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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 3 years

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By the king’s hand 🐍 III

Warnings: warnings to be added as we progress but this series may contain non-consent, violence, death, and other triggers. (This chapter: oral)

This is dark!fic and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You await the king’s next move.

Note: One day off. Managed to get this done!

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

When at last you managed to look away from the likeness of the imperious king, you tried to sit. You found it hard to stay still however and instead, paced the expanse of the chamber. You stopped at the tall windows to look out onto the palace lawns, a glimpse of the city visible beyond the walls. Would you ever see the other side of them again?

You looked down at yourself as you swept away from the glass panes. The gaudy gown made you grimace and you went back to your restless strides. You rung your hands and made yourself stop, fidgeted with the thin fabric that swished around your legs, and squinted closely at the few pieces of miscellany scattered on tables; a few pens, a ring, and a bound book.

The sound of boots came muffled from the corridor and you turned as the doors shifted. The guard without pushed inward and stood back as the king swept past him. You stopped behind the sofa and watched Loki as he didn’t seem aware of your presence. A boy, about fifteen or so, followed at his heels and barely evaded the snap of the doors as they shut.

You bowed and waited for his acknowledgement. You received none as you kept your head down and followed him with strained eyes as he crossed to the set of doors painted with winding snakes. The young boy opened them and the king disappeared beyond them, though they remained ajar.

You waited, hands folded, chin lowered, and listened. The soft rustle of clothing, the ruffle of activity unseen. It was a time before the king bid away his servant.

“Go.” His voice slithered through the silence, “Fetch my dinner, boy.”

You held your breath as the adolescent emerged and swiftly crossed to the other doors. He left you there and another deathly hush rose around you, laced with anticipation and impatience. You heard soft footsteps approach the open doorway and halt upon the threshold.

“Little mouse,” the king said cloyingly, “You might stand up straight now.”

You bit down and raised your head. Your eyes met his as he smirked across at you. He wore a deep green robe embroidered with golden serpents, tied loosely at his waist to allow a glimpse of his pale torso. His silk pants were loose as finely stitched slippers poked out from beneath the hems. His crown did not top his locks as they hung loosely along his shoulders.

“Why, you do look much recovered,” he purred as he casually pushed away form the doorframe, “Better, even.” He did not come close, merely went to the table and pulled out a chair to perch. He slung a leg over the other as he bent an elbow on the tabletop. “I was, most irritatingly, called away to council.”

You were quiet. You stayed on the other side of the couch as if it were a barricade from his lingering gaze.

“Come closer,” he beckoned with two fingers, “I should like a proper look at… the gown.”

You hesitated. Your flesh, though healing, was still tender along your back. You went to him with careful steps and stopped a foot away from him. He looked you up and down. He reached out and his fingers closed around your wrist and he drew you between his legs as he uncrossed them.

His fingertips flew quickly to the beading along your bodice and he traced the curve of your side. He hummed as he peered up at you, your chest obscuring you slightly.

“Hmmm, I think I preferred you naked and chained,” he snickered. “Do you feel me still? Is the lesson still seared into your flesh, little mouse?”

Your lip curled and you swallowed. You nodded.

“Speak, when you are addressed by your king.” He demanded.

“Yes, your majesty,” you uttered, “The marks remain.”

He bunched your skirts in his hands and bared your thighs. He tickled your skin and pushed firmly to knead the muscle.

“Alas, I did send for my supper and I would not the boy happen upon my little games,” his thumb grazed the crease of your pelvis, “He is innocent and easily frightened.”

You stood, tolerant of his touch, as you felt a peculiar tingle inside. Disgust laced with something more; something you wanted to deny. His hands dropped reluctantly and he shifted in his seat.

“You will sit and eat. I understand you did little of that during your internment,” he said sharply, “I suspect it is the reason you had to be dragged out of there. That I did need to charge my staff with reviving you.”

“Must be the reason,” you muttered as you sat in the other chair across from him. You caught the gleam in his eye. “Your majesty.”

“Throughout your tenure here, thus far, I’ve a chance to learn more of the errant trespasser,” he preened, “Your uncle, Bo, he is a crafter and a merchant. You were charged with shaping clay pots for his shelf. Your little friend, Gilla, she is a baker’s daughter. I did not care much for her though.”

“Gilla…” you repeated quietly. “You…”

“I did not harm her. I only asked her some questions.”

The door opened suddenly and he sat up. The boy was accompanied by two other servants who set out wine, glasses, and plates. The flurry of activity departed as quickly as it had arrived and you were left alone once more with the king.

“She’s a talkative one but she does not say much of substance,” he mused as he took his fork, “But I still learned much.”

“Oh?” You twirled your fork anxiously.

“Nothing more than I couldn’t surmise on my own,” he shrugged, “I’ve come to realise your obstinacy.” He mused, “And let me say, that will not hold and I do look forward to testing it.”

You frowned and he bit into a morsel of pork. He chewed and swallowed emphatically.

“Oh, that look,” he pointed at you with his fork, “It assured me I am right.”

🐍

Your stomach was both happy and sore from the meal. It had been long since you had eaten much more than broth and hard bread, if anything at all. While the food was delicious, the circumstance was less than. You found it less than hospitable to be under the gaze of the king. Though he was not so intent, his eyes returned often enough to make you worry. You were wise enough to know that when the meal was over, there would be no pretense left, though you could not guess exactly at what he meant to do.

The young boy, who he called Hal, cleared the table and left another bottle of wine in his stead. Loki poured another glass for himself and glanced at the one you’d barely touched.

“I’d suggest you drink but truly it makes no difference to me,” he winked as he took a gulp of his own. “But you do seem rather… antsy.”

You said nothing and took the glass. You drank deeply and nearly spluttered. You drained the cup and placed it back on the table.

“I do not enjoy your ploys, your majesty, I would prefer you be to the point,” you said, “I am not naïve and the idea would be entirely unknown to you.”

“Ploys? To the point? I haven’t an idea of what you mean, little mouse.”

You drew your brows together and blinked. “If you long to see me squirm, I already am.”

“Oh, I do see it but I will not be done with you so quickly,” he threw back the last of his glass and set it beside your own, “Come.”

He took your head and led you to the door of his bedchamber. You had the urge to stop before you could enter but let him guide you. The black drapings of his bed, the silver sheets, and the lush pillows assured you of your fate. You knew what would come but you could not fathom the extent of his cruelty.

It was said that it hurt the first time for maidens. You suspected the pain would be worse with him. He didn’t make anything easy. He always added to any discomfort. He pleasured in it.

“Squirming, shaking, or shivering, mouse?” he wondered as he neared the bed and you trailed behind him. He tugged you onward. “Is it fear? It must be for there is no draft.”

“Stop, stop, please,” you said breathily, “Do not draw this out any further.”

He tilted his head as he turned and sat on the edge of the bed. He released you and untied his robe and lifted himself to drag the tails from under him. He tossed it away and sprawled across the mattress with a sigh. He sidled over and bent an arm behind his head. You tried to ignore the bulge in his silk pants as he rubbed the space beside him.

“I had the impression that you already slept for quite a time but… I suppose the dungeon still takes a toll,” he remarked, “Lay down, little mouse. You might put out the light before you do.”

You looked around and went to the lamp on the round table in the corner. You blew it out and the silver slats of moonlight lit your path back to the bed. You slid your slippers off before you touched the woven blanket. You lifted a knee onto the mattress and the king gripped your wrist again. He pulled you down against him in a single motion.

“I am rather tired. My day did stretch on,” he said as he nestled you against him. His other hand went down and rested over his crotch. He rubbed himself and groaned. “A good night’s sleep would do us both well.”

He retracted his hand and pulled your arm across his torso. The taut muscles of his stomach were warm against your skin and sent a tickle along your spin.

“The nights of late summer do tend to grow chilly,” he reached over and played with the embroidery of your bodice. “And I find myself restless.”

He let out a long breath and the tension left his body. You laid in silence, eyes wide as you waited for him to do something. Anything. A rumble went through his chest and made you flinch. He chuckled.

“In due time, little mouse,” he promised, “Our games are not over yet.”

🐍

You didn’t recall dozing but you awoke gently to stirring beside you. The king slipped his arm from beneath you carefully. You were surprised by his caution. The bed moved slightly as he shimmied to the other side and stood. He moved in the dark as you remained as you were.

He rounded the bed and paused. He slid his hand along your thigh, your skirts tangled in your legs. He drew away and you listened to him retreat to the bath chamber. There was the subtle swish of water and dainty activity beyond. You wanted to fall back asleep and escape the odd reality.

Then you heard more. A low groan that soon grew to laboured breaths. It went on for several minutes. You crushed your head into the pillow as you tried not to listen. A stifled grunt ended the illicit rhythm. Another sigh.

He didn’t emerge for a few more minutes. He went into the receiving chamber and you heard the other set of doors creak. Shortly, you heard the thin voice of the boy, Hal, and the king returned to let the boy dress him. You watched him by his shadow in the early morning light.

“Go to Birger and fetch the rest of the girl’s wardrobe,” he bid, “I expect that all will be put away before my return. Bring her some food when she wakes and ask Birger to help you, should you require it.” The king strode to the door and stopped again, “And make sure the guards remain on watch. She is more trouble than she seems.”

You laid still until you were certain they were gone, though Hal remained in the receiving chamber. You wouldn’t fall back asleep. You were too on edge. So you stared up at the ceiling and brushed your arm over the spot where Loki had slept beside you.

It hadn’t been at all what you expected. It was like you were holding your breath, waiting for the tension to snap the branch beneath you. Waiting for Loki to be just who you knew him to be. The king who had lashed you in the dungeon, the arrogant prince who demanded and got all that he wanted.

When you dared to rise and poked your head out into the next chamber, the boy hopped up from where he sat before the hearth. You were careful not to take long steps as the skirt threatened to bare more than you wanted.

“You don’t have to,” you waved him down, “I can tend to myself.”

“I must bring your morning meal,” he insisted. “As the king wishes.”

“The king,” you mulled as you took a seat at the table, “Is he kind to you?”

He narrowed his eyes and thought, then shrugged. “Well, I suppose he is crueler to others so yes.”

“That is hardly kindness,” you said.

“I’ve had worse masters,” Hal replied. “And less rich.”

You nodded and ran your fingernail along the tabletop. “Well then…” You tapped the wood, “Go on then.”

The boy left and you let out your breath. You hung your head and rubbed your eyes. You listened to the morning birds and the breeze in the leaves. You knew the calm would give way soon to a great storm.

🐍

After you picked at a hard-boiled egg and some rashers, Hal returned with Birgir. They carried a large chest between them and set it down heavily before a painted armoire in the bedchamber. You watched as they hung the silks, satins, and brocades. Slippers were placed along the lower shelves and a few cloaks slung alongside the numerous gowns.

Birger bid you change your outfit and you placated him if only to rid yourself of his disapproval. You dressed in a burgundy dress with a similar cut as the first. None offered much more coverage, often less, and you scowled at the thought of donning them. You tucked your feet into a pair of slippers and washed your face of the make-up that remained from the previous day.

You were once more alone and left to languish in the king’s empty chambers. You thought of the dungeon. At least that was not a farce. At least the dank, dripping depths did not try to disguise your sentence.

You pulled the curtains back from the glass doors in the bedchamber. A balcony stood without as the sun peaked. You slowly turned the curved handle and pulled them open. You stepped out tentatively and looked around. You inhaled the scent of the wind and pollen. You hadn’t been outside in so long that you were overcome with nostalgia, with longing and dread.

Would you ever know what it was to run across the grass again? To watch the rivers flow and dream of following them?

You went to the rail and looked down at the trimmed lawns and their pristine hedges and the beds of colourful buds. Birds danced along the rims of the fountain and other critters dove in and out of the maze of greenery. You leaned your elbows on the marble rail and stared down. It was far; far enough to kill.

You looked at the balcony, at the slates of the railing, at any foothold that might be found along the wall. You bent further over as you tried to spy those below and if they were close enough to land. Your thoughts ventured to escape, as risky as it might be, and you were want to laugh at your foolishness.

You felt something in your skirts, then a firm grip on your ankles. Suddenly you were tipped over the edge and you cried out as you were certain you would plummet to your death. You grabbed onto the marble slats as you we held dangling over the rail and you looked up at your accoster.

The king guffawed at your fear as you clung to the side of the balcony and slowly pulled your feet back over to the other side. His hand slid up your leg and ass and he grabbed the back of your bodice as he drew you up straight. He caught your hand before you could slap him.

“Now, now,” his hand crushed yours, “Did we not already learn this lesson?”

“You could’ve killed me!” You whined.

“I could’ve. And still could,” he smirked as he trapped you against the rail. “There is much I could do to you.”

You stared at him in disgust as he pressed his body to yours. His hand went to your chin and he framed your face with his long fingers.

“I could bend you back over this bannister and let my kingdom hear what it is I want to do to you,” he sneered. “Gods, the thought has me harder than last eve.”

He dragged his thumb over to your lips and poked inside your mouth. You resisted for a moment, until it hurt, and he pressed down on your tongue.

“If you were to be on your knees, no one should see you,” he said, “They wouldn’t know why it was you kneel before me…”

You swallowed as your stomach filled with bile. He pulled his thumb from your mouth and took a step back.

“So on your knees for your king,” he pushed apart the tails of his overcoat and lifted the bottom of his tunic as he unlaced his trousers, “I’ve been rather patient and it is not a habit I know well.”

You stared in aghast as he rubbed himself through his trousers and winced. His eyes flicked back to you and his face darkened.

“I said ‘on your knees’,” he barked, “Little mouse, you must really start obeying me or I shall have to repeat that lesson.”

You slowly bent your leg and rigidly got down to your knees. He pushed open the front of his trousers and stepped close. You stared at the ground as he pulled himself free and stroked his length. He grabbed your chin again and forced your head up. You tried not to look at his member bobbing in your vision.

“Open that trite little mouth. I will make better use of it than your bitter words,” he squeezed and you gasped at the sharp twinge it sent through your skull.

You opened your mouth and he pressed his tip to your lips. He rested it there and rubbed it back and forth teasingly. You closed your eyes and he slapped your cheek lightly with his fingers.

“No, no, keep those eyes open,” he demanded, “They look so nice staring up at me.” He slid slowly inside your mouth, “So frightened. I daresay, you look, almost, innocent.”

He pushed further in until he was at your throat. You gagged and he went deeper with a snicker. He gripped your head with one head as he thrust to his limit and your eyes welled as you struggled to breathe around him. You’d never done anything with a man more than a playful peck on the lips. You never spent very much time thinking of more.

He eased you back and you took a deep gulp of air before he invaded your throat again. The sickly noise of your spit and his member was repulsive. His eyes held yours as he moved his hips slowly and you latched onto his belt to keep from slipping.

“Little mouse, I only hope your mouth is an omen of what else you have to offer,” he purred as he rocked his pelvis, “A delight…”

Each thrust felt deeper than the last, harder, faster. His groans rose in the warm air as he was encouraged by his own voice. He grew louder as your eyes threatened to roll back and his face contorted in his pleasure. He kept a hand on your jaw and the other on the back of your head as he used your mouth.

You were dizzy as his intrusion felt as if it would never end. He threw his head back and you dared to close your eyes as your mouth turned salty. His voice rose louder and louder and filled your head. He dipped down your throat and his motion staggered. He gripped you tightly and moaned as he emptied himself down your throat.

He grunted with his few final jerks and pulled out sharply. He released you just as quickly and you fell to the side as he backed away and panted. You coughed his seed up onto the stone as he watched you. You could feel his shadow as he neared and you looked up as he cradled his glistening member.

“You’ve made such a mess, little mouse,” he reproached, “I shall forgive it this time, but the next, you won’t muddy my floors so.”

You choked as you sat back on your heels and stared at him with wet eyes. Your throat ached horribly and your head still spun.

“Go on, clean me up, darling,” he looked down at his cock in his hand. “I suspect I am late already.”

You shoved your repulsion down and neared him on your knees. He angled his tip back to your lips and you took him again in your mouth. You pressed your tongue to his member and slowly pulled back as you lapped up the last of his cum. He guided you up and down a few times and relented once more.

He parted from you again, content, and tucked himself away in his trousers. As he laced himself up, he cleared his throat.

“Well, little mouse, I will say, I’ve done little for my patience,” he chuckled, “I do suggest you might have some wine before I return again… it is said to dull the pain.” He neatened his tunic and overcoat and ran his fingers through his hair. “And I promise, there will be a lot of pain.

#loki #loki x reader #king!loki #fic #series #by the king's hand #medieval au #medieval #medieval!au #au #dark fic #dark!fic #mcu #marvel #dark!loki

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rouiyan · 3 years

Text

𝘗𝘜𝘓𝘓 𝘔𝘌 𝘜𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 [ 𝘯.𝘫𝘮 ]

⧏ jaemin’s installment of the undone at twenty-one collective ⧐

synopsis: one estranged at the hands of love and the other tethered to his reputation. it's no wonder they find solace within each other.

✧ bartender!na jaemin x (fem.) reader (ft. ex!mark) ✧ college au, almost fwb au

✧ genres : fluff, angst, slight comedy ✧ word count : 15.5k ✧ disclaimers : swearing, alcohol consumption, insecurities, anxiety attacks, mentions of sex (no explicit smut, as per usual)

✧ author’s note — i'm so sorry to do this to you guys on a weekly, i swear, dropping double digit k fics is not normal and has definitely fucked with my sleep schedule ++ i hit 127 followers on thursday! for a total of four minutes but it was cool while it lasted! thank you!

maybe it all started when na jaemin got the job at the bar. it certainly didn't suit him, not the sweet boy he was, keyword on 'was.' he'd taken a course on bartending over the summer between senior year high school and his first year of college, just for fun until he realized he could actually use his license to get a job that paid slightly above minimum wage. maybe, it all started when he'd seen a classmate at the bar, a pretty girl at that, who'd smiled in a way that could only be classified as flirtatiously. maybe that's what had jaemin winking back, for the first time in his life. maybe that's what got him laid later that night. and maybe that's how he started to identify as more of a fuckboy than a heartthrob. it was a far out though new feeling, he thought. high school jaemin could never, he thought.

but maybe it all started to come to an end when you walked into the bar for the fourth time that week, eyes rimmed red and breath already tinged with alcohol. you ordered a draft beer from him, something light to keep you slightly buzzed but not completely knocked out. the hands of the clock were nearing two in the morning and the bar, especially the area of the counter he was tending, was beginning to empty out. jaemin struck conversation once you were the only one left and seven minutes before his shift ended.

he realizes, again, that you have zero recollection of him though he'd also struck conversation for the three nights before.

"how was your day, miss?"

you look up, head propped on your right hand, hand propped up with your elbow. "me?" slightly wary, you sit upright in front of the guy behind the counter. his smile never falters when he nods. you blink twice before remembering to respond, "i- no, i mean, today was okay," you slouch back into yourself, "a little less than okay, actually." the bartender's eyes widen in consideration, remembering that you had stopped at just 'okay' for the past days he'd asked you. he takes from this to offer politely, "do you mind if i ask what happened?"

your eyes are focused on the sink behind him, distractedly. almost forgetting to reply, you gather your thoughts by clearing your throat and pondering for a few moments before beginning to speak, hesitantly, "well it's like when you just know something bad's gonna happen, and you know for awhile. then it does happen and you don't get to be surprised or shocked because you already knew. so all you're left to feel is just," you heave a sigh, "sadness, or maybe even regret."

the metal nametag pinned to his chest glints in the lights above as he moves forward to place his elbows on the counter, leaning casually. you notice it to spell out 'jaemin' and a part of your subconsciousness is trying to make you remember that you know this guy. you know him from school, from rumors, from your gossiping friends, you know him from the bar even. but all you're able to process is that he is one hell of a good-looking specimen.

jaemin's eyes glint in the light as well when he poorly guesses, "did bad on a test? late homework assignment?" laughing and completely missing the fact that this 'stranger' had correctly assumed you to be a college student, you shake your head, "if it were either of those, i'd be awfully dramatic for coming to a bar and drinking my days away instead of studying." he's laughing as well and you can't help but think that his smile, straight pearly whites and all, is probably the most welcoming sight your eyes have laid upon the whole day. picking the conversation back up, you decide that it probably wouldn't do much harm to indulge jaemin in the latest and breaking news of your life. "actually, i was dumped today."

he sucks in a long breath in understanding, licking his lips, "so, a bad breakup. those aren't too fun." agreeing, you shake your head. the atmosphere is good-natured when you quip, "would it be worse to say that it was the eighth time too?" jaemin's brows shoot up in surprise and he pushes himself off his elbows, shifting his weight onto his hands. "eighth? as in eighth breakup or eighth time you've been dumped?" a chuckle escapes your complexion, giving way to how vulnerable you were feeling, vulnerable to a laughable extent. your eyes are cast downward when you respond, "the second."

jaemin pries in a way that doesn't seem like prying, you wonder how he does so. "care to share?" it's possible his range of bartender-ly duties extends to the likes of a therapist, "i mean, i don't see why not." you quirk your lips, the only thought coursing through your mind consisting of how the bridge of his nose was so carefully structured and how oversharing with this man didn't seem so much of a bad idea. you were, after all, far too caught up in your drunken stupor to think anything otherwise.

"let's see, i was ghosted by my first boyfriend in ninth grade, cheated on by my second, figured out that my third was only dating me for a bet, fourth just straight up stopped liking me, fifth lied to me about his age, objectified by my sixth, thought i was dating my seventh but turns out he forgot he asked me out, and my eighth...well, that one's a bit different."

he's back on his elbows, in intriguement and also due to the new song that began to play from the speakers above, louder than the last, "how so?" you're afraid the feelings are going to pour back within your forefront thoughts so you keep your answer short, "we dated for two years."

