#(and it was a good post too!!!!! his presence just makes me smart i think. idk how he does that)

[daz4i]

hope nikolai is in this month's chapter so i have smth to go insane over in a good way

[satuguro]

ೃ PUT ON A SHOW !

porn star! ethan landry x roommate! reader

#SYNOPSIS— ethan really needs to stop thinking about you during his private sessions.

#CONTAINS— anal play, toys, voyeurism, sub! ethan, mommy kink, degradation/praise, dacryphilia, reader is mean, this is filthy i mean it, brief mention of porn star! chad

#AUTHORSNOTE— sorry not sorry x2, might make a part 2 with pornstar chad bc i want to lol

there were a few pros to having a roommate who was as hard working as you.

one, you were barely home. a worrying fact that honestly ethan really shouldn't be so bothered about. most roommates would probably prefer it that their roomie wasn't home, but the thing is, ethan liked you. maybe a little too much; your presence was comforting, you were interesting to talk to, and you were such a good listener that ethan could ramble for hours and not feel bad at all.

two, you had little time to relax, so when you did, you did it with him. laying on the couch and watching a new t.v show with him, making dinner when you came home before ethan did and laughing over the dinner table, playing animal crossing on your switch while he did the homework he procrastinated. ethan liked it when you could just relax, and he liked it even more that you preferred to do it with him, your dear puppy-eyed roommate who was always a little too eager to do things for you.

you were always so stressed, working a job you hated and practically giving your all to school and your profession that you barely had time for yourself. you always came home so exhausted, sometimes even pissed off, that ethan wanted to make it easy for you. he wanted to help you relax. (and sometimes, on the days you came home particularly angry, he imagined you taking that anger out on him instead.)

three, because you weren't home and because you were always so busy, ethan had a chance to keep his side job a little more.. under wraps.

originally, it had started out of curiosity. simple twitter porn videos of him jerking off in front of a camera, whining and moaning as he thrusted his cock into his hand for the internet to see. and only when ethan realized that people liked him and that he was only a little (a lot) turned on by random strangers calling him pretty boy and little slut did he start an onlyfans.

truthfully, even though ethan liked being called all those degrading words, he imagined every single one of them as you behind the screen. typing behind all the accounts, calling him degrading words and praising him for being your little slut and your pretty boy.

but you had already written him off as the innocent roommate. the boy next door type who looked at you with shining hazel eyes and was sometimes just a little too smart with his mouth. and ethan, too afraid of saying his occupation to you, too afraid of possibly making you uncomfortable in any way, kept it a secret.

after the nights where ethan recorded before you came home, fucking himself with a fleshlight and bouncing on a dildo, he could barely even look at you during breakfast. face burning red and hand far too stiff as ethan ate his cereal diligently, listening to you talk about your day plans, completely oblivious to the fact that ethan had used his toys, imagining it was your pussy he was pounding into and your strap on he was taking so well.

which was why he only mildly jumped when you knocked on his door right as he was posting one of his videos.

"ow," ethan hissed, knee colliding with the underside of his desk before he hurried changed the page to another. "come in!"

you peeked in, smile as charming as ever as you looked at your flustered roommate. "hey, they called me in for a little today so i'll probably be home pretty late," you said, opening the door a little wider. you leaned against the door frame, tilting your head a little as you crossed your arms over your chest. "whatcha working on?" you asked curiously, peering at ethan's tomato-red cheeks with an amused grin.

"oh!" ethan laughed nervously, unable to stop himself from subtly looking at the outfit you wore, "i'm working on.." he turned to his computer, eyes widening slightly as he stared at the youtube video he was watching earlier of how to play chess. "chess..?"

"huh." you clicked your tongue, peering into the screen. "okay. i gotta go— logan's gonna kill me if i show up late."

you failed to notice the way ethan's jaw clenched at the mention of your co-worker, a hint of jealousy in his eyes. "don't stay up for me, 'kay?" you said with one final smile, one he quickly returned.

"okay! drive safe, please," ethan said earnestly, making you nod as you shut the door.

"y'know i always do!"

ethan waited until he heard you leave before he returned back to his page. he had planned later on in the week to make a video with chad, but today he had to make a video.

"fuckin' asshole," you grumbled to yourself as you fumbled with your keys. the fact that they called you in just to say that they didn't need you that night only pissed you off a little bit. they didn't think to just text you instead of telling you to your face?

you turned your keys into the lock before slowly opening the door. it was relatively late now; you had left late and returned late. but you didn't want to disturb ethan.

door creaking softly as you shut it and locked it behind you, you didn't want to make your presence known to him as you kicked your shoes off gently. knowing ethan, he was probably fast asleep, playing video games, or talking to chad.

your sock-clad feet shuffled gently across the hard wood floor, a slow sigh leaving your lips until you heard a muffled sound from ethan's room.

you stopped in your tracks, head turning towards his door. was he still awake? a fond smile graced your face as you slowly walked closer, until stopping again when you heard another sound. a moan.

did he have someone over? you couldn't deny the slight hurt and jealousy that panged at your chest at that, your jaw clenching as you tried to push down your emotions.

good for him.

and you almost walked away then to leave ethan to his own devices, if you didn't hear that he whimpered out.

"fuck, this dildo's so big."

what the fuck did he just say?

you blinked, jaw almost dropping at the words coming out of your dear roomie's (not so) innocent mouth, the idea that ethan fucking landry, who sometimes forgot to clean up after himself because he got distracted by some other activity, was moaning like a pornstar.

swallowing thickly, you took a step closer.

and he forgot to shut his door. typical.

but your curiosity and desire was burning far too high for you to just walk away. for you to just turn away from your annoyingly handsome roommate who was letting out such salicious moans that you felt desire pooling at your stomach as you stepped closer and closer.

and when you pushed open ethan's door ever so slowly, you were so happy you gave into your temptations.

ethan looked delicious, ass hitting his headboard repeatedly as he fucked himself dumb on a dildo he had suction cupped to the wood. his eyes were shut tightly, imagining that it was you forcing his hips back to hit yours, making him sink further and further down onto your strap, making him whine as you stretched his ass just for you.

"mm, mm, mm, mm," ethan whimpered repeatedly with every push back of his hips, taking the dildo deeper into his ass with every push. hands gripping his comforter, ethan let out a filthy moan as he sank down fully on the cock, moan moving into a whine as he shifted a little on the dildo. "feels so.."

and when ethan finally opened his eyes, he saw you. shamelessly staring as you watched him fuck himself silly, jaw clenched and pupils dilated as you realized your roommate wasn't as innocent as you thought he was.

"don't stop," you said before ethan could say anything, voice coming out strained as you watched him look at you with wide, mildly horrified eyes.

"w—what?" ethan stared at you like a deer in headlights, hands gripping his comforter as he tried to process your words.

"did i stutter?" you said with a small tilt of your head, finding your voice as you stepped closer. "i said," you sat down right in front of him, eyes snapping to his phone, recording diligently, "don't. stop."

a wicked grin meets your lips as you stare down at him with hungry eyes, finally connecting the dots. “so this is what you do when i’m not home, huh?” grabbing his head of curls, you relish in the whine he lets out as you force him to look at you. “whoring yourself out for the entire internet to see. so don’t stop just because i’m watching.”

ethan bit down on his bottom lip, face red as he looked at you with doe eyes. “y/n,” he whined, eyes glassy and pupils dilated as he started at you. “you’re so mean,” he whimpered, cock twitching as you tilted your head in faux confusion, clicking your tongue.

“don’t you want me to be mean?” your tone changes a bit, melting into sincerity and genuine worry as you look down at ethan, making sure that it’s truly what he wants, that he’s wanted this as much as you have.

and when he nods, face flushing red, your eyes turn cold again.

“good boy.” and with that, you lean down to kiss him, making a delicious moan rip out of his throat as finally, your lips are on his. it’s a mess of tongue and desperation, your lips moving needily over hisas you bend him at an unnatural position. ethan was so compliant, becoming an easy puddle in your hands as he whined into your mouth as his hard cock rubbed against his comforter.

you pull away from him, hungry eyes staring at his pretty red parted lips and his flushed cheeks. “y/n— mommy—“ ethan babbles, already a mess as he stares at you with dilated pupils, eyes glassy with desperate tears.

"crying already?" you couldn't help but tease, caressing his face with one of your hands. ethan leaned into your soft touch, his heart pounding loud in his chest. but that moment of softness lasted briefly; with a sadistic smile on your face, you used your free hand to shove ethan by his shoulder, forcing him fully onto the plastic cock.

his mouth dropped open in a beautiful 'o' as he felt the 10 inch dildo fill him up again, his legs shaking as he struggled to keep himself up. poor baby was so needy, the fact that you fell so easily into the dominant role making him so hard that it hurt.

“if i knew you were such a slut, ethan,” you said, pulling him off of the dildo completely, leaving him empty and gaping, “i would’ve fucked you ages ago.”

ethan whimpered at that, unable to form any coherent sentence as you practically manhandled him to turn around, making it so that he was on his hands and knees with his ass towards you. pulling the dildo off of your headboard with a small pop, you hummed, forcing ethan’s ass back further.

he was so sinful, so compliant to your movements as you practically manhandled him into the position you wanted him in. “mommy, mommy please,” ethan babbled, anticipation making his body tingle as he wiggled his ass, trying to tempt you, “i’m so empty—“ he was cut off with a yelp as you slapped his ass hard, the pain making him whine for more.

all those days of him going off to the gym surely paid off. you couldn’t keep your eyes off of ethan’s ass as you slapped his other asscheek, making him whimper. “that’s for not telling me,” you growled, before slapping his other cheek, reveling in the whorish moan he let out. “that’s for slutting yourself out to anyone but me.” another slap, and another delicious moan.

spreading ethan open with one hand, revealing his gaping pink hole for you, you slapped his hole, hearing ethan sob at the stimulation. “and that’s because you fucking belong to me, got it?”

“yes— yes, mommy,” ethan cried out, tears already streaming down his pretty face as he struggled to keep himself together. he was so horny, so needy, so deep in his head space and you were only helping him. “y/n, i need you, please, i’m sorry, momma, i need you,” he whined out, his words slurring together as he sniffled.

you clicked your tongue, feigning boredom as you rubbed ethan’s rim teasingly, making him push his ass back further towards you. your other hand came to push his lower down, forcing him to arch his muscular back in such a lewd way. but ethan was basically putty in your hands, willing and compliant, and he arched his back so prettily for you.

“what do you need me to do, e?” you asked, tilting your head slightly as you sank two fingers into him. ethan took it so easily, his breathing coming out in a low moan as he felt himself filled up.

and maybe it was because he was a bit of a size queen, but ethan wanted more.

“need you t’fuck me, mommy,” ethan said obediently, sniffling as he looked back at you from his position. his pretty face was tear streaked, and his doe eyes were shiny with tears as he cried for you. “i’ve been so good, please,” he begged shamelessly, his lip quivering. ethan’s mind was focused solely on you, how pretty you were, how your touch felt, how your fingers felt inside of him.

he had wanted you for so long. and now he had you.

you pulled your fingers out of his pretty pink hole, spitting over it, making ethan whimper. but before he could even keep thinking about you, you grabbed his thick dildo and slapped its fat head teasingly against his hole, making wet plap plap sounds. “so loose, baby,” you murmured in wonder, sliding the expanse of the cock against his hole. and just like the slut he was, ethan reached two hands behind him and spread his ass apart, cheeks burning red and cock hard from the exposure.

a wicked grin crawled onto your face as ethan whined pathetically, his babbles of “please” and “mommy i’m sorry” fueling your sadistic desire to make him beg.

too bad you were impatient.

you slid the dildo completely inside of him, making ethan’s eyes roll back as he was filled up completely again. “oh fuck—“ ethan cried out as you began moving the dildo in and out of him at a brutal pace, making him moan out in pleasure, his hands still spreading his ass apart for you.

“you’re such a dirty slut,” you murmured, kissing down ethan’s arched back and making him keen. “i bet you’re always so desperate for pleasure, huh? always want to have a pussy to fuck or a dick to suck,” you teased, making ethan grip the comforter hard as he cried out.

“i’m— i’m a dirty slut,” ethan sobbed, his cock grinding against the sheets as you fucked him at such a brutal pace. he felt drool slipping from his mouth, his mouth making such salacious noises that he had no control over. you had practically broken him at this point, his mind solely focused on you and how full he felt as the thick dildo pumped in and out of his ass.

“yeah you are. you just love being a whore for everyone, huh?” you laughed cruelly, watching as ethan pushed his hips back to meet your movements.

“ah, ah, ah, ah!” ethan moaned repeatedly, tongue lolling out and back arching even more as he felt you hit his prostate over and over. he could’ve cum right then and there, but ethan took pride in being a good boy for you. “mommy— mommy, can i cum?” he asked frantically, feeling the dildo pump in and out of him faster. precum stained his sheets as ethan’s thick cock bobbed with every push into him.

“i don’t know if needy sluts deserve to cum,” you tsked, a smirk growing on your face when you heard ethan practically sob at your denial.

he buried his face into his pillows as you dragged the dildo out until only its fat tip was inside, until you shoved it all into him at once. the moan ethan let out echoed in the room, his tears staining his pillows as he begged for you. “please, please, please,” ethan whimpered out like a mantra, looking back at you with teary hazel eyes. “mommy, please—!”

“cum for mommy, ethan,” you murmured, kissing down ethan’s back once again.

“oh fuck— oh fuck, i’m cumming, i’m cumming—!” ethan whined out, his voice becoming breathy and high pitched as he came over his sheets, his eyes practically rolling to the back of his head at the power of his orgasm. you pumped the thick dildo in and out of him through his orgasm, murmuring praise as ethan’s body finally went limp.

you peppered kisses all along ethan’s back, ready to pull the dildo out of ethan before he stopped you, his hand grabbing your free hand. “keep it in,” he murmured, pupils blown wide as he looked at you with a red tear stained face.

