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cloudninetonine · 3 years

Text

Cogito, ergo sum

Chapter: 2

Pairing: Connor (RK800) x fem!reader

A/N: Hey guys! I want to apologise for the long wait between chpaters but seeing as I’m on my last year of college my school work is coming before everything else so it’s a little hard working between them! Don’t worry, I’m not dropping this series or anything just expect chapters to take a little long to be loaded and everything! Also, this chapter seems a little too far paced for me, so sorry about that as well!

Tags at the bottom once again!

I do not own Detroit become human this is merely fanficion

Warnings: Bad language, physical assault, threats (?), hints of abuse, (Name) being weird like always, also angry (Name), mentions of drugs, there’s a bit of slander against drug abusers that I do not condone!

Undercut babes!

It’s fascinating, it really is, the way her beautiful gaze follows you as you round her, studying her feverishly, your eyes wide and bright.

She’s...well, words cannot describe her. Her beauty lies beyond your imagination and you’re not quite equipped to say anything that her magnificent ears deserve to hear, your words are below her and she’s just-

Wow.

“Ms (Last), please-”

You raise your hand towards the younger engineer, silencing with a small utter of ‘hush’ and he’s shutting his mouth, falling back to the side of your desk with not much else to say.

The android you’ve been un-shamelessly ogling for the past 10 solid minutes is still very quiet, she’s just watching you in her manufactured attire, shy, nervous, scared- everything you really wish she wasn’t right now because there is no way you want her to see you as some sort of threat, far from it.

“Henry” Turning back towards the engineer, he stiffs up like a board, sweat forming on his brow “Why didn’t you dismantle her?”

It’s rude, it’s horrible to say and it sours your mouth when you form those words, but it’s an honest question, you want to know why someone would do this, keep her alive, see her for all her glory.

The public spoke strongly about their opinions of androids, like toys to be played with, slaves to be worked, not the thing you so desperately wanted people to see them as. The masterpieces that stood beyond human comprehension.

The android lets out a noise similar to a whimper as Henry stammers out.

“I-I couldn’t she- um- I-” Finally, he sighs with frustration, Henry makes eye contact with you “She said was scared and...I couldn’t”

You snap back to face her.

“Is that true?”

She hesitates, one second, two seconds, three seconds, four- it takes a whole 30 seconds before she’s finally responding. “Yes…”

Your chest bursts in excitement.

“You’re incredible” Henry deflates in relief, placing a hand against your desk while you grasp her cheeks, her warm grey eyes glancing between your two hands then meet your own stare, confused. “Amazing, beautiful, fantastic, so, so much more”

“...thank you”

You sniff, then you’re pulling away, trying to keep your tears abay. You really can’t believe that your work has gone so far, that new forms of sentient are evolving from a human’s hand, you’re so overjoyed by it all but you’re also kind of realising how weird you’re being.

“Sorry, I’m becoming the creepy stereotypical scientist, let me just-” Pulling off your lab coat, you throw it over her shoulders, pulling it tighter around her for her dainty hands to grasp and hold, a smile growing on her face in gratitude. You’re really still in awe of it all but send her a giddy smile back “Henry get Kamski I’m sure he’s gonna love this”

When the man disappears, closing the office door behind him, you guide her to a chair, kneeling before her kindly.

“Tell me” She waits patiently for you to continue “What’s your name?”

When she opens her mouth, you interrupt her, grasping her hands “No, not the name you were given, the name you have chosen. What is your name?”

You’re at the beginning of history right here, you can already see the books that are yet to be written, all starting at this very moment, with you and her. This android, this amazing, piece of living metal, is the start of something great and you can’t wait to be a part of it.

“My name is….”

-----------

“(Name), I’m sorry, but there isn’t really anything I can do”

Your hands come down on the desk, expression unbelieving.

“But he attacked Ortiz in self defence, it’s not fair for him to be shipped to Cyberlife! That hellhole already has enough test subjects with other deviants, why can’t he be let go!?” Pushing yourself back up, you drag your hands down your face in exasperation “He’s a victim! He was defending himself, why can’t we let him off with a lesser offence?”

Billie sighs, shutting the file softly. “Because in the eyes of the law, he’s not a victim. He’s property and there isn’t much we can do about that. Besides, because Ortiz is dead, his ownership basically goes back to Cyberlife, so they have the authority to take him back”

Billie’s right, you know that they’re right, but it’s just so frustrating, so vexing that this is the case. An android, in the eyes of society, is nothing more than their components, why should they be given the same privilege as those who eat, shit and breathe?

Billie may be a judge, but they didn’t make the law.

You remember years ago, when something like this would have been seen as detestable, that the masses would have stood up to fight this kind of horror, but for some reason, with age came stupidity and ignorance it seemed. What the fuck had happened to you all?

You open your mouth, then close it, then open it again before huffing, taking the file from their desk and ripping your coat off the hanger.

“I’m sorry, (Name)!” Billie calls and you wave them off, shouting back a ‘Don’t worry about it’ then close their office.

The courthouse is only a few blocks away from the precinct, a good walk away, a good way to calm yourself down until you’re having to face the frustration that comes in with having to work in such a high strung place. It’s funny really, you used to say ACAB when you were younger, still believed it too, so it’s really a wonder as to why you joined, but then again sometimes to make change you have to become the very thing you hate-

“Detective (Last)-”

You scream, almost dropping your files and jumping a meter within the air. Passerbys don’t even spare you a glance, a generation raised on the weirdest websites like Vine, Tiktok, Youtube and god forbid, Tumblr, have them desensitised to whatever shit people like to play at now-a-days.

“Oh my God, Inspector Gadget” A hand falls to your chest, checking your racing heartbeat “You can’t just sneak up on a bitch like that”

Connor, the big old puppy, tilts his head in mild confusion “But I called your name twice, detective”

Oh.

“What are you doing here, Connor?”

The android joins your side and you continue your way. “Lieutenant Anderson informed me that you were heading to the courthouse, so I decided to come and brief you about a new case”

A new case, of course a new case, deviancy keeps popping up all over the country rapidly but you can’t hold your surprise about the fact that it’s been a few days and there’s already a new case.

“Deadass?”

Wait, you hadn’t mean to say that-

His eyes narrow “Deadass?”

A snort escapes you “Oh my God I can’t believe you just said that, it sounds so cursed coming from your mouth. I meant, seriously?”

You swear on your life, on everything that may be above and so much more, that the android lets out a laugh when he continues, explaining the details as you finally enter the office.

You realise, as he talks, you feel a whole lot lighter than you had earlier.

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“This guy is as scummy as it gets”

Unfortunately, you can’t help but agree. Todd Williams is about as charismatic as a dumpster fire, messy hair, messy face, stained clothing and the stench of alcohol clung when you finally met him, having to hold back a wince of disgust.

You don’t usually speak ill of others, but you know his type, from the way he carries himself to the way he speaks. You’ve had to face men like him before, his whole demeanor brings back bad memories and you’re so glad that you’re not the one having to get details from him, to have to speak to him.

One thing’s for sure though, you don’t blame whatever deviant decided to book it from him.

“Why doesn’t he just...get a refund from Cyberlife?” You take a sip of your milkshake, staring at Hank, Connor and Mr Williams who looked to be ending off their conversation. “They do that for deviants, don’t they?”

Yes, if you remember, the new flashy CEO of the hell corp spoke it for all to see, that deviance is guaranteed to offer you your cash back.

How inhumane it all sounded.

Gavin scoffs, drinking his coffee “You think a guy like that cares about refunds?”

No. You know why he’s doing it. It’s all about power for fuckers like that.

Mr Williams leaves, Hank is looking through his notes, Connor is heading your way, probably to refer all the information back to you and Gavin is taking in a breath to start his bullshit again, despite your civilness that you had been sharing.

Eh, peace was never an option-

“Your metal boyfriend is heading this way”

The noise you make isn’t human, it’s a mix of a wheeze and scream, like you’ve just choked on the air your breathing and in all honesty, you have, but you’re not letting that mother fucker get away with catching you off guard, especially when he starts laughing.

“Shut up, furry”

Your actually feel the air from his head snapping towards you. “I’m not a fucking furry, quit fucking saying it!”

You pat his shoulder “It’s alright, Reed, we all know you wrote yiff fiction in your spare time-”

You dodge his fist, running away from his red, angered face and petty insults, dragging Connor away from the break room to the side, all while laughing up a storm.

Having your attention on the android again brings back Gavin’s words, his tease of ‘boyfriend’ which makes your face heat up, in what? You’re not quite sure, but it’s enough to make Connor notice your oddity.

“What were you and Detective Reed-”

“Nothing” You cackle, patting down his shoulders to distract yourself “He’s just being an arsehole again, nothing to worry yourself over”

And worry himself he didn’t, because he couldn’t of course, android and all.

Connor was quick to fill you in, an AX400 by the name of Kara had stolen (the word kidnapped comes to mind but you know that the robot detective will just ‘correct’ you on your wording) another android, Mr William’s ‘daughter’, model YK500 named Alice after assaulting him the night before. Mr Williams had been knocked out after the ordeal, as to why it had taken him so long to report it.

“Were there any signs of assault that you could see? Ones that could lead to a potential take down or unconsciousness?” Connor takes a moment before shaking his head “Yeah, I didn’t think so”

What a lying fuck.

“Let’s head to the briefing room”

Hank is there, as well as a whole group of other police officers, talking amongst themselves as you situate yourself behind the podium, screen remote in hand and smiling brightly. Your partners are at your side, Connor in his usual stoic stance while the old fart has his arms crossed, bored as always and you’re ready to debrief the many uniforms but they keep talking, even after you clear your throat.

You’re not one to get angry at being talked over, annoyed, yes, but anger leads you nowhere with a crowd, so instead, you use your most favourite tactic to date

“Pay attention to me or I am gonna start screaming people” You sing. Not a threat, but a promise. “And you all know I will screech like mother fucker”

The room is silent in the next second.

“Great! So-”

The door to the room bursts open.

“Fucking really-”

“Detective (Last)'' It's the front office assistant and by the looks of it, he is panicked, worried even, as he addresses you. You suddenly feel your stomach knot up “I’m sorry, but there’s been an emergency with your relative Carl Manfred”

You swallow, hard. “What?”

The meeting ends right then and there.

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Hank hurls to a stop right outside the entrance. You’re already halfway out of the car when he shuts off the vehicle, Connor is taking off his seatbelt and you’re already racing down the soaked concrete path to the front door, rain pelting down on you.

You barely feel it though.

You startle the receptionist when you slam your hands down, eyes wide in panic, breathing coming out in fast, short pants and just looking as though you faced the masses to make it to this spot, right in front of her.

“Carl Manfred, he was brought here about an hour ago is he-”

She interrupts “Are you family?”

“Yes, please, I-”

“In what relation do you have to the patient?”

Is she really fucking serious right now? You debated leaning over and strangling your answer out of her, letting her know what kind of fucking pain you could put her through in this very moment-

But the hand that is placed against your back keeps you still. It’s warm and comforting and keeps you from mauling the fucker right out of her chair, though it doesn’t calm your anxiety, no, but at least it’s there.

You turn to see Connor, who nods towards you politely.

Huh, what a twist of events.

Hank leans over from your other side, looking just as angry as you feel, though he keeps his voice civil when he speaks “Listen, her old man’s just had a heart attack, could you drop the formal shit so she can see him?”

Her voice is sharp, just like her stupid fucking face and she snaps back “I can’t let you in unless I know your relation, unless you’d like to be escorted out by security”

Damn, she’s playing with fire and you’re ready to throw oil all fucking over her.

“I don’t fucking think so-” Pulling out your badge, you slam it against the desk, with nothing short of a growl “Police. Now, tell me where my fucking dad is or you’ll regret the next words that come out of your mouth”

You never abuse your power as a cop, it’s inhumane and back in your younger days you sneered at the disgusting police who would use their authority for their own gain, so you hate to admit but the nervous look that crosses her face when she sees your badge and Hank’s when he pulls it out for extra effect scratches an itch you begged to be scratched.

“Floor 3, the front desk will inform you what room”

“Thanks” You spit, already rushing to the elevator, the other two following.

Connor is quiet, to your surprise. Honestly, you expected him to speak out about your behaviour, your attitude, your unprofessionalism, but he says nothing, just trails after the two of you in silence, obediently, just like he was made for.

It’s comforting having him here, even if he’s just following orders.

The next receptionist is kinder than the last (she even scowls at the mention of her coworker) and points down the hallway, to where two officers stand with cups of coffee within their hands. They stiffen in surprise at your arrival, but you pay them no mind, pushing your way into the room where you finally pause, taking in the scene of your beloved father figure, laid still within the bed, pale, heart monitor beeping occasionally.

The doctor by Carl’s side looks up at you. “I’m sorry, but who are you?”

Hank and Connor wait outside.

“(Name) (Last), Carl’s daughter and emergency contact” You explain, walking further into the room “Is he- Can I-”

“He’s fine” She explains with a comforting smile “And yes, you can come closer, though the medication has him knocked unconscious so he won’t be talking any time soon”

The relief almost has you collapsing, brings you back from the panic attack that threatens to kick your arse right in front of everyone and you finally breathe normally.

“Thank you, and you are?”

“Dr Collins” Collins offers her hand and you shake it weakly. “Your father is going to be okay, (Name), but he’s going to need a lot of rest. Cardiac arrest at this age can be fatal, so we were lucky that he lived so close”

You nod, tiredly slinking to Carl’s side to drop into the cushion chair, taking his hand in yours. Kissing it lovingly, you place it close to you in comfort, in reassurance.

‘He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s going to be okay-’

“What are you doing here?”

Your anger shoots right back up, as does you head when you turn to look at the doorway.

“Leo” The name is dragged out of your mouth, it’s spoken with a heavy coat of venom and dirt and for all the participants who are about to see this wild shit show, is a clear indication that you’re far from happy to see the man that stood there. “The fuck are you doing here?”

He scoffs “I’m family, what else am I here for?”

“Oh I don’t know,” You’re standing, stalking closer to him with a raged gleam in your eye “To mooch off him a little bit more?”

The tension can be cut with a knife, everyone can see it, feel it, even Connor, who looks ready to intervene at any given moment.

“No, detective” One of the officiers starts, cutting in in hopes to keep you both calm. “He was there when it all happened, he saw everything-”

“He was there?” No, her words only add fuel to the fire and you’re glaring at your brother once again “You were there? The fuck were you there for? You did this?”

“No!”

“Please calm down” Collins cuts in “I understand the anger but the other patients-”

You ignore her, glancing around the area when a thought struck you.

“Where’s Markus?”

Connor’s the first to respond, “Who’s Markus, detective (Last)?”

“Dad’s care bot” A pin drops, no one is speaking, the two cops are quiet, Leo is scowling, but he’s not looking at you and your anger is quickly making room to fear, cold and stabbing when you push again, harsher, angrier “Where the fuck is Markus?”

The second officer speaks this time, hat in his hands and you know what happens next is not going to be good.

“He was leaning over your father when we walked in detective, Mr Leo Manfred told us he attacked him” The man gulps, hesitating. He’s not nervous for what he’s done, no, he’s nervous about the dark look that seems to be slowly taking over your eyes, “I shot him”

A beat goes by. Then another, another, another, another, another-

“Why were you there in the first place?” It’s soft, curious, but the rage behind it is big, your need for an answer is keeping it back “What was the call for?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t-”

“Answer the question, officer”

His partner offers up the answer “....A break in, ma’am”

There’s silence, then you nod in understanding.

No one is quick enough to stop you from shoving Leo into the wall, hands wrapped tightly around the lapels of his jacket and holding him up so you can scream at him properly, face feeling hot from anger, eyes wild from rage, practically feral.

“You fucking did this! This is your fault, you good for nothing fuck!” You pull your hand back and punch him right in the face, he’s too in shock to react but everyone else is trying to pull you off “What?! Were you off your shit from snorting that fucking powder again, you damn druggie!? Huh!? HUH!? You high right now, too!?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, (Name), let go!” Hank yells but he’s fucking impressed by your resistance.

“He could have died because of you, you good for nothing cunt! Worthless piece of shit! Now, Markus is fucking dead because of you, the person who was actually fucking taking care of him! This is all your fault! He’s in that hospital bed, because of you! You! Did! This! All for those stupid drugs! You’re fucking pathetic!”

You’re finally tugged off by someone, their arms slipping under your own to stop you from going back at him again. The officers are acting as a wall between you and your brother, Dr Collin’s is checking his nose as blood drips down his face, Leo is still in shock and Hank is leaning over, hands propped onto his knees. That leaves...

“I’m sorry detective (Last), but I’m going to have to restrain you until you calm down”

You scream in frustration and try to fight against it, but damn, you have to admit in a moment of clarity, Connor is fucking strong.

“Lieutenant Anderson, if you could take her legs, we can escort her out of the building without much trouble” Hank huffs something under his breath probably a grunt of ‘fucking android’ but complies, glaring at you when he leans down.

“You kick me and I’ll kick your ass”

Your respect for him makes you comply, but the anger doesn’t stop you from cussing both him and the android out, naming every threat under the sun as they carry you out of the building, back to the car which you are shoved placed into.

“Let me out of this fucking car, Hank!” You bellow, glaring at the man with sharp eyes who stood outside the vehicle, leaning against it “I’ll break this fucking window, I swear to fucking God!”

“You can try, but we both know you won’t!”

Once again, you’re screaming, tugging frantically at the door’s handle that you know is locked, but are way too angered to care right now.

Connor sits by your side, a good distance away to not antagonise you, silent, waiting and watching as you slowly fall from angry to desperate, tears welling within your eyes and falling down your cheeks. It only takes a few more moments for you to stop altogether, your shoulders shaking as you sob, quietly but strong.

The android finally speaks “Detective (Last)-”

You’re on him in a moment, arms wrapped around his frame, face buried into his shoulder, wetting his suit jacket as you cry, shaking.

It’s a new one for Connor. An android built for detective work, to sniff out the bad deviants, to question suspects and actually built with a comforting feature for victims of crimes. But this is a first, a first he’s seen anyone to tears, more importantly, a first of seeing you so broken. Sure, he had seen you defeated those few days ago, but this is different, you’re not trying to hide conflicting feelings behind your bubbly smile and weird jokes, you’re just...crying. Nothing more, nothing less.

His arms are hovering at your sides, hesitant, unsure and it’s not until Hank gestures from outside the car to ‘fucking do something, you stupid machine’ that the protocol finally kicks in, his arms coming to wrap around you securely and comforting, reassuring you through your whimpers.

Connor is a robot, a machine that feels nothing.

But seeing you cry isn’t something he can just let happen.

Software instability.

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Tags: @dillxpixkles @1950schick @pinkittwice @iris-suoh @loveflowsthroughme @thatlonelyalto @starcatcher-kay (ya’ll I’m half asleep if I forgot you in the taglist I am SORRY-)

#connor rk800 #dbh connor #detroit become human connor #dbh hank #detroit become human hank #dbh gavin #detroit become human gavin #dbh carl #detroit become human carl #connor rk800 x reader #connor rk800 imagine #dbh connor x reader #dbh x reader #dbh imagine #dbh #detroit become human #dbh leo #detroit become human leo #cogito ergo sum

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all-might-can-smash-me · 4 years

Text

Paparazzi

Keigo Takami/Hawks x Reader

Summary: You meet Hawks one day at your store and you and him strike of a friendship that turns romantic....but the paparazzi manage to get it to the rest of the world not even 24 hours later

This shit is long, sorry not sorry

Masterlist

Crushes were just....well.... crushes, right? Especially celebrity crushes or crushes on fictional characters. Usually the average person will develop one or more crushes on celebrity or fictional beings, it was just the way the human brain (or something like the human brain for some people) worked. You yourself grew up with many celebrity and fictional crushes. The walls of your childhood room were (and probably still filled) with the posters of the heroes you adored growing up, the bands, singers, and artist you admired, and personal favorite characters from the shows or movies you’ve had seen and fell in love within the span of your teenage lifetime. Even now you admired celebrities and the such, but now it was mostly just giving them a like and follow on their tiktok or Instagram or admiring a picture or two when you came upon it, that’s it. Being an adult now and owning your own little grocery store, inherited from your parents of course, in the middle of the busy life of the city was enough to squelch your once childish habits, but sometimes you would allow yourself to flip through the gossip magazines you had set up to see the new and old faces of celebrities and heroes to see which one was hot or not, but that really wasn’t weird for such a mundane person to do.

All that crushing business would stay in the fantasy portion of your brain however, to never once think that you would have one of the fantasies you would once dream about as a teenager about a celebrity or fictional crush sweeping you away on your feet. Just thinking that something like that could happen was laughable really, it almost made you laugh now as you perused the magazine rack you had finally finished setting up, the hours of the day now almost bordering the parent’s definition of ‘its getting late’, which honestly meant that it was 7:30, as your employee hummed behind the cash register, fiddling with the pens and note pads scattered about at the counter.

“Hey, toss me one of those magazines.” Called out the cashier, you handing over the magazine, watching their hands drag towards them to let their eyes scan the bold headings on the front page and soon the face that was the eye catcher of it all. “Pro Hero Hawks is always on the front of the magazines....isn’t he so dreamy looking...” hummed out the younger girl, you only gave a snort as your hand went back to fidgeting the flimsy magazines and puzzle books that seemed only the elderly would purchase.

“Yeah, he’s handsome alright, but I don’t get my hopes up about that fantasy coming true.” You joked, the girl only giving a sad nod in agreement. With a laugh, you bent over to pick up the empty box that once held the new issues of magazines, starting to unfold it from its shape.

“Yeah I know, but still, just imagine it though....what if he just came sauntering in here now? To sweep one of us off our feet?” She said with her young, dreamy little look. You only rolled your eyes, shoving the unfolded ripped up box in the recycling bin, grabbing the magazine and giving a gentle and playful wack to the young girl’s head before placing it back on the rack.

“Yeah? Well the day that happens is the day I’ll believe anything to be possible.” You spoke with a laugh as you leaned against the counter, though the bell hanging upon the glass door gave off its soft chime to signify a new patron had entered your humble grocery store. You head automatically moved to see who had just walked in out of habit, but you probably should have already known who had entered inside your shop just by the look upon the cashier’s face. Hawks stood there at the entrance, those eyes of his glancing back and forth between you and the cashier. The shock was probably evident upon your faces.

“Um....is this like a bad time or something?” He soon questioned which you quickly shook your head at his word, finally snapping yourself out of your dumbfounded haze. Honestly there was no reason to be so shocked over another person, he was just a normal human being that was idolized who just happened to do amazing things for the safety of the society you lived in, but the coincidence of your previous conversation set your body in a rage of jitters.

“No! Not at all! Sorry if we seemed shocked, we don’t usually get sidekicks in here let alone heroes.” You spoke out with a laugh, hand sliding over the counter to give the young girl a little nudge on her shoulder to snap her out of her daze of the handsome hero before her. At that a bright blush crawled onto her face as she set her gaze down to the plastic keys of the cashier.

“Alright...cool...” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, already beginning to make his slow walk to the many things you had on display. The chips, candy, drinks, the instant ramen, the food that sat in the freezer ready to be eaten right away for the late night student or the person craving a bite or to be heated in the microwave station with running water off to the side next to the few tables you had for them to sit down and rest while they ate. The silence almost seemed to suffocate you as you listened to his shuffling and tried not to really stare. Though he seemed to hesitate a bit before finally turning around in his path, making his way up to the counter where you and the cashier still stood at.

“Sorry to bother you, but do you have any chicken ramen? Or anything that just has chicken in it or something?” He asked, hands pushing up the glasses that sat over his eyes and up upon his head. You looked to your cashier, expecting her to speak up, but that embarrassed look upon her face spoke volumes to you as you looked back to Hawks, that costumer service smile already plastered upon your face as you waved him to follow.

