i want to take this chance to thank everyone who has been along for this ride with me over the past year-and-a-bit. if youâve followed me here, reblogged, engaged with or even just liked any my posts, i want you to know that i appreciate you so much for turning this little hobby of mine into something meaningful; itâs been so much fun putting my little brainworms out into the world for you all to enjoy.
that being said, being here lately has felt a lot like a chore and writing has become more stressful than stress-relieving. i havenât been happy with anything iâve written for a while, hence the lack of (new) posts. things have been a bit difficult lately. i just feel like my time on this part of the internet has run its course.
writing this kind of post feels very dramatic (itâs the pisces sun, sorry about it), i wonât lie to you. i toyed with whether i should even make this post or just quietly disappear but i just wanted to give a heads-up to the few friends iâve made here, more than anything. the askbox on this blog is now closed, as are my messages. the notifications are off. you can find me at my main, @vcrnons , for gifs and visual content if you like, but i politely ask that you please donât message me there about this blog.<3
in which your new boyfriend, wonwoo, doesn't give a crap about his expensive eyewear.
pairing : wonwoo x fem!reader.
content : smut. pwp. tags under the cut. MINORS DO NOT HAVE MY CONSENT TO INTERACT.
w/c : 2.7k.
notes : yeah i kinda. went insane over this idea. so. bon appetite to you, and also to wonwoo ? i guess.
content + smut tags : established - but new - relationship. making out. FACE SITTING. impact play? (one gentle butt slap). the shenanigans are on a couch if that matters, i don't know. reader is a little shy about doing it. PLEASE let me know if i've forgotten anything.
Wonwoo looks flushed when he pulls away from where heâs been kissing and nipping at the side of your neck, hair stuck up in every direction thanks to your tugging fingers and your gentle guidance to help him find your sweet spots. His lips are pink and a little plumped. His glasses are steaming up, sitting halfway down the bridge of his nose, and every slightly heavier breath he takes makes his broad chest rise and fall where itâs pressed wholly against yours.
You canât help yourself from leaning forward into another kiss; heâs completely irresistible. Maybe the most handsome man youâve ever seen. And while this isnât really news to you, the dynamic of your relationship with him shifted a month or so ago and youâre still getting used to the privilege of seeing him this close up.Â
Heâs still adjusting too, if the way he groans directly into your mouth, hands groping harder at the curve of your ass as you shuffle in his lap is anything to judge by. Still learning, still figuring you out. But â and this is how you know what youâre building here might be the real deal â even when itâs clumsy, and when you knock teeth while youâre kissing and burst into slightly pained giggles, or when things accidentally slip out of place while youâre getting steamy⊠everything Wonwoo does makes your spine tingle. Makes your stomach flip. Makes your core throb.Â
Even when it doesnât always work? It makes sense, and itâs perfect, and losing yourself in the way his lips caress and worship yours is so damn easy when he murmurs your praises just for letting him do this in the first place.
âWill you do something for me?â He asks after a small forever, pulling back just far enough that he's not breathing up your nose. His hands have made their way under your â his â hoodie now and heâs grazing his fingers over your ribs, tickling enough to make you whimper, not enough for you to want to swat him away.
You think youâd give him the world if he asked for it in that deep, rough voice he adopts when things start heading in this direction. The moon too. Shit, if you could get a lasso around the sun and bring it closer to keep him warm, youâd do that as well. So, whatever his little request is now, you know youâre going to agree; resting your hands on his shoulders (finally leaving his gorgeous hair alone), you lean back from him and nod your head.
âAnything,â you say. Youâre certain that you feel his cock twitch in his sweatpants where itâs pressed against the inside of your thigh, but youâre not quite sure why.Â
It makes you feel hot, though. More-so when he bites back a grin, lips curling in that adorable way. It feels greatly unfair that you canât swoop down right this second to kiss him again, and again, and again; as painful as it is though, you do exercise enough grace to wait for him to come out with it.
âGet up,â he says softly, dropping his hands down your sides and squeezing at your hips once.Â
You do as he asks and move off his lap, sitting on the other side of the couch; he doesnât say anything else as he stands up himself, pulls his hoodie off over his head and tosses it to one side before sinking all the way down to the floor. You raise an eyebrow at him, but he doesnât see you. He shuffles into place with his back against the edge of the seat and only once heâs comfortable does he turn to look at you over one shoulder, grinning brilliantly.
âOkay,â he says, bending his knees and planting his heels into the floor. âCome here.â
You stand up off the cushions now and look down at him for a second, wondering what on Earth is going through his mind, but you know better than to start questioning his strange ideas. Especially when heâs in this sort of a mood. You step over him, one foot either side of his hips, and start to drop down too, but he puts a hand on each of your knees and stops you before youâre in his lap once again.
âNo,â Wonwoo says, shaking his head. His hands then make their way to the backs of your thighs and he pushes forwards, trying to guide you where he wants you. Your knees bend of their own accord and press against the couch on both sides of his head. âLike this.â
You donât exactly freeze up, but it is as if you forget how to control all of your muscles for a second. The ones in your legs seem to turn to jelly and you know itâs only because the sofa is currently taking a portion of your weight that you donât buckle completely and fall onto the top of his head. The ones in your face give you a slack-jawed, wide-eyed, unblinking expression.Â
Your abdominal muscles tighten and your cunt flutters at what youâre sure heâs trying to suggest, the rush of wetness you feel only worsened by the intensity in his eyes as he tips his head back and looks at you.
âPlease?â He asks, all sweet but deep and rough at the same time.Â
âAre you sâ?â You start to ask.Â
Wonwoo clicks his tongue at you and tries to encourage you further onto the couch to prove his point. âYes,â he says, nodding eagerly.Â
And then, just so you really canât mistake what he's asking forâ
âI want you to sit on my face.â
Your entire body heats up at how bluntly he says it. You squeeze your eyes shut and bite the inside of your cheek so that you donât accidentally laugh with the nerves already trying to burst out of your tummy.Â
Itâs not that you donât want to. If you had a penny for every time youâd thought about him giving himself up for your pleasure this way, youâd be rich. You do. Youâre going a little crazy just imagining how good itâs going to feel.Â
Itâs just that him being so bold about it has you feeling shy, and thatâs never happened to you before. Youâre at a loss. Youâre totally stumped.
When you open your eyes again and look down at him, Wonwoo is just as earnest and hungry for you as he was a few seconds ago. If anything, itâs as if he wants it more. Itâs without a doubt the hottest thing youâve ever seen and before you can talk yourself out of it, youâre nodding at him; his fingers start to drag up and down the backs of your thighs happily, before they hook under the waistband of your shorts and gently make that first little pull.
âIf you donât like it, we can stop,â he says to you, only pulling them all the way down when you start to help him. They get tossed over to the side to join his hoodie after you step out of them. His eyes glance to the panties youâre wearing â the last barrier, the final thing keeping him from what heâs so desperate for â before he looks back at your face and flashes you a smile. âJust tell me, okay?â
âItâs not that,â you laugh softly, taking off your own jumper and throwing it onto the pile. Wonwoo groans at the sight of you; you roll your eyes at him. âYou just⊠took me by surprise.â
âGood,â he sighs, wrapping an arm around one of your legs and letting you settle onto your knees in position over his mouth, pressing his fingers into the top of your thigh.Â
The first soft press of his lips over your panties makes you gasp and you hold a little tighter onto the back cushions as you look down at him. His eyes are closed already as he breathes your heady scent in, deep enough to hopefully stain his lungs, enough that heâll never get rid of it, that heâll be able to carry you everywhere he goes.Â
But Wonwooâs closed eyes arenât the only thing you notice between your thighs and a soft laugh replaces the pleased sounds already spilling from your lips. One hand drops down to where he's settled and your fingers brush against his temple as they try to pinch at one side of his glasses. He looks affronted when he catches your gaze.
âWhatâre you doing?â He asks, gently moving your hand away.Â
You tilt your head at him. âYour glasses,â you prompt, moving to reach for them again. His fingers curl around your wrist and he shoves your hand into his hair instead, rubbing the tip of his nose against the inside of your thigh.
âI want to keep them on,â he tells you.
âWhat if they break?â
âDonât care,â he hums, kissing his way back towards your covered pussy. âIâll buy a new pair. I just wanna see you.â
You swallow at this and decide that youâre definitely not going to try and change his mind, instead choosing to tilt your head back and let his skilled tongue work you up through your underwear. Itâs a mess of arousal and spit and theyâre soaked, translucent, clinging to you by the time heâs frustrated with them;Â frankly, so are you, and it's a relief when he concludes that enough is enough.
âBaby,â he groans as he pulls your underwear to one side and has to crane his neck up to lick the flat of his tongue in a stripe up your slit. You whine, the cool air and his hot breaths a menacing mix of sensations, but you donât have the sense to respond; one soft slap of his hand against your ass makes you look back down at him, though, and youâre met with dark eyes, flushed cheeks and a practically frenzied Wonwoo in the space between your hips. Your sweet, softly spoken boyfriend is nowhere to be found.
âI said, sit.â
His strong arm tugs you down and your knees slide against the cushions, bringing your pussy even closer to his face, literally forcing you to rest against his lips. He chuckles triumphantly and buries his tongue between your folds, tasting you so much more legitimately than before. The way he loves â straight from the source, the spring. You feel him prod at your hole and your walls clench around what he gives you â barely just the tip, but itâs enough to have you reeling already, and when his other arm hooks around your other thigh, when he starts to move you back and forth, you take very little convincing to start to rock your hips down against him on your own.
âOh,â you whimper as his lips seal around your clit and he sucks at it once, giving a few experimental flicks of his tongue at the same time. The hand in his hair tightens immediately and Wonwoo groans with you still in his mouth, sending delicious vibrations through your sensitive nerves and making you gush onto his chin.Â
âSo fucking pretty like this,â he tells you, stroking his thumb over your waist. âMight be my new favourite view.â
He keeps lapping at you teasingly, testing circles and sideways motions, precise swipes, long drags; every subtle change as he tries to find what makes you scream in this position draws a different sound from your throat. He tenses the muscle and fucks your dribbling hole with it while encouraging you to move enough forward that his nose bumps against your clit with every jerky rock of your hips. Youâre grinding faster, now, pressing down against his mouth harder, caring less by the second about whether his glasses are actually going to break in two. Besides, the way he drinks you down tells you that he could do this for a week straight without getting tired; he doesnât want you to stop, or slow down, or ease up. He wants more. And if youâre too shy to give it to him, heâll just take, take, take.
âJustâ oh, fuck,â you gasp as his tongue finds your clit again and he laps at it with so much zeal that he could rival your favourite vibrator. âJust like thatââ
Both of his hands grasp you tighter, squeezing and massaging and kneading at your soft skin as you chase your high on his pretty face. His eyes are tightly closed in his own rapture, and you hope that he wonât blame you for wanting him to open them; your hand pulls harshly at his hair again, hard enough to make him cringe, enough to make him stop for just a second before he sees how wound-up you look. You try to pull off from him a little, at least enough for him to catch a couple of breaths, but Wonwoo captures your pussy between his lips before you even hear him inhale.
âYouâ you wanted to sâsee me,â you stutter out as the fire starts to catch and you feel warmth and ecstasy start to build at your core. âFuckâ ahââ
So he does. With big, hungry eyes, Wonwoo watches as you hurtle towards oblivion, as you writhe and squirm and grind down against his ardent mouth.
He sends you crashing over the edge with a wet sob, your own eyes closing now as you see stars in the darkness and ride your high out on his still-moving tongue. There are tears on your cheeks before you can do anything about it. Your walls spasm around nothing. He barely slows, taking back enough pressure so that your pleasure doesnât turn to pain. Heâs pretty sure he doesnât even blink until youâre out the other side of your climax, though.
When your pants start to die down and youâre twitching to get away from him, so sensitive that even his tiny kisses make you shudder, Wonwoo drops his head back down to the pillows and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. You donât have the strength to move yet, still reeling, still too floaty to try for any level of coordination, but he doesnât mind. Your swollen, glistening pussy right over his face is something he'd pay millions to see.
âDidnât even break the glasses,â you laugh weakly once your voice decides to come back to you.Â
âMm,â Wonwoo hums, sliding them off his nose and inspecting them. He âtskâs before putting them back on. Theyâre steamed at the edges and a little smeary now, and he surely canât actually see that clearly through them. He obviously doesnât care. âThatâs not good enough.â
âHuh?â you ask, moving carefully so as not to plant your knee into his jaw but still trying to bring your legs together so that you can sit to one side. He isn't having it, though, and slowly shuffles up onto his knees, turns around to face you and lays his fingers on one of your ankles, wasting no time in trying to pry your legs apart again.
âThatâs. Not. Good. Enough,â he repeats, using his other hand to palm himself over the fabric of his sweatpants. The tent in them would be comical if it werenât for the animalistic look in his eyes; thereâs nothing laughable about the way heâs looking at you right now, though.
âSo what are we gonna do about it?â You ask, opening back up for him and not hiding how you stare as he rips his shirt off over his head. Then, he slides his fingertips up the inside of your calf, to your knee, down your thigh⊠he drags them over the lips of your pussy and collects a little of your slick on them before bringing his hand to his lips and sucking it clean.
âIâve got a few ideas,â he tells you, groaning at your sweet taste as if he wasnât just drowning in it a minute and a half ago. He lowers himself until he's once more level with your cunt and guides both of your legs over his shoulders, smirking up at your expectant face. âMaybe try to squeeze your thighs a little more this time. See if that does the trick.â
thank you so much for reading!! i hope u enjoyed this hehe. as always, likes, reblogs, replies, feedback and asks are always super appreciated.<3
Vice;Grip (masterpost)
NSFW - minors DNI
Genre: angst smut fluff, fuckbuddies!au
Summary: Make it not hurt, you could have asked him. Or, at least, make it hurt in a way I choose.Â
A/N: infinite thank you's to @sailoryooons and @eoieopda for beta-ing!!
//
Warnings: Frequent depictions of depression, depressive episodes, panic attacks, and substance abuse (alcohol, weed, and pills referenced). PLEASE know that these charactersâ relationships with drugs and alcohol are not healthy and should not be emulated. If these topics are triggering to you, please consider sitting this one out.
Section Specific Warnings: language, depictions of depression and depressive episodes, mentions of doctors' offices and medication, angst, mentions of attending therapy, recreational drinking, kissing
wc: 6.9k
Playlist: you can call me in the middle of the night / you can leave before i wake up in the morning / and it could feel so wrong / but i'll still hold on
Now - Fall
Vernonâs watching his ceiling fan when his phone chimes - a noise he isnât fond of: incoming email.
For the last few months, his emails have all been from recruiting directors and head-hunters - either thanking him for his interest but regretfully informing him theyâve gone in a different direction, or head-hunters pretending they found him a great opportunity when it was really an underpaid, short-term position where heâd spend more on his commute into the city than heâd ever earn.
Itâs been real fun. He sucked it up and finished grad school, threw his diploma behind a cheap frame, added the degree to his resume. Quit going to classes (because there werenât any), quit spending whole nights on assignments (none of those anymore either), and still - he finds himself no happier than heâd been before, even with all the free time in the world. So maybe, he considers, grad school wasnât the problem, and heâd done the right thing to just push through and finish.
On top of this - on top of the fact that he was still bored with life, still unenthused to be here - the break-up has sucked, just to make things even bleaker for him.
Can he even call it a break-up? You were never together. But itâs been nine days since he made you cry in his car - not that heâs counting - and all nine of them have fucking sucked. Heâs wrestled with indecision for all of them - did he make a mistake? Should he try to undo the damage? Wasnât what he had with you still better than being alone?
But he knows this will be better for him in the end. He knows that what you two were doing together wasnât real, wasnât a relationship. It couldnât grow with him - it was stagnant by nature. So, even though something in his bones screams at him to take it back, in the end he doesnât regret the decision to try and do something better.
He does regret that he canât do something better with you. He regrets that he lost his temper and yelled, regrets that he was cold in his last moments with you.
Regrets that he spent two years walking towards a dead end.
Still misses you, despite this.
He picks up his phone and scrolls to his email, already feeling the frown take over his face in anticipation of another rejection. As expected, the email is from a company heâd interviewed with last week - heâd even gotten to a second in-person round, which was rare. Still, he hadnât wanted to get excited about it. He knows how unlikely it is that theyâll want him.
Dear Mr. Chwe,
Our team was delighted to meet with you last week. We found your background impressive, especially your internship experience with -
Vernonâs eyes skim the page, so fast the words are a blur.Â
âŠWould like to formally offer you the position of⊠annual salary of⊠additional opportunities within the company including traveling to⊠working with⊠reporting to⊠expected start date of⊠we are looking forward to having you on our team!
Vernonâs heart thuds and he turns the screen off and stares at his ceiling again. Heâll answer it later, accept it graciously, call his eomma, probably shop online for some button-downs and maybe some ties. Later, though. Later. For now, he reaches for his lighter.
He kind of wishes he could tell you - hey, I got a job offer. hey, guess who gets to wear a suit five days a week now? hey, all that bullshit paid off in the end.
Would he have texted you any of that if he hadnât ended things? Youâd never talked about this kind of thing - that had been part of the problem.
Still. As illogical as it is, youâre the one Vernon wants to tell first. It aches a little, like sore muscles but somewhere inside him, behind his brittle ribs.
He wonders if youâre doing okay. He wonders if you care at all, or if youâre fine. He turns his lighter over and over in his fingers, and then realizes heâs just read the words contingent on... drug testâŠ
âFuck,â he grumbles, then picks up his phone again. Maybe heâll call his mother first, after all.
â
You were never a big fan of autumn. A lot of your friends are - the season shifts and everyone starts posting about sweater weather and PSLs, the aesthetics suddenly revolving around pumpkins and ghosts.
You have plenty of ghosts, but not the right kind.
Your phantoms haunt your phone, mostly. You feel it buzz in your pocket, hear it vibrate on the table from the other room. Sometimes you even wake up from a dead sleep, sure youâve heard it going off, reaching for it frantically, only to turn on the screen and see nothing.Â
No missed calls, no new texts.
You dream about him, too. In some of them, youâre still fighting, yelling at the top of your lungs in a way you never had in real life. In some, he isnât even present - you just know heâs missing. In some, youâre trying to get to him, but never can - stopped by nonsense laws of dream physics.
In one of them, you tell him you love him, and he staggers backwards, breaths starting to rasp the way they had when youâd talked him through a panic attack, like he was just as scared of the admission as you had been.
Maybe he had been just as scared about it, back when it had mattered. Maybe he was just better at handling it than you are.
You never see his whole face in your dreams - only glimpses, fragments. You donât want to examine if that means anything.
You fucking hate your brain.
Youâre starting to hate your phone, too.
â
You lose November to grey - the whole month, a wash. You miss three days of work, unable to do anything - unable to cook, unable to get dressed. You feed the cat because you have to, and itâs the only reason you leave your bed except to pee.
When the grey days break as December dawns, you follow an impulse and schedule an appointment with your primary physician through their app. As you click the button to confirm the appointment, you burst into tears, loud and embarrassing. You cry with abandon, pulling your hoodie up to cover your face, to muffle the noise that you canât stop.
You should have gone to a doctor years ago, and you know it. It feels like a big deal. It feels like a potential mistake - like opening a can of worms and now you have to deal with them. It feels like admitting something is wrong when youâve worked so hard to look like nothing is. It feels like a farce, like nothing that bad is wrong with you, and youâre wasting everyoneâs time.
But you keep the appointment anyway. You make yourself small in the chair on the other side of your doctorâs little table, and you admit, eyes on your hands, âI want to talk about my mental health. I think Iâve been dealing with depressive episodes. For⊠a long time, now.â
Itâs so damn scary. As scary as loving and losing someone - like, yes, Vernon - had seemed. And youâre somehow surviving both.
Something to think about.
You buy yourself good job you did the scary thing ice cream on the way home. You go inside, put it away, and then scoop Nana off the couch, burying your face in his belly and cooing, âHow is my favorite boy today?â He tolerates your nonsense with aplomb, as always.
Chan has never forgiven you for naming a cat âBanana Breadâ, and you think thatâs why Nana has never warmed up to him.
Nana loved Vernon, but you donât want to think about that.
You kind of want to text him. You think heâd be proud of you for what you did today. You think heâd tell you good job.
(Chan would tell you good job, too, and will, when you call him later. But it doesnât feel the same.)
You wonder if heâd answer if you told him. You wonder if he wouldnât answer, but be proud of you anyway.
You fill the prescription, you leave your contact info with a therapist as advised by your primary physician. You donât text Vernon.
You take your pride and your sadness, your fear and your hope and you channel them into greens and yellows. As late autumn grips the leafless trees outside, you paint something that looks like spring.
Now - Winter
Winter howls through your life like you personally pissed it off. You and Nana huddle under thick blankets with your tablet night after night.
Sometimes you close your eyes and remember Vernonâs hands slipping underneath his own hoodie on your skin; it helps you feel warmer.