"and?"

you're quiet for a few moments. those moments are taken to mull over the exact reasonings behind your shitty day, almost as if you had forgotten. blinking slowly, the dryness of your contact lenses becoming apparent, you respond hesitantly, "and, he said he didn't see a future with me. that i could only ever be his first love."

jaemin seems to mull over this as well, "and did you see a future with him?"

you haven't looked up at him in a while, instead, focusing your sights on the way you've let your acrylics grow out far too long, how the skin around your nails is peeling, and how your palms are also creased with dry lines. using the same hand to lift the bottle from its handle, you toss the rest of its contents down your throat, swallowing in one motion. setting it back down, tongue grazing over your lips to catch the spilt extras, you look jaemin in the eye.

"yeah," you move to collect your things, "i guess i did." you pay. you take your leave.

he sees you again the following day, for the fifth time in that single week and he's led to wonder if there is a reason you seem frequent this one bar. the atmosphere possibly, the customer service maybe, or even him, though he's doubtful.

this time you're accompanied by two friends, one he knows to be jeno's best friend, eunmi, and the other, the crush of that same friend, jaein. jaemin's known eunmi for as long as jeno has, since the beginning of high school. jaemin also knows that eunmi, as of the late, doesn't like himself all that much. he figures it has something to do with the bit of a reputation his name now carries.

jaemin thinks the girls are by your side for emotional support. perhaps, today proved even shittier than yesterday, but he's thwarted a few moments after when the three of you seem to be lost in the depths of interesting conversation, light-hearted laughter, and glasses that can't seem to fill themselves as fast as they empty into your stomachs, except for jaein, that is, but especially for you.

it's 12:48 in the morning when he's thrown off guard for the first time that night, in the midst of whipping up a whiskey for the grumpy man down the counter, eunmi falls asleep, literal in the sense that she really does fall and would've completely sagged into the ground if the table had not been in gravity's way. jaemin watches as jaein lifts the poor girl's head off the surface, revealing an angry red splotch, and transfers eunmi's weight onto her lap.

he's thrown off guard for a second time at 1:22, watching you stand straight from your seat, swaying a tad bit, but brows creased in strong will and determination. you're walking towards him, steps that would be quick if only you were even mildly aware of sidestepping the paths of others. you pant as you reach the table, head feeling a little too hot and too heavy to aid in clear thinking. squinting at him, though you were but a few feet away, "your name. what's your name again?"

jaemin repeats the actions you'd done yesterday, slightly wary in expression and checking his posture, "me?" you don't reply but continue to scrutinize the way he looks. he supposes that's just as much of an answer, "it's jaemin, i believe we talked yesterday." your mouth parts in recognition and moves as if to form a word or two in response. jaemin watches as it opens and closes again and, even after much deliberation, the only thing you can find to say is, "well, you're fucking hot."

"oh-"

"shit, didn't mean to say that aloud." your lips smack in embarrassment, shifting your weight to your left foot. your mind is yelling at you to sober up, to save your face.

a smile adorns the man's features as he bemusedly remarks, "i'm sure you didn't." there's a silence that hangs between the two of you, and you're on the cusp of excusing yourself from further embarrassment when jaemin blurts out, "if it helps, i think you're fucking hot too." it might just be the alcohol in your system that's making the heat rise in your countenance but you swear you blush, and you never blush!

fingering the lobe of your right ear, you fumble with your thoughts until settling on a quiet, "thanks." jaemin busies himself with swiping a rag across the counter, unaware of the awkwardness on your end. looking up, he offers, "would you like a drink?" nodding, you take a seat at the bar in front of him, eyes slipping back to the girls for a split second, only to see jaein on her phone and eunmi still asleep. returning your sights, you're met with a slight humor traced in jaemin's expression, "what?"

he lets out the smallest of chuckles, mouth moving but lacking words, sentences starting but never ending, until he finally makes himself clear. "you- would you mind ordering a drink then?" your hand comes up, as if you had a point to make, but returns into your lap as you realize you'd never elaborated. "oh," your hand resurfaces to massage your temples, "same as yesterday then."

jaemin doubts you even remembered what you'd gotten yesterday but goes on to fill a bottle of beer from the kegs behind him. you're staring at his back in wonderment at how lackluster in...social interactions you'd become, how lackluster in flirting you were. you guess two years of being cuffed would render anyone a little rusty. hell, it wasn't as if you were keen on flirting with every hot guy you saw but jaemin, not that you remember much, gave off the right feeling after a wrong relationship. that was surely a green light, right?

"here," he slides it across the counter with a wink, entirely out of habit. you wince at that, "ew no, don't do that around me, i'm not one of your fuckbuddies." retying his black waist apron, he replies with a, "right, you're not." he pulls a neat bow in place and sets his hands back on the counter, there's a lilt to his voice when he speaks, "but, if you ever feel like you need-"

you wave him off, "i'm good, thanks for the offer though."

he watches you chug the draft beer. nodding, he replies under his breath, more to himself than anything, "i see." you finish the bottle in no time but it looks as if you were to vomit, or pass out, or maybe even black out, or all three at once. jaemin really does not mean to spur your flirtatious gene as much as his own but seeing you like this he offers, "it's on the house." you're definitely surprised for a good half of a second but in the other half, you drunkenly lean across the table, so far so that jaemin's nose is but a few inches away from yours.

something in jaemin stirs. the stench of your breath, your hardened eyes, the delicate lines of your lips. jaemin finds that it isn't lust that rumbles beneath his carefully built expression. and though it might as well be some form of pity, he doesn't hesitate to take your phone from you when you ask, "can i have your number?" he doesn't mind the smile that graces your face as you take your phone back, as you turn around to head back with your friends, not even in the right mind to say a goodbye, and even as you exclaim, rather loudly, to jaein, "i got his number," a smile of his own is quick to light up his face. but na jaemin hides his silly smile and even himself a little later when jeno appears to drive the three of you home. he even goes so far as to hide the smile and the meanings behind the smile from himself, afraid that he'd uncover something that was very un-bartender-ly of him to feel for a customer. at least, that's what happens before he ends his shift.

when you first wake up, it's at the sound of the door of your room clicking shut. jaein, you suppose, you'll thank her later. the ceiling is oddly comforting after a week that just didn’t start well, go well, end well. love isn’t your forte, loving yourself, loving others, anything to do with love. you supposed that getting dumped the seventh time would have made that quite obvious but you just had to throw yourself out there again, just to make sure. you fall once again to sleep that night with nothing on your mind other than the thought that you might as well be single for the rest of your life.

but you wake up in the love, not of a lover per se, but of a best friend. the post-it note on your bedside reads, text me when you wake up!, and the smile that lifts your face is instantaneous. jaein has never failed to care for you, despite being almost a year younger, and in that way and many others, you feel indebted to her.

you fail to recall any of the events of the night prior, though if anything horrendous happened you knew jaein would be more delighted to share. you stumble across your phone somewhere in the sheets after searching aimlessly and you decide that making a call would perhaps be more thoughtful than a measly text. but as you scroll through the names in your phone, upset that you didn't have jaein's contact pinned in your favorites, you stop, well, your heart stops because right below her contact is listed na jaemin.

you are two thoughts away from crossing over to tap the shoulder of the girl a little ways in front of you, her silhouette a great deal similar to jaein's, when a hand is placed on your own shoulder. you don't have a chance to turn and see who it is because that hand has traveled a little ways across your front, latching from one shoulder to another and bringing your body flush with his. you tilt your head to get a glance, only to find jaemin smiling down at you, the strobe lights glaring a brief red across his features. "been avoiding me?"

yeah no shit you've been avoiding him, suddenly nowhere to be found at the bar you used to appear at every single day of the week. and though the two of you attended the same college, you made extra sure to-

"jeno told me eunmi asked him for my lecture schedule for you, wonder why." a smirk grazes his lips, playfully. he’s grinding on your ass now, slow compared to the music blasting from overhead. taking your shoulder in his hands, he spins you to face him, "why are you avoiding me? tell me." jaemin places a hand on the curve of your neck, brings you closer to him, either so that he could hear your response better or because of whatever lust was running through his eyes. somehow, even with the minuscule amount of alcohol in your system, you can’t bring yourself to mind that he’s looking at you like some starved animal.

"what do you want, jaemin?" he doesn't hesitate to show you, a lazy kissed pressed to your lips before leaning in towards your ear, "i want you in my bed."

no objections are made when the arm around your shoulder tightens its hold, so as not to loose you in such a crowd. nothing is said in opposition when he ushers you towards the stairwell, brushing past people left and right. no sign of reluctance is apparent when you cross the threshold of his room, shutting the door behind you. and not a trace of hesitance is found as you find a spot beside the man who's already placing a strand of wide kisses onto your neck.

"what'd you say about not being one of my fuckbuddies the other day?"

"well," you hastily move to straddle him, allowing him to a wider expanse of your chest, "i was drunk, fuck whatever i said." you lean back for the slightest of seconds to catch his expression, lust lined his eyes. certainly, you felt like one of his fuckbuddies now but maybe this is what you need, a distraction. just one thing in your life, one time, one moment in time where it wasn't so frustratingly shoved up in your face that your world, your one love, hadn't been torn down right before your eyes. maybe kissing jaemin with such raw desire would finally give you the reigns over your goddamned emotions. his lips on your collarbone, tracing down slower and slower onto your breasts, his hands guiding you lower and lower into his bed, it felt exhilarating. in that one second, when his fingers moved to the hem of your dress, eyes shifting to meet yours in question, you nod fervently because really, you want to let him in, you feel safe letting him in.

but it only lasts for that one second because the door is burst open in the next, and a tipsy man and a wasted woman are storming on inside, eyes raking the place until they land on you and yours land on theirs, on his. mark lee. it's mark lee's eyes and as you take in the sight of the rest of him, the familiar him, and the girl by his side, suddenly nothing has ever felt more wrong. jaemin's lips, his hard on pressing against your core, nothing has ever felt more wrong when mark lee is staring right at you. why is it that you feel like you've cheated on him?

he leaves, pulling the woman behind him.

the party is alive, it's at its height, it's roaring and it's ravaging fun. the party is in full swing yet, for once, you're not partaking in it. "are you okay? do you need some water?" you lick your lips and decide, "some water would be nice, thank you." jaemin leaves the room, door clicking shut behind him and signaling your immediate breakdown.

a shudder passes your lips, reverberates down your spine, curls your toes. you draw into yourself, bringing with you jaemin's blankets on which you were sat. there is nothing more that leaks from your countenance than bouts of undisturbed anxiety that you let wrack your walls of understanding and awareness. you don't bother to fight back with distractions, no alcohol this time, no quick fucks, nothing to ease the weight that settles in your gut, presses down your heart and blurs the visions of jaemin's room.

he returns in seven minutes, promptly enough, for you're just about to wither in the confines of loneliness. the blankets are pulled taut around your figure and your head is in between your knees, mind flitting between images of mark and images of the darkness that threatens to envelop you whole. jaemin places the cup of warm water on the nightstand and dips the bed to your right though you barely register his presence until his hand begins kneading lines down your back.

the feeling returns. the one you know all too well by now. the one where the skin on your forehead feels too tight from being scrunched in frustration for too long, when your brain feels like it doesn't belong in your skull, when you feel ruptures in your heart, aches in your soul, as if you were to combust if you so much as moved in the slightest. your ragged breaths echo in your head, over and over, as if to remind you that you aren't okay, that nothing is real, that the only thing keeping you alive are your breaths, the only thing between life and death.

your breaths are also what grounds you, focusing on the in and out, the way the air fills your lungs, the way it exits. your hands begin to mellow their shake and you begin to gain some semblance of your being. you feel that jaemin is all around you. he's everything you smell, his breaths are all you hear, his lean body and arms are all you feel, and though you can't see him, you know he's there.

he's there when you turn in his embrace, looking up at him with eyes that tell age-long tales of hurt from delivering too much passion whilst receiving near to none. he's there when you wrap your arms around him, head tucking into his chest. he's there when your breaths even and he's there when you tell him you can't fall asleep.

jaemin hands you a set of his clothes, a light shirt and sweatpants, and ushers you gently into the bathroom. you change without looking in the mirror, afraid of what you'll see. he tugs you by the hand, once you're out, to the car. you only question him thirty minutes into the ride, "where are we going?"

he doesn't quite answer you, "if i'm right, we should be just in time." scrunching your nose in the darkness, "just in time for…?"

it's then that he turns into a dim parking lot and suddenly everything becomes clear when the wide screen comes into view, "jaemin...you 50's romanticist." the time is almost four in the morning, you didn't know the local drive-in theater had screenings that early and you're surprised that the man in the driver's seat knows. he offers you a hand and you take it, absentmindedly.

the movie is interesting enough to keep your begrudging thoughts away until an hour or so passes and you're beginning to teeter from exhaustion. before you have a chance to pass out, jaemin gives your fingers a little squeeze, alerting you, and then slowly tugging you over the middle console of his car and into his lap while lowering his seat. again, you comply absentmindedly, you're in no mindset to be complaining.

straddling him for the second time that night, you sigh into his chest. your eyes are fluttering closed when you begin to trace back the moments that brought you to this mess in the first place, the events that led to you in na jaemin's lap, the boy renowned in bed. you're a conscious thought away from voicing aloud your hatred of love. fucking love.

the prospect of love is addicting to you, like a drug in many more ways than one. you want to get lost in someone's eyes, you want to swim in the embrace of your other half, you want to be able to romanticize every aspect of your life, to be able to attribute your everything to one single person who would do the exact same for you. you can't part with the thought that love isn't for you.

and you know that there really are people who live just fine being single, people who don't feel the need to share their every joy and letdown with a special someone, people who feel enough just being in their own company. you know that yet, you're fully convinced you just aren't one of those people. because no matter how hard you want to say that getting left in the dust for the eighth time became the turning point in this endless chase, you can't see yourself ever stopping. there is not a single part of you that wishes to stop.

your breaths are shallow and brimmed with sobs as you drift into rest. above all that's been said, the least you can admit is that love is only a feeling. just like any other.

✧ ONE (01) YEAR AGO

"mark, what the fuck, we never go on actual dates." you complain, though you really don't mind all that much. the car pulls into a parking spot in front of the library, "and who's to say study dates aren't actual dates?" he opens the door for you and you roll your eyes graciously.

the two of you take your usual spots, the two at the end of the long row in the central area. it's halfway secluded, one side shoved against the wall, but still enough in the open to keep you guys from entirely ditching school work and talking until shushed by a librarian.

he's about to say something when a librarian appears just around the corner, pushing a cart of books. so instead, mark takes a piece of lined paper from his notebook, gently ripping it at the edge, taking his pen out and writing a line and passing the note to you. i'll take you somewhere nice next time. sorry babe, i just happened to have a lot of work today.

you press your lips together, eyeing the man that was eyeing you back, okay, my love. you pass it back, shooting him the most playful of smiles. he writes quickly and when he slides the paper back to you, you read his words quickly. sure thing, my world.

you giggle, the sound eliciting a glare from the stressed schoolmate beside you. quickly you jot down the words you've been wanting to say to him. fine by me, my future. you shuffle the paper towards the man across from you, unwilling to hide yet another smile that spreads across your face. you watch as mark takes the paper in his hands, skims the words you've carefully penned and then, he puts it away, tucks it into the front of his backpack. you smile fondly at him for safekeeping the paper, thinking he'd want to keep it as a little memento, a token of your love for him.

perhaps you should've thought a little more about it, the action, because in that moment it never occurred to you that he only put it away because he didn't want to respond, he had nothing in his heart that he could say to top that, and he most certainly did not see you as anything more, much less his future.

that lined piece of paper has long been discarded by now, in the most literal and figurative sense. mark could chalk it up to the possibility that it was just the right person at the wrong time but he knows there's absolutely nothing wrong with the time. college was going to zip by quickly for the two of you, you guys could move in together maybe, tell each other about your new jobs, every pay raise you got, and when you guys begin to settle down, a house would be bought and a ring would be proposed, and kids and old age would follow. somehow, mark can't help but acknowledge the fact that it simply was the wrong person at the right time. deep down, he knows it's always been that way for him. not for you. and he could only hope to turn back time and tell you a little sooner, maybe lessen the pain he knew he was to eventually inflict upon you. two years was two years too long. mark’s a nice guy and the weight of being your eighth breakup had a tough hold on him, it really did.

✧ PRESENT

you lift your feet up onto the other side of the booth, back against the window and your arrangement of your textbooks and computer to your left. jaein, studious as ever, looks up at you for a brief moment, "break? already?"

it's only been thirty minutes since the two of you arrived with the set intentions to study. "yup, already." you sigh, with everything going on, it's hard to pay attention to just one thing. especially something that seems so insignificant in the whole scheme of things. "y/n, are you getting enough sleep these days?"

you look over at her, her hair swept into a small ponytail, eyes holding the stars. jaein had her own fair share of problems, especially when it came to boys, but she never halted to care for herself. you wish you could be like her. "enough, yeah i'm getting enough." she puts down her pen, wrinkling her nose, "well then, make sure to get more than enough, yeah?" you only nod in response.

jaein's eyes rome until they settle upon a girl a few tables down, also studying. she cocks her head in inquisition, "hey, isn't that minyoung?" you wait for jaein to look away before you take a peek behind you, not wanting to seem conspicuous. you know her, you share some of your professors with her, you see her almost everyday, but you've never been riled up by just her presence being in the same room as yours. you look back at jaein, "yeah, that's minyoung."

"minyoung as in the girl that jaemin's datin-"

"they're not dating," you intercept. sighing in distaste, you follow up to cover your evident aversion of the girl, "just fucking around." jaein only nods, eyes wide in worry.

a few minutes pass and you're already sinking back into your workload when she speaks, "does it bother you? that they- they're fucking around?" now, you're sinking into yourself because you really have no idea what you're supposed to be feeling, how you're supposed to be feeling, or even if you're supposed to be feeling anything for this boy who you know little to nothing about.

but you guess it's because of what you do know about him that throws you off. na jaemin, the campus fuckboy, heart throb, and whatever other name that makes his image sound as vile as it is enticing. in some other universe, you're sure to have already let him eat you out over the course of the few weeks you've known him but somehow, you're glad that you reside in the universe where your head seems to be more securely fastened above your heart. you lick your lips in consideration but nothing comes to mind.

it's frustrating because as much as you hate to admit it, na jaemin makes you feel something. he stirs up something within you, something that hasn't been there in a long time. maybe not since your first crush or when mark first asked you out or even in the heights of your relationship with him when you felt like you could feel nothing more than love for the wretched boy.

you tell her, "it bothers me. it shouldn't, but it does." because though you don't know why. why you're feeling so strongly, or feeling at all, for a man so far from what you need after the end of a long-winded and committed relationship. you don't know why you even care, if anything, him fucking around with a handful of girls served even more as a sign for you to just stay away. getting invested in his small, thoughtful actions and his intense, loving stares is just asking for a ninth breakup. you don't know why but the idea of him being in bed with another girl, bothers you. it shouldn't, but it does.

jaemin isn't ever invited to these types of outings. usually, on a weeks basis, he's invited to quite the number of houses instead. houses of girls and houses that housed parties. never a restaurant, and never in the middle of the day. jeno had let that he was invited because eunmi had some 'investigation' to do, so naturally, he'd expect you to be there as well. turns out this investigation was set up for himself only, seeing as he was now sitting at the far edge of the table, to the left of renjun, whom he had never personally met, and across eunmi, who seems to spend most the time scrutinizing him instead of eating.

the purpose of his presence is made clear as eunmi sits up straight, gaze still fixed on him, and asks straight to the point, "what do you want with y/n?"

jaemin places his fork down calmly but his voice is anything but that, surprised, "i- what do i- what do you mean?" his hands are folded in his lap now, he wonders if this was the reason you didn't come, he wonders if eunmi asked him to come just to interrogate him in front of all your friends. she's still staring at him and though he's taller, he feels a great deal smaller when everyone's eyes are turned to him. hell, even jeno stopped ogling at jaein to give his attention to the scene on the other side of him.

he clears his throat and reiterates, now with a sense of the atmosphere, "what do you mean?" jaemin blinks rapidly as eunmi heaves a sigh, placing two folded hands on the table and pushing her point to light, "why are you messing with her? you wanna fuck her? you know she's off limits for you." jaemin asks the two question he knows he'll end up regretting, he can't help the spite that curls at the edge of his mind for the girl who so fervently despises him, "why is she off limits for me, huh? got something against me?"

"yeah, yeah i do. you go around sleeping with every other girl you see, you, jaemin, you are the last thing she needs right now."

"who are you to decide what she needs-"

"i'm just looking out for her, okay? and, shit, i know she has every right to, i don't know, fuck around with you too, but i can't sit here and watch as she falls for someone that doesn't give two shits about how she feels."

jaemin finds that he has nothing to say. the words echo around in his head, fall for someone, fall for him. he stares down at his food, takes a sip of his water, wipes his clammy hands on a napkin. when he looks up again, eunmi's expression is a tenfold softer than it was before.

"i'm sorry, jaem. it's just- i don't trust you anymore. you've changed a lot since, since…high school." jaemin only nods.

revolutions are held within him as he drives home that day. jaemin notes that the feelings are nothing new, he thinks it has something to do with the little churns in his stomach on the fifth night of your week of 'get drunk, get wasted.' he doesn't bother to suppress the feelings this time, it's been too long, he thinks.

it's been too long since he's liked someone for who they really are instead of just their pussy, he thinks. he, and his loving self, welcomes the feeling with open arms. it's been years since the giddy persona of a lovesick jaemin resurfaced. he's glad it's because of you.

"jaemin, hey, do you need anything?" you remove your eyes from your computer screen for the first time in a few hours, you barely register the strain when his voice is quick to respond from the other end of the line, "can you come down? i'm outside, got a lil something for you." eyes almost ejecting out of their sockets, you quickly mutter a, "sure, i'll be down in two," before hanging up, slamming your computer shut, throwing on a hoodie over your lazy study-day outfit, and grabbing your keys after almost forgetting them entirely.

straightening down the stray strands of your hair as you tread down the steps of the stairwell, you take a minute to breathe, a minute to yourself, before exiting the building. the sky is dark, the time being a little after dinner, but the lamplight that falls onto the man's face makes your heart swoon at the sight. dangerous territory.