“Of course! I really need to take the time to organize all those products, costumers and tourist come in and always swap everything around.” You spoke up, leading him down the isles of your small store expertly before moving to the coolers of food that was ready to go/heated and the ramen. “This is our chicken selection in ramen, after you pay you can either leave and fix it at home or use our water and microwave station to eat here...then in the coolers we have onigiri with chicken....um....we carry egg and chicken Sandos...the information on how it should be consumed is on the label, so make sure your careful about reading and following the directions....” you muttered out as you pointed to all the things, which he nodded his head.

“Sorry if that question was dumb...it’s been a long day.” He said as he scratched the back of his neck. He had to admit, he felt kind of stupid asking that question now with now knowing the fact everything was honestly right in front of his face.

“We all have those days, I hope you can find something you like though, if there’s anything else I’ll be upfront.” You said as you were already heading back up to the front counter, casting a ‘pull yourself together women!’ look to your employee who only mouthed out an apology as she facepalmed and cringed at her own behavior. Hawks was soon rummaging through the ramen, arms soon filled with containers and a lonesome cup ramen, walking up to the counter to gently let everything slip onto the surface.

“Hold on, I got one more thing.” He muttered out as he stepped up to the magazine rack, shamelessly grabbing the one that had his face smack dab in the middle, tossing it onto the counter. “I swear, that’s it.” He joked, but that joke received radio silence from the cashier as her hands shakily went to begin ringing up his things. You couldn’t help but cringe for her, you didn’t blame her either, if it were you a few years ago behind that counter it would have been the same scenario.

“You want it bagged?” You asked, hand already grabbing one of the paper bags you had off to the side, ready to be used, though he only brought up a hand to politely halt your actions.

“Nah, I’ll eat here, enjoy the scenery.” He said with a little wink, already handed over the money, of course he said to not worry about the change as he scooped up everything back into his arms, whistling away to the eating area, beginning to already prepare his food, phone lazily in his hand as he did so.

“Are you ok? It seemed like you were about to drop dead any moment.” You whispered out as you leaned over the counter to your employee, she only shoving her face in her hands.

“Oh don’t even bring it up! He’s not even gone yet...” she whispered back, grabbing the paper bag that was still within your hands, placing it back, though she seemed hesitant to say something. “Could you....get his autograph for me?” She soon whispered out.

“What?!” You whispered back, casting a quick glance over your shoulder and to the hero who now lounged back at the seating area, magazine now clutched within one hand, the other feeding himself. “I don’t want to bother him, I-“ though your whispers were cut off by her own.

“Come on! Please? I’m a mess and when am I ever going to get it again?” She said, hands clasped before her as she begged to you with her whispers. You stood there, only being able to stare at her before finally nodding your head vigorously.

“Fine...fine...gimme a pen and paper...” you muttered out lowly, the girl quietly brought up a fist to the air lowly to show her victory before she scrambled around, hand clutching onto a pen, though her eyes landed on the magazines, which she gestured for you to grab one, which you did, placing it before her as she skillfully brought a pair of scissors to the cover, cutting out the front cover neatly of Hawks’ face, handing it to you along with the pen.

“Take the magazine out my pay check and I’ll owe you one too, thank you so much.” She whispered out, you only taking the pen and picture with the feeling of embarrassment already eating away at your stomach. Though you began to walk towards the eating area, almost painfully slow, trying to prolong the encounter with the hero you knew was going to be probably awkward.

“Hey...um...can I get your autograph?” You asked, handing over the pen and paper to him. You tried to seem nonchalant about it, but the minute shake in your hands almost blew your cover as he looked up from the gossip columns he was reading, swallowing the food that was in his mouth.

“Yeah, sure!” He said, that same charming smile that graced the covers of every magazine now plastered upon his face and it honestly has you in a trance. You didn’t even notice he took the pen and paper from your hands if it weren’t for the soft brush of his fingers against yours that sent your body into a mess of tingles from the sensation. “What’s you name sweetheart? I bet it’s something that sounds pretty, you know, to match you.” He said with a smirk, pen already scribbling down his signature.

“What?” You dumbly said, though a soft blush had risen to your cheeks as you shook your head. “Sorry, the autograph isn’t for me, it’s for my employee.” You cleared up, leaning up against the table that was adjacent to the one he sat in.

“Oh, gotcha.” He said as he capped the pen, soon handing it back to you along with the autograph of the improvised photo. He had to admit, he was kind of disappointed that it didn’t seem like you were his fan. “Whose signature would you like anyway? I could probably get it for you though, to even the score between you and your employee over there.” He said, looking past you and raising his hand to give a teasingly flirtatious wave to her, amused to see the young girl turn into a blushing mess as she hid behind her hair.

“Well you know, I like All Might, who doesn’t, you, Endeavor, you know, the ones I see most often on those magazines.” You said as you motioned to the magazine that was now left open and off to the side of where he had stopped reading. “But maybe if I was younger I would have died and resurrected to get any of those autographs. Now? I got more important things to worry about.” You said with a little laugh as you motioned to the establishment around you.

“An independent business gal? Hm, I like it.” He said with another one of those borderline flirtatious smirks, leaving your insides a frenzy upon a single glance, but only if you knew those soft chimes of your voice were seemingly tugging at his own heart gently. “I’ll be sure to keep supporting the business then.” He said as he soon stood up, almost looming over you for a second before he had moved to toss away his trash in it’s respected trash can, the magazine now tucked under his arm, wings ruffling a bit as he made his way to that glass door smudged with the many fingerprints off that day’s patrons “Catch ya on the flip side!” He said with a laugh before casting another amusing wink to the cashier, the door shutting with another chime, living the store in a silence until it was filled with your employer’s squeals.

“He winked at me! He smirked at me! He smiled at me!!! But did you even hear what he told you!” She gushed out as you were now back up to the front, handing her the autograph, pen set back aside. “He was totally making googly eyes at you and flirting with you!” She said as she hugged the autograph close to her chest, though stopped soon to smooth out the paper.

You only brushed it off as just her fantasies gone haywire within her head, but only if you could tell the future. He had become a regular costumer. He’d saunter in right at the same time ever night, get the same things every time. It came to the point where you or the cashier working would gather everything right before he would enter, which it always seemed to brighten his face up when everything would already be waiting for him to pay at the counter. Then he would chat up a storm with you. About what? Anything! Your favorite color? He wanted to know what it was and why. Favorite food? How was your day? He always kept a conversation going with you, always managed to squeeze out a blush and get you to laugh that laugh that was contagious, at least it was for himself. It was all like a really strange dream that you couldn’t wake up from, because who would have ever thought that this is how you spent some of the hours of your day doing?

“Hawks? What is that?” You questioned as you were stocking the magazines for your usual late hour routine, watching him carry in a box carefully through the door way, setting it gently down on the sales counter.

“Come on, look.” He said, you placing the stack of magazines that were once balanced in your arms back in the box at your feet, now free to move beside him, eyes trained on him and soon to the box. “Well go on, it’s not gonna bite you....I hope.” He teased, you only giving a roll of your eyes as you pushed back the flaps, eyes soon peering in.

“What?!” You exclaimed as you soon reached in, pulling out the contents of the box carefully. It seemed like it was never ending with framed pictures of almost every pro hero worth mentioning in Japan. “What in the world? Why-?” Though he only gave a smug smile as he coolly leaned his back up against the counter.

“Oh you know....to hang them up somewhere around here, give a little spice you know.” He said with a shrug of his shoulders. “People will come in and see them, then they’ll tell others that this is probably getting a lot of attention from the pros so then it will get others to come and blah blah blah...” he said, crossing his arms before casting a glance down at you as you admired the many signatures before you. “Plus I had some free time to bother them all for their autographs and I just really wanted you to one up this little gal here.” He said, motioning to the girl at the cash register who had become all too familiar now with pro hero now thanks to seeing him every night, but that didn’t stop her from still almost dying of embarrassment.

You only responded to his words with an embrace, arms thrown around his neck as you let out your amused giggles at his explanation, that grin upon your face all the validation he needed to answer whether or not you liked it.

“Thank you, Hawks, that was thoughtful of you....even if your attentions were only to be competitive.” You mumbled out, feel the soft rumble of your voice against his chest as he returned the hug back. The contact with you was satisfying, but you pulled away even if he honestly could just have spent an eternity like that.

He was right though, once those bad boys were up on display, your business got more traction. Tourist would come, fans would come to admire the neatly framed autographs and munch away at the eating area and geek away and other heroes had begun to visit your humble store as well. Your store hours had soon turned into 24/7, the place becoming a hot spot for heroes and sidekicks in the area during their patrol hours. People like Fatgum would come during the day for a quick fix and Eraserhead, who had also become a regular costumer in the late night patrols, would come to get a pick me up for the rest of his late patrols. Heck, you now even had superhero merchandise now on that you could barely keep stocked!

“Hawks! You missed it! Endeavor was in here! The Endeavor!” Called out the cashier as Hawks had stepped through the door, seeming to forget the painful embarrassment she would usually feel with interacting with him.

“Endeavor? Really? I’m actually even shocked at that.” He said with a grin as he leaned against the counter, a hand reaching up to absentmindedly twist the messy strands of his hair, wings giving a quick stretch before folding themselves back, one of his feathers placing the money for his usual purchase down on the counter as his free hand slid all of the food he would buy toward himself.

“Yeah, he’s scarier in person.” You called out with a laugh as you appeared from the storage room, a hand reaching up to push back the frizzy strands of hair that had escaped from your hairdo. “But yes, he did stop by to buy one of those cheap jumbo sized bottled water.” You recalled as you soon stood beside him, hands on your hips as you looked quizzically out to your store, trying to see if you missed anything. Hawks took that moment to look over to you, eyes adoring the scrunch of your eyebrows that formed when you were stressful thinking about something.

“Hey, you know, I did get that pretty name from you, but how about a number....and possibly a date?” He soon spoke, fingertips tapping against the counter top, you snapping out of your train of thought to look at him, eyebrows raised.

“Excuse me?” You asked, a little lost for words at his own that he spoke out. He seemed to not be affected though as he now stood up straight, a hand still rested on the counter’s surface.

“I’m asking you out on a date and I also want you number.” He bluntly said with his phone already in his hands with a smirk as he watched in amusement to see you physically try and let yourself process what he had just said. You were honestly trying to make sure your brain wasn’t really just playing a lucid fantasy before your eyes. Though finally you grabbed his phone, thumbs tapping down your number before handing it back to him.

“Great, I’ll pick you up at what, 7:30 tomorrow? Dress nice, I’ll get your address later.” He said as he was already backing out of the store, food forgotten on the counter, leaving you a numbed mess of nerves, your cashier in a frenzy at what she had just witnessed. He was true to his word too, he got your address from you and he showed up to the front door of your apartment with a knocked right on time the next day, handsome in his smart clothes, it was strange to see him out of his hero costume, a pair of shades over his eyes.

“Hey, you think these glasses are a good disguise?” He asked with a grin as he reached a hand up to straighten them out as you opened the door, though you only snorted as you leaned against the door frame.

“I would say so....if it weren’t for those.” You said as you motioned to his wings, which he only let out a laugh as he watched you slip on your shoes and retrieve you purse.

“Shit, you’re right, but first let me just say that you simply take my breath away.” He said as he admired you, you only rolling eyes as you nudged forward into order to step out into the hall to close and lock your door. The date, was nice, a little more intimate than the conversations you had at your business, but still, they felt like they could go on for hours and hours. It was those kinds of conversations that just made you feel...complete? It was the type of conversation that by the end would make your throat and mouth dry, but in a good way from all the talking and laughing that would be exchange. It was the type of conversation that made you feel energetic and your face hurt from the bashful smiles and grins he would grow upon your lips. They would have went for hours and hours if it weren’t for the servers starting to get antsy about the need for the two of you to leave in a timely manner for the next reservation. The car ride home was quiet between the two of you with only ambiance from the rain that had begun to fall, the fellow traveling cars, and the soft low music that purred from his radio. Though there didn’t need to be any conversations to be spoken as his hand rested upon your thigh over the dress you wore, your pinky hooked with his. That was all the conversation you needed as he helped you out of the vehicle, the two of you making your way quickly through the downpour of rain and inside of the apartment complex and up to your floor where you soon stood before him at your door, your fingers gently hooked to his as you looked up to him.

“I...enjoyed tonight.” You soon spoke up, letting go of his hand to reach your own hand up to push back the pieces of your hair that managed to get soaked and stick to the side of your face. Another bit of silence lifted as all Hawks felt he could do was just be mesmerized by you before him. Those lips came upon yours finally, the both of you caught in a passionate kiss that you enjoyed every second of until he pulled away.

“Open that door...” he softly spoke out, nodding his head to the locked door that stood beside the two of you. The jingle of your keys was a melody that sent goosebumps up his arms and jitters to his hands that rested upon your hips as he listened to the keys slide into the lock and jiggle around before that damned door was open.

“Keigo Takami....that is who I am...” he softly spoke out behind the privacy of the closed door and also against the smooth skin of your face that he was currently peppering many soft and gentle kisses upon.

The next morning you were the first to awake, stretching as you sat up at the side of the bed, eyes staring to the early hours of morning beyond the window. The confirmation of last night snoring beside you, wings jutting out in awkward angles, feathers ruffled from sleep. You let a soft smile crawl onto your lips as a hand reached to gently smooth over his hair before getting up, getting dressed, and leaving the apartment with a single note behind.

“Gone to work....lock door when you leave, key is at front door...” he groggily mumbled out as he scratched his head, fingertips gently holding up the sticky note that was stuck to the reflective surface of the fridge. He only shrugged his shoulders as he rummaged through the pantries, finally accumulating cereal, a bowl and spoon, and milk, soon getting his fixing and placing everything away, now lazily lounging on the couch, bowl of cereal in hand as he turned on the tv to munch away at his breakfast.

“Now that the weather and national news is out the way, we have some pretty hot topics on our top heroes!” Chipped out the upbeat women on the tv screen, which Keigo only rolled his eyes at.

“Hot you say? Yeah sure, bring it on sister...” he muttered out as he only continued to shovel the cereal into his mouth as he continued to listen, that bored look etched onto his face.

“Now today we are faced with the conundrum of if our beloved Hawks has found love or turned player.” Came out the voice again, though Keigo only froze, gulping down the cereal that was in his mouth.

“What?!” He shouted, now at the edge of his seat as he glared down to the tv screen through his groggy eyes.

“Our team managed to capture pictures of Hawks and this mystery woman and from what eye witness say, he and the mystery woman entered the apartment after their date at....” though the words were drowned out by the blaring of his phone ringing, which he was quick to answer it.

“Shit....yeah I know.....damage control, what? No, I’m not just screwing around with her!” he shouted into the phone as he shoveled the rest of the cereal into his mouth, placing the bowl in the sink before beginning to pace around your kitchen.

“Hey! The new issues of magazines came in early!” Called out the morning hour worker as you stepped in, raising a brow as you stepped up to the delivery that was already waiting for you at the rack of magazines.

“Really? That’s odd...” you mumbled out as you bent down, starting to rip off the tape and pull back the flaps, reaching a hand in to grab one of the magazines to pull it out, eyes looking to the bold headlines on the cover.

‘Hawks Turned lover? Or player?’

Your hands viciously opened up the magazine, flipping to the page that the story was advertised to be on, your jaw dropping upon seeing the paparazzi photos of you and Keigo of him picking you up, of the two of you on your date , and the kiss shared between the two of you and of him entering your apartment. It was like your body was frozen as you stared down to the photos in front of you, your life now on blast to the whole world.

“Shit..” you finally managed out as as you roughly closed the magazine, shoving it back into the box, your employee staring at you with a raised eyebrow.

“What’s wrong with them?” They asked, watching you lift the box up from the ground, maneuvering behind the counter to set them behind it, pushing the box far under.

“Just...don’t touch them, I’m not putting those on display.” You spoke out nervously, standing up and wiping off the sweat that had begun to accumulate on the palms of your hands, though the gasp of your employee caught your attention as they looked down at their phone.

“Pictures have just surfaced of Hawks chilling around almost butt ass naked in some mystery girl’s apartment.” He spoke out, flipping the phone to your wide eyes. Sure enough, there he was, bowl of cereal within his hands as he sat on your couch in his boxers through the windows of your apartment. “Hell yeah, Hawks got himself a lady friend.” The morning’s cashier joked, but no laughter was going to be heard from you as you were quick to make an excuse to leave the store.

“I don’t care how it’s done! I just need a statement saying that the woman is my fucking girlfriend and that legal actions will be taken because geez, I don’t know, they showed off where she lived to everyone who doesn’t live under a rock in Japan!” He said as he leaned his elbows against the counter top in your kitchen, hand burying itself in his bed hair, fingers tugging and pulling at tangles that would try to trap around his fingers. The front door of the apartment opening caught his attention as he looked to see you standing there rigidly, door quickly closed behind you as you stared at him.

“I don’t know what those people were thinking, they doxxed the shit out of her, yes we are gonna have to move her....yeah..” he spoke into the phone, you finally removing your shoes and calmly seating yourself at the kitchen counter, looking to the feathers on his wings that were still ruffled from sleep. Finally he hung up, phone placed on the counter top, a silence falling between the two of you before he spoke up. “That was quite the scare....you sure you still wanna be with me?” He said jokingly as he rubbed his face, already feeling his insides cringing from the embarrassment that seemingly felt like it was trying to swallow him whole. You couldn’t help but let out a laugh as you shook your head at his words.

“Keigo....lets not ask stupid questions....”

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captainclickycat · 3 years

Text

I feel weird about saying to people “please interact with lgbt+ people outside of your niche internet group” because I get that in-person interaction isn’t necessarily an option for a lot of people, especially during covid and especially for teens who are still living with their parents/guardians and are maybe still closeted out if necessity and/or have limited mobility.

However once the pandemic has passed and if it’s a feasible option I really would encourage young people (in particular, but also people in general) to try and meet up with other lgbt+ folks in person; join a meetup group or uni society or go to a demonstration or find out what’s available in your local area. Again, I get that resources can be limited, especially for young people and especially in small towns and conservative areas. I understand that.

But there does seem to be this really worrying trend now of young people (and even some older people) who have no real understanding of lgbt history besides what they learn on social media and have never interacted with an lgbt person outside of their niche online bubble which only consists of other teenagers with similarly limited experiences, thinking that they’re suddenly the experts on all things queer and don’t need any external input.

And then you get people saying things like “um I don’t think women and non-men should call themselves gay”, and the rest of their little group agrees with them, and then they feel empowered to shout down anyone who disagrees or tries to explain the term’s history to them, always blissfully ignorant of the fact that if you tried to posit this to an irl group of lgbt adults - or even other teens - people would look at you as if you’d just tried to tell them they can’t use their own names anymore. It might be easy enough to convince some poor thirteen-year-old girl who’s never met another gay person or had any experience with gay culture outside of Tiktok but who desperately wants to be seen as progressive that the word “gay” is off-limits to her, it’s easy to type these things into the accepting blue void of the internet, especially when you’ve got all your mates to back you up, but try saying it face-to-face to Emily who’s been calling herself gay for 25+ years and see how well that goes down.

Similarly in real life bi women call themselves butch and femme all the time, bi people reclaim slurs all the time, and nobody bats an eyelid. But now we’ve got a ton of people in online spaces who apparently think activism begins and ends with telling other lgbt people which words they can and can’t use.

Just... please don’t get complacent to the point where you think that faceless online interaction is a viable, sustainable substitute for actual in-person interaction (in general, but with lgbt groups specifically) or that you and your Tiktok friends are the ultimate authority on the lgbt experience. Consider how this kind of limited echo-chamber interaction can potentially distort your experiences and perspective, even if it’s kinda your only option at the moment.

Also, if you can, read books by lgbt people (not just fanfiction), watch films and shows directed by lgbt people, look at interviews and memoirs by lgbt people, generally familiarise yourself with content created by lgbt people that exists outside of social media and was produced before the 2010s. Understand that we’re a hugely diverse group with a vast range of experiences and we existed before tumblr and tiktok. I feel a bit weird feeling the need to tell self-proclaimed leftist teens that lgbt people aren’t all skinny white alternative youths who came into existence roundabout the 2010’s, but I feel like some folks need the reminder anyway.

#lgbt #lgbt+

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starrynite7114 · 4 years

Text

Headcanon: Art Day

A/N: A headacanon! This idea was given to me by @carlaangel86 and @justahopelessssromantic . We were watching some Tiktoks and well, here it is. Hope you all enjoy this update!

Laughter and Snapshots will be posted next!

Hope you guys had a good week!

Masterlist

Request tagged list: @justahopelessssromantic : @ifoundmyhappythought : @carlaangel86 : @woahitslucyylu : @encounterthepast : @enamoured-x : @thewarriorprincessxo : @briana-mishell24 : @bribri-82 : @chibsytelford : @agirllovespasta : @twistnet : @everyhowlmarksthedead : @trulysuccubus : @jadert15 : @sammskellington : @cind-in-real-life : @claytoncardenasbabymama : @sadeyesgf : @thickemadame : @summertimesadnesswithadashofsass : @gemini0410 : @elcococruz : @samcrobae : @sesamepancakes : @iambabyharry : @blackmissfrizzle : @soamayansfangirl : @1-800-imagines : @phoenixhalliwell : @lady-pswrld : @dazzledamazon : @getyourcrayoncas : @fvckthisbxtchup : @lukealvxz : @scuzmunkie : @lilac-tea-time : @danie1432 : @cocotheclown : @soaronmywings : @my-rosegold-soul : @buttercup812 : @itskiranbitch : @angelreyesgirl : @sheeshgivemeabreak : @vicmackeybullshxt : @bigcreatorwombatdreamer : @khyharah : @strawberrywritings : @cherry-icetea : @fuzzy-jellyfish : @losolvidad0s : @brownsugarcoffy : @courtrae89 : @prdsdjarin : @blessedboo : @marvelmaree : @enamouravecleslivresetlechocolat : @behindmyeyes-insidemyhead : @thesandbeneathmytoes : @dark-twisted-and-mechanical-mind : @maddie-georges :

If you would like to be added to the tag list, please let me know!

CREDITS TO THE ORIGINAL GIF MAKER!

You and Angel have had a good quarantine so far.

Meaning you two didn’t kill one another and actually enjoyed one another’s company.

Maybe the reason you two have yet to kill one another was due to the fact Angel locking himself in the third bedroom in your house, painting.

Which you two recently purchased at the end of last year and now, you two were able to renovate as you two had planned.

With the quarantine, your days were spent either painting a room, placing the hardwood floors in the kitchen and living room, or changing the cabinets in the kitchen.

Overall, it’s been a productive first two months of quarantine

Now, the Santo Padre head was seeping in and you were not a happy camper.

Though, another reason quarantine didn’t make you two hate one another, was because you and Angel love being in each other’s company.

You two appreciated the days you two have together since you were always at work and he was always on a run.

Living apart the first three, living together the last three, six years together in total, you and Angel knew how to avoid killing one another.

Also, it helped that you were a respiratory therapist and worked almost six days a week. They tried to push you for more hours, but there was so much your body could take.

Now, after being on for six, you were off for four.

On your first day, you were nursing a margarite that Angel made for you while you watched a 90s Romcom on Netflix while he was in his art room.

You loved coming in Angel’s art room since his masterpieces gave you glimpses of how he was feeling.

When the whole thing with EZ went down? Everything was dark, upsetting, but you knew he had to let it out.

It lasted for a few months, but eventually the colors came back.

You didn’t know how to help him, you knew Angel was hurting then, but the best thing to do for him was to be here and you were.

Angel never changed towards you, he was always silly, loving, and your Angel.

But you knew he missed his family as well.

Your glad EZ manned up and spoke to Angel.

You were in your room, waiting for glasses to break, but you didn’t hear anything. When you came out after EZ left, Angel held you, sleeping on the couch that night.

And you also loved the artwork you inspired for Angel.

