#(I am sure there are more things but I have been at this for three days)

[viktortittiforov]

FYI, this is very similar to what you have to undergo in the czech republic in order to access medical and legal transition, and until this year(!) trans people living in CZ were also legally required to get medically castrated ("sterilized") in order to change their gender marker. the country kept that condition even after the european court of human rights ruled that it is a human rights violation, and only scrapped it this year after a czech trans man went to the czech constitutional court with it (i am not naming him because afaik his name is unknown to the public, i think he wanted it that way but am not sure).

as a czech nonbinary person currently trying to access medical transition and to change my legal name to a gender neutral one free of charge, i can confirm it's fucking hell. the humiliating, irrelevant, unscientific, pathologizing side of it is already well-described above, but i wanted to talk more also about the more practical difficulties. those obviously differ between CZ and UK and my experience is within CZ, but i think it may help you get an idea of what a person having to go through such a process really has to undergo, because even though i've known i'm nonbinary for 10 years and have been out as trans and nonbinary + well-informed about the state of czech trans healthcare + a part of the czechoslovak* trans community for about 6 of those years, it was not until i actually experienced this process for myself that i fully understood what an Ordeal it is. and i have (or have had) very close friends who i have seen going through it in real time.

buckle up. this will be long.

(and sorry to OP if i'm hijacking your post. i'm sharing the CZ context in order to also further illustrate the UK one, because i believe they are similar, not to derail the convo in favour of CZ. my intent is for people to better understand what trans people in certain countries have to deal with + for people to know that having access to free trans healthcare is really not all sparkles and rainbows (even as it is still a privilege that many trans people all over the world don't have).

we don't have GICs in CZ. so, in order to even get hormones, you have to:

go to a sexologist. sexologists are the main gatekeepers of medical transition in CZ and yes, it is very bizarre and based on some really old notions of what branch of medicine transness falls under. i also really do mean the word gatekeepers, not just because you have to go to them but because they really do gatekeep something severe. the majority of them are very cis- and hetero-normative (and also sexist), enforce normative gender expectations, see transness as a pathology (though what kind of pathology varies from sexologist to sexologist, some lean more towards sexual deviance, others towards mental illnese, etc), are suspicious of trans people not wanting (certain or any) medical interventions, and do not recognize nonbinary people as being "real"/valid/whatever word you want to use. there are literally 3 (three) sexologists in the country who are widely known in the czechoslovak trans community as being mostly OK (=not the things just listed or at least not as much as all the other sexologists). when i was starting my journey towards HRT (at least a year and a half ago now i think, probably closer to two years), i first contacted the 2 (out of those 3) which are closer to me; none of the "OK ones" are based in the city i live, and i live in the 2nd largest city in CZ. neither of them was accepting new "patients"* for the foreseeable future. luckily the third one was accepting new people, but he is basically on the other side of the country from me, so about 4–5 hours away by train or bus (=an 8hr roundtrip). this is annoying, exhausting, and expensive, as i've had to go see him at least 3 times by now and i still have not gotten a fucking testosterone prescription from him.

it's not easy to get the average sexologist to take you seriously. the three "OK ones" are significantly less gatekeepy and distrustful, but you usually have to do some convincing there, too. that includes dressing the "right" way, giving the "right" answers, having the "right" expectations of transition, etc. you learn what's "right" from the wider trans community and what's "right" is very, very, very normative. for most czech sexologists, you really for real have to prove not only that you're "trans enough"*, but also that once you transition, your current "pathological trans self" will become "normal" enough, gender conforming enough that you will cease being a treat or a disruption to the prevailing social gender order. it's literally designed to be a normalizing process. i have an MA in sociology with a focus on gender studies and for one of my uni essays i conducted a critical discourse analysis of the most prominent czech book about transness penned by czech sexologists, so i think i'm qualified to say this. the whole thing is very foucauldian but let's not get too philosophical here (i will happily tell you more if you ask me though).

if you're lucky and the sexologist believes you may indeed be trans (because of course they have to believe you and of course they're the ones who decide what the truth is), they will (eventually; usually you need several sessions for them to "be sure" or whatever) give you a referral to 3–4 other specialists: a psychiatrist, a clinical psychologist, an endocrinologist and an internal medicine physician. from each of these, you have to get a report for your sexologist.

from the clinical psychologist, they need a report confirming that you are indeed trans (they give you the official diagnosis) and that you don't have any other conditions which you might be confusing for transness, e.g. schizophrenia, psychosis, etc. you don't need me to tell you how fucked this is for e.g. schizophrenic trans people. it's not always a certain no-go for them, but they will have an even more difficult time accessing medical transition.

from the psychiatrist, they need a report confirming you are lucid and don't have any conditions which are potential contraindications to HRT and/or surgery. this can be the conditions already listed above, but also conditions like intense and unmanaged depression and/or anxiety, which might worsen at the start of you taking hormones. i know this because i have depression and anxiety and my sexologist wants to be sure i am stable enough to go on HRT before he gives me the goddamn prescription. this seems like it makes sense on the surface, but it also... completely disregards the fact that a) anxiety, depression and similar conditions will often be improved by HRT in the long run because yknow, less bad gender feels, and b) depression medication also tends to first make your symptoms worse before it makes them better, and no one makes such a fuss about it.

from the endocrinologist, you need a report confirming that you don't have any hormonal conditions which might be contraindicative to HRT, i.e. which make it so that long-term (often lifelong) HRT would be risky/dangerous for you. it's not like there has to be zero risk or danger and many conditions are (i think) just potential, not absolute contraindications, but yeah. this is about the only examination/report that i think is justified and good and makes sense, but it still kind of sucks because at least in CZ, there is not nearly enough endocrinologists to effectively cover demand/need, much less endocrinologists with a good understanding of trans healthcare, and for some reason many are notoriously judgmental cunts eager to insult and belittle people, apparently. more on this later.

finally, from the internist, you need a report confirming basically the same thing as the endocrinology examination, but for conditions pertaining to internal organs and the effect HRT may have on them. this also makes sense and it is also not always needed if there's no reason to suspect (e.g. from your family's medical history) that you have any such conditions. however, it's shitty because for many people trying to access transition this is the first time they get referred to an internist, and a medical condition might suddenly be discovered which complicates their access to HRT. it's obviously good that the condition is now known, but it's shitty when it's so unexpected. my ex-gf (a trans woman), for example, found out she has a condition that makes it more likely she will get blood clots, which sucks because HRT increases your chance of getting blood clots (if i remember correctly). she is now on HRT, but had to wait a lot longer because several subsequent tests needed to be done, and she initially thought this last examination would just be a formality. (this problem with unexpectedness also applies to the results of the endocrinology exam, of course. but this is a wider problem of doctors being unwilling to sign off on preventive examinations...)

if you already go to one or some of these regularly, the sexologist will give you a paper requesting these medical reports instead of a referral. this is lucky, because usually all of these specialists are as difficult to access as the sexologists, or even more so, and if you already visit one you will be spared some waiting time. but it's unlucky if the person you go to is very uninformed about trans stuff and also uncooperative (i am experiencing this with my psychiatrist).

if you have any other chronic health conditions, you will need to also check whether those aren't contraindications. for example, i have some chronic eye issues so i have to get a report from my ophthalmologist, which is going to be fucking difficult because i bet they have no idea how eye conditions interact with HRT and they will most likely be unwilling to research it (even though that's literally their job). it is necessary, i get it, but it fucking sucks that i have to be the one "negotiating" with them about getting this report, said negotiating being tragically close to begging sometimes. czech doctors, and i think doctors in general, sadly often have little respect for their "patients" and believe they always know better, which makes it difficult to get them to do what you need them to do (as i'm sure many are aware).

most of these other specialists, at least in CZ, are similar to the sexologists or even worse, i.e. not only will you usually have to wait months for an appointment (if they even agree to offering you one and don't just tell you to try elsewhere), but they are uninformed about trans healthcare and uninformed about how to respectfully treat trans people, or even straight up transphobic, sexist, queerphobic, etc. perhaps because of this they are often uncooperative and unwilling (more than usual). there are exceptions and when you are nonbinary, you either have to seek those out or lie (=say you're binary trans), but obviously you can only lie to some of the specialists or it'll turn up in the reports and your sexologist is gonna read it and grill you about why you lied (if you go to an enby friendly sexologist and they know you are nonbinary, ofc. if they don't know either, then you can lie to everyone, but that can be stressful obviously). also even the specialists who aren't actively hostile will most likely misgender you if you don't pass, and sometimes even if you do; i've heard of endocrinologists who refuse to respect pronouns until the person has been sterilized and had their gender marker officially changed. apparently until it's legally sanctioned, it's not real, or i don't know.

in case of the sexologist and endocrinologist you will need to keep seeing them long-term so they can keep an eye on your health and well... on you generally, ig. the visits will be less frequent and shorter the longer you take hormones, i am led to believe, but yeah. and this is also good, i think (despite the aspect of being monitored to some extent), but it means your choice of sexologist and endocrinologst has to be strategic and you can't just say you will just go to that notoriously shitty guy near where you live because it's convenient and he can offer you an appointment relatively soon, unless you want to go through the ordeal of finding a new endocrinologist again immediately after your first appointment with that shitty guy.

all of this sucks, the doctors give you reports and requests and referrals but they don't know what the other doctors want, they are not satisfied with the reports (the extensiveness of them or the content itself), they say they can't help you. it's exhausting. apparently they can't just write or call each other to figure it out. you need to do all of that yourself.

that's the ordeal you have to go through just to get HRT. if you want surgery, in CZ you usually have to literally go sit in front of a panel of "experts" so they can grill you on your transition so far, what surgeries you want or don't want and why, what your expectations are, etc. yes, again. and these "experts" change somewhat for each hearing, and they usually know jack shit about transness or trans healthcare. from what i've heard they're very conservative. there's ways to get around this totally meaningless interrogation and afaik most people get the panel's approval and are only in that room for a short while, it's apparently very surface level unless you give them a reason to doubt your transness. but people have to wait months for their hearing. it's a further test of patience.

this is the route you have to go if you want to transition free of charge. i think it's great that CZ has universal healthcare, but universal healthcare comes with a lot of gatekeeping and hangups and problems, bcs the country wants to make sure you are only getting a given treatment if you really need it; and of course, the doctors are the judges of that. also, at least so far, free transition that falls under universal healthcare is predicated on transness being defined in the ICD (international classification of diseases) as a medical problem. it has to be pathologized and medicalized in order for it to be free. it doesn't have to be that way, but right now, it is that way, and it sucks. pathologization plays a huge role in making transness non-threatening to the social order.

oh, and if you're rich and able + willing to pay for transition? in CZ, you can get fucked. afaik, private, self-funded transition isn't really available or perhaps even legal. i might be wrong, and i do personally know one transmasc person who paid for their own top surgery and had it done at a private clinic, but they still faced a TON of unwillingness because the clinic was really worried about being sued. if you have the money (or were able to get it via donations), you will most likely need to go abroad, and if you're planning on returning to CZ after, you will almost certainly have difficulty getting legal recognition (shall you seek it).

whether legal recognition is desirable or necessary is a whole different discussion, of course. i don't want to get into it in this already ridiculously long post, but i wanted to at least acknowledge that legal recognition is by no means neutral and/or unproblematic.

if you managed to read all the way to the end, i salute you. you must be tired. go eat an apple or something.

*czechoslovakia stopped existing over 30 years ago but CZ and SK people still largely intermingle and many slovak people migrate to CZ. i am specifying this because annoyingly enough, many people on this US-centric site still do not know czechoslovakia is no longer a thing, so in case my addition gets some attention, i want this to be clear. please do not talk in the tags about how this is your first time hearing about this. i most likely will not see it since i am not OP but i have seen it happen a lot in posts about CZ and/or SK and it's really not funny or quirky that you didn't know. it's quite insulting, actually. if you want to share the fact that this is new info to you, share it instead with your friends who also may not know, so that they learn. thanks. (yes i'm bitter)

*the term patient implies a hierarchy & is pathologizing = is far from neutral; putting it in quotes to disrupt its seeming neutrality.

*trans enough = see transnormativity; link leads to an open-access academic article introducing this concept but you can definitely find simpler explanations online if you're not familiar with it.

What in the academic fuck is a GIC assesment

A GIC assessment (Gender Identity Clinic) assessment is the psychiatric interrogation you have to go through in Britain if you want permission to medically transition (and some aspects of legal transition too). Also called a Gender Dysphoria Assessment.

It involves answering a bunch of medically irrelevant, repetitive, deeply humiliating, repetitive questions like how you masturbate, what you wear when you masturbate, your sexual history, your childhood history, what toys you played with as a child, your employment, the clothes you like to wear, your relationship with your partners and family, etc. The classic is "Do you imagine yourself as a woman when you masturbate?" It also involves various psychiatric tests to check whether you're psychotic, which are deeply stigmatising. You will likely have to suffer this interrogation more than once if you want certain medical and legal doors to open. If you do not answer these questions "correctly" you may be refused transition.

If you want to get it for free, you'll need to wait several years, possibly decades depending on where you live, to be admitted to a Gender Identity Clinic.

If you want to go private, it will cost you about £500 a go, maybe more. (It's not technically a GIC Assessment unless it takes place at an NHS GIC; otherwise it's just sparkling humiliation.)

At the end of your interrogation you will - if you answered correctly - be diagnosed with "gender dysphoria." There is no way for them to check whether the answers you gave were truthful or whether you just told them what they want to hear. In Britain, about a third of trans people surveyed said they lied or withheld information during these assessments. There was no way for the 2015 American Psychiatric Association Working Group on gender dysphoria - the cis people who created the diagnosis* - to know that the interview data they based it on wasn't also full of people telling doctors what they wanted to hear! The unreliability of that data, some researchers have said, calls into serious question the use and sense of the diagnosis! * Fun fact: Ray Blanchard and Kenneth Zucker were both on that working group!

The NHS spends somewhere between 20 and 90 million pounds a year (depending on how you count it) on doing this.

Contrast that process to, say, the treatment pathway for menopause, where a cis woman who wants hormone replacement therapy can just get it from her family doctor 🙃

If you'd like to know more about this, I spoke about it here in more detail with citations

And wrote about it here

[astralis-ortus]

i'll keep you in a photograph

✱ crush!sm x fem!reader

— it's just a silly little crush.

w.count → 2.5k genre → romance warning → minor cussing, appearances by other 4/8 skz and itzy's ryujin, menace lee know in action, also no use of y/n whatsoever at all a.n → time to celebrate because we're finally debuting a seungmin fic!🎊 i wasn't even planning for the fic to be this long, but i guess it is what it is, lol. also! do let me know if you would like a part 2 to this fic! ⋆ if you're enjoying my stories, do send me a ko-fi ⋆ see masterlist

you've never been much of a sports fan in the first place.

the burning ambition, loud cheers, and massive crowds—it's just simply not your thing. really, you have nothing against the people who loves sports, but if given the choice between a vip ticket to the next biggest sports match and a week-long, peaceful getaway at the countryside,

you would absolutely chose the latter in a heartbeat.

hence,

with that image of you in mind,

imagine the surprise amongst your group of friends when you told them that in your right mind, with zero drops of alcohol flowing in your blood, you had stepped in to be one of the volunteer game photographer for your campus' next baseball game.

"i don't believe you," felix shook his head, golden locks swaying in unison, "what do you mean you just want to? you don't even like going to popular cafes—how are you supposed to deal with a baseball crowd? do you even know how massive that game would be?"

"pretty sure someone forced her," ryujin sighed, lines between her eyebrows still clearly visible beneath the stray strands of hair as she faced hyunjin on her right, "told you those people at the photography club seemed suspicious. why didn't you listen and joined with her? they won't be able to take advantage of her like this if you're there!"

"guys—"

"why is it my fault?" hyunjin protested, quickly pointing his manicured nails in your direction, "she's the one who signed up to the club without any of us knowing! it's not like i didn't want to join the club too—they already closed the form before i could try signing up!"

"hey—"

"you could've gone earlier!"

"how am i supposed to know?"

"you could've—"

"guys!"

the bickering between the two immediately ceased as the three pair of eyes now locked in your direction, visibly surprised at the tone of your voice. to be fair, you do understand why your friends are acting the way they are, but god, they're starting to sound more like a couple of overprotective parent and a childish sibling at this point.

"no one forced me, i promise," you sighed, quietly fidgeting with your fingers under the cafeteria table. you do admit it's far too weird for you to be doing all this, but you have your reason. "i'll be fine, you don't have to worry about me too much. i'll be okay."

"besides," you quickly continued upon noticing the persisting worry in your friends' eyes, "it's about time i start doing new stuff like this. i don't want to feel like i'm wasting my last years as a student and graduate with regret. okay?"

only then does your friends' eyes seem to soften, worry now replaced by relief.

"if you say so," felix became the first one to smile, hand gently patting your shoulder, "but don't go overboard with it, okay? try to go to the practice sessions first so you could gauge the situation for game day."

"felix's right," both hyunjin and ryujin added at the same time, quickly glaring at each other before focusing back at you.

"i can go with you to the practices," ryujin volunteered, frown lines already replaced with a beaming smile, "i happen to know one of the assistant coach, he'll let us watch if i ask him!"

"pretty sure you just want to see that legendary pitcher—ow!" hyunjin quickly rubbed out the sting from ryujin's slap on his shoulder, and between her glare, hyunjin's protest, and felix's laugh,

no one seemed to notice the faint shade of blush, slowly creeping on your cheeks.

the fresh spring air of seoul eagerly fills your lungs—quietly reminding you of a distant memory when life was nothing more than running around the field of your grandparents' countryside home. you might be a quiet kid, but that never stopped you from exploring every nook and cranny you could find around the vicinity of the well-maintained traditional house.

today, however,

you're planning on making a new memory for yourself.

as it turns out, ryujin does actually know the assistant coach for the campus' baseball team. chris, as he introduced himself, is also a personal trainer at the gym ryujin frequents, explaining the unexpected connection—much to hyunjin's dismay, though, who was really looking forward for a new reason to tease ryujin. both you and felix could only shook your heads, each wondering when (or if) the two will ever stop bickering with each other.

the first few practice session you attended with ryujin was a lot more fun than you had expected it to be. maybe it was ryujin's friendliness that helped lowered the players' guards down around the new faces watching, but everyone seemed very welcoming to the addition of you and your camera around the perimeters of the field.

you, on the other hand, also got to learn about where and when to snap the best pictures, along with the terms to help you understand better about whatever is going on in the field during the game. had felix not popped the idea to watch these practice sessions, you probably won't be able to do your best for the upcoming game day, and you definitely will need to treat your friends to some chicken and beer later as a thank you.

for today's practice round, however,

you're left all alone.

you don't blame ryujin—she has her own class related stuff to tend to, and besides, her coming with you for the first few times were already more than enough. you've grown far more comfortable being around the considerably sized crowd and you know your ways around the place should you need some time away, but all in all, you know you're doing a lot better now, thanks to ryujin's help.

"oh, you're here!" chris were the first one to spot you, waving with his dimpled smile on display, "ryujin told me you'd be on your own today. will you be okay?"