"hey," you voice as he meets you in the middle. "what are you-"

"here," he holds out a teddy bear, medium in size, brown and fuzzy. you take it from him graciously and he tucks his hands into his jeans pocket, "i was just-i just thought that you'd...yeah." chuckling, you notice the hues of warmth rise in his cheeks. "wow, didn't think you were one to blush." he's laughing as well, from the embarrassment, hand coming up to cover his cheeks, to cover his smile, his stupid smile.

his smile never falters when he asks, "may i ask you something?" you nod, unassumingly.

"can i take you out on a date? next week maybe?"

breathless and eyes sparkling, you look up at him as if he were the one who put the sparkles in your eyes. he really was. now, it's you that blushes, hands coming up to cover your own cheeks, "yeah, i'd- i would like that." you almost want to coo at him when you see the relief that washes over his expression.

"you would?"

"yes, jaemin," you give a breathy laugh, "i'd like that very much."

fucking love. that one stupid feeling that could get you so emotionally intoxicated in ways no substance ever could. the kind of love that made you want to scream into the void, to exclaim your sheer and utter elatedness to the world. fucking love that you could never not chase, especially if it was jaemin.

mark never took pictures of you. not that you expected him to by default, he just never did. jaemin, however, shows up right outside your dorms, a camera hanging down from his neck. you can't say it doesn't charm your heart.

"what's that for?" you eye the camera as you slip into the passenger seat. you already know, you just love it when he says, "for you, of course." his hand holds yours as he drives and it stays that way until the two of you arrive.

the botanical gardens are, for the most part, empty on the weekdays, working wonderfully in your favor as jaemin leads you, also by the hand, through the forests of greenery, the air so crisp that it fills your mind with clarity after a week of muddled studying. jaemin compares you to the likes of several flowers, all of which he implores for you to pose next to for a picture. he especially finds the daphne odora, the winter flowering of daphnes, to hold the highest esteem in regards to you. you have not the slightest idea why.

the two of you are strolling under the glass-covered conservatory when light conversation turns heavy. confusion lines your face as you look over at him, "jaem?"

"yes?" he takes an extra step or two to match your pace. you stare at his feet as you speak, "what's...what's different about me?"

"what do you mean by that?" hesitance sits in your every word, "you don't treat me like...one of them, like one of you're fuckbuddies."

"because you're not," he replies simply. in all honesty, there's something you're looking for, something you just need to know, though you are lost in how to phrase it. shaking your head a bit, to wrack the insides for an answer, you end up regurgitating the same question, "yeah but, what makes me different?"

jaemin doesn't seem to mind and answers to his best ability, "well, for one, we're not fucking. and then there's the fact that i- that…" he trails off, the words are right there at the tip of his tongue, waiting to jump out at you, to allow you to revel in his love. he doesn't dare voice them aloud, the threat of rejection is stemming and rooting itself in his bloodstream. unaware, you urge him on, "that…"

your date is lost in thought, eyes seeming to be particularly interested in a bloom of camellias. you suppose they're plenty interesting but you wonder how he'd lost the interest in speaking with you so quickly. was it something that you said? maybe asking him so upfront like that wasn't the best choice. jaemin, meanwhile, is panicking. sure, the camellias look beautiful but the millions of thoughts that course through his mind are each occupying too much space for his mouth to actually form a string of words that make coherent sense.

jaemin finally, finally settles on something to say, just as the two of you are rounding upon the exit. he subtly wishes he'd gotten a picture of you by the camellias. turning his sights back in your direction, he verbalizes, "are you going home for winter break?"

lips pursed, you shake your head, "no, i was just planning on staying at school-"

"do you wanna come with me? back home?"

you stop in your tracks. jaemin walks on until the hand that's carrying yours is tugged to a stop. he looks back at you and sees the way you gulp, the way you refuse to return his gaze. he makes his way back to you, closing the distance he's created. jaemin is a few seconds, a few thoughts, away from recollecting his propositions with a 'nevermind' and a quick brush of a hand but you beat him to it, voice small, but instead of hesitance, it's laced in full conviction.

"yeah okay, i can do that."

it isn't until you're back in your dorms later that night, going over a couple of review sheets for your upcoming exam, that you think to do a little research. a new tab is opened, a few words are typed, and you're floored with what you're met with.

the daphne odora (winter daphne), where 'odora' is latin for fragrant, is most noted, though not often, to be a symbol of doting love, as if to say 'i would not have you otherwise." it flowers in the winter and is primarily prone to wilting in hard soil and low sunlight…

✧ SIX (06) MONTHS AGO

mark's parents give you a once-over before letting you in. just the way they look at you speaks volumes. you can only hope they don't treat you any different. for some reason, his house feels cold, unpleasant, unwelcoming. and though you thought any homemade meal should bring about a sense of warmth, dinner is passed in tight-lipped smiles and the worst type of small talk, small talk about the weather.

retreating into his room after dinner, you decide to bring to light your worries, "mark, i don't think they really-" evident, he's already two steps ahead of you, "it's fine, y/n, they just haven't seen me date someone in awhile."

treading carefully over to his bed and placing a knee upon the sheets, you offer, "so...overly critical?"

he gives you a look, one that opposes your quavering brows and reverts your worries, "exactly."

"right," you huff a sigh of relief, as far as you know, you're convinced but the underlying layer of disbelief still holds true, "i'm gonna go get changed, okay?" you hear a mumbled, "okay" in response as you reopen the door, sights already on the bathroom at the end of the hall. it's when you're at the top of the stairwell, just before your destination, that you hear the conversation from down below, his parents you suppose.

"i'm just saying we shouldn't take this too seriously," by the pitch, you tell it's mark's mom. you move for the bathroom, uninterested, until his dad speaks up as well, "i know, especially with how she looks, exactly like her don't you think?"

"it's the eyes, they have the same eyes," your hand, just above the doorknob, is held in place. your face, expressions of the shock and concern that comes with the revelation, is unmoved. and your breath is no longer coursing air through your lungs.

"mark must still be really hung up on her if he's stuck with that replacement for so long," your hands being to shake and you're afraid that whimpers will arise in their wake, you make haste into the room, closing the door after enduring one last sentence. his mom chuckles, "poor soul, i hope he tells her soon."

you can't find the light switch but you're trembling fingers are quick to latch onto what you assume to be the shower dial, turning on the water to mask your loud sobs. you lock the door behind you, sliding down the back of it while letting out the briniest of tears. the rubber bathroom mat underneath you squeaks and your feet hit the vanity across from you. hands in your hair you can only pull at the strands, the strings of curse words and pain that emit from your figure more mental than physical.

you've never wondered what it would be like to be filed under 'replacement,' or to have a spot in someone's life as merely a disposable placeholder, someone whose presence was dictated solely by how well you satisfied the other's needs for closure, or lack thereof. now you're wondering if that is really all there is to love, satisfying each other's self-serving desires. you wonder if mark served some sort of purpose to you. but you could not, for the life of you, think of one. never in your life as now have you wanted so badly to see the good in a person you swore to love for perhaps the rest of your life.

you want to look him in the eye and tell him that you can't take it anymore, the disrespect, the mistreatment. maybe you could be dramatic and throw a hand across his face, a cup of water to douse his senses. you'd think that a man so kind would be the epitome of committed lover, never one to be agenda-oriented, not that the mark you now pictured was some scheming wretch, but you had to keep in mind that even going as far back as when he first laid his eyes on you, the interest you saw in them was in reality just familiarity. somewhere in you, something about you, maybe not even your looks, resonated with the memory of someone that was already held close to his heart, long before you came along. you were just there so he could relive his past, relish in his memories, prolong the inevitable.

but more than everything, you despise yourself. it's because of who you are, your willingness to be unfalteringly loyal even in the face of something so wrong, that makes it so you are always the backup plan, the last resort, the dumped and not the dumper. it's who you are that keeps you silent till the very moment he ends the whole damned relationship, till the very moment when there's no point in speaking out anymore, so that all that's left to do is to cry out.

✧ PRESENT

the sky is vast out in the countryside. the wind pays no mind to ruffling the leaves on the trees, branches already bare in the wake of autumn. you wished it could snow, just a little, though you doubt the early december rains would be so willing to fall into harsh winter so soon. jaemin ushers you to close the window your finger are flitting out of, he keeps ushering you, but you give him a shake of your head each time, you like the cool air. as he exits the highway, you finally slip them back in, tips of your fingers numbed raw, and jaemin looks at you in an 'i told you so' fashion before rolling the window up to keep the heated air within.

as so many times before, he takes your hand in his while he drives. fussing, his own fingers now encasing and rubbing yours to build the warmth back up. you perk up as the surroundings start to speak more 'countryside' than 'middle of nowhere.' a gas station, diner, couple of shopping plaza are passed, "how much longer?" jaemin pulls to a stop at a red light, "four, maybe five." eyes sparkling, you turn towards him, bringing your legs up on the seat and pulling his hand in yours to your lap, "ooh, so we're close. really close."

the light turns green and jaemin waits for the car in front of him to move, "why? you nervous?" you squirm in your spot, under his gaze, "i mean, n- no," rubbing the back of your neck, "yeah, a little i guess."

"and why is that?"

your hand is still on the back of your neck, fumbling with your words, "well, i mean, your parents. and we're not even- yeah, i don't know."

you say you don't know, yet, both of you know exactly what you're trying to say.

jaemin's childhood home is quaint, with a big front and backyard, and the only house on his street that has offwhite siding paint and soft blue shutters. you'd never pegged him to be a countryside kind of boy.

you've only known jaemin for the better part of two months, yet, the first thing his mom does is hold you in her warm, welcoming embrace. "y/n, dear! such a pleasure to have you here, you're all jaemin talks about over the phone." you blush at that, pulling away from her to give your most sincere smile. you wonder since when blushing was your thing.

his mother does her absolute best to learn your whole life story over the course of one single meal and his father is gruff but fails to hide a smile at your small attempts at anecdotes while jaemin full on chortles on his food. you're glad that not once do they bring up the questionings of your and jaemin's relationship because frankly, you have no idea what the whole deal with it is yourself.

even after dinner, his mother is quick to pull you into the living room, tightly bound photo albums stacked high in her hands. as the two of you coo over two-year-old jaemin taking a bath, four-year-old jaemin at his first piano recital, seven-year-old jaemin's face smushed in his birthday cake, the actual jaemin finishes up washing the dishes and makes his way to his packed bags, unveiling a pack of...you're not sure.

he sits to your right, setting the paper envelope on the table. you pick it up just as he puts it down. peering in, you pull out a bundle of photos strapped together with a measly rubber band. slipping it off, your eyes soften when you realize that almost two thirds of the stack is just you, and then a flower or two, and then some more of you.

jaemin and his mother are hovering over your shoulders on both sides when you reveal the last picture, one of you and jaemin that he had so kindly asked another visitor to take, the daphnes in the back. he had said something funny, you wish you remembered what it was, and in the moment you were looking up at him with your face scrunched in amusement, but it was too late, the picture had been taken. the man on your right takes the laminated photo from you, "i think," he starts, hands navigating the photo albums to find the most recent one. flipping it open, he slides it into the slot underneath a picture of him at his high school graduation, "i think it goes here."

jaemin gives his mother a look, unbeknownst to you, and she dismisses the two of you hurriedly to go off to bed, to get some rest after a long car ride. jaemin doesn't think much of that, apparent in how he does urge you to shower, unpack, and get comfy in his bed but also keeps you up, talking into the depths of the night.

he explains to you, later after you had asked, why his albums only went up until the end of his high school days. his head is propped up on the pillow, body strewn on the thin mattress of his bedroom floor, but both upturned to you perched on his bed. his room is a showcase of his younger years, far before you knew him, and even farther before you heard rumors of him. the walls are littered with certificates of merit, ribbons of academic excellence and his shelves, instead of books, have been cleared out for an abundance of trophies, for innumerable instruments, for perfect attendance, for anything and everything a person under eighteen could be awarded for. you'd never pegged jaemin to be a countryside boy, and added on to that, you'd never have pegged him to be the goody-two-shoes his childhood home so plainly made him out to be.

he tells you, himself, how college had changed him, how freedom had changed him, how being admitted into the fraternity changed him, how parties, underage drinking, sex, how it all rewrote the person he used to be. he looks you in the eye and tells you how much he loved the thrill, the adrenaline, the popularity, the sheer magnitude of people he had swooning over him, at his feet, on their knees. he tells you he loved it and that he's not so sure if he loves it now.

"why the sudden change?"

jaemin could tell you that he doesn't know, really, that maybe he just grew up a little and saw his time wasted, that perhaps he realized all the fights he had with his parents were simply not worth it. or, he could tell you the truth.

"because of you."

"what do you mean?"

"i mean," he's scrambling to sit up straight now, so he can look you in the eyes. if he's going to do this, he's going to do it properly. his eyes level with yours, lips freshly licked, he dives in the deep end. "i think i just- i met you at your worst. and we talked, and we, i don't know, flirted, and everything was supposed to just pan out how it usually does. you know, in bed. but it didn't." you've sat up as well, feet hanging over the edge of his bed and barely scraping the floor. you reach to hold both his hands in yours, though you have not the slightest clue where he is going with this tangent. "it didn't, but even then, i- i never-" it seems that even he doesn't know.

jaemin's hands start to clam in yours but there's an underlying determination that still holds strong, he's nowhere near done. "i never stopped going after you, and not at all for the sex. i- it was really just for you."

your jaw unhinges itself, hand not bothering to cover, thoughts elsewhere. what you thought might've been his life-changing, inspirational, heart-spurring tale, is turning out to be something you were inexplicably unprepared for. your newly sprouted tears are at the brink of overflowing as you try to make sense of the mess your mind has already made for itself. the questions are almost pushed over the precipice of your tongue before jaemin clears the air with finality and a handful, of in-the-moment confidence.

"y/n," jaemin's fingers glide over your knuckles in half the rhythm of your heartbeat, "i met you at your worst and i think that somehow it made me realize that i was also at my worst. and i don't know what people have to say about two sad people falling in love, all i really know is that i like you. i really fucking like you."

as if on cue, you start crying right then. "fuck, jaem," you pull your hands from him to swipe at your face and he's moving onto the bed as he speaks, dumbfounded, "why are you crying, y/n? is this like a 'i like you back and i'm happy' or 'i don't like you back' kinda cry?" you throw your head back in unprecedented laughter as he takes you in his embrace. your head rocks back and rests on his shoulders, arms coming up to encase them. "it's a 'relieved that i'm not the only one' cry."

he draws back, hands still holding you at the waist, "so, i'm taking that to mean you like me back?" you lick your lips, "maybe...possibly, you'll have to find out on your own." jaemin shakes his head, the back of his right hand coming up to caress the apples of your cheek. chuckling he retorts, "you're saying that like i don't already know. eunmi kinda let it slip a few weeks ago."

"she what?!"

"well, she kinda said that you were falling for me or something like that."

"well," you stop, in confoundment of being left in utter betrayal, "well, she's wrong. tell her that i said she's wrong."

"but you-"

"no, fuck what i just said, she's wrong."

"i- okay," jaemin watches you fall back onto your back with a huff, he follows shortly. the ceiling the both of you stare at and beyond is rightfully comforting after a week that just happened to start well, go well, end well. maybe love is your forte, after all, loving yourself after all that's happened, loving others despite all that might go wrong, anything to do with love. you suppose the getting dumped the eighth time would have made that quite obvious but you just had to throw yourself out there again, just to make sure. and boy were you glad you did just that.

jaemin is cutting fruit when it first begins to snow. apples are especially delectable in the winter, he knows he's bound to love them even more after this one winter. you're on the couch when it begins to snow, just shy of beating your long-withstanding high score on some game you were admittedly terrible at. jaemin joins you on the couch with the plate of apples, moments after it beings to snow.

"jaem," your lay a hand on his thigh, your sights elsewhere, "look, it's snowing."

you're scrambling to get a scarf around your neck, your boots zipped, the turtleneck underneath your coat pulled to your chin. the sky is almost dark, sunset not entirely visible under the veil of clouds. jaemin can't decide what is more enlightening, the snow or you and the ear-splitting grin that takes up half your expression. he decides that it's you.

you aren't even allotted the time to make snow angels before his lips are on yours. it's not the first time the two of you have kissed but neither of you will deny how different it feels. jaemin guesses it's because the way his lips move against your is fueled by untainted adoration and he suspects the same from you. he molds them steadily, wanting to take delight in the feeling for as long as hig lungs would permit. specks of snow dust the crests of your cheeks and the tail ends of his eyelashes. they heat in contact with your skin and begin their descent, deliquescing as they stray down the curves of your cheeks, meeting at your mouth that so fervently moving again jaemin's. it's where the cold melts of snow meet the warm mix of salivation.

you wield all the experience you will ever need, yet, it feels like it's your very first kiss, butterflies stirring down in your tummy and all. it never ends, it really doesn't. not when he first parts for air, or when you part the time after that, or even when you notice his mom, hands on her hips, from the window, or when the snow begins to clot at your feet.

you think you love him.

despite all the thoughts that tell you it's cheesy, it's boring, it's lame and conventional, you tell him on valentine's day.

the party is alive, it's at its height, it's roaring and it's ravaging fun. the party is in full swing and as what is now considered usual, neither you nor jaemin are eager in partaking in it, opting to simply hang out in his room, above the loud music and the moans from the opposite ends of all four walls. the door is locked this time and instead of joining the crowd in the main event of fucking each other senseless, the two of you have a small setup on his bed, littered with textbooks, previous exam papers, a fancy charcuterie board, courtesy of the dedicated chef, jaemin himself. you're on your back, feet hitched upon the headboard and laptop positioned at a ninety degree angle on your ninety degree angled legs. jaemin is on the floor rather, using the bed as a makeshift table even though he has an actual table not two feet away.

"i wish we could go to your dorms, it's loud as fuck." in response, you heave a sigh, mind now sidetracked from your work, "a pity i live on the fifth floor, we have no chance in sneaking you in." a thought dawns on him and he wonders why neither of you thought of it before, "let's go to the car."

it's quite the sight and you're sure anyone who's actively paying attention would laugh. jaemin's arms are locked straight up, supporting yours, his computer, and three textbooks, as he navigates the swarm of people to the exit. you're, following in tow, arms held up in similar fashion but instead of a stack of books, you're hoisting the charcuterie board, still abundant with cheese and grapes and a dip of honey. the threat of everything toppling over is very much apparent.

he'd driven a little ways down his street so that the buzz of the party could be left fully behind. the only thing aiding your studying is now the low-grade yellow lights that come with the fold down mirrors. "holy shit, jaem," your mouth waters even as it anticipates its next bite. "what?" he glances over at you. the charcuterie board is hiked on your knees that are drawn to your chest, makeshift tables are all too common today it seems. all the cheese on the board have an identical bite on them, a result of your taste testing but it seems that only one has drawn your liking so much so that you have eaten most the portion provided. "this- the- what's this one?"

"petite jalapeño, why?"

you cover your mouth as you chew hurriedly, "it's so fucking good, babe, with the honey. oh my god, i love you." you've finished chewing but you don't notice what's left your mouth, definitely not food.

"you what?"

you're thoughtlessly thrown into his trap, "i love- fuck."

"you love fuck."

"wait no."

you put the plate on the dashboard, dusting off your hands while your cheeks dust rose under the dingy lights. "i- wait, yeah i," you shift a leg under you, turning to your boyfriend but refusing to look him in the eye. you speak to the outlines of the house two down from his, "i guess i do love you."

"y/n, look at me."

you shy away from him, embarrassed yet overcome with the sudden wash of feelings. you knew this, you do love him, so why is it so hard to voice aloud? he brings his hand to your chin, leans it towards him until you have no choice but to gaze into his loving stare. truth be told, you wouldn't have it any other way.

"i love you too."

your fingers play with your bottom lip, thrusting it up and down, left and right as you mull over which picture to post. "bummer, i look great in this one but you're blinking. ugh." swiping to the next one, you find that it's the last. "here," jaemin unlocks his phone with one hand, holds it out for you, "i think i have some that jaein took, she's better at taking pictures than jeno anyways." taking the device from him, you click into his photos and find the last two hundred or so to be just of you and the lavender fields, he hasn't changed a bit.

jaein does have a lot more sense, "wow my legs look so long in this one," and "geez, that hair flip was entirely unintentional, i must be a natural." jaemin rolls his eyes at that, one hand of his on the wheel while the other makes its way over to your thigh, rubbing a soft, distracted massage.

the first red flag that draws your attention. you're airdropping a cumulative 54 photos to your own phone when you see a name that you had long forgotten in his top three message chats, minyoung. you ignore it. you post the picture. you edit the caption seven times, each time becoming more indecisive than the last while jaemin gives you the incredulest of looks.

you decide to stay at his place for the night, not that it's an inconvenience to drive the extra two minutes back to your place, but just because he wants to spend the night with you. there's no objections, why would there be?

the second red flag that draws your attention. jaemin's showing you something on his phone, a video of a dog maybe, you've forgotten. the text that drops down while the two of you huddle over the screen holds your interest far longer. it's minyoung and she's telling him to come over. you're slightly alarmed, you're boyfriend even more so. he draws his phone back instantly, to your dismay, and you almost want to snatch it from him, to delve into the depths of the chat. you really almost do.

"jaem, what did i just see?"