It always made you smile shyly at him when he would tell you about the artwork you inspired him to do.

They were vibrant, so full of life. They varied as well.

Some were sketches of you that you knew he was doing since he asked you to model for him.

Others were candid sketches he took of you. Some of them you don’t even remember him doing since there was no sketchbook in his hand then.

“It’s from memory baby, EZ isn’t the only one with photographic memory. Though, you’re the most prominent image in my mind, it isn’t hard.”

You would blush and kiss him.

Angel was too sweet for his own good.

He didn’t draw often since the club took him away often.

So when he could, he dedicated a day for his artwork

And today was that day.

While you enjoyed your margarita, Angel was enjoying his beer in his room.

You wanted to take a peek since he’s been in there since eight this morning and it was already one in the afternoon.

You figured you should think of making lunch soon, but you weren’t hungry since you and Angel had a big breakfast.

“Babe!” You called out to Angel who left his door slightly ajar in case you needed him.

“Yeah?” He answered.

“You hungry?”

There was no response and just as you were about to get up, you felt Angel hold your shoulders down and kiss you.

“Jesus Christ Angel!” You placed your hand on your chest.

He sat down next to you, your shirt was now dirty with the paint he was using.

“Babe, you got my shirt dirty.” You pouted, not really caring, but you loved to give Angel flack every once in a while.

“You mean my shirt?” He teased.

“We’re partners, what’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours.” You paused. “Except for the GT, that’s all mine.”

Angel laughed. “I swear, you love that car more than me.”

“No, of course not,” you looked at him. “Maybe just a little bit, but you’re still the number person to me.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “Yeah okay.” He looked at what you were watching before taking a sip of your margarita. “Are you hungry?”

“Not really, but I know you’re a bottomless pit.”

“I’m not that hungry yet, we can swing by Pop’s store and get a few steaks.”

“We do need some meat, we might as well stock up so we don’t have to go out again.”

“Great idea.” Angel kissed your cheek. “But, before we go, can we do something real quick?”

“Sure.”

He took your hand and pulled you up. You two made your way towards his art room where there was a plastic table at the center and a LunaBean in the middle. You looked over at Angel who smiled at you.

“Oh god, are you sculpting me again?”

Angel chuckled. “No, and you literally we’re not complaining the two times we did.”

“Angel, we ended up fucking both times.”

“Like I said, no complaints.”

You laughed.

You stopped in front of the table, Angel letting go of your hand so he could stand across from you.

Looking inside the bucket, your nose scrunched up at the mixture below. You weren’t sure what the material was, but it was light pink in color.

“Um, I’m not sure I want to know what we’re going to do.” You eyed him suspiciously.

Angel chuckled. “Come mi corazon, you trust me?”

“Um, that’s a hit or miss.” You stuck out your tongue playfully. “Alright, I do, what are we doing baby?”

You love being a part of Angel’s art process. It wasn’t rare you were able to do it, but you were glad you could do it now.

“Give me your hand.” You gave him your left hand, his right hand intertwining with yours. He dipped your hands inside the bucket till it was on the bottom. “Stay still.” He instructed you.

For five minutes, you and Angel remained still, Angel watching your hands, while you watched him. He was a perfectionist with his art. Everything else, he was laid back, but when it came to art, he was a perfectionist.

He pulled your hands out, wiping your hands, he handed the cloth to you so he could pour the casting stone mix inside. Once he filled it, he placed the second bucket down and smiled at you.

“Let’s go.”

“Is that supposed to create a mold?”

“Maybe, you kind of moved, so you might have fucked it up.” He teased.

“You’re so lucky I love you.”

You two went to Carniceria Reyes, and kept your social distancing as instructed along with your mask. You missed Felipe and the stories he told you about Angel.

How much of a pain of the ass Angel was, but how he was such a sweet kid who always looked out of his younger brother.

He also told you how much Angel loved drawing more than he did sports, but Angel also liked popularity and art wouldn’t win girls over.

EZ was at the store helping their father as well.

It’s been a rough year between EZ and Angel, but you were glad that things were better.

“So, am I getting a quarantine niece or nephew?” EZ called out before you two exited the story.

You blushed while Angel just laughed, wrapping his arm around your shoulders.

When you two arrived home, Angel put the groceries you two decided to get since you two were out anyway.

You sat back down on the couch, resuming your movie.

Angel eventually joined you and soon, you two fell asleep.

Angel woke up first, watching you as you slept. His favorite sketches of you were of ones while you were sleeping. You looked so peaceful and carefree.

He carefully maneuvered you, so he could lay your head on the pillow.

Once he was certain you wouldn’t wake up, he took his sketchbook, sat on the armchair and began to sketch you.

A few hours later, you woke up to Angel banging around the kitchen.

“Babe, if you were trying to wake me up, you’ve succeeded.”

“Good, dinner is ready.”

Angel was a tremendous cook and one of the things you two picked up whenever you were off work was cooking together. It was definitely fun.

And you may or may not have started painting with Angel, though, he was a strict teacher, sort of.

You two always ended up naked.

After dinner, you washed the dishes as Angel busied himself in his art room again.

His art ventures were usually an all day thing, so you were surprised you two even went out.

But with quarantine, he had more opportunity to work on his art.

He always told you, art was a process, so you never went inside his room unless there was an emergency.

When you were done, you sat back on the couch and browsed through your phone, seeing what you missed in the social media world while you were asleep.

“Mi dulce, can you come over here?” You heard Angel call for you.

“Sure babe.”

You entered the room and found Angel standing beside the plastic table. You joined him, looking down at the molding of your hands together.

“Babe, this looks amazing.” You studied the molding. Your hands were perfectly intertwined, the details were absolutely amazing.

You then noticed there was a sketching of you in front of it. Curiously, you picked it up.

You took in the details, always in awe of Angel’s work.

You loved it when he shared his work with you whenever he finished.

Self-esteem issues were a bitch, but every time you saw a piece Angel did of you, you felt like the most beautiful woman in the world.

Turning it over, there was a note behind it.

‘Every time I look at you, I’m reminded of our meeting at the carniceria years ago. How you gave me that shy smile, tucking your hair behind your ear, thanking me for the suggestions I made. I began to look forward to your visits, trying to work at my pops’ shop as often as I could just so I could get a glimpse of you. After our first date, I knew this was it for me, which was fucking insane. These past six years have been the happiest I’ve been since my mother passed away. I’m not really certain what I did to deserve your presence, but I’m thankful every day. We’ve had our ups and down, but this quarantine made me realize that you’re the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, especially since you haven’t killed me. I love you, mi vida, mi alma, mi sol, mi todo, will you marry me?’

You looked over at Angel, and he was on his knee, a black velvet box in his hand.

“Will you marry me, Y/N?” He asked, the nervousness clearly evident on his face.

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Angel stood up, picked you up and kissed you. You wrapped your arms around him, pulling away so you could bury your face on the crook of his neck.

You couldn’t believe it, it was finally happening. Angel proposed to you.

Placing you back down on the floor, you smiled up at him, looking back down at your left hand.

“Fuck, babe, I can’t believe it.”

“You better, because once this quarantine is done, we’re getting married.”

You laughed.

“Guess we gotta make a new molding once we’re married.”

“No babe, this can be our memorabilia of the day we got engaged.”

Angel took one of his thin brushes, writing the date on your hand molding.

“This is the beginning of our forever.”

Angel smiled. “It’s been us since the first day we met at the carniceria.” He softly began kissing your neck, making you moan. “What do you say we end this day like how we always do during art days?”

You two always ended Angel’s art days with sex.

You never asked questions, you were a willing participant.

And you were a willing participant again.

#angel reyes #angel reyes fanfiction #angel reyes fic #angel reyes fanfic #Mayans MC #mayans mc imagine #mayans mc fic #mayans mc fanfic

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atruththatyoudeny · 4 years

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Monthly Reads | August 2020

Happy 28th, lovelies! I say it every month but I can’t say it enough: the authors of this fandom are true stars. So much love for you all, no matter if you write drabbles or 100+k. You are dearly appreciated! ♥

✿ Let Me Be Your Everlasting Light | Layne Faire (HisDarlin) | fluff - humor - 12k Harry Styles and his partner Louis Tomlinson have been dating for four years. Over those years, he has always known that Louis' biggest dream has been to see the Northern Lights in person. Harry arranges a trip to Norway as a gift for Louis, but little does Louis know Harry is also hoping to make his own dream come true, too.

✿ contingencies | honey_beeing | accidental marriage - older Larry - 10k Where Louis and Harry are actors who long ago were married on set and find out too late. Like twenty five years too late.

✿ Nice To Meet You | 28sunflowers | co-workers - no smut - 2k Louis has the biggest, most embarrassing, seventh grade like, crush on his journalist partner from the morning news. It’s a fact that he will make an idiot of himself and his infatuation will show immediately when they meet in person. Which is why Louis can’t be blamed for his terrible social skills when he walks into Harry in the conference room to discuss this morning’s show.

✿ Lit a Fire Inside | QuickedWeen | Girl Direction - strippers & strip clubs - TikTok - 3k Bored at home, Harry turns to TikTok and quickly gets addicted to all of the amazing lesbian content. She especially likes the videos of a beautiful pole dancer named @loubabyxo.

✿ Hate to Smoke (Without Me) | louhazpride | enemies to lovers - college/university - neighbours - 12k “For fuck’s sake,” he huffs, grabbing the pillow and pulling it on top of his head in an attempt to block out the banging coming from the other side of the wall. It’s the third time this week that his neighbour has woken him up in the middle of the night with his little ‘rendezvous.’ Honestly, he's quite sick of it. There’s only so much sex he can bear to hear in one week and he has already hit his limit. If he wanted to listen to someone having sex, he’d turn to porn. As if the noises weren’t enough, Harry immediately becomes aware of the faint aroma of weed filling his flat. “I’m going to murder him.” Sleep. Harry just wants one good night of sleep. However, his neighbour has a thing for headboard-banging-against-the-wall-sex every night. After a secret set-up and a bet, Harry may finally get the sleep he so much desires.

✿ Someone to Fly Home To | kingsofeverything | post-divorce - older Larry - implied/referenced cheating - exes to lovers - 34k Louis. 55 year old pilot who wants someone to fly home to. Harry swipes right.

✿ Members Only | kikikryslee | gyms - fluff - awkward flirting - mutual pining - 15k “Well, I’m gonna go work out now, so…” Harry said, his voice trailing off. Louis nodded. “Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Go get, uh, you know, strong and buff.” What? Louis wanted to die. “Um, thanks?” Harry said. “Um…” Without another word, Harry walked away from the desk. Louis pinched his thigh – hard – hoping that was some terrible, awkward nightmare that he might soon wake up from. --- Or, the one where Louis works at Harry's new gym and neither one of them knows how to hold a coherent conversation with the other.

✿ tell it like an old song | outropeace | a/b/o - non-traditional a/b/o - amnesia - memory loss - mpreg - 27k “The thrumming of my blood is always calling your name.” or where Harry is a bit lost (just like his memories), his best friend is hiding something, the love of his life is gone and love... love is like flowers.

✿ Waiting | allwaswell16 | a/b/o - hurt/comfort - injury - friends to lovers - childhood friends - roommates/housemates - soulmates - humor - 8k Louis Tomlinson was Harry’s omega, of this Harry had always been sure. Unfortunately for Harry, Louis seemed to think they were just best friends. The six weeks that Harry has to live with Louis were going to be rough.

✿ I can’t do this alone (sometimes I just need a light) | Only_angel_28 | strangers to lovers - emotional hurt/comfort - meet-cute - grief/mourning - 8k “Harry,” he says after another contemplative moment, “can I hug you?” It’s been...well, Harry doesn’t actually know how long it’s been. Less than an hour, probably, but already Louis says his name like it’s safe in his mouth, and now he’s opening his arms like Harry could be safe there too. “Please,” Harry nearly sobs, and sinks into him the way butter melts on toast. It’s an apt metaphor, really, because what Louis is giving him is as essential and sustaining as a loaf of bread to a starving man. His basic need for physical affection is as vital as his need for sustenance, for sleep, and he can’t believe he’s allowed himself to ignore it for so long. Or: Harry is having a rough time. Louis is the kind stranger who makes him smile again.

✿ at your fingertips | falsegoodnight | PWP - dubious consent - ex relationship trauma/drama - 27k He finds himself wrapped up in sheets in bed on Thursday night, staring at the familiar name on a new story that was posted the night before. His fingers twitch, ready to hit play and surrender to his impulses, saving the regret and turmoil for later. And still he hesitates, internally praying that he’ll somehow gain the strength to exit out within the next few moments before he inevitably loses his patience and hits the button. Three… Two… One. Play. - Or, Louis really should have seen it coming.

✿ A Sweeter Place | Halos_Boat | older Larry - hurt/comfort - emotional hurt/comfort - grief/mourning - friends to lovers - fluff - 50k Harry doesn't think he has it in him to find love again, at least, not until he meets a man at his support group that just might change his mind.

✿ Everything Has Changed | Jesapeak | The Backup Plan AU - mpreg - 8k Harry Styles meets the love of his life, just after being artificially inseminated.

✿ we can take the long road home | pinkcords | roadtrip - strangers to lovers - pining - angst - 46k Late afternoon seeps into the cab, just shy of too warm, and the breeze that crosses window to window tosses their hair in their eyes, around their faces. They ride in pleasant silence, the radio humming softly in the background as they speed down the coast, and when Louis looks over, Harry’s smiling to himself, a private happiness born from whatever’s going on in his head. Louis likes to think it has something to do with him, or at the very least, this adventure they’ve embarked on together, chosen to see through to San Diego. Or, Harry and Louis fall in love down the coast of California.

#fic rec #28th appreciation #my fic rec #my reads #monthly reads #monthly fic rec #larry fics #completed fics

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

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Survey #449-450

(both from yesterday)

What do you dislike about the house you live in? It's in the suburbs. Have you thought more about your funeral, or your wedding? My hypothetical wedding. Dinosaurs or unicorns? DINO BOIZ. What do you think of Maroon 5? I like some of their old stuff, and one or two of their newer songs, like "Payphone." What about Coldplay? I enjoy them. Fall Out Boy? Love 'em. Katy Perry? She's okay, I guess. There are a few songs I enjoy. Have you ever snuck into an R-rated movie when you weren’t old enough to see it without parents? No. What is your favorite Disney show? I don't have the slightest clue what's on Disney nowadays. What do you miss most about elementary school? Digging tunnels in the sandbox during recess with my friends. :'( When was the last time you saw the person you had your first kiss with? The start of February 2017. Hard to believe it's been four whole years... Is there anything hanging from the doorknob in your room? Ha, yes. Mom got me a little sign that says, "If I can't wear my flipflops, I'm not going," lmfao. All I wear are flipflops. What's your opinion on wearing pajamas in public? Do you yourself do that? I LITERALLY couldn't care less. I wear pjs in public sometimes; it really depends on where I'm going. What was the most severe punishment your parents gave you when you were growing up? Taking away technology was the worst. Do you usually fill up at the same gas station? Mom goes to a few different ones, depending on proximity and price. Have you ever owned any pet birds? What kinds/colours? I have not. I used to want a cockatiel for a long time, though. Do you pay much attention to your YouTube recommendations? If so, what was the last video that caught your attention? Kinda, I guess. I'm not sure what was the last recommended video I clicked. What has been the happiest time of your life so far? It's complicated. Most of my best memories are from high school with Jason, yet at the same time I was HORRIBLY depressed. I think my most pure happiness when I was really progressing with recovery. Moving on from him, losing tons of weight, feeling motivated... Have you ever had a crush on a celebrity? Who? My two biggest celebrity crushes ever have been/is Link Neal and Mark Fischbach. Do you have any fears you would rarely admit to anyone? Nah. Admitting fears isn't a big deal to me at all. What website do you spend most of your time on? YouTube. What did you have for dinner last night? A chicken sandwich. What could you talk about for hours? Meerkats, Silent Hill, Mark... Do you have a lamp beside your bed? Yes. What's your favorite ice cream topping? Chocolate syrup. What was the last TV show you binge watched? Avatar: The Last Airbender. Would you rather eat burgers or tacos? Oh, burgers for sure. I don't likes tacos. Did your mother change her maiden name when/if she got marred? Yes. Do you use TikTok? Nope. Are you closer to your mother or father? Mom. Do you own any costumes? No. Would you care if your SO went to a strip club? Hm. So long as they're not laying hands on any of the strippers and they ASKED me first, I don't think I'd care? I'm pretty sure I'd also only be okay with that if we were a long-term couple where very strong trust has been built. How helpful are your parents to you? Would they help you to pay for your first apartment? College? Where does the line end? They are so, so very helpful and I'm pretty sure would go to the ends of the earth to help me in any way they could. I know they WOULD help pay for the things you mentioned, but it's not something I want them to do. I want to be able to financially provide for myself, one day... Have you ever had to evacuate due to natural disaster? No. What video games did you have when you were growing up? LOADS. I looooooooved video games. What was the first election you ever voted in? This last one, actually. Can you hear anything right now? Yeah. I'm watching Gab play the Resident Evil 3 remake on hardcore mode. What's the coolest, most unusual pet you can think of? I've always thought sugar gliders were quite interesting as pets. I wanted one for a looong time, but I am not informed on how well they do in captivity and if it should even be legal for me to truly want one anymore. Have you ever seen a UFO or other weird object in the sky? By definition, it was a UFO. Sometimes I do even wonder if it was an alien spacecraft, given JUST how strange that shit was. I won't explain it again, just 'cuz I've done it in many surveys before. Are there any albums you know every single lyric to? I could probably nail Ozzy's Black Rain. What's your go-to painkiller? Advil. Does your mom have a celebrity look-alike? No, but there's a celebrity with her exact name. Do you think it’s pretty when 100s of balloons are let loose into the sky? NO NO NO NO NO that shit is SO upsetting. Where do you think they end up??? It's littering. Animals get choked and tangled by them all the time. What do you draw more than anything else? Definitely meerkats. Have you ever visited someone in a psychiatric home or ward? No, but people have visited me in one. Have you ever received a parking fine? No. Are you in any group chats? Who's in them? No. Do you have a lisp? No. Do you have an Instagram account? Do you use it often? I have three, but one's pretty much dead. I don't post stuff regularly on my other two either, really... Can you parallel park? I would absolutely hit another car. Have you ever played paintball? Did you get hit? No, that shit's dumb. You can get really hurt. What was your favorite fairy tale when you were a kid? Maybe Little Red Riding Hood? Are your parents still together? If not, do you know why? No. Mostly financial disagreements, but I know there's stuff I don't know. Have you ever been evicted? Why? Yes, because we couldn't keep up with rent. Have you ever worked as a manager or supervisor? Noooo. What was the last thing you voted for? So Snake Discovery (a reptile channel I love) hosted an enclosure build-off recently, and the winners were selected by fans via voting. The guy I voted for got 3rd. What's the most amazing animal you've ever seen in captivity? I've been very close to an elephant at a zoo once. They're magnificent. Having been to Sea World as a kid (I would NEVER go now), I also saw the killer whale show. As much of a spectacle as it was, it was animal abuse regardless. Do you like white chocolate? It's okay in small doses. Have you ever eaten snow? Yeah. Do you talk to your pets? Um, duh. Have you ever adopted a stray? (Cat or dog?) Cats, yes. Do you read about any mythology? (Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian, etc) No, not by my own will. I DO love mythology, I just... don't read it. Do you ever use bath bombs? No. Have you ever gotten angry at an employee and complained to the manager? No. Have you ever sent your food back at a restaurant? Yes, because they got my meal wrong. I was REALLY shy to do it, but I made sure to do it politely and apologetically. Do you sleep in a bra? What mad lad sleeps in a bra???????????? Has your ex ever gone out with someone close to you? No. Can you suggest someone funny on YouTube? I'll go for someone what isn't my obvious vote, ha ha. There are truly so many, but Garrett Watts is high on the list. Elena Bateman, too. Can you do a handstand? No. Has anyone close to you ever been suicidal? Yes. Have you ever broken someone's heart and didn't care? Tyler sure acted like I did, and to be entirely frank, I didn't care very much, but only because it was a HUGE overreaction and I knew he'd be fine quick. What color is your hairbrush? It's just a white comb. Who was your most recent call from? My psychiatrist. Have you ever watched someone die? Only animals... It's the absolute worst. Are you currently "seeing" someone? No. Are you friends with someone who's autistic? I might be, but I know my niece is on the spectrum. Do you like humans? To be entirely transparent... I think I wish humans were never a thing. We've done so, so much harm to the planet, some things irrevocable. Earth would be a much healthier, far more peaceful place if we'd never existed. Do you like pandas? I love pandas. P.S., fuck outta here if you're one of the people who don't support conservation efforts for them. That shit blows my mind. What do you think of Evanescence? They're great. Amy's voice is absolutely incredible. I don't even think that's an opinion, but global fact, ha ha. What do you think of Avenged Sevenfold? I like some of their stuff. I haven't heard a whole lot though, honestly. What do you think of Halestorm? ^ Do you think you are attractive? God no. I don't see me as an attractive person at all. Do you like dinosaurs? I love 'em; I was OBSESSED as a kid, and my first aspired job was a paleontologist. Do you like lasagna? No. Do you share a room? No. When was the last time you climbed a tree? Never, actually. Have you ever been hospitalized for more than 2 weeks? I think my longest was three. What can you do that none of your friends can do? I dunno. Why did you last go to the airport? Mom and I were dropping Sara off so she could go home. Who was the last person to see you in your underwear? My mom. Who’s the most attractive female you’ve ever seen? Maybe Alissa White-Gluz from Arch Enemy? Or my friend Alon. I'm certain there's more, because women are just so fuckin beautiful asdkfajlwejkrjqwe Red, white, yellow, or pink roses? I actually like the original, rich red. Do you think someone would ever want to marry you? Well, two people have, but one absolutely doesn't anymore and the other knows that it's not healthy or emotionally safe for either of us to imagine that at this time. I don't know if anyone ever will again. Do you like Thanksgiving? No. Like I enjoy the focus on thankfulness, but the history isn't right and I don't enjoy the food. Do you ever wear colored eye liner? No. Have you ever used a darkroom? No. Have you ever been "popular"? No. Has someone ever tried to convert you? Yes. Have you ever been told that you dress like a slut? No, not that how someone dresses has any relevance to their sexual activity. What’s your most recent obsession? Final Fantasy X jfccccccc. Video games or board games? The former. Are you scared of tarantulas? As much as I talk about them... you can probably tell I have a massive interest in them, ha ha. However, even though I love them, they're still sorta scary. Like, threat poses are no joke. And it's terrifying on the very rare occasion they hiss. During Covid, do you wear a mask or no mask? I'm fully vaccinated, and yet I still wear a mask because I'm a considerate human fucking being. Do you have a PlayStation 4? No, but I reeeeaaally want one. :/ Have you ever played Fortnite? Nah, not my type of game. Do you like anime? Yeah. Have you ever been on a boat? Yeah. I was always SO excited as a kid when Dad would take the boat out for a fishing trip. Have you ever played Kingdom Hearts? I've played some of it with Jason. I wasn't a fan of it. Have you ever built a snowman? Yes. DC or Marvel? I don't really have a preference.