“i wanna keep it inside while you ride my face.”

[sweetiecutie]

Hi there, gorgeous! For the writing event - maybe some headcanons for our big guy König? I really don’t care what that is, just give us some food🤲

Random König headcanons

Warnings: mentions of violence, anger issues, that’s all ig

It’s sad to admit that Tiktok ruined this character. Let’s get one thing straight - König is not a shying, fumbling mess of a baby, too scared to say a word in public. He’s a confident, persistent, smug mf whose domineering presence makes others shrink slightly, complying with his every demand.

This guy is a colonel, he doesn’t stutter or mumble or anything like that. König barks out orders, his voice is deep and dominant, loud enough for everyone in the field to hear. And if someone dares to make fun of his accent? They got themselves a life-long enemy. God bless this fool.

Now, let’s consider something. Who would wear a sniper hood all the goddamn time? It’s good for some operations, but wearing it 24/7? Absolutely no. That leads me to think that König prefers to wear a plain black balaclava when around the base. Hem of it rests snugly around his neck, not restricting any movements nor falling onto the table while sitting; vision range is way better than two eye holes in the hood allow; it doesn’t get caught onto his shoulders or furniture, which is great - overall way better than sniper’s hood.

Judging by his voice lines, I believe that König has a rather problematic personality. Now, first and foremost - booming rage; he’s a ticking bomb, all the work stress bottles up inside of him little by little, and one wrong word in a slightly provocative situation can cause a violent explosion. König’s rage is terrifying, everybody knows that. He rarely gets physical, at base that is. But oh boy, his words hurt worse than any punches - he shouts insults and profanities, some of them may be pretty personal. The number of new recruits this mean Colonel made cry like little babies is almost shameful😥

König tends to blow off most of his steam during missions, killing and beating the shit of of enemy soldiers; during these moments he resembles a bloodthirsty animal rather than a human, driven by pure instincts and getting off the adrenaline high.

Now, second personality trait of his I would like to talk about is envy. König is very envious. He envies people with higher position, people with better skills (even though these are rare ones), people with happy and loving families, people with knowledge more profound than his. And, surprisingly, this envy does him more good than bad, adding fuel to the fire, making König push past his limits, achieving new and new heights. Due to his envy König climbed up to the post of Colonel, acquired such amazing skills, got a respectable reputation around other soldiers.

Outside the work I think he’s a pretty chill guy - doesn’t care much about family dramas, pretty much clueless about internet trends. He has a small circle of people he trusts - two or three people max, and he just chills with them, going with the flow and living his life. And for some reason König gives me vibes of this one extremely adequate reasonable guy in a company, yk? He can come up with a smart and effective solution to nearly every problem in a matter of minutes, is always reasonable and rational.

[star-anise]

Everyone's got a take, and I've got a take too, about the current Internet Villain: James Somerton, a gay Youtuber who just got exposed (in the back half of a 4-hour video) as massively plagiarizing the work of LGBTQ+ media critics, historians, and memoirists, and then exposed in another 2-hour video as just making up the wildest nonsense about the topics he demonstrably had access to accurate information on.

He achieved a six-figure income on his work by squeezing money out of his audience with claims...

That only he was creating content that preserved queer history and elevated the voices and experiences of the LGBTQ+ community (a lie)

He was in serious financial distress and would have to go out of business if people didn't give him tons of money (a lie)

That he was going to use some of that cash to make definitely good and not-at-all-plagiarized independent movies, a thing he was definitely skilled and experienced enough to do (a lie), and

That those plagiarism allegations were incorrect,, and frankly,,,, hurtful and homophobic. (a GIANT lie)

Like, here's a visualization of the script of one of his videos, "Society and Queer Horror". The highlighted bits were lifted nearly verbatim from the works of others—the 18 authors identified at the time the exposé was posted—and presented as Somerton's own work.

So here's what drives me absolutely up the wall about this:

If he had just ADMITTED that it was the work of other people, THAT WOULD STILL BE COOL. If he had just said, up front, "We are going on a survey of thoughts and insights people have had about this topic", that would still be a good video with a real audience!

Like yes, he studied business in university, he might not have gotten the kinds of research skills and knowledge someone like Kaz Rowe uses to not just report on the history and analysis of others, but evaluate their relative validity and trustworthiness.

But honestly, since watching my niblings (oldest is 13) watch Youtube, I think you honestly can't underestimate the number of viewers who are really hungry for someone saying, "I don't understand this topic! Let's explore it together!"

But NOOOOOOO, Somerton didn't want to be just some schmuck waxing enthusiastic about homoeroticism on film and acknowledging the smartness of other people. He wanted to be HIM, MR. SMARTYBOY, very sophisticated and alluring and thoughtful and deep. Definitely an intellectual heavyweight who just happened to spout off his own personal ideas and analysis that put him at the forefront of all the scholarship on the topic he's come across.

I hate being wrong. Hate being wrong. But blogging for most of my life has forced me to confront constant textual evidence that two or ten or twenty years ago, I said some dumb-ass shit. Honestly, it'd probably keep me up at night sometimes even if I didn't have a written record. I absolutely understand the desire to scan the field, find the coolest people around, and quickly clothe yourself in as perfect an imitation of them as you can manage.

But if you want to be an artist or a scholar who produces something lasting, you can't prioritize coolness over truth all the time. To develop your true, independent voice, you need to find a time and place where it is just you and just the work you're doing, and you have pick up your tools and say, I don't know if I'm doing this right, but this is what feels right to me.

There are a lot of things in life to which we can only truly contribute our presence and our perspectives. Things we can only witness or hold space for. We cannot go back and bleed the pain out of history, or erase the complexity of another person's life. Not honestly, at least.

But those are the times that need our presence, our perspectives, our witness, and our space. When we gather round and tell sad tales about the death of kings, honesty can be the only thing you give that's worth a damn in the large scale of things.

If this dude had owned up to the truth and honestly showed the work of trying to piece together a queer understanding of the world, trying to draw the threads of culture together until he found a place he fit inside them, it would have been so much more valuable to our culture as a whole.

He probably made more money this way, though. While it lasted.

[stylesloveclub]

Prose (part 2)

In which not many students attend Harry's office hours, and y/n's kind of burnt out.

+++

“What’s that drink you’re always drinking?” Harry asks, sitting across from y/n in his office.

She’s the only student to show up to his office hours this week (again), and had come to ask about the first essay that’s due next week. While she types on her computer, writing down all the notes that Harry just gave her on her first draft, Harry finds himself staring at the iced drink sitting next to her laptop.

“Oh, it’s just an iced chai. I’ve been getting two pumps of pumpkin spice syrup in it recently though, since Starbucks has their fall flavors now.”

“Hm. I’ve never tried the fall drinks.” He twirls his red pen between his fingers, leaning back in his chair comfortably. “M’always too scared to try new drinks, y’know? Like what if I don’t like it? Then I’d have wasted five bucks and I wouldn’t even have a coffee to get me through my day.” He pouts to himself at the thought of it, and y/n finds it terribly endearing.

She’s happy to know that Harry is seemingly very comfortable in her presence, prattling on and on about the simplest of things – like coffee orders and his favorite food places on campus. When she first walked in, the first thing he’d asked her was her favorite place to grab lunch on campus, since he was starving and one of the other TA’s had offered to drop off some food for him. His personal favorite was the bagel place (he could have a cream cheese bagel at any time of the day, he told her), but that place closes early, so he was stuck between getting mexican or sushi.

Y/n advised him to stick with the burritos – her ex-roommate once got food poisoning from the sushi. Never trust the on-campus sushi, she warned.

“M’kinda like that too,” she responds once she finishes up her essay outline. “I usually just always get the chai, ‘cos I know I’ll like it. But sometimes I’ll be adventurous with like, the syrups I add, because it doesn’t really make a difference. Like right now, I have pumpkin spice syrup in here, and I can barely taste it so even if I didn’t like it, it’d be fine.” She takes a sip to somehow prove her point. “I just like adding the pumpkin for the fall vibes.”

“Is fall your favorite season?” he asks. It’s been a lot of this – Harry asking her questions, getting to know her. She wonders if it’s because she’s the only one who shows up to his office hours and, therefore, is the only person whose ear he gets to talk off – or if he genuinely is interested in her. The thought of it makes her heart want to do a backflip, but she kindly tells her heart to CALM THE FUCK DOWN before she starts getting carried away in her train of thought. Harry’s just a nice guy! A nice guy, who talks to her about books, and shares his umbrella, and gives her rides home when it’s rainy outside – and has pretty pink lips, and pretty green eyes, and pretty brown curls.

“Yeah, I think so,” she hums.

Her crush on him seems to grow more and more every time she sees him, like those tall annoying weeds that you constantly have to dig out of a pretty flower garden. The type of weeds that seem to grow back even stronger each time you cut their roots and spray anti-weed chemicals on them to ensure that they don’t come back. She’s tried to smush those bothersome butterflies in her stomach, continuously reminding herself that he’s just her TA. That he’s just being nice. That he just calls her smart, and tells her that she’s doing a good job, and praises her discussion posts because that is literally what a Teaching Assistant is supposed to do. But whenever he smiles at her with that boyish dimple and his eyes glimmer all sweetly and romantically and thoughtfully – well she just can’t help it! She’s given up and has let the crush invade her brain like the invasive garden plant that it is.

It’s just a harmless little crush, she rationalizes. Just a little fantasy of kissing him here and there to get her through her boring lectures with Dr. Richmond – nothing wrong with that, right?

She clears her throat, “What’s your favorite season?”

He stares up at the ceiling, pursing his lips thoughtfully, “Hmm… probably spring. I like seeing the flowers bloom, especially after a snowy winter.”

Oh, of course he likes seeing the flowers bloom. He’s a walking piece of poetry.

+++

Harry stands at the front of the classroom, lecturing once again. It’s the same as before – fourty-ish college students hanging onto every word like his words are a waterfall and they’re a group of dehydrated travelers.

He loves teaching, loves seeing the way his students’ eyes light up with wonder when he explains a certain theme or points out a new motif. He’s more than happy to hold their hand through the novel, be their guiding light through the Romantic era. Their questions make his day, and he’s beyond happy to see that, now that they’re a few weeks into their course, the students are opening up.

“Victor is so caught up in his experiment,” Harry lectures, “that he begins to ignore nature. Victor says– ‘The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was the most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature.’ So what role does nature – or should I say – the lack of nature, play for Victor?”

Four hands shoot up into the air (relieving considering how last week he could barely get anyone to say anything). “Katie, right?” He smiles when she nods, and gives an exaggerated, celebratory fist pump that makes all of his students chuckle. “Told you I’d start getting your names down! Go ahead, Katie.”

Although he’s laughing and smiling – practically beaming since he and his students are getting along and actually discussing (instead of just him lecturing them) – he can’t help but feel a little pinch of sadness in the back of his mind. As his eyes scan over the seats, he can’t manage to find y/n in the class. He’d searched for her three times already – wondering if he accidentally missed her, or if she was hidden behind one of the tall boys near the front – but he couldn’t find his star student. He missed catching her eye, giving her sly winks and watching her duck her head down stifle a laugh. It kept him entertained whenever he had to sit through Dr. Richmond’s lectures, and he liked hearing her talk. Not only does she add amazing thoughts to their class discussions, but she also is just… nice to listen to.

“Good… I love how you said that Katie,” Harry carries on, “He embodies the corruption of nature in the quest for glory. And we already know how highly the Romantics regard the beauty of nature – their artwork is meant to connect us with the world, isn’t it?”

He wonders if she’s okay. She isn’t hurt or anything, is she? Did something happen to her on her walk to class?

“He’s disrupting the natural cycle of life, basically destroying nature, by trying to play God and create life himself–”

Y/n, as quietly as she can, sneaks into the classroom. She’s 15 minutes late, which isn’t late enough to just completely ditch the lecture, but still late enough to raise a few eyebrows. Of course, being the clumsy duck she is, she accidentally knocks the trash can over with a loud bang. She winces at how loud the sound is, and feels her cheeks turn hot when all eyes turn to look at her.

Harry turns as well, and can’t help but smile to himself – there she is.

He continues with his lecture, as if nothing happened, but watches as she hurries over to her set spot in the third row. She messily pushes her hair out of her face as she sits down, pulling the pull-out desk in front of her and grabbing her laptop from her bag. She types in her password quickly, and pushes the sleeves of her white cardigan up her arms so that they aren’t in the way. Her eyes briefly flicker upwards to the projector to see what she missed – but instead she accidentally catches Harry’s gaze, who’s already looking at her.

All of a sudden, Harry loses his train of thought. His eyes flicker between hers, and she stares back at him. They’re stuck like that for a moment – just the briefest moment – before he realizes that words are no longer coming out of his mouth and that the rest of the class is staring at him expectantly.

His cheeks tint pink. “Um… sorry, what was I saying?” He chuckles at himself embarrassedly, shaking his head at himself – it’s not often that he stutters over his words. But, luckily, it was brief enough to just pass as a slight fumble. Nothing too suspicious.

Harry tears his eyes away from y/n and resumes with his lecture. But somehow, as delusional as she might be, y/n can tell that that moment was something more than just a slight stumble.

+++

“I got this for you,” y/n says, standing in front of Harry’s desk, placing the iced drink down next to his pile of papers.

Harry furrows his eyebrows and sits up straighter. “What?”

“It’s a pumpkin iced chai… the same one I usually get. I thought, since last time you said you didn’t wanna waste five bucks trying a new drink–”

“Are you mental?” he interrupts.

She blinks. “Huh?”

“Why would you go on and waste five of your dollars instead?” he huffs. “Christ, y/n, don’t be silly, m’not letting you buy me a coffee. How much was it, let me pay you back–” he’s reaching into his back pocket for his wallet, but y/n is quick to refuse.