"y/n, it's not what you think," it irks you that he's so quick to defend. you keep your head on cool for now, "okay, then what was it about?" his eyes shift from yours to the wall behind you, you're surprised they're lined with annoyance. he shakes his head, "nothing."

you're thinking it's all the more reasonable for you to be the one who's annoyed. you bit down harsh on your lip, refusing to give way to any of your many impulses, "if it's nothing then why can't you tell me?"

jaemin glances over at you, fleetingly, "i- it's not something you should be worried about. just, trust me, will you?" rubbing your hands down the fabric of your- his sweatpants, you utter a sigh, not sure of how much longer, how many more times you have to be left in the dark, for you to snap at him. you hope it isn't soon. "jaem, i trust you, i do. but that doesn't mean i'll believe everything you say blindly." you note that, for whatever reason, his pupils are shaking. "at least, not after what i just saw."

"then i don't know what to say. you have to trust me on this."

na jaemin has never been stubborn, or, he's never had a reason to be. everything goes accordingly to the way he wants to, that's how it's always been. maybe it's because of his endearing charms that teachers can never fail him, that compliments are always showered upon him. perhaps it's the way he flatters that makes him so likeable, befriending people is as easy as reciting the alphabet when you've frequented too many parties and met too many people. he knows that when he kisses up, people will bow down, he's never been rejected. it's definitely because of his good looks that girls always spilt their legs open for him, they never say no.

na jaemin gets what he wants, except when he doesn't.

"no."

you leave because you have trust issues, sure, who doesn't, who cares. who cares if there are tears streaming down your face for seemingly stupid reasons? it isn't the first time, it's nowhere near the first time. it's the same feeling you had when you realized your first boyfriend wasn't going to reply back, there's still a read seven years ago below your text. the same feeling when you saw your second kissing your 'best friend.' still all those years ago, when you were two steps away to the lunch table when you heard your third whisper to his friends, "just a stupid bet with a stupid girl." when your fourth told you he lost feelings for you when you were still madly in love with him and when you had to found out from your oldest sister that your fifth was her classmate, in grad school, while you were still in your last year of high school, not even old enough to vote. your sixth trying to strip you of your virginity right after you agreed to be his girlfriend and your seventh basically forgetting you existed. you were getting the same fucking feeling all those months ago when you finally realized your rightful position as 'replacement,' as 'number 2,' as 'poor soul.' maybe distrust is simply inbred in you and though you know the prospects of yours and jaemin's relationship are far from over, you can't deny the gut feeling that your bad luck in men is coming back to haunt you, that it's never left in the first place.

na jaemin forgets that he has a past he can't erase, just like you. the girls he's fucked over the past three years have hearts and they have reasons they began to fuck him in the first place. he couldn't heal their hearts, nor his, but sex did a great deal, made a great deal of people jealous, gave him all he needed at the time. he never expected them to simply go away when he decided to settle down but it seems that his reputation holds so much worth that it's proving hard to overcome it himself. jaemin hates that you date the campus fuckboy, he hates that people still whisper in your ear that he's fucking so-and-so in the dead of night. he hates that he can't get rid of the stigma around his name, even though you know, through and through, that he can't nearly live up to it anymore. you know yet, you leave because of it. his reputation. na jaemin, certified eye candy and delectable dick, wishes he was anyone but himself.

her bare feet shuffling down the hall is the only thing she hears. she wishes they let people wear shoes on the second floor so she could've busted her heels out and clacked her way to his room. she needs the rush of empowerment right now. she needs it.

the next thing she hears is the sound of raised voices right as she is about to shove the door open, the door fifth on the left of the hall to the right of the stairwell, exactly where you'd told her he'd be, albeit reluctantly.

eunmi is taken aback now that she recognizes one of the voices behind the door. minyoung. gritting her teeth, she presses her ear to the wood, careful to keep quiet.

"so you're fucking her now? is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"minyoung, i'm not fucking her. we're dating, it's been that way for awhile," he sounds exasperated, maybe, eunmi can almost see the crease in his brows.

"why didn't you bother to ask me if i was fine with it? we had a thing going, you can't just bail on me like that."

"the only thing we had going was quick fucks every thursday. i'm sorry, but i don't think that's much of a relationship."

her voice is growing impatient, in desperation like she's grasping at loose strings, hanging on to whatever she can find, "this little bitch- does she even know? how much of a dick you are? are you just going to leave her like you did me?"

"stop, minyoung, please,"

but eunmi guesses her point is valid nonetheless, she herself doesn't think very highly of him. "how would she feel if i told her that? that leaving is your specialty? you can fuck me, and all my friends and leave, thinking that we'd never know, but we know, okay? and if you- if you ever think that you'll be satisfied with settling down for this chick, think again jaemin."

eunmi backs into the restroom across the door, for good measure and good sense because minyoung is storming out the second after, unaware of her eavesdropper. a minute and a glimpse later, she knows that jaemin is crouched by the foot of his bed, though she's unsure why.

she braves herself because she's here for answers. reappearing at his door, she calls softly as if raising a white flag, "hey there." jaemin's head snaps up instantaneously in surprise. "oh, hi, what're you doing here?" he lowers himself to sit on the floor and eunmi takes the spot in front of him, wariness in her movements.

"well, i came here for y/n, obviously, but um, i just happened to hear-" she's cut off when jaemin lets out a low groan into his hands. eunmi makes her stance a little clearer now that she has a better feel of the situation, "i'm not here to break up with you for her or anything. she didn't really want me to come, but i guess, i guess i came because we've also had our fair share of...disagreements that i think we should set straight," she pauses, hands fiddling with her thumbs in her lap, "i'm sorry if this is too much after, all that."

he looks relieved at that, "no, it's fine. i- i'm glad you want to, i don't know, make up. i haven't really been all that great of a friend these past years anyway."

eunmi lets a smile slip at that, what an interesting turn of events, "so...friends?"

"friends."

"and just to set the record straight, you're not still fucking minyoung right?"

jaemin rolls his eyes, shakes his head, gesticulates with his hands, "no, i got y/n. she's all i really need." eunmi nods to fill the awkward silence that follows. she's reminded of another inquiry, "so why didn't you just tell her that?"

"i guess i just didn't want her to worry or like- or get involved with my past, stuff like that. i kinda hated how it's dredged up all the time, especially now that i've, i don't know, settled down, committed."

"should've just told her," eunmi deadpans.

"i really should've," jaemin agrees.

"need me to drive you?" jaemin's extra careful with his words today, post-arguments can be fickle, particularly if they're only halfway resolved. your voice is muffled on the other end, "no, i'll walk." jaemin's wishes he'd insisted it instead of simply offering, late spring rains weren't all that uncommon, and even more so when the skies are darkening as they are on this specific day. "it might rain though," he tries again. you decline again, "i'll manage, thank you."

he sees you in ten, fifteen minutes or so, and sure enough, you're drenched head to toe, staring up at him with eyes that bear in mind the tension that hangs in between you and also border the bounds of laughter at how you're dripping wet with no one to blame but yourself. jaemin bites back the 'i told you so' and hurries to get you dried off with a towel, changed, and under the sheets. by then, the tension has subsided considerably.

"you wanna talk about it?"

you're tired, though it hasn't even struck five on the clock, "i thought that's what i'm here for."

"so, i'm not fucking her-"

"nice to know-"

"-just had some loose ends to tie up-"

"-and did you?" jaemin supposes you're far too tired to be emitting the same, resolute aggressions as a few days prior seeing as you're keeping your voice to a minimum and the words that come out are straight to the point, blunt. he does his best to reflect the same straightforwardness.

"i did, she's...off my back, our back...our backs."

you give him a look, scrunch your nose, and tug him by the arms into you. there's a blanket separating you two but he fits exactly against you anyways. you wonder how anyone could ever get in between the two of you if you so perfectly mold alongside him. the bridge of his nose nuzzles down your neck and you're laughing because it doesn't get any better than this, really.

he shuts the light on the bedside table off with an inattentive hand, the blankets are drawn back and he's pulled flush into you. his body heat is welcome on a frigid night and the blanket that falls back on top of him seals the both of you within the confines of his bed for the hours to come. you're starting to think that coming here was more just to cuddle than it was to make up with him.

"i can't get enough of you," his face is in your neck.

"and why is that?"

"because- because everything about you- i feel like i'd be missing out if i never tried to start something with you," he buries himself further in your scent, "it's like i emptied my heart out just so you could fill it back up."

your chin rests on the crown of his head, it tickles him when you speak, now in half wakefulness, "could say the same for you."

jaemin whispers into your ear, breath fanning down onto your neck, words that will only ever be for you, "i would not have you otherwise."

jaemin spent your spring break at your hometown, to meet your parents, both of which loved him dearly. he wouldn't dare voice it aloud but he thinks it's the sweetest that your mother holds you, her youngest daughter, in such high-esteem after bringing home who she thinks to be the 'most gorgeous man alive,' an utterance he was sure was not meant for him to hear.

he likes being the 'most gorgeous man alive,' especially if you were the one who thought so, but as he watches you stare intently at the flynn rider's jawline, his own jaw clenches. tangled is playing as the pre-movie for movie night, the movie that plays before people actually start to arrive since, donghyuck and eunmi are always destined to be at least an hour late. but it's not that that gets him the most riled up that night, riled up isn't even the right word. maybe agitation, at whoever thought it was a good idea to invite mark lee. mark fucking lee, the grad student. the whoever turns out to be chenle and although jaemin does not have it in him to beat the kid up, he is sure as hell watching over the dude from the moment he walks in to the moment he leaves.

more than that, he also keeps his eyes on you as well, tracing your expression with every word his goddamned senior ought to speak. "hey, y/n, how have you been?" jaemin glares. as far as his detective senses go, he figures that marks target for the night isn't you, but rather eunmi. he hopes he can get over this as quickly and neatly as possible. your face twitches into a smile, uncomfortable, he thinks. "fine, i've been fine. you?" jaemin wants to draw you back and tell you that you had no obligation to be so polite, that the 'fine' would have done its job splendidly on its own.

"pretty good myself, looks like things have been happening around here, huh," jaemin hates the way he wriggles his eyebrows, "hyuck and eunmi, you and him." jaemin hates how he just referred to him as 'him,' surely, there was a lot more due respect than that. "yeah, and jeno and jaein but that's-"

"oh psh, old news," the two of you laugh, you laugh with him, with him. jaemin is just about ready to throw hands when mark excuses himself to get a seat on the floor, serves him right, he thinks. you look comparatively calm next to the raging boy. why is he the only one bothered by this?

"you good there? didn't even say a word to him."

he gulps, "yeah, i'm great. just didn't feel like talking."

you're staring at him like you can see right through him, that's exactly the case, "i'm over him, you know?" jaemin scratches at his neck, "yeah, i know." head on his shoulder as the first official movie of the night plays, you sigh, "no need to get all worked up, i'm all yours."

the twentieth century fox theme plays in the background of the romance novel you live in. na jaemin makes you feel that way, unfailingly, every single day. it's written in the ways he kisses you, lovemarks blooming under your skin. it's written in the way he stares at you, with nothing else except pure, unadulterated love. it's written in between the lines, his actions, his thoughts, everything that amounts to so much more than the past years of deprivation you've had to endure. it's written in the stars, out in the countryside where jaemin could never fake a smile, not in the presence of you. with you by his side, not in a million years.

it's here. summer fucking break is finally here. and if there's anything to prove that, it's the way you're currently sitting in a car with all your friends. taking a short little road trip out to the beach. now, mind you, these are the same friends that were there on your drunkest nights, slumped over bar counters and blatantly asking for any hot guy's number. the same friends that accompanied you on your most sober nights, holed up in your single-person dorm room, trying to study for an exam for a class you could never wake up in time for. and among those friends is one who has an added prefix, your boyfriend, na jaemin, who's in the driver's seat per your request since your carsickness prevented you from any other seats and you really wanted him by your side. jaemin didn't seem to mind driving, after all, he was next to you.

the sun is setting too fast and eunmi, sitting in the seat in the far back, complains that they'd have to set up the bonfire right away instead of getting to play in the warm water while it's warm. donghyuck, beside her, is complaining too, but not about the bonfire or even the trip in general, but about eunmi and her legs which are hoisted on his lap, something about how his dingaling needs to breath. jaein, in the seat right behind you is musing on about how she thinks it'll be funny when they arrive and see yeseul and renjun's car torn up in two, neither of them could ever get along. jeno, to her left, is fussing with rubbing sunblock on her, getting angry at how her hair could never stay out of his way.

you glance over at jaemin who has this smile on his face. this smile that makes it seem like he's in adoration of the whole scene panning out in the rearview mirror. he takes a glance over at you too and, if even possible, his smile beams wider, straight pearly whites and all. his hand finds yours.

it's already dark when the eight of you arrive but eunmi isn't complaining anymore since the boys make quick work in getting the bonfire set up while letting the girls play in the water. the ocean water licks at your feet as you watch eunmi and yeseul duel in how much water they could spray at each other, jaein sitting on the shore off to the side, watching as well. you're pondering going over to accompany her when eunmi's hand latches on your left arm and tugs the whole of you into the water with her. it's warm and wouldn't have been entirely unwelcoming had you gotten a notice in advance.

you make fun in chasing them around, kicking up water in eunmi's face one too many times that she begins to choke on the saltiness. yeseul is now on the shore yelling at renjun. and jaein is doing her best with a tent. eunmi, who's back you were currently rubbing, is almost through with her fit and you think the mischievous face she's pulling means another round but she brings up a question instead, "how's he in bed?"

she's right if she assumed you'd chuck another armful of water in her face.

you sigh in annoyance as jaemin tosses the towel over your head once again, unsatisfied with how the tips of your hair were still wet. his fingers are ruffling fast and making quick work to dry the strands but you're upset. "jaemin, babe, we've been standing here for ten minutes, can i go now?" your head resurfaces as he gives the towel one more tug, smiling, "just making sure you don't get sick." he follows as you duck into your shared tent to get ready for the bonfire. "shit, jaem. i didn't bring an extra top," you frown but he only smiles wider and grabs his hoodie from the ground beside the sleeping bags. "lucky for you, then," he tugs the article of clothing over your head, only speaking again once your eyes peek out, "because i love seeing you wear my clothes."

you give him a nose scrunch in return but every word of his, every single word that comes from his mouth is enough to get you swooning. you follow him out the tent.

"so," donghyuck's eyes are playful in the light of the fire, "what game are we playing today?" jeno groans, "do we always have to play some sort of game? why can't we just like…" even he's unsure of what to do. the eight of you are situated around the blazing fire that's, not quite large enough to be a bonfire, but does its job in keeping you warm. jaein perks up after much deliberation, "how about...we go around and each make a wish?"

donghyuck huffs, "fine by me." it starts with jeno, and though you truly value each and every one of your friends' wishes, there's only one that you really remember for the rest of the night, the day, the week, the month, and the years to come. jaemin clears his throat, the rest of the group watching him including you, the you he turns to. you're huddled over on the log beside him, wrapped up in his hoodie and hair an absolute mess. your eyes are heavy and he already knows that once everyone decides to call it a night, you will be the first to leave. you're looking at him in tired anticipation and mild interest, he hopes what he has to say tells you all he needs you to know.

"i already have you, so there's nothing left to wish for."

the rest of the group breaks off into 'oohs' and 'ewws' but you swear that you and jaemin, jaemin and you are stuck in your own little world. his gaze is incredibly soft and endearing, you scoot closer and place a head on his shoulder, his hand coming around your frame in automatic response. leaning into his warmth, you feel closest to home than you ever have before.

jaemin carries you to sleep later that night. and even later that night, or rather early in the morning, when you rustle awake, he's aroused by you as well. the two of you sit on a towel atop the dry sand, right before where the tides ride up the shore. basked in the moonlight, jaemin's skin beams a pale sheen and his eyes are cast over darkly, ethereally, divinely. your head is still on his shoulder and you feel the words vibrate through you when he speaks, "did you have fun today?"

you tuck a lip under your front teeth and nod for him to feel. he asks another question, "how are you feeling?" this time, you aren't able to part with just a shake of your head so you sit up, eyes never leaving the push and pull of the sunless ocean, "i feel...happy."

he looks over at you, not in surprise but in interest, "happy? why do you feel happy?" you shrug almost, musing off whatever comes to mind first, "i don't know, school just ended, this trip, summer break. i have a lot of reasons to be happy." jaemin isn't sulky at that but he does his best to pull his name from you, "and what about me?"

you dare a glance over at the man next to you, his eyes already boring into yours, "well, you too, of course." looking away as quickly as you'd looked over, you mumble quietly, "actually, more because of you than anything." in your peripheries, you see him give you a look that speak 'that's what i thought' and you clip down your smile in favor of a shake of your head.

moving from your spot, you surprise jaemin when you block his view of the seaside. he settles you down into his lap with familiar control, arms cradling you tight to his chest. hand on his neck, you trace it up to his cheek and guide his head down to face yours. jaemin leans in for a soft kiss, lips suckling at your bottom as your teeth tug on his top, slow but sensual, tired but sweet. you pull away for a breath but it's as if he doesn't need to breathe anymore because he chases after your lips almost instinctively. soft kiss after soft kiss is all that's needed for you to pluck up your courage and look him in the eyes, lips detached, and speak the truth your heart has been singing in your ears all along. "jaem," his eyes are hazy as they find yours in the dim light. somewhere in the back, the sun is peeking over the horizon in all its glory but neither of you pay it any mind. "yes, love?" he brushes the hairs from your face, fingers gliding across your cheeks and then fumbling with your bottom lip with his thumb. you blink and you speak.

"i've been waiting for you all my life."

you think back over the past seven months, a little over half a year, that you've had this man in your life, five months of which he was your boyfriend. you wonder how you could've fallen so fast in such a short amount of time. then again, love is rarely ever about how short or how long. it's more about the timing in which everything falls into place, the intensity by which each person loves, their pasts and how willing they are to erase it. falling in love is not about getting it right the first time, to find someone to be your first and last. for you particularly, jaemin is your ninth, and though the prospects of him being your last are still far from true, you know in your heart and in your mind and in every part of your living being that with each coming second, he's a second closer to becoming your last.

✧ end note — if my ex ever sees this, though i truly doubt he will, he gon know i stole one of his lines for jaemin. the wish one. yeah...he always had his way with words, that's about all he had though. but hey, it makes a hell of a good line in this story. i hope you had a good time reading this piece, it was such a pleasure to write. i will see you guys when i wake up for class in three hours hehe. with all the love in the world, rouiyan

#nct jaemin #jaemin fluff #jaemin x reader #neo-constellations #neothestars #nct scenarios #nct fics #nct jaemin fluff #jaemin fics #jaemin angst #na jaemin #nct jaemin fics #maxed the shit out of that 15k #very lightly proofread #will go over later #enjoy for now #<3 #rouiyan fics #rouiyan writes

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2manyfandoms2count · 3 years

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Love you (not) - Chapter 2

Cheating a little today because I couldn't think of a way to fit a Ghibli AU in the fic. Anyway, thanks to @marichatmay for finally making me watch some Ghibli classics, aka Kiki's delivery service and Howl's Moving Castle. They'd been on my watchlist for far too long!

Hope you enjoy this chapter!

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Chapter 2: In which Chat Noir and Marinette struggle to hold a conversation without flirting

Chat Noir doubted that he’d ever laughed as much as he’d laughed during his lunch at the Dupain-Chengs. Marinette’s parents had just been so warm and welcoming, that he’d started to wonder if the relationship Marinette and her parents had was extraordinary, or if his vision was simply skewered by his father’s absence. He’d come to the conclusion that it was probably a bit of both; he remembered having fun with his mother as well, but there was something truly special about the way Marinette relaxed in this environment.

He doubted that he’d ever seen her so carefree (between bouts of almost fake embarrassment when Tom’s jokes got too bad for her taste; she kind of shared Ladybug’s facial expression when it came to those) in the relatively short time they’d known each other. He really appreciated her letting him see this part of her, and letting him into her family and her happiness.

This was why, after lunch was over and he really should have been heading home to study up on his Chinese, he’d accepted Marinette’s suggestion to stay a little longer, given the rain that was still pouring outside. There was just something about the prospect of spending more time with Marinette that warmed his heart; and, thinking about it, what harm could a couple more hours do? They’d hang out a bit, Marinette would probably realise that she’d been in love with an image more than with him all this time, and they would part ways as friends at the end of the day. Easy.

Alas, the plan had started to crumble the moment they’d decided to watch a movie together. Tom and Sabine had gone to take a nap after the copious meal (Tom really had gone all out on the courses), and he and Marinette had been left awkwardly standing around, twiddling their thumbs as they tried to figure out what to do.

Chat had spotted Marinette’s Howl’s moving castle DVD under the TV stand as his gaze wandered around the room, and he’d commented that it had been a while since he’d watched it. Marinette had jumped on the occasion, relieved that an idea had been handed to her.

She’d set up the movie and then had sat on one end of the couch, while Chat Noir sat on the other. So far, so good.

Things had started getting difficult when Sophie had entered Howl’s castle, and Marinette, whether by empathy or pure coincidence, had felt a draft and had moved to the angle of the couch - closer to him, although they were still far enough apart that he couldn’t consider it making a move - to escape it.

When that didn’t work to make her feel warmer, she’d whipped a blanket out of seemingly thin air and wrapped herself comfortably in it.

By that point, despite his supposedly thermal suit, Chat Noir had also started feeling cold, and had scooted a little closer so he could slide his feet under a corner of the blanket that wasn’t tucked under his friend. Marinette had then spotted his apparent discomfort, and before he knew it, he was buried under the blanket with her, and although there was still space between them, their shoulders definitely knocked against each other if they moved a bit.

The movie had been captivating enough that neither of them had focused too much on that fact while they watched the plot unfold, but Marinette was suddenly very aware of their situation when the credits started rolling. She wasn’t sure how to get out of it without her partner feeling pushed away, but supposed that sparking a conversation would probably help.

“So…” She turned towards him, stretching a little as she did so and seizing the opportunity to move a little further away from him. "Have you seen many Ghibli movies?" She cringed slightly at the question. Her social skills really seemed to have taken the day off.

