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ladymarycrawley · 1 year

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Winning memories - John Stones

Request: I’m just wondering u could do one w iris and aidan being older? like teens? + can you do a request based off todays trophy ceremony with John Stones and family please

Warning: none, just a lil something that came straight off my mind after this weekend’s events and I thought it would be nice putting these two requests together ✨

Tag list: @masonxomount @stonesyy @johnstonesfc, @prideofpd

(gif credits to @johnnstones )

Another season, another trophy for the supersonic team that is Manchester City. The third Premier League in a row arrived quite unexpectedly as Arsenal had been in the lead for almost the entire period but when the final victory sealed the verdict everything turned out to be marvellously amazing.

To say you were proud of your man didn’t give the exact idea of how he made your heart burst with joy and love. He and the little family you were creating were your everything to say the least, the reason behind your every smile and every sacrifice, big or small, life required.

The sparkle in his eyes and the cheerful smile on his face made all the sleepless, lonely nights you spent alone in your big bed without him tenderly snoring by your side worth it. Honestly it was hard not having him by your side whenever you needed him to help you with the everyday tasks such as doing the groceries or calming down your baby when she started crying inconsolably but if there was one thing you had learnt while growing up was to appreciate life day by day, without questioning future events that much; what will be will be.

So you tried to put aside all your worries to live the present moment to the fullest, standing there together with other players’ loved ones staring lovingly at John posing with his teammates as all of them wanted to take pictures with the trophy as they should, in order to have those celebratory moments impressed in everyone’s memory forever, not just in some camera roll.

The City defender turned his head to look for you as he wished nothing more than sharing that precious moment with the people he cared for most in life. He did all of that not only because playing football was a passion of his but also because he wanted to see that proud look in your eyes and that big smile on your daughter’s lips.

When his eyes met your figure amid the crowd he raised his hand, gesturing for you to join him.

After all that time together it still felt weird thinking about your life companion as some famous footballer so you still blushed and got rather shy in this kind of public situation.

“Dada!!” Your baby Iris left your hand to go and run towards her dad, whom she was so in love with, more than you if possible.

“Iris!” The pitch was really packed and you always feared your daughter might have found herself in some unpleasant situation you obviously wanted to avoid. But John was there, ducked with his arms out ready to take her and that motion reminded you you had nothing to fear as long as he was there to keep you safe.

You sighed as he took your baby girl in his arms, getting back up and holding her with his right arm only.

“Here’s my princess” John beamed, pressing a kiss to her cheek as she was waving towards uncle Ruben.

Being a spectator of their interactions was among your favourite activities: she couldn’t live without her hero, her prince charming and he couldn’t think of his life without his little, blue eyed princess.

You stood right next to him, your head laid on his shoulder.

“Don’t panic, I got her” He whispered against your forehead, referring to moments earlier where you got worried over your daughter letting go of your hand. “You don’t have to panic, you know I got her”

Panicking was definitely something you better had to avoid while being pregnant with your second child. That little secret made those moments even sweeter, as your belly was still flat and nobody had to know about that sweet news of yours yet.

John kissed your skin right where he whispered his reassuring words, bringing a genuine smile to your lips. You kissed his cheek in return while murmuring all your love for him, complimenting him for the big result he just achieved.

His fellow defender Rúben joined your company to say hello to your baby and to you. He was such a good guy and Iris loved playing with him, not to mention how that made John jealous sometimes.

The three of you stood there watching Iris playing with Kevin’s and Kyle’s children and you didn’t have the slightest intention to let go of John’s hand that was resting on your hip, using his arm as a support for your slightly aching back.

“You both look so cute in your jerseys, in my jersey to be fair”

He kissed your cheek “You look so damn hot in my jersey” He moaned in your ear, doing that on purpose just to tease you.doing it on purpose just to tease you.

“John”

"I can't even praise my most precious trophy, aka my wife?"

His cheesy words made you roll your eyes as he bit on his lower lip, lightly smacking your bum.

"Speaking of your jersey, I have something to give you at home"

He looked at you with a frown before wiggling his eyebrows mischievously.

"Is it what I'm thinking about?"

"Wh - No, you perv. That's about your daughter"

John was still unaware of the special little present his baby girl made for him and you knew that moment would have been something you would have remembered for a long time…

"Well, at least my daughter didn't draw me with gray skin" He said looking at the drawing she gave him before going to bed, clearly referring to the drawing some children did of him and his other City teammates.

"She put you in your City jersey which is so similar to the original"

"Yeah…and what is this yellow thing here?"

"Erm…the sun? Oh no wait, she said it's a lion. It's for England"

"Ohh I see. She's as clever as her mother, I'm so lucky" He shook his head laughing as you playfully hit his arm.

"She surely is!"

"I'd really like to congrat her on her majestic work of art, what a pity she's sleeping"

"John Stones, if you wake her up I'll kill you"

"Oi okay, got it, don't get so aggressive"

You chuckled, resting your head against his chest, doing the same with your legs throwing them over his thighs.

"Did you turn the paper over?"

"Don't think so…why?"

"Do it"

John looked a bit confused but followed your instructions, seeing the letter you wrote him in cooperation with Iris.

"She can't write yet so I guess this is from you?"

"Not exactly, I just wrote about the endless love she has for her father"

"Mhh yeah sure"

"Read it and shut up" You giggled.

Iris just wanted to write something like "You're the best dad in the world xoxo" but I thought maybe scribbling down some more words would have been nicer.

I'm so proud of you (yeah, what an original thing to say to someone you love) but that's the truth: you make me proud every day, not just with the amazing milestones you're reaching throughout your career as a professional footballer but as a person too, as the man of my dreams who always makes sure we're doing alright.

You know it's hard waking up in the morning when you're not there with me, it's hard having to explain our little sunshine why her dad had to leave for a couple of days or a couple of weeks; it's hard comforting her when she screams your name looking for her favourite playmate that will never get tired of watching her signing the whole Frozen soundtrack on repeat, using words that didn't make it to the English vocabulary just yet.

Another hard thing for me is expressing my own feelings but you should know by now how much I love you, I'd be lost without you (another love sentence you've never heard of, I know). You’re an adorable, hot dork I couldn’t live without.

You make me a better person and I love it even when we argue (forget I said that) because it means you care and I care about you a lot as you're my everything, all the best I could've asked for in this crazy life”

While reading the letter to himself you could see John's eyes getting teary and you smiled when he searched for your hand to squeeze.

“Now enjoy all the celebrations for this amazing result you achieved for the third time in a row because we'll be here by your side celebrating the champion that you are, as we always do

We love you daddy, to the moon and back 💙❤️"

John got so emotional reading the whole letter he was at a loss for words, he needed some time to think about the right words to say.

"Aww are you crying? Or is there something in your eyes?" You joked with the biggest grin ever plastered on your face.

Your hand went to rest on his lower back to soothe him.

"Yeah, there's definitely something in my eyes"

You giggled, placing a peck on his covered shoulder first and on his cheek later.

A while passed from that moment that, as you imagined, you would cherish for years on end.

Iris was now a grown up baby - but still your baby - almost twelve and her brother Aidan - who was the size of a bean back then - was now ten so it felt as if a whole century had passed.

During one of your tidying sessions, you found that drawing Iris did together with your letter and couldn't help but shed a tear.

"Why are you crying?"

You turned in the direction of John's voice, smiling with gratitude. It was also thanks to him if you were living such a good life with your loved ones.

"I just found this letter, you know"

John took it to refresh his memory and smiled through the words.

"I'm gonna show this to Iris tonight and be the embarassing parent she hates me to be"

Your husband loved to be a tease and embarass your children, especially Iris who wasn’t a little girl anymore, but he would always say those were just acts of love.

You giggled, stretching out your arms to motion for him to help you up.

"You know she doesn't like it when we remind her of these things"

"I know, she's exactly like you"

“An adorable, gorgeous young woman?”

“Nope, more like a pain in gthe arse”

You scrunched up your face as he kissed your frown.

"But I love you no matter what" He retorted trying to save himself from your fury.

"Me too, Stonesy, even though you’re an embarrassing parent sometimes and a pain in the arse as well"

He rolled his eyes and smacked your bum.

"But I love you, every day more"

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romione-trope-fest · 2 months

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Finish

Fic Title: Finish

Author Name: voldemorts-tap-shoes/smjl

Selected Trope: Weasley Weddings

Brief Summary: Ron and Hermione find time on the horcrux hunt to finish what they started at Bill and Fleur’s wedding.

Word Count: 1859

Rating: T

Any Trigger Warnings: none

***

It feels like she has packed and repacked this bag a hundred times since the start of the summer. Even with magically infinite space to bring whatever they need, Hermione has second and third and fourth guessed this book and that potion and everything in between. Sometimes she worries that the beaded bag and its contents are all she’s contributing on this mission, and she wants to get it right.

As she reaches in again, her fingers snatch onto floaty fabric that she recognizes by touch alone and after a moment’s hesitation, Hermione pulls out her dress from Bill and Fleur’s wedding, letting the chiffon unfurl toward the dark and dingy floorboards. What a perfect day that might have been if not for—well, everything. Spending the reception dancing with Ron was a bright spot in an otherwise mostly dreary day, from the Minister’s visit that morning to the uninvited guests that crashed the post-wedding party. But even that…

She thought she knew how Ron felt about her, thought that they were making strides toward something more than friendship. But even though he had snagged her away from Viktor to dance, showcasing a jealousy that reminded her of fourth year and the only other time he had seen her so dressed up, there had been nothing more. He hadn’t kissed her, he hadn’t told her how he felt. Of course, she hadn’t done those things either. There’s a war coming—it’s here, really—and what the hell are they waiting for?

Hermione tosses the dress over the back of the sofa and reaches back in for Ron’s dress robes. She’s not sure why they’re still in the bag anyway, why she hasn’t hung them up in a closet somewhere under a preservation charm to keep the dust off. Of all the things that they might or might not need hunting horcruxes, she thinks it’s fairly safe to assume that her dress and his dress robes are a do not need. But they’re also the only things they have with them that remind her of a happier time. Everything else in the bag is so…tactical.

“Hey.” Ron’s voice jolts her out of her thoughts, and he raises a quizzical eyebrow at her as he enters the room. “What are you doing?”

“Packing. Unpacking. I don’t know.” She motions to the pile of clothing draped over the sofa she’s been sleeping on every night, her fingers entwined with Ron’s. That means something, doesn’t it? “I don’t suppose we have any need for these anymore.”

“Probably not.” Ron trails his fingers down the sleeve of his robes. “It’s a shame that we didn’t really get to finish the wedding.”

Hermione shrugs. “It was a lovely ceremony. Fleur looked beautiful, and at least we made it past the cake and everything before the Death Eaters showed up.”

“Oh, er…I meant us,” Ron says, and Hermione’s breath catches in her throat. “We didn’t really get to finish the wedding.”

What is he saying? Did he have plans for them that evening? Was that going to be the night, before everything fell to pieces and they were running for their lives?

He smiles at her, that lopsided grin that’s been melting her heart since she was fourteen, and suggests with a laugh, “We could always get dressed up again, and have our own little celebration here.”

Hermione chuckles too. As much as she would love to do that—to know what exactly they didn’t finish the night of his brother’s wedding—they have more important things to focus on. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Oh. Yeah, alright.”

“I just meant with the mission—”

“No, no, you’re right.” Ron gives her a tight-lipped smile. “I’m gonna go see what I can round up for dinner.”

He leaves her alone in the drawing room without another word, and Hermione sighs, wondering how she always manages to say the wrong thing to him.

She gathers up the clothing, but rather than put the pieces in a closet, she folds them carefully and places them back into her beaded bag.

Maybe one day we can finish what we started.

***

Ron’s feet are heavy as he trades places with Harry, who’s about to finish out the night watch. The winter air outside is nothing compared to the frostiness inside the tent. Not that he’s surprised. Not that he doesn’t deserve it. But he and Hermione are both as stubborn as they come, and her resolve is stronger than his.

She’s barely said five words to him since he returned to the hunt, so the sight that greets him behind the tent flap hits him harder than a stunning spell: Hermione, wearing that tantalizing lilac dress from Bill and Fleur’s wedding.

Obviously, she’s gone completely round the twist.

Ron takes a step forward into what he now realizes is a suffocating heating charm on the tent, mimicking that same stuffy August evening. Before he can raise any questions, Hermione thrusts a bundle of fabric into his arms. “Put these on,” she instructs, her tone clipped as her lips set into a thin line.

“My dress robes?” Ron asks as he examines them. “Hermione, are you feeling alright?”

“Peachy,” she snaps, the only response he’s apparently going to get. After a loaded moment without further instructions, Ron takes a step toward the loo.

“Uh…okay. Be right back.”

Hermione’s request makes absolutely no sense, but he’s not really in a position right now to deny anything she asks of him. If putting on his dress robes will get her to talk to him, it seems a very minor sacrifice to make.

He puts the robes on as quickly as he can and then heads back out to the main area of the tent, where Hermione is waiting. They’re a pale echo now of themselves from that night—clothes hanging loose from months without proper nutrition, both a bit scraggly and in need of a haircut, and a shave in Ron’s case—but she’s still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Her expression is one of grim determination, but her brown eyes are wide and bright as she looks up at him.

“You said we never got to finish the wedding,” Hermione says softly.

“You want to now?” Ron asks incredulously, shock winning the battle against common sense. He had suggested this, only sort of joking, back at Grimmauld Place and she had shut him down. The conditions now are even less ideal, and he’s flabbergasted that she’s bringing it up.

“I need to know if I’m crazy,” she answers, and though Ron has some thoughts on that at the moment, he wisely keeps them to himself, “or imagining things. I need to know what we didn’t finish that night.”

“Hermione—” She holds a hand up, silencing him instantly.

“Show me.”

Stubbornness grips them both again as they stand frozen, eyeing each other across the room, neither willing to look away. She doesn’t know what she’s asking. She doesn’t know that he had every intent of pulling her out to the back garden to tell her how he felt, to maybe finally steal a kiss, but a combination of having fun dancing and debilitating nerves at the idea of taking that step had kept him putting it off for one more song. One more glass of champagne. Until there was no more music and no more champagne, only fear and chaos, and their focus had been forcibly shifted to other things.

She doesn’t know any of that, so what does Hermione think they’re finishing?

Sod it. She’s the brightest witch of their age. Maybe she does know.

Ron crosses the room to the wireless and gives it a couple of taps with his wand until it’s playing the soft, slow song that had been the last one they heard at the wedding. He turns back to Hermione, who holds her hand out in invitation. “Come and dance?” she whispers his own words back at him, her voice shaky as her eyes glisten with unshed tears.

He takes her hand and wraps his other arm around her waist, pulling her in close, and Hermione’s head settles against his chest as they barely sway to the music. Even before he left, they haven’t been this close since the wedding, and Ron never wants to let go again.

“Do you really want to finish this the way I wanted to at the wedding?” Ron asks softly as the song ends and then starts over. “You’re hardly even speaking to me, let alone—” He cuts himself off with a sigh. Despite Hermione being the one to initiate this, kissing her feels like a boundary he shouldn’t cross.

Hermione pulls away to look up at him, but holds onto his hand. “When you left, it made me question everything I thought I knew about you. About—us.” She takes a deep breath before continuing. “So yes, I want to know. I need to know. Unless—”

She stops, and Ron braces for her rejection. Maybe he should’ve just kissed her and not second-guessed himself. Hermione bites her lip anxiously and drops his hand, and his fingers dangle uselessly between them, still half-reaching for her. “Unless what you want has changed since the wedding because in that case there’s no point in pretending that—”

Whatever else she’d intended to say gets swallowed up by Ron’s lips. What he wants hasn’t changed at all, only gotten stronger, and he doesn’t want to wait any longer to show her.

Hermione melts against him, her hands finding their way into his hair, and kissing her feels like coming home. Every brush of her lips against his is a taste of forgiveness, and he drinks it in like he’s dying of thirst.

He doesn’t stop kissing her until he tastes salt, and he pulls away to find tears streaming down Hermione’s cheeks. She leaves her hands tangled in his hair to keep him close, though, and presses her forehead to his to whisper in anguish, “Why did you leave, then? If that’s what you wanted, Ron, why did you leave?”

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. He never expected it to be. Ron sighs. “That’s a story for a different night, I think,” he replies, and at that Hermione does let him go with a hollow laugh.

“Of course you’re not going to tell me,” she scoffs. “Why would this change a damn thing between us?”

Ron reaches for her again, tugging at the chiffon that hugged her body like a glove four months ago but is now loose enough for him to grab an entire handful. “I just meant—not this night.” He motions to their outfits, to the purple dress and the navy robes that aren’t yet tainted with thoughts of the locket. “Let’s get changed, and I’ll tell you everything.”

Hermione trails her fingers down his lapel as she looks up at him. “Promise?”

“Yeah,” he agrees easily. All he’s wanted to do since he got back is tell her the truth; he’s just been waiting for her to want to hear it. “I promise.”

#submission #weasley weddings #romione trope fest

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anderstrevelyan · 6 months

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My Blood Your Paint

Rating: M / Pairing: The Dark Urge/Enver Gortash (one-sided—thanks, amnesia) / Word Count: 3,139

If you’d told me when I started this game that my writing brain would be consumed by this particular antagonist I would not have believed you, but hey, here we are! I’m working on more about Valas (and Gortash) set before the game, but it seems fitting for my first posted Baldur’s Gate fic to be about the scene that started it all.

Here's the Act 3 coronation from Gortash’s perspective.

Excerpt below, and you can read the rest on AO3.

Today was supposed to be the best day of Enver Gortash’s life. Everything was to be his. Everything. Exactly as it always should have been, from the moment Bane looked into his black heart and saw the makings of a lord. After all the cold, long years he’s spent, belittled and betrayed, building himself up with unwavered faith to close his fist around the kind of power Baldur’s Gate has never seen: to become its first Archduke. Yet it was incredibly clear, long before today’s vaunted coronation, that today won’t be the uncomplicated triumph he’s long imagined. Ketheric is dead. Orin is unstable, wavering, threatening to carve out the plan’s still-barely-beating heart—the antithesis of anything he would have chosen in an ally. The brain threatens to revolt, rumbling beneath the very streets, sparking his own panic even as he stands straight to solve everyone else’s. And Ketheric’s killers, utter unknowns, bearers of the third Netherstone—they remain the key. And so this day, his day, becomes all about them.

No matter. He’ll convince them, that standing with him is the way forward, the only way to best the brain: through logic, through charm, through the power of pageantry—or through force, if it comes to that. He just wishes—as he makes the final touches to his hair and pins the last golden brooch to his lapel, as he descends the winding stairs of Wyrm’s Rock, as he hands the ceremonial sword to Ulder Ravengard, mind tadpole-tethered and tamed—he wishes he had more to go on about what makes these mysterious adventurers tick. Orin had tried to plant a treacherous little seed, of course, and he curses himself for sparing it another thought. With a toss of her braid, affectedly aloof, and the exact right idea to carve into his skull: that her sibling, Bhaal’s fallen Chosen, his own lost everything, lives still. Is among those adventurers. Is on his way to him here, today, has accepted an invitation to these very formalities. Gortash didn’t fail to notice the cruelty in Orin’s eyes as she’d said it, had tried to focus on its memory as he heard of sightings across Rivington, through his Steel Watch and more quiet observers—or at least, sightings of someone wearing his face. Gortash wasn’t going to fall for that again, even as each report sparked an unwanted shock of hope through his heart. It’s not him. It can’t really be him. He focuses instead on the details of the audience hall: takes a silent roll call of the invited patriars, in their ceremonial best to greet the city’s new dawn, checks and re-checks its defenses, the Steel Watchers standing sentry and the traps, gilded gold, ready to make ash of anyone who tries to intervene. Orin and her ilk won’t come here. Even she wouldn’t dare. By the time he feels a faint resonance in the stone secured to the back of his hand, he’s calm again. Confident. Sure, as he listens to Dillard Portyr introduce him with a dull-as-ever speech, that he has this in his control. But when the far doors open, when he’s sure the newcomers are the ones he seeks, when they come close enough for him to see Valas DeVir’s face—that’s when Gortash knows he’d been wrong. Gods below, this really is the best day of his life.

(keep reading)

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #enver gortash #the dark urge #durgetash #dark urge x gortash #my writing #bg3 fanfiction #valas devir #dark urge/gortash

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horrornvnfan · 10 months

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Restart Heart Fanfic!

This is a character study fanfic for my MC of the game, Maria Dust! This fic focuses on Maria's relationship with her sister, Sarah, and their family. I know very little about the Dust family canon, just a few things from lore posts, so please consider this headcanon!

happy anniversary again to this amazing game! @restartheartvn

------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------

You are Maria Dust, and you are seven years old. You are the only child of the Dust family, and you're never allowed to forget it. Everything you do is a reflection of your parents, and that reflection must be spotless.

You're supposed to sit still. You're supposed to be quiet. You're supposed to be the best in your class.

You fail at all of these things.

You always speak and laugh and cry too loudly and suddenly. You always bounce on your feet and swing your hands when you’re idle. You always get average grades no matter how hard you try.

You utterly fail at perfection, and your parents let you know it. But you won't be their only child for much longer. You are getting a little sibling.

-------------

You are eight years old, and you have a little sister. Her name is Sarah and she is a toddler and for the first few weeks she's home you don't even see her. Your parents barely speak to you. All of their attention is on her. Your parents were never nice to you, but this makes you jealous anyways.

