tumblr-drabble length as a preview for when i write the whole thing in a day or two!😌💜 (mostly bc i am feeling sleepy and sappy this morning about mickey’s growth and just. cannot get over it.)
hope u enjoy<3
--
He fucking loved the dog, okay?
When they were first waiting in that overly-bright room in the dog rescue center (or whatever the fuck it was called) with Ian sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of him, and Mickey had seen the bundle of fur with its paws hitting the ground, a scrawny puppy with a swollen belly and a protruding ribcage— he’d immediately known he was in trouble.
First, because there was no fucking way that Ian was going to let them leave this place without it, since he practically made heart-eyes the second the puppy stumbled its way over to him— and second, because Mickey was absolutely, totally sure that he was going to fuck this up. Even reading the fucking description on the website on Ian’s phone screen, “comes from a troubled past and needs a loving home,” made something twist in his gut— because how the fuck was Mickey supposed to provide something like that?
Mickey didn’t take care of shit like this, like fragile puppies or babies or anything he could mess up— and he especially didn’t let in anything more than he could handle losing, anything soft and helpless and innocent that he couldn’t let slip between his fingers on his own accord. He’d learned that shit early, when whatever whispers and soft traces of touches on his cheeks were ripped away by the pry of Terry’s calloused hands— when one day, when he was fifteen, he and Mandy and everyone else didn’t have a mom anymore. Losing his mom, losing his family after years on the road, even losing fucking Terry those now months ago; all of that shit compounded and pressed on the walls of his ribcage in a way that Mickey himself didn’t really understand, and apparently was oozing out of him in a fucking dog shelter as he stood there frozen, in the face of a helpless frame on wobbly legs with silky grey fur.
For some reason, even though he and Ian had been talking about the dog in the abstract for days now, something about seeing the dog scared him shitless— because taking care of shit was objectively scary, and Mickey was shit out of practice with it. He’d never been good, comfortable, at holding something fragile in his hands, something that he could mess up in a second with a slip of judgement. Mickey was great at getting shit done, but with something like this— well, honestly, he wasn’t sure if he trusted himself enough, to not make those split-second choices that Terry made, the ones that left cigarette burns on his sides and snapped his jaw out of place and left him with so many aching wounds that only became more dark and cavernous through the years.
I’m gonna fuck this up.
What if he got too mad and kicked the dog, what if he fed it the wrong shit and it withered away and became more frail than it already was, what if it ran away or got hit by a car or got fucking shot by a stray bullet in a shitty neighborhood? It felt scary to choose to care about something this fragile, to sign up for the loss and the ripping ache that would follow if Mickey overreacted or fucked something up or made a slip-second misstep. In the Milkovich family, loving was a liability— a promise that someone you cared about could get pummeled and bloodied and beaten in front of you, could get handcuffed and dragged upstate for months or years in the blink of an eye. When Mickey was fifteen, scratching “FUCK LOVE” and “STAY THE FUCK OUT” signs on pieces of cardboard with Sharpies he’d stolen from the dollar store, he’d made a promise to himself to harden himself against that weakness— against that loss.
And then, of course, freckle-faced chicken-legged Ian Gallagher showed up at his doorstep anyways.
So he’d let himself love Gallagher—and eventually he’d let himself love Franny after she plopped herself in his lap one day, wearing a princess tiara talking a mile a minute about monster trucks; and he didn’t even mind hanging out with Liam once in a while on those late nights in the Gallagher house, when Ian would be working a double shift and he and Liam flopped on opposite sides of the couch, watching shitty cartoons in a comfortable silence as the glow from the TV screen flickered on their faces.
But none of that felt like a choice—all of those people, those warm bodies to love, just fell into Mickey’s lap; so it wasn’t Mickey’s fault, really, if shit hit the fan. It wasn’t like he made the choice to love them in the first place— it just happened.
But adopting a dog (or having a fucking kid, like he knew Ian wanted)— that was a choice. That was telling something, someone, that you were ready to take care of them; that you were ready to lose everything when they inevitably got taken away, that you were ready to pour all of your fucked-up bullshit into someone and hope that you weren’t the reason why they turned out screwed up. It just seemed like too much; and in the face of the tiny fucking furball that Ian was cooing over as he sat cross-legged, Mickey’s immediate impulse was to keep his distance and tether himself into the linoleum floor miles away.
But of course Ian had done that fucking thing only he had the power to do, and melted whatever iron walls Mickey had soldered into place with a gentle Mick, d’you wanna pet her?— and of course the fucking dog had to nuzzle her goddamn tiny wet nose into Mickey’s hand, and give a too-trusting lick to his palm as she rolled over onto her back, exposing her vulnerable belly even after whatever fucking dog-fight bullshit she’d been through— and immediately Mickey couldn’t couldn’t see a timeline in which they didn’t wrap this fucking mutt up in a soft towel and take her home to the dog bed in their apartment and get her healthy on gourmet fucking dog food from a monogrammed tin bowl.
So even though it drove him fucking crazy that she was so fucking skinny, and the entire first night when she’d slept curled on the bed he kept waking up and googling the best dog foods and exercise regimens and refilling her water bowl at the kitchen sink like an obsessed fucking maniac— he really couldn’t help it.
Against every instinct, he’d chosen to love when he didn’t have to— and he was starting the realize that maybe that shit wasn’t a weakness.
**
“So, I hear you guys’ve got a new mascot.”
Tommy was ambling in the front door, right on the dot of their 2 P.M. opening time, with Kermit skittishly following a few paces behind him.
Ian rolled his eyes from behind the bar when he thought Mickey wasn’t looking (fucking traitor).
“Yeah, I think the whole neighborhood knows by now. Someone’s been a little too eager with the dog photos.”
Which— fuck that. So what if he fucking posted a few pictures of Baz to the mostly-defunct Alibi Facebook page that Kev had given them the login info to, some of which featured Baz wearing Mickey’s sunglasses when they were partway through a walk? Nobody needed to know that Mickey alone was behind that shit— Ian liked taking dog photos too, even though they were never as good as Mickey’s, and mostly just featured the moments Mickey was passed out on the couch with Baz sleeping on his chest.
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Ian grinned and turned towards Mickey. “Nothin.’ Just nice to see that you’re growing into the whole dog parent thing. Though it is kind of turning into a stage mom thing.”
Mickey furrowed his brows. “Fuck you. The customers love her. It’s good for business.”
Ian held up his hands in surrender, still smirking—which just cause Mickey to shove him gently in his sternum.
“It’s not my fault Baz is the prettiest pit on the fucking Southside.”
In the corner of the bar, Baz was sitting on her cushion that they’d bought at a boujee pet store down the road, to keep downstairs at the Alibi so they could keep her other dog bed upstairs— and when Tommy and Kermit came into the room her ears immediately lifted, her tail twitching excitedly at the new faces. Tommy just gave a wary side-eyed glance to the dog pillow before plopping himself onto his usual stool, but Kermit nervously crouched beside the cushion and gave Baz’s chin a scratch.
“Ey! Paws off the princess until you drop some money on a beer, Kermit. I didn’t haul myself down to the empty bar on a Monday afternoon to watch you pet my fucking dog.”
Kermit shuffled to his usual seat beside Tommy at the end of the bar. “She’s cute. I didn’t realize pit bulls could be so scrawny.”
Baz was already filling out fast in the few days she’d been living with them; but it was true that she was still small and wiry for her age. Mickey made sure they got some sort of fresh dog food shit from the pet store that they had to keep in the refrigerator (even though Ian insisted kibble was fine, like a fucking cheapskate) to get her strength up, and he also got a bunch of fucking vitamins, like salmon oil and shit to make sure her coat was shiny—and yes, okay, maybe he also bought her a badass collar with spikes on it, and maybe he also dropped money on one of those engraved pet tags in the shape of a skull and crossbones that said “Bazooka Gallagher-Milkovich” on it with the Alibi’s address on it. He couldn’t fucking help it; they had a steady stream of cash coming in from crowded nights, they were planning on doing Ian’s karaoke shit once a month, and Mickey felt like they could afford to spend money on shit like this—like they could afford to do this right. And because of Mickey’s doting, even though Ian had started to take Baz for runs in the morning, it was no secret that she liked Mickey ever-so-slightly more than Ian; when they were laying in bed at night Baz would always hop up and curl into Mickey’s side and leave inches between her and Ian, causing a surprised chuckle to escape Mickey’s lips the first time it happened as he scratched behind her ears. Ian just stared at him, with some sappy fucking smile on his face.
“The fuck’re you looking at?”
“Nothing. Just glad we took her home.”
Mickey rolled his eyes, but felt a smile creeping onto his lips despite himself. “Yeah. Me too.”
“And I’m definitely not jealous of a dog right now.”
**
It was later in the evening and the bar was pretty empty, a standard for a Monday night— Mickey had been trying to train Baz to stay on her cushion now that she’d learned how to sit and lay down on command; much to the amusement of Tommy and Kermit, who kept fucking distracting her. If Mickey had his way, he’d train Baz to bark at Kermit whenever he said something stupid (the guy just got on his fucking nerves, what could he say)—but of course Baz had other plans once she realized Kermit was the one of the pair who would pet her, and kept nuzzling her head onto Kermit’s thigh and thumping her tail on the floor.
“I thought pit bulls were supposed to be vicious.”
“Fuck you, Kermit. That’s fucking… dog racist, or some shit.”
Kermit just meekly looked down at his half-empty beer glass, as Ian came in the front door from where he was bringing in the sandwich board from the curb, not expecting any more customers for the night. He reached down to ruffle Baz’s fur along the way.
“How’s our girl doing?”
“Pretty good. Once these assholes get out of here we can called it a night.”
Tommy scoffed at that. “Milkovich, we’re some of your most loyal customers— hell, we’re your only loyal customers. I think we deserve more than insults.”
“Oh yeah? You gonna go drink the day away somewhere else?”
Tommy faltered for a moment, and raised an eyebrow. “Touche.”
“Alright, bozos. Time to pack up. No one else is coming in tonight, we’ll see you tomorrow. Me and Ian have better shit to do.”
Tommy drained the last of his beer, placing a wad of one-dollar bills on the countertop and giving an exaggerated salute. “Until tomorrow, gentlemen.”
When they left the bar and the doors were locked, Ian’s shoulders started to shake with laughter. “Jesus. I never thought I’d be at a point in my life when I’m dependent on the consistent generosity of Tommy and Kermit, but here I am.”
“More like consistent alcoholism.”
Ian smirked, then flopped to sit on a barstool opposite the countertop from Mickey, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Are you fine taking Baz out? I’m kinda tired, wanna get a start on dinner.”
“Yeah, man. Works for me.”
They’d been living with each other in the Gallagher house for months, sure, but they were still new at doing this— at only accounting for each other’s schedules, at divvying up tasks like walking the dog and cooking dinner and doing fucking dishes rather than just coasting on someone like Debbie getting them by. Things were different now— things were settled and quiet, in a way that still made Mickey like he had to rub his eyes extra hard to clear them in the still, dark mornings in the apartment, like he wasn’t convinced this shit was real.
After dinner they sat cross-legged on their bed, watching a movie on Ian’s old beat-up laptop with Baz sitting between them and chewing on one of her toys that squeaked loudly every few seconds (this one was a stuffed animal in the shape of a police officer, because in Mickey’s own words at the pet store, “ACAB motherfucker”)— and later that night, wrapped in the smell of laundry soap on clean sheets and dog shampoo, Mickey slept easily.
Maybe this was something he could trust himself to hold on to.
#catch me laying in bed & ignoring my exams & instead writing This#ily all i hope u are having good thursdays<3#gallavich#gallavich fic#shameless#shameless fic#bazooka gallagher milkovich#ian gallagher#mickey milkovich#ian x mickey#ixm
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The love language concept sounds interesting! I’d say George’s love language/the way he shows love is physical touch, Paul’s is receiving gifts, Ringo’s is positive affirmation mixed with quality time, and tbh I’m not to sure for John. maybe acts or service or quality time for him?
Mwahaha, you've fallen into my trap! The truth is I wanted to do this topic more or less for myself, but felt bad bc I still have a few requests left to do. So thank you for sending in a "request" for me so that I can do one out of order real quick >:3
Lol but really tho, thank you for humoring me and these are good! I could honestly see all of these, but for John I'd say acts of service with you, bc the "To Do" stuff just sounds like his character tbh, but maybe also I feel like there's some physical touch too???
Ik I've heard that John kind of actually didn't like being touched, but I mean... If you look at literally any picture of him with Yoko, he's always at least holding her hand, if not just totally draped all over her lol, so I'm assuming for an S/O it's totally different!
But anyway, here's some headcannons real quick and then back to requests. Thanks everyone!
---
George
Honestly? I feel like George would just not be able to keep his hands off you
Like, not necissarily in a sexual way (although that too, if you're in the mood lol), it's just that he loves to let you and everyone else know you're his
He's not all too shy about it either lol
I mean obviously he saves the more lovey dovey stuff for private places, but in public he still has a lot to offer
Everytime he sees you he kisses you either on the cheek, forehead, or mouth and then pulls you in for a hug
Always
Then the rest of the time, as long as he doesn't have to be working, he likes to hold your hand and play with your hair
And if he's feeling a little risqué, he likes to let you sit on his lap and cuddle against him
In private tho...
Oh, he is all over you!!!
You are his sanctuary and safe haven away from the public eye and the daily grind that comes with being a Beatle
I've seen quite a few quotes from geo lamenting the fact that he and the others had literally no private life thanks to their stardom
So yeah, believe me when I say he could live a thousand years and still never feel like he could repay you for giving him the rest and love he needs
He'd be like a long, giant cat. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, if he has an opportunity to snuggle up to you, he takes it
And if he's not exhausted, and if you let him !! he likes to just touch and kiss your body and face
Having that closeness and intimacy is so important to him, he wants to let you know how deeply he loves you
All of you
And of course, the best way you can return his love language back to him is by returning the intimacy he does for you!
When in Rome, after all
Honestly, just by accepting his offers when he initiates a request to hold your hand or hug or cuddle, he already appreciates that!
But if you initiate any of those things, he's definitely feeling the love!!
Although, one thing you like to do a bit different is giving massages
Of course George would certainly give you one if you asked!
But since he's usually tired, either mentally or physically, from always being on the go, you like to do him a favor lol
And he loves it
Seriously, you've never seen a man more blissed out then George gets over something as simple as a back or scalp massage
Assuming he doesn't fall asleep under the spell of your skillful fingers, he repays you with kisses or cuddles after :)
John
Ok idk if I'm like projecting, or reaching, or SOMETHING along those lines, but I feel like of all the boys, John is probably the one most looking for a true partner, as in like his other half
Paul is very close behind with his relationship with Linda, but for John it always came off as a need for him, more then like a want or nice thing to have
So anyway, all this to say that as far as acts of service goes, I think he gets a lot of security out of receiving this!
Like, whenever John's feeling particularly stressed or overwhelmed having you there to approach the issues with an objective mindset is a HUGE relief
Really, like I cannot stress this enough
Phrases like, "What can I do to take some pressure off for you?"
Or, "Well what if we just focus on x for now, and then we can take care of y and z tomorrow?"
All give him such a powerful sense of relief
And of course, the way that you, you know, actually follow up on your word, makes him fall even deeper in love with you then he thought possible
Now on the other hand, is physical touch
While this is a part of his love language cocktail, John likes to express this one a bit more then he likes to receive it
You see, unlike George, John is a little more reserved with his PDA
He will kiss you and hold your hand of course! But unfortunately his anxiety is a thing, so as much as he hates it, he has to reserve his physical affection for more private settings
But when you two are alone, he's like puddy in your hands!
He likes to just hold you a lot
It doesn't matter if you're preoccupied with something else, like a book or the telly, he just wants to have physical contact with you
And if you can do any of those things cuddled up on his lap or against his chest, even better!
But also, John definitely loves to get that energy back
He likes it when you give him cute little kisses and pet his head
I think he'd also like it if you rubbed his temples or the bridge of his nose/third eye lol
Wearing glasses all day can get uncomfortable you know!!
I think if you can establish that trust and physical closeness, that's when you'd also get a return on his acts of service
Really, if you've bonded this deeply with John he'd do literally anything for you
Whatever you need, whatever you want, if he can do it he will and if he can't he'll find a way to do it anyway!
He'd be loyal to a fault and love you forever after
Paul
Please tell me why I could see Paul being your sugar daddy on the low 😭😭
Really, like he just likes to spoil you!
Honestly if someone showed me proof that the real actual, 78 year old, 2021 Paul McCartney uses stacks of hundred dollar bills as tinder for his fireplace, I literally wouldn't even blink
Like even back in the day, he's got that Beatles' money baby !!! and he.... Kinda doesn't care for it, actually
I personally don't think any of the boys come across as like money hungry or something like that, but I could see Paul especially figuring that he might as well use all this dumb money to buy you things you like!
