#more than i think i did in my entire post grad schooling
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Eric Venue
Summary: Vil x gn!reader (technically). Vil has always found your mannerisms to be endearing. They are less endearing when they are evoked by his father.
A/N: NEW DILF DROPPED AND I HAVE ZWRO SHAME AWOOGA!!! Special thanks to @animepaniclover122403 and @l1ls4y0 for being my eyes on the inside and getting me pictures. Warning, I'm on the EN server so I know absolutely nothing about Eric Venue so this may be very out of character.
Note: It's in my pinned post, and I've mentioned this in a couple posts, but if this is the first of my stuff you've read, I view NRC as an actual college, so reader here is 18+. If it makes you more comfy, imagine it as grad school age.
Vil remembers the first time you met him. You wouldn't look directly at him, opting to stare at the floor as you mumbled incoherent sentences. Not a clear thought left your mouth.
Were you scared? Intimidated? Or, worse, did you not like the way he looked? That last possibility kept him up longer than he'd be proud to admit.
When he moved in with you during SDC training camp, he watched you walk into a wall three separate times. It was that third time that he realized what the situation was. You were flustered. How absolutely adorable.
Over the course of the weeks, you were eventually able to say more than three words to him. You continued to have issues looking directly at him, but he didn't mind that. It was cute. And a little bit of an ego boost.
Now the two of you were thick as thieves. And, in a teasing mood, he decided to ask you about your initial reaction to him.
As expected, you couldn't look directly at him, staring at the floor as you fidgeted with clasped hands.
Then he heard, barely above a whisper, “I've never seen anyone who is as beautiful as you.”
His heart fluttered. He knew you well enough now to know that you were from another world…
Which meant…
He was more beautiful than anyone you'd ever seen in two worlds.
“Sometimes…sometimes I can't look directly at you because when I look at you I…I can't think, and my mouth goes dry.”
Adrenaline rushed through him, and he couldn't fight off the vicious grin as he cruelly took your chin in his hand, and forced you to look at him.
“You are so adorable.” Then, to absolutely destroy what little calm you had left he pressed a kiss to your nose. You immediately crumbled, your only life line the hand still holding your chin, as he hid his laugh behind a delicate hand to his mouth.
And now? Now he'd invited you home with him for summer break. He'd planned every day's outfit down to the hour, hoping to absolutely destroy you with his casual attire. Not that it was ever truly casual, but that was by design.
And, by the end of the summer, you'd ask him out, and he'd graciously accept. And then you'd live happily ever after.
He forgot to account for one thing…
“It's a pleasure to meet you. I've heard quite a bit about you,” his father said with an amused smile, as he pressed a light kiss to each of your cheeks.
Vil knew immediately. Your eyes flicked to his father's, then your entire being crumbled.
“H-h-h-hi, Mr. Venue-”
"Oh please. No need to be so formal. Call me Eric.”
“E-E-E-”
“Father! I thought you had a meeting today,” Vil cut you off quickly, an unconcealed tinge of irritation to his voice. Not that you'd notice. You were too far gone, your face unsubtly turned down to your feet.
“I did, but I'd be a poor host if I didn't come meet your- what are they again?” His father smirked, a challenge in his eyes.
“I'm-I’m his-”
“Y/N’s my guest. My guest. No need to be a host, I have it all taken care of.”
Vil and his father smiled at each other for a moment. A moment too long apparently, because you ended up trying to speak again.
“Thank you for letting me stay in your home,” you whispered, barely audible.
“It's not a problem!” He reached out for your hands, taking them in his own, his thumbs gently caressing your knuckles. “It's wonderful that my son has people that are important to him. Would you, perhaps, like to stay forever?”
In a move very much like one of Vil's, Eric gently tipped your chin up to meet his gaze. Vil watched your face fall under the spell he himself often placed you under. It took everything inside him not to act like a child in a rage. Instead, he placed his hands on your shoulders, and quickly steered you away.
“Y/N is very tired so I will show them to their room,” Vil said. “As I said, I will be their host, no need for you to take time off.”
His father laughed as he quickly shoved you into a nearby guest room. Not even the one he had intended to put you in. But he had to get you away from his dad.
“He smelled nice,” you whispered.
Of course he did. His father smelled of mahogany and expensive cologne. When he was little, that smell meant home. Now that smell meant-
“He was so pretty,” you said with a rather nasty voice crack.
Vil grunted. Grunted! Sevens, the effect you had on him.
Just as his father had done, he took your chin in his hand, and said, firmly, “You're min-my guest. Not his. So try to keep your attention on me.”
You looked at him with big innocent eyes. Vil fought back a distressed, lovesick sigh.
“Understood…but…what if,” you bit your lip, and Vil knew whatever was about to come out of your mouth would give him gray hair. Though, clearly that would be something you would like.
“What if, you shared me?”
He stared at you, opening and closing his mouth a couple times.
“I could be both of your guests!”
“What! Do you know what you're saying?” You had to! At least a piece of you had to, or you wouldn't be continuing the conversation.
“I don't feel safe answering that question,” you said, your eyes narrowing in suspicion at his attitude.
“I'll be blunt, Y/N,” he said firmly. “You cannot date my father.”
“I never said-”
“You didn't have to. It's written all over your face.”
You opened your mouth to protest, closed it, huffed, looked away, then you turned back to him.
“Why not?”
Vil’s jaw dropped. He sputtered, then exclaimed, “Are you seriously asking why you can't date my dad?”
“He's a dilf,” you shrugged.
“You also can't look directly at him!”
“I can change-”
“Doubtful.”
“Wow, okay. I see what this is. You are intimidated by the thought of me as your step parent.”
“You can't be my step parent!”
“I knew it! You're scared of me wearing the pants between the two of us!”
“No! You can't date my dad, because you are supposed to fall for me!”
You blinked at him. He pinched the bridge of his nose between two perfectly manicured nails. There went his summer plan.
“Oh.”
“Oh?” He sighed heavily. “Oh, as in, you feel the same? Or oh as in, awkward, leave me alone?”
You looked away, and Vil was certain if he felt your cheeks, they would feel feverish.
“I-er-ugh.”
“Take your time,” he hummed his amusement coming back to him.
You glared at him, before crumbling again, and mumbling some gibberish.
“You can't even talk to me, but you think you can handle my father?”
You glared at him, then took a calming breath.
“I like you too.”
“Thank sevens,” he pulled you in for a hug, holding back a snicker as he felt you tremble a little.
“You smell good, too,” you muttered, before hiding your face in his shoulder. He could feel his pride swelling.
But only you could bring it down just as quickly as you brought it up.
“Why can't you share me?” your tone sounded innocent enough, but he groaned as he pushed you out at arms length.
“I absolutely forbid you from flirting with my father.”
“I have two hands, so I could hold both of your hands at the same time!”
“Y/N, do not make me use my unique magic on you,” he warned. He watched you glare at him, but you quickly lost your composure as he reopened his arms to you, and you buried yourself against him.
He had a whole summer to keep you away from his father.
Wonderful.
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Hi Neil.
I know you are flooded with asks and this somehow became extremely long. Too long. “Why am I suddenly telling this poor man my life story?” too long. “I think I’d rather he work on the GO3 script than read this wild beast” too long. “He’s going to think you’re criminally dangerously insane” too long. If you never get to it, I’m good with never seeing a response from you. Maybe it’s better that way? Maybe an anon would have been nice here. But, it’s 2024, so I say “we ball.” It’s a privilege to be able to send this to you at all. You get a lot to this effect and I hope they give you good feels, so maybe what’s the harm, yeah? Because this is not an ask. This is a thank you letter.
First, thanks for reblogging my therapist post, I hope it amused you. I nearly sent you “How am i supposed to explain this to my therapist?!” But refrained. At that time.
So, therapy. What is therapy really? Well…
Things have been really rotten for as long as I can remember. Bad health, bad doctors, bad relationships, bad coping mechanisms, bad all kinds of things. (Yeah, bad is a weak and unhelpful word, my therapist reminds me, but we’re doing this.)
Well, things got even more really really rotten and BAD these last few years. Health declined further, coping mechanisms declined further and more intensely, packed up my life, applied for disability, moved back in with my parents across the country.
Then 4 years ago last week I watched my fiance die of a sudden heart attack. I was 29. Two years later my best friend died. Then last summer I sauntered vaguely into a cancer scare. Not long before an operation my cat who has been my companion through so much garbage died as well. I’m not entirely in the clear on the cancer scare front. All my attempts at going back to work, volunteering, going to grad school - they collapsed on me because I couldn’t get through this STUFF.
(Sometimes when I talk about this, when I tell people, I think “they are going to think you are a raging pathological liar.” Because I’m not sure I would believe someone if they told me all of this happened to them. In such a short time period. All before they were 35. And hell if that hasn’t been isolating. You know how it sounds? Lonely. And it is.)
I did the hypervigilant and sensation/experience chasing stage of PTSD. It got me in a lot of trouble in all kinds of ways. I had to do a lot of medical and psych advocating because things kept getting worse. That was exhausting. Then that peaked. I went into the thick of the “I feel absolutely nothing” stage for a long time. I didn’t feel fatigue or hunger or thirst. Not people, feelings, a reason. Not hope.
But of course, like seems be for a lot of us, I somehow found Good Omens at just the right time. I was a very “I’m so cool and intellectual I mostly consume non-fiction media” person for too long. Like, what? How is that even a real thing? And it wasn’t real. It was just part of this curated autism mask that I don’t think anyone really bought anyway.
I think I got to a point where I’d just had too much reality. I needed fantasy. I didn’t realize I always needed it. But I denied myself for too many odd and painful reasons. Maybe I thought it was an escape I didn’t deserve.
But as it turns out, it wasn’t an escape. I watched both seasons last fall, and then this light came on. I watched it again and again.
I came to tumblr because I needed more. I found this fandom. I stepped into this beautiful world of fanart and fanfiction and brain flexing meta writing and a sense of community and wonder that you and Terry created - that everyone involved in the show inflated - exploded in the right way - like fireworks if fireworks were some kind of autocatalytic reaction - a self perpetuating force.
It’s not a “saved my life” feeling. Not a “getting my life back” feeling. It’s been a “maybe it’s time for you to have the life you’ve always been denied - that you’ve denied yourself” feeling.
I’m creating. I’m not “great” yet. Not terribly “good” at all. Maybe “behind” as far as the “proper” timeline for starting. I know there isn’t one, not really, but boy does that society machine make ya feel like there is. And sure, I started and stopped a lot in the past. But the second it got hard I always gave up. I felt like if I didn’t get it “right” to begin with, then I just didn’t have it in me at all. But for once I’m really in it. I’m writing and trying to draw things that look less like fever dream five year old drawings. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those, is there? 🙃) I’m eating better. I’m sleeping better. I reach out to old friends more. I’ve made new friends who share this love of Good Omens.
My therapist has been floored by the change in me. After that first funny mini flop, he has been so encouraging about it. I saw him this week and I said “Maybe this is helping me get prepared to start living again. Maybe it’s a springboard.” And he honest to god said “But You ARE living. This is YOU LIVING. Why does it have to be a springboard? Why do you have to turn this into ‘work?’ Just let yourself have this for once in your life.”
But there were two more added elements that made it all work. And I can’t help but think this whole brainrot thing wouldn’t have happened without them. So many things just happened all at just the right time - a proper coincidence.
In all of the madness of the last few years I finally got the memo that I'm autistic. i figured I was for a while. But it finally sunk in for me and my docs and my people. So I’d been working on unpacking that. Grieving the life that could have been entirely different, shedding the mask. I let myself hyperfixate openly instead of hiding it and hating myself for “spiralling” or “obsessing” like others -!like ‘I’ always punished myself for before we knew that it was a trait and not a personality flaw.
Then over the last few months my therapist and I started trying this new exercise. One session he stopped me and said “in the last 20 minutes you have responded to what I’ve said with 9 ‘I knows.’” My response to that? “Ugh, I know.” So we started this “I know” swear jar type situation. Really, I’ve been afraid of not knowing. I couldn’t let myself “not know.” Because it meant I was “dumb.” I was just drowning for so long in guilt and self loathing for the “I knew better and screwed up anyway.” Or “I should’ve known better - I should know that by now.”
As it turns out, there’s a lot of things I don’t know. That I didn’t know. Things I will never know. And refusing to admit all of that kept me from learning a damn thing. Kept me from asking questions. Kept me from trying new things because it was scary to do something new - something unknown - and I "knew" how it would all turn out anyway. Kept me from connecting with people because it was painful or embarrassing when they knew things I didn’t and it seemed like I already should have. Kept me from getting better at making art, music, writing. Kept me from forgiving myself. Kept me from growing. And kept me from moving forward. Maybe not on. I don’t know if we ever “move on” from things. But we can move forward as we carry them. And as we do, the weight gets less. We’re able to carry it better. But only if we can admit that we don’t know how. Only if we don’t treat ourselves like this is something we do know or should know and we’re just failing because we’re less than. Not good enough. Not strong enough. Not deserving. We have to be able to say “I don’t know how to do this.” And then we can start looking for the answers. We can ask. We can learn.
I thought about the apple. Being able to tell the difference between good and evil. Aziraphale’s years and years of watching what he “knows” to be true be proven wrong. Crowley’s need to ask questions…
The simple and enormous gift of “Knowledge.” The “Knowledge” of the difference between Good and Evil. The “Knowledge” that can only be gained by realizing, accepting, admitting that there are things we don’t know. Asking the questions. Sometimes we get answers we don’t like. Sometimes the consequences of asking hurt us. And unless you want to stay in that painful place that painful knowledge got you, well, you’ve got to let yourself learn how to get out.
So all of this good? I never expected this. I never thought I deserved it. Joy and belonging and this sense that “Yeah, maybe things can get better. Maybe things can be good.” Because I said those things, not truly believing them, to the people I thought needed to hear it. But it couldn’t save them. It was hollow. The proof for us wasn’t really in our orbit or on our radar at the time. And now they’re gone.
People always say “it’s never too late.”
One of the people I lost said “it’s later than you think.”
I jokingly would respond “it’s already too late.”
It was for him in the end. For them. For some people I guess it really is. But maybe a lot of the “too late” people are there because they think “they know” that things will never be good for them. So they stop looking, they stop asking, stop finding. And eventually they just stop.
Then there came Crowley’s “It’s always too late.” The first time I heard it I thought “For sure, Crowley-cakes, I KNOW.”
But then…I just needed to rewatch the whole thing. And lines like that…familiar things…familiar themes…I was suddenly identifying with these characters. I suddenly saw myself. And the realization hit - I connected with something! Something new. And I FELT THAT. And that tiny little crack that made in the wall was just enough to start breaking it down. Yeah, when you start letting yourself feel after not feeling for so long, opening up to the good feelings means opening up to feelings and then the bad ones come out too. But when there IS good … it helps you balance. You can deal with the bad a little better because you’ve got the good thing to lean against when it gets too much. And now you’ve got feelings. You’ve got good and bad. You’ve got sticky foggy grey. You’ve got life.
Whew.
So, TLDR, thank you. From the bottom of my slowly healing heart, thank you.
And to sign off with some shits and giggles… I couldn’t find this in existence as a sticker so I had to custom order. Perhaps this will spread misery and panic among the humans of my city - or at least a malignant and creepy sense of unease.
Or maybe they’ll say “wtf” and go home and google it and they’ll fall into the Good Omens hole they never knew they needed too.
Thank you for this. I never quite know what to say to messages like this apart from I am really glad that it helps. (It becomes the weird extra piece that I worry about when writing season 3 -- hoping that it will be that thing again. Not just a story, but something that helps people feel and helps with healing and helps with love.)
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Amazing // Choi Seungcheol
Summary: Seungcheol doesn’t understand why she won’t let him take care of her when it’s all he wants to do. He has no idea how she found out about what he’s been doing every month for the past six months but he’s sure he can get her to agree with his logic.
Warnings: Idol!Seungcheol x OC!Solana, kinda one-sided situationship, a tiny bit suggestive,Seungcheol on his glucose guardian agenda, curve/plus-sized, foreigner!oc, Seungcheol calls her Sol, princess. I think that’s about it, let me know if I missed anything.
A/N: This is part of an idolverse series that’ll be posted in non-chronological order. I’m not sure how many parts members will have but there might be instances of crossovers.Mingyu, Seungcheol and Minghao are the only ones that I have anything written/plotted for. I’m not promising frequent updates because I’m currently on an intensive training program before starting grad school but I have some free time starting Thursday so I’ll try to work on pieces during that time. I only just got back into posting my work in the kpop community after a break from it but I do enjoy anime as well so you may come across it on my dashboard. Lastly, I am absolute trash when it comes to titles and summaries so please bare with me in advance.
Solana and Seungcheol rarely argued and if they did, it was usually about the same thing; Seungcheol spending his money on her like it was the easiest thing in the world for him to do. And in his mind, it was. Seungcheol understood that she was more than capable of providing for and taking care of herself but he felt as though she shouldn’t have to with him around.
They’d met before he’d even acquired the amount of money he had today so he knew for a fact that it wasn’t why she was with him which is exactly why he spent it on her. Seungcheol in most instances believed that actions spoke louder than words and if he felt like buying his girlfriend’s entire shopping cart on her favorite jewelry site than that’s exactly what he’s going to do.
Usually Sol wouldn’t say anything because no matter how much she told him not to, he’d find a way to justify his actions and just do it once again. This time however, she refused to let him.
“Yah!! Choi Seungcheol!” She exclaimed as she entered her apartment. His head pops out from the kitchen where he’d been peeling tangerines when he hears her.
“What’d I do?” She only ever called him by his government name when she angry or irritated with him.
“Y’know what you did! I thought we agreed that you’d ease up on excessive amounts of spending that you do on me?”
“We did, I haven’t spent excessively on you since the last time you gave me an earful for buying everything in your cart from The Jade Jewelers. What’s this about?” He asks tangerines forgotten as he follows her to the living room area, arms crossed over his chest as he looks at her rummaging through her bag before pulling out a small pile of paper.
“You’re really going to play dumb with me right now? You haven’t been spending excessively? Then explain this.” She spits out pressing the printed sheets to his chest.
Seungcheol takes the papers from her hand, looking them over before ‘shit’ is whispered from his lips. “You weren’t supposed to find out about this.”
“Well, no shit Seungcheol. Explain yourself.” She snaps as she sits on the couch with her arms crossed and looking directly at him.
“How’d you find out?”
“That’s not important. I’ve been living here for six months and you’ve been paying my rent this entire time after I told you I didn’t like you spending excessively on me especially when it came to things that I’m capable of handling on my own.”
“I know you’re capable, I do, but just because you can do all these things for yourself doesn’t mean that you have to. I’m here and I’m willing, wanting to do these things for you but you won’t let me.Why can’t I do nice things for you?”
Because it makes this feel like it’s more than what it is. It’s what she wants to tell him because as much as Seungcheol acted like it wasn’t that big of a deal, it was to her. She’d constantly have to remind herself that they weren’t in a relationship. They hooked up whenever he had free time and him paying for her KTX ticket and accommodation in Seoul was as much as she said she’d allow him but Choi Seungcheol had a way of getting whatever he wanted.
“It’s not that you can’t do nice things for me, it’s just that you have a habit of behaving like a damn glucose guardian when it comes to expenses.”
“Okay, and? If I want to behave like your sugar daddy and pay and do everything for you then you should just let me. Think about it,” he says dropping in the space next to her wasting no time in pulling her onto his lap.
“I cover all your basic expenses and necessities and all you have to do is sit pretty and get that degree. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.”
“No. Now either fix it or I’m transferring the money to your account.”
“I’ll send it right back. Play with me if you want to.” He smirks at her.
“God, you’re so infuriating.” She huffs getting off his lap and moving down the hall to her bedroom.”
“Yahhhh, we weren’t finished yet.” She can hear him pouting as he follows behind her.
“Yes, we are because you’re going to do it again regardless of what I say right now.” She responses slipping off her jacket.
“Sollllllll, are you really that upset about it?” When she doesn’t reply, he wraps his arms around her waist and rests his head on her shoulder. “If I compromise with you, will you stop being upset with me and go back to calling me Cheol?”
“Does that compromise include you not paying all my bills?” She replies sarcastically.
“Watch it, princess. Don’t want that mouth getting you in trouble don’t you? I’ve already let you slide with the sass, don’t push it.” He speaks into her ear before lightly nipping at her neck.
“I’ll let you pay your phone bill and groceries but that’s it. Despite what you say I know you only moved out from the dorms this early because of me and to allow us more privacy. The least I can do is cover your rent and utilities, I can’t help it because that’s just who I am and you know this. Now, forgive me please?”
Seungcheol asks spinning her around in his arms. She was just about an inch or two shorter than him so he didn’t have to do much to look her in the eyes. “I don’t want you mad at me on my last night before I leave.”
“Forgive me,” there’s a peck to her cheek followed by another until Seungcheol has pressed kisses all over her face and has her a giggling mess.
“Fine, fine,Cheolll.” She laughs trying to escape him but he’s not having it.
“I can’t hear you princess, what was that?” He teases as he grasps her chin between his thumb and forefinger.
“I forgive you,”
“And?” he encourages though he already knows that he’s gotten his way once again.
“I’ll let you take care of me even if it means putting my pride and independent nature aside and letting you pay my rent.” she sighs dramatically.
She’d never admit it but seeing Seungcheol be domestic had a tendency to do things to her. Things he’d never let her hear the end of if he knew. She’d seen a lot of different sides to Choi Seungcheol in the two years since they started all this but domesticated Seungcheol was her second favorite.
“Y’know what’s amazing?” He asks and she’s so busy staring at him that she misses the teasing lithe in his voice.
“Hmmm?” Her hands are draped over his shoulders, fingers playing in the hair at the nape of his neck. His hands around her waist resting on the curve of her ass as he leans in closer to her ear.