“No, don’t worry I didn’t pay for it! Starbucks has this thing– it’s like, if you buy one fall drink you can get a second one for free, but it’s only on Thursdays after 12. And I was gonna get one for myself anyway, so I was like– might as well just get the second one for free so that you can try it and not waste five dollars.”

He pauses, his wallet half open and a five dollar bill pinched between her fingers. He squints at her, “Are you lying?”

She gives an exasperated huff, “Why would I lie?!”

“I dunno, maybe you’re trying to butter me up with drinks and stuff so that I’ll grade your essays easier – which won’t work by the way! M’not easy to bribe!”

She rolls her eyes and plops into the seat across from him. “Please. If I was gonna try and butter you up, it would’ve started five weeks ago, when classes actually started. And I probably wouldn’t be in your office hours every week groveling over these stupid essays.” She lets her bag fall to the floor and blows the hair out of her face. “Y’know, Dr. Richmond does not explain the politics of 18th Century Europe well enough to expect me to write an entire essay on ‘the effects of globalization on romantic era literature.’ I signed up for a literature class, not European history. When are we gonna start writing essays on Frankenstein and feminism?”

Harry goes to respond, but right at that moment he takes a tentative sip of the drink that y/n had forced onto his desk. He cannot hide the grimace that graces his face.

Her eyes round out and her eyebrows pinch. “You don’t like it?” she says with a pout.

His lips smack together a few times, trying to get used to the taste of pumpkin in his mouth – but he actually really cannot stand it. “God,” he says, his nose wrinkles and his tongue aching for some water to wash away the pumpkin-y after taste. “What a waste of five dollars.”

“Oh my gosh– I did not spend five dollars on a drink for you!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he pushes the drink to the edge of his desk, the sight of it making his tummy turn a little bit (he really did not like that pumpkin flavor mixed with milk). He then states the obvious, “You were late today.”

“Yeah. I overslept.”

He tsks, “What happened to the punctual Miss y/n who showed up twenty minutes early on the first day of classes?”

She sighs, “Dunno. Was up kinda late last night. And then I guess I snoozed through my alarm.”

It’s only then that he notices the dark circles under her eyes, and how her face is missing that usual radiant glow. He’s so caught up in her smile and her eyes, that he nearly missed the exhaustion leaking off her body. “How late?” he inquires.

“Um… like 3 in the morning.” Harry gapes at her, and she shrugs.

“Tha’s not healthy,” he scolds like a father. “Why’re you staying up so late, hm? Should be in bed for at least 6-8 hours, don’t you know that?”

“I know,” she rubs at her eyes tiredly. “I just have a psych midterm next week that m’really freaked out about. I like– fell behind on the lectures, so m’trying to learn like the past three weeks of material in a few days.”

Harry feels his heart ache, sympathizing for this poor, tired, hard-working girl. He knows the struggles of undergrad – he was pulling all nighters too, back in his day, and he never dared to go above 16 units. He wonders how she’s surviving, taking 20 units while still being at the top of her classes – well, she’s at the top of this class, he knows for certain. His star student.

Her eyes are still hidden behind her hands, knuckling at her eyelids, but she pulls them away slowly when she feels Harry’s hand at her knee. She looks at him, and he’s suddenly aware of how red and glossy her eyes are. “Just don’t overdo the studying, okay?” he says with soft eyes and a gentle voice. His thumb rubs overtop her knee softly, saying a hundred words that he can’t say out loud just quite yet.

She nods, and swallows thickly. “Okay.”

He smiles. “So you want a crash course in European History? I can do that for you. Dunno why more people don’t show up to my office hours, m’literally about to tell you exactly what to write…”

+++

Y/n is exhausted.

Actually, exhausted doesn’t cut it. She is at her breaking point.

With midterms week upon her, she’s been drowning herself in her school work, trying to keep up with her lectures and recap everything that she’s learned up until this point. Kind of difficult, when she’s fallen so dreadfully behind and barely knows what’s going on in her stats class. And – to make things worse, not only does she have both her stats and psych midterm this Friday, but she also needs to finish this stupid Globalization essay by tomorrow’s deadline.

Seven pages about The Effects of Globalization on British Romantic Literature. She currently has three pages written.

She’s screwed.

It’s not like she was trying to get behind! She tried so hard to stay on top of her studies. She promised herself that she’d finish the globalization essay last night – went to starbucks with her noise canceling headphones, got herself an iced pumpkin chai as a motivational treat, and sat down to turn all her notes into a beautiful, magical essay on Romanticism that would make Dr. Richmond weep.

But… the words just weren’t wording! Her brain refused to cooperate with her, despite the fact that she stayed at the Starbucks literally up until they kicked her out. She read her sources, went over her excerpts, wrote and rewrote her thesis over and over again… and only got three out of the seven pages done. She doesn’t know whether to blame Dr. Richmond for assigning such a stupid essay, or just her own sleep-deprived brain.

She’d gotten maybe five hours of sleep last night. And the night before that, too. Harry’s words ring loudly in her head, scolding her to get at least six hours of sleep every night… but she just has so much work to do! She has to do her psych readings, her stats homework, the midterm practice her stats professor posted, and this essay… It's a lot. Plus having to actually attend all of her classes and go to work (she works at the campus bookstore) on top of all her homework and studying? She barely has time to eat!!!

Her tummy grumbles miserably, a painful reminder of the fact that she had forgotten to pack herself a lunch this morning in her haste to get to class on time. The pain is nowhere as bad as her headache, though. It’s the kind of migraine you get when you barely got any sleep. Her head feels heavy, her heartbeat pounding in her ears, and her eyes sting every time she blinks. It’s horrible. She can barely focus on anything. Not her stats homework, not the essay open in front of her.

Not even Harry, who’s sitting to her left, helping her with her essay. In fact, she’s completely missed what he’s spent the past minute explaining to her.

She blinks at him slowly. “Sorry… can you say that again?”

Harry’s pretty face pinches, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes glimmering with concern. She’s so clearly off today… he can’t ignore her red-rimmed eyes and zoning out any longer. “…are you okay?” he asks timidly.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says quickly, brushing off his concern. “I’m fine.” But it’s like as soon as she says those two words, the dam holding her together collapses, and a river of emotion comes barreling through her. She looks down at the open document on her laptop, stares at the cursor blinking at her. The blank page taunting her. Tears well up in her eyes, and her heart starts to swell sadly. She’s not fine at all.

She quickly hides her face from Harry, looking down at her lap. She is NOT allowed to cry in front of him, she reprimands herself. She’s kept herself together all day, why is she starting to get emotional now, in the middle of his office hours? Couldn’t it have waited until she was alone in her shower?

She swallows around the lump in her throat, and presses her palms to her stinging eyes. As if that’ll keep her tears at bay. “Sorry,” she mumbles, trying to conceal her shaky voice, “let me just think for a second.”

“Hey…” Harry sees right through it. “Hey, come on. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says, mostly trying to convince herself. She sniffles as quietly as she can and tries to rub the tears away. “Sorry, nothing. I’m fine.”

She reaches for her laptop, but Harry grabs her hand. “No.” He can’t ignore the glossy sheen of her eyes, or the quiet sniffles. He just can’t. “We need to take a break.”

“It’s really fine–” she tries to say, but she can barely get it out with how her throat is swelling. She stares down at the floor. Harry holds her hand.

“What’s wrong? Talk to me.” His hands are big and warm, encasing her’s, wholly. A cross tattoo sits between the slit of his thumb and second finger, twitching as his thumb grazes her knuckles.

“M’just tired,” she says dejectedly. “I was up super late last night and I just… didn’t even get anything done. And now I have to finish this, and I haven’t finished my stats homework, and I have two midterms on Friday.” Her heart starts to race as she realizes much she has to do, and how little time she has. She’s stretched herself thin. “There’s just so much I have to get done,” her voice cracks, “and I’m so tired.” A big fat tear rolls down her face, and drops onto her shirt – shamefully staining the thin material.

Harry gets out of his chair and kneels down in front of her, resting their joint hands in her lap as he stares up at her. More tears fill her eyes without her consent, and her cheeks burn with embarrassment. “Sorry,” she sniffles. She refuses to meet his gaze, despite how earnestly he’s looking into her sad eyes. Another drop falls from her lashes.

“Don’t apologize,” he murmurs sadly.

“I thought I could handle it all,” she bleats. “But I’m so unprepared for my midterms, and I need to finish this essay, and I promised you that I’d stay on top of my work, but I’m falling behind–”

“Don’t worry about the essay,” he interrupts. “I’ll get you an extension on your paper.”

She shakes her head. “Dr. Richmond doesn’t do extensions, though,” she blubbers.

“I’ll talk to him,” he says firmly. “M’the one grading it anyway.”

“But Harry–” she whines, shamelessly childlike, “I promised you that this wouldn’t happen. I told you I could handle it.”

“And you can handle it. I know you can.” His green eyes are wide and round as he looks up at her, earnest and pleading. “You come to office hours, and you study hard, and you’d stay up all night to finish this essay – but I don’t want you to. You don’t have to prove yourself to me. I know you can do it.”

She pouts, still not looking up at him. She stares instead at their joint hands in her lap blankly.

“You’re doing so good,” he coos, “You’re coming to office hours even when you have so much going on, and you’re taking so many units. I know you’re giving it your all. S’okay.”

He reaches a hand out to rest on her shoulder, and suddenly she feels the weight of the world fall off of her chest. A long, shaky breath leaves her, and she blinks her eyes shut, letting more tears cascade down her cheeks. “Oh, sweetheart,” Harry’s heart breaks. He leans up to wrap his arms around her shoulders, a soft hug, and she rests her forehead on his shoulder, letting the tears silently fall. His hands rub big, soothing circles on her back, and he shushes her softly, “It’s alright.”

His blue dress shirt feels cool against her face, crisp and fresh, and he smells like vanilla and smoked wood. She doesn’t want to abandon his firm chest, his warm embrace, but he pulls back and looks into her eyes. For the first time, she meets his gaze. “No more crying, okay?”

She sniffles, and wipes the wetness off her cheeks. “M’kay.”

A soft smile smooths out the worried lines on his face. “Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he says, his hands slapping his thighs as he stands back up. “You’re going to take a nap–” he closes his office door and locks it with a click.

“A nap?” her watery voice exclaims. “But– I need to study!”

He gives her a firm look. “You’re not gonna get any studying done if your brain isn’t well rested.” From one of the bottom drawers of his desk, he pulls out a blanket (he sometimes will take a nap in his office if he needs a break from grading). “Take a nap. I’ll wake you in an hour and then y’can study in here.”

+++

You know that peaceful feeling that surrounds a room when a baby is taking a nap? How everyone tiptoes around the crib, their voices barely surpassing a whisper in fear of waking the sleeping baby. How parents will stand around, just watching the baby nap, smiling to themselves when their baby twitches in its sleep. How the world just seems more… peaceful?

That’s how Harry feels right now.

Y/n is on his couch, his cozy gray blanket pulled up to her chin. Her cheeks are puffed, her tired eyes shut with her eyelashes resting delicately on the tops of her cheeks. She looks angelic, the most relaxed he’s ever seen her be, with no midterms stressing her out. No papers due, no furrowed eyebrows, no crying. Like a sleeping baby, cherubic and sweet. He’s been tiptoeing around her for the past hour, grading papers as quietly as he can. He tried to be productive and just mind his business while she napped, but everytime he shuffled through one of the essays, he felt the urge to check on her, to make sure that he didn’t accidentally wake her up. And then he just wanted to… watch her. Not in a creepy way though!!! Not in a creepy way. In a kind of… sweet way. :( She was beautiful, especially when she slept.

His heart doesn’t want to wake her up – not when she looks so peaceful for the first time weeks. All the times he’s seen her since that very first week was her stressing and stressing and stressing – stressing about getting a permission code from Dr. Richmond, stressing about her exams, stressing about the rain. He’s never gotten to see her take a breath and be calm. She’s a hard worker, he can tell – which is a great trait that he admires in his students. But, with y/n… he just wants to make sure she’s okay, too.

He kneels down in front of the couch, and regretfully murmurs out, “y/n?” She doesn’t respond at all– she’s dead to the world. All the exhaustion that she’d accumulated this past week, all the hours of sleep she missed, are catching up with her now. He tries again, “Y/n… time to wake up.”

Her eyebrows furrow and her nose wrinkles, but she still refuses to open her eyes. The pull of sleepiness is too strong. It makes him chuckle. “Come on, bunny,” he says, in reference to her twitchy nose and pouty lips. “V’got a snack for you.”

Her sleepy eyes blink open, and immediately he can tell that she needed that nap. Her eyes are brighter, less red, and she stares up at him sweetly. “A snack?”

Of course that would get her to wake up. His dimple pokes his cheek. “S’not much. Just a granola bar. But it’ll help you while you study.”

She sits up, the blanket pooling around her waist, and rubs at her eye with her knuckle.

“Feeling better?” He asks, a hand on her knee.

She nods. She’d taken an Advil for her headache before she’d gone to sleep. That, with her nap, has made the prospect of studying a little bit more bearable.

When she looks around the room, she sees that Harry’s cleared up a portion of his desk for her to study at. Gone are his stacks of books, a bare square of wood right across from the stack of essays he’s currently grading. The usual foldable chair that he has students sit in during his office hours has been moved to the corner, and has been replaced with one of the more comfy, rolly chairs. He’s gone out of his way to make a sweet little study space for her while she napped in his office.

“Now… we’re gonna have to leave by 9,” Harry says, standing up and going round to his side of his desk. “Cos v’got to feed my cat. But that gives us at least… two hours of study time. N’then I can take you home. How does that sound?”

She blinks. “Harry… thank you.” She doesn’t know why he’s being so nice to her, or what she’s done to deserve such kind treatment. But it means the world.