It may feel overwhelming to be on the receiving end of so many random, but expensive gifts tbh
You might even tell him to stop or that he doesn't have to do all that!!
I think he'd be able to understand that overwhelming you with nice things kinda has the opposite effect of what he's intending, but....
He just gets a little carried away sometimes lol
I mean growing up he didn't have all that much, and even now, like obviously nice things are nice, but meh
What he really wants to do is make sure you're enjoying the high life too!
I could see him doing more of writing you songs and music instead so that he can still fulfil his desire to give, should you feel uncomfortable with the fancy gifts
But yeah, if you're uncomfortable he totally would get that and dial back the materialism, but if you don't mind, then he doesn't either!!
Now you might be wondering how you, a delightfully average person, could impress Paul McCartney with a gift giving love language...
I mean, what do you give the man who has everything?
Well I'd tell you this... It's simple!
You could bring him literally anything that you find meaningful and be like "This made me think of you!" or "I just thought you'd like this!" and he'll love it!
He would definitely run up some organized collections of the little things you've given him
He has some dedicated display boxes for all the random, shiny rocks and pebbles you've found
A little filing drawer of all the notes you've ever wrote him
And if you like art or photography, he'd decorate his personal spaces with your work!
Of course he'd appreciate traditional gifts too tho
Like a watch or bass strings or a new tie ect ect
But the thing for you to not get caught up on is the price!
That doesn't matter to him :)
He likes your gifts bc they came from you!
Ringo
Ok, positive affirmation is definitely a big thing for Ringo
He gets roasted a lot by the boys and even the media, and all in good fun I suppose, but after a while enough is enough you know?
Not to mention, he just feels a bit... Lesser then?? Compared to the others and their musical talent
So the poor guy really needs a break!
Literally, even just little one word sentences of encouragement mean sooo much to him
"I'm so proud of you Ritchie!"
"That sounded wonderful!"
"You've done a great job today at the studio, good work!"
Stuff like that makes him melt
Of course he also appreciates the more conventional things like "I love you" and when you call him handsome!
And as for the spending quality time, that comes easily!
Ringo looooves to take you out on dates!
Now yes, there's your typical movie date, dinner, dancing, all that
But his favorite things to do is go on little adventures!
He takes you to the park, the beach, out to explore thrift and consignment stores, and anywhere else you want to check out!
However, not everyone wants to run around outside 24/7
So in the house, he likes doing things that you two can do together!
Painting is a big one, seeing as it's his other hobby, but it could honestly be anything, like puzzles, board games, or just watching TV!
I'm trying to think of how he'd return the words words of affirmation side of his love language, but I think it would be a little harder for him to do then expressing quality time tbh
You just make him so darn shy!
What with all your good looks and kindness, he just feels a little overwhelmed
Have you ever seen a work of art, or architecture, or even a landscape so breathtaking that you don't really know where to start when describing it to someone?
Yeah, it's like that
He definitely wants to try tho!
I think he'd stick to simple things like complimenting your outfits and praising your work or personal projects you show him!
He's worried that that comes across as just common decency tho, so he says "I love you" a lot and tries to make up for his bad way with words with quality time
#the beatles#ringo starr x reader#john lennon x reader#george harrison x reader#paul mccartney x reader#beatles x reader#beatles imagines#love langauges
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Birthday anon here because I love our anon chats:
- I agree on the twisted relationship with nudity the US has and also with natural parts of the body. I’ll give you an example: of course we adopt some of your trends (especially in clothing - some of them though because Italy is a very conservative country mostly on three things: food, clothing and religion in the specific sense of religious rites) but one that has never, ever stuck is (maybe surprisingly for you) whitening teeth. We do have frequent dentist appointments for cleaning and whitening them, but not in the way y’all do. Like for us (Europeans in general but I think in other parts of the world) US smiles look fake and unnatural. If you see somebody here with that kind of white teeth it’s not an indication of wealth, but teeth as shiny and white would be considered super weird. The standard here is natural white. And this is true of other parts of the body too: like I won’t say we do show on tv/movies what you described but (and you should see 70’-80’s movies in which women were fully naked) for a long time the ideal woman here was the Mediterranean woman (think Sophia Loren - also a good actress, or more recently, Monica Bellucci - terrible actress ffs), who had a much more curvier and fuller body type than what was the norm then/is now.
- you would consider me and most Italians very rude. We don’t do small talk. At all. Like if somebody I don’t know talks to me when I’m queuing, better be for a damn good reason. Also, overly nice people, especially servers (I mean I know they do it for the tip but still) in the Us commit one of the most heinous crimes for an Italian: interrupt them when they are enjoying their dinner with friends (“if I need you I’ll let you know, I’ll tip more if you don’t interrupt me - every Italian ever in a Us restaurant)
- totally agree on the Elliot not watching the news thing. I mean, I even had a tv in my apartment when I attended uni last time and I successfully watched probably one news program in three months, I don’t read papers and get my news online so I even if the twins were in college, it would not be a reach at all. Also, as you pointed out, if it was not even national news in the US, it would be super unlikely for it to be picked up by international broadcasters, only really big local news make headlines outside the US.
Kisses from Venice xxx
ok hello hi i'm sorry you've been waiting so long i'm hereeee
it's interesting bc what's fashionable, what's culturally sexy, changes over time, and you can chart those changes in media and the way people are represented. and the whole damn thing is a cycle, anyway; 90s grunge was an answer to 80s glitz, early 2000s aesthetic was an answer to grunge. we went from a million layered tanktops and bootcut jeans to skinny jeans and simpler tops, now the kids hate skinny jeans and side parts. it's like whatever is in fashion will, inevitably, become cringe, and the opposite will become fashion, until it too gets toppled, and around and around we go. and i just think we're gonna see that more broadly; there has been a long, long, long battle to see our media embrace different body types, and i think eventually, inevitably, that shift will make more headway. but it is interesting to get a perspective on how american "fashion" looks from the outside.
the tipping thing is so interesting. so i'm from the south, right, and everybody loves to talk about how things "move slower" down here. it's polite, and expected, that you make small talk with people; i was just chatting with the guy who sold me cigarettes and a cup of coffee this morning, you know good morning, how are ya, not bad for a Tuesday, weather's supposed to be nice, oh the damn chip reader is messed up again, these things have a mind of their own, all right you have a nice day now. the girl in line behind me told me she liked my mask. we chit-chat with the waiter at restaurants, and the waiters are attentive and a tip is expected. my mama taught me it was rude to wave at the waiter to get their attention - and you certainly wouldn't like. call out to them. if you could discreetly get their attention that was ok, as long as it could be done discreetly - i was out to lunch with my work wife and the boy child the other weekend, and I caught the waiter's eye to let him know i wanted another beer, but i didn't like. hey you at him. if he hadn't seen me I'd have just waited around until he came to check on us again.
so i was in london a few years back with a friend of mine, and we had a blast, and we knew going in a) don't tip and b) the waiter's not gonna be checking in on you every five seconds, but it still took us forever to ask for the check in literally every restaurant we went to bc we kept like. waiting for a good moment to discreetly get the waiter's attention instead of just flagging them down. bc our mamas taught us the same thing lmao
and that's the thing, right? is there is no universal polite. well, i mean, most of the time you probably shouldn't swear at your server, and you shouldn't like, hit 'em or anything, but it's all about context. the barista at my local starbucks expects me to ask her how she's doing, a barista in NYC probably doesn't wanna hear from me. and that's great! that's cool! it's one of those things that like, if we cling to firmly to "my idea of what's polite is the Right one" we're gonna end up alienating people, bc the truth is what's polite just varies. we gotta read the room lmao
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It's possible Flash's premiere #s don't look as hot as usual because of the blow-up after the firing of H@rtley Sawyer, the guy who played R@lph Dibny, after past racist/misogynistic tweets of his resurfaced around the time the Floyd protests were bursting across the country. It sparked debate about whether he should be fired for older opinions when he's supposedly changed (not noting that flash is also a work-place and not just a tv show), but ppl were saying they'd no longer watch bc of it
Tiny violin for the CW (it could also be the shuffled timeslot, we’ll see)
Is AA really the only non-cancelled/final season show they have running above like 0.15 that doesn’t have some sort of major bullshit around it? It would explain why it’s up 20% on the year to year average while everything else is 40-60% down. (Or in Walker’s case, down almost 30% within the same year as its forebearer within the same 12 months period in the same time/slot).
CW only partially depends on live--I’ve said this. But if its live space completely devalues, their ability to sell ads that make up for their costs of running broadcast deplete, their ability to be sales worthy to cable networks is shaky, etc. Like when--was it Spectrum? Turned off the CW as well as several other channels on a related package for how much they wanted to air it.
It’s one thing for your normal shows to be running 1/3 everyone else with your tops running 1/2 everyone else or in SPN’s case at the time a few years back before it had a minor crunch (and I do mean minor, bronlies would never understand how little the descent meant what they would claim it did) almost 2/3 everyone else (around S11-13--and SPN was like 2nd-3rd on the network then). It’s another if your shows are by and large running 1/6th the average and your tops are running 1/3 the average.
Selling that adspace is gonna be a bitch. Especially if the products are all surrounded by controversy.
There’s the fact that the parent companies bankroll it expecting digital profit, but if they’re skewing way too old, they’re not even going to stream well to make up for it (Nancy Drew, Walker at the top of that list, the latter way more.) The others will handle okay digitally, but the question is at what point is it just not enough?
What’s summer going to look like, especially when the US is mostly vaccinated? What’s fall going to look like once decline kicks in?
Again, CW’s products are down 40-60%. The industry average from 1 year prior is 13%... across 5 networks, of which CW is one. If you remove CW’s crunch, it’s actually more like... 6% on other stations. Which is what I mean with this year’s YTY not being the same as other years with more people watching classic TV live on classic stations seeking entertainment during covid. CW used to be the one holding above the line, not diving below it.
There’s a good question-- will it only drop another 13-15% between now and fall, or will the universe catch up once everyone can resume normal and it drop more like 20%? And if CW is running 6-40 now, well... let’s say 3 x 6 20, 40 x 6 = 240? UH. Well we can’t go negative ratings but. Let’s take 0.1 down as the -40. Well it can’t go 0.6 down.
It will be fascinating to see how it translates. CW might already be so bottomed it doesn’t matter. a show running 0.2 losing another 40% for example will be running 0.12
All I can say is CW better hope, truly, this is “just” boycott impact and that it can’t spread any further. A show running 0.2 right now losing 15% by fall season will at least “just” premiere at 0.17. And that’s where most of their “big” shows are gonna settle this season -- 0.2. Multiple properties are running under 0.1. Many will inarguably be under it by fall 2021.
In a literal best case scenario, unless CW’s ratings somehow get a miraculous bounceback, it’s Fall 2021 average season ratings are likely to look like:
S&L: TBD, but maybe 0.18, if we’re being nice, it it could land at Walker level.
Flash: 0.17 (if it even comes back, rumor it isn’t)
AA, if it holds: 0.15
Walker: 0.12
Riverdale: 0.1
Batwoman: 0.1
Charmed: 0.07
Nancy Drew: 0.07
While the industry average is probably gonna be around 0.56~
Ouch?
You can go “live doesn’t matter much” only so long. Then keep in mind they have to figure out what to do by fall 2022 when those numbers go down to like
S&L: 0.15
Flash: 0.15
AA, if it holds: 0.13
Walker: 0.097
Riverdale: 0.078
Batwoman: 0.078
Charmed: 0.059
Nancy Drew: 0.059
*if all shows maintain retention.* While the universe will be like 0.47 around it.
Charmed and Nancy Drew would be rounding down to 0.0 by 2023. Batwoman and Riverdale would be fighting not to. Walker will be running a strong 0.08 if it's lucky. Flash won't be around by then. AA may... maybe. It's shiny new premieres might debut at a strong 0.15 before falling in 30% like its recent premieres to uh *checks notes* 0.1, woo. With a TV universe operating around maybe 0.38.
If they tried to air another year.If they pushed through Fall 2023, by Fall 2024, s everal of these products will be rounding down to 0.0 that didn’t. Think: Riverdale, Batwoman, Charmed, Nancy Drew, all 0s. Walker, if it stays “strong”, around 0.06. Everything else not breaking 0.1, even with a TV universe functioning at 0.29. Like, that’s its best situation kind of thing, too. That’s assuming there’s no more 40-60% drop for the CW specifically. Which is the point on continuing to make noise NOW. Because the 2022 or 2023 numbers could even hit by Fall 2021 if the press stays on.
At some point, CW classic broadcast is going to be forced to fold them, several years before the rest of TV channels are going to have to.
Then the question is what happens to CW products.
Remember what I said about kicking CW in the shins so you can hold the parent companies accountable directly? And that now was the time? Yeah.
I don’t think the CW is going to be around by fall 2023. The question is how much we can speed up its heat death, and force companies to make hard choices. Does HBO REALLY want to order CBS products that don’t even perform digitally just to feed money to CBS and not keep it themselves? Will the WB deal in management stand if they’re not married over a child company to host it on Max? How many years until Walker is grounded to CBS All Access? If they even choose to keep producing it?
How many years until we stop being fed bullshit marketing, and start making the parent companies actually manage their products and put it on main TV if they’re gonna be shitlords about the content with a woke rainbow flag on CW anyway?
Keep. Kicking them. In. The shins.
Do it. NOW.
This is also why it’s important to stop streaming all content that ever aired on the CW through paid platforms like Netflix and Amazon.
Those companies pay to host that product to gain subscribers. If the material isn’t performing, they stop paying the IP holders--be that WB or CBS--meaning it’s harder for the CW to peddle its products off that way.
Jazz. Fucking. Hands.
KEEP. KICKING THEM. IN. THE SHINS.
STOP. STREAMING. ANY. OF THEIR STUFF.
KEEP. BEING. LOUD.
Join #IStandWithNadria May 18 7pm est.
Schedule your tweets NOW. There’s plenty of content to use in the tags already if you need material.
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Half-Baked Holiday | ksj | M
Granny Park’s Gossip:
That Seokjin, don’t get me started on him. He’s worked hard to open and run that bakery of his, you know, and I’m so proud that it’s so successful now. Wish he would find a nice person to settle down with, though, he deserves it, as long as he’s been on his own. Well, I guess you can’t really call it alone when he’s got that grump of a best friend always hanging around him. He really should be paying her, what with all the time she spends at the bakery with him. She’s always waking up on the wrong side of the bed, but she’s not so bad when she brings me some of those cookies of his, or just around Seokjin in general, if I’m honest. Too distracted by staring at that pretty face of his, I suppose, though who can blame her?
pairing } seokjin x reader
word count } 12.6K { also on ao3
genre } friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, bakery au, fluff, smut, literally the slightest bit of angst
warnings } fluff, fluff, fluff; jin is an idiot and so is the MC, like they’re genuinely both dumbasses but in different ways; pining; misunderstandings; masturbation, spanking, unprotected sex, oral sex - male receiving, exhibitionism a little, rolling pins are used in ways they are not intended to be used; several mentions of jins squeaky laugh and also his red ears bc they’re my favorite things in the world
{ The Snowball Effect Series Masterlist }
a/n } whaddup i finally finished this thing barely on time so yEET i yet again maintain my status as queen of last minute deadlines!!!! HBH is my Baby, I love it, it’s my perfect shiny garbage baby, and if you like it, you should DEF check out the others!! They can be read as standalones, but it’s really really really really really really highly recommended that you read them all in order, as they all end up in the same place and there are a ton of little easter eggs and references and shoutouts woven into the entire series!!! Extra special shoutout to the authors of all the other stories, @fortunexkookie (ryn), @taehyungforreal (ashley), @stutterfly (kristi, who also made the incredible banners!!!)
You're a good person. You pride yourself on being kind and giving. Every year you make donations to several charities. You help organize summer fundraisers so kids can eat. You buy the most ethically-sourced groceries possible. You leave your change in case someone else can use it. You always tip at least 20% when you go out to eat. Out of everything, though, of all the good deeds you try to do in your life, there's one thing that makes you a truly outstanding human being.
You don't lose your fucking mind every time the urge hits you.
"But how many calories are in the Holiday Donut?" The lady in front of you asks. You can feel your eye twitching and even the young guy behind the register is starting to falter in his bright grin.
"Um, I'm not-"
"Look lady," You cut in. "You have heard about nearly every thing on the fucking menu. It's a donut, stuffed with strawberry creme and coated in colored frosting and sprinkles. How many calories do you think are in it? Just order the banana nut muffin like you always do, get your coffee, and leave, so the rest of us aren't stuck in a line for another hour."
The lady looks scandalized as she turns to glare at you, but all it takes is a single cocked eyebrow to send her huffing out the door. She mutters a few choice words under her breath as she goes, but you pay them no mind.
"Your usual is almost ready, Pumpkin." You level Jin with an unamused glare as he pushes his way through the kitchen doors with a steaming tray of scones in hand.