"of course," you mirrored the older's smile, finally standing next to the casually dressed assistant coach at the edge of the field, "she's too worried, but i'll be fine. it's not like i'm the one running around, hitting the balls anyway."

chris cracked a laugh at your joke, relieved that you don't seem to be as tense as you were when he first met you. "well that's great, then," he hummed in content, smiling in your direction, "feel free to walk around the usual space, today's practice won't be as hard the ones before so you should be able to get better shots."

and surely, you did.

like the usual round, chris had to monitor the practice and hence, you're left to explore the media pit on your own. you greeted some of the players you've gotten acquainted with while they wait for their turn, and you also managed to snap some new shots to submit to the campus website and journalist club. it might be a volunteer event, but hey, you have to be strategic with your portfolio, right?

"at this rate, your crush might as well be broadcasted from the speakers, you know."

the sudden voice coming from your left nearly made you drop your camera.

"what crush?" you throw a protest—albeit sounding more like a squeak—at minho, the other assistant coach you've gotten acquainted with through your time at the field. "i'm just doing my job here," you continued, shaking your head before again raising your camera,

while also attempting to mask the rising tempo of your heartbeat.

"you can't fool me like you fool the others," minho chuckled, lips tugged into a lopsided smile while he crossed his arms in amusement, "i can clearly see where your lenses are pointed, so there's really no use in lying to me."

crap.

"you're just saying nonsense to bother me," you huffed, trying to keep your cool behind the camera while attempting your best to hide the flush on your face from minho. even if you're about to get your cover blown, you'd rather not get it done by the menace that minho is.

sure, it hasn't been long since you've been introduced to minho, but for reasons only god and minho himself knows, the guy seems to just weirdly pick on you out of the blue and as it turns out, he's quite a psychic too.

"well then if that's not the case," minho shrugged, quietly extending a palm at you, "can i see the pictures you've taken today?"

"no!"

and only after you saw the maniacal smirk plastered across minho's face as you clutched the camera close to your heart that your realized,

your cover is blown.

[ weeks ago ]

honestly, you don't think you'll be joining any clubs this year.

it's not that you don't want to—you actually do, considering you're the only one of your quartet who still hasn't really decided on anything to do outside of your classes, but nothing seems to be piquing your interest just yet.

staring down at your phone, you're trying to find your last resort—the photography club. to be fair, you're not a major photography geek in the first place. yes, you do like taking pictures and you do go out of your way to learn the basics of photography, but that's about it. despite everyone telling you that you're good at it, you've never viewed photography as something more than just a hobby.

"it should be—ow!"

the sudden force against your shoulder sent your phone straight to the hard surface of your campus building's floor, inviting several gasps to be heard between the decorated walls—including one of your own.

"shit—i'm really sorry, are you okay?"

before you could even react, a hand had reached for your phone and quickly dusted the screen off before offering the device back to you. "i'm really sorry about this, i'm in a bit of a hurry and i wasn't looking. are you okay? is your shoulder alright?"

in all honesty? no, you're not okay.

"yeah, it's okay. i'm at fault too," you grimaced, noting the dull ache on your shoulder while reluctantly grabbing your phone, hoping for the safety of your screen, "i'm so—"

any remaining air left in your lungs seemed to get caught in your throat as soon as your eyes found the pair staring right at yours, catching you off guard. even under the navy ballcap he's wearing, the depth of his eyes had successfully lured the remaining pieces of rationale beyond you.

"look," he continued, snapping you out of your trance, "i'm in a hurry right now, but if by any chance i accidentally broke your phone, you can come find me today at the baseball field at 5pm and i'll take full responsibility. sounds good?"

your head had nodded even before you could even entirely process what just happened to you—were you just bewitched by a guy in a navy ballcap?

"alright, good," the figure finally broke out a smile, already taking his steps to the direction opposite of yours, "thank you! i appreciate it!"

and just as you realized you haven't gotten the mysterious guy's name, you caught a glimpse of the small embroidered name at the back of his jacket before he disappeared at the end of the hallway.

kim seungmin.

[ present day ]

you're so going to kill minho.

after the stunt he pulled off earlier, it didn't take you a second to take off from his crime scene, tightly holding your pandora's box of a camera while you try and find a spot to hide from minho—but most importantly, from seungmin.

you know seungmin probably won't realize that you were gone, but the horror that minho might've spoiled your little secret to seungmin himself made you a little bit nauseous.

in your defense, you weren't expecting anything to happen between you and seungmin. sure, you joined the photography club solely because you've seen their coverage during previous baseball season and were hoping you could be one of the people to document seungmin's journey as a u-league player, but that's it.

it was just a silly little crush—nothing more.

"uh, hey."

the speed it took you to look at the figure standing across nearly got you to pull a muscle—and if it wasn't enough, the fact that seungmin is indeed the owner of the voice calling out to you were ready to be the cherry on top.

"minho hyung told me to give this to you as an apology," he offered a can of coffee, smiling at you depite being visibly unsure about what he's currently doing. "i thought he should've gave this to you himself but, you know, minho hyung is… yeah, he can be kind of weird."

you couldn't help but laugh at seungmin's comment, accepting the surprisingly warm can as you shrugged, "he is weird. thank you, though, for giving me this in his stead. you didn't have to."

"don't mention it," seungmin smiled—and again, your heart skipped a beat. "i'm on my way too, anyway. it's cool."

"on your way?" you questioned, words already rolling off your lips even before you could process your own thoughts. to be fair, the spot you ran away to were exactly the opposite of the baseball fields' exit gate—which doesn't make sense, if seungmin were on his way out.

"sorry—i didn't mean to pry," you quickly backtracked before seungmin could answer, already preparing to leave the shaded bench you've been staying at for the past 40 minutes or so. "i think i better leave. thank you again for—"

"wait!"

your eyes doubled in size when seungmin stepped in your way, preventing you from moving further. it seemed like he's also surprised at himself, judging from the way his eyes had mirrored yours.

"i, uh," clearing his throat, you noticed the hesitance in his face before seungmin then pointed at the phone in your hand, "is your phone working just fine? nothing broke?"

…oh.

oh?

"you… remembered?" you took a step back, nearly tumbling back at the bench had seungmin not grabbed your wrist, equally as surprised as you are. only after you convinced him that you're okay is when seungmin willingly dropped his hold on your arm.

"well, of course i remembered," seungmin nervously chuckled, subconsciously rubbing his nape, "i was the one who sent your phone flying, so… i feel responsible. i mean i was glad you didn't came that day since it meant your phone was okay and i've actually been meaning to ask since i realized it was you who came to take our pictures, but…"

you quietly anticipated between the pause, granting seungmin the time to explain as he shrugged and continued,

"i kind of feel like a creep if you didn't remember me since i realized i didn't actually give you my name that day."

so he did realize…?

frankly, it felt like your brain is short circuiting—so seungmin remembers you? why? was he just curious about your phone? was he waiting for you to come? why would he feel like a creep? what is happening right now?

"and since i didn't get to give you my name that day," seungmin continued, eyes reflecting a newfound determination amidst the persisting worry,

"can i get your number this time?"

©️ astralisortus, 2024. | likes and reblogs are highly appreciated♡

[javierpena-inatacvest]

Chapter 6- Undeniable

Summary: when your car breaks down, you’re forced to ask Frankie for help. You’re not sure what you hate more- that you have to ask him for help, or that there’s a part of you that maybe can tolerate him

Word count: 6.2k

Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader (reader has a name/nickname, no use of y/n)

Warnings: Angst, tension (in a good way??!!), yearning (AHHH), teenage Frankie (and current day Frankie, for that matter) are down so bad, Santi and Benny play Dr. Phil

A/N: okay I said there would be smut this chapter, but I am a liar, and I am sorry 🤥 I flip flopped some scenes around and it ended up making more sense for some ✨things✨ to happen next chapter instead 🤷🏼‍♀️ I seriously love these two more and more every chapter, and this may have been my favorite one to write so far!! Thank you SO much for all the kind things you’ve had to say about this story- it really means more to me than you know 🥺💛 (sorry for any errors, I didn't have time to edit this chapter as well as I should have!)

All The Things We Never Said Masterlist

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Frankie, Age 18, Summer of 2007

“Jesus Christ, Morales, you got bricks for feet, or what?”

The Garcia’s newly installed basketball hoop had been a welcome addition to the neighborhood rotation of afterschool hangouts. Santi knows just as well as Frankie and Benny that it’s really nothing but a ploy to keep the boys occupied and out their parent’s hair, but the three have gladly accepted the olive branch Santi’s parents have extended to them, regardless of motive.

Now that the heat of late May has begun to sear off the pavement of Everett Street and the dwindling motivation of senior year is in full force, basketball has quickly taken over as the new after school activity.

Benny and Santi love it because it gives them a chance to get out the competitive angst they’ve had locked away since football season has come to a close.

Frankie loves it because it gives him something to keep him occupied until you come home from soccer practice.

Even then, he still finds himself anxiously counting down the minutes until your car pulls into the driveway, stepping out of the driver’s seat to give him that same goofy wave of approval that frees him from his friends’ constant bickering about where the three point line lays on the cement.

Ever since he told you he was leaving, there’s a part of him that debates forgoing basketball all together, just so he can make it to your house that much quicker when you get home. Now more than ever, he’s hyper aware of every second he has left with you, the internal countdown constantly nagging in the back of his mind before it’s four hundred miles that separate the two of you, not four houses.

Because now, not only does he have 74 days left to figure out how to say goodbye to his best friend, he has 74 days left to figure out how to tell her that he’s head over heels in love with her.

That’s what’s on Frankie’s mind as the pass Santi’s thrown at him rolls right past his shoes and down the driveway.

No shit, he’s got bricks for feet.

“Helloooooo? Earth to Frankie? You gonna get the fuckin’ ball, or what?” Santi shouts, wildly waving his arms, trying to snap his friend out of whatever weird daydream he’s stuck in.

“Oh, y-yeah. Yeah, sorry.” Frankie stammers, half jogging for the bouncing ball, tossing it back to Benny, also barely paying attention enough to keep the rubber from smacking him upside the head.

“Fuck, dude, you tryin’ to kill me, or somethin’? A heads up would be nice next time!” Benny scoffs, trying to downplay the fact he’s nearly just shit his pants from the ball that came out of nowhere and almost took him out.

“S-sorry. My bad.” Frankie grimaces, sheepishly running his hand through his thick, messy curls before rubbing the back of his neck.

Santi and Benny exchange confused glances with each other before turning their attention back to their clearly pre-occupied friend.

“Hey, you good, man?” Santi asks, scrunching his brow at Frankie’s tortured scowl.

“Yeah dude, you’ve been like, super out of it the past couple of days. Everything okay?” Benny adds. He tries to discreetly nudge Santi, givinging him a look that’s meant to ask if there’s something he’s missing. The best Santi can give him back is an ambivalent shrug, just as lost as his friend as to why Frankie’s mentally residing on another planet.

“Yeah. I’m- I’m fine.”

Sure, Santi and Benny aren’t as emotionally mature as their friend, but they also aren’t stupid. It’s obvious there’s something he’s keeping from them, and they’re far too relentless to let it go until they find out.

“Dude… C’mon.” Santi prods, taking a step towards Frankie to poke him on the shoulder.

“Yeah, spill the fuckin’ beans, Frank. What the hell’s goin’ on?” Benny chimes in, following Santi’s lead with another forceful poke.

“It’s nothing! Jesus, will you drop it?”

Santi smirks at how agitated Frankie’s become, spending enough years with his friend to know there’s one thing, and one thing only that’s got him this worked up.

“Is this about Kenz?”

Frankie’s eyes dart rapidly between his friends, the sky and his feet, too afraid to settle in one place as he’s consumed by his own silence, crossing his arms over his chest as he braces himself to defend against the onslaught he’s about to be faced with.

He could lie, say no, keep arguing with Santi and Benny until he’s blue in the face, but he knows it’s no use. Deep down, he has a feeling they already know what he’s going to say. He also has a feeling he’ll never go a day for the rest of his life where they won’t give him ten pounds of shit for it, but Frankie’s desperate. If he doesn’t figure out what to do, there’s a good chance he just may explode.

“You have to swear you won’t say anything about this to anyone.” Frankie sternly sighs, eyeing down his friends with a deathly glare, “Swear you won’t.”

“We swear, man.”

“Yeah, we swear.”

Benny and Santi nod in agreement, too shocked at his agreement to tell them anything rather than asking them to fuck off and leave him alone. They wait in patient silence as Frankie takes a long, shaky deep breath in.

“I um- fuck. Fuck.” He stammers, terrified to hear himself admit what he’s had locked away in his brain for years out loud for the first time, “I’m uh- I think I’m in love with MacKezie. I think I’m in love with her and I don’t know what to do.”

Frankie’s mortified by the silence from his friends in the seconds that follow. He’s even more mortified by their howling laughter that comes after that.

“That’s it? Oh, thank God!” Santi cackles, him and Benny clutching their chests to try and keep themselves standing, “Dude, I thought you were gonna say something fucking crazy. You looked like you were gonna fucking throw up.”

“W-what? Santi, did you not just hear what I fucking said? I literally just told you-”

“That you’re in love with MacKenzie? News flash, Morales, we’ve known you’ve been in love with her since like, the eighth grade. Holy shit, I can’t believe you finally fucking admitted it!”

Frankie’s face grows hotter by the second, his cheeks ablaze with bright reds and pinks, not sure if he’s more embarrassed by what he’s admitted, or the fact that he’s worked himself up for weeks to finally tell his friends something they’ve already known for years and Frankie was too blind to realize it.

“Well, okay- I just- what am I- what am I gonna do?” Frankie stutters, throwing his hands up to the sky, very aware that the admittance of his love for you is only a small part to his greater problem.

“Whatta you mean, what are you gonna do?” Benny questions, he and Santi still giggling over how frantic and flustered Frankie still was.

“It’s not fuckin’ rocket science, Frank.” Santi smirks, giving him a playful nudge, “Just tell her that you love her.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind, Santi?! I can’t just tell her I love her, that’s- fuck, that’s crazy!” Frankie’s all but shouting at his friend for what feels like the most outrageous idea he’s ever heard, crazily pacing up and down the driveway, as if he’s asking his friends for advice on where to hide the body he’s just killed.

“And that would be crazy because….?” Santi teases, anxiously awaiting whatever ridiculous answer Frankie has to finish off the rest of his sentence.

“Because?!” Frankie asks, storming so fast up and down the driveway, he’s about to make fresh cracks in the concrete, “Because, b-because- fuck, Santi, what if I tell her that I love her and she doesn’t feel the same way? What if I ruin our friendship forever and then I get my fuckin’ heart broken and lose my best friend? Jesus Christ, that’s why.”

“You wanna tell him or should I?” Benny proposes, shrugging at Santi.

In a silent agreement, Santi gives Benny a nod, taking a step towards Frankie to grab him by the shoulders, forcing him to stand still enough to capture his full attention.

“Frankie, lemme ask you this.” Santi pauses, bringing Frankie’s gaze from his feet up to his friend, thinking for once in his life, he may actually be willing to give him some serious advice.

“Yeah?”

“Are you blind, or are you stupid? ‘Cause I think you may be both.”

“What the fuck, dude?!” Frankie scoffs over Santi and Benny’s snickering, outstretching his arms to push Santi off of him.

“Damn, maybe he is.” Benny grimaces overdramatically, playing into Santi’s theatrics.

“Fuck off, Benny!” Frankie frowns, starting to regret asking his friends for help.

“Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I really have to spell this out for you.” Santi sighs, squeezing his temples between his thumb and index finger.

“What!?” Frankie presses, nearly fed up with his antics.

“Shit, you’re right Benny, he may be dumber than we thought.” Santi snorts before quickly turning his attention back to Frankie, “Frankie… You do realize MacKenzie’s in love with you too, right?”

Frankie feels his heart stop. He’s partly convinced it’s flatlined indefinitely. The only thing that’s keeping him alive is even the tiniest chance that what Santi has to say is actually true.

That maybe, just maybe, you love him, too.

“Santi, c’mon. Be- be fucking serious. There’s no way.”

Frankie won’t let himself believe anything yet, no matter how badly he wants to. Knowing Santi, he wouldn’t be shocked if he’s trying to pull him in to some sick sort of joke, but the looks on his, and Benny’s faces is all the earth shattering reassurance Frankie needs to know that Santi’s telling the truth.

“He’s being serious, I swear.” Benny chimes in, trying to aid in convincing Frankie.

“Think about it, Frank. The two of you spend every fucking second together. You’re basically already dating without actually dating. And not even just because of the fact you like, pretty much go on dates to the movies or ice cream, or whatever. Didn’t you say she cried for like, an hour when you told her you were leaving?”

“I- I mean, y- yeah, I guess.”

“Or the fact that she’s never dated anyone else and has had you locked in as her prom date since last year.” Benny adds.

“Don't even get me started on the fact you two cuddle every time we watch a movie together, because God forbid you’re not touching each other for an hour and a half.”

“I- I- I- don’t know. I mean, sure, yeah, but just because she does that doesn’t mean she’s in love with me!”

Frankie can feel his insides churn, like someone’s put them in a blender and cranked it on high. He’s not sure what’s more terrifying- that you do all those things but you’re not in love with him, or that you do all of them because you are.

He quickly comes to determine the second is much scarier than the first. Mostly because there’s a part of him that believes maybe you’re just as in love with him as he is with you.

“Fuck, I think I’m gonna throw up.”

Frankie’s knees wobble as he sinks to the ground, bottom hitting the pavement with a thud.

“Well shit, don’t do it on the driveway, my mom’s gonna kill me. If you gotta yak, at least do it on the grass.”

Santi and Benny settle in on either side of Frankie, the trio of boys squatting at the edge of the driveway. Frankie buries his head in his hands, scrunching his face so hard into his sweaty palms that maybe, some sort of reasonable idea will pop into his brain if he squeezes hard enough.

“You guys really think she likes me? Like, actually?” Frankie asks, peeking his head up to look back and forth between Santi and Benny.

“Uh, yeah.” The pair agree in unison, each giving their friend a pat on the back, trying to keep their all-knowing laughter at bay to soothe Frankie through his distress.

“Fuck. Holy shit. So- So what do I do? Just- Do I just tell her?”

“I mean, I’m no love guru, but you like, may wanna be a little more subtle than that.” Benny snickers, giving Frankie a little nudge, “I mean, do you wanna tell her?”

“Yeah. Fuck. Fuck, I wanna tell her so bad.” It spills out of Frankie’s mouth without any hesitation. The more he thinks about it, the more sure he is.

“Like, you’re already going with her to prom and stuff. You could do it then?” Santi suggests with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

“Damn, alright, Mr. Romance over here with the advice.”

“Shut up, Benny. You got any better advice? At least I’ve fuckin’ had a girlfriend before, you dingus, have you? Didn’t think so.”

Frankie’s completely blocked out their bickering, lost in his own train of thought, where all he can picture is you- Your smile, the little strand of hair that you tuck behind your ear when it falls in your face, the way your nose crinkles when you laugh, the little curl in your lips you get when you smirk at him when he tells a stupid joke.

How badly he wishes his lips could meet yours to feel that smirk pressed against his face.

“Do… Do you- Do you think I should kiss her?”

“Jesus Christ, Frankie, what are we, twelve?” Yeah, man, fuckin’ kiss her.” Santi snorts, Benny joining in with muffled laughter in his throat at the innocence of his question, “God, with how nervous you sounded, I thought you were gonna ask if you should like, have sex with her, or somethin’.”

It’s then his brain truly short circuits, his heart about to fall out of his ass and lump in his throat the size of a softball.

He has enough balls to admit he’s thought plenty of times about kissing you.