----------

Do you prefer your nails long or short? Why? Short, because I can't keep my nails long for the life of me. I pick/peel my nails badly. Do you have any vinyl records? No. Are you still in touch with your best friend from high school? No. Have you ever visited any celebrity gravesites? No. How do you feel about archaeology? It's extremely fascinating. Would you have a big cat (like a tiger) for a pet if you could? No. I could never provide the environment they need, and it's simply not safe. They are not domestic animals, and even the ones that seem most tame can surprise you. What are your favorite smells? Cinnamon rolls, coffee, lilac, fresh baked bread, barbecue, etc. Have you ever had to block people online for harassing you? I'm not sure, actually... What is your favorite thing to do on The Sims? Surveys have a lot of questions about those games... I only ever played the ones that focused on animals, and I think I most enjoyed breeding them and naming the bbz. :^) And watching their behavior. Which hair color you've had has been your favorite? Red. If you were stupid-rich, would you ever actually want a mansion? No. I do not need all that room, nor am I wasting my money on such excessive space. What drinking games have you played? None. Do you take lessons for anything? No. Has something really heavy ever fallen on you? No. If you wear makeup, what colors do you usually wear? Only black. Does your shower have curtains or a glass door/wall? Curtains. If you have more than one pet, do they ever get jealous of each other? One is a snake and the other is a cat, so. Is there a room in your house that you don’t like going in? No. Besides salt and butter, do you put anything on your popcorn? Nothing besides what you mentioned. Are you lonely? I'm way too lonely for it to be healthy. Do you like pineapple? Yep. Have you ever seen fireflies? Yes; they're endemic to here. Have you ever trespassed? As a kid, yes. Do you raise your hand or participate in class? I did sometimes. Are you afraid of heights? Yes. Are you afraid of the dark? No. Would you ever be your school’s mascot who wears that costume? No. Have you ever written a poem? I've written a lot. Would you ever be a tornado chaser? FUCK TO THE HELL NO. What is your favorite thing to eat with bbq sauce, if you even like that stuff? I hate bbq sauce. Have you ever had to do a class in summer school? No. Have you ever been to the rainforest? No. Ever thought about writing a book? Yes. Have you ever had a dream where you killed someone? Yes. Have you ever solved a Rubik’s Cube? Nope. Have you seen all of the Jaws movies? No, only the first one with Tyler. It was aight. Have you ever had a black eye? No. Is your ex sexually attractive to you still? I haven't seen a picture of Jason in years, and I don't want to. Not because I care about how he looks now, it'd just be extremely triggering to see his face. I still find Sara gorgeous. Have you ever been to couple’s counseling? No. How often does your employer ask you to work overtime? N/A When was the last time you were scared? Ummmm I really can't say I know. What’s your favorite song by Rihanna? "Disturbia" is where it's AT. There's this synthwave edit of it that I positively adore. Can you speak binary? No. Have you ever had a pet that you disliked? A family pet, yes. Do you like boys with long hair? UGH yes. Do you like root beer? Not really, no. Do you like ice cream cake? Not really. Do you ever dream of yourself dying? That's not all that rare in my nightmares. What song always makes you sad? I think two songs are tied for what makes me most sad: "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin and "Eternally Yours" by Motionless In White. Were you mean as a little kid? No; I was a sweet kid. Have you ever tried spam? No, it looks SO gross to me. How fast can you run? This is pathetic, but I don't think I CAN run. My knees are too weak. I think my weight coming down on them would just make me crumple over. Have you ever bought something from Spencer's? Yeah. Have you ever been on a diet? I've tried diets many times. Do you prefer light or dark jeans? Dark. When you listen to music, do you generally sing along, or just listen? I almost always just listen. Do you have any of your exes as friends on Facebook? Yeah. Who was your first love? Do you ever miss that person? Jason. I miss his memory every day. I say "memory" because it's been years, and I have no way of knowing who he is today. How many cars are parked at your house right now? One. Has anyone ever told you you’re a control freak? No. Do you know anyone who has gone missing? If so, were they ever found? Not personally. What was the spiciest thing you’ve ever eaten? Some wings with extremely hot sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings. Have you ever deliberately tried to get someone drunk? Um yeah, no. Do you like sprinkles on your ice cream? No. I don't like sprinkles in general. Do you know how to do the moon walk? No. Has anybody ever told you that you have a good singing voice? Yes, somehow. Onion rings or french fries? French fries, for sure. Who is the best cook that you know? Dunno. If you have your ears pierced, when did you get them pierced? When I was a kid. I don't remember the age, but I was old enough to decide myself that I wanted them pierced. If you have siblings, have they moved out or do they still live with you? They have their own places now. Do you like fried rice? Yessss. Are there any animals you refuse to touch? Some bugs. Have you ever intentionally fed a house spider? I don't believe so, no. What makes you feel lucky? That I have the family I do. What is something nice going on in your life right now? Just the gym-going, really... Who’s the worst person you’ve encountered on the Internet? An old friend I just knew as Shakes. If death wasn’t a consequence, what would you try? Maybe sky-diving, idk. Has a teacher ever told you off? No. Have you ever told off a teacher? No. Do/did you take school seriously or not? I certainly did. How do you usually cope with breakups? Not well. I obsess over how something's wrong with me and I'm not good enough for anyone. Disney princess or Disney animal movies? Animals, for sure. What's your favorite Katy Perry song? It's evading me right now... Have you ever made/tried friendship bread!? Omg, I forgot that was a thing! I actually have. I've completely forgotten the gist of it or even how it tastes, but I remember I loved it. What do you want to know about the future? If I'll ever be content and happy. What's your biggest insecurity? My weight. Ever found something disgusting in your food while eating out? No, thank god. Does the area where you live have a good or bad reputation? A very bad one. Are there any holidays that you don't celebrate? Yeah, like St. Patrick's Day, among some others. If you could find out who you're gonna marry right now, would you? Yes. Save myself time and heartbreak. How important is it to you that your partner has the same religious views? I wouldn't date someone very religious. If they're more tame about it, that's fine, but I'd prefer to not date a religious individual. Do you own a Wii? Yeah. I've kinda been wanting to play Guitar Hero or Rock Band lately on it... Do you like a lot of cheese on your pizza? "A regular, reasonable amount of cheese." <<<< This. I really don't like when things are so cheesy that it leaves a ridiculous trail when you try to separate pieces. Have you ever been made fun of because of your sexuality? Not directly to my face, but I can guarantee people I know had certain ~opinions~ on it when I came out. I also like just came out as pansexual versus bi, and I'm not even telling a lot of people in my personal life because I know they'll find the concept absolutely ridiculous. What would you do if you found an abandoned animal? "Depends on what type of an animal it was, and whether it was friendly or skittish." <<<< This. I'm obviously not going to try to usher a rabid dog over to me (I'd call a rescue or something if the animal appeared potentially dangerous), but if the animal appeared safe, my heart would absolutely lead me to try and get the animal to come to me so I could take it home and try to find the owner. Have you ever kissed someone who had a tongue piercing? No. What singer/band do you think deserves to be more famous than they are? Jonathan Young from YouTube. He is INCREDIBLE. He deserves to be picked up by a label so badly. What is your favorite PlayStation 1 game? The original Silent Hill, no competition. Do you think objectum sexuals are real, or attention seekers? I really can't imagine someone pretending to want to fuck their car for attention. I don't get it AT ALL, and it's weird as shit to me, but I mean, I don't think people can control what they're attracted to. How far out of your age bracket would you date? 21-early 30s, probs. Have you ever had an STD? No. Have you ever tried pho? No. Pick one: Crash Bandicoot or Spyro? Spyro!!!! I have the original trilogies of both series, but Spyro is where it's AT. Does your job allow piercings or tattoos? I'm unemployed, but I wouldn't work at a job that didn't, honestly. If you could dye your hair any color right now with absolutely no restrictions, what color would you dye it? Maybe like a galaxy-esque mixture of layered colors. I've wanted that for YEARS. Have you ever known a white supremacist? This region is swimming in them. Have you ever spoken to a detective before? No. Do ladders scare you? Climbing them does, yes. Do you have any tattoos on your arms? Yeah. Have you ever thrown up on anybody? Unless I did unknowingly as a baby, no. How many people have you turned down when they asked you out? Uhhh two or three, maybe? What is your favourite kind of fruit cobbler? I actually haven't tried enough to have an educated favorite, but I can say I love peach. Do you hear any other people talking right now? I'm watching a let's player play Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, so I hear her, obviously. When was the last time you started a new medication? It's been a while, idk. What is your favourite type of nut? Cashews, I guess. I don't really like nuts, but I definitely like cashew bars. Where did you eat the best pizza you’ve ever eaten in your life? ... Domino's lmaoooo. Did you ever watch The Rugrats when you were a kid? Yeah, I loved that show. I even had two video games. Do you know anyone who was adopted? Yes. Can you name all 50 US state capital cities? No. Can you tie balloons? I can't, actually. Have you had a deep conversation with anyone today? Yeah. I wanted Sara's advice on something I'm dealing with. On your Facebook friends list, who was the last person to have their b-day? One of my sisters' was yesterday, actually. What did you/are you having for dinner tonight? I had Special K cereal. Name some healthy foods that you enjoy eating. Strawberries, apples, bananas, (sometimes) broccoli, other things that aren't coming to me. Who was the last person you Facebook messaged? My friend Girt. What flavor was the last cupcake you ate? The cupcake itself was chocolate, and the icing was uhhhh... blue? Apart from sleeping, what do you plan to do tonight? I haven't done anything of note. I'm probably going to bed soon. What’s the age difference between your parents? Two years, I think. When was the last time you ate an apple? Today. I have been on a big sliced apples w/ peanut butter kick lately. Have you had any caffeinated beverages today? I have soda every day. :x Have you eaten any chocolate today? What kind? Mom brought me a Reese's home today when she went out with a friend. How many different towns/cities have you lived in? Three. Have you ever written a song or poem for someone special? Poems, yes. Are you attracted to the last person you Facebook messaged? Not very much physically. Emotionally... I don't know. Do you have any ice cream in your freezer? What flavor is it? No. Ice cream is my #1 comfort food, so that's a big "keep out of the house."

#survey #surveys #random questions

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sylvesterlestermanchester · 3 years

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Fearfully and Wonderfully

Summary: Dan wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to experience when he starts his first semester at Uni, but he was pretty sure an incredibly sheltered Catholic boy stealing his heart wasn’t on his list of typical college tropes.

Word Count: 12401

Genre: Humor, fluff, angst. All mixed together. Fun times!

Warnings: Conversion therapy, homophobia, brief allusions to sex and genitals. One puke joke?

A/N: This is my first ever published fic-I’ve been writing for literally years little bits and pieces, but COVID has me going crazy and I just wanted to put some effort into an actual thing. Thanks for reading!

Dan wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he walked through the door to his dorm the first time, parents and sullen little brother in tow. All of his knowledge about Uni had been from TV and movies-maybe he would have some frat guy in the bed across from him, or maybe a stoner, or maybe a weird silent dude who will disappear after the first week and let Dan put their beds together so they would actually fit his gangly body.

What he isn’t expecting is to have an eight-year-old girl bodyslam herself into his legs, followed by a loud groan and a sharp voice scolding “Suzanne, we told you to stop running!”

Dan’s eyes look down at the (quickly retreating) girl and blinks a few times as he takes in the scene in front of him. There are way too many people in the crowded room right now-he counts two identical boys, both around 10, bouncing on the stiff dorm bed, one pre-teen digging through a cardboard box, a girl around Adrian’s age whispering something to an older woman with a toddler in her arms, standing next to a quiet-looking tall man, and, of course, the eight-year-old, now having been scooped up by a sheepish looking guy around Dan’s age who’s giving him an apologetic smile. This must be the Philip Lester on his room assignment form. “Sorry. My family is kind of, erm, excited.” He says with a small, nervous laugh and sets the girl aside before sticking out a hand to shake. “I’m Phil! You must be, um...Daniel, right?”

Dan takes a second to readjust the bags in his arms to shake Phil’s hand awkwardly, trying not to look too overwhelmed at the scene in front of him. “Dan’s fine.”

The kids have all frozen in place, staring at Dan with wide eyes like Dan just sprouted a second head. There’s a few long beats of silence as Phil shakes his hand just a little too enthusiastically for just a bit too long.

Finally, Phil’s mum places a hand on her son’s shoulder, beaming brightly. “It’s so great our boys will be living together!” She cheers to Dan’s mum, who looks a bit bewildered. Ms. Lester gently takes a few of Dan’s bags and sets them on the bed, continuing to chatter on. “Come on, we can unpack while you two get to know each other better. I need to know who my son is going to be rooming with, right?” She continues to babble in a thick northern drawl as Dan glances back at his parents, who look like they’re about to bolt for the door and leave their son to be swallowed whole by these people.

“You’re rooming with an absolute freak,” Adrian mumbles in his ear with a small smirk. “Karma is a bitch, huh?” “Shut up.” Dan hisses back through his teeth, trying to look as interested as possible as Phil’s mum keeps talking.

“The weather here is so nice-it’s already getting cold up in Rossendale, can you believe it? Max and Adam were running around outside, and I was so scared they were gonna catch cold, you know how quickly little ones do. Oh, the drive here was wonderful-” “We saw cows!” One of the kids butts in, and suddenly they’re all talking, any nervousness they had around the strangers suddenly vanishing.

“And horses!” “We got hamburgers, and there was this huge truck-it had to have, like, forty wheels-” Phil seems to take after his dad, quietly but quickly unpacking since his siblings have seemingly given up on it in favor of telling Dan’s family every detail of the six-hour car ride. At one point he makes eye contact with Phil, who gives him an apologetic look, his cheeks flushed and an embarrassed grin on his face as the kids chatter along excitedly like they’ve never talked to another person before.

Finally, right when Dan feels like his ears are going to fall off, Phil speaks up again. “I-I think I can get this from here, guys. Mum, Dad, why don’t we go out for a walk before we say goodbye? I know you guys want to see the geese on campus, right?” The kids all cheer like geese are the most exciting thing on Earth, scrambling for the door. Phil’s mum gives Dan a tight hug and Phil’s dad, still not having spoken a single word, even gives his shoulder an uncomfortable pat before they head out. The small space suddenly feels vast and empty, and the silence is almost tangible. “Well. They seemed...friendly.” Dan’s mum says after a few moments, his dad snorting.

“You’re in for quite a year, huh, kid?” He jokes. Dan laughs weakly, but in all honesty, it doesn’t seem that funny.

Just what did he get himself into?

Dan’s curled up in his bed when Phil finally comes back a few hours later, giving Dan that same crooked, shy grin from earlier. Now that it’s just him and not him with (presumably) his entire Brady Bunch-style family, he can get a better look at his roommate. He’s tall, about an inch taller than Dan, and lanky. His black jeans are just a bit high on his ankles, and his faded green shirt clings to his skinny frame. As Dan’s eyes travel higher he takes in his flushed cheeks, his blue eyes wide behind his oversized glasses, all behind shaggy black hair that doesn’t match his ginger eyebrows-ginger like every other family member of his. Dan suddenly feels a bit self-conscious in his Game of Thrones pajamas and old school shirt, pulling his covers up a bit higher as he takes in the other young man with a strange feeling in his chest. He’s definitely different than anyone Dan’s ever known. But damn, if he isn’t cute.

“Sorry if my family was a lot today.” He says after a slight moment of silence, a slight giggle slipping out as he walks over to one of the boxes on his side of the room. “I’m the first to go to Uni out of my brothers and sisters, so my parents decided to, like, make it into a whole thing.”

The memory of the chaos is still fresh in Dan’s mind, but hearing Phil talk about it, he can’t help but smile a bit as well. “I’m the oldest, so I get it. And they were nice. Your siblings are very...uh, talkative.” He says slowly, trying not to sound rude, but Phil’s giggling again before he can worry too much about it.

“We’re from kind of the middle of nowhere, so they’re just excited to see, like, humans outside of Rossendale for the first time.” Phil joked as he started reorganizing some of the things his siblings had just sort of dumped around the room. “Plus, they don’t usually get sugar, but they had soda on the way here. So they were practically about to explode by the time we pulled in. They just exploded all of that excitement onto you.”

Dan can’t help but laugh a bit at that as he watches Phil set some thick books up one way and then rearranges them. “Oh, Jesus. That car ride must have been nuts.” Phil looks over his shoulder, grinning wider now. He looks more and more relaxed each minute, as if he was just as nervous about Dan as Dan was about him. “You have no idea, oh my gosh. They were already wound up for today, and then there was soda, and Max and Alex-they get carsick even worse than I do, and then Suzanne had to pee, like, forty times an hour, and Mum was all weepy...this has been the longest day of my life.” He joked, laughing along with Dan.

Even though Dan can’t connect any of the kids to their names, he feels like he knows them decently well. In fact, as the conversation drifts into more goofy road trip stories, Dan’s surprised with just how close he feels to Phil like they’ve known each other before they even met.

It’s strange, he finds. But then again, Phil’s pretty strange, after all.

Dan doesn’t fully realize how strange Phil is until the next day. There’s a few hints-Dan makes a reference to some TikTok audio and Phil admits he’s never used it before, staring in awe as Dan scrolls through his ForYou Page for him. When they head off to orientation in one of the lecture halls, Phil’s head jolts up and his face flushes bright red when one of the countless speakers jokingly curses (if you can count “ass” as a curse-Dan honestly can’t). But it’s not until they’re out at the quad with some of their new peers for lunch when Chris turns to Phil and asks if he went to the school his cousin went to up north. “Oh, I didn’t go to school.” Phil says with a bright smile, before quickly adding “I mean-I was homeschooled. So I just kinda did the work when I wanted to.”

“Your parents homeschooled you? Didn’t Dan say you had, like, twenty siblings?” Louise questions as they all turn to look at Phil. Dan feels a migraine coming on just imagining being home with all of those kids all bloody day, though he can actually picture Mrs. Lester teaching them all pretty well. Phil laughed a bit, cheeks flushing pink as he looked down at his sandwich.

“We all were. My mum and dad didn’t like the schools in our area-they wanted us to be more connected to the church, said that “our values weren’t instilled in traditional education’.” He explained with a small shrug. When PJ raised an eyebrow at that Phil pulled a small cross necklace out from under his shirt. “I’m Catholic. I actually have plans for Seminary after getting my bachelor’s-so if you’re planning on getting married, I’m taking bookings now.” Phil’s last comment was clearly meant to lighten up the mood, but it’s obvious that the subject matter was making the group a little uncomfortable, considering they all just met. Dan’s mentally running through Phil’s belongings in their dorm-were all those books Bibles? Was he going to start hanging crosses everywhere? Or make him wake up early on Sundays?

Before his brain could spiral out further Chris blurted out “So, were you raised in a Jesus bubble or something?” Louise smacks his arm but Phil giggled. “I-I have been told I’ve lived a bit of a sheltered life before, yeah.” “Were you allowed...TV?” PJ asks slowly, eyes widening when Phil shook his head.

“Not cable. We could watch DVDs, but they had to be approved, so it was usually educational. I know a lot of animal facts, actually. Did you know hippo-”

“What about the internet?” Louise cuts him off.

“Not after my older brother got caught Googling “bikini girls” when he was 10.” Phil joked lightly. “But even before that, my mum was pretty anti-internet. If I really needed it for school or whatever, I’d go down to the library.”

“No Harry Potter?” “Promotes witchcraft. Apparently. I haven’t read it for myself, but-”

“Dating?” “Not without serious intention to marry-and I’m not exactly ready for that, so-” “Running water?” “You know what’s funny?” Phil says, giggling a bit and bringing his knees loosely to his chest. “You guys think I’m weird, which is totally understandable. But your guys’ lives before this sound weird to me, too. Like-Chris, you got to play video games as a kid, right? And I was taught that those would turn me into some homicidal maniac. Dan, I saw you have a horoscope app-that’s the occult, so that’s a huge no-no.” Wow, okay. Before Dan could feel too offended, though, and Chris could jump in, Phil keeps going. “But, like, I get that you’re not a witch, or Chris, you’re not gonna chop me up into little pieces when I’m sleeping. There’s gotta be some middle ground here, right? So...you guys could show me how to live more like you, and maybe you guys would be more interested in what I’m into?”

There’s a small silence that falls across the group before a wicked grin slowly appears on Louise’s face.

“What do you want to learn first?”

The next few weeks are a bit of a whirlwind for Dan. Between classes, hanging out with new friends, homework, scrambling to find a job, remembering to text his mum and let her know he hasn’t died, he’s barely able to keep his head on straight. But the time he spends trying to introduce Phil to the “real world” is some of his favorite.

Phil had set some ground rules-nothing that could kill him or ruin his life if it got out on social media. If he got too uncomfortable, he was allowed to tap out, but he’d give it an honest attempt. And nothing Satanic. (Dan had laughed until he realized by the look on his face that he wasn’t joking).

Granted, their friend group hadn’t done a great job at the start. PJ thought it would be hilarious to let Phil start with some “iconic reading material”.

Dan had been in class when they had presented the book to him, and the two were in their respective beds when Dan heard a shocked gasp from Phil’s side of the room.

“You good, mate?” He rolled over, watching as Phil sat upright and started flipping through the pages. “Do-Do you know about this book?” He asked, face turning impossibly redder as he held up the cover for Dan. 50 Shades of Gray. As Dan burst out laughing, his roommate whined playfully.

“What-Phil, who gave this to you?” “PJ said it was necessary reading!”

“PJ is a dunce. Give it here, I’ll protect you from the big bad book.” Dan teases, but Phil quickly shoves the book into his hands like it’s on fire.

“I’m gonna have nightmares about ties and rich men for weeks.” He grumbled playfully, curling up on his bed and reaching for his phone. “I’m never trusting Peej again.”

Louise turns full maternal the next day when he struggles to recount the experience in polite language (Dan holding back laughter), and she decides to go the complete opposite way, launching a mission to, as she put it, “reshape Phil’s lost childhood”. Phil lightly pushes back against wording, because he feels like he had quite a nice childhood, thank you very much.

Still, Louise comes over a couple of nights later, armed with her laptop.

“They couldn’t come up with a more creative name than “High School Musical”?” Phil teased gently as she pulled it up on her screen.

“Phil, you sweet boy, High School Musical is a cultural milestone that you need experience. So no backtalk!”

“Whatever you say.” He said, sitting on the other side of her and holding a bowl of popcorn in his lap.

They watch the first movie, and then the second, and then Phil’s begging to watch the third. As the final song plays Dan glances over and sees that Phil has his head ducked down, shoulders shaking gently.

“Phil?” Louise asks gently right as a choked sob erupts from him. She lets out a yelp as Phil flings his arms around her neck, laughing shakily. “It was just...Troy chose basketball and music…both of his passions...” He blubbers out, nuzzling into her shoulder as she coos. “You’re so weird, hon. You know that?” Once he’s calmed down enough (when Dan offers him a hug the waterworks start up all over again, sniffling. “So. Is that what your guys’ school was like?”

Louise and Dan glance at each other before bursting into laughter, only stopping a couple of minutes later when Louise turns to Phil once more. “If you liked High School Musical, you’re going to love this show Victorious…”

Of course, it’s not all smutty books and (incredible) movie trilogies.

Being homeschooled meant that all Phil knows is doing school when he feels like it. Lucky for Phil, he’s a huge nerd, so homework and studying actually excite him. The problem is, these things tend to excite him at 3 in the morning, and he actually has classes to go to now outside of his room.

By day three of no sleep, Phil swears Dan’s grown wings, and Dan intervenes. They make up a rules sheet-bedtime is 2AM, wake up at 10AM, eat three meals a day, no more than five cups of coffee a day (of all the vices Phil was deprived of, caffeine was clearly not one of them-Dan’s never seen anyone drink more coffee in his life). He gets him down to one all-nighter a week, and in turn, Phil wakes him up each morning and helps him with schoolwork so Dan doesn’t have to face going to the tutoring center. It turns out that Phil’s kind of a genius, despite never being in a classroom until a couple of weeks prior.

Chris is the one who convinces Phil to get social media, telling him that “only serial killers and old people” don’t. Phil’s not the greatest at it at first (there’s a lot of pictures uploaded on accident to his Instagram stories and nonsense tweets), but he slowly gets more used to it, getting his terrible puns and weird things he sees on campus out to the world (all 20 of his followers).