"Yep," Chat said with a proud smile. "In fact, I think I've seen them all!"

"Oh, neat!" Marinette smiled, trying to find a good follow-up question. “Erm... so, who do you think you’d be in the Ghibli universe, then?”

He paused to think about it, a pensive pout on his lips, adjusting the blanket around him to close the gap her movement had allowed to form as he did. “That’s a very good question, to which I don’t have an answer.” He shrugged. Suddenly, all the characters he'd ever related to seemed to have evaded him; one character stood out as he looked at Marinette, though, and he supposed it was good enough to keep the conversation going. “You, on the other hand, would totally be Kiki.”

Marinette crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. “That’s just because I’m small, I have black hair, and I hang out with a talking cat.”

“You wound me, Purr-incess. Those are very superficial arguments.” Chat’s hand flew briefly to his chest, before he realised she wouldn’t see it under the blanket. “Those are some good points, but I actually thought that because you live above a bakery and you sometimes work there, you’re kind of clumsy... In a cute way, don’t worry!” He added quickly when he saw her roll her eyes, before widening his own as he realised what he’d just said. He felt his cheeks warm up under his mask. Marinette looked away, pink dusting her cheeks. So much for keeping things entirely platonic. This wasn’t sending the right message at all. “...And you’re always willing to help people, generally with pretty original plans.” He concluded after clearing his throat.

Marinette and Kiki also shared strong first opinions, he didn’t add. He hadn’t been scorned as long as Tombo had in the movie, granted, but he felt a certain connection to the boy nonetheless, probably because they both also shared a liking for clowning around. He couldn’t say anything about it without revealing too much, though; and he wasn’t sure that comparing himself to a character who had a crush on the character he was comparing her to would be a very good idea.

“So actually, I guess I would be Jiji, then. After all, as you said, I am a talking black cat.”

“You’re a little more than that, though.” Marinette snorted. “I actually think you’d make a fine Howl; you have this protector instinct, even though you seem to like putting yourself in danger - don’t think I don’t read the Ladyblog.” She shot him a pointed look. “But you’re also just both kind and generous, you know?And you obviously have a penchant for justice.”

Chat Noir felt his heart flutter in his chest at the compliments. Marinette really was too nice.

“Also, I guess you do look like him. If you let your hair grow, you really could pull off his cosplay.” She looked at him, head tilted as she started imagining what kind of outfit she could make for him.

“Is that you saying I’m handsome?” Chat waggled his eyebrows, before freezing. He needed to stop sounding this flirty with Marinette. It would just feed her hope, and that simply couldn’t do. He needed to make it clear to her that she was just a friend.

“I mean… it’s not like you’re unpleasant to look at…” Marinette trailed off, before realising what she’d said. She cleared her throat. “But whatever, will you just stop hogging the blanket?” She pulled on her side of it, hoping she could cover her blush with it somehow.

“I’m not! It’s just too small for us both!” Chat tucked his side under him so she wouldn’t take it.

“Fine then, I’ll just have to move closer to you,” Marinette said, looking him straight in the eye.

“Fine by me,” Chat Noir said in spite of himself, part of him screaming that it would have been the perfect excuse to say something about not liking her that way, or even to leave.

“Fine.” Marinette scooted as close to him as possible. Their bodies touched from the shoulder to their feet. What am I doing? She thought as she registered that fact. This is not how I'd seen the day going at all. “Erm… Want to watch something else on Netflix?” She added, thinking it could only make things less weird.

“Sounds good to me!” Chat gulped next to her. He told himself he'd stay a little more to defuse the slight awkwardness, but promised himself to tell her how he felt before crossing her door to go home. “Maybe we could watch Kiki’s delivery service , since we were talking about it?”

“Sure.”

The pair only got through part of the movie; Tom and Sabine emerged from their room for tea before they’d even reached the halfway mark, and as much as Chat Noir was tempted to stay for the macarons, the excuse to get back was just too good. It would probably be a miracle if Nathalie hadn't already come up to his room to check on him, and if she hadn't he was probably due a visit at any moment. Sabine insisted that he took some leftovers back with him, and he was so touched by the attention that the one thing he’d promised himself he’d do slipped his mind.

He was halfway home when he realised it; he'd been so preoccupied by thanking her parents and her, that he'd forgotten to talk to Marinette one last time, to tell her not to get her hopes up.

Guess I'll have to go back sometime next week, then, he sighed as he popped a macaron into his mouth. Oh, well.

#in retrospect i could have made marinette compare herself to sophie for the crush parallel #oh well #marichat may #marichat may 2021 #miraculous ladybug #the miraculous tales of ladybug and cat noir #ml #miraculous fanfiction #miraculous fanfic #marichat #marinette dupain-cheng #chat noir #day 2: ghibli au #elle writes #love you (not)

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knifetoxgunfight · 3 years

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Mr. Perfectly Fine

Word Count: 1133 Requested: No Genre: Angst Pairing: Stucky (Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes) Warnings: Heartbreak

Song

Part of the Song Fic series

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Mr. "Perfect face"

Mr. "Here to stay"

Mr. "Looked me in the eye and told me you would never go away"

Steve was perfect. Bucky thought so, at least. Steve was his best friend, though Bucky had always felt more. He always wanted more. He knew, deep down, that he couldn't have more, but he never let go of the hope of it all. He thought that at the very least, he'd always have his best friend. "Till the end of the line," they had promised. A promise Bucky never intended to have broken.

Everything was right

Mr. "I've been waiting for you all my life"

Mr. "Every single day until the end, I will be by your side"

The words haunted him. "Till the end of the line." It was a promise, an agreement they made. Bucky didn't make promises lightly, and he didn't think Steve did either. Everything had been perfect. Finally, they had the chance to live in peace. They could escape constant war and live the life they had always intended to in the 40s. They were going to stay with each other, and fight for one another until the end of their days. Steve didn't uphold his end of the bargain.

But that was when I got to know Mr. "Change of heart"

Mr. "Leaves me all alone, " I fall apart

It takes everything in me just to get up each day

But it's wonderful to see that you're okay

Steve broke his promise. He spent most of his life fighting to get Bucky back, then left him. Bucky was all alone, he was heartbroken. The hope he had been holding on to for decades had been shattered abruptly. The promise they made was broken far before Bucky could prepare. Bucky struggled, trying to find purpose in his life after being left alone in a world he wasn't raised for. He felt so isolated, the pain almost too much to bear. Sure, he had a friend, but there was nobody who understood him. Not the serum, not what it was like to wake up with no idea what had happened to the world, not the overwhelming amount of new information. It was far worse when he found Steve had not wrestled with the choice to leave at all.

Hello Mr. "Perfectly fine"

How's your heart after breaking mine?

Mr. "Always at the right place at the right time, " baby

Hello Mr. "Casually cruel"

Mr. "Everything revolves around you"

I've been Miss "Misery" since your goodbye

And you're Mr. "Perfectly fine"

Bucky had been absolutely miserable since losing Steve. It was getting harder and harder to live through each day. He decided he'd never find love, after all, he wasted all his life in love with someone who had never loved him back. He was in pain, an unbearable amount of it. How was Steve so okay while he was so alone? He was struggling every day. It gets harder and harder the more he thought about it; The more he realized Steve was fine, the less fine he was himself.

Mr. "Never told me why"

Mr. "Never had to see me cry"

Mr. "Insincere apology so he doesn't look like the bad guy"

He goes about his day

Forgets he ever even heard my name

Well, I thought you might be different than the rest

I guess you're all the same

Steve never had to deal with the consequences. He never knew how much he had hurt Bucky, how broken he left the already fragile man. He didn't give Bucky any reason for leaving, leaving him to wonder if it was his fault. Bucky blamed himself for a long time, probably far too long. Bucky had always seen something in Steve. He thought Steve was different from every other man in his life. Everyone else had either left him or died. Steve almost managed to do both at once. Steve became just like everyone else in Bucky's life.

'Cause I hear he's got his arm 'round a brand-new girl

I've been pickin' up my heart, he's been pickin' up her

And I never got past what you put me through

But it's wonderful to see that it never phased you

Steve chose Peggy. Bucky was never even on his radar. He met Peggy long after he met Bucky, and lost her long before, yet she was still his first choice. As Bucky worked to fix his broken pieces, Steve was having the time of his life with the woman. He left Bucky to clean up a mess he hadn't planned on making. It had been months, and Bucky was still hurt every time Steve was mentioned. It was as if he would never move on.

So dignified in your well-pressed suit

So strategized, all the eyes on you

Sashay away to your seat

It's the best seat, in the best room

Bucky knew Steve never wanted the glory. Even so, he had it. Bucky was a footnote in the great story of "Captain America." He was placed on a pedestal Bucky could never dream of seeing. Maybe it was inevitable that he'd be forgotten. Bucky never knew what it was like to be celebrated. He was drafted into war, presumed dead, and returned as a villain. He would never be as celebrated as Steve was.

Oh, he's so smug, Mr. "Always wins"

So far above me in every sense

So far above feeling anything

Steve never backed down from a fight. He rarely ever lost. Bucky had known loss far more than he knew wins. He caused harm, hurt people, and lost his mind. Bucky always knew Steve was better than him, or he always considered him such. He knew that everyone would rather have Steve still around than Bucky. Steve left him, his reputation and redeeming qualities taken with him. His heart was broken, he didn't trust himself anymore. He wishes he didn't feel this, he wishes he was more like the man he fell in love with. He wishes he went numb.

And it's really such a shame

It's such a shame

'Cause I was Miss "Here to stay"

Now I'm Miss "Gonna be alright someday"

And someday maybe you'll miss me

But by then, you'll be Mr. "Too late"

Bucky was willing to keep his promise. He was going to stay by Steve's side to the end. He knew he had to move on, and he was going to. Someday. He would be alright. The hopelessness and the heartbreak will dissipate into something real. Maybe by then, Steve would've come back. But Bucky will have moved on; Bucky will live his life for himself. He hadn't gotten to do that since he was a child. It was about time.

Goodbye Mr. "Perfectly Fine."

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes angst #stucky #stucky angst #steve rogers #steve rogers angst #steve rogers x bucky barnes #avengers #mcu #angst #mcu angst #marvel #marvel angst #avengers angst #mr perfectly fine #kifetoxgunfight #knifestoxgunfightsongfic

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geekgemsspooksandtoons · 3 years

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Miranda

This is a story set within my Bioshock Rebirth AU. A reimaging/reboot of the Bioshock franchise. https://geekgemsspookyblog.tumblr.com/post/626141727587270656/bioshock-rebirth-timeline-this-is-a-timeline-of-an Just as a heads up if anyone is wondering about the context. I’ve had some stories in my drafts for a long time now and I’m finally publicly sharing them.

I’m finally gonna write this story. I just wanna admit this was a story idea I think I’ve had since August. Who’s Miranda exactly? She’s basically a Little Sister OC. In all seriousness this isn’t your first appearance. But this will be I guess her real or better introduction. I’ve joked about her and mentioned her to friends like @feckinatlas and @fishtankinhouse

Amazingly this story was inspired by @pikablob who made this Owl House fic here. https://pikablob.tumblr.com/post/625383445502246912/squishes-pikablob-the-owl-house-cartoon I’ve been just lazy to write this. I made this post in the drafts when I was living in the guest room while my room was being remodeled.

Miranda is a character that just....I guess she came to life on her own when I thought of that story. Or just the idea if one of those Little Sisters had Autism. This was inspired by a couple of things or whatever. I love this character. Despite I haven’t thought much of her. I should just write this dang story. I’ll talk about other details in another post somewhere.

Archie and Elizabeth were in Tenenbaum’s safehouse. As of now after going tough missions sent to Archie by Atlas. It was nice to catch a breath finally. As they were safe in this area. Where the rescued Little Sisters could stay safe from harm. While Brigid was working her make shift lab and checking her supplies. The two young adults were playing with the children. They genuinely liked being around the kids. It felt like a nice break after the nightmares going on in this city. It was reminding them of what else was at stake. That they weren’t just trying to escape or help out the poorer citizens of Rapture. But these children as well.

They were living in what was a sewer section of the slums. Reasons why because Brigid knew she couldn’t do her progress in her own apartment. After being made public of what she had done. The public demonized her. Many people wanted her dead.

Brigid was lucky to find a place where sewer workers had set up a living space. Because sometimes the workers would live here in case if a pipe was busted or so. There were some rooms for some people to sleep in. It wasn’t much. But over the past 4 years, she gradually tried to make it a living space. A makeshift lab, one shower with one bathtub in one bathroom, two rooms with two beds in each, a little dining area, and one laundry room. Brigid was grateful to find a little place like this. The biggest space was where the children would sleep in bunkbeds.

For the past 4 years she gradually got resources around certain places. Especially toys for the kids if more were to live here. It was so hard yet she kept trying. She tried to make it seem like a daycare center for them. To make those kids feel welcomed. Along with making sure they knew where to go the bathroom. It took a long while. But she seemed to have gotten it handled.

The children took kindly to Elizabeth. Probably because it was rare for the children to see another woman other than Mama Tenenbaum. She got along with them just fine. Despite never dealing with children before. She was like a big sister to them. If she had the time, she would hang out with them. Considering Brigid was mostly at work or so. Even though she tried to make the place as comfy as possible.

While at one moment, Elizabeth did hear a mention from a little one that she reminded her of someone like her. But Elizabeth didn’t understand. Maybe it was someone else she knew. Elizabeth didn’t dwell on it.

Archie never dealt with children too. Yet he was so gentle with them. In fact kind of like Elizabeth. He seemed to really enjoy being around them. They looked to him as if he was a older brother. He had rescued them and made sure they were safe. While Elizabeth had Bluto growing up. Archie hardly had anyone. To him interacting with these children who genuinely liked him made him feel less lonely than how he usual was.

The two young adults were sitting on the floor crisscrossed. Elizabeth took time drawing on some papers with crayons with Sally. While Archie played with some trying to build a castle with blocks.

“That’s a pretty flower Sally.” Elizabeth told the girl. Sally had colored the drawn flower yellow. “I’m gonna draw a blue one. Tell me what you think of it after I’m done.” She told her.

When she began drawing her own flower. Another little one had come across her.

“Miss Elizabeth.” The little girl asked her.

“Hi Miranda. What is it?” Elizabeth asked the girl who approached her.

“Can I....touch your cheeks please?” Miranda asked her.

Elizabeth was confused. She questioned why Miranda wanted to do that. But it didn’t seem like anything bad.

“Umm sure you can do that.” Elizabeth told her as she put down the blue crayon and looked at Miranda. After that Miranda decided to calmly put her hands on her cheeks. With then Miranda squishing them a bit. Elizabeth felt a bit confused. Yet Miranda was a sweet girl that she recalled. Yet the squishing went on for a minute. Then another minute. Archie was a bit confused seeing it. But Elizabeth didn’t interrupt her. But after those two minutes, Miranda had decided to stop.

“Is....there anything else you need?” Elizabeth asked the girl.

“No” Miranda told her. The little girl just walked away. After that Elizabeth was just confused. Maybe she liked her face or something.

10 minutes had passed. Elizabeth and Archie decided to check in with Brigid to see if she was doing fine. The kids were just doing their own things. Considering the young adults needed a break.

“Hello Miss Tenenbaum” Elizabeth told her.

“Hey Dr. Tenenbaum” Archie told her as well.

“Hi you too. I saw you were enjoying yourselves.” Brigid told them.

“Yeah it was nice honestly. It was nice just hanging around them more.” Elizabeth told her.

“I saw Miranda was squishing your face.” Brigid said.

“You saw that too?” Archie asked.

“Yes I did see it. Well I mean there’s clear glass here.” Brigid laughed a little after saying that.

“Oh yeah sorry.” Archie said. Forgetting that Brigid could she what was going on in that room.

“Umm Miss Tene-no I’m sorry Brigid” Elizabeth got Brigid’s attention. She just seemed so polite calling Brigid that. Even though Brigid told her she could call her by her first name.

“Yes Elizabeth.” Brigid answered.

“Why do you think she did that?” Elizabeth asked her.

“Ah yes. Why she did that. You two know what Autism is right?” Brigid asked them.

“I have read about it in my books.” Elizabeth told her.

“Yeah I know about it.” Archie said as well.

“Well...she has it.” Brigid told them. The two looked surprised a bit after hearing that.

“Are you being honest with us?” Archie asked her. “I’m sorry to ask.” He told her

“Yes I am and it’s fine Archie. She’s one of the few I know who has it.” Brigid told them as she held a pen in right hand as she looked through the glass. “I wanted to tell you two that. I’ve just been busy and I think you’ve may of noticed she kind of keeps to herself.” Brigid was right. Miranda always seemed shy. She wasn’t a bad kid. Yet she acted differently than some of the other girls. Even though she got along with them. She was usually maybe playing with a little toy train or whatever else.

“How did you find out she had Autism?” Elizabeth asked her. “I read it’s could be tricky to find out if a child may have it.” Elizabeth continued on.

“Because I have it too.” Brigid told them. The two young adults stared at her. Brigid was just still looking through the glass until she looked back the two adults. “Ja I get it. It doesn’t seem like it. But trust me. You start to notice some similar traits.” She said as she decided to look through her drawers to find something. After that she found what she was looking for and got up to get closer to them.

“Again I’ve been busy. When I’m not. I try to tend for them as much as possible. Despite of what I’ve done to them. Especially Miranda.” Brigid said as she wanted to show them something. It was some sort of tangle thing.

“What’s that?” Elizabeth asked. She was curious of what she was seeing.

“A little stim toy I made. I will admit, I made this when I first got her here.” Brigid told them. “The first time she was here. She wasn’t acting right. She was in a pouty mood at times. I think she didn’t like the place here. Sometimes she would have a meltdown. So a lot of times I had to hold on to her and calm her down.” Brigid told them. “I will admit....it was strange seeing someone like me going through a different way of experiencing a disability like that. Because we’re all different.” Brigid continued on.

“But you know considering her new surroundings. It bothered some of the other girls. I knew I always wouldn’t be here to comfort her. Especially in a city like this. So I made this. She was confused by it at first. But when I gave it to her. She loved it.” Brigid told them. “Heh will admit I do like it myself.” Brigid said.

“Why are you telling us this?” Elizabeth asked.

“Because I felt it was important. I just hoped you won’t bothered by her squishing your face. I had worried maybe she needs this. Which is why I’m telling you about it.” Brigid told her. She just looked and messed with the stim toy. The two adults looked at her playing with it. “Scheiße I’m sorry I got distracted.” Brigid said as she sighed.

“Is everything okay?” Archie asked. Brigid suddenly looked saddened.

“I’ll be fine. I just remember one night when she wanted to feel safe. I allowed her to sleep in a bed with me. You know how children get nightmares they go to their parents or loved ones.” Brigid told them. “....I still remember the night she told me about her parents. That they left her at the orphanage because they thought she was....weird....” Brigid continued on as she sound more saddened after saying that.

“Are you saying her parents left her on purpose?” Archie asked.

“From what I’ve gathered....sadly yes. Because of how she is.” Brigid told them. She just looked through the glass to see Miranda keeping to herself. “She was.....strangely happy with that Big Daddy Bouncer....before I killed it.” Brigid said as she looked back at the stim toy. “She’s been here since January this year.....I wonder if she’s grateful for me. Not like I deserve it.” She then noticed Elizabeth put her hands around the stim toy. This made Brigid’s eyes widened and to look at Elizabeth.

“Hey it’s okay....I think she’s grateful to have you. And us.” Elizabeth told her. “Would you like me to take this to her?” Elizabeth asked her.

“....yes. Thank you.” Brigid nodded smiling.

The two young adults went back out. Some sisters were on their beds resting. While some minded their own business. Miranda sat in a corner with her little train she just pushed back and forth. During that moment she was in her little world. She then noticed the two adult’s shadows pop up behind her. With her head turning around to the right.

“Hi” Miranda said softly.

“Hey Miranda.” Elizabeth told her softly. The two adults sat down close to her.

“Hey there. You feeling okay?” Archie asked Miranda.

“I’m okay. Did I make Miss Elizabeth sad or mad?” Miranda asked him.

“Oh no you didn’t. I was just confused of why you squished my face.” Elizabeth said.

“I think your cheeks look nice.” Miranda told them. “They looked soft.” She continued on.

“Yeah they are soft.” Elizabeth smiled softly. She revealed the stim toy. “You remember this?” She asked the little girl.

The little girl gasped. “Mama Tenenbaum’s Tangle.” Miranda said sounding excited.

“Yes it is. Do you want to hold it?” Elizabeth asked her.

“Yes please.” Miranda asked her. Elizabeth gave her the stim toy. “I like this toy a lot.”

“It seems fun. I can’t blame you.” Archie told her. The two adults admired seeing the girl play with it. “Do you feel better right now?” Archie asked her.

“Yes.” Miranda said as she looked at him so happy. She just messed with it. Just like with the train but this time. She seemed more relaxed.

“Hey Miranda. If you want to squish my cheeks. I’ll let you do that if you want to okay.” Elizabeth told her.

“Okay.” Miranda told her smiling. The two just admiring the girl playing with the little stim toy. While behind the glass, Brigid was looking at the with a smile. Seeing a little moment like that reminds her there is still goodness in this city.

#bioshock #bioshock rebirth #bioshock au #archie wynand #elizabeth comstock #brigid tenenbaum

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tommysparker · 4 years

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Black & White: Prologue [QOH!Reader x Angel!Tom Holland]

Ayyy guess who’s back a few days later with a whole new series in tow :) This au is gonna be a little different to the other ones on this site, so read the disclaimer down below.

Disclaimer: I am not religious so I have no real idea how any of this works, I just like the concept. Also I was raised Hindu, so I’ve decided to do a mix of Hinduism and the standard Christianity concept for this fic. I really hope you enjoy this!

Warnings: None? (yet) incorrect representation of religion (like I said, I’m not religious I just like the concept.)