When you're finally allowed to meet her, your jealousy is blown away like confetti in the wind. You love her at first sight. She's soft to touch, her hair is yellow like dandelions, and her eyes are green like freshly cut grass. The first time you hug her, you do it for so long that you have to physically be pried away. She's like a doll, she's like an angel, she's just so cute, and she's yours. She's your sister.

You teach her how to play with your toys and you are told to share (you were sharing!) When she refuses to eat her vegetables, you eat them for her when your parents aren't looking. When your parents have gone to bed, you sneak to her room with a flashlight, and you read her her favorite story (you don't know why dad reads her those boring ones she doesn't like.)

You are Maria Dust, and you love your little sister.

-------

Years go by, and you begin middle school.

Sarah has come out of her shell. She's poised and polished and charming, and everyone who meets her adores her. You are proud of her. You are still not allowed to be close to her.

Her grades are better than yours were at her age, and she needs to focus on studying. She's better at music than you are, and she needs to practice. The people at the benefits your parents attend find her politer than you, so they all go without you.

You utterly fail at perfection. Sarah exudes it. You miss your sister.

You spend all your time in school at Steph's side. Sometimes Kenneth joins you, when he's not being too fussy. Your friends come to your soccer games. Sometimes they even come to practice just to hang out with you. They cheer when your team wins third place in a tournament. You love them for it.

Your parents haven't been to a game of yours since you were eight. Sarah hasn't been to a single one. But your whole family attends a beauty pageant Sarah's in, and your parents set her first place trophy on the mantle.

You are proud of her. Really, you are.

-------

High school was when you got rebellious.

You skipped benefits. You dyed your hair to match with Steph for a while. You signed up for more sports to avoid going home until late at night (Your parents didn't actually mind that last part.)

You graduate, and when your family comes to the ceremony, you’re surprised. Your parents are not proud, but they're not angry, which has become the best you can hope for from them.

Sarah's dress is much more extravagant than yours. You think she looks beautiful. You want to tell her so, but her eyes are cold. You wonder how long she has looked at you like that. Years, you think. It’s something like frustration. Or just displeasure. You don’t think it’s resentment. You hope it isn’t resentment.

When was the last time the two of you talked? That is, without Sarah echoing your parents’ opinions of how much of a disappointment you were. You were used to it from them, but hearing it from your sister formed a knot in your stomach.

You've been avoiding her. And she still came to your graduation. All over again, you miss your sister.

You miss chasing her around the house in capes made from towels. You miss helping her get gum out of her hair in secret, before your parents can notice. You miss sharing necklaces because Sarah was sure you had one that would be perfect for an outfit she planned. You miss when you could climb higher in the tree than she could, and how she'd look up at you from a lower branch, eyes wide and arms outstretched, waiting for you to pull her up.

Sarah came to your graduation. You tell her she looks beautiful. She makes a face and looks away, and she's stiff when you hug her, but she lets you, for a second. It's enough for you.

-------

You're in college. You text Sarah now. It's nice. It's easier, it's less stressful than face to face conversations with her.

You tell her about your classes. She tells you about hers. You tell her funny stories about you and Steph and Kenneth. She tells you about her friends too. You're not close. You're not even talking to each other, not really. But it feels like progress, and it makes you happy.

-------

You finish college with an engagement ring on your finger.

Your relationship with Kenneth is something strange that is hard to put words to, like broken glass mixed in with ice cubes. Like walking into the deep end of a pool with sandbags for shoes.

You want to talk to Steph about your nerves. But Steph has grown more and more distant from you ever since you started dating Kenneth. You don’t know why.

You think, for the briefest moment, about talking to Sarah. Your little sister. Your not-really-but-sort-of-almost friend. You decide against it. You don’t want to look bad in front of her, not when things are getting decent between you.

Your parents have never paid more attention to you. They have never smiled so much in your direction, never once said they were proud of you until the day you told them you’d be getting married. You feel like there’s lead in your veins.

You have an engagement party in a few months, a moment of truth. Your parents will be there. Steph will be there. Sarah will be there.

You are Maria Dust. Your story is about to begin.

#i have never actually written fanfic before? i hope this is ok 🥲#restart heart #my post #MC: Maria Fielding #my writing

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at-thestillpoint · 22 days

Note

3,18 & 27

[fic writer asks]

3. how you feel about your current WIP

GUILTY! I wish more were written, I wish I were spending more time writing, etc. But more specifically…

Olympics AU: I think I cracked the code with this one. If I can pull it off, it’s gonna be good. I’m still trying to hold myself to publishing this on/before the Paris 2024 Opening Ceremony, because I work well under pressure. But we shall see if I can make it happen.

Politics AU: This is actually the one I’m most excited to write right now! The ideas are flowing! But I’m also struggling with how I feel about Hangman’s characterization during their first interaction. I think you have to know Hangman to hate him, and that as a stranger, he’d be incredibly charming. I have them starting off as strangers, wherein Natasha is open to it and charmed, but I’m not actually sure that works? In essence, I’m trying to make sure I’m staying true to the characters while transposing them.

Other FWB fic: This is on the back burner right now. The first half/third is pretty fully formed and I know what I want the last half/third to look like, but I’m struggling with bridging the two. The bridge is where a lot of Hangman’s emotional development happens (off stage/unbeknownst to POV character Phoenix), so there needs to be enough time for it, while not being boring. I’m letting it marinate.

18. if you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic

My deleted stuff is never that good, because I write in layers (quick and dirty exposition/dialogue for the skeleton, then emotion/depth, then zhuzhing the language), and when I cut things, it’s usually in the barebones stage.

I just dug through my Google docs and found the original proposal scene from you could be the one that I keep. I ended up repurposing a good chunk of it, but I did what the HIMYM writers couldn’t, and scrapped 3,000 words because my original plan (having Natasha seriously hesitate saying yes) didn’t make sense with the character development. Regardless, I’m still kind of sad I had to scrap these exact words:

His voice is whisper soft, cautious and yet achingly tender, the same tone one would take with an injured child or a spooked deer. It holds her delicately, and instead of making her feel better, only feeds the guilt already roiling within her.

Natasha’s not sure there’s a right answer here, other than “yes” five minutes ago, so she reaches for the honest thing instead.

Honesty—she owes him that.

She reaches for the honest thing, and finds it out of her grasp. It’s a slippery thing, as gossamer as clouds, as inchoate as her own dreams, but she reaches and strives for those, too.

27. your favorite part of the writing process

Lately, I’ve really come to love plotting, world-building, and ideating. I’ve been having a lot of fun jotting down little snippets and details when I have a spare moment, and it’s made me actually want to sit and write, which I’ve been struggling with.

(Also, being done. Being done with writing is the best.)

#come talk to me!#anon i really hope you’re here for the tg:m fics

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selfindulgentpoorlywritten · 2 years

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Maid of Honor

Rating: G

Pairing: Kevin Hayes/Reader

Words: 3315

Warnings: None

Summary: You’re the Maid of Honor for your best friend’s wedding. Kevin is a groomsman, and he’s not helpful.

The thing about Kevin is that he thinks he’s so charming, and he’s really not. He’s obnoxious and immature and fundamentally incapable of taking things seriously. Sure, that made him a fun guy to hang out with, but when it came to wedding planning, it was infuriating. Luckily, he wasn’t the Best Man, so he didn’t have too many responsibilities. The Best Man was your brother, actually, so you had at least a bit more faith that everything would go well enough for the groom. The bride, on the other hand...

The bride is Rachel, who has been your best friend for almost your entire life. You’d gone to kindergarten together, and been thick as thieves ever since. That’s how she’d met her fiance, too. Andrew was your brother’s best friend, under much the same circumstances as Rachel was yours. You’d had them both over one day in middle school, and the rest was history. Andrew had finally proposed last year, and the wedding planning had commenced immediately. You’d thought it stressful before, but the final few months before the ceremony were an entirely different story. Rachel wasn’t a bridezilla by any means, but she was particular, and you wanted everything to be perfect for her. Which meant hours and hours of planning and re-planning and last-minute changes to the floor plan, floral arrangements, seating chart… you get the point.

It would have been difficult enough on its own, but Kevin being a groomsman made it that much harder. When you and your brother got together to discuss different aspects of the wedding to ensure its perfection, it seemed like Kevin was always there. Always there and always making trouble. Maybe not so much “making trouble” as “being a distraction”, but detrimental to the process nonetheless. After the third time he was present at a time when he definitely didn’t need to be, you began to think your brother was doing this on purpose.

You’d be making progress comparing notes with your brother, and Kevin would come in and offer you a drink. Or ask what was going on, so you had to explain it all over again. Or he’d just start talking about whatever random thing was on his mind. You’d found yourself cursing Andrew for choosing NYU over UPenn those years ago more than once, because maybe if he’d never met Kevin, you wouldn’t be in this predicament.

And, okay, maybe Kevin was kind of funny, and he made you laugh when the stress got to be too much, and was actually relatively helpful during your meetings. Maybe the way he acted was intentional, to try to diffuse any issues between you and your brother and give you a break when you needed it, but you weren’t interested in acknowledging that. Because if you acknowledged that maybe Kevin is kind and socially adept, you’ll have to acknowledge that he’s warm and kind and considerate, and you don’t have time for that. Maybe you can dissect your complicated feelings toward him after the wedding.

“After” is coming closer and closer, however, and you’re not sure you want to address that whole mess of a situation, so you focus entirely on the wedding. At this point, you’re probably more invested in the wedding than Rachel is, spending every free moment on the final touches. It’s just because Rachel is your best friend. You’re just trying to be a good Maid of Honor. That’s all.

Finally, after a year of planning, the wedding is here. Everything is going… according to plan? When your brother got married, everything in the world had gone wrong at the last minute. The floral arrangements were wrong, the bride was late for the wedding, the bride arrived in a hearse. But it all seems to be going well, so far, not that you want to jinx it. Both the ceremonial area and the reception room are set up exactly as planned, the dresses and makeup are on point, all the after-party plans for getting Rachel and Andrew to the honeymoon are set. You try to control yourself while you’re getting your makeup done so that you don’t sweat it off immediately, but everything seems fine.

It’s only when you see Rachel walk down the aisle that you can take a breath. Yes. This is what you’ve been working toward. Rachel looking gorgeous, with her perfect bouquet, taking a measured stroll down the aisle of the venue. Your best friend is going to marry the love of her life, and you’ve made it perfect for her. She’ll remember this moment for the rest of her life, and there was no hearse involved.

The nuptials are lovely and heartfelt, making you choke up just the slightest. You’re not much of a crier, but having seen their entire lives coalesce into this union makes you a bit emotional, you won’t deny. The groomsmen behave well enough, as does everyone else, so the ceremony proceeds perfectly into the reception.

The thing about the reception is this: they didn’t want you dancing with your brother, because that would be “weird”, which you didn’t understand, but that means that you’re set up with the first groomsman, which so happens to be Kevin. Your brother is with Eileen, so obviously they enter to “Come On Eileen”, except there’s no song for “Y/N and Kevin”, so you went with the generic song that the rest of the party was using. Unfortunately, the entrance to the reception meant you had to stand next to Kevin for long, long, minutes. Which would have been boring, except Kevin is trying to get you to agree to do a rehearsed dance on your way in, and, well. You know that this entire thing is for Rachel’s benefit, but the idea is… intriguing. You’re only second in line, so you don’t have much time to make your decision, so just before you enter the hall, you turn to Kevin.

“Let’s do it,” you say. Kevin looks ecstatic.

“Yeah?” he asks, lightly grabbing your wrist closest to him.

“Yeah,” you reply, reaching up to squeeze his bicep momentarily, “Fuck it, right?” He looks as excited as you’ve ever seen him, and you feel surprisingly secure in your decision. The music changes to the generic bridesmaids/groomsmen song and the two of you enter. A few steps into the venue, you give him one last nod.

Luckily, the tempo is just right, and you two launch into the footwork that comprises the classic Kid ‘N Play dance. You tap the floor, each other, lock ankles, spin, and go on without a care in the world. It’s the most fun you’ve had since Rachel and Andrew announced the stupid wedding, and you can’t help but laugh as the two of you keep clacking heels. You only do the main piece of the dance, the most iconic part, and then retreat to your seats on corresponding sides of the bridal party’s table. Most of the crowd applauds your effort, either knowing the dance or just appreciating the coordination. It’s been a long time since you’d thought of it, and you’re glad Kevin brough it up to remind you of good times, and give you another good time in addition.

Once the bridal party is seated, Rachel razzes you for “upstaging” her, but you can tell that she doesn’t mean it. At this point, she’s probably just so happy to finally be married to the man of her dreams that nothing else matters. You just smile and laugh back, trying not to steal glances over to Kevin and failing, though hopefully no one else notices. Just as you think it, your brother notices, the overly-perceptive bastard. He just raises his eyebrows at you, smiling smugly, and you resist the urge to give him the finger. This is all his fault, really, for making you interact with Kevin until you couldn’t deny your feelings, so he’s not allowed to make fun of you for it.

Dinner is served, and you chat with the girls around you as you eat. Being the Maid of Honor, you’re seated next to Rachel, so you can make out a bit of the guys’ conversation on the other end of the table here and there. You don’t mean to eavesdrop, but your brain isn’t great at focusing on one sound at a time, so you overhear some of what they’re saying anyway. The food is good enough, and no one seems to have any complaints so far. The farther you get into the event, the more at ease you feel. At this point, the only thing that could get messed up is if the DJ sucks, or someone gets shitfaced and makes a scene. You doubt that either will happen.

After the allotted dinner hour, it’s time for the newlyweds’ first dance. At first, you’re caught up in how cute and romantic it is as they slow dance, but it gets tiring after a minute. A full song is way too long to dance by yourselves, you think. Surely Rachel and Andrew are just enjoying the first major moment together as husband and wife, but for everyone else, it’s just tedious. Okay, yes, you’re married, you know how to sway around in a circle. Cool. No need to do it for four minutes. Is that mean?

Eventually, the song ends, and everyone applauds, and the DJ invites everyone to come dance with the “happy couple”. You jump up, pulling your friend Jackie along with you. She’s the only other single bridesmaid, and you fully intend on taking advantage of that to make her dance with you all night. She seems game for it, so you don’t feel too bad. The next song, intended to be the designated time that guests are guaranteed to dance with the newlyweds, is more up-tempo than the First Dance song, but still a bit slow for your tastes. You swing Jackie around the dancefloor anyway, and she laughs, and everything is good.

It’s only by chance that you catch sight of Kevin still sitting at the table as you turn with Jackie. He’s smiling, technically, but you can see the sad edge to it. It hits you that he’s single too, and though he’s an outgoing person, he may feel too awkward to dance alone surrounded by all the couples. You decide that this is unacceptable, and drag Jackie along by your linked hands back to the table.

“Let’s go, Hayesie,” you say, loud enough to be heard over the music and chatter. You beckon him to join you on the dancefloor for the second half of the song, but he shakes his head.

“I’m good,” he replies. Again, unacceptable. You break from Jackie to round the table, holding a hand out to Kevin. He looks at your outstretched hand for a moment before turning his gaze to your face.

“You don’t have to do this, Y/N,” he says, almost too quiet to be heard. You just smile and wiggle your fingers.

“I know,” you respond easily. You don’t have to do this. But Kevin looks sad, and you just want to make him smile for real. Also, he maybe kind of makes everything better just by being around, so it’s also a bit selfish. After a long moment of staring at you, he smiles gently and takes your hand, standing and letting you pull him onto the floor. You grab Jackie on your way back, managing to lead them both around the linoleum-tiled floor for the remainder of the song. Once it’s over, everyone returns to their seats to continue talking, but you’re not much interested in that. The way Kevin had lit up as you danced, the way he laughed and clutched your hand had you near-desperate to get him back out there. To get his hand back in your own.

No one seems willing to break the seal and be the first to start dancing again, even as ten, fifteen minutes pass. So fuck it. Right? You excuse yourself from the conversation you’re not really participating in, taking the few steps to Kevin’s chair. He looks up at you as you mock a bow and reach out to him.

“Would you care to join me for this dance, my lord?” you ask, barely managing to keep from bursting into laughter. He doesn’t manage the same, but takes your hand and stands anyway. It only takes maybe a minute of the two of you dancing alone for others to join in, the dance floor officially broken wide open for the night. You don’t even notice that others have joined you at first, too focused on the way Kevin is grinning bright and genuine and so eager to pull you close. He’s kind of gorgeous, when you really look. Like yeah, he’s got a giant head and his hair is always a little messy, no matter how much product he tries, but his big mouth gets wide and sweet when he smiles for real, and his eyes go all squinty when he laughs. So okay, he’s pretty good looking.

Eventually you have to take a break, making your way back to the table to grab a drink. Jackie sidles up next to you, knocking your shoulders together and grinning up at you smugly.

“So, Kevin’s annoying, huh?” she asks, not really a question, just a callback to a previous conversation to tease you about. You use the hand free of your drink to shove her lightly, grumbling “shut up” but unable to keep the smile off your face. You won’t be admitting your affection for him tonight. Not to her, at least.

“Would you care to join me for this dance, my lady?” you hear from your right side, knowing immediately who said it by the teasing tone. You turn to Kevin, except it isn’t Kevin. The smile falls off your face as you’re met with one of Rachel’s cousins. You should have known by the way Jackie’s face had twisted before you’d turned. Should have known by the fact that the voice didn’t remotely match Kevin’s, but.

“Oh, uh,” you fumble, looking for a reason to decline the invite, “I’m taking a break, but thank you.” It’s ironic, considering how you’d asked Kevin before in almost the exact same way. Fuck, had he felt this way when you aked him? Like you had to say yes to avoid confrontation? Ugh, you just want this guy to go away so you could drink with your girls and dance with Kevin. If he wanted to. Did he actually want to?

“Oh,” the cousin responds, letting his hand drop, “Sorry, I thought…” He doesn’t finish the thought, but walks away despite it. Honestly, you feel kind of bad. He’s not a bad guy, and it’s exemplified by graciously accepting your rejection, but you’re just not interested. He’s just not your type, not that you really know what your type is. If you hadn’t thought he was Kevin originally, you probably would have accepted his offer. But knowing that Kevin is here and apparently an option, you just. Aren’t really interested in anyone else. Fuck. This is worse than you thought.

“Hmm,” Jackie hums, almost as smug as your brother had been earlier, “Wonder why you didn’t want to dance with him.” It’s not a question, she knows the answer, but she’s being a jerk, and you don’t appreciate it. As if she’d known how you felt about Kevin before you did yourself. You’d be willing to accept that from your brother, but Jackie hadn’t had as much experience with the two of you to comment. Shit, is it that obvious? “He’s just not my type,” you insist, knowing that she knows you’d dance with almost anyone at a function, “your type” or not. Knew that the only thing that kept you from dancing with people was if they thought they’d get anything out of it that you weren’t willing to give. Fuck. She knows. How many people know? Obviously not Rachel’s cousin, but. You take a long swig of your drink,

“Hey,” you head snaps to the side to find Kevin, “I heard they’re getting desserts ready; you wanna dance by the table so we get first pick?” It’s exactly the type of thing you’d do at a wedding, and you want nothing more than to go see him smile until sugar is available, but now you’re not sure. Is that too obvious? If you dance with him, stake out the dessert table, is that too much of a “couple” thing? How many people here know how you feel about him? How many knew before you did?

“I don’t know,” you say, “They’ll still have to cut the cake and everything.” It’s true; the bride and groom have to cut the cake and smash it in each others’ faces or whatever before the actual dessert tables open, and you’re sure that it’ll be on a pull-out table, since you planned the goddamn thing. But you look at Kevin, and the table being wheeled out, and Kevin again, noting how he’s starting to draw back, and you make your decision.

“But the desserts are gonna be set up on the other side of the dancefloor,” you tack on, knowing honestly this isn’t going to be your only chance with Kevin, but knowing you don’t want to wait for the next one. His face goes incandescent, pulling you by your hand to the opposite side as the wedding cake. They’re only just bringing out the other desserts; cupcakes and cookies and pastries. As the emcee talks about the couple and whatnot, Kevin points out the ones he’s looking to steal first. You’ve got your eye on a cheesecake slice, and he takes the moment to tease you about it.

Once Rachel and Andrew have covered each other in cake, Kevin and you turn around and snatch all the best desserts from the table, smuggling them back to the table with you. You expect Kevin to look longingly at the couple, hopeless romantic that he is, but instead he’s shoving forkfuls of cheesecake at you, as if they don’t matter. Like they’re a distraction from your laugh. You take turns feeding each other bits of dessert until you tire of it and just eat your food yourselves. You’ve stolen your brother’s seat at this point, but he’s simply taken your seat next to Jackie and started knocking shoulders with her in a way that could be interpreted as flirtatious, if he weren’t married and Jackie weren’t a lesbian.

The rest of the night goes just as well, with lots of dancing and talking and general merriment. You had expected to spend the event basking in pride at the fruits of your labor, but you’re so caught up in Kevin’s energy and the way the two of you fit together to really care about much else. Now that you’re allowing yourself to feel what you hadn’t dared before, you can’t quite pull yourself out of it enough to care much about anything else. Maybe if you hadn’t bottled it up for so long, it wouldn’t feel so overwhelming now. Maybe things are always so overwhelming with Kevin. You can’t bring yourself to complain.

The reception is over too soon, couples and groups saying their goodbyes as they grab their bags and coats. You stay to wish Rachel and Andrew good luck and safe travels as they leave for their honeymoon. The venue staff have the cleanup taken care of, so you’re completely done with your duties. You’re completely out of distractions.