“We both know that I have no problem getting your pussy wet but when are you finally going to admit that me being all domesticated and taking care of you gets you all hot and bothered the same way it does to me? Hmmm?”
The way her breath hitches is enough to let him know that he’s right but he doesn’t act on it.
“C’mon, I cut fruit and we have new episodes to finish.” He says kissing her cheek as he leaves her standing in the bedroom like he didn’t just read her for filth. It takes a few seconds for her to recover but once she does she’s following behind him.
“Yah! Choi Seungcheol!”
#svt x oc#svt fluff#svt imagines#svt smut#svt#svt seungcheol#scoups smut#scoups#choi seungcheol#seungcheol smut#seventeen seungcheol#seventeen scoups#seventeen scenarios#seventeen#svt cheol#seventeen smut#seventeen x oc#Choi Seungcheol x OC
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working with limits, a story
disclaimer: we are limitless. anything can be achieved with the power of the mind. this is to help people who overthink.
if a limit of yours shows up somewhere along the journey of manifesting a certain goal:
acknowledge it. do not repress. use it to pivot into your new story.
eg. I used think ____, but I know that's not true anymore. I am now ____.
my own story
my desired body is typically obtained in the gym with years of hard work and a dedicated focus on nutrition. I'm currently in grad school so I don't have time to workout like an IG influencer but I want to look like one.
Ordinary people would WEEP and stay in the same story of "its not obtainable!" while master manifesters smirk and say "LOL, ITS MY BODY NOWWWW"
I know that waking up with your perfect body is 100% POSSIBLE. Overnight subs/aff tapes + living in the end state + saturation to the max = fast asf results
so why wasn't I achieving it?
why was I manifesting money, attention, material things, etc. but for some reason my body was not changing?
I was meditating and doing some inner work when I realized that I had a serious weird rooted limited belief that
I had bad genetics and every woman in my family (both sides) have never achieved a flat tummy or a super toned body. So I was unconsciously always affirming that I could "never" look like that.
I thought great bodies could ONLY be achieved with hard work - which we know is soooooo untrue!
Instead of forcing myself to do a method I realized - I could work with my limit.
I was never truly "athletic" but I did run cross country/track in high school for 3 years. I fell off once I went to college and mostly did weird sporadic workouts but was never consistent.
Now that I've discovered the law and am freed from my old way of thinking, I said - okay let me play a little psychology game with myself, a little placebo.
my new placebo has been:
No matter what workout I do, the moment I step into the gym, I am losing my belly fat and getting super fast results every day.
Why do you do this Gigi instead of just sitting at home and affirming for your body?
Because I realized it would be easier for me to stay saturated/in the wish fulfilled/end state of having my perfect body just by physically forcing myself to be in a gym.
Let me clarify: I mostly walk on the treadmill, lift very very light weights, minimal sets, etc.
aka: most people would say I'm not doing enough.
But I'm a master manifester so I know that just deciding is enough.
I realized it was easier to visualize people saying "Wow she changed her body, it's because she goes to the gym now! She must've done a lot of work cause she got those results fast!" instead of "Wow she changed her body, idk how!"
Ever since I started going consistently and doing very bare minimum workouts - my body has changed way more drastically than normal limits allow.
I basically look like I've been working out for 6 months versus just the 2 I've actually been going.
My personal goal was fast results but gradual. If you want instant, please be my guest I am not limiting, I'm just sharing what worked for me.
I robotically affirm that lil placebo and it's changed my entire approach to manifesting.
I will see if I can post pictures of myself that will ensure privacy. Until then, just my words and encouragement.
Let me finish this lil post by saying: you do not need to do what I do. You can go ahead and do everything instantly. Everyone is different. I'm just sharing what worked for me, what helped me ease into being firm with what I wanted the 3D to reflect to me.
xx, gigi
#gigiwrites#manifesation#law of assumption#loass#loassblog#loassumption#manifestation#affirm and persist#affirmations#self concept#manifesting#law of manifestation#master manifestor#neville goddard#edward art#wish fulfilled#eiypo#robotically affirming#body affirmations#positive affirmations#affirming#affirmyourlife#affirmdaily#self concept affirmations#living in the end#affirmyourreality
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seasons (waiting on you).
pairing: yeonjun x reader, (eventual) taehyun x reader
genre: college au, angst, slight fluff at the end
rating: T/13+
word count: 16.5k (i am so sorry)
warnings: explicit language, one (1) mention of alcohol, descriptions of a breakup, depression and anxiety depictions, mentions of harmful behaviors and thoughts, just so many post-breakup emotions being described for way too long BUT angst with a happy ending :)
summary: when your high school sweetheart choi yeonjun is off to grad school, you aren’t too worried about how your relationship will last—but your favorite coworker, kang taehyun, is.
OR:
a study in the seasons of loving and losing choi yeonjun—and how you put yourself back together afterwards.
playlist: telepath - conan grey, let you break my heart again - laufey, back 2 u (A.M. 01:27) - nct 127, i don’t know you anymore - eric nam, drive - ashton irwin, seasons (waiting on you) - future islands
I. PROLOGUE.
Loving Yeonjun was like watching a meteor shower cross the sky. It was beautiful, and you considered yourself blessed to have been able to see it with your own eyes—but like everything else in life, it was inevitable that it had to end.
And it ended too soon.
You still remember the day he transferred to your high school—everyone had practically stared as he walked down the hallway, beaming politely at the people at he passed on his way to his first class. He was like a celebrity almost instantly, and not just because he was a transfer student—Choi Yeonjun was beautiful, and jaw-droppingly so, at that.
You ended up having two classes with him, to the mostly-pretend envy of your friends. They did all say that they would be far too nervous to even try to talk to someone like Choi Yeonjun, but you didn't feel that way. He was stunningly handsome, certainly—but he was still just a high schooler like you. You didn't feel intimidated by him in the same way that your friends clearly did.
So one day you offered to help him with Mrs. Jung's pre-calculus homework—she was a notoriously difficult math teacher, but this was the second year you'd had her. You knew what to expect with her by that point. You didn't, however, know what to expect with your offer towards Yeonjun—it was just a passing remark you made at the end of class that you would be more than happy to give him some pointers on how to pass her quizzes if he ever needed them. Nothing too serious.
But he'd looked up at you. Blinked. And then smiled, meeting your gaze with those soft bright eyes that practically made you melt right then and there in that classroom. "Thank you," he'd said, as genuine a thank you as you'd ever heard. "I'd love that. Could I ask you for another favor, actually?"
You weren't entirely sure what he was going to say next, but you nodded anyway, despite your gut telling you no.
"Can you tell me some good places to eat here? My family just moved—you know that, obviously, but I'm getting kind of tired of takeout every single night. So if you have any recommendations that, um...aren't chain restaurants, I'd appreciate it a lot." He had laughed slightly nervously after that.
Something fluttered within your chest. Oh. Choi Yeonjun, for all his good looks and charming attitude, was kind of awkward, too.
It just made you melt even more.
You did end up telling him the best local places to eat in your city, surprising yourself with your own bravery when you told him you wouldn't mind showing them to him yourself sometime—and he replied with that reassuring smile once again. "I'd love that, too," he'd said.
You'd exchanged numbers, but you didn't really think anything would come of it—it was always possible that Yeonjun had just been polite, after all. He surprised you once again, though, with a text that weekend asking to meet him at the breakfast bar you had recommended.
Just me? you'd asked.
Yeonjun had responded within minutes. Just you.
On Saturday, you stressed for nearly an hour over what to wear, trying on combination after combination of outfits. Everything you had was too old (there's a difference between vintage and gross). Too new (trying too hard, much?). Too short (what will he think of you?). Not short enough (did you time-travel in from the 1800s?). But eventually, you settled on something that was just slightly above casual wear and made your way to the restaurant to be ten minutes early.
Yeonjun was there before you, giving you a small wave when you pushed open the door to the restaurant. You'd thought someone as cool in appearance like him wouldn't be the kind of person to get somewhere super early, even earlier than you—bur Choi Yeonjun seemed to be the kind of person who just kept surprising you. His outward appearance that made nearly everyone you knew practically fall at his feet clearly wasn't all there was to him.
You learned quite a bit more about Yeonjun that day, and you'd continue to learn more when he asked you to meet him for lunch again later that week. He wanted a dog, but the apartment he was living in with his family wouldn't allow it. He listened to just about every kind of music you'd ever heard. He was a good, genuine kind of listener, hanging on your every word whenever it was your turn to speak. It was a little detail, but you would've been lying if you said it hadn't made your heart beat faster every time you noticed it.
It wasn't until the third outing that you finally gathered up the courage to ask him what had been on your mind since that very first invitation. "Yeonjun?" you asked, almost stuttering on his name as it passed your lips. Get it together.
He looked up from his bowl of noodles. "Mmm-hmm?"
"Is this, um...is this a date?"
He only hesitated for an instant. "Is that okay? I mean," he had started, trying to hold your gaze, "would you want it to be?"
You nodded, maybe too quickly. "I would."
The grin that instantly tugged the corners of his lips immediately melted any insecurities you'd had away. That was always what being around Yeonjun was like—he just set you at ease.
You felt that same way a month later, when you'd agreed to meet him at an art museum downtown that you'd mentioned wanting to go to. He'd led you through the halls, warm hand in yours, gazing at the different paintings hung on the walls together—different expressions of love and hate and sorrow and every expression that man could expel into a paintbrush.
Well—you had been staring at the medley of colors and brush strokes on the painting directly in front of you. Yeonjun, unbeknownst to you, hadn't taken his eyes off you since you'd walked into this particular room. "I have something to tell you," he'd said. "I...I don't like beating around the bush with these kinds of things."
You turned to face him at the sudden declaration. Your heart was pounding against your chest loud enough that you wondered if Yeonjun could hear it, but you swallowed down your nervousness and nodded.
He took your silent reply as confirmation to keep going. "I like you," he said, never looking away from your eyes for an instant. "I want to keep going out with you, if that's something you want."
You remember thinking that Yeonjun had to have been able to hear how loud your heart was from inside your chest—you'd never felt that kind of nervous excitement before in your life. Still, you managed to nod again, smiling softly at his words. "I'd really like that too, Yeonjun. Because I like you too."
He'd beamed at you, looking at you like you were the only thing in the room, as if you were a piece of art to be marveled at despite the awe-inspiring works surrounding both of you—and you returned that grin as much as you could.
And now you're here, years away from that day where you and Yeonjun had both confessed. It's like everything has fallen into place just like it was meant to.
It's the longest relationship you've ever been in, not to mention the first long-term relationship you've ever had, and you've been fascinated by the way it has evolved. Seeing Yeonjun when you walk into a room doesn't fill you with nervous excitement anymore; rather, it calms you down, simply grounding you with his presence. You don't feel nervous about bringing your concerns to him, worried about what he might think about you when you overanalyze the conversation afterwards—instead, you take comfort in the fact that he brings his concerns to you, too. He loves you. And you love him.
You'd spent a year apart when he had graduated high school before you, but you'd promised with teary eyes as you helped him move into his college dormitory that you'd keep this going if that was what he wanted. "Don't, um...don't forget about me while you're having fun at college," you'd quipped in the parking lot right before you left. It was a joke (mostly), but Yeonjun had heard the worry in your voice. He'd smiled at you then, just like he had all those years ago.
"Of course," he'd said, holding you tightly to his chest in an attempt to not betray any of his own worries about the next year. "You'll have to try a little harder to get rid of me, I hope you know."
You did know—there was never any doubt in your mind that he loved you just as much as you loved him. Yeonjun had always kept his promises, and that year apart didn't change a thing. He made sure the two of you FaceTimed at least once a week, even during his exam seasons, and both of you always sent a goodnight, i love you text every day, even if it was the only thing you said to each other that day. You'd surprise him occasionally, making a trip up to his university to visit and spoil him all weekend, taking him wherever he wanted to eat, and he'd do the same to you on weekends he could come home.
You had been so proud of both of you for keeping that relationship alive for the year you were apart, and Yeonjun was overjoyed when you told him you'd gotten into the university he was currently attending. It wasn't long before you were side-by-side every day once again, just like you'd been in high school, and you were still just as in love as you were back then.
Yeonjun is remarkably smart—but you knew that already, knew it even when you offered to help him with pre-calculus back in high school. That's why it doesn't surprise you when he's able to graduate college early, on top of getting multiple grad school offers for his Master's degree. He takes you with him to tour the schools he's looking at, even though he knows you won't be there for a while—you're as much a part of his decision-making-process as he is. You'd waited for him in that interval before you'd gone to college—you can wait for him here, too.
Being with Yeonjun was like a dream, all of it.
You suppose you had to wake up eventually.
II. FALL
It surprises you when those seeds of doubt begin to sow themselves in your mind. It's been three months since Yeonjun has left for grad school across the country, but you can count the number of times he's called to check on you on both hands. You know you aren't the same lovesick teenagers you were when he had gone off for college and left you for a year in high school, but you had thought that it wouldn't be that different.
But a good relationship is nothing without communication—you and Yeonjun haven't made it work this long without reminding each other occasionally to keep in touch. So you send him a quick text.
< everything going okay? miss u <33
You don't have time to wait around for his reply, though—your shift at the university library starts in just under thirty minutes, so you decide you'd better go ahead and head that way.
Your coworkers are all lounging against the front desk when you clock in, clipping your nametag underneath your collar. "What's so funny?" you ask, tilting your head at their sudden giggling.
Taehyun points towards the study corrals. "Kai's drooling."
"I am not," Kai interrupts, frowning. "I..."
He trails off as a girl walks out of one of the study corrals, pulling her headphones out of her tote bag before placing them delicately over her ears, smiling softly as her music starts before she heads for the doors.
You share a knowing glance with Taehyun, who smirks at you. He's been a close comfort as you've started university—you feel blessed to get along with all your coworkers, but Taehyun is someone you've meshed with practically right from the start. Your majors are in the same department, so you've had quite a bit of overlap with your required classes—you and Taehyun have already spent many a day off together back in the library, comparing notes and cramming for quizzes together. He's a much better note-taker than you, which is slightly aggravating, but your memory is better than his, so you usually remember class material better than he does. It's an unusual equivalent exchange between the two of you, but you're both pleased with how well it's worked so far. Not to mention how easy he is to spend time with—you swear your study sessions with Taehyun almost always feel like minutes instead of hours. It reminds you, sometimes, of how your first few dates with Yeonjun had gone (this, of course, is a thought you squash the moment it appears).
"Oh, my God," Kai says, practically groaning even as you and Taehyun giggle at him. "She's so cute. What am I going to do?"
Taehyun turns to you, smirking. "What do you think? Think he's got a chance?"
You raise both your hands in mock self-defense. "Hey, this is all between Kai and that girl. Besides, I'd never date a coworker. Just gets too messy, you know?"
Beomgyu pokes his head out from organizing the storage closet behind you. "Aren't you literally dating Yeonjun?"
You scoff. "I'll have you know I was dating Yeonjun long before he worked here. Or before I worked here, either." Yeonjun had only worked at the university library his first year, but he'd gotten along really well with Soobin, one of the managers, and putting in a good word for you certainly didn't hurt when you had told him you were looking for a job at the start of the school year.
Beomgyu makes a face. "Well. Shady application or not—you're reshelving the architecture textbooks upstairs since you're almost late."
You aren't late, actually—you've clocked in five minutes early, but you don't quite have the energy for getting into a mostly-pretend argument with Beomgyu today. So you offer him a wink before grabbing a handful of architecture textbooks from the desk and heading upstairs to the art section.
You pass several couples studying together on your way up to the third floor. Only a few are really studying, though—most have notebooks and laptops spread out, sure, but just about every other couple on a study date of their own is putting much more emphasis on the date part, rather than the study part.
Not that you blame them at all—you and Yeonjun used to do the same thing. You remember plenty of study sessions where you'd gaze up from your computer to find Yeonjun taking a silly candid photo of you before you'd scoff, playfully begging him to delete it (which he would never do—you look too cute so focused like that, he'd say). But you always saw them later when he made them the lockscreen on his phone.
You wonder what his lockscreen is now, you think absentmindedly as you haul several books onto one shelf. It's been months since you saw him or his phone. At that thought, you glance down at your own phone tucked into your jeans pocket to see if he's sent you any kind of response to your message earlier—but your notification screen is just as empty as it was the last time you checked.
Those seeds of worry dig themselves deeper.
But you tell yourself again not to worry. There's no point—you and Yeonjun have been through plenty together. You know you have no idea how busy and stressful graduate school must be, but you're sure you'll hear all about it the next time you see Yeonjun.
It's the same thing you tell yourself when you get in your car to go back to your apartment once your shift ends, checking your phone once again to see an empty screen.
And again tomorrow morning, when your notification screen is still blank (aside from the outdated memes Soobin is spamming your work groupchat with) on your way to class.
There's no doubt about it now. Those seeds are planted. You're worried.
But, as it turns out, only for a few hours—because you do finally, finally receive a reply from Yeonjun halfway through your shift at the library, your heart nearly pounding out of your chest in a way it hasn't in years when you finally see his name pop up at the top of your notifications.
> hey!
> can you talk soon?
You look around the library. It's a Friday night—hardly anyone on campus is studying, but Soobin has still scheduled you, Taehyun, and Kai for tonight—you're practically over-staffed, so you're sure he won't mind if you step outside for a quick moment.
You make your way towards the chemistry section, where Soobin is currently organizing some kind of midterms display. "Hi," you say, sweetly.
He turns his head to face you, suspicion tugging at the corners of his eyes. "Hi," he repeats, slowly. "What's up?"
"Mind if I step outside really quick? I have to make a call."
Soobin narrows his eyes, and you know he's onto you. But he still gestures towards the door with his head before tapping on his wristwatch. "Just make it quick, alright?"
You nod way too quickly. "You got it," you say, beaming at him before practically dashing for the doors, pulling up Yeonjun's contact information on your phone and calling him immediately.
He picks up on the third ring. "Hey," he starts.
"Hi," you respond, trying not to sound too terribly excited to hear his voice. "How's school going?"
He hums. "It's alright, I guess. You?" God, he sounds tired—you'll have to come up with something really nice to surprise him with the next time you see him. You're not sure what his favorite restaurants are in his new city, but you can ask around with his friends—you're sure he has plenty already. He's always been that way—that charm of his had certainly worked on you too, after all.
So you make a similar hum of agreement. "It's okay so far. I really miss you, Jjun."
There's a strange pause after those words—as if you and Yeonjun had a script for your conversations, and he had lost his. You had fully expected him to return the sentiment, just like he always had before. Instead, you hear him take a breath. "Do you have time to talk, Y/N?"
The seeds of worry are back, digging themselves deeper and insisting on growing roots within your head. "Um...sure," you manage to get out, trying to ignore the sudden panic clawing at the bottom of your stomach.
He sighs, and there's a long space of time before he continues. "...I really wish I could see you. You deserve this in person at least, you know? But...fuck, there's no easy way to do it, I guess. I—I don't think we should do this anymore. Us, I mean—I think we need to be done."
You aren't sure if you heard him right. There's no, no way your Yeonjun just said...that. "...What?" you say, laughing nervously. "I'm sorry—are you saying we need a break?"
Yeonjun clears his throat. "No," he says. "Not a break. I don't think that would be fair to either of us. I think we need to be done."
Blindsided doesn't even begin to cover how you feel. You feel like Yeonjun has just dumped a bucket of ice water over your head through the phone. "Yeonjun—you're breaking up with me?"
He takes a moment to reply. "Yeah, Y/N. I am. And I'm so, so sorry, I—"
"Over the phone?" you sputter, indignant tears blooming at the corners of your eyes. "You're ending a four and a half year relationship...over a phone call?"
You can't see him, but you know the wince he's making, judging by the sound of the sigh that leaves his mouth. "I told you, I would've had to fly out to come see you—and I figured you probably wouldn't have let me stay the rest of the weekend at your place afterwards," he says, laughing awkwardly. "I'm too broke as it is these days anyway."
You just can't believe what you're hearing. This is a nightmare. It has to be. "So...what?" you choke out, brushing back tears threatening to fall from the corners of your eyes. "Did I...do something?"
"Oh, God, no," Yeonjun says hurriedly, and the concern in his voice is genuine. You know what that sounds like, at least. "Honestly. You didn't do anything, Y/N—it's my fault. I let this relationship grow static, and I let myself fall into a routine—and I just sort of stopped feeling the way I had before. I should have done this before, but I was too much of a coward, and I'm so, so sorry—I know it's a lot to ask of you, but I hope you can forgive me. Maybe we can be friends, one day."
A long time passes before you answer. "One day," you repeat. "But not now."
He lets out a short laugh. "I didn't think you'd want to be friends now."
"I...fuck, Yeonjun," you say, nervous and shocked laughter escaping your throat. "I don't want this to be over at all. There's...there's no way this just came out of nowhere."
He hums apprehensively. "I don't know what else I can say. It's the truth—I just let myself become bored with the relationship, and that's my fault. I should have tried harder a long time ago, and for that, I...I really am sorry."
"I—I guess I just don't see why it isn't too late to try now," you stammer. "Why?"
"...Y/N, I don't want to try now, anymore," he whispers, and it's only then that you really get what he's been trying to tell you all along. He's done with you—whatever he felt for you all those years ago when you whispered your mutual confessions in that quiet art gallery, is gone.
Yeonjun does not love you anymore. How you feel about him doesn't matter.
It takes several uncomfortable beats of silence before you speak again. "Okay," you say, voice shaking. "Okay. I get it. G...goodbye, Yeonjun."
He lets out a shaky sigh of his own. "Goodbye, Y/N. I'm so—"
But you hang up before he can say anything else. You don't want to hear another word from him now. You're trembling as you end the call, sliding your phone back into your back pocket. You're going home—there's no fucking way you can make it through the rest of your shift after this. You walk back inside as calmly as you can, sliding your nametag off your collar and placing it on the desk.
Taehyun hasn't quite turned around to see you when you do so. "Oh, Y/N, you won't believe what Kai just sent—huh?" He frowns, finally noticing your nametag on the front counter.