"You know I hate that name, Spice," You remind him dryly.
"You know I hate it when you run my customers off with that dark cloud you call a personality, and yet here we both are," he responds. He just smiles at your eyeroll and you do your best to ignore the fluttering in your stomach. Instead you make yourself comfortable on one of the barstools at the counter.
Seokjin's bakery is as busy as it ever is; several of the tables are taken, either by students on their nth espresso or families doing holiday shopping or people just looking for a place to relax amidst the bustle of the streets. There's someone perched on the stool at the opposite end, close to the register, but you pay them no mind. You're too focused on the mug Jin slides in front of you - green and chipped on the handle, it's your favorite - and the steam wafting up from the cocoa inside. There's a thick layer of marshmallow on the top and a candy cane sticking out, just like you like it, and a Holiday Bagel on a small plate next to it.
"Thanks. You're still an ass, though." He has the decency to look offended at your words, and you grit your teeth against the smile that threatens to split your face. He always looks so cute when he's huffy.
"One of these days I'm going to make you start paying for your food like everyone else, and then you'll start treating me right."
"Sure," You agree in a monotone as you pull your phone out and start tapping away on it. "That'll be the same day that you stop asking me to do your books for you because you can't be bothered."
The sigh that expels itself from his lungs is almost as dramatic as the play he dragged you to the week before.
"I am perfectly capable of doing my books myself, thank you. I let you do it to keep you busy."
"Mhm, sure, I believe that," You tell him. He scoffs again and you barely register the hand he shoots forward to steal your bagel before you're slapping it away. "You don't even like strawberries and kiwi, Seokjin, and you will lose a hand."
You don't look up from the emails you're sorting through on your phone, but you don't have to in order to know that he's got both elbows braced on either side of you. You've known him long enough to know that this is his Pout Stance, and you dare not look up because there's no denying him when he looks like that.
"You're so mean to me, Pumpkin. All I do is spoil you with good food and perfect company," he whines, "And what do I get for it? Insults and mockery. You could at least give me a kiss every now and then."
You choke on your cocoa. It burns your nose as it starts to come up that way, and the dark liquid dances across your phone screen as it molds to every crack and crevice.
"Goddamn it, Seokjin," You sputter. He's already holding a cloth out to you, apology written on his face even as you glare at him. You pat your phone dry as best you can before resigning yourself to the fact that it's just going to smell like warm chocolate and peppermint until the next time your best friend flusters you.
"To be fair, I didn't expect you to be so opposed to the idea," Seokjin mutters. He continues under his breath as you wave off his attempt to help again, something about him being handsome enough, but you aren't listening. Because that's the only real problem between the two of you.
You aren't opposed to the idea. It's all you can think about most days; in work meetings, while you're doing paperwork, in team briefings, while you watch TV, when you're asleep. What his pillow lips would feel like against your own occupies nearly every waking thought you have. The others are torn between fantasies of what being his would be like and memories of him in general, neither of which you're lacking in.
You've known Seokjin for years. You don't even know how long since you insist you met when you were twelve and Jin is just as insistent that you met when you were nine. All you remember is being alone on the side of a playground playing hopscotch by yourself and then giggling at something the nice boy had said and then the two of you were inseparable. You aren't even sure how long you've felt like this towards him. It could've been high school, when he was one of the most sought after boys in school and yet still made time to comfort you every time a boy rejected you. Maybe it was college, though, when he was further away than he'd ever been and yet always answered your calls and responded to your texts and you'd cancel dates because he had randomly driven up to see you. Maybe it was after, watching him run his own bakery and do what he loves every day with the brightest grin you've ever seen on his face.
You can't be sure. All you know is one day you were washing dishes in the back after being his guinea pig for some new creation, and he told some dumb joke, and when you turned around to mock his squeaky laugh like usual, you couldn't. Because he had flour on his cheek and chocolate on his lip and you'd never wanted to kiss someone so bad in your life.
And then it just devolved from there and now the butterflies in your stomach have just set up camp. It's been too long, but you can't risk your friendship with him over some stupid crush. He means too much to you.
Your eyes don't leave his back as he disappears back into the kitchen, still complaining about something under his breath, and you suppress a sigh.
Shopping is the worst. You aren't really sure why you're here, because you hate shopping and you hate crowds and you especially hate holiday shopping because it's like Satan himself smashed the two together. You get all your gifts online or early in the year, you don't go anywhere near a mall from October to March, and it works for you. You don't have to deal with holiday crowds. Ever. So why are you on hour five at the largest mall in driving distance with no breakfast, sore feet, and full bags hanging from every possible place they can?
"Does that really seem like something Taehyung would like, though? I got that jacket for him already, I know, but this seems so much more fitting. What do you think, Pumpkin?"
Oh. Right. Seokjin had showed up at Too Damn Early For A Saturday O'Clock and demanded you accompany him for his holiday shopping.
"I think that if I don't eat something in the next ten minutes, I'm ripping your head off and eating that instead. And for dessert I'll demolish those fancy chocolates you got for Jimin." A passing mother gives you a horrified glance as she ushers her toddler along and you almost wish you gave a shit. It's the mall, she can't control what other people say in this hellhole. You probably could’ve done without the emphasis on Jimin, though; Jin knows how much you worship those chocolates, you’ve said countless times that they’re better than orgasms, and still, he got some for Jimin and not you.
You aren’t bitter. Or petty. No. You’re an adult, and you’re not going to pout just because your crush got your mutual friends some sweets instead of you.
"If you touch those chocolates, you're going to march your ass right back to that store and replace them while I return all your gifts," Seokjin quips back. You glance over at him and wrinkle your nose at the two berets he has in each hand.
"What the fuck are you doing, Spice?"
“Wondering when you’re going to listen when I talk to you,” He responds. He holds both of the berets up for you to view more clearly. “Now, which of these is more ‘Tae’ to you?” He doesn’t react to the blank glare you give him, long since immune to your powers of pessimism, and instead just wiggles the berets in each hand so you actually look at them.
Neither are to your personal taste; one is diamond-encrusted in some kind of quilted pattern, with some kind of alternating animal print as well. The other is more understated, if you can call it that, with a faux-fur trim, a feathered poof in the center, and a truly obscene pink houndstooth pattern to it. You can’t help the wrinkled nose that the two options cause in you, and you ignore Seokjin’s huff of irritation in favor of looking past him to the rest of the options. You only have to look for a minute to find something better suited, which mostly means Jin wanted to give Tae something truly gaudy on purpose.
“Here,” You say, stuffing the hat into his hands. He stops mid-rant - something about how you should be helping him more, though you aren’t sure why because he’s the one that dragged you here and is lucky you haven’t bailed yet - and focuses on what you’ve just given him. It’s not a pretty beret, by any means, and is by far the cheapest one there, but it’s got some kind of artful splatter across it in greyscale tones, with a pop of red around the rim to accent it. Seokjin just stares at it for a second before turning his gaze on you, and you shift uncomfortably.
“What?” You eventually ask.
“Nothing,” He says airily. “Just surprised.”
“At what?”
“You paying attention to people and being able to buy good gifts.” He puts the other two back into place and heads towards the registers, ignoring your indignant squawk.
“I get you perfect gifts every year!” You don’t miss his eyeroll, and it makes you want to strangle him a little.
“I don’t count,” He tells you as he settles in behind some grandmother buying entirely too many things that have to be for her grandkid. “You know me better than anyone, and you have access to my Amazon wishlist.”
“Yeah, except none of that is on your fucking wishlist,” You mutter. He turns, eyebrow arched and ready to get more backtalk, but you just make a face at him.
He drags you to five more stores after that and abandons you in the middle of Williams Sonoma. You’re on your third lap of the store, ready to disassemble the fancy grill they’ve got on display to see if he’s somehow in there, when he appears, probably from the ether or some shit. You’re still trying to figure out how he managed to phase through time and space and the massive shelf of Martha Stewart Collection Cookware without you noticing, and in the meantime he takes the massive amount of bags from your hands and deposits something in your palms instead.
It takes you a minute to register the warmth, but the smell hits instantly and makes your stomach grumble loudly. You’d be embarrassed if you weren’t so fucking hungry.
“Eat,” Seokjin commands. “We’ve got more shopping to do for the bakery.”
You can’t even argue because your mouth is stuffed full of pizza pretzel bites - the only real reason to come to the mall, in your opinion. You’ve inhaled one serving in record time, and Jin doesn’t even react when you bust into the second one in the middle of some tech store. Instead, he just holds out a hand and waits for you to plop a pretzel bite in his palm.
It’s hours later, long after you’ve helped Seokjin drop off all the bakery supplies at the shop and carted the presents up to his apartment, that you realize you’re still holding on to the bag from the pretzel place. You’re about to toss it into your garbage when it registers that there’s too much weight for just garbage; curious, you open the bag up and dump the content onto your kitchen counter.
Inside is a small box of chocolates, the same kind you’d threatened to eat earlier in the day, your favorite flavor and everything, with a small note atop it.
These were supposed to be part of your gift, but you looked put out when you thought I wasn’t getting you any. Thanks for today. xxSpice
You resist the urge to smile; it’s only right that he give you sweets after the frankly absurd amount of time he’d made you spend at the mall. Still, you can’t deny your lip twitches along with your heart at the knowledge that he’d been planning on including them in your gift.
And you might tuck the note away behind a postcard on your fridge, but you’re never going to admit to that.
The next day when you get to the bakery, Seokjin doesn't hesitate to shove you into his small office and push you into his desk chair before he disappears back into the kitchen. The usually cluttered space is empty, devoid of the usual invoices and order forms and whatever the fuck else your best friend keeps on his desk. Even the picture frames have been moved, placed haphazardly atop a filing cabinet. Something flutters in your chest when you notice the one directly facing his chair is one of the two of you.
Taken years and years ago, back when you were first moving into your college dorm, when you were both tired from carrying boxes up the seven flights of stairs to your room. You still remember how irritated you had been when Jin's parents insisted they get a picture of the two of you in your matching university hoodies. You don't remember what it was, but you remember Seokjin cracked some dumb joke or said something ridiculous. He must have, because in the picture, you're looking at him with a softness in your face that isn't present any other time.
Seokjin reappears with a steaming mug and a hand behind his back. The familiar scent of warm chocolate and peppermint hits you, followed closely by the warm-butter sharp-mint honey-glaze smell that you remember taste-testing for him so many times that you're almost positive it’s going to linger on your gravestone.
"That's mistledough." You narrow your eyes, and he rolls his own. His hand pulls out from behind his back to reveal the treat he'd concocted in college and perfected not long after. Shaped like a sprig of mistletoe and a warm honey brown color, the mistledough is easily the best selling product that Seokjin has.
And it's only on sale from Black Friday to the first day of January.
You don't even know what's in it. He's never told you, hasn't let you watch him make it; he'd just show up randomly and shove a weird-shaped treat under your nose and tell you to eat it. And of course you did, because you've been whipped for him since the first day he made you smile on that playground.
It's not important, really. What's important is that he's brought you cocoa and mistledough, which means he's bribing you for something important.
"No," You tell him.
"Please," He pouts. "You don't even know what it is yet." You huff and look anywhere else. His pout is dangerous for you and you know it, and you refuse to be bought for some cocoa and bread.
In an attempt to avoid the puppy dog eyes he no doubt is wearing, your eyes flit around the room. They eventually settle on the mass of shopping bags to your right. You turn, seeing the collection of various wrapping papers on the left and the collection of tape beside them.
"No," You repeat, turning your glare on him. "Wrap your own damn presents, Spice, I'm not doing it for you this year."
"But you do it so much better than I do!" He steps forward, setting his bribes in front of you so the scent wafts towards you that much more. "Your corners are always perfect, Pumpkin, and the edges are so well matched, and you get the pattern to line up perfectly, and-"
"No, Jin," You tell him, already standing. "I told you last year that it was the last time I'd be doing it for you, and that was only because you left it to the day before - again - and had to be in the bakery. I already wrapped all my presents, I'm not doing yours too."
He doesn't even say anything. He just widens his eyes a little and looks down at the scuffed tile floor, kicking his shoe dejectedly against the foot of the desk. There's utter silence in the room, only broken by the muffled chatter of customers and the beep of one of the ovens every few minutes.
You last for a solid ten minutes. You know because the smell of more mistledough fills the air, and you know Seokjin wouldn't try to bribe you with anything that wasn't the freshest batch.
"Why can't you do it?" You grumble, already sitting back down and picking through the wrapping paper.
"I've got like a hundred orders to fill today. That's not even really an exaggeration, either. Soobin's been on cake duty all day so that I can get to work on the mistledough orders and still have time to finish Tae's cake before we leave." You sigh and turn to look at him.
He looks stressed; that's not unusual for this time of year, but it still makes your chest clench. You want to pull him close, run your hands along the furrow between his brows until it's smooth again. Smother him with kisses until he's giggling and happy and remembers that he's a badass culinary god and that he can handle this and that you love him.
"I wish you would tell people no sometimes," You say instead. You slide one of the biodegradable rolls onto the desk and start looking through the drawers for the massive ruler you know is tucked away somewhere. "You can't fill every order. Let people pine for their fancy bread, they don't deserve it anyway."
"You know I can't do that, Pumpkin," He says, breaking off a piece of your bribe and leaning against the tattered desk. "We only just got to where we're steadily in the black, and the seasonal stuff brings in a lot of money. I've got to milk that for as much as I can."
"Yes, because you being overworked and stressed like this is a much better alternative. I'm pretty sure your eyebags have eyebags." You wait for the dramatic gasp, but it doesn't come.
Instead when you look up at him from where you're digging through presents, he's staring at the picture of the two of you. Whatever he's seeing is beyond that, though, invisible to anyone but himself. It's not rare that he gets introspective and quiet; it's actually fairly common when it's just the two of you. You don't know why. You don't want to know why. You just take the moments when they come and wait for him to say whatever he's going to say.
"You're my best friend," is what he eventually says. Your hand stutters where it's slicing paper, mimicking the pang of heartbreak that shoots through your veins. You love being his best friend.
You just wish you were more than that.
"Yeah," You say offhandedly, "No one else wanted the gig, so I guess I'm stuck here." You can feel his eyeroll, but he pats your shoulder as he heads back into the kitchen. When he reappears a while later with fresh cocoa and a bagel, you pretend to be mad that he steals a bite of it until he laughs at your grumbling.
When you leave his smile feels lighter, and you tell yourself you're imagining his eyes lingering on your back as you go.
You’re gonna kill him. You really are. You’re going to absolutely skin him alive, you don’t give a fuck how cute his face is or how hard he makes your heart beat. There’s not a single fucking thing he could say or do that would make up for this.
Maybe if you hadn’t been out here waiting for nearly twenty minutes. Maybe if your phone showed that he had even opened the last six texts you had sent him. Maybe if it wasn’t Seokjin who insisted on leaving at like ten in the morning to being with, even though you had plenty of time to get there because you didn’t even need to run by the bakery because he’d already put Soobin and Yeonjun through what probably counted as actual military training in order to prepare them for today. Frankly, it’s a miracle Seokjin is even leaving them on their own today, considering how hectic it gets. You’re entirely sure that it’s only because Soobin has worked there since the bakery opened and Yeonjun joined not long after so they both know the ropes as well as they possibly can. And because Seokjin was likely up until an ungodly hour preparing and baking an enormous amount of mistledough for today.
In fact, he’s probably still passed out up there, you decide as you climb out of your truck and head into your best friend’s apartment building. You’re cursing under your breath the entire way, paying no mind to the scandalized elderly gentleman that shoots you a Look. You really are gonna kill him, you decide as you shove the key he made you into the lock and jiggle the handle slightly so it’ll actually turn. You’re going to drag him out of his stupidly comfortable bed and probably try to shove him down the garbage disposal or something. His shoulders may present a challenge, but you are up for it.
Your mind is so made up that you don’t even register the bags he’s got ready by the door, or the coolers full of groceries that are packed and ready beside them. You just sidestep it all entirely and head down the hall. You don’t even register the faint sounds, muffled by the door to his room, and by the time it all finally reaches your brain, it’s too late. You’ve already thrown the door open as wide as it will go, which means you get a perfect, unobstructed view, even as Seokjin startles and yelps.
Because of course - of course - he isn’t sleeping or showering or packing. No, instead he’s got his fist wrapped around his cock and is thrusting shallowly into the warmth of his palm. The universe loves to torment you entirely too much, clearly. Why else would it offer you such an unhindered look at the love of your life’s dick?
It’s a nice dick, too. Long and the perfect thickness, a pretty dusky pink head. You can’t lie and say you’ve never imagined what Seokjin’s dick looks like - you basically grew up with him and the others, and young boys talk about their dicks. A lot. Plus, you’ve had a crush on him for several years now.
You just never could have imagined that it’s so absolutely gorgeous that you can feel your mouth water. It’s impossible to tear your eyes away from it, in fact, until Seokjin gets over his initial shock and shoves his blanket over his lap.