Dan can’t help but get slightly annoyed when Phil’s phone is shoved in his face to choose a filter of some stupid looking goose that’s close to attacking him, but the look of pure elation that Phil gets when someone sends a dog meme in their group chat is enough to warm his heart in ways he didn’t want to address fully but knew he couldn’t ignore.

There’s so much to teach him, and it seems like each day something pops up. Still, Dan’s surprised by Phil’s world, too.

First, he brings them to a non-denominational bible study group. PJ groaned quietly as Phil handed them all cheap paperback Bibles before they entered the church.

“Can’t we do something a bit more...fun? With less reading?”

“If you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it again,” Phil said with a grin, rocking back and forth on his heels. “And if you like it-which hopefully, you will-we can come back once a week, and I’ll get you some nicer Bibles. These are just to start out with.”

Louise forces a small “yay” as they head inside, Phil leading them through the sanctuary with a happy sigh before taking them down some stairs, where a young woman sits in front of a small arrangement of chairs. “Phil, you brought your friends!” The woman cheers and Phil laughs happily. “Caroline-this is Dan, PJ, Chris, and Lou. They’re new to all this, so we’ll go easy this week?” He joked lightly, and Caroline nods, asking them about their religious beliefs.

“Uh, went to church a few times with my Nan. Atheist.” Dan says, biting his lip. He never actually said the “a'' word around Phil, and he’s a bit nervous that he’s going to suddenly flip out, but he still seems just as excited as when he walked in.

“Atheist. Never been-parents hate churches. Can I still grab snacks?” Chris adds and Caroline laughs, nodding.

“I’m a little complicated, but it’s basically just hippie church.” PJ says, shrugging. “Singing and chanting and all.”

“I go about once a month-I’m Episcopal, officially, but I’ve been to other churches too.” Louise gently smiled, and with that, the group got started. They went around and talked about their weeks, a few upcoming events, a prayer, and then Caroline instructed them to get their books. Phil pulled a well-worn leather Bible out of his bag, and Dan’s eyes widened a bit when he opened it. There are post-it notes everywhere, with entire passages highlighted and notes covering practically every margin in Phil’s stupidly perfect handwriting. It’s clear that Phil’s spent a lot of time with the book.

“Since we have guests, I figured we’d take a break from our reading of Matthew and focus on a couple of specific verses today,” Caroline says brightly. “James 1:13-15: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”

There’s a slight pause and Chris furrows his eyebrows. “Huh?” “In simple terms-don’t say God isn’t the one to tempt you, because when you stray off His path, that’s on you.” One of the group members explains. “And if you do sin, it’ll lead to, uh, death.”

“Well, does God not tempt us to do bad things by putting so much pressure on us to be perfect?” A girl with blue hair jumps in, raising an eyebrow. “He sets the standard so high. Sometimes I’m just like, ‘Chill, dude. I can’t do everything. I’m not you.’ “

PJ snorts at that, giggling. “You call God dude?” They’re all laughing now, but Dan can’t believe it-he wants to jump in.

“Can I ask a dumb question?” His voice is a bit quiet but inquisitive. “Isn’t God supposed to be loving and forgiving? Why does He want you guys to be perfect? That sounds kind of...harsh.”

“Well, He knows we’re not perfect.” Phil says, and another guy nods.

“He asks for us to be because it strives us to be better. And it teaches us that messing up is okay.” The conversation keeps up for a bit before Caroline interrupts, asking them to focus on the latter half of the passage.

PJ narrows his eyes at the text before looking up. “Am I really gonna die if I sin?” “Well, sin was what led us away from eternal life in the first place-Adam and Eve kinda messed that up for us.”

“Yeah, but our personal sins can lead us to death, too. Not just old sins. That’s what God’s warning us about here.”

“Not every sin does, though. Like mixed-fabric shirts.” Louise grinned a little. “Or grabbing dudes by their nads during fights.” PJ’s eyes widened and he turned to Phil. “Are those actual rules?!” “It was a different time!” Phil giggled as he watched him flip through the pages quickly.

“Where does it say we can’t grab nads?’ “Can we stop saying nads in church?” Phil pointed out, still laughing despite his red face.

Caroline tuts and wags a finger playfully. “Uh-uh, Philip. No judgment. They can talk about nads all they want, now.”

The entire room is laughing again as Phil buries his face in his hands. Finally, when he controls his giggles, Caroline speaks again. “Do you think talking about that kind of stuff in church is a sin, Phil?”

It’s teasing at first, but Phil actually thinks about it for a moment.

“Well...my household was pretty strict growing up. I mean, I got yelled at once for just sneezing during church.” He admits slowly and Dan’s eyebrows furrow a little. He can’t imagine either of Phil’s parents yelling at him, or anyone, really. “But I get why it was. They wanted me to love God, and respect Him, just like they loved and respected me and I loved and respected them. So I think if you do things with love, genuine love, it’s not a sin. But if you do things out of hate, or anger, or with the intention of hurting, that’s a sin. And that’s not automatically bad-like T’andra said, we’re all gonna make mistakes. Just keep on acting with love, and I think you’re good.” There’s a pause, and Dan’s face flushes slightly. Not just at how much Phil was saying “love”, but the words he spoke, and the true thought and passion behind them.

The moment is cut short when PJ snorts. “So if I love nads, I can talk about them to Jesus?”

By the time the room is back under control, the group is over. “Y’know, that was actually pretty fun.” Chris said after they had all grabbed snacks and talked to everyone.

“It was! It was like...philosophical debate.” Dan said. “The real nitty-gritty. The topics of good, evil, life, death, corruption-” Louise shoved him gently. “So deep, Dan. Of course you enjoyed it.” She joked lightly before adding “No offense, Phil!” Phil doesn’t seem to care-he’s grinning so wide it must be hurting his cheeks, and Dan would be lying if he isn’t tempted to start reading the whole Bible from cover to cover just to see him grin like that again.

Phil also manages to bring them to actual church services a couple of times (though getting college students out of bed before noon on a weekend proves to be a practically impossible task).

Dan has to admit he’s not as impressed with this as he is with the study group. The group is fun-they can all talk, and laugh, and actually discuss the points. Church is...not. They sit on hard pews. They listen. They stand and sit and kneel and stand and sit and kneel. They sing a few songs, and while Phil’s quiet baritone makes Dan’s sore knees quiver, it’s not enough to really warrant him waking up at 8AM on a weekend.

Phil is politely understanding of this, though it’s clear that this is of certain importance to him that his friends might not ever understand. It’s admirable if nothing else.

Other than storytelling from his childhood (which does little to make him seem more normal, honestly) and the weekly study, though, Phil doesn’t talk too much about the church to his other friends. Dan, however, is different. Maybe it’s just the fact that they live together and their space is more shared, but Phil opens up to Dan a bit more about it. He reads passages and verses to Dan, he prays in front of him, and he answers his questions in a non-condescending way. Dan has to admit that while he likes what Phil says, he can’t find himself connecting to it in the way Phil has, with his entire heart and soul. But Dan can admire the stories and the way his friend sees the world, and this new world that he’s entering with him.

It’s been a month of them being friends when Dan realizes that he’s seeing the world in two ways-Dan’s universe, and Phil’s universe. They’re so different, but (and he’s sure he’d never admit this out loud) Dan prefers when their universes collide.

When Dan comes home after a long day of classes and working at the campus bookstore, he’s exhausted. The soft music fades through the room as he opens the door to find Phil chewing on a pen, looking just as anxious as him. “I think my brain is leaking out my ears,” Phil said wearily, looking over the top of his glasses at Dan. “Do I have brain on my desk?” Dan snorts and rolls his eyes, reaching over and grabbing his textbook. “We need a break. And you need sleep-I know you took that second all-nighter last night, rule-breaker.” “Fine. Watch something with me?” He says after a moment, grabbing his laptop. They load up an episode of Zoey101 (they’d finished Victorious the week before) and hit play.

As the bars from the theme song fade out, Dan suddenly feels a strange pressure on his shoulder. He glances over and finds Phil with his cheek pressed to Dan’s shoulder, glasses sliding down his nose as he lets out a soft snore. Dan pauses the show, and for a brief moment, it’s just the two of them. Dan and Phil.

He lives for those moments: Getting coffee after a class. Sending each other memes. Trying new food at the dining hall. Brief greetings in the halls. Shared looks as they hang out with their friend group.

It’s been a month of them being friends when Dan realizes he's never fallen quite this hard before. He doesn’t just want to make out, all hot and heavy, or go further than just that. He just wants this-Dan and Phil-forever, even just as friends. He didn’t expect to find that in this pale, bible-banging weirdo, but now that he does he never wants to let him go.

Dan’s getting that feeling now more and more, the Dan and Phil feeling when they’re in the study group a few weeks later. They’re both sat towards the back, trying (and failing) to hold back laughter as they’re hunched over Dan’s Bible.

“I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold. We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver…” Phil says under his breath in a low, gravelly tone.

Dan turns to the next page. “O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes!” He whispers, still trying to make his voice sound high-pitched.

“Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from-”

“Dan, Phil, I’m guessing you both are whispering about how excited you are about our retreat at Camp Brabeck?”

The two both fall silent, Dan quickly glancing between Phil and Caroline, her smile wearing a bit thin from having to call them out. Phil’s eyes are wide, suddenly all signs of laughter gone. “Camp Brabeck?” He squeaks out, and the leader nods.

“On our upcoming four-day weekend. It’s up North, so it’ll be a bit of a drive, but we’ve already got the vans rented out and everything.” She says before noticing Phil’s sudden change in demeanor. “Phil, you’re from around there, actually. Have you been before?”

Phil blinks a few times before nodding, curling up into his seat a little. “O-Oh. Well, I actually did, once, but-”

“Great! So you’ll be down to come, right? We’ve got more space in the van, and it’ll be fun…” Caroline says hopefully, not letting him argue as he starts shaking his head. “Plus, if you’ve already been there, you can tell us all about it! C’mon, this is right up your alley. I think you’ll-” “I’ll go if Dan does.” Phil blurts out suddenly, looking nervously over at. Dan’s definitely confused now-Phil loves the outdoors. He loves this group. He loves-well, to be fair, Phil seems to love most things. He’s racking his brain trying to figure out what it could be, but he just can’t, and now all eyes are on him, and-

“I mean...as long as someone brings bug spray.” Dan says slowly, Caroline beaming and writing on her clipboard before talking excitedly about the campground. The two stay quiet, Dan focusing on Phil’s eyes trained on her and hands gripping his Bible so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

The minute the group ends Phil makes a beeline to the door, walking so fast that Dan can’t catch up without actually chasing him. Dan’s phone dings a short moment later:

Sorry 2 run! Had 2 catch up w some1 4 a thing. Thx 4 signing up w me ^_^ - Phil!

Dan furrows his eyebrows, and not for the normal reason of Phil’s stupid abbreviations and the fact he insists upon signing all his texts. He’s trying to piece the pieces together from the few characters on his screen when Louise puts a hand on his shoulder. “So what was all that about?” She asks with a raised eyebrow, giggling a bit as she gives his arm a light squeeze. “What did you show him that spooked him so bad?” Before Dan can speak, Chris is at his side.

“He’s just embarrassed that Dan was flirting with him during the Jesus Power Hour.” “Dan, were you?” Louise gasped teasingly, and Dan sputters a bit, sliding his phone into his jacket pocket. “Chris-what?! No, no, I wasn’t flirting. I wasn’t! He just-when she mentioned the retreat-and the camp-” Dan’s face is bright red now, suddenly the words from Solomon seem a lot less goofy and a lot more...romantic, to outsiders, with their heads bowed together with dumb grins on their faces.

Louise and Chris shoot Dan equally doubtful looks. “Dan-” She starts, but Dan grits his teeth.

“We’re not-neither of us are like that.” He snaps. As she steps back and Chris raises an eyebrow, guilt starts to pool in his stomach, but he can’t stop. “For one, I’m not gay, and two, Phil is gonna be a priest, remember? Aren’t they, like, sworn to celibacy?”

Chris and Louise glance at each other. “Mate...chill, yeah? We were just joking. We know you’re not...y’know.” “Good.” Dan said before turning and stomping up the steps, the unnerving sense that the painting of Jesus had his eyes following him the whole way.

A few minutes later, Dan is sitting in the back garden of the church that Phil helps tend to after services, the wind whipping through his hair. Usually, he’d be walking to a Starbucks with Phil, discussing that session’s theme in-depth and watching Phil’s face turn pink as Dan releases the string of expletives he’s been holding in for an entire hour. The expletives are running through his head at top speed, as he spends about three minutes crafting the perfect text message.

hey, i’m sorry if i weirded you out today! didn’t mean to haha. i was goofing off way too much and i know you take these meetings p seriously. i’ll take it more seriously next time and not distract you

Dan hits send after rereading it about a million times, groaning audibly as he does. It’s not exactly a “Sorry I have a crush on you and made you seem gay but I get you’ll never like me and that’s fine I just wanna spend all my time with you”, but it’s the best he can do.

No worries! OMGosh I was just embarrassed 2 b called out like that hahaha! 0_o <= Literally my face. I was def the 1 who was whispering 2 loud. Lol! -Phil!

dude, it was totally on me. Dan texts back, chewing on his bottom lip. Phil had looked pretty freaked out, but if he was fine, maybe they could just...move past it? really, i started it.

Noooooooo! I take all the blame. I had some cookies b4 group and I was on major sugar rush. Btw...I had some of those cookies ur nan sent! Sorry, I’ll buy some snacks 4 us. Ask her to send more, tho? So good <3 Thank u! Take dancing men as an apology (/-_-)/ |(-_-|) -Phil!

okay, seriously, who taught you to text like this? my head hurts trying to decipher everything

DANCING MEN 4 U (/-_-)/ |(-_-\) ~(*-*)~ (/-_-)/ |(-_-\) -Phil!

you’re ridiculous. Dan can’t help but laugh, in spite of the churning feeling in his stomach. He drops his phone onto the grass next to him and looks up at the sky.

“If you know Phil so well, big guy, what do I do?” He asks before he can stop himself, before pausing. Half of him expects a thunderstorm to start, and him to get struck by lightning, or a rainbow to leap across the sky and the clouds to part to show Phil’s shining face as the sun. But after a few long moments of silence, Dan realizes he’s not going to get any divine intervention and groans.

“Well...let me know when you figure it out.”

The next couple of weeks go by quickly. Everything seems normal-they go to classes, they go to work, they go to group, they goof off. The four-day weekend creeps upon them, but before they know it the whole group is up at 6AM standing in front of a huge white van.

“This isn’t cult-ish at all.” PJ yawns, chucking his duffle bag into the trunk. Louise sips her coffee and squints over at Phil.

“This has to be a sin, you know. Not giving a girl her beauty sleep.” Usually, Phil would spout something about “being beautiful in His eyes”, but right now he’s getting the same sense of panic in his eyes that he had when the camp was first mentioned, laughing weakly as he adjusts his glasses. Dan is just awake enough to get the sense that Phil has been repressing the idea of the trip until this exact moment, but he also knows just how to fix it. He had been stockpiling on Phil knowledge for this exact moment.

Phil jumps a bit as Dan nudges him. “Relax. Listen, I know what’s up.” He says quietly, watching as his friend’s eyes widen and a blush spreads across his cheeks.

“What?!” Phil yelps a bit as Dan gently leads him away from the rest of the group. “I mean...what do you know? What’s up?” He asks quietly, fiddling with the strap of his messenger bag.

Dan holds back a fond noise as he smiles gently, shaking his head. “No need to be embarrassed, Phil. My mom went through the same thing for years.” As Phil looks more and more concerned, wringing his hands, Dan digs in his own backpack for a moment before pulling out a small box of Dramamine and handing it to him. “So you don’t upchuck all over us.”

There’s a beat as Phil stares down at the box, eyes wide, and Dan almost thinks he’s got it wrong. Does Phil not get carsick? Was he insulted? Was he really that embarrassed by it?

Phil finally starts to giggle, but it seems more relieved than anything. He nudges Dan lightly and opens his mouth to speak.

“Ah, Dan and Phil! The dynamic duo. You two can sit in the back with the bags!” Caroline’s voice cuts through whatever Phil’s about to say, and he turns to Dan with a small shrug.

“Looks like it’ll just be you I puke on.” He says, a slight grin on his face as he pulls the door open for Dan, who rolls his eyes but steps in “Gotta get you a poncho for the splash zone.” Dan gags playfully before squeezing in to sit next to Phil amongst all the bags, rolling his eyes and plugging his earbuds in before holding out one bud to Phil and turning on their shared playlist-a mix of indie, Christian rock, (mostly clean) emo jams, and Disney Channel top hits. It’s not the most welcoming thing to listen to at 6AM, but if it keeps Phil calm and Dan from actually needing a poncho, he’ll welcome it.

The majority of the drive is spent in and out of sleep for Dan, guitar chords and vocals bouncing around his sleep-deprived brain. He’s not fully conscious until around noon when they’re about an hour away from the camp. The roads are getting twisty, and it’s then that he notices that Phil has his eyes screwed shut and face scrunched up, both hands shoved into his messenger bag. It only takes a slight peek for Dan to see his fingers curled tightly around his well-worn Bible, and he bites his lip.

Phil talks about leaps of faith a lot in group. Dan doesn’t quite get it, but he’s pretty sure he’s taking one when he slides his hand into the other’s bag and gently coaxes Phil’s hand into his own. The young man stiffens up for a moment before turning to stare at Dan with wide eyes.

“Shush. It’ll help nausea.” Dan mumbles, his own face red and praying that Phil won’t ask how exactly it will. There’s a pause before Phil smiles weakly, turning his face away, and Dan is about five seconds away from opening the van door and hurtling himself onto the road.

Phil’s probably just been playing nice, and now Dan’s gone and made it uncomfortable for the both of them, and Phil can’t even look at him. Dan’s whole body turns hot, but right before he can pull away, he feels Phil’s slender fingers intertwine with his own.

It’s not the first time they’ve held hands-they do it at the start and end of study groups, and at church, and that one time Phil got them all to hold hands while standing on a hill to reenact the ending of High School Musical 2 for his Instagram. Dan was a bit flustered then, too. But this is different. It’s...intimate. Phil’s never held his hand with such need before, fingers locked with his and palm quivering gently as he mouths a silent “thank you.” Dan feels his entire body buzz, and he can’t help but close his eyes and try to focus on the music and not the fact that he feels like he’s literally twelve years old.

The rest of the ride somehow takes an eternity and only a minute before the van stops, Chris bemoaning his hunger loudly and the rest chattering excitedly. Phil finally opens his eyes and turns to Dan, slowly pulling his hand away.

They both look at their hands, and then back at each other. There’s a long pause before he opens his mouth, and Dan’s heart starts pounding so hard he’s surprised Phil can’t hear it.

All that Dan has thought about them staying platonic goes out the window. Dan wants nothing more than to lunge forward and shove his lips against Phil’s, to run his hands through his hair, to climb into his lap and- “I didn’t puke!” Phil blurts out loudly, loud enough that everyone hears. The group falls silent before one of the other young men, Raz, gives Phil a thumbs up. “Good for you, bud. C’mon, let’s get these bags up to the cabin, and then we can get some food to celebrate.” Phil laughs a bit too hard at that, face bright red. As he clamors out of the van he leaves Dan in the backseat, trying to climb over the mountain of bags as he watches his friend chatter away as if nothing happened. He watches for a moment before shaking his head quickly, trying to erase the memory from his mind. He was just making things more complicated than they needed to be. They didn’t share a moment. No way.

Dan hauls his bag over his shoulder and walks along with PJ and Lou, struggling to stop the loop of those ten seconds from playing in his head.

Dan liked that the Bible study group wasn’t too Jesus-y. It was more philosophical than anything. Even church was just an hour a week on the weeks he went, which was really only once a month when Phil promised brunch afterward.

This weekend, he and his friends had realized, seemed to be where the group could get enough Jesus to last them until the next retreat. It started with grace before lunch-simple enough. But then a pastor had started to preach to them during lunch. And then after lunch. And then afternoon Bible study-for two hours, with a lot more reading and praying than actual discussion. Pj, Chris, and Louise were clearly trying not to fall asleep, while Phil sat off a bit, eyes trained on either the priest or his Bible, hugging himself tightly as he stayed completely silent.

“It’s just so boring!” Louise groaned once they were all finally outside and out of earshot. “I’m sorry, I know this is what you want to do with the rest of your life, Phil, but we’re in nature! Why are we just stuck in some stuffy room listening to an old dude read for hours when we can see the cool stuff God apparently built for us?” “God wants me to climb some of those rocks over there.” PJ agreed, snapping a few pictures on his phone. “He tried to call me earlier to tell me so, but reception sucks here.”

Phil laughed a bit, but it’s definitely more hollow than his normal giggles. “I’m sorry, I-I really thought-”

“Wait. Haven’t you been here before?” Louise asked as PJ started jogging over to the huge rocks, Chris following shortly after. Phil paused before rubbing the back of his neck. “I-I mean, yeah, but-”

They’re both cut off by someone calling Phil’s name, and he whirls around to see the priest-the same “old dude” Louise had just been insulting-walk over and clap a hand on Phil’s shoulder. “Philip, you must have grown a full foot since I last saw you!” Dan glances over at Phil with a slightly surprised look. He knew Phil had been here before, sure. But to know this man? Someone who seemed so different from Phil in so many ways?

“O-Oh, Father Richard. Hey. Guys, Father Richard worked at the camp I came to a-a couple of years ago.” “And Philip was one of the finest boys there, wasn’t he?” If the man notices Phil shift from one foot to the other nervously, he sure doesn’t show it. “I mean, they were all wonderful young men, don’t get me wrong. But Philip-you’re truly going to be a man of the cloth. Don’t you both think?” Dan is watching Father Richard’s face closely, immediately feeling himself wanting to leave the conversation as soon as possible. If it wasn’t for Phil, he’d have made an excuse and walked off by now. It seems like Louise isn’t thrilled, either, but she smiles and nods a bit. “It’s clearly his passion, uh, Father Richard.”

“Oh, absolutely. As long as he keeps his head out of the clouds.” He throws his head back and laughs, Phil’s grin looking more like a grimace as he chuckles along. “I swear, this boy would lose his head if it wasn’t attached to him!” “I think Phil’s pretty smart, actually.” Dan says suddenly, a good bit of bite to his tone. He’s not sure why, but something about this guy gives him the creeps. He stares him in the eyes as he gets a surprised look from both him and Phil.

After a moment, he clears his throat. “Well...I suppose he’s matured a lot over the past two years. Good to see you again, boy. We’ll have to catch up.” With that he heads off, giving Dan a slightly curious look as he does so, and Phil watches him go before shaking his head.

“Jeez. Phil Lester Fan Club over here.” Louise teased gently before frowning. “What’s his deal?” Phil bit his lip and sighed. “That’s how he is.” He explained quietly, yelping as Louise pulled him into a tight hug.

“Philly…” She cooed before moving to sit on the grass with him, motioning for Dan to do the same. “Talk to us? You’re not usually closed off like this. We know something’s up.” Phil squirms, and Dan can tell he’s debating whether or not to lie. He’s seen it before-when Chris asked if he looked good in his new neon t-shirt, or when some girl asked him once if she was being too annoying after complaining about her roommate to them for five minutes straight. “I just...I came to this camp when I was younger and had different ideas than I do now.” He explains finally.

“Like how interesting that Richard guy was?” Dan tries to joke, instantly regretting it as Phil brings his knees to his chest and curls up into himself.

His voice gets quiet, as it does sometimes when things get serious in group meetings and he’s comforting someone with a verse or trying to explain a tough concept to Dan.

“Like...I was raised to think God ruled with a vengeance. If you sinned in any way, He would punish you. That’s what my parents said. We were supposed to fear Him, y’know? And when I came here...Father Richard pushed that hard.” Phil explained gently. “But I don’t think God’s like that. I think we’re all sinners-we all make mistakes. James 3:2 and all that. God loves us in spite of our flaws. Hearing him talk about God like he was so cruel, and then reading about His love for us...it was the first time it didn’t add up for me.”