"Can you, um...can you tell Soobin when he gets back that I'm going home? I'll come early on Saturday, I'll do whatever he needs me to do to make up for this time, but I really need to go home." You absolutely cannot, under any circumstance, let them see you like this—especially not Taehyun, your favorite coworker. You don't think he'd ever let you hear the end of it.
His eyebrows furrow in confusion. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," you say, way, way too quickly to be nothing. "I'm sick. I...I-I'll see you guys on Saturday, okay?" You turn around and walk towards the library doors as fast as you can, practically making a beeline for the doors—but you aren't fast enough to not hear the familiar sound of Taehyun unclipping his own nametag and slamming it on the desk behind you.
"Kai, tell Soobin I'm feeling sick, too. I'll call Beomgyu to come cover for me for the rest of this shift."
"You...what?" Kai practically splutters, leaning over the front counter to call after the both of you. "What the hell's wrong with you two?"
You have to make it to the car. You can have the breakdown you so desperately need in there, but you are not going to sob your eyes out right outside the university library.
Taehyun, however, apparently isn't going to let you do either. "Y/N," he says behind you once the two of you are outside, grabbing hold of your bicep. "What's going on? What's wrong? Please—just talk to me."
You shake your head. "Taehyun, please, I just need to go home. I'm going to have a fucking meltdown right on the street if you don't at least let me get to my car," you sputter, voice trembling as you try to keep the tears at bay.
But Taehyun shakes his head too. "No. We can go in my car. You said you parked in the guest lot today because you were almost late. Remember?"
You do remember—and at this point, you don't care enough to argue with him. So you nod in agreement, following him into the lot in a walk that has to be the longest minute and a half of your life. Once you're in Taehyun's car, though, shutting the passenger door behind you, you can't fight the tears prickling at your eyes anymore.
"Hey—hey, talk to me, Y/N. Please. What's going on?"
You shake your head, burying your head in your hands to try to muffle your sobs. "He broke up with me, Tae," you manage to choke out, even though the verbal confirmation of what just happened just makes you cry harder.
"He—what? The fuck? Yeonjun?"
"Who else?" you snap back, voice shaking. "He said we've...grown apart since he moved away. That he doesn't love me anymore. But I still love him, Taehyun," you sniff, tears tracking down your face and slipping into your open mouth in what must be an absolute mess to behold. "What am I supposed to do?"
If Taehyun thinks you look a mess, though, he doesn't tell you. "Fuck...Y/N, I'm so, so sorry," he starts, gently. "I know that doesn't mean anything—but I really am."
You shake your head. "No. It does mean something."
He gestures towards his backseat. "If you want to beat up my backseats, go for it. I've done that after a few shitty shifts before—it can be pretty cathartic."
But you just shake your head again, sniffling. "I just want to go home, Taehyun. Please."
He just nods, turning the keys in the ignition before reaching into the center console in his car to grab an envelope of tissues, taking several and handing them to you. "In case you need these."
You sniff again. "Thank you," you say, even though you know you're nowhere near done crying about this.
You don't live too far from the university, so Taehyun's pulling into the parking lot of your apartment building before you know it. Your apartment is only on the second floor, and there's a set of stairs outside, so Taehyun is able to park almost right below your apartment. He turns to face you again. "This is you, right?"
You nod. "Yes. Thank you, Tae."
He glances for a moment at your door before looking back at you, worry etched on his features. "You want some time to yourself? I can come back tomorrow if you want me to check on you."
Normally, you think, you'd say yes. You'd want to go finish crying by yourself and getting it all out of your system right before you force yourself to fall asleep—but you think about your apartment. You think about the hoodies in your closet, the pictures adorning your shelves, the stuffed animals on your bed—Yeonjun is everywhere in your apartment. You can't face these remainders of him alone.
So you shake your head. "No, I...um, can you come inside, please? You don't have to stay, I just don't know if I can—"
But Taehyun doesn't let you finish, turning off the car's ignition and opening his door, immediately walking around to open yours. Normally, you'd make some quip here about chivalry not being dead, but you can't find the energy within yourself to make anything of the sort.
You make your way up the stairs before unlocking your door and making your way to your bedroom, trying to avoid the onslaught of photos of you and Yeonjun in the living room before collapsing onto your bed, covering your face in your pillows and sobbing the way you wanted to earlier. You hardly even notice Taehyun beside you, rubbing small circles on your back while you soak the pillowcase below you, chest heaving with hiccups in between sobs.
You don't turn around to face him until you feel like you've emptied every tear in your eyes, now red and puffy as you catch your breath.
Taehyun frowns at the state of you, finally moving his hand away from the small of your back. "Where are your washcloths?" he asks.
What? "Um...o-on the rack beside the shower," you say, gesturing towards the bathroom in the hallway.
You're perplexed when he leaves, even more so when you hear the sound of the sink running, but he's back in an instant with a wet cloth, sitting back down beside you on your bed. He hesitates for an instant. "For your cheeks," he says, tapping his own. "It'll feel better."
Oh. "Thanks," you say, somewhat lamely, before taking the washcloth from his hands. It's warm, you realize, and he's right—it does feel nice on your tear-stained cheeks, especially under your now-puffy eyes—a gentle contrast to the sobs that had racked your entire body minutes ago.
You set the washcloth down, looking back up at Taehyun, who offers you a reassuring smile—one you've seen plenty of times at the library, when one of you has messed up on organizing a section and had to endure a lecture from Soobin. It's not a bad expression to be on the receiving end of. "Come here," he says, opening his arms, and you let him pull you into his chest without a second thought. It's the first time you've hugged Taehyun, you think absentmindedly—but you suppose that doesn't matter. You're grateful to have him here with you now—you can't imagine how much worse you'd feel alone in your room now.
He lets you hold onto him for as long as you need, only pulling away when you do. "Did you eat before work?" he asks softly.
You shake your head. You'd planned on making something from your pantry after your shift, but the thought of getting up and being productive right now feels like a Herculean task.
Taehyun must be able to see the exhaustion on your face, because he just nods. "That's okay," he says. "I'll order in."
And he does. You spend the rest of the evening eating takeout from the Thai place down the street on your bed with Taehyun, who stays beside you and makes sure you have a nearly-full glass on your nightstand at all times, to make up for how you'd practically dehydrated yourself sobbing. And you do cry again in the middle of eating dinner, but Taehyun doesn't flinch—he just nestles you in his sturdy arms again until you don't have any tears left to cry.
He does make a comment about leaving if you'd prefer sometime past midnight, but one look from you causes the rest of the sentence to die on his tongue, and he doesn't say another word about it.
You wake up in the morning just before noon, and you feel only a single instant pang of panic before you see Taehyun's outstretched limbs on the couch in the living room, chest rising and falling evenly in sleep. You aren't sure when he got up to let you sleep on your own—you hardly even remember falling asleep, but the sight of him causes your heartbeat to even back out for a moment.
That doesn't last long, though—it's only an instant before your barely-awake mind remembers what had caused him to spend the night in the first place, and you immediately feel that now-familiar twinge of sorrow in your chest.
And it doesn't go away—no, that feeling hangs heavy in your chest. You know, then and there, that it's going to be a weight you'll carry around for a long time.
III. WINTER.
You're right on all accounts.
You never flat out tell the rest of your coworkers what happened between you and Yeonjun, but they must be able to read between the lines—all of them tiptoe around you for weeks. Even Soobin never teases you at work anymore, which you almost miss. You aren't a piece of glass, after all—but with the way that everyone treats you at work, you'd think you were.
But maybe there's some truth to their treatment. Not a day goes by that you don't think about Yeonjun's words—that he'd basically just gotten bored with you. You know he'd said you hadn't done anything, but you had to have done something for that to occur, right? It didn't make any sense otherwise.
You are proud of yourself when your track record for "crying over Yeonjun" goes from every day to once a week, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't still hurt. Just like the love you'd known from him had been something beautiful like you'd never experienced, you've never known anything as painful as this.
So much of your identity before had been being Yeonjun's partner. For Christ's sake, he was the whole reason you'd been able to get this job at the library in the first place—and now you have to distance yourself from that. You have to. You don't have another choice.
At one point, Beomgyu does suggest going out for drinks after work with Soobin. "Everyone's going," he adds gently, as if that will somehow be the thing to convince you to pull yourself out of your mental wallowing. "Won't be as fun without you, though."
You force a smile across your lips. You do still remember how to do that, right? Smile? "I, um...I'll have to catch you guys next time. I'm busy that night."
Beomgyu's eyes narrow. "I haven't told you what day we're going out yet, Y/N."
You wince. "Beomgyu, I—I'm sorry. I really appreciate you trying, but I just don't think I'm there yet. I'm sorry."
He rolls his eyes a little at that. "I think this is exactly what you need right now, personally. We'll make sure you have fun, I promise. So much fun that you won't even think about old what's-his-name the entire night."
You know good and well that Beomgyu remembers Yeonjun's name, and that he's practically putting on a show to convince you to go get drunk with him and Soobin and God knows who else—but you can't. Not yet. So you turn him down again, and this time he finally relents, taking the hint and leaving to sort through the returned books bin. Going out and getting drunk enough to forget Yeonjun probably is what you need right now—but you know you aren't there yet (Even admitting the 'yet'—the knowledge that you eventually will be at that point, whether you like it or not—is painful). Wanting to forget Yeonjun is accepting that what the two of you had is over, and truth be told, you aren't ready to do that. You're fully in denial—and you know it.
But that doesn't mean you're in the right state of mind to do anything about it. For God's sake, you haven't even been able to go through the photo album of you and Yeonjun on your phone yet and delete a single photo. The scraps of sanity that still call out to you occasionally within your mind tell you that you need to delete those photos of the two of you, that seeing them later will just make you feel worse—but you can't. Any act of cementing the end of the relationship is still just nothing short of unthinkable to you.
You're very much a prisoner of your own mind for the rest of the semester, whether or not you're willing to admit it, as you continue replaying Yeonjun's last words to you in your head, over and over. And over. And over. And over again. It's unhealthy—you know that. But you don't stop. You can't stop thinking about what you should have done differently to prevent this. Sure, he'd said you hadn't done anything, but that must have been a polite lie. Something must have happened. Had you been overbearing? Annoying? Had you changed, somehow? Had he?
Your friends and coworkers all tread lightly around you for the first month or so after the breakup, checking on you occasionally and reminding you that everything will be alright eventually (a lie, you know). Beomgyu gives you the notes from your morning class whenever you skip. Kai covers for you when you call out of work. Soobin looks the other way when you take fifteen minute bathroom breaks (which usually end up with you crying in the stall) and doesn't say a word when you come back, eyes puffier than before.
But that's exhausting to keep up with—you know that. Everyone becomes less forgiving around the middle of the semester—you still haven't gotten over that guy? What's wrong with you? You're still missing class and falling behind on assignments? Why can't you get a grip? No one says this out loud to you, of course, but you can pick up on the subtext—the implications between a shared glance between Beomgyu and Kai at work when you're almost late, between your friends when you tell them you have to finish an essay that was due yesterday—looks that pierce like a dagger to your stomach. Everyone is sick and tired of you.
Well—almost everyone. Kang Taehyun is a different story altogether.
You fully expected him to behave like everyone else—why wouldn't he? The two of you were friends, and good friends, at that, before your life as you'd known it had imploded in on itself, but you wouldn't have considered him to be a best friend by any means. Maybe you had missed some kind of memo, though—because if the way he's treated you since Yeonjun broke up with you is any indicator, his feelings towards your friendship are not at all what you'd thought they were.
Not a day goes by that you don't eat at least two meals a day, and that's because Taehyun is checking on you daily to make sure you've eaten. More than once, he's driven over to your house with food from his pantry to ensure there is something in your apartment to eat. He helps you stay on top of your schoolwork, too—hell, the only reason you even remember to do that essay at all is because Taehyun reminds you. And yet, these reminders never feel like a scolding, or like he's judging or chastising you—rather, it just feels like he's looking out for you. He's the only person looking out for you, you think—maybe even more so than yourself.
Which is why it surprises you, one cold, melancholy November evening as the two of you walk home from class, when Taehyun suggests talking to Yeonjun again.
Your eyes widen. "What?"
Taehyun nods, shifting his shoulders as he adjusts his backpack. "Sure. I...I think it would be good for you to get more closure from the whole thing. That's what's keeping you so upset, isn't it? That you don't really get why he did it?"
You suppose there's an element of truth to that. You certainly don't understand Yeonjun's actions—but the truth of the matter is that you aren't ready to let him go. You weren't three months ago when he called you, and you still aren't now. The ache in your chest that you've felt for so long hasn't subsided in the least—like a knife that only digs deeper every time you remember it's there.
But you nod anyway. "Yeah, I...I guess that's part of it. But—I can't just text him, Taehyun. What the hell am I supposed to say? 'Hi Yeonjun! Miss you, hope you haven't been feeling the same soul-crushing loneliness that I have for the past three months?'"
Taehyun winces at that before turning to face forward again, gazing at the sidewalk ahead of you with a sigh. "Maybe not quite like that. But...I don't know. He said he wanted to be friends, right? I don't see why you couldn't at least try."
But you don't want to be friends with Yeonjun—that's been the problem. Not just friends. You want to let yourself love him again, to feel that kind of tenderness and contentment and perfect warmth like you've never felt from another person before.
But that clearly is no longer an option on the table for you. What Taehyun is suggesting, however, might be. Maybe he's right. Something would be better than nothing with Yeonjun. Wouldn't it?
This conversation is how you find yourself later that night with your phone on your bed in front of you, fingers shaking slightly over the keypad from the nervous weight you feel at the bottom of your stomach. You've already typed out the entire message. You should just send it.
< hey, did you mean what you said about being friends?
God, why are you so nervous? It's not like you don't know the man—for Christ's sake, you spent over four years of your life convinced that you knew just about everything there was to know about Yeonjun. You knew about his favorite flowers, the piercings he wanted to get, how comically tremendous his appetite could sometimes be and how he'd always compliment your cooking, regardless of how you felt about it—but maybe none of that had mattered. You hadn't known that he'd felt bored with the relationship. You'd let that knowledge slip past you, somehow.
You press send on the message before you can talk yourself out of it, turning your phone over and stepping into the bathroom to take a shower, hoping you can think about something, anything else to hide the bubbles of anxiety floating upwards into your chest at the thought that Yeonjun may have responded already.
You practically leap out of the shower when you're finished, hair still dripping beads of water down your back as you wrap a towel around yourself, making your way back into your bedroom and grabbing for your phone.
Your eyes widen.
> yeah, i did.
> would you be okay with that?
The anxiety within your chest dissipates like hot water under the sun, if only for a moment. Your Yeonjun, and the effect he still has on you.
< yeah, i would.
His reply comes only a few minutes later.
> okay. cool :)
> i actually thought about sending this to you the other day. reminded me of you
[link]
Attached is a link to a YouTube video—a piano rendition of a song you'd listened to all the time (and probably forced Yeonjun to listen to in the process) when you'd first begun dating. It sounds beautiful on piano, the melody a bright cascade of hopeful and energetic sounding chords, and you feel your chest tighten with warmth as the video keeps playing.
It had made him think of you.
The warmth you'd felt in your chest before suddenly shifts to a suffocating cold. This is probably a bad idea. Yeonjun saying he wants to be friends probably means just that—that he wants to be friends. Nothing else. You, of course, don't feel that way at all, if the way your heart had soared when you saw his message is any indicator. You're just going to get attached again to someone you know doesn't feel the same way about you. You're only setting yourself up for more heartbreak—part of you knows that.
But you don't stop yourself from playing the video again, butterflies rushing through your stomach.
~~~
The weeks leading up to winter break are infinitely better than the beginning of the semester. You're comfortably caught up and staying on top of all your assignments. When Soobin assigns you more hours at the library, you don't utter a word of protest. One of your professors even comments on how much better you've done on this last essay than your first of the semester.
Taehyun seems pleased to see you in better spirits too. He still checks on you just about every day, but there seems to be less urgency in his messages. He's not as concerned as he was a few weeks ago, and you almost feel a twinge of...something at that thought, not quite regret but not quite disappointment, either—but you brush it away just as quickly.
Thoughts like those are easy to push away now that you're speaking to Yeonjun again.
If it was one of your other friends in your situation, you think, you'd probably be concerned with how fast they turned around on their ex-boyfriend, going from being completely, utterly heartbroken to gushing over a cute TikTok he'd sent—but you ignore those thoughts when they come, too. Maybe you are making a bad decision by trying to be friends with Yeonjun, but you can't find it in yourself to care enough to stop. This momentary happiness is worlds away from the unbearable heartbreak you'd felt before, even if it is likely temporary. Besides, there haven't been any repercussions of this choice yet, anyway.
Yet being the key word.
A few days before fall break, Soobin approaches you, Taehyun, and Kai in the middle of your shared shift, the three of you definitely doing the work he'd assigned to you and definitely not talking behind the counter about a movie you're making plans to go see after your shifts end.
Soobin clears his throat, and the three of you jump, turning to face him. He lets out a sigh. "Are all three of you going home for break?"
You all shake your heads no.
He perks up a bit at that. "Oh. Okay. Good! The library isn't going to be open all week, but we're still doing limited hours. Would any of you be open to working over the break? It'll be time-and-a-half pay."
Kai suddenly grabs for his phone in his back pocket, even though you don't think you heard it buzz. "Huh—look at that. My mom just texted and said she actually does want me to come home for the break now. Sorry!"
Soobin makes an exasperated frown, but he doesn't say anything else to Kai, turning to you instead. "Y/N?"
You shrug. "Sure, I can work. I'll be here anyway."
Taehyun suddenly shifts, standing up a little taller beside you. "Me too. I don't mind."
Soobin nods. "Okay, great. Thanks, you guys. I'll be here the first day, but the other four days it'll be just you two here. So..." he takes in a slow breath. "Don't do anything stupid. Okay?"
You can practically feel Taehyun fighting back a grin beside you out of the corner of your eye, and you have to bite your tongue to keep a laugh of your own from escaping you at Soobin's remark. "Okay, boss," you say, bringing a hand to your forehead in an overly enthusiastic salute. "We won't."
Taehyun and Kai both snort at your words, but Soobin just crosses his arms. "I mean it. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, okay? Or...anything I wouldn't let either of you do. You know what I mean." He narrows his eyes.
But you just laugh. "I promise, Soobin. We'll be fine. It's just limited hours, like you said, right? And it'll be over the break. We'll probably be the only ones in the library the whole week. What could go wrong?"
His frown only deepens at that. "...I don't even think I want to imagine that," he says before walking away, and the three of you only let out giggles once he's out of earshot. Truthfully, as much as you enjoy teasing Soobin with your other coworkers, you really don't think working over the break will be bad at all.
And in truth, it isn't the working part that ends up being the problem. It's what happens when you're at work.
To absolutely no one's surprise, the library is completely, utterly dead over the break. You can count on both hands the number of people that walk in for the first three days as you and Taehyun stand behind the counter, chatting quietly until you run out of things to talk about. By noon on Thursday, the two of you are the only people in the library, scrolling on your phones aimlessly with your shoes propped up against the help desk as the soft scratch of classical music plays over the speakers above you.
You smile when you see you've gotten a message from Yeonjun, opening your messages to see what he's sent now. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see Taehyun giving you a knowing smirk in response to the grin tugging at the corners of your mouth—but you can't hide it. You wouldn't dare, you think.
It's a video of Yeonjun talking, telling you about a baby that kept waving to him on the plane back from his university. His fall break is the same week as yours, so he's going home today to spend the rest of the weekend with his family.
You take a quick response video, teasing him about his and the baby's apparent shared brain cells before going back to your mindless scrolling.
Or—you try to, at least. The moment your Instagram feed refreshes, you find yourself staring, unblinking at the first post on your page.
It's from Yeonjun's account. It's a picture of him at the airport. And he isn't alone. Standing beside him, arms wrapped around his middle with his around their neck, eyes closed and lips turned upward in a practically radiant smile, is a girl. She looks like she's been caught off guard by Yeonjun, but she's not disappointed about it by any means, if the candid joy radiating from her expression is anything to go by. You glance down at his caption.
thankful for you.
There's only one comment so far, which you're assuming is from her.
SO happy to spend this week with u <3
He might as well have put up a neon sign, you think. You know you can't know for sure, but you almost feel like this was directed at you—the caption, at the very least. Yeonjun has a girlfriend. He's moved on from you, in every sense of the phrase.
Taehyun must have noticed your suddenly expressionless face, because you see him frown across from you out of the corner of your eye. "Everything alright over there?"
You extend your arm towards him, showing him your phone screen wordlessly. His eyes widen. "Is that...no fucking way. He has a girlfriend?"
You nod, that all-too-familiar lump in your throat making its presence known once again. "Yeah," you reply, avoiding his stunned gaze. "I guess so."
Taehyun doesn't look away from you, even after you draw your arm back into your lap. "Y/N," he starts, quietly. Speaking to you the way you'd speak to a wounded animal—gently, but as if you could practically explode at any moment. It almost makes you feel worse. "Are you..." he stops, trailing off before he can even finish the thought before shaking his head. "Do you want to take a break for a minute?" He gestures with his head towards the punch clock on the wall behind the two of you.
But you shake your head. "No, I...I don't think so," you say. As strange as it seems, you don't feel nearly as upset as you did when Yeonjun had called to break up with you. Seeing that he's already moved on feels like ripping a metaphorical band-aid off. In a way, you sort of needed to see that he's moved on—that your hopes that the two of you could get back together, somehow, were foolish. Maybe this neon sign of an Instagram post is exactly what you needed.
Taehyun, however, doesn't seem entirely convinced, frown only deepening at your words. "Are you sure? We can get out of here, you know. It's just us in here right now."
You shake your head again. "No. We've still got nearly another hour—I don't think Soobin would be very happy if he found out we closed the library early just because I flipped out over Yeonjun again," you say, laughing weakly.