“What, uh,” He starts, throat rough. “What are you doing here?”
“Uh...you asked me to pick you up, remember? Because your car doesn’t have four wheel drive like the truck.” You learned a long time ago how to avoid being embarrassed around Seokjin, but even that can’t stop the burn in your cheeks as you force yourself to make eye contact with your best friend. It’s a struggle to focus on anything that isn’t the planes of his naked chest, broad and tanned despite the winter weather, but you manage.
Barely.
“Right, yeah, but...uh, weren’t you supposed to call? And aren’t you early?” The tips of his ears are as red as your face feels. The contrast between the current situation and his obvious shyness is so endearingly distracting, it takes you a full minute to focus back in on what he’s saying. “--at this point, I mean, I know that we apparently aren’t there yet, but really, I don’t mind-”
“Wait,” You interrupt, “I’m still stuck on how I called you four times, both before I left and en route and once I got here, waited another ten minutes since I got here early because I know you like to be early, and yet somehow this is my fault.”
“Well...you should have knocked! Why wouldn’t you knock when coming into someone else’s apartment or bedroom?”
“Why didn’t you hear me coming? The floor in your hallway is a million years old, it squeaks constantly, how did you miss that?”
“Well, I was a little preoccupied.”
“Clearly.”
“You still should have knocked.”
“Why did you give me a key if you wanted me to knock? And when have you ever knocked on my door when you show up randomly? Besides, I figured you were asleep and didn’t want to wake you up while I took all your shit out to the truck.” His face softens a little, and a shy smile teases at his lips.
“Thanks, Pumpkin,” he says quietly. Your stomach flips violently at the look on his face and you roll your eyes at it.
“Yeah, whatever.” You pick up the clothes he already has laid out and throw them at his chest. “Get dressed, you’re buying me breakfast on the way to the cabin.”
He doesn’t protest as you leave him and gather his bags up, balancing them atop the coolers of groceries and snacks he’s no doubt made for everyone. It only takes a little finagling, but you manage to get it all downstairs and into the backseat of your truck. Fat white flakes are falling from the grey sky by the time you’re finished, and Seokjin’s nose and ears are still pink when he eventually gets in as well. You turn the heat up, just in case it’s not residual embarrassment heating his face.
He doesn’t even say anything except a muffled thanks. After a few minutes, you’ve almost resigned yourself to an awkwardly silent car ride.
“So…” Seokjin eventually says in a too-casual tone. “About earlier-”
“No,” You hiss before he can continue. “No we are absolutely not talking about what happened.”
“Oh, come on,” He implores as you turn into the first drive-through you can find. “It was bound to happen eventually, considering-”
“We really don’t need to talk about it,” you insist.
“I’m just saying that I know you aren’t really one for...y’know, sexual activity,” He ignores your open-mouthed gape and continues, “But I have my own needs, and self-satisfaction is the best balance between the two that I’ve found. That said, I’m sorry you had to see it, I know it probably made you uncomfortable. Because. Y’know. Dicks.”
You’re still gawking as he finishes his spiel, and you feel a little like a fish. You surely must look like one, with your mouth hanging open in shock, your eyes as wide as saucers, and the general air of befuddlement that surrounds you. There are so many things you want to say, questions you have, all of them colliding in your brain.
“I like sexual activity just fine!” is what makes it out, just as the speaker beside your window crackles to life. There’s a long, pregnant pause in which you and Seokjin just stare at each other.
“So...what can I get for you today?” The worker says through the speaker. You want to die, just a little, as you rattle off your order and Seokjin’s to him; the universe hates you, obviously, that’s the only real explanation here.
“We are not talking about this,” You tell Seokjin firmly as you pull away from the speaker. Your face is still burning, but you refuse to acknowledge it. “You are paying and then we are heading to the cabin and we are not ever speaking of this again.”
He holds his hands up in defeat. You almost believe that he’s dropped the subject, but unfortunately you know him too well for that. Which is why you shoot him a warning look as you pull up to the window and he starts to say something.
“All I was going to say is that my parents asked about you the other day. They’re mad that you haven’t been by lately.”
“I’ve been busy,” You say as you hand Seokjin’s card to the kid in the window. “I haven’t had time to visit.”
“You visit Jimin’s grandma like twice a week.”
“Yeah, well, Granny Park and I are friends. Not to mention I still have to unseat her as the reigning go champion.” You don’t mention that you’re sneaking her mistledough and cookies so that she won’t blab about the fact that you’re in love with Seokjin. Or that every time you go to his parents’ house, they end up talking about weddings and asking when you’re getting married. You can’t deal with that, not when you factor in your feelings for their son.
“I’m just saying. You’re like a daughter to them. They miss you. I’m going by there after we get back from the cabin, and I think they’d like it if you tagged along.”
All you give him is a noncommittal grunt and several bags of fast food. You love his parents, you really do. You just wish they didn’t come with the constant reminder that Jin only sees you as a sister.
He lets you eat in silence, though, content to munch on your fries and pretend most of the morning never happened. He sings along to every song that plays on the radio, and it isn’t until you’re about thirty minutes away from the city and doing your best to navigate the roads in the worsening snow that you get suspicious.
“When you say you like sexual activity just fine-"
“I thought we dropped this!” He sends you a look that just says ‘really?’ and continues.
“I just want to know what you mean. Because obviously we’re on two different pages.”
“I mean that I like it just fine. I enjoy it, it’s fun, I would like to continue having it in the future. What of that is strange to you?”
“No, I just...I was under the impression that you weren’t interested in that. You never really talk about it, and you’ve never mentioned any...partners, or anything so…”
“I didn’t realize I was supposed to inform you of every person I’ve ever slept with.” You glance over at him, astounded, and are shocked to see that his lips are pursed in a frown and his brows are drawn together. You resist the urge to reach out and smooth the lines on his face. “Wait, are you actually upset about this?”
“It’s just...I’ve told you about every person I’ve slept with.” You wince a little because he’s right. You’ve heard about every single one of his sexual encounters, some of them in great detail, and you do your best not to think about them. “If I had known that you were interested, then-”
“What? You would’ve set me up with one of your friends?”
“Who was the last person?”
“What?”
“Who was the last person you had sex with?”
You look at him again, a quick glance to try to figure out if he’s being serious or not. His face is hard, an emotion you can’t place clear in the set of his jaw and the steel in his eyes.
“I’m pretty sure there’s an actual blizzard starting around us, and you want to know who I fucked recently?”
“Yeah, I do. Fair’s fair, Pumpkin.” Something in his voice raises alarms in your head. You could insist that you don’t want to talk about it; he’d respect it if you were really serious, you know he would. There’s an edge to him right now, though, one you haven’t seen in a very long time, and you don’t like it. You want to smooth it out, sand it back into the gentle lilt you love.
“Fuck, Spice, I don’t know. That guy from the bar that one night?”
“What night? What bar?”
“I don’t fucking remember, okay? It was like...fuck, years ago, I don’t even remember what he looked like, let alone his name or what bar it was. Are you happy now? For fuck’s sake, I didn’t think I had to report to you every time I wanted to get laid. You’re my best friend, not my keeper. I didn’t think it was any of your business.”
He mumbles something under his breath that you don’t catch; between the sound of the heater going full blast and the Christmas carols he’s got blaring through your truck’s sound system, it’s hard to hear anything. Still, when you glance over at him again, something dark sits in his expression, and you’ve got a gut feeling it’s your fault.
Things remain tense even after you arrive at the cabin. Seokjin doesn’t wait for you to help him, just loads all of his stuff into his arms and wobbles his way inside while you’re still slinging your overnight bag over your shoulder. The door slams behind you as you enter, caught by the wind of the growing storm outside, and you send what you hope is an apologetic wave to where Taehyung and Star - his girlfriend of forever and one of your closest friends - sit in the den.
You immediately make your way to the kitchen, swiping a tin of cookies and making hot chocolate, all while ignoring the overly aggressive chopping your best friend is doing behind you. You’re sure Star and Tae aren’t surprised when you flee to the room that you’ve unofficially claimed over the years.
You stay there for most of the day. The door stays open, just in case someone actually wants to come talk to you; you have no doubt that everyone can hear you cursing at the dog show you’re watching, and at one point you’re pretty sure you hear Namjoon’s voice steer someone away, but you can’t be sure. You don’t even want to be sure. All you really want is to know what the fuck you did to piss your best friend off and get him back to normal.
You can’t just ask him, though, because he’ll no doubt get even angrier that you don’t already know, despite the fact that you have no way of knowing unless he actually tells you.
Frustrated, you pick up your phone and flip uselessly through the chat you have with him, trying to find literally any explanation for how he’s acting. The group chat with all the boys plus Star and Cat has been quiet most of the day, only the offhanded comment about someone leaving now or going to be a little late.
Your chat with just Cat and Star is almost as quiet. There’s a featured video of Seokjin blowing up at Jeongguk a bit too harshly considering the younger had just nabbed some kimchi before dinner, but that’s essentially it. You’re tempted to ask Star to get Seokjin to tell her what’s going on, but not only do you not want to drag her into whatever this is, you also know better. He wouldn’t tell her anything. She isn’t his best friend.
As much as you’re looking forward to the rest of the night, there’s a sense of dread deep in your bones when you eventually emerge from your room. You only do so because you’re out of hot chocolate and you know that you’ll be dinner if you’re late to eat.
You wave off Star’s curious look when she sees you; you don’t need her worrying about you, not when she’s got so much else to focus on, if the crutches leaned nearby are any indication. Hobi and Cat haven’t arrived yet, which only adds to the sinking feeling in your gut, but you brush it off. They would call if they had trouble. You know they would. Besides, Cat said they’d probably be leaving late.
Seokjin doesn’t even look at you as you pass him to get to the dining table, and that hurts more than you’d like to admit. The real sucker punch comes once you sit down, however, when you see a mug of hot cocoa with your signature candy cane placed just to the right of your plate, only to realize that Seokjin’s mug of special coffee he loves so much is placed at the other end of the table.
Away from you.
Air catches in your lungs, and it sounds silly that you’re tearing up over your best friend not sitting beside you, but he always sits beside you. Always. No matter what the two of you have been fighting about, he’s always sat beside you because he likes to laugh at the faces you make about the conversations going on, and he feeds you the best bits of meat while you act annoyed about it but secretly love it.
You knew Seokjin was upset, but you hadn’t realized he was this upset.
Jimin sits beside you and introduces you to his neighbor, but you don’t even catch her name, just that he keeps calling her Snow and she looks at him like he’s the meal and that there’s a massive purple bruise along Jimin’s neck that you have a sneaking suspicion is her handiwork. She looks vaguely familiar, but you can’t be bothered to place her, not when Seokjin is laughing about something Star is saying and looks entirely too at home down there.
On your other side, Namjoon and his roommate are talking about a science something or other that they’ve been working on. They’re both so invested in the conversation that neither notice Namjoon dumping the extra spicy sauce over his rice instead of the mild that he prefers. You can’t even bear to listen as he starts complaining to Seokjin that he made the food too spicy and the resulting tirade from the eldest.
If anyone notices your sour mood, they don’t say anything. It’s not surprising, when you think about it; you’ve long been established as the grump of the group, and you don’t expect that to change, even with the girl Jeongguk brought along that seems torn between whether she actually likes him or not.
Yoongi catches your eye at one point and you just cock a brow at him.
“Where’s Jisoo?” You mouth at him across the table. He looks to Peaches, the girlfriend of his that you’ve only ever met once in passing, and looks back at you. You way your eyebrows at him halfheartedly and Yoongi rolls his eyes. It’s disappointing that Jisoo isn’t here. She always provides some sort of entertainment.
If nothing else, she usually provides some semblance of distraction.
By the time dinner ends, you’re fairly positive no one knows about your spat with Seokjin, or the strange tension between the two of you. You’re sure no one noticed how you didn’t eat much of anything; everyone was too wrapped up in their own conversations and relationships to pay much attention to little old you.
You really should know better by now.
Jimin doesn’t move from his spot beside you, even as the others begin gathering dishes and your best friend disappears into the kitchen with the promise of cookies and chocolate-covered treats in an hour or two. Snow disappears, no doubt after a silent conversation between her and Jimin, and you roll your eyes at how he watches her disappear into the room they’ve claimed.
The two of you sit in silence; it’s a game of wits, almost. You know he knows something is up, but you also know that he knows you aren’t one to just offer up your thoughts. But he knows that you know that, and he knows you know he isn’t going to let it go because he can tell something is actually bothering you this time.
“So are we going to talk about why Seokjin has been so pissy all day and how there’s been a notable lack of Pumpkin by his side, or are we going to continue to pretend that everything’s fine like we did through dinner?”
You wish you were better able to resist him. Maybe your time with his grandmother has weakened you to him, and maybe you should work on being less transparent with him, but either way, you slump in your chair and set your empty mug of hot chocolate down with a thump. You still send him a glare that he smiles through and make a mental note to tell Granny Park that there’s a reason for his sudden need for scarves that she should ask him about.
“We had a fight.” You eventually grumble, eyes darting to where Seokjin stands over in the kitchen, dipping marshmallows, pretzels, and other treats into melted chocolate. “I think.”
“You think?”
It doesn’t take very long for you to recount the day’s events to him. You even tell him about The Incident from that morning that you walked in on, because once you start talking you can’t seem to stop until he knows it all.
“And now he’s pissed, I think at me, but I can’t figure out why. I mean, it wasn’t any of his business, but you know how I am with him, so it’s not like I could just not tell him, but I don’t understand why it pissed him off.” You huff a little. The frustration with everything that rolls in your stomach collides with the hurt you feel over Seokjin snubbing you, and it’s so distracting that you almost miss Jimin’s careful whisper of your name.
“Have you ever considered just asking him?” Jimin says softly. “I’m pretty sure having an actual conversation with him would fix this whole thing.”
“But…” You hesitate, twisting a stray thread from your sweater between your fingers. “Jimin, what if he hates me?”
There’s a vulnerability to your voice that you hate, one that only Seokjin, Jimin, and Granny Park have ever seen. It’s rare, mostly because you hate feeling vulnerable, but it makes Jimin’s eyes soften ever so slightly even as he bursts into a fit of giggles so powerful that he almost falls out of his chair.
“This is not helping!” You hiss, shooting a look at where Seokjin is rolling out chocolate chip cookie dough. He doesn’t look up at Jimin’s outburst, but his lips twitch ever so slightly into a frown and the crease between his brows deepens.
You know that look, too well. It’s his ‘I Do Not Care Even Though I Actually Do But I Don’t Want You To Know I Care” look. You saw it frequently when he first went off to college, when he was constantly worrying about all the boys he left behind in that little cul-de-sac. You really hoped it wouldn’t ever come back.
“I’m sorry,” Jimin says eventually, wiping a tear away from one eye. “I really am, I promise, I’m just. Oh, I think I might lose a bet.”
“What? How is that helpful, Jimin? Y’know what, where’s that dumb dog thing Yoongi made you, I need to smush its face until I feel better--”
“What you need,” Jimin says as he places a gentle hand on your shoulder to sit you back down in your chair, “Is to stop abusing my lovingly crafted plushies and actually talk to Seokjin.”
“I can’t tell him how I feel, you know this Chim-”
“Did I say confess?” Jimin asks as he stands, eyes flickering to where his neighbor-slash-girlfriend(?) is in their room. “Just talk to him. I mean really talk to him, okay, about why he’s upset. I think you’ll be surprised.”
Jimin doesn’t give you a chance to protest; he’s gone and disappeared down the hallway before you can blink, and you don’t want to know what’s happening in that room.
Eventually you meander over to where Seokjin is sliding cookies out of the oven, each perfectly placed to allow for the perfect bake. You putter around for a minute or two, opening and closing cabinet doors at random. You aren’t finding anything interesting, certainly not the strength to have this conversation, which is why you’re startled when someone says, “It’s all the way to the left.”
You turn, and Seokjin is absently stirring leftover melted chocolate. When you fail to move, too busy staring at him in confusion, he turns and points to a cabinet beside you. “The cocoa,” He says, “It’s all the way to the left.”
“Thanks,” You mumble as you move toward it. Inside is a box of candy canes and a weathered tin that you recognize from Seokjin’s apartment. Its twin sits in the bakery, right beside the register so that it’s close at hand for when you inevitably come thundering in with a storm cloud above your head. Each holds the special cocoa recipe that Seokjin learned from his grandfather, who learned it from his grandfather.
You chance a glance at your best friend; he knows how much you love that cocoa. The people in this cabin right now are the only people he’ll make it for - save for Hoseok and Cat, who still haven’t arrived. Seokjin’s ears are burning red, and a weaker person - or at least one less accustomed to him - may have cooed at the sight. But you’ve spent too long building up the walls so that he’ll never find out just what you keep tucked away in your heart.