“You did a great job,” Kevin says, sidling up to you as you stare out over the empty dance floor. You thank him, turning your gaze to his clear blue eyes. Well.

“There’s a diner down the street,” you say. He smiles.

#kevin hayes imagine #nhl imagine #nhl imagines #andis coping mechanism #RI #khayes

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victorluvsalice · 10 months

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Welcome -- to the Not-So-Micro Wedding Chapel! :D This is my own personal update of the "Micro Wedding" lot by TrimbleTwist on the Gallery -- that lot is a cute little chapel built to be placed on one of the smallest lots in the game (the 20x15 lot size), but as I plopped this one down in place of the rather larger rental lot in the Bramblewood in Henford-On-Bagley, I decided I could expand it out a little bit. :p Specifically, I made the outdoor patio reception area a lot bigger, adding in a proper buffet table and a fancier table for the cake, more tables for guests to sit at (with color schemes at least somewhat appropriate for a Van Alton wedding -- gotta have our black, yellow, and purple!), a dance floor, a fancier piano (that's actually the one you normally unlock through completing the "Musician" branch of the Entertainer career), a few more plants edging the whole thing, and a "photo op" area with backdrop and tripod (keep that in mind for later). I also updated the lot traits -- I kept Natural Light, as that went well with the photo area, but Homey became Romantic Aura and Great Acoustics to Party Place as I felt those better suited a wedding venue specifically. I mean, you're not coming here to do anything but have a wedding party, right? I didn't actually do much to the chapel itself, though, beyond recoloring the wedding arch inside, adding a few more lights to the interior --

And adding the True Colors Pride Flags by @itsonlythee-sims to the outside! This is an edit of a flag mesh from Discover University made base game compatible that features a bunch of pride flag variations (plus one Simlish BLM flag), and one of the ones included is a polyamory flag (the classic blue-black-red stripes with a yellow infinity heart). Given that what I was hosting was a polyam wedding, I had to stick that out there -- along with the "Progress" pride flag, as that felt like it covered most things queer. :) So yes, this was the lovely venue that Victor, Alice, and Smiler arrived at to have their big wedding event! I promptly sent them downstairs into the tiny basement to use its kitchen to make the wedding cake (a white and black cake, because fancy) as a group, as I thought that would be sweet --

And -- okay. Let's just get this bit out of the way now -- it took me three tries to get the wedding to go off the way I wanted it to. First time, they wouldn't even start making the cake -- there was just a lot of that Sim "okay, let's just stand around because something is stopping our AI from actually completing a queued task" bullshit that we all know and "love." Second time, they actually got through the cake and got to the ceremonies -- but while I got some halfway decent shots of Victor and Alice's vow renewal, Alice actually walked out of Victor and Smiler's wedding because for some reason the game decided that "attending the wedding" meant she had to go OUTSIDE, and that and an ill-timed "hey, should Alice officially Like Photography" pop-up meant that I missed capturing most of their ceremony both in in-game pictures and screenshots. *sigh* It's really fortunate that I saved the minute the trio stepped onto the lot, because otherwise...

All right, let's not worry about that anymore -- let's talk about the third attempt, which was indeed the charm, I'm happy to report! (Mostly because I'd learned from the mistakes of the previous two attempts.) As indicated, I sent the trio downstairs to work on the wedding cake together (Alice leading the group action because she has the most points in Cooking), and happily with me having already gotten all the items that could possibly restrict a Sim from helping off the counters, the trio WERE able to collaborate properly on their cake. And get real fancy about it too, as you can see :) Between getting them down there and actually starting off the process, though, the guests started arriving before they were actually done -- said guests being Clement Frost, Angela and Lilith Pleasant, Nalani Mahi'ai, Felipe Sisson, Rory Oaklow, and Angela and Lilith Pleasant! AKA all of Smiler's friends that Victor and Alice also know and are friendly with. XD The guests began filtering downstairs in search of their hosts as the cake was completed -- I quickly had Alice stick the wedding topper on it so no one could sneak an early piece, then let her get in a bathroom break as Victor used magic to fix the busted fridge (I dunno why getting cake ingredients out of it broke it, but it did) and Smiler sucked down a plasma fruit to prevent any Thirst issues. I then turned autonomy off temporarily to stop at least my own Sims from doing too many "forbidden activities," changed my trio into their wedding outfits, added as many guests to their group as I could, and marched them all upstairs to sit in the wedding chapel so at least a few of the guests would be in position to actually watch the ceremonies. And then it was just a matter of getting Victor and Alice into position at the altar, and Smiler into position (with Alice's super-nice camera in their inventory) to act as cameraperson...

#sims 4 #the lazy save #victor van dort #alice liddell #smiler always #valicer #sims valicer wedding #thank you very much TrimbleTwist and itsonlythee-sims #I really like both the lot and the pride flags #great to see the polyamory flag represented in that set :)#but yes getting this done the way I wanted was a fucking PROCESS #like okay simulation lag is a thing I get that for the first attempt #but cripes trying to wrangle my Sims and get them into good positions for pictures was a NIGHTMARE #discovered Sims WILL just take pictures at odd angles while sitting down #and yes apparently part of the reason that guests never sit down for weddings #is that the game genuinely thinks 'going outside to apparently look in through the windows' is what Sims need to do to 'attend' the wedding #like wtf game?#I actually got some nice shots of the Valice vow renewal in try two but #yeaaaah #fortunately Try Three ended up working out REALLY well #as the next post will show :)#queued

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translations-by-aiimee · 3 years

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The Husky and His White Cat Shizun - Chapter 14

Original Title: 二哈和他的白猫师尊

Genres: Drama, Romance, Tragedy, Xianxia, Yaoi

This translation is based on multiple MTLs and my own limited knowledge of Chinese characters. If I have made any egregious mistakes, please let me know.

Chapter Index

Chapter 14 - This Venerable One is Married

The red veil was thin and hung in front of his eyes. Although he could still see things, he couldn't see them clearly. Chu Wanning had sullen eyebrows and a calm face and was brought to the flower hall by the ghost bridesmaid.

Looking up through the soft red, seeing the person standing there, the temperature of Chu Wanning's whole body suddenly dropped several degrees.

Mo Ran was also dumbfounded.

No. . . shouldn't it be Shi Mei who came out?

The "bride" in front of him had bright red makeup and his face is covered by tulle. Although his facial features were slightly blurred under the veil, it was still Chu Wanning's handsome and murderous face, just staring at him, his eyes filled with the intent to kill.

Mo Ran: ". . ."

He was at a loss at first, and then his expression gradually became extremely complicated. After all kinds of emotions cycled on his face, a strange silence settled between them. Chu Wanning looked at the other, the atmosphere becoming extremely embarrassing.

It happened that the golden boy and girl behind the two chuckled. They clapped their hands and began to sing.

"The water of the White Emperor, the waves are clear; the ghost mandarin ducks are greeted with flowers.

In the coffin, they lie in the same cave; before life, the intention is clear after death.

From now on, they will be together in the underworld, and the lonely souls will never leave each other."

The lyrics were eerie, but they were also full of lingering feelings.

If he could speak, there was only one word Mo Ran wanted to say.

--"Gross."

But he couldn't speak.

There is a pair of paper mâché men and women in front of the stage. Although they had no faces, they were dressed richly and gorgeously. They were slightly loose and bloated. It is supposed to refer to a person who has reached middle age in the main hall.

The official of the ceremony began to sing with a sloppy tone: "The bride is charming and shy, with low eyebrows and soft eyes, a red veil covering her face and delicate smile. Please come and let the groom lift the veil."

". . ." Mo Ran was originally very reluctant, but when he heard this, he went crazy holding back his laughter.

Hahahaha, the bride is charming and shy, ahahahahaha!

Chu Wanning's face was blue, and he closed his eyes while holding back his anger, as if this would make him deaf even with his ears.

The ghost bridesmaid laughed and handed Mo Ran a folding fan. "Fan" and "good" are pronounced the same, which means that the marriage is a good fate.

"Would the groom please lift the cover?"

Mo Ran held back his laughter, but he submitted. He held the fan handle to lift the light veil in front of Chu Wanning's eyes. His eyelashes smiled cheekily, going to look at Chu Wanning's expressive face.

As if feeling the sneering gaze of the other party, Chu Wanning, who had endured it for a while, did not hold back. He opened his eyes abruptly, a pair of eyes flashing with lightning, full of a sword-drawn, murderous aura.

His red gaze seemed to match his fiery red clothes. Although the intensity didn't lessen, the reddish ends of the eyes caused by anger and grievance had a unique romantic style.

Mo Ran looking at these eyes, unconsciously startled, and his smile instantly froze. The shizun in front of him was suddenly so similar to the one in his previous life that he almost forgot what day it was.

Even though it was only for a moment, it was enough to make Mo Ran break out in a cold sweat.

He had once done three vicious things to Chu Wanning:

Firstly, kill him. That is, make a fatal move against Chu Wanning.

Secondly, humiliating him, forcing Chu Wanning to have sex with him.

Thirdly. . .

Thirdly, it was the most painful thing he did in his previous life, and it was also the thing he regretted the most.

Of course, the emperor of the human realm wouldn't admit that he regretted something he had done, but he couldn't escape the internal suffering it brought in the end.

Damn it. Why did he think of that crazy past again and think of Chu Wanning from back then?

Mo Ran shook his head, biting his lip, trying to shake off that memory of Chu Wanning's face and re-assessing the person in front of him.

Chu Wanning has been staring at him with eyes that screamed "I'll kill you". Mo Ran didn't want to provoke this prick, so he had to pretend to play innocent with a helpless smile.

The official said: "Bride and bridegroom, perform the Rite of Washing."

The so-called "Rite of Washing" is that the newlyweds should dust and clean themselves before wiping and washing each other's hands.

The ghost bridegroom brought a porcelain jug filled with clean water and lifted the jug to ask the two of them to wash their hands. The washing water was followed by a basin underneath.

Chu Wanning's face was full of disgust, but he had to wash the other party after washing himself. Because Mo Ran was a little distracted, he looked quite restrained, silently washing his hands for Chu Wanning. Chu Wanning didn't have a good temper. He splashed Mo Ran with the whole pot and soaked half of his sleeves.

". . ."

Mo Ran stared at the wet half of his sleeves for a while. He didn't know where to look, but there was no expression on his face, only some subtle lustre flowing deep in those dark eyes.

He thought in a daze.

Chu Wanning hasn't changed, has never changed.

What he does, what he thinks, in his past life and in his present life, he was exactly the same, not changing a bit. . .

He slowly raised his head. For just a moment, he felt that he was standing on Life-Death Peak, standing in front of the Wushan Temple. Chu Wanning walked towards him from the bottom of the stretch of imperial steps, and the next moment he would kneel down on him in front of him. The noble head would fall to the ground, and his straight spine will be bent and humiliated. Chu Wanning would lie down in front of him and couldn't afford to worship.

"The Rite of Washing is complete."

The ghost bridesmaid suddenly sang a long song, snapping Mo Ran out of his thoughts.

He regained his senses abruptly and met Chu Wanning's eyes. The dark pupils gleamed with cold light, like a sabre covered with snow, which was truly frightening.

Mo Ran: ". . ."

...Uh, his previous life was his previous life after all. Thinking about Chu Wanning kneeling down to him was enough for this life. The price he would have to pay to make it happen was too great. . .

After the Rite of Washing ceremony, there is the Rite of Togetherness, and then the Rite of Drinking from Nuptial Cups.

The ghost bridesmaid sang slowly: "The couple will drink one cup of wine together, and from now on, in this world, they will never be separated."

The cups were crossed and then they worshipped the heavens together.

Chu Wanning seemed really close to going crazy. His slightly upturned slender phoenix eyes narrowed dangerously. After Mo Ran left, he would probably pound the Master of Ceremonies Ghost into the mud.

But he really couldn't look at Chu Wanning when he was like this.

Even if he took another look, he could fall back into those messy and dirty memories, and he wouldn't be able to drag himself back out.

"The first bow—— kneel to the heavens——"

He thought that even if this was all improved, Chu Wanning was too arrogant and stubborn to kneel, but he did not expect that he would need to in order to complete this set of steps. He twitched his eyebrows and closed his eyes, but he still knelt down, and the two of them bowed together.

"The second bow—— kneel to the family——"

Come on, just kneel towards those two faceless paper men, they can also be called the family.

"The third bow - kneel - to each other -"

Chu Wanning's eyes were half-lidded. Without even looking at Mo Ran, he turned around, taking a gulp and rapidly knelt down, clenching his teeth together.

Unexpectedly, the two were really out of sync. They got too close and banged their heads together.

Chu Wanning sucked in a breath of pain, clutching his forehead. He raised his moist eyes and staring fiercely at Mo Weiyu who also rubbed his forehead.

". . ." Mo Ran felt he had to say: "I'm sorry."

Chu Wanning didn't say anything. He grimaced and rolled his eyes.

Then there was the Rite of Binding Hair. The official sang: "Binding hair as husband and wife, the love between them is clear." The ghost bridesmaid handed over the golden scissors and Mo Ran couldn't help but shrink back, lest Chu Wanning be displeased and stab himself to death. Chu Wanning seemed to have this intention, but in the end, he only cut of a piece of each other's hair. He put them into the pouch presented by the golden boy and girl and they were put away by the "bride" Chu Wanning.

Mo Ran was tempted to ask him, you won't use my hair to curse me in a rage, take out the villain, right?

The tribute officer sang: "The Rite - is complete -"

Both were relieved and got up from the ground. Unexpectedly, the official yelled leisurely at the next moment:

"The time has come to send the bride to the bridal chamber——"

What. The. Hell!!!

Mo Ran froze instantly.

A mouthful of old blood almost spewed out!

What a joke. If he dared to sleep with Chu Wanning, this wedding was going to be a real fucking marriage! If he should die beneath a peony flower*, he would still be charming as a ghost. . . No, the person he wanted in his two lifetimes was the untainted Shi Mei, not this cold-blooded devil Chu Waning who would tie up anyone who coveted him and throw them into the mud pond to humiliate them!!

(T/N: peony flower is a metaphor for a beautiful woman)

Is it too late to run away from the marriage?

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#2ha novel #2ha translation #2ha #chinese bl #chinese novel #english translation #bl novel #yaoi novel #yaoi #danmei novel #danmei #the husky and his white cat shizun translation #the husky and his white cat shizun #chu wanning #mo ran #ranwan

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datleggy · 3 years

Note

Buddie prompt: aggressively pro-buddie Helena and Ramon Diaz, who are ecstatic when Eddie tells them he's dating, and then utterly befuddled when he introduces Ana. But they decide to bite their tongues about it (Buck, their future son in law, has talked to them about respecting Eddie's decisions, however dumb, after all), until Ana (unwittingly? Innocently? No matter) makes a comment about Buck, and then all bets are off.

Hope this inspires you!

Helena is so relieved that Eddie finally feels comfortable enough to come out to them, that she could cry. She feels awful that it took her so long to realize it.

It had been on Eddie’s last visit to Texas, when he and his crew had been fighting wildfires, that Ramon--her dense as can be when it comes to matters of the heart husband of all people--had noticed that their son was in love.

Helena still remembers saying goodbye to her son and his two teammates, remembers Ramon closing the door, waiting exactly all of five seconds before turning to her and saying, “I’m happy for him. He’s so stubborn, I didn’t know if he’d ever let himself get that close to someone again.”

And Helena had been confused at first, and then even chuckled when Ramon had explained calmly that clearly their son was dating his coworker Buck, until she’d stopped to really give it a moment’s thought. It had hit her all at once, how obvious those two were, and she couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been since they’d started dating and why Eddie hadn’t said anything yet.

She’s seen the photos on Instagram, Helena thinks, as their plane lands. Buck smiling next to her grandbaby after helping her son build him a skateboard he could safely ride in the park. Buck standing shoulder to shoulder with Eddie behind Tia and Christopher in that Christmas photo at the station. The selfie Eddie posted of him and Buck with the giant cast still on his leg the day of the ceremony for when he was no longer a probationary firefighter with the 118.

Really, she should’ve figured it out months ago.

When Eddie had called and told her he’d started dating again and that the next time they came to visit he’d make an introduction Helena had been thrilled!

Ramon drives them from the airport to their son’s place in their rental and Helena rambles on about how she hopes Buck isn’t too nervous to see them again, now that the cat’s out of the bag.

When they arrive Eddie greets them at the door with a big hug and ushers his parents inside and Helena is so ready to step into the living room and welcome Buck into the family with open arms, to show her son that there was nothing to be afraid of, that they love him and nothing in the world would change that--

Only to be met with....not Buck?

“Oh,” Helena stops dead in her tracks and Ramon stands beside her looking about as confused as she feels. “Hello.” she smiles politely enough.

The woman sitting next to Christopher on the couch stands up and she’s absolutely stunning, her curls bouncing on her shoulders when she stands up to exchange hello’s. “It’s so nice to meet you both. My name is Ana.”

The rest of the afternoon goes by just fine, but Eddie can tell something is amiss the entire time, though he does a good job of hiding it from Ana, who’s her usual charming self through out lunch.

She has to take a work call at some point and excuses herself to another room and that’s when Eddie turns to his parents and half-whispers. “Ok, I know those looks. What’s wrong?”

Helena shakes her head, feigning ignorance. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Eddie sighs, rolling his eyes. “Seriously, what is it? Ana is perfect. She’s incredibly smart, she’s funny, she’s got a great job, good head on her shoulders, and Christopher loves her--so again, I ask, what’s wrong?”

Ramon follows his wife’s lead. “Mijo, really, it’s nothing. She’s great. We’re happy for you. I think we’re just a little tired from the flight, that’s all.”

Eddie narrows his eyes slightly but decides there isn’t much sleuthing that can be done at the moment, so all he can do is take them at their word for now. “Fine, if you say so.”

They’re in the middle of watching Nemo when Buck's name comes up.

"When the tsunami happened Buck and I sang 'just keep swimming' like Dory." Christopher grins up at his dad and Eddie ruffles the curls on his head playfully. It helps Christopher to be able to openly talk about what he went through that day, the good and the bad.

"You never told me Buck was there that day." Ana comments off handedly.

Eddie nods, "Huh, I thought I mentioned it? Buck took him to the pier that morning."

"It was scary but Buck saved me." Christopher tells his grandma, who reaches across the couch to squeeze his arm. Helena had been horrified to hear what had happened at the time; it still gives her anxiety just thinking about it.

"That's right." She says softly.

"I thought some woman you didn't know carried him to one of the tents, and that's how you two were reunited, no?" Ana asks.

"Yeah, but before that, during the initial impact Buck was with Christopher, he managed to get him up to this firetruck in the middle of everything. It was after he dove back into the water to save someone that a second wave came and swept Christopher right off and they got separated from there." Eddie recalls solemnly.

There had been blood running down the dirty wet bandage on his arm, he'd been soaked to the bone, exhausted and barely standing upright. It wasn't until Christopher had been found that Buck had allowed himself to collapse.

"Oh..." Ana frowns.

Ramon puts a hand over his heart and sighs. "It's a miracle, really."

Ana doesn't mean to say it outloud, but the words comes tumbling out of her mouth without warning. "And you're still friends with him?"

Eddie blinks. "What?"

"I'm sorry, really, it's just--I don't understand." Ana rubs her shoulder self consciously, fully aware of the fact that everyone is looking at her. "Look, Edmundo, you nearly bit my head off when Christopher got a skinned knee under my watch but you're still best friends with the man who lost your son for God only knows how long? It doesn't make any sense to me."

Ana knows how overprotective Eddie is of his son, and in fact, that's one of the reasons she likes him so much; she admires that about him and this? It doesn't track with the man she knows.

Helena wants to open her mouth and she say something in defense of Buck--he's a good man, after all. But she knows better than to get between a couple in an argument, especially given how bias she is towards her future son in law...

Instead, she clears her throat and looks at Christopher, "Honey, how about you help me and Grandpa unpack? I bought a lot of fun things from Texas for you."

Christopher doesn't want to go. His Dad looks upset. Ana looks upset. He wants to stay and help. If Ana met Buck she would understand, Christopher's sure of it. But his grandparents are already leading him down the hall and to the guest room.

Christopher hangs out with his grandparents for a few minutes before fibbing and telling them he needs to use the bathroom. They both offer to help him but he insists that he can do it himself, promising to call out if he needs them.

He sneaks the home phone into the bathroom with him and dials a number he knows by heart at this point. He waits a couple of rings before the call connects.

"Hey, what's up?" Buck's voice comes through the other end. He sounds distracted.

"Bucky? Can you come get me?" He whispers into the phone.

He hears a small commotion and then a stifled 'ow!' and then: "Chris? Are you ok? You're home, right? What's wrong? Where's Eddie?"

"I'm home. I'm ok. But--" there's a knock on the door and it startles Christopher into accidentally hanging up the phone before he can explain the situation in it's entirety.

"It was a tsunami." Eddie sighs, "It wouldn't be fair to hold something like that over his head. And look, you weren't there. You didn't see the look on his face, you don't know how many hours he spent crying out Christopher's name at the top of his lungs, injured and looking nonstop through the rubble for him--"

"Yeah, which he wouldn't have had to do if he hadn't lost him in the first place. It sounds like he was too busy playing hero for strangers to watch your son." Ana folds her arms across her chest. "I don't want to fight. Especially not with your parents here. Honestly, I'm just confused? We don't have to talk about this right now. I can go. I just want to apologize to your parents and Christopher first, before I leave, for," she sighs, embarrassed, "well, for causing a scene. This is not the way I'd pictured meeting your parents."