He snaps his fingers at you. "So you admit it! You are flipping out!"
You roll your eyes, crossing your arms across your chest. "That is not what I—"
But Taehyun is already taking off his nametag, placing it under the counter and grabbing the keys for the front door. He turns around once he's within a few feet of the front door, gazing at you expectantly. "Well? Come on."
You gesture with your arm at the library before you. "Taehyun, you've got to be joking. We cannot just get up and leave. What if someone needs to come study?"
He raises an eyebrow at you. "You think someone's going to need to come study? Over fall break? The day of the holiday? Not a chance."
"How are we going to punch out then, smart guy?" you ask indignantly.
But Taehyun just shrugs. "I'll just tell Soobin tomorrow that we both forgot, and he'll have to enter our punch-out times manually. Shouldn't be a big deal."
But you narrow your eyes at him. "'Shouldn't be a big deal?' You seriously think Soobin won't find it a bit suspicious that we both just happened to forget to punch out as we were leaving?"
"Not really. Look..." he says, starting softer this time. "If something happens, I'll take the fall for it. Alright? You need to get out of here."
You take another glance at the empty, quiet library. It's only an hour early. Maybe Soobin won't find out, somehow, by some miraculous stroke of luck that you know you don't exactly tend to have—but that lump in your throat hasn't gone away since you saw the picture of Yeonjun. So you nod. "Okay," you say, pulling your nametag off and sliding it under the desk beside Taehyun's, an action that wins you a growing smile on the man's face. "Let's get out of here, then."
You follow him out of the library, watching him lock the door and swallowing the momentary twinge of guilt at his actions.
Taehyun seems to read your mind, though. He looks up at you once the doors are locked. "Don't chicken out on me now. Okay? I promise. We'll be okay."
You nod wordlessly. "Let's just get out of here, then."
He smiles at you—that big ear-to-ear grin that causes nearly all of your worries to dissipate at just the sight. "That's the spirit. Come on. Are you up for going for a drive?"
"Sure," you say, nodding. Anywhere is better than being here, slowly falling into the trap of your own thoughts that you thought you'd narrowly escaped a month ago.
So you get in Taehyun's car once again, gazing out the window at the sun slowly lowering against the horizon, oranges and pinks spreading across the sky as if they were deliberate brush strokes from some invisible hands—just as beautiful as those paintings you and Yeonjun had gazed at that day you both whispered your mutual confessions to each other.
You shove that thought away just as Taehyun parks the car, and you look out the windshield to see where you are. You're at the top of a tall hill, trees around you on all sides as you gaze down at the college town before you. It looks so small from this distance, you think.
"I've never been here before," you say, turning to look at Taehyun. "I didn't even know this place existed."
He nods, still looking at the city below the two of you. "Beomgyu took me here once after a really bad shift. Got yelled at by some grad student for not having an extra copy of a textbook for them to loan when they had an exam tomorrow—you know the drill. It's a good spot to clear your head, I think."
You find that you'd have to agree the longer you stare down at the city, thinking about the perspective it affords you.
"We don't live in a huge college town, compared to some others, but there's still so, so many people down there. You know?" Taehyun says, as if he's reading your thoughts. Again. How is he so good at that? "I don't want you to ever think one person is the only person you could ever be with. That he's the only chance you'll ever get at love—that just can't be possible."
You know what he means. You even think it's true—you know it is, logically. But that doesn't mean this lingering heartbreak aching in your chest, in your lungs, in your veins, hurts any less. "Damn you, Kang Taehyun," you say quietly. "You make too much sense."
He laughs at that, finally tearing his gaze away from the city before him and turning to face you.
But you aren't finished, taking a deep breath before you continue. "I should've never let myself care about someone this much. This—this whole thing," you say, waving your arm in front of you in a vague gesture, "is just so stupid."
He frowns at that. "No," Taehyun says, shaking his head. "This isn't stupid. You're not stupid."
You shake your head right back. "I let being Yeonjun's partner be my most important trait. It was all I cared about—he was all I cared about. I shouldn't have done that, shouldn't have put him on such a pedestal like that."
Taehyun mulls your words over for a moment. "Maybe," he says. "But I don't think you should be mad at yourself for loving him. There's nothing wrong with that. And I think you've learned and grown through the relationship—you'll probably be a better partner in the next one you're in, too."
That thought still stings—of another relationship, of giving up completely on Yeonjun. Even though he's obviously given up on you. "I just don't know what I did wrong. I have to have done something—a relationship doesn't just end like that. Does it?" Yeonjun had been so many of your firsts—and now, he was the first person to ever break up with you. You'd always been the one in charge of that in the brief relationships you'd had before him, the ones that hadn't left nearly the kind of impact Yeonjun had had on you.
Taehyun shrugs lightly. "I don't have that much experience, but I can tell you that sometimes that is exactly what happens. People really can fall out of love—of course, that's because of their own feelings. Not usually anything to do with the other person," he adds quickly. "If anything, it says how much more equipped you are to handle a long-term, long-distance relationship than he is. You're the mature one. He's not."
"Clearly not," you scoff. "I'm still the one crying over him, and he's already moved on. Sounds like he's more mature than I am."
"That I disagree with," Taehyun counters immediately. "The fact that it's still upsetting you means that the relationship meant something different to you than it did to him—he must not have taken it as seriously as you. And that's his fault."
You're quiet for a moment after that. The sun has almost completely set now, dusk enveloping the college town before you as the city lights begin to twinkle in the dark. But you still find yourself ruminating. The hollowness you feel now is almost scarier than the heartbreak—you aren't even that sad anymore. Just empty. And you tell Taehyun this. "It still scares me—feeling like I don't know who I am now. I feel like I built up an entire imaginary future with him—and now I don't know what to expect of anything anymore."
Taehyun takes a breath as he nods. "I know," he says gently. "But the future is always like that. You know? Nothing's ever guaranteed, no matter how much we cling to the things we care about. Still—I want you to know that you're so, so much more than being someone's partner. I think you're incredibly clever, and funny, and smart, and beautiful—don't you dare look at me like that, Y/N," he says, only somewhat teasingly as you raise your eyebrows at that last addition. "I'm serious. It's okay to care about someone, but I want you to know that you are still worth so, so much as your own person. Regardless of whether you're with someone or not."
You wish you had better words to say to Taehyun—poetic, soft words to thank him in the same way that he's comforting you. Instead, you let the silence speak for you, losing yourself to the soft hum of Taehyun's radio and the glittering stars that have finally come out in the sky. It's a comfortable silence, though—and you feel those knots of worry and heartbreak at the pit of your stomach slowly start to untangle themselves. Just a little—but they do nonetheless.
It's long past nightfall when Taehyun finally drives you home, telling you goodnight and looking like there's more that he wants to say, even as he drives away—but you find yourself content in the moment anyway, even when you get ready for bed and slip under your covers.
But that doesn't mean the pain has gone away entirely.
Taehyun had told you to call him if you started feeling down about the whole situation, but when you wake up in the morning and feel that familiar heavy sorrow in your chest, you don't tell Taehyun a thing. Instead, you let yourself lie on your side and bring your knees up to your chest and weep, burying your face in the pillowcase until it's practically soaked through from your tears. You let yourself cry for yourself—for the version of you who has died, for the Yeonjun you had loved for so long and with such intensity, and for you now who will never again be the person you were before.
It would be different if the two of you had ended things dramatically, you think—if Yeonjun had cheated on you, or if you had been an unsupportive partner—but none of those things happened. It just ended. And he has already moved on, the way you imagine a normal person does.
Somehow, you think, that still makes it worse.
But you think back on what Taehyun had said to you last night, even as you brush away the tears staining your cheeks. Choi Yeonjun is not the only person in the world—it doesn't make sense to think of him as the only person who could ever love you. Yes, your relationship coming to an end still hurts like nothing you've ever experienced before—but already you can feel that ache subsiding, even if those moments are few and far between. Yeonjun had fully severed what was left of the two of you, but it now feels to you like it was necessary. Like it was something you needed—the beginning of a new path for you.
~~~
The rest of the semester goes by in a blur after fall break. You're so caught up in the mess of finals and work that you barely have time to think about anything else, let alone what's left of your feelings towards Yeonjun.
If Soobin knows about you and Taehyun closing early and conveniently forgetting to punch out, he never says a word—but you do work considerably more hours than usual in the weeks leading up to your final exams. Soobin says it's the busiest time of the year for the library, so he needs all hands on deck to help all the students coming in and out. Which you do believe—but you still have a sneaky feeling that you and Taehyun are working more than Beomgyu and Kai.
You wonder if your professors are all in some kind of secret conspiracy to make their students suffer as much as possible, since all five of your exams are stacked over the course of three days. You survive, even after pulling an all-nighter to prepare, which does mean that you should be able to relax at the end of the week while your other coworkers are still cramming. On Friday, though Beomgyu and Kai still have one last final, which is why you and Taehyun both find yourselves working a double to cover for them while they take their exams. It's a long shift, full of snappy students and an exhausted Soobin—by the time 10 p.m. finally rolls around, you feel yourself on the verge of collapsing as you clock out with Taehyun.
Your favorite coworker raises an eyebrow at your exhausted state. "You alright?" he asks, tapping at his shirt collar before extending a hand to you.
Your nametag. Christ, you'd almost forgotten. You sigh, nodding as you slip your nametag off of your shirt before placing it in Taehyun's waiting palm, who then moves to slide it under the front counter with his and your other coworkers' tags. "You mean you don't feel like you're about to pass out after that? I thought today would never end."
He laughs a little as the two of you walk towards the front door. "Sure I do. But you saw what Kai sent in the work chat, right? He and Beomgyu are going out later tonight now that they're done with finals. Of course, I'm not sure if that means they feel like they did good or bad, to be honest—but I guess we'll know when we get there. I told them I'd meet them once we were done with work."
You laugh too, pulling your car keys out of your pocket now that you're only a few feet from your respective vehicles. "Yeah, I saw it. But you guys can go ahead—I think I need to turn in early tonight. I'll see you all after the break, okay?"
The look on Taehyun's face fades a little, and he stops walking right in front of your cars. "Are you sure? It might be fun—you know how funny Beomgyu gets."
You stop walking too, standing beside him. The thought of tipsy Beomgyu does bring back fond memories of work parties past—the occasion where he tried to convince everyone to jump into a pool, fully clothed, at the house party where you all barely knew the owner was a particularly fun one—but you don't feel up for it tonight. So you shake your head. "No—I'm too tired, Taehyun. But you all have fun, seriously. Just be safe, alright?" You wink at him teasingly.
But he doesn't return the gesture. Rather, an unusual look washes over his face—an expression of determination that you aren't sure you've ever seen from him before. "You're going home tomorrow, right?" he asks suddenly.
You nod. "Yeah, I'm spending the break with my parents. Why?"
Taehyun visibly swallows before he opens his mouth again to speak. You feel a sudden uneasiness develop in the pit of your stomach just before you hear him say "I'm telling you now, then. I like you, Y/N." Suddenly. Just the way Yeonjun had in that art museum all those years ago.
The two of you are outside, but you suddenly feel like all the oxygen has been sucked out of the parking lot you're standing in. You blink. "What?"
He nods, gaze unwavering from yours. "I like you."
He's joking. He has to be. Either that, or you really did pass out in the library earlier, and this is all some kind of dream. "...You like me," you repeat, slowly. A short laugh escapes you before you can stop yourself. "What do you mean?"
"I mean exactly what I said," he says. "I know this is a pretty terrible time to tell you this, but—"
"Yes," you say, practically unable to believe what you're hearing. "Yes, Taehyun, this is a terrible time to tell me—God, why would you tell me this?"
"Because it's true," he replies almost instantly. "And I'm not telling you because I want you to say the same thing. You don't have to say anything, actually, I...I just wanted you to know."
Your heart sinks to your chest at that. "So, you...you'd confess to someone who you know won't reciprocate? Why?"
Taehyun shakes his head. "I'm not telling you because I want anything to happen. Not right now, anyway—I'm not that stupid. I think." He tries to laugh, but the sound doesn't quite come out right. "I just want you to know, in case you ever feel the same way."
In case you ever feel the same way. He doesn't think you like him back. Hell—do you? The thought of romance has been so banned from your mind for the last several months that you haven't even entertained the notion, whether it was Taehyun or anyone else in the world—but you think about that. You think about the way those feelings of tight anxiety in your chest loosen when you see that you're scheduled to work with him, how your heart beats faster when you get a notification on your phone from him—not to mention that evening you'd spent in his car on the hilltop overlooking the city. Those feelings of warmth that ignite within you every time you'd looked over at him that night probably were feelings of attraction. You just haven't been able to even entertain this thought, of liking someone else, in ages. You almost can't ever remember when—and that frightens you. "I...I think I do feel that way, though," you say. "I care about you, Taehyun. So, so much. You've been the only person I could depend on for the last three months, but...but I think you deserve better than this. God, you should know better than anyone that I'm nowhere near being over Yeonjun. That I'm in no state to even think about dating someone right now." You laugh, tone dripping with self-deprecation. "I'm a mess. I barely even remember what those feelings are even like. You have to know that anything I do in this mental state now would just be a rebound, even if I didn't want it to be, and I...I don't want to do that to you."
Taehyun nods quickly, taking a step closer. "You're not a mess. But I do know how you feel—which is why I wanted to tell you. You don't have to do anything about it now if you don't want to," he says again. "I just wanted you to know."
You shake your head, surprised to feel sudden tears of frustration brimming at the corners of your eyes. "God...Taehyun, please don't do this to me," you whisper, holding back a sniff. He's close enough to you that he can hear, even at this volume. "I don't want to lose you too." Things will never be the same between the two of you—you know this as well as you know your own name. No matter how much the two of you try to awkwardly dance around each other from now on, you'll never forget that you had this conversation. You can never go back to just being friends.
But Taehyun shakes his head fervently. "You won't lose me," he says, voice unwavering before he makes a slight move to reach for your hand out of instinct before stopping himself. "Not if you don't want to. I'll stick around for as long as you want me to."
You grab his hand anyway, even as he looks up at you in shock. "So...what? You'd wait for me?" you say, laughing quietly. "I can't ask that of you. That isn't fair to you."
He just shakes his head again. "If you want me to, I will. I'll wait as long as you need me to—I'm telling you, I don't mind."
You scoff a little at that before you can stop yourself. "You say that now, but I...I have no idea when I'll feel ready to think about being with anyone again. I'm sorry, Taehyun—but I don't know how long this could take. You know? I mean, I'd hope it wouldn't be years," you say, laughing hollowly, "but I just have no idea. And I just don't understand why you would do this—wait for me. I mean...look at you," you say, laughing nervously as you gesture vaguely towards his figure. You haven't thought about him in that way before—or maybe you haven't let yourself think of him in that way, you realize now—but you can't ignore the sharp lines of his jaw, the clearly defined strength beneath his sweater—Taehyun is beautiful. There could never be any denying it. "You're perfect, Taehyun. You could have anyone you wanted—certainly someone less fucked up than me. Someone you wouldn't have to wait to be with, I—"
But he just shakes his head. "I most certainly am not perfect—but I just want to see you happy," he replies, voice as calm and steady as ever. You wonder if this is how he imagined this conversation going. "Whether that's with me, or someone else, or on your own—that's okay. And I...you know now. I'd like for it to be with me, if that's possible," he adds, laughing a little, "but if it's not, that's okay too. You just deserve to be happy, and I want to see that happen for you."
You let his words hang in the air between the two of you for a long, long time. The only sound in the entire parking lot is the occasional soft jangling of your keys when a gust of wind passes by.
He'd wait for you.
"...I really don't know how long it will be until I can think about this," you say again, breaking the momentary silence.
But Taehyun just nods, gently squeezing your hand. You'd almost forgotten your fingers were still interlaced with his. "I'm telling you, that's okay. I'll wait as long as you want until you want to talk about this again—and if you don't want it to go any further, it doesn't have to. I just...just wanted you to know how I felt, regardless."
You nod. Before you can say anything else, though, Taehyun's phone rings from his back pocket, loudly interrupting the two of you in the otherwise empty parking lot.
He turns slightly to glance down at it, and makes a face when he sees who it's from. "It’s Kai," he says softly. "They must be wondering where I am."
"Go ahead," you say just as quietly, gesturing with your free hand towards his car. "It's okay. I...I need to think, anyway."
Taehyun keeps his gaze on you for a moment, mind clearly racing through a thousand different responses as he sets his mouth in a worried line—but eventually he nods. "Okay," he says, finally letting go of your hand. "I...I'll see you after break, then."
You nod wordlessly.
His words still echo in your mind, even as he gets in his car and offers a small wave your way.
He'd wait for you. It's more than you could ever ask for. At the same time, however, you realize that it's an admission to yourself—admitting that getting over Yeonjun is still going to be a long, difficult path to walk.
And when you're finally left in the parking lot by yourself, you find that you feel more alone than you have in a long, long time.
~~~
The winter holidays go by at a snail's pace. All you want to do is sleep off the fresh heartache your conversation with Taehyun has caused and do practically nothing all break—but you find yourself hilariously bored on your fourth day of doing "nothing."
Your parents are uncharacteristically lenient of your behavior—they used to never let you sleep in this late, especially if you were home from school after not seeing you for so long—but you know they know about you and Yeonjun breaking up. Your mother had been particularly fond of him, too. Maybe that's why she doesn't say a word when you go to bed early every night.
It's ridiculously hard to keep your mind off of Yeonjun over the holidays—couples are everywhere. Nearly every holiday movie seems to revolve around a romance, not to mention all the ones in real life that you can't stop seeing. Your friends post about spending the week with their partner's families, about seeing the other's hometown for the first time, of a surprise and sudden engagement from one of your cousins and their long-time girlfriend—it's enough to make you sick. You know that's a horrible thing to think at such happy occasions for the people you know, but the thought forms itself anyway.
Every time you feel like you've taken a step forward towards healing, towards finally, finally getting over him—you see something that sends you reeling back into that heartache and sorrow, sending you ten steps back from where you'd been. It's a vicious cycle, and as much as you beg for it to end—it doesn't. Not yet.
Because Yeonjun haunts you in your home, too. It's hard to set up decorations with your parents without thinking about how you did this last year with him—how he had held onto your waist as he reached around you into the box of tinsel, how your mother had beamed at him as he'd helped her cook, how angelic he had looked as the two of you walked around your neighborhood looking at the different lights each house had set up. They were such beautiful memories, at the time—had only made you feel more confident and cemented in your relationship with Yeonjun as each one passed. You'd hadn't ever imagined a future without him. And now you can't help but wonder if he had already felt dissatisfied with you in each of those moments.
But as unrelenting as those memories are, so is the passing of time—because you survive the winter holiday season, somehow, even with your shattered heart. Your plan is to move back into school right after the new year, which is how you end up at home on New Year's Eve. Your parents have already gone to their rooms to sleep by the time eleven o'clock strikes on the clock, and as hard as you try, you can't help but think about the fact that this is your first New Year's Eve in years that you'll be alone for.
Or so you think, anyway. The instant you see your phone screen display 12:01 A.M., it buzzes. It's a message from Taehyun.
> happy new year, y/n
The new year.
Everything has hurt so badly for months—like a wound that refuses to form a scab, because you won't let it. You're the one who won't put the bandage over the cut, who keeps digging the blade into the metaphorical wound that was you and Yeonjun every time you think about him.
But what's the alternative? Moving on? Accepting that your relationship with Yeonjun is over? That what had been the happiest years of your life up until now are through? It's unthinkable. It's unfair to that version of you who had loved him with all of your heart to just throw them away—to just lock the door and never look back.
But it's what you have to do, you realize. You won't ever feel any better until you can accept that you and Yeonjun are done, for good—and Taehyun is offering you a way out. This is the ending of what you've known up until now—but a chance to finally, finally start anew. To put the past behind you and try again.
< happy new year, taehyun.
IV. SPRING.
The spring semester hardly gives you a moment to breathe.
You vaguely remember signing up for classes right before fall break—but those weeks were such a blur that you neglected to realize this spring would be your first semester in upper division courses. In other words—you're drowning in schoolwork with scarcely an instant to yourself, let alone to sort out your lingering feelings.
And in the moments that you do have time to breathe, Yeonjun always seems to find a way to sneak to the forefront of your mind. But these recollections aren't always as painful as they were before. In one instance, you feel a wave of relief wash over you—but only for the single instant that it provides you comfort—when you remember turning down Yeonjun's offer to buy each other promise rings before he'd first left for college.
He'd pointed at them in a jewelry store the two of you had wandered into while walking downtown together. "What do you think?" he'd asked, winking.
You'd laughed. "Yeah, right. I hear getting engaged right after high school never ends up going badly for anyone."
But he'd shaken his head immediately. "Not engaged," he'd corrected gently. "They're promise rings. It's a promise to you, from me. And from you to me—that we'll wait for each other, and only each other, until we're both ready. No matter what happens."
Your heart had fluttered at the sudden declaration, cheeks flushing pink before you could stop them—but you had thought even then that it seemed like an awfully rash thing to commit to for a relationship of barely over a year. "That's...unbelievably romantic, Jjun," you'd admitted. "Even for you. Have you done something?" you'd teased, narrowing your eyes at him.
He'd gasped, putting his hands above his head in mock surrender. "I most certainly have not. Can't I just be a hopeless romantic every once in a while?"
You'd pretended to mull it over. "Hmm. Maybe on special occasions. We'll have to see if we can work out a schedule for your hopeless romantic tendencies in the future."
Yeonjun had then made a show of wiping pretend sweat from his brow. "Thank goodness."
You'd giggled, despite yourself. "I'm serious, though. It's a beautiful thought, but...do you think it's something we could come back to? At a later time?"
Ever the gentleman, your Yeonjun had nodded sweetly at you. "Of course," he'd said, taking your hand in his before leading the two of you back out of the store. "We can talk about the future whenever you're ready. I'm just as happy in our present right now, anyway."