He shrugs nonchalantly, but she doesn’t miss the dimple that pinches his cheek as he smiles to himself.

+++

They stay in his office until nightfall.

Harry’s nicely styled curls turn messy, his fingers tangling through his hair he graded the freshman papers (is he a harsh grader, or does this new generation truly not know how to write?). His eyebrows furrow behind his tortoise shell glasses, green eyes hard and serious. Y/n watches the way his lips purse, how he taps his red pen against his chin while he reads.

Her own brain is done with studying. After her nap, she started playing her classical music and sat down to finish her stats homework AND the practice midterm. Without the globalization essay to worry about, she managed to calm down and focus, get some of her work done, and catch up on the things she was so behind on. Does she feel any better about the exam? No. But at least she can say that she studied!

Harry manages to make a nice dent in the stack of ungraded papers as well, working well in the comfortable silence filtering between the two of them. There was no need for them to talk, and they didn’t distract each other either. Simply getting their work done next to each other, and enjoying each other’s presence (though neither one of them would outright admit how nice it is to just sit in silence with the other).

They pack up and head out together when it gets closer to nine. Harry holds the office door open for her and locks his door behind them, and they walk closely together towards the parking lot. It’s dark, the ground only lit by the few streetlights looming above them, and a shiver racks through y/n’s body from the cool autumnal air. She hadn’t planned on being on campus so late – she thought that she’d probably go straight home after office hours and pull an all-nighter to finish her essay – so therefore, she doesn’t have much of a jacket except for a lame cardigan over her shirt.

Harry, who usually is on campus until nightfall anyway, wishes he could do something for her when he notices the way she’s hugging herself, her cardigan pulled over her fingers. He wants to pull her to his side, wrap an arm around her and share his body warmth with her – but that would be entirely too unprofessional, he thinks. Instead he picks up his pace, forcing y/n to scurry in order to keep up with his long strides, and immediately turns on the heat for her.

He doesn’t need to ask for directions this time, knowing exactly where to turn and how to get to her apartment, and when he pulls up in front of her door, he turns to her quietly. “Listen. Don’t stress about the paper. Focus on studying for your exams, and then you can have the entire weekend to finish the paper, okay?”

“I feel… bad. Like, Dr. Richmond said no extensions, and you’re making these exceptions for me–”

“Don’t overthink it,” Harry interrupts. “Dr. Richmond just says that so people don’t just ask for extensions because they procrastinated. He will grant extensions when there’s a valid reason.”

“But, really it’s not a valid reason… everyone else has midterms.”

“But none of those other students have shown me how much they care about this class. I know you’re a hard worker, I know you aren’t just procrastinating.” He shrugs, “M’the one who makes the calls. And I think you deserve an extension.”

She sits there quietly, then says, “I-I just don’t want you to think I only came to your office hours to cry and make you give me an extension. I… come to your office hours for help. You’re like… helpful.” She says that last part awkwardly, and it makes him chuckle quietly.

“You can say I’m your favorite TA. I won’t tell.” His dimple pokes his cheek as he smirks at her teasingly, and she can’t help but giggle too. Her eyes twinkle as she looks at him with a small shake of her head. That wasn’t what she was getting at… but it is true.

They stare at each other for a moment too long. One of Harry’s hands rests on the wheel, while the other one comes up to play with his lip. Y/n’s hands sit politely in her lap, her bag sitting at her feet on the passenger’s seat floor. They’re both quiet, not knowing what to say. Yeah, they’re laughing and teasing each other, but something heavier lingers in the air around them. This tension… this magnetic energy. Neither y/n nor Harry know what’s causing it, or why the silence is suddenly so overwhelming. The smile on y/n’s face lingers in her eyes, which glimmer as she stares at Harry. And Harry, who had been smirking mischievously, now looks at y/n with a bit of a more serious air. He stares at her thoughtfully, his bottom lip pinched between his lips. His eyes wander down to her lips, pretty and heart shaped. She’s chewing the inside of her lip softly, and he wants to brush his thumb over her mouth and tell her to stop.

He catches himself, and quickly tears his eyes away before she notices. He clears his throat.

“Take care of y’self,” he says with a soft smile. “I want to see you well rested in class next week, okay?”

+++

HOPE U GUYS LOVED IT!!!!!! part 3 is up on my patreon already, and will come to tumblr next saturday (oct 21) pleeeeaaaase lmk what u rhink and give her a rb and a comment i love u guys so so much!!! more tarry to come!

Prose (part 3) is already posted on patreon! : In which y/n is Harry's favorite student, and she sort of somehow accidentally kisses him.

Prose Masterlist

[sinister-things]

Yandere ROTTMNT Headcanons

NOTE: I do not support this behavior in real life. This post is made for entertainment purposes ONLY. Everything in this post(and beyond) should always stay fictional. Please seek professional help if you or a loved one are experiencing any of these behaviors.

This post was inspired by @pianocat939 's headcanons

Also ⚠️TW⚠️: Mentions of stalking, murder, kidnapping, manipulation, and body restraints

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Raph

Dependent + Protective

Everytime you visit the lair, he's dragging you to the training room to show you the newest move he learned

He just gets so much comfort when you're around! He feels so warm and safe!

But, overtime, he becomes dependent on your attention. He secretly follows you places without you knowing

Treats you like glass. Is super afraid to hurt you

Which results in babying you to the extreme. Basically deludes himself into believing you can't do anything by yourself

If he needs to go anywhere(like patrol or something) he has one of his brother's watch you

If you ever escape, he's sent into a rampage that not even his brother's can tame

"Hun, where are you? You're freakin' me out!"

Overall, he's very suffocating, but he means well... if locking you away in the sewers is your definition of well

Leo

Manipulative + Dependent

Master of mind games

He won't admit it, but he feels useless

So, to make himself feel better, he makes himself useful... by making you feel helpless

The reason he manipulates is because he want's you to see him as your knight in shining armor

Anything could trigger an obsession. Likely some kind of heart-to-heart interaction

If you're someone who isn't manipulated easily, he will up the ante

I imagine he'd snap if he found out one of your friends had a thing for you

He's 100% killing your friend

Then he's coming to your house to whisk you away

Don't bother trying to hide. He'll find you

"There you are, princess! Don't cry– your knight is here!"

You're his little darling, all vulnerable without him guiding you

Donnie

Obsessive + Controlling

Poor Othello Von Ryan felt that his inventions weren't enough for his family(but he would never admit that)

You asked about one of his inventions and he immediately became an excited little boy on christmas morning

Praise him. Tell him he did a good job. He's weak at the knees

Finally, someone sees his genius!

He rarely shows emotion. But when he's alone, a dark voice drives him mad with horrible thoughts

You're just so precious! You mean the world to him!

Tends to stare. He likes to admire you but would never make eye contact

However, if you resist him, he won't hesitate to punish you

However, he's smart and thinks about aforementioned punishment. He wants to find the best way to break you

He's knows what he's doing is illegal and you don't like it, but he doesn't care

Get's jealous very easily

Either he'll kill those... pests or his tech will

"I don't express my feelings very much, but I love you dearly. You're just too paranoid to see that right now."

Mikey

Delusional + Worshipper

Mikey develops an obsession quite rapidly

You're an angel to him! A goddess even!

Mikey believes that you can do no wrong and that nothing is ever your fault

He memorizes your routine and likes to sit outside your window at night

You just look adorable! So peaceful!

He considers you his "muse"

Pictures of you fill his sketch book and line the walls of his room

He believes that you love him just as much as he loves you

You visit the lair and greet him first? Oh, you little flirt!

You hug him a few seconds longer than you did Leo or Raph? You're dying to touch him as much he does with you!

He believes he is the best choice for you and that no one is worthy of your presence

But, if you try and resist him, he'll just tie you up in his kusari-fundo and cuddle you

Drugs your food if he gets that upset. Only sleeping pills, it's the only thing he has access to

He treats you like you solved world hunger

Oh no, your friend was murdered? How terrible!

You wouldn't blame him, would you?

"You're so pretty, like a goddess!"

[violeteclipseboaty]

So I recently went to go watch KOTPOTA again. I wanted to share my thoughts overall on the film, I couldn't properly do it before because I had forgotten some stuff lol

The pacing: at first watch I though it was kinda weird but watching it again I realized it pretty much went straight to the point, if anything I wanted MORE but you know the movie would've been too long but I wouldn't have minded either way. I mean, I've watched the Avatar and Harry Potter movies, so yeah I could've handled that lol

I really like the environment they set up with the eagle clan; their culture, their tradition with the eggs, and their bond with the eagles. I hope we get to see more details in the next movie.

The cinematography was amazing, they really nailed it. The sceneries were outstanding. A lot of that stuff reminded me back to Rise, back when it was filled with human life, now sadly the structures are abandoned and overtaken by nature but look pretty either way. The action scenes omg were so engaging and just done so well.

Let's talk about the main characters:

Noa: Great character. He's curious, smart, brave, and compassionate. I know a lot of people wanted him to be Caesar's descendant but i didnt really care about that. I'm excited where his next journey will take us if they have the chance to make a sequel (please 🙏) I'm pretty sure at the end of the film, Noa now has a new view of the world he lives in and now questioning his entire existence lol

Raka: loved him!! I really like how he truly understood what Caesar stood for. I did notice some things he believed were wrong lol but he's got the spirit and would lighten up the mood after what happened with Noa's clan. He's got a good heart, he sacrificed himself for Mae despite knowing her for a very short amount of time after all. Also I refuse to believe he's dead so there's that also and I hope he comes back to guide both Mae and Noa onto the path for the coexistence of both apes and humans.

Soona: I really wish we could've gotten more scenes with her, but I really like her. She's brave, sweet, and a ride or die for both Noa and Anaya. I hope we get to see her more in the next film

Anaya: yall already know cause I made a seperate post lol but loved him and I wish we had more scenes with him as well! I felt so bad for him when we see him again with Proximus, he's been through enough!

Proximus: he was a great villian and I did not like him, which is good! Not all villians need a sad backstory, this dude was clearly only hungry for power. He was twisting Caesar's words, enslaving other apes, killing humans, and wanted access to technology capable of bringing destruction and chaos. He's smart and knows how to be resourceful. I find it funny that he was talking smack about humans yet his way of thinking and actions are similar to the bad side of humanity. I only wish we could've gotten more scenes with him; he was underused and I thought he would have a much bigger role based on the trailers, but I enjoyed his presence overall.

Mae: I've already made a seperate post about her character and I still sorta feel the same way about her. Rewatching it again, I got to sympathize more with her situation. She's a survivor who clearly grew up and was taught misinformation about apes, but after meeting Raka and bonding with Noa; i truly believe she'll come around and change her mind. I believe in her, and I hope we get to see her again and get more of her backstory to understand her better.

The movie was great. The plot, visuals, and acting were so well done. I took about 5 years for them to work on this, and it SHOWS. Their dedication shows that when enough time is given; movies that involve CGI can be done properly. I'm sick of projects being crunched and the visuals ending up looking like 💩 because the teams/artists aren't appreciated enough. I definitely recommend watching at least twice, and I pray for a sequel.

[everythingmp3]

⎯ ୨ 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩୧ ⎯

𝐓𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐨𝐬 𝐱 𝐟𝐞𝐦!𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

after your fathers death, you need to push through the grief very quickly to continue his work as one of the most prominent smugglers around. still, the pain of your situation makes you fall further into unhealthy habits and despair, which nobody notices, nobody except for one of your fathers old friends: Tess. she senses that something is off with you and suddenly becomes a surprisingly strong presence in your life. eventually, your feelings for her push you towards letting your guard down.

warnings: minors dni. mentions of drug use and addiction, grief/death of a loved one, smut (reader receiving)

disclaimer: this one is long. Anna Torv got me good, I couldn’t stop thinking about her in the show. I never played the game, so accuracy was not the goal here, I just wanted to write something for the Tess we see in the show! I put a lot of thought and heart into this, so I really hope I can make some Tess girlies out there happy <3 or anyone else who is in the mood for a longer fic!

wordcount: 13k

It would have been absurd to call anyone during or after the outbreak “lucky”, considering the state of the world, but you knew in your heart that your fate had definitely been of the luckier kind. 

up until the outbreak, you and your father had been living as a duo for as long as you could remember. he had raised you as a single father in a small town where he´d worked as a professor, and your life had mostly been a content and peaceful one. 

you´d been old enough during the day of the outbreak to understand what was happening, but not old enough to remember much of it as an adult, the memories were all hazy, one big blur of panic. all you knew was that you two had left in your car in the middle of the night, never looking back once you were on the road, until you somehow got to be two of the first people inhabiting the Boston QZ. 

the first few years were anything but easy. the “schools” you went to were a joke, the structures in place were authoritative and soul crushing, everyone was traumatized and trying to cope one way or another. it was bleak, a sinister chaos, but at night when you sat around the table together, you couldn´t help but feel a sliver of gratitude, you´d both stayed alive, which was nothing short of a miracle.

for about a year post-outbreak, your father just worked whatever jobs were assigned to him, like everyone else. it was routine work, boring, dull, but it kept you two afloat. still, he got restless, a man who´d been used to hours and hours of mental stimulation and human connection, he couldn´t stay in the shadows by himself like that forever, he was itching for more. 

he had an air that granted him respect, so one day he received a proposal: his first contact to the smuggling business. at first, he was hesitant, but it was too tempting in the end, so he accepted, and it worked, better than he expected. it wasn´t exactly a natural progression, his former job in academia to that one, he saw the irony, but both jobs required people skills and he always told you: 90 percent of that kind of work is mental.

everyone was so lost during those early days, that a competent man like him, a mentor, attracted others, especially younger smugglers, like moths to a flame. his responsibilities quickly became more and more serious, people kept pushing him and a few others around his age to do the important organizing, the work that required more brain, not just intimidation and brute force, so about a year into that lifestyle, he slowly but surely became one of the top dogs in the smuggling business.