But right now, he certainly doesn’t have enough balls to confess to his friends, (or even to himself, for that matter) he’s spent just as much time thinking about doing a lot more than just kissing you.

He’s spent even more time thinking about just how badly he wants to.

One step at a time, Morales.

You, Present

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me…”

Turning over your ignition to the sound of empty rattles once wasn’t anything to worry about.

Turning it over twice to the sound of silence you could chalk up to bad luck.

But after six different attempts to start your car to no avail, you were fairly certain your issue wasn’t based solely on user error.

“Fuck…” You huff to yourself, yanking out your keys and slamming the driver’s side door behind you as you storm back into the house, now in a race against the clock to get your car not only started, but driveable enough to get you to work on time.

It’s the stupid things like this you haven’t mentally prepared yourself for when it comes to your father’s impending death- Not having a built in mechanic at your disposal to help solve your car issues when something goes awry. It seems selfish to take from the few precious moments you have left with him to pester your dad about your car troubles, but you know for a fact, your dying father has a better chance of diagnosing your issue from his bed than you do hands deep in the engine.

“Hey, Dad.” You grimace, gently rousing him from his half-awake state in front of the TV, “Dad, can I ask you something, or are you too busy dying?”

Your joke is enough to crack a sleepy smile in the corner of his lips, grunting as he turns his head over to see you hunched over the edge of his bed.

“Depends. Is it worth my time, or should I go back to decaying?” He fights with everything in him to let out the softest laugh, a sputtering cough following as his chest rises and falls, trying his best to not let his final days prevent him from being the helpful dad you’d always known.

“My car won’t start. Do you have any idea of what it could be?”

“You gonna wheel me out to the driveway to have me figure it out?”

You both know it’s ridiculous, what you’re asking him to do. You’re not sure what compelled you to think that he’d be able to help solve your problem, but your yearning for the normalcy that’s been absent in your life for so long seems to outweigh any logic.

“I think we could probably crank the bed high enough for you to look under the hood.” You shrug with a sad type of sarcasm, anxiously fiddling with your fingers to try and brainstorm a solution to your time-sensitive issue.

“You know there’s someone four houses down who is very capable of solving your problem who isn’t dying.”

For as hard as your dad fought for his half huffed laugher, he fights even harder for the smug smirk pinching the corner of his cheeks.

“Dad…” You let out a deep breath, trying to not let your eyes roll to the back of your skull from even pondering the idea of admitting to Frankie Morales that you need his help.

“Mackenzie Grace?” He questions back, pretending to be blissfully unaware of your reason for dramatic pause.

“Dad, you can’t be serious.”

“I am, actually. Dead serious. And right now, I’m at a point in my life where that statement can’t be any closer to the truth.”

Unfortunately, that’s an argument you can’t fight.

You sigh again, chewing at your lip to see if your brain can muster any other plausible solution before you admit defeat, but you know it’s no use. Your dad is kind enough to accept your silence as a white flag, sparing you the embarrassment of admitting he’s right. What he’s not kind enough to do, is to let you off without making sure he gets the last word.

“You can’t stay mad at him forever, honey.”

“I can, actually.”

Right now, your dad better thank his lucky stars he’s dying, because any other circumstance, and you would have already been halfway out the door before you put yourself through this conversation again.

“MacKenzie,” He pauses, the frail and wrinkled ends of his fingertips reaching out just enough to rest on the hand you have wrapped around the bar of his bed guard rails, “if I give you some dying words of wisdom, do you promise to listen, actually listen to what I have to say?”

You know he’s about to tell you something you have no intention of wanting to hear. You want so badly to lie, to say “yes”, just to appease him without really meaning it. But the guilty conscious eating you alive in the pit of your stomach won’t let you get off that easily.

“Yeah, I promise.”

It’s soft enough for only you and him, just quiet enough to keep the world out of your shared secret.

“Holding a grudge won’t make you any happier. It won’t change what happened, either. I’d be willing to bet he’s still holding one against you, too. There’s two sides to every story, MacKenzie Grace, and you can’t keep blaming him like you didn’t have a part in what happened, too. He’s already accepted he’s in the wrong for what he did. God bless the fact you ended up just as stubborn as your old man, but at some point, you have to get off your high horse and do the same.”

It’s unsettling, the feeling that washes over you- it makes every inch of your body twinge and wince in a strange sort of self-inflicted pain you can’t shake, the indescribable discomfort that makes you want to crawl out of your skin and evaporate into thin air. The tormented sensation stirring in your gut makes you want to scream and cry and run away, all at the same time.

Because it’s not the truth of your dad’s words alone that make you feel this way- you’ve come face to face with this truth more times than you’d like to count.

It’s the fact that for the first time, you’ve come face to face with the truth, and there’s a part of you that can accept it.

You stand there for another moment at the edge of his bed, eyes peeled to the ground, trying to find the words you’re too scared to admit. Maybe your silence is a loud enough confession.

“I’ll see you when I get back from work, okay?” You lean down and kiss his head, giving your dad’s hand a final, gentle squeeze before you’re halfway out the door, car keys in hand.

“I thought your car wasn’t working?”

Your dad has never been one for “I told you so’s” . The stifled smile and playful glisten in his tired eyes will do just fine.

“Bye, Dad.”

Your dad’s words echo in your brain as you begin your journey down the driveway, terrified by the tiniest amount of weight it’s lifted off your shoulders.

“Holding a grudge won’t make you any happier. It won’t change what happened, either.”

Maybe he’s got a point. But that’s easy to say when you’re only dealing with the idea of Frankie you’ve built up in your head, not when you’re about to come face to face with him in real time.

There’s a part of you that debates just walking to work. Hell, the hour walk it would take you to get to work would probably be easier than the thirty second walk you’re about to take four houses down.

You’ll be lucky if you don’t gnaw off your entire thumbnail by the time you make it to the Morales’s doorstep, trying to clench your fists as tight as possible with every step you take towards their house to attempt to keep your nerves (and nails) intact.

You’re not sure you’ve ever walked this slow to his house. There was once a time that you couldn’t sprint there fast enough, legs leaping over cracks in the sidewalk to meet Frankie at his front door. Now, it feels like you might as well be crawling with the time you’re trying to waste before you ring his doorbell.

You practically tip toe up the steps to the porch, like it’s some sort of crime to be at his house and you’re terrified of being caught. Your finger hovers over the doorbell, outstretched and ready to press, too frozen in fear to move the extra inch it will take to press the rounded button.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” You curse under your breath, furrowing your brow at your inability to face his front door. You ball your free hand up to a fist, slamming your knuckles against your forehead with a sigh so heavy, you’d probably give that wolf from The Three Little Pigs a run for his money, “‘C’mon, MacKenzie, just ring the damn doorbell.”

Your heart stops as the tip of your index finger finally pushes hard enough to force the high pitched chime, forcing yourself to keep your feet planted on the doormat below you instead of booking it half way across town.

“One sec!”

The bellow of his voice from behind the door is enough to jumpstart the stand still of your heartbeat, so much so that in an instant, it’s gone from flatlining to nearly beating out of your chest.

At this point, even if you wanted to run, you’re not sure your body would let you.

As the knob turns and draws back towards the house, Frankie’s broad body fills the doorframe. He looks almost as frozen as you, so stunned by your presence, his tongue darts between his lips as a placeholder for the words he lacks.

“H-hey?” He asks it so cautiously, eyebrows scrunching in confusion while he looks you up and down, too scared to say anything else until he figures out why you’ve shown up at his front door.

“My um- My car won’t- I have to go to work and I can’t get my car to start.”

You don’t dare phrase it as anything other than a statement of fact. You’ll die before the words “Frankie, will you help me?” escape from your lips.

“O-oh. Shit.” He cocks his head, the pinch of his face immediately easing along with the rest of his body, standing up a little straighter as he leans against the doorframe.

“Sorry, i-if you’re busy or whatever, don’t feel like you-”

“No- No, I mean, yeah, no, I don’t- shit-” He stutters, pausing as he shakes his head with a little laugh at the ground, trying to compose himself before he trips over his words again, “Yes, I um- Yeah, I can help.”

“O-okay. Thank- Thanks.” You try to fight the tug you feel in your lips creeping towards the corner of your cheeks that mirrors the grin Frankie’s trying so desperately to hide on his face.

The two of you stand there for a moment, feet wriggling in the tips of your shoes and fingers twiddling in your pockets, using every ounce of strength you have to ignore the heat flushing through your cheeks that makes you want to hate him just a little bit less.

It’s hard to suppress when Frankie’s trying to keep up his facade with the world’s worst poker face as he’s beaming ear to ear.

“Let me just uh- Lemme grab some stuff and I’ll meet you over there?” He asks, tiptoeing around what seems too good to be true.

“Y-yeah. Yeah, sounds good.”

You give each other a little nod before he disappears behind his door. You tilt your head to the sky, eyes closed as the deepest sigh of relief you can take escapes your body. It feels like the first gasp you take when you peak above the surface after holding your breath underwater, remembering what it feels like to finally breathe again.

It takes everything in you to pretend you don’t feel the strange pang in your chest as you watch Frankie walk to your house after you’ve made it back to your driveway, his gray shirt clinging to his biceps as he carries over his bucket of tools and brown curls spilling out from under the worn, Standard Oil hat he’s obviously still refused to throw away.

You lean against the hood of your car, arms crossed over your chest, trying your best to seem ambivalent about the whole ordeal.

If you were nominated for an Oscar in the “Pretending to be aloof in front of Frankie Morales while he fixes your car” category, you most surely wouldn’t be winning.

“Hey, again.” He grins as he sets his tools down, mirroring your stance to cross his arms over his chest.

“Hey, again.” You parrot.

“So, uh… Your car?” Frankie asks, nodding over to the vehicle you’re leaning on.

“Yeah, uh- yeah, I don’t know what’s going on. I tried starting it like, five different times and it doesn’t do anything. I’ve never had this happen to me before and of course it’s when I’m trying to leave for work.” You shrug, trying to play into the fact you at least tried to do something before coming to find him.

“Huh. Alright, well, lemme see what I can do, okay?” He nods again, leaving your fingers to play with your sleeves to keep yourself occupied, instead of staring at him, mesmerized by the way you can still hear the gears turning in his brain as he processes. “Can I uh- is it okay if I have the keys?”

You fumble through your pockets, digging out your keys to place them in the palm of Frankie’s outstretched hand, the linger of your touch on his skin just long enough to make you subtly jerk your arm back in embarrassment.

You step back to let Frankie slide past you, watching him try to squeeze himself into the driver’s seat to start your car, half his body still hanging out the open door.

“Are you- are you not teaching anymore?”

“Wh- huh?” His question catches you off guard, the scowl of confusion painted across your face making him quickly elaborate before drawing his attention back to your car.

“You just uh- sorry, you said you were going to work. It’s 5 P.M. on a Thursday in June, so, ya know, figured you probably weren’t going to school.”

He gives the key one more turn before sliding out of the car, carefully passing your keys back off to you before making his way to open the hood. You cautiously follow behind him, arms still crossed against your chest as he props the front of the car up to reveal the engine.

“Oh. Uh- no, yeah. No, I’m uh- I’m still teaching. Normally I do summer school to make some extra money, but because of my dad and everything and not being home, it just, ya know, I just couldn’t. I still wanted something to do to make money and keep me busy, so um, Katie’s Dad still owns The Parrot’s Nest on 14th, so I asked him if I could just do some part time waitressing and bartending and stuff. It’s nice ‘cause he’s been really flexible with everything going on.”

Your eyes dart to the ground as Frankie shifts his view from the inside of the car back to you. The air fills with a heavy pause, like neither of you are really sure how to react to the fact you’re managing a semi-civil conversation that’s more than just one word responses.

Frankie lets out a quiet huff, trying to hide the soft smile curling in the corner of his scruff covered cheeks before turning back to the car, silently tinkering for a few moments before mustering up the courage to speak again.

“That’s nice of him. Didn’t even know that place was still around.” There’s a little grunt as he leans deeper into the car, reaching around to search for some sort of part he wants to check, “I’m uh- I’m glad you’re still teaching, though. That’s um, that’s good.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Your hands have shifted from folded across your chest to in your pockets, a subconscious move you’ve made as a brick from the wall you’ve built between yourself and Frankie Morales seems to crumble without you realizing.

You let him work for a few more moments before he’s diagnosed your issue, carefully closing the hood and wiping the engine grime on the towel from the tool bucket he’s brought with him.

“So uh- good news is, you just need a new battery. Easy fix. Bad news is, your battery’s dead, and your car’s not gonna start without a new one.” Frankie shrugs, hoping he’s not pushing his luck with the little laugh he gives himself at his joke.

“Fuck. Okay, uh- shit, okay.” You mutter, not necessarily upset with Frankie for delivering the news of his discovery, but angry at the fact you need to buy a new car battery and have no way to get to work. “Um, sorry, give me a second, I’m gonna call Jim and let him know that I can’t make it in today.”

“I- I can drive you.”

You’re sure Frankie’s just as surprised as you when the offer comes out of his mouth, freezing your thumb over your boss’s contact you’re about to dial. Frankie clearly interprets the look on your face as one of skepticism about his idea, quickly trying to backpedal before he preemptively digs his own grave.

“No, I mean, um- if you want. I can- I can drop you off. So you, uh- that way you don’t have to miss work.”

“No, Frankie, it’s fine, you- you already helped figure out what’s wrong with my car, it’s not a big deal, don’t wo-”

“I want to.”

You don’t mean for your sigh to be as audible as it is. It only seems fair, considering there was no world in which you ever considered having to contemplate not only asking Frankie for help, but also spending a fifteen minute car ride together so he can drop you off at work. You chew at your bottom lip as you contemplate the lesser of two evils- be stuck in Frankie’s metal death trap of a car, forced within a 3 foot proximity of him for the entire ride, or miss out on the most hours you’ve been scheduled in the past two weeks for money you really do need.

Swallowing your pride is the toughest pill you’ve had to swallow in quite a long time.

“Fine.”

It’s not even your answer you think shocks him the most. It’s how little he had to argue with you to agree.

You want to roll your eyes at the little smirk of satisfaction he gives himself, knowing you’ve gone 0-2 on your hardened stance of despising Frankie’s guts since talking with your dad. It only stings more that you’re sure Frankie is getting endless amounts of satisfaction that you’ve given into him so quickly.

But fuck, if you didn’t miss that stupid, goofy grin of his when he knows he’s beaten you at your own game.

“Only if your car isn’t gonna kill us first before we get there.” You groan, eyeing down Frankie’s beater truck he’s been driving since he got his license. It was in questionable shape over a decade ago, you’re not sure what kind of deal Frankie made with the devil to keep the hunk of junk up and running.

“She’s fine. Haven’t managed to kill you in her yet, have I?” Frankie rebuttals, grabbing his tools as you follow behind him towards his car.

“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” You sigh, shaking your head in annoyance that Frankie’s still driving this damn thing on principle alone, “How the fuck is this thing even still running?”

“‘Cause you don’t give her enough credit. Got me here from North Carolina just fine.” Frankie scoffs, the two of you settling into your perspective seats inside his truck.

His comment makes you frown at your lap as you buckle your seatbelt, not because of the sass he’s inflicted, but because it reminds you that he’s moved himself states away just to further the distance between you two.

“S-sorry, it was meant to be a joke.” Frankie mutters, looking over at you as he drives and noticing the way you’ve gone quiet, eyes peeled to the ground.

“No, I know.” You reply back, anxiously digging under your nails with your stare still locked on your feet. “How’s um- how’s North Carolina?”

“Oh. Um, It’s uh- It’s fine, I guess.”

It’s then you notice Frankie’s realized the reason for your silence, uncomfortably fidgeting in his seat and grip tightening around the steering wheel as he processes your disappointment.

It’s hard to decipher what he means by “fine.” Fine, like he’s more than fine and doesn't want to rub it in your face how well he’s doing? Fine, like actually a normal amount of fine and he just has nothing of interest to report? Fine, like he’s not fine at all, but doesn’t have the balls to admit it to you?

With the way he can’t bring himself to look at you, it has to be the first or third option. You’re not sure which one is worse.

You’re also not sure why you feel so compelled to find out.

“You still uh- doing um, mechanic stuff for the Army?” You ask, glancing over just enough to watch Frankie’s fingers drum against the steering wheel.

“Yeah. Helicopter maintenance, mostly.”

It’s still not enough to give you the definitive answer you’re looking for. You’re too stubborn for your own good to just quit while you’re ahead. Because of all the questions you could have asked him, the one you ask him next is like voluntarily putting a gun to your head and asking him to shoot.

“Are you, uh- you um, seeing anyone? Samantha, or whatever her name was?”

It’s the first time he locks eyes with you since you’ve gotten in the car. Frankie looks you up and down, tongue running across the top of his teeth under his lips and raising his brows just enough to let you know you’ve got his attention.

Every second of silence that lingers before his answer only leads you to believe he’s trying to let you down slowly before he has to pull the trigger. You brace yourself for the bullet.

“No. I uh, shit- I- Sarah and I broke up a while ago. After um, after Santi’s wedding, actually. No, I um, I’m not seeing anyone. Haven’t really been since then, I guess.”

Your body stays tense, still bracing yourself for the inevitable blow, but it never comes. Not only has Frankie taken his finger off the trigger, he’s put away the gun all together. You’re so stunned you’ve made it out of the question alive, you aren’t quite sure how to react.

“O-oh. I uh- I didn’t know.”

“Are- are you? S-seeing anyone?” He stutters, the words heavy in his throat as he gulps.

“No. After how things ended with Liam, I just- I haven’t either.”

It’s uncomfortable, the silence that fills the car and seeps between you. Not quite awkward, not quite upset, not quite relieved, either. It’s heavy, like a backpack full of bricks you’ve had strapped to your shoulders that you refuse to put down- you’d rather keep burdening yourself with the weight than just take it off, too used to the ache it spreads to every inch of your body.

Maybe, the silence is so uncomfortable because you’re starting to realize how stupid it is to let these types of things keep weighing you down.

Holding a grudge won’t make you any happier. It won’t change what happened, either.

You’ve been so lost in your own head, you’d barely even realized the car had come to a stop, the soft orange and pink glow of The Parrot’s Nest sign illuminating the inside of Frankie’s truck with muted neon snapping you back to reality.

Your hand wraps around the door handle, ready to break free into the parking lot before Frankie’s voice stops you.

“What time are you done?”

You look back over your shoulder, taken aback.

“Why?”

“So I can pick you up.”

It’s so matter of fact, like he had never contemplated any other option from the moment he’d offer to drive you, his soft, brown eyes sinking as you shake your head at him.

“Frankie, it’s fine. I can have someone else drive me ho-”

“Please?”

Your head wants to say no. It wants to push open the door with a half hearted “thanks for the ride” and pretend like the past 15 minutes had simply never existed, wiping the strange pang in your chest and swirling in your stomach from its memory.

Apparently, your heart’s decided it has other plans.

“I’m done at ten.”

“Then I promise to be back here at ten.”

Frankie Morales is a man who’s broken many things.

Your heart, your trust, your friendship.

But out of all the things Frankie has broken, he’s never broken a promise.

And that’s how you know at ten o’clock sharp, you’ll find his beat up Chevy in the parking lot of The Parrot’s Nest, waiting for you.