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“Well well, aren’t you a pretty thing?” a sultry voice whispered in his ear.

Tom involuntarily shivered, not wanting to show any weakness but failing miserably. In truth, he was terrified. Being sent by the Lord to talk to the devil was not on his bucket list, but he knew he was the only angel fit for the job. He spent his whole life on earth praising the heavens, and entering the afterlife and being welcomed with open wings was a true blessing he had earned.

He would not disappoint.

He will not give in.

Lord have mercy on my soul…

“He can’t hear you y’know,” the same voice echoed in his mind. “Down here, you’re all mine. Not even Brahma can help you now. So, tell me angel wings, what sins have you committed for God to send his most loyal devotee to my land?”

“Y-Your words speak of nonsense,” Tom faltered, hating himself for stuttering. “I’ve come by the Lord’s orders to suggest you stop tormenting Earth’s inhabitants at once.”

A small eerie chuckle bounced off the castle walls and reflected into his ears. He didn’t risk raising his head, not yet. For to look into her eyes, those dark black eyes he’s heard and read many stories of, is thought to be a sin alone worth being banished from the Heavens.

Some say the moment you look into her eyes, you’re a slave to her will. Others gossip over how you’ll be cursed for all eternity, though they sound both the same.

“Well then, suggest away.” She was amused by this, the tone was evident.

Tom didn’t know how to respond, searching his brain for words but coming up short. How could this...this thing have such an affect on him? Dear God--

“I told you, dear, you’re in my world now, not your world. I am the one in control here. I’m the almighty. Your dearest God can’t help you now, and he was well aware of that when he sent you here.” Her words were strong, bold-spoken, with meaning and intention. She wanted to make sure this white snowflake knew exactly what he signed up for when he agreed to pay her a little visit.

“God hears all!” Tom shouted, a small part of him praying his raised vocals would attract the attention of someone, anyone up above. He never should have agreed to do this alone.

“You’re right, you shouldn’t have,” the smile could be heard in her voice. “Now, I don’t have all night. I’m a busy woman as you know. Say what you must before I dismiss you to my demons.”

Tom dared to look up, eyes focusing on anything but those black-hole pupils. His gaze fell upon the broad, stretched out red and black wings, whose tips fluttered ever so slightly creating the small draft that made the hair on his arms rise. The sharp scales that glistened from the fire's reflection ran all the way behind her back, connecting to her figure. The shape resembled that of a dragon, and for a brief second he wondered if the she-devil could be a descendant of such a creature.

Curled horns sprouting from the crown of their head, wings with power to blow houses over with a single flap, and the fiery look in her eyes when he gazed into them-- wait what?!

In a single blink, she stood towering over him, black eyes with a small hint of white stared back at him, barging into his soul. He fought, did everything in his power to look away but his attempts proved useless. All he could do was stare into the abyss, feeling his grip on reality slowly fall as he got lost in her eyes. There was only black, and endless dark void- until it wasn’t.

Another blink, Tom was thrown backwards. He fell on his back, gasping for air as if he had nearly been drowned. He rubbed at his eyes harshly, reciting every prayer he’d learned in a desperate attempt to rid whatever evil spell she had placed on him. It was only when he heard a small whimper that he froze.

He slowly pried his hands away from his eyes, gaze darting in the direction the sound came from. Everything happened so fast his head was spinning, but he managed to make out a black figure, curled up with their wings wrapped around them protectively.

Tom stood and took a wobbly step towards the person before he suddenly remembered where he was, and exactly who was sitting in front of him.

Despite that, a small voice in the back of his head told him to make sure she was okay. Demon or not, as an angel he had a duty to take care of people, may God forgive him if he had done wrong by helping a lost soul.

“Are you alright?” He asked quietly, taking another step, despite his mind telling him to stay as far away as possible.

The figure rose, gracefully, wings unraveling like a blooming flower. She stood tall, a slight jerk in her hip as her hands gripped her waist. Her hair lit into a blend of red, yet maintained its natural shape. The flames danced along her back, falling over her shoulders, illuminating the structure of her face. Jaw clenched, tongue in cheek, and those eyes, those damned eyes…

Had he known his fate was sealed the moment he looked up.

“Are you just going to stand there and look pretty?” She quipped, dark written all over her facial expression. “You, my sweet angel, just made the biggest mistake of your afterlife coming here. Now, you will never see the light of your grace again. You’re mine now, and I don’t share.”

All traces of the figure he saw moments ago were gone, replaced by an evil presence that knew nothing of mercy.

Before he could react, two hands gripped his arms, pulling them back while a rope wrapped around his white feathered wings. Tom cried out, trying to fight but fell to no avail. The material trapping his wings felt as if they were burning him with sins, causing a silent scream to be ripped from his throat.

“What should we do with him, your majesty?”

“Take him to the chambers. I want no harm to come to this one, got it? If you pluck a hair on his head, if I find a single feather missing from his wings I will personally throw you into the river of lost souls. Do you understand?”

No response.

“DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!”

“Y-Yes, Rani.”

Little late for that, Tom wanted to say. Unfortunately, he never got the chance.

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And there you are! If you liked this please let me know so I’ll actually have the motivation to write more.

Feedback is always welcome!

B&W Taglist: @rebekkah4766 @greenorangevioletgrass @allegra-writes @soraitmnt @worldoftom @farfromparker @averyfosterthoughts @parkerpeter24 @angel-spidey @naztheapprentice

#tom holland #tom holland fanfic #tom holland angst #angel!tom holland #queen of hell!reader #qoh!reader #angel!tom holland x qoh!reader #tom holland x reader #tom x reader #angel!tom x reader #angel!tom x qoh!reader #tom holland x y/n #angel!tom #my writing

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figureofdismay · 4 years

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10 question fic writing tag

After a moderately weird few days filled with birthdays, minor power outages, insomnia, and some major cooking adventures, I finally remembered to go back to this in my drafts!

thanks so much for tagging me @astridcontramundum and @dangerously-human !! :D

What’s your favourite genre to write? Oh, that’s a bit tough. I guess I would say lit-fic but a little off to the left? Lyrical, mostly realistic, but just a little bit off, a little bit more. Fiction that’s on the line between traditional or modern fiction and magical realism or fantasy, but without it fully tipping over into speculative fiction or full fantasy. Just a touch too much synergy, just a breath of prescience and impossibility. This is also my favourite genre to read, which probably makes sense.

occasionally I dabble in less serious works that are meant to dip into wry comedy, but I struggle to stay interested in those long enough to finish and post them >.>;;

Do you pull inspiration form real life or do you pull things from other books/fanfiction you have read? Mainly other fiction, just because I’ve read about and gotten to know many more fictional people in my life than I have actual ones. But I also know that some of my experiences influence my writing, and probably influence why I’m drawn to certain pairings and view them certain ways. Hard to remove yourself from your own context, after all.

Sometimes realizing my probable influences can pull me up short while writing, actually. I’ll end up thinking ‘do you want to prove that you know that context that well?’ or ‘you’re just living out this fantasy with fiction and that’s unhealthy’ or ‘this level of codependence/lack of boundaries is actually not good, why are you promoting it?’ I don’t believe that fiction is propaganda, and I don’t believe indulging in idealization for the sake of poetic license and narrative satisfaction is harmful to anyone, but being bombarded by the ‘fiction must be moral and work for the advancement of society’ messaging for years and years has... given me some knee jerk self-revulsion triggers apparently. I try not to let it get to me but it’s hard. :/

Do you tend to write one-shots, short stories or longer things? *cries in the key of several epic WIP fics*

I don’t seem to do short, or one shots. I have 7 currently active WIPs, and the shortest one is around 20k (though not all of it’s posted). I have one finished fic from the last year or so, and I’d guess it’s 30-35K based on the page count and the avg. word per page count from the bit i have typed. If I typed it all up and posted it all at once, I guess that would be a one shot? 😅

(that’s The Polar Special fic I used to talk about all the time lol. But on the other hand it’s RPF for a fairly... unexpected? fandom so I’m not sure how much priority it’s going to get.)

Do you prefer writing descriptions or dialogue? both? I enjoy doing descriptions, working them into similes and backstories and turning them into mood indicators and characterization.

on the other hand one of the big motivators for me starting fics is having the character voices solidify in my head, and thinking up all the meaningful and casual things I wish they’d say to each other on the show (or imagine their fictionalized versions might say to each other off camera) so I love slipping into voice pastiche and just spinning out conversations. Not all of them make it into the final fics because they can be real tangents that don’t do anything for the story progress. It’s a real treat though! I think that if I wasn’t so invested in loving narrative and descriptive work, I’d do a lot of script style writing.

Favorite fic/book of all time? Of all time? I don’t think that’s possible to say. I do have favorite novels, that I return to over and over and shape my ideas about story and craft. Possession and The Virgin In The Garden by Antonia Byatt, Gaudy Night (and the rest of the Harriet Vane Books to earn it) by Dorothy Sayers. King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett (where my “a very great man or a viking” character tag comes from!). Little Big and The Translator by John Crowley. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whelan Turner. The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola. College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer.

for fics... I’ve read so many that have made a huge impression on me? MissParker’s Janeway/Paris fics are literally my constant comfort reads, especially The Long Away Mission and sequels. I still long for more of the long-abandoned You and Me (and the Blood We’ve Spilled), a lizzington fic by Hasfartogo. The Boy Who Died A Lot by Starcrossedgirl kind of blew my mind (Snarry). The Apparent Places of Fundamental Stars by divingforstones (Lewis/Hathaway). For You Alone I Will Be Weak and Basil and Cleopatra by Jontinf (whouffaldi). Throw A Little Salt, We Were Never Here, also Missparker but Will/Magnus. Leaving There Too Soon by Marginaliana. Blue Eternity, Infinite Darkness, and Dust to Dust and Thin Veneer of Mud Blue Paint by Evilmaniclaugh (Jezza/James) (locked DW comm, sorry). Retina Burn by August and Pene, the fic that made me ship CJ/Toby and turned my perception of how fic worked upside down 14ish years ago. Parabiosis by Penumbra (possibly they’re mashnotesofthemythopoetic now?), which is like. soul defining love story writing (MSR). I used to be terribly influenced by Tel*nu’s fics, T&M and Nice Girls Don’t defined pining and ust in fic for me for a long time. I also still think about P*nfairy’s Alec/Ellie fics, even though she’s orphaned them.

I’m sure i’m forgetting many, many important fics that I’ve loved, but after 17+ years of constant reading in fandom the prospect of going into all of them is boggling. These are just ones I think of regularly in day to day life. I’ve ready and loved so many thousands of fics though, it’s truly incredible!

Favourite trope? slow burn, I guess, and all that goes with it. I also love the kind of extended isolation with caretaking tropes, not like extreme stranded whump fics, but things like the Extended Stay series are exactly my kind of thing (a big part of why I was into Continuum). Road Trip and journey type tropes (.........and I just realized some things about the ways in which J/J works for me lmao. Also MSR. huh.). Secret Confidant tropes. Caretaking that flips the script tropes (like the usually looked-after one being the only person the Strong One/usual caretaker one allows to take care of them in return, or shows weakness to).

Are you the kind of person to work on more than one WIP? *continues to cry in several active WIPs*

Life Will Lay You Down (lizzington)

Clock Wise (Alec/Kiera)

Spend Our Days Like Matches (alec/keira)

the yet untitled sequel to They Say It Takes 200 Hours (jezza/james)

Younger Than We’ve Ever Been (janeway/paris)

Bow Like The Field (Morse/Thursday)

Do I Run Rare (Morse/Thursday)

Steady the Wheel (Linden/Holder)

Yet Untitled Post Home-AU (Morse/Thursday)

Ineluctable: the Second Stave (Buffy/Giles)

Go West, Paradise Is There (Buffy/Giles)

fake married lizzington AU

I can’t decide if that’s better or worse than I feared, but ��narrowing it down’ is just not a skill I’ve ever successfully grasped lol. I’ve stopped fighting it tbh.

How long have you been writing for? I’ve been making up characters and “collaborating” in my bed time stories since i was 3 - 4. Decided I wanted to be a writer when i was about... 7? Found fic and fandom when I was 12 or 13, but kept trying to write mainly original stuff for a long time. It was fall of 2013 when I decided to commit more energy than an occasional drabble to seriously writing fic. The Blacklist came out and cloaked itself in advertising that made me believe Red/Liz would be Clannibal-Lite, My maternal grandmother, the only grandparent I got to know, was dying of swiftly degenerative cancer and I was desperate to immerse myself in something. And then it turned out that really being in fandom (as opposed to lurking) and stretching myself with ambitious fic was far more rewarding than I ever imagined.

Do you tend to write in the morning, evening, or afternoon? tends to change based on my schedule at the time, but often quite early or quite late. In the middle of the day there’s other people up/family interaction time, and cooking, and dealing with the shopping, etc. I concentrate better when go off to my corner and work with limited interruptions. As do we all, I suppose.

Do you prefer to post and update your WIP chapter by chapter, or do you prefer to wait before your WIP is finished before sharing it? chapter by chapter. I just can’t stick with it if I don’t have a tiny bit of feedback sometimes. I had a good try at getting through a couple of these things in the last year, but I start getting really burnt out and feel like I’m working in a hopeless void somewhere around the 30K mark, it turns out. Oh well. I’ve finished very little, but I also don’t feel like I’ve abandoned any of the WIPs I’ve posted, so. I try not to feel too guilty? >.>;;

I’ve seen this bouncing around on my dash for days now so I’m not sure who hasn’t done it yet... tagging @greenapricot @steadfast @ladyoftherefrigerator @loversandantiheroes @marginaliana and @meetmeatthecoda if you’re at all interested, and anyone else seeing this who wants to! ;)

#writing #fic life #fic writing problems #long post #Ask memes #tag memes #this is the lj usage of the word meme #do people still use it that way lol?

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leahazel · 4 years

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7KPP Identity Meta

[The subject of racism in fanfic has come up, and I’ve been contemplating how and weather to change how I tag my own fics. This disorganized piece of 7KPP meta grew from those thoughts.]

Aly of @azalynestudios has said numerous times (I can’t find exact quotes right now) that in order to allow players to see themselves in the MCs they create, she wanted to make it possible for any MC of any of the kingdoms to be a member of any race, and have any physical appearance. She has also mentioned that the kingdoms are very inter-mixed racially, and that all the characters are probably multiracial (here and here, for example). She’s also talked about having multiple historical inspirations for each of the kingdoms (too many sources to link them all).

Such is not the case for the NPCs of the different kingdoms, specifically the ones with visible sprite art. This is partly because the visual artist Bana had a huge influence in, for example, designing the fashion aesthetic of the different characters. But Aly has also stated here that the NPCs’ appearance is “closer to what the nations originally were dominated by“, compared to the more modern, diverse population. With the notable exception of post-coup Revaire. In-game, a few references are made to the “new nobility” of Revaire all having fair coloration and a similarity in appearance.

So, any player who wants to make an MC of any background have any combination of racial traits, is given solid backing both by canon text and by “word of god”. An Arland or Wellin MC who’s Black or Asian or mixed race is 100% as canon-compatible as a white one. Of course, that also means that a white Corval or Hise MC is also canon-compatible, but I think we can agree that the dynamic on that is quite different, in the same way that writing a canonically straight character into a slash relationship is very different from writing Lisle (gay) or Avalie (asexual) into a het relationship.

7KPP is a visual novel and the NPC sprites are designed for maximum visual coding. When the sprites for all the delegates from a single kingdom appear together on the screen, they are meant to look like they are obviously from the same place. With the exception of the Revaire NPCs. Clarmont is clearly designed to stand out from Gisette and Jarrod, and not just because they are siblings and he’s unrelated to them. It’s because he’s a member of Revaire’s old nobility, and they are of the new nobility. Aly explains about this, for example here.

Now, there is room to criticize this approach to portraying racial diversity, but that’s not what I’m going to do here. There has also been plenty of well-reasoned criticism on the portrayal of especially Corval and Jiyel, where despite Aly’s good intentions, harmful stereotypes had more influence on the end product than she realized. I will also not be addressing that issue in this post, but I did want to acknowledge that there are a lot of open and complex questions surrounding the issue of race in 7KPP canon.

As a player, I took all the above issues as guiding principles when creating my MCs, including the bit about not whitewashing Corval and Hise MCs, and especially the bit about Revaire. Revaire was a huge, multicultural empire like Rome, and even though the narration in the game, and Aly’s commentary, both specifically say that the Revaire widow is of the new nobility, I made my widow Allegra an Old Blood noble, like Clarmont. Specifically so that she would stand out, like him, from among the other Revaire delegates.

So Clarmont and Allegra’s relationship has a kind of racial subtext, because they are a dark-skinned couple in (eventually) open rebellion against a monarchy of extremely white, extremely blonde oppressors.

I feel increasingly that I, as a white writer, am not up to the complexities of writing this dynamic. Not with all the goodwill and compassion I can muster, not with all the studying and listening I can do. I’m not yet sure what I’m going to do with that revelation, though.

When I created my MCs I tried to be conscious both of the implications of canon, and of the complexities of real-life race relations. There are decisions that I might have done differently, if I were doing them now for the first time, especially when it comes to my Jiyel MCs. Most of my MCs, just like Aly says, come from families that are multiracial, going back generations. It’s more obvious with characters like Christabel, who has a white father on one side of the family and a Black mother and grandmother on the other. Less obvious with characters like Felicity and Jack, who could be easily taken for white.

And because of the way that race relations work in our world, the fact that they can be taken as white means that in a very real way, they are white. Because, well, that’s what whiteness is, that’s what it was created to do.

So I created Felicity, my Arland princess, and she was white. Not a golden-haired, blue-eyes princess, but still white, still with the peaches-and-cream complexion (actual canon description), and still with all the baggage thereof. But why must a princess be white? She doesn’t have to be, as Aly specifically said. When I created my second Arland princess, I gave that some thought, and out came Verity.

Verity is mixed race, like Felicity, but in a more obvious way. I try to describe her in a way that makes it obvious that she could not pass as white, without being othering or fetishizing. But that became difficult, because Verity married into Revaire, into the very “new nobility” above mentioned as being the only group in the modern seven kingdoms that actually is meaningfully racially homogeneous. This begins to come up in her story pretty early on, when she first meets and befriends Nerissa, a Revaire widow who -- unlike Allegra -- is of the new nobility. Deciding to make Nerissa and Claude (and their family) white was a decision that ended up having big implications.

Because, while I don’t want to exotify Verity as a character, others within the story definitely do other and fetishize her, and make her feel out of place. Once it started coming up in the drafts of my fanfics, I realized that I couldn’t ignore it. Verity is a multiracial girl living in the royal court of a multicultural empire, where the narrow slice of the elite has been striving to push everyone else out of the public sphere. This affects how she interacts with other people, and it means that with any supporting character I add to Decline and Fall, especially the nobles, I first have to give a good long think to their racial background.

It also meant that I have to give thought to Verity’s family and genealogy, especially when I decided that I wanted her ‘verse and Felicity’s to share a common root, and diverge. That means they have shared ancestors, and here I had the possibility of taking another look at Felicity’s uncomfortable whiteness. I could have decided to make Arland’s royal family white, going back through generations of whiteness, and only occasionally marrying in foreign brides, which could still account for Verity’s mixed heritage. I felt that it would be more interesting to do something else, and make the ancestors common to them both dark-skinned and curly-haired, like Verity, not fair and brunette like Felicity.

In “Wendel Abbey”, Verity mentions to Brielle that she has a Revairian ancestor, and Brielle remarks that she must “come by her curls honestly”, that is, suggesting that her curly hair comes from Revaire heritage. But Verity corrects her and says that all her father (the King of Arland)’s family have it. I guess this is meant to represent the way that twenty years of a racially homogeneous (and oppressive) leadership have altered Revaire’s way of relating to the demographic mix of the other six kingdoms. Brielle is Black and her whole family is Black -- excepting her stepfather, who’s not mentioned directly in any of the fics (yet). The post-coup reality has affected the way she was taught to see the world.

It feels a bit like I am trying to have it both ways, both to talk about race and not talk about it, and I don’t know if I’m doing a good job. I’m not even sure that I know where I’m going with this post, even though I started writing it with such a confident attitude. I just know that these ideas have been swirling in my head for months and years, and it’s time for me to bring them out to see the outside world.

All my MCs are multiracial in the sense of their family trees, but some of them are easily identified as being characters of color. How to say this? In a modern AU, some of them would be stopped for a random check at the airport much more often than others. Allegra, Marguerite, Christabel and Verity are all on this list. Felicity, Jack, and Nerissa are not. Brielle is. Tristan is not. And so on.

If I had thought about all these things more clearly before I created my six original MCs, maybe I would have made my Arland princess a Black girl. Or my tomboy countess. Or maybe I would have made them both Asian. Maybe I would have made my Jiyel MC Black, instead of basing her appearance on stereotypical East Asian traits, as I did with Periwinkle. I probably wouldn’t have made her white, for the reasons I outlined above -- I’m not saying that white MCs are anti-canon or wrong in any way, but it would have been too uncomfortable for me. Part of me thinks, “but then what? I would have no white MCs at all?” And another part of me replies, “Well, what if I didn’t?”

Which is kind of an empty dialogue on my part, because I went and wrote Felicity and Jack being who they are, without thinking too much about what their whiteness means, and I’m probably not gonna go back and retcon that. All the thinking that I do about it has to be retrospective.

There are other points of discomfort, like the way stats and personality interact with racist stereotype, and the way that butts up against my own personal preferences in terms of female characters. It’s no secret that Allegra is my favorite among my MCs, and also no secret that my favorite build to play is based around 75 points in manipulation. Which in a gameplay context creates a really powerful character who can broker peace treaties and fall in love and do a lot of heroic things. But nonetheless, there’s a subtext to creating a brown female character and immediately labeling her “manipulative”. Allegra’s build also took a hit to the beauty stat, as did several others of my favorite characters, and there’s a subtext there, too, like it or not.