he kept his private life and business separate, always. he made sure you were safe at home while he was out, but the one thing he did right from the start, was that he told you everything about what he was doing. he knew it would not help you to stay naive and innocent, not in a world like that. he also knew you were smart and bored out of your mind, so what he did, each night, was that he told you every little detail about everyone he came into contact with, every trick he'd learned, every piece of valuable information. 

he trusted you, and he knew he wouldn´t be around to protect you forever, he wanted you to have valuable insight in your hands once you´d have to fend for yourself. so by the time you were 15, you knew pretty much everyone he worked with by name, their secrets, their ways of working, all of it. what he did not know, was that you also had a good amount of secrets of your own: what you did in your spare time, how you managed all those hours on your own.

as a teenager you´d started seeing various bottles of pills he was holding onto for deals laying around the apartment, and you were slick enough to take a few each time without him noticing. you were dealing with something, call it depression, PTSD, anxiety, or a mix of all three, but regardless of terminology: you were going through it and refused to burden him with it. it was far from ideal but taking sedatives helped, mostly Ambien but you weren´t too picky, they just had to be strong. you kept it in check, nobody noticed, not once. 

then, when you were in your early twenties, he fell ill. it was gradual but the hard life had worn him down, his heart was giving out, and all you could do, was to try to spend the rest of his days by his side, which you did. people were devastated, everyone knew him or of him, so some of them even came by your apartment to say their goodbyes, including one of his closest allies: Tess. 

you knew about all of his business partners, and Tess had been one that he really valued, spoke of very highly, always. you´d seen her around a few times and he´d told you a few stories about her, but she was a woman who kept to herself, so he was discreet, never spilling anything about her personal life.

still, she always stuck out to you among the others. even though you´d never even spoken to her, something about her seemed different to you, you could see why he´d worked with her for over a decade by that point, there was a magnetism to her that got to you. sometimes, you caught glimpses of her from afar, and wondered what it was about her, that always made you think of her for the rest of the day.

the day she came to say her goodbyes to him, you couldn´t help it: you stayed just outside of the room to listen. others had cried, been very sentimental, but she just sat there in silence for a good while with him. you swore you could hear her sniffle, but once she stepped out of the room, after you'd quickly hurried down the hall to not be caught, she looked as strong and composed as ever, giving you a small nod as she walked by, nothing more, but in her expression, you could tell she was signaling something to you, that she felt for you. something in her gaze went straight to your heart. 

as his death approached, you knew you had a choice to make. either, you could take over his business, or you could watch some random person attempt to fill the spot he´d leave vacant. early on, you knew, you´d have to take over. there was no way you´d let some psychotic power hungry tyrant swoop in and pick up all the work he´d leave up for grabs.

it was not a dream of yours to become his successor in that world, but dreams were a luxury few could afford those days, and you knew your fate could have been much worse. the decision meant that you´d have to deal with the impending grief in a way that wouldn´t leave you weak and bedbound, so you made a deal with yourself: one day. once he´d die, you´d give yourself one day to fall apart, to fall as deeply into despair as possible. and then, you´d have to get to work and forget all about it. 

even though a few of them had told him that they´d look out for you, you knew smugglers well enough to not trust their patience, their promises. if you´d stay inside grief stricken for weeks, they´d lose respect, they´d forget about you, someone else would catch their attention. besides, you had no interest in pity, in being handled like some precious little thing at risk of falling apart on her own. so, things played out exactly how you planned.

the day he died, you were inconsolable. it was darkness beyond imagination, loneliness unlike you´d ever felt it, your one guardian, one confidant: gone. the tears left your face swollen red, your body exhausted, so at night, you knocked yourself out really well with an extra high dose, knowing you´d have to step out the next day looking normal, respectable, hard to intimidate. 

at first, there were some nerves, but the second you started talking to people, discussing plans, handling deals, you realized you could almost do all of it on auto-pilot because you´d spent years and years absorbing all of his ideas, his language and mannerisms. you were basically inhabiting his ghost as you started making it known that you were taking over, for good, and nobody seemed to question it, even though you were barely above twenty. something about you gave them the vibe of do not mess with her. 

you were convincing in your new position and it helped that they were glad to cling to you, as a biological extension of his legacy. it worked, people respected you, you made sure his previous connections were properly taken over.

still, you felt absolutely horrible. deep down you were eaten up by grief, you were lonely, exhausted, but you simply couldn´t let it show, ever. your habit with the pills became much worse immediately. you used a pretty high dosage to sleep through entire evenings and nights, then you somehow got up and went out to do what you had to do, and repeated that cycle every day, not leaving yourself even one moment of just sitting around and thinking, because you knew once you´d let yourself do that: you´d break. 

what you didn´t know, was that Tess had told people to report to her how you were doing. 

she knew about you, she knew his death would leave you to your own devices, and at first she was convinced you´d be uninterested in taking over, but once she heard that you were doing it, she was alerted. she thought you´d fall flat on your face. a grieving daughter taking all that on? no way. but soon after, she heard back from people that you were working as if nothing had happened, and it puzzled her, that you were shouldering all of it seemingly without trouble. something in her told her: go have a look at that girl, something seems off there. 

Tess remembered your kind face the day she´d seen your father for the last time, the look of something so fragile, so soft in there, it just did not mix with the things she was hearing about you the weeks after his passing. 

so, about three weeks after he died, she made her way to your apartment, knocking around 8 pm. the second you opened the door, you knew of course who the intimidating looking woman in front of you was, but you just looked at her until she said “hey, could I come in for a second?”, her voice low and admittedly kind of alluring, you nodded, waving her in. 

she was the first person who´d had the guts to just come over unannounced, nobody had bothered to come and check on you, which you were mostly glad about, but you couldn´t deny the fact that it felt nice to have someone there for once. 

she walked into the nearest room, the kitchen, with a confidence as if the apartment was hers. you followed, watching her sit down a chair that she pulled away from the dining table, while you stood across the room, leaning against the wall. she cleared her throat, looking at you, her piercing eyes almost making you nervous then. 

“okay listen. your father might have told you this, but just in case he didn´t: i don´t do bullshit. i don´t like to waste time, not mine, not other people´s, so i´m gonna get straight to the point here, okay?” you stared at her, the way she was resting her hands on her knees, leaning forward to emphasize what she was saying, her eyes unyielding. 

you couldn´t help but feel a sense of admiration, her strength practically radiating off of her, you nodded, “sure go ahead”. 

Tess looked at you with something disbelief, “what the fuck is going on?” she asked, quiet, stern. you were not unaffected by the tone, but you were unsure what precisely she was referring to, “what do you mean?”. she shook her head, “save the coy act with me. you know what I mean. the person you have lived with your whole life dies and then two fucking days later you´re out there taking over his business like nothing ever happened? come on. tell me what´s going on here”. you felt caught for a second but then you realized she was only suspecting, she had nothing in her hands to prove that anything was wrong with you, so you did what you did best: deny it.

“I mean… I see how that could seem a bit strange but what good would it do to just weep and mope around all day? I can´t change what happened. I don´t need to cry all day, I can work, I can function, it´s fine.” you almost believed yourself, you were a good liar, but not good enough to fool Tess, hardly anyone could lie to her without being caught. she could tell that beneath the convincing way of putting it that way, you weren´t telling the truth. it was hard to pinpoint how exactly she could tell, because your voice was no giveaway, neither was your demeanor, but something told her immediately that you were a person who knew how to hide things well, partially because she had the same talent herself. 

“that sounds great on paper, really, but the way your father described you, it just doesn´t make sense, sorry, I don´t buy it.”

you were a little defensive then. “oh yeah, what did he say?” she grinned for a moment, relieved you were at least in a state that allowed you to push back.

 “well, he liked to brag. he often told me how sweet you were, how you remained kind and thoughtful even during the end of the fucking world, with him doing shady business and no mother around to look after you. i recall the word “angel” being used a few times. I don´t see a girl like that being all unaffected and tough mere days after her dad´s death, not without finding some strange ways to cope. so I am concerned.”

you took in the words, almost emotional then, but keeping it together, struck by the word concern. nobody had clocked it, that you weren´t truly doing that great, but here Tess came, unwilling to just take the lie and leave you be. part of you felt relief at being seen for once, by her of all people, the one regularly described as “cold. hardass. not to go to with puppy eyes asking for forgiveness after fucking a job up”. there she was, inquiring about a stranger´s well being. still, you couldn´t get yourself to give her the answer she wanted.

“concerned? you hardly know me” you deflected, and she scoffed then, throwing her hands up, “yeah sure. you´re only the freshly orphaned daughter of a man I knew for about 15 years, why should i give a fuck, right?”. you couldn´t argue with that, realizing that she was also just trying her best to do the right thing. 

“sorry, I didn´t mean it like that. it´s just, i am doing everything right. why do i have to justify that?”. you were defensive because you knew, if you allowed yourself to open up to her, it would end with you in tears, and you weren´t up for it. still, it hurt, to be offered some solace and refuse it. 

she insisted, “yes but that´s exactly what strikes me as odd. now would be the moment to do it all wrong, to be weak, to mess up, yet here you are, walking those damn streets like you´re the new sheriff in town. and hey, i´ll give it to you, you´re doing a good job, but something is off, and i want to understand.”

“I am just doing what has to be done” you said, a defeated tone to it, which she didn´t love hearing. she was losing her patience, “listen to me. you should be taking a break right now. this is about the hardest thing to go through, you should not be pushing yourself the way you are, not right now, not like this”.

you were quiet, looking at her, your eyes not obviously soft but something was in there, she saw a glimpse of vulnerability, but then it escaped her again. you were stubborn, a few more moments of your wordlessness made her realize that you wouldn´t talk. Tess knew she was onto something but you wouldn´t let her in, so she leaned back and exhaled, looking up at the ceiling, her shirt lifting up a little, a glimpse of her skin, it burned in your vision for a split second.

“okay, you don´t wanna talk, that´s fine. but trust me, I know grief and I know denial. I´ve been around long enough to have seen it many times, what repression of all that shit can do to someone. so, I guess, this is my way of saying: be careful. and I might not be the one for big speeches or touchy feely shit, but I do care. so, keep that in mind if you ever need… well, help.” she got up then, straightening out her clothes, running her hands through her long slightly gray hair, looking a little worn out from the day, but still, extremely striking. she was a sight that stirred something deep inside of you, you couldn´t deny it, even while being confronted by her, you couldn´t stop feel a pull in her direction. 

she walked towards the door but stopped for a moment when she was close to where you were standing, looking at you for second, a hint of a smile:

“well, i´ll give it to him, he raised no fool, that´s for sure”, you cracked a small smile too then, not rewarding her with a lot of words though, “thanks, Tess. I´ll keep all that in mind”, that was the first time you ever used her name to address her and it hit a nerve in her, like a wave of electricity running through her at the sound, but she didn´t let it show, instead she briefly patted your shoulder, saying “take care”, and left.

the second she was out on the street again, Tess realized that it was a good idea for her to leave your apartment, because the idea of you being all on your own there, spending entire nights in that dark, empty place, did not leave her cold, at all, and she had no interest in growing too emotionally involved. there was something about you that she had not expected and it was messing with her, it was making her mind spin.

whenever your dad had talked about you, she had pictured someone more like a teenager, but you were anything but that. you were a grown woman, young but clearly marked by the tough life you´d lived, someone she couldn´t just crack with one stern look. you had an air of nonchalance that was hard won; she knew you´d paid a prize to keep up a facade like that. 

a pretty facade, she had to admit, you were undeniably beautiful. Tess was not one for crushes, but she knew an attractive woman when she saw one. you did not dress much differently than the other women she knew, but still, you were so different, your face had a distinct look that got to her: your eyes, your expression, the way you´d looked at her, it all stuck with her, that image of you, sitting there at the kitchen table, backlit by the setting sun: burned into her mind. 

she knew there was no way around it, she´d keep thinking of you, wondering what you were actually thinking, feeling, what you did during those hours at night all on your own, how you managed to work the way you did, what you were hiding, how you managed your grief, whether you cried or not, what you were afraid of, what you did to seem as unafraid as you did. 

most of her days were spent talking to people she didn´t care about one bit, often even actively resented, so sensing the potential of actually caring about a person, and even better, being challenged by their cleverness, it made it impossible for her not to wonder how she might find an excuse to talk to you again. Tess was not heartless, she might have been perceived that way, but she knew, deep down, that it was only a matter of time until she´d give up the i don´t give a fuck attitude for someone who needed her to. and something was telling her, you might be that person.

as she left your apartment, a voice inside her was telling her: 

keep an eye on that girl. she might need someone one of these days, and the others don´t see it.

it was also telling her:

don´t you dare fall for your dead friend´s daughter.

the weeks leading up to that night, you´d done your best to remain numb, nothing had really gotten to you, you´d kept yourself busy or knocked out, but then, one brief visit from Tess and you were shaken up, moved, affected. within ten minutes she´d managed to reach some part of you that you´d kept shut off. something about her presence was both comforting and thrilling. you´d had crushes before, but it was different with her, the word almost too mild and cute to describe the visceral nature of it. once she left your apartment you just sat in your kitchen for about half an hour, quiet, thinking, unable to process what you were feeling. 

that night you dreamed for the first time in ages. you couldn´t recall the details the next morning, but you knew it was about her, and your body was warm in your bed even though the apartment was freezing cold. 

you knew you couldn´t just go to her without a reason, you had too much pride to just admit to her that you wanted more of her company, so you tried to ignore it, but the following week you thought of Tess a lot, so much so that you found yourself perking up whenever anyone around you mentioned her. then, one day, someone came up to you as you were busy dealing with something and told you she´d asked for you, for you to come to her the next morning, something about a job she was involved in. 