@chaotic-iguana @bbiophiliaa @pertinentpostmortem @angelofsmalldeath-codeine

@pedrobaby @fatima-marisa @beboldbebravethings @poodlebae @kittenlittle24

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@kungfucapslock @vannabanana1995 @beezusvreeland

@javierpena-inatacvestnotifs

[inbabylontheywept]

Hi there! I just read through a few of your long form posts -- the one about the boss and the glue traps and the lizards, the one about the friend and the radishes and the cop, and the one about the breakup and the car and the neighbor's car and your dad -- and I'm just really blown away by your writing. And I'm just curious, are they actual experiences or are they fiction? They read like actual experiences, and the writing is so naturalistic and...idk, low key sweet, stream of consciousness without the major sidetracking that often happens in stream of consciousness writing and also more...more poetical in a way, I guess. I don't know. Are you published or wanting to? I mean I couldn't help with that or anything but if you've got a book out I'd love to read it.

Patrick McManus was kind of THE legendary writer to my family. When my dad was a kid, he'd sit on the porch the door that the monthly copy of Outdoor Life was going to arrive, and as soon as he got it, he'd run in with it and take it to his dad, who would gather all his kids around and read the stories out loud.

My dad loved it because his dad would make a whole performance out of the readings: He'd do voices, pantomimes, dramatic sound effects, the works. The stories are amazing, but the out-of-character behavior from his dad was half the selling point. Grandpa Hank was, to his core, a good man. But he was gruff, and socially, pretty stiff, and he didn't often show emotion. I think my dad said he saw him tear up one time growing up, and it was when he got dropped off at the MTC. My mom was married to my dad for three years before Grandpa Hank was comfortable enough to sit down in their house, and he liked her. That's just how he was.

(You just praised me for not getting sidetracked, but I'm letting myself wander down those memories a bit. He died last year. I miss him terribly.)

Anyway: Those stories were how I first started learning how to spin a yarn. I got older and I got more influence than just cowboys and Westerns, but the soul of my style is still just The American Tall Tale.

Which is to say that they're not outright fabrications. When I say that I cut all the worms up in my backyard and had a panic attack and hid in a tree until my mom got me, that happened. But I only remember the vaguest outlines of the words that were said. When there's a line in that story about my mom telling me that she's sure the worms will forgive me because they got six hearts to love and no bones to pick, that's not how she talks. That's how I talk.

Other stories, they're far less fuzzy than that, but I can still point out things I don't know. Wrestling story was from middle school, and a lot of those "crisp details" are just me painting by vibe. I've had some people that did wrestling through highschool point out things like refs not actually counting to three, or how double-legs are not actually super effective for tall wrestlers. I don't actually know how much the woman I wrestled weighed, nor do I remember how much I weighed, except that I was more than two weight classes smaller than her. Car incident, I got broke up with, went to her parents door, waited on the lawn, and was given some olives to go with a wireless phone. But exact wording of a lot of the people involved fails me. As a rule, the weirder an event is, the more likely I am to be distinctly remembering it and not just filling in the background. Except for dialogue, which often turns out weird because when I have to make up things for other characters to say, it carries too much of my own speaking style in it, and that's always been weird.

There are even points where things do come right off the rails. In the stories about J post, J himself became a sort of mythic figure after he moved, and lot of the stories about him, I don't even know I'm remembering them first hand or second hand from a story someone else shared with me.

I know it would be easier to just go, yeah, they're true, or no, they're not, but I did a weird thing and mixed them up and now even I'm a little confused.

Regarding publishing: I'm not published, and the thought of trying to get published scares the shit out of me. I

I don't know. If anyone has advice, I'd be interested.

[tossawary]

Recent "Star Trek" reboot universes have really tried to sell me on three different romances for Spock with other TOS characters whom he did not have romantic relationships (at least not positive ones) with in TOS, which makes it particularly annoying when some fans try to squirm away from the idea of ST ever doing a future reboot or remake in which Spock/Kirk are explicitly queer.

Like, "But it's not in the original! They want to be faithful to the original!" really, REALLY does not pass the "I think you might just be discomforted by queerness and you should work on that, rather than making appeals to the authority of textual accuracy to avoid being called a homophobe or transphobe" check here. Because it's not as though these reboots care about perfect faithfulness on pretty much any other front. We'll accept that the costumes and special effects get updated to move with the times, we'll accept wildly different characterization choices that essentially give these characters new personalities, we'll accept new timelines that change the entire political map of the galaxy, but you as a fan draw the line at "What if this character was bisexual this time?" Really???

To be clear, I am not trying to dunk on Spock/Uhura, Spock/Chapel, or Spock/T'Pring here, I am merely trying to illustrate a frustrating double-standard. TOS Uhura does notably flirt with Spock several times! I see it! I remember TOS Chapel's feelings for Spock being one-sided, but I also don't think it's a bad thing to try to update TOS's more misogynistic writing choices regarding female characters. TOS T'Pring did... kind of try to kill Spock because she didn't want to marry him, but again, I don't necessarily think it's immediately a bad thing to try to explore her as a character and her betrothal to Spock. It's fine! It's fine by me to explore new takes in new AUs.

It's just that none of that evidence from TOS for those relationships holds much of a candle to whatever the fuck Kirk and Spock had going on to inspire The Premise. "Amok Time" is an Experience. There's only so many times that Kirk can say something like, "The cost [of abandoning Spock] would have been my soul," before you want to put your face in your hands. They are taking shiny pebbles from TOS and trying their very best to sell them to me as the basis for romantic relationships in reboots, sure, while they are standing in the shadow of Spirk Evidence Mountain (TOS).

(Yes, I have seen the recent "Unification" short film. Yes, I enjoyed it. No, I will not consider Spirk "officially canon" until all plausible deniability for the squirmy folks has been completely, explicitly destroyed by a HUMAN kiss onscreen.)

And okay, I must admit, at the moment, I don't actually want Spirk to eventually happen in "Strange New Worlds" now that they've finally met. I'm mostly indifferent to their Spock and Kirk actors, personally, and the writing for every canonical romantic relationship in both SNW and "Discovery" so far has gotten a solid "well, they certainly are standing next to each other" from me. (Yes, even the gay marriage in "Discovery". I just haven't been into it so far.) I think the writers would fumble Spirk if they tried it in this specific show and then annoying fans would use the fumble as "evidence" never to try to do Spirk or queer retakes on other TOS characters ever again, or as "proof" against other queer ST in other shows characters generally.

I'm mostly just mildly annoyed that I have to keep watching Spock specifically, famously read by many people as a queer man, be straight and messy about it, especially when there has not really been a significant queer relationship onscreen in SNW yet, unless you count M'Benga's daughter Rukiya and her glow cloud friend named Debra, which I personally don't, honestly. I'd like an onscreen relationship with a main character with zero plausible deniability. There's definitely nothing yet that comes remotely close to the screentime that Spock/Chapel, Spock/T'Pring, and Kirk/La'an have all been given so far, unfortunately. (Sulu is not here yet. Scotty has just shown up. If Scotty gets to make out with a guy next season, or Uhura or Ortegas gets to make out with a lady, without it being part of some god-like-being's fantasy world, then I may be satisfied.) (Also, yes, I am aware of queer characters and relationships in other "Star Trek" shows, thanks. I very much enjoyed Mariner having her incredibly silly breakup with her girlfriend in "Lower Decks".)

"Star Trek" is one of those properties where some people's double-standards regarding romantic interpretations of the original series really jump out. "They can't do Kirk/Spock because they want to be faithful to the original!" Get real.

[anon-sect]

Picture source: anonymous

Terry had been working long hours for months for Klingon Inc. He was given a lot of the big projects and managed to complete them in time and sometimes early. He had a reputation of getting the job done right and in a timely manner. That reputation also landed him the big projects and long hours.

Terry had paid for working so late. He had missed a lot of events in his kid's life and even lost his wife. She had divorced him about three months ago and took his son with her. He had visits with him on the weekend, but it was estranged with his son when he did visit. He promised him he would take less long term projects so that he could spend more time with his teenage son. Yet, so far, that hasn't happened yet. No matter how much he tried to turn them down, he was forced to take it by his manager on the floor. He didn't refuse because he didn't want to lose his job next.

Terry had just finished up the last big project on his desk. He decided that he would take no more. He wanted to be in his kid's life despite the divorce. He went to his floor manager's office to turn it in and leave for the night. He knocked on his door. He heard Clark tell him to enter.

Terry placed it on his desk. "All done. If it's okay with you, I want to take a nice week vacation to be a better dad." He requested, but from the look on Clark's face he could sense he was about to be denied.

"Unfortunately, I have another big one that needs your attention. It has been weeks behind schedule. With your reputation, you can get it done much quicker." Clark spoke as he shoved the papers across his desk.

Terry didn't want another one, especially one behind schedule. "I will pass it on to another coworker. I need a break." He answered back, fully refusing another big project.

Clark wasn't going to take no for an answer. "It's yours to finish, so no weeks vacation, and I need you to start on it tonight." He reiterated that it was his project.

Terry had enough of being bullied into the big ones. "No, I am heading home, and I will make time for my kid. You may not have a child or married, but I once was." He stood defiantly before the floor manager.

Clark looked at Terry silently for a moment. "Refusal to accept projects from your floor manager bears consequences that are worse than being fired. Are you sure you want to say no?" He slightly threatened him.

Terry wasn't budging on his decision. He stood defiant and silent, waiting to see what Clark would say or do.

Clark saw Terry's silence and inaction as the opposite of the answer he wanted from him. "Very well. I think I will give you that vacation from doing projects for some time. It will be at least a couple of weeks that you won't have to work about work." He spoke as he pulled out a cell phone looking device that had an enlarged camera lense on the back. He put in the setting and hit the flash option. Terry disappeared. He closed the cell phone looking device and put it back in his desk drawer.

Terry felt strange. He couldn't move or speak. He felt hollow on the inside. He felt vibration on the floor as though something big was coming towards him. He then heard a little laughter from above him. He felt hands lift him up off the floor.

Clark placed his new gray socks on top of his desk. "You see, I have authority to deem whatever punishment necessary for refusal of projects. Your punishment is to be my socks for the next two weeks to use as I please. So you at least get your two weeks vacation, just not exactly as you would have planned it." He laughed as he continued in his day, thinking about what all he would do with his new socks for the two weeks.

FIVE WEEKS LATER........

Clark relaxed on the couch on a Saturday evening. He wiggled his toes in his favorite gray socks. He had worn them on every workout and gym session. He sometimes had worn them to work. His favorite thing was that he would jack off in them nearly four times a week just for the fun of it. No matter what he put the socks through, they still remained strong.

After two weeks of wearing them, he didn't want to just simply give up a good pair of socks. So, he decided to keep them much longer to serve his feet. He wondered how really durable they were since they survived a full two weeks on his feet and in the most foul stench he could wear them in. He didn't know if the poor guy's mind was still intact or just mush by now. Honestly, it really didn't matter to him by this point. The guy was socks now. He himself was not married and had no children. He couldn't imagine the degradation and humiliation that the poor guy probably felt being nothing but socks on his feet while he lived the single life of no kids or family responsibility.

Terry was barely holding on to his wits after five weeks. Clark had tortured him to no end. Being walked on was painful enough, but to be trapped in the most foul stench of shoes just about every day was so humiliating. The gym sessions were the worse, because he was forced to absorbed all of his foot sweat in smelly gum shoes.

Terry was forced to also absorbed his cum almost every night of the week. Being fucked by his former floor manager's cock to his entertainment and delight was so degraded of one who had a kid and wife. He would only wash him once a week, only to go through being stinky for another whole week. There were times that Clark wore him to work. He could hear his friends there but had no means to call out for help. He would be trapped on Clark's feet inside whatever pair of shoes he chose to wear. Each of them reeked with foot odor regardless.

Terry accepted that this was his life and that Clark wasn't going to change him back as initially promised. He was Clark's property totally against his will, and there was nothing he could do to change that.

[spicypepperflakesss]

💚 Post-Route Muriel | My Muriel Masterlist

theme: How To Comfort A Loved One

Muriel x GN!MC | CW: none

It's My Turn!

You had never seen Inanna act out before. But when you forget to do a beloved activity that brings you both together, you find Muriel pushed off to the floor and the defiant wolf in his place in the tiny floor mattress you three share

--------

Last night was the most fun you've ever had.

You and Muriel stumble through the front door of his hut. Your arm is slinged around his neck as he supports your weight with his.

You remember his laughs tickling your neck while you defend your sobriety with words slurring every other word.

Muriel carried on into the house, unconvinced.

"Hm, one thing's for sure," his careful whisper is loud in your ear, "Julian is formidable drinker."

The words summon a wave of nausea. You recall the dare. The excitement when you sat down. The regret when Julian swigged his tenth drink with ease. The relief when that man finally slumped against the table an hour later.

"Ugh." is all you manage to say.

You won. But at what cost?

Muriel shakes his head with a laugh. With his forehead against yours, it feels more like a nuzzle. You lean into his touch. His warmth is a balm to your aching head.

"Here, let's get you to bed soon."

Then, he snaps his thumbs. The fireplace fwooms to life. Its warm glow is kind to your eyes. You can see everything once again. Including the shadow stretching out to your feet. There's a sillhouette of one menacing wolf blocking the front of the fireplace, but you can only see the glow of her golden eyes through her shadow-veiled face.

She lowers her head. Is she.. glaring at you? Though she's shorter than both of you, you get the feeling that her golden eyes are staring you down.

"Whorf."

"Out with friends." Muriel says, "Why?"

Inanna lets out a snort that puffs in her chest. Her gaze moves from Muriel to you. She is unimpressed.

Muriel moves to the bed. He is gentle to lower you to the mattress on the floor. You can't help the sigh of relief at the moment your bum touches the mattress. Its softness invites your bones to relax. And you do. A happy hum falls from your lips as you lie down and sink into it. Finally, you can rest.

"Oh."

The crackling of the fireplace quiets your mind. You hear the chirping of crickets. A hoot of an owl. The hushed conversation between Muriel and Inanna. Your eyes begin to grow heavy as the forest's orchestra lulls you to sleep.

"She must've forgot." Muriel says, his volume lowered just enough that you can barely hear, "I'm sure she didn't mean it."

A whine. And stomp of a paw. Your eyes have fallen shut. Your mind is falling away into the depths of slumber.

"Awwour...."

A silent beat passes.

"Then, tell her in the morning." Muriel says, his tone is kind, "I'm sure she'll tell you why."

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

My mind stirs to the sound of soft snores and chirping birds.

Where am I? I make a move to toss and turn when the ache in my muscles pinch me awake.

'Ow.'

What the hell? I let out a frustrated sigh.

I just want to go back to sleep. Instead, I force my eyes open to see what the problem is.

The room is dark. The dying embers in the hearth tell me that the flames must have died sometime in the night. I'm on the hard, cold floor.

I deadpan at myself. Well, no wonder why my body is aching.

I move to open my mouth, but a putrid smell attacks my nose. Eugh. I move my hand to smell my breath against it. Meat... Sugar... Alcohol? Had I been drinking?

A furry sillhouette lies on the bed, chest heaving up and down in slow rhythm. It's Inanna. But something is different.

She's sleeping on the side of the bed closest to the floor, which is my side. That's strange. She usually hogs the whole bed by sleeping in the middle.

I peer up to see the rest of the bed behind her sleeping figure.

Everything stops when my eyes catch a glimpse of you. You stir from sleep and turn to face my side of the bed.

Your hair is as disheveled as a rat's nest. Your chest heaves and sinks as you remain in a dreamful sleep.

My heart softens at your adorable face. How cute. You look so calm. So... content. I catch your irises shifting udner your eyelids. And you sigh. I wonder what you're dreaming about?

Then, with eyes still closed, your arm reaches out before you. You hand finds its way to Inanna's fur, and your head follows its lead as your fingers burrow in her fluffiness. Then you bury your head in her fur. You take a deep inhale, and deflate with a contented sigh.

"Muri, Honey." you croak into her fur, "What time is it?"

My mouth twists with a laugh building in my throat, but I bite it back.

Oh well. So much for a blissful morning.

Inanna gets up, without any care that your limpy body plops back into the bed, face first.

An exhale escapes my nose as I smile. You must be so tired after last night.

Inanna inches towards your face and snorts a strong exhale into your face, sending your tiny hairs flying.

"Haawr." She huffs again.

(Wake up time.)

You jolt up. Your bleary eyes adjust to the dark room for a beat. I have to chew my bottom lip as I watch you peer up and look about the room. Its no different than watching a lost scraggly kitten looking for its mother.

"Oh, hi Inanna." You lie back down next to her, "Sorry I thought you were Muriel."

"Hmmff!" Inanna makes a show of turning her back to you.

(Always Muriel!)

I deadpan at her. What does she mean by that?

I lie back down and pretend I'm asleep. There's no way I'm getting caught in that.

But I keep my face hidden away, just enough to watch things unfold.

"Aw, what's wrong, my darling? What's got you in a bad mood today?"

Tiny gusts of wind blows over to my skin as something swishes against the mattress. I smile.

'Darling'. Even if she's mad at you, you always somehow get her tail wagging.

Inanna lets out a yowling yawn. Then snorts again. She lets out a chesty, sniffling exhale. As if she were about to cry.

"Hhmf."

(Nothing. It's not like you forgot anything.)

"Hm? Oh Nana. So upset."

You move in closer, even as she inches away from you, and you catch her in a comforting embrace.

"What's wrong, my baby girl? What's got my baby so upset?"

Her tail wags speed up. Is she... Does she like being called that?

I squeeze further into my hiding spot. I feel like I'm a part of a conversation I shouldn't be hearing. Still...

I clamp my hand over my smile. I'm definitely teasing her about this later.

Inanna lets out another crying snort.

(Always with Muriel!)

She snorts again. Then licks her nose.

(Never my turn.)

I deadpan at her direction. What's that supposed to mean?

Then, I hear you gasp.

"Oh! Nana." you soften at her. You bury yourself deeper into her fur.

"I'm sorry, baby. I forgot your story time."

"Awrf."

(That's right.)

"And your mad at me because I forgot, when I promised you I would, huh."

Inanna sniffles. But her tail wags faster.

(Ywes. You pwomised.)

She lets out a big snort again. Then turns to you, her brows pushed together in her glare at you.

(BUT YOU FORGOT!)

"Harmf."

(Now I'm angy. No talk.)

"Aww I'm so sorry. I actually was going to read to you last night. I was going to wake up after a short nap. But I guess it really got to me. Sorry, Nana."

"Hmff!!"

She inches away again.

"I know, that's my fault."

You both are silent for a moment.

Or so I thought. I crane my neck to catch a glimpse of you, and I see the devious smile growing on your lips as a plan forms in your mind.

"Okay, Nana, how bout this?" you say, "What if you have me the whole day?"

Inanna snorts.

(Not listening.)

"It's my fault for forgetting. So what if I take the day off and we go to the market together?"

Her ear swivels to you, but she remains resolute in "not listening".

"Theeen~" your words take on a sing-sing tone, "We can buy that bear broth crisps that I know you've been keeping your eye on."

Then, her tail starts wagging.

"Aaand, we can go to that doggy day care spa that just opened in the other district--

Her tail limps.

"So that we can go back home and I can give us both a home spa after a round of hunting."

Her tail wags come back with a vengeance, beating again the mattress like a drum. Her body twists into a cresent shape, her head craning so far back that her golden, eager eyes are behold you in excited anticipation.

"We will also be hunting squirels."

Her tail is wagging so fast she's kicking up the floor dust as everytime it beats against the bed.