That had certainly changed somewhere along the way, you think bitterly to yourself. But pushing past this memory still feels like a small victory, in a way. You hadn't wasted money on committing to a promise that Yeonjun had broken.
There are countless more memories that resurface in this way—but by the time they pass, you no longer taste that metaphorical blood in your mouth anymore at their recollection, no longer feel your heart yearning for them to stay the way you would have a few months ago. They just pass, and you don't think about them again after they go.
Yeonjun only texts you once. You haven't sent him a single message since his Instagram post before fall break—and of course, you imagine he knows why. You may not have expected him to break up with you when he did, but you did know him ridiculously well at one point, seemingly both inside and out—you know that he knows you well enough, too, to understand why you've suddenly gone radio silent. But he does text you once, right as the first week of your semester finishes.
> hey. is everything okay? do you want to talk?
Months ago, you think, you would have leapt at the opportunity—jumped through the screen and across space and time, practically, to have a chance to talk to him for an extended period of time, for a possible chance to win him back. Now you just feel embarrassment towards yourself for ever having felt that way.
You never respond.
Taehyun's presence in your life is different now, too. You still work together, of course, but you have several shared classes again—so you find yourself studying and comparing essays at either his apartment or yours nearly three or four times each week. It's challenging, all of it, but in between, it does make you remember why you became friends with Taehyun in the first place—because he's not like anyone else you've ever known before. Every time you want to throw in the towel on a particularly lengthy assignment, he has some witty comment that gives you just enough energy to keep going. Every time you come by his apartment, the way the corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles upon seeing you sends a surge of warmth through you. If you have felt trapped in frigid ice since this breakup, Taehyun has been your sun, ever so gradually melting that ice away whenever you let him.
And you do let him. One night, you're leaving his apartment after exchanging study guides for one of your midterms. You walk by his side, car keys swinging softly in between your fingers.
"How are you feeling?" Taehyun asks right before you open your car door. He doesn't elaborate, but you know what he's talking about.
So you turn to him. "I, um...I don't know if this will get better," you admit quietly. It's a fear you've harbored from the start—that you'll never get over Yeonjun, your first and last—that he will have created your perception of love, molded and shaped it to his design and his alone before shattering it, leaving you to pick up the pieces for the rest of your life.
But Taehyun lets out a scoff at that. "It will. I promise, Y/N. It does get better."
You narrow your eyes at him. "How do you know that? Hmm? Are you some secret fortune teller that I don't know about? Is that how you've been able to afford such a nice apartment here?"
He laughs at you. "No. I'm not a fortune teller. But I know this much—it'll get better. I can't tell you when, because I don't know that. It's something you'll have to figure out, I think. But one day, soon, you'll wake up one morning, and it'll hurt less. And then, a little later, it won't hurt at all. It'll feel like it was a bad dream. You'll get involved in other things, other interests, other people, and then you won't think of this when you wake up in the morning at all."
You nod, slowly. "I want to believe you, Taehyun. I do. I just don't know how long that will take."
But he just shrugs again. Damn him for being so easygoing. "That's okay. You know where I'll be, regardless."
You do know where he'll be—right by your side, just like he's been for the last six months. In truth, you had expected him to fall back on his promise to wait—you would have been sad, sure, but you wouldn't have blamed him. Putting up with you moving on from a relationship over the course of half a year, now, can't have been an easy task. But you've never heard a word of complaint from him. He isn't that kind of person—you know this now. He really will stick by you for as long as you'll allow him to—a kind of affection you haven't felt from anyone in a long, long time.
But right beside you isn't the only place Taehyun seems to be. Your subconscious seems to have taken a liking to him, too—because that night, you see him in your dreams. You'd tossed and turned earlier, unable to fall asleep, throwing the sheets off the bed before you curl up into a ball and squeeze your eyes shut. When you finally find yourself lured back into sleep, you find Taehyun—strong and sweet and caring and beautiful Taehyun. He wraps his arms around you in the dream, hands grabbing hold of your waist before he presses his lips to yours in a heated kiss—as if he never wants to let you go. As if there isn't anyone else in the world that matters except for the two of you.
You wake up in the morning and weep.
Later in the day, you find tears brimming at the corners of your eyes again when you finally find the courage to delete the photo album on your phone of you and Yeonjun—but they never fall past your lashes, even when you hit the red delete button.
Perhaps you've run out of tears for him, because none fall when you package away everything else of his in your apartment—every framed photo of the two of you, every stuffed animal he'd bought, every hoodie of his you'd once promised to give back all fit neatly in a single cardboard box, sealed and never to be seen again.
Without the remnants of Yeonjun scattered throughout your apartment, you find yourself thinking of him less with each day that passes. The ghost who had once haunted every fiber of your being now seems like little more than a bad dream you've suddenly woken up from. This realization hurts you, just like the ones before it—but the hurt doesn't linger. It, too, grows faint before long, dissipated and fading away just like the rest of your relationship.
The end of the semester doesn't sneak up on you this spring. You have a lengthy presentation for your hardest class, an argumentative speech that you've practically spent all semester preparing for. You and Taehyun practice for each other for weeks beforehand, critiquing and encouraging and teasing each other the whole way through—but it's still over before you know it.
The morning after your final presentation, you don't wake up until the sun has risen high in the sky, peeking through the blinds over your window and finally raising you from sleep. You stretch as you walk over to the window, opening the blinds and peering out into the street below you. There's a couple walking on the sidewalk—and you recognize the girl as a regular from the library, the one with strawberry-colored hair whom Kai had been practically obsessed with back in the fall.
She tugs at the sleeve of the man walking beside her, pulling him into a sudden kiss, and you instantly turn away from the window, giving them a moment of privacy despite their actions being in public anyway.
Well—she obviously hadn't known about Kai's existence, but she'd still clearly been able to find some kind of happiness. The thought soothes you, in a way, and you think about how the scene below you would have made you feel six months ago. You would've been jealous, probably, and upset that you'd never experience anything like that again—but now the only thing it fills you with is longing. It makes you happy to see others experience something that you know feels like a gift. You want to experience that again too, you realize.
The instant that thought forms in your head, another memory materializes.
That's okay. You know where I'll be, regardless.
You feel your heart soar at the recollection.
Yes, Taehyun. I do.
V. SUMMER.
Taehyun texts you the very first day summer break begins.
> how'd your last final go?
> omg i meant to tell you after work yesterday but kai's parents said he could stay in the beach house this weekend
> like a very early birthday thing i think lol. it'll be a few ppl but you're more than welcome to come tomorrow if you haven't gone back home yet
The invite sends a flurry of both excitement and nervousness through you. You haven't gone back home yet—your parents aren't coming until early next week to help you move out for the summer, not to mention the fact that you haven't see Taehyun or any of your other coworkers since the end of finals week. Excited doesn't even begin to cover it, you think.
< i'll be there!
Kai, thankfully, is a relatively easy person to shop for—you have no trouble at all picking up a wristwatch you remember him talking about a few times at work. And in truth, his birthday isn't for another two months, but you imagine he needed some excuse to convince his parents to let him throw an end-of-the-school-year party—so you don't mind the expense at all.
Kai is overjoyed to see you when you arrive at the beach house, thanks to Taehyun sending you the address, and even more so when he sees the gift bag in your hands.
"You did not have to get me anything!" he exclaims, pouting, but you still see that glint of anticipation in his eyes despite his words.
You beam at him, throwing your arms around him in a quick hug. You've missed this—being with your friends and not feeling like you were putting them through hell with you. Seeing them happy with you feels right in a way that nothing else has in months. "Happy birthday, Kai," you say, pulling back so he can tear into his present (which he does almost immediately).
Taehyun is waving at you from the shallow end of the pool. "Did you bring a swimsuit?" you hear him call over Kai's shouts of excitement.
You nod, biting back a grin as you pull your shirt over your head and tug your shorts off as quickly as possible, revealing the bathing suit that you'd worn on your way over underneath. You immediately run to jump in the deep end, splashing both Taehyun and Beomgyu, if the yells and laughs you hear when you resurface are any indicator.
Beomgyu makes some excuse about needing to find the birthday cake, hauling himself up and out from the side of the pool when you start to swim over towards Taehyun.
He doesn't budge, grinning at you as you make your way towards the shallow end. "Nice of you to make an appearance," he says, winking.
"Well, I had to let you know I was here somehow, you know," you reply instantly, grinning right back.
Taehyun's smirk widens. "Of course. And I'm glad you're here, Y/N. How'd you end up doing for your finals?"
You shrug. "A’s and B’s. I'm still pretty satisfied with how that presentation for Dr. Lee went, though—how about you?"
He pushes your shoulder playfully. "Look at you! I told you you'd kill that speech. I knew you could do it."
You feel the ghost of his hand on your skin even after it's gone, shivers rippling down your spine at the thought—and that does it. You can't keep up the small talk any longer. "I have something for you," you announce, as stone-faced as you can manage. "Close your eyes."
Something flickers in his eyes—surprise? delight, even?—but it's gone just as soon as you notice it. "For me?" He laughs. "But it's Kai's birthday party."
You nod. "I know," you say. "I already gave him his present. You get one too."
Taehyun's eyes narrow. "Am I getting the same thing as Kai?"
You can't bite back the grin that tugs at your lips. "Not even close."
He seems satisfied with that, finally, so he closes his eyes. You know you'll only get one chance to do this, to do it right with the element of surprise—so you lean in as quickly as you can, before the logical side of your brain can catch up with the rest of you, and press your lips to the side of his cheek.
Taehyun looks at you, eyes wide open with surprise, until—"You missed."
You frown. "I what?"
He nods, as if that should have been obvious. "Mmm-hmm. You missed." There's only a split second for you to realize what he means before he's taken hold of your chin with two of his fingers and brought your lips to his. He's kissing you.
Taehyun is kissing you.
There are no fireworks or cannons shooting above your head, no angel floating down from the heavens to confirm that this moment has been the peak of your entire life—but kissing Taehyun is soft. Gentle. It's all the comfort he always makes you feel, has always made you feel—nothing feels more right than being pressed up against him here, with one hand cradling your chin and one settled securely on your hip as his lips move against yours.
There still aren't fireworks or cannons shooting off behind you—but what you do hear are loud whoops and cheers from your coworkers (and maybe a few fake retching noises). Taehyun pulls back a little once he hears those, dark eyes scanning your face for any signs of discomfort—but there are none. Instead, you laugh, and Taehyun does too, breath skating across your jaw as you feel more right than you have in an achingly long time. When he presses his lips to yours again, still smiling against the kiss, you feel that sensation of right, of warmth, of comfort practically coursing through your veins as you slide your arms around his neck. This, right here, is where you're supposed to be.
“You waited,” you manage to breathe out in between kisses, holding tighter to Taehyun’s shoulders above the water to steady yourself.
He smiles at you, beaming brighter and warmer than the summer sun above the two of you. “Yes, Y/N,” he whispers softly, moving his hand to cup your cheek in his palm. “And I’d do it again if it meant we would still end up right here.”
It's not the closing of one chapter and the beginning of another—life is hardly ever that smooth. It just is.
You don't know the kind of partner Taehyun is yet. You don't know that he'll almost always keep a hand on your thigh when you sit together, that he'll write a list in the notes app of his phone of your orders at each of your favorite restaurants, that he'll love to take candid photos of you to show you later, that one day the two of you will be in a very similar position to the way you are now while a small black box holds a hefty weight in his back pocket—but you don't have to know any of that yet.
You're here with Taehyun, now, your arms around him as his wrap around you, and that's what matters. The rest you can figure out together.
taglist: @petrichor-han @kangroo-chan @ot7lonelylover @lilacdreams-00 @mainexiii @awkwardnesshabitat @lotus-dly @elizabeth11moreno @nerdysl-t @seung-scrittore
©️ noramoons 2021-2022. do not translate or reupload my writing.
#txt oneshots#txt fluff#txt angst#taehyun x reader#yeonjun x reader#kang taehyun x reader#choi yeonjun x reader#txt x reader#tomorrow x together x reader#txt scenarios#txt fic#taehyun fluff#taehyun angst#yeonjun fluff#yeonjun angst#taehyun imagine#taehyun imagines#yeonjun imagine#yeonjun imagines#beck writes ✍️
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How I, Cosmerelists Blogger, Would Handle Each Type of Investiture
It's my wife's birthday tomorrow, and I asked her what kind of post she wanted for her birthday, and she said she wanted me to write a post about myself. [For those of you who used to read Bleachlists, this is entirely due to her love of the "What if BLG replaced Aizen" post back in the day.]
So, uh, here we go!
1. Allomancy: 4/10
Here's the thing: I'm bad at swallowing pills. I have to not only take a sip of water first and hold it in my mouth while I drop in the pill, but I also have to, like, psych myself up to swallow properly. And I know that the metal shards are really small, but I know in my heart that I would have trouble with it. Vin and Kelsier and Wax are, like, chugging vials of metal in the heat of battle. I'd be like, "Wait! Hang on a second; I just need to take a moment here." And then I'd die.
2. Hemalurgy: 0/10
I hate blood. I hate being stabbed even in a blood draw. I capture centipedes alive and take them outside too because even though I don't like them, I would like killing them less. I would not be able to perform or receive hemalurgy. It sounds like the worst possible time.
3. Feruchemy: 10/10
Hell yeah! I wear jewelry and I wish I could use it to store attributes for later, be it health or memory or speed or anything really. And I like that there's no swallowing or stabbing involved!
...This post doesn't have any weird innuendos going on, right?
4. Awakening: 5/10
Awakening would be...fine, I guess? It seems pretty complicated, but I can probably memorize short commands, wear colorful clothing I don't mind draining, and...oh yeah...subsist on the souls of other people? Yeah, I don't know about this one for me.
5. AonDor: 4/10
I'm really not trying to be hard on myself! I am good at many things. But coding is not one of those things, and I get the sense that that's what the AonDor is. Plus, drawing?? I don't have a very steady hand. Do you think they'd accept, like wonky Aons?
6. Dakhor: 0/10
I already have arthritis. :( I don't want twisty bones!
7. ChayShan: 2/10
I don't even remember this one really. But it sounds like it's about precise, circular motion and spatial awareness, and I have to close my eyes and think hard to put on chapstick (don't ask).
8. Forgery: 6/10
I am pretty good at research; I did grad school and all of that. I'm not really artistic though, so the making part of the stamp might be tricky. But learning the long history of an object or person does sound right up my alley!
9. Bloodsealers: 0/10
I don't like blood! Why are so many of these powers blood-powered???
10. Surgebinding: 9/10
I'd love to have a little friend who was with me all the time and deemed me worthy of special powers thanks to my innate worth. No Radiant has ever had a lick of self-esteem, and yet, I feel like that would be very good for one's self-esteem. Plus, I have always wanted magical healing powers, and (metaphorically!) drinking light feels like a cool way to get that.
I don't like heights, though, so I'd shy away from any of those "soaring through the sky powers." Maybe I could be one of those ones that stay on the ground. A ground Radiant.
11. Voidbinding: 7/10
In my head, this is kinda like just "evil surgebinding" but I'm sure it will end up being more than that! It's still basically having a friend who gives you powers, right? Just, the friend is...evil?
12. Old Magic: 3/10
I don't like taking risks. If I knew every wish came with an attached curse, I would be like, "Nah." Like, that isn't even gambling. You KNOW half of it will be bad!
13. Sand Mastery: 3/10
I still haven't read White Sand, but I am a very thirsty person, and I don't want a power that will suck water out of my body, which is how I think this works maybe.
14. Hion: 10/10
Yeah, I mean, this is just humming, bisexual electricity, right? 10/10 no notes.
15. Charred: 0/10
I mean...this is a no brainer, right? Nobody wants their chest, memories, and souls burned away by a very hot ember on a long pointy stick. I'm very white. I get burned by a normal sun.
Anyway, happy (almost) birthday to my wife!
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2023 fanfic year in review
Thank you @kasienda for the tag!!! Been meaning to do this since I wrote so much in 2023!
Fics completed this year:
Oh my god I was writing lovesquare still at the beginning of the year… who was I back then… I finished I’d fall in love with you a thousand times and Meant to be, and then wrote all of Intertwined. I try to hold these all in kind thoughts. I don’t think they’re all that great, personally, but I just hadn’t written as much when I wrote them and never outlined or planned ahead. But I’m happy people liked them!
And then I went off the deep end with adrino:
I’ll give myself a name (something stupid and pretentious)
Falling into place
ways to say I love you
promise me forever
The memories we (don’t) make
Not much of a cat person
The moment I knew (I’d no choice but to love you)
Chemistry with him (for Ninovember 2023! I wrote the entire thing in about a month and a half and posted daily in November. My life took a serious turn for the worse by the end of the month and the comments and support on this fic were so amazing and incredible and kept me going!)
Love you snow much
And then I ended strong with this incredibly devastating (but really good) loveywalker one shot: fine line
Number of words written:
My ao3 stats say I published 329,988 words in 2023 which is insane????? I don’t know how I did that but oh my god it was so fun. I know I wrote way more that I didn’t publish with edits and stuff I scrapped, but I don’t keep track because it would just be way too difficult… at least another 100-150k if I had to guess in cut scenes and wips I haven’t published and stuff I just decided I didn’t like. I don’t know how in the world I managed to write so much while already a sleep-deprived grad student but I definitely don’t regret it. It was a blast.
Your most popular fic:
By hits, Meant to be. Oh man… if I wrote this now I’d do so much differently. I was surprised people loved it so much, and looking back, I’m like oh god… the mistakes… but it’s all a learning process! :) and I learned and grew so much from this one.
By kudos, ways to say I love you, which I didn’t expect to gain any traction at all. It’s just over 600 words, something silly and cute I figured a couple people would like, and it totally blew up.
Your personal fav:
I know I’ve said this before but Falling into place, hands down, is my number one. I know I’ve also said before it’s such a queer, teenage experience, but it is and it means so much to me. Being in high school, being in love with your friends and not even knowing it, aughhh I just love it. I love the way I wrote it. I’m so proud of it still!
Your fav scene:
Oh man… probably the kiss scene in chapter 9 of The moment I knew (I’d no choice but to love you). I wrote it so many times and made so many edits but I ended up so proud of it!
A fic or scene that challenged you:
I had a lot of fun with most of my fics! Having multiple wips on the backburner gave me a way to take a break and work on other stuff when I was having trouble with one and I can usually come back with fresh eyes later and never have too much trouble. But right now, If I hold you too close is challenging emotionally. It’s super personal and self-indulgent, and digging into a lot of my own past and traumas and mistakes to write it has been harder than I thought it would be. I’m excited to keep working on it but it’s been draining at times for sure.
A line of writing you’re proud of:
Oh man, I don’t know how to pick a single line… I’ll have to go with this (even though it’s technically more than one line) from Falling into place:
Adrien’s eyes were locked on Nino’s. He was staring back with something in his expression Adrien couldn’t quite read, something he hadn’t seen before. Or maybe he had but he’d just never been looking.
A comment that touched you:
A few come to mind! I’ve had several people comment on my adrino fics telling me they hadn’t shipped them before but they do after reading, and honestly that’s my number one life goal at the moment haha. I love adrino! I want more people to love them!
I genuinely love all the comments I get. It means so much that people read and love my work. The people who say so specifically always get me teared up… I’ve gotten several on my fluff fics that said they were going through stuff in life and my writing was a bright spot for them, and genuinely that’s insane to me. To touch someone else, to have a positive impact on their life through art…. oughhh it’s just so human and raw and I love it! I’m so honored!
Something that inspired your writing:
I honestly spent a lot of time writing what I personally wanted/needed to read! I needed more domestic adrino fluff, and I wasn’t finding quite what I wanted to read, so… I wrote it for myself! I love rereading them knowing it’s exactly what I want to read, and knowing other people enjoyed them too. I’ve been incredibly selfish in my writing this year (in the best way) and it’s been so inspiring also to see other people want to read it too! The moment I knew (I’d no choice but to love you) was something I didn’t think would garner much attention at all. A rarepair and a super silly trope? I thought whatever, I’m writing it for me, hopefully a couple others like it, and it got so much more positive attention than I thought. I’m so glad!
Your proudest accomplishment (that one scene; finally finishing that one fic; posting your first fic; etc):
Probably figuring out I’ll give myself a name (something stupid and pretentious)! I think I’ve mentioned before I was originally writing it as a lovesquare fic. I wrote it and rewrote it like six times before I thought, no, this should be about Adrien and Nino. And then it just clicked!
Do you have any writing goals for the next year?
I have a secret wip in my docs I’ve talked about a couple times, but it’s a slowburn teenage adrino and I really would love to write all of it! I think I’m struggling to decide exactly what kind of story I want to tell and it’s making it hard to outline and write when I don’t have a clear end direction, but that’s something I’d definitely love to figure out.
And I’d love to get back into lovesquare, too! I have a few wips that I keep putting on the backburner but I really want to dust them off and finish them, and maybe start some new stuff. Writing my loveywalker fic was SO fun (if devastating) and I can’t believe it’s been months since I sat down and wrote lovesquare.
This isn't a direct writing goal, but I'm determined to comment more on fics I read. I love getting comments, and I don't leave them enough on the fics I love, and that's something I really want to change!
Anyone you would like to thank?
@kasienda and @flightfoot I think are tied for commenting on my fics, and it really means so much to have cheerleaders in my inbox!!! Especially writing adrino when readership is lower, it was a huge help to have people reading and commenting and cheering me on <3
@asukiess and @isabugs recently for screaming with me in general about this show! You’ve inspired me to write so much more… I can’t wait to be absolutely unhinged in 2024.
And all my commenters on ao3!! I don’t know everyone’s tumblr and couldn’t possibly tag them all but it means so much every time I get a comment. I wouldn’t be writing as much as I do without the direct support! Thank you!!!