“I’m-”
“Sorry.” He finishes for you. “I know you are. And...I forgive you.” You nod at his words; you couldn’t even hazard a guess as to what had actually upset him, but you’re glad he’s forgiven you for it. Still, it nags at you, because what if it happens again? Unlikely, considering you haven’t been able to get laid in actual years because you’re too smitten with the man standing across from you, but still.
“Are you going to tell me why you were upset, or are you just going to play with chocolate all night?” You eventually ask. He sighs, heavy and long, and turn to lean back on the counter beside you. He’s wearing his ridiculous alpaca apron that you got him for his birthday, and that only makes him more beautiful as he considers what he wants to say.
Your heart lurches painfully in your chest. He’s everything you’ve ever wanted, and it almost feels like he’s close enough to touch, but you just can’t seem to let your hand reach out to do so. You think if you could, you might be able to grab him and hold on forever, but something deep in your gut stills you.
The fear of losing him, of losing everything that you have with him right now - late nights at the bakery, shopping for birthday presents, the quiet moments in a chaotic world where you find peace in each other. As much as it hurts to love him, as hard as it is to speak around the words that strangle in your throat that speak truth to every feeling you’ve ever locked in the recesses of your heart, you can’t risk telling him. Because this pining and loving and eventually watching him grow old with someone he loves?
That’s enough for you.
“I just got jealous, I suppose,” Seokjin eventually says. “I always thought that you weren’t interested in sex, y’know? You mentioned it once in college that you’d tried it, but your little half-frown was there, so I knew you didn’t like it, because you get the same one every time you eat gingerbread because you hate it but you don’t want me to get disappointed that you aren’t eating the houses I make. I just thought it wasn’t something you wanted in life.”
“Um.”
“Which is obviously fine, sex isn’t for everyone, asexual people exist and are valid, as are those that are sex-repulsed, y’know? And I decided a long time ago when I first looked into it all that I didn’t care about sex in a relationship. That’s not the important thing to being partners with someone. But apparently sex is a thing for you, and I just wish I had known that because all this time I could’ve-”
“What, set me up with your friends?”
“No, definitely not. It’s just that we...I could have...it just hurts to know that you’ll have sex with other people but not with me, even though I respect that it’s your decision to make.”
“What.”
“But I just...I know I’m not entitled to an explanation, but I can’t lie, I would really appreciate one if you can give it. I mean...I dunno, I know that I had sex with other people, but we had that whole conversation in college about it, and you seemed alright with it, so I did. And I always told you about them, because communication and openness is important, and I wanted you to know that I was respecting your boundaries with that while also satisfying my own needs. But it really did feel weird, because...y’know, so I stopped. And I guess I assumed that if you weren’t fucking me, you weren’t fucking anyone.”
“What.”
“I just really care about you, Pumpkin, and I know I know don’t really say it a lot because I’m more of a ‘showing it’ kind of guy, but...I just would have appreciated knowing that. Especially since I’ve always been more than willing to love you like that.”
“Spice,” You say slowly, being careful to keep your face blank. “What the actual fuck are you talking about?”
Seokjin blinks at you owlishly. “What do you mean ‘what am I talking about,’ I thought I was pretty clear. I mean...yeah, I’d love it if you would have sex with me, but that’s your decision, and I’m curious as to your reasoning and logic. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, which is why I forgave you, because as much as it stings, it’s your choice. And I love you, as you know, so-”
“How would I possibly know that?” Your voice catches a little on the words, probably because you’re having a little trouble actually breathing. Everything is fuzzy and the words ‘I’d love it if you would have sex with me’ and ‘I love you’ are playing on a loop in your brain. Your entire world has just shifted on its axis, and yet Seokjin looks completely unbothered.
“Maybe because I’ve put up with you so long?” He teases with a fond smile. “I mean, I know we aren’t the type to say the words very often, but c’mon Pumpkin. We’ve been dating since you were twelve, not many would last that long without even a kiss.”
“We haven’t been together since I was twelve, though.” He raises a brow at your confused tone.
“Okay, thirteen, then.” He says. The confusion on your face must be apparent, because it begins to bleed into his, the beautiful features morphing to mirror your own.
“Seokjin, I don’t know what you’re talking about. We aren’t dating.”
His expression only gets more confused.
“Uh, yes we are?”
“Uh, no we aren’t? When the fuck did that happen?”
“When you were twelve, as I said. I asked you to be my girlfriend.”
“I feel like I would have remembered that happening.”
“Then you should go to a doctor, because it definitely did. It was the best day of my life. We were sitting on the playground, it was recess, you were upset.”
“I remember none of that.”
“You cannot possibly have forgotten this!” Seokjin exclaims. “I cheered you up and offered you my cookie, which you ate in like two bites even though I had made it with salt instead of sugar and it had to be disgusting, because some girl had knocked your cupcake into the dirt-”
“Park Sooyoung, that bitch, I remember that-”
“And then,” Seokjin continues, ignoring your outburst, “I was so deeply honored that you ate that disgusting thing that I offered you the equal honor of being my girlfriend. And you nodded and I kissed your cheek and then you punched me in the arm - which hurt, I might add, for days - and then I watched you play Pokemon Sapphire on your Gameboy Advance.”
The memory rushes in, though not exactly how he remembers it. Park Sooyoung had knocked your cupcake out of your hands and into the dirt, and you had been so mad about it that you’d started to cry. Seokjin found you, curled under a tree away from everyone else, and when he eventually learned what upset you, he’d told Sooyoung off like no one had ever seen. And then he’d handed you the best cookie you’ve ever eaten.
You think maybe that was when you first started falling for Seokjin. With the salty cookie that masked the taste of your own tears, and the angry tirade he had gone on despite the two of you not having known each other for very long, with the wide smile and squeaky laugh and ears so red and cute that you couldn’t focus on whatever he was saying and just nodded along to it.
“Well...why didn’t you say anything since then?” A thought crosses your mind, and it so horror-filled that you have to ask. “Do the guys know?”
“If they do, it’s not because I told them,” Seokjin answers easily. “When you introduced yourself as my friend, I figured you were just a very private person and didn’t want to rub it in their faces or something.”
“Is that why you always drag me along when you, Hobi, Tae, Cat, and Star go out for karaoke?”
“Obviously,” He scoffs. “What could be better than a triple date with your two best friends?”
“Literally anything! Hobi and Cat sing each other the most raunchy things I’ve ever heard, and Tae does all those weepy ballads or indie songs nobody recognizes, and Star’s got those dopey love eyes all night, it’s revolting.”
“You mean like those faces you make at me when you think I won’t notice?”
“I-” You huff, at a loss. “Well what about the other day, with that girl at Mistledough you were flirting with, who was flirting back and-” Realization hits you. “And she’s Jimin’s neighbor girlfriend lady!”
“Pumpkin. Are you serious right now?” He gives you a dry look, but there’s amusement written all over it. “You’ve heard my sales pitch a hundred times. You’ve given my sales pitch a hundred times, albeit with a little more of a monotone and general ‘I’ll kill you’ vibe to it. It was just so she’d buy all the treats I could possibly sell her.”
You make a small ‘hmph’ noise that you aren’t exactly proud of, but makes Seokjin laugh. He pulls you into a warm hug, wrapping his arms around your waist to keep you there. It’s a little awkward, because your arms are still crossed over your chest, but he doesn’t seem to mind and despite all the muttered complaints you give him, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.
“So…” Jin says in a too-casual tone after a few minutes. You muffle a groan into his chest, already preparing for the worst. “What kind of sex are you into?”
“Oh my god,” You mumble.
“Wait, you’re right, I’m getting ahead of myself.” He clears his throat and stands to his full height. When he looks at you again, his eyes are full of something you can’t place exactly, but it makes your heart skip nonetheless when he says your full name. “Will you do me the honor of officially becoming my girlfriend? Again?”
You resist the urge to roll your eyes and nod. The grin takes over his face is blinding, worth all the trouble from the day, as is the soft kiss he presses to your cheek. You can’t help but huff when he pulls away from it, even, and he raises an amused brow at it.
“Does this mean I can finally kiss you the way I’ve been dreaming of forever?”
You do roll your eyes this time, but you let your fingers dance over his jaw and pull him into a gentle kiss. His lips are softer than they look, which you truly didn’t think was possible, and the way they mold and move with yours is warm and tender. You don’t even know how long you spend kissing Seokjin. Time isn’t real, not now, not with him pulling you closer and pressing warm against you like every single daydream you’ve let yourself have.
Years of repressed urges and desire come out before you can stop them, though. Your hands move down to rest on Seokjin’s impossibly tiny waist, slipping behind his apron to tease at the waistband of his slacks. Why he insists everyone wear nice clothes to dinner, you couldn’t possibly say, but they make his ass look phenomenal so you never complain.
The kisses become more heated, his tongue dipping out to taste your lips for a moment. Hands find their way to your ass and palm it greedily, and he tugs you flush against him. A hard length is pressing into you, and you don’t have to guess to know it's not the rolling pin.
Images - memories - flash through your mind of that morning. Your mouth waters and you pull back from Seokjin. Panting, lips swollen from kisses, and half-lidded eyes, he's never looked better.
"Can I suck your dick?"
He groans low in his throat and his eyes fall closed. "Fuck, Pumpkin, right here? Anyone could walk by." You drop to your knees as your hands undo the clasp on the pants.
"Doubtful, they're probably having that post-dinner nap, or playing some game." Anxiety pools in your gut; you know quite a bit about what Seokjin likes in bed, but you've never been sure if exhibitionism is on that list. "Does it make you uncomfortable? I don't have to. I've just been thinking about it all day."
Seokjin barks out a quick laugh and shakes his head. "No," He says, "I definitely would love for you to suck my dick in this kitchen if you want to."
"Good." You flip his apron to the side and tug his cock out of its confines. You don't bother dropping his pants all the way; there's no time, you're too impatient. "Let me know if anyone shows up."
Whatever he's about to say gets cut off by a sharp intake of breath as you warp your lips around the head of him. One of his hands moves to grip the counter behind him and the other rests lightly on your crown; he doesn't pull or tug, just keeps his hand as a gentle pressure as you sink him deeper into your mouth.
As much as you've never been one for sucking dick, you're in heaven. There's no other explanation for why it feels this good to have him sitting heavy against your tongue as he hits the back of your throat. There are still two inches left so you wrap your hand around it and hollow your cheeks as you pull back.
A strangled moan escapes him, and his fingers tighten ever so slightly in your hair. Heat floods to your core and you kick yourself internally because you could have been doing this for years. Your tongue darts out to slide teasingly along the underside of his cock and he reflexively thrusts into your mouth.
You cough a little and pull back, wiping spit from your lips as you catch your breath, and Seokjin is already spewing apologies.
“I’m fine,” You say as you sit back against the cabinet, tugging him to stand in front of you. His back is to most of the kitchen and your head rests against the hard wood behind you while you eye the hard wood in front of you. “I can take a little bit of roughness, Spice, don’t worry.”
He looks hesitant so you ghost your fingers along his length to tease him. His jaw clenches at the same time his eyes close and you resist the urge to smile. Tension bleeds out of his shoulders and when he opens his eyes again, he quirks a brow in a silent question and you nod.
In seconds, he’s in your throat once more, thrusting himself in and out at a slow pace that makes you clench with the desire to feel it elsewhere. You hollow your cheeks and suck properly as he fucks your throat, and he muffles another moan.
“Fuck, Pumpkin, please don’t stop,” Seokjin whines quietly. You smile, just a little, and take him back into your throat for a few seconds before pulling back and repeating the process. Each time he hits the back of your throat, he lets out a muffled groan that only makes you wetter. His cock is thick and your jaw aches and you’re struggling to breathe just a little bit, but the fucked out expression on his face is more than worth it.
Something clatters in the hallway and you freeze, Seokjin’s cock sheathed to the hilt in your throat. His ears turn red and he starts to pull back, but you stop him with a hand on his thigh. He looks down at you, surprised, and you chance a wink that makes him chuckle.
Footsteps make their way past, giggles following close behind, and you hear the door leading to the hot tub open and close. After a few seconds of silence, Seokjin relaxes, pulling out of your throat. You take a few deep breaths and glance over to the door, curious.
“Jimin and Snow,” He tells you, one hand absently stroking along your cheek. “We probably shouldn’t use the hot tub tonight.”
You wrinkle your nose. “Why would I want to anyway? Have you heard Namjoon’s lecture on what could potentially grow in a hot tub if it isn’t sanitized regularly? It’s not a fun lecture.” Seokjin laughs, squeaky and adorable, and helps you to your feet. He doesn’t hesitate to pepper kisses along your cheeks, and you wrinkle your nose even as tilt your head so he can get the places he missed.
“Now when you said that you can handle a little roughness…” Seokjin says, voice a soft murmur in your ear. You make a small hum of affirmation, encouraging him to continue. “Does that mean I can spank you for not finishing blowing me, or is that something you’d rather not do?”
“Fuck, Seokjin,” You hiss, rubbing your thighs together. “Now you have to do it.”
He’s got you turned around in an instant, your fancy dress pants on the ground a few seconds later. His hands mold to your ass, cupping the flesh briefly through your underwear before letting his hands fall away.
It’s methodical and slow and torturous, how he peels away that last layer keeping him from your wetness. You know that the fabric is soaked through, it has been since you first got his dick in your mouth, and Seokjin groans at the sight.
“Even better than I imagined,” He mutters. Your cheeks heat in a rare blush, and you drop your head down between where your forearms are braced against the countertop. His hand smacks against your ass, lightly, and you choke back a laugh. Is that really what he thinks a spank is?
Another slap hits you, no real force behind it, and you scoff under your breath.
“What?” Seokjin asks. When you look back at him, he’s expectant, like he knows what you’re about to say.
“Is that what you call a slap?” You ask. He rolls his eyes and pulls his hand back for another. It already looks unsatisfying, and you can’t help but push him a little further. “I always wondered why your dough doesn’t rise high enough. Guess I know now.”
His eyes darken and a chill comes over you.
“Oh, is that how this is gonna be?” He asks. He gestures for you to face forward again and you do, curious as to the dark look in his eyes.
Something hard and cold smacks into your ass, and you yelp in surprise. There’s a little more force behind it, enough to sting pleasantly but not enough to hurt.
“Is that better, Pumpkin?” He asks. There’s a mocking tone to his voice, but when you look back, you can see the slant of his lips and tension in his jaw that shows he’s concerned. The rolling pin from earlier rests in his hands, and it flares something in your gut.
“Much,” You tell him as you turn back around. He spanks you with it again, and again, and again, and it isn’t until you feel something wet drip down the back of your leg that you remember the chocolate he was fucking around with earlier.
“If you get that on my nice clothes, I will destroy you,” You warn him. He laughs a little and there’s a thump as the rolling pin hits the countertop.
“Is that code for get me naked?” He asks, a laugh in his voice.
“No, that’s code for lick it up and then fuck my brains out.”
The laugh in his throat quickly becomes a growl and he sets to work doing just that. His tongue runs over your skin, gently lapping at the chocolate there, and several times he gets distracted leaving purple marks in his wake. He even slides tongue along your slit, long and thorough and quick, and you almost come just from the obscene moan he lets out.
"Fuck, please, I need you," You gasp out. Seokjin slides a hand under your shirt, massaging the muscles in your back as he does, and stands to his full height.
"Let me know if it hurts," He says softly. His voice is a whisper against your ear and it's never sounded quite so wrecked or beautiful. "I'll stop, okay?"
"If you don't get inside me in the next five seconds, I will go ask Jimin and Snow if I can join them in their kinky hot tub," you growl.
He curses quietly and thrusts his length inside you. Neither of you are quite prepared for what it feels like, and the moment he gets buried to the hilt, he stills.
"Shit, Pumpkin, I'm not gonna last long," He mutters. You can't even manage words. The stretch is absolutely blissful, just on the right side of painful when paired with the sting of your still-tender ass. He's the perfect height for this, too; perfectly lined up without either of you having to try very hard.
He pulls almost entirely out, leaving just the dusty pink head you remember inside. There's not even a chance to whine at the loss, because before you know it, he's slamming back in.
Seokjin's pace is erratic and harried; there's no smooth strokes here. You're both in too much of a rush, too drunk on the pleasure to want anything but release.
Hands move along your skin, one lifting your shirt so he can pepper kisses along your spine while the other reaches down to gently tweak your clit.
It takes three swipes of his finger to have your knees shaking with the power of your orgasm. You clench around him and he stills. You can't think, your brain is absolutely fried at this point; all you know is the feeling of him inside you and the disappointing emptiness when he pulls out.
Warmth hits your back and Seokjin's moans echo in your ears. You're almost afraid to turn around, afraid this is some hyper-realistic dream.
"Shit, hold on, let me clean this up," he says, panting. You can hear him moving through the kitchen and when he comes back, something cold and wet slides along your back.