you wondered why she would ask for you specifically, but regardless of her reasoning, you were just excited to be able to see her again without even having to initiate it. so, the next morning you made your way to the address you´d been given. you knew your way around, you knew that it was the bottom floor of this abandoned warehouse that people in your line of work often used to meet discretely. 

the second you stepped inside, you saw two women you recognized, two guys, and Tess, sitting around a make shift table out of boxes, various maps and papers spread out over it. Tess locked eyes with you immediately and got up, waving you over to step aside with her for a moment, knowing you´d probably have questions. 

she looked at you, a smile, “thanks for coming” you nodded, “sure no problem. so, what is this?” you asked, crossing your arms, she realized she owed you an explanation, “well. there´s something rather big we have to plan. and what I´ve been hearing from people tells me that you´re one of the brighter ones around”, a grin as she said this, “so, I thought why not ask you to join? couldn´t hurt to have your input”. you were listening, eyes on her face, and something told you that she wasn´t telling the whole truth. 

part of you felt like she might be testing you, wanting to see if everyone was just cutting you some slack and exaggerating your skillset, but you were up for it, “sure, I´ll do what I can”. “alright then” she pulled you by the arm, the brief touch making you feel more than you hoped it would, but even a small squeeze from her hand did something to you. you tried to forget about it as you sat down next to her.

they quickly filled you in. getting people across city limits was nothing new, but it was gonna be about 5 people, which was a lot. the plan needed to be perfect, you needed to make sure that it was all ideal; the time of day, the routes they would take, possible quick escape routes too if trouble came their way, calculating possible run ins with law enforcement, mapping out where they usually stood guard, every detail had to be considered. 

you let the others do most of the talking, only chiming in when you had a correction to make, a better suggestion, or needed to explain why certain things wouldn´t work. you observed most of the time, but the few remarks you made were precise and helpful, you could tell they were glad to have you around, even Tess, who was not easily impressed, nodded in approval multiple times when you said something. at times you could feel her looking at you from the side, even when you weren´t talking and you wondered why; was she concerned? curious? or, maybe, just maybe, did she also find you intriguing?

similarly you also found yourself staring at her kind of in awe whenever she talked, resting your face on your hand, just looking, her voice almost soothing you to a point of spacing out. you tried your best to listen to the words being said, but it wasn´t easy, with her sitting so close to you, her body somehow waking yours up after weeks up feeling dead. 

before you knew it, you´d spent almost the entire day just sitting there, talking, planning, at times stepping away to drink something or stretch your limbs. by the time it got dark, you were done. as the others stood around talking for a while, you already stepped out, catching some air, leaning against the wall of the house, clearing your head for a moment before going home. after a few minutes, you saw the others leaving, waving goodbye, Tess following shortly after, making her way over to you, taking up the empty space next to you. 

at first neither of you talked, both just staring ahead, tired from the day, but then she spoke up, “you were good today”, her voice lower and raspier than at the beginning of the day, getting under skin. you knew that counted as high praise from her, so you smiled, looking at her, “thanks. I guess I passed your test then, huh?” she stared at you, her eyes giving away that you´d caught her off guard with that, it amused you, so you went on “it´s fine, I get it, I wasn´t counting on any nepotism treatment”, she raised her eyebrows then, “smart AND funny, huh?” laced with obvious irony. you shook your head, looking back at the street, she smiled to herself, realizing more and more that she shouldn´t underestimate you, since you kept surprising her, but it was a challenge she was eager to accept: figuring you out. 

“well, I know for a fact he couldn´t have taught you all that. I know enough smart guys whose kids can barely count to five so… it´s definitely not just a family thing”, you appreciated that, she continued, staring up at the sky, leaning her head back against the wall, “to be honest it´s kind of eerie at times, you at your age, talking like that” she admitted, you turned to her then, facing her more directly, “yeah? how so?”, she shrugged, breathing out, “I don´t know. I guess you´re so young, but already so..” you completed the sentence “jaded?”, she laughed then, the sound of it getting to you, “no, no, that´s not what I mean. it´s just, you should be.. more carefree I guess. as much as I hate dealing with stupid mistakes by youngsters, it does feel odd that you´re so fucking composed already”. 

you considered it, you could tell there was genuine sympathy in there and she wasn´t wrong either, it was pretty clear you weren´t exactly out there being young and wild, “well, I guess spending most of my time only talking to and living with a middle aged man did that”.

she nodded, an understanding smile, “right. well, maybe it's time to change that sweetheart, huh?” you couldn´t tell if she was being genuine or fucking with you, you looked her, squinting your eyes, “you know I can´t exactly get in trouble, Tess. not even a little”.

she knew what you meant, “fun” for younger people those days mostly meant breaking into empty buildings, drinking or getting high there, attempting parties, but with your lifestyle, you knew run-ins with FEDRA were to be avoided at all costs, so nothing like that was on the table for you. besides, it wasn´t exactly your idea of fun, you´d rather find someone to spend time with one on one, but you weren´t gonna tell her all that, not in that moment. 

she nodded, “yeah i know. still, there´s gotta be some way for you to have fun, hm?” it sounded slightly suggestive the way she said it, “sure, i´ll find a way, one day”, you kept it vague too, and she left it at that, since she saw that you were shivering from the cold, “come on, let´s go, you´re also headed down there, right?” pointing down the street you both had to take home, “yeah i am”. you followed her, walking close but not too close, wishing you could link arms, warm yourself up against her. for a second Tess almost offered you her jacket, but she realized how romantic that would´ve seemed, and let it go.

you were rarely scared, not even at night, but it did feel nice for a change, to have someone as intimidating and capable as her next to you, it felt good. she looked ahead, seemingly lost in thought, but she could tell you were looking at her from the side, and she almost felt frustrated by how nervous it made her. nothing made her blood rush anymore those days, not fear, not excitement, nothing; she was hardened, so feeling like she might actually flush from feeling you look at her almost irritated her for a moment, something so simple breaking her open, but she liked it, deep down she did.

you walked in silence for about a minute, and it was ironic that you had thought about feeling safe next to her, because out of nowhere a loud bang startled both of you. you stopped in your tracks, your minds racing: was it a gunshot? an explosion? a car crashing into something? it was too far to tell, but close enough to be alarmed. five seconds passed of you two standing there frozen, listening, before gunfire opened nearby. you could hear what sounded like a pretty large group of FEDRA assholes quickly stomping down the street, and within one second Tess had her own gun in her hand, yanking your arm with the other one, instructing with urgency “run!”, not letting go, pulling you down the street. from the look of it she had her eyes on some escape route and she did. 

in that moment it became crystal clear that she had years and years of experience on you, while you were still thinking she had only needed a split second to do the right thing, to think of a way out. by the sound of it they were coming dangerously close, you could hear screaming, shots being fired, the darkness ruptured by car lights, you had very little distance between you and them, and Tess made you run faster than you´d run in ages, never letting go of your hand. she pulled you into a small alley, letting go once you reached a few metal trash cans that she immediately kicked to the side, revealing a small door that lead into the backside of the tall building it belonged to, ripping it open and pushing you inside, before following and banging the door shut behind you.

you were out of breath, trying to think. the room smelled ancient, damp and was completely dark, there was no way of seeing, but you could hear her breathing and cursing under her breath next to you. “jesus fucking christ” you said, “crack-downs usually only happen during the day what is their fucking problem??”. you were pissed, your lungs were stinging. “yeah, get used to it, lately it´s been all the fucking time” by the sound of it she was still hunched over and very out of breath, you couldn´t help but laugh then, “I take it running isn´t one of your hobbies, huh?”. 

she couldn´t see, so she just guessed where you were standing and slapped in that direction, making contact with your stomach for a second, “just you wait til you´re old, see how funny this is then”. you were grinning, “old? Tess, you´re barely over 40”, she shook her head, calming down, resting against the wall then, “how about you quit the comedy and say: thank you Tess for saving me. I´m so grateful you weren´t a deer in headlights like me and dragged my ass to safety”. you mirrored her actions then, you arm hitting hers in the dark, “fuck off, you were just quick as hell”, she took it as a compliment, secretly enjoying the more familiar vibe that was suddenly in the air, “yeah I was, lucky for you”. 

“so, what is this place?” you asked, “little thing I discovered back in the day. as you know this area isn´t exactly the greatest, they love targeting us here so yeah, saved my ass a few times, but it´s been a while”, “cozy.” you said, flatly, “hey, if you wanna go back out there and get your head blown off instead, be my guest” she snapped back, it was funny to you, how easy it was to rile her up.

“I think about an hour and we´ll be fine to leave. things usually die down within that time frame”, “an hour??” you exclaimed, clearly not happy. “yes, an hour. don´t act like you have anywhere else to be, I know you don´t”, “wow okay, rub it in, go ahead”, she smiled then, perhaps she´d exaggerated a little, maybe half an hour would have been fine, maybe she´d subconsciously bought herself more time with you.

“we don´t have to stand here by the way, there´s a ladder somewhere that leads to a hallway and room, go on feel around, it can´t be far”, you started searching for it in the dark, hands reaching into empty space until something would show up, “so I´ll just climb up in total darkness and crack my head open if I miss a step and fall?”, she shook her head “alright, drama queen. if anything I´ll crack my head, you´re going ahead of me, so worst case you´ll fall back onto me”, you smiled then, safe to do so because she couldn´t see, “still, not great”. you found it, “here, come”. you could feel her close behind you while stepping onto the ladder, a few steps up, you could feel her following, her hands on your back then, sending a shiver down your spine that you hoped she didn´t feel.

“go on, i got it” she reassured. it wasn´t far up, a few moments later you could feel a floor, your palms flat against it, pulling yourself up, letting out an audible groan as you tried to get up on your feet from that position, she laughed, “and you of all people had the audacity to make fun of my fitness”, “shut up” you whispered, as you could feel her standing up behind you, reaching for you to make sure you were both far away enough from the ledge, her fingers making your skin feel warmer.

“there´s a lightswitch somewhere here, wait” she slapped the stone wall in random places until a tiny lightbulb above you flickered on, your eyes adjusting for a second. once you could see again, you both realized you´d been holding onto each other´s arms pretty tightly and let go at the same time, seeing each other´s faces, a little flushed, and for a moment you just stared at each other, collecting yourselves, before she looked around, pointing down the small corridor, “come”. you followed, watching her adjust her shirt, her usual half up half down hairstyle somehow even better after it had come undone a little, you tried to snap out of it, but her physicality was drawing all of your attention in.

she pushed the door open, there was some resistance from the old wood but it was no struggle for her; Tess was strong, you knew that of course but actually seeing it like that was something you could get used to. the room was barely bigger than a broom closet but you could both sit on the floor. she slid down the wall, motioning for you to follow. you sat across from each other, knees almost touching.

“oh fuck” she grabbed your hand, you had no idea what was going on until you looked down: your knuckles were bleeding. you´d scraped them but couldn´t even remember how or where, which she took note of, the fact that your body seemed to be so numb that you didn´t even register an injury. “oh..” you said, unfazed, “hold on” Tess said, and before you could stop her she took the hem of her shirt in her hands and pretty violently ripped a part of it off, telling you to hold out your hand before quickly tying the soft fabric around, over your knuckles, the blood getting soaked up by it, “there you go”. you shook your head, “that really wasn´t necessary Tess, you fucked up your shirt for me”, she waved it off, “oh who cares, we can´t have open wounds here”. you looked down at where she´d bandaged you, a sting in your heart: how long had it been since someone had shown you care like that? 

you put your head in your hands then, a sudden throbbing headache. you were usually already asleep in a drug induced haze at that hour and you knew your body was eager to shut down, but you forced yourself awake, rubbing your temples, sitting upright again.

she was observing you, quietly, just looking, “you okay there?”, “yeah yeah, just… long day, that´s all”, she nodded, slowly “right. you wanna stop lying to me any time soon, or no?”.

you met her gaze then, she held it, refusing to let it go, you shrugged “I don´t know what you want me to say, Tess”, whatever she was doing was working, you were not in a position to lie with her that close to you, that attentive, picking up on every little mannerism. 

“how about you start by telling me how you´re actually doing. what you´re doing to cope. because i know it´s not fucking meditation or journaling”, a tired smile from you then, you briefly broke eye contact, thinking about how to put it, before looking back at her.

“I think the answer is so obvious that it flew over your head”, she was confused then, “how so?”, you cocked your head, “come on, Tess. in our business? what does literally everyone do to cope?”. her eyes went wide then, she shook her head, “no. I can tell you´re not on drugs, I know the look”.

“well, i don´t do it during the day…” she looked alarmed, “what the fuck are you telling me?” you felt vulnerable then, having actually put it out there. you were looking at her with pleading eyes, not wanting to say it word for word, hoping she´d catch on. she was louder then, “jesus fucking christ, what kind of drugs?” your voice was quiet, a little defensive, “well, I don´t drink and I don´t smoke. so you do the math.” 

she pressed her hands together, looking at the floor for a moment, she seemed angry, “you´re hooked on pills, that's what you´re saying?”, you shrugged, “I don´t know if hooked is the word I´d use-” she interrupted, her tone hard, unforgiving “that´s exactly what someone who is hooked would say”, you threw your hands up, defeated, “right okay”. 

she tried to calm down a little, “how much?”, you debated lying, but it was clear you were past that, there was no point, so you told her the average amount you took, and the shock on her face didn´t feel great. “are you fucking with me? that could knock out a horse!”, her voice echoed through the empty hall, a moment of silence after, you didn´t feel shame but something related to it, seeing her react that strongly mirrored back to you how serious your situation was. she shook her head for a while, processing, her hand on your knee then, firm as she spoke, “you´re gonna have to stop that. and I mean it. that shit could easily kill you if you don´t”. you didn´t have it in you to fight then, you just looked at her, no words were coming, “oh, so that´s fine with you, yeah?”, you got angry too then.