Dan’s eyes widened. In all his time of knowing Phil-two months doesn’t sound like much, but it feels like a lifetime ago-he’s never once heard him speak against his parent’s beliefs. Sure, he could admit that they were a bit extreme at times, but it was always quickly followed with how their intentions were good and that everything had been great.

“And as someone who wants to be a priest, I don’t think the way to get people to turn to God is to scream at them until they repent and scare them into not sinning. I think you need to be like Jesus. Hate the sin, love the sinner.” He continued, forcing a tiny smile as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Because we’re all His children, after all. And He’s got a path for all of us-fear won’t guide us onto that.”

There’s a moment of silence before Louise reaches down, giving his hair an affectionate tousle. “You start preaching like that and I’ll come to your church every Sunday. I’ll even sing in the choir.” She joked. A slow beam spread across Phil’s face-a a genuine one, and he stood up before pulling her into a tight hug.

“Thank you.” He whispered. “Thank you both. I-If I had known he would’ve been here, I’d have at least warned you-”

“Shush, mate. You had no idea. Trust me, you’re way too much of a softie to lie to us, we know that.” Dan laughed a bit, giving Phil’s back a light pat. Phil giggled a bit before pulling away, taking a deep breath.

“Wanna go make sure Chris and Peej don’t crack their heads open?” He said finally, and before they could say anything the two of them were taking off towards the rocks, Dan chasing after both of them. Despite his grin, he still couldn’t help but feel like his head was heavy with questions. Father Richard had seemed boring, and a bit grumpy, but not angry. Were Phil’s changing beliefs really all that had happened?

Phil had seemed relieved to talk for a bit, but the mood shifted again once evening activities started. Father Richard had preached again during dinner-and again, nothing terrible happened. He made a few dry jokes, he talked about having “complete and total faith”, he read some long passages that Dan didn’t care about. He was too busy glancing over at Phil next to him, who had left his food practically untouched.

Then there are evening vespers, with Phil’s hands clenched together so tightly in prayer that his knuckles turn white and his fingernails dig into the skin. The firepit seems to be going well-he shares a s’more with Dan, but before he could get another he’s pulled aside by Father Richard. Dan’s sure at one point the two glance over at Dan, but then Phil’s walking back over, trying to look interested in some story one of the group members is telling as he brings his knees to his chest. Even Chris and PJ seem to notice that something’s going on, but with a pointed look from Dan, they give him some space.

They turn in for the night, but Dan wakes up way too early to find Phil curled up on his bunk pouring over his Bible. The bags under his eyes tell Dan that he didn’t sleep a wink last night, and he sighs. “C’mon, you gotta show me where the showerhouse is.” He says gently, and Phil looks up at him with a tired laugh. “Do I?” He teased weakly. After a minute though, he sits up and stretches. “Mmm...fine. But no chickening out.” With that he hops down from the bunk, peeling off his shirt before walking over to his bag.

Dan’s pretty sure he gulps audibly as Phil grabs a change of clothes and a towel, eyes wandering over him. Though Phil braved the communal showers at Uni, he was always sure to change in the stall-Dan had never seen him in so much as a pair of shorts that went higher than his knees. And yet, here he was. Dan would feel guilty about watching him, especially considering he knew Phil was having a tough time, but…

He couldn’t help it. His best friend looked hot as hell from behind. He couldn’t help but admire his slim frame, his lean but toned arms, and when he turned around, the slight smattering of chest hair that slowly turned into a happy trail that crept lower, into-

“I’m telling you now, if you forget a towel you’ll regret it.” He said, voice still low from sleep, and Dan snapped his head up. “Towel! Right! Let me go grab that.” He squeaked and quickly moved to grab it, trying to hide his flushed cheeks as he snagged a change of clothes as well. By the time he looked up Phil was already heading for the door, humming under his breath, and Dan followed him quickly.

After a few moments of silence, Phil spoke. “Father Richard is leaving tonight, so you won’t have to sit through his lectures after today. He’s just stopping by to talk to us. So we’ll have less worship-y stuff and more free time tomorrow.” Phil glanced over at Dan. “Sorry if I’m weird about it. I just..y’know.”

Dan nodded and relaxed into the shared feeling of relief, even if he didn’t exactly know what Phil was talking about. Before he could ask, though, they were at the small building-just a row of four stalls that looked like bathroom stalls, built out of wood. As Dan stepped inside and stripped-definitely not thinking about how Phil was doing the same just inches away, especially as he heard his sweatpants hit the ground-he rubbed his eyes. “Is there coffee here?”

“Oh, trust me, you don’t need coffee here.” Phil laughed a bit, a genuine one, and Dan raised an eyebrow, glancing over at where his head peeked over the stall.

“Dude, I’ve seen you-sweet fuck!” Dan shrieked as he turned the single knob on and freezing cold water shot out of a showerhead on the ceiling. “How the fuck do you get the hot water?!”

Phil was really laughing now, his witch cackle carrying over Dan’s screams. “No hot water at camp.” He sang playfully. “And no swearing, either, but-”

“Christ on a bike, no wonder you were fucking miserable here!” The words come out before he can realize it, and suddenly he freezes (as well as he can while shivering like mad), but Phil only laughs harder.

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” Dan can hear the grin in his voice, and he lets out a long breath. “Whatever. Shitting fucking fuck! Let’s get this over with.”

Dan somehow manages to survive the worst shower of his life, his hair curling as he towels himself off before tugging on clothes and leaving the showerhouse. If it wasn’t for the bright smile on Phil’s face, he’d say it wasn’t worth it. But at least for right now, Phil is his old, giggly self again, and Dan comes to the realization he’d do just about anything to keep him like that.

Unfortunately for Dan, it doesn’t last long. As they’re walking back to the cabin, Phil glances across the way and sees Father Richard, walking through the trees. “Oh, shoot, c’mon-” Phil grabs Dan’s arm and tugs him along a bit faster, not looking behind him for nearly a full minute. As he glances over and sees the look on Dan’s face he finally stops, sighing softly. The joy from before is gone. “Sorry. I just...too early to try to handle that right now.” “Yeah, yeah, of course. Let’s just get going to the cabin, yeah? I’m still freezing.” Dan jokes weakly, and Phil tries to crack a smile, still looking uncomfortable as they walk along the trail in silence.

The rest of the day is disturbingly similar to yesterday, and the whole group is sensing that Phil is just...off. He’s usually eager to jump into discussions, but even when Father Richard gives them the chance to talk, Phil seems totally holed up in himself, mumbling something about wanting to give others a time to speak (which pushes the topic along to Louise, who fumbles it totally and is earned a condescending smile from Father Richard).

By lunch, Dan thinks he can’t sit through another hour of this. By mid-afternoon, he’s considering faking being possessed by Satan. And by dinner, he’s come up with about forty ways to fake the possession. The only reason keeping him from doing so is that when he mutters it to PJ he tells him to wait until after dinner-if he keeps Chris from food, he’ll have bigger things to worry about than a camp full of religious fanatics thinking he’s possessed.

They set the tables and then get in line to eat dinner. Dan immediately realizes Phil isn’t anywhere to be found, exchanging concerned looks with Louise. When they get five minutes into dinner and realize that Father Richard is also missing, he starts to worry.

What if Father Richard was...well, what would he do?

The truth is, Dan doesn’t know what the big deal is with this guy. He honestly doesn’t seem to be too bad, but the control he has over Phil’s emotions is genuinely weird. Still, he doesn’t want to cause a scene.

“Hey, Caroline!” He says, quickly jogging over to the young woman, and she gives Dan a kind smile. “Dan, hey! How have you been enjoying this so far?” She asked gently, resting a hand on his arm. “I know it can be intense, considering your, um...well, you weren’t exactly in the church before you joined us, and-”

“Caroline, it’s all great, but do you know where Phil is?”

She smiles and gives Dan’s arm a squeeze. “I’m so glad you two found each other, you know that? You guys are like-”

“Caroline.”

“Okay, okay. I won’t be mushy, even if you guys are my favorite freshmen.” She winked before waving her hand towards the door. “He’s out by the lake with Father Rich. They go way back, did you know?”

Dan nods slowly. It’s clearly not the answer he wanted, because Caroline leans in. “Don’t tell him I said this, but trust me, Phil’s not choosing Father Richard over you. You’re still his BFF.”

Wonderful. That’s the reassurance he needed right now, that Phil wasn’t going to choose a 65-year-old man to be his ‘BFF”. He manages to smile and thank Caroline before going to wait on the mess hall deck. If Richard was going to drag Phil away, then dammit, he was going to be the first to talk to him when he got back.

Phil doesn’t come back up to the mess hall for at least another hour. His eyes are rimmed red, and he’s alone. The second Dan hears his footsteps he shoots up. “Phil!” He shouts after he yanks his earbuds out, and Phil lets out a yelp, laughing shakily. “Oh my God, did he-did he make you cry?!”

Phil rubs his eyes quickly and giggles weakly. “Dan, I cry at everything. We cried together over that muffin in the dining hall on Wednesday, remember?”

Dan doesn’t look convinced in the slightest, but suddenly Phil’s arms are pulling him into a long hug. “We just had a long talk. Don’t tell me I missed anything?”

“They went on some dumb night hike, but-don’t tell me you wanted to go on the night hike?” He asked as he saw the disappointment on Phil’s face, frowning. “We can go! We can go right now, and meet them, and-” “Dan. Breathe, okay?” He giggled and led Dan inside. “Our group can go on our own little night hike tomorrow, I’ll survive. Besides. I haven’t gotten to spend time with you these past couple of days, and I’ve missed you.” Phil’s voice is a bit softer, and he gives him a shy smile.

Dan’s face turns red and he sits down in one of the faded couches, Phil flopping next to him. “It’s only been, like, a day and a half.” He mumbles.

“It’s been a long day and a half.” Dan nods slowly, looking up at Phil. “Is he gone?” “Yep. Just left camp now. Didn’t wanna make a fuss.” Dan can’t help but roll his eyes a bit at that, shaking his head. “Now, c’mon. Can we talk about something fun? Like…” He reaches out and snatches up an old copy of Women’s Health from a bin by the fireplace, clearly meant for kindling. “What advice can we find for two lovely women like ourselves?”

As he flutters his eyelashes at him, Dan can’t help but laugh, grabbing the magazine from him. The two swap it back and forth, giggling like children at the stupid advice and making fun of all the pictures. The tension from before melts away, and suddenly it’s just Dan and Phil, the two of them being absolute idiots and laughing over nothing. After the last day and a half, it feels amazing to just laugh.

When they finish that one they go to the next one in the bin. They read through issues of Runner’s World, Golf Digest, Christian Living, Better Homes and Gardens, and even a Highlights before Phil’s stomach lets out a loud growl.

“Oooh, I need some food. Why don’t I go grab us some snacks from the kitchen? There’s some board games in one of the closets, find something for us to play?”

With that, he’s up and going into the kitchen, and Dan wanders over to one of the closet doors. Sure enough, he sees some old board game boxes peeking out behind some moving boxes. Dan goes to move one out of the way when he catches a peek of the pile of brochures inside. His eyes run over the text and clip-art outline of a strong-looking man. Program Judges 6:12 at Camp Brabeck: For teen boys and young men struggling with sexual impurity.

Sexual impurity? Dan grabs the brochure and flips it open.

Today, our young men are raised in a culture where abnormal lifestyles are being accepted, even praised and celebrated. It’s no wonder that more youth than ever before are turning out oversexualized and confused, and more than ever are struggling with same-sex desires...

From there on, the words start to blur together for Dan, and he flips the brochure over.

And then Dan sees it. In the top corner is Father Richard, smiling wide.

With his hand on Phil’s shoulder.

Dan feels his stomach churn violently as he looks at younger Phil. There’s no way it could be anyone else. Even if he’s a bit shorter, and his hair isn’t dyed, Dan’s studied Phil’s face long enough to know it’s him. As Dan grips the picture frame in his hands, Phil’s words from yesterday come back to him, hitting his chest like rocks.

“Hate the sin, love the sinner.”

Phil worked with Father Richard, at this-this “camp”, this place. They worked together.

“God loves us in spite of our flaws.”

Not only was Phil not gay, thus extinguishing the slightest bit of hope he had, but Phil was actively homophobic. Phil worked at a bloody conversion therapy site, for fuck’s sake.

“He’s got a path for all of us.”

Phil wasn’t uncomfortable about Father Richard-he was uncomfortable about Dan and their friends being around Father Richard, and them finding out just what a homophobic, lying, fake-

“I found Pop-Tarts!”

Phil’s voice interrupts the swirling thoughts in his head, and he slowly turns, holding the brochure up. “Were you ever going to mention this?” Phil’s face goes pale. “I...Where did you…” He whispers, but Dan growls. Actually growls. Red hot anger is taking control now as days, weeks, months, years of suffocated emotions rises to the top suddenly. A lifetime of not fitting in, a lifetime of hiding, and to be rejected by Phil-like this.

“Nice pic of you and your friend, Phil. You worked with him on this? You and Richard, two pals-and you knew we’d judge you for it, so you just decided not to tell us?!”

“Wait, wait, Dan, no. It’s not like that. That’s not what-” Phil tries to butt in. Dan isn’t having it.

“Do you realize what kind of damage you do to people, Phil?! You can’t act like-like Little Mr. Innocent about this, this is some seriously fucked up shit you’ve done!” Dan’s properly yelling now, getting to his feet and not even stopping as Phil cowers back. “And-And worst of all, you hid it from us! You talk like you love everyone, hiding behind your stupid flowery language, but you’re a total fucking hateful dick!”

Phil suddenly stands as well, putting his hands in front of his chest, but irritation is creeping into his voice. “Daniel. Listen to me, you don’t understand. I’m not hateful-” “Oh-Oh yeah? Not hateful, huh? Not hateful when you say ‘gay is an artificial construct, created to celebrate people’s sinful homosexual desires’? Or when your stupid fucking camp goes to ‘remove young men from their unhealthy environment to bring them to Jesus and see the errors they’re making’?” Dan’s reading directly from the pamphlet now. “That doesn’t sound loving, Phil!”

“Dan, let me-” “There is literally nothing you could say to make this better. You think you’re helping, don’t you? But you’re just-just spreading hate, and-” Dan’s words are cut off as Phil suddenly grabs him by the back of his head, pulling him into a hard kiss. For possibly the first time in his life, Dan is rendered speechless, especially a few moments later when Phil pulls away and his eyes well up.

“Dan…” He choked out, sinking down onto the couch and starting to sob. “I didn’t-I didn’t-” After a moment he grabs the brochure weakly. “I didn’t work at the camp.” He chokes out finally, and Dan just stands frozen in place. “I was a camper.”

Dan hates that he doesn’t know whether he should trust him or not. But...this is Phil, crying ugly, hard sobs, and he can’t help but feel his heart break in two. “A...camper?” He asks slowly, moving to sit next to him but keeping his distance.

Phil lets out a pained noise but nods. “I signed up to go. Because I kept having these-these dreams, and these urges. And I thought if I did everything right, if I listened to Father R-Richard…” He has to stop himself to catch his breath as it comes quicker, curling into himself and resting his head on his knees. “I thought if I could be perfect, I could b-be like him. A priest. A husband, to a wife. A father to my k-kids. An ex-homosexual.” He said, tears streaming down his face. “Dan, I-I tried so hard…” Dan frowns, running a hand through his hair slowly. “You can’t just-I mean, I don’t think it works like that, Phil,” Dan says after a moment, and Phil nods quickly. “I know, I know. God knows I know. They tried everything on m-me. I mean, everything. But the more they did, the more angry I got, with myself, with Richard, with God. I hated God, Dan, I hated him so much, and I did all this stuff…” Dan can’t stop himself but reaching out and taking his hand at that, and Phil clings to it almost instantly. “I lied, and I ripped up my Bible, and I did stuff with the other guys there…”

Dan blinked a few times. For Phil, that was intense, and he can hear the guilt and true sorrow in his voice. “You-I mean, no offense, but kissing a few guys and tearing up a book aren’t exactly unforgivable sins.” He says, hoping to bring him comfort. To his surprise, Phil laughs sadly.

“I did more than just kiss, trust me. When Richard found me in the showers with one of the guys-”

At that Dan’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. Phil, who half an hour ago was blushing at ads for tampons, in the showers with a guy? “He-He decided I needed more intense therapy. It was hours and hours of just being told how disgusting I was, being shown these videos, being preached at, b-but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop feeling like I did.”

“Phil…” Dan feels his broken heart finally crumble. He pulls him into a hug, letting him sob into his hair.

“F-Finally I just lied my way th-through it. That’s what m-most of us do. And then I was th-the big success story, and they took that dumb picture, and it was finally over. I went home, and I was so mad I decided I’d go through my Bible-the nice, new one my parents had bought me, when they heard that ‘somebody’ tore up my old one-to s-see how wrong I was before and how terrible He was. So I stayed up for nearly a week, no school, no nothing. Just reading.”

Phil pulled away to reach out, grabbing his copy of the Bible from his bag “ And as I read, I…”

He took a deep breath as he opened it up and slowly turned the pages, motioning to the Post-Its and notes littering the scripture. “I didn’t find that. I found a God that wanted me to love-He wanted me to love my family, and my friends, and my neighbors, and-and guys. He wanted me to love you. He wanted me to love you, romantically.” At that, Dan feels his heart stop and he gently moves to look Phil in the eyes. “You really think that?” He whispered, Phil nodding quickly as he ran a hand through Dan’s hair.

“God gave us all the ability to love-fully, and deeply, and wonderfully. And-And I love you, so much. I didn’t want to freak you out, and I’m not ready to be out, but-” This time it’s Dan’s turn to cut him off with a slower, gentler kiss. “Shh. We don’t have to tell anyone.” He murmured.

“It can just be us?” Phil asked in a small voice. “Just you and me?”

At that, Dan is pretty sure he’s going to explode, because dear God that’s all he’s ever wanted. He wants to scream, he wants to jump up and down, he wants to run down the fucking mountain and throw rocks at Father Richard’s car-

Instead, Dan takes a deep breath before smiling and nodding. “Just me and you.” He agreed quietly.

He leaned in and kissed Phil again, cupping his cheeks. This time was gentler, and Phil let out a soft, relieved noise as his lips moved against Dan’s and he pulled Dan close to him.

“I love you,” Dan says once they pull away. “I love you, I love you, I love you-”

“Have I ever read you Proverbs 17:28?” Phil interrupts with a giggle. Dan raises an eyebrow but grabs Phil’s Bible, flipping to it.

Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.

“Did you just ask me to shut up and keep kissing you through a Bible verse?!” Dan whined, but he can’t help but grin as Phil kept laughing, nodding as he connected their lips again.

Time seems to stand still. Two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, ten hours, ten years-Dan can only guess how much time has passed when they hear the group off in the distance. “Shit-shit, okay, one last-” Dan jerked away but Phil giggled, grabbing the plate of Pop-Tarts and Dan’s hand before dragging him outside. He took him out a bit before they got down to the lake, sitting on the sand and wrapping his arms around Dan. Dan pauses before shyly climbing into his lap, and then they’re kissing again, Phil only pausing to catch his breath and murmur “I’m sorry you thought I could be homophobic.” “I’m sorry I didn’t ask before jumping to conclusions.” “I’m sorry I didn’t open up about what had happened.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you away from Father Richard.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you away from Father Richard.” “I’m sorry I couldn’t have been that guy in the showers with you.” The words leave Dan’s mouth before he can stop himself-humor is a coping mechanism for him, but right now, he wants to kick himself when he hears Phil’s gasp.

“Oi! Not yet, at least.” He said with a slight laugh, pressing his lips to Dan’s cheek and watching as his face burns red. He grins and presses a few pecks to his lips before looking up at the sky.

“...You really think God wants this for us?” Dan says and Phil closes his eyes, snuggling closer.

“‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:113 to 114’.” Phil recited quietly. “God made us fearfully-like, with great awe and respect of us-and wonderfully. He made us find each other, he made us love each other.” He kissed Dan’s nose. “So that’s us. Fearfully and wonderfully made.” Dan looks at Phil with a soft smile, a bit worn from all the excitement of the day, but feeling...free. “Fearfully and wonderfully, huh?”

Phil nods, and Dan pulls him even closer.

“I could get used to that.”

#phan #dan howell #phil lester #dan and phil #phanfiction #phanfic #phanfic au

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honeybinnies · 4 years

Text

[2:33pm] the sound of laughter and chattering overpowered the clinks and clashing of cutlery against the ceramic plates of the restaurant, the presence of each person enough to make the entire table lively. it was chan’s birthday today, and the gang decided to throw him a surprise birthday celebration at this fine dining restaurant. it was quite the surprise that minho was the one who suggested it, considering that the man was pretty tight with his finance. chan and the rest could only thank him for having to throw such a lavish birthday celebration from minho’s kindness.

“so, 23, huh?” jeongin flashed the birthday boy a bright grin, one that made chan smile himself. “do we officially have the rights to call you “boomer”, boomer?”

the entire table lit up at jeongin’s teasing, each of the guys chorusing in a chant towards their eldest while the man of the hour could only swat his hand at such the name, as if telling all of them to stop. “i am not a boomer, guys. i’m still as much as a gen z as all you guys are.”

“oh, you are so a boomer!” felix scoffed, nudging chan by the arm. “you literally hold your phone up and ask us “so, what do you click in order to go to my gallery?” or “ah, so this is how the generation of today uses tiktok!”“

chan rolled his eyes at this, trying not to mind the high fives his friends gave each other (and the way jisung choked on his garlic bread). “hey, in my defense, it was a brand new phone! how the hell was i supposed to know how you kids did those stupid dances and whatnot.”

“okay, boomer.”

the laughter boomed across the table once more, and they didn’t care if the people stared. the bunch weren’t really the type to have formal parties such as these nowadays, assuming that all of them had little to earn each week and four weeks a month to completely slack off on takeout and extra nap times. they weren’t exactly the bougie type, in fact seungmin was the most bougie out of all of them. the man had a good monthly pay in his salary anyway, and he was a happy virus at work. the people love him, and his charisma is enough to send restaurants offering discounts on their bill. they can just say that they’re lucky to have a friend like seungmin.

that’s the thing, however. where was seungmin?

“um, guys,” woojin cleared his throat, and gestured towards the missing chair beside hyunjin. “where’s seungmin?”

the laughter died down instantly and veered their train of vision towards the empty seat of their table. stunned to the sudden disappearance of their friend, they all blinked, oblivious as to what happened to the guy. “he’s probably in the bathroom.” hyunjin ventured a guess, probably to state the obvious. the rest bought it, though with hesitation, and just continued on with their conversation as if believing hyunjin’s guess.

hyunjin’s guess was true. seungmin was in the bathroom. the only thing hyunjin didn’t get right was that seungmin was in the bathroom cubicle with a girl pinned against the cubicle door and with his lips smashed passionately against hers, tongues caught in a sloppy frenzy and hands roaming all over each other.

talk about being bougie.

“wow,” you gasped between kisses, your hands slipping to grip seungmin’s arms, “for a guy who’s done this for the first time, you’re amazingly good at making out.” you let out a quiet moan when seungmin grazed his hips closer to yours, and placed his knee between your legs, drawing pressure against your clothed entrance, and that was enough for him to smirk against your bottom lip before sucking on it gently and licking the strawberry gloss of your throbbing lips.

the pleasure sounded from your throat as you whimpered against him, raking his hair out of his face and tugging at his roots, testing to see if he would like such a thing. your ego heightened when he sighed euphorically against your lips, and you let him take his sweet time when his lips traveled against your neck, his hot kisses hitting your sensitive spot instantly. as much as you knew that time was running short, and you both knew that your friends would begin to wonder where you two went, you never wanted this to end. it was the only the time that you both were able to experience a no-strings-attached relationship; just two strangers making out in a public bathroom where their moans could be heard across the cubicle. as much as you two would get caught, none of you minded.