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rumour has it - oneshot
Pairing: Maxwell Lord x F!Reader
Rating: M
Summary: When your office needs to be repaired, you have to share an office with Maxwell Lord, the man you (allegedly) can’t stand.
Word count: 4,664
Notes: I had the idea of doing academic rivals for a while with Maxwell Lord, but I decided to do a bit of a twist with it. This is a modern college au featuring Max as a business/economics professor and our reader as an English professor. There’s a lot of gossip and rumours surrounding their relationship, but nothing is as it appears. This was really fun to write and I hope you all enjoy it.
This fic is cross-posted to my AO3 account under the same name, which can be found linked in my masterlist. Follow @thewayofthemandalorian-writes and turn on notifications for fic updates.
Comments/reblogs appreciated.
Warnings: Rumours, gossip, references to affairs, kissing, references to sex, non-explicit sexual content (fingering, semi-public sex, needing to be quiet, interrupted sex).
masterlist (main) || masterlist (maxwell lord)
“I heard that Professor Lord and that one English professor can’t stand each other!”
It’s the same gossip that spreads like wildfire at the beginning of every school year. It eventually gets back to you and Professor Lord – Max – one way or another. You’d never forget the time that a student straight-up asked you if the rumours about you and Maxwell hating each other were true. You’d sidestepped it by asking, “What does that have to do with your assignment on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Stacie?” The student in question had blushed bright pink and quickly changed the topic.
It isn’t true that you can’t stand Max. Not even a little bit. Sure, his teaching is unconventional, and his enthusiasm about economics is something that you don’t really understand that much, especially given that you almost failed economics in your undergrad. That was how you and Professor Lord had met; you’d been partnered in an assignment. He did a lot of the heavy lifting. He even tutored you before the exam. The C-minus that you ended up getting and pulling down your entire GPA had been all him; you’d been so relieved to pass the course (and this was an elective course for you so when applying to grad school the C-minus didn’t matter) that you didn’t care. You never had to think about economics ever again.
“Well, I heard that they had a really messy affair a few years ago and it ended really bad.”
“Ugh, as if she would cheat on her husband. Have you heard her talk about whoever Mr. Professor is? Like he’s the only man in the world? No. I think they’re exes who dated in grad school.”
Both of those things are also categorically untrue. Yes, you are married. So is he. But there were no tempestuous, ill-fated affairs behind closed doors. And no, you are not a scorned ex.
You don’t hate Maxwell Lord. He doesn’t hate you. You are cordial with each other on campus when you do see each other. But you don’t see each other that often on campus because of your differing departments. Hell, your offices are in different buildings. You don’t dislike Max Lord, how could you, when you don’t even spend that much time together? Still, it makes you laugh. You have no idea where the rumour started, but every year it always comes back. Is it because you and he are no more than cordial co-workers who barely interact and when you do interact it’s short bursts at a time? Heaven forbid co-workers from different faculties who happened to go to the same university for undergrad and for your masters degrees don’t spend time together as adults.
You don’t dislike Max Lord. Not at all. Sure, he was a bit intense when you first met him, an intensity that hasn’t really gone away, but he’s certainly…charming. Sometimes you wonder what he thinks about all the gossip that spreads around about the two of you. Also, you wonder if there are any other faculty members that are gossiped about on the same level that you and Professor Lord are.
It’s rare that you go to your office during reading week, but you left something in your desk that you need before classes start again next week. It’s Thursday. A particularly wet, rainy Thursday in a very wet, rainy week. Hopefully it stops raining soon, you and your husband had plans to go for a hike in the woods before the temperature drops. As you’re pulling into your parking spot, your phone rings. It’s not a number you recognize, but you answer it anyway. “Hello?” The man’s voice on the other end says your name in a questioning tone. “Yes, this is she.”
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I work maintenance in the building where your office is and with all the rain some of the offices on the lower level have been flooded.”
Your office is on the lower level. “I see…” you say, knowing and dreading where this conversation is going.
“I’m very sorry to have to bother you like this, but I’m afraid to tell you that your office has been flooded.”
In a daze, you listen to what the maintenance worker says about how the college will pay for the repairs and insurance is covering any damaged items. He says to expect a call from the dean soon to inform you what to do, and to please come in as soon as it’s deemed safe.
Twenty minutes later, still sitting in your car, texting your husband about what’s going on (he calms you down almost immediately and reassures you that everything will be okay), the dean calls.
“I’m so sorry that this is happening,” he says. “But rest assured, everything will sort itself out. Honestly, we’ve been meaning to renovate those offices for a while. This is the perfect opportunity.”
The dean goes on and on about how everything will work itself out and that you’re going to be just fine. “I would suggest working your office hours from home, but you need to offer that time to your students. So, for the time being, we’re pairing up the professors who have lost their offices for the time being with professors in different buildings. It’s a bit of a snafu for scheduling, but it should be fine for office hours and whatnot.”
You sigh, not knowing what else to expect. You need to keep working, you need to maintain your office hours, but that’s not possible in a water-damaged office that needs repairs. “Okay. Who am I paired with?”
“Professor Maxwell Lord in the Greenwood building.”
- - - -
“I heard that they shared an office when they were in grad school while they were repainting Professor Lord’s office and it was so chaotic that someone found their office in shambles. Just, things everywhere. And they were clearly pent-up and aggravated.”
With your box of books and photos that were salvaged (all of the photos were in frames, thank god), you make your way to the Greenwood building on Monday morning. It’s Professor Lord’s day off, so you aren’t expecting to see him when you arrive.
“Oh! Professor Lord,” you say, “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”
Maxwell frowns and looks like he’s about to say something else, but changes his mind at the last minute and instead says, “It is my office.”
You nod, suddenly flustered. “I–I know that. I just… I thought it was your day off today.”
Max shrugs. “I wanted to be sure you found it all right and knew where to put your things.”
Blinking, you say, “That’s… so kind of you. And thank you again for sharing your office with me.”
He grumbles something about the university being lazy about waiting so long to fix the very obvious problems your building was having before the flooding. “It’s fine.”
There’s only one desk. No more would fit in there without cluttering the room and would take up too much space. It’s a small office to begin with. “You can take that side of the desk if you like. Books, I’ve got space available on the bookshelf on one of the lower rows.” You nod.
“Great. Thanks.”
“It’ll be just like old times,” he says, his eyes twinkling at the memory of the last time you shared an office in grad school.
“What actually happened and what is reported to have happened were two very different things, Maxwell,” you remind him, your lips twitching as you try to remain as prim as possible.
He steps closer to you, grinning. “I know. I remember. Would you like help with setting everything up or are you okay?” he asks.
You shake your head. “It’s not a lot. Not sure where I can put my pictures of my husband. Worst case, I can take them home, but I like looking at him when I work if I can.”
Max nods, his own lips twitching now. “I understand. I am the same with my wife. I’ll leave you to it. I’ll see you at h—back here tomorrow?” he asks, covering up his almost slip-up last second.
The rest of the day passes smoothly and you send out a reminder email to your students telling them where they can find you for your office hours later in the week before you go to your lecture. You ignore every question about you and Maxwell sharing an office, except to tell the class that your office hours are the same and that you’re working out a schedule with Professor Lord. You slip up and almost call him Max before catching yourself last second. You don’t miss, but ignore the raised eyebrow of one of your students sitting in the front row.
The next day, you and Maxwell arrive at about the same time. You’ve figured out a schedule for office times that isn’t disruptive to either of you. “Good morning, professor,” you greet cordially.
“Professor,” he returns, equally as polite.
You check the time on your phone and see that you still have time before your office hours start. “I’m going to get a coffee before my office hours start. I only have one scheduled meeting, but not until ten, when you go for your economics seminar.” You pause. “Did you want anything while I’m there?” you ask, hovering at the door.
Maxwell thinks for a minute, running a hand through his brown hair. You remember how he tried to dye it blond in junior year of college when you first met him. It, mercifully, hadn’t lasted. When you asked why he dyed it, he’d shrugged and said he wanted to try something different. “My usual, please, que–professor.”
When you return twenty minutes later, he’s with a student, going over a recent assignment. “Here’s your americano,” you say to him, handing him the Starbucks cup.
“Thank you, querida,” he murmurs. Your eyebrows shoot up and he realizes what he’s said. Luckily, his student didn’t hear. Still, he clears his throat and adds, “Uh, this shouldn’t take too long.”
You shake your head, smirking to yourself. Something to discuss with your husband later. For now, though, you sit on the couch and plug in your headphones and begin grading the midterm exams, taking them out when the student leaves fifteen minutes later. “You don’t have to put your headphones in when I’m discussing things with a student, you know that,” says Max.
“I know, but I’m sure the student appreciates the privacy. Especially when they’re clearly not doing well.”
Max nods in agreement. “He’s not failing, but he needs help. One of the other students is offering to tutor him.”
You smile. “That sounds familiar.”
Before Maxwell can answer, there’s a knock on the door. You and Max both say at the same time, “Come in.”
It’s your student. “I know I’m early and I’m sorry to interrupt if you’re busy–”
Max shakes his head, looking at his watch. “I have to get going or I am going to be late for my seminar. I’ll see you later.”
“Come on in, Sophie. What was it that you wanted to talk about?” you ask, ushering her in and gesturing to the couch that you were just sitting on.
“Isn’t it weird that you have to share an office with Professor Lord? I mean… what does your husband think about it?”
You stifle a sigh. “It’s certainly a bit of an adjustment. As far as my husband, well, he understands perfectly. But we’re not here to talk about that are we?” You level her with a stare that you hope isn’t too stern.
Sophie blushes. “No. Of course not. I was wondering about the upcoming essay and what exactly you were looking for…”
- - - -
“Dude, that’s not it at all! They were, like, academic rivals back in the day and now she’s jealous that he has tenure.”
“Bro, they both have tenure. She has more funding than he does, though.”
The weeks go on like that. You and Maxwell get along well. You’re polite and easygoing with him. He’s the same with you. Out of all the rumours you’ve heard, not one of them is close to being the truth. Not a single one is even in the ballpark.
“That smells good,” you say, coming into your shared office space one day in mid-November.
Max looks up from his lunch. “My wife made it last night. One of my favourites.”
You refrain from saying what’s on your mind. “She sounds nice.”
It isn’t a test, nothing of the sort, nothing like that. Maxwell’s entire face lights up. “She’s wonderful. I’m so lucky to have her.”
You smile, thinking the same about your husband. “And I’m so lucky to have my husband. It’s a bit of an odd match, me and him, but we work well together, you know?”
Max nods. “Exactly what you mean. We are a team, y–her and I.”
You step closer to the desk, not knowing what to say. Finally, you settle on, “It’s always good, being a part of a team.”
Max’s day ends earlier than yours on Thursday. At two-fifteen, after looking over his notes for his lecture tomorrow, he packs up his bag and says, “I’ll see you later, professor.”
You give him a parting smile, “I’ll see you later.”
The rest of the day goes by without any fuss. You text with your husband when he gets home from work, saying that you hope that you’ll be home sooner rather than later tonight.
An email notification pings on your computer. It’s an update about the office renovation. It’s going to be another few weeks, possibly the end of the semester before it is finished and would you mind finishing out the semester in Professor Lord’s office?
Truth be told, you’re used to it now. You could do to have it be bigger and so could Maxwell, but you get along, far better than anyone else on campus would believe. You write back that it’s fine and you’re looking forward to seeing the completed project in the new semester.
Once five o’clock rolls around, you’ve officially had too much reading time and you need to stop for the day. Packing up, you begin to make your way home.
The drive home is uneventful. It gets dark so early now so you’re glad to be going home before it gets too dark.
Shoving the key in the lock, you push open the door. “Honey, I’m home.”
Your husband is in the kitchen, you can smell dinner cooking in the oven. He comes out of the kitchen, wine glass in hand for you. “Hi, querida,” he murmurs.
Leaning up on your tiptoes, you kiss him. “Hi, Maxie.”
Yes, the one rumour that no one ever thought of was that you’re married to Maxwell Lord and have been since finishing grad school. The rumour everyone thought was too wild to be true is that you are madly in love with each other.
- - - -
Seven years ago
“Hi, I hope it’s okay that I share your office?” you look up from the paper you’re working on in your office to see the person who helped you in economics two years ago.
“Oh, hey! Max, right?” you ask, already knowing his name. You’d liked him ever since, even with the bad dye job he had back then. He’d been intense, but sweet, getting to know his story here and there between then and now, your first year of grad school. You’d seen him at a few parties but hadn’t really hung out with him all that much outside of that.
“Yeah, economics. Anyway, um, they are painting my office. I don’t know why they couldn’t do that in the summer but here we are.”
You wave that away. “Of course it’s fine.”
And that was that. You had fallen hard and fast for each other. Max admitted to you on a date that he had liked you from the very beginning of that economics class and that he’s been working up the nerve to ask you out ever since.
You learn more and more about each other in the passing weeks that you share an office and go out with each other. He’s not in touch with his father, but tries to call his mom at least once a week. He was born in Mexico but moved to the United States with his mother when he was a sophomore in high school, changing their last name to Lord from Lorenzano as soon as he could, to distance themselves from David Lorenzano. Max has always wanted to be a successful businessman, making several businesses in high school with his friends that never really went anywhere. When he realized that that probably wasn’t in the cards for him, he turned to the idea of economics, having always been interested in it. You realized that the intensity that you noticed at first was from nervousness. The more he got to know you, the more you got to see past that veneer, seeing a sweet, kind man.
You can’t keep your hands off each other, taking every possible opportunity to sneak away for a makeout session or a quickie in the closet at parties or functions. You’ve been attracted to people before, but never like this. This is love, plain and simple. It’s not without its ups and downs, especially as students, trying to do well in grad school so you can go on to get your PhDs in your respective fields. The disagreements that do turn into fights though are few and far between, always so in sync with each other.
You get to know the real Maxwell Lord. He’s sweet and nerdy and genuine. He gets to know you and sees that you are also sweet and nerdy and genuine. You are as driven as he is, passionate about what you are doing, and you pour that passion into pretty much everything you do. Including your relationship with him. It’s something that he reciprocates.
Even after Max’s office is finished being painted, he still spends more time in your office than his. He says it’s bigger than his, which you go along with. Neither of you believe a word of it.
It’s just before final exams when it happens. You’ve spent the last week grading final essays and grading seminar participation. Not to mention doing your own coursework; your neck, shoulders and back are begging for respite from being hunched over your desk at all hours. Your eyes are burning, both from exhaustion and staring at screens for long hours. Sitting at your desk, you hardly hear Max come in. “Querida. Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m just tired. And a bit stiff.” You offer him a tired smile.
“I can help with that second part,” offers Max, wiggling his fingers at you.
A back rub sounds heavenly. “Would you?” you ask. “That would be wonderful.”
Max kisses your forehead and tells you to turn back around in your quite frankly uncomfortable chair. He starts in your scalp, hitting all the pressure points expertly. You sigh in appreciation. His hands work down your scalp and onto your neck. Closing your eyes you allow yourself to relax as your boyfriend finds all the knots and tight spots in your neck, shoulders and back.
“I love you,” you murmur at one point. You’ve never said it before. Not with words. It doesn’t seem like enough to convey your feelings for him.
“I love you, too.”
You turn in your chair and kiss him. You have to kiss him. Not just in appreciation and gratitude for his massage but to further convey your feelings for him.
Eagerly, Max returns the kiss, pressing his body into yours, pushing your back against the table. You don’t care that it might undo everything that Max’s nimble fingers just achieved. You want him.
You’re half on your chair half on the table, your leg hooked around his thigh. “Are we really doing this here, bonita?” Max asks you, his own eagerness evident, straining against his jeans. “Here?”
You nod frantically. “I can’t wait until we get back to my apartment, can you?”
Without answering, Max gently places your shut laptop on the extra chair before sweeping away all the papers that were littered on the desk. You don’t even care that you’ll have to organize them later. Right now, you just want him. Max turns to lock the door, then returns to you.
Efficiently, he unzips and unbuttons your jeans, kissing you syrup-sweet slowly as he does. He lowers your pants and your underwear, his fingers quickly proving that they’re skilled in more than one way.
“M-Max.” Your voice is guttural, reedy. It doesn’t take long, his fingers skilled and deft at the task at hand. You are about to cry out when his unoccupied hand comes up and covers your mouth, muffling the sound.
“We need to be quiet, bebita. Can you be quiet for me?” he asks.
You’re beyond words at the moment, so you nod against his hand. He takes it away for a minute. “Good girl.” He kisses you sweetly before they become more and more heated. You help him unbutton and unzip his slacks. He had a presentation to give today, so he’s still dressed from that. Anticipation thrums in your veins, electric and warm. You’ve never done anything so… reckless before.
Your fingers rest on the waistband of his boxer briefs, ready to pull them down…
Knock-knock-knock.
You whine. That is the only word to describe the sound that leaves your lips. It’s petulant and frustrated. “Are you serious?” you groan under your breath.
“Maybe they’ll go away,” Max murmurs, kissing your cheek and then your lips. He’s just about to push in when the knocking returns, a student calling your name from the other side of the door.
“Are you still here? I just wanted to ask something about the exam.”
You can’t lie, you think about not answering, but you’re sure that Emily can see the light from under the door. You lean your forehead against Max’s and silently sigh as he pulls his pants back up and adjusts himself to the best of his abilities. His eyes say it all.
Later.
Pulling up your own jeans, you reply, hopefully in a level voice, “Uh, yeah, Emily, I’m here. Just give me a second, okay?”
You take in the room around you; you’d barely registered how the desk became cleared of all of the papers earlier. You assumed that they went flying. While they are a bit scattered, they aren’t in complete disarray. It helps that they’re mostly finished being graded.
Max grabs his coat from his chair and folds it over his arms. “We aren’t finished here,” he murmurs. Your body thrums in eager anticipation.
You unlock and open the office door. “Come on in, Emily.”
“You were having a meeting,” Emily says, “I’m sorry. I should have emailed first.”
Max shakes his head. “It’s fine, I was just leaving,” he says as blandly as possible. “I’ll be seeing you,” he says to you, discretion lacing his voice. It’s not a secret that you and Max are dating in the graduate program, but you’re not sure if the undergrads know or not. You neither know nor care.
“Sorry about the mess, it’s exam season, you know how it is…”
- - - -
“We should have a repeat performance of what happened the last time we shared an office,” Max says, his chest rumbling against your ear.
You look up from where your head is resting against his chest, his arm wrapped around your waist, keeping you close to him in the afterglow. “Need I remind you, dearest husband of mine, that we more than made up for that interruption later that night.”
He chuckles, remembering that night. “I know, but all the same.”
You have to admit, the idea has crossed your mind more than once. “It would have to be when the semester is over and there’s no one on campus.”
Max wrinkles his nose teasingly. “That takes out all the risk of it,” he points out.
He’s got a point, but you’re professors now. It’s different than when you were lowly grad students. “I’ll think about it,” you answer wryly. “Maybe next semester, I’ll pop by for a visit once my office is back in commission. It’ll be a surprise, you won’t know when to expect me.”
“Minx.” You smile wickedly up at him before resting your head back against his chest. Max kisses the top of your head and doesn’t say anything for a long minute. “Oh, I meant to tell you. I ran into Steve and Diana earlier today. They reminded me of their standing open invitation to dinner.”
“That’s nice,” you reply. “Maybe in the new year.”
“That’s what I told them, we have finals to grade and then the staff holiday function and then the holidays, so it’s a busy time of year.”
“It’s crazy how quickly the semester went. Can’t believe tomorrow is the last day of classes,” you muse. Max strokes your hip and you shut your eyes at the feeling. “I have to say, as frustrating as my office being flooded was, I’ve really loved sharing an office space with you again, Max.”
“Me too,” your husband replies. You tilt your head up and kiss him.
It isn’t long before your kissing turns to more. It never gets old with him. You love him as much now as you did all those years ago. He’s generous and passionate and attentive, always knowing exactly what to do. You make a good team and you’re so lucky to have him by your side.
The next day, you don’t have to work. Still, you wake up early, start the day with Max. Your plan is to do as much grading as possible, wanting to submit the final grades online as soon as possible. Max has a long day today, two lectures and a seminar. As he’s getting ready, you make him his lunch, leaving it on the kitchen counter next to his phone.
“Have a good day at work, my love.” You kiss him goodbye as he picks up his lunch.
It isn’t until an hour later when an email notification from his phone makes you aware that he’s forgotten it here.
You know it’s an important thing to leave behind and that he’ll need it during his office hours. He likes listening to music while he’s grading or waiting for an appointment with a student. Not to mention, all of his emails and texts and everything else. Glancing at the clock, you see that he’s just about to start his last Economics 101 class. If you leave now, you should make it there before the break. If there even is one. He said this morning that all he has planned is an overview of the course and hints about what will be on the final exam.
By the time you arrive at the lecture hall, the class is just coming back from its break. You can hear Max call the class to attention as you enter the hall. Students notice you before Maxwell does and start whispering.
“What are you doing here?” asks Max when he notices you.
You brandish his phone. “Sorry to interrupt, but you forgot your phone. Left it on the counter. Thought you might need it.”
He smiles at you and takes his phone from you. “Wondered where that got to. Thank you.”
You return the smile. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you later this evening.”
Turning around, you exit the lecture hall.
“What was all that about?” asks a student.
Max shrugs. “I left my phone at home, she was kind enough to bring it to me.”
“Yeah, but why her?” asks another student.
“Because she’s my wife.”
Every hand in the classroom goes up.
The End
#pedro pascal#max lord x reader#max lord x f!reader#ww84#ww84 fanfiction#ww84 max lord#ww84 max lord x reader#my fic#my writing#wonder woman 1984#pedro pascal fanfiction#pedro pascal character fanfiction#pedro pascal characters
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Hi, fellow English major here! Sorry if this is personal - are there any career paths you’d recommend? I’ve thought either journalism or academia (might do a masters for either!) though I’ve heard college teaching is now super precarious.
Well tumblr just ate everything I wrote. Grr.