“hey I didn´t choose this fucking life okay? I did what I could to not go insane, and considering all the nut-jobs i´ve had to deal with, I´d say i´m not doing that bad of a job”, Tess realized then that it wouldn´t help to be accusatory, she let up a little, feeling sympathy for you as she watched you nervously fidget with your clothes.

“he had no clue, did he?” she asked, quietly, you shook your head “no, thank god. he had enough to worry about” she eyed you, something like respect mixed into the obvious concern, “you really know how to keep a secret, don´t you?” she knew it must´ve been years of that habit for it to sound as casual as it did, coming out of your mouth, and it mostly pained her to think of you as a teenager doing all that, but somehow it also impressed her: the fact that nobody ever caught on. 

you didn´t smile then, but your expression became lighter, “yeah, you´re actually the only one who knows now”, that surprised her, touched her a little even, realizing that it must´ve been pretty vulnerable of you to tell her. “really?”, you nodded, “hm yeah. guess you should feel good about yourself, your intuition is still in-tact”, she almost laughed then, “right, that´s a huge consolation, that I was right about you having some fucked up secret”.

you looked at her with clear affection then, your walls had come down and she saw it, returning the look, glad she´d actually gotten somewhere with you. “well, I might have to drag you out at night, to stop all that”, you shook your head “that would not be pretty, I´d be a mess, you´d hate it”, “oh, I´d manage” she said, sounding convinced of it.

you smiled, “thank you, but no”. she got it, you were grown and had to deal with it on your own, still, she hated the idea of leaving you to your own devices. her soft spot for you had only grown softer all day; sitting next to you for hours, listening to your thoughts, your voice, the feeling of your hand as you both ran off, the feeling of you so close in that room, being trusted with something you hadn´t told anyone before. Tess was in deep, and she knew it, she tried hard to let it go, but it was a losing battle. seeing you there, your face half-lit by the weak lightbulb, your knees pulled to your chest, your eyes, tired but beautiful, it gave her the urge to reach out and touch you, make you feel better, but she kept it in, sat there stone-faced, mostly, but you saw something, it was there, her demeanor had shifted. 

for few minutes you just sat there in silence, both lost in thought, resting against the walls, eyes closed. she realized that it might be a good idea to repay you for your honesty, to not let you sit alone in the uncomfortable feeling of having shared something personal, so she spoke up, “listen. I don´t usually talk about this stuff because it´s been ages and I don´t want pity or consolation, but I lost everyone I cared about during the outbreak, truly all of them, and for a good while I thought I´d never survive it. but, here I am. and I am not saying that it´s been easy, not at all, but I did survive it, so. keep that in mind when you feel like it´s all too much.” 

you took in the words. it was rare, for her to speak of her past, you sensed that she might actually be trying to get closer to you, to bond, “I´m really sorry, that must´ve been awful. it probably still is. but you´re stronger than me, Tess, I can´t compare myself to you”. 

she shook her head “no, I´ve just had time to polish the facade, trust me. you should´ve seen me about a decade ago, I was going through it, it was ugly”, you looked at her then, realizing that beneath her tough aura that seemed so effortless, so natural, there was also a lot of pain, a lot of hurt she´d pushed through, sensitivity she kept to herself. 

it felt good, to share the feeling of being softer on the inside than either of you let on. you absentmindedly rested your head on her leg, your body clearly tired from the day, more prone to random acts of affection like that without thinking twice, you didn´t care in that moment, she didn´t either, patting your hand with hers a little, resting it there for a second. 

“you´ll be fine” she declared, you locked eyes with her, “I´ll try”, her hand squeezing yours reassuringly. “trust me, I´ve seen lost causes, that´s not you”, you looked at her then, “yeah, what am I then?”, she smiled, “a salvageable cause” you laughed then, “I´ll take that”.

she was glad to see you loosening up again. it was soothing, the dark confined space, the quiet, the vibe that had settled between you and her, it felt like you were hidden from the world, like you´d been offered a brief moment of peace, without thinking you rested your head on your knees, closing your eyes for a second, Tess watched you, feeling protective over you, her hand resting on your leg that was propped up in her direction. after a while you felt her nudging you.

“I think we should be fine to go now” she said, and you tried to mask the disappointment, wishing you could stay there with her longer, which was a feeling you weren´t alone in. 

she stood first and pulled you up, again, no struggle for her, her hand´s grip on yours too brief, you wished she´d have kept holding it like that. as you both stood there, face to face, a little raw from the personal discussion, something passed between you; the air was charged, both of you felt it, searching the other person´s eyes, your bodies barely an inch apart, but before it could lead anywhere, you both got scared of doing something you´d regret and looked away, acting casual,  or at least trying to. you made your way down to the door, she tentatively opened it, not all the way, gauging the situation outside first, but it was all quiet, so she waved you out.

it was pitch black by then, freezing, a clear night, the full moon illuminating the streets. somehow there was a shared agreement between you and Tess, that what you´d said in that little room would stay in there, almost like a confession booth; the moment you were walking down the street, you were both your usual tough selves again. 

the walk home was wordless, your house was the first you reached, and at first you just stood there, almost shy, both unsure how to say goodnight after spending the entire day together, both thinking things you wouldn´t say.

Tess broke the silence first, “so. I know you´re about as bad as me at accepting help, but I´ll say it one more time: I am here if there´s ever anything I can do for you. and maybe pick up smoking instead of.. you know” a genuine laugh from you then, “okay, good idea. and thank you. for-” you gestured around between you and her, trying to convey gratitude without specifying what exactly for, she got it, “don´t mention it, you´re by far not the worst person to be trapped in a room with” she said with a smug grin, before giving your shoulder a brief squeeze and saying goodnight. as she walked off your gaze fell down to your bandaged knuckles, and something in you told you she wouldn´t have done that for just anyone. at least you hoped so.

that night you didn´t consciously skip the drugs, her asking you to quit was not enough to kill that instinct; you simply forgot. the next morning you couldn´t even remember how you´d undressed, showered, and gotten into bed, you´d been so lost in your thoughts about Tess, that you´d somehow fallen asleep before you could reach for any self-medication. 

you couldn´t help but see the irony, that she´d berated you for the habit and without knowing it actually succeeded in getting you to stop that day, not with her words, but with the deep attraction you felt to her, the way it took over your whole mind and body, no space left for worrying about anything other than when you´d see her again. 

the next few days, nothing much changed. a whole week went by, then another, and nothing in particular was worse than the weeks before, but that was the issue; it was an endless cycle of living the same day. you felt like you were trapped doing the exact same things over and over, nothing to look forward to, nobody to talk to other than people you were involved with for work, it was just sleep and business and suppression of anything unpleasant you were feeling, every day, no moments of peace or laughter or joy, no light at the end of the tunnel. 

one night about a month after you´d last seen Tess, except for a brief nod from across the street a few times, you couldn´t take it anymore. it was late, you were alone in your apartment and the silence was killing you, the loneliness, the same routine, all of it. you had to move and get up, so you stepped outside at 11 pm, knowing there was only one person you could go to. 

you were counting on Tess still being awake at that hour. once you reached her apartment door you were nervous, the second you knocked you felt adrenaline rushing, because you realized you hadn´t even bothered to make up a lie as to why you were there. she opened the door and looked at you with a smile that said and who do we have here?.

the moment Tess laid eyes on you, she could tell you weren´t doing any better than the last time she´d seen you. the light in your eyes had dimmed even more, so she saved the jokes and the teasing, she didn´t demand an explanation, “come in”, relief washed over you as you stepped inside. you followed her down the dark hallway to the living room that was connected to an open kitchen, you took in the room and unsurprisingly it did not give much away about her; decorations were sparse, no posters on the wall, no sentimental photos, but a few candles were burning and the room seemed like a peaceful space.

“sorry, I know it´s late”, you said, slightly self-conscious, aware it might seem odd to just turn up like that, but she turned to look at you as she walked over the the kitchen, clearly unbothered, “oh no, don´t worry, I never sleep before midnight anyway”. it almost felt more humiliating, to be treated with kindness, somehow you didn´t feel deserving of it. 

she saw you standing in the middle of the room, a little timid, so she gestured over to the couch emphatically, “sit.” it sounded more like an order than an invitation, which you liked, her brand of care that always had a subtle touch of dominance to it. 

as you sat down, trying to position your body in a way that would look natural, she came over, bending down to hand you a glass of water, “here, drink”, her voice warm and strong.

she didn´t sit down next to you on the couch, but on the armchair next to it, you almost told her to come and join you but you knew how that would have sounded, so you drank up, set the glass down and faced her. 

she had crossed her legs and was leaning her head on her hand by then, watching you, her hardened face somehow much softer in the candlelight, her eyes shimmering, her hair falling down her face in loose waves, the sight making all your unexpressed feelings for her bubble up. you tried not to just stare at her as she spoke up, “so. couldn´t sleep?”.

you shook your head, leaning back a little, exhaling shakily, looking over at her, “no. not at all”. “hmm” she waited a moment before asking “wanna tell me why?”. you knew you hadn´t come over to lie, so you nodded, “yeah. well, I stopped taking anything like three weeks ago”, she leaned forward then, “that´s good, I´m glad. did anything prompt that, or did you just stop because you wanted to?”. 

she was onto something, and you felt the need to share it, “no, there was a moment. it was pretty dumb actually, one day I just fell, or collapsed I should say, out of nowhere. I know all the side effects but that one had never happened before, and I landed pretty fucking hard”. you were a little shy as you pulled up your shirt to reveal the left side of your ribs, the bruises were faded because it had been a few weeks but the outline was still very much there, faint yellow and green, the way bruises look towards the end of the healing process, the impact had spanned over multiple of your ribs. 

Tess flinched for a second when she saw your skin, a mix of attraction and pain, “jesus…” she whispered, trying to suppress the urge walk over and see it up close, “I´m so sorry, that must´ve hurt like hell”, you nodded, letting your shirt down again, a little embarrassed by the story. she was clearly affected by it, her eyes giving it away, “and let me guess, you didn´t ask for help or stay in bed, did you?”, you just looked at her, wordlessly signaling that she was right of course. 

she changed the way she was sitting then, relaxing her posture again, shaking her head a little, “what are we gonna do with you, hm?” a faint smile, eyeing you the way you eye someone who just fucked something up, but in a way that somehow makes you feel even more softly towards them. 

you continued, nervously running your hand up and down your thigh, “Tess, it´s been awful. really, I can´t sleep anymore. I am awake all the fucking time, it´s horrible.”,

your voice tinged with a sense of hopelessness that alarmed her, she tried to frame it positively for you, “well, then it´s impressive I´d say, that you pushed through for a few weeks already. despite all that”. you considered it “right, yeah I guess. but I feel no better than before. I don´t know Tess, I´m -” your gaze was cast to the floor, you were clearly struggling to find the right words, she encouraged you, “what is it? tell me”, you looked back at her again, “it´s just… is this all there is?” you vaguely gestured around, she cocked her head, “you´ll have to be a little more specific than that, sweetheart”. 

“I mean this life we´re living. of course I wasn´t naive when I was younger, it was obvious I wouldn´t get to live a dream, still, I did have hope for something. but now that I´m in it, it´s so bleak. it´s the same meaningless shit every single day, and I just can´t stomach the fact that this is gonna be my life forever. how in the world have you been doing this for so long? I don´t get it, Tess, it´s fucking killing me” your voice was different than usual, she knew your usual tone: composed, slow, unwavering, but in that moment it was flipped, you sounded panicked, and it hurt, it hurt her to see someone like you in that state, knowing how much it must´ve taken to break you down like that. 

she waited for a moment, but she just couldn´t stay in her seat any longer, so she got up and sat down next to you, speaking quietly, softly, “listen. I get what you´re saying, and I won´t deny it, it gets dark times, it definitely does, but you´re in a particularly rough spot right now, and it will not be this level of awful forever. trust me, I´d know.” 

you looked up at her then, adjusting your posture to face her properly. Tess was many things, but she was not a liar, so you tried your best to really absorb what she´d said, to internalize it. “okay. I do believe you” she nodded, glad you were receptive to her comfort, her gaze fell to your left hand then, a few leftover bruises from the fall were also visible there. instinctively, without thinking twice,  she reached out, her fingers ever so lightly running over the discolored skin, the sudden tenderness almost made you cry, she kept looking at your hand, kept holding it, “why didn´t you come to me earlier?” a genuine question. 

you were so focused on how good it felt to be touched by her that it took you a second to answer, “I don´t know. what could you have done?”, she almost laughed then, “use your imagination, the things anyone with half a heart would do for an injured person: be nice, make some tea, maybe if I was feeling really crazy even offer a hug” you smiled then, “right. that does sound good”, “yeah, too bad you´re so strict with that suffering in silence vow you took”, you regained some humor then, “well if I wasn´t, I might have shown up here like this many times already so. careful what you wish for” she grinned then, “and you think I would´ve found that horrible, yeah?” you shrugged, “I don´t know, you tell me”.

she shook her head, amused by your refusal to see that she would pretty much drop anything to help you at any given time, “I don´t do charity, sweetie. when I say I´m here for someone, I mean it” you squeezed her hand then, realizing she´d been holding onto yours for the past minute or so. you were both looking at each other, feeling each other´s leg because you were sitting so close, faces not far apart, not at all, and something shifted in a split second. it had been a while since either of you had been with someone, but in that moment it was like your bodies were simultaneously remembering what desire feels like, more intensely than ever before, and you both saw it in the other person, mirrored back. 