"You know, if you just met Buck I really think you would--"

A cacophony of knocks at the door make the both of them jump. Ana looks at Eddie. "Were you expecting anyone else?"

"Christopher!? Christopher I'm here, open up!"

Eddie gapes. "...Buck?"

"Did you...call him over?" Ana didn't even see him reach for his phone.

"What? No, of course not." Eddie starts towards the door--the knocking has gotten so boisterous he's pretty sure Buck's about to break down his door--but Ana beats him to it.

At this point Eddie's parents and Christopher are in the hallway wondering what all that racket is.

Ana lets the door swing open, and if she's being entirely honest she's not sure what she's planning on saying to the man who's essentially at the center of her first real argument with her boyfriend, but whatever it was, it goes up in smoke when she takes in the sight of him.

Buck is taller than she'd pictured but that's not what's got her speechless.

He's standing at the doorway, chest heaving, clearly having rushed out of his house, where he was very obviously in the middle of shaving, if the shaving cream still smeared on a third of his face is any indication. He's in sweatpants and a white undershirt that's got little drops of blood on the front from where he must have cut himself while shaving. There's a bright red cut running down the underside of his chin.

"Um." Ana can't do much except stare, wide eyed.

Buck blinks at her, "Uh...Ana?" He suddenly realizes all the people in the house behind her are looking at him in a kind of stupor.

She nods slowly. "Buck?"

Buck nods sheepishly, "Uh... So, I am clearly interrupting something here."

"You came!" Christopher moves past all of the adults in the corridor and throws himself at Buck's legs.

Buck lifts the kid up easily enough, crutches and all, "Yeah, about that," he gently pinches his cheek, eliciting a giggle out of Christopher, "What was that phone call all about? You nearly gave me a heart attack, bud."

Eddie groans. "Christopher, did you call Buck to come all the way over here in the middle of the day?" He walks over and uses the cuff of his shirt sleeve to wipe away the rest of the shaving cream on the side of Buck's face. The look on his face is fond as he does so. "What did this little menace say to get you over here in such a rush?"

Christopher pouts. "I just told him to come get me. I thought if Miss Ana met my Bucky she'd know how come you're still best friends." He grips at Buck's t shirt tightly. "You can't stop being friends, Dad. I love Buck. He's my friend too."

Buck frowns. "Umm..."

Eddie gives him an apologetic look. "Sorry, it's not--it's complicated. I promise to explain everything later. Right now isn't really a great time--"

Ana interrupts hesitantly. "Actually, now is probably good. I need to get home soon, it's getting pretty late, so I should get going." She turns to Helena and Ramon. "It was very nice to meet you both." She scoohches past Buck and Christopher and practically sprints to where she parked her car, aware of the fact that Eddie is calling out her name and only half a step behind her.

It's not until they're several blocks down the street that she swivels around and he nearly topples into her in his haste. "Ana, please, I don't want you to leave like this. I really didn't call him over." He reaches into his back pocket and shows her his phone. "See?"

Ana takes the phone and presses her lips together thinly. "He called you like twenty times on his way over."

Eddie frowns. His phone must have been on silent. It's no wonder Buck rushed over like he did. "He was just worried about Christopher--"

Ana sighs resignedly. "No, I know. It's obvious, how much your best friend cares about your son. I can see why he's still in your life. And I think I can also see why that means you don't really have any room for me in it..."

Eddie shakes his head. "What? Why would you say that?"

Ana looks him in the eye, intent as can be on reading him. Eddie had smiled so warmly, creating such an unintentionally intimate moment when all he'd done was swipe at the other mans face with his sleeve...

"You don't even know, do you?"

"Know what?"

"I think this is something you and Buck need to sort out yourselves. Goodbye Edmundo."

Eddie closes the door behind him as he steps inside, a little heartbroken and a lot confused.

There's noise coming from the kitchen and so Eddie follows it to the source. Ramon is telling Buck about how to sear the perfect steak by the stove while Helena and Christopher set the table.

"Is everything alright?" Helena asks, when she notices him by the entryway.

Eddie nods, lying when he says. "Yeah, all good Mom."

She gives him a knowing look but keeps her mouth shut. "Honey, take Buck here to your room, let him borrow one of your shirts. And maybe a razor?"

Buck chuckles shyly. "It's fine, really. I should probably get going too--"

Ramon shushes him. "Nonsense. Go, go, get changed and get your butt back into this kitchen. Scoot."

Eddie takes Buck by the shoulders and drags him to his room, where he finds a worn gray Henley for him. "Here."

Buck thanks him before stripping out of his white undershirt and throwing on the clean shirt.

Eddie plops himself down on his bed with a sigh. "Hey, I'm sorry about all this mess. And on your one day off, too."

Buck sits down beside him, bumping their shoulders together. "I don't really know what's going on but, are you doing ok?"

"I don't know," Eddie makes a face. "I think I got broken up with today."

Buck cringes. "Shit, I'm sorry, what happened?"

That's a good question. Eddie ponders that a moment. Ana had said it herself: she understood perfectly why Eddie didn't blame Buck for what happened during the tsunami and she had seen first hand how much Buck cares for Christopher for herself today.

So, why?

"She said that there wasn't any room for her in my life?" Eddie scratches the back of his head. "Maybe I'm just not cut out for this dating stuff anymore."

"Aw, c'mon man," Buck pats him on the back. "You fall off the bike you gotta get right back on." He turns his body all the way around so that he's facing Eddie fully. "Dude, you're a catch. You're a handsome, badass firefighter, you've got the best kid, and hey--you got me." Buck grins toothily.

Eddie rolls his eyes, though he can't help but smile. "So what I'm hearing here is that I'm stuck with you?"

"Oh yeah, for sure." Buck laughs.

Eddie leans back on his arms and looks up at his best friend, pensive. "Promise?"

Buck extends his pinky and wiggles it in front of Eddie, who smiles as he wraps his pinky around Buck's. "Promise."

#long post is long #I'm gonna fix it and put a read more when my laptop stops fucking up 😩😩😩 sorry #911 fox #buddie

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aitarose · 3 years

Text

AOT BOYS IN LOVE ISLAND

⤷ characters: eren jaeger, jean kirschtein, armin arlert, levi ackerman, erwin smith, connie springer, reiner braun, bertholdt hoover, marco bott, niccolo

eren would be the type of contestant that’d come off extremely strong at the start, knowing full well of what the show entails—and ready to make any type of connection that could conclude in success.

he’d be the third or fourth contestant to walk into the villa, on the very first day. there’d be about two to three women that’d step forward for him—so he’d definitely get his pick of the bunch.

however, throughout the season his confidence would start to waver—he’d get overwhelmed with the concept of being filmed 24/7 and wish to have his privacy back.

there’d definitely be a few breakdowns on his part, solely from the stress of making vulnerable confessions of feelings and emotions in front of the entire world on film.

that being said, he’d still manage to find someone that relates to him on a deep level that he can walk out of the villa with. the two of them would end up self eliminating—believing that it’d be more effective to build there connection within the privacy of their own homes.

jean wouldn’t be the immediate heartthrob on the show, but would end up stealing not only the contestant’s hearts—but the viewer’s as well.

he’d be the first to walk into the villa, and literally no one would step forward for him—not because he’s unattractive or anything, just because they wanted to keep their options open and not jump at the first person they see.

his first couple would be a friendship couple and he’d be best friends with that woman throughout the entirety of the season, they’d be connected at the hip in the best platonic way possible.

but about halfway through the season, he’d be called to go on a surprise date with a new contestant and they’d just hit it off right away. like this person would be his perfect match and the viewers would be ecstatic for him.

i full heartedly believe that he’d be the one to win the show, obviously choosing to share the $50k with his significant other—there’d be no doubt in his mind that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with them.

armin would be the contestant with a completely open and vulnerable heart. he’d be open to any connections and relationships, just solely focused on the bonding aspect of it all—wishing to have a great summer and find some real friendships.

he’d be the person that’d stick through their first coupling throughout the entire show, finding that connection extremely valuable and not wanting to let it go.

challenges would be a breeze for him, like this boy would win a majority of them due to his knowledge of strategy and complex thinking—he’d find loopholes to each riddle and physical struggle, just showing off his intelligence in every way.

however, casa amor would be a big blow to him. he’d feel so secure in his couple that he wouldn’t have that serious conversation of where they’re both at, and his partner would end up recoupling in the other villa.

he’d be completely blindsided and end up self-eliminating soon after—not having the energy or time to take on an entirely new connection, believing that that person was it for him and that the villa would have nothing else to offer him.

firstly, i don’t think levi would ever be a contestant on a reality television show, let alone a dating one—but in the off chance that he did so happen to be on love island, it’d be because hange signed him up for it without his knowledge.

he’d be the lone wolf type of character, just living his own life—not interacting with any of the other contestants unless they’d come and approach him for conversation.

there wouldn’t be very many connections for him—probably only one if i’m being honest—and it’d be with a sort of bubbly type of person, one with good morals that wouldn’t be afraid to break him out of his shell and show him how to enjoy his time in the villa.

while he’d be wary of a romantic relationship, he’d end up falling for his partner extremely hard and would find himself protective and somewhat possessive of them—just to make sure that he wouldn’t end up losing them to someone else.

considering all of his doubts, he wouldn’t make it to the final four—probably only to the casa amor point, before being eliminated by viewer vote. however, he’d be amazing at challenges.

sexy dilf erwin would be a bombshell entrance in the villa—the kind where he’d be waiting in the hot tub balcony for his chosen date partner, just sipping wine and relaxing in the bubbles with his one arm resting on the side.

he’s very charming and would manage to sway the attention of a majority of the villa, men and women alike—and there’s no telling the shenanigans he’d get up to with the friends he’d make in there.

this man would be the cause of inborn relationship drama, but wouldn’t be involved directly—rather the type of drama where he’d be discussed but not actually have any say in whatever the matter was.

his placement would be around the top six or seven, just because he’d be so sought after that there’d be a hard time finding someone who he really connects with—since he’s trying his best to give every suitor an opportunity to try it with his sexy self.

he’d also have the thickest cockney accent that you could dream of—or a really really posh south london accent, like pinky up tea drinker and everything.

connie would be the fan-favorite contestant. he’d be that guy that absolutely no one stepped forward for and be the pity party right off the start, but manage to sway the audience with his natural humor and amusement.

he’d be the king of friendship couples, like he’d be the villa’s safety net for contestants who wouldn’t have anyone else to couple up with, and would secure their places in the show—without ever harboring any real feelings for those people.

casa amor would be his time to shine, he’d be living his best life in the other villa and have all the girls on his arms—with a wide variety to choose from and connect with. this is where he’d meet his perfect match.

coming back to the main villa with this partner, all of his friends would be extremely happy for him and just excited that he was able to get the experience that he signed up for.

him and his partner would end up in third or second place—though they’d be a fan favorite pairing, they just wouldn’t have had enough screen time to win the show completely.

reiner would be the shock contestant that’d be revealed after the first five couples were matched. he’d run into the villa with full confidence that he’d be able to snag one of the beginning contestants with ease.

however, that confidence would soon fade by his own insecurities and emotions—the fear of being unwanted and alone catching up with him in the worst possible ways, causing him to have a small breakdown before the coupling ceremony.

but he’d still choose one of the contestants, not having any real connection with her other than the first conversation—and that couple would completely crumble beneath him.

he’d get eliminated soon after by the following recoupling ceremony, and sadly wish his friends goodbye with a tear running down his cheek—it’d be extremely emotional despite the minuscule amount of time viewers would get to know him .

that being said, he’d still leave an impact on the season as the contestant who just couldn’t catch a single break.

lil ole berty would be the contestant that everyone looks over, contestants and viewers alike. he’d be that nice background guy that everyone is fine with, but often forgets he exists—which really puts a stunt on his time in the villa.

he’d be in a safety couple, one where him and his partner are loyal to their connection, but not head-over-heels interested in one another. just two people who are attracted to one another with no real bond.

challenges would be a bit of a struggle for him, just the competitiveness of it all and the pointless wonder of the whole ordeal—the show in general wouldn’t really be something up his ally.

him and his partner would end up getting eliminated early on to halfway through the season by an islander vote. it’d be a this or that couple elimination and only about two couples would vote to save them, causing him to have to pack his bags and head out.

twitter would have a field day with memes though, his sleeping positions would be trending all over the love island hashtag every night.

marco would be the nice guy contestant. the one that’s the boy next door kind of character type that everyone would love and see as the voice of reason and peace.

he’d be somewhat of the villa’s therapist, if that’s the appropriate word, and would always be there to lend an ear to any islander who’s having issues in their couple or just problems in relation to the show’s process and journey.

his encouragement would make him a fan favorite with viewers and allow him to make it fairly far into the season—probably past the casa amor point and nearly to the family segments.

he wouldn’t ever be in a totally stable couple, always having to take on the stress of the other islanders and never having the opportunity to really focus on his own time and relationships.

but he’d gain a massive following and get a shit ton of brand deals after the whole show is over.

niccolo’s love island experience would be different from all the rest, as he’d be one of the casa amor contestants—there to sway the main villa’s relationships and connections with a mere four-five days of conversation.

he’d end up stealing the hearts of the women and finding a person that matched him on a deep level—with not only his good looks, but the way he manages a kitchen as well.

the main boys would love him and immediately see him as one of their own—enjoying his company and how he’d make everyone a full course meal every single morning right as they woke up to the automatic bedroom lights.

the viewers would also be a little obsessed with him as his pairing would just be lovable in all ways—the look in his eyes being one of pure adoration and love, nothing falsified or phony—just absolute infatuation.

i feel like he’d snag a fourth place win, happily in the final four, yet still not quite there. overall, secure and safe within his couple—and excited for the future of him and his match.

aitarose do not copy, claim, or mimick my writing, works, themes, copy and paste my words, or headers and tags as your own. do not use my blog as a template for your own, or base your theme on mine.

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beekindacool · 3 years

Text

Remus Lupin x Reader

Gender: female (she/her)

Word count: 2033

TW: none

You sat in the Gryffindor common room, just right in front of the fire. Behind you sat your dear friend, Lily Evans. The two of you had known one another since pretty much birth. Your mothers were best friends and you had followed in their steps. It was pure luck that you and Lily had turned out to be witches together. Even more luck when you were both sorted into Gryffindor. Now, though, you were in your sixth year.

You looked over to Lily, she was finishing up her Potions homework when James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew obnoxiously came running down the stairs from their dorm rooms.

“Ladies! Lovely evening, innit?” Sirius hummed, dancing towards you and Lily. You scrunched up your nose slightly, mocking a face of disgust. In actuality, you enjoyed the presence of The Marauders, despite how over-the-top they could be. After all, they had been there for Lily after the fallout with Snape last year.

James scooted himself over next to Lily, he tried wrapping an arm around her shoulder but she shooed him away, a smile was undeniably growing on her face. Yes, Lily was into James but she always denied it.

Sirius made a comment, teasing them probably but you had turned your attention towards Remus. You didn’t realize it before but he stood next to you now.

“It’s painful watching those two, really!” The tall boy whisper-yelled to you, letting out a chuckle afterwards. You never really paid any mind to Remus. He was always a bit more quiet than James and Sirius. Peter, too, with all his anxious fits.

You studied his face for a bit, noticing the long pink scar that went across his face. His deep blue eyes that looked sad despite the small smile he had on. The light stubble on his chin. The way his hair was wavy and sort of swooped over like in the movies. Remus Lupin was *really* pretty.

Remus cleared his throat just loud enough for you to snap out of your daze. You felt your face heat up in embarrassment.

“I’m... I am so sorry. Merlin, I did not mean to come off as creepy or anything I just! I-“ You were cut off by Remus.

“Don’t worry about it, Y/L/N. It’s okay to be curious about my scars.” He consoled, patting your shoulder with his hand lightly.

Your time with Remus was cut short when James called for him as the rest of the boys were leaving through the painting. Remus said a quick goodbye and jogged towards his friends.

Letting out a sigh, you sat next to Lily and she laid her head in your lap. You played with her fiery red locks as she rambled on about James being absolutely ridiculous.

Later that night, you still sat in the common room but now alone. You laid on the couch and watched the dying fire. You thought about Remus: his hand in yours, cuddling, etc. All that romantic cheesy stuff. You couldn’t help it, it was the hopeless romantic in you.

As if on cue, though, The Marauders entered the common room again. James and Sirius greeted you and ran back into their dorms, giggling like a bunch of schoolgirls as Peter followed behind them. Remus didn’t follow them, instead he came over to you. Quickly, you sat up straight and made room for Remus. He sat down on the opposite side and turned his whole body towards you, lifting his knees up to his chest.

For the next hour, you and Remus talked about almost anything and everything. It was easy to get comfortable with him, everything about him made you feel warm and at home.

After that night in the common room, the two of you became almost attached to the hip when he wasn’t hanging out with The Marauders. He eventually trusted you enough to tell you about his “condition”. Remus was with you all throughout seventh year, too. And with each moment you spent with him, the more you fell in love with him.

It was Lily and James’ wedding day. You were the maid of honor and Sirius was the best man. The wedding was a small one; James’ parents, Remus, and Peter being the only others to attend due to the first war.

The summer breeze gently tousled Lily’s hair. She looked just like a princess would. The top of the dress hugged her torso and flowed out into a tea length. It was a little simple but easy to move in. You wore a light lemony yellow dress, it was an a-line with a small cape over it.

The ceremony had quickly ended and all of you went to Lily and James’ home to eat dinner. The whole night was full of laughter and utter joy, everyone was able to forget about the terrors outside for just a little bit.

That night, Remus took you home.

“I hope you know you looked absolutely beautiful tonight, Y/N. Really.” He commented as the two of you got to your doorstep. Remus had a cheeky smile on his face and he shifted awkwardly as he waited for a response.

“Thank you. You looked really handsome too, you git.” You let out a small laugh and avoided eye contact with Remus, your face was undeniably as red as a cherry.

He gently held your cheek with one hand, making you look at him. Remus pursed his lips for a moment before speaking again.

“C-can I kiss you?” He stuttered out, wincing as his voice cracked just a bit. You couldn’t help but grin ear to ear at him, he was absolutely adorable. You nodded though and leaned up, pulling Remus into a kiss. It was sweet. He was sweet. Remus tasted like chocolate.

After that, you and Remus dated for a bit. About three years, actually. It was going absolutely perfect with Remus until Lily and James had been murdered. It broke your heart. Both of your hearts.

You tried making your relationship work after the war. It just didn’t feel the same anymore with no Lily, no James, no Peter, or Sirius.

It was a mutual decision to split. Remus moved away to Merlin knows where. He didn’t send any owls. He didn’t contact you at all afterwards. You couldn’t blame him.

Things eventually began looking up for you as years passed. Dumbledore sent you an owl, offering you a teaching position as the new charms professor and had also mentioned Harry Potter would be attending as a first year. Without a second thought, you accepted.

Now, it was your third year teaching at Hogwarts. You were so unbelievably proud of Harry with the things he had accomplished in his first and second year. You were close with him, always telling him stories about Lily and James. Harry considered you his aunt... at least one he actually liked.

You sat in the Great Hall, waiting for the other professors to arrive. You were excited to find out who the next DADA professor was. Or anxious? The last two you met were interesting to say the least... one being a traitor and the other being a fraud. Becoming bored of waiting, though, you began to doze off.

Next thing you knew, Snape was sitting next to you and dug his elbow into your rib, causing you to let out a quiet curse. He not-so-discreetly motioned over to a man sitting at the opposite end of the dining table. You thought it was Remus.

Snape knew that you and Remus had been in a relationship. You told him everything. He apologized for everything that had happened in the past. You couldn’t fully forgive him, not after he had become a death eater. You were able to tolerate him enough, though.

“Is that... Lupin? Remus Lupin?” You asked Snape slowly, unsure if whether or not your eyes were deceiving you. Snape let out a low yes.

And on cue, Dumbledore stood up and introduced the man you loved for all these years. You watched as he did an awkward bow to the students. He was so handsome still. When he sat back down, you could’ve sworn he looked back at you for a second.

After everyone was finished with their meals, students were the first to leave the Great Hall, leaving the professors to mingle for a bit before their first classes.

You tried staying close to Snape, acting as if you were busy but that didn’t stop Remus from coming up to you.

“Professor Y/L/N. It’s been quite some time! You’re looking well.” Remus cheerily greeted, his hands were dug in his pockets as he looked you up and down, obviously checking you out.

“I’m right here too, you know...” Snape hissed, one side of his top lip slightly curled in disgust. Remus threw his hands up and acted as if he was surprised to see Snape.

“Merlin! Sniv- I mean Snape. Hello!” Remus chuckled, he looked at you as you tried stifling giggles. You remembered when The Marauders would call Snape “Snivellous”.

Snape, finding Remus to be unfunny, scoffed and left to prepare for his Potions class. Now, it was just you and Remus. It was awkward.

“How’ve you been?” You finally asked, your voice became softer. You knew he had a hard time finding work because of his lycanthropy.

“I’m... I’m better than how I was last time we saw one another.” His voice wavered a bit, your last memories together were painful to remember.

“I missed you. I hope you know that.” You choked out, pulling him in for a hug. Your forehead was pressed against his chest and arms wrapped around his waist. You felt him hesitate but Remus stroked your hair.