This is a bit of a hard question to answer and it's really complicated, without knowing why you're into journalism or why you're considering teaching. I don't know a whole lot about these fields, but what I do know is that they both involve research, collaboration, writing, the day-to-day is different, and you have to be kinda peopley. If that sounds like you, then some other options to look into would be research, analysis, or librarianship.
Higher ed/college academia is...going through some things right now. (I've got friends in that world.) It's largely down to two things - one, culture wars and two, the demographic cliff. I don't want to discourage you from that if that's where your heart is, but it's going to be a difficult ride. Tenure isn't a guarantee anymore, you might have to move around more than you've expected, budgets are getting tighter and they're coming with a million more strings, and hiring is a bit stagnant. The message I hear from my higher ed friends is that if you want to go into higher ed or academia, you better make sure you're doing it for the passion, not the tenure or the paycheck.
And grad school. Only go if you're absolutely entirely 100% certain you need that master's to get the career you want. The economy being what it is, the interest rates being what they are, costs and fees being what they are, how fast and quickly certain fields are changing because of tech, I don't know that the value is there anymore if you're on the fence or you're doing it because it's what you're supposed to do. Grad school will still be there in a few years so you can always go back to school.
If you're open to a more broader perspective of the English major's postgrad experience and advice, then
In this essay I will give you a nonanswer answer in three parts:
What do you like about studying English? Why did you choose English in the first place?
It's not about the English lit. It's about the soft skills.
In the end, it doesn't actually even matter.
Colleges, universities, career offices, and departments really struggle with career advice and career planning. They only know what they know, right, so they have a tendency to promote the obvious career paths because that's what their experience is -- English majors go into academia, history majors go into museums, pre-med majors go into medicine, etc. However, that's just one option. I think it's harder for these folks to know what's really out there because they're just not familiar with it, and that's why they rely so much on their alumni to fill in the gaps but it still leaves students in the dark having to find their own way out. (I do think it's changing, though. My friends in higher ed said that there's a lot more focus "beyond the classroom" to prepare students for the real post-college life and more diverse careers.)
So let's get into it.
What do you like about studying English? What made you choose English in the first place?
Is it the reading? Do you like the debate and discussion? Is it the creative process? Do you like writing? Do you like the analysis? The research? If you narrow down why you like English, it can be super helpful finding "non-traditional" career paths.
For example:
If you like reading, then look at publishing or editing.
If it's the creativity or the creative process, then consider marketing or advertising.
If you like the discussions and debating plot points, maybe you're a lawyer.
If you like the community of book world, then maybe you're a bookseller or a librarian.
If you like writing and the writing process, definitely look into journalism, but there's also content editing, communications, technical writing, ghostwriting, food recipe writing, etc.
If you like analyzing literature, look into being an analyst.
If it's the research, go into research or research librarianship
And remember, these are just super broad and high-level career paths. Within each career field, there's a million different options to narrow it even further. Like librarians or writers or advertising.
It's not about the literature. It's about the soft skills.
Colleges and college students often think that the only career options they have are the ones that deal specifically in the hard skills their coursework studies - English majors become writers or teachers, history majors become historians, geography majors become geographers and mapmakers. But the reality is that the people who do exactly the work that their major studied are few and far between. Most of us end up with careers that have nothing to do with what we studied. For instance, in my friend group (there's about 9 of us) only one actually does the specialty he studied for - he has a physics degree and he does physicsy stuff for a lab. The rest of us are all over the place, like
the Chemistry major now does IT sales.
the Geography major is the International Studies director for a midsized university.
the French major is an accounts manager for a higher education consulting firm.
And it's all about the soft skills. Those are what set us up for success. Off the top of my head, these are the soft skills you're practicing in your English major coursework:
Reading and reading comprehension
Writing
Writing for different audiences (eg. you know Professor X is really into symbolism so your papers for his class will focus on symbolism, which is different from Professor Y who wants you to talk about literary theory, which is different from Professor Z who's obsessed with victorian panopticism so you know you need to include Foucault and -- shoot, that's my PTSD escaping.)
Analyzing different kinds of information and knowing the methods/tools (for instance, analyzing poetry is very different from analyzing scientific research)
Doing research (knowing how and where to find information)
Vetting sources
Speaking about and defending your work
Taking, incorporating, and giving feedback
Working on deadlines
Collaborating with people
Attention to detail
Organizing information
And guess what? This is the day-to-day work that all of us do in our careers. These are the tools necessary for success in pretty much anything: project/program/product management, sales, consulting, contracting, IT, business, HR.
So if you're having trouble finding work in a classically English field like journalism or academia or you can't figure out if you're qualified for a position, use these soft skills. If they show up in the description of duties/responsibilities, you're qualified! Apply! Don't focus too much on the job title or the company.
Take Kate for an example. Her degree is in art history, but she's never worked in a classical art history field - i.e., she's never worked in an art museum and she isn't having conversations on Remembrandt vs Van Gogh. But she is using her degree anyway - her attention to detail and her research skills means she shows up prepared every day, her knowledge of color theory means the photos she gives us of her family and their appearances are pleasing to look at, she can communicate easily to different audiences (eg outdoorsy clothes and casual attitude for Scouts vs coatdresses and formality for Westminster Abbey).
In the end, it doesn't actually even matter.
It really doesn't. Particularly for a humanities major, the more you lean into your soft skills, the easier it'll be to find a career path that works for you. Some examples...
If you like working with people, you love organizing things, and your attention to detail is *chefs kiss*, you might be a project manager and project managers are everywhere.
If you like writing, talking to people, and you're a planner, maybe you're a communications specialist or a speechwriter.
Maybe you like writing and you like doing research, but you don't want to go to grad school, look at becoming an acquisitions specialist or a contracting officer.
If you're into language and linguistics, maybe you're a book translator or an interpreter. (Just don't work with Omid Scobie!)
This is where I think college advisors struggle. They tell students to be open to possibility, but they don't tell you what possibility is. I remember going in for career advising and the conversation went something like this:
Me: I don't want to teach but I like writing and research. What can I do?
Dr. S: You can do anything you want!
Me: What does that mean?
Dr. S: You don't have to teach! You can do whatever you want!
Me: BUT WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN.
(Dr. S was later fired for drunk driving with students in the car so...she probably wasn't the best person for the department to appoint as the career advisor. Or Department Chair.)
It took me until about two years ago to realize what Dr. S meant by "you can do anything you want." She (and a lot of the people at my university) just didn't know how to explain what they meant. I think part of that is because "soft skills" wasn't really a thing a lot of people were talking about 10, 15 years ago outside a corporate environment, and it does seem to be changing now, and universities have begun teaching and showing students how to connect coursework, sports, clubs and student activities, and volunteering to soft skills and "business"-minded concepts.
Just be open to considering career paths that aren't traditionally lit-focused, like business or IT. It'll be the soft skills that set you apart and help you be successful, not how well you can you can argue symbolism or read seventeenth-century poetry or recite Shakespeare. Leave it for your hobbies.
So here's an example of what I mean by being open to other career paths. As I mentioned before, I do have a B.A. in English and my focus was modern American fiction. I went into college thinking that I'd be a writer or do something in movies - I was going to be either the American JK Rowling, the millennial Meg Cabot, or the female Aaron Sorkin. (Reader, I was not and will never be.)
But in reality, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I looked into publishing, high school teaching, college professorship, creative writing, scriptwriting, but nothing was panning out. Eventually I signed up for a summer internship program with the federal government (my parents were feds) thinking "at least I'll get my internship credit and know what NOT to do". The internship ended up being with a research library, I absolutely loved it, decided "this is it, I'm going to get my MSLIS and be a librarian and do research and write research papers forever!" (MSLIS is Master of Science in Library and Information Science). They invited me to come back again the next summer, which I accepted, and my dear amazing supervisor (let's call her "Marian") somehow convinced the bosses to pull me on full-time when the internship ended and to support my grad school coursework.
Went directly from undergrad to grad and hated it. 15 years ago was an interesting time in the library world; it was right when the field transitioning from information to data so it was less about working with research and more about organizing and using data. In effect, it was moving away from the world of books/information ("Englishy" type stuff) and moving fully into the realms of data and computer science. Not what I expected and for someone who was on the research librarian track, having to take classes on data analysis, computer science, website management, and HTML coding, it was torture. But that was where the industry was going so get on board or drop out. Meanwhile, the research library I was working in was also changing. We were changing from being a library and doing research to being a repository of databases and facilitating access to research. The bosses got wind that I was looking to jump ship and said:
"She's got a really weird brain full of really random stuff but ask her a question about something she looked up 3 years ago and she can remember exactly what it was, where she found the information, how it applied to whatever you need, and the exact notebook she wrote it down in. She knows how to get information from people so let's make her a sub-project manager on this new database tool with Bob to see if she's as good as Marian says she is and maybe we can steal her from the librarians because they're all retiring soon anyway." (I'm paraphrasing here but yes, they specifically wanted me because I have a crazy attention to detail.)
So I abandoned the librarians (they were all retiring anyway and were like two resignations away from reorganizing the department), went over to the IT side to become a project manager and one month into the project with Bob, Bob was in a horrible car accident, had a severe TBI, and ended up taking medical retirement because his recovery was going to be years long. (Bob's okay now. I had dinner with him last month.)
I did not get a new PM to shadow or partner with. I was left to do the whole thing on my own with a senior devops team who didn't like that a no-nothing 24 year old kid was in charge of them. But it all worked out in the end. I earned devops' loyalty, we had fun, we impressed the client, the bosses were happy and I found that I really liked project management and even better, I was really good at it. I did that for ten years, until one of the bosses who'd left about four years prior (and with whom I still kept in touch, who knew I didn't like the techy database stuff they kept pushing me into) said "psst, hey, come work for me" and I said "can I start tomorrow."
So very long story short, being open to possibilities is how I ended up a) working for the federal government, b) falling into IT and project management, and c) now doing policy analysis and program evaluation. I didn't even know English majors could do this kind of stuff 15 years ago. I thought you had to have business degrees for all this.
What I mean is you don't need to abandon your interests in journalism and academia. If that's what you want to do, you go girl (or guy or they) - all the English majors are here rooting for you. But if you're not sure, don't close yourself off from the non-traditional English career paths.
And also don't worry too much about it. You'll find what you were meant to do, whether you figure it out right now or it takes you 4 years and grad school or it takes you 10 years.
Maybe you do go into journalism, and it's not for you. Dust off your list of soft skills and polish your resume and go find your next step. Or maybe you go into academia, realize you don't like teaching, but hey, that job in Student Affairs looks interesting -- go for it! What have you got to lose?
You probably weren't expecting another literal essay on this, so my apologies for that. But in my defense, I did say it was a complicated question to answer!
Please, feel free to ask more questions! I promise to try to be less long-winded. (No guarantees, though.)
Also a tip about resumes. I am horrible at writing resumes but I found this incredible tool called Jobscan.co. You upload your resume and the job listing you're applying to, and then it compares them and flags things in your resume based on the job listing and suggests tips to improve. It's based on the same ATS optimization technology that real hiring managers use to screen their applicants.
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HEY i'm having unhinged carlisle/edward thoughts again and i had to come into your inbox to share them because YOU DID THIS TO ME--
but truly. like. the bond between creator and created. (this may or may not have been inspired by a conversation with su-angelvicioso about yknow. a different ship) the creator recognizes themself in the created, the created knows the creator because they were shaped so fundamentally by them...so any time they're looking at the other person they're seeing themself, but also any time they see themself they're seeing the other...there's no way to define yourself except in the differences and similarities you have to this person who you know more intimately than anyone else in the world, except really your view of them will ALWAYS be distorted by your view of yourself...like!!!!
edward thinks carlisle is perfect because he thinks of himself as a monster. carlisle thinks edward is the best of all of them, the reason to believe vampires have souls, because it's the only way for him NOT to believe he himself is a monster!!! edward hates and fears carlisle for being a standard he can never measure up to, but he loves him because he is that standard, and he keeps forgiving him...but maybe actually the forgiveness just makes him hate carlisle MORE because edward doesn't WANT to be forgiven!!! carlisle thinks of edward as his own redemption, but that means he'll never actually fully see edward and he can't actually forgive him in a meaningful way!!! they're obsessed with each other, but neither one of them can actually express that to the other!!!!!!! holy FUCK they're a MESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(sorry this is not even a question, my brain is just scrambled eggs about them now apparently)
THIS IS IT I LOVE YOU THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THE SPACE TO TALK ABOUT CARLWARD I SWEAR I AM GOING A LITTLE FERAL OVER THIS SHIP? FORGIVE ME THIS ASK SHOULD HAVE BEEN MORE POIGNANT BUT IM JUST GONNA SAY STUFF OK
THE BOND BETWEEN CREATOR AND CREATED!!!! YES!!!!!!!
the creator recognizes themself in the created, the created knows the creator because they were shaped so fundamentally by them. [...] your view of them will ALWAYS be distorted by your view of yourself
and isn't it just so beautiful when we put Carlisle & Edward's canon relationship in this context! i wrote this in another post but:
Carlisle believes Heaven exists because of Edward.
Heaven is not a place for the damned creatures like vampires, but a place for humanity.
which means!!!! Carlisle has chosen to see his own humanity in his son. for all it entails. its light, its shadows, all the shades of gray in between. and, yes!, the scary thing is, this is the only way Carlisle can believe he himself is not a monster - to see his progeny thrive within Carlisle's philosophy.
but the beautiful thing is he accepts Edward. he loves Edward. always. no matter what. & this is what allows him to participate in society, to take the Hippocratic Oath, to live a life of vegetarianism: Carlisle loves humanity in all its forms, BECAUSE OF AND IN SPITE OF EDWARD.
and Edward!!! Edward is the physical manifestation of Carlisle's beliefs. for better or worse. on the surface, Edward is a vegetarian vampire, med school grad, etc., and who wants to believe in the value of human life. (he doesn't always live up to this in day-to-day interactions obvi.)
on a deeper level, he has grappled with questions re: humanity, especially his place within his preconceived idea of Humanity. he considers himself damned, just as Carlisle does. (perhaps, even, the darkest part of Carlisle doubts the existence of his own soul.) he spends the entire series rebelling against the idea of his soul & his worthiness of love while battling his own monstrous nature.
but unlike Carlisle, Edward has actually gone out and tested these ideas. can i still have a soul if i'm a vampire? can i still be human if i kill bad people? can i still be human if i take away life? can i still be human if i do x, think y, say z?
because Carlisle doesn't necessarily have the space to do what Edward did. not just because of his busy schedule as a doctor, but his coping mechanisms, his compartmentalization required to live this vegetarian life, his religion (/religious trauma?), & his position as a coven leader do not afford him the luxury of testing these ideas himself.
at the end of the day, Carlisle can never do what Edward did. if Carlisle is going to 'save' other vampires, he needs to be (at least outwardly) secure in the notion that he has saved himself. even if he isn't.
Edward can go further, dig deeper, and that allows Carlisle to go further, too.
and in that context, god, how beautiful is it that Carlisle just has this unwavering, unconditional acceptance of Edward? that through the darkness and mistakes, there is something worth loving? that through this acceptance, Edward finds his soul in the end?
like, the breakdown of the relationship is:
to Edward, Carlisle is a god.
to Carlisle, Edward is a man, i.e., a disciple of his teachings.
& in that context, how beautiful is it that, baseline, Carlisle & Edward share this deep, spiritual love for each other that will never be broken? FUCK that hits
#carlisle x edward#twilight meta#carlisle cullen#edward cullen#twilight renaissance#twilight#the twilight saga
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brain is healing
I've always been depressed, but before grad school, I had interests. I was teaching myself woodworking, building things, drawing plans, and restoring rusty hand planes. I had bought my first ever digital microphone and was recording (bad) music. I was practicing the violin on a semi-regular basis.
I also had hyperfixations. I always loved the experience of being obsessed with something for a few weeks at a time, even if I felt empty when the feeling passed. Spending three weeks learning about homesteading, or being a travel therapist, or rollerskating, or learning Arabic.
Grad school wasn't a decision I made out of passion but out of necessity. After getting my Bachelor's in Linguistics (not a hireable degree but an extremely interesting one), I went as far I could with entry-level jobs before going broke and having a mental breakdown. So I decided that if I couldn't find a job I was passionate about, I would get one that where I could 1. decently support myself, 2. do something meaningful for others, and 3. have the freedom to pursue passions outside of work. My dream job became one where I worked 3.5 days a week.
The conclusion was to build upon my background in linguistics and go into healthcare via speech-language pathology.
But when grad school started, I noticed how quickly all of my passion evaporated. Over night, there was suddenly no more planning, drawing, violin-making.
From week 2 to week 100 of school, I didn't have any thoughts about it. I was emotionally drained and too busy to think about enjoying life. I felt like I'd sold my soul for a stable job and when summer and, winter breaks didn't allow me to do anything but sleep, I figured I would be like that forever.
The one creative thing I did that entire time was write a short little sci-fi story. While trying to read a research paper in the student lounge, I suddenly had an idea and deleted the notes I was taking. For three hours, I did nothing but sit there and type. But due to how inundated in academia I was, it was both super morbid (a story about how Earth is the only planet where life degrades and dies due to ageing) and super academic (it took the form of a research paper written by horrified alien observers). I was so in that world that the only thing I could write had an abstract, an intro, a methodology, a results section, and a discussion.
I'm currently 4 months free of grad school (I say like I'm in recovery), and I've noticed that passion and interest are slowly dripping back into my life. I've spent the last few days reading about Proto-Indo-Europeans, just for fun. I read a BOOK. I'm contemplating building an English joiner's bench. I'm even motivated enough to post something personal on a blog no one will ever read.
These days, learning feels like it takes more effort than it did before. I have this feeling that there isn't room in my brain for any more things, so I shouldn't get too excited. It feels like that, and like the inertia of not having exercised in so long. But I notice this feeling lessening with each month.
This is all to say: grad school couldn't kill my soul forever—it could only kill it for two and a half years.
#grad school#slp#linguistics#woodworking#writing#dark academia (but in a sad boring way)#grad life#grad student
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Hi i don't know, if your requests are still open, if not you can ignore it or do it whenever you want.
Just readed your prompt, when reader suddenly passes out with Vil, Jamil, Floyd and Rook. I was wondering, if you could write something similar for Malleus, Lilia and maybe the teachers Trein and Crewel?
(I'm happy you enjoyed those! And I hope you like these too!)
Part One Part Three
CW:Burnout (obviously), mental breakdown/trauma in Trein's part, spoilers for Vargas training camp in Trein's part, injury in Crewel's part
A/N: I've said this in my pin post, but I age up characters to actual college age, because I am in college, and didn't realize until a few months in the characters were not. Everyone here is. 18+ If it makes you feel more comfortable, imagine this as a grad school situation.
He's been pouting a lot lately. Which for a normal person wouldn't be a problem, but Mal's pouting usually meant that the weather was bad as well. He was pouty, because whenever you had time in your incredibly busy schedule to see him, you still had to be working on your homework. With everything Crowley had you do for the school, you had to share your "dragon time" with your "homework time". But your boyfriend looked very cute pouty, so part of you wasn't too upset about it.
Until the day you were so busy with something that you hadn't eaten or slept in over 24 hours and just…collapsed during dragon/homework time.
Malleus immediately panics. He assumes you have had a heart attack and died (Mal…college students are unlikely to have heart attacks) Once he finds a pulse, and sees your breathing, he scoops you up and teleports to Lilia faster than he has ever teleported.
He's sobbing as he answers Lilia's questions, not entirely certain that this wasn't something he did. Lilia easily is able to figure out what has happened, and goes to make you some soup for when you wake up. Malleus is too relieved to think about the fact that while Lilia's soup will have loads of protein, it might send you into shock. In the meantime, he puts a cool cloth on your forehead, and caresses your cheek.
After you wake up and barely survive the soup Malleus spoon feeds you he tucks you into his massive comfy bed (you can't tell me he doesn't have the fluffiest comforters) and then…vanishes.
From here on out, everytime you get a task from Crowley, it's already finished by the time you get around to it. It's weird, but it means you have time to keep homework separate from "dragon time". Which makes a certain fae very happy.
Lilia has spent years learning how to care for humans, especially since most of them *cough* Silver *cough cough* Y/N are not good at caring for themselves. While his recipes are terrible, he is right in some ways about making sure to get all your nutrients. While it can feel a little patronizing sometimes, he is right that you need sleep. While he is a little unorthodox in how he has fun, he's right that you need to have leisure time and do things you enjoy.
What you don't know is that behind the scenes Lilia has already been having regular arguments with a certain Crow about your workload. When two fae fight, it's never good, but you don't have to worry about what's going on.
Azul and the tweels get called back home out of nowhere, and now you're in charge of all the paperwork that he is usually in charge of handling, both for the lounge and for the other Housewarden's. Lilia sees less and less of his sweet human, and he's suspicious part of it is because you are avoiding him, knowing full well he would make you take a break.
He has to admit, your avoiding skills are actually pretty good. So he's not actually there when you collapse. And he's furious. Especially when he finds out that Crowley also decided to add his own paperwork to your ever growing pile. He only knows you collapsed when he hears some randos gossiping about how "the prefect collapsed running laps today, and the idiot duo had to walk them to the infirmary." He's immediately flying to the infirmary, powered by his pure rage.
He knows it's not your fault, especially since you have nothing to your name in this world, so it's easy to manipulate you into this position. So he does his best not to take his anger out on you as he watches you sip apple juice that the nurse gave you, while you do your best to keep your eyes open. Once he is certain that the nurse has things under control, he kisses your forehead, and asks you if you want him to bring you anything.
While he's out getting you a treat, he makes a stop at a certain Crow's office. From here on out you don't see a lot of him. You are a little worried that Lilia may have killed him, but everytime you ask him, he giggles and messes up your hair, before telling you how silly that is.