Sometimes you think about the way heâd said the word wasted about the time heâd spent with you; it makes you feel cold all over again.
You click through all the tabs youâve had open for days - different universities with decent visual arts programs, all advertising admission for the spring semester.
None of them are big name schools, not like the one youâd turned down all those years ago. But they arenât nothing.
Youâd brought it up to your therapist last week and sheâd encouraged the idea - accepting that you canât unstitch the mistakes in your tapestry, but you can control what new patterns emerge.
This was the plan: start classes. Open social media accounts to showcase your work. Network through school, look for job opportunities at galleries or for collectors. Open commissions, maybe.
On your best days, this seems like a list of goals to shoot for. On your worst days, this seems like a list of things youâve already failed at before youâve even started.
You text options to Chan, ask him, which school colors can you see me in?
Your best friend sends back, all of them. any of them. look at you go!!
You sit in your living room and watch snow fall lazily outside the window. You daydream about what classes might be like, if you get in. You take pictures of the snow in the park, then try to paint something similar once youâre home again.
You wonder if Vernonâs doing okay. You worry that heâs going through his hard days alone. You worry that maybe heâs not - maybe he found someone who helps him better than you did, maybe heâs so happy with them that he doesnât have hard days at all.
(You know life doesnât work like that.)
You paint Nana, just for shits, and post it on instagram. It gets the most engagement youâve had so far. Someone messages you asking if you do commissions for pet portraits. You frown, looking at the message.
Maybe I do, you think.
Your apartment is cold. You burrow under blankets, rub your legs together like a cricket to warm them up, and think maybe after Iâm a cicada, I could be a cricket next.
Thereâs no one to share the joke with whoâd get it. Just another of the thousand ways you feel Vernonâs absence in your life. You hadnât realized how much space he took up until he was gone.
â
Everywhere Vernon looks, all he sees are circles. The hands on his kitchen clock circle each other, align, move on again. They tell him he has two minutes to get out the door before heâs late.
He checks his appearance in the bathroom mirror, straightens his tie, smooths back his hair, then grabs his crossbody bag and heads for the bus.
The hands of the clock in his office mark his passage through his schedule: one circle until his 10:00 meeting will end. Two more after that and he can take a lunch break. A circle and a half until his one-on-one with his boss, to discuss his first few months here.
On his lunch break, Vernon rides with two of the guys he works with to some nature trails nearby, as they usually do. They swap suits for joggers and zip-ups, pop in airpods, and head out. Vernon didnât run before this job - didnât exercise much at all, really. Heâd gone along with the guys the first time there had been an unseasonably warm day, just to be out, and heâd found it felt good to get fresh air and some endorphins before returning to his desk.Â
Itâs cold today, the air brittle as he inhales, but the rest of his body feels warm as he works to keep up with the other guys. Itâs not as hard as it used to be, keeping up.Â
The trail is a circle, too, passing a small, man-made lake before looping around back to the changing facilities. On his wrist, a fitness app closes circles to quantify his steps, his speed, his progress.
At home again, he runs his thumb around the edge of the circular joystick as he waits for Seungkwan and Wonwoo to sign in and join him for a round or two before he figures out dinner.
âSome of us were going to the bar tonight, you in?âÂ
âShouldnât,â Vernon says. âBut maybe this weekend?â Unfortunately, his new nine-to-five forces him to make decisions like this - better decisions. He kind of likes his job. He kind of doesnât want to feel like shit in the morning.Â
His mind, a circle - always coming around back to you when it gets too quiet.
He opens his messages.
how have you been? ⊠are you doing okay? ⊠hey, iâm - ⊠I think Iâm sorry ⊠what if we did it differently âŠ
Of course he doesnât send any of them. Instead, he searches for your instagram. Youâd never followed each other in the first place, and he considers it a win that you didnât block him when it was over. But you haven't posted anything that he can see in the last eight months.
Except - one post. It looks like your cat.
He clicks it and realizes that itâs not a photograph, but a painting, and the caption links to another account. He clicks that, too, and finds himself on a page that seems dedicated to posting paintings only.
Yours, apparently. He scrolls through slowly, rolling to his stomach so he can look more closely. He never knew you painted, let alone that you were good - great, even, to his untrained and certainly unbiased eyes.
Part of the problem, his mind chimes in.
Somehow, despite understanding each other better than anyone else in your lives, at the end of the day you hadnât known each other at all.Â
Now - Spring
happy hour after lecture???
plsss can we
bestie YES!!!
The sender of the original invite - a girl close to your age called Juri - eyes you from two rows up, expectantly. Normally, youâd go straight home after class. But youâd been talking to your therapist about almost this exact situation - the way you closed people out, squandered friendships to the point that only Chan managed to hang onto you for more than a year. (Vernon had made it about two years, a sick voice in your head says, and then answers itself with, but you werenât friends, anyway.)
So, you send the group chat, sure!
(Youâd also been talking to your therapist about that last fight with Vernon. I canât get that conversation out of my head, you told her.
Iâve been caring about you way more than I should, heâd said.
Youâd been talking to her about how your brain had skipped like a flat stone right over that detail and had sunk deep on I donât want to do this anymore.
âWhat did you think he meant?â sheâd asked you, watching you carefully. âWhen he said do this, what did you think this was?â
Me, youâd whispered. Anything with me - hook up, sleep, spend time together, talk, anything.
Sheâd helped you see the context of the fight - that maybe by âI donât want to do thisâ heâd meant âbe with you but not with youâ.
âSounds fake, but okay,â youâd joked. She hadnât laughed. Negative ten points at Therapy.
You were still working on trying to believe it.
You still werenât sure if it fucking mattered what he meant, because instead of asking him, âwhat do you want, then?â youâd gone defensive, had greedily grabbed at the excuse to push him away, hard and careless. He wouldnât want you back now, even if thatâs what heâd wanted at the time. You were sure of it.)
Happy that youâve agreed to go out, Juri flashes you a grin and then turns around in her seat to watch the board again.
The bar Juri chooses is cute, not crowded or noisy yet this early in the evening. You sip at a beer and talk with the girls about upcoming projects, about the professor you all canât stand, about the term paper you all feel you shouldnât have to do.
Itâs nice, and honestly when you glance at the time and decide youâd better get home to feed Nana, you regret that you have to. Still, you make your way to the bar to pay for your portion.
You donât even notice the lean, handsome man who sidles up next to you while you wait for your check until he speaks.
âWhatâs your drink?â
You look over at him, surprised. âOh,â you say, which isnât really an answer. âIâm leaving, actually.â
He gives an exaggerated frown. âItâs so early!â
You shrug. âSorry. Places to be.â
Heâs cute, you consider, as you pay your bill and head for the door. Two years ago, you probably would have picked up what he was putting down.
At home, you feed Nana, then collapse on the couch, pulling a throw blanket all the way over your head. Your stomach churns with discomfort.
You open your phone, find Vernon in your contacts.
You sit on his contact page, thumbs hovering over his number, for so long that your screen goes black twice while you stay locked in indecision.
Donât call him donât call him donât call him.
But youâre lonely, and you miss him, and going out made you think of him, and you wonder what would happen if you did it, if you called. Would he even answer?
Eventually, you let reason win this time, and get up from the couch, the blanket falling from you like youâd shed a skin.
In your spare room, you eye the last painting youâd finished - mostly black but with a fractured, fragmented view of a tabletop littered with empty glasses and half-finished drinks, all the liquids a toxic, piercing neon pink. You hadnât posted that one; it felt too much like an admission.
You stare down the empty canvas, tapping your mouth with the wooden end of a brush, deciding how to begin. You close your eyes and see the beast thatâs followed you these last few years - even before Vernon. The embodiment of your shame, your regrets, your failures. Itâs never left your side for long.
When you finally begin to paint it, you start with the claws.
â
you up for a 1v1?
arent you on a date???
obviously not.
you didnât go? bro.
i went. it was just. idk.
it was just what?
idk dude.
you didnât like her?
she was fine?? she was funny, and hot, and it was fine
so why are you home alone at 8:30 asking me to come online
Vernon rubs at his face in irritation. He doesnât know what to say, how to explain to Seungkwan why the date had felt flat.
What could he say? It was fine. It just wasnât⊠enough.
He could still remember how heâd felt the first night he met you. He wanted to feel that.
idk, he told Seungkwan. lack of chemistry, ig.
Now - Summer
You think youâve learned a lot over the past few months - between starting classes again and beginning therapy, youâre just bursting with new knowledge.
Something youâre working on is appreciating the shadows.
In class, you work on shading, on adding darks even when you think an area should all be light. Sometimes, somehow, shadows are exactly what you need to make it right on the canvas.
You think about this concept for your whole drive home from therapy - how the shadows under trees change the way you see them, how the darks affect the lights, how the shadows in your own life are natural and maybe, in the end, not so catastrophic.
At home, you duck your head into the shadows under your bed and drag Nana out by the middle.
âCome be social,â you scold him, plopping him on the couch.
After dinner, you go back to work on what you were painting. Youâd been stuck for a few days, not happy with any change you made, but today you have an idea.
You create a palette of black, grey, navy, and deep purple. For two hours, you work meticulously, adding the midnights, the bruises, the shadows. They belong here, too.
â
Chan tells you heâs proud of you, the next time heâs over, and it makes you cry even though youâre only one your second sip of wine.
âStop it,â you scold, avoiding his gaze, burning up under the attention.
âI mean it,â he says seriously. âIâm so happy that youâre painting again, I could throw up. And going back to school? And therapy? Damn. The glow-up.â
âEw,â you frown at him, because this feels safer than acknowledging that you have been working hard on yourself, on your life. âWhat year is it, 2017?â
He gives you a look to make sure you know that he sees through your bullshit.
âItâs not all perfect,â you admit quietly. You feel like it should - like youâve done the work, and now you should get the happy ending. But it hasnât worked that way. Youâre still working at a job that feels like a waste of time, painting on the side. Youâre accumulating some debt for the classes youâre taking. The grey days still come and go, though admittedly their grip is less intense.
And you still think of Vernon, near daily.
Chan shrugs. âThatâs normal. Perfect isnât real. Itâs unattainable. If your therapist hasnât told you that, then youâre wasting your money.â
You laugh. She had told you that. Another thing that was easier to say than to put into practice.
You recork the bottle after a second glass, put it in your fridge for another day. Returning to your spot by Chanâs side, you tell him, âI keep thinking about him.â
Chan cocks his head, probably unsure if youâre talking about who he thinks you are.
âThe guy I was hooking up with.â
âAh.â He inclines his head knowingly.
You recount what he already knows - that youâd been whatever you were for about two years, that it had ended. That it was your fault.
âI think,â you say, taking a deep breath mid-sentence to steel yourself for the truth, âI think I could have loved him. I donât know⊠maybe I did.â
âEither you did or you didnât,â Chan points out, which is fair.
âItâs justâŠâ you say, thinking about it. âWe kept our boundaries so tight. We didnât talk during the day, didnât meet each othersâ friends or families⊠barely got to know anything about each other. But it was like⊠even so, I think we just understood each other. It was like a lot of it just went without saying.â
Chan considers this, face serious. âSounds like the potential was there, at least. If nothing else.â
âYeah,â you said sadly, tracing the bottom of your wine glass with your finger. âPotential.â
Wasted potential. Youâd heard that plenty before, just not usually about your love life.
Chan reaches out and shakes your knee playfully. âItâll happen again,â he promises.
You donât know what would be worse - if it never did, or it did, but it wasnât Vernon. Youâd never believed in there only being one right person for you - like soulmates or shit like that. But looking back at your time together, youâre not sure anyone will ever have a hold over you the way Vernon did. The grip he had on your life was unshakable.
Before he leaves for the night, Chan hesitates by the door.
âHey,â he says, âthis weekend? A bunch of the guys are driving down to the beach for the day. Wanna join?â
Something else you would have said no to, before. Youâre trying to say yes more, plus you canât deny that the sea air and sunshine sound like heaven.
âSure,â you say, shifting to block Nana from slipping out the front door as Chan opens it. âText me the details.â
Later, you ask what you should have asked first. who all is coming?
Chan sends back the list - six of his friends, ending with, seungcheol-hyung and his friend hansol. i think youâve met him once or twice at the bars? heâs a good guy.
Something in you knew this was going to be the answer. You counted your breaths, tried to talk yourself down from immediately bailing on the plan.
Sleep on it, you told yourself. See how you feel in a few days.
You followed your own directions, but for days your mind spun around the question, buzzing and frantic.
Are you ready to see Vernon? To be around him, and act normal? Is it a good idea? Will you fight? Will you fall back into old habits? Will he bring out the worst in you?
Actually, you consider, that isnât fair. Vernon never brought out your bad habits - he just coexisted peacefully with them, never tried to kick them out.
Youâre scared that seeing him will undo the work of getting over him. But that isnât true, either - because you donât think you moved on from him at all.
In the end, you do slip into old habits - you let yourself make a potentially bad decision. You decide to go.
A twisted, quiet part of you is kind of excited.
The louder part is scared to death.
â
The day is perfect - blue sky, barely any clouds, hot and bright. Chan drives you and two of his friends; a second car with the others is somewhere en route, will meet your group once youâre there.
Chanâs car arrives first, and you help the guys unpack the trunk. Loaded down with beach bags, chairs, and coolers, you make your way unsteadily through the sand, pausing at one point to take off your flip-flops, tired of how they slow you down in the dry, loose sand.
You pick a spot and lay the towels out, unfold the chairs, get the umbrella anchored down in the sand so it doesnât fly away.
The whole time, you canât stop watching the parking lot, waiting for the other group to arrive - waiting for the moment of truth. What will happen when Vernon sees you?
Once everything is set up, you lay out, trying to enjoy what is admittedly beautiful weather. Itâs so bright that when you lay on your back, you want to throw an arm over your eyes to block out the light, to really relax.
It feels like forever when you hear a distant shout and sit up, blinking against the glare of the sun, returning your sunglasses to your face as you get your bearings. A group of Chanâs friends approaches, one of them - Mingyu, you think - shouting hello and waving like a fool.
You stand to greet them, waving hi when they get close enough. You bite your lip nervously and glance at Vernon. Heâs near the back of the group - their car had brought four people, just like yours - and his face is absolutely unreadable as he looks at you. It reminds you of the beginning, when you noticed how hard he works to keep his expression blank.
Heâd stopped doing that with you, near the end. Youâd almost forgotten.
Meeting and holding his gaze, you give him a solemn nod. I can be normal if you can, you try to promise, silently.
The moment is tense; you arenât sure how heâll react. Then, he gives you his own tiny nod back.
Relief melts through you like butter. Seeing him aches, but it isnât unmanageable. You can do this - youâll both be okay. Youâll both get through the day.
You help set up a second umbrella while a few of the guys move a few yards away to set up a volleyball net.
For a few hours they play volleyball. You sit on your towel with airpods in and watch, trying not to notice Vernon, trying to keep that part of your brain locked tight in its little box. But the sunlight streams down, not half as blinding as his smile as he jokes and laughs with Chan and Seungcheol, nowhere near as glittering as his laugh when he doubles over, elbows on his knees.
The sun is almost directly overhead when you get warm enough to brave the ocean.
âIâm gonna swim for a few,â you announce, standing and brushing some loose sand from your thighs.
Chan collapses on his towel, next to yours, pushing his hair back and heaving a deep breath, exhausted from volleyball.
âMaybe in a few,â he wheezes. âI need a minute.â
âIâll go,â Soonyoung says, tossing his sunglasses onto his towel so he doesnât lose them in the ocean.
You head down to where the waves are breaking onto the wet sand, foamy water dancing up to your ankles before retreating into the deep sea again. Itâs cold, but under the midday sun the cold is welcome. You wade until you hit the awkward point where itâs hard to stand without being constantly battered by breaking waves, and then you duck underneath the surface and swim past the breaking point.
Treading water, you turn to see if Soonyoung made it out with you. Heâs still back a bit, jumping each time a wave comes through. Beside him, Mingyu splutters, having taken a wave to his face. A few feet back, the water only at their knees, Vernon and Chan laugh maniacally.
You missed those goose honks.
The guys take their time catching up to you until all five of you are treading.
âDo you think there are jellyfish?â Soonyoung asks, peering into the water behind you.
âProbably,â Vernon deadpans, and you laugh, then immediately wonder if you shouldnât. Luckily, he grins at you appreciatively as, behind him, Chan points out that there could be sharks, too.
âIâll probably go back in soon,â Soonyoung says, trying to sound cavalier, but his unease shines through.
âWeâre fine,â you promise. âYou donât have to out-swim the shark. You just have to out-swim Chan.â
Chan curses and splashes water at you as the others laugh.
You talk and float for a little longer until you consider the goosebumps on your limbs, the growl in your stomach.
âAnyone interested in lunch?â you ask.
Mingyu raises his arm and squints at his watch. âIt is one,â he says. âI could eat. What did you guys bring?â
Chan starts rattling off whatâs in your coolers as you start to make your way back to shore. You reach the point where your feet touch the sand, only to get slammed in the back by an incoming wave. You stumble a little, and someone holds your elbow steady, helping you stagger through it without completely tripping.
You give Vernon a grateful smile as he retracts his hand, but your stomach is swooping and your arm is burning where heâd held you.
Rejoining the others, you plop down on your towel, suddenly exhausted. The ocean water drying on your skin under the sun makes you shiver as you dig through the cooler. You pass out drinks to the guys closest to you, toss a bag of chips at Seungkwan when he asks for them, then settle back on your own towel to eat.
After, full and happy, you flop backwards and put airpods back in. Seungkwan and Soonyoung head back to the volleyball net. Mingyu and Chan seem content to bake in the sun, like you, and beyond them the others have circled up and are playing a card game, open cans of beer in the sand beside them.
You feel truly at peace, and you take a moment to ask the universe - can I hold onto this? Can I remember, when things go grey, that these moments exist?
Once youâre warm again, you pull your shorts back on and whack Chan on the arm. He startles awake, pushing his sunglasses up to glare at you.
âIâm going to walk up the beach for a little,â you tell him, pointing, just so somewhere will know where you are. He nods, his head sinking back down to his towel, eyes closing again.
You walk where the waves flood over your feet every few minutes, never getting higher than your ankles. You search for shells as you go, carrying one or two, but mostly stopping to take pictures of them and leaving them where they are, wanting to paint them later.
There are four shells in your hand when you hear someone call your name. You turn, surprised, and your stomach swoops again; Vernon approaches, hat twisted backwards and sunglasses perched over the top of it, one hand reaching out to show you a shell heâd found.
You hold still, you let him come to you. When heâs close enough, you hold open your hand and let him drop the shell there. Itâs a mostly-white spiral top.
âThanks,â you say, looking away from the shell to meet Vernonâs eyes.
He looks down at the other four in your hands. âYou gonna paint them?â
You feel yourself physically take a step back in shock. âWhat?â
Embarrassment darkens his face just slightly. âIâve been following your art page,â he admits, shoving his hands into his shorts pockets. âI didnât know.â Then, âI feel bad that I didnât know. Youâre really good.â
You shake your head. âI wasnât painting when we⊠I used to. I stopped for a long time. Just started again, afterâŠâ You trail off. After you left me. After I pushed you away.
He nods, licks his lips. âDoes it help?â he asks, and you know exactly what heâs asking - does it make the rocks weigh less, does it make the grey lighter?
âYeah,â you say, nodding. âIn general. Itâs been⊠kind of cathartic.â
You both stand there, the shells on your palms between you, a decision teetering between you.
You should be the one to mend it, you think, since you were the one whoâd ruined it before.
âDo you want to walk with me?â you ask, a little tentatively. âYou donât have to - Iâm fine on my own -â
âIâd like to,â he says, voice quiet, and something about it makes you want to well up - that heâs willing to give you his time, that he doesnât hate you as much as you deserve.
You walk quietly together as the sun starts to sink a little, casting everything a bit orange.
âWhatâs new with you?â you ask, finally.
And he tells you - new job that he actually likes despite how stuffy the nine-to-five thing sounds in theory, new mile time on his daily run, new friends through work.
âAnd you?â
You fill him in, telling him about taking classes part-time around your job, the commissions that arenât enough to sustain you but arenât nothing - you even shyly admit that youâve been seeing a therapist.
It was the most either of you had ever talked about your real lives, you thought. It struck you how normal it felt, like it wasnât something new or novel.
âSounds like things are coming together for you,â he says.
âYou, too,â you return.
Everything between you sits heavy, weighing the moment down, pulling towards the oceanâs depths like an anchor.
Then, at the same time, you break.
âItâs good to see you again.â
âVernon, Iâm really sorry.â
He stops walking, turns to face you, aglow as the golden hour inches closer. The sun is warm on your skin, the sand is warm beneath your feet, and you are dying to make it right with him.
âItâs good to see you, too,â you whisper. Youâre scared of this moment - scared it will burst, like a bubble, like waking up from a dream that you canât get back.