She snorts.

(And?)

"I'll cook us dinner."

Inanna leans forward with anticipation.

"It'll be roasted rabbit with that sweet potato puree you like."

The two black pools that make up her irises swell and glitter at you with affection. Then, out if nowhere, she stops. Her wagging tail halts mid-air and her breathing freezes.

She's waiting for you. Waiting for one last thing before going in for the final pounce.

I catch you bite your lip. There's a smile trying to break through your expression. As if opening your mouth would release the laugh in your throat and betray the poker face you've maintained thus far.

And it does.

"A-And!!" you clear out the laugh in your throat,

"I'll read you a bedtime story."

"RWAFF RWAFF!"

(YAYYYYY!!)

I smile at the sound. For a moment, you brought out the happy, bright pup that she used to be many years ago.

I had no idea she enjoyed being pampered this much. Maybe I should've been more affectionate with her, too.

You really have a way of bringing out the best in people.

She slams her big fluffy frame against you. No matter how careful she is about it, it send you both tumbling. The laugh you've been stifling breaks through. You're giggling as her big fluffy butt wiggles against you and she covers your face in slobbery kisses.

Sometimes Inanna forgets that she's not a pup anymore. She tries to fit her whole massive frame in your embrace. You wheeze when the full force of her hind legs rests on your ribs. Ouch.

I open my mouth to tell her off, but you return her affections with your arms around her in a tight embrace, inching your body to the side so she doesn't crush you completely. You rub her back affectionately

"I love you, Nana." you mumble into her fur, "I'm really sorry. I never want you to feel neglected."

You pull back to give her a warm smile. But with the previous night of carousing and drinking, it comes off as more tired than you'd like.

Inanna whines and her ears droop at you, sensing this as well.

(I-its okay. I was just kidding)

She regards you with big, sad eyes. A mix of worry and guilt shining in them.

(I don't really need all that. I'm okay if you just want to rest together today. That's all I konda want, y'know?)

You snort, amused at her expressions.

"I know. I'm sorry again, Nana."

You reach out and wrap her in your arms once more.

"We're gonna have the best day today, I promise."

Inanna stiffens. Her golden eyes dart around, a little lost with your response, before the deflated in defeat. That's not what she meant.

My heart breaks for her a little. She forgot that you can't actually hear her.

"Oo, y'know if Muriel's already out, then maybe we can go to my place and freshen up there. And then we can have a nice breakfast before we head to the market, yeah?"

And just like that, her worries melt away and her tail is wagging again. As you lay out your plans, she peers up at you with patient, loving eyes.

I sigh in relief. Looks like the worst part if over.

"Okay, wanna go now? Maybe if we have enough time for today, we can soak in the hot springs--"

The bed shifts. I'm caught off guard when your head juts forward and you catch my eyes open before I get to close them shut.

"M-Muriel?! Have you been there this whole time?"

"...No."

I peek through my closed eyes. And you're in full view of me, staring me down with your hands on your hips.

"Muriel..."

"Mmmff." I turn away from your pointed gaze.

"Not my fault I ended up here." I mumble, "And you guys were arguing so..."

"Well yeah." you say in a softer voice than I did. I almost couldn't make it out if I didn't read your lips, a skill I learned sometime ago because I couldn't hear someone sometimes.

.... Just like what I'm doing now.

A small heat burns my cheeks. Gods, you're so...

If this morning was different--

"And Inanna."

She flinches at her name. Her head droops in apology as she avoids your gaze too.

"Did you... push him out of bed?"

Inanna shakes her head.

You stare her down, unconvinced.

Then she nods. And deflates in further guilt.

You sigh. "Geez guys, what am I going to do with you both?"

Just as Inanna thinks it's all over, you shake your head with a chuckle and beckon her to follow you.

"Alright, come on, Nana. Let's go. We gotta add a new bed to the list too."

"W-What?!"

"Yes." You deadpan at me, "No more having difficulty sleeping or being forced to sleep on the floor, okay?"

"But--"

"Nuh uh. I'm not hearing any of it." You say, "Let's go, Nana. We got a lot to do today!"

And just like that, you're out through the front door, waiting for Nana to finish up before you both leave for the day.

Inanna needs no time to get ready. But I follow her to the front door to send her off.

"Gods..." I sigh. I scratch the back of my head.

"I should really lay her back for everything at this point."

"Whorf." Inanna looks up at me.

(Sorry. For kicking you off.)

"Hm." I chuckle, "Maybe... It wouldn't be so bad to be able to fit all of us into bed."

Inanna continues to stare at me, guilt behind the big, sad golden orbs of hers.

I guess that's not what she meant.

But I have an idea of what she might mean.

I pet her fluffy head without a hint of spite or resentment. After all, it's always more than that. I don't think I want to be mad at her for something like this.

"It's alright, Nana. Really" I say, "You go have fun, okay?"

It is a joy to see her ears perk up and her mouth in an open smile. There's a spark in her eyes that hadn't been there in a long time since I first met her.

I smile back at that warmth.

"Rawrf!"

(Okay!)

And just like that, she's off. Running to your side as you both walk and talk. Your silhouettes grow small with the distance as you both are on your way back to the shop.

----------- check out my other Muriel stuff!:

My Muriel Masterlist

[naanima]

I am so fucking feral over Maxiel. URGH. Anyways, a fic written in 40 mins. No beta. BUT I NEEDED TO WRITE IT. THE IMAGES OF DANIEL WITH IT IS, SCREAMING!! POST Max winning his 4th WDC. This will get edited and posted to Ao3 eventually. Around 770 words.

ETA: PART 2.

The thing was he didn't even have an excuse for it. He wasn't drunk, he wasn't depressed, and he wasn't even fucking doom scrolling at 2 AM in the morning because he couldn't sleep and his brain was a fucking mess. If it had been any of that he could have had an excuse. He could have kept on ignoring the weird intimacy he shared with Max, all the sharp messy feelings that he had ignored, examined and buried throughout the years.

But he didnt. He had watched Max win his fourth consecutive world championship, watched his emotions overwhelm him, watched the guys hug and fold him into themselves, watched all of it from the comfort of his own home. Watched all of it, and the only things he could feel was pride and so much fucking fondness for his boy. And a soft regret at not being physically there so he could have embraced Max and told him how proud he was of him.

He had watched the close-up of Max's champion helmet, the M, V, and the four stars above it. The design was simple but beautiful, and Daniel was hit with a sudden want, a need. And he couldn't wait anymore. He called his guy Kenny in LA, and was so happy that he could do a home visit that evening. Daniel didn't want to leave the coccon of his home for this one. He had a shower, carefully dried himself off, put on a loose shirt and shorts and waited on his couch till Kenny arrived with his kit.

When Daniel showed him the picture from his phone Kenny had looked at him with a raised brow.

"Man, are you sure?" Kenny looked low level concerned, someone who has seen way too many people regretting their decisions at times of vulnerability or stupidity. Or both.

"Yeah," Daniel said with confidence. This was what he wanted. He knew it with certainty. "And yeah, that's where I want it too."

"It is your funeral." Kenny shrugged and got ready.

Daniel took off his shirt and laid down on his bed. It was the easiest way to do this.

Three hours later Kenny was gone with a judgemental look and aftercare instructions. Daniel had nodded his head to whatever Kenny was saying, and had ran to the bathroom as soon as Kenny was gone.

He stripped naked and looked at the red inflammed skin of his lower back in the mirror. The whole design was about ten centimetres wide, and it sat a bit lower than what most people would have considered the prime tramp stamp location. This was beyond slut territory.

Kenny did an amazing job, the man was an artist. The V cutting between the M were thick lines shaded in molten gold as if hit by the sun, and highlighted by black. The four goldden stars above it were similarity shaded, there was enough space to add more to it beneath them. Because Max wasn't going to just stop there.

His underwear was gonna block off most of the design, just top of the stars showing. So at least he could still go around shirtless.

It was beautiful, and he still wasn't regretting it. And yeah, this probably crossed the line of friends, but if Daniel couldn't fucking admit that they were more than friends now when he had purposely put Max fucking Verstappen's mark practically above his ass crack then he really would be beyond stupid. He could hear Blake's voice in his head saying how he was beyond stupid for marking himself for another man.

Daniel ignored the voice, grabbed his phone and tried to get the perfect picture of the tattoo. It took him several tries, but he finally got the angle that best showed the tattoo. It was fucking beautiful. He thought about cropping out his back and ass, there was no way that people wouldn't know it was him, even if his face was facing away. But fuck it, they had been joking around for almost a decade, and it was best to be as clear as fucking possible.

He sent the picture to Max. No words or messages.

If Max didn't fucking recognise it as Daniel going all in, as a declaration of intent, then Max didn't fucking deserve him or his ass.

[ethicaltreatmentofcowplants]

part iii (part i + part ii)

(due to sims doing everything but what i wanted them to, this extended into night and the screencaps were terrible - i apologise)

“Avery, I feel like our potential isn’t necessarily reflected by your score, and much of that was my doing. You just seemed to catch me when I was in the middle of a Moment and was not exactly feeling receptive towards anyone. And among those who did… less well, you were one of the few who actually initiated flirting with me and who seemed to really try. So let’s take this as an opportunity to refresh and maybe have a second shot at things. I’ll be seeing you very soon.”

“Jayla, you’re clearly having a ball and I enjoyed being in a household with you. But so far you haven’t seemed all that drawn to me, and I feel that at least in terms of romance, I’m the one putting in all the work. You are one of eighteen, and it seems like you’re not sure why you’re here. Let me know whether you want this - or not - but let me know. See you for Round Two.”

the final four...

“You know how it goes. I have only one of my strawberries left, and I am not splitting it four - just who the plum comes up with these things…”

“Forest - considering your strong start, this is a long way to fall. We have potential and you’ve shown hints of sweetness, but you keep on pushing me away - and your autonomous mean interactions? Not okay. It wasn’t cute when boys did that in grade school, and it’s far from cute now. If your aim is to sabotage yourself, then you’re succeeding spectacularly.” (Forest: nervously sweating...)

“Lee - much like Forest, yet worse. While I get the sense that Forest has the potential - and maybe even the want - to be something better than his past behaviour, you on the other hand seem perfectly happy with just how you present yourself. Well, I’m not. I like the version of you who is friends with Tiago and who has some moments of vulnerability, not whatever this is.” (Lee: unbothered, totally convinced this is all a ruse...)

(Araminta: hoping to the old Watchers and the new that Forest is going home...)

“Piper - if only we had even a little romance, my dear. But at least with me - or perhaps even with life in general - that just doesn’t seem to be what you’re looking for, and that’s okay. You stepped out of your comfort zone to try something that doesn’t come naturally to you, and for that you’ll have my eternal admiration. But I’m afraid that this chapter of your story ends here.”

“Aubrey - you’re here for a good time, but sadly not a long time. One of the most gorgeous sims I’ve ever laid eyes upon, and I really enjoyed your sense of fun, your mischief and your creativity. As there’s no spark between us, however, let’s just say it’s been real and move on. You were a delight to get to know - I hope we can catch up again after the show.”

“Forest, something is telling me not to let you go just yet. And if I’m wrong, then more fool me. This is a second chance for… whatever you need it to be, I guess. Those don’t come around often, or at all. Make the most of it. And if there’s any more mean behaviour - I may no longer be a werewolf but I’m not completely without bite. Man up and grow up, or get out.”

“Lee, here’s your fifteen minutes. Best of luck in building on them. And as the autonomy settings are driving the Watcher crazy - Araminta, you absolutely don’t need to talk to your horse Every Five Seconds - we’ll say our proper farewells tomorrow.  Sorry for the lack of decent screencaps, everyone, but you only have your pixel selves to blame.”

“Hey beautiful, so I totally know this is all a stunt. You have to leave the audience on a cliffhanger, right? Don’t worry, I’ll play along. I am a supremely talented actor after all - I can even cry on command!” “Mhmm…” (reflects on how that’s only a Level 2 interaction in the ACTING skill)

how scores were calculated

Ooof, I really wanted to take more of the bottom three in particular, but I was also this close to ejecting my EA folder into the sun. They will however each get a proper farewell from Lilac (and a thank you from me to their watchers) and their very own shiny post in broad daylight when hopefully the in-game lighting is better cooperating.

Also now we know just what Forest was up to that very last day. That little so-and-so realised that he was on thin ice and thus was skillbuilding like there was no tomorrow - which for him was almost the case! I will be including Aubrey's, Piper's and Lee's score details in their farewell posts and you will see just how close it all was.

@x-digitaldollhouse-x @tipsy-clouds @riverofjazzsims

@plasmafruittree @sleepyselkiesims @fl0pera

[catboydreamer]

venti x reader fluff / confession

he woke up and chose you. 

you had held your breath all night, barely sleeping because what if he didn’t? 

you remember telling him with tears rolling down your cheeks , how you felt. 

you were a bit tipsy but this was the only way. you didn’t even know if he heard you correctly as he was ready to pass out when you said it.

you had told him, “did you even hear me?” your voice was so shaky it barely came through. 

his answer was cold, “I did.” and then, he was gone.

for the first time in months you slept on your own. actually, you didn’t go home. it’s too awkward stumbling into a house you haven’t been in for two whole months. plus, it’s three am. you made a warm spot in this dark alley that he left you in. 

maybe it wasn’t the best idea but you were so tired and so fucking sad too.

all you wanted was him and he couldn’t accept that. you remember a sob erupting out of your mouth before you passed out. 

you wake up with the warmth of a soft mattress. so warm and you turn over… wait a minute?! you fell asleep in an alley. in fact, as you wake up you’re greeted by the site of… venti? the one who left you last night. stranded. 

actually you huff. it’s annoying how cute it is that he carried you here and made sure you were safe. 

slowly, you get up and feel sort of out of it. your limbs ache a bit, and you wonder how long you were there. 

venti bites his lip. “I was coming back for you. I stupidly left in a panic. I sobered up after that and went to find you.” 

“okay? so what? what do you have to say then,” quickly, you sit up, throwing the blanket off you. 

venti gently pulls on your fingers with his own to clasp them between his own. he’s warm. 

“okay. I deserve that. /but/ I do know something good here. you mean more to me than anything else in this world. it scares me. “

you take ur hands away from his. he sucks in a sharp breath. he’s losing you, he’s losing you. you can see that look in his eyes. 

“I need more than just a ‘I care about you’. that much is obvious and you know that’s not what I was asking. “

venti sighs. he doesn’t even need to, but he does anyway. 

“okay. you want the full thing? here it goes. y/n. I love you so dearly and so much. I don’t want to be without you. I left to clear my head for one moment and was coming right back for you. I carried you by hand all the way here, selfishly. I wanted to know what it felt like to carry you in my arms. the way I feel about you makes me feel incapable emotions. things a god cannot feel,” he smiles sadly, “and yet, I feel so proud of how I feel about you.”

you don’t know what to say. your heart is beating so fast against your chest. you cannot make it stop. a smile breaks across your face unknowingly. 

You did the only thing that you know how to: you place your hands in a tender embrace onto his cheeks and pull him towards you. your lips meet and it’s better than life itself. 

he smiles against your lips and grips your waist like it’s his life force. he keeps kissing you over and over and over again.

[seaescapologist]

Just wanted to talk a little bit about the current season (and its ties to the main story). I know it's probably better wait, until it's fully released, but… Spoilers for the first two chapters of the season + Y4

I really like that current season has thematic ties to the main story. I feel like with NOTME being intertwined with the story, it'd only make sense that the subject of squibs in wizarding society should come up. Not to mention Goldings/Merriweather ties to MC (which might be true or not, but at this point I am more inclined to believe them).

So, there were some things in the main story that already pointed to MC likely having magical relative(s), despite (as far as they know) being a muggleborn. First one being our first meeting with Ollivander, where he noted that there is something familiar about MC. Another, what was confirmed in Y4, Elliot is keeping track of MC. And based on what Winifred said at the start of Y3, he's been doing that even BEFORE he approached/started working with Daniel. Since at that point MC didn't really make anything to warrant that kind of attention in the main story, it'd make sense there is something else at play. Originally I thought that 6th former associate of Elliot's (the only former NOTME member aside from him not caught by the Ministry in Y4 as far as we know), was that connection. And I still do think it's very likely (MC not remembering them isn't a problem, considering how Hermione managed to make her family forget her in the books), but admittedly if MC's similarity to Tiburon is true, it does put a dent into one of the main clues in favor of that theory, since that'd at least explain Ollivander's line.

So Glenna and Merriweather's connection to MC. The story makes it pretty clear that Glenna isn't telling us full story. Which doesn't necessary makes what she already said is a lie. The implication that it's very likely that if MC's grandmother was a squib, she was straight up abandoned (and likely obliviated to not even remember having wizarding family), by Tiburon is heavily hinted at after all, based on how Glenna talks about him. Which obviously would explain her awkwardness about possibly contacting MC's grandmother.

But what is also interesting is that Golding house is full of torn up NOTME posters. Not only that, there is even NOTME mask in Marlowe's box of toys. Which doesn't really prove or disprove possible blood-relation to MC. But I do wonder, if that mask is Glenna's or Nyle's. Cause I honestly could buy both possibilities. And I almost feel like Glenna is a more likely suspect there. Especially since it would give another reason why she'd try to connect with MC (and it might be that Nyle's line about him wanting that she'd be "meeting right people" like MC instead was about her associating with NOTME).

Anyway, I've been thinking if Elliot keeping track of MC does have something to do with Merriweather family history. Morven lines suggest that Nyle or even MC's grandmother weren't the first squibs in their lineage. And especially Morven's line about squibs overreaching and always trying to prove themselves (and generally him implying complicated things about family history). I still can't shake the feeling that with the name 'Magic Awakened' there is some kind of artefact or something like that, that could actually do just that in the story (I wonder at what cost, especially with the 'The Tale of the Three Brothers' being in a focus this season), and if MC's squib ancestor played part in creating or uncovering it. And it'd make sense if it's something Elliot would try to get his hands on. The only thing I am not sure about is why Elliot would suspect MC needed to get it. Since one way or another it seems like one of descendants of Merriweather family is already working with NOTME. And also Elliot didn't really try to recruit MC, instead choosing a more indirect approach by working with Daniel. I guess it's possible this item (if it exists) is hidden in Hogwarts. So for obvious reasons neither Nyle nor Glenna would be the best options to get it in that case.

…And once again I am still not completely abandoning idea of that 'Sixth Associate' being connected to MC, after all the story made a point of having only five members of NOTME being caught, in which case that person might have the artefact instead and MC might just be a way to get to them. I think one point in favor of that possibility. Is that Elliot had a falling out with NOTME. But on the surface his goals for the organization seem roughly the same (now, I personally doubt it's genuine, but). So you have to wonder, what caused the split. And I'd say usage of dubious artefact could probably explain it. One way or another that Sixth person seems to be an important factor in the main story, that will come into play sooner or later.

Oh, well. Guess I'll have to wait and see. Hopefully end of this season will provide at least some answers (and further fuel for more theories, that's half the fun).

By the way, another thing that I liked this season is Glenna's love for detective stories (and I agree with her: magic does make it more difficult to write a compelling detective/mystery plot), maybe I am reading too much into it, but almost feel like a nod to creating theories about the story.