The two of you were interrupted when Dumbledore cleared his throat. “It’s time for your classes, professors.”

“We’ll talk later, okay Y/N?” Remus pulled away from you and ruffled your hair a little bit before setting off to class. You waited a few moments before setting off yourself.

The whole day you thought about Remus. You were unsure about whether or not you were excited to talk or if you were going to explode from nervousness.

After dinner and students were sent to their dorms, you met with Remus in the library. The two of you sat at a table in the back corner. It used to be where you held your study dates with him.

“Right... where should we start?” He asked, folding his hands over the table. You could tell he was nervous.

“Have you been seeing anybody?” You blurted out, it was the first thing that came to your mind.

“No. No, I haven’t seen anybody since you.” Remus chuckled, raking a hand through his hair. He hesitated before speaking again.

“In all honesty Y/N, I couldn’t bring myself to be with anyone else. You were the only girl I’d ever loved. The only one I still love.” He said softly, lowering his head. You wanted to cry. To scream. To jump into his arms. Anything.

“I... I feel the same way. I love you still. Even after all these years. I always will.” You whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.

You felt tears start dripping from your eyes. It was barely noticeable at first but then they had just coming out like a faucet. Remus stood up, panicking.

“What’s wrong, darling?” He asked, picking you up and sitting you on the edge of the table. Remus stood in between your legs and wiped your tears best he could.

“I just missed you so much,” you choked out in between sobs, “I thought about you everyday and here you are standing right in front of me again. It’s all I’ve ever wanted since forever.”

Remus let out a soft laugh and shook his head. He took your face in his hands and kissed you. It was desperate and passionate. You tried making up for all the kisses you missed over the past thirteen years.

You were ready to build a future with Remus again. You were going to make it work with him through thick and thin.

#remus lupin #remus lupin x reader #harry potter #harry potter x reader #x reader #sirius black #sirius black x reader #james potter #james potter x reader #marauders fanfiction

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wakaoujisenhime · 3 years

Text

Just once - Choso x reader

Synopsis: At a party you get roped up by your classmate Momo to conduct a summoning ritual for a demon she assigns you. Though unwilling, you still comply and do as instructed. Unfortunately for you, the ritual you hoped to debunk as pure nonsense unexpectedly worked out...

tags/warnings: Choso x reader ✅ blood kink ✅ (slight) blood/knife play ✅ (and for the more sensitive readers a tw.) a more or less detailed description of skin being cut open ✅ more erotic than nsfw ✅

A/N: I just needed an excuse to write for my main man Choso and thanks to @seijorhi and her Deal with the Devil collab I found the opportunity! Please enjoy and make sure to check everyone else’s wonderful works out as well!! (〃ω〃)

.wc 5.4k

━━━━☆ ━━━━☆ ━━━━☆

Booming music, colorful and constantly changing LED lights, people who were either drunk or high, in some cases even both, surrounded you. Such a sight wasn’t unfamiliar to you since most university students celebrated their monthly parties in the same fashion. You weren’t a regular participant in these events, but tonight you just wanted to let loose and dance the stress, which had accumulated this past week, away.

After doing what you came for, you went up to the small bar, ordered a drink, and disappeared into the crowd to look for someone you were familiar with. And truly, you spotted two familiar faces in one of the gigantic room’s corners. The pair you were now walking towards consisted of Megumi and Momo. It was truly rare to see these two together let alone see them talking to each other while others surrounded them, but you figured that in such get-togethers nothing was impossible.

“Hi there you two, how are you doing?” you asked the moment you joined their small group.

Megumi greeted you with a small nod and a rather tortured expression that was most likely supposed to represent a call for help, but before you could find out more about that, Momo took a hold of both of your hands and squeezed them slightly as she said: “(Y/N), you’ve got a perfect timing as always! We were just discussing our summoning plan and we needed one more participant, so pleaseee could you do us the favor and join us?”

To clear up your obvious confusion, the black-haired young man explained to you that the group, which surrounded you, had talked about the occult before they reached the topic of demon summoning rituals and eventually ended up wanting to try different ones out themselves.

You found it rather funny that someone like Megumi had been caught up in such a talk, but it wasn’t surprising, considering that he had two tattoos, which resembled some kind of triangular runes on the back of his hands, dressed entirely in black, and had a rather dark and gloomy aura that surrounded him. Though many people avoided him, thinking that he was really scary, you knew that he was one of the nicest people you’ve come across and that his mood was heavily influenced by his rather lively best friends who often embarrassed him in public, just so that he could remain by their side.

Momo on the other hand was notorious for her fascination with the occult and supernatural phenomenons in general. Not only was she always dressed in a stereotypical way for those who shared the same fascination as her, but she also preferred to make it known rather than hide it. Threatening people to curse them if they annoyed or attacked her in any way, openly experimenting on self-made voodoo dolls, and carrying various charms with a questionable appearance as accessories for her backpack were some of her many daily characteristic features she displayed. The two of you weren’t especially close, but you were one of the few who understood her true intentions and beliefs that were hiding beneath her many layers.

“I’m not quite sure if I’m the best fit for this...task, maybe you should pick someone else” you finally said with an apologetic smile on your lips, but the blond simply brushed your refusal off with a wide grin.

“Oh, nonsense! There’s no such thing as the ‘perfect fit’ in stuff like that, anyone with an intention of summoning is enough!”

And with that, you were now one of the participants.

After basically being forced to comply, your group sat at a remote table and discussed the upcoming procedures. Throughout the entire talk, both you and Megumi simply chatted with each other and half-heartedly agreed to anything the others asked of you. By the end of it all, you two were stuck with individual books about the entities you were supposed to summon.

“So, who did you get?” you asked after taking a glance at your own rather thin book.

“Apparently, I’ve been given the privilege to attempt a summon of ‘The King of curses’, what about you?”

You couldn’t help but giggle at the sarcastic way the young man had quoted his book’s title and answered that yours didn’t even have a fancy name like that, and just went by “The Blood Devil”.

The two of you stayed at the party for another half an hour during which you basically complained about your individual lives and then slowly but surely made your way back home…

——

With a somewhat relieved sigh, you remove your shoes from your feet and throw them in the corner of your entryway. Your hands massage the back of your neck slightly while you slowly make yourself on the way to your bedroom. It was no secret that you were fatigued enough to just drop everything and fall asleep right then and there, but your conscience nagged you like some kind of parental figure, whispering one order after the other until you just gave up and decided to do everything the proper way.

After leaving your bag on the chair next to your desk, you quickly get rid of your slightly sweaty clothes and enter your bathroom to take a much-needed warm shower, in hope that it would help you relieve some tension. And it did.

A couple of minutes later you exit the steamy room and start getting ready for bed. Just as you were about to turn off your room’s lights, the book Momo had given you caught your attention. After motionlessly standing in one spot for what felt like half an hour, you cursed your curiosity and took said book out of your bag, and began skimming through its contents.

You didn’t intend to read more than necessary, just the first page which warned you of possible risks should’ve been enough, but the moment you had continued past it, it was as if you couldn’t stop yourself anymore. This book that supposedly held dangerous information on how you’d be able to summon some kind of otherworldly entity seemed like some kind of fairytale collection to you.

The first chapter talked about some kind of man who had made use of a woman and her unborn children, a pretty disturbing and inhuman act that you skipped for the most part. Next in line was a whole chapter dedicated to these nine unborn and mostly undeveloped children, the tragic story of them getting locked up in jars, and how only three of them had managed to gain some kind of stability (if you can even call it that). Finally, the third and last chapter before the entire ‘How-to-prepare-the-ceremony’ segment focused solely on the eldest brother and how he’d successfully escaped his dire fate and had become the being known as the ‘Blood Devil’.

Now that you had reached the end of the introductory phase, the preparations for the ritual awaited you, and even though you hadn’t intended on trying your luck with summoning the same night you had received the book, you decided to just do it as quick as possible so that Momo didn’t feel the need to bother you daily with how far you’d gotten.

Shortly after you had gathered the needed materials and had prepared the requested furnishings for the ceremony. With the booklet in one hand, you once again checked whether everything you needed was fulfilled.

Four candles, a small table, a bowl, a kitchen knife, and some salt...Ok, that should be all

Looking at the items before you, you couldn’t help but wonder whether this ritual had indeed some kind of truth behind it and wasn’t just one of many parodies.

With this slightly uneasy feeling, you once again took a look at the list.

𝙵𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚍 𝚛𝚎𝚍/𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚔 𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚕𝚎𝚜, 𝚊 𝚠𝚘𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚏𝚊𝚌𝚎 (𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚋𝚔𝚢 𝚊 𝚜𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚎), 𝚊 𝚠𝚑𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚋𝚘𝚠𝚕 (𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚢 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚌𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚊 𝚟𝚘𝚕𝚞𝚖𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝟹𝟶𝟶-𝟻𝟶𝟶𝚖𝚕), 𝚊 𝚔𝚗𝚒𝚏𝚎 (𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚢 𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚊 𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚜𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝚠𝚊𝚟𝚢 𝚋𝚕𝚊𝚍𝚎), 𝚝𝚠𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚊𝚕𝚝 (𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚋𝚕𝚢 𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚊𝚕𝚝)

For a ritual to have such specific instructions, it’s quite...unusual, isn’t it?

The required items weren’t the only detailed requirements you had to fulfill, secondary things that mainly concerned the atmosphere were also important to consider. Things such as the right room temperature, the dark lighting of the room you’d use for the ritual, the exact sequence of preparing the summoning circle and its unique symbols, and many more were enumerated just below the first bulleted list.

You set your worried thoughts aside, deciding to just humor this ritual and complete it to the best of your abilities, because the satisfaction you’d feel after this summoning ceremony fails despite you doing your best, would be indescribable. And with that, you began preparing everything step by step, double and triple-checking the book for confirmation until everything was ready.

With a sigh of satisfaction, you take a step back to admire what you had just spent half an hour on. You had placed the table in the middle of your room, the red candles positioned on each of its edges, on top of the wooden surface you’d drawn the circle as good as you could with your slightly trembling hand, and lastly, you’d placed the bowl on the floor in front of where you were to kneel with the knife on top of the rim of the receptacle.

Here goes nothing…

You kneeled and put the book beside you. With slightly shaky hands you took the knife and cut a horizontal line along your palm, as expected it stung a little but the pain wasn’t something unbearable. Slightly fascinated by the deep red color of your blood you watched the liquid slowly roll down your hand and drip into the empty bowl, staining its white material. As instructed by the book you poised in that position until your wound started to congeal and that was when you were finally allowed to relax yourself and continue.

Next up you had to pour the collected blood over the salt circle and retrace its lines and patterns as precisely as you could, which you did. Now that this step was done as well, you looked at the completed handiwork and sighed to yourself, dreading the thought of having to clean all of this up later on.

You took another glance at the instructions and couldn’t help but cringe internally at the next and supposedly final step.

Alright then, let’s get this over with…

“With this humble offering I, (Y/N)(L/N), hereby summon thou. Oh, Devil of blood please, hear this mortal’s desperate plea and allow me to bear witness to thyn unique countenances that thee possesses.”

And with this the ritual was complete.

You remained motionless, waiting for something to happen, but everything stayed the same and you couldn’t help but embrace that internal relief inside of you which was silently thankful for the failure.

Just as you were about to get up from your uncomfortable pose and begin to clean everything up, the candles’ flames suddenly went out before your very eyes and without your influence. With slightly wide eyes you scanned everything before you. You knew that you had closed the windows before even starting the ritual, so that eliminated one possible reason and at the same time, the most rational one.

As nothing else happened you decided to simply blame it on your imagination and slight paranoia, but that’s when the faint sound of bubbling liquid ruined that small ray of hope you’d held on to. You slowly looked down at the bowl which was filled with your blood and you could’ve sworn that the deep red substance was slowly rising until it overflowed.

All you could do was back away from the red puddle which was steadily growing and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.

“W-What the hell is happening?” you asked yourself in panic as your wide eyes observed the way your blood began forming something, or better said, someone.

The mass before you began to take form and it was then that you noticed the knife which was lying a few inches away next to the inhuman heap.

Driven by nothing but adrenaline you began crawling towards it and just as you were about to reach for the blade, something similar to a hand took a hold of your wrist. You jumped back in shock and fell rather uncomfortably on your bottom as you looked up to the blood-covered thing, watching its appearance slowly contort into that of a human.

And there before you stood a tall man with shoulder-long dark hair, a rather tired expression on his face, and his most prominent feature, a dark stripe running horizontally across his nose bridge. His eyes were focused on you for the first few seconds, then he began looking around as if to take in his surroundings.

“Where am I? …were you the one that summoned me? …what is it that you require me to do?” he asked in a monotone voice, not giving you even a second to collect yourself. Your panic didn’t allow you to form any rational thoughts, let alone answer him properly, and all you had in mind right now was to run away from whatever this person in front of you was.

The man watched how pale your face had become and simply stood there motionless, as you sloppily got up and sprinted out of your room’s door. He cast his gaze down to the knife you had intended to pick up and cracked an ever-so-small smile before leaving the room himself.

Meanwhile, you had reached your front door and were hurriedly trying to unlock it, but the multiple bolts and your trembling hands were set on making you fail such a simple task.

When you finally turned your keys for the last time, a big hand slammed the wooden door shut. The weight that pressed against your back made it unable for you to move away, so you simply leaned your forehead on the door in defeat, knowing fully well who had stopped you in your tracks.

I’m finished…

Now that the man behind you had rendered you more-or-less immobile, he decided to take a proper look at you and your body. His eyes traveled slowly along every curve, no matter how small or voluptuous, until something far more interesting caught his eye. Your injured and slightly bloody hand that still bore the cut you had to inflict on yourself for the ritual and even though the wound had begun to slowly close, it was still bloody enough for his preferences.

He removed his palm from the door and slowly let it slide down from your shoulder to your slightly trembling hand. The way his long fingers wrapped around your wrist made you shudder and as if that wasn’t enough, he also had to slowly turn you around so that he didn’t hurt your arm or dislocate your shoulder.

Now that you were facing the man, you couldn’t help but stare directly at him and the way he inspected your wound. His gentle touch contradicted his looks as well as every thought you had about him, but that animalistic glint you noticed in his eyes failed to hide his true nature.

With utmost care he let his fingers glide along the cut and if it weren’t for the unpleasant sting, you wouldn’t have noticed that with this small motion he had peeled off the thin layer of blood, which was trying to close up your wound. Despite your slightly agape mouth, no words were uttered, I mean, how could you?

The man in front of you had reverted that small amount of red crust to its original liquid form and then by some magic turned it into a wonderful red ruby that resembled a bonbon. His dark eyes peered right into yours and didn’t even waver in the slightest as he slowly brought the red stone to his lips, gave it an experimental lick, and finally swallowed it.

D-Did he just…?

Judging by the satisfied expression on his face you thought that he would finally step aside and at least introduce himself or give you some sort of explanation as to what he just did and why, but no. The way he did nothing else and simply waited for some kind of reaction, annoyed you and it didn't take you long to act accordingly.

“Now that you’ve got what you came for, would you mind moving out of my way?” you asked in a rather unfriendly tone, one that completely contradicted your earlier fear of this still nameless entity.

Your behavior not only surprised the man but yourself as well. Summoning a literal demon wasn’t your typical everyday occurrence and yet you couldn’t quite comprehend it. The fear that should’ve rendered you immobile was good to non-existent and you figured it was thanks to his surprisingly tame and innocent behavior, so it was only natural for you to be in the illusion of holding the reins, right?

And that arrogant behavior of yours only escalated further as you managed to push the man to the side and finally get away from your front door.

Being as naive as you were, you turned your back to him and not even a second later your entire body’s movement was shut down. No matter how hard you tried to move your legs, hands, or even fingers, nothing seemed to work - no, on the contrary, it appeared to you that the more you struggled against this seemingly invisible force, the harder it became for you to breathe.

“If you don’t want to collapse and die, you’ll need to seize all of your movements for the time being,” said the lean man in a low voice, and the moment his eyes met yours, you could’ve sworn that the corners of his lips shot upwards for a split second before he continued, “…since you’re already aware of my abilities, I’ll skip most of it and directly tell you the two most important things you’ll need to keep in mind from now on.”

Without waiting for any type of signal that could’ve represented your answer, he closed the distance between you two, and this time he got so close that you could practically smell him. Contrary to your expectations his scent was fairly faint and by no means unpleasant. If confronted with the question of what he smelled like, you’d have to say it resembled that of burning wood.

You watched helplessly as the man showed you the slightly bloody knife you had used for the ritual and that’s when the long-awaited fear suddenly overcame you. With widened eyes, you followed the blade which was mere inches away from the center of your chest, and the moment you felt the small tip pierce your shirt a silent yelp escaped your lips.

Not fazed by your obvious fear, the man proceeded with whatever he had in mind and moved the knife until it had reached your shoulder, cutting the thin fabric along the way. In response to his cold fingers that glided along your exposed shoulder and collarbone, goosebumps peppered your skin. Your heartbeat quickened and you didn’t know whether this was because of the fear of what he’ll do next or because you were kinda curious about what’s about to come.

Still unable to move a single muscle there was nothing left for you but to watch and feel how the blade was pressed against your skin until it had cut through it. The fact that he’d cut so close to your heart made it hurt more than your harmless cut earlier, but as if that wasn’t painful enough he began to slide the blade up until its tip had reached the top of your right shoulder.

Your throat dried up, muffling the scream you so badly wanted to release. A stream of warm tears ran along the curves of your cheeks and dripped down to your cleavage, where a rather thin but bloody line had split your skin open.

“I can control your blood flow and if I so desire, I can make you move your limbs according to my wishes…to put it simply, by summoning me with your blood, you made yourself my marionette.”

His expressionless eyes followed the many thin blood droplets that oozed out of your wound and just before they were able to stain your clothes with their deep scarlet color, he extended his finger, positioning it mere millimeters away from your skin. Through half-closed eyes, you watched in awe as your blood was being drawn to the fingertip of the man like a magnet and slowly turned into the same gem-like form from before. Your injury still hurt, but as you dared to take a slight glance at it, you noticed that all the blood was gone, sucked up by the finger of the demon, and turned into a shimmering stone that was once again swallowed like candy.

——

Some weeks passed after that surreal encounter and since then you’d been more or less forced to live with the entity you’d summoned. On that night he’d introduced himself as Choso and despite your desire to either send him back to wherever he came from or simply throw him out, neither option was going to end well. According to the man himself, summoning rituals were easier to conduct than the ones to banish demons back into the abyss. You would need to take several precautions into account and in Choso’s case, you’d have to fulfill nearly impossible tasks, such as collecting 20 liters of blood from pure-blooded siblings or finding and freeing one of his many siblings.

Your second option of throwing him out was dismissed almost momentarily after he’d told you that he can’t survive without consuming someone’s blood; ideally, he’d only have to take a small amount of your blood once a week, but if you insisted on kicking him out, then he’d have to attack random people and since they didn’t summon him, the amount of blood he’d have to take from them would be fatal.

Living with a demonic entity was surprisingly pleasant, but you knew that this was most likely because of the man’s personality and that if you’d summoned someone else, it would’ve most likely ended up way differently.

He was taking his role as the eldest brother very seriously and despite not being part of his family, he treated you very lovingly and even willingly took on most of the homework, but only that which he was familiar with, such as sweeping the floor or washing the dishes. Whenever he behaved like that, you found it difficult to remember the fact that he was some type of devil and sometimes you even caught yourself thinking how you wished he’d stay with you forever. It was good to have someone living under the same roof as you, someone you could more or less trust with your possessions, and someone to lie down next to in the evening.

But despite these few perks you noticed how your health slowly started to deteriorate. Simple tasks such as homework, reading texts, or concentrating during lectures; things you usually mastered almost effortlessly, became more and more difficult with each passing week, and the reason for that was none other than Choso.

Being his weekly food source didn’t come without any risks.

He’d warned you that the amount of blood he’d take from you and then consume, won't be automatically regenerated by your body and that if you refused his help, you’d slowly die away. Being the rational human you were, you didn’t believe him, thinking that something like your blood being slowly taken away by him was sheer impossible, so you refused his offer of help even before he’d properly explained it.

A mistake you slowly came to regret.

This morning you had felt as if someone was constantly hitting your head with a thick book, your body felt so heavy that your usual walking speed had decreased drastically and because of it you were ten minutes late for your first lecture.

You figured that your appearance must’ve been quite horrible, since your usually uninterested teacher, Sir Nanami, actually stopped mid-sentence to ask whether you were feeling ok and whether you wanted to go to the nurse’s office for a while. You wanted to brush it off, but as soon as you shook your head, your vision blurred and you felt like you were losing the ground under your feet. Luckily, your seat neighbor Maki reacted quickly and held onto you before you fell from your chair. Anything that occurred afterward was lost to you and the next time you came back to your senses, you found yourself on your bed, wrapped warmly in your blanket.

“What…happened?” you asked half loud, not expecting an answer, as you slowly sat upright, leaning your back on your bed’s headboard and letting your eyes roam around the familiar surroundings.

“You lost consciousness during your class,” said a silent and gentle voice, “thanks to our…contract, I felt that you were close to collapsing, so I followed the scent of your blood and when I found you, I took you back home.”

While you were processing the information you were given, Choso slowly walked towards your bed and kneeled next to it, placing one of his hands on top of your own, softly caressing it in the process. You couldn’t help but crack a small smile at the gesture and sighed as you imagined how he must’ve entered your classroom, ignoring everything and everyone and simply coming to your seat, taking you in his arms, and leaving, as if it’s the most normal thing to do.