âDonât be sorry,â he counters. âWe both screwed up.â
You shake your head, feeling your throat tighten with emotion. âNo,â you say emphatically. âYou had every right to be mad. You were right that you were wasting time.â
He glances down, mouth pulling into a frown. âIâm sorry I said that to you. It wasnât a waste.â
âMaybe not entirely,â you allow. âBut you were right. I was never going to give you what you wanted - not back then, not with⊠how I was. That last fight we had⊠it would have been so easy for me to just let you in, and everything would have been fine. And I just⊠couldnât.â
He listens seriously, watching your face carefully. You look at your feet in the sand, feeling the beginning trickles of shame down your spine. But you remember that the beast canât get you - youâd locked him on a canvas. You donât succumb to him in these moments anymore - you take a breath and remember that youâve grown since then.
âAnd -â you swallow, take a breath, â- and Iâm sorry. You deserve so much better than that.â
He nods, slowly, his eyes suddenly on the ocean. You watch his throat work, and your stomach clenches in regret. Then, he says, âI should have been clearer with you - way sooner than I was.â
âIâm not sure it would have changed anything,â you admit sadly.
He nods again, agreeing. âStill,â he says.
Still.
âI really like your paintings,â he says, and then laughs at himself before you can respond. âSorry, that sounded so lame. I donât know the art terms or anything. I just⊠like them.â
You smile despite how serious the conversation had felt only seconds ago. âThanks,â you say shyly.
âWhatâs the best thing youâve learned in your classes?â he asks, stepping a little closer.
You donât even have to think about it. âShadows,â you say simply, looking up at him. âEven the brightest painting is nothing without the shadows.â
His smile grows slowly, and you know he gets it. Of course he does. Heâs been in the trenches right alongside you.
âI thought about you a lot,â he admits, and you realize how close youâre standing. Had you been standing this close the whole time?
âI did, too,â you murmur, heart hammering.
His fingers brush up your sun-warmed arm, and you shiver despite the heat.
âCan I kiss you?â he asks, voice low, a little unsure.
Heâd never asked before.
You nod, unable to speak, lifting up to meet him halfway. He kisses you like he never had before - featherlight, gentle, like youâre the most fragile thing.
Neither of you say anything after, but as you start walking back towards the guys, you slip your hand into his, and he gives it a squeeze.
Youâre still hand in hand when you reach the towels, and you watch Chan clock it out of the corner of his eyes. He doesnât call you out, and you promise yourself that youâll give him the conversation you owe him - later. When youâre alone.
You stay a few more hours; the guys play a little more volleyball, you sit on the towels and fill pages in your sketchbook. You draw Vernon - all angles, so sharp, so beautiful.
When the sun sinks low enough, the guys start packing things up, and you help haul everything back towards the cars.
As you slam the trunk of Chanâs car shut, you turn to find Vernon waiting.
âWhat about now?â he asks.
âWhat?â
âYou said not back then,â he explains. âYou said back then you couldnât give me what I wanted. What about now?â
The question lands like a mine. âI donât know,â you say, as honest as you can be. âVernon, I donât know. Iâm scared - Iâm scared Iâll hurt you again, mess it up again. I donât know what I can promise you.â
He considers this. âOkay,â he says finally, in that easy way of his. âWhat if I donât want a promise? What if I just want to know⊠whatâre you doing next Saturday?â
You and him, youâd existed only at night. Youâd never done this before - considered dating, considered giving him more than just the hours between midnight and three am. Youâd never considered letting him be him and not just one of your many vices, one of your distractions, one of the things you used to hide from how broken you felt. But here, now, with the summer sun beating down on your shoulders, you take in his whole, unfragmented face and see how open it is, how willing he is to meet you where you are.
Youâve been missing out on so much, you think. Itâs about time to stand in the light - with him. With him, you could try.
âNothing,â you say, smiling up at him. âYou got a suggestion?â
âYeah,â he says, sending you a wink as he starts to back away, the car keys jingling in his hand. âI know a place.â
<- Prev
thank you so much for reading my veyr first svt fic!! i hope to write many more in the future :)
Vice;Grip (masterpost)
NSFW - minors DNI
Genre: angst smut fluff, fuckbuddies!au
Summary: Make it not hurt, you could have asked him. Or, at least, make it hurt in a way I choose.Â
A/N: infinite thank you's to @sailoryooons and @eoieopda for beta-ing!!
//
Warnings: Frequent depictions of depression, depressive episodes, panic attacks, and substance abuse (alcohol, weed, and pills referenced). PLEASE know that these charactersâ relationships with drugs and alcohol are not healthy and should not be emulated. If these topics are triggering to you, please consider sitting this one out.
Section Specific Warnings: language, recreational drinking, depiction of a panic attack, there is a quick moment where you can infer that reader thinks vernon might be actively su*cidal but that is not the case and this is not outright stated, nip stim, dirty talk, piv sex, reader has a high fever but no specific illness is mentioned, a (verbal) fight with some yelling
wc: 6700
Playlist: you can call me in the middle of the night / you can leave before i wake up in the morning / and it could feel so wrong / but i'll still hold on
5 months ago
Five texts went unanswered.
Iâm sorry.
I was so fucked up, I wasnât saying what I meant.
Call me so I can explain.
Iâm really sorry.
Please, Vernon.
Each time, they delivered, but no response came. You thought you might feel better if he told you to go away. The silence felt too open, like nothing was settled. Like maybe you just hadnât said the right thing yet. Like maybe you could - or should - keep trying.
Four weeks passed; you tried not to let it drown you, tried to tread above the rising water of the situation. You swam through guilt, your own anger, guilt again. The knowledge of what had upset him nibbled at your toes like fish you couldnât see in the murky depths. You tried to pretend it wasnât there, that it was only seaweed underfoot.
You tried to reason with yourself; you hadnât done anything that bad. Heâd been upset because youâd implied heâd get bored of you someday - even though of course he would - and he thought⊠you didnât know, he thought that was an attack on his character?
(You knew that wasnât why he was mad.)
Or, because youâd implied that he would leave, when you were the one whoâd gone silent before? That was valid, you thought. You had been the one to make him chase, when your grey days swallowed you up.
(You knew that wasnât the whole truth, either.)
You kicked at the fish, kept swimming on.
Three times, you found yourself on the brink of coming clean to Chan. The first time, it had almost escaped from your mouth, prompted by nothing but your own need to hear someone absolve you; you wanted to tell Chan I think I hurt him, so he could say, it doesnât sound like itâs your fault.
Chan didnât lie to you, though, even when you wanted him to. He wouldnât tell you it wasnât your fault, because it was. So, you tucked the words back in, zipped them up safely.
The next time, heâd asked - âYou still⊠with that guy?â Heâd made a vague hand motion that must have meant still seeing, or still sleeping with.
I messed it up again.
I think I liked him too much.
âItâs been like a month,â you said lightly, like it was no big deal. âWeâve been busy.â
His sideways look was scalding. Chan didnât lie to you; Chan was used to you lying to him, knew all the signs.
He let it go anyway.
Maybe he knew those signs, too. Maybe he knew without you telling him that youâd let the bunny rabbit instincts win - that youâd hid, scared, the second your fragile, broken brain told you to.
The third time, you almost told him all of it, even that it was Vernon. Chan was having dinner at your apartment, helping you clean up after, when his phone buzzed on the table.
âHey, hyung,â heâd answered, tilting his head to grip the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he ran water in the sink and started rinsing the plates. âYeah, Iâm in. I donât know, probably in like twenty minutes? Fifteen if I make all the green lights.â
You listened absently as you picked up the rest of the table - napkins in the trash, utensils tight in one hand, now-empty wine glasses in the other.
âOh,â Chan said, surprised. âVernon, too? Nice. Should I stop for beer since thereâll be more of us?â
You dropped a wine glass. Chan helped you sweep, and then you ran the vacuum cleaner. Still, you kept finding errant pieces of glass for days. You carried them carefully to the garbage.
It felt fitting, that hearing his name had caused this.
Twice, you called and left voicemails.
Two days after the argument, youâd called on your lunch break. It had rang six times and then his voicemail picked up.
âVernon⊠listen, I know I pissed you off. Iâd really like the chance to explain myself when Iâm not⊠you know. I didnât say it how I meant it. Text me. Or call me, whichever.â
After the four weeks crept by and the rest of your texts went unanswered as well, you tried again.
It took almost a whole bottle of wine by yourself to work up the courage, and you hoped he wouldnât hear the slur in your voice when you told him, âI donât know why Iâm even calling. Itâs been a month. I hate that this is just⊠unresolved. I hate making people mad. I want to know that you know Iâm sorry. I want to know that⊠well. I just⊠wish we were talking again. I donât⊠I donât know why Iâm calling.â
You sat at the stool by your easel for the first time in years, tested your balance, tucked one foot underneath the way you used to. Your hands shook a little as you mixed a purple so dark it was probably actually just black. You covered the canvas, the color of nine at night in the summertime, and stared at it, watching it dry.
When you could, you switched brushes, used a rounder texture to form something that might pass as clouds along the mottled sky. Then, you painted a full moon; it cracked like an egg.
You liked this, you followed the idea, paintbrush hurrying to chase the inspiration, whites and yellows coloring in whatever it was that might leak from the moon like marrow.
The bottom half of the canvas became a moving, living ocean; the blues were eight at night in the summertime but they looked good together with the hour after. You finished with the moonâs reflective path, a jagged yellow streak that dipped and bobbed through the waves.
You walked to the bathroom and washed your brushes, leaving them somewhere to dry where the cat couldnât mess with them. Then you went back to the canvas, staring at it from a few feet away, your hands on your hips.
Youâd done it - youâd painted something you didnât want to burn.
One painting, one tiny step back towards the life youâd lost - that youâd let yourself lose, that youâd definitively pushed away.
4 months ago
It rained for three days. You lit lamps during the day, suddenly craved soups even though it was the height of spring and the weather had been consistently warm for weeks. The rain just called for it.
It called for you to sleep, too, luring you into bed with a steady patter against the windows. You slept early, and deeply, the cat curled up near your head. The rain beat against the windows like a metronome, helped your heart rate steady, helped your thoughts slow and settle.
You slept deeply, the sounds of the rain pulling you under, and when you were startled awake a few hours in, it was with no concept of where or who you were.
Your phone was still vibrating, jarring; you scrambled to grab it from the nightstand and the cat scrambled out of the room.
Your mom, you thought wildly. Or Chan.
What else could it be, but an emergency? No one else called at three in the morning. Someone used to, but only on the weekend, and that person hadnât answered you in over a month.
âHâlo?â you mumbled, eyes too blurry to see the screen. You closed them, pressed the phone tighter to your ear to hear better.
No one spoke, but you could hear breathing - ragged and unsteady.
âHello?â you repeated, more clearly, starting to wake up a bit, starting to worry. You rubbed at your eyes, then pulled the phone away so you could see the name on the screen.
Of course it was him.
âVernon?â you asked, like you didnât believe the word on the screen, but you were met with only silence - even his breathing went quiet for a second, like hearing his name had caused him to hold it. Like he suddenly wasnât sure he wanted you to know he was there.
You said his name again, like a question, and it sounded like maybe he tried to speak but the noise - choked and quick - faded quickly. Your heart started to race, and certainty settled into your bones: something was wrong.
âHey,â you said, a little sharply, like maybe he needed to snap out of it. âAre you okay?â
Finally, a word. âDunno,â he managed, his voice thick.
âIâm coming there,â you said, already throwing the blankets off your legs and staggering to your closet to pull at some sweatpants. âDonât leave, okay?â
âNo,â he protested, but the way he gasped the breath after it cemented what you already knew - he needed you.
Or, he needed someone, and you were someone, and you would have to do.
âIâm on my way. Stay there, okay? Wait for me.â You were hopping on one foot as you said this, pulling clothes and shoes on, frantically reaching around in the dark for things like deodorant and car keys.
When he didnât answer, you stopped moving, stopped trying to find your things. When you spoke again, your voice came out softer, a gentle plea instead of sharp instruction. âHansol,â you said, quiet. âWait for me. Okay?â
He ended the call without promising.
You stayed tucked into the buildingâs doorframe until you saw the Uber pull up; the rain was coming down in sheets, and you had to run to the car, splashing through still water until you could slide into the backseat. Your feet were soaked.
You spent the first five minutes of the ride wiping rain out of your eyes and trying to wring out the ends of your sleeves; the fabric clung to your hands, wet and cold. Outside the car, the rain water ran down the windows and the windshield wipers ran on the fastest setting.
im on my way, okay?
[ ]
vernon youâre scaring me
When the car pulled to a stop, you jumped out as soon as it was safe, bolting through the rain a second time and letting yourself into the building with the code you knew by heart. You took the stairs two at a time, heart flying. You were at once both scared to death of what youâd find when you got there, and refusing to put the specific fear to words, refusing to consider that it could be an option.
âWhere are you?â you called, as soon as you got his door open. The apartment was mostly unlit, but for the light above the sink, and a dim light from the direction of his bedroom. âVernon?â
You were met with silence and you almost choked on your heart as it climbed up your throat. You slipped off your shoes and made your way inside, heading for his bedroom.
You almost threw up with relief when you found him sitting on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands. The light you saw came from his bathroom - the door was closed almost completely, but light spilled out through the crack.
âWhatâs wrong, whatâs happening?â you asked, inching closer. His hands were clenched into fists and bent back at an angle, veins raised along his tensed forearms. His breath went in raspy and came out in huffs, too quick to be productive.
You were pretty sure you knew what this was. You knelt in front of him, ran your hands over his tensed-up arms once, and then nudged under his chin gently with your forefinger, urging him to lift up and look at you.
He let you, his eyes faraway.
âPanic attack?â you guessed quietly. He nodded once, trying to tuck his chin back down, to look away and hide from the shame of this moment being witnessed - being recognized.
âIf I put on my breathing app, will you do it?â you asked.
The sound he made was almost like a laugh. âIâll try,â he muttered.
You opened your phone and set the app up, placing it on the bed beside him, the light from the screen tinting him pink. You heard the familiar, soothing voice begin to recite the directions, and you rocked back on your heels.
âIâm going to your kitchen real quick,â you told him, putting your hands on his knees to push yourself to standing. âDonât go anywhere. Iâll do the breathing with you in a sec.â
You shivered once as you stood with his fridge open; youâd been in his kitchen plenty of times, but never really perused on your own. Your gaze moved over beer and energy drinks, finally landing on juice. You slapped the bottle on the counter and rummaged in the closest cabinets until you found a glass.
Returning to his bedroom, you could hear your breathing app intoning hold⊠two⊠three⊠four⊠exhale slowly⊠two⊠three⊠four. It was hard to tell if Vernon was following - his head was still tucked, but his hands clenched and unclenched, like he was trying to return circulation after theyâd fallen asleep.
You waited patiently until the breathing cycle ended, then nudged the glass into his hand. When he took it, you sat gently next to him, watching silently until he drank some.
âWhere are you at?â you asked, and then started to explain what you meant.
Vernon interrupted; heâd understood the first time.
He usually did.
âBetter,â he said, then added, âNot, like, better. But, better. Still buzzing.â
You knew the feeling - you tended to get buzzing in your legs first, then hands, and then it would crawl up your arms and into your chest if you didnât shake it. When the attack receded, you usually felt it leave your chest first and then work its way slowly back down your arms.
âWhat usually helps?â you asked. âIs the breathing cycle better, or grounding?â
âGrounding, probably,â he said.
âStart by drinking some juice,â you instructed. âThen, can you tell me five things you see?â
âItâs dark,â he grumbled, but he brought the glass to his lips as requested. You rolled your eyes at his sass and walked over to turn on the lamp he kept on his desk. It cast the room in yellow, all the raindrops on the window suddenly catching the light.
âNow do it,â you said, coming back to sit by him again.
You heard him take a breath. He was better already - hands unclenched now, breathing still a bit quick but not raspy or gasped. âIt feels silly to do out loud.â
âIâll do it, too,â you said. âI see your laptop, your lamp, your cell phone, your dresser, and your very old and embarrassing Blink-182 poster. Literally, Vernon, is it 2003?â
He laughed, closing his eyes. âI canât believe youâre roasting me right now,â he said, voice still a little thin and breathy.
âFive things you see,â you reminded him firmly.
He huffed in mild irritation. âHamper,â he recited, finally. âShoes. Empty Red Bull can.â
You laughed.
âCologne bottle,â he finished, then looked up at you. âGirl who came out at three in the morning, in the rain, after a month of not speaking, because she was worried about me.â
You spluttered. âI was not.â
He knocked his shoulder into yours playfully. âI have it in writing.â
You let out an indignant breath. âI should have let you suffer alone,â you muttered.
âIâm glad you didnât,â he admitted, then dutifully drank some more juice.
âOkay,â you said, remembering what you were doing. âFour things you can hear.â
He sighed. âBossy girl,â he listed, and you whacked at his knee. âRain. Aircon. Traffic outside.â
You finished the exercise together.
âNow how is it?â you asked, reaching to take his empty glass.
He flexed his hands in front of him. âBuzzingâs down to my hands,â he reported. âThink Iâm past the worst.â
âHow do you feel, otherwise?â
He grimaced. âExhausted, honestly.â
You looked at the clock - it was after 4:30 in the morning, almost time for sunrise to begin.
âYou should try and sleep more,â you said, starting to rise.
âStay?â he asked, and you thought you heard a note of, well, panic in it. Like he was scared to be alone again.
Something inside you screamed and beat its fists against your insides, furious and terrified as it felt you melt into goo at his request. Something inside you knew that you were walking into a building on fire. But there was no way youâd stay outside, not now, not if he was in there.
âOf course,â you said, as if it was obvious, as if you stayed over all the time - as if this werenât, in fact, a first.
He seemed to take in your appearance for the first time, the still-drying patches on your clothes, the goosebumps on your damp skin. âYouâre cold,â he said, frowning, like you should have led with that as soon as you came in, handled your needs first.
âIâm okay,â you denied, but he rolled his eyes and leaned over the other side of his bed, coming up with a rumpled black hoodie.
âI promise itâs clean,â he said, a little sheepishly, and you pulled off your damp tshirt and tugged the hoodie over your head, instantly warmer and surrounded by his smell. He left for the bathroom, and when you heard the sink run and the telltale buzzing from his electric toothbrush, you got up and turned his lamp back off. When he emerged, you were under the blankets, huddled warm and cozy inside his hoodie.
When he climbed into bed, you draped yourself over him, a leg over his legs, an arm over his torso, your face pressing against his t-shirt. He wrapped his arms around your shoulders, pulling you in, and you lay in silence for a while, listening to the rain, awash in relief that he was okay - that you two were okay, that heâd let you back in even after youâd fucked it up.
Just as you were starting to drift a little, you felt his chest move under you, and he said, quietly, âIâm sorry for making you come out in the storm. In the middle of the night, too.â
âDonât,â you said, shaking your head but not lifting it up to look at him. Your words carried out into the dark of the room. âYou can call me. You can call me when you need me. I donât care if itâs late. I donât care if itâs⊠a hurricane, or whatever.â
It was too honest. It was too close to the truth. You shivered in the dark again, and you felt him hold you tighter for a second, as if to chase the chill away.
He let the moment go, didnât chase it down and shine a light on it. But you know he heard you - you think, probably, he heard the whole thing, all the parts you didnât say.
You waited in silence again, let the moment go, let the rain wash this away, too. Then, you ventured, âIâm sorry for what I said to you, last month. Really.â
You felt him nod above you. âI know. Itâs⊠itâs okay.â
Is it? you wondered. But you didnât push it - because you were scared that his forgiveness was fragile and might shatter if pressed, because youâd already admitted something you werenât sure youâd meant to tonight, because saying anything seemed wrong while you were between his arms with the rain serenading you both from outside.
You drifted off; you woke up with his hands on your skin beneath his hoodie. You sighed, eyes still closed, as he refamiliarized himself with your body. You breathed in deeply when his fingers brushed up your stomach and found your breasts, teased over your nipples so lightly that it almost tickled, made you shudder in place.
You felt his lips at the nape of your neck, and that made you shiver, too. He pressed kisses along the tops of your shoulder as he teased one peak and then the other, finally giving in to your tiny, needy noises and rolling both buds between firm fingers. You moaned, long, feeling it pulled from deep within you until he let go, soothing over the spots with warm palms.
âMissed that sound,â he murmured against your back, and you pressed back against him desperately, suddenly sure that if he wasnât inside you this instant you would completely lose it. You reached backwards, grabbing at his hips, trying to pull him closer.
âNeed you,â you whined, hating it but knowing it was true anyway, the need larger than the embarrassment. You could feel him pressing against your ass, too many layers between you, and you shifted against him, hoping to spur him into action.
He hummed, pleased, and slid a clever hand back down over your stomach and past the waistbands of your sweats and panties, groaning low in his throat when he found arousal pooling between your legs. He barely bothered to work you open, likely feeling the same desperation you were after the time apart. You felt him shimmy out of his shorts, then his hands back on your skin as he peeled away your bottoms as well.