You wait patiently as he cleans you up. He wipes away every instance of cum and chocolate from your skin - though he looks a little disappointed to be doing so, which you file away for later.
"God, that's so much fucking cum," You say, wrinkling your nose at the mass of wet wipes he tosses in the trash while you fasten your pants once more.
It's just in time, too, as Jimin and Snow come in from the hot tub, smiling and giggly with each other.
"Ah," Jimin says, looking between you and Seokjin. "I did lose a bet. Damn, she's gonna be so pleased with herself."
You glare at him, but there's no real heat behind it. The two of them disappear to get dressed in actual clothes, and you and Seokjin set to work plating the cookies and treats he'd made.
You can't stop the fond look at the rolling pin every few minutes.
Later, after you discover Cat and Hobi have arrived safely and you make sure they actually eat the plates set aside for them, you're on the hunt for Seokjin. He's disappeared somewhere and it's almost time for the countdown.
You finally find him - where else - in the kitchen, making a horrified face at Namjoon.
"What? It was good," Namjoon says with a frown. Seokjin just waves him off and Namjoon shrugs, grabbing a couple glasses of champagne and heading back to Slick.
You sidle up to him as close as you can get and he wraps an arm around your waist like it's second nature. It's surreal, that the man you love is pressing a kiss to your temple and handing you a mug of cocoa.
"I'm glad we talked," He says eventually. You hum your agreement; you aren't looking at him, just staring down into your cocoa as you absently stir it with a candy cane, but you do lean into him ever so slightly. "Remind me to bake Jimin a cake."
"Why? What's he done to deserve a cake?"
"He helped me out earlier, while I was cooking dinner. Helped me figure out how to say what I needed to, that sort of thing."
Your face shoots up as your heart clenches in your chest. "Jimin," You echo. "Jimin is why you decided to talk about your feelings." Seokjin just nods, eyes wide and not understanding why you have murder in your eyes.
"I'm gonna kill him so hard-" You say, already setting your mug down and turning to go find that short gremlin and skin him alive. You don't get two steps before a hand comes to rest on your shoulder, heavy but gentle.
Seokjin pulls you closer to him, a smile playing on his lips as he does. "Why would you want to kill Jimin for that, Pumpkin?"
"Because!" You exclaim. "Jimin's the only one that knows that I-"
The words tangle in your throat, cloying together into a ball you can't seem to unwind. You're too used to choking it down. You don't know how to say it.
"That you love me?" Seokjin finishes. You can't bear to look at him, huffing slightly as you turn to stare out the kitchen window at the snow-covered trees beyond.
Seokjin's hand glides down your arm to wrap around your own, tangling his fingers with yours. With a grace you tend to forget he has, he brings them both upwards until he can press a soft kiss in the center of your palm.
"Jimin isn't the only one that knows that, Pumpkin," He says quietly. You can feel your ears burning, a pleasant contrast from how it's usually him embarrassed and red.
"Whatever," you grumble, giving up on your mission to brutally murder one of your best friends. Seokjin laughs, loud and squeaky and wonderful, and pulls you into another hug.
"I love you too," He whispers. "Now, let's go join the others. I believe you owe me several years of kisses."
"You wish," You mutter half-heartedly. He hands you your cocoa and pats your still-sore ass with a wink.
"That's a great move."
"Really?"
"Yes." There's a pause as she waits for you to remove your fingers from the piece. "If you want to lose."
You offer her a weak glare that she ignores as she studies the board.
"I'm glad that you and Seokjinnie finally got things figured out. It was very cute to watch, but it was getting a little ridiculous, you know."
She moves a piece, and you squint to try to help you figure out her strategy.
"Right, it had nothing to do with your bet with Jimin," You say sarcastically as you move another piece. You eye her, one finger still remaining on it, to try to figure out if it's what she expected.
"Of course not," She says as you remove your hand. "That was merely a bonus." She immediately lays a piece, gaining even more of an advantage than she already had.
"Well then," You start as you lay another piece, "I'm sure you know all about Jimin and his neighbor, and Star and Tae I don't need to tell you anything about Yoongi or Cat or Jeongguk, either, probably."
Her fingers hesitate over the piece she's picking up, and her eyes narrow at you.
"Ah, don't be so cruel. You're supposed to respect your elders, you know."
"Alright, Granny Park," You say with a rare grin as you glance to where Seokjin is baking a ‘sorry we fucked in your kitchen’ cake and decoration some sugar-free cookies for her. "What exactly do you want to know?
#moonchildnet#ficswithluv#smutcentralnet#btswriterscollective#ksmutclub#magicshopnet#seokjin fanfic#jin fanfic#seokjin smut#jin smut#seokjin fluff#jin fluff#bts fanfic#bts fluff#bts smut#reader insert#jin x reader#seokjin x reader#the snowball effect collab#ddaenggtan
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ClassSalt where Jagged does another interview in the bakery and with permission he gets to film in Mari's room. The class are watching it live, still think they're kinda friends with Mari. Surprise surprise there's no pics of them hanging only of Mari's designs, Luka, Kagami, and Felix and when asked by Jagged Mari just smirks in a way they know they fucked up and she says "the class I was in at Dupont aren't friends." and bam they're outed in public bc she's out as MDC so everyone knows it them
The class was buzzing with excitement, all gathered at Alya's place as they watched the TV. The newest designer, MDC, had become the biggest hit in Paris amongst teens and adults alike. Whoever they were, MDC just seemed to know exactly what people were looking for.
Many of the students in Miss Bustier's class wore the anonymous designer's designs, more so lately as Lila had revealed to them that she was actually best friends with the designer! She had been the source of inspiration for the Miraculous themed hoodies that were recently released.
"I can't believe we're finally gonna see who MDC is! I bet he's really handsome!" Sabrina giggled, squirming eagerly in her seat.
"Do you think he'd design us some dresses for graduation?" Rose piped up, a hopeful sparkle in her eyes. Graduation from lycée was just around the corner, many looking forward to finally be free from school forever.
"I'm sure he will, Lila will put in a good word for us." Alya grinned, her phone out, all ready to write updates on her blog about this suspenseful reveal.
The class watched in bated breath as the show's intro song played, then a pretty reporter appeared on screen. Estelle Desrosiers smiled brightly at the camera, sitting in a chair, in a very familiar room.
A familiar pink room."
"Hello Paris! This is Estelle Desrosiers, here in the room of the famous MDC and her head model!" Estelle spoked brightly, her green eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. The camera panned over to a couple sitting on a couch, and the class flinched when they heard Alya drop her phone.
"Marinette...?" She whispered out, the blood slowly draining from her face.
"That's right, Paris, the beautiful Marinette Dupain-Cheng is the one who has taken the world by storm! At the age of eighteen, she is the youngest designer to have grown to such heights!" At Estelle's words, Marinette blushed, but kept her bright smile, her hand gripping Adrien's as the camera focused on them.
"Now, Marinette, how did you manage to find the time to start this brand of yours? You're still in high school, after all." Estelle was practically bouncing in her seat as she spoke.
"Let me tell you, Estelle, it wasn't easy." A soft chuckle left Marinette as she sat up a bit more in her seat. "You see, my time was always taken up by being class president, planning parties for friends, or making those friends special outfits for dances. If my life was still like that, I still probably wouldn't have this brand going."
"What do you mean?" Estelle tilted her head slightly, looking cartoonishly confused, playing it up for the camera.
"Most of my friends tossed me aside when something new and shiny came along." Marinette's smile strained slightly, but a supportive side hug from Adrien emboldened her. "And with them ignoring me, I found myself with more free time. And Adrien here let me stay at his apartment to get the big projects done, the ones I didn't want any unsavory people to steal."
"Apartment?" Nino whispered in surprise, his brows rising in shock. "Since when does the dude have an apartment?"
"He got one a year ago." Juleka chimed in, drawing the class's gaze to her. She flinched and quickly lowered her gaze. "From what Luka told me, Adrien made money from modeling for Marinette, so he put it in a bank account his father couldn't access."
"It probably also helped that my lovely princess did commissions for a lot of family celebrities." Adrien spoke up, planting a soft kiss on Marinette's cheek. Then his sharp gaze met the camera's and his grin grew sly. "Such as Jagged Stone, Clara Nightengale, Prince Ali... She knows them all personally. Hell, she has Jagged Stone on speed dial."
As Estelle and the couple kept talking, the camera panned around Marinette's room, showing off the designer's very pink work space, with her mannequins, her sewing machine, her walls plastered with designs and sketches of possible projects.
"Wasn't... Wasn't there more on Marinette's walls?" Kim swallowed thickly as a lump formed in his throat.
Alya could only stare, realizing Kim was right. All of the pictures of Adrien was gone, so was the massive schedule, the wall of pictures of Marinette and her class. They were all gone, no trace of them seen anywhere. Not even a framed photo on her computer desk. M
It was then Alya realized she hadn't bee in that bedroom in years, not since Lila became her best friend.
The class listened in stunned silence as Marinette and Adrien went on about how they pulled this off, with the help of a few friends, how Adrien managed to get free from his abusive father (that no doubt going to greatly damage the Agreste fashion brand), and how they ended up dating.
"To be honest with you." Adrien got a bit of a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his neck. "I probably wouldn't be dating Marinette right now if I didn't grow a spine. Because of a new girl in our class, everyone kinda ganged up on her, and I watched from the sidelines like a coward. But I had a long talk with a close friend and he made me see the error of my ways."
"This class of yours, did they see the error of their ways as well?" Estelle frowned, raising a delicate brow.
Marinette smiled at the camera, a smile that the entire class felt was the swinging of the axe.
"Not in the least. But oh well, thanks to them, I got to where I am today. And I'm much more careful with who I trust."
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like a rockstar : taeyong marketing breakdown
a headcanon & playlist on how titan’s taeyong is marketed as a product and brand.
headcanon
word count: 491 words, not counting the tvtropes quote.
a successful celebrity can’t exist without marketing. some celebrities are all marketing. ash, for one, wouldn’t be where he is today without bc entertainment’s well-oiled marketing machine painting him in a desirable light and smoothing out his rough edges into something shiny.
the image the name taeyong provokes now isn’t quite the one it would have provoked a few years ago. the role of maknae burdened ash’s image for years. a sense of brightness is expected of any idol, but the youngest of a group is expected to show it, even in a group like titan that has never been about bright concepts. whether that means being babied by the older members or having a certain underlying innocence to him.
when he went solo was when his image gravitated further away from being dictated by his place within a group. as he earned recognition for his own name (or rather, his own stage name) and got attention from a new crowd, he was able to pave a path that painted with the brush of an artist, a little less bound by preconceived notions about his role in titan. when the scandals stamped to his name went from fumbling over formalities and dating a well-loved actress to controversies less easily painted as endearing that came at the same time he began to present himself differently visually, bc had to bank on the leeway of an artist tinge to his image saving him.
ash has never been marketed as an ideal boyfriend. titan has that covered in the group already and an outed relationship before he’d begun to make a name for himself individually prevented that from being a rational path. some fans still fall into the trap of babying him, but overall, taeyong is now known as the more serious and reserved type. satisfactory fanservice is a non-starter, so they make their own fantasies out of his mystery and “edginess” and a brooding stage persona. bc has done damage control where they’ve had to and let his music and fan projections paint the rest.
out of all of the classic boy band member tropes, ash would solidly be considered a purveyor of the bad boy / rebel trope within titan and out of it for that matter. to quote tvtropes:
“the one with a rougher edge to him. he's the one wearing the black shirt and jeans or leather jacket in those videos where they're not all wearing matching clothes. if he's really edgy, he may also have a tattoo. put in to cater to those girls who want bad boys.”
bc read the first two paragraphs of the tv tropes page for all girls want bad boys and said ‘yeah, this should work’. the bad boy / rebel angle tends to get played up within fandom a lot more than among more casual listeners to his music, who get a heavier dose of the ~artist~ part of his image since that’s meant to appeal to them more anyway.
ash has very purposefully been trying to lean more into the artist aspect of his image lately because he isn’t a fan of being painted as some kind of bad boy fantasy when he doesn’t consider that an accurate representation of him at all.
playlist
this playlist gives a semi-chronological cataloging of the image associated with taeyong since around 2016/2017. some parts of his image have remained consistent, while others have changed either by purposeful marketing, unavoidable consequences of media discussion around him, or simply altered fan narratives for him. some parts of this are less about how he’s marketed and more about very one-dimensional fan narratives crafted around him, but overall it gives an idea of the feeling associated with him as a product and brand. (some of these songs were used in image playlists on ash’s previous blog, but i made sure at least seven of these are new. i wanted to include ones i’d used before as well for a comprehensive look on his new blog since some aspects of his image have changed.)
this honestly also doubles as a list of the songs you’d find the most results for if you looked up taeyong fan edits.
i. death of a bachelor | i’m cutting my mind off, feels like my heart is going to burst / alone at a table for two, and i just wanna be served / and when you think of me, am i the best you've ever had?
ii. daydreamer | a jaw dropper / looks good when he walks / is the subject of their talk / he would be hard to chase / but good to catch / and he could change the world / with his hands behind his back, oh
iii. wildest dreams | he's so tall and handsome as hell / he's so bad, but he does it so well / i can see the end as it begins
iv. style | cause you got that james dean daydream look in your eye / and i got that red lip classic thing that you like / and when we go crashing down, we come back every time / cause we never go out of style, we never go out of style / you got that long hair, slicked back, white t-shirt / and i got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt
v. crazy beautiful | and he picks you up / and he sets you down / and that's the way / he thinks and he walks and he plays around downtown / but the truth is, he's still got a scar / as plain as others / to get his way to a scarlet heart
vi. ready for it...? | knew he was a killer first time that I saw him / wondered how many girls he had loved and left haunted / [...] / some boys are tryin' too hard, he don't try at all though / younger than my exes, but he act like such a man, so
vii. radio | now my life is sweet like cinnamon / like a fuckin' dream i'm livin' in / baby, love me 'cause i'm playing on the radio / how do you like me now?
viii. like i would | he, won't touch you like i do / he, won't love you like i would / he don't know your body / he don't do you right / he won't love you like i would / love you like i would, like i would
ix. i wanna be yours | secrets i have held in my heart / are harder to hide than i thought / maybe i just wanna be yours / i wanna be yours
x. strange love | they think i'm insane, they think my lover is strange / but i don't have to fucking tell them anything, anything / and i'm gonna write it all down, and i'm gonna sing it on stage / but i don't have to fucking tell you anything, anything
xi. my oh my | yeah, a little bit older, a black leather jacket / a bad reputation, insatiable habits / he was onto me, one look and i couldn't breathe, yeah / i said, if he kissed me, i might let it happen
xii. bad reputation | i don't give a damn 'bout my reputation / never been afraid of any deviation / and i don't really care if you think i'm strange / i ain't gonna change
xiii. starboy | i'm tryna put you in the worst mood, ah / p1 cleaner than your church shoes, ah / milli point two just to hurt you, ah / all red lamb' just to tease you, ah / none of these toys on lease too, ah / made your whole year in a week too, yah / main bitch out of your league too, ah / side bitch out of your league too, ah / [...] / look what you’ve done / i’m a motherfuckin' starboy
xiv. into it | i'm just fucking lucky i was born with it / a hundred million people couldn't deal with this
xv. like a rockstar | put me in designer then put me in the dirt / keep my legacy alive like a rockstar / lifestyle, on the edge, can be unforgiving / see i worship the dead, they worship the living, yeah
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don’t wanna fall in love (c.h.)
summary: you don’t want to give him your heart but he already has it
author’s note: haven’t read the entire thing yet through and edited, so there may be some mistakes. just wanted to get this out there because i’m tired of staring at it :) also, ironically, i listened to the song wicked game by chris isaak on repeat while writing this but couldn’t name it that bc i named my last oneshot after wicked game by the weeknd oops
word count: 4038
You remember the night you met Cal.
He was all smiles and chubby cheeks and drunken happy dancing as you all celebrated the birthday of a friend.
You were used to meeting famous people - living in Los Angeles had made the glamour and shininess of celebrities wear off, and while you were starstruck your first couple years there, you were used to it now. Having friends in the music business gave you the in to meet so many people, and you often found they were just like everybody else, only they had a lot more money and the freedom to do whatever the fuck they wanted.
So having a half-drunken hookup with Calum wasn’t anything significant at the time. It was just like hooking up with anyone else.
Except that he actually called you like he said he would afterwards.
And then he started inviting you to more parties and kickbacks and hangouts.
And then you actually started getting kind of… attached.
It was foolish of you. While celebrities were like everyone else to you, they were different in one way: they were undateable. You’d sworn off ever getting into a relationship with a celebrity, especially any musicians, because you knew the paparazzi and the traveling and the pressure and the fans would be too much. It just wasn’t the lifestyle you wanted to commit yourself to forever.