“I told you to be careful, didn’t I?” His sudden question caught you off guard and all you could do was look down in shame. Seeing you look so sad and crestfallen reminded Choso of his younger brothers and he instinctively reached for the top of your head with his free hand and softly petted it a few times before caressing it. Being comforted by a demon-like that truly did wonders. For once you ignored the fact that it was partially his fault and savored the moment.

“I know that you didn’t want to hear about it, but in view of your wellbeing I’m obligated to tell you about a way you can minimize the harm done to you” he paused and took a short breath before continuing, “if we make a proper deal with each other, I’m allowed to share a portion of my blood with you and that will make up for the amount I’m taking…but it’s not risk-free.”

This time it was you who had to take a long breath, a futile attempt to make your heartbeat calm down. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to you that a deal with the devil contains several risks, but the fact that Choso was willing to tell you about them, relieved you in a way. Before reluctantly accepting his offer you requested a more detailed explanation for your own mind’s peace. According to his words, the danger of consuming a demon’s blood was very addictive, and if not done properly, the human risks becoming entirely dependent, meaning, they would prefer blood instead of real food or water.

The thought of not being able to eat and drink what you loved scared you of course, but the wish to gain a sense of normality back in your life prevailed and you eventually caved, telling him that you’d agree to his terms and drink his blood just once and never again…

At first, everything seemingly worked out. Your focus was back and you could once again dedicate yourself fully to university and friends. You were happy…but not for long.

One week passed and your throat began to feel raspy and dry. Accompanying these uncomfortable feelings was the undying urge to constantly drink something and whenever your drinking bottle was empty, you’d get really nervous and start nibbling on your lip. But the worst part of it all was how you’d caught yourself, thinking about wanting to bite Choso and lick the blood right out of the wound like some kind of vampire.

“What the hell is wrong with me..?” you thought to yourself while you gently let your hand run along the man’s head. He looked up at you for a mere second before he continued to enjoy his “meal”. A small and barely visible blush adorned your cheeks as soon as you realized what kind of situation you found yourself in right now.

The man, whose head you had just caressed, was kneeling between your thighs, a small portion of your plush flesh between his teeth. He bit down until they pierced through it and drew blood. All the while your eyes followed every ever so small movement of his’s until the big red droplets of blood caught your attention. The two of you observed how they slowly grew larger than Choso’s teeth marks and finally began dripping down your slightly raised leg.

With an unexpected smile, the man bent down and licked the blood from your skin before it stained anything. Your breath hitched for a moment and usually, you’d either look away or close your eyes while he got his weekly portion, but this time you couldn’t help but downright stare at him as he sucked on your small wound. It shouldn’t have surprised you to see someone enjoying themselves when they eat, even if that someone was a supernatural entity, but this was the first time you had properly looked at Choso while he consumed your blood and for some reason, your heart started beating faster than ever before.

You bit your lower lip as you watched how his slightly longer tongue slithered over the bloody marks on your thigh and the way he sometimes planted a soft kiss on it made you shiver from pleasure. Your body became gradually hotter, resulting in you having to breathe harder, and the slight red that had tainted your cheeks had now taken on a deeper shade.

“C-Choso…I need your blood, please” you stuttered out of nowhere in between your labored breaths.

At the mention of his name all of his movements seized and the man’s eyes slowly moved up to your reddened face. After what felt like minutes of pure silence, he let go of your leg, licked his lips, and removed the scarf around his neck.

While he was getting himself ready for you, you looked at his pale skin and the black markings, which resembled Kinesio tapes that athletes sometimes used, running along it.

Your impatience got the best of you and without wasting a second you got on your knees and faced him while he began looking around for something. Meanwhile, you were unable to focus on anything at all. Your eyes wandered from his face, down to his neck, along his collarbone and shoulder, and then back to his face yet again.

That something he searched for turned out to be the knife you’d used for his summoning ritual. He handed you the blade with the same stoic expression as always, but instead of taking it, you slapped it away and next thing you knew, you had wrapped your arms around his torso and had buried your teeth deep inside of his shoulder’s skin. The only reaction you got from him was a simple flinch as a result of your sudden embrace and nothing more, no sound, no sigh, nothing.

But as of right now this was the last thing that occupied your mind, all you wanted to do was drink this man’s blood and finally quench the thirst you’d been suppressing for so long.

“That’s it, (Y/N)…satisfy your thirst…give in…don’t be afraid, it’ll only do you good” he cooed seductively in your ear as he let his big hand softly glide along your back.

With a devilish smile, he listened to the hungry way you lapped up the blood from his multiple shoulder wounds that you’d inflicted within a matter of seconds.

Satisfied by your behavior, he gently patted your head and closed his eyes, relishing the feeling of your wet and slightly rough tongue.

If it weren’t for your indescribable hunger, you would’ve noticed the red glint in Choso’s usually dark and soulless eyes…

Now, you’re mine…

#deal with the devil collab #jjk scenarios #jjk imagines #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jjk choso #choso x reader #choso x you #━𝙹𝙹𝙺

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canyousonicme · 3 years

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“Certain actors have a reputation for being difficult. I don’t want to be one of those people”. - Alex Kingston

 INTERVIEW: The Sunday Post

 It comes as no surprise to Alex Kingston that her daughter has decided to follow in her footsteps, despite her best efforts to temper her acting ambitions.

The actress fell pregnant with Salome, now 19, when she was playing surgeon Elizabeth Corday on the long-running US medical drama ER in the ’90s.

Alex’s pregnancy was written into the script and Salome, whose father is German writer Florian Haertel, was just weeks old when she joined the cast as Elizabeth and Dr Mark Greene’s baby girl.

Now, two decades on, mother and daughter are working together again, this time in a Doctor Who spin-off audio drama, The Diary Of River Song. Now in its eighth series, it focuses on the Time Lord’s brilliant wife, the poetically named River Song, whom Alex has played on the TV show since 2008. Salome, meanwhile, plays the part of her synthetic humanoid companion, Rachel.

Alex said: “My daughter was in my belly on ER then played the role of our baby girl Ella Greene. She’s secretly always had the desire to act, but I was always adamant that she finished her education first.

“Salome plays a character who River Song meets up with occasionally and they have adventures together. Working with my daughter has been terrific fun. I am super-impressed with her. She is incredibly professional.”

Alex with daughter Salome

For the past year Alex and Salome have been isolating together at her London home, alongside Alex’s third husband, television producer Jonathan Stamp. The pair married in an intimate Italian ceremony in 2015, and Salome was a bridesmaid.

They are joined by Alex’s German-born mother, Margarethe, who sadly suffers from dementia. It sounds like a potentially stressful set-up but Alex has cherished the unexpected extra family time lockdown gifted her.

Alex, who celebrated her 57th birthday a few days after the first lockdown was announced last March, said: “My daughter had arrived from New York and decided she wanted to live with us. Then my mother, who has dementia, suffered two strokes early on in lockdown and she moved in as well. So I was her carer.

“It was an amazingly special time. And I cherish it. Particularly with my mother, because I wouldn’t have had that opportunity otherwise.”

Like the rest of us, Alex has relied heavily on streaming services to keep her entertained during the long days spent at home. She even broke her self-imposed rule of not watching her own stuff on screen.

She said: “We did all the usual things, massive clear-outs, and of course binge-watched TV. I loved Schitt’s Creek, Call My Agent, Bridgerton and Luther. I can’t bear to watch myself on the television. However, I started watching ER, because it was streaming on Channel 4. I look at myself and it’s like I am watching someone else. It’s such a good show, and it’s really held up!”

She added: “As much as everyone is saying this is the year that they want to forget, I actually feel it’s a year one can never forget. It certainly wasn’t an easy time. However, I have much stronger memories of the year, and of the patterns of the year than I have ever had pre-pandemic, when there was always so much rushing around.”

Alex in 1994 with fellow ER cast members (l-r) Anthony Edwards, Eriq La Salle, Goran Visnjic, Noah Wyle

Alex began her career at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she met her first husband, Skyfall actor Ralph Fiennes. They were together for 10 years before marrying in 1993. Two years later, Alex was left bereft when Fiennes left her after an alleged affair with a co-star. The London-born actress has barely stopped working since she first appeared on UK screens in 1980, as Jill Harcourt on the iconic children’s series Grange Hill. She continued to find success in UK dramas including Upstairs Downstairs, and The Fortunes And Misfortunes of Moll Flanders.

She first appeared in the fourth series of Doctor Who alongside David Tennant in 2008. Alex thought it was a one-off but has reprised the role in 15 episodes between 2008 and 2015.

It’s thanks to her Doctor Who appearances and, more recently, Sky’s hit supernatural drama, A Discovery Of Witches, that she has become known to a new generation of fans.

During her long and successful career, Alex has never been afraid to call out sexism in the industry. When she was dropped from ER aged 41, after seven seasons, she accused producers of ageism. saying “Apparently, I, according to the producers and the writers, am part of the old fogies who are no longer interesting.”

Then, when she auditioned for the role of Lynette Scavo on Desperate Housewives which eventually went to Felicity Huffman, she says she was turned away for being too curvy.

Although vocal about the challenges that face women, she admits she has seen positive changes in attitudes towards female talent in recent years.

She says: “When I was working on ER, I thought that I wasn’t allowed to get pregnant, I didn’t want to offend the producers as that is not what they had intended. I thought that I would have to ask permission. It was Anthony Edwards, who played my on-screen husband, who said ‘Don’t be ridiculous, don’t wait for them to allow you, you are not that important. If you want to have a child, go and have a child, and they will find a way to work round you.’ So I took his advice.

“I grew up with this notion that one had to be polite and always ask for permission. Whereas this generation don’t. They just get up and do it. The lovely and talented Teresa Palmer, whom I work with on A Discovery of Witches, is constantly popping out babies. Production just work around her. And it’s great, I admire her very much for that.”

Alex in ER

Alex puts her staying power down to being in the right place at the right time – and being nice to people, though she says theatre will provide her with a safety net should the TV work dry up one day.

She said: “Being as versatile as possible helps. I’m up for anything as long it is written well.

“I had a formal training. My first love is theatre. Having that as a backbone will always support me. In an industry that will favour youth more, theatre is always there. In order to succeed on the stage you have to have had good solid training and know how to handle your voice.

“Also, being a nice person counts for a lot. If you were difficult you would get a reputation. Of course there are actors who are extremely difficult and tiresome to work with, and there will come a point at which you think is it worth it? I don’t want to be one of those people.”

Despite her time-travelling credentials Alex has no idea what the future holds but still harbours a dream of being a Bond Girl (though obviously not one who falls for the smooth-talking spy).

She laughs: “I would love to be a villain in a James Bond movie, the real villain, the main one. Because they’ve never had a female villain. And I want to be a villain who does not find James Bond sexy at all. And doesn’t succumb to his charms, I want to be his real nemesis.”

Time for a return to Tardis?

Alex alongside Peter Capaldi in Doctor Who

From ER to the Tardis, Alex’s career to date has been distinguished by roles opposite fictional doctors, whether medical or time-travelling.

The smash-hit hospital drama which made her a star in the ’90s famously launched the Hollywood career of a certain George Clooney. Then in 2008, Alex won a new generation of fans as the wife of Doctor Who.

Because the Doctor transmutates over time Alex, as River Song, gets several leading men for the price of one. Alex said: “Essentially my character is the same, so there’s continuity there, and the fun is interacting with someone who is essentially the same man, but in a different skin and with a different energy.”

Perhaps the least lucky man in the role was Matt Smith.

Alex explained: “One of the most memorable parts of filming was when I flew through the universe, got caught in the Tardis and kneed Matt Smith, who was playing the Doctor at the time, in a sore place by mistake. There were a few tears of laughter from me and cries of pain from him.”

Speculation is rife among fans that Alex will return to the Whoniverse, if the incumbent Time Lord Jodie Whittaker steps down. All Alex will say is: “My Tardis door is always open…” [x]

#Alex Kingston #Salome Haertel #River Song #Doctor Who #Kingston Edit #ER #NEW #Interview #2021 #The Sunday Post #New

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taexual · 4 years

Text

i’d love you to stay but that’s simply insane // JJK (12)

jungkook is an uncontrollable lead vocalist of the campus band, and you’re a goal-oriented top student that’s known his rich and complicated family since childhood. you don’t want anything to do with each other, until each other is exactly what you want to do.

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: college au

warnings: jealous & possessive!jungkook vs. reader who won’t take his shit

words: 8.8k (whoops)

chapter twelve

Your roommate refused to hide her surprise when you told her you were going to the Parental Advisory party with Jungkook. She couldn’t come with the two of you because she was going to visit her parents this weekend, but the disappointment of missing the party did not overshadow her excitement about you going there with Jungkook.

“Don’t blow this out of proportion,” you pleaded – for the three-hundredth time that evening – unable to relate to her joy. “We won’t be there long, so it doesn’t—”

“It’s your first public date,” Inna spoke—very ceremoniously—as she dug around your closet, convinced that her duty as your roommate was to choose an outfit for you, even if she was the only person – aside from you and Jungkook – who knew that this was all pretend. “Everyone will have their jaws on the floor when they see you arrive together anyway, but a good outfit might just make you feel less self-conscious.”

You had many objections but, knowing that Inna was running short on time before her bus arrived, you chose to only argue about the things that you could have changed her mind about.

“I don’t think it matters what I wear,” you said, your arms crossed over your chest as you watched the several pairs of tights and sweatpants fly out of the closet in reckless abandon as Inna looked for a gold mine. “I’m going to be uncomfortable anyway.”

You couldn’t see her when she had her head in the pile of your clothes, but her voice made the smirk on her lips obvious, “I’m sure he will find a way to make you feel more comfortable there.”

“We’ll only stay there for a little bit,” you said. “We were supposed to return here later. Although, I’m not sure if that’s still happening.”

“Oh!” Inna jumped up, momentarily forgetting about her stylist career. She wasn’t just smirking anymore, she was full-on grinning now, teeth and all. “So, you’ll be coming back to your place later? That calls for a whole different outfit.”

You didn’t realize what she was implying right away.

“We—what do you—oh,” you said, her words hitting you with a wave of hotness that forced your hands to guard your flushed face from her. “Inna, no. You know I don’t like those parties, we just agreed to go there for a little bit, and then watch a movie or something back here.”

“Right, of course,” she nodded and you thought she was relenting but, really, you should have known better as she teased, “that’s why they call it Netflix and Chill, babe.”

“I know you can’t see my eyes,” you said, your hands still on your face, “but I’m glaring at you right now.”

“Here,” she said, picking up a black off-the-shoulder blouse and a velvet burgundy mini skirt – you’d bought them both when you and Inna had lunch at the mall on your first weekend on campus and you hadn’t worn the outfit once – and tossing it for you right as you peeked at her through the gaps between your fingers. The blouse hit you in the chest but you caught it before it fell to the floor. “Now is the perfect time to wear this.”

She didn’t hide the offense in her voice – she was the one who had picked the skirt out for you – as she was evidently still bitter that you’d never even tried it on, aside from that one time in the changing room.

“I thought I’d just go in a sweater,” you said – which was very bold, considering that Inna looked ready to tackle you for wasting her time – and then lamely tried to explain your reasoning, “it’s chilly today.”

“You’ll wear that,” she ordered with an aggressive nod at the clothes in your hands, “and if you’re cold, you’ll ask Jungkook for his jacket.”

“What if he doesn’t wear a jacket?”

“Then you’ll ask for his shirt,” she said and smiled at her own impressive wit. “A win-win situation, really.”

You were going to protest again and Inna knew it, too, so, before you could even open your mouth, she closed the door of your closet – as much as the haphazardly thrown clothes allowed it to close – and stood facing you, her arms crossed and legs parted in a threatening manner.

“Put it on,” she demanded. “I will not leave until I know you’re going to that party in something that’s not sweats. If I miss my bus, it’s on you.”

Inna did not miss her bus – but barely, as she jumped around your dorm for ten minutes straight, in awe over how perfectly the skirt she’d picked out fit you and how “fascinating” (that one’s a direct quote) it made your legs look – and, then, before you knew it, you were waiting for Jungkook to come pick you up all by yourself.

You felt nervous. Granted, you’d felt somewhat worried the whole day today – which wasn’t very unusual, you liked to get your worrying started in advance – but, with Inna here, you’d held yourself together. Now your hands shook—trembled, really—as you sprayed some perfume on your wrists before rubbing them together.

Many things about tonight bothered you: you didn’t want to put up an act for half of the campus – especially not for the people who cared about Jungkook so much, they screeched and ran in the opposite direction when he crashed his car – and you also didn’t want to have to deal with whatever consequences the combination of alcohol and Jungkook would bring.

The first time you saw him drunk, he drove into a pole. The second time – he went home with a different girl, nevermind that he may have been looking for you. You were afraid that the third time could have been the charm – one last hurrah before something finally put an end to your friendship.

But most of all, you were afraid of you and him being there together, because your last conversation hadn’t exactly gone smoothly and now you didn’t know what to expect.

At first, you were almost looking forward to tonight as much as Inna was, especially since Jungkook was ready to leave the party early so you could spend some time together in a place where you felt more comfortable. But then he seemed to take all of his words back with one single phrase.

The only thing that “really mattered” about you and him, was that his parents believed you were together.

You always considered the worst case scenarios – just to prepare yourself – but they seemed limitless tonight as you weren’t sure what to make of his words and which side of him to prepare for: the side that did want to spend time with you and wasn’t afraid to say so, or the other side.

But you wouldn’t have had the time to prepare for tonight even if you did know what to expect; Jungkook -- and all of his sides -- was already here.

When the knock came, you needed at least half a minute to calm your breathing before you finally felt collected enough to open the door.

“Hey,” Jungkook said as soon as he heard the lock turn, sounding out of breath as if he’d ran all the way up the stairs. “Your RA—not a very nice guy—didn’t want me to come in—had to—”

“You ran away from him?” you asked, opening the door properly so he could come inside before the RA came running after him. However, with the door fully open, your outfit was suddenly in full-view for Jungkook and he froze, his breath catching in his throat.

“I—oh, you look really, uh, g-great,” he said, lifting his eyes back to your face – as if to check if this was really you – before sliding them down your body again in a way that you’ve never seen him do before. It didn’t mean that he’d never checked you out before – because, oh, he had – you were just never aware of it. “The dark colors go really well with—well, everything.”

“Thanks,” you said, crossing your arms as you moved to a side. You wanted to give him a compliment in return but could not find the words because the black cargo pants and the ripped jean jacket he’d worn tonight was not much different from any other outfit he’d worn before, and yet, you still hard a hard time looking away. “Come in while I grab my bag.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, of course,” he slipped inside, eyes still on you – his feet tripping over the threshold just slightly – as he closed the door after himself.

You walked over to your bed to grab your phone with the intention of putting it in the handbag that you had thrown over the open door of your bedroom. But when you turned around, phone in hand, Jungkook was standing right in front of you and your nose almost smashed right into his chest.

“Oh,” you blinked, the close proximity nearly throwing you off balance and Jungkook’s hands were already reaching for your waist to steady you on your feet.

You swore you would have suffocated if he’d touched you right then but he realized he’d entered your personal space as soon as he felt your shaky breath wash off on his own face.

In his defense, he’d only walked so near because the smell of your perfume pulled him in – he didn’t mean to cross any boundaries – but, standing so close, he could see the alarm in your eyes. Clearing his throat, he took a step back and gave you an encouraging smile as you slowly walked past him.

He tried not to think of the expression on your face – wary, yet expectant – when you saw how close he was, but he was glad you lingered by the door as you checked the contents of your bag.

“Ready to go?” he asked as soon as you clicked the lock on the handbag and turned around.

You were not ready to go because even though he stood several feet away from you now, his presence still lingered all around you and you could still smell his cologne. You could almost taste the mint strawberry gum he always kept in his car.

Your head was swimming with the feeling of him.

You’d been afraid of tonight and yet you hadn’t realized just how challenging it was really going to be.

“Yeah, we can go,” you said, not pausing to give him a look as you opened the door and waited for him to follow you out of the room. “If the RA hasn’t called the police yet.”

“Ah, shit. He’d do that?” Jungkook asked, more curious than worried about getting fined for being here without an entrance pass – he couldn’t really bring himself to care because it all seemed worth it.

You stopped in the hallway as you closed the door. Surprisingly, your hands had stopped shaking – it was your heart that was restless now.

“He’s done it before,” you said, fumbling with the lock. “But, in that case, we had a squatter and he’d just discovered her three months after she moved in, so he was understandably angry.”

“Well, I haven’t moved in yet,” Jungkook said carelessly, not realizing how your heart decided to skip a beat at the word yet. “And, not to mention, I’ve been here before and he’s never stopped me from coming up.”

“He would have if he knew how much time you wasted sitting in this hallway,” you said, double-checking if the door was really locked and then joining him on the way to the elevator.

Jungkook stuffed his hands into his pockets after he pressed the elevator button.

“I didn’t waste time,” he said. “I was waiting for you.”

The elevator door opened. Your chest did too as your heart rose to your throat.

“I-I mean, you could have waited at home,” you said, walking into the cabin before him and leaning against the mirror. The mixed signals he was sending you made you dizzy.

“You weren’t answering my calls,” he reminded you, pressing the ‘L’ on the dashboard and sheepishly glancing at your reflection. “And, in any case, doesn’t he know who I am?”