You kicked them off of your ankles and inhaled as you felt him slide along your slit, teasing at your entrance. He kept one hand up your hoodie, pressed against your chest to hold you tight against him, as he pushed into your heat one inch at a time. You heard yourself make a sound you couldnât name, somewhere close to a whine, as you felt each bit of him rub against your walls as they struggled to adjust.
âFuck,â he breathed, mouth close to your neck. âTighter than I remember.â
He bottomed out and stilled, that one hand still holding you tight against his body. You closed your eyes and felt the moment: his heart beating against your back, your own pulse thundering through your limbs, your pussy pulsing around him as it adjusted and fluttered, his breath warm and steady on your skin, his hands soothing and grounding as they held you tight, the rain still falling steadily outside. You stayed still, eyes closed, as he caressed your hips, your lower belly, your thighs, as he pressed chaste and feather-light kisses along your shoulder.
Finally, he shifted, fucking into you in small movements, barely withdrawing at all before tilting his hips to push back in. You rocked back against him, silently begging for more.
He pulled out almost completely, and then slid back in; the sound you let out bordered on a sob, your nerves alight and sizzling as he began repeating the motion, each stroke slow and long, unhurried, burying himself as completely as he could. You floated like this, completely enveloped by him, still wearing his hoodie, as he took his time with you, until you couldnât bear it anymore.
âMore, Vernon,â you begged, âplease.â
âAs you wish,â he teased, and used his knee to move yours, bending your leg and hooking it up around his to open you up more, to give himself more room as he set a quicker, steady pace. Relieved, you matched his strokes, half-tempted to roll over so you could kiss him, but not wanting to lose even a second of the delicious feeling of him stretching you, of the friction that made your eyes want to roll back and your toes curl up.
It took you completely by surprise when he began pistoning into you, holding you in place by your waist, and a gasp flew from your mouth, morphing into a series of moans and cries as his hips battered at yours. Even more so when he grabbed at your thigh and tugged, rolling you onto your back and readjusting himself over you, slipping right back in as you wrapped your legs around him and tried to pull him closer.
His pace slowed only marginally as he grabbed at your hands and raised them above your head. Bent close over you, you finally got what youâd wanted the whole time - his lips finally found yours and you kissed hungrily as he fucked you deep. Above your head, you felt your fingers curl against his, lacing together. You squeezed his fingers tight when you came, his name slipping from your lips as your legs shook and your world went white. Vernon came with a cry, eyes squeezed shut and teeth clenched as he emptied himself in your still-pulsing heat, and then collapsed next to you, both of you panting.
âShower?â he asked, when heâd caught his breath.
You tilted your phone so you could see the time. âI should probably just go home,â you admitted. âI have work.â This realization hit you - youâd gotten maybe four and a half hours of sleep, and not even all at once. Thank god it was Friday and you only had one day to struggle through.
He nodded, understanding. After you dressed, he wandered after you like a shadow. âYou around tomorrow night?â he asked, and you could hear the effort to sound off-handed.
âYeah,â you said, eyes flicking to his for a second. âYeah, Iâll be around.â
When your ride pulled up and you stepped outside, you shielded your eyes from how bright everything was in the early morning light after days of gloom and clouds. Around you, everything glistened and sparkled, still wet from the days of incessant rain, as if everything you could see had been washed clean.
3 months ago
hi :]
whatâs wrong with your face?
are you insulting my smiley?
again i ask you: is it 2003?
im gonna ignore that. come over?
canât, sorry. iâm sick
whats wrong with u?
should i start listing?
ha ha. girl stuff?
vernon!!!!
lmao i mean if its not that i figured youd just tell me whats wrong
i have a fever, you ass
It was true - youâd carried your comforter from your bed to your couch that morning and had barely moved since. The cat was on top of your legs and you didnât have the strength or energy to move him. Through the day, your fever had risen; you hadnât helped things by refusing to get up, which meant you were probably dehydrated. As Vernon texted you, you took mental inventory of how badly everything on your body hurt - your limbs, your hips, everything ached. The pain in your head was sharp and bloody, and you felt like you were sweltering even though your feet were ice cold.
You felt too miserable to even watch a show; instead, you looked around your living room absently. You were pretty sure you were seeing colors off to the side, hazy swatches of red and blue.
Well, you thought dryly, thatâs not good.
Then, your hallucinations took form, because the couch was dipping under you and someone was placing a cool hand against your head. You closed your eyes, leaning into the touch just because the coolness felt nice.
âYou need to drink something,â someone told you.
âI had the lemonade,â you said.
There was a pause. âI donât⊠think thereâs lemonade here. Hey - wake up and look at me.â
You blinked, and looked towards the voice. The worldâs most beautiful man looked down at you, frowning.
âWow,â you heard yourself. âYouâre so handsome. What are you here for?â
He laughed. âIâm here to take care of you,â he said. âIâm bringing you water, okay?â
You frowned. âI donât want water. My throat hurts. I want juice.â
There was another pause, and then the voice came again, from further away. âIâll bring you juice, but you need to drink water now.â
Then he was back, snapping in front of your face. âHey, look at me again. This is serious. Have you taken any medicine? I donât want to give you double of something and overdose you.â
âI donât think Iâve left the couch today,â you told him honestly.
âOkay,â he said, and you didnât remember him moving or leaving but he was somehow pressing pills into your hand, waiting for you to place them on your tongue before handing you a plastic cup full of water.
âDrink all of it,â he instructed.
âYouâre too pretty to be so bossy,â you grumbled around the mouthful of pills.
He waited until you drained the cup. âIâm going to go to the store,â he told you. âCan you think of anything else you need besides juice?â
You didnât remember if you answered him, or even him leaving. You think you slept. When you woke, someone was rummaging around your kitchen.
âChan?â you called, blearily.
Instead, Vernon poked his head around the corner of your kitchen, a grocery store bag hanging off his arm.
âHey,â he said. âHow do you feel?â
You blinked at him. âDonât take this the wrong way, but what the fuck are you doing here?â
His smile widened. âYour fever must be down a little. You need anything? You still want juice?â
You just stared at him, bewildered. He finished putting away a few more things and then came back out to you, pressing a hand to your forehead.
âDefinitely lower,â he said. âDo you have an actual thermometer? I couldnât find it.â
âYeah,â you said, still confused. âIn my bathroom. Vernon, seriously, whatâs going on?â
âCome on,â he said. âYou should shower and put on clean pajamas and then maybe try to eat some of the soup I got.â
You shook your head. âI donât think I can shower,â you admitted. âI donât think I can stand up that long.â
He held out his hand. âIâve got you. Just a quick rinse.â
He helped you off the couch and into the bathroom, where you sat on the closed toilet while he started the water and got it running warm, but not hot. You kept silent as he helped you undress, as he held your hand while you gingerly stepped over the bathtubâs lip, your legs aching.
âYou okay?â he checked, once you were behind the shower curtain.
âMhm.â
âOkay. Iâm going in your room to get you clean clothes to put on.â
âHurry.â
âIâm right outside. If you feel weird, just call me.â
You did okay, though, washing up and turning the water off on your own, reaching for the towel you kept on a hook. He came in when he heard the water change, and helped you dry off, his hands firm and his gaze gentle. Then he led you back to your bed, guiding you under the blankets.
âDo you think you could eat some soup?â he asked. âI bet you didnât eat all day.â
You scrunched your nose. âYou donât have to cook for me.â
He shrugged. âItâs pre-made. Iâll heat some up.â
You tried to eat as much of the soup as you could, and then floated absently as Vernon cleaned up.
âHey,â you said, struggling to sit up. âI donât think I fed the cat tonight.â
âTell me what to do,â he said, pushing on your shoulder to keep you from climbing out of bed.
âYou canât just- heâs particular - thereâs a process -â
âTell me the process, then,â Vernon said firmly.
Later, after heâd turned out all the lights, he came to the side of the bed and checked your temperature again - this time with your actual thermometer.
âIâm waking you up in three hours to take another fever-reducer,â he warned you, walking to set the thermometer down on your dresser.
âOkay,â you said, too tired to argue. You were already half-asleep as it was - you had no idea what time it was.
You barely registered it when he climbed into the bed next to you, just rolled over and buried your face in his chest, one arm reaching around his middle, already back under.
His alarm startled you both. You felt him pull away - you were sleeping in the same position, neither of you had moved - and then the alarm fell quiet.
âMedicine,â he said, starting to extract himself. You whined; you were comfy, and warm, and didnât want him to leave.
âDonât,â you whined. âDonât leave.â
He laughed a little, a quiet huff of amusement. âIâm just going to the kitchen. Then Iâll be back.â
He watched you take another round of pills and drink half the water, leaving the glass on your nightstand. Then, as promised, he got right back in bed.
When you woke again, your bed was empty. And, impossibly, you felt both relief and disappointment. Then, from the living room, you heard a clatter and then a curse.
âVernon?â you called.
Your bedroom door cracked open. Like a flash of lightning, the cat streaked into the room and under the bed.
âSorry,â Vernon said from the doorway. âHe was pissed that I wouldnât let him in there with you. I wanted you to sleep. He was mutinying.â
You smiled despite yourself. âYou didnât go home?â
âWanted to see how you were before I left,â he said. âYou sound better. You look better, too - I mean, you looked really off yesterday. It was kind of scary.â
âI think Iâm okay,â you said. âOkay enough that I can keep my fever down by myself. I shouldnât have let it get that high yesterday, I should have stayed on top of it.â
He looked at you for a long time. Then, he clapped his hand against your doorframe, as if heâd made a decision. âOkay. Iâll go home, I guess. Just⊠let me know if it gets bad, okay? And eat something. I bought stuff for you yesterday - itâs all in the kitchen.â
âThanks for doing that,â you said, a little sheepishly.
âIt was nothing,â he promised.
After he left, you stayed in the bed, rolling onto your side so you could smell the blankets where heâd slept. It helped you feel safer, like you werenât actually alone.
It occurred to you that youâd spent the night together twice in a row, now. The rules were breaking - the rules were changing.
Your head pounded, and so did your heart. Nothing had ever been this frightening in your life, you thought.
2 months ago
Vernon saw you as sunshine - not like it was your demeanor, because that wasnât true. More like - something he needed without realizing he needed it, something he realized he needed only in its absence. Something that made things better and brighter, something that could sometimes be too bright. Something that made the grey days feel greyer in a can you understand happiness if you never feel sadness kind of way.
He tipped your head back to kiss you, caught your bottom lip between his teeth, rolled his hips into yours, watched your hands clench into fists in his sheets.
He forgot himself a little; or maybe he just gave in to something heâd been holding back for months - maybe even a year. Something cracked, marrow slipped out of him, sluiced into the rocky ocean below.
After, he held you close, whispered, âDonât go home. Stay. Jagi, stay here.â
And, he had to give you credit - you were at least honest. You at least told him your truth, in your own way.
âI canât,â you said, and he knew you, knew how you meant it. He didnât argue or call you back when you dressed, when you left again, just how youâd done things almost every time over the last two years.
He couldnât do this anymore. He couldnât want you, maybe even love you, and only have parts of you. It was too hard, it wasnât fair. Two years, and he had nothing to show for it. Maybe heâd find someone, if he wasnât spinning his wheels with you.
He saw you like sunshine. Something that was missed when it was gone. Something that couldnât be forced to stay, something that didnât come when it was called.
1 month ago
You could tell that something was different. Youâd been around Vernon plenty when he was low - this was different.
âYouâre being weird tonight,â you observed.
His eyes cut sideways at you. Heâd never looked at you like that - this was another clue. Then his face went flat again.
âIâm not,â he said, and you frowned.
âYou are,â you insisted. âWhatâs going on? Whatâs the problem?â
âThereâs no problem,â he said, tone hollow.
âIâm not playing this game with you, Vernon!â you said, temper flaring. âIf thereâs a problem, youâre going to have to use your words and tell me.â
âI said thereâs no problem,â he repeated, cool and even. Something inside you snapped tight, painful. You could feel it all coming to a boil right before your eyes - the way the boundaries had been shifting, the way heâd called you jagi, the way heâd looked when youâd walked away. It terrified you, made you want to show your claws, and it was infuriating that he was icing you out when you were ready to draw blood.
âVernon!â you cried. âI cannot deal with this little apathy game anymore! I need you to engage here. I need you to care about something, and not just give me this expressionless, emotionless -â
âCare about something?â he thundered, wheeling on you. It startled you into silence. âThatâs bullshit. Because I have been caring about you way more than I should, for ages now, and look what fucking good itâs done for me.â
Stunned, you blinked at him. Your heart pounded painfully, and your thoughts felt staticky and unclear. You needed to get away from him; you needed to process this in silence.
Finally, you spoke, your voice coming out tiny. âIâm going home.â
Vernon rolled his eyes, slapped his hand down to grab at his phone. âIâll take you.â
You shook your head. âI donât want you to.â
He ignored this, picking up his keys. âI said Iâll take you. Itâs fine.â
You shouldnât have followed him to the car. You shouldnât have assumed heâd be mad for a few weeks and then get over it again, just like you two had done more than once now.
He drove you in silence, his face coming in fragmented pieces as he passed under streetlights. You were watching him, silently, when he finally spoke again.
âI donât want to do this anymore,â he said, still perfectly even.
Tears sprang to your eyes before youâd even processed the sentence, something inside you reacting before your brain really knew what you were reacting to.
âWhat?â you asked. âWhy?â
You knew why.
He just kept driving.
âPull over,â you demanded, suddenly furious, suddenly terrified, suddenly realizing you were losing him, right now, in real time.
He ignored you, didnât even glance over at you.
âVernon, I want to talk about this, pull over!â you cried, leaning forward in your seat, the seat belt tightening on your shoulder. âPull over!â
Eventually, he listened, flicking on his turn signal and slowing as the car bumped off the pavement and onto the dirt shoulder.
âWhat?â he asked flatly, finally turning to face you.
âI asked why,â you said, heat laced through your voice.
He shook his head. âIâve wasted two years with you -â
âWasted?â you echoed, feeling the word like a punch to the gut. You felt like you couldnât inhale.
âWell?â he asked, as if to say, well, wasnât it?
âFuck you, Vernon,â you spat.
âFuck me is right!â he yelled, loud in the enclosed space of the sedan. âWhat are we doing? Just fucking, for eternity?â
You blinked at him. âYou never asked me for anything else!â
âI tried,â he growled.
âLike hell you tried!â
âI did,â he asserted. âYou ran, scared, every time.â
âOf course I was scared,â you snapped, because you couldnât deny that one for a second. Your voice comes out choked. âI was right to be scared, and you know it!â
âWhy?â he asked, the question falling between you, a landmine.
âBecause,â you said seriously, the first tear finally falling. âThis only ends one way.â
His jaw clenched, and he looked away from you, out the windshield again. Then, he clicked on his turn signal again, shifted the car back into drive, and pulled back onto the highway.
âYeah,â he said flatly, as the car met even pavement again. âYouâre making sure of that, arenât you?â
<- Prev | Next ->
thank you so much for reading! one chapter left to go!
Vice;Grip (masterpost)
NSFW - minors DNI
Genre: angst smut fluff, fuckbuddies!au
Summary: Make it not hurt, you could have asked him. Or, at least, make it hurt in a way I choose.Â
A/N: infinite thank you's to @sailoryooons and @eoieopda for beta-ing!!
//
Warnings: Frequent depictions of depression, depressive episodes, panic attacks, and substance abuse (alcohol, weed, and pills referenced). PLEASE know that these charactersâ relationships with drugs and alcohol are not healthy and should not be emulated. If these topics are triggering to you, please consider sitting this one out.
Section Specific Warnings: penetrative sex, language, reader on top, angst, depictions of depression/depressive episodes, edging, dirty talk, emotional constipation, bar scenes and recreational drinking, brief mention that reader had a sick (unspecified illness) parent in the past, sexual acts in a technically public place but they are not discovered, arguments and hurt feelings
wc: 6200
Playlist: you can call me in the middle of the night / you can leave before i wake up in the morning / and it could feel so wrong / but i'll still hold on
11 months ago
Vernon was afraid of drowning. All those rocks he carried - they weighed him down, pulled him under. He considered this as rain beat against the windshield of his car, ran down the windows so thickly that he struggled to see the front door of your building through the onslaught, didnât even see it open and close, had no idea you were already outside until his passenger side door opened and you threw yourself into the car, squealing, wiping rain out of your eyes.
âCan you drive in this?â you asked breathlessly. Above you, the clouds lit up and went dark again. Vernon didnât answer you; instead he silently counted the seconds until thunder cracked, sharp and insistent, somewhere behind them. Eleven seconds.
âBuckle up,â he said, no irony in it.
Stopped at a red light, he glanced over at you. Watched as you turned to trace a raindrop down your window with your fingertip as it worked its way through fragmented droplets, cast red by the stoplight, by the brake lights of the car ahead of him. Another flash; Vernon didnât catch the bolt this time, either.
One, two, threeâŠ
Eight seconds until the thunder broke.
âWere you scared of storms when you were little?â
You turned to look at him, something quizzical on your face. He kept his eyes on the road, embarrassed. You and him - you didnât ask personal questions. You didnât talk about things. Even now, over a year since youâd started hooking up, you kept things strictly business, but for a few hiccups.
It was starting to wear on him, weigh on him. Neither of you had been with anyone else in a year - so what were you doing? Just spinning your wheels?
It was the first time Vernon realized he was angry. With you.
Lightning flashed as he slowed to turn into his buildingâs lot, the bolt snaking down so quickly he could have imagined it.
Vernon knew it wasnât fair to be mad at you for not giving him something heâd never asked for.
Thunder cracked again, above the car. Five seconds.
âActually, yeah,â you said finally, and Vernon startled a little; heâd already forgotten heâd asked the question. âMy sister and I used to hide under the bed.â
He didnât know you had a sister. He bet you didnât know that he had one, too.
What are you doing?
Inside, his window flashed white, the whole room going greyscale, and then darkened again. The thunder snapped, furious and louder than before, and you screamed a little, then covered your mouth with your hand to hide your self-conscious giggles.
Vernon laughed, then lowered his body over yours and murmured, âLet me help you calm down.â
Three seconds.
The rain beat against the windows in waves, the sound coming from beside his bed and the ceiling in tandem, natureâs surround sound. Vernon slid his fingers through the mess between your legs, sinking two of them deep into your heat just in time for a roll of thunder to drown out your wavering moan. He fucked you steadily, the way he knew you liked, then shifted to rub circles on that place on your front wall. Your breath caught, your back bowed, your hands fisted his comforter, your head tilted back to expose your throat. The room went white and dark again in a single second, and the silhouette of your pleasure burned into Vernonâs brain like a photo on film.
He moved to replace his fingers with his cock before the thunder could answer.
Two seconds.
You wrapped around him - your cunt squeezing around his length, your arms looping around his neck, your legs wrapping around the backs of his thighs, trying to bring him closer.
He gripped your hips and rolled, giving you the chance to ride him, his hands caressing the backs of your calves as they flexed.
His eyes squeezed shut when he came, teeth gritted as he groaned out his own answer to the cloudsâ cacophony. Your hands, gentle in his hair, guided him back down.
He found your hoodie near the foot of his bed, after. He carried it wordlessly to you, holding it out like an offering.
âThanks,â you said, your voice tiny. Like you were accepting something bigger than clothing.
âYou could stay,â Vernon heard himself say, and something inside him started kicking and screaming, panicked and trying to grab the words and pull them back in.
You looked at him sharply, your eyes a little wide. You didnât do that, you didnât sleep over.
âWhy?â you asked, the word leaving your body with all your breath, almost a gasp.
Vernon felt his lips part, felt his stomach clench. âI -â
The syllable stretched, loomed, filled the room so completely that it crowded out the flash of lightning and the immediate rumbles. Zero seconds. The pounding rain drowned out the roaring in Vernonâs ears.
Maybe heâll drown, too. Maybe heâll let himself.
I want you to. I want to sleep next to you.
I need to know what this is. I need to be closer.
I need to kiss you and mean it.
His stomach sank as he watched the way you waited, breath held, for his answer.
âI just meant, because of the weather,â he said, his voice ringing hollow and flat even to his own ears. âIf you donât want to go back out in this - you donât have to.â
âOh,â you said, and he wished he could read it, wished he could translate that single sound. Was it disappointed? Relieved?
He couldnât fucking tell.
âNo, itâs okay,â you said, and you were already moving towards the door. âI think the worst has passed us already.â
Vernon thought that was bullshit; the worst hadnât passed - he was standing in the middle of it, wind-whipped and drenched to the bone, watching the sky alight again and again, unable to make himself move.
10 months ago
whats up for tonight
idk
want me to come there?
i dont think i want anything
??
sorry. shouldnt have sent that one. doorâs open if you decide to.
Vernon came into the apartment so quietly, you didnât even hear him until he was shuffling into your bedroom. The cat leapt from the foot of your bed and wove itself around his ankles twice before darting into the living room.