“you look so good right now, you know that?” seungmin husked against your lips, and rose to peck your lips gently before pulling you up against the cubicle door. you didn’t know what to say, as your vision was blurred with lust and your hearing was clouded from the pants you made. all you ever did was whimper against seungmin’s touch when his hand ran up your thigh to replace his knee with his hand, fingers working magically against your entrance, stimulating your arousal. you threw your head against seungmin’s neck to muffle the moans, and spread your legs wider to feel his fingers in your entrance.

“more, minnie.” you muffled against his nape, bringing your body closer to him and gripping his hips to feel some more friction. “please, put them in, for the love of god.”

suddenly, seungmin stopped, as if gaining consciousness from his surroundings around him. his hand immediately left your underwear the moment you said that, and he immediately staggered backwards, eyes wide and innocent, something different prior to the gaze he held earlier. you both stared each other for a good second, trying to catch your breaths, processing what you just did. seungmin was the first to speak up in a while, his voice low and regretful. “god, oh god, what did i just do? i made out with a complete stranger! this--this isn’t me, this is so not me.”

then, he stared at you, and you were beginning to feel guilt pooling when his look seem dejected, as if deciphering all the wrong doings he did in his life. it’s not like you didn’t care either. this isn’t something that you would do. the both of you acted on impulse, but if you were to look on the bright side, you both achieved a no-strings-attached fling. even though, you sighed, shaking your head at him. “you’re right. this isn’t me either. god, we’re both so stupid!”

seungmin watched as you made your way towards the closed toilet and slumped on it, running your hands over your face. the man sighed at your figure, so small, so sad, and fixed himself up a little to save himself some time. “well, if it helps,” he then went over to you and lifted your face, his smile suddenly sweet and comforting. “that was the best makeout session i ever had. you really are something, [first name].”

this brought a smile to your face as you let seungmin fix you up; he adjusted your bra strap, straightened your skirt, and tucked a messy strand over your ear. you weren’t going to lie, but this touches seemed much sweeter than the previous ones that you’ve felt from him, you didn’t know what to make of that. “thanks, seungmin. sex-wise, you seem like a cool guy. i wish we could’ve met on different circumstances.”

“i wish so as well.” seungmin murmured gently, before he rose up and unlocked the cubicle door. “come on, we gotta get out of here. we can’t leave our friends hanging.”

you looked at him for a few moments before rising up yourself, exiting the cubicle per seungmin’s demand. as you both were about to open the bathroom door, you stopped short at the exit, and faced seungmin. “can we...can we start over? what we did back there was amazing, but it isn’t something that we should be known for, if we were to put a label on this thing. i think you’re an amazing guy, seungmin. i feel like i wouldn’t want to waste meeting a man like you.”

seungmin nodded, pressing his lips in an understatement. “of course we can. i’d like to get to more about you, [first name]. say, how about we go out for dinner here? next saturday, probably. my treat, considering i’m the one who came onto you and all that.” his voice went smaller by the word, and it seemed that he was bashful to even have started this whole thing. you thought that it was endearing, seeing him all flustered like that. it was one of the things you decided to add to the list of reasons to fall for seungmin, but you didn’t tell him that. not yet, anyway.

“i would love that.” is all you said, before you both made your separate ways. you could never forget the bright smile that seungmin emitted from your answering, and seungmin could never forget the way you giggled as you said that, making his heart do little somersaults at his happiness.

everybody went on a total interrogation phase when seungmin arrived his seat, each of his friends bombarding him with questions of his disappearance and the suspicions of his wrinkled shirt and slightly unkempt hair. well, each of his friends except for changbin, who only sat there sipping his margarita while staring into a different space. let’s just say he’s heard some stuff while he was at the bathroom and decided not to comment on it to the rest of the bunch. that would just be stealing chan’s thunder anyway.

#stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids smut #ok and a bit of fluff too #stray kids #skz #kim seungmin #kim seungmin smut #honbinnies writes #hi this is my comeback #i honestly think its a lil sloppy but hey #we get chans birthday #seungmin making out w u #AND RE-ACQUAINTANCE AINT THAT COOL #remember: im a vanilla smut writer #and that cockwarming blurb might be posted after new years lmao sorry #cheers!

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sincerelyreidburke · 4 years

Note

Omg can I please have a fic where Quinn (possibly backed by all of SMH) absolutely throws down N*te. And then maybe comforts a Sad Nando bc nando is Soft and needles all the cuddles and support

Okay, this has been in popular demand for quite some time now. It may be 1:31 AM, but I’m counting this as a little birthday present for Nando.

Set during Quinn’s summer in Arizona. :D

One of the first steps of taking your boyfriend home for the summer is showing him around.

For the past six days, that’s what Nando has taken it upon himself to do. He can’t believe, actually, that he and Quinn have been home from school for an entire week already— well, a week tomorrow, but still— and yet here they are, arrived at the last day of Nando’s extensive tour of the Phoenix metro area. They’ve spaced it out— something one day, something another— like dinner at Tio’s one night, an afternoon meeting his best friends from home, showing Quinn his childhood rink.

He’s satisfied with his own performance as a tour guide, but tomorrow means his first shift at Tio’s restaurant, which means that summer job season is really beginning. Which, like, obviously he and Quinn can still hang out— they’re living under the same roof; and if it’s not Mama or one of the girls, Quinn is the first person he sees every morning. It’s just that once he has a summer job schedule, their days won’t be entirely their own anymore.

For Quinn, he knows, that might be a little weird, at least for these first three weeks until Gabi and Rosa get out of school. Once they’re done, the summer theatre stuff starts up, and Quinn is getting paid to do that, so he’ll have something to do.

In the meantime, though, Nando knows he brought things with him. Like his knitting stuff. And a few books. And his camera.

And until tomorrow, the time is still theirs.

“Okay, my love,” Quinn says, at the kitchen table, over his toast and eggs. The morning is all theirs; Mama is at work, so once they got the twins out the door and onto the bus, Nando made him breakfast. “What’s on the agenda today?”

Nando grins at him. “Oh, you’re curious?”

He shrugs. “In a way.” He’s wearing a baggy KMH shirt tucked into his pajama bottoms, and he hasn’t even done his hair yet. Nando lives for seeing him like this— his obsessively proper boyfriend, who won’t be caught dead in jeans outside of a party, in his pajamas in his family’s kitchen.

It has been six days, and having Quinn at home has given him enough fuel for domestic daydreaming to last a lifetime.

It’s going to be a good summer.

“Well, I saved a good thing for last,” Nando tells him, reaching for his hand across the table. “We’re going to the beach.”

Quinn raises his eyebrows, skeptical. “In Arizona.”

“Yes,” he chirps back, because two can play at this game. “I’m driving you eight hours south to the ocean. Do you have your passport?” Quinn laughs a little, and he adds, “No, baby, the beach by the river. There’s a little park there. We can sit by the water in the sun.”

“Ooh.” Quinn smiles. “That sounds lovely.”

“But first,” he adds, squeezing his hand. “I’m taking you to my favorite Starbucks.”

Quinn cocks his head, with amusement in his smile now. “You have a favorite Starbucks?”

“You don’t have a favorite Starbucks?” he replies.

“I…” He trails off a little. “I can’t say I do, actually.”

“Well, I’ll educate you.” He brings his hand to his face, kisses it, and says, “Maybe this one will become your favorite.”

Quinn’s smile is the cutest shit he has ever seen. “Maybe so.”

In the truck, on the way there, Quinn is watching out the window. “So why is it your favorite?”

“Huh?”

“The Starbucks.” He looks to him across the console. “Why is it your favorite?”

“Oh.” Nando grins. “Well, okay. It’s, like, classic Arizona architecture, and—”

“Wait, you like it because of the architecture?” Quinn chuckles a little. “Are you Ben?”

“Jesus, baby, are you chirping me?” Nando jostles his arm, and Quinn laughs. “You’re a regular KMH member. I’m impressed.”

Quinn shrugs. “I suppose you’re finally rubbing off on me.”

“Wow.” Nando loves his boyfriend. “I’m honored. But FYI, I was only starting with the reasons I liked it.”

“Okay, continue, then.”

“Okay, so it has a lot of really nice outdoor seating.” Nando pauses. “It’s, like, near a shopping center, but it’s separate from the rest of the stores, so it’s not just some ugly spot. They always have the good cake pops, and plus, the manager is cool. They have blue hair and they wear a bunch of pride pins on their apron.”

“Okay.” Quinn nods, as Nando watches him process. Or at least sort of watches him, because he is, technically, still driving a vehicle, cute as the boy in the passenger’s seat may be. “That does sound like a good Starbucks.” He pauses. “What do you mean by the good cake pops?”

“Lemon ones,” he replies. “And chocolate. And, during Pride month, rainbow.”

“Oh my goodness.” Quinn closes his eyes, like he’s having a moment. “Now I’m craving a cake pop.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re on our way there,” Nando replies, and he laughs.

It only takes a few more minutes to arrive. The parking lot is sort of crowded, but it doesn’t look like a mob scene, which is nice. Nando sees an empty table for two under a palm tree on the patio that has their name on it.

“Here we are,” he remarks, parking the truck across the lot from the door. “Our cake pops await.”

Quinn puts on his sunglasses. Their lenses are rose-gold and circular, and he looks criminally adorable in them. And also kind of super hot. That’s the thing about Quinn. He’s the cutest thing in the world and he’s also the source of literally all of Nando’s thirst. And he can turn on a dime. “I’m ready,” he tells him, combing back his hair. Already, with the past week in the sun, it’s gone a little lighter blond on the top. “I’ll have you know, my expectations are extremely high.”

“Oh, this won’t disappoint you,” Nando assures him. “I promise.”

They walk hand-in-hand across the parking lot, and Nando grabs the door for him. Inside is sweet air-conditioned bliss, and it smells like fresh-roasted coffee beans and the bakery case. Nando hasn’t been in here since Christmas break, and it’s been too long.

There’s a small line, but it won’t take more than a few minutes to get to the register. He tries to see who’s working, in case it’s Shai, but he can’t get a good look at the cashier, and there’s no sign of their blue mohawk among the baristas making the drinks.

Shai is actually, like, thirty, and possibly married, but they memorized his drink order in high school and always complimented him on his pride shirts, so they’re one of those older queer people Nando has just imprinted on. And, okay, yeah. He was totally excited to bring his boyfriend in here to meet them. It’s the little things.

Going around town with Quinn is like showing him off, and he has never been happier.

As they get in line, Quinn wraps his hand around his elbow, leaning into him. “It smells good in here,” he hums, with his head against his shoulder.

“I told you,” Nando replies, kissing his temple. “This is a magical place.”

He checks his phone, briefly, while they wait in line; he hasn’t actually looked at it since he woke up this morning. He has a few Snapchats in the cricket group chat, plus one from Nursey (he and Dex just got engaged, which, !!!!!!), and a separate text from Rhodey (it looks like he sent him a TikTok; Rhodey is obsessed with TikTok). He opens the cricket group, turns his front camera on, and snaps a selfie. Quinn is smiling with his cheek against his shoulder, and he himself looks like a little bit of a meme, but Quinn looks cute, so he saves it before he types the caption (coffee run y’all want anything) and sends it through.

In exactly twenty seconds, Rhodey replies. It’s a picture of himself in his work uniform— he delivers pizzas in Providence— and he’s flashing a peace sign at the camera. His hair is in a pink, blue, and yellow striped scrunchie. ya get me an americano. also yall are gay

Quinn snickers. “Well, I would sure hope so, Ben.”

Nando pockets his phone and hooks his arm around his neck. “Super gay.”

Quinn leans into his shoulder. “Mm.” He nods. “The gayest.”

They move forward a spot in line, then another. In fact, they move forward three entire spots without incident. Quinn is humming some showtune— it’s from Spring Awakening; he recognizes it— and Nando is keeping his eyes peeled for Shai, or at least someone he knows. Look at me! I’m in love and I’m happy.

But then God says, be careful what you wish for.

Because as they move into the spot where they’re up next to order, he catches the sound of the cashier’s voice. “... and can I get a name for the order?”

All of the life leaves Nando’s body.

“Holly? Great.” The voice is nasally, and a little artificially cheerful. He hasn’t heard it— outside of a few drunk voicemails— in over two years, but it evokes a visceral reaction in him. He feels sick, all of a sudden. “That’ll be right up.”

He must be tense all of a sudden, because Quinn peers up at him. “Sebastián?” he asks, and what a difference between two voices. “Are you alright?”

He tries to take a deep breath. “I, um.” He pauses. “I think we have to leave.”

“Next customer, please?”

“Leave?” Quinn squints. “But we’re next!”

The people in front of them step to the side counter, and Nando sputters too long. “We, uh—”

But when the way is clear, it’s too late. “Sebby!”

Nando wants to die.

“Holy shit!” Nate has a different haircut, and a Starbucks apron, but otherwise he’s the same— the same pasty pale skin, the same bony stature, the same face so easily twisted into a scowl. Right now, though, he’s smiling, which, honestly, is an expression that looks alien on him, based on Nando’s memory. “You didn’t tell me you were home from school!”

What he wants to say is, Nate, why the fuck would I tell you I was home from school, but what he does say is, “Uh, hi.”

He is going to cringe himself to death. He’s been home for no less than six days, and he is already running into his ex with his boyfriend.

When did he start working here?

“It’s been forever!” As Nate keeps on this weirdly cordial tangent, Nando feels Quinn still next to him. Quinn knows vaguely what Nate looks like, but what he knows better is the way he used to act, and the fact that he used to call him Sebby. Also, he’s wearing a nametag. And Nando feels as stiff as a board. “How’ve you been?”

Very carefully, Quinn unwinds his arm from his, and takes a firm, obvious grip on his hand.

“Jeez, I keep trying to reach out to you,” Nate continues, like they’re old friends running into each other, and not exes with a toxic history. “We really should catch up sometime, now that you’re in town.”

Nando takes a long breath, like it’ll fix the tension in his chest. He squeezes at Quinn’s hand, which helps a little. Quinn leads when they step up to the counter, and he inhales like he wants to order, but Nate is still fucking going. “Who’s your friend?” he asks.

“Boyfriend,” Quinn blurts, in his I’m pissed and I mean business voice, which, thank God for this boy. “I’m his boyfriend.”

Nate raises his eyebrows a little, looking at Quinn like he’s a five-year-old having a tantrum. “Oh,” he says, shrugging. “My bad. Although, I should’ve known.” Nate’s eyes dart to him for a second, and Nando wants to scrub himself clean of that gaze. “He tends to go for the little guys,” Nate continues, to Quinn, gesturing between the two of them like he’s comparing their heights. Then he shrugs again. “Gotta balance it out, y’know?”

Nando’s stomach turns. It stings, so much, and as soon as this is out of Nate’s mouth he feels Quinn squeeze his hand so hard it’s like he intends to break bones. He squeezes right back, and God, he knows it’s cruel and unnecessary and shouldn’t bother him, and it’s been almost three fucking years since he had to deal with Nate, but it still hurts. It hurts just as much as every comment like that did from him. It sends him back to memories of hating and second-guessing himself, and he just. He feels so fucking humiliated.

Quinn takes a very long breath, his eyes on Nate, while he digests this, and then he says, “Can I get a peach green tea, please.” He pauses, still squeezing the circulation out of his hand, and it is the only thing keeping Nando from tearing up. Which is pathetic. But he’s just. It hurts. “And he’ll have a—”

“Mocha frappe. Yeah. I know.” Nate chuckles a little, already grabbing a cup. “Extra whip, right?”

Quinn bristles, face flushing, and finally, Nando finds his voice. “Actually,” he says, “no.” Because even though that was what he was going to order, he doesn’t want to give Nate the satisfaction of thinking he still knows him that well. His Starbucks order may be the same, but there’s so much about him that’s changed since Nate knew him. So much about him that’s better now. Without him. He orders his second favorite. “An iced vanilla latte.” And then, because even though he really doesn’t feel like being polite to him, he feels like Mama might manifest in this Starbucks and kick his ass if he doesn’t say it, he adds, “Please.”

“Hm, my mistake,” Nate says, with a shrug, as he’s writing on the two cups. “I guess you’re a new man, Sebby. We really should catch up.” Quinn’s death grip intensifies, because he knows how much Nando cannot stand being called that. He brings his other hand back to wrap around his elbow, too, like he’s being protective, and Nando has never been more grateful for him.

“Anyway, that’ll be right up.” Nate looks so unbothered, just the way he always did, years ago, when he’d make a comment that left Nando’s self-esteem reeling for days afterward. “I guess I don’t really need your name for the order, huh?”

He’s writing on the cup, and Nando can’t see— or just doesn’t want to— but Quinn must be able to, because he says, “His name is Sebastián.”

Nate raises his eyebrows. “Ooh, feisty.” And of course Quinn sounds mad— but Nate making fun of him will do nothing but add more fuel to the fire. Nate looks to him, past Quinn entirely, and adds, “Does he speak for you all the time like this, or—?”

Nando wants to melt into the floor. “Just give us our total, Nate,” he says, because the faster they can get out of here, the better. Quinn is bristling next to him, but stays quiet.

Nate sighs, shrugs a little, and punches into the cash register. “If you say so,” he says, then announces, “6.23.”

And he thinks that’s going to be the end, but then, as he’s handing over his card, Nate keeps fucking talking. “Oh!” he says, still all faux-fake. “Sebby, you should take him to the lake. Remember, when we’d go down there in high school?”

Quinn’s grip on him tightens. This transaction cannot process fast enough. “We had a lot of fun,” Nate says, like he’s reminiscing. “Always did. It’s a shame; I feel like we never really had closure.”

Finally, finally, after what feels like a million years, he hands his card back, and Nando pockets it in a hurry. “C’mon,” he says to Quinn, because he cannot stand here for one more second, and as they walk away, Nate calls after them.

“Hey, give me a shout sometime!” He’s doing the fake-smile thing again. “We should really hang out, now that you’re in town again.”

Nando squeezes his eyes shut and takes a tight breath; he didn’t realize it before, but it’s hard to breathe. He feels sick and humiliated and awful, and when they’re far enough away to be out of earshot, he looks to Quinn and whispers, “Baby, I am so sorry.”

Quinn is surprisingly calm, at least in comparison to his clear irritation at the register. He shakes his head and rubs his arm with the free hand that’s not holding his. “Don’t apologize,” he says. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“But I just—” He wants to melt. “I had no idea he started working here; I haven’t even seen him since before freshman year, and it just— like, it figures, right—”

“Sebastián,” Quinn says, and his even voice pulls Nando out of his head. “I’m going to get our drinks, and then we can get out of here, okay?”

Nando lets all his breath out at once, then nods. “I— yeah. Okay. That’s— perfect. I’m sorry, baby.”

“Do not be sorry.” Quinn rises on tiptoe and kisses his cheek. “None of that was your fault.”

Quinn seems surprisingly collected for someone who was just ignored and insulted a minute ago, and Nando has this feeling, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he’s planning something, some kind of revenge— but what could he do, with Nate just working?

They station themselves against the wall by the pick-up counter, and it isn’t lost on Nando how touchy Quinn is being— not that they’d hold back in public for any reason in general, but he’s definitely going the extra mile right now, rubbing the inside of his elbow and leaning his head on his shoulder and holding his hand all at once. Not only is the touch grounding; Nando is also fully aware that Quinn is trying to rub it in Nate’s face should he glance over from his spot behind the counter.

Which, good. Let him fucking stare if he wants to. Nando hasn’t felt that humiliated in a long time.

And he hates that he let it hurt him, that one stupid comment— but it was such a reminder of worse times, times when he’d have to process things like that from the person who was supposed to be his partner all the time, and it was just. It was always hard, and it was always awful, and being with Quinn has helped him work so much on all of that. Quinn taught him, so early on, that he deserved better. Everything with Quinn is better.

He just focuses on holding Quinn’s hand for a minute, until Nate puts their drinks out at the pick-up counter. “Stay here, honey,” Quinn tells him, squeezing his hand before he unwinds his fingers from it. “I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” Nando replies, and watches him go.

Quinn squares his shoulders, takes a short breath, and walks to the counter. Nando is suddenly very aware that something might be about to happen. He leans against the wall and listens in, as he watches Quinn take the two drinks from across the counter.

He’s right. Quinn looks Nate dead in the eye and says, “Hi, could I just remind you of something?”

Oh my God. Nando widens his eyes. Is Quinn about to chew him out?

Nate says nothing, but looks unamused, and Quinn continues. “You broke up with him,” Nando hears him say. “After you cheated on him, by the way. Just in case you forgot.” Nate raises his eyebrows, but stays silent. Quinn is reeling now, and there’s no stopping him. “And I happen to know an awful lot about the way you treated him, and how much that hurt him, so don’t you dare try to act so friendly, like you didn’t break him.” Nando is frozen in place, as Quinn picks up both of the drinks. “He owes you nothing. He clearly does not want to reconnect with you, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to do that either with someone who did nothing but make me feel awful about myself for two years.” Quinn isn’t even making a scene— the only reason Nando can hear what he’s saying is because he’s not standing that far away— but Jesus Christ, if this isn’t the most satisfying thing to witness in the world. Nate is red in the face and absolutely silent, and Quinn is staring daggers at him; if looks could kill, he’d be dead on sight. “If you wanted to be his friend, maybe you shouldn’t have stomped all over his heart.”

Nando cannot believe his ears.

“And,” Quinn adds, like it’s the end of a big monologue, “I’m going to need two straws.”

Nando is so in love with this boy.

He watches, trying not to smile or even laugh, as Nate fumbles into the thing of straws and shoves two in Quinn’s direction. Quinn takes them, flashes a big, stage smile, and says, “Thank you!” before he turns and walks back in Nando’s direction.

The fake smile turns self-satisfied in a second flat, as he meets Nando’s eyes again. Nando is still kind of frozen, but he wants to kiss him, right in the middle of Starbucks.

All he can say is, “Baby.”

Quinn is all smiles. He looks the way he does when he comes out of the stage door after a great show. “Ready to go, honey?”

“Am I ever,” Nando says, and they join hands again as they head for the door. He’s not sure if Quinn knows that he heard what he said. “That… was kind of the most satisfying thing I’ve ever witnessed in my life.”

“Oh,” Quinn replies as he sticks his straw into his iced tea, “trust me, Sebastián. It’s the most satisfying thing I’ve done as long as I can remember.” He pauses, as he takes a sip, and then adds, “I’ve been wanting to do that for longer than I can even say.”

“It was hot,” he says, because, well, it was. “And just… jeez, I— maybe something good did come out of this situation.”

“Of course it did,” Quinn replies. His smile is kind of maniacal, and Nando is into it. “I got to have the confrontation of my dreams, and I got an iced tea.” He holds up his drink. “Cheers!”

Nando bumps his vanilla coffee against it and laughs. “Cheers, baby.”

Quinn squeezes his hand. They walk back outside into the summer day, and Nando doesn’t look back.

Not even a glance.

#crickets #nandoooooooo #mini quinny #quindo #fuck n*te hours #ficlet #mel writes

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btsfan15 · 3 years

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Interview

Interviewer: I am here with the biggest K-Pop boy band in the world, BTS! And with their friend, Navya!

*everyone claps*

Interviewer: Thank you guys so much for coming.

RM: Of course.

Interviewer: Have a seat.

*everyone sits on the couch*

Me: Oh, there’s no more space for Jin.

Jin: Oh, that’s okay. I’ll just squeeze next to Navya.

*sits down next to me*

*everyone laughs*

Interviewer: Welcome, guys. So, what’s it like being popular all over the world with thousands of fans?

RM: It’s really amazing. ARMY is so nice and sweet to us and they’re always supporting us.

V: We want ARMY to be happy through our music, and we will be there for you, with love.