That’s why you can’t stop feeling a twist in your stomach as Calum gets closer and closer to you, arms nearly touching as you’re all bunched up in the corner talking at another one of Ashton’s house parties. Luke says something dumb and everyone is laughing, but your head is somewhere else, fixating on the heat of Calum’s skin barely brushing yours and hoping that no one here can read minds or else you’re screwed.
Calum presses his elbow into your side, looking at you with his brows furrowed. “You good?” he mouths over the music, concern on his face. You’re normally pretty talkative, but you haven’t said a thing during this conversation.
You nod, taking a sip out of the beer in your hand and trying your hardest to focus on the discussion at hand as Luke and Sierra argue over who got the most drunk at Ashton’s last party.
“I’ll be right back,” you say before you sneak away to the kitchen, finishing off your beer and throwing it in the trash and opening the fridge to get a new one. You take a deep breath and try to collect yourself.
You know Calum is off limits to you, that it will only end in heartbreak for the both of you, and that you can’t let that happen. But it’s so hard to focus when he’s around you, and it’s almost like you’re starting to forget what would be so bad about getting your heart broken by him. You’d have the pleasure of having him for at least a little while.
A deep breath and another sip of beer has you feeling composed enough to go back and rejoin the circle of your friends, but they’ve dispersed now and you’re left trying to track down someone you know in the packed house.
A pair of arms wraps around you from behind, lifting you up in the air and swinging you around. Your squeals stop as soon as they put you down, and you already know that when you turn around you’re going to find a head of bleached blonde hair and full lips turned up in laughter.
“Cal!” you swat him, rolling your eyes. “You could’ve made me spill my beer,” you pout.
“Ah, but I didn’t,” he points out with a smirk on his face. “I’m talented at what I do.”
You smile unamused, shaking your head at him.
“You alright though? You looked a little out of it earlier,” he mentions.
“Yeah, just a bit tired. Long day at work,” you shrug, “but I didn’t wanna miss the party.”
He studies you, seeing the tired lines under your eyes and wishing that he could make them disappear. He knows how hard you work and how important your job is and thinks that it’s so badass that you do what you do. He thinks it’s badass that even though you have such a hard job, you can still outdrink the rest of them and light up the room when you walk in.
“Wouldn’t be a party without you,” he nods. “That’s why I noticed ya when we first met. You were the life of the party.”
You can see the truth in his eyes as he speaks and it makes you want to melt into him. He makes it so hard to resist him.
“Oh, shut up,” you groan, bumping your shoulder against his playfully.
After a while, people are starting to leave, slowly trickling out until it’s only those who are close friends left in the living room, sitting on the couches and so deep in conversation that they don’t even notice the room emptying out.
“I’m not ready to go home,” Calum sighs, looking around. “I get a little lonely after drinking so much wine. Not totally sure I should be going home and sitting in the dark,” he admits, eyes flickering to yours to try and gauge your reaction.
You kick the ground with the toe of your shoes, trying to decide if you should offer him to join you tonight, not sure if it would be a good idea. But when you look up and see those chocolate eyes, genuine hesitation and loneliness in them, you don’t care if it’s a bad idea anymore. You want to protect him from all things sad.
“You could come to mine for a bit?” you suggest, biting your lip. “We can watch a movie or something maybe,” you shrug. His eyes light up with warmth at the offer. He nods.
“Alright.”
--------------------
You pop open a bottle of red wine as you and Calum settle on the couch, pouring each of you a glass to sip on as he searches for something to put on the tv. His arms flex just slightly each time he clicks on the remote and you can’t peel your eyes off of him. You look up and realize he’s turned towards you, asking your opinion on a show, and you know he’s caught you staring by the way the end of his sentence just kind of fades out. His eyes are latched onto you now.
The air feels like it’s thickening around you and you can’t bring yourself to tear your eyes away from him. It was much easier when the two of you weren’t alone in the silence of your empty apartment.
“You’re something else tonight,” Calum bites his bottom lip and shakes his head. “God, you know exactly what you do to me.”
“What do I do to you?” you ask.
“Make it feel like all the air is sucked out of the room,” he admits. “Like I can’t breathe.”
You adjust yourself in your seat, looking down at the floor. You know where this is going to go, and you’re not sure you can handle it if it does.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he affirms. “Ever since I met you. God, you don’t even realize how you are,” he laughs. “You light up the room when you walk in. Can’t ever keep my eyes off you.”
He’s spent weeks thinking about your drunken hookup, wishing he had been softer and sweeter and savored your lips on his body. Wishing he’d gotten you out of the dress you’d been wearing and been able to see you and feel you all the way. There were so many things he’d have done differently now.
“You don’t care that I’m famous or that I have money or any of that shit. You still call my ass out and put me in my place and drive me crazy,” he chuckles. “I’ve been trying to make moves for weeks now and you keep pulling away from me and acting like we’re just friends, but I... I can’t be just friends with you.”
You bite your lip, not sure how to answer him. You know that what you want, more than anything in this moment, is him.
But it’s not that simple.
Your last heartbreak was so hard to get over. It took months and months of tears and distractions and drunken nights out at bars and fake smiles to get you to a point where you could even live your life normally again. And you already liked Calum more than it was healthy, way more than you’d ever liked any boy this early on.
You knew if you gave in, if you let him in, that he would have the total power to absolutely wreck you. He’d be able to crumple your heart in his fist and throw it away. It was terrifying.
And you knew how much he’d be on the road, especially having just released an album. As soon as he’d get back home, he’d have to be busy in the studio. Every time the two of you would go out, there would be pictures and camera flashes and crazy fans. You’d have to put your social media on private and remember how to calculate time zone differences and become best friends with facetime and heartache.
The soft, hesitant touch of Calum’s hands against your face bring you back to the present. The calluses on his palm are rough against your cheek and you fight off a shiver as your eyes go to his. There’s a softness in them, and you’ve never seen Calum look so… afraid.
“I really like you,” he murmurs. “I know it’s scary.”
You nod in agreement. It is scary.
He hasn’t dated anyone in a long time. It wasn’t because he hadn’t wanted to or he didn’t have the opportunity - there were plenty of decent girls that he’d crushed on over the years. But he didn’t want to put them through the pain of dating him. He knew that there were a lot of unfair things that came with a relationship with him. He felt guilty and ashamed asking someone to deal with all the baggage of loving someone always on the road.
You nod.
“I know it’s not fair of me to ask you for anything. I know I’ll be gone a lot and it’s not ideal. But I really like you.”
You sigh, closing your eyes as his fingers trace patterns on the skin behind your ears comfortingly. He’s so soft and safe and cozy, even when his shirt smells like beer and his heart is racing.
“I don’t wanna fall in love,” you whisper. Your eyes are still closed at your confession, and you feel so small and vulnerable. “I know you’ll be able to break my heart and I know I won’t recover if you do.”
He shifts and pulls you closer to him until your face is in his neck and your knees are curled up in his lap. No words are exchanged as the two of you sit in the quietness of your living room, breathing in each other’s air.
“I won’t break your heart,” he murmurs against the top of your head. His hand is moving up and down your back slowly, heating your entire body with every movement. “Wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I did.”
“No one ever means to break someone’s heart,” you say.
“I know,” he kisses the top of your head.
And then he kisses the top of your ear, and your cheek, and his hand lightly grips your chin and tilts you up to face him before he kisses you right on the lips.
He’s soft and sweet and the opposite of everything he was the last time he kissed you. There’s no rush now, and you’re both filled with red wine instead of vodka, soft and sleepy as your lips meet over and over again.
He pulls you into his lap, your legs wrapping around his waist as he lets his fingers trail up and tangle themselves in your hair. You let yourself relax into him, his tongue parting the seam of your lips and you open your mouth to him, letting him explore you. Instead of rough tongues battling for dominance like last time, it’s a timid exploration. He wants to memorize what every part of you feels like.
One of his hands lowers until it slides down into the back pocket of your jeans, cupping the curve of your backside and holding on tightly. You arch your back against him, and he moves his mouth from your lips to your neck, pulling you close until your chest is pressed flush against him and his teeth nip at your throat.
Ever so slowly, he plants kisses all the way down your throat, soft and light against your skin, until he reaches your collarbone, leaving little marks against you as he goes.
“Please,” he whispers against your skin, and you can feel every movement of his lips brush against your chest. “Tell me you want me.”
“Cal -” you start.
“No,” he whispers, cutting you off. “Don’t think about anything else. Think about right now. Do you want me?”
You grasp at the short hair on his head, pulling on it to raise his head to look at you. You nod, and that’s the only answer he needs. He reaches behind you and grabs the bottom of your top, pulling it over your head swiftly before he reattaches his mouth to your chest, suckling the skin exposed by the top of your bra as you hold him close. Warm fingers dig into the skin of your back, feeling around for the clasp of your bra and unhooking it. Slowly, gingerly, he slides the straps down your arms and drags the fabric off of you.
There’s a breeze across your chest and you feel even more exposed and vulnerable, but it feels right to open yourself up to him like this. He lips close around a nipple, tongue swirling it over and you throw your head back, mouth open as you hold back soft whimpers.
His hands are moving all over you, desperate to feel every inch of you before you change your mind. You reach down and yank his shirt off to you and press your bodies together to feel the warmth of the skin to skin contact, lips meeting once again as he reaches down to unbutton your jeans. Legs still wrapped around his waist, he stands and rushes to your bedroom, barely able to get the door open in his frenzy.
You’re laid down on the bed and he’s hovering over you, unzipping you and pulling the jeans carefully down, pressing soft kisses on the skin of your legs as it becomes exposed. Once the fabric is finally off, he makes his way back up, stopping to press his lips softly over the center of your underwear, just barely enough pressure for you to feel it, but it’s enough to send goosebumps across your body.
Lips meet again in a tangled frenzy, soft and slippery and yearning for each other, and you don’t even take the time to breathe between kisses anymore. It’s getting frantic and desperate and you’re not sure how much longer you can keep your hands off of him. Your nails scratch down his back as his mouth engulfs you and his arms wrap around your waist, pulling you as close as he can possibly get you.
“You want me?” he asks again, breathless and lust-filled. You nod again, but that’s not enough for him this time. “Say it,” he commands. “Say you want me.”
“I want you,” you breathe.
“How badly?” he continues.
Truthfully, you want him so badly it feels like you could burst. So you grab the back of his neck and try to pull him back to you, hips lifting upwards desperate for contact. He pulls away, unsatisfied.
“How badly?” he repeats, pushing your hips down against the mattress.
“So bad, Cal,” you sigh. “Please - just c’mere,” you practically beg, still trying to pull his face back to yours.
Content with that answer, he kisses you again, but his hand is snaking down and teasing you over your underwear with light, delicate touches. You moan out, and his pants get a little tighter just from hearing you.
His fingers dance over the skin of your inner thighs, leaving ghosts of traces where you want him most until you’re almost writhing beneath him.
“Please,” you whimper again, and it spurs him on enough to finally add some pressure, pushing down and rubbing on the little bundle of nerves right below the only fabric you’re wearing.
He yanks your underwear off impatiently now and lets his fingers explore the most secret part of you, feeling the wetness on your outer lips before spreading them and collecting more of the juice on his fingers. You’re moaning and he’s moaning and you’re both lost in the exploration of your body.
He reaches a hand up slowly and sucks on his fingers, tasting you for the first time. You watch as his lips pucker around his fingers and he takes them out, holding them up to your lips right after for you to do the same thing. It’s strangely arousing, tasting yourself and his mouth at the same time, and it feels so intimate.
When he pulls his fingers out of your mouth, he presses his forehead against yours and kisses the tip of your nose so lightly. “So pretty,” he murmurs, and the moment is so soft and tender and it feels like time has frozen and then suddenly his fingers are back against you and moving in fast circles until you’re left unable to breathe.
“Oh my god,” you gasp when he slowly plunges his fingers into you, moving around and stretching you out. He’s slow and steady, curling his fingers and testing different methods until you grab onto his arm, nails digging into the skin, and moan loudly, mouth thrown open and back arched, and he knows he’s found the right spot.
His arms are flexing deliciously, muscles and veins popping out, as he continually hits that spot inside you with his fingers, watching eagerly as you become more and more unhinged and desperate beneath him.
You’re still holding back, and he can tell. “C’mon,” he mumbles against you. “It’s okay, I’m right here. Let go,” he encourages you, and it’s what you need, because you’re becoming undone and gasping and groaning and writhing and he’s never seen anything more beautiful in his life than this.
“Good girl,” he kisses your forehead and you slump against the mattress, skin growing sticky with sweat.
“Cal,” you whisper, reaching for him until he brings his lips back to yours. You wrap your arms around him and feel his skin beneath the palms of your hands, craving his touch. His pants are still on, but you’re determined to change that as you reach to undo them, attempting to pull them off his hips, but he stands up and gets them off himself. Much faster that way.
He’s rock hard from the show you’ve put on and desperate to get inside you. He pushes away your hands and positions himself right above you, lining himself up.
“I wanna do it right this time,” he says seriously, looking you in the eyes and swallowing. “Wanna go slow. ‘S that okay?”
You close your eyes, so ridiculously turned on by the fact that he wants to go slowly and carefully with you, heart fluttering at the effect this boy has on you. You nod and moan as you feel him against you, coating himself in your juices before slowly pushing in. You feel every inch of him as he lets his hips move forward, both of your mouths hanging open as you take it in.
“Feel so fucking good,” he groans lowly, stopping once his entire length is inside you and breathing. You’ve never felt this full before. He pauses there for a moment to allow you to adjust to all the stretching before he starts to move, pulling his hips back before rolling them forward again.
He reaches for your hands and pins them above your head, fingers intertwined as he continues his movements, rocking in and out of you at a steady rhythm.
This is the opposite of the last time he had been inside you. Before it was frantic and drunk and sloppy, but this time it was calm, careful.
You feel so safe with him, engulfed in his body as he shows you how much he wants you in the best way he knows how. Your foreheads press together and your arms wrap around his back, pulling his chest up against yours as you both lose yourselves in each other, panting and crying out as you reach your highs.
He rolls off of you, pulling you to the side to curl up next to him, not wanting to break the contact between you even though you’re both covered in sweat. When you look at him, you agree that it does feel like all of the air is sucked out of the room, just like he said.
You know it’s too late to keep your heart out of it now. It’s already too late. You know that you’ll break your own heart if you try to stop what’s already started now, so you have no choice to give in.
“Don’t break me,” you whisper against him.
“Never,” he smiles softly, kissing the top of your head and closing his eyes, happy with you in his arms.
------------------------------
You smile at your phone as Calum’s face pops on the screen, your nightly FaceTime waiting.
It’s been hard with him on tour, especially with your relationship being so new, but it’s been okay so far. You miss him at night, having gotten used to him staying over each night for the few weeks before he left, and he misses waking up next to you in the morning instead of in a new hotel bed, cold and alone.
The FaceTimes were holding both of you over for now until he flew you out for one of the shows in the next few weeks.
“Hey,” Calum’s bright smile filled your screen, camera way too close to his face. “There’s my girl,” he smiles softly, proud to be able to call you that.
“Of course,” you respond, pushing the hair out of your face as you look into the camera and examine yourself. Your eyes look happier. You can tell. “What are you up to?”
He raises the camera and shows the room he’s sitting in, plopped on a couch by himself as the boys are messing around in the background. “Just got to the venue for tonight, we’re just setting some things up,” he says. You can see Luke and Michael play fighting behind Calum and laugh.
“Seems like you guys are having fun,” you chuckle as Michael falls to the ground overdramatically.
Calum nods as he looks over at his friend, but gets up off the couch and moves out of the room, walking to what looks like an empty concrete hallway. “Yeah, it’s fun,” he says, “but I miss ya. Wish you were here to make it more fun.”
“Just a couple more weeks,” you sigh.
“Thanks for putting up with me traveling and the phone calls at weird hours and the sporadic texts,” he mumbles, still feeling guilty.
“Hey,” you coo. “Don’t apologize. It’s worth it.”
You know in your heart that it is worth it, that he’s worth it and your relationship is worth it. You’ve fully accepted that he has your heart and all the power to break it, but you trust that he won’t.
And Calum knows as he looks at the sparkle in your eye and feels his heart pang in his chest that he won’t ever break your heart.
He knows that if he breaks your heart, his would break as well. So for now, you’d just have to trust each other and finally let yourselves fall in love.
#calum hood#calum fic#calum oneshot#calum fanfic#5sos#5sos fic#5sos fanfic#writings#writing#oneshot#smut#luke hemmings#michael clifford#ashton irwin#luke#ashton#michael#calum smut#calum imagine#calum blurb#blurb#imagine#5sos blurb#5sos imagine
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just as a warning, vox’s background is pretty heavy. really heavy. there’s some potentially triggering content involved so just be very very careful. i don’t normally delve too far into darker storylines with my ocs bc they’re meant to be a headspace to Chill and Relax in, but uh. this happened.
— vox grew up in watson with a different name. she was hanna geary. her birthday was october 12th, 2049. her favorite color was blue.