âYou good?â he asked, eyeing how you were curled on your side, watching him in the doorway with a small frown.
âMhm,â you said, nodding a little, even though it was only a little true. âJust. One of those days, I think.â
He laid behind you first, one arm crossing your torso and pulling you tight against his chest, pressing kisses to the bare skin above your shirt collar at the nape of your neck. The sensation tickled just enough that goosebumps rippled down your arms.
âI can make you want something,â he offered. Or threatened. Or promised.
âCheesy,â you accused, but a smile played on your lips, and you felt his own smile curve against your neck.
âWatch me,â he said, reaching for your hem. He worked you up with teasing touches and kisses until you were squirming, fucked you on his tongue and fingers until you were panting, then pulled away, letting the building crescendo quiet into silence again.
âVernon,â you threatened, sitting up on your elbows and narrowing your eyes at him.
He cocked his head to the side, all innocence. âIs there something you want?â
âIâm not playing this game with you,â you growled.
He smiled beatifically, then went back to kissing your collarbones, starting at the very beginning again. That time when he stopped, you let out an exasperated shout.
He cocked an eyebrow, as if to ask, yes? but didnât speak. He waited for you to say it.
It took three more rounds of this - getting you close, waiting you out - before you caved, admitting what he wanted you to admit:
That you wanted it. That you wanted him.
âPlease, fine, you menace,â you cried, so frustrated that your chest was hot with it. âI want you to fuck me - I want you, I want to cum, please, Vernon -â
When he gave you what you asked for, pushing into you in one easy motion that made you cry out and squeeze your eyes shut, your tongue tripped up, telling him a truth you hadnât meant to.
Instead of I want it, as he set a quick pace, burying himself inside you again and again, you babbled, I want you, I want you, I want you.
The sideways glances he sent you while he got dressed had the question all over them. He may as well have just asked - did you mean it? Did you?
In his absence, you pulled the blankets over your head and pressed your face into your mattress, trying to drown out the question in his eyes, trying to forget the feeling of his lips on your neck, the sound of his sighs in your ears, the taste of his kiss. Your bed retaliated, assaulting you with his smell on your sheets.
I want you.
Kicking at the blankets in frustration, you got up and slept on the couch, instead.
9 months ago
wyd?
ah, going out with some friends tonight. sorry.
come over after?
i would, but my friend is here from out of town and shes staying with me
bring her
youâre so gross.
next time then. have fun :)
dont smiley face at me chwe hansol
oh god the government name. fine, i take it back
You hadnât done a girlsâ night in over a year; your friends made sure to remind you of this frequently as the night wore on, as if it was singularly your fault. It was different from a night out with Chan and Soonyoung and Seungkwan - different because the shots being pressed into your hands were pink instead of clear; different because no one was handing you beer bottles; different because they wanted to dance, not talk shit around a table in the corner.
But you leaned into it, sneaking to the bar between songs to order shots that didnât taste good, dancing with your friends until your feet ached, until your ears rang, until the colored lights bled together above you, until you forgot that you were annoyed about all of this.
When the lights flashed in warning - the overhead lights, the go away now itâs 2 am lights â you went to close out your card, casting a glance over your shoulder to make sure your friends were all accounted for. They were - mostly still dancing, but a few headed to the table to gather coats.
You were heading back across the dancefloor when you saw them. You spotted Mingyu first - one of Chanâs friends, one of those cross-over friends that knew both Chan and Vernon.
Your stupid heart jumped. Had he come out? Had he somehow ended up at the same club as you? You wouldnât be able to leave with him, but youâd see him.
That wasnât something you should want. It shouldnât excite you that you might get to smile at him across a crowded dance floor. You didnât like him, this wasnât a crush.
Besides, crushes happened at the beginning; youâd been hooking up with Vernon for over a year now.
You scanned the crowd near where Mingyu was standing, waiting for the moment that your gaze snagged on a spark of familiarity. It didnât come, so you pressed into the crowd; at this point in the night everyone was pretty faded, dancing with abandon, unaware and uncaring that anyone could see them - youâd all be leaving in minutes anyway. This one last song should matter, this one last song should seal the envelope on the night with a lipstick kiss.
The spark of familiarity eventually struck, but it came with a flash of warning. It wasnât Vernonâs big smile or his conversely stoic expression that you recognized, it was his jawline - snapback twisted around, his lips close to some girlâs ear as he leaned in to talk to her.
You looked away quickly, as if heâd feel your gaze and youâd be caught staring, but you couldnât help but peek again as you kept walking. The girl was laughing, tucking dark hair behind her ear, her eyes eagerly on Vernonâs face.
Your stomach heaved. You wanted to go over there - to slide an arm behind him where it belonged, to smile in this girlâs face because Vernon was yours. Because he was going to text you before he texted her and she needed to know it. Because he let you in when he shut everyone else out and she was everyone else.
Your friends found you then, saved you from yourself, pulled you back to the table to gather your shit, trouped outside to find the Uber home.
In the car you all fell quiet, tiredness creeping up on you. Your thumbs tapped anxiously on the dark screen of your phone, and then you opened your messages.
you gonna leave with her?
The lack of response radiated through you, and you felt sick as you wondered why - because he was pissed that youâd even asked? Because he was already busy with her?
Then -
lmao were u at dark horse?
You didnât answer, too embarrassed, the shame flying overhead to catch up to you for the first time in a while, its wings spread and claws stretched as it prepared to land.
Your phone lit up again.
i honestly wasnt gonna but now youve got me curious
would it be a problem if i did?
No, you thought defensively, a reflex. But he didnât give you the chance to answer.
and if it IS a problem⊠why?
âWho are you texting?â your friend asked, craning her neck to peek at your phone. You turned off the screen.
âChan,â you lied.
Then why?
Because he was yours and he belonged with you - not with whatever random girl he found at the club. Because you wanted to be enough for him, wanted him to be impervious to anyone elseâs advances because you were all he wanted.
Because you did like him. Because you felt something for him - something that might have been a crush eight months ago, but was certainly a bigger beast now.
Fuck. Fuck!
Your feet felt like they were plunged in ice, and you closed your eyes, swallowing back panic and nausea.
At home, you lay across your bed while your friend used your shower, turning your phone screen on and off, typing and erasing, your mind dizzy with the war it was waging against itself.
Vernon was a wildfire, catching and migrating, drawing closer and closer. Something in you screamed to take action - start digging a trench, start running if nothing else, just get away get away get away before youâre not just burned but reduced entirely to ash. Something else argued that Vernonâs fire was the only thing that kept you warm, vital for survival against the icy nights that overtook you at their whim.
How to protect your dignity, deny that you need him, deny that youâre trying to keep him all to yourself, without losing him completely?
You imagined him at his place, rereading these messages. You wondered if he was mad, frustrated. You wondered if he felt suffocated by your display of possessiveness.
Youâd never answered his why.
You never did. You left it unanswered, and his next three wydâs went unanswered as well.Â
Then he stopped trying.
8 months ago
sorry. i - - can we just go back to normal - - wyd later? - - iâm sorry - - hey - - itâs not a problem, you can do what you want - - it is a problem because i - - sorry for not answering, hru? - -
Unsent, each. Deleted.
You had Bestie Night with Chan during a deep freeze, your radiator working overtime as you split a bottle of red.
You sketched absently on your napkin as you caught up.
âI dunno, Chan, the co-worker thing always scared me a little. Mom always says donât shit where you eat and I think sheâs right.â
Chan, who was head over ass in love with Jinseo in marketing, scoffed at you heavily.
âA romantic situation scaring you means nothing to me,â he said, dead serious. âI think someone asking for your number would scare you.â
You scowled at him, defensive. âWe havenât had enough wine to start the personal attacks.â
He laughed. âOkay, okay. Iâm just saying. You spook easy. Itâs not a secret.â
You stuck out your tongue, went back to your doodle.
âItâs nice to see you drawing,â he said, casually, and you narrowed your eyes at him.
âAre you intent on being a busybody tonight?â you asked, and he laughed, holding his hands up in surrender.
âIâm just saying!â he cried, still chuckling a little. âItâs nice to see! Itâs a healthy outlet for you!â
âIâm kicking you out,â you deadpanned, then reached to refill your glass, because if he was in this kind of mood, you were going to need it.
In all honesty, sketching wasnât really your thing - you werenât drawn to pencil or charcoal or ink or even digital sketches the way you were drawn to painting. But you hadnât in so long now you felt almost stubborn about it, like starting again would be the same as admitting something. Like starting again would mean admitting that you were dumb to quit in the first place. It would mean admitting that youâd fucked away every good opportunity youâd had, and for nothing.
Nothing had even happened - that was the part that kept you up at night, gave you a stomachache. Youâd fumbled your entire future, a few years ago, and you didnât even have a good reason for it - no major trauma, no life-altering crisis. Just your own worthless brain doing everything in its power to bring you low.
Youâd graduated from undergrad already knowing youâd been accepted to a great visual arts school - prestigious, even. Youâd had to submit a portfolio, had forgone sleep for months trying to make it perfect. But every time youâd tried to move on it - send in paperwork to register or officially enroll, forms for financial aid, any of it - youâd frozen like a rabbit in headlights, too scared to push a single button unless it was the X in the corner of the screen.
Your dad had been sick at the time, that was true. But heâd been okay in the end - just a few touch-and-go months, some hospital stays, nothing worse than that. He was fine now. You werenât even living at home, didnât have to deal with it - it didnât factor in. It didnât matter, it wasnât enough to take the blame from you.
And, true, youâd just come out of an episode right before graduating, and found yourself standing among the rubble of what your life had been before the episode started noticing that your two best friends were no longer present - hadnât waited around for you. But that wasnât a good excuse either. Friendships faded all the time. Life went on.
âSo, are you gonna ask her out?â you asked, hoping to turn the conversation.
âI would love to, but I think if I tried, I would throw up right there in front of her,â he said, and you were pretty sure he wasnât kidding.
âText her,â you suggested.
âThat seems⊠so sad,â Chan admitted. âIâve got to have the balls to just do it. Right? Aish, Lee Chan.â He buried his face in his hands, frustrated with his own cowardice, and you reached out to give his arm a reassuring pat-pat.
âDid you talk to her this week?â
âYes,â Chan said emphatically. âWe took our breaks at the same time on Thursday, and we talked about the cold snap!â
You leveled him with a look. âHave you talked to her about anything besides the weather?â
He pointed at you, expression darkening. âI will not be judged by the likes of you. When was your last date? What year?â
âWow,â you said flatly, and he began cackling, delighted with himself. âWow. Just⊠wow. I truly have nothing else to say to you.â
âAsk her if sheâs watched any good shows lately,â you offered. âThen you have something you know she likes to talk to her about.â
âEeeehhh,â Chan said, which meant I donât think I like your idea.
You shrugged. âStay lonely, then, I guess.â
You should have enrolled in the grad program. You should have pursued painting.
Instead, youâd convinced yourself it was stupid - not lucrative for a real career, just hobby-chasing, and you werenât good enough anyway.
The deadline had passed. You got a job in an office, an apartment, the cat. Life went on. Your bunny-rabbit brain had said hide scared hide scared hide scared and youâd listened, had pushed away the scary thing until it was too late to grapple with it at all.
It was the parallel to now, and maybe the wine, that pushed you to look steadfastly at your kitchen wall and admit, âActually, thereâs something I havenât been telling you.â
Chanâs smile dropped quickly, and he leaned a little closer, ready to listen.
âIâve been hooking up with this guy,â you admitted. âFor a while.â
Chanâs gaze sharpened and you wanted to flinch. âOnly him?â he asked. And then, âHow long is a while?â
Shame beat on the window, scratched its nails down the panes line a chalkboard, the screeching sending shivers down to your toes.
âA little over a year,â you mumbled.
Chanâs silence rippled out like youâd thrown a stone into the quarry. He said nothing, just watched you carefully, swirling his wine around in his glass just for something to do.
âThatâs a long time,â he said. A long time to keep the secret from me, he meant. A long time to be with one person, you heard behind it.
âI know,â you said, deflating. âIâm sorry. I really am. I just⊠I knew youâd romanticize it, try to talk about it like it was a thing - and I⊠I really, really wanted it to stay just hooking up. None of the other stuff.â
He very nearly grimaced when you said this, and it made your stomach sink even further. You knew you were broken, unable to connect, unable to give or receive anything close to love - but to see your best friend react like he knew it too? It sucked the breath out of you.
âAnd heâs okay with that?â Chan asked, instead of addressing your allergy to feelings. âFor a year, just sex?â
You shrugged. You were the one whoâd gotten possessive. Vernon had never asked you for more, had never indicated that he might want to shift your boundaries. âSeems like it.â
Chan shifted in his seat, frowning a little. âWell, if youâre on the same page, then I guess⊠Iâm happy for you?â
âEh,â you said. âDonât be. I screwed it up. As usual.â
He gives you a look that says donât do that. You drink the rest of the wine in the glass and reach for the bottle again, but itâs empty.
âCan you fix it?â he asked.
âI donât know,â you admitted. âI havenât tried.â
âOkay,â Chan said easily. âSo try.â
When Chan left, you stayed at the kitchen island, pulling out a notebook and pen. You sketched across four pages - flowers, faces, the clock on the wall, the frost patterns on the window.
It wasnât a paintbrush, sliding through a shade youâd worked to make just right. But it wasnât nothing. It wasnât terrible.
You picked up your phone.
hey. sorry for the silence - really. that was shitty of me. you been okay?
You passed your fingers back over the last page of sketches, feeling the tiny ridges where the pen had pressed. You traced back over a flower - hyacinths, just like your mother used to grow under your bedroom window.
You were prepared to receive no answer; you would have deserved a taste of your own medicine, and you knew it. But it wasnât much later when an answer came through.
no worries. my place is freezing, our boiler broke. can i warm up there?
You thanked every star in the whole sky that Chan wasnât there to see your smile at Vernonâs answer. You could never have denied it - the smile said I am feeling something, allergy be damned.
And just after the smile came the bunny-rabbit instincts: hide scared hide scared hide scared.
of course. iâll be here.
7 months ago
âI think Iâd be happier as a cicada,â Vernon mused, squinting at Seungkwan through the half an inch of vodka rolling like a sea in the glass he held aloft.
Seungkwanâs face dropped into a frown. âIs this, like, would you still love me if I was a worm?â
They were on opposite sides of the tiny, wooden table he usually ate at, the bottle open between them and sweating a circle onto the wood. Vernon dragged a finger through the condensation until the streak ran dry.
âNuh-uh. I just think Iâd be happier.â
The frown deepened. âI canât tell if youâre being ironic or if I need to be concerned about you.â
Vernon dodged, said something that might make more sense outside of his own head. âWhat if I dropped out of grad school?â
The vodka in the glass did nothing to blur the flat expression Seungkwan leveled at him. âNow what in the fuck would you do that for with only four months left? Thatâs just financially stupid. Itâd be like running a marathon and giving up on mile twenty-two.â
âCounter-point,â Vernon said, lowering the glass as far as his mouth, teeth clicking on the rim of the glass, âI fucking hate it and I donât see the point in finishing.â
âMoney down the drain,â Seungkwan intoned.
âYears of my life down the drain,â Vernon grumbled.
âThat actually adds to my point. Youâve invested time and money. Might as well see it through.â
âBut for what?â Vernon demanded, finally getting closer to the truth heâs been circling.
âThe job opportunities?â
Vernon drained his glass, waited for things to soften just a little around the edges. âI donât know if I want them anymore,â he mumbled, then made an escape into the kitchen to put another few ice cubes in his glass, to get away from the way Seungkwanâs gaze sharpened as he caught on to how much Vernon meant what he was saying.
The problem was that he had to leave the kitchen eventually, and Seungkwan was waiting, his face carefully blank.
âYou donât want to -?â
âI donât know,â Vernon interrupted with a grumble. And that was the truth - he just didnât know. He didnât know if heâd like his field, didnât know if heâd be good at it or if heâd find it fulfilling or if heâd hate it and regret his choices and wake up every day feeling just as bored and - frankly - unenthused about his life as he did these days.
And he was tired. He woke up tired every day, fought exhaustion the whole time he was awake, went to bed tired. His eyes ached from wanting to close, his heart screamed for a chance to rest. He was tired of it - of fighting the exhaustion, the apathy. He wanted sometimes (often) to just give in - sleep however long it took. Months, maybe.
âGonna have to pay your bills somehow,â Seungkwan reasoned.
âSee? Cicadas donât have bills,â Vernon argued, and Seungkwan rolled his eyes so hard that Vernon couldnât help but laugh, leaning sideways against the kitchenâs doorframe as his body shook with it.
Later, after Seungkwan left for the night, Vernon squinted at his phone until the letters held still.
wanna be a cicada with me?
vernon what the fuck
its a serious question
i mean, maybe??? sleep for seven years, come out and scream for three months, then die? i could get behind this plan
i knew youâd get it. seven years of sleep? bet.
personally i think screaming for three months straight would fix me
exactly.
[ ]
wanna come over?
yeah. omw
âYouâre so drunk.â
Vernon squinted at you, unsure if he was hearing judgement in your tone (which would be rich) or if he was projecting (much more likely). ââS âKwanâs fault,â he muttered, still squinting, even though it really wasnât Seungkwanâs fault. In fact, Seungkwan had been the one to twist the top back on the vodka bottle and walk it gingerly to Vernonâs freezer, claiming he was just helping tidy up when they both knew heâd thought Vernon had had enough.
Vernon was still seated at his little table, body turned so the wall behind him held him up as he leaned back against it. When you dropped into his lap, his arms came around you automatically, pulling you in tight. You leaned into him, brushing your lips gently across his cheekbones, down his jaw, and then resting your head against his shoulder so that you were almost burrowed in the nape of his neck.
The room swam around him a little, but Vernon flexed his hands against your waist every time it spun too much and it helped him ground himself, helped him remember that if you werenât spinning then he couldnât be either.
âThey molt, too,â you said, and for a long minute Vernon thought heâd blacked out and missed part of the conversation. But then you ran a hand down his chest, letting it land on his forearm, and clarified, âCicadas. They shed their skin. I like that part, too. Getting to step out of a self that doesnât fit now, leave it behind - leave behind physical proof that you arenât that, now.â
Vernonâs hands flexed around you for a different reason.
He liked that, too - the idea of leaving himself behind, a self he didnât want to be anymore.
His eyes slipped shut, but he heard himself say, âSo, itâs settled, then. Weâll be bugs.â
Your giggle, the light sound of it as well as the feeling of your body moving against his, brought him back a little, and he cracked his eyes open to see you smile.
âYeah,â you told him, sitting back up and smiling lightly. âWeâll be bugs.â
6 months ago
going out with seungcheol-hyung later. u gonna be out?
yeah - going to maestro with some friends
i dont think hyung would step foot into maestro but iâll try
Vernon is sharp. Sharp wit, sharp eyes, sharp angles, sharp smile twisting into something leering.
You were chasing lights, trying to track pink beams as they carved paths across the clubâs dark walls, when you caught his gaze across the crowded dance floor. He leaned against the bar, watching you, still and jagged, a serrated edge.
You held his gaze long enough for him to know it was a message, then you began pushing your way through the mass of people around you - not towards him, but away, towards the barely lit back hallway that led to the bathrooms.
You knew heâd follow. You didnât have to check.
When he pressed you into a dark corner, you wrapped an arm around the back of his neck for stability and let your eyes slip closed, let the colors youâd been chasing flow around you as you floated.
âWhereâd your hyung go?â you breathed as Vernon traced your silhouette with heavy hands.
âDonât care,â he muttered.
He tucked his chin low, focused, slid one hand up the trembling inside of your thighs, slipped his fingers past the thin layer of your panties, pushed two fingers deep inside you and sucked in a breath when you moaned out loud, your head falling back against the wall.
âAlready fucking wet for me, so wet for me,â he growled, fingers working you in even, steady pumps that made your walls flutter and your legs shake. âDidnât even do anything yet.â
You whimpered his name, the muted bass from the clubâs main room settling around you like a fog, syncing up with your pounding pulse. You said it again, a little louder, desperate. Somewhere in your mind, you were aware that you could be found, and that piece of you urged him to be quick.
âHurry -â you gasped, â-before -â
âHurry?â he laughed, the sound almost mocking. âWhy would I hurry? Want to stay knuckles deep in this pussy all night -â
You gasped, your hips bucking, and he groaned out loud, unashamed.
âFuck, you fucking gushed when I said that, christ,â he whined, voice suddenly thinner, like it might crack. Like he might shatter, leave more sharp pieces behind.
You shattered before him, trying desperately to keep the long, keening noise buried in your throat as he pushed the pads of his fingers against your front wall, urging out every last shudder.
When he slipped his fingers from you, he paused, face freezing with his mouth stretched into an exaggerated grimace as he tried to work out where to wipe them. It surprised both of you when you surged forward and grabbed his wrist, bringing his sticky fingers to your mouth and licking a stripe from the edge of his palm to his fingertips before taking them between your lips.