He's harder on you than he is on most of his students, partially so that no one can claim favoritism, partially because you are just so far behind in history (having it not be your history) that he has to give you extra work and lessons to catch you up. But as a trade off, he tries to be a step ahead of Crowley whenever he can. There's little that happens in the school that he's unaware of, so he's usually able to protect you from his foolish boss.
Until you get sent to the training camp with the sports clubs to assist Vargas. He's furious about this last minute decision, that Crowley conveniently forgot to tell him about, and he's even more angry when he later finds out that you were "kidnapped" and then immediately had to fight a creature in the mines.
Naturally, your mental health is not so great after the trip. He's starting to see it on your face when you both hang out, and even if he didn't, your work for his class is deteriorating, if you even turn it in at all.
Then you break down one day when he asks you about it. He can't understand a word you're saying as you sob and yell and shake. But he's pretty sure he has the idea. You've been pushed too far. He sends Lucius to fetch a nurse or counselor , or heck he's sure even Sam would have something to help you relax enough to just breathe. In the meantime, he wraps his arms around you and tries to walk you through breathing exercises, while whispering some praises to you that you can't comprehend in this state, but appreciate all the same.
After someone gives you a potion that helps you relax a little, he leaves you to rest on his office couch with Lucius in charge, and he holds a meeting with the rest of that staff about what's not appropriate to put people through. (Essentially it's Crewel and Trein yelling at Vargas and Crowley about trauma and what their job is supposed to be)
This never happens again. You continue to have extra work from Trein, but he always ensures he makes time to help you, or give you a soothing tea if he thinks you're starting to drop back into the bad mental state. If you do, he holds you close, and says nothing, while allowing you to spill whatever is plaguing you.
Prior to him dating you, you had denied his request many times to financially sponsor you. Now that you were together, it was harder to come up with an excuse for him not to. So he'd purchased Ramshackle and renovated it. He'd taken up the expenses for your schooling and food (after much argument he'd also taken up Grim's) and after several discussions about the future of your relationship, he'd begun helping you through the process of becoming a citizen in a world that had no proof of your existence (a pain and a half, but there was nothing he wouldn't do for his beloved pup). In doing all this, he'd made it very clear to the Headmage that he had no hold over you, and therefore couldn't coerce you into anything.
Divus knew he was a fool for leaving you alone for a week. He had assumed that Crowley had nothing on you anymore, and that he could go help a smaller fashion designer that showed a lot of promise get their career off the ground. At first he was only going to be gone for a week, but it quickly turned into two, then three. He should have recognized the tension in your voice when you'd asked him over the phone when he thought he'd be back.
When he finally returned, he thought he'd surprise you by showing up where he knew you'd be hanging out with your friends. He'd bought a ring for you that he was particularly pleased with, and he wanted you to have it as soon as possible. His plan was dashed as he watched you collapse into Howl, who immediately started to panic.
With a clear voice Divus took over the scene, picking you up and carrying you to his office where he had all manner of potions. As he pressed one to your lips, he noticed a cast on your arm. He'd ask about it later.
When you woke up, you wrapped your arms around him, and whispered how much you missed him. He asked what happened, and you tell him how you broke your arm in yet another overblot incudent, and had been working like crazy for Crowley to pay off the medical expenses.
You've never been scared of your lover. But his eyes were practically glowing with rage, and now you were starting to wonder if you should be scared. Divus does not accept cruelty to animals or humans. And, he keeps his receipts. It's not long before there's a pretty hefty case and Dire is removed as headmage for coercion and endangerment. After that, there aren't any more overblot incidents and the students seem more mentally healthy. How about that?
He decides to wait to give you the ring until you're fully recovered after everything. But he's certain when he asks you the question that comes with it, you'll have an answer he likes. Especially when you nuzzle into him so sweetly while you nap in his office.
....
Tag list-@shytastemakerthing @stygianoir @leonia0 @lleoll
#twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland x reader#malleus x reader#malleus draconia#twst malleus#malleus draconia x reader#malleus#twst lilia#lilia vanrouge x reader#lilia x reader#lilia vanrouge#mozus trein x reader#trein x reader#mozus trein#twst trein#professor trein#twst mozus trein
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Tag Game To Better Know You
I have been tagged in so many things by so many of you lovely people in the midst of my sorta-hiatus and I would break the internet if I tried to catch up...but I like this one because it feels like a good little re-intro into the Tumblr world. :-)
What book are you currently reading?
The Writing Revolution...I can't in good conscience recommend it unless you also happen to find yourself as a teacher trying to capture teenagers' imaginations and get them to produce complete sentences! Hahahaha. Miserable toil.
What’s your favourite movie you saw in theatres this year?
Ooh, this one's easy--The Little Mermaid!! I have seen it with my family twice and then with my friends once. (I felt a little freer to lust after Prince Eric when my husband and two children weren't sitting there with me...)
What do you usually wear?
These days, some form of athleisure. During the school year, I've been told my teacher style is "Jessica Day if she didn't care so much" and...that about sums it up.
How tall are you?
5′5″ AND A HALF (alternatively: taller than @stolen-pen-name23 which is all that truly matters in this world)
What’s your star sign? Do you share a birthday with a celebrity or a historical event?
Cancer...I think? Malala Yousafzai and Henry David Thoreau!
Do you go by your name or a nickname?
Most folks IRL call me Abigail. It's just my brothers, husband, and you guys who call me Abi!
Did you grow up to become what you wanted to be when you were a child?
Absolutely not. I wanted to be a lawyer my entire life. My undergrad was pre-law and then life had other plans for me and now I'm teaching 8th grade American History. And LOVING IT. I start grad school in the fall and I'll be getting my Principal's Certification with that, so I suppose I'm in this education world for the long haul.
Are you in a relationship? If not, who is your crush if you have one?
I am tragically married. Sorry to all interested parties!
What’s something you’re good at vs. something you’re bad at?
I'm fairly good with piano and singing. I'm terrible at cooking.
Dogs or cats?
Dogs forever and ever!
If you draw/write, or create in any way, what’s your favourite picture/favourite line/favourite etc. from something you created this year?
Oh my. I haven't written as much as I'd like to this year (although I'm hoping to post something before the weekend!!) so I'm choosing to interpret this as the last 12 months. Maybe this bit from walking by her side, talking by her side, have pity?
He holds out his hand, wondering if she’ll bare touching him. “Goodbye, Leia.”
She is not a girl of gentleness—this, he can tell. But she accepts the hand like she’s afraid to shatter it. “Goodbye.”
“Saying my name won’t hurt you, you know,” he says, refusing to be the first to let go.
“Remind me?”
He rolls his eyes. “Anakin Skywalker.”
“Skywalker, you said?” she echoes, and lets their hands fall between them. She opens the door and smiles teasingly at him, tilting her head. “Interesting. That was my father’s name.”
What’s something you’d like to create content for?
I think I'm forever stuck in my prequels hell!
What’s something you’re currently obsessed with?
Ur mom. Okay...sorry. Ahem. I've been sewing more lately. I used ot dabble in high school, but I'm finding more motivation to make things for my toddler than I did to make things for myself.
What’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year?
The weather recently! It was supposed to rain the past couple weeks and we've not gotten much more than a few minutes of sprinkling. I looooove rainy days, so that's bummed me out quite a bit.
What’s a hidden talent of yours?
I'm excellent at whistling. It's completely useless, but I'll get compared to a Disney princess occasionally, so I guess that's something.
Are you religious?
Yes. My faith is very important to me, but it's *my* faith, so I don't feel the need to bring it up with strangers unless asked about it. (Crazy concept, right?)
What’s something you wish to have at this moment?
A cuppa tea...so I think I'll go put the kettle on byeeeee
No pressure tags: @pandora15 @stolen-pen-name23 @tessiete @ilonga @kckenobi & anyone who wants to join in the fun!
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I think as someone who has followed you for a very long time (pre 2016) other anon will forgive me for saying that you have had open and long mutual interactions with trans women on this website the entire time I've followed you. I recently found an old post you wrote about trans women's right to determine how, what, and to whom to label genitals when "penis repulsion" was the special flavor of terf panic over lesbians dating trans women. I know you would never wave around what you've been doing as an answer to these people because it wouldn't change any missteps you actually made.
It's quite a lot to me that anyone actually could have followed you during that era and believe anything but that you were a little too credulous of butchcommunist's excuses when she started to get called out. Early on, she had trans feminine mutuals who also stood by her. You're certainly not being more supportive or writing completely new content about fighting transmisogyny to cover your tracks. You have been this way for as long as I have followed you. Feel free not to publish this if it seems too defensive, but I think some people's memories are shorter or more muddled than mine.
you're right that I'm wary of appearing to be 'doing PR'—people who are upset with me about this are perfectly within their rights to be upset, and if I can set anyone's mind at ease by clarifying that I believe that to be the case and informing my current followers who may not have been around at the time of what happened with this a few years back, then I'm happy to do that.
the post and the time that you're talking about were around the same time that I first started to feel reservations about some of her posts (like referring to "gender nonconformance" when asked specifically about trans women; or saying that no one is ever obligated to have sex with anyone else, and then later saying that she never "said or implied" that she thought it was trans women who were pressuring cis lesbians to have sex with them, when, like, you kind of don't have to, that is obviously what people are going to assume).
I discussed these reservations with people in my personal life (this must have been 2017?) but basically came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to unfollow or block her yet because my stance on counter-recruiting is that, when it seems like things could go either way (like, someone is still vocally denying animus for trans women or support for policies that limit transition, but evidently flirting with terf ideology), it is the opposite of helpful to cut them off.
because for sure the people who are not going to cut them off.... are terfs..... and so now you've closed the possibility (however large or slim it might have been) of them reading what you write and reblog on the subject and changing their mind. and I believe that terfs know this, and play up the whole "genderists ostracise you just for asking innocent little questions" thing, and use this to drive recruitment. but maybe this is credulous of me.
I also believe that if someone is plainly a 'crypto'-terf to the extent that they are knowingly interacting with self-professed terfs (so, barely 'crypto' at that point) then it is too far gone for that, and the only thing you're doing by continuing to allow them to reblog from you is furthering the point of crypto-terfs in the first place (namely, to draw people in by degrees through 'legitimate,' 'respectable' engagement with left-wing people that gradually shades into more and more overtly terf circles—same as any other fascist or far-right ideology). so that's why I unfollowed when I did.
during 2018-2019 I was attending grad school, which required 16-17 hours of work from me every day, and so I wasn't online very much at all—if memory serves, the 'private terf chat' thing came out somewhere in the middle of this time, and I unfollowed when I was 'back' and able to investigate / catch up to what was going on.
people are welcome to disagree with my ideas about terf recruitment and potential strategies for counter-recruitment, which I am not even sure that I'm right about but am merely trying things out as I go. it makes total sense for people to guess that I saw the writing on the wall and to view this kind of thing as affiliation, and I sincerely am sorry to anyone who felt less safe, then or now, because of my actions.
the reason that I haven't talked in depth about this before is that, like, again, it seems like spin! lmao
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Just applied to USPS because no one will fucking hire me with no professional experience despite graduating summa cum laude a year ago and I might actually kill myself within a year so weehee that’s fun go capitalism fuck everything what’s the point
I wish you knew how much this sounds like me when I got out of grad school [redacted] years ago, because… it does. The summa cum laude, the no one will hire with no experience, the thinking of killing myself because what’s the fucking point when everything sucks so bad. So I’m going to tell you what I really wish someone had told me then. (I’m sorry if this is long.)
You’re right; stuff really sucks right now. Our system sucks. The job market is a complete joke. The whole post-graduation time period when you’re trying to break into the professional world fucking blows, especially if you’ve got people in your life putting extra pressure on you. But please reconsider killing yourself and consider speaking to someone who’s able to offer you more help managing those thoughts than I can. You won’t feel like this forever, I promise, and we need you here.
I’m wishing you the best of luck with the USPS application. It may not be what you wanted or expected with your stellar academic record, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of and a good position, especially for your first experience out of school. It’s an income > $0, probably some benefits since it’s a government job, and, importantly, will give you professional experience. You’ll meet people, you’ll learn some new skills, and you’ll have a job — which is always attractive to other employers as you continue your search for whatever jobs you’re trying for. (I’m actually considering applying to USPS myself, since I got laid off last month. Seriously. It’s not a bad option.)
Your first job out of school in no way sets your career path in stone. I know it can be really fucking hard, especially as a high achiever, to see your peers getting jobs and internships and whatever opportunities when you did everything right and can’t seem to find anything. It sucks. It doubly sucks when you’re feeling pressure to start your career on the right foot, or not “fall behind,” or enjoy your life while you’re young, or not “waste” your education and potential on a job you could’ve gotten without a degree.
All of that is bullshit.
It’s okay to take whatever job you can get — retail or USPS or washing dishes or whatever — especially when you don’t have any prior experience. If it’s not what you want, keep looking for something that suits you better while you work. You’re not a failure if you don’t get a job in your field for your first one out of school. Most people don’t. Some people don’t, ever. That’s fine too.
Is taking literally anything right now going to put you “behind”? No. You can’t fall behind; timelines are garbage. Kill the idea that you are stuck or behind or will never get where you want to be because you don’t see a way of that happening from where you are right now.
Stuff changes fast — maybe not the trash fire that is capitalism itself, but the stuff closer to you. The opportunities around you. Your priorities. Your career plans and options. These shifts make so much of a difference, and it’s hard to see just how fast they can happen when you’re in that shitty space of trying to get your first professional experience out of school. You will get something, and you will start seeing these shifts happen.
Plus… especially now, people switch jobs and entire careers all the time. They get burned out. Their interests change. A random opportunity leads them somewhere they never saw coming. The industry / economy / technology changes, and they’re out of a job and need a new one. (<- That last one is the story of my fucking life, tbh.)
Maybe the classmate who got that dream job/internship right out of school discovered that it actually sucks and they need to do something else. Or somebody’s side hustle pays better than their job and suddenly they’re occupied full-time with something they never studied in school. The kid who got a “head start” on a good career with a well-paying job is laid off and begging for a retail position two years later. Someone’s dad I know who got a degree in finance ended up working as a landscaper for decades instead, then went back to school at 57 and became a nurse.
It is literally impossible to tell where your life will take you from where you’re standing right now. Hell, at this point, I’d say it’s pretty stupid for anyone to assume they know what their life and career will look like in two years. But the point is to give yourself the grace and the time to figure it out.
It may take you 5 years to be somewhere that feels better. It may take you 40. Careers in this day and age are a fucking roller coaster and anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves (and possibly had daddy paving the way for them).
Stay curious about what’s next and spite the fuckers who want you to do otherwise. What could your first job lead to? Idk, let’s find out. What could this detour or layoff lead to? Idk, let’s find out. Who cares if it’s not what you thought it would be? Maybe it could lead to something better. Let’s keep at it and find out.
You’re smart — enough to graduate summa cum laude. No professional crisis or difficulty navigating this shit job market and obscene cost of living nonsense can take that away from you. Tell anyone who tries to make you feel otherwise (including that critical voice in your head) to go fuck themselves.
I really hope you get the USPS job, or something better. Come tell me when you do. And yeah, fuck this unbridled capitalism shit — so let’s give it all the hell that we can in the meantime.
#sorry this was long anon but i'm not kidding#i had to learn this shit the hard way (and somehow survived while i did)#and i really wish someone had told me this stuff when i was that desperate depressed unemployed graduate#so i hope there's something in there that resonates#long post#asks
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Since I can't, y'know, shut my mouth, I decided it's better to make a whole ass post about this so thank you @juniperjello for asking.
Here are my Top 13 Destiel Traxx AKA Fic Recs:
And This, Your Living Kiss (M) is a GODSEND I've read this more times than I can count, I even have NerdyNerdenstein's podfic of it saved on my phone, it is that good. It stars poet! Dean relearning his love for the arts and Literature professor! Castiel, whose favorite author just so happens to be Jack Allen (AKA Dean). I also love love loved the family dynamics here, it's all so homey and cozy. The poetry in this is stunning too. Highly recommend this one!
A Thousand Lies (E) follows con artist! Dean on his latest assignment of unraveling rich businessman! Crowley's secrets by playing as his secretary, all the while juggling dates with accountant! Castiel. Except there's more to them than meets the eye, and the plot gets thicker and thicker until you find yourself stuck to your phone for more than 4 hours, hopping from one chapter to the next. Yes that's exactly what happened to me lmao I was hooked, and stories like these where the angel fam are humans are always so fun. I love spotting the parallels and whatnot.
(goldenraeofsun, author of the previous fic, has a ton of fics I highly recommend so if you vibe with their style, go check out their account! I was torn about what to put here between "The Original Apple Pie Latte", "Not the Fire, but the Spark" and this—also I'm pretty sure I have half of their works bookmarked by now 😭)
Forget-Me-Not Blues (E) has all the correct vibes of a classic early 2000s romcom. It's set in Sam and Jessica's wedding, with Dean as the former's best man and Castiel as the latter's. Oh, and did I mention they have history? A particularly roughly-broken high school love story? That they absolutely refuse to acknowledge so now the wedding prep is so full of tension it's choking everybody? Yeah... This is a good one.
An Exercise In 'Worthless' (M) is one of the first destiel fics I've ever read. At that point, I was only on S2 or S3 and had no idea what was happening or who most of the other cast was, but the vibes were immaculate and reading it again as I progressed through the show, it just kept getting better. It's got tattoo artist! Dean whose shop is set up beside Gabriel's cafe (it's called the Physical Graffitea heh). It's got grad student! Castiel attending the same uni as Sam for a niche course in dialects. It's got Dean thinking Cas is more interested than Sam (missing the heart eyes Sam and Gabe are giving each other). It's got family feels!!!!!! as these four idiots live normal, non-supernatural lives!!!!!!!
Kissing Strangers (T/E) is a happy(!!!!!) queer awakening story, wherein Castiel realizes he's not as straight as he thought when he gets kissed by Dean for a social experiment. There's actually three fics in the series, the first one covers The Kiss while the next two are insights on the progress of destiel's relationship. It's really neat, and the author—sharkfish—has a lot of fics I've been reading this past week. (They have a lot of good ace! dean and/or ace! cas fics!!!!!!!!!!)
In Due Time (Dean Winchester is Saved) (T) is not only touching as hell but also mind-blowing. 26-year-old Dean is zapped to the future by an unknown power, and what does he see? Himself, happily settled; married to an angel of the frickin' lord with a son; and his brother, still hunting. THIS FIC IS AN ABSOLUTE GEM!!!! Baby Dean interacting with Cas means So Much to me.
Broadway Musical (T) is, in my humble opinion, an absolute banger and a classic. It's got the fun, lighthearted tone of a romcom and my favorite trope of "they may all be dicks but at least there's no murder" with the angel family. It's a reimagining of the first ever Armageddon: what if, instead of being the Righteous Man himself, Dean was chosen to father the two brothers of old with Jo Harvelle, with the entire Host of angels excitedly chattering about it in heaven. Except the cupid's arrow doesn't sink in, to either Dean or Jo, and they don't fall in love. So good ol' Cas comes down to take matters into his own (awkward) hands.
Sand and Salt (E) continues off of S9 fallen angel! Castiel. The timeline is important to me for two reasons, namely: Kevin and Charlie. Destiel are highlighted at the second half but the first is just Sam, Dean, Kevin, and Charlie helping Cas settle in as a human. They go to a mall to shop and eat and bond and they are so, so precious to me.
Carnival Oasis (E) is a series as well, but it's honestly SO worth it. We have creature! Castiel who eats sin and extremely guilty! Dean who first confessed his sins to Cas as a way to gauge what the fuck he is. But then he kept coming back. They get all gooey and shit here, as they should be. Plus the reveal on Cas' background??? It made me go insane I swear.
Convenient Husbands (E) is honestly just. So good. I've reread it multiple times over the past few weeks and it never gets tiring. This one's about hunter! Dean and Garuda! Castiel forming a marriage bond... Purely for convenience, of course. I'm also obsessed with the set-up of the hunting community in this AU, they got a whole network and base and it's awesome you should definitely read it. (Annie D also has a lot of fics on AO3 that you should check out—I'm very partial to "It's Always the End of the World Somewhere"!!)
This Witch!Cas AU series is based off of probably my most favorite story prompts to ever trend in Tumblr history: it's about witch! Cas who's moved to town after his grandmother's passing. Madame Novak's will is all that everyone's talking about, as it states that Castiel needs to marry to not only inherit the estate but also to keep his magick. Gardener and shopkeeper! Dean finds this tasteless, what with everyone treating Cas like he's just some prize and not, y'know, a person. Then, Castiel makes an announcement: he ties the key to the estate to his cat's collar, and whoever gets the key may take his hand as well. Everyone scrambles to chase after the surprisingly smart feline... except for Dean, who's slowly warming up to the little guy, and the cat to him in return.
it's brighter now (G/T) is actually a series but!!! It's a babyjackverse like come on, how can you resist that? This speaks for itself and it says all you will ever need in a fic, which is BABY JACK!!!!!!!!!!
conversations between brother & sister (T) is, simply put, criminally short but perfectly encapsulated my ideal ending for Supernatural. It's two fics; the first is about Jack and Emma, and the second is about Jack and Claire. The reason this is here is because I am a firm believer that this deserves more recognition and love and we need more AUs like this. Destiel are so, so tender and sweet but the main focus is, of course, Jack's conflicting feelings. I would leave a hundred thousand kudos on this if I could.
#honestly i had a REALLY hard time picking#these are simply the ones I've gone back to time and time again#they're the perfect digestible length for me to binge between breaks and stuff#i could do a whole other post about this with actual categories and shit#this fandom is insanely huge it's easy to get lost or overwhelmed with your choices#i know i was...#spn#supernatural#destiel#deancas#spn fic#spn fic rec#supernatural fic#supernatural fanfic#supernatural fic rec#dean x cas#cas x dean#casdean#dean x castiel#dean winchester#castiel#spn dean#spn cas#castiel angel of the lord#jack kline#claire novak#spn gabriel#sam winchester
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