— her family barely had enough to make ends meet and relied on family and outside help a lot. her moms tried so hard to keep her ignorant to just how much they were struggling, but that only lasted so long. there comes a day when everything makes sense for a kid like her. her dad didn’t have the eddies to support her, either. or, if he did, she never saw them... or him. mom said he ran with the bakkers. mama said he was a piece of shit.
— she had a small group of very close friends, all from the same complex. they were all very creative in their own ways, and they were all victims of circumstance in their own ways. it made them extremely easy to prey on.
— once they were all of age, they were contacted one by one by a man called lorcan kendall. he had just enough money and prestige tacked to his name to get their attention, and each of them fell for his little scheme. hanna was first of all of them, given that one of her moms was sick and they couldn’t afford to pay for the procedure without getting into unholy amounts of medical debt.
— lorcan kendall was small time, but to them, the offer he laid on the table was shiny and hopeful and just what they all needed. micah’s sister had recently gotten shot by some barely-there-in-the-head maelstrom gonk. leslie and laura were recently orphaned. emmy needed an astronomically expensive cortical implant to last out the year.
— paint for him. write for him. sing, act, dance, play for him. join his creative collective at his home in north oak, and they would have everything they needed. so, hanna took her voice -- the one thing she had any talent in -- and she accepted his agreement, even if it meant going behind her parents’ backs to say yes.
— hindsight being 20/20, it was a bad idea, but lorcan was an agent. he supported well-known actors and actresses they’d all seen on tv. he showed them paintings hung up in galleries they’d never been able to visit. played them clips of songs, vids of stage shows. he was the real deal. or, he seemed like he was.
— they all left home. they moved in with him. they underwent procedures meant to help them fit in with the elite after growing up on the other end of the spectrum. he claimed it was an investment -- facial reconstruction, aesthetic implants, hair and eye color adjustments. the fingerprint tampering and various trackers came about while they were sedated. the kids knew about some of the changes, but others were kept as a closely-held secret between kendall and the ripperdoc in his employ.
— none of them knew what was going on back home. they didn’t know that their families were looking for them, but were instead told that eighty percent of all money they made on their work was sent back home. they didn’t know that they were counted as missing until they were counted as killed when the police got bored of their case. and funnily enough, network news 54 didn’t pick up the story for any longer than an afternoon.
— hanna’s implants were vocal in nature to ward off against strain and to carry her voice farther and longer than anyone possibly could without the extra help. she went from an alto to a soprano overnight, able to reach untold and unheard of notes with the snap of a finger. after a number of surgeries, she was instructed to leave hanna behind. she became vox.
— and for a time, she got a decent amount of attention, which could also be said for her other friends from watson. lorcan kendall made a lot of money as their families mourned, all while listening to her tracks on the radio.
— but that didn’t last. or, rather, kendall got a more lucrative offer from someone who was a shark to his minnow. he wanted all of them, and it was that passing of hands that lorcan had anticipated from the beginning. after all, the five of them were just bait, and the time and effort and eddies spent on making them into what they were now was chump change compared to what he got. it wasn’t every day someone got their hands on five teens with no possible way to be identified.
— things got dangerous fast. they were moved into the home of joseph rice, the recently retired producer of network news 54, and his friends descended like fucking vultures. one of them bought micah sight unseen. another sent no less than two dozen messages, pleading with rice to let them borrow leslie and laura. vox watched as emmy was airlifted out of the complex every night for a week only to come home mute. and she... she sang for people with the eddies to pay and sang in other ways for those who paid extra.
— but rice was the jealous type, and his attraction to the eighteen year old vox ran deep. her price grew by leaps and bounds every time someone passed him an offer. before long, no one who wanted her cared to fork over that amount of money. so, she was stranded and left to watch helplessly as her friends were taken advantage of. brutalized. nearly fucking killed on more than one occasion.
— one morning, emmy was returned to rice’s penthouse unconscious. she came to hours later with news about micah and nothing else left inside of her. “he’s not coming back,” she said, fingers crushing vox’s wrist like a vise. “go go go. please.”
— vox didn’t know where to run or how, but she knew that it was the only way to get them all help. so, desperate to fix the mess by chopping off the head, she cracked a vase over rice’s head and used the shards to slit his throat. there were no fingerprints to track, after all, and cameras could not pick up her face due to her optical implants. she trashed the place with laura and leslie’s help, though they promised to stay behind to get emmy out once she recovered.
— watson wasn’t far away, but she couldn’t access her account to pay for a ride. so, she got lost in the city instead. her looks got her a place to sleep for the night, just like they paid for a motel and food and a trip to a ripperdoc for help with her eyes that ended in a quick and dirty scan to remove her trackers once she found her patient overflowing with them. her songs played on the radio while worked, and the compliments she got on her technique and her voice were hardly enough to keep her going.
— it was one client in particular who lifted her up out of the depressive haze she’d slipped into. he was this big bruiser from heywood with a cute smile and the warmest hands she’d ever felt. he asked her her name, but shared his before she could tell him. jackie, he said, grinning almost from ear to ear. his valentino tattoo was fresh and his eddies were still hot from his recent job and he wrapped her up in his arms rather than just fucking her.
— she saved up enough to get a place of her own. then, she saved up enough to get a car. she dyed her hair blue and gained weight and learned how to shoot. things felt normal for all of a few months before a nondescript man in a crisp red suit showed up outside her door.
— she ditched everything except for her blue hair after two knocks, piling out of her apartment and hiding with a neighbor until the man left. and then, she left, too, leaving night city in the dust with nothing but hate in her heart. for what was allowed to happen, for what people were willing to do and not do. she tracked the bakkers down, and she was reunited with her father... in a way. she wasn’t hanna geary anymore, and clay would never know she was his daughter.
— vox struggled to make friends. intimacy made her skin itch, and singing around the campfire made it crawl. she kept almost exclusively to herself.
— no one had any reason to trust her. no one had any reason to have her back. so when things went to shit again, this time with rice’s daughter behind the wheel and news about her four dead friends holding down the pedal, vox disappeared.
#type: headcanons#oc: vox#this was hard to write and it's a lot but i wanted to get it down#i'm so invested in her 😔
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⌠ MASON GOODING, 21, CISMALE, HE/HIM ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, JEREMY “JEM” FISCHMAN II! according to their records, they’re a SECOND YEAR year, specializing in ADVANCED ENCRYPTION & “MACGUYVER” SURVIVAL SKILLS AND NAVIGATION; and they DID NOT go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of (old hip hop blaring from headphones, a broken crtv with the cords ripped out and repurposed, the smell of spray paint graffiti, brightly colored shirts with 80s patterns). when it’s the (cancer)’s birthday on 06/23/99, they always request their ICE CREAM SANDWICHES from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation. ⌿ kati, 24, she/her, est ⍀ @gallagherintro
STATS / PINTEREST / CONNECTIONS / CLASSES
INSPIRATION
fox mulder (the x files)
hogarth hughes (the iron giant)
will turner (pirates of the carribean)
robin hood
george weasley (harry potter)
aladdin
spike spiegel (cowboy bebop)
mark watney (the martian)
BACKGROUND + CLICK FOR BIO
his parents were high school sweethearts and married just before they attended college at harvard together, securing careers at the kennedy space center.
jeremy fischman sr dies under mysterious circumstances in a lab accident and ellen is twenty-eight and left alone to raise baby jem. things only go downhill from here. jeremy was the love of her life and she becomes obsessed with his disappearance and all kinds of conspiracy theories, blows a bunch of her money. it doesn’t take long for her to be fired, savings blown on expensive equipment or sunk into internet hoaxes
they move to a rough neighborhood in gainesville where jem grows up. he likes jem, not jeremy, jeremy is his father. he’s never experienced the perfect life his parents used to live, the white picket fence, the shiny space shuttles. he’s only got this, and honestly, he doesn’t hate it.
the neighborhood’s rough, but there’s a lot of fun characters, and his mom is practically his best friend – aside from his next-door neighbor, NOAH WARD.
jem’s mom does odd hacking jobs from the comfort of their home. some of them are shadier than others, she makes connections with a lot of private investigators in town and looks into people’s cheating husbands and tracks down birth parents and missing people. she does pro bono work too, a kindhearted woman, she can never say no to those in need, even if she’s not so fortunate herself. as jem gets older, he learns everything that he knows from her
every summer vacation growing up, jem and his mom would pack their bags and make home in a camper van, traveling across the country. in some ways, this was great mother-son bonding, but this wasn’t why they did it. his mom never gave up looking for the truth about her husband, but hacking into secure, top-secret government databases is nothing like hacking into the gainesville city hall, it’s hard work, and they travel around the country methodically so that their signal cannot be traced. every summer they get close, but never close enough.
when noah moves away for college, jem stays home. he’s not comfortable leaving his mom.
he keeps up with hacking jobs and keeping up with looking for his dad on the side. he doesn’t think they’ll ever find him, his mom holds out hope but jem is eighteen years old and a bit more jaded now, he figures the guy’s just really dead and well, the conspiracy of it all matters less and less when he knows that either way, he’s still grown up without him.
a lot of jem’s social life is online, whether it’s friends from hacking forums or via soundcloud.
when he’s not hacking, he’s making music. his passions of technology and music mix and he creates his own beats and soundcloud, mashing together songs, and even putting together a popular meme track or two used on tiktok.
it’s actually a bit lucrative, but that’s not why he does it. doesn’t even really use his name, catch him on soundcloud…username? uncutjems.
every time he and his mom get close to finding his dad, there’s just more to do, and it’s almost like someone KNOWS what they’re doing.
jem’s right about that – he is being watched. since noah’s admission to gallagher, recruiters have been aware of the boy who taught her everything she knew.
when gallagher makes the choice to start allowing male students, an agent shows up at his door offering him a once in a lifetime chance at a free education.
jem doesn’t have any strong ambition to go into espionage, per say, but he won’t say no to advanced classes taught by some of the world’s brightest minds – and a chance to reunite with his best friend. however, he hasn’t stopped trying to get into the government’s records and still has ambitions of going into music production.
PERSONALITY.
INTUITIVE. jem has a natural intuition about things and he trusts himself and his own opinions about things. i suppose you could perceive this as confidence, but honestly he’s just really SMART, good at absorbing facts even subconsciously and putting things together about people or situations. in a sense, he has a habit of being correct – he definitely comes off as intelligent, even though his grades in school have never been very good. he just has different priorities.
LOYAL. make a friend out of jem and you have a friend for life, he’ll take your secrets to the grade and he’s pretty trustworthy. he’s the type of guy that gets along with pretty much everyone but he has a few select, close friends because he is somewhat intentional about the company that he keeps. he’s friendly and kind, but he keeps his inner circle of people he trusts close and somewhat exclusive.
PROTECTIVE. kind of has papa bear energy, you know ? maybe the dad friend of your friend group, but in a laid back way, he might not seem like he’s the type to spring into action but call someone close to him a rude name and you’ll see his fist coming at your face. he’s protective but not possessive, i guess is how i would describe it, but i think he gives pretty good advice as well because he’s really hoping the best for ppl.
MALINGERING. jem is kind of a SLACKER! at least, that’s what teachers have called him in the past, he simply does not dream of labor. he’s just kind of doing his own thing, will fake sick to skip a class, whatever else, even though he likes producing music he doesn’t really have a great ambition for anything, spy or otherwise. as long as he has a good computer setup, then he’s fucking chilling.
MOODY. he’s laid back to the umpteenth degree when it comes to work or obligations, but he does have sort of mood swings, i guess he’s the sort of person that you would describe as grumpy at times ? definitely NOT a morning person and when he’s in an off mood, he can be hard to interact with or snap out of.
DISORGANIZED. the sort of person to throw his stuff across the bed or leave piles of clothes on the floor to deal with later, maybe he’s not your favorite roommate for this reason. he has a habit of losing things that he just set down or whatever, things like that.
HEADCANONS.
tbh you can think of him like...beca in pitch perfect ! he’s here bc he was offered a free education and he’s cool with that, but he’d rather be pursuing a future in music. a damn good hacker, though, and the gallagher recruiters are hoping that with some ‘ambition’ he’ll want to work for the government someday.
played baseball throughout middle and high school and he’s fairly athletic – he can get pretty competitive when he plays, it kind of brings out a side in him that most people don’t expect to see because he’s fairly chilled out most of the time
a boss with a slingshot. there is no reason for this, but he had one as a kid and he used to chase squirrels away from the bird feeders outside their home. he has great eyesight and his aim is great, but it’s literally the only weapon he’s proficient in
he’s not tiktok famous for his face, but he has two tiktok famous songs...he’s made like 12k in record deals for selling the rights, it’s just the kind of shit that he does goofing around in music software and he has a good ear for what is going to be catchy
he’s NOT a morning person, definitely a late night kind of guy, will stay up until all hours just fucking around on the computer and then he’ll sleep until 1 or 2pm, at least. getting up for morning classes is a struggle for them and he has slept through them on occasion.
funky sweaters, crazy socks, fun-patterned shirts, he dresses a bit like a circus tent at times, but you can’t say that he doesn’t have style – he dresses well, but it’s like he’s stepped out of a 90s cartoon or something
if he makes u a playlist he either wants to be ur friend so fucking bad or he’s head over heels in love with u
really likes making new things with old technology, he loves taking the macguyver courses and learning new things and he’s actually built his own computer and a lot of his own musical instruments
usually has a couple bandaids because he’s a bit accident prone or can lose his focus when working in the lab. when he gets in his own head while working on a project, he literally cannot hear anything else – sort of selective hearing
likes fucking around with spray paint, if he can, he’s got a bit of an artistic streak and he doodles stickers on sticker paper sometimes. you can probably catch his tag around campus or even stuck to the latops of his close friends, it’s just a little man with a tv for a head.
WANTED CONNECTIONS.
HACKING JOBS – if you STILL need a hacker for any of your wild backstory connections, jem is a great bet. he’s been doing paid jobs for people professionally since he could type, and he’s sort of an ace at getting in and out without leaving a trace...and he’s no gossip. so, your secrets would be safe with him.
SMOKING BUDDIES – people that he can smoke up with, talk about life, talk about the bullshit of gallagher, but also people he can laugh with that don’t make him feel stressed or concerned about the future.
MUSIC MAKING BUDDIES – if your character makes music, maybe they can collaborate on something...we’re about to drop the hottest mixtape of all time right here at gallagher academy i will teach myself garageband for this shit...jk but maybe
EX ON BAD TERMS – someone he dated last year...i’m imagining it was their first year and things were really great for the first semester, but shit fell apart second semester along with the school. maybe all the drama on campus caused distance, maybe he wasn’t there for them when they needed it, or maybe they got jealous of the way he always prioritizes noah ? a combination of things, we can hash out the details since i know some of you had some pretty angsty things going on second sem, and maybe it’s awkward now because it feels like there’s unfinished biz.
EX ON GOOD TERMS / LOVERS TO FRIENDS – maybe someone that was a rebound and things didn’t really work and they saw that, maybe he wasn’t over his ex or whatever but they were able to stay friends ? it’s up to you how your muse feels about it but i want an ex that jem also has no hard feels about and actually is maybe sort of protective of them and cares a lot about them finding happiness, they bonded hardcore.
EX-FLING – idk maybe they were hooking up for a while and then one of them started seeing someone else or one of them caught feels so they don’t hook up any more but it was super fun when they did !! also down for it to have been like a summer fling and once the summer ended.
BROS – idk i would like for him to have a squad or something for him to just fuck around with <3 but it’s wholesome and they respect women
ONLINE FRIEND (ANONYMOUS) – he spent a lot of time on forums online and stuff so i’d love for him to have an online friend !! maybe cute if they just know each other by their screen names rn and we can do a bunch of text chats and maybe they both know they go to gallagher but they simply. haven’t met idk
ONLINE FRIENDS – also friends he met online that aren’t anonymous they could’ve met through any number of forums but probably have similar interests like music or hacking so they’re long time homies , someone he’s known almost as long as noah
ONE NIGHT STAND – self explanatory. maybe they’re super good friends and now it’s kind of awkward now and they want to get back to a place of normalcy but it’s simply not normal, maybe they fucked things up by breakin the tension on like. halloween or some shit.
FRIENDZONED – someone jem accidentally friendzoned and maybe he doesn’t even realize it himself but they had a thing for him and he really just didn’t realize it bc he can’t tell unless you spell it out for him.
CLASS RIVALS – someone who tries really hard and cares about class a bunch vs. jem who doesn’t give a fuck but he keeps making the grade without really trying, so they’re ? bitter about it ? and so the two really do not hit it off because of that and they go back and forth , i just rly want a classroom rivalry. maybe even this rivalry and them nagging him actually motivates to try in the class just to piss them off
ENEMY – this person shared a secret with jem and then it somehow got out on the gossip blog idk ! they think jem told and now they hate him.
anything pls let’s chat !
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