You thrilled when his eyes rolled back, when he slapped his spare hand against the wall next to your head to brace himself, when he rutted against you furiously as if you werenât in plain view of anyone who decided they had to pee right now. He pressed against you, so hard you could feel the heat of him even through his pants, as you laved his fingers with your tongue, mimicking what youâd be doing on your knees if you were in private.
âIf I cum in my pants in the fucking club, Iâm going to be so mad at you,â he gasped, and it made you laugh, giving him the chance to pull his hand away, to back away from you desperately, chest heaving. You laughed again, feeling a little victorious.
You straightened yourselves up and made your way back to the bar; you ordered shots and took them in succession. Then, one eyebrow raised, you asked him, âSo - want to finish what you started?â
He laughed, teeth flashing. You ordered a ride on your phone. You stood and he trailed you closely as you made your way unsteadily through the crowd. A group of girls tried to pass the opposite way and you had to pause, stopping short as they wiggled past you, sending you grateful smiles. Vernon bumped into your back, his hands finding your waist.
You stayed there, even when the path cleared, feeling his body solid against yours, his hands tight on you, losing yourself in the tidal pulsing of the room, as if the whole club inhaled and exhaled each time the beat changed up.
âWhat?â Vernon asked behind you. âWhat is it?â
Everything in your bloodstream - from alcohol to adrenaline to oxytocin to you werenât even sure what else - spoke for you. Turning just slightly, you asked him something youâd kept caged for months on end.
âWhen are you gonna leave?â
Shock crossed his face before he could school it. Then, confusion, or something like it, his brows furrowing. âYou want me to go?â
âNo,â you said quickly, knowing what youâd already said was a mistake, knowing anything else you said could only make it worse, but unable to stop the words that your mouth provided. âNo, I didnât mean tonight. I just. I meant⊠in general.â
Something cold slid over his face. âThatâs not better,â he said, his voice suddenly so even that it sent shivers down your arms. You turned to face him fully; around you, bodies moved, voices shouted, and the music was almost deafening.
You barely noticed any of it.
âI meant -â
âI know what you meant,â he interrupted, angry. You could see it all over him - his shoulders tight, his mouth turned down. âYou meant youâre just riding out your sentence with me until I inevitably leave you. Right?â
âI -â No, you meant to say, but he was kind of right, and it was confusing.
He shook his head, took a step away from you. Miraculously, the crowd let him. âThis is bullshit,â he told you, his voice low and brittle with hurt. âYou donât get to fucking put that on me - youâre the one who runs in this - in whatever this is.â
He took another step back, shaking his head, obviously disgusted.
âVernon, thatâs not - I do not run -â You couldnât choose what to argue first; your head swam, and you pressed a hand to your eyes for a second, hoping to clear them. âWhy are you so mad?â you asked plaintively, looking at him again.
He laughed, just as mocking as heâd been when he was toying with you in the back hallway. âWhy am I mad?â he repeated. âGo fuck yourself.â
Vernon was always sharp. He left you standing there, bleeding on the dancefloor.
<- Prev | Next ->
thank you so much for reading!!! i'll update again next friday :)
Vice;Grip (masterpost)
NSFW - minors DNI
Genre: angst smut fluff, fuckbuddies!au
Summary: Make it not hurt, you could have asked him. Or, at least, make it hurt in a way I choose.Â
A/N: infinite thank you's to @sailoryooons and @eoieopda for beta-ing!!
//
Warnings: Frequent depictions of depression, depressive episodes, panic attacks, and substance abuse (alcohol, weed, and pills referenced). PLEASE know that these charactersâ relationships with drugs and alcohol are not healthy and should not be emulated. If these topics are triggering to you, please consider sitting this one out.
Section Specific Warnings: depiction of a depressive episode, recreational drinking and bar scenes, allusion to oral (f. receiving), kissing, rough sex/man-handling, explicit penetrative sex, dirty talk, aftercare, didn't venture fully into writing dom!vernon but i have been informed i wrote something that might be in the realm of a dom drop, language obviously, reader is called a gendered slur by a stranger, law-breaking :), actual fluff for a second, allusions to drug use, car sex
wc: 6900
Playlist: you can call me in the middle of the night / you can leave before i wake up in the morning / and it could feel so wrong / but i'll still hold on
1 yr, 5 months ago
The onset of spring brought a lack of color. Grey clouds hung full and heavy, low over the city skyline. Grey crept into the corners of your apartment, darkening rooms during daytime so that you needed to keep lamps on even in midafternoon. Grey crept over your body, into your limbs. Days stretched and nights inched; you only got out of bed because you had to feed the damn cat.
That's part of why you'd gotten the cat in the first place, after a particularly long episode a few years ago, when Chan had presented you with a list of things he thought you should do to combat the blues, as he'd put it.
He meant well. But he always came at your depression like a problem solver, like just doing the right things could make it go away.
And sure, his suggestions were things that would help - get outside, call someone, don't isolate, shower even if you aren't leaving the house, drink some damn water - they weren't a cure. They were better reminders for when you were okay - good at keeping you okay for longer stretches. But when it was already too late, when the grey came, they all sounded fucking pointless.Â
Anyway. The cat had been a good idea.Â
is it bad??Â
Chan did his best. He was a good best friend. He just didn't understand it.
The answer to his question, you thought, as you flipped your phone over so you wouldn't see the notification if he followed up, was yes. Yes, this time was particularly bad. But you didn't have the energy to type those three words.Â
Terrible friend, your brain accused, and it was right.Â
You managed to drag yourself to work, to at least show up so you could continue to pay for your apartment and your damn cat, but not much else. You existed on cans of diet coke and microwave meals. You doom-scrolled until sunrise, then slept an hour or two at most before getting dressed for work. You left texts unanswered, the mail piled up. So did the dishes.Â
Chan came by, once, did your dishes for you. It made you feel worse - useless and pitiable. You'd rather he just go away, but you held it in; you knew that would only hurt his feelings.
You learned from your mistakes, one thing that could be said in your favor.Â
âHave you called your doctor?â he wanted to know.
What was the point? There wasn't a stop hating your life pill.Â
âWhat if you tried painting?â he asked.
âWhat if you just let me be?â you countered, finally tripping over the line from embarrassed apathy to defensiveness.Â
That pout again. âIt might help,â he said. âDon't most famous artists do their best shit when they're down?â
âGet out,â you deadpanned. He dropped it, knowing this was a bigger issue, a bigger argument, than this current episode, a complex situation that went beyond the boundaries of your brain chemistry.
He put the last of your now-clean plates away. âLet's go somewhere,â he suggested.
âChan,â you groaned. âIâm tired. I can't go gallivanting -â
âYou're not tired, you're depressed,â he argued. âAnd going outside will help you.â
âI might have to kill you,â you said seriously, and he rolled his eyes.Â
In the end, he let you win. He'd been around long enough to know that eventually you'd venture outside again, hit the bars with him again, text first again, laugh at his stupid memes again. It was just a waiting game.Â
Still, when he left, you sat on the edge of your couch with your chin in your hands. On the living room rug, the cat rolled and showed you its belly.Â
âNot you, too,â you groused.Â
The cat did a few alligator rolls and then scampered into your bedroom and under the bed, as if chased.Â
You sighed. You made your way to the spare room, which had been shut - to keep the cat out. To keep your ghosts in.Â
Your easel was still set up in the corner. You were kind of surprised it wasn't covered in cobwebs. You'd been sketching just on paper last time you'd worked, trying to make decisions that way so you wouldn't waste a canvas, and it still sat there.Â
You inched closer, ran your hands over your brushes. Took a step back, eyed the paper and your sketches.Â
It was bad. Thank god you hadn't put it to canvas.Â
You pulled the paper down, crumpled it in your hands. You chased the cat out with a gentle nudge of your foot, and closed the door again, keeping both cats and ghosts on their respective sides of the door.
There was no rhyme or reason to your brain, no map or calendar to follow for the starts or stops. But eventually, the clouds broke. The grey gave way to baby buds of green, yellows pushed through soil, determined to meet the sun.
You texted Chan - drinks??
He responded - about time!!!
You texted Vernon - hello, its me
When he didn't answer, you tried again - sorry for the radio silence.Â
Still nothing.Â
You checked his socials, saw that he'd been doing his thing - a smattering of selfies, some group shots with the guys he played music with sometimes, a few nature shots: the moon, once, and what looked like the river at night.Â
The silence stretched. You gave up, considered it over. Grieved a little, because it had been good.Â
You went out on a night that teased summer even though it was months away, sank into the familiar blur of too many shots - not enough to be a problem, but maybe enough to make problems.Â
Under the club's ever-moving lights, you took a selfie, your drink and cleavage both showcased in the shot.Â
Send it to Vernon, the urge to make trouble suggested, and you listened without hesitation.
And - finally - an answer.
come here after??Â
You smiled a tiny, victorious smile and knocked back the rest of your drink.Â
omw.
Later, he gave you a rare and devastating pout as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smoothed fingers down the still-shaking inside of your thigh.
âWhat'd you make me wait so long for?â he complained, those sharp eyes sparkling with mirth. When you shrugged, still a little mindless from your high, he gave the same spot on your thigh a playful slap. âDon't do it again.â
1 yr, 4 months ago
busy tonight?
not busy but.
???
not in the best mood.
bet i could fix that.
yeah. idk.
why don't you let me try?Â
âWhat's wrong?â you cooed, teasing, when Vernon let you into the apartment.Â
He didn't smile, didn't play along, and it sobered you quickly.Â
âDon't want to talk about it,â he muttered, crowding into your space. âWasn't that big of a deal anyway.â
Just want the fix you promised, he thought.Â
You moaned like liquid gold when his first kiss was a bite. Encouraged, Vernon gripped you by the shoulders, pushing you back against the wall hard enough that he heard your breath escape in a single huff. He hesitated, eyes searching your face; a question.
You lifted your chin, eyes shining with something hard. When he kissed you again, you threaded your fingers through his hair and pulled, hard enough to make him hiss; an answer.
His pace was frenzied from the start, your legs around his waist and the wall holding you up. His hand curled around your throat, not squeezing, but sliding up to grip at your jaw instead, keeping you from tilting your head back, closing your eyes, losing yourself in how he felt slamming his hips flush against yours with dizzying smacks.
When you whined that you were close, he pulled you away from the wall and lowered you both to the ground, the wooden floor of his entryway cold and hard beneath your spine. It didnât matter, didnât do anything to stop the vortex tightening below your stomach. You slapped a hand over your face as it distorted in pleasure, Vernon kneeling between the legs you still had gripping his waist, one of his hands braced on the floor next to your head, holding his body over you.
âThatâs right,â he breathed, gritted teeth flashing over you, forehead wrinkling as his own release closed in on the chase. âJust fucking take it when I fuck you into the floor.â
Then he was pulling out, breaths hissing through his teeth as he straightened up, one hand pumping himself furiously until strings of white decorated your stomach, cooling immediately in the apartmentâs chilly air.
His breathing was ragged as he sagged back onto his heels, and you pushed yourself up onto your elbows, watching him warily.
Then he stood and slipped into the hallway bathroom, the light clicking on and illuminating the unlit entryway where youâd just fucked. You heard the sink run, then shut back off, and Vernon returned. He knelt gingerly - you could see his knees were red from kneeling on the wooden floor - and cleaned your stomach first, then gently between your legs.
You sat the rest of the way up then, watching him carefully as he sat back on his heels again, avoiding your gaze. Something about the moment felt like a thing alive, unfurling between you like a casablanca lily under the refracted light of the moon.
You spoke at the same time.
âVernon?â
âYou okay?â
You swallowed, rubbed absently at your elbow where youâd smacked it on the floor during the position change.
âIâm fine,â you said tentatively. âAre you?â
He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face, and then peering through his fingers at you for a second before dropping them again. âThought I hurt you.â
You shook your head. âIâm okay. I would have said something.â
He nodded, relief starting to bring feeling back to his hands again. He stood and reached a hand down for you. When you took it, he closed his fingers around yours and pulled you to your feet.
âI know we donât usually do this,â you said, rubbing at the parts of you that had been on the floor - the backs of your legs, your ass, âbut could I take a super fast shower before I go?â
âYeah,â he said, so quickly that the word almost trips on itself. âOf course.â
He led you into the bathroom, rummaged in the disorganized linen closet for a clean towel, pressed it into your hands.
âIf you need one, too,â you said easily, as he reached around you to turn the water on so it could heat up, âI donât mind if you join me.â
He paused. âYou sure?â
You shrugged, then leaned over to put your hand under the spray, testing to see if it was still cold. âItâs your shower.â
Under the stream of warm water, you turned to face him, front to front, looking up at him with clear eyes. Something in your expression was so open, Vernon couldnât help but feel both the desire to step into the space you seemed to be offering him as well as the desire to get far, far away from it.
Heâd been so angry before youâd texted, furious enough that heâd bruised his knuckles punching the doorframe; now, as the chemicals in his body settled down, he felt those knuckles throbbing. He was disgusted that heâd lost his temper, guilty that heâd taken any of that anger out on you, who had nothing to do with it.
He was scared of the desire he felt to be closer to you, just for tonight. Scared that fucking you hadnât been enough to soothe whatever it was that roiled inside him, like it usually was. Scared that he felt like he needed more than sex to heal this particular burn.
âIâm sorry,â he said, and part of him thought he was apologizing in advance, like he knew already heâd run scared at some point. âFor being so...â
He didnât know what word fit best.Â
âI told you,â you said, pressing a little closer, âI would have said if I had a problem.â
âOkay,â he said, frowning a little. âIf youâre sure.â
Then he reached over and brushed a thumb along your cheekbone, chasing away a rivulet of shower-water. You closed your eyes for a second, and he swore he could feel you lean into the touch, just slightly.
He didnât know how to explain how he felt. Kind of like heâd done a hot-coal-walk; the exhaustion that came with an adrenaline crash, the vulnerability that came after facing down something big, that need - the burn inside him needing cool water before it could quiet down.
With the shower off, the silence in the bathroom was loud.
âDo youâŠâ Vernon started, then stopped. His heart hammered, the adrenaline returning. He covered the moment by toweling his hair roughly and pulling his hands through the strands so theyâd lay right. âDo you want to stay for a little bit? I was gonna order delivery, maybe watch something before I finish my assignment.â
Heâd expected you to think about it, to turn it over in your mind the way you turn his things over in your careful hands, the way you turn him ass over head with just a smirk. Instead, you nodded right away.
âYeah,â you said, like it was no big deal. Like you did this all the time. Maybe you did, just not with him. âI was starving, actually. I could stay for an hour or two.â
On his couch, the leftovers of the food scattered on his coffee table, you reached for his hand, ran a thumb imperceptibly along his purpled knuckles. You didnât ask what happened, just brought them to your lips and pressed the lightest kiss before putting them down again and reaching for your noodles, as if it hadnât happened at all.
That was when Vernon saw the potential of it, an entire picture, framed and labeled: you could hurt him so badly if he let you, if he let it get that far. For whatever it was that burned inside him, you were the cool water⊠but you could absolutely be gasoline, instead.
1 yr, 3 months ago
If you closed your eyes, you could pretend the light that passed over your closed lids in a repetitive pattern was the sweep of a lighthouse beam. You could pretend that the rumbling bass of the music was the roar of the ocean. You could pretend that you werenât here, in a shitty bar, but at the seaside. You could pretend that you werenât alone. You could pretend that you werenât you.
You drained your drink and caught the bartenderâs eye, gesturing for another, sliding the sweating glass away from you once you knew a new one was coming.
âWhat are you drinking?â
The voice came from your right, and you lifted tired, disinterested eyes to find the source of it.
âG and T,â you answered, because it was one fewer syllable than saying gin and tonic and maybe that one syllable would do the dirty work for you and tell this guy that you didnât want to talk to him.
âNice,â he said, like youâd said something interesting, and you fought the urge to roll your eyes. You didnât return the question, just slid your phone screen on and opened your messages.
wyd
drinks at my hyungs place. wbu
damn. guess i have to settle for one of these very mid prospects at the willow
damn thats a sad story. if only you had a better option
if only my better option werent busy at his hyungâs
no one said i had to stay here. ur at the willow?
yep
The guy to your right tried again. âThe DJ tonight kind of sucks, huh?â
You looked back at your phone.
donât leave
You smiled into your drink, a thrill dancing through your bloodstream. The lights and music didnât seem as garish as they had ten minutes ago.
âMy boyfriendâs on his way to pick me up,â you said flatly to the guy who kept trying to talk to you, âso you might want to find someone else to complain about the DJ to.â
The word tasted like lemonade on your tongue - acidic and sour, sweet and refreshing, taste buds blooming and shriveling in tandem. Even the knowledge that it was a flat-out lie didnât stop your heart from beating faster.
You expected the guy to get up and leave, maybe throw you a dirty look on his way. Instead, he seemed to call your bluff, narrowing his eyes like he was trying to read you.
âI donât think Iâd let my girlfriend go out alone looking like this,â he said evenly, and you let out a derisive laugh.
âThe fact that you just said the words let my girlfriend probably has a lot to do with why youâre here alone,â you countered, a flash of victory slicing up your spine when you saw his face flush.
Before he could retort, you hopped down from your barstool, pushing your way into the crowded dance floor. You didnât even want to dance, you just wanted to get away. If Vernon wanted to find you, he could come find you. Heâd told you not to leave, he hadnât said make it easy for me.
He found you anyway; he made it look easy. He stepped around a group of guys talking in a circle and into your space, like he was following a path, like he knew thereâd be room for him.
You were happy to see him. You were happy he came. You were happy to breathe him in, to feel the warmth of his body and smell his cologne and hear your name tumble from his mouth like a statement. You were too drunk to tuck these truths away into pockets and folds where they would be harder to find.
You stepped to him and wrapped your arms around his neck. If he was surprised, his body hid it well. His hands came to rest on your lower back, pressing you closer to him as you leaned up to find his mouth.
You kissed him slowly, at odds with the frantic bassline vibrating under your feet. You let him tip your head back, changing the angle, sweeping your mouth with his tongue until you both tasted lemonade.
âHappy to see me?â he asked, a hint of a smirk on his face, one eyebrow arched in question and one half of his mouth twitching into a smile.
You didnât have it in you to lie, so instead you said, âYour place?â
He led you outside.
As luck would have it, the idiot from the bar stood beside the front door, a cigarette between two fingers. His expression darkened when he recognized you, then further when he saw your fingers linked with Vernonâs as you stepped into the quiet night.
âYour girlfriendâs a fucking bitch,â the guy bit out, dropping the cigarette butt and stepping on it.
Vernonâs eyebrows shot up.
Evenly, he said, âSheâs not -â
Sheâs not my girlfriend. You felt your stomach swoop, and you felt yourself flinch.
â- a bitch. Sheâs just smarter than you.â
Vernon tugged on your hand, leading you across the street to his parked, waiting car.
You tried to bite back a smile, and he looked sideways at you, his own lips twitching.
âWhat?â he demanded.
âWhat?â you parroted.
He scowled at you, but his lips were just smiling. âWhat?â he asked again.
You laughed. âLetâs go,â you said. âThe bitch wants to kiss you more.â
You expected his smile to sharpen. Instead, something in it seems to soften, changing from teasing to actual affection.
âAlright,â he said, turning to start the engine. âCanât really say no to that, can I?â
âYou could,â you mused, as he pulled away from the curb and the bar slid into nothingness behind you, âbut I just donât think you should.â
1 yr, 2 months ago
wyd
melting
srsly
no, seriously. i am laying on my living room floor like a starfish trying not to turn into liquid
come to hyungs
its too hot to move
i have an idea, come meet me at hyungs
You frowned at your phone. Of course your aircon died during the only heatwave you could remember in your entire adult life. Your whole body felt sticky; you were pretty sure you were stuck to your floor.
It was too hot to move.
whatâs the idea??
youâll see. iâll order u a car. can you bring a couple towels?
âVernon, no,â you laughed, your voice echoing.
He shushed you through laughter, both of you leaning on each other as you stood at the edge of the yard, the grass tickling the bottoms of your bare feet. Upstairs, at his friendâs place, youâd thrown back a few shots for courage before following Vernon out here, and you were feeling them, your head swimming like your body might soon be.
âItâs a circuit, see?â he tried to explain, pointing through the night, as if you could see through all the fences and over all the hedges. âFive yards, five pools, and then we end up right back here and we get in the car and go. Just follow me, donât stop for anything.â
âSomeoneâs gonna call the cops,â you complained. âAnd these neighborhoods all have cameras.â
âThatâs why we keep moving,â he said, his grin so excited and so un-Vernon that you almost couldnât bear to say no to him. âNo oneâs gonna call the cops if weâre already gone - itâs not worth it. You ready?â
You hesitated. âYouâre good to drive us out of here?â you checked.
He held up his hands as if to show innocence. âOnly had a beer,â he promised. âBut Iâve got something fun in the car for after, if you want.â
You felt your grin turn wolfish. âOkay. Iâm right behind you.â
âTry and be quiet,â he warned, then took off running across the yard, cannonballing into the pool with a splash.