Edit. Actually thinking further on it, could Glenna potentially be that 'sixth associate'. Elliot's associates were Hogwarts Alumni (based on what he himself said in Y3), and I sort of assumed that they were in roughly the same age-range (well, likely a bit older than him), but that's not necessary the case after all. Now, posters were Elliot's/'New' NOTME's doing, so not something that past associate would spread, but that's the thing: the ones we see in her house are all torn up (so maybe, not unlike MC in Y4 she was removing them from around the Hogsmeade). And obviously the mask could be just a remnant from working with original NOTME team. ...Though if we interpret Nyle's line about 'right kind of people' as implying NOTME, it sounds like it's more of a recent thing (since it was about meeting 'new people')?

[captn-trex]

angel of small death

Howzer x F!Reader / Twi'lek!Reader 

word count: 10k / 24k

part one | part two | part three

description: after the rise of the Empire, Howzer finds his position on Ryloth to be precarious at best, but his attention is drawn from his troubles when he finds himself captivated by a new politician’s arrival

warnings/tags: NSFW 18+ !!! strangers to lovers, mutual pining, a little bit of political stuff, fluff, smut, dirty talk, fingering, pinv sex, soft dom!howzer, praise kink, title kink? edging? oh my I'm so bad at tagging smut

a/n: for the full effect, listen to jeff buckley’s ‘everybody here wants you’ at the beginning. did I give reader lilac skin just because of this song? yes. yes I did. don't ask me what's goin on with the smut ok, idk either. wkfjh why am I scared to share this I just want to hide in a hole forever now. also sorry about the poem. (whole thing in one is on ao3)

masterlist | join my taglist | read on ao3

Ostentatious. That was the word Howzer would use to describe Senator Orn Free Taa's estate.

High ceilings, gaudy silver curtains and a vivid blue carpet that ran throughout the marble halls. It resembled the more imposing areas of the senate bureau, but devoid of any of the charm. Thankfully, the room that Howzer would have to be standing at attention in for the duration of the evening was slightly less over the top, though no less opulent with its golden chandeliers and dark wood floor.

The people, however, left much to be desired. Extravagantly dressed Senators and other people of political importance shared sparkling drinks in fancy glasses, talking, laughing and dancing with each other. Every smile he saw seemed false, an act that should be genuine reduced to a political play. He couldn't help but think that you didn't fit in here, but then again, you weren't here. Howzer hadn't seen you since yesterday, and with the celebration already in full swing, he didn't presume that he would.

The lavish party was supposed to be a celebration, an important day in Ryloth’s history, but with the way the people in front of him went on, and how the discussions of late had been, Howzer couldn't help but let indignance rise in his gut. Not a single one of these politicians cared about Ryloth. They didn't care about its past or its present, and they certainly didn't care about its future.

It was sickening. The wealth that surrounded him was unmistakable in a particularly vile way. It was all a distraction from what was really going on, the corruption that was embedded within the people who held the power.

Any negative thoughts spilled from Howzer's mind as soon as his eyes caught the figure standing at the top of the grand staircase. He was pretty sure that his heart actually stopped beating at the sight of you.

You had forgone you heavy robes in favour of a silky dress that hung from your figure and perfectly framed your body, a thin scarf that laid over your neck and draped down your back, and a headpiece adorned by pearly beads that dangled around your face and down your lekku. The thing that caught Howzer's attention the most, however, was the colour of your dress. It was teal, the exactly shade that decorated his armour. He couldn't help but think that you looked incredible in his colour, perfectly complimenting the hues of your skin.

He watched as you gracefully descended the stairs, one hand sliding along the rail, the other holding your dress so you wouldn't trip. You were a vision, like an angel descending from the sky, and suddenly Howzer didn't care at all about whether or not he was allowed to have you.

At the bottom of the stairs, you were greeted by a small crowd that had gathered during your entrance. Howzer had been too enraptured by you yourself to notice, his mouth still hung open a fraction as he watched you navigate through the people demanding your attention. He wasn't surprised in the least, you were the most gorgeous being here by far.

As you made your way across the room, seemingly zeroed in on something, or someone, Howzer saw that your dress was backless, plunging down to your lower back, the only thing covering your skin being the thin, almost non-existent scarf that hung from your neck. He had to bite into his lip to save from letting his jaw hit the floor.

You made your way over to a Pantoran woman dressed in maroon, whose eyes widened comically upon seeing you, throwing her arms around your neck and almost knocking you back. Your laughter carried across the room, entering through Howzer ears and bouncing around in his head, the most delightful thing he'd ever heard. The woman handed you a drink, clinking your glasses together as you beamed at each other.

Your back was to him as the two of you caught up, and he couldn't help but trail his eyes down your body. He wondered what it would be like to be able to touch you, how your skin would feel as he ran a hand down your spine. It felt like you were taunting him, begging him to lose his composure. Whether you meant to or not, it was working.

Howzer was so lost in admiring you that he missed the way your friend nodded to him, catching him in the act. You turned, your eyes searching for a moment before your gaze settled on him. It froze him in his place, his eyes locked with yours. You swirled your drink gently in your hand, offering a small smile to him before turning back to your conversation, but not before Howzer managed to catch the blush that tinted your cheeks.

You continued to talk with your Pantoran friend, until she got called away by someone else, leaving you by yourself for the time being. Howzer was itching to go over and talk with you, just be close with you in any way he could, despite his previous words about how forbidden it was. Before he could make up his mind, another man had slid up next to you, a wry smile on his lips and a playful glint in his eye that made Howzer's stomach turn. He watched on as the two of you settled into a conversation, mostly him doing the talking. You gave him the time of day all the same, much to Howzer's chagrin.

“What's your name trooper?”

Howzer couldn't help but jump slightly at the unexpected voice to his left, and he swivelled his head around to the source. The Pantoran woman that you had been chatting to before was stood next to him, a curious expression on her face.

“Howzer, ma'am” he replied firmly.

“Please, drop the formalities” she waved him off with a smile, and he was reminded of the first time that he talked to you, “I'm Riyo”

The woman stuck out her hand, and Howzer shook it firmly with a small smile of his own.

“Now,” she spoke, something mischievous sliding across her face, “are you going to go and talk to my friend, or are you just going to stare at her all night?”

Howzer’s eyebrows shot up, instantly feeling his face heat up under the scrutiny of the small woman.

“I— uh, Senator, I don't know what you— I wasn't— I wouldn't—” he stumbled through a number of phrases before Riyo cut him off.

“Howzer” she caught his attention, a small smirk on her lips as she noticed his cheeks darkening by the second, “you can drop the act with me. I saw the way you were looking at her, and I know she wants you to go over”

Howzer frowned, “she told you that?”

“No…” she admitted, “but I've also never seen anyone else make her blush”

Howzer felt his heart skip a beat. The idea of him being an exception in being able to break your composure made his blood run hot all of a sudden. He cast his eyes back over to you, locked in conversation with the same man and listening intently as he leant back on the wall, head tilted towards you. When he looked back to Riyo, she gave him a knowing look.

“Just don't wait forever” she instructed with a hand on his shoulder, and Howzer nodded to her before she turned away.

A determination set into him as his eyes found your form again. A somewhat dreamy sigh passed his lips, taking in the way you stood with your weight rested on one leg, your hip jutting out just a little as you brought your glass to your lips. Howzer adjusted his grip on his helmet, watching the way your throat bobbed as you took a sip.

Your eyes momentarily left the man in your company and slid over towards Howzer from behind the rim of the glass, and he had to suppress a smirk when you discreetly rolled your eyes, no doubt in mocking of the man who was still waffling on. It pleased him to know that he could hold your attention from across the room, when the same couldn't be said for someone stood right beside you.

After a few minutes of entertaining the man’s conversation, you interrupted him with a point of your finger, excusing yourself. Howzer’s breath stuttered at the prospect of you making your way over to him, but instead he watched as you walked towards the opposite side of the hall and slipped outside, cracking the door just open enough for your frame to fit through.

Howzer cast a glance around the room to see if anyone was looking his way, then surreptitiously followed in your footsteps around the edge of the large room. When he opened the door, he was greeted by the sight of you leaning your elbows against the stone railing at the edge of the deck, looking out over the expanse of the Senator's gardens. He had to admit that the view was stunning, but the sight of you leant forwards, your dress pooling at your sides and exposing more of your skin to the moonlight, was a far more alluring sight.

Your head turned to the side as you heard the door shut, your lips quirking into a half-smile.

“Captain” you nodded to him in acknowledgement.

“Ma'am” he replied, a small smirk winding its way onto his face.

A breathy laugh left your lips, you head shaking slightly, “I'm not— you shouldn't call me that”

Howzer shrugged, “you look the part”

You chuckled, your expression pleasant as you turned your body to face the other way, resting your back against the cool stone. The headpiece that you wore caught the light of the moon perfectly, contrasting with the warm glow from indoors, and once again Howzer couldn’t help but compare you to the beautiful paintings he had seen. His features were then weighed down by a seriousness, and he spoke more softly, more sincerely.

“You look beautiful”

Your lips lifted a little as an amused hum reverberated in your throat, and you looked to your feet when your cheeks flushed with colour, turning your face from his in an attempt to hide it.

“Thank you” you replied, “as do you”

Howzer's lips lifted into a genuine smile at the unexpected compliment, albeit somewhat of a deflection from his own.

“Are you enjoying the party?” he asked, moving on quickly.

Your eyes lifted back to his, and you paused for a moment, dropping your head to the side before answering, “not really”

“How come?”

You shrugged one shoulder, your smile rueful, “not my scene”

Howzer nodded, glancing inside at the outlandishly dressed party guests and the splendour that surrounded them, but when his gaze found you again, he could have melted. You positively shone in comparison to all of them, something so authentically positive and genuine surrounding you.

“I was thinking that I might leave, actually”

“Without a dance?” Howzer raised a slightly teasing eyebrow.

You laughed gratuitously at the idea, “I don't want to dance with any of these philistines”

Howzer chuckled, taking a moment to peer inside once more. No one was looking out, no one was paying attention to anyone but themselves, not concerned with things going on outside the walls of the ornate room.

“Would you dance with me?”

You cocked your head a little, a dubiousness written into your furrowed brow, “you know how to dance?”

“More or less” he shrugged, placing his helmet down on the railing, following up by taking off his gloves and tucking them into his belt. He held his hand out with an inviting smile, “can I have this dance, m’lady?”

You chuckled lightly and tentatively took his outstretched hand, letting him pull you towards him, “it's ‘could I have this dance’, for next time”

“Next time?” Howzer asked with a raised eyebrow, his other hand coming to rest at your hip.

You tried to suppress a smirk as the pair of you began dancing to the medium tempo, “in case you find yourself dancing with another member of the Senate, of course”

“Of course” Howzer grinned, “though I can't imagine I will”

He brought your hand up and gently spun you around in time with the music, pulling you back towards him so you were almost chest to chest. Your eyes bore into his as his hand slid to the small of your back, gently brushing your skin. As the dance went on, his hand pressed further against the warmth of your skin, bringing your body closer to his. He wished that he owned any other outfit but his armour, so that he could really feel what it was like to have you pressed up against him, but he'd settle for a gloveless hand against your back for now.

There was something in your gaze, something troubled despite your smile. Howzer didn't know if he was diagnosing the problem correctly, but he spoke up anyway.

“What you did yesterday was really admirable” he mumbled, earning a sigh from you that made your whole body slump towards him, resting your forehead against his chestplate.

“I'm afraid of what's happening to this planet, to the galaxy”

Howzer nodded, his hand sliding up to gently rub what he hoped were comforting circles between your shoulder blades. You continued to let him lead you through the dance, moving your feet in tandem with his despite your collapsed posture.

“I know” he spoke quietly, “but… you can't give up”

Your head lifted from his chest, your eyes slightly wide and startlingly close to his. He felt as if he could see his own soul reflected back at him in that moment, and it startled him a little, as much as it was intoxicating.

“I feel like giving up” you told him, but he just shook his head.

“You can't. You might be the best chance that Ryloth has under the Empire” he replied, his arm wrapping further around you as he slowly let the dance draw you both from the light spilling through the glass door.

“but I can't do anything, as long as the Senator is here” you said desperately, your brows pinched and mouth twisted in a frown.

It was strange to see you so defeated. Howzer had only known you to be quietly confident and seemingly hopeful in a particularly composed way, but now you had been beaten down by the truth of the matter, and for whatever reason you were looking to him for help.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, “will he not go back to Coruscant eventually?”

Your eyes dropped for a moment, then found his again with slightly more conviction, “I suppose so, but—”

“No buts” Howzer interrupted with a growing smile, “just do what you can, right? isn't that what you told me?”

“Yeah” your lips curled up in an appreciative smile, “I can't believe you remember me saying that”

Howzer gave you a small frown, “why wouldn't I?”

“I don't know, I guess I'm used to people just ignoring what I say”

It was a disquieting thing to hear, and Howzer quickly realised it was probably one of the most vulnerable thing you had ever told him.

“Well they're fools” he said assuredly.

You huffed a small laugh as he spun you around once more, “If you say so”

“I mean it” he spoke seriously, pulling you back against him and holding you close by your waist, “I've never— no one ever gave me the time of day to… just talk, before you. No one saw fit to educate me about anything, or talk to me like a human being”

Your brow creased as he spoke, “I'm sorry”

Howzer laughed, a teasing grin plastered on his face, “That was supposed to be a compliment, not me looking for sympathy”

“Oh” you chuckled in a self-deprecating manner, the dance dying down to a light sway, “right, well… you're welcome I suppose. Though I hope you do know that what you just described is the bare minimum”

A scoff left his lips, “so that's the only reason you talk to me? Human decency?”

“Well, no. I—” you stuttered out, diverting your gaze, “like I said before, you're a good man”

Howzer just hummed in response, unable to help the way his smile almost split his face in half. Inside the walls of the mansion, the instrumentalists finished playing their song, a small round of applause following, and you stepped away with a particularly timid expression, as if the intimacy of the moment had finally caught up with you.

“Well, I think I'll be going now” you said softly as the band started up again.

Truthfully, Howzer didn’t want you to leave. Even if it wasn’t in such a troubling way as the previous times, he wasn’t going to watch you walk away from him again.

“Allow me escort you back to your quarters, ma’am” He suggested with a mock sincerity.

You gave him a hesitant and withering look, and his smile grew even more, “you should probably stay here, no?”

Howzer confidently shook his head, “I am tasked with protecting the people in this party. Should one wish to leave, it would only be proper to ensure they get home safely”

He watched the way your bottom lip caught between your teeth to bite back your smirk, your eyes narrowing a little as if to try and read his thoughts. It made his resolve crumble a little, your presence almost deriding him.

“I suppose that makes sense” you mumbled finally, and Howzer smiled in satisfaction.

“Lead the way ma'am” he gestured towards the set of steps that led back towards the front of the estate, and you rolled your eyes playfully as you started walking.

“I thought you agreed not to call me that” you muttered, false annoyance in your tone.

Howzer shrugged a little, “maybe I just want to”

He held out his hand to you once again at the top of the stairs, all four of them, and you scoffed while slipping your hand into his to let him assist in your descent. He knew he was pushing his luck, trying to be so affectionate with you after he had shunned you for doing the exact same thing only a few days prior, but he couldn't help himself.

“Thank you” you said quietly, taking back your hand to clasp both of them behind your back.

The pair of you made your way back up through the large courtyard of the Senator's mansion, stately trees lining your way and casting you into darkness. You settled into a comfortable silence, letting the sounds of the people inside the party dwindle into nothing as you made your way through the city.

The dark engulfed you both, the only light being that of the moon and the stars that were littered through the sky. A gentle breeze sent leaves scattering over the floor, tickling at Howzer’s skin and lightly ruffling his hair. He could smell your perfume as the breeze drifted it his way. It was sweet, understated and gentle but with a noticeable presence. It matched you perfectly in that way. He looked over from his place beside you, and couldn’t help but stare in awe.

In many ways, you were the antithesis to him, a reflection of everything he wished he could be. Much of it was given away in your footfalls; where his were the inelegant scuff of boots against the cold stone of the cobbled street, yours was the tapping of your delicate heels, sounding more akin to a steady drip of water into a lake. Where Howzer was all hard edges and military barbarism, at least in theory, you were made up of soft contours and political courtesy.

He was beneath, you were above. He was the soil, you were the sky. He was inferior, and you were fundamental. All that was true to the places you held in the galaxy, but when he stood next to you, he felt whole, as if your idiosyncrasies fit together to create a one picture, one he didn’t know he recognised until he had laid eyes on you for the first time. Although, as much as you were different, you held a similar space within your own lives, echoing each other’s values. You were both bound by duty, a duty which kept you both from seeking true happiness, and yet, watching you stroll through the moonlight felt like exactly that: happiness.

You halted outside the door to your dwelling, turning back towards him as you opened it up. You observed him for a moment, eyebrows twitching as if thinking something over.

“I'm going put the kettle on” you told him, leaving a lengthy gap to let the words hang in the air for a moment, “would you like to join me for some tea?”

Howzer was agreeing before you had barely got the words out, and you gestured for him to enter with a smirk that you failed to hide. The space was a lot more modest than he was expecting, but he realised then that he probably viewed you as being more important than those who organised your living arrangements. There was a kitchen to one side, a homey looking sofa on the opposite wall, a small dining area between them, and two doors off to the side which he could only presume were the bedroom and refresher. It was humble, especially as compared to the mansion you had just left.

Howzer watched as you pinched the fabric of your scarf between your fingers, pulling it off. The sheer fabric slid over your smooth skin like water over glass, and Howzer was positively mesmerised. It was such a simple action, but he was coming to understand that anything you did was a little more than appealing to him.

“Make yourself at home” you smiled at him as you glided over towards the kitchen to put the kettle on, leaning on the counter to take off your shoes.

For a moment he just watched you move around, almost desperate to reach out and feel your skin against his once more. He forced himself to look away, to try and do as you said and make himself comfortable in the space. He placed his helmet on the table, and noticed that the flimsibook he so often saw you with was open, your stylus laid in the centre of it.

He didn't mean to look, he knew that he shouldn't, that it was private, but when his eyes skimmed the page and he saw his own name, his heart stopped in his chest. He picked it up, unable to help himself, and ran his fingers across the page as he read from it. It was poetry. All this time, the writing that you had been so intently working on were poems, and it seemed that he was a recurring character.

Howzer was floored. He couldn't believe that such sweet words were written for him, someone made for such violence, and by someone like you no less. He turned page after page, and his name appeared a number of times, but upon reading further, even when he wasn't mentioned by name, it was obvious that it was him you were describing.

Instances from your time together, the day at the lake, descriptions of sitting opposite him under the whiptree, and as far as just passing by him. He noticed that they were dated, and as he flipped backwards through the pages, he found one dated under the day you arrived at the senate bureau.

eyes meet, a flicker of recognition,

birthed from nowhere, you’re unknown.

a quiet understanding, but no words,

a warmth that reaches to me.

It feels like a promise,

a vow to fulfil in time,

to make this notion true, not just a stolen glance from the nameless.

From the very beginning, you had felt exactly the same as him, recognising that pull that he had as soon as he laid his eyes on you. Howzer felt his breath go short, his heartbeat thundering in his ears as his blood ran hot through his veins. He looked over to you, leaned against the kitchen counter and tapping a rhythm against it as you waited for the kettle to boil. He called your name, and you looked over to him inquisitively, but your face instantly dropped as your eyes darted between the book and his face.

“I didn’t know you wrote poetry” he stated, the first think he could think to say.