You raised your eyebrows at the arrogant expression on his face. Jungkook noticed your look but proceeded anyway.

“No one else has this problem,” he said, “I’m welcome everywhere.”

“You’re making tonight very difficult for me,” you told him.

“What? I’m not trying to show off,” he said, showing off. “I’m just saying.”

You chose not to play his game anymore as you shook your head and hypothesized, “maybe he’s just worried about how often he sees you here. I can talk to him.”

“Good. Because he’s going to have to get used to the blessing that is me,” Jungkook said, extending a hand for you when the two of you stepped out of the elevator in the lobby, the RA nowhere in sight, “I’m not going anywhere.”

You weren’t certain what he expected you to do – surely he didn’t mean for you to hold his hand right now, before you even got to the party? – so you watched his palm for several moments, involuntarily tracing the branches on it with your eyes.

“Well, come on,” he encouraged, taking your hand himself when it became clear that you weren’t going to do anything. “I parked my car out front. And before you say anything – yes, I do know that parking here is for residents only. If anyone asks, I live here.”

“I—” your mind was still listening to him say he wasn’t going anywhere, so it took you a few moments to find your next words and, in that time, Jungkook had already guided you out of the lobby and into the crisp evening.

“I’m pretty sure everyone knows where you live,” you said.

A smirk appeared on his lips but, this time, Jungkook chose not to gloat (too much) about the fact that he was a Parental Advisory member.

“Not your RA,” he countered instead, pressing a button on his car key. A pleasant click informed you that the car had unlocked. “He looked like he’s never listened to anything that’s not Verdi.”

“He actually plays a lot of Liszt in our second-floor lounge room,” you said. “There’s a piano there.”

“That just proves my point, if anything,” Jungkook stopped in front of his car and opened the passenger door for you, casually leaning against the vehicle while he waited for you to climb inside – it was almost unbelievable how easily he managed to act like all was normal.

In all truth, Jungkook found his laid-back attitude hard to believe as well because, inside of his chest, there were hundreds of explosions happening – thousands, actually, when the evening breeze lifted your skirt higher up your thighs – and only half of them were caused by the way you looked tonight. The other half were the result of holding your hand.

“Alright,” he said after having circled the car to enter it through the driver’s side. “Keep me updated on your mood so I know when you want to go home, yeah?”

“I—” you started to say, wanting to let him know that he didn’t have to worry about taking you home, but Jungkook beat you to it.

“If you say you want to go right now, I swear—”

“No, I was just—well, actually…” you looked at him with glitter in your eyes – and if you’d really meant it, he would have taken you home right then and there – and a teasing smile. “No, I was going to say that I don’t want you to feel pressured to leave with me. I promise to stay for a little bit, but you can stay for however long you—”

“I only want to stay for as long as you’re staying,” he said and you thanked the God that the sound of the car engine coming to life drowned out the loud beats of your heart. “We agreed to get back to your place and hang out there, didn’t we?”

“We did. But then—”

“Did you change your mind?” he asked with a quick glance at you before he turned to the rear-view mirror to back out of the parking lot. “Do you not want to spend time with me anymore?”

It was absurd that he was the one asking you this.

“I do want to spend time with you,” you said.

“Well, I should hope so,” he replied, the arrogant smirk now back on his lips again. “I doubt there are better alternatives than me on this campus.”

“Probably not,” you said, rolling your eyes, and then biting, “but only because Inna left to go home tonight.”

Jungkook would have let you know how this wounded his impossibly huge ego if his mind hadn’t drifted elsewhere as soon as you said this.

“Oh,” he spoke, turning out of the parking lot and into the street. “So you have the place all to yourself, huh?”

You raised your eyebrows when you turned to look at him. “You could not have sounded more like a typical college boy as you said this.”

Jungkook smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “I am a typical college boy.”

You smirked. “I thought you were only one of a kind.”

He gave you a proud look – completely ignoring the mocking undertones in your voice – before returning his eyes to the road as he drove towards his house.

“I am, of course,” he said. “Just wanted to hear you say it.”

Much to your – and Jungkook’s – surprise, the party ended up not being so bad, after all. Initially, you thought you’d have to come up with a way to leave after an hour, but several hours have passed now, and you had to admit, you were genuinely enjoying yourself here.

At the beginning, you couldn’t quite get comfortable – all because you could feel everyone’s stares on the two of you when you arrived hand-in-hand – but when you finished a few drinks, the people in the room no longer seemed as strange and threatening.

Jungkook helped you ease your discomfort by refusing to leave you alone – and making his close presence seem so casual, it was as if his parents were, indeed, here, watching you two play a relationship – but even when you finally convinced him to find his bandmates and say hi to them, you still didn’t feel too out-of-place.

You felt relaxed, actually. Excited. And maybe a little irrational or else you wouldn’t have found yourself on the couch next to Brock – the well-known social climber, dead-set on beating Jungkook in terms of campus popularity – discussing your plans for the summer.

“I want to spend at least a few weeks at home with my family,” you were telling him as you toyed with the edges of your third—or was it fourth?—drink tonight, “but only if I pass all of my finals at the top of the class. Or else I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“They’re that hard on you, huh?” Brock nodded knowingly – for someone who seemed so shallow when you first heard about him, he sure had a lot of empathy – and took a sip of his own drink.

“They’re alright,” you said, swallowing the remaining alcohol in your cup. “Although my roommate thinks they’re robots.”

“Oh, your roommate has met them?” he asked.

“I brought her over once,” you explained. “I do that with friends, usually, but only if we’re really close. Most people don’t handle the judgmental looks on my parents’ faces too well.”

“I see,” Brock said but only to win himself more time to find the right way to ask you this, “so, uh, has Jungkook met them?”

“My parents?” you asked. And then, not thinking about it, added, “of course. He met them a long time ago.”

Brock raised his eyebrows in evident surprise. It dawned on you then – albeit slowly – that he didn’t know how long you and Jungkook knew each other. Actually, probably no one at this party knew – you spent the majority of your time at university pretending Jungkook didn’t exist.

“So, you’ve been together for a while then?” Brock questioned.

His eyes didn’t give it away but you were sober enough to understand how this could have been a trick question: Jungkook was probably sleeping around with other girls before you started to talk again, so defining a clear timeline of your relationship was crucial or else you were going to fall down the spiral of “cheating” rumors.

“Uh… no,” you said, choosing to play dumb. “Not very long.”

“So, he met your parents before you started dating?”

“Yeah. My dad’s a teacher,” you said, which was the truth, so you didn’t completely lie, and Brock’s lips parted. You could almost see the puzzle pieces click together in his brain.

“Oh, I would not want to spend the summer with my parents if one of them was a teacher,” he said with a chuckle. You gave him a tell-me-about-it-look and scanned the room for another drink. “Are you going to be on campus during the rest of the summer?”

“Uh, probably, yeah,” you said. “I’d like to get an internship somewhere close, so I could live at the dorm.”

“Busy girl,” Brock said in a way that sounded more condescending than affectionate. His company no longer seemed so pleasant – you definitely needed another drink – but he didn’t seem to pick up on your emotions, “I know that Jungkook is probably going to be on campus as well but, um,” he scooted closer to you on the couch – just a little but enough for his knee to touch yours, “if he’s away, I could maybe show you—”

You didn’t hear what was it that he was going to show you because someone landed on the armrest of the couch right behind you. The smell of alcohol was the first thing you registered, but then you picked up the scent of the cologne, too, and you didn’t have to turn around to know that it was Jungkook.

“I’m back,” he spoke into your ear – whispered, actually -- sending an excited shiver down your spine. “I brought you something to try. It’s—”

It was a drink. Finally.

“Thanks,” you cut him off, not really thinking much of the pale green liquid in the half-empty shot glass and downing it all in one go. You frowned when the drink reached your throat, going down with a fiery resistance.

Jungkook noticed your grimace as you swallowed. He placed a protective hand on your back – and then shot Brock a warning look which prompted the boy to return to his previous spot on the other end of the couch – as you coughed, not really enjoying the anise-flavored travesty he’d brought you.

“You okay?” Jungkook asked, concerned.

“Mmhmm,” you replied, your esophagus still burning, “n-not a fan of absinthe. Have you been—” you paused to inhale through your mouth, cherishing every bit of cold air, “—drinking this the whole night?”

“Yeah, he basically drinks that shit raw,” Brock answered instead, somehow happy to see Jungkook bring you this much discomfort. “And it still takes him a while to get drunk.”

“I haven’t been,” Jungkook answered your question, deliberately ignoring everything the other boy had just said. “Taehyung broke out a bottle he’d brought back from France. Do you want me to get you some water?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” you replied, inhaling a few more times and then clearing your throat for good measure. “It just took me off-guard, that’s all—”

You ended up not finding the end of your sentence as Jungkook slid down the armrest and landed on the couch next to you, his arms sneaking around your waist as he pulled your body closer to his. Your heart would have most likely stopped if the shot of absinthe hadn’t released all this adrenaline into your bloodstream.

“I’m sorry,” he said into your hair – the close proximity and the quiet tone of his voice had quickly cut off all signals from the synapses inside your brain – and cuddled into you until he found a more comfortable position. “I would have warmed—warned you if you’d have given me a chance.”

He was obviously drunk and tongue-tied – but that was nothing new. What was new, however, was this affection, as he held on to you as if you were both stranded on a stray piece of wood in the ocean and he was afraid you were going to slide off into the water and die.

“T-that’s okay,” you said with a nervous chuckle, figuring that he was only doing this to prove a point that you were dating. But no one seemed to care; this far into the party, everyone was either making out with someone or dancing their lives away – except for Brock who was actively trying not to look at you two.

“Hmm,” Jungkook exhaled slowly for no reason other than to see the skin on the nape of your neck shiver from his breath. He wasn’t drunk enough to miss the effect he had on you, but he was far too drunk to be able to hold himself back from deliberately affecting you this way.

“How much have you had to drink tonight?” you asked, not uncomfortable in his arms per se, but certainly tense – even more so when you finally concluded that he was holding you like this specifically because Brock was here.

“Not much,” Jungkook replied, still as quiet as before. He shot the boy across the couch a glance so full of spite, you would have believed him to be completely sober if you’d seen him do it.

Brock only rolled his eyes in response, ready to say something to you but instead, he was forced to watch you strain your neck as you tried to look at Jungkook, his grip on your waist not loosening.

“Really? Because you seem really drunk,” you told Jungkook, your voice no longer passive.

He snickered – you felt his abdomen muscles move against your back as he did – and, purposefully staring right Brock in the eyes, he said, “I’m only drunk on you.”

If he wanted to see you squirm, he would have succeeded, but his grip on you was too tight for you to move. Pressing your lips together, you touched his knee with your hand in a warning manner. You didn’t like being caught in the middle of a purposeless war of masculinity.

“Maybe it’s time we left, then,” you suggested. He worshiped the disappointment that appeared on Brock’s face after you said this.

“Yeah?” Jungkook asked – but he didn’t have to, he was just trying to win some more time to hold you close to him like this – and then, slowly unwrapping his arms from your waist, he said, “I’ll run to say bye to the guys, okay? It’ll only be one second. Meet you by the door?”

“Sure, yeah. Take your time. I’ll stop by the bathroom before we go,” you said, craving some cold water on your face – and not just because of the lingering fire in your throat – as Jungkook released you and stood up, leaving an unnaturally cold sensation behind you, where his body had been.

He walked off quickly, his grin only widening when he glanced at you over his shoulder and saw you stand up and walk away from the couch without saying a word to Brock.

What Jungkook didn’t see, however, was how -- as soon as he rounded the corner to enter the kitchen where his bandmates were searching for sugar cubes for their ridiculous absinthe ritual -- Brock leaped from his seat and grabbed your hand, stopping you from walking away.

“Hey,” he said, pulling away when he felt you flinch in surprise. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—uh, you headed home, then?”

“Yeah,” you said, taking your hand back and hiding it behind your back in defense. “It was nice talking to you.”

“It really was!” he said, a little too enthusiastically. “Which is why I was wondering if you were free anytime soon. So we could talk again, maybe? I just don’t want this to be the only time I get to hang out with you. I felt like we had a real connection. You know?”

You didn’t. You thought he wasn’t a terrible person to talk to, but you could only tolerate him in small doses.

“Mmhmm. Well, we live on the same campus,” you said, trying to smile politely as you made your way towards the bathroom. Much to your disappointment – and horror – Brock fell into step with you. “I’m sure we will, uh, see each other around.”

“Yeah? Where do you usually hang out? When you’re not with Jungkook, I mean.”

As far away from you as possible, was going to be your answer if he wasn’t going to let you walk away from him.

“Everywhere,” you said and then decided to make yourself sound less available, “or nowhere, actually. I prefer to stay home. With my roommate.”

“I like to stay home, too,” he said. You doubted that very much – unless staying home meant throwing parties at the million-dollar mansion that his parents had purchased for him. “You think we could do that together some time?”

You could distinctly recall the way your heart sped up when Jungkook suggested nearly the same thing one time. Brock’s words seemed to have a completely opposite effect on you, however, as you desperately looked for a way out of the situation and were almost prepared to use the golden I-have-a-boyfriend excuse – which could have been true for all that Brock knew – when he spoke again.

“Just you and me,” he clarified. “You could text me when Jungkook is away.”

Now, if only he could have survived five seconds without bringing Jungkook up – further proving to you that this was all about Brock showing everyone that he was better – maybe you would have stopped and considered this – although you doubted that, too – but now you didn’t even hesitate before you clicked your tongue.

“Don’t you think that’s inappropriate?” you asked.

He clearly didn’t as he retorted, “why?”

“Because this is something that you wouldn’t suggest if he was here,” you explained. “And I don’t really want to go behind his back and plan some secret tête-à-têtes.”

You gave him a smile – instead of saying goodbye – and were already reaching for the handle of the bathroom door when he grabbed your hand again. This time, when you turned to look at him, you didn’t bother to hide the irritation in your eyes.

“You misunderstand me,” Brock said, very matter-of-fact but still wary as he let go of your hand. Good. You were going to need it when you inevitably smacked him across the face. “I’m not implying anything. I just genuinely liked talking to you and would like to do it again without anyone bothering us. If you don’t think Jungkook’s going to allow you to see me, I can talk to him about—”

“No,” you said sharply. “I don’t need anyone’s permission to do anything. It’s my decision. And I said no.”

Brock watched your eyes for a moment, intrigued by how strict they looked.

“Okay,” he said then. “Got it.”

You nodded and, almost tripping over your own feet in your hurry, you finally tore yourself away from the party by entering the bathroom and locking the door.

Alone at last, you exhaled and walked over to the sink, choosing not to look at your reflection in the mirror out of fear of dissociating even more – you already felt disoriented enough.

Washing your hands with cold water and then dabbing wet fingertips under your eyes and down the sides of your face felt refreshing, but it wasn’t enough to stop your heart from working overtime – courtesy of Jungkook and Brock, and their passive-aggressive battle to show the other one who was better.

You weren’t sure what you were more frustrated with: the fact that Jungkook’s touch affected you so much or the fact that he only seemed to touch you to show off to Brock. Obviously, you’d come here to establish your relationship in front of your peers but, considering that Jungkook tried to treat this whole thing as a sort of business deal, only worrying about his parents’ opinion, his actions tonight seemed over the top.

Not to mention, you could have handled Brock yourself. He was the first person who talked to you at this party and he probably only did because he’d seen you arrive with Jungkook, and, just like with everything else, he was determined to replace him. Naturally, Jungkook -- never one to back down from a challenge -- wanted to put Brock in his place.

This really irked you – you liked to be in charge of your own life and hated having to rely on others to do things for you. Jungkook should have known that.

But although you were irritated, you didn’t feel like starting an argument and then potentially having to deal with dead bodies. However, right after you decided to leave the party quietly, your mythical sixth sense picked up a bad vibe and your stomach dropped – all just a second before you heard deep grunts of struggle from behind the door of the bathroom.

For just a split second, you hoped that this commotion didn’t involve Jungkook but all of that hope vanished when one of the voices yelled, “who the fuck do you think you are?” and you recognized the undeniable tenor of your childhood friend.

Cursing under your breath, you shut the water off and, not even bothering to find a towel, walked out of the room with your hands still dripping.

You felt hopeful yet again when you saw the almost empty living room – maybe they stopped fighting – but that hope disappeared soon enough, too, when a tirade of cuss words reached you from the kitchen, followed by the sound of skin slapping against skin, muscle against muscle.

Following the sound, you clenched your hands into fists and tried to brace yourself for whatever you were about to witness. And, just like you expected, a group of spectators – always thirsty for some violence – was watching Jungkook hold Brock by the collar of his shirt.

Brock – who was obviously enjoying the attention of the whole party – snarled something that provoked Jungkook to throw another punch to the side of his face. Brock’s whole head twisted to a side and, roughly pushing Jungkook off of himself until his back hit the fridge, Brock spat the blood out onto the kitchen floor.

“Jungkook!” you called out before they turned this whole house into a boxing ring. He heard you – his eyes drifted to the group of people watching him – but he couldn’t see you through the crowd.

Cursing again, you tried to push past the people even if it involved losing sight of the two boys – you could hear the fight carry on as they slammed each other against furniture – until you finally reached the kitchen island and saw Jungkook carelessly hurl Brock on top of it, his head nearly hitting the marble tabletop.

“Jungkook, for fuck’s sake,” you snapped.

It was hard to say if he heard you this time, because one of Brock’s hands broke free and roughly pushed Jungkook’s chest. The boy stumbled backwards, hitting the cupboard behind him with a loud groan as empty plastic cups scattered all over the tabletop and rolled to the floor.

Recovering immediately, Jungkook lunged for Brock again – but this time you were there to interrupt them.

Grabbing Jungkook’s wrist as soon as he swung his hand back to prepare a punch, you finally got him to tear his eyes away from the opponent and give you a frenzied look.

“That’s enough,” you said, all out of breath as if it was you that’s been in a fight. “You made your point.”

Brock rolled off the kitchen island and coughed loudly as he dusted his shirt off. When you turned your head – both of your hands still gripping Jungkook’s raised fist, even if he was no longer planning to punch anything with it – you saw that Brock’s lip was bleeding, his left eye was starting to swell, and various hues of dark purple decorated the right side of his face.

Jungkook looked better in comparison to him – at least, from what you could see – although his cheekbones were clearly bruised, the skin irritated and bright red.

“You need to learn how to take a fucking joke,” Brock spat just as you let go of Jungkook. Immediately, he jumped past you, seemingly ready to knock Brock out.

Brock stumbled backwards, not yet prepared to defend himself against Jungkook again, but he didn’t have to do anything because you’d sneaked under Jungkook’s raised arms and pressed both of your hands into his chest, stopping him in his tracks.

“Jungkook,” you told him, knowing you had to remain calm in order to make progress, but struggling as fury boiled inside your veins.

Jungkook looked at you, his nostrils still flaring, but his anger dissipating as quickly as it had ignited. He took a step back until you no longer had a hold on him, and snarled at Brock, “you’re a fucking joke. Let’s go.”

The last part was directed at you, obviously, as Jungkook turned around. Knowing how quickly he could change his mind, you took his hand in yours just to make sure he didn’t knock anyone unconscious on his way out of the house.

Everything was already so surreal, you were glad he was clutching your hand so tight it almost hurt, or else you’d have thought you were dreaming. But then, to make this even more hard to believe, Jungkook exited the house and made a beeline for his car.

“What are you doing?” you demanded, stopping and thus pulling him to a stop, too.

“We’re getting out of here,” he shot back as he finished climbing the few remaining porch steps. You remained at the top. “I’m driving you home.”

You could have laughed at the absurdity.

“You are not driving,” you said, resisting his pull as he tried to get you to climb down the steps. “You’re wasted. Do you not realize that?”

“I don’t—”

“First, you need to sit down,” you told him and lowered yourself until you were sitting on the porch, your feet resting on the lowest step.

Jungkook held your hand and watched you, frozen.

“Sit,” you repeated, making it sound more like an order this time.

“I need to get out of here,” he said, growing frustrated with your need to mediate between him and his obvious anger issues. “I’m not fucking sitting—”

“Well, you’re not getting behind the wheel of a car, either,” you cut him off, pulling his hand down.

He still resisted. “I’m fine. Let go of me.”

“Sit.”

“I’m not fucking sitting down, for fuck’s—!”

“Then stop acting like a fucking lunatic and get a grip on yourself!” you yelled, all patience gone as you jumped to your feet. “You’re drunk whether you realize it or not. You can’t drive yourself, let alone someone else, and you’re fucking out of your mind with anger. So, sit your ass down and fucking breathe. Or else I’m calling the police to get you arrested. Maybe that will get through your thick head.”

Scolded to the point where he almost felt embarrassed, Jungkook mumbled something incoherent and sat down.

“God, you truly never grew up,” you said with an exasperated sigh as you plopped back down next to him. “Always looking for different ways to get your adrenaline fix.”

He groaned, leaning forwards as he rested his elbows on his knees and hid his face in his hands.

You wanted to ask him what was it that Brock had said that provoked him to start a fight -- because you had no doubt that Jungkook was the one who threw the first punch -- but decided against it. You didn’t want Jungkook to fire up again.

And so, you sat in silence for a little while – you, fuming, and Jungkook, trying to control his breathing – until he finally sat up straight and dared to look at you. Your eyes were set firmly on the grass, swaying freely in the night wind.

“Are you mad?” Jungkook asked.

Your face didn’t even twitch as you countered, “what do you think?”

“At me?” he tried again.