You tore off after him, leaping into the water and suppressing a shriek when the cold water hit you. You felt instantly sober, jittery with adrenaline, alive with laughter. You spluttered your way to the surface and pushed water away from your eyes, trying to find him through the shadows.
He was already climbing out the other side, water running down his back, the muscle shifting in the half-light as he hoisted himself back onto the poolâs deck. You hurried across the pool, climbing up beside him, giggling wildly.
âShhh,â he warned, but he was giggling too as he led you carefully over the fence to the next yard.
As soon as you crept close enough to the pool to jump, a motion-activated light came on, flooding the yard white and causing you to cover your eyes.
âQuick!â Vernon told you, grabbing your arm and pulling you in with him as he jumped.
You let out a stream of bubbles and water rushed into your mouth. You felt your feet hit the bottom and you pushed off hard, surfacing quickly.
Again, you followed him across the pool, both of you laughing and whispering, âHurry! Quick!â as you climbed out and headed around the house to the front yard.
âOkay, this is the hard part,â he told you, both of you shivering as the night air caught up to you. âWe have to cross the street, hop the fence, and then the pool is around back.â
âIâm ready,â you promised, with a particularly hard shiver.
You sprinted across the street, both leaving wet footprints on the pavement. His hand felt warm in yours when he helped you over the fence, warm on your body when he held your waist as you climbed down.
âI canât believe weâre doing this,â you muttered, but giggles still spilled out of you.
âMore fun than melting, right?â he asked, and you thought that youâd seen him smile more tonight than in whole months of coming together at night.
You thought you might move mountains to see him smile like this again, gums showing, open and honest, happy.
Then you were underwater again, swimming hard to keep up, following Vernon through the night as he pushed his way through some hedges and held them apart for you.
You made it to the last house before someone caught you, slamming the back door open and shouting, âHey!â
âGo, go, go!â Vernon cried, laughing with such abandon that it sounded like goose honks, pulling on your hand as you both stumbled, dripping, towards the car.
Youâd set towels on the seats before starting, so you tumbled into the car and he peeled away, both of you laughing wildly as you left the neighborhood behind.
It was miles before you calmed down, gasping in breaths and trying to hold them before exploding into laughter again.
âIâd better not end up on the news,â you scolded. âIâm in my underwear.
He gave you a searing sideways look. âI noticed.â
You felt yourself warm again, despite being in soaking wet clothes.
âWhere next?â you asked. âHome?â
He let out a breath that was almost a sigh. âI donât really want to go home,â he admitted. Then, âI was having fun with you.â
You considered this. âNot to be a cliche, but⊠I know a place.â
The quarry was quiet, surrounded by only trees; without posted lights, everything seemed to be just varying shades of black - the black of the water just darker than the black of the stone ledges just darker than the walls of trees just darker than the sky sprinkled with stars above you.
âWe have to be careful,â you warned him seriously. âIf you slip and get hurt, it could be bad.â
He turned the flashlight on his phone on and set it next to the metal rungs that jutted out of the stone, a makeshift ladder for the swimmers who came here during the day, when swimming was allowed.
âItâs going to be way colder than the pools,â you added.
âYouâre not selling this very well,â he pointed out.
âDonât be a chicken,â you teased.
He eyed the water. âIâm having second thoughts.â
You nudged him in the ribs, which caused him to squirm away, hands batting at yours, a noise emitting from him that made you laugh out loud.
âAre you ticklish?â you demanded. âHow did I not know?â
âCome on, are we jumping or what?â he asked, laughing, still trying to keep your sneaky hands away from his ribs.
âYeah, thatâs probably the only way to actually get in,â you admitted, still laughing a little. Your abs felt a little sore from how much youâd laughed tonight.
You stood on the edge of the stone, toes curling over the ledge, Vernonâs hand tight in yours. You stood on the edge, the ink-like water beneath you rippling slightly, marring the reflection of the constellations high above you. You stood on the edge of something, knowing full well you were afraid to swim.
He counted you down, and together, you jumped.
The water was freezing - it hurt, it stung, and you shrieked and laughed as you surfaced. A foot from you, Vernon was shouting.
âThe towels!â you told him, already swimming towards the little dot of light that marked the ladder.
Shaking and shivering, you reached your towel, wrapping it around yourself. Behind you, Vernon jogged up, making noises like a disgruntled horse as he found his own towel.
âOh my god,â he groused, grabbing for you. âIâm freezing, come here.â
He opened his arms, the towel behind him like a wingspan, and you stepped into the space, letting him wrap his arms and his towel around you. You stood shivering together, trying to let your body heat chase the cold away.
You wrapped your own arms around his middle, pressing yourself closer as your legs shook, shivers rolling up your spine in waves as your body fought the chill.Â
âCâmere,â he murmured above you, holding you a little more tightly, his own teeth chattering.Â
It was the first time, you realized as you turned your head to rest your cheek on his chest, that youâd held each other. It was the first time youâd been between his arms when you werenât fucking, the first time heâd tightened his grip around you for a reason other than gratification.Â
You didnât want it - didnât want to know that it felt nice in his embrace, didnât want to know that it fit right and felt safe. You didnât want to know that you liked it, didnât want to have to fight against the humiliation of wanting more.
As soon as the full-body tremors died away in the warm, sticky night, you stepped away, eager to put distance between you again.Â
Later, he looked over at you from the driverâs seat of the car, red-eyed, his smile stretching slow and thick like putty. When you straddled his lap, his hands searching out the bare skin of your back, you rocked against him and pressed open-mouthed kisses to the column of his pretty throat until you were pulling groans from him with each pass of your hips.Â
Forget, you thought, as you pulled your underwear to the side for him. Forget every single thing but this.
When you slipped an arm behind his neck and pressed your foreheads together as you lifted and dropped, you werenât sure whose memory you were hoping to erase with this most recent pleasure-chase: yours, or his.
1 yr, 1 month ago
There was no map or calendar to this thing your brain did. It was summer, the sun shone, and yet the days bled together again, sunsets swirling down the shower drain.
The last time youâd gone radio silent, the last time your world had gone grey without warning, Vernon had answered in kind. His own silence had shouted for him until youâd tempted him back.
This time, he didnât resort to silence in retaliation to yours. Instead, he kept trying, relentless. If youâd had more presence of mind, you might have wondered why.
wyd
[ ]
yo. whats the deal
[ ]
i will have you know that this is very insulting
[ ]
donât get mad but im coming over
âWhat the fuck, Vernon.â
âI said donât get mad.â
âIt doesnât work like that. What are you doing here?â
He leveled you with a look. âYou gonna let me in?â
âLiterally, no.â
You hadnât showered in days; your apartment was probably grosser than you were. The cat milled around your ankles, trying to weasel its way outside, and you hopped from foot to foot trying to nudge it back inside.
âWhy not?â he asked.
You huffed, annoyed. But the annoyance was the first thing youâd felt all day, and something inside you clung to it, desperate for more of anything but the crawling nothing thatâs kept you company for days.
âBecause,â you grumbled. Because thereâs nothing for you here. Because I have nothing I can give you. âIâm⊠just not in the mood.â
He stepped back from the door so you could see more of him. âIâm not asking you to be.â
âThen why are you here?â The words fell between you, heavy. If you hadnât been so low, if you hadnât gone all day without eating, if you hadnât been on your thirtieth hour without sleeping, you would have known better. You would have realized that you were asking, if you arenât here for sex, then what are you here for?Â
You wouldnât have asked a question that you didnât want the answer to.
He met your eyes. He seemed to teeter on the edge of telling you the truth, giving you the real answer. Then, he muttered, âGot bored.â
You knew it wasnât the whole truth, and he knew you knew it, and yet neither of you were willing to look at it directly.
âI fail to see how thatâs my problem,â you mumbled, avoiding his gaze.
He watched you for what felt like a long time, face serious, eyes glittering and attentive. Then, instead of answering, he repeated, âAre you gonna let me in?â
You frowned at him, but there was a little more pout to it than anger. âIâm all gross,â you said, instead of answering.
Something in him softened - it was visible on his face, in his shoulders, like he knew this was your way of saying yes. âSo letâs shower,â he suggested quietly.
You felt trepidation, like part of you expected him to stay soft, to try to take care of you. To your relief, Vernon acted like everything was normal, scrunching his face at you when the water was too cold as he stepped in, washing his own body in silence and letting you do your thing.
He didnât try to hold you, didnât ask you when youâd eaten last, didnât try to talk about it - didnât try to fix it. He was just⊠there, and this - along with your first shower in days - was somehow revitalizing in itself.
You pulled on clean sweats, which was better than the day-four sweats heâd found you in. âThe apartmentâs kind of⊠sorry,â you mumbled, looking around the living room, feeling a bit of that familiar shame crawl up your neck as you noticed the evidence that you hadnât been picking up, or running a vacuum.
Vernon flopped backwards on your sofa, unphased, one arm bent behind his head. âWeâve been doing this for almost a year,â he pointed out. âI know how it usually is.â
It isnât usually like this. And neither are you.
You wondered when it happened - your ability to finish his half-thoughts, your ability to know what he meant when he only said a fraction of it.
You stood awkwardly beside the couch where he was lounging, and he looked up at you with a tiny, amused smile.
âWhat do you wanna do?â
What you really wanted to do was cocoon yourself in blankets again and put on repeats of a show youâd already seen. But now you had to look functional. You might be mad at him for showing up like this, now that you thought about it.
âI dunno,â you said, which was close to the truth.
âYou wanna eat?â
âHonestly?â you asked, pursing your lips a little. âNo.â
âOkay,â he said easily, and it struck you again how different this was than how Chan treated you when you were low. Chan would have already had the food delivered, and would be chasing you around the table with loaded chopsticks, demanding you take a bite.
âCan we just⊠watch something?â you asked, unsure.
Vernon wordlessly reached for your remote and held it up to you, nonplussed.
You wondered if it was an act, how easy this was, how unbothered he was, how he seemed to just understand what wouldnât help.
You knew it wasnât; youâd been around long enough to know that Vernonâs demons werenât all that different from yours.
You settled somewhere between his body and the back of the couch, one leg bent over his legs, one of your arms over his stomach and his arm curled around your shoulders.
âThis is weird,â you muttered into his chest, and his laugh rumbled under you.
âWhy?â he asked, his smile big, like he thought you were particularly funny. âNot used to being big spoon?â
Not used to cuddling - with you.
âYeah,â you said, because that was easier.
On your TV, a show ran through several episodes, the changing scenes splashing you and Vernon with changing colors, casting his face blue and then white and then black and then red and then blue again. Sometimes heâd watch, sometimes heâd scroll on his phone. You mostly felt his heart beating under your hand and let your mind whir.
At some point he started mindlessly (or not mindlessly, who could know) stroking your back, gentle touches brushing up and down, slow, slow, the way he always was. At some point you shivered, goosebumps rising along your arms, and snuggled closer to him. At some point he shifted you from slightly beside him to on top of him, a second hand slipping under your loose tshirt and joining the first in tracing stripes up and down your upper back.
You shifted against him, something coming to life with a shudder like the furnace in your parentâs basement on cold autumn nights. Heat worked its way slowly from your core to your stomach, down your legs.
He kept his eyes on the tv, innocent, but you could hear his heartbeat. It couldnât lie and pretend.
You shifted again, squirming until youâd worked his t-shirt up just enough that you could touch skin, too. You trailed your own fingers over the inch of exposed stomach youâd found, and delighted in the way you could feel him start to harden beneath you.
Then, you delighted in your delight. It was the first good thing youâd been able to feel in almost a week.
You said his name, and he finally looked down at you, eyes nearly black in the unlit room.
âWhat is it?â he asked, and his voice was suddenly so low it sent shivers tumbling down each vertebrae and tripping over to your limbs. âWant me to make you feel good?â
No, you wanted to say as you answered his question by pulling the hem of his t-shirt higher, encouraging him to lift up so you could pull it off. No, just want you to make me feel.
1 year ago
Everywhere Vernon looked, all he saw was circles. Circle of red in his bowl when he inhaled. Circle of condensation on the table when he lifted his beer. Circle of light reflecting from his phone case, laying in the setting sunlight, to the ceiling. Above him, the ceiling fan circled lazily, nowhere to be.
And you - you and him. That was a circle, too. A cycle, at least, which was close enough in his opinion. Text, hook up, skitter back to your respective places, wait out the next weekend. It was as rhythmic and routine as waves breaking and then getting pulled back out only to come shatter on sand again. It was out of his control, up to forces far greater than he was.
Vernonâs friends had texted to hang out and heâd declined. He told them he was seeing his parents, but really, he just wanted to be alone. He wanted to watch the ceiling fan circle, he wanted to let his brain go staticky quiet, he wanted to burrow deep into things that made him feel less.
But he still, somehow, wanted to see you. He wanted to be alone, and being with you didnât feel like not getting that.
It was a little scary, he thought, that you were the exception. That he could be with you without feeling the uncomfortable pressure of being with others, of having to be on, of having to fake cheerfulness and keep up with chatter that only exhausted him.
Vernon wasnât a kid. He knew what it meant.
whats up
honestly not a lot. want me to come over?
Yeah, he did. He did, even if you werenât going to hook up. He did, even if you were just going to lay on opposite sides of the couch and scroll on your phones. He did, and he hoped heâd end up with his arms around you, and he hoped heâd make you laugh at least once, and he hoped youâd stay and just be there with him after.
When you came over, he asked you how you felt about it - about him, about you and him. He asked by laying you on your back in his bed, by brushing fingertips along your face. He asked you by sliding your leggings away gently, pressing his mouth to each inch of your inseam as it became exposed to his dimly lit room. He asked you by kissing you through the lace you wore for him, then kissing the same spot once that lace was on his floor.
He asked you when he crawled up your body until his tip teased at your entrance and you whined, shifting to try to take him. And - when he took it slow this time, teeth scraping at your neck and then tongue hurrying to soothe the sting, his arms bracketing your body like he was sheltering you from an incoming storm.
(Maybe, he considered, he was.)
(Maybe, he considered, he was worthless in the face of this stormâs wrath.)
(Maybe, he considered, he was the fucking storm in the first place.)
And you heard his question loud and clear. You pulled on your leggings as soon as you were cleaned up, popping your hood up over your head as you searched for your phone. You kept your eyes on your screen as you waited for a car to come, murmured, âLater,â on your way out the door.
Vernonâs apartment rang with quiet. He was alone, heâd gotten what heâd wanted.
Heâd also, it seemed, gotten his answer.
<- Prev | Next ->
thank you so much for reading!!! i'm always happy to hear what you think!
Vice;Grip (masterpost)
NSFW - minors DNI
Genre: angst smut fluff, fuckbuddies!au
Summary: Make it not hurt, you could have asked him. Or, at least, make it hurt in a way I choose.Â
A/N: infinite thank you's to @sailoryooons and @eoieopda for beta-ing!!
//
Warnings: Frequent depictions of depression, depressive episodes, panic attacks, and substance abuse (alcohol, weed, and pills referenced). PLEASE know that these charactersâ relationships with drugs and alcohol are not healthy and should not be emulated. If these topics are triggering to you, please consider sitting this one out.
Section Specific Warnings: casual drinking, piv sex, , nip stim, reader on top, drunkenness to the point of blacking out, vomiting due to overdrinking (mentioned very briefly), dirty talk, implied drug use / vernon is high, heavy themes in regards to mental health - allusions to unspecified mental illnesses in the realm of depressive and anxiety disorders
wc: 5800
Playlist: you can call me in the middle of the night / you can leave before i wake up in the morning / and it could feel so wrong / but i'll still hold on
Now
Youâve been used to seeing his face only in puzzle pieces, triangular fragments of glass beside a fallen picture frame. Mostly in flashes of light that are gone too quickly to process the whole picture - as the car he drives passes under a streetlight, as the flashing lights from a dj booth sweep over you before moving on, as the moon crosses over the gap on your windowâs blinds that your cat broke two years ago and you never replaced.
Despite this, you know everything about it: how he keeps it carefully flat, but when it breaks itâs always to jump to extremes. How he laughs so hard his features distort and shatter, how his eyebrows nearly meet when heâs breaking and pressing fingers to his eyes, how his eyes squeeze shut when he mouths your name against your neck and presses his fingertips tighter against your skin before letting go. You have it all memorized. You know it by heart, even in the dark.Â
That was how you met - in the dark. You were dragged to a bar by your best friend Chan, determined to drink until you werenât annoyed by the existence of everyone around you, until the music and lights seem to flow over and around you, like youâre experiencing them through a thick pane of glass.Â
Heâd been invited, too. He and Chan had friends in common. Youâd noticed him early in the night, sometime before things got foggy. Of course you did - even in the dim lighting you could see how good-looking he was, all sharp points and edges. You made note of how he stayed quiet, a tiny smile on an otherwise unchanging face, but his eyes had darted around, following the conversation sharply.Â
Sharp is your favorite word for him. It fits everything about him, top to toe, inside and out.Â
Sharp, sharp, sharp.Â
He looked how you feel inside, even now.Â
Youâd gone back to his place, that night. You still remember him leaning back against the wall of the bar, arms crossed against his chest, mostly in shadow until a pink light passed over you both before leaving you in shadow again. As your eyes adjusted again, pieced his face back together in the dark, one of those eyebrows had lifted in question.Â
You were surprised at how clean his place was; he was surprised by how cluttered yours was, the next time youâd come together, maybe a week later.Â
This was almost two years ago; youâd both gotten used to each other since then.
It wasnât a surprise, each time, when he gasped and then whined when he came, when his grip tightened like he had to make sure you stay put until his heartbeat starts to slow again. Not a surprise when heâd pull his ripped jeans back on less than ten minutes later. Not a surprise when heâd reach out to wiggle your foot through the blankets to make sure you were awake to hear him mutter, âSee you,â on his way out. Nothing surprising about how youâd go four days without talking and then send him a wyd?, nor about how heâd come to pick you up, his car idling outside your building within the half hour.Â
Youâd been doing things this way for ages. It was practically a routine. This was just what you two did, in the dark.Â
You werenât sure what he did during the day. You and him, you only existed when the sun went down.Â
You didnât know what he looked like in the golden hour, or at a restaurant table, or hurrying through a rainy afternoon. You didnât mind; he belonged to you like this - only in the dark, only in pieces, only in too-quick flashes of light.
It was enough.
Or, youâd pretended it was, for as long as you could.Â
1 yr 11 months ago
The first few times were simple. You both knew what you were there for. Youâd text, heâd come get you. Youâd watch his hand on the gear shift as he drove you back to his place. Youâd undress each other across his living room, a breadcrumb trail to follow back out when it was over. Heâd order you a ride when it was done, youâd get home and shower, sinking into your own bed just as the light started to shift outside, warning everyone that dawn was imminent once again.
Or, conversely, heâd text instead of you. Or heâd drive to your place and stay, pressing you against your entryway wall before even closing the door behind him, threatening all your neighbors with a show. Heâd slip out, after, leaving the smell of his cologne on your skin, on your sheets, even - somehow - in your kitchen, where youâd gone for water while he got dressed.Â
You both knew why you were there. You both knew what you needed out of it: just sex, just fun. You couldnât even call it friends with benefits because you werenât friends from dawn to dusk.
The just of it failed to last.
You know precisely the first time it was different, the first time you needed him. You needed the same things as always - his mouth hot on your skin, his hands alternating between sparks of pain and soothing caresses, the stretch of him emptying your mind and pushing every bad feeling out like there wasnât room for them anymore. But for the first time, you didnât want those things for enjoyment.
You wanted them as a salve.
Make it not hurt, you could have asked him. Or, at least, make it hurt in a way I choose.Â
You did ask him, in your own way. With your tongue, with your hands, with your hips. You didnât know if he could tell that something was different, that you were using him to hide, that your urgency was because you wanted to feel something else. As you moved together under the fairy lights above your bed, the motions were the same as always.Â
It was after, that was different. Before he got dressed, heâd rolled to face you across the few inches of dark. His statue-like face wasnât blank, now. Instead, his brows knit just slightly, his lips frowning on the hint of a pout.
âYou okay?â heâd asked.
Youâd looked back at him, goosebumps rising up and down your arms as your skin cooled. Should you lie? That was the best way to keep him at armâs length, the best way to make sure this didnât get too deep, the best way to ensure you didnât scare him away.
But something made you tell the truth.
âA little better, now,â you admitted, quiet, your voice creeping through the dark like it was avoiding landmines as it tiptoed over your mattress.Â
Heâd nodded, slipping back into the silence he wore best. Then heâd stayed just a few minutes, breathing quietly beside you, before getting up and sliding back into the routine. A few extra minutes of not being alone, like he knew you needed it even if you couldnât ask for it.Â
In the silence he left behind, the truth had ballooned into the empty room: something had shifted. Now, on the nights when you hurt, when you werenât sure you wanted to keep clawing your way through, you had another vice to pick from for distraction. More or less destructive than your other, older vices? You werenât sure.