“You weren’t supposed to” you said quickly, your embarrassment obvious as you strode over to him in a few steps and snatched the book from him, shoving it into a drawer when you made it back to your original position.

Howzer could see the deep blush that set in across your cheeks, and he gave you an apologetic look. He hadn’t meant to embarrass you, he only wanted to convey how much it meant to him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to look, just—” he found himself at a loss for words, “it’s beautiful”

“It’s…” you glanced over to him with hesitation, shame still colouring your cheeks, “it’s private”

For a moment neither one of you moved, watching each other carefully to see if the other would go on. You shortly began to look flustered, your fingers fiddling with the fabric of your dress and shifting on the spot.

Letting out a long breath, you hung your head, “I’m so sorry Captain”

Howzer’s eyebrows shot up, taking a step forward on instinct, “you’re sorry?”

“Maker, this is so mortifying” you covered your face with your hands, “I don’t even have the words to explain myself”

He couldn’t help but chuckle at that assertion, “I don’t know about that, seems like you might have quite a few”

You groaned in embarrassment as your body curled in on itself more, drawing another small laugh from Howzer as he made his way over to you.

He tentatively wrapped his hands around you wrists, pulling your hands away from your face. You looked up at him with a bashful expression, struggling to maintain eye contact as he slipped your hands into his.

“I—” he began, not entirely sure of the direction he was going, “I wish I had any of the sort of talent with words that you have, so that I might be able to express my feelings more clearly, but..” he paused, seeing the timidity begin to recede in your eyes, “perhaps I could show you instead?”

His eyes remained trained on yours as he awaited your answer, one hand skimming over your waist and running the silky fabric of your dress through his fingers, the other ghosting over your arm as it made its way up to hold your jaw.

You stared back at him with wide eyes, “I thought— you said it— that we shouldn't”

Howzer had never known you to trip over your words in such a way, and a smirk wormed its way onto his face as he shrugged a little, “I changed my mind”

He could feel some of the tension drain from your body, your shoulders relaxing, and you stepped into his space so you were chest to chest, your nose almost touching his. Your eyes dropped to his lips, tilting your head upwards so they were only a hairbreadth from his own. He could feel your breath warm on his lips, and he had to fight to keep from shivering at the sensation. Eyes finding his again, he could see more confidence in your gaze, and it sent a certain thrill through him that was hard to ignore.

“Then prove it” you whispered, lips almost brushing his.

Howzer closed the space between you, lips meeting with ardency as his arm wrapped around your waist to hold you close to him. He moved his lips against yours with intention, taking his time in the hopes that it would convey every unsaid notion of admiration. Your hands curled around the top of his chestplate, pulling him flush against you, and he gripped you tighter, the fabric of your dress bunching up at his touch.

“You look so good in my colour” he mumbled against your lips, sounding as drunk as he felt at the intoxicating taste of your lips.

“I hope so” you returned, “I wore it for you”

Howzer groaned as he instantly deepened the kiss, pressing you back into the kitchen counter, and he felt you smirk against him. His hands explored your body, finally allowing himself the pleasure of indulging in the feel of your skin.

He suddenly became overwhelmed by desire, desperate to be as close as possible after your admission. You had worn this excruciatingly tantalising dress just for him, and he wanted to be the one to take it off of you. One hand cupped the back of your head as his mouth devoured yours, exploring every inch of you he could reach, and the other trailed down your body to grip at your hip. You raised to your toes to push back against him, matching his fervour, your arms snaking around his neck to bring him closer.

In a swift motion, Howzer hooked his hands under your thighs, placing you on top of the counter behind you and standing between your thighs. You threaded your legs around his waist, pulling yourself into him and earning a breathy groan at the feel of you pressing into his now uncomfortably tight codpiece.

Howzer had never felt a desire as pure as this one. He'd had encounters of a similar nature with other people, of course, but never had he felt this aching within his chest, the need to be close, not only physically, but to be tethered together by your very souls.

Becoming impatient and overwhelmed by his own state of mind, Howzer’s hand ran down your leg and found the hem of your dress, which had ridden up a little by that point, and lifted it so he could slip beneath. His fingers danced along your skin, skimming your inner thigh as he made his way towards the apex in a swift motion.

A shaky breath passed your lips and fanned over his as his knuckles came into contact with your clothed sex. He teased you for a moment, ghosting over the fabric with featherlight touches, but a heavy sigh gave an indication that you were just as impatient as he was.

“No need to be so gentle, Captain. I told you, I'm not made of glass” your voice was thick with desire, breathy but confident.

“I thought you weren't going to call me that anymore” he pressed his forehead into yours to peer into your eyes as his first finger hooked into your underwear slowly.

“Maybe I want to” you whispered, and though initially a little stunned, his lips formed a particularly rakish grin at the implication. He took what you had said at face value and sped along the process by pushing your underwear to the side, his fingers sliding between your folds.

“Fuck” he breathed out slowly, his forehead dropping to your shoulder, “how are you so wet already?”

His voice was hoarse, genuine perplexity and pleasant surprise colouring his tone.

“Didn't you read my poetry?” you asked, a contented sigh passing your lips, “you look very good in this armour, Captain”

Howzer chuckled, and he heard your breath hitch as his fingers grazed your clit.

“So good you had to match, apparently” he breathed out, his lips against your ear and drawing a shudder from you.

He continued his teasing, every motion in response to the way you reacted to his touch. Dragging his teeth along your earlobe, he heard a whimper sound in your throat, and as you were about to reply to his previous comment, he sunk two of his fingers inside of you. Howzer could feel his knees almost give out at how easy it was to slip his fingers past your entrance, and your breath escaped you in a sharp and unsteady exhale.

“Fuck, so… good” you finally replied, struggling to get your words out as his fingers set a steady pace within you, watching every twitch that played on your features as you responded to his efforts.

Your face was twisted in pleasure, brows pinched and teeth digging into your bottom lip. It was as if you were an instrument, him the air, or the strings, that allowed you to sing. Your soft moans were the melody, the most beautiful one he had heard, and the fact that it was him pulling it from you only made it sound sweeter.

“You're right, mesh'la” he spoke against your lips, detaching the meaning you had intended from your previous words, “you're so good, taking my fingers so well”

A small whine left you, and Howzer attached his lips back to yours, swallowing the sound. His thumb brushed over your clit as he wound you up, and you let out a delighted moan into his mouth.

“Tell me how it feels, baby, tell me how good I make you feel” he rasped, the fingers of his free hand digging into the flesh of your thigh.

“It— fuck” you were interrupted as Howzer's fingers found a particularly deep spot within you, curling and hitting a place that made you unable to speak, “it feels so good, Captain”

“Yeah?” he asked, adding pressure to your clit so you could only nod in reply, “you like calling me that, huh?”

A small ‘yes’ slipped from your lips in a whisper, looking up into his eyes, and Howzer could see something shy swirling within them. He wasn't going to have that.

“Yes, what?” he challenged, and watched with pride as the timidity receded and a flicker of desire took its place.

“Yes, Captain”

Howzer smirked broadly, his teeth catching on his bottom lip as he looked down at the positive alluring sight of you at his mercy.

“Good girl” he praised, and felt the way you clenched around him in response. He was quickly coming to understand exactly what it was your body wanted from him.

He felt you getting close to finishing, your chest heaving and breath short and uneven as your walls tightened around his pumping fingers, but before you could reach your peak, he pulled his fingers from you completely. A sharp whine slipped from your lips at the loss, but Howzer just gave you a teasing simper.

“Not yet, mesh'la. I'll let you know when you can come” he spoke lowly, nothing but pure lust dripping from his tongue.

He could tell his words were having an effect on you. You were breathless, looking up at him through your eyelashes, and the sight alone was enough to set his skin alight in an entirely new way, his cock throbbing beneath his armour. A hand found its place on your cheek, needing an affirmative before continuing.

“How's that sound? You think you can follow my orders?” he asked, his tone reverent despite the meaning behind the words.

“Yes sir” you breathed out, and Howzer couldn't deny the way the sentiment set his insides alive.

He kissed you deeply, taking a moment in the flurry of desire to see to the fact that he cared for you deeply, and he wanted you to know that. His fingers traced your jaw, winding their way behind you head in a soft brush of skin against skin. He kept his touch light as he drew a path up to one of your lekku, and gently brushed his knuckles over the sensitive area.

He felt a shiver ripple through you, and you drew away from him with a shaky breath. Your eyes were a little wide, and he worried that he'd pushed your boundaries, but then your fingers hooked into his belt and you yanked him towards you.

“How do I take this off?” you asked, fumbling with the clasp.

Howzer laughed, your actions so sudden that he couldn't help himself, “here, let me do it”

He shooed your hands away, unclipping his belt and then going about removing the rest of his armour as quickly as possible. You just sat atop the counter, one leg crossed over the other and watching him with a fascination. He caught your eyes, and a smirk broke out over his face.

There was an understanding between you, a sense of affinity and trust that had been there since the beginning. Howzer didn't believe in fate — his time in the war had only taught him the certainty of everything being up to chance and luck — but something about the way you looked at him, the way his eyes found yours and things made sense, it felt that it had been brewing for a long time, since before you had met.

Once Howzer was just down to his blacks, his armour scattered about the floor that surrounded him, he pulled the top from his body, and your hands were on him before he could continue. You pulled him towards you, tasting his lips again, and he melted into you, his hands running up your thighs.

Your hands travelled over his chest and took a path downwards, your fingers brushing against his muscle and the hair that peeked above his blacks before they wrapped around his hardened length. An unbidden groan left his lips at the action, grinding himself into your hold and gripping the flesh of your thighs as you palmed him through the material. He could feel himself crumbling under your attention already, and he couldn't wait a second longer. He needed to feel you around him.

His thumbs hooked into the waistband of his blacks and tugged them down with his underwear, stepping out and catching the way you bit your lip at the sight of his cock springing free. He bunched your dress up around your hips and slid your underwear from your body with an urgency, placing himself between your legs once more and resting the blunt head of his cock at your entrance. Your breath stuttered at the sensation, and he looked up to meet your eyes once more.

You were so beautiful. He'd always known it, but a newfound appreciation of your beauty now washed over him like an icy tidal wave, waking him up and making him feel entirely more present and aware of what was happening. One of his hands lifted to caress your face, looking deeply into your eyes and feeling that connection, the tethering of souls that he desired.

“You're incredible” he breathed out, and your lips curled up into a genuine smile.

“I think you're pretty incredible too, since were being honest”

Howzer wasn't entirely sure how to respond to the compliment, but shortly a smug expression took over his face, “oh I know, you wouldn't write words like that otherwise”

You rolled your eyes, a huff leaving your lips, “cocky”

He dragged his tongue along his lips with a devilish grin, “you have no idea”

He sheathed into you, and heard a gasp get caught in your throat as he slowly filled you out. Your fingers gripped onto his shoulders as he bottomed out, and Howzer couldn't find it within himself to move. He pulled you close, your foreheads together and eyes closed as your bodies were flush with one another, his cock buried deep within you, basking in your warmth. He pulled out slowly, a careful procedure, and then sank back into you with a shuddering breath.

“Fuck” he choked out, running a soothing hand up your side, “you feel so good baby”

Howzer set a steady pace at first, relishing in the feeling of your tight walls around his cock, but soon found himself speeding up, the sensation too intoxicating and your nails biting into his shoulder making his vision hazy even as he opened his eyes. The melody of your moans was more colourful, inflections and articulations that he hadn't heard before, and the sounds alone were driving him closer to the edge by the second.

His speed was punishing, driving into you and hitting deep inside with each thrust. His hands gripped your thighs to ground him, feeling almost drunk on the feel of you. He was mumbling acclamatory words against your lips, unable to concentrate enough to speak properly, and especially when your lips were on his neck. It made his head spin, more arousing than he realised, and he felt positively high. You were invading his senses like a drug, and he was so lost in the moment that he was only brought back by the feel of your walls clenching around him. Despite his body's wishes, he pulled out of you completely. You let out a whine in protest, and he ran a finger over your pouting bottom lip with a chuckle.

“Not yet, pretty girl”

He brought his fingers to your core again, teasing you just enough to keep you on the edge. He watched you squirm, both satisfaction and frustration written into your expression, and your hands wrapped around the back of his neck and slid up, tangling in his hair as you guided his lips back to yours. You pulled gently, earning a groan from his throat that echoed in the space around you. Howzer returned the action, running his palm over the base of your lekku.

You whimpered against him, and pulled back fractionally to speak a desperate plea to let you finish. Instead of heeding your wishes, he took his fingers away from you, and a breath escaped you as your forehead came to rest on his chest. Your legs wrapped around his waist again, drawing him closer so his cock came into contact with your dripping core. He groaned deeply, wanting nothing more than to bury himself in you again.

“Where's your bedroom?” he mumbled out, and your head raised to look at him.

“Door on the right” you answered in a quick breath.

Howzer hooked his hands under your thighs and wasted no time in heading over towards the room. He smashed his hand into the door panel with an urgency, making you chuckle against his skin as you littered kisses up his neck and along his jaw. When he found the bed in the darkened room, he placed you down gently, laying you down beneath him. He took the opportunity to explore your body with his lips, pressing open mouthed kisses where your dress would allow, and nudging it aside when he wasn't satisfied with how little skin he could reach.

He then pulled back and tilted his head, a small smirk playing on his lips as he looked down at you, “don't you think you’re a little overdressed?”

Your lips lifted into their own smirk, “you think so?”

Howzer chucked darkly, his lips meeting the skin of your neck as he drew a path of kisses along the underside of your jaw. He paused for a moment, feeling you shudder at the feel of his hot breath against your ear.

“Be a good girl and take this off for me” he spoke lowly.

You pushed him away with a trembling breath, and he rolled off of you, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching as you stood. You slipped the straps of your dress from your shoulders, and the silky material of the dress folded easily, sliding from your body and pooling at your feet in one graceful motion. Howzer’s mouth dropped open, his hand reaching for you and tracing his thumb along your hip bone as he took in the sight of you in a state of undress.

“Kriff cyare, look at you” his tone was nothing short of worshipping, adoration and infatuation laced into his tone.

One side of your lips quirked up at the compliment, and however much he hadn't really spoke his mind, he knew you understood. He gripped your waist and pulled you back towards him, tugging you down and placing his body back on top of yours, caging your head between his splayed palms. He shook his head in disbelief, looking down at the sight of you beneath him and taking your hand in his, interlacing your fingers with his and pressing it into the bed.

“You ready pretty girl?” he asked in a whisper, leaning down to press a kiss to your jaw.

You nodded, your breath leaving you as he positioned himself at your entrance once more.

“Hm, doesn't seem like you really want it” He spoke coyly, slipping his length through your slick folds as he dragged his teeth along your collarbone.

You were whimpering, squirming beneath him, and he knew he had you absolutely wrapped around his finger in that moment. It was exhilarating, the idea that ordinarily you were a quiet and poised government official, strong in your resolve and far above him in station, but now you were beneath him, begging for more, hanging on his every word and under his command.

“Please, Captain” you breathed out, your tone so lustful that Howzer could have crumbled.

“Please what? You have to tell me what you need mesh'la” he rumbled against your skin, teasing your clit with the tip of his cock.

“Please, I— I need you to fuck me Captain”

You sounded desperate, and it drew a low groan from Howzer's throat, “that's more like it”

His forehead met yours as he slid inside of you again, filling you completely in one thrust, the dulcet sound of your moans mixing filling the dark room. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head, your hand gripping his tighter as he pounded into you. He wasn’t entirely sure that he was actually going to last much longer with the feel of your walls clenching around him, but he was determined to have you hanging on until the very last second.

The feeling that it gave him, the intimacy of it more than anything, was euphoric. He had never felt so close to another person, so understood and frankly loved, whether or not it was the case. The two of you were connected in a way that he couldn't comprehend, but could only feel, an energy that bound you together and created a space where only the two of you existed.

He felt your walls tightening around him once more, and kept his pace up as he spoke, “ah, ah. You don't come until I tell you to, remember?”

“Yes, Captain” you whimpered, your eyes screwing shut.

“Hey” he said more gently, slowing down as his hand caressed your face, “look at me.” Your eyes opened once more, and a smile broke out on his face naturally, “there you are pretty girl”

He bumped his forehead with yours as he resumed his punishing pace, his eyes burning into yours and yours burning in kind. He could tell you were only just hanging on, doing everything in your willpower to not come undone until he let you, and he just felt grateful for the trust you had in him to allow him to have such a power over you.

“You take me so well baby” he whispered, his voice reverent and gentle as he buried his face in your neck, nipping at your skin, “made for this cock”

His breath stuttered as he felt himself getting close, not able to hold on for much longer, and your whispered pleas told him that you were right there with him.

“where do you want me?” he asked, his voice strained.

You were breathless as you replied, almost relieved, “inside”

Howzer groaned deeply, stilling inside you and trying to control his body desperately, “I'm serious cyar'ika”

“I'm protected” you assured him, “please Captain, I want to feel you”

That was all Howzer needed to resume his shattering pace, his hands holding your hips firmly in place as he pounded into you and finally spoke the words, “come for me, baby”

You were easily pushed over the edge, and Howzer rode you through your high until he came undone with a harsh grunt, spilling his seed deep within you. It took more than a moment to come down from the pure bliss of fulfilment, and when he did, his eyes opened to look down at you, still panting, and you were doing the same. He let out a breathy laugh, grinning at your spent expression.

He slipped out of you, sitting back on his heels to catch his breath, and watched the way his seed spilled out of you, making his teeth sink into his lip. His eyes found yours once more as his hand gently kneaded your thigh, shaking his head in disbelief.

“What?” you asked, a gentle smile playing on your lips.

“You're just—” he breathed out deeply, “you're so beautiful”

You grinned at him, sitting up on your elbows, “thank you”

You looked confident in saying it, and his heart sang with affection. He pressed a kiss to your knee and stood from the bed, “don't move, I'll be right back”

He left the room and entered what he rightly assumed was the refresher, and returned with tissue in hand. He helped you clean up before crawling over you again, cupping your face and pressing a tender kiss to your lips.

You hummed contentedly, your own hand caressing his face, outlining the scar on his cheek, “will you stay the night?”

You looked so hopeful in asking, but Howzer sighed, “I can't be caught leaving here tomorrow”

You chewed on your cheek, looking away for a moment, “just for a little while then?”

He smiled, “alright, a little while”

He settled beside you and pulled your body flush against his, placing a kiss to your forehead as he held you close. Your face was buried in his chest, breath tickling his skin, and he couldn't think of a time when he had ever felt as contented as this.

“Howzer?” you called softly.

“Hm?” he rumbled, his arms tightening around you.

“What— um…” you stammered, and he pulled back to look at you.

“What's up?”

You didn't look nervous perse, he didn't think you capable of it, but you looked a little apprehensive to say whatever it is that was hanging onto your tongue.

“What does this mean?” you asked quietly.

Howzer smiled, his fingers brushing against your cheekbone as he looked down at you adoringly, “it means whatever you want it to”

You tilted your head at him a little, “well what do you want?”

“I only want whatever you'll give me, however much that is”

A small smile tugged at your lips, and you lifted your head to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, “I just want you… in every way I can”

“Then I'm yours” he smiled in return, “in every way”

It was first light when Howzer awoke the next day, the sun only just breaching the horizon and casting a blue glow through the curtains of your bedroom. He was pressed up against your body, curled around you and keeping you sealed in a warm embrace with his arms.