I was especially uncomfortable with the fact that my two high-manip characters, Marguerite and Allegra, were both dark-skinned brown women. Despite the fact that they’re very different from each other, and despite the fact that I love them both, and despite that I tried to give them both deep and rich character development that makes them much more than their stats. I did create another character, Xanthine the weaver!MC, who is also based on the 75-manip build, and made her white. This... helped a little? I guess?

This is what I mean about the clash between my preferences and the racial stereotypes. The traits that create the kind of female character I’m most interested in, are ones that can easily be interpreted in a very negative light. I can’t ignore the implications of that, however much I might like to dismiss it by saying, “I just made her what I love to see.”

Of course I’m going to carry all these ideas forward, into any new game OCs I create, and especially into original fiction writing. And I want to stress that I’m just one very confused white gamer and fanfic writer, and I don’t have all the answers. I just think the questions are worth asking all the same, and to that end, I sat down and spent an hour or more writing this very confused (and confusing) spiel.

You are welcome to: reblog with comments, reblog with criticism, link to this post, post your own reflection on the race and ethnicity of your OCs, send m4e asks about any of these characters, etc. Remarks along the lines of “it’s stupid to care about racism in fandom” or “there’s nothing wrong with being white” will be roundly ignored as being beside the point. If you’ve read this far (or even skimmed it) I’m amazed and astonished. I’ve lost any gift for brevity that I ever had.

#7kpp #meta #race & racism #ocs #decline and fall #the more thought i put into this the more i realize that i know nothing #long post for ts

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casual-eumetazoa · 4 years

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Hello! I love your rant about writing, and I agree with you but wonder if you have any advice for someone who’s getting back into writing after a long break? I write a few chapters of a doctor who fixit when I was 13, then one good omens fic when I was 15, and now I’m almost 17 and I feel awful whenever I write because I feel like my characterisation and dialogue are off. I have such high standards for myself and I fell like I’ve wasted so much time and it’s too late now I’m 17. Any advice?

hey there! thank you for thinking that i am qualified enough to answer this lol. seriously though, i’ll try my best but take this with like a whole tablespoon of salt cause i am just one person with an opinion and experience but no officially published works who probably made around 100$ total from my writing in my entire life,,,,

and also i have never read a “how to write” book ever

so first of all, there is no such thing as too late to be a writer! this isn’t a kind of thing like sports or music where age supposedly matters. in fact many famous writers didn’t even start writing till they were in their 20s, 30s, 40s, etc, you get the picture. also things like language ability and vocab richness only reach their peak around 25-30 years of age so your writing will continue to improve naturally as you get older

really the only thing that matters with writing is practice and feedback. the more time you spend writing, the better you will get at it. it’s a bit trickier with feedback cause it is not always helpful, but honestly self-evaluation plays a big role in my experience as well. basically the more experience you get at writing, the better you will be able to judge your own stuff and know how to fix it. at some point you will look back at the stories you wrote several years prior and will know exactly what’s wrong with it and how to fix it. but getting good feedback can greatly accelerate this.

so basically the best writing advice anyone can give is to keep writing! and then the only question is what you can do to write more.

for me, the two important things have always been journaling and writing for myself. journaling is pretty self-explanatory and it has some other benefits, like benefits for mental health and general well-being, so it’s a win-win. i’ve been journaling consistently since i was 14 and i often go back to old entries for a kick of nostalgia, and also to see how my writing ability and style have developed over the years.

i think the problem a lot of people have with journaling is that they find it boring or pointless, like i regularly have weeks when nothing interesting at all happens to me and there are no powerful emotions to process, and writing about what i had for breakfast just doesn’t cut it. that’s why i use my journals more for just writing down random thoughts that occur to me, as well as for writing down random bits of stories. most of those bits just stay in the journals forever but sometimes i find bits of plot or lines of dialogue in my journals that i later use for other stories.

the second thing is just writing stuff for yourself, and allowing yourself to write something bad. like, i’ve written over a million words (and no this is not a number i’ve pulled out of my ass, i’ve actually added it up once for laughs) of horrible self-insert fanfic, most of which has barely (if any) plot, and i know it’s bad so i don’t show it to anyone, but i still really enjoy writing it because i am writing for myself.

it is actually an important writing skill, to disengage your inner critic, because that is the mindset you should always have when writing the first draft. first drafts are always horrible! they only become good when you edit them, typically many times if it’s a lengthy story, and that is when the inner critic becomes useful.

there’s a piece of writing advice that goes something like “write drunk, edit sober”, and there are many ways to achieve that “drunk” state of mind without alcohol (though i do write better after a pint of beer, ngl.........). mostly it’s down to achieving so-called “flow”, which a lot of writers just call inspiration, and it’s a state in which you are doing something without thinking. if you’re neurodivergent or know the lingo, the extreme version of this is hyperfocus - a state in which you even lose the sense of time and can keep writing (for example) for hours on end

writing bad stories for your own enjoyment is a great way to master this. you just sit down and type up whatever comes into your head and that’s it. you don’t even have to read it back, and you definitely don’t have to edit it. since it’s for your eyes only, you can just focus on having fun with it and learning how to freewrite and reach that flow state if you can and benefit from it

another absolutely crucial skill for writing is reading. a lot of reading. and it doesn’t have to be serious literature, just read as much as possible of whatever you enjoy and consider good writing. cause thing is, “good” and “bad” are arbitrary, and you can’t please everyone, so just find the stuff you personally love and try to understand what it is about it that makes you enjoy it so much

there is also no harm in imitating for practice, though this is probably more helpful for developing style. in terms of characterization and dialogue, i think it’s more important to just read other stuff and make mental notes on what works and what doesn’t.

also for dialogue, i find that it really helps to read it out loud. actually that helps with writing anything but for dialogue in particular; like, often i read my stuff out loud to myself after the first edit and sometimes i will read it wrong cause my brain autocorrects stuff and that’s how i know what to fix

for characterization, i’d guess that the easiest way to fix it is to have a beta reader or a friend who is willing to help. feedback is great for any writing aspect as well, as long as it’s good feedback. i find that personally i learn the best from being pointed out what did work, because i am usually aware of what didn’t but just don’t know how to fix it at that point.

also imho at least characterization is one of the things you can take certain liberties with in fanfic, cause everyone has their own interpretation of characters and as long as you don’t stray too far from canon, readers usually don’t mind minor deviations.

so that’s about all i could think of and oof this is a lot of text!

tl;dr:

1) there is no such thing as “too old to start writing” or “too old to get back into writing”; all that matters is practice

2) practice is just writing, as much as you can

3) possible ways to achieve this is journaling (both about your life and as a scrapbook storage for thoughts, ideas, and story bits) and writing stuff just for yourself, and allowing it to be bad

4) “write drunk, edit sober” - first drafts always suck, so don’t overthink it, just write down whatever comes to your mind

5) reading as much as possible, and reading books in the genres you enjoy and want to write in is very important

6) reading out loud can work for improving dialogue

7) getting good feedback, especially imho getting feedback of what worked and what is really good in your story, can really help as well

i also have a note pinned to my blackboard titled “rules of writing”, which i have as a reminder of sorts, and if anyone wants i can share that as well

#ask #anonymous #writeblr #writers on tumblr

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be-ready-when-i-say-go · 4 years

Text

Falling From Grace- Part 2: Deleted Scenes

Calum, Ashton, Luke, and Michael have a prophecy to fulfill. They might not have always been Calum, Ashton, Luke, and Michael but they have always been brothers in the fight. Mythology!sos. Each guy is a God reincarnated from various mythologies.

See the full story.

Enjoy my masterlist

Support me on ko-fi

_____________________________

He’s known the museum sitting there for years now. He’s just never step foot into it. Felt way too close to home knowing that statues of people he actually knows sit about. But Ashton walts in this time. It could be fun he figures. It’s not like anyone knows him, knows his connection. So with his hair tied back for the moment, Ashton pays admission and starts about the exhibits. Most of the place is way too pristine. The white walls look more like a hospital and it feels like one too but much less sorrowful. He keeps his hands tucked into the pocket of his pants, restricting the yearning to touch some of the frames.

He misses the frill, the extravagant gold accents on his usual robes. The frames are the closet he’s going to get right now. Ashton follows the line down before rounding the corner and finding him at the door of another exhibit. Busts line the walls and he grins to himself. He recognizes these faces, knows them all too well, even if they are in white marble. Some are chipped, the wear and tear of time never being the most merciful force in the universe.

Ashton poses in front of the first statue, mimicking the facial expression. He sends the photo to the group chat. This guy was a dick. Or is a dick, still, I guess is more correct. He moves down to the second bust, pulling a face similar to the one sculpted. Less of a dick, he types, grinning to himself. He takes a photo with the last bust, furrowing his brows, and pulling down the corner of his lips. Less of a dick than the first two. Guy’s still not my favorite.

A couple of minutes later his phone buzzes. Michael’s replied, I’m saving these for evidence. You’ve been warned.

They hate me anyway, so good luck with that.

Damn it. Why do all the Greek Gods hate each other so fucking much?

Because we do. It’s our Brand™.

Alright Meme Lord.

Ashton chuckles, pocketing his phone. As he walks through the rest of the museum he ponders what else to do with the photos? Should they just sit forever in the groupchat? What’s the real harm in posting them? He doesn’t have to put a caption. If he’s going to live in this life then he’s going to live it to its fullest.

As Ashton settles back onto the cushions of his house, he hovers over the post button. He’s had the pictures sitting for ages in the post. Nothing’s going to happen to him. The Gods aren’t going to smite him, for all their seriousness, humor is not lost on them. Just post it, he thinks to himself. It is not the end of the world. He’s all acquainted with how that goes. His thumb twitches, the posts loads before the screen changes. There, staring back up at him, is his own face next to faces he’s always seen in the flesh.

Maybe it’s a bad idea. Panic starts to hits his chest. His phone buzzes. It’s Calum. I know you, mate. Saw the photos. They’re funny. Don’t worry. Ashton starts to draft his response, tell them how he needs to delete the photos before another messages comes in. If you delete them, it’s more suspicious. Leave them be. We are human right now. What’s the point of having this humanity and not using it.

Calum is right. Ashton exhales, deleting all the panicked message and replacing it with a simple, Thanks.

_________

Michael finds himself as the next one in a museum. This time not as accidental as Ashton’s trip. He decided to go out for the day, see some sights, to get away. They need a break. Recording and writing, more writing, more recording. He just wants to shut his brain off for a moment, just enjoy his time while it’s still mostly his. As he’s walking through the exhibits, awestruck by the use of colors and the line work that’s still incorporated into the final details of the piece, he jokingly poses in front of some pieces. He’s only doing it for the jokes, the giggle behind the camera.

But at the conclusion of his journey through art, he realizes that some of those poses were pretty spot on. He posts the set of recreations with the caption, Immerse yourself. Become art. He wants to add more. You are art. Everyone is art. Everything is art. There’s an art in just existing, in just breathing when everything feels like it’s telling you not to breathe, to not exist. However he figures it best to stay positive, to keep it light and funny. He’s becoming art and that reminds him, even in all the struggle of making this album he still has a duty to himself.

So he leaves it at just that. Become art. Becoming is the best part of existence. He can become anyone. He can become anything, even if in some ways he is still restricted by another’s diction. He will always becoming something in this human form. He hopes he never stops becoming either, even in the old age when bones are more brittle.

__ Everyone’s buzzing about Marvel. It’s always somewhere in the corners of the internet the correct way to watch the movies. Calum’s never been one to delve head first into this. But Michael enjoys it and rather than tune out his friend’s interest, he suspends all he knows and finds the action scenes and the comradery admirable. Even if people are robots made out of blue scraps, and someone’s a purple giant, and there’s two green people. But only one’s technically the alien and the other deems himself an abomination.

It’s not very amusing when the interviewer jokes about potentially spoiling the movie. Calum can tell Michael’s a little on edge. So he jokes, “Is Spiderman in it?”

“Yeah, I haven’t even watched the trailer because I don’t wanna spoil it,” Michael replies, looking down at the slight furrowed brow of the brown man slouched, picking at his nails.

“Is Spiderman in it?” Ashton echoes.

Calum speaks up again, “Is it Toby?” HIs face in deadpanned. He knows Michael will think he is serious.

Michael for a second is shocked, voice dripping with disbelief. “What? No.” He watches the very faint smile that overtakes Calum’s face and then laughs. Of course Calum would ask that. He knows it’s not Toby but it got a chuckle out of Michael.

Calum faces forward, staring directly into the camera, like in The Office. Not too many people will catch onto the joke, the play that just happened. But it’s fine. It’s for Michael anyway. The stab about spoilers wasn’t funny to anyone and rather than let that tension grow, Calum knew he had to break it somehow. This then spurs Ashton onto a rant about how Toby is better.

Calum interjects, mostly at Michael, “I like Tom, but I like Toby more.”

Later on, after all the interviews are done, they settle into the dark of the theater. They laugh, they gasp, they admittedly cry. Though it only maybe only a couple of tears and no one would admit it, it’s still a shock. Calum pulls out his phone, Why is Gamora? He decides to focus on the positive, on the laughs. Though the question itself is still a very valid one. Why is anyone? Why the question purpose, and sometimes the most difficult one to ask. Why anything? Why the four of them? Why is it so humid in Singapore? The t-shirt, that Calum figured would be thin enough, does not provide much circulation. His pits feel like a swamp, the leather to the couch they’ve been sat on for the last two days takes no prisoners either.

Calum has learned, however, that he can question why until he turns blue in the face? He could analyze every interaction, every word in existence and it would still only lead him to more questions. He doesn’t let that stop him from question some things but he tries not to question too many things. There is some, while it is scary, serenity in knowing that one does not have all the answers. He is allowed to question Why is Gamora and it is nothing more than a funny piece of dialogue from a widely accepted heart wrenching movie and it will provide answers of its own accord, at its own pace. All he simply must do is walk into a dark theater.

________

“So we can see, Calum out there has had a long day,” Luke starts, shirtless, watching out onto the balcony where Calum, “on the treacherous waters.”

“He was fishing for Tilapia,” Ashton interjects.

“Catch Calum on the newest season of Deadliest Catch,” Luke concludes. He doesn’t find himself to be the funniest guy, but every so often he likes to get in a joke.

Ashton opens the door, “You okay, buddy?” Calum’s earnest glance back makes all three men laugh on camera, including a small chuckle from Andy, who’s behind the camera. It makes Luke happy, that just for a moment, they aren’t too serious. Even though this is work, steaming his voice before a show, and he’s currently unsure of what he’s going to wear tonight, there is some play.

Later on, after the adventure in Cream Soda, venturing down the dark streets, Luke pulls Michael to the back of the group for an ‘interview’. It quickly goes down south. They continue on down the street. The saying all work and no play makes Jack dull is right. So they make sure to have fun, even if it’s in the backseat of the car, shakily hitting a falsetto about Shake Shack. It reminds them all, but Luke especially to try and shake the bad times off.

The whole year creating the album broke, and maybe in some ways, created chains and burdens. Expectations is the worst thing they’ve ever faced. They’re always expected to restore balance to the cosmos. That is an old cross they bear. But it is strange now to be so far into the limelight, to be told that they are expected to work almost endlessly day in and day out without allowing themselves the truth of the situation. They grow tired. They grow weary.

They sing in falsetto though. They make sure to have these small moments to be strange and to be weird to remind themselves they are bound to humanness. They are not exempt from doubt even with the expectation to be superheros in the eye of the music world, even though they know normally they are able in deity form do miracles things, that are incredibly human right now. And it’s okay to have this tender moments. They’ve earned them.

#calum hood #luke hemmings #ashton irwin #michael cliffford #calum hood fanfic #calum hood fic #calum hood imagine #luke hemmings fanfic #luke hemmings fic #luke hemmings imagine #ashton irwin fanfic #ashton irwin fic #michael clifford fanfic #michael clifford fic #5sos #5sos fanfic #5sos fic #5 seconds of summer #h writes

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r0b0tb0y · 4 years

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thank u for ur last answer! if its really not a bother for u and youve got free time, then could you do all the other signs? keep up the gr8 writing!!

Totally happy to do the rest, thank you for asking! :D

aries: when have you felt the most confident in your writing? when have you felt the least confident?

I’m very confident and self-assured as a fic writer. I try to take a risk with all my new projects, to keep it refreshing and to learn new skills. I was very assured drafting The Hour Before Dawn, because it relied on tropes I’d used many times before. I wrote it fast, with a very straightforward premise, in a big fandom with a popular ship.

I’m least confident tackling complex issues around race, religion, and ethnicity, but I think that’s a healthy thing as an Anglo writer. Because I write a lot of romance and smut, I stay critical about the difference between eroticising and exoticising. I read as much as I can about tropes and stereotypes that are harmfully applied to characters of colour, and I try to take a more subjective, dynamic approach. For Butterscotch, I had some invaluable beta readers that helped me flesh out John Silver’s Jewishness in a way that was unique to the character. I don’t know enough people in Star Wars fandom to have sought out beta readers, but I’d really love to.

I guess the answer to both is about relying on tropes? Sometimes it’s helpful, sometimes it’s harmful.

taurus: how long will you spend on a story or scene before you give up?

If I’m struggling with a scene, I’ll take a break for a day or so and come back to it. This happens a lot more when I’m writing smut scenes: even though I love them and I very seldom write fic without them, the more experienced I get the more difficult it is to make it feel engaging. Usually when I slow down/stagnate it’s because a smut scene feels like too much effort: that’s why I delayed Secret Lovers and Lovers’ Secrets for an entire year.

I shelve outlines/WIPs when I don’t feel inspired. Sometimes I pick them back up because a buddy encourages me and helps me workshop the draft into completion (Secret Lovers and Lovers’ Secrets, The Shark and the Ocean), or sometimes a release date will kickstart the need to finish the idea before canon disrupts it (this happened with The Ship of Theseus and The Hour Before Dawn). I’ve got some real obscure stuff lying around on my hard drive that I’d be happy to dust off someday: Cargo took three years from ‘idea we kicked around in the groupchat’ to completion and I’m very pleased with how it turned out.

gemini: how often will your plot change throughout the course of writing?

I don’t tend to make major plot changes while I’m writing: I write super detailed outlines with a very tight structure, and I stick to those. Plot issues get ironed out before drafting really starts. Usually the length of scenes is what fluctuates for me: one point on the outline might be 200 words, while another might be 2000.

For a long, plotty story like Hanging the Moon, a few little holes got filled fairly late in the narrative. When I say ‘Keeo holds the story together,’ I really mean he was the solution to a lot of minor problems that cropped up throughout. There’s a scene in the climax of Part IV where I changed the setting from a safe environment to a dangerous one, and it made a huge difference to the emotional depth.

cancer: how do you write emotional scenes? do you ever feel what the characters feel?

Emotionally! Yes! Sometimes I even cry when the characters are crying.

leo: what things will show up in every book you write? do you ever feel like a one-trick pony?

I think an overarching style in all the romantic stories I write is a sense of wonder. The POV character feels deeply ordinary in comparison to the object of their affections, who seems mysterious or even magical in their eyes. Sometimes that wonder is overwhelming, or it creates a gap too wide for their affection to bridge. It can be a false pedastal that creates deep-seated problems for the relationship. But overall, I think if a reader got sick of anything, it would be the way a protagonist is constantly marveling at their love interest.

I also write a lot of stories that focus on destiny, predetermination, and inevitability. As a result, I feel like I use a lot of celestial metaphors and titles. I think if a bot scanned my ao3 accounts for mentions of moons and stars the results would be embarrassing.

I love using clever callbacks: this is probably the biggest influence of Pratchett in my work. Those endings that knock all the air out of your lungs, whether good or bad, when finally you realise why everything had to happen the way it did? I long for those.

virgo: are you very critical of your own writing? how much do you find yourself editing (either during the writing or after the fact)?

Somewhat critical! While I don’t tend to change major scenes because the problems get worked out in the outlines, I’m always reworking smaller pieces of my work. I also think it’s good to look critically at what could be done better, especially in terms of representation.

I try to push my work to the best version it can be, and I’m quite ruthless in cutting things down. I’d much rather have sleek, stripped-back prose than repetitive, expository writing. I come back and tweak old work fairly often: if something isn’t quite phrased right I’ll go back and fiddle with it. The most frequent conversation I have with betas is ‘do I cut this?’ ‘no!’

This was a major part of The Shark and the Ocean, where the characters in the movies barely speak to each other. I’d write whole conversations and then delete almost all the words, leaving the reader to put it together. It’s also why I think Men To The Moon And Rockets To Russia worked. The physical, sensory descriptions are very rich, but the overarching worldbuilding is barely there. I wanted the whole story to feel like a snowglobe about to fall off a shelf: this intricate, swirling world that’s going to shatter at any moment.

libra: how do you balance writing and life? do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of writing you have to do?

I never feel overwhelmed by writing fic, because I never ‘have to do’ fic writing! This is a hobby! So if anything, I feel overwhelmed by my day-job writing because I sometimes commit too much time to chasing ideas in fic and not enough to my real work. Sometimes fic is a really good way for me to burn off restless creative energy, or to get myself into the headspace of writing.

scorpio: how much research did you have to do for your current wip? what was the weirdest thing you had to google?

To addresst this question again, but about the Poe/Mando WIP: I spent a really long time researching post-Empire cartels for a one-line MacGuffin. I had to google how many layers the Mandalorian wears and exactly how his belts are secured to his pants, so, you know, Poe could get into them.

sagittarius: do you find your writing humorous? do you have any comic relief characters? what do you do if a scene gets too serious?

My default writing is very humorous, I think. If anything my characters tend to be too wry in serious scenes. I love doing both banter and funny asides in the narration. The comic relief in Hanging the Moon comes from Keeo and the porgs, who can rapidly change the mood for characters and readers when I need them to. It almost felt too obvious to use them sometimes!

capricorn: what does your writing schedule look like? how often does it take you to write a chapter?