Almost two years later, youâre still not sure.Â
1 yr 10 months ago
The levels of separation were just enough that you didnât cross paths at a lot of social events. But it was always a little thrilling when the circles did converge, when he appeared at the edge of the group, when the game became act normal in front of everybody.Â
You like games.
Vernon does, too.
The first time he showed up unexpectedly at the bar, your stomach swooped, and you hid a sneaky smile by tipping back your glass, draining the rest in one go and announcing that you needed a refill.Â
A game, knowing heâd watch you walk away. A game, knowing heâd have to look away again quickly, before anyone caught on. A game, pretending when you return to the group that you donât remember his name. A game, knowing that at the end of the night, heâd come home with you and make sure you didnât remember anything but.Â
You had too much to drink, too caught up in the fun, in the promise of later, in the thrill of feeling like you were harboring a secret like a precious plant, cupped in loose soil between your muddy fingers.Â
The alcohol made you lose track of your friends, of the time, of directional stability. You stumbled to the hallway you thought held the bathroom, one sweaty palm slapped against the wall to help you get there.Â
Youâd only been sleeping with him for two months, but his hands on your waist were familiar. So was his mouth, near your ear, asking a familiar question - âYou okay?â
âShould probably go home,â you muttered, still present enough to know you were a mess. That others could see your mess.Â
âCan you get yourself out front?â he asked, and there was something gentle in it. It made your stomach turn; or maybe that was the vodka. It made you want to run, to put distance between you, to remind him that you werenât his to take care of. It made you want to hiss and spit to remind him that youâre an outdoor cat.
âWhy?â you asked, turning in place to face him, something hard riding up in your chest.Â
He shrugged one shoulder, like it didnât matter to him if you listened or not. âIf you go out now, Iâll order a ride. Then Iâll head out in a few, when the car is here. Itâll look like you left already when I go.â
You narrowed his eyes at him. âYouâre being awfully strategic.â
He lifted that eyebrow again. âYou want Chan to know weâre fucking?â
The word sizzled through you like an electric shock. But you took a breath and considered the question. âNo,â you answered, once you muddled through your soupy brain enough to find the word. âNo, I donât.â
âOkay,â he said, as if that settled that. âIâll order the ride. Your place okay?â
âMhm,â you said, distracted, suddenly aware of your lack of equilibrium, nausea making its presence known. You might not have told him goodbye before pushing your way back into the crowded dance floor, weaving around people and squeezing through impossibly tight spaces until you find Chan again.
âMy uberâs out front,â you said in greeting.Â
âWhat?â he cried, looking betrayed. âItâs not even one-thirty!â
âIf I stay,â you told him seriously, âI will hurl. Talk tomorrow?â
He pouted a little but nodded, waving goodbye as you turned and struggled towards the front door.Â
Stepping from the loud, crowded bar into the quiet street was almost dizzying in itself; you struggled to adjust as you took a few steps away from the door. The lit-up signs from the nearby businesses swam around the edge of your vision, and you swallowed down a fresh wave of nausea.Â
It seemed like only seconds later, though it must have been at least five minutes, when the car pulled up and Vernon appeared from out of nowhere to usher you into the backseat.Â
You donât remember the ride home. You donât remember Vernon supporting you by your elbows to keep you from toppling sideways (or backwards) down the stairs. You donât remember dropping your keys so many times that heâd taken them from you, let you both into the apartment. You donât remember him helping you remove your heels, or placing a glass of water by your bed.Â
You do remember waking up somewhere in the bright hours of early morning, still in your tight dress, head pounding and stomach rolling.Â
Your apartment was empty; you hadnât expected him to stay, but youâd checked the couch anyway, just to be sure. You drank the whole glass of water, sat on the floor of the shower and let the hot water punish you for your bad decisions, and then crawled back to bed. You texted Vernon - the first time either of you had texted while the sun was up - and apologized, thanked him for getting you home.Â
You expected an answer as reserved as he normally plays things. You were surprised when, instead, he sent you back, âi think iâd be good at rodeoâ, followed quickly by, ârodeoing???â
Frowning, you sent back a line of question marks.
His answer made you laugh through a groan, pressing your face into your pillows in embarrassment - âcorralling you was NOT easy⊠but i did it đ€ â.
Face flushed with embarrassment, you sent another apology.Â
You sank into quiet after that, unsure if youâd messed things up, made it too real, became a thing of responsibility instead of a thing of attraction. But heâd texted you the next weekend, those three little letters sending relief through your system: wyd?Â
âNot drinking,â you said, and he wasted no time in sending back, âwant to not drink at mine?â
1 yr 9 months ago
come over?
you come here?? ill order ur ride
ok đ
âYou seem weird.â
Vernon kept his expression even, though hearing the words made him want to grimace at being called out so immediately. Heâd been spiraling for at least an hour; had at one point gotten so worked up that heâd slammed his laptop on the desk, causing it to show a shuddering blue screen before restarting on him.
If it hadnât stumbled back to life, he honestly thought he would cry over it.
He might anyway. Fucking shit.
âIâm a weird guy,â he deadpanned instead.
âWeirder than normal,â you volleyed. âEverything okay?â
Vernon sent a dark look over his shoulder, where the textbook heâd been burying himself in still sat open on the page heâd been on when your text had rolled through.
But you werenât here to help him study. You werenât here to listen to him complain that heâd failed his last test, that his scholarship rode on this next one. You werenât here to help him make flashcards, or even to rub his shoulders while he hunched over the textbook.
You were here so he could forget, for just a little while, that he was stressed in the first place. You were here to help him feel something besides the knots in his stomach, so he could hear a voice echoing in his head that wasnât his own calling him stupid, stupid, stupid. You were here to melt the edges of his anxiety, the way he could have with a shot or a pill, if he were in a different mood.
He replaced the textbook on the flat surface of his desk with your bare ass, leaning over you to brace an arm next to his sleeping laptop. He let your soft cries take up space in his mind, crowding out his internal admonitions, his mindâs noisy cycling through the list of things he should be doing instead. His stomach muscles clenched because your fingertips trailed over them, not because he was imagining having to tell his parents heâd lost his scholarship. He groaned, long and guttural, because you felt like heaven clenching around him, hot and silky and perfect, not because heâd read the same paragraph three times and retained none of it. His fingers found the back of your neck and gripped you hard, holding you in place as his hips snapped into yours, instead of gripping the pen that refused to write answers that made any sense.
It worked; it helped. It was the first time in days that Vernon felt okay. He wished he could last forever - just so that he didnât have to go back to reality, to life outside of this.
âCarâs on its way,â he told you, after you were cleaned up and dressed again.
You looked up at him from where you were perched on his desk, the same spot where heâd been drilling you only ten minutes ago.
âThanks,â you said, then looked down at the textbook in your hand. Youâd picked it up absently, but now you turned it over, reading the cover.
âThis looks hard,â you observed. âIs this why youâre allâŠâ You trailed off and made a face to indicate that Vernon was the human equivalent of a keysmash. You even mimed the keysmashing, in the air in front of you, with both hands.
The smile he gave you was probably sheepish. âYeah. Test tomorrow. Flunked the last one.â
And he wasnât sure why he was telling you, but you nodded slowly, eyes still on the cover of the book.
âSucks,â you said sympathetically, and that was that. You didnât make it a thing. You gave him a quick smile as you closed his door, and then you were gone.
Vernon took a shower, dissociated in the warm water until it ran cold. Then he heated up some instant noodles, and set everything back up on his desk to try again.
Maybe he should make fucking flashcards.
He was still at it around two in the morning, literally holding his eyelids up to stay awake, when his phone rattled on his keyboard.
good luck tmrw. hwaiting.
1 yr 8 months ago
âGo talk to him!â
âChan, from the bottom of my heart, fuck off.â
Your best friend pouted at you over the top of his beer. âYou havenât dated in forever.â
You hadnât needed to. You didnât want domesticity, nor partnership. And the parts that were left, Vernon had been handling just fine.
But Chan didnât know that.
âI donât want to,â you snapped. âI donât want to talk to that guy, and I donât want to date someone. I want to drink with my idiot friend Chan. Is that a problem?â
His pout deepened. âNo,â he sulked. âBut Iâm worried about you, noona.â
âWell, donât be,â you said, softening. âIâm fine. Iâm just not after⊠all that.â
Still looking a little bit like a kicked dog, Chan glanced down at his beer and then back up at you, timid. âHave you been⊠working on anything lately?â
You wanted to crawl out of your skin. You wanted to evaporate, slip towards the ceiling in tiny droplets of not-matter, vanish as you got too close to the sun.
âNope,â you said, forcing a breezy tone.
His eyes on you were too knowing. Your clothes all itched, suddenly. âNothing, since -?â
âChan,â you said, not even trying to hide the desperation on your face, in your voice, in the way your hands reach out for his. âPlease, can we not do the intervention thing right now? I really, really cannot.â
He went quiet. âFine,â he said finally, and the timid-younger-brother thing was gone, replaced with something almost angry. Frustrated, at least. âFine. You need a refill?â He downed the last of his beer and reached for your glass.
âNo,â you said, pulling it further from his reach. âI need shots. Letâs go.â
The burn in your throat helped you move on, move away from the uncomfortable moment. You relished the slight sting, closed your eyes as you felt the heat make its way to your stomach. Kept them closed, felt everything tight inside you loosen by degrees, until you could breathe again.
You danced, you drank more. You did tequila shots, licking salt off the back of some girlâs hand, both of you giggling even though you never saw her before in your life and probably wouldnât again once the shots were done.
At some point, you stilled, realizing you hadnât seen Chan in a while. You rested your elbows against the bar for balance and pulled out your phone.
where are you? you sent.
His answer confused you. told you goodbye almost two hours ago, you fucking mess.
Then, another, do I need to come back and get you?
Shame engulfed you. You were a mess, always a mess. A fuck-up, a drop-out, a waste of potential. The idea of him having to come take care of you, come back to get you and babysit you, made you want to crawl under the sticky floorboards.
no, you sent back. iâm leaving now.
But the shame hovered over your shoulder. Its breath coated your neck in humid huffs, its claws pressed into the flesh of your arms hard enough to leave little crescents, its tail curled around your leg to hold you in place.
You ordered another shot.
The room was dark, and smelled stale, like a window hadnât been opened in months.
The room was not the bar.
Your body flooded with adrenaline so fast that you had to close your eyes and force an inhale.
You didnât remember leaving the bar. You didnât know where you were. You didnât know how you got here.
The shame was back, tail heavy over your abdomen, but the spikes of fear were worse. You felt around the darkness until you could find your phone. You used its light to look around - you seemed to be alone on someoneâs couch. Hand shaking, it took you three tries to open your maps app. You couldnât get the screen to focus, couldnât read to see what neighborhood you were in.
The screen swam before you and you clicked it off, closing your eyes and trying to breathe, trying not to cry.
Who could you call?
Not Chan, the shame whispered to you, lifting its head from slumber and opening its beady eyes, yellow across the dark room.
You didnât have many other choices. You'd found that a symptom of isolation is that fewer people stick around, waiting for you to come out of it, to be normal again. You'd known this, logically, for years. You still couldn't help it when the urge to hunker down and speak to no one but Chan and your mom took over; you couldn't help when your stupid, broken brain told you that you were bothering everyone but to believe it.
Donât call Chan. You closed one eye and turned your screen on again, determined to make it make sense.
It was almost three in the morning.
You knew one person who might still be up.
Vernonâs hello sounded awake, and thatâs what made you crack, tears starting to slide down your cheeks without permission.
âI donât know where I am,â you admitted. The shame gave a hearty huff and lowered its head again. âI canât - I canât get a car because - I canât see the - the buttons arenât working -â
âPut me on speaker,â he said calmly, and you clung to his voice like the rung of a pool ladder. You didnât need to climb up, you just needed to hold on.
âOkay,â you said, when youâd managed it.
âGo to your messages,â he said next, and walked you through each step until youâd managed to drop him your location.
âThank you,â youâd said, tears dry. Everything dry. Even the shame seemed a bit opaque, the numbness strong enough to push away even this least desirable companion as it came creeping in. âThank you, Iâm sorry, I -â
âStay on the phone with me,â he instructed.
âVernon, no,â you protested. âYou should go to sleep.â
âWasnât sleeping anyway,â he said flatly, and there was no room to argue.
You stayed on the line in silence as you hunted around for your shoes, or a coat. You found neither, though somehow your purse was still strapped to you. You did manage to find a front door. You exited the house, closing the door quietly behind you. You still didnât know whose fucking house it was.
You threw up next to the mailbox. You collapsed into the grass, wet with morning dew under your back. You shivered, coatless and barefoot. Your phone was somewhere in the yard behind you, the call still connected.
Above you, the shame swam between the stars, twisting and undulating amongst the constellations until it made you so dizzy that you rolled over to throw up again.
When you saw headlights, you pushed yourself to sit, trying to breathe. The driver wouldnât let you in the car if they thought you might be a puke risk. You looked around the ground near where you were sitting, trying to find your phone, realizing belatedly that you were still on the call with Vernon.
âSorry,â you said, bringing it to your ear again. âI dropped my phone in the yard. The car's here.â
âI know,â he said simply, which didn't make sense, but you were too gone to figure it out.
âI'm gonna hang up now,â you said quietly. âThank you for helping me.â
He made a noncommittal noise and you ended the call as the car coasted to a stop. You started to rise, to make your way unsteadily to the back door. Instead, the driverâs door opened.
âVernon,â you complained, horrified that he'd come out at three in the morning to get you. He was supposed to be home, in bed, while a stranger drove you home - a stranger who you paid in money, owed no emotional labor for this effort. A stranger who could see you like this - a wreck, makeup smudged, confused, lost in multiple ways - and never see you again.
Vernon looked you over, then shook his head. He walked around his car and opened the passenger door, looking at you silently, waiting.
Finally, you stalked over.
âWhy are you out here with no shoes on?â he asked, voice lower than normal.
âLost them,â you muttered, dropping into the passenger seat. Your stomach swam again, but it seemed to be empty enough now that all you got was the suffering.
He drove you in silence for a little. Then, at a red light, looked over at you, that expression as blank as ever.
You were starting to learn his tells, though. His fingers tapped on the gear between you.
Youâd made him anxious.
âWhat happened?â he asked, breaking the silence.
âBlacked out,â you said, looking at your knees. âDidnât mean to. I think some girls invited me along to their place? And then I must have passed out.â The tequila shot girlâs face swam in your mind - this seemed correct.
âGirls?â
You looked at him, surprised. Pieces clicked together.
âYou think I called you to get me from a hook-upâs house?â you asked, defensive. âIâm a disaster, but Iâm not a bitch.â
He cleared his throat. âI didnât say that.â
You were both quiet a little longer.
âIâm not⊠I donâtâŠâ You werenât sure how to say it. âI know you didnât ask me not to - and Iâm not asking anything from you - but - I donâtâŠâ
âOkay,â he said, stopping your ramble. You looked at him, relieved, so glad he understood. That you didnât have to say it. âCool.â
Cool.
If you could without throwing up again, youâd shake your head. He was just so⊠Vernon.
You were hungover for two days; you even called out of work for one of them. When the headache finally subsided, you told the cat you were never drinking again.
The cat jumped off the bed and trotted away; it might as well have called you a liar.
When the weekend rolled around, you didnât text Vernon. The shame lay its heavy, clawed foot on top of your phone, leveled you with an even look that said donât even think about it.
How could you face him again, anyway? Why would he want to see you, after heâd seen the truth so clearly - that you were messy, a mistake, more trouble than any situationship was worth?
Friday night came and went in silence. You were right - he wanted out. You didnât blame him at all.
Then, Saturday night, a text came through.
you coherent? đ
You laughed, rolled your eyes, sent back, unfortunately. can we change that?
want to try a different poison tonight?
is that supposed to be flirty?
if you need me to do the hard sell, my offer wonât end you up at a strangers house at 3am
thatâs a solid argument
iâll come get you. need some time?
yeah, gimme 30 min?
cool.
You snorted again. Cool. He was such a dork.
âThanks for getting me,â you said, when you slid into his passenger seat.
âCanât let you entertain yourself,â he said, ticking his head to the side like heâd learned his lesson. âYou end up without shoes.â
The callback to last weekend made your face heat, and you expected him to lecture you - to tell you to be more careful, that you shouldnât put yourself in situations like that, that your liver will quit someday.
He didnât - didnât bring up anything that happened until -
âOnly need me, huh?â he asked, later, pressing so deep into you that you squirm away, delighted when he pulls you back roughly, puts you right back where youâd both rather you be. âNo one else does it this good, right?â
âShut up,â you huffed, half-laughing. âGod.â Then he shifted his angle and you repeated yourself, a broken record, god god god, for a whole new reason.
1 yr 7 months ago
Everything was slow and heavy. Vernonâs eyelids lowered and then slid open again, slow⊠slow. Air army-crawled on elbows and knees into his lungs, slipped out too easily. His blood in his veins trudged; his heartbeat couldnât whip it into going faster. The ceiling fan above him circled, chasing its tail in an endless loop.
come over.
It must have taken him two hours to type the text. Two hours for it to fly through space - is that how texts send? through space? - to your phone. Two hours for you to get there, to let yourself into his unlocked apartment.
âTook you forever,â he muttered, still watching the ceiling fan.
He was a little out of it, a little bit on another plane. Your hands were cool against his cheeks, thumbs cool as they traced his jawline. For a minute, they felt like the only thing tethering him to earth, keeping him in this room, in this apartment.
âYou in there?â Your voice came from far away.
âYeah.â
He opened his eyes again, and found you hovering above him, light streaming from behind you.
You didnât mention his red eyes, didnât tease him for the way his words came out one phoneme at a time. You just pulled your shirt over your head - he may have groaned when the fabric passed your tits, fuck you for showing up without a bra on - and then reached for his hem. Then you lay tight up against him, one hand absently stroking over his chest.
You let him make every first move, let him decide when heâs in his own body again. He kissed you slow, licked into your mouth like it was viscous, marveled in how your skin felt when his hands skated over your back.
It must have been two hours that he kissed you, only that, before finally tugging you to straddle him.
Heâd been fucked up when he texted you, but he was feeling clearer now. Clear enough to peel your leggings over your ass, to lift his hips when you tugged on his sweatpants. Clear enough to let out a breath that shuddered embarrassingly when you positioned him at your entrance and sank to the hilt, stilling and tilting to look him in the eyes.
Sometimes Vernon thinks about Giles Corey. He shouldnât even know about this random piece of American history; he definitely didnât learn it in school. But sometimes Vernon would procrastinate real work by going to random Wiki articles, and sometimes what he read would stick.Â
He remembered this one. During the early Salem witch trials, Giles Corey was tried as a witch, but not hung. Instead, heâd been pressed to death - the stones added one by one to the board over his chest. He was supposed to confess.Â
Heâd died that way, had been literally crushed to death, one stone at a time.
His last words had been more weight.
Thatâs how Vernon felt, most days. One stone at a time, pressing on his ribcage. It was never enough to crush him, just enough to make him feel like he couldnât take a breath, enough to make him feel like his bones might crack and cave and itâs scary - but they never did. Or, they hadnât yet.
Every day, Vernon woke up, spit at the feet of whatever church was awaiting his confession, and demanded, more weight.
But the stones had felt heavier, today. Some days were like that. Some days felt like hardly any at all. He tried to remember that - the lighter days would come.
He didnât feel them at all, now. The only weight on his chest was your hands as you leaned your body forward for leverage, riding him at the pace he set with his hands on your hips, guiding you up and back - slow, slow.
âFuck,â you groaned, eyes squeezing shut and then opening again, blinking quickly. âItâs too - god, I can feel everything - I donât know if I can - itâs too -â
âIâve got you, baby,â he murmured, reaching up to pull you closer, to bring you chest to chest.
âI need you to move,â you whimpered, burying your face in the crook of his neck. âPlease, I need you to go faster.â
Vernon swore fiercely as his body obeyed without his permission, feet flattening against his mattress and arms crossing over your back to hold you in place against him. You both gasped, equally shocked at the sudden change.
âMore,â you begged. âPlease, Vernon.â
More weight, he thought, and then he wasnât thinking anything because you were wailing, fingers twisting in the sheets next to his shoulders, pulsing around him in dizzying, soul-sucking waves.
Sometimes Vernon thinks being alone will be the stone that kills him.
He almost asked you to stay, after, just to keep it at bay. Almost.
He thought that you might be his new favorite vice.
1 yr, 6 months ago
wyd tonight?
uhhh awkward. iâm. on a date?
why awkward? youâre allowed.
thanks for the permission.
iâm generous, what can i say
dont worry though its nothing. we got set up. its⊠not going great lol
i understand. hes got tough competition.
Please. đ
have fun
im not going home with him. i promise.
prove it.
how?
come here after.
ykw?? i think i will.
Next ->
my first svt fic ever!!! thank you so much for being here! i hope you continue to enjoy!