He wished that you could stay like this forever, the both of you comfortable and locked together, hidden from the unblinking eye of the outside world and the realities that weighed on your minds at any other moment. Here, there was no Empire, no politics, no power — just peace.

Howzer nuzzled into your neck for just a second, pressing a lingering kiss to your throat, before he pulled away from you completely, leaving the room to get dressed into his previously discarded armour. If he had taken another moment he was sure he'd never leave.

He dressed quickly, slipping his blacks on and putting his armour back in it's place. As he adjusted his pauldron, he looked back towards your bedroom door. He didn't want to leave without saying goodbye, but he also didn't want to wake you. You would be getting up soon enough, but he wouldn't deny you even a few minutes of rest with the state of things in the senate bureau, so instead he opted to write a note.

He found your flimsibook and a stylus in the drawer where you had stuffed them the night before and opened to the next blank page, next to the end of a very long poem that was seemingly about justice, based on the heavy use of the word. He wasn't going to pry by reading it once more, so he just wrote a quick note down, to let you know that he'd make some caf for you. His language wasn't as flowery as yours, and he almost felt embarrassed for it, but he wasn't exactly trying to be very poetic. He set a batch of caf on to brew, then slipped out the front door as quietly as possible.

The air outside was fresh, the scent of morning dew and the ever-present lavender invading his senses, though the distinct lack of people around was strange. Howzer was never usually out of the barracks this early so it was unusual to be able to hear the birdsong, which was usually covered by the sound of people talking, milling about, on their way to work. It was nice, perhaps he'd make an effort to get up earlier in the future.

As he made his way towards the square, he was ambushed by a pair of troopers, exactly the people he was trying to avoid in not going back to the barracks.

“Where have you been?” Teddy asked him with a taunting edge, knocking his elbow as the two of them walked either side of him.

“Yeah, you weren't in your bed last night” Oscar smirked, “which begs the question: whose bed were you in?”

Howzer rolled his eyes, playing off their questions, “I was stationed at the Senator's estate last night”

Oscar let out a loud laugh, “as if you slept in the Senator's mansion”

“We're not that stupid, sir” Teddy gave him a knowing look, “well, maybe Oscar is, but come on, wh—”

“Hey!” Oscar reached around his Captain to push Teddy away.

“You two are such children” Howzer shook his head disapprovingly, though a small smile still managed to worm its way onto his face.

“He started it” Oscar grumbled, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Did not” Teddy grinned, rubbing his arm.

“Anyway” Oscar said pointedly, “you didn't answer the question. who'd you go home with, Captain?”

Howzer scoffed, “I’m not discussing this with you loudmouths”

“Don't worry sir, I'll cover his ears while you tell me” Teddy suggested, causing Howzer to chuckle.

“Don't you two have somewhere to be?” He asked as they came to a stop in the town square, an eyebrow raised and looking between them.

“Ugh” Oscar huffed, rolling his eyes, “I suppose”

“Best be off then” Howzer nudged him forwards.

Oscar was mumbling under his breath as he walked away, and Teddy leaned toward Howzer fractionally, his tone amused, “Don't worry sir, I'll keep him in line”

“I know you will, Teddy” Howzer chuckled fondly as he stepped away, “I'll see you later”

Teddy gave his Captain a quick salute and ran after his brother, throwing an arm around his shoulders on approach. Howzer turned away with an affectionate smile and the threat of a scoff leaving his mouth at their antics.

Howzer had barely been keeping it together all morning, and he had no idea how you could act so nonchalantly, as if nothing had transpired between the two of you. It wasn't discussed that your escapades from the previous night would be kept a secret, but it was assumed. That didn't stop the way the edges of Howzer's lips curled into a smirk upon seeing you enter the room.

Today you were dressed in a corseted robe, paisley designs adorning the silky sleeves and collar, and it was noticeably a light blue-green colour; teal. Howzer shook his head at you and had to bite back a smirk, he could tell you knew what you were doing. You had greeted him with a simple ‘Good morning, Captain’ but it had made his blood run hot with memories of the previous night filling his vision. He had never been so thankful for his codpiece.

He watched as you and Cham discussed something in his office, your voices too far away to hear what. He caught little words here and there, but nothing that really indicated the subject matter. It made him laugh, really. You would both probably discuss it with him later, so there was no need for the hushed tone you employed, but neither of you knew that. Perhaps you did, but your sabacc face was too good that he couldn't tell.

The arrival of a new Imperial officer, a vice admiral, had been the talk of the day. The man was so self-important and petulant that Howzer was sure he was making up for something, though in truth, he hadn't been paying all that much attention to him. He hadn't been paying attention to anyone but you.

You had met his gaze only once since first saying good morning, and it was driving him crazy, particularly as the one time he did catch your eyes, you had sent him a maddeningly sultry smirk. Howzer felt like all the self control he had left within him was hanging by a thread, ready to snap.

When the time was right, he pulled the thread, and let it break, finally getting you alone and dragging you behind a non-descript door that ended up being some kind of supply closet. He instantly pushed you up against the wall, attaching his lips to yours with a desperation that made you smirk against his mouth.

“Someone's eager” you chuckled as his lips left yours for a moment.

“Shut up” he mumbled, kissing you deeply in between his words, “what do you expect when you walk in wearing this?”

You smirked broadly, “I thought you'd like it”

He suppressed a groan as your teeth dragged along his lip, “you're trouble”

Howzer's hands roved over your body, mapping the shape of it and burning it into his brain. He ran his tongue over the seem of your lips, begging for entrance that you allowed in an instant, and the soft sigh that left you made his knees weak.

A shuffling of feet outside the door made the both of you freeze, eyes opening and locking as you listened intently. It sounded as if there was a group of people passing by, their discussion so benign it could be about anything.

You smiled up at Howzer as their voices receded, and he returned the gesture, his arms snaking around your waist and holding you tightly.

“Thank you for the caf” you whispered.

“It was no problem” he whispered back, a hand cupping your cheek.

“But next time, wake me up” you said, somehow ever quieter.

The promise of a next time made his smile widen, and he knew now that he wouldn't deny you anything you asked for. He bit his lip as you looked up at him through your lashes, your gentle expression making his chest feel tight with admiration.

“Alright” he murmured.

He dipped his head and nudged your chin up with his nose to latch his lips onto your neck, and that wonderful sighing noise left your parted lips once more.

“We shouldn’t be doing this here” you insisted, your voice breathy and full of a certain neediness despite your words.

“Tell me to stop” Howzer spoke, his warm breath over your collarbone, and you moaned softly, prompting him to repeat himself, “go on, tell me to stop”

Your breath was short, but you found your voice enough to speak, “no sir”

“That's what I thought”

Howzer placed an armoured leg between your thighs to pin you to the wall, and a less gentle moan slipped from your lips.

“Shhh” he cooed, shifting his leg further up just to tease you, and you struggled to suppress another noise, “do you think you can stay quiet for me, baby?”

You stifled a noise as he bit into your neck, giving him his answer.

“Good girl”

taglist: @darthnihila @cdblake1565 @heidnspeak @mae-lou-ron @burningnerdchild @orangez3st

[drekkavac]

𝐀  𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋  𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐊  𝐘𝐎𝐔!!!

As  many  of  you  may  know  ...  I've  been  going  through  a  hell  of  a  time  recently.  I'm  not  going  to  get  into  it  all  ,  because  that's  𝐍𝐎𝐓  what  this  post  is  about.  This  post  ,  is  meant  for  me  to  thank  some  people  who  have  gone  the  𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐀  𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐄  to  reach  out  to  me  ,  &  make  sure  that  I  am  doing  okay.  It's  been  really  helpful  to  keep  my  head  up  &  keep  swimming  through  all  of  this  ,  &  you  guys  really  have  𝐍𝐎  𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐀  how  much  you  guys  have  actually  saved  me  recently.

These  people  are  real  ,  𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄  additions  to  the  rpc  ,  &  definitely  people  I  will  be  going  to  bat  for  in  the  future.  Thank  you  so  much  for  all  the  support  ,  love  ,  &  just  generally  caring  about  me.

So  without  further  a  do  ...  Lets  get  to  being  𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐊𝐅𝐔𝐋  ...

@vintertsarn  &  @scores-of-antiheroes.  We've  been  going  through  this  together  ,  &  I  have  to  publicly  thank  one  of  my  partner's  &  their  partner  first  &  foremost.  It's  been  a  good  feeling  knowing  that  no  matter  what  happens  ...  We're  in  this  together.  So  thank  you  guys  for  being  there.

@depictedmorada  ,  @wormholxtreme  &  @renownedagent.  These  people  have  been  so  giving  recently.  &  also  just  reaching  out  &  making  sure  I'm  doing  okay.  You  guys  have  helped  me  remember  i'm  not  alone  ,  &  Isabel  ...  You  sweet  sweet  flower.  You  have  been  so  so  so  helpful  when  I  just  wanna  curl  up  &  give  up.  Thank  you  so  much  for  the  extra  attention  &  being  so  giving  recently.

@halfdent  ,  @katarinawilliams  &  @urbanoath.  New  people  to  my  mutuals  list  ,  but  I  couldn't  be  more  thankful  for  you  three.  These  three  have  been  checking  in  just  about  every  day  ,  &  have  shown  me  just  how  much  people  here  still  care  about  people  here  as  more  than  just  a  blog  ,  but  we're  𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄.  There  really  aren't  enough  people  out  there  like  these  people.  They  are  good  people  ,  who  care  about  people.  &  I  swear  to  God  I'm  tearing  up  writing  this  right  now.  Thank  you.

𝐈  𝐀𝐋𝐒𝐎  𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐀  𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐊  𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘  𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑  𝐌𝐔𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐋  𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄!  Even  if  you've  just  liked  my  posts  ,  or  commented  on  them  wishing  me  well  ,  I  want  to  thank  each  &  every  one  of  you  as  well.  It  really  ,  really  means  the  world  to  me.  I  don't  celebrate  Thanksgiving  ,  but  I  support  the  energy  of  being  thankful  this  time  of  year  ,  for  the  people  &  things  we  𝐃𝐎  𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄  ,  &  despite  how  scared  I  am  for  my  future  ...  I  am  so  so  thankful  for  the  things  𝐈  𝐃𝐎  𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄  ,  &  it's  because  of  these  people  specifically  that  that  has  been  easier  to  do  right  not.

𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌  𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐁𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐎𝐌  𝐎𝐅  𝐌𝐘  𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐓  ...  𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐊  𝐘𝐎𝐔.

[gothamite-rambler]

Tim's and Konnor first kiss

Context: This is just my headcanon where Tim did date Konnor, it didn't work out and then later when he fully realized he was bisexual and reconnected with Bernard he started dating him. Because why pick on ship when you can have both and write ship script fics about it? Plus I do secretly headcanon Tim as being the opposite of Jason and he's great at dating and flirting even when he's being a nerd. Tim is the third Robin and has been questioning his sexuaility, but finds himself attracted to both genders and he has though Konnor was foine! Issue is while Konnor has been out of the closet for a few years, Tim isn't sure the superhero would want to be with him. So he shoots his shot, will he get that kiss?

Red Robin yawned as Konnor Kent discussed the plan to sneak into LexCorp. Though he usually managed three to four hours of sleep, sometimes exhaustion crept in. Still, he wasn't complaining—he was next to Konnor. The boy's effervescent energy always kept him focused.

Konnor (eagerly): If we go here, here, and here, we can drop down there and take them out. That way, we get everything squared away.

Robin glanced over the blueprints Konnor had drawn himself and nodded.

Robin (genuine): Good plan.

Konnor (surprised): That's it?

Robin (casually): Yeah. Were you expecting me to say something else?

Konnor (confused): You usually pick apart other plans, and by the end of it, the whole thing is changed. You do a good job at that—don’t get me wrong—but there’s nothing you want to fix on mine?

Robin chuckled, resting his arm on the table.

Robin (light-hearted): For others, I would, but yours has a lot of thought put into it, and you know Lex's buildings better than I do. It's a solid plan.

Konnor (smiling softly): I mean, I’m not just some dumb guy who can fly and is super strong. I have layers. Some people misunderstand that about me. I can be really good at planning, too. Thanks, Robin.

Tim (smiling): No one else is around, dude. You can call me Tim.

Konnor (perking up): Seriously? Cool! I felt weird saying "Robin" at times. "Tim Drake" is a more badass name.

Tim (smiling, sweet tone): Konnor isn't bad either.

Konnor (curious): Really? I always hated my name.

Tim (shrugging): You have a good name, regardless of the connotations it has. And I agree, you're not dumb—there are many great things about you.

Konnor (raising an eyebrow with a knowing smile): Tim, are you coming on to me?

Tim sat back, resting his arms behind his head.

Tim (coy tone): Maybe I am, maybe I'm not.

Konnor: Hm, all right. If I said you're attractive to me and I've been wanting to kiss you for months since coming out, what would your response be?

Tim chuckled, sitting up straight and scooching his chair closer to Konnor.

Tim: I'd say I've been feeling the same about you.

Konnor pouted, tapping his fingers on the table, contemplating whether this was Tim being truthful. He could hear the man's heartbeat slightly speeding up, but he wasn't sure if it was infatuation or deception.

Konnor (slightly dejected tone): I'm not going to lie, I'm worried this is a dumb trick you're pulling on me.

Tim tilted his head, his tired eyes reflecting confusion.

Tim: Hm? Why would you think that?

Konnor: Because you're straight, right? You were with Stephanie. Heck, I've even met your girlfriend before you got involved with Steph, and I'd rather not be your 'experiment.'

Konnor glanced at his blueprints, trying to concentrate on the mission rather than dwelling on the painful possibilities of "what if." However, he couldn’t help but notice Tim's expression shift from coy to anxious.

Tim (worry in his tone): No, no, no, you're not an experiment or anything like that. I'm not sure what I like because my brain isn't saying I only like women, but I don’t only like men. I—

Tim sighed, covering his eyes in embarrassment. Konnor turned in his chair to face his friend and took his hand gently.

Tim (softly): I met up with this old friend from high school, and after saving him as Robin and being with him… I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to be close to him like I was with a woman... but then he left. Then I noticed I felt that way for a while and when I see you, and I want that same thing. I still like women, but I… what am I?

Konnor chuckled, softly rubbing the top of Tim's hand.

Konnor (sympathetic tone): I went through something similar when I realized this when I came out. You might be bi, dear boy. Are… you okay?

Tim (sighing while keeping his head down): Yeah.

Konnor: Good, because you look like you've been holding that secret in for a long time. If I'm right, I don't want to assume anything. Sexuality is a weird spectrum, but I'm getting the feeling you aren't just straight or gay.

Tim (hesitantly): You're… right. It seems… It is... I mean... I am bisexual, I think.

Konnor smiled warmly.

Konnor: I'm here if you want to talk or… kiss. Both work.

Tim chuckled, taking his hand back to remove his eye mask.

Tim: I thought you didn't want that. I want to do that, but I don't want to make you uncomfortable; I really want to kiss you, but… I don’t know. God, I can't think of the right choice.

Konnor (softly): Since it's not a trick and you opened up to me, I feel more… reclined to let you have your first kiss with the perfect superhuman.

Tim smirked, trying to glare playfully at Konnor.

Tim: You know "inclined" is the right word, and that’s a bit of an ego trip… but no one else is here.

Konnor nodded, and Tim sighed, leaning in. Their lips met quickly at first, but Konnor pulled him back for a deeper kiss that left Tim stunned. His cheeks flushed a bright shade of crimson, his eyes widening in surprise as he momentarily froze. His arms stayed at his sides for a heartbeat, but as they parted for a breath, Tim kissed Konnor again, feeling the man's hand rest gently against his neck.

Tim placed his hand on Konnor’s hip, pulling him closer and taking in a shaky breath. As the initial shock wore off, warmth spread through him, instinctively leaning into the kiss and melting into the connection between them.

He kept kissing Konnor, feeling his heartbeat race as the seconds slipped by. Feeling Tim's steady breath against his lips sent tingles down Konnor's spine. He lightly gripped Tim's arm, drawing him closer, feeling the undeniable strength and warmth radiating off him. In that moment, nothing else mattered; the world around them faded into a blur.

Tim's lips were soft yet confident, as if he were exploring the depths of Konnor’s emotions with every lingering brush. Konnor tightened his fingers around Tim's arm, pulling him in even closer, as if trying to fuse their bodies together.

As they broke apart, Konnor's breath mingled with Tim's, both panting slightly from the rush of adrenaline. Tim looked at him with an expression that blended surprise and something deeper, almost tender.

Then Tim promptly fell forward, his eyes rolling back in his head. Konnor caught him, letting his friend rest on his chest to prevent him from sliding onto his lap.

Konnor (jokingly): Yeah, don't want anyone walking in if you landed on my legs. I didn't know my kiss was that powerful.

Tim (dazed): To be fair, you're the first man I've kissed.

Konnor (fist pumping): All right!

Tim sat up and sighed happily, then covered his eyes in embarrassment, shaking his head.

Tim: Does this get ea—s

Konnor (interrupting): I'm gonna stop you there. When I came out as bi, it felt like I left this confined space; it made sense. I felt free, but that's just the beginning. Dating is the difficult part, but we can talk about that after the mission. We can go to the KFC combination Taco Bell afterward.

Tim (laughing): Is that a date?

Konnor returned to reviewing his blueprints but kept a sly smile on his face as he glanced at Tim.

Konnor: It can be, but LexCorp first.

Tim nodded, feeling a sense of relief wash over him. The realization that he was bisexual felt surreal but in a good way. Konnor was right; it felt freeing. While he still had a lot to learn about himself, it felt good to have an answer.

[skeletalheartattack]

Subtitles below the keep reading:

Hey you, shut your mouth and look at my paw! DON'T FORGET!! [Incomprehensible sped up gibberish] This... Journey... Money... Loads of coins. [Incomprehensible sped up gibberish] What-about-her? What-about-her? ... What-about-her? 'She still like me? [Quiet but mostly incomprehensible gibberish about subtitles] O P S O P N O-1 1. Here's the spell: Love the mermaid, for sure! The mermaid is HAPPY! Okay! It's pretty normal for a fish, right? Guuuyyyssss, beeeee caaarefuuulll wiiiiith theeee GIIIIIRRRRLSSS!!! [Incomprehensible] Oh! Silly! Oh yes! Lamb chop boy! [Incomprehensible] [Very quietly, while white noise is playing over it] Goood eevening, aand weeelcome too the shoooowww... [In the background] Ohhh, mooney!

[capybaraonabicycle]

Doctor: Huh, is that who I am now?

Donna: It was never that far from the surface, mate.

Doctor: frowns Yes, it was! You know I used to be a woman. And that made people... assume all sorts of stuff. And - and pretending to be Graham's wife for five minutes was bad enough but - Byron? That was torture. Does the man ever stop talking?

Donna: Takes one to know one

Doctor: Oi! I just mean, there were all these men people assumed I would be into and I - and I just - I just wanted -

Donna: I know, darling.

Doctor: softly I just wanted Yaz.

Donna: I know. - There was one man, though, remember?

Doctor: No, there wasn't! I don't fancy the Master!

Donna: ...

Doctor: Okay, fine. But the Master isn't a man. He's like me! Flexible - uh - timelord gender and stuff.

Donna: Sure.

Doctor: So, anyway, I have always been primarily into wom-

Donna: What about Jack Harkness?

Doctor: - Jack doesn't count, everyone fancies Jack.

Donna: ...fair enough.