“What do you think?”

He swallowed. “What did I do wrong?”

You looked at him incredulously. “Do you seriously have to ask me that?”

“Yes,” he said, knowing that he was going to get a lecture but needing to hear it in order to properly defend himself. “Obviously.”

“You got into a fight with Brock,” you said because it was this simple.

“Yeah,” Jungkook confirmed pointlessly and then said with a prideful undertone, “because he deserved to get punched.”

He did not seem to regret it in the slightest and would have probably done it again if he went back inside the house – that’s what scared you the most about this. You may as well have been talking to a wall.

“But that’s exactly what he wants—” you tried, but Jungkook cut you off.

“To get punched?” he asked.

“No—to get a reaction out of you,” you explained, more patient now that it looked like he was finally starting to listen to you, “he wants people to talk shit about you.”

Then, surprising you, Jungkook said, “I know.”

It took you a moment to grasp that he knew the consequences his actions would have, and that made his decisions all the more self-destructive.

“So,” you took a breath, “why do you do this?”

You were scared of his answer but instead of sounding like a lost cause, he just sounded aggressively nihilistic.

“Why not?” he retorted, shrugging one of his shoulders. “What do I have to lose? At least they’re talking about me. About us.”

If he’d asked you – really asked you, not just rhetorically – you’d have told him about all the things he would have lost if he kept this up. But he didn’t ask because he didn’t think there was an answer – a meaningful answer – that would have been worth the change in attitude.

He was simply convinced he didn’t have anything worth to keep: not his relationship with his parents, and not even what remained of his own reputation.

“Well, yes, but what they’re saying isn’t doing us…” you started to say but felt yourself hit a dead-end. You were a conformist. He, clearly, wasn’t. But it wasn’t for you to decide which one of you was right when it came to dealing with campus rumors. “Anyway. That was wrong. You know fighting is wrong. You end up getting hurt.”

“He’s the one who picked a fight with me as soon as you walked away,” Jungkook mumbled childishly.

“That doesn’t mean you’re any less guilty,” you stated. “You were acting weird around him before the fight, so, in a way, you brought it upon yourself.”

Jungkook looked at you, his eyebrows furrowed. “When did I act weird?”

You looked away. “When you brought me that shot of absinthe.”

“What do you mean?” he asked but he knew what you meant. “I was just letting him know that we were dating. Letting everyone know that we were—”

“Right but everyone got that when we arrived together,” you spoke as soon as your face started to grow warmer from the memory of you and him on that couch, “and none of that even matters, anyway, remember? Your parents aren’t here. You didn’t have to—”

“I wanted to,” he said.

You paused. Then asked, “what?”

“I wanted to touch you,” Jungkook clarified. “Is that wrong?”

For a minute, you couldn’t remember if you thought that was wrong or not when he put it like that.

“It’s—” you said and then swallowed, thanking the cold breeze that raised goosebumps on your bare legs for distracting you from his intoxicating words. You had completely sobered up when you had to break up that fight and you’d have liked to remain clear-minded. “Well, if you’re doing it to mark your territory like some dog, then yeah. It’s wrong. It’s disrespectful to me.”

“I wasn’t trying to mark my territory.”

“It felt like you were.”

Sighing, he caved, even though he hated the accusation, “alright, maybe I was, a little. But Brock needed to know that he was never going to get to touch you like that.”

“Ah,” you smiled humorlessly, “and you get that privilege, right?”

“I—well, didn’t we come here to show off?”

“We did, supposedly. But…”

Your voice faded because you realized that one of the biggest reasons why it felt like he’d crossed the line tonight, was because his actions affected you so much. If you hadn’t cared about him the way that you did, you probably wouldn’t have been bothered by the methods he chose to prove the authenticity of your relationship.

Sure, he could have been less possessive, but you knew him well enough to understand that he wasn’t trying to offend you. And yet you couldn’t let this go without standing up for yourself – especially not after he tried to take back every single one of his confessions the last time you’d talked to him.

“We weren’t supposed to do it like that,” you said, sounding a little more confident now. “I just felt like you went too far. Brock wasn’t worth it.”

“There’s a dozen others like Brock at that party,” Jungkook pointed out.

You scoffed. “Right. Even if there are, the only reason why they’d want me is so they could brag about stealing Jungkook’s girl.”

“No, it’s—is that the only reason why you think these guys want you?” he looked at you as he asked this, almost appalled that you would reduce your own impact to this level.

“They don’t—” you started to say with a shake of your head but that was enough for Jungkook.

“They do,” he countered, cutting you off, “and it’s not because you came with me. It’s because you’re you,” he didn’t mean to scan you from head to toe with his eyes as he said this but self-control was not one of his strong suits.

You had your objections but, at the same time, you were able to understand that arguing about this would have been pointless. Your knowledge about how men functioned came from text-books and observations, while his came from personal experience. You’d never see eye-to-eye about this.

“Why do you care about those other guys?” Jungkook asked after you didn’t reply.

“I—I don’t,” you said, still distracted by your own thoughts. “But you clearly do.”

“Of course, I do,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “They want you.”

You looked at him. “So, even if they do, why does it matter?”

“It matters because they can’t have you,” he said, “and they need to know that.”

“Know what?”

“That you’re mine.”

Your hands went numb and the fabric of your skirt that you’d been playing with started to feel foreign – fake, even – so you dropped it and took a deep breath, wrapping your arms around your midriff instead.

“I get that we’re playing a relationship,” you said, quieter than you probably should have, “but I’m not a trophy that you can brag about when you feel like it.”

“You might as well be,” he said, not intending to make it sound like you were some decoration, but realizing how it could have been interpreted precisely like that, “maybe ‘trophy’ wasn’t the right word. I mean that you are something—someone—to brag about. Because I’m proud to call you min—m-my, uh, fake-girlfriend. My friend. I’m proud of who you are. Proud of what you’d achieved. Proud of the way you can call me out on my bullshit and put me in my place—”

You did not acknowledge his slip-up with the label of your relationship – because he was drunk – scoffing instead, “there’s no way in hell you’re proud of that last one.”

“No, no, I am,” he nodded for more effect. “No one has the patience to deal with my shit. But you do.”

You went quiet again, your head spinning. The buzz of the alcohol had mostly worn off but you were unable to find a way to reply to him, and you chose to blame the drinks you’d had for that.

“Don’t do that again, okay?” you ended up saying.

Your thoughts ran a little too fast for him to keep up. “Do what?”

“Get into fights,” you said. “Act irrationally to prove a point.”

“Me hugging you was completely rational,” he said, bringing it up with such ease, it was like he was a completely different person now.

“You know what I mean,” you said. “Don’t treat me like an object. Especially, since it doesn’t change anything with your parents.”

“I wasn’t trying to--w-why are you bringing my parents into this?”

“Because of the other night?” you said, thinking it was obvious. “You were completely dismissive about this – a-about us – and you basically said that—”

“I know what I said,” he cut you off, looking down at the wooden steps of the porch. He remembered. “I didn’t mean that.”

So, here’s the answer, then: he didn’t mean that. But something – fear, insecurity, uncertainty – had still made him reduce your relationship to just an act for his parents.

“Okay,” you said, hesitating. “But we’d agreed to tell each other the truth. So, don’t—don’t say things you don’t mean. Not when it’s just us alone.”

“Okay,” Jungkook nodded, a promise on his lips, “I’ll think before I act from now on.”

You scrunched your nose, looking at him out of the corner of your eye. “Will you, really?”

He considered it, then rephrased himself, “I’ll try to think before I act.”

That got you to smile. “That’s better. Thank you.”

Jungkook smiled back and the tension outside of his house seemed to blow away with the wind. Even the night shadows around you suddenly seemed brighter.

“You have to admit, though,” Jungkook said then, “my plan to get Brock to believe we’re dating worked so much better than your diplomatic speech would have.”

“Why do you think I’d have given him a diplomatic speech?” you asked.

“I’ve known you since birth,” he replied, grinning.

“Fair point,” you couldn’t help but snicker. “We’re still doing it my way next time, though.”

“Alright,” he nodded, not really caring about much else except that you said there was going to be a next time. “So, you ready to go home now?”

You’d been ready to go home for a while now.

“I am,” you said,

He stood up. “Let’s go.”

You stood up after him but, once again, hesitated before climbing down the porch steps.

“Actually,” you spoke slowly, “I think I’m going alone.”

Jungkook hadn’t noticed that you weren’t following him as he headed towards the pavement across the front yard. He stopped at the sound of your distant voice and turned around.

“What?”

“Yeah,” you said, making your way towards him. “You stay here. Stay out of fights and—”

He was shaking his head. “If you think I’m going to let you go home alone, you’re—”

“If you think I need your permission to—”

“Okay, sorry, my bad,” he lifted his hands in a defensive manner that interrupted you. “I didn’t choose my words well. But my point stands. You’re not going home alone.”

You looked away with a sigh.

“Neither of us can drive,” you said, “and I’m not staying here.”

Jungkook rolled his eyes, dismissing your attempt to escape him with a very sarcastic, “oh, and that would sure be tragic if our plans didn’t involve us going back to your place together anyway.”

“I…” you did feel the same pang of excitement in the pit of your stomach as you did when he first suggested you spent more time together at your dorm, but everything that happened since then made you unsure if it was such a good idea, after all. “I feel like going to sleep, actually.”

“Okay,” he didn’t seem bothered by that. “I’m walking you home, then.”

“I’m perfectly capable of finding my own way,” you said.

“I’m sure you are, you’ve walked around campus plenty of times before,” he said, still as witty as ever. “I’m still coming with you.”

“Jungkook…”

“Let me. Please,” he took a step closer to you as he said this and you would have probably let him to do almost anything when you saw the night sky reflected in his eyes. “I don’t want to walk you home so that other people would believe that we’re in a relationship. So that my parents would believe we’re in a relationship. Or because you’re an item I want to show off. I want to walk you home because I want to walk you home.”

You could no longer feel the cold, late-hour wind.

“Okay, fine,” you said, your voice purposefully indifferent and even irritated, just so your real feelings wouldn’t manifest themselves. “Walk me home, then.”

“Way to make it sound like I’m putting you in pain,” Jungkook jabbed.

“You are kind of a pain in my ass, actually,” you pointed out.

“Yeah? Does that pain bother you?”

“Yes, very much,” you glared at him as the two of you crossed the front yard towards the main street where he’d crashed his car weeks ago when you first found each other again. “Keeps me up all night with thoughts about it.”

“Good,” he said with a smirk, walking around you inconspicuously, so that he was on your right side, his body shielding you from the cars that drove past every now and then. One could never know what sort of a drunk lunatic could drive by. “That means my plan has worked.”

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i-call-me-clarence · 3 years

Text

Life’s a Cemetery (Dig It)

Kevin and Jack get their hands dirty on grave duty.

Rated G

Suptober Day 6: Cemetery Boys

Fic below the cut

----

“You sure you’re good?” Dean asks for the third time.

“Kevin is here, and if anything happens we have angel blades and silver bullets,” Jack answers, making a little wave motion at Kevin who’s silently asking him how much longer he’s going to be on the phone. Kevin rolls his eyes and goes back to leaning on his shovel, refusing to start digging until Jack joins him. Jack doesn’t want to keep him waiting any longer, “Dean, I’m sorry, but I have to--”

“And you’ve got the iron poker, right? And the holy water?”

“We still have everything in the pack you left us.”

“But did you double-check? A real hunter always double checks, triple even--”

Before Jack can respond Kevin is taking the phone from Jack’s hands, “Believe it or not the ex-god and current prophet know what they’re doing. Bye.” and he hangs up the phone.

Jack gives Kevin an apologetic shrug of his mouth as Kevin hands back the phone, slapping it into Jack’s hand. “He’s protective.”

“He’s turned into a helicopter parent. If I wanted that I’d just go back home.”

“But that would put your mother at risk.” Jack tilts his head in confusion.

Kevin rolls his eyes and tosses Jack a shovel, “Come on. Let’s get this done before the sun goes down.”

---

Three hours after sunset and they’re still digging. Jack started feeling lightheaded thirty minutes ago, and it’s gotten to the point where he needs to sit down.

“I’m sorry, I have to--” Jack ends up thunking down on his butt before he can finish.

“Hey, are you okay?” Kevin asks warily, stopping his digging and leaning against his shovel, “Is the talisman wearing off or something?”

“I--I don’t have a talisman,” Jack’s body is shaking and he’s starting to feel nauseous. Perhaps he should have listened to his body hours ago when it screamed at him to rest. But Kevin had kept going and he’d said he wouldn’t dig alone so…

“You don’t have an energy talisman?!” Kevin gaps at him and drops his shovel, “Are you kidding me?! You do realize you’re basically human now?”

How could Jack forget? Being human was so difficult that it was impossible not to be reminded of it constantly. Even when he slept. He didn’t use to sleep as a Nephilim...or as God. But Amara’s taking care of that now. Letting Jack have a ‘normal childhood’ as she’d said. Something she was envious of and didn’t want Jack to miss. ‘Even Chuck let himself have one. After he invented the concept.’ when she’d told him that it was clear she was hiding a deep sadness. Jack had decided after his childhood was over, he’d take over as God again so she could have one too.

“How are you even standing?!”

“I’m...not.”

Kevin looks at Jack, taking notice of the way he was starting to sway a little. Before cursing and getting down on his knees next to Jack.

He grabs a hold of both sides of the necklace his talisman was supposedly attached to, “I’m going to regret this,” Kevin groans, before taking off the necklace and holding it out to Jack. A green light pulses from Kevin’s chest, swirling around his arm, before being sucked into the little medallion hanging from the golden chain in Kevin’s outstretched hand.

Jack quickly takes the necklace, seeing the sudden strain in Kevin. As soon as he has it, Kevin lays back with a dull thud as his body hits the earth.

“Oh my god,” he gasps, suddenly breathing very heavily. “Worst part about that talisman,” he pants, “After you take it off, you feel every bit of exertion. All at once. Oh, I’m gonna die.”

Jack puts on the talisman and instantly feels better. Better than he’d felt since turning human. He wonders what would happen if you kept the necklace on all the time--

“And if you’re tingling from the charm and wondering ‘why can’t I wear this all the time,’” Kevin says in a deep mocking voice that sounded suspiciously like Dean, “Just look at me after five hours. Imagine a week, or even just a whole day.”

“It kills you?”

“It kills you.”

“I can finish this alone.”

“Yeah, but first,” Kevin tried to sit up, grunting in pain, “Help me out of this damn hole.”

---

It had been an hour since Jack started digging by himself, making a grand total of eight hours. Just a constant monotony of stab scrape shovel. At least Jack felt pretty good with this talisman, and at least they were almost done.

Stab, scrape, shovel. Stab scrape shovel. Stab--THUD!

Jack gasps in surprise, and Kevin leans over the opening of the hole to look down at Jack equally surprised, and elated.

“Oh my god,” he laughs, falling back on the grass, “We finally did it,” Jack hears him say. And then he groans, “But now I have to move.”

“If I were still God I could read this. Or create new eyes that could,” Jack notes, scrapes the remaining dirt off the coffin with his hands.

“If you were still God we probably wouldn’t even need this spell. And if we did, you could just teleport the tome out without all this bullshit.”

A reneged sector of angels, lead by the angel Inias, had decided to declare war on all remaining prophets. They thought they could use them to find a way to spy on Amara and overthrow her from, well, Goddesshood. This was the grave of a prophet, and inside was a tome they were buried with that held a spell to make prophets invisible to angels and demons. Probably how she lived long enough to die of old age. At first Jack had been sad, thinking this would mean he wouldn’t get to see Kevin anymore. But Sam said he was pretty sure that he could rework the spell so any angels or demons that gave of their blood in the ceremony would be able to still see prophets.

Jack hopes so.

Kevin leans his head over the grave again, wincing. “Wow, now that you’ve uncovered it, those sigils are really bright.”

Jack agrees, though what seemed like blue glowing sigils to them wouldn’t appear at all to normal humans.

Jack opens his mouth to say so but is cut off by his phone ringing in his pocket.

“Is that Dean again?” Kevin asks tersely.

Jack checks the caller ID and nods.

“Hand it here,” Kevin says, lunging his arm forward and down.

Jack hands over the phone and Kevin rolls back over with it, out of sight.

“Dean?” Jack hears him say. “Bring burgers and water.” A pause where Kevin must have been about to hang up because he says, “Oh, and get your asses over here.” and Jack hears a beep from the call ending.

“Here you go,” Kevin dangles his arm over into the grave, phone in hand.

-----

They eat inside the impala--Kevin mostly chugs water at first--with the engine idling and cabin lights on. Kevin and Jack are both filthy, but Dean doesn’t mind. ‘Part of bein’ a Hunter’ he’d said. Back in the old times, Cas or Jack would clean everybody up. But seeing as they were both human now, he and Kevin were doomed to be dirt-covered.

“How did it go?” Castiel asks from the front seat, mouth half full of burger, “You didn’t run into any problems?” Castiel had been wearing his regular suit before he’d left but was now wearing a space cats hoodie he’d gotten for himself when he took Jack to Hot Topic. He must have brought it with him in the car.

Kevin stops chugging water to answer, “No ghouls, no cops, no cemetery keepers or grieving loved ones, though that last one would be unlikely seeing as she was buried three hundred years ago. Where’s my burger?”

“Got you four,” Dean grins and waggles his eyebrows.

“I may just be able to eat that many.”

“Yeah and I’ll finish whatever you don’t. That goes for everybody.” Dean continues.

“Didn’t you just get back from a dinner date?” Kevin asks suspiciously, “Actually, if you didn’t, don’t answer, I don’t wanna know.”

“We did just get back from dinner…” Cas starts slowly. “It was, uh...fancy.”

“Too fancy,” Dean grumbles.

“Ah. Small portion sizes.” Kevin nods, but then pauses, “Aren’t you supposed to have fifteen courses or something?”

“Yeah well, we got a call three courses in to deliver some emergency burgers.” Dean shrugs, “Prefer the burgers anyway.”

“Jack, are you wearing an amulet?”

Jack jerks as he realizes he forgot to take it off, “Uh oh,” he says, setting down his burger. “I think I’ve made a mistake.”

“What’s happening?” Dean asks looking around the cabin, panicked.

“Jack left an energy talisman on too long.” Cas sighs, looking sorry.

“Ohoho buddy,” Dean says into the air, smiling but also looking kind of sorry too, and even more so when he meets Jack’s eyes. He pauses. “Yeah bud, uh, that’s gonna be a bitch to take off.” He frowns.

Jack grabs the golden chain--

“Woah, man, what are you doing?” Kevin gasps after having grabbed Jack’s arm and stopping him from taking off the talisman.

“Will it kill me?” Jack asks everybody, suddenly nervous.

“Well, no,” Dean begins, winces, “It’s just gonna hurt like a bitch.”

“Then shouldn’t I get it over with?” Jack asks, confused.

“You might pass out,” Castiel warns gently.

“You’re probably gonna wanna go with the passing out,” Kevin says, putting a bracing arm on Jack’s shoulder “It’ll suck less.”

Kevin nods at him and Jack takes that as a sign it’s time to take the talisman off. He lifts the chain up and off, and then something strange happens.

A green light swirls from both Jack and Kevin’s chests and swirls into the amulet.

Both of them double over.

“Woah! You kids alright?” Dean asks, lunging a hand over the backseat to touch Jack’s back, as Castiel quickly spins out of the car and back in at Kevin’s door, holding him up, checking his eyes and tongue, he goes to stick his finger in Kevin’s ear to take his temperature before remembering he can’t do that anymore.

“Kevin? Are you okay? Jack! Jack, are you okay?” Castiel asks urgently.

“Goddammit,” Kevin sighs, “Twice in one night, oh man I’m really gonna die.” then he looks at Castiel before reassuring, “Really, it wasn’t that bad.” Kevin turns to Jack, “How do you feel?”

“...Not that bad,” he answers truthfully.

“Hot damn.” Dean is smiling, leaning back into his seat, “Well now we know that’s a thing!”

“It could potentially save lives,” Castiel agreed. “I’ll have Sam tell the other hunters...though this may just be a situational occurrence between a prophet and a Nephilim. Who knows really.”

“It was still pretty cool,” Dean defends.

Castiel gets back into the car.

“And I’m not denying that. Why do you always jump to conclusions?”

“What are you talking about ‘always?’” Dean grunts back and starts up the car, pulling out of the cemetery parking lot.

Kevin and Jack tune Dean and Cas out.

“That was pretty cool,” Kevin says.

“Yeah,” Jack frowns, looking at his friend. “We’re going to perform the ceremony when we get back.” This may be one of the last times he ever sees or hears him again.

Kevin puts a hand on Jack’s shoulder, “It’s going to be okay. Even if we have to do it by proxy for a little while, I won’t stop being your friend. Okay?”

Jack smiled, putting a hand on Kevin’s shoulder too, which may have been weird or awkward but seemed like the thing to do.

Kevin smiles at Jack before patting his shoulder and saying “I’m going to pass out now.”

Jack nods and Kevin immediately drops his head back onto his seat and starts snoring.

Jack leans back in his own seat, feeling exhausted as well. Dean and Cas have stopped arguing and put the radio on low, laughing at j=okes here and there as they talk softly.

The running engine and metronome light of street lamps going by, and the familiar classic rock playing all seemed to be in some sort of competition with who could lull Jack to sleep first. The sound of the impala won.

The End

#suptober21 #spn fic #kevin tran and jack kline #suptober day 6

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