Interviewer: ARMY is very lucky to have you guys. You make such amazing music. There’s so much positivity that you guys and ARMY bring to the world. Why is this message important to you?

Jin: It’s all because of ARMYs. They always give us positive energies.

Jungkook: ARMY! Thank you for all the love. We can’t wait to surprise ARMY with a great show and let’s get it!

Interviewer: How do you feel being on stage and performing at the AMA’s?

RM: Everything is surreal. *laughs*

Interviewer: The AMA's is well known as the most American and as one of the major awards along with Grammys and the Billboard. A singer having the presence and the invitation to perform at the AMA must be meaningful. I am sure there’s something more to it than “feeling unreal.” What else can you share with us?

J-Hope: I’ve grown up watching the AMA's on television. To be able to perform at the AMA's, especially in front of all our fans here, it definitely was an unbelievable experience. It was a great honor to be here and it’ll be great to have another chance to perform here at the AMA's, in front of our fans. I’d like to thank our fans again for their continuous love and support.

RM: As you mentioned, AMA's is the most American, yet one of the major awards. I also agree that AMA has a great reputation. We definitely felt throughout the process that AMA has put a great thought and consideration in inviting us to perform on stage, not just introducing as "some strange kids from Asia". AMA made us feel like we were part of the award ceremony in many ways, such as having the The Chainsmokers introduce us and in terms of the order of performances. We were the 16th out of the 17 performers, performing right before Diana Ross, who won AMA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Many details that were prepared by the AMA's made us feel welcomed and we really felt that they prepared a lot for us, taking the time in getting to know us, as well as showing respect to us as artists.

Interviewer: Starting with the Billboard Award in May and now your presence at the AMA's show that BTS suddenly is on a continuous rise. How do you feel?

Jin: We only got our first big win at the Mnet Asian Music Award in Korea last year. We all hugged and cried. I still cannot believe one year has not yet passed since that day. Over the year, we won a Billboard award and performed on the AMA stage. We debuted four years ago, but so much has happened during these years. Events like winning the Billboard award and performing at the AMA's happened so fast.

RM: Twitter is our main social media platform and it is very easy for us to use. We had five million followers six months ago, but now we have over ten million followers. (BTS has around ten point three million followers, which is the greatest number of followers in Twitter's Korea accounts). We have used social media for five years, and suddenly the followers doubled within the span of less than six months. Also, the 'Billboard Hot 100 chart' is the chart that every artists in the world dreams of entering. (BTS's song DNA, released in September as title track of the new album, entered the chart on no. 85. It is the second time a Korean song entered the chart after Psy's Gangnam Style). To be able to debut on the AMA's is an honor that is totally surreal and all of this is 100% due to our fans who made it possible. We have never seen a such fandom before. *laughs*

Interviewer: BTS has a lot of characteristics. One of them is that you pick a topic and create a series off of the topic such as 'School Trilogy' or the 'Youth Series'. In the process, the growing story of each BTS member becomes the core content. This correlates into the meaning that BTS's own growth is equivalent to BTS's musical content. Do you think that these stories matches the ones of your real life? And if yes, how much do they match up with your real life?

Suga: I cannot say that our lyrics are 100% based on our experiences. But our experiences are very well-embedded in the songs. We try to tell our generation's story through our songs.

RM: Our debut song was 'No More Dream'. If you listen that song, you realize the lyric "Hey, what is your dream?" keeps repeating through-out the song. At that time, my friends were about twenty years old and most of my friends were ones with no dreams. I was very angry and frustrated to see these friends because I just could not understand why they didn’t have any dreams. I tried to convey my emotion through the lyrics. In that way, our lyrics tell the life story of teenagers and now my peers. It makes them easy to listen and relate to. The song 'Danger' also expresses such hardships. However, when we released song 'I Need You', we got so many new fans. It seems they understood title of the song. *laughs*

Interviewer: Some people said that using social media is one of the reasons why you have succeeded. I wonder, what was your plan when you started making video content like the Bangtan Bombs?

Jin: With the Bangtan Bombs we take videos of our lives and upload them without any editing. When we shoot the videos, we try to do funny things. But we don't edit anything. Uploading videos weekly is really hard to do, so we try to keep the videos simple. But it seems that our fans really enjoy these uploads from our everyday life.

Suga: In the past, I did not like social media very much. When I started doing social media, I was afraid of the risks. But in doing it, I think that the most important thing is to show my natural self to the fans. Cool, cute and handsome looks can be seen on TV or other media, but the fans are curious about the rest. The Bangtan Bombs are closely related to our daily life and shows what's happening behind the surface. We really have befriended social media. We don't look at it like work at all. We just upload whenever we want. And the upload cycle is fast. Maybe this is why fans like our social media accounts.

Jimin: Fans say that we use social media a lot, but in fact, since we all use one account it seems like we use it more often. *laughs* This is one of the advantages of using one account all together.

Suga: If we use one account, we can be seen as a team so many more times over.

RM: These days, all of us do social media a lot. I think it is natural for us to do it, not as work but because we want to upload for our fans.

V: We have uploaded over one million posts on Twitter since our debut. So far, we have released over one hundred songs. Sometimes I look at our songs and melodies and feel regretful and ashamed. But at the time we did them, I sang them sincerely so I hope it was good enough.

Interviewer: Navya, do you have any social media?

Me: Yes, I do. I have Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc. I have a lot of social media. I have so many people following me on Instagram. Whenever I post a photo of me or with the other members, I get so many comments. *laughs*

Interviewer: *laughs* Really? What kind of comments?

Me: I get so many saying “So pretty!” or “Love you!” or just emojis. *laughs*

Interviewer: What’s the most common comment you get?

Me: Um...it’s probably “You are so lucky!” or “I wish I was with them!” or “I wanna take a selfie with BTS!” *laughs*

*everyone laughs*

Interviewer: Wow, I guess you are really lucky to be living with BTS! All those fans out there are jealous of you!

Me: I guess I’m lucky, aren’t I? I’m famous all over the world! *laughs*

Interviewer: Yes, you are. So, what are the goals of each member?

Jin: I want to be happy. I do not have a huge life goal. I just wish that I can laugh and have a happy life like I do now.

Me: I want to make everyone happy. I want to laugh and have fun with everyone.

Jimin: I want to do well at what I am doing right now. I want to hear the fans say "you are doing well". My wish is that when I've grown up and look back at myself, I will be able to think I was really cool back then.

J-Hope: I want to release my mixtape. I'm ready now. I want to release it as soon as possible. It's not just a short mixtape, but on the level of a full album. After seeing RM and Suga release their mixtapes, I felt that I really wanted to make music with my own colors. I also want to study languages so that I can communicate with American and other foreign fans.

Jungkook: I want to do many things during this and next year. I want to write songs, improve my dancing and speak foreign languages well. The goal is not to be lazy, but to become a practitioner.

V: I want to add various charms and improve in more fields as an actor. I want to continue to study photography and take better pictures. As a singer, I want to become a more wonderful person as a member of BTS. I want to be someone that is doing a lot in many fields.

Suga: The final goal is that when the day comes for me to quit doing music, I want to leave when people still applaud. But I really hope that the departure will happen gradually. I've been playing music for quite some time now, but I hope I will get to do it far longer than the time I've been doing it so far. I do not know if it will be possible in reality, but I think that I want to leave music at a time when I'm still on top.

RM: Loving myself is my dream, but I don't know if I will achieve it before I die. *laughs*

Interviewer: Those are some good goals. Now I want to know: Do you guys date?

RM: We just wanna focus on our careers right now. We don’t usually have time to find that special someone. *laughs*

Me: I’ve always wondered what it’s like to date because when I was growing up, I wasn’t allowed to date. I would *laughs* always see everyone holding hands at school and I would get jealous, to be honest. *laughs*

Interviewer: Well, you have multiple choices right here in this room, so take your pick! *laughs*

*everyone laughs*

Me: I don’t know about that. Everyone is busy with everything, so I’m gonna wait for sometime. I don’t want to stress anyone out.

Interviewer: Yeah, being an idol is hard. Okay, my next question is what’s your ideal type of girl or guy?

RM: A sexy girl who can converse with me for a long time with a nice voice, is appropriately tall, has pale skin, feminine Girl, looks good in a white T-shirt + Jeans + Red Converse High. Someone sexy, even to a brain. Someone that are thoughtful and confident.

Jin: Someone who's fun to be around. A soft-hearted girl who'd wear elegant make-up. A girl whose looks and personality is similar to that of a puppy, whose good at cooking, kind and takes good care of me. I want her to laugh at my jokes and play Mario games with me.

*everyone laughs*

Suga: A girl who has a peaceful manner, but also has a great sense of humor. I don’t laugh very much, so I think that she can make me laugh on a regular basis is very appealing to me.

J-Hope: I like a girl that wears feminine clothes but not too fancy because I think most important thing is to wear clothes that suit your body. I like girls that are interested in books, good at not only taking care of me but also others, besides I would like to have a girl that is very supportive of me.

Jimin: I want a girl who truly loves me and gives me all the love I want. She has to be smaller than me and is caring, cute, loves sharing, and has a big heart. She has to love to cuddle, too.

V: I want a girlfriend who’s kind and compassionate. I want her to be healthy mentally. Even better if she talks nicely too. It doesn’t matter if she’s not beautiful. But everyone says let’s wait and see how my future girlfriend looks like, I’m curious too.

Jungkook: I like a girl who’s intelligent, talented, and competitive. I want her to be older than me and I want her to be a gamer girl to impress me with her talents and not be afraid to show off her strong points.

Me: I like a guy who’s sweet to my friends and gives me lots of love and cuddles. I want him to teach me how to cook something cause I don’t know how to cook a proper meal. *laughs* I want him to play Mario video games with me and make jokes to make me laugh. He has to be cute and handsome, too.

Interviewer: Hey, that sounds like Jin! Looks like we got a match, everyone!

*everyone laughs*

Me: I don’t think we’re ready for that yet.

Interviewer: Do the members always tease you?

Me: Oh my god, yes they do! Especially about Jin. Whenever Jin and I are together, they say stuff like “You both look like a couple’ or “You two should date since you both hang out so much.”

Jin: Even for me, too! I always get mad at them and have to scold them!

RM: It’s true. He actually gets mad at us.

Suga: Jin always talks fast whenever he’s mad at us about something.

Me: Yeah, that happens a lot. I always crack up laughing. We all do, in fact.

Interviewer: Really? It must be very embarrassing.

Me: Yes, it is very embarrassing. Every time they do something like this, me and Jin are like “When are they gonna stop doing this” or “How long are they gonna keep this up?”

Jin: But they keep on assuming these things about us, but we just go with it.

Interviewer: My next question for you guys is what are your favorite songs?

RM: My favorite songs are ‘Panini’ by Lil Nas X and ‘Super Rich Kids’ by Frank Ocean.

Jin: Mine is ‘Senorita’ by Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes and the remix of “Despacito” performed by Luis Fonsi, Justin Bieber, and Daddy Yankee.

Suga: ‘Loco’ by Mustard and ‘Summer Story’ by DJ Doc.

J-Hope: I like ‘The Big Day’ by Chance The Rapper and ‘Beauty and a Beat’ by Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj.

Jimin: My favorites are ‘Goodbye Days’ by Yui and ‘Love Song’ by Sara Bareilles.

V: My favorite songs are ‘Floor Seats’ by A$AP Ferg and ‘Blue Room’ by Chet Baker.

Jungkook: I really love one of our songs, ‘Mikrokosmos’ and I also love ‘Just Hold On’ by Steve Aoki with Louis Tomlinson.

Me: I love ‘Handclap’ by Fitz and the Tantrums and ‘War of Hormone’ by BTS.

Interviewer: All great songs. I have another question for you guys: Have their been any embarrassing moments before?

RM: Um, I think there’s one between Navya and Jin.

Interviewer: Oh really? Can we hear about it?

Jin: Um, it’s kind of embarrassing, but I’ll tell it. So, one day, me and Suga’s dorm door wasn’t working. If we closed it, then we couldn’t get in. The person on the outside has to open it. Anyway, we both didn’t know what to do, so Suga went to call the other members to see if they could fix it. I waited in the dorm for him, but it took a while, so I called Navya to see if she could fix it. She came over and I told her what the problem was. She came in the room and guess what happened? Navya locked the door.

Interviewer: Oh no! Then what happened?

Me: I didn’t know the door would get locked. We both tried to pull the door open, but it wouldn’t open. So, we were both stuck in there for a while. Who knows how long. *laughs*

Interviewer: What did you guys do in there?

Me: We just talked and laughed. I mean, we WERE in a bedroom, so I don’t really know what happened...*smiles*

*everyone looks at me*

Me: I’m just joking. All we did was talk and laugh. Jin told me a lot of jokes. I cracked up so hard.

Jin: Yeah, I did. I have so many in mind right now.

Me: I laughed so hard that my stomach was hurting. I almost died.

*everyone laughs*

Interviewer: That does sound fun. How did you both get out?

Jin: Suga got us out. He found the members and brought them to our dorm room. Me and Navya were both relived that we got out.

Me: The funny part was that Suga was so confused about what happened. *laughs* We both laughed and explained what happened.

Jin: We were still laughing after that. *laughs* We also told the other members what happened.

Interviewer: Well, that was an amazing story! Did the door get fixed?

Suga: Yes, it did. It won’t lock again from the inside. I think Navya’s gonna be careful next time. *laughs*

Me: I sure will. I probably should ask one of you if I can close the door. *laughs*

Interviewer: That was an amazing story, but I thought it was an embarrassing story.

Jin: After we got the door fixed, the embarrassing things started happening. At dinner that same day, the guys kept on nagging me and Navya about what happened. They kept on asking what we did in the room while it was locked.

Me: Jin and I were so embarrassed. We both said that we both talked and laughed, but they kept on suspecting that something else happened.

Jin: Now, that I think about, I think there was something else. I can’t remember.

Me: Me neither. *remembers* Oh, I remember what it was!

RM: What?

Me: Jin and I both fell asleep on the bed.

Everyone: Ohhhhh!

Jin: Oh yeah, now I remember.

Interviewer: How did you both fall asleep?

Me: I guess we were both laughing so much that we were both tired and fell asleep.

Jimin: I knew there was something else!

V: We keep on saying it, but they just won’t admit it.

Jungkook: Admit what?

J-Hope: That they make a perfect match.

Suga: They would make a perfect couple. Just imagine.

Jin: *embarrassed and blushing* Ah, Yoongi...

Me: *embarrassed* I seriously don’t even know how long this is gonna go.

RM: Jin’s embarrassed! His face, neck, and ears are red!

Jungkook: They are!

*members start teasing Jin by poking him*

Me: *giggles* Okay, guys. Stop teasing Jin.

Interviewer: *laughs* Well, it might happen in the future. Who knows? Well, thank you guys for taking the time to chat with us today! I had an awesome time!

RM: Thank you! For having us! We all had a great time!

Interviewer: *looks at the camera* ARMY, know that BTS is there for you whenever you need it and stay tuned for more awesome music!

Us: Bye!

Me: Saranghae! Annyeong!

Jimin: We love, ARMY!

Jin: Since I can’t blow a kiss for you in person, I’ll just do it to the camera. *blows a flying kiss to the camera*

*everyone laughs*

I hope you guys enjoyed the story!

#bts #bts rm #bts jin #bts suga #bts jhope #bts jimin #bts v #bts jungkook #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook #bts at a interview #bts x me #indian army #jin x me

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100dad · 3 years

Text

5 Tips for Working and Doing School at Home (The Coronavirus Version)

Forced isolation can be great for your relationship with your kids!

All opinions of what’s going on aside… There are a lot of parents panicking on what to do with their kids. They’re not used to it. Schools are shutting down and some parents still need to work. In all reality, a lot of parents are used to their kids being in school all day and in the summer they are in camps. Now we have parents facing the situation of actually having to spend a lot of time with their kids! And a majority of those parents are trying to balance work as well. Welcome to my life.

A serious advantage to working for yourself and homeschooling is when the world freaks out and panics it impacts our family almost zero percent.

We have our three kids home all day, every day. So here are a few survival tips for working at home with kids and just being around them 24/7 in general. 1.) DO NOT START THE DAY PLUGGING THEM IN FRONT OF THE TV. A rookie mistake here. Going for the easy move first thing is a fail. Start the day off by spending time together. Eat breakfast together. Wrestle. Read some books. Cuddle. Walk around the neighborhood. Play in the backyard. Burn energy. Bond. Have fun. Be healthy.

Save the TV and screen time for later when you need to get work done. Getting their energy out first and having them use their brains early in the day is going to make schooling easier and is going to curb the crazies for a bit. Starting your day off with TV is going to lead to immediate complaining and whining and then trying to move on to schoolwork is going to be less than fun for you.

2.) ADAPT. This isn’t your office. This is not their school.

Don’t expect to sit at your office uninterrupted and have your 10-hour day as if you are at your office. And don’t expect your kids to sit at a desk and do their schoolwork. This is home. It's more comfortable. It has a different vibe and that’s okay. Adapt. We have one kid that likes to do schoolwork for 10 minutes then do 10 minutes on the trampoline. That’s fine. It's different, but the work gets done and he functions better that way. We have another that likes to plank while he does math. That’s fine. Stand up. Eat snacks. It's all fine. We are not replicating school. We are finding ways for each kid to learn and accomplish the tasks at hand in a reasonable time. Forcing them to sit up straight and do it your way is not always the best way. So don’t force it if it leads to fighting and is still not getting the work done.

Be prepared for interruption while you work. Thinking otherwise is just going to frustrate you. I do my best to let the kids know when I really need to focus by putting on headphones. Someone is going to pop through the door or knock on it. Roll with it. If there is an important conference call or deadline approaching, then you might have to ask mom or grandpa to take the kids to the park or for a walk or relocate to a better environment. Also, if you played your cards right then you guys have already eaten, you played and spent some time together, the kids did schoolwork, and now that you need to focus, you can bring out the big guns. They haven’t seen a screen all day! Now when you offer a movie and popcorn they are super excited to finally get TV and they sit glued to a movie for an hour or two. Boom. You get ultra-productive.

3.) CHANGE YOUR TIMING.

This won’t apply to everyone but if you can, get work done before the kids wake up and after they go to bed. You will be uninterrupted. Stress-free. It requires a bit of sacrifice on sleep and watching TV, but those 2-3 hours on either side of the day free up time in the middle of the day. If you have flexibility take advantage of it.

4.) SEE THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY.

How often will you get this chance? Take advantage of it! Enjoy it! Quit complaining and just jump into the chaos. Here’s the trick: embrace the chaos. It’s all about mindset and expectations. The house is going to get wrecked. A kid is going to tell you a 20-minute story about nothing. You’re going to be peppered with 500 questions. Someone is going to break, spill, or destroy something. Yelling like a communist dictator is not realistically going to change anything. They are kids. You were a kid. I was a kid. This is just what happens. It’s not intentional…usually. They just have tiny brains and tons of energy. Enjoy the craziness, in fact, jump into it. Clean up later. But laugh, play, have fun, talk, and get the stick out of your butt. Make some memories and clean everything up later. This could be the most fun you have with your kids and the most bonding you get for a long, long time.

5.) TEACH. This is a weird situation we are in. We are working with our kids to explain this at age-appropriate levels and different families have different interpretations of what’s going on. But we are using this (like everything) as an opportunity to teach. Learning doesn’t just happen in school. It happens with every opportunity. During walks and hikes. In the kitchen. Reading song lyrics with the kids. Watching Youtube videos. There’s always an opportunity to teach something. That’s how kids gain perspective and understanding. Mom and dad, you should constantly be explaining and talking about things with your kids. The best part is you don’t even have to be a genius because we live in 2020. If you don’t know what kind of tree that is, snap a picture and we can look it up online together to figure it out. “See that caterpillar there? Let’s look it up and see what it's called, what they eat, and where they live. Who was the 27th President? Um... I’m not sure. Come here let’s look it up.” The phone can be a great tool depending on how you use it. Flipping through your Instagram feed and ignoring your kids is not quite the bonding and teaching we are talking about, is it?

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sylvesterlestermanchester · 3 years

Text

Fearfully and Wonderfully

Word Count: 12401

Genre: Humor, fluff, angst. All mixed together. Fun times!

Warnings: Conversion therapy, homophobia, brief allusions to sex and genitals. One puke joke?

A/N: Reuploaded bc Tumblr decided not to let this be visible in the tags lol. This is my first ever published fic-I’ve been writing for literally years little bits and pieces, but COVID has me going crazy and I just wanted to put some effort into an actual thing. Thanks for reading!

What he isn’t expecting is to have an eight-year-old girl bodyslam herself into his legs, followed by a loud groan and a sharp voice scolding “Suzanne, we told you to stop running!”

This must be the Philip Lester on his room assignment form. “Sorry. My family is kind of, erm, excited.” He says with a small, nervous laugh and sets the girl aside before sticking out a hand to shake. “I’m Phil! You must be, um...Daniel, right?”

Dan takes a second to readjust the bags in his arms to shake Phil’s hand awkwardly, trying not to look too overwhelmed at the scene in front of him. “Dan’s fine.”

“You’re rooming with an absolute freak,” Adrian mumbles in his ear with a small smirk. “Karma is a bitch, huh?”

“Shut up.” Dan hisses back through his teeth, trying to look as interested as possible as Phil’s mum keeps talking.

“We saw cows!” One of the kids butts in, and suddenly they’re all talking, any nervousness they had around the strangers suddenly vanishing.

“And horses!”

“We got hamburgers, and there was this huge truck-it had to have, like, forty wheels-”

Phil seems to take after his dad, quietly but quickly unpacking since his siblings have seemingly given up on it in favor of telling Dan’s family every detail of the six-hour car ride. At one point he makes eye contact with Phil, who gives him an apologetic look, his cheeks flushed and an embarrassed grin on his face as the kids chatter along excitedly like they’ve never talked to another person before.

The small space suddenly feels vast and empty, and the silence is almost tangible.

“Well. They seemed...friendly.” Dan’s mum says after a few moments, his dad snorting.

“You’re in for quite a year, huh, kid?” He jokes. Dan laughs weakly, but in all honesty, it doesn’t seem that funny.

Just what did he get himself into?

It’s strange, he finds. But then again, Phil’s pretty strange, after all.

“Oh, I didn’t go to school.” Phil says with a bright smile, before quickly adding “I mean-I was homeschooled. So I just kinda did the work when I wanted to.”

Phil’s last comment was clearly meant to lighten up the mood, but it’s obvious that the subject matter was making the group a little uncomfortable, considering they all just met. Dan’s mentally running through Phil’s belongings in their dorm-were all those books Bibles? Was he going to start hanging crosses everywhere? Or make him wake up early on Sundays?

“Were you allowed...TV?” PJ asks slowly, eyes widening when Phil shook his head.

“Not cable. We could watch DVDs, but they had to be approved, so it was usually educational. I know a lot of animal facts, actually. Did you know hippo-”

“What about the internet?” Louise cuts him off.

“No Harry Potter?” “Promotes witchcraft. Apparently. I haven’t read it for myself, but-”

“Dating?”

“Not without serious intention to marry-and I’m not exactly ready for that, so-”

“Running water?”

“You know what’s funny?” Phil says, giggling a bit and bringing his knees loosely to his chest. “You guys think I’m weird, which is totally understandable. But your guys’ lives before this sound weird to me, too. Like-Chris, you got to play video games as a kid, right? And I was taught that those would turn me into some homicidal maniac. Dan, I saw you have a horoscope app-that’s the occult, so that’s a huge no-no.”

Wow, okay. Before Dan could feel too offended, though, and Chris could jump in, Phil keeps going. “But, like, I get that you’re not a witch, or Chris, you’re not gonna chop me up into little pieces when I’m sleeping. There’s gotta be some middle ground here, right? So...you guys could show me how to live more like you, and maybe you guys would be more interested in what I’m into?”