This really depends on my work schedule, which changes seasonally. During a work break, I can commit half a day to writing fic, usually mornings and evenings. My chapter lengths change but if I’m not busy, I write 1-2K in a day. I often draft on my commute, too, so I squeeze things in here and there.

aquarius: what is the most unique thing about your current wip?

Again, the Poe/Mando WIP: Poe can’t see (and has never seen) what the Mandalorian looks like. They talk, and they touch, but Poe agrees to wear a blindfold as soon as they’re alone together. As the POV character, he can privately say to the reader that he doesn’t mind: he’s attracted to the Mandalorian’s silhouette, his voice, his attitude. It’s never quite so on-the-nose as this in the fic, but Poe reasons that he’ll never know what the Mandalorian looks like, so it doesn’t matter whether it would be good or bad. It’s a really interesting exercise to write about genuine, spontaneous attraction without the visual sensorium.

pisces: how do you visualize scenes? do you see it like a movie in your head, or do the words just flow?

Ooh, so this sometimes depends on the source material. If the source is prose, I might imagine fic is prose; if it’s a comic, the characters will look like illustrations. But of course there’s sound, movement, and images if those are things the characters can sense too. I imagine texture, smell, taste, feeling—all things we don’t get in movies. I try to make a rich sensory world for the characters: how do you show in a movie that someone has a lump in the throat, or a sinking feeling in their stomach? I love getting to write about smells and textures: all the things that make prose feel so wonderfully tangible.

#fic #THIS WAS SUPER FUN THANK YOU #cnythnk1 #about #hanging the moon #the lost art of keeping a secret #men to the moon and rockets to russia #the shark and the ocean #the hour before dawn #butterscotch #the doksany stories #the ship of theseus #cargo

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lostinshawnsmemory · 5 years

Text

Figure You Out: Chapter 2 - Shawn x African OC

A/N: First of all I wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who liked the first chapter. I got so many nice comments and great feedback, it made me emotional. I love these characters and I’m happy that you do too. Thank you to @vnv21 and @rulerofnocountry for reading my drafts

PS: There isn’t a specific song attached to this chapter but I’ve created a playlist that I’ll link at the bottom of each chapter, rather than linking each song.

Word Count: 4.0k

Warnings: None

MASTERLIST

Series Masterlist

Fic Playlist

SHAWN’S POV

Did he stalk her Instagram? Yes, yes he did. ‘Everyone does it though’ he thought to himself as he picked up his phone for the umpteenth time.

He wanted to know more about her, but her Instagram didn’t give much away. From what he could tell, she loved photography, music, food, and travel and her friends claimed she was hilarious, but there was nothing there to tell you what kind of person she was. As ridiculous as it sounded, he wanted to get to know her. ‘You’re never going to get to know her if you don’t talk to her.’

He met new people all the time and could tell when there was more to them than meets the eye and this was definitely one of those cases. They hadn’t spoken for long but there was something about her. She had a lot more going on below the surface.

He tapped the arrow icon in the top right corner of his screen, then tapped on the new message icon and searched for her name. Before he could lose his courage he typed out a simple message.

*Hi T. I hope you got home safe.*

Then he deleted it before he pressed send. Something about messaging her like that felt off. ‘She’d think it’s weird considering we just met.’

It had to be something worth starting a conversation over. He ran his hands through his hair. ‘You’re overthinking it, Shawn. Just let it occur naturally.’ With that, he locked his phone and put it on the table.

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As she was getting ready the next day Tolani recalled what happened the night before. She was lucky she didn’t have a hangover when she woke up considering the fact she drank a lot more than she meant to. ‘You need to be more careful’ she scolded herself. Her thoughts soon turned to Shawn Mendes. Her friends had grilled her to no end on the ride back to their dorm. “I can't believe you were flirting with Shawn Mendes!” Nicole screamed. Tolani looked in the rear view mirror and gave the driver an apologetic smile, which he returned.

“I wasn't flirting with him.”

“Yeah right” Desire scoffed with an eye roll. “The two of you were deep in conversation and giggling for at least 45 minutes. Definitely looked like flirting from where I was standing.”

“Did you at least get his phone number?” Nicole was almost vibrating with excitement. “This is literally like something out of a fanfic!” She placed her hands in her heart and squealed.

“Sorry to burst your bubble, but this isn’t fanfiction and no, I didn't get his phone number.” She conveniently left out the part where she had given him her Instagram. ‘It’s not like it's going to go anywhere.’ She thought.

“How could you do this to me?” Nicole wailed. “You're supposed to be my friend.”

“No seriously. You fumbled the bag on this one cause he was seriously into you, I could tell.” Desire added.

Tolani gave a non-committal grunt and spent the rest of the car ride with her head leaning on the window, deep in thought. ‘So what that he has my Instagram? Nothing is going to happen.’

The sound of her phone brought her back to the present. It was a reminder that she was taking a tour of the campus and registering for classes today. She also had a text from her mum wishing her good luck and asking her to call when she had time. ‘I’ve got to remember to do that.’

It was only then she noticed the notifications and stared at her phone in shock. Shawn Mendes had followed her on Instagram. What she didn’t expect were the hundreds of comments on her photos asking who she was and why Shawn followed her. ‘I did not see that coming. Even though I probably should’ve.’ No messages from him though. For a split second Tolani felt a stab of disappointment. She had gotten her hopes up based on what everyone around her was saying. ‘Tolani you need to get over it. Nothing is going to happen.’ She looked down at her phone again, the sheer amount of messages and comments made her uneasy. ‘I can’t deal with this right now.’ She stuffed her phone in her pocket, picked up her bag and walked out of the door.

The campus tour was exactly what she needed to get her mind off things. York University was huge, much bigger than she thought and it was going to take weeks to get her bearings. It also didn’t help that all her classes were on the other side of campus. ‘Guaranteed I’m going to get lost more than once.’ she thought.

Meeting her personal tutor while registering for classes wasn’t as nerve-wracking as she thought. He was an older man who asked her questions about how she was adjusting to living in Canada and gave her advice about starting university and living in a new environment. After their conversation, she felt a lot more at ease about this new chapter in her life.

On her way back to her dorm she couldn’t help but take a photo of the library and put it on her Instagram story captioning it ‘Home for the next 4 years.’ With a smile, she has put in her earphones and walked back to her dorm.

While she was walking, Tolani felt a tap on her shoulder. She flinched and whirled round in surprise to see Kyle standing in front of her with a lopsided grin. “I’m sorry I scared you.” He said with an apologetic look on his face. “It’s just that I called you a few times and you didn’t answer.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you.” She pointed to her earphones that were still in her ears.

“What are you up to?”

“Oh, just taking a campus tour, need to make sure I can find my way around.” She gestured around her.

“I can give you a tour if you don’t mind?”

“Yeah. That would be nice.” She smiled politely. “Thanks.”

The two set off as Kyle showed her even more of the campus than she would have been to explore on her own. He told her that his older brother had studied at York and he spent a lot of time here visiting him. After a few minutes of somewhat awkward silence, we turned to her.

“Desire told me that you weren’t happy about the lion comment last night.”

“Yeah. It wasn’t funny. Comments like that are ignorant and offensive and I don’t appreciate them.” Her lips twisting in disapproval.

“I’m sorry. I made you feel that way. Can we start over?”

“Sure.” She replied. The two continued their tour, then walked back to their dorm.

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Back in the safety of her room Tolani let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. She was exhausted from all the walking and wanted nothing more than to lay in bed and listen to music. First, she needed to call her mum.

“Tolani!”

“Hi mum.” She smiled at mum through the camera. ‘Thank God for FaceTime.’

“Ba wo ni?” (How are you?)

“Mo wa dada” (I’m fine) she replied slipping seamlessly into Yoruba.

“How was registration?”

“Good. I’m all ready for classes to start next week. It’s exciting but also incredibly nerve-wracking.”

“You have nothing to be worried about.” Her mum replied.

Even though they hadn’t been on the phone for long, it felt good to talk to her mum. Being away from home was never easy and adding the fact that she was almost 10,000 miles away and in a completely different time zone didn’t help.

“Tolani I want you to enjoy your time there but I also want you to focus on your work. Okay?”

“Yes Mum.” She replied in English. Her parents were very much work oriented. Everything else was a potential distraction. Tolani understood that it came from a place of love but it was sometimes difficult to open up to them.

When the phone call ended, she was about to toss her phone on her bed she noticed another Instagram notification. It was hard to see in the midst of the comments still flooding her Instagram, but it was undeniable.

*Shawn Mendes replied to your story.*

Shawn: Pulling a Hermione I see?

‘A Harry Potter joke. Wooow’ she thought as liked the message and typed out a reply

Tolani: Harry Potter jokes. Is that what we’re doing?

She put her phone down and waited. Two minutes later he responded.

Shawn: They are the best type of jokes.😁

Tolani: Are they though… because I can think of at least 10 other jokes that are better than that one 🙄

Shawn: Maybe I could hear them one day.

That message stopped her dead in her tracks. Was that attempt to ask her out or was she reading into the message too much? She was confident that they weren’t flirting at the club but upon reflection maybe they were.

Tolani: Was that an attempt to ask me out?🤨

Shawn: Yes and No. More of me seeing if you were open to the idea of me asking you out, rather than me actually doing it.

Tolani: So I’m taking that as a yes. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Even though it wasn’t in person, the conversation flowed easily. Tolani wouldn’t have said that she was bad at talking to strangers but she was definitely on the introverted side of the scale.

Shawn: I guess you could say that.

She didn’t know how to respond to that. He wasn’t asking her out but letting her know that he wanted to. ‘Would I say yes if he asked me out? I don’t know.’ She flinched as her phone vibrated in her lap. Her heart leapt into her chest as she opened the message from him.

Shawn: Would you like to go out for coffee sometime? That was me asking you out btw 😉

Tolani: Like a date? 🤨

Shawn: Ideally yes, but it doesn't have to be if you don’t want it to be. We could go as friends 😊

Tolani: Are we friends?

Shawn: Let’s not label it right now.

He was definitely flirting with her and she wasn’t sure how to react to that. She could picture his smile and the way his eyes seemed to sparkle. He was definitely attractive so that wasn’t the issue. ‘There’s no harm in getting coffee as friends right?’

Tolani: I’d love to get coffee.

Shawn: Is it a date?

Tolani: Let’s not label it right now.

Shawn: Using my own words against me. Why do I feel like I’m going to regret that?

Tolani: I can guarantee it 😉

Shawn: Are you free tomorrow? There’s a really cool coffee shop we can go to called Early Bird on Queen street.

Tolani: I am. How about 11 o'clock?

Shawn: Perfect. Meet you there?

Tolani: It’s a date.

Shawn: What happened to no labels? 🤨

Tolani: I’m blocking you now. 😂🤦🏾‍♀️

Shawn: Haha! See you tomorrow T.

She stared at her phone in shock. She had a coffee date with a famous pop star. One that she knew nothing about. ‘A google search won’t hurt right?’

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Tolani was running late. She’d gotten on the wrong bus and was headed in the wrong direction before she realised what was going on. Luckily she was able to find her way to the coffee shop but was fifteen minutes late.

The coffee shop didn’t take long to find. It felt warm and inviting as she walked in. With white-brick walls, marble countertops and the addition of greenery, it was the perfect minimalist café.

He was seated towards the back on his phone, completely engrossed in what he was looking at, so much so that he didn’t notice her till she spoke.

“A pop star sitting all alone.”She said with a smirk “Aren't you scared you’ll get mobbed?”

He turned to face her and she was struck with how good looking he was. Photos and terrible club lighting really didn’t do him justice. She couldn’t tell what colour his eyes were that night, but she could see now that they were a golden-brown and much like that night they were sparkling. He had an angular face with a strong jaw but also rosy cheeks and a soft demeanour. His hair was curly and pushed back from his face save for an ‘S’ shaped curl on his forehead. ‘How ironic.’

“I like to live dangerously.” He quipped.

“I’m sorry I’m late.” She apologised. “I’m still getting used to public transport here. Ended up in on the wrong bus going in the wrong direction.”

“It’s okay T.” He flashed a smile. “Although I did start to think you stood me up.”

“Not gonna lie I considered it.”

“I don’t think my ego would ever recover.” He chuckled. “I didn’t order yet because I wanted to wait for you, but I have been getting weird looks so there’s that.”

The pair went up to the counter and ordered their coffee. Shawn ordered an Americano and Tolani ordered a latte.

“So…Harry Potter jokes…” Tolani gave him an inquisitive look as she took the seat opposite him dropping her handbag by her foot. “Of all the conversations starters, why that one?”

“Well, you posted a photo of a library, York University right? I could tell from the location tag.” After she nodded he continued. “And that was the first thing that popped into my head.”

“So you're a Harry Potter nerd.”

“If by nerd you mean I absolutely love it, then yes.” He nodded. “You?”

“Meh.” She shrugged. “It wasn't a part of my life growing up so I have no real attachment to it.”

“What?!”

“I mean I’ve seen the movies and they’re good, don’t get me wrong. I can see why people like it but it’s not for me.”

“Could’ve sworn everyone loved Harry Potter.” he said absentmindedly.

‘Not in my African household’ Tolani thought.

“Indulge my ego for a little bit,” Shawn said after a few minutes. “Did you seriously not know who I was the other night?”

“You looked familiar but I couldn’t place your face till my friend told me your name and mentioned Stitches.”

“Really?” he looked genuinely surprised.

“I guess your music isn’t super popular back home” she shrugged as she took a sip of her drink, flinching at the heat.

“Where is home?”

“I’m from Lagos in Nigeria”

“The only Lagos I’m familiar with is in Portugal.” He looked at her apologetically.

“I’m not surprised.” Of all the things she expected from Shawn Mendes, Nigerian geography was not one. “If you didn’t know the Lagos in Portugal I’d be disappointed seeing as you’re Portuguese.”

“How did you know that?” He looked at her quizzically.

She shrugged casually “You’d be surprised what you can find on google.”

“You googled me?” Shawn exclaimed. She expected him to look surprised but he looked somewhat excited.

“I had to! Stranger danger and all that.”

“And what did google tell you?” He leaned forward a curious look on his face.

“Everything. I know your address, bank account details and social security number.”

The look of surprise quickly morphed into one of amusement, as he started laughing. His laugh was contagious and sure enough, Tolani was laughing as well.

“Might as well go home since you know everything there is to know.”

When their laughter subsided, they both looked at it each other, the awkward silence felt like another person was sitting at the table until Shawn spoke

“What’s Lagos like?”

Tolani thought about her hometown and got a small twinge of homesickness. “Lagos has… the most incredible vibe, it’s one of the most vibrant and chaotic places but you learn to thrive on that chaos. And I may be biased but it has some of the best food and nightlife ever.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out her phone and showed him a photo that she took.

“That’s Lagos. Well, one photo of it I took in a moving car”

“As far moving car photos go, that’s pretty good” Shawn said taking a sip of his coffee. “How does it compare to living in Toronto?”

“I haven’t been here very long but I’m loving it so far. Lagos and Toronto are really different, it’s really hard to describe but the energy is different here. And I like that, getting to experience new places.”

“That’s one of the things I love about what I get to do. Seeing new places and meeting new people.”

“Tell me about that.”

Shawn told her about touring. He’d just finished touring in Europe and was home for 3 weeks before starting the North American leg of his tour. He told her about the energy in each city, and what made each one different.

One thing stood out to her as he was speaking and that was the way he spoke about performing. She could tell just from his description that he loved what he did more than anything. He was gesticulating wildly while telling a funny story about how his best friend Brian got hurt.

She took it all in, cataloguing his mannerisms and the excited way he talked about the most minute details.

“I’m so sorry! I’ve monopolised the entire conversation.” He pressed his lips together clearly displeased.

“Trust me I don’t mind.” Tolani started tapping absentmindedly on the rim of her coffee cup. “Listening to you talk about touring is way more interesting than me going on about my life.”

“I’m going to have to disagree. I asked you on this date to find out more about you. So let’s hear it.”

“What happened to no labels?” She said with a wry smile and a raised eyebrow.

He narrowed his eyes like he could tell that she was deflecting. “I only said that to make feel more comfortable about this.” He gestured between them.

“Who said I was uncomfortable?” She crossed her arms across her chest.

“I’m sorry… I just, I-“ he stuttered.

“Shawn, I’m kidding” she placed her hand on his.

She could see the slightly skeptical look in his eye so she steered the conversation towards a more comfortable territory, music.

“SO apart from Stitches, I’m not that familiar with your music. What songs would you recommend I listen to?”

“How about all of them?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “I think they’re pretty good.”

“I don’t know why people think you’re humble cause to me it’s the opposite.” she said playfully rolling her eyes.

“People think I’m humble?”

“I told you. Google… and Twitter. People LOVE you on Twitter.”

“We never actually talked about what you found during your Google search.”

Tolani narrowed your eyes. “You really want to know?”

“Trust me I really do.” he nodded.

“There may or may not have been something about Grammy nominations, 3 number 1 albums and performing for the Queen of England. I have to say, it's insane that you’ve achieved so much. “ she gave an approving nod.

His face lit up. ‘He must really care about my opinion.’

“Okay, to answer your question, it’s a harder question than you think.” He strummed his hands on the table deep in thought. “While I think you should listen to everything, you should definitely listen to Lost in Japan, Where Were You in The Morning, In my Blood, Memories, Why and Bad Reputation.”

“Are those your favourites?”

“Yeah. I feel like those songs encompass who I am as an artist.”

“I’ll listen to them and critique them later.”

“What about you? All I know is that you like Kanye and that your best album opinion is wrong.”

Tolani rolled her eyes. “I'm not getting into this argument with you.”

“Only cause you know you’ll lose.” Shawn feigned a cough.

“I’m not falling for it.” She said adamantly shaking her head.

“Okay,” Shawn replied holding his hands up in mock surrender. “Apart from Kanye, what else do you listen to?”

“Honestly. I’ll listen to anything, but afrobeat has my heart.”

“Afrobeat?”

‘Of course, he doesn’t know what it is Tolani.’ she mentally smacked herself. “Afrobeat is one of the most fascinating genres because it’s made of other genres specific to the African continent like Fuji music and highlife, while combining it with more western genres like funk and jazz. It’s something that transcends music, it’s way more than that.”

“How so?”

“It’s directly linked to history, culture and to a way of life. It sounds ridiculous but you don’t just listen to it, you feel it, you live it, you experience it. It’s hard to explain.”

She looked up to see him looking at her. “Hey. You’re looking at one person who understands what that means. I hope you could play it for me at some point.”

“I haven’t decided if I like you enough yet.” She replied. “Sharing Music is a big deal. You can’t rush these things.”

“Wow, you’ve really hurt my feelings.” He held his heart pretending to be heartbroken. “What am I supposed to do now?”

”You’re not funny.”

Shawn pouted and at that moment Tolani started giggling uncontrollably and didn’t stop even though she was gathering looks from the people around her.

“Your giggles say otherwise.”

“And there is the aforementioned ego.”

Before he could say more, his phone rang. He gave her an apologetic look before answering the call and talking to someone named Andrew. Tolani took that moment to check her own phone and answer a few messages. She was surprised by how much time has passed. It was already 12:45. ‘We’ve really just spent the last hour and a half just talking. Wow’

She could hear Shawn wrapping up his conversation. Telling the other person that he would call as soon as he could.

He ended the call and turned to her. “I’m really sorry but I have to go. I have a very minor crisis I have to deal with.”

“It’s fine don’t worry about it. I’ve got to head back soon anyway.” She gave him a small smile and reached for her bag.

“Do you want me to give you a lift? My car is not far from here.”

“It’s okay. Gotta get used to public transport remember?”

“Before you go, can I have your phone number? I didn’t get it the other night.”

“I clearly remember you asking for my Instagram, but seeing as you’re being extra specific this time. You can.”

The two exchanged numbers and only then did it dawn on her that she had just given her phone number to one of the most recognisable people in pop music right now.

“I guess this is goodbye.” Tolnai said as the two stood outside the coffee shop.

“For now. I’ll definitely ask you out again.”

“How do you know I’ll say yes?”

“I don’t, but it’ll be interesting to see.”

“Bye Shawn!” she rolled her eyes playfully and started walking away.

“Bye T!”

She was glad she was walking in the opposite direction so he couldn't see her smile.

SHAWN’S POV

As he got into his car, Shawn couldn’t stop thinking about his date. He mentally cursed Andrew for interrupting but the potential scheduling conflict was something that needed to be dealt with before it caused a bigger problem.

Seeing her today made her even more endearing, but he knew he had a long way to go before he could say that he knew her. ‘There’s definitely more to her than meets the eye.’ She was introspective but had an incredible sense of humour, something he was sure a lot of people didn’t get to see.

He could tell from the way her eyes glazed over when she talked about her hometown and her love of afrobeat, that both were incredibly important to her and he hoped she’d open up to him about it one day.

His phone rang, the sound echoing in the car. He pressed the call button on his steering wheel and the sound of his manager’s voice filled the car.

“Hey Andrew.”

“Hey Shawn, again sorry about the interruption.”

“It’s alright.” He sighed. “This has to be sorted out.”

“You sound frustrated. You okay?” He heard the concern in the older man’s voice.

“Let’s just say the phone call came at a bad time.” He let out a humourless laugh.

“Something I should know about?”

“Not right now.”

“Okay back to the matter at hand. You’re in LA for 4 days and GQ is requesting an interview for the new single, but it’s on your day off. Are you good to do it in the morning or would you prefer over the phone?”

Shawn drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Morning sounds better. That way it’s done and dusted.”

“Sounds good. I’ll keep you posted if anything changes.”

“Thanks Andrew.” Shawn ended the call and his mind immediately went back to Tolani. There was something about her but he couldn’t figure it out. ‘I guess we’ll see where it goes.’ he thought as he drove home back to his apartment.

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