Tess was the first to move, she put her hand to your cheek, her thumb almost brushing over your lips, her gaze wandering over every part of your face, your breathing heavier instantly, you looked at her with pleading eyes, but she had given you that physical cue to make the decision yours. you saw her waiting, hoping, and gave in, hand on the side of her face, fingers in her hair, pulling her in for a kiss, harder than you intended, impatient, your lips warm against hers, your body immediately leaning in as close as possible, it took Tess one second to react, but the moment she felt you kissing her with that deep eagerness, it hit her: oh. this girl really wants me.

so she grabbed you with both hands and deepened the kiss, letting you climb onto her, holding you in place as you both abandoned restraint and hungrily kissed each other over and over until you felt your tongue against hers and slowed it down a little to savor it, softly moaning into her mouth, hearing her sounds mix with yours, turning each other on even more, her hands going lower and lower on your body, stopping at your waist, your back, her grip on you almost as arousing as the kiss, your whole body melting into her touch, the tension thick and heavy, your bodies almost overheating. your movements were desperate, your sounds too, everything about it was, it truly seemed like no amount of closeness was close enough, like you were so starved you might actually devour each other. 

she could feel you pushing up against her while you kissed, and as you both caught your breaths for a moment, she could tell you needed more from her, it was not the time for anything that would take too long, not in that moment, but she knew she could help you relax, release some tension, and as if you could read her mind she could hear you begging “please Tess”, your face close to hers, a shiver as she heard the neediness in your voice, luckily clothes were pretty loose, no need to fumble with a zipper or undress, she had no trouble just slipping her hand under the fabric, down to your underwear, she could hear you take a sharp breath in.

 “I got you” she reassured, “let me make you feel good, okay?”, you leaned back into the couch as she pushed you back with one arm and moved herself to an angle that would work, your legs apart then, her hand grazing your cunt through the soaked fabric.

she breathed even heavier then, feeling the effect she had on you, her fingers cold against the heat of your core, the contrast making you dizzy for a moment, shaking slightly, already sighing just from that, she cooed at you “it´s okay” as her fingers made direct contact with your cunt, her fingers sliding between your aroused lips, a moan almost leaving her as she felt your juices covering her skin, slick with it within one second, hearing you whine a little as she moved her fingers up and down, not even thinking about your pleasure for a second but her own, the thrill of having a pretty girl claim her in that sense, covering her in wetness, already fantasizing about getting her whole face up in it, tasting you. 

the thought pushed her to add more pressure to her movements, the passion taking her over, fully, moving her fingers to your clit then, sensing it was the right thing because you were louder then, shaking almost, clinging to her, “fuck…don´t stop, please” tumbled out of your mouth as she drew circles over the sensitive spot, she felt your hips pushing upwards, her eyes back on your face then, watching you come undone, her chest swelling with the pleasure of knowing it was her doing: your eyes shut, your lips parted. “you´re so fucking pretty” she whispered while feeling your cunt practically dripping onto her hand, the words pushing you towards your orgasm even faster, she could tell you were close, so she leaned down a little, facing you, pinning you to the couch as she kept teasing your clit.

the thing that got you more turned on than you ever remembered being, was the her movements were not erratic or too fast, but secure and skilled, hard but not aggressive, a slow sensuality to it that was so powerful that you whole body burned with the sensation, “fuck, I´m-” you couldn´t even from the whole sentence but she knew what you were trying to say, “just let go sweetie, cum for me”, encouraging you to cum against her hand, which you did, a violent shudder going through you as you arched up against her hand one last time, and what killed you then was the even as you came down from the climax, she was still watching you, still touching you, so drunk on the feeling of your cum all over her fingers that she just couldn´t let go before you were truly finished.

you slumped back against the couch as she got up from on top of you and sat down next to you, also a little spent, leaning back. once you were coherent again, you looked over at her, exhausted but face glowing, she turned to face you, pleased to see you smile, “god that felt good..” you said, still high on endorphins, resting your hand on her leg, she laced her fingers between yours, “yeah. it did”, making sure you knew that got just as much out of it.

“did you call me pretty or did I imagine that?” you asked, smiling at her, she grinned, realizing that you were the type to really crave praise but not ask for it explicitly, “I´ll say it again, you´re very pretty”, her voice low and sultry, a satisfied look to you. she just said what she was thinking before she could change her mind, “do you wanna stay here tonight? you can sleep over if you want, it´s late” you sat upright then, moving over to her side of the couch, getting up in her space again, hand on her chest, “yeah I´d like that”, an enthusiasm to your expression that made her happy, “okay good. we´ll have to share a blanket though” she said, you laughed then, “I can handle that I think”.

you´d already showered and changed into comfortable clothes before you came over, so she told you to just get comfortable on whatever side of the bed you wanted, while she´d go freshen up. her bedroom was similar to her living room, minimal decor, but comfortable, warm, a few of her clothes over a chair in the corner, a wooden bedside table with a few books, a small lamp, a lighter, a candle, the bedspread a soft creme color, the window half concealed by dark curtains. it somehow smelled like her, slightly fresh, slightly woody, a hint of musk in there too. at first you didn´t even want to touch anything, feeling like a kind of intruder, but the second you sat down on the right side of the bed it was too soft and relaxing not to give in and get comfortable. 

you were leaned against the headboard, still high on the feeling of her all over you, taking the room in, stretching your legs out, your hands running over the fabric of the sheets.

a few minutes later Tess she came into the room, her hair slightly damp, face fresh and glowing, dressed in a t-shirt and underwear. you were glad to see that she was already fine with you seeing her like that, even though you hadn´t seen her naked yet. 

your gaze wandered to her strong thighs as she walked over to her wardrobe and got out a pair of sweatpants, she smiled to herself, feeling your attention even though she had her back turned to you, “you´re staring” she said, her voice giving away that she enjoyed it, “I know” you responded, which made her laugh and turn around to look at you.

you didn´t even bother to pretend, you were still clearly checking her out as she got dressed, “I think I deserve something in return for that” she said as she walked over to her side of the bed and got onto the covers with you, eyeing you from the side, “yeah like what?”, she smiled, pulling you closer in one swift motion, her hand finding the bare skin of your thighs under the fabric, squeezing a little, just taking in the feeling of your soft skin, you were face to face, and your grin gave away that she could do pretty much whatever she wanted to you, “if you want me to undress I can do that you know”, you teased, she shook her head, “no, this is good, I like having something to look forward to”, that was the charming way of putting it, Tess also could´ve said we can´t fuck right now because we´re both tired and I´ll need the first time of getting a taste of you to last as long as possible. 

you blushed a little then, your hand in her hair, taking in the sight of her outside of her usual guarded physicality, all sweet and affectionate, relaxed, hand under her shirt, on her back, it was surprising to you, that nothing you did, no amount of touching her, seemed to be too much at all, even though she was not a hugger, not a person for handshakes even, so it made you feel free in your greediness for her.

 you spent a short while just laying there, half entwined, the sleepiness adding to the slow tenderness of the moment, she seemed mesmerized as her hand wandered further up your body, pushing your shirt up a little to trace your side with her fingers, you leaned in to kiss her, pulling her closer by the neck, Tess pulling your lower side close hers with the grip she had on your waist. you were dizzy from the warm sensation of her lips, her skin, your leg over hers, the way she immediately kissed you back with a need she couldn´t hide, eliciting a few low sounds of pleasure from you, you only parted once you both needed air, “come on” she said, she motioned for you to get under the covers with her, the room a little too cold to stay like that for long.

the moment you were under the blanket a shyness returned, the intimacy of truly being in bed with her like that suddenly making you hesitant to move, which she saw, and it amused her, that this girl who had no issue firing a gun, beating people up if needed, dealing godless amounts of drugs, suddenly seemed unable to just take up the personal space of a woman who was very clearly into her. the contrast charmed her, made her realize that she had a good amount of power over you but the good kind, the kind that allowed her to make you feel safe, free to show your more vulnerable self for once.

she smiled at you, “so, you wanna stay on your side or?...” 

you realized she was teasing a little, sensing your apprehension, it made you remember there was no need to be hesitant at all, so you shook your head, smiling back at her, “well come here then”. she opened her arms, gesturing for you to lay down on her however you wanted, which you did. you moved over and it felt so natural, to just lay your head on her chest and rest your arm on her stomach, everything about it felt like you´d done it before, the way Tess´s hand immediately found its way to your hair, running her fingers through it, softly, the repeated rhythm of it immediately putting you at ease, the feeling of your face against her chest reminding her how much she´d craved it all along, to feel useful, needed, to feel like her presence was actually making a difference to someone who deserved it. 

“that feels nice” you whispered, your voice sleepy at that point, your body slack against hers, she ruffled your hair a little, feeling you lean into her hand, moving it down to caress your cheek, both of you slowly dozing off, so she reached over and switched off the small light that was still on, letting you stay on top of her, soothed by your weight on top of her. usually she had a hard time falling asleep, but it was impossible to stay awake any longer, you were both too comfortable.

when you woke up a few hours later in the dead of night, you realized that you´d moved over to your own side in your sleep, and when you realized that you were too awake to drift off again, you rolled over to watch Tess, who was sort of facing you in her sleep. she looked graceful, her mouth was closed, her cheeks were a little flushed, her hair spread out over the pillow, you just laid there admiring her.

she stirred a few moments later but you couldn´t be bothered to turn away and pretend you weren´t looking, so when she opened her eyes a little, you heard her say in a raspy quiet voice “are you watching me sleep?”, you smiled, “maybe”, she shook her head a little, clearly still half asleep, you added “you´re a pretty sleeper”, a sly grin on your face, “you don´t have to suck up to me, I already like you”, Tess uttered, witty even while she wasn´t fully conscious, you protested, “I mean it”, she had her eyes closed but spoke again, “that´s very charming but you should sleep instead”, “I tried” you said. 

the liminal quality of that moment, the almost dreamlike air, made it easy for Tess to have no issue doing what she did next: she tapped you on the side of your body that was facing her “turn around”, telling you to get on your side and face away from her, “let´s try this”, she said, pulling you closer by wrapping her arm around you and getting into a big spoon type position, her chest pressed against your back then, her arm around your waist, and she was right to guess that it would help, her warmth immediately made your eyes feel heavy again, the sensation too good not to just melt into and lose yourself in. you put your hand over hers, and within about ten minutes you were both sound asleep again.

the next morning, it took you a moment to come to your senses and realize where you were, but the second you did, an unfamiliar thing happened: you were flooded with joy instead of dread. usually mornings were your least favorite part of the day, the things you had to do looming ahead of you, but as you saw the sun coming into Tess´s room, you felt at peace, content. the space next to you was empty and you could hear Tess moving around in the kitchen, so you got up, went to the bathroom to splash some water on your face, and walked to the kitchen. since you weren´t wearing shoes she didn´t hear you come in, so you just stood there watching her from across the room, smiling, until she turned around, “well, hello there” she said, unable to hide the obvious pure joy she felt at seeing you. 

it had been a long time since Tess had dated or even hooked up with anyone, let alone let someone stay over, so every little detail of being with you gave her a rush, the sight of you leaning against the wall with your face still a little scrunched up from sleep was enough to make her feel warm all over, so she was almost scared of what it would feel like once you´d actually do something explicitly romantic for her. somehow you both knew it without saying, that you were about to spend a lot of time together, that you were both in need of much more than just one night. Tess wasn´t thinking as far as being your girlfriend yet, but part of her hoped, part of her did love the idea of finally being devoted to someone the way she always wanted to be.

she waved you over to where she was standing, setting a cup of coffee down on the counter, “perfect timing, I just got done with this” she put down some sugar too in case you wanted it. you approached her, almost a little shy, knowing she was seeing you in a rather personal light then, having barely been awake for more than five minutes, but she was clearly enamored by it. you gratefully took the cup and warmed your hands against it, taking a sip, leaning against over counter, looking at her, feeling her gaze on you the entire time. it was almost too good to be true, normally your entire day was spent in a haze where nobody could reach you, and there she was, disrupting it, again and again, making you come back to life just by being there.

“you could have woken me up, you know” you said, but she just shook her head, “no fucking way, I was glad you were sleeping so well” a grin that gave away she knew it was partly thanks to her, you nodded, your face muscles almost hurting from having been frozen in a permanent smile for the past few minutes, “yeah I do feel much better than yesterday. I wonder why that is” you said while taking her hand.

she tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear, eyeing you, “is there anything you need to do today?” she asked, praying the answer was no, you shook your head, “no, nothing until Monday. you?” hoping for the same answer, she thought for a moment “well, nothing I couldn´t put off for a day or two” a faint smile, you got up then, walking over to her, putting your arms around her neck,“put it off then” you said, before leaning in to tenderly kiss her cheek, her neck, whispering against her skin “please stay here Tess. please”, your voice dripping with sweetness, her breathing changed as she felt you all over her skin, she thought of course this girl is clever enough to know what begging does to me, her hands on your back then, under your shirt, “okay, I´m not going anywhere” she said, and of course she wouldn´t, she already knew that before your act of persuasion, but she liked seeing you try to convince her.

“I think we should go back to bed” you declared, staring at her, a boldness that came out of nowhere but felt exactly right, she grinned, her hands on your waist, pulling you close, “you think so, yeah?”, you just looked at her, words were unnecessary, your hunger for her apparent in your gaze, Tess felt her face growing hot. it was one thing that you´d wanted her when you were weak and exhausted and needed comfort, it was another that you also wanted her when you were well rested and fine and could´ve thought of other things to start your day with, but apparently still only had her on your mind. “let´s get you out of these then, hm” she said, tugging at your clothes, your eyes sparkling up at her before she took your hand and lead you back to her room.

as she pulled off your shirt and started kissing your chest, you had that same feeling again that you´d had years ago: despite all the pain, the darkness that had seeped into your life at times, you knew in that moment how lucky you were that someone like Tess had paid attention to you in exact right moment, that she did not just help you, but made you come alive again. 

finally, you found yourself not wanting to escape your body anymore, finally you were happy to be fully present, trying your best to soak up every little detail, the feeling of the sun spilling in, of being undressed by Tess, being admired, held by her.

it seemed like divine intervention to you, that Tess had come into your life right when you needed her the most. 

[frvnkcastles]

EVERY NIGHT I BURN ➵ S. ROSSI

Summary: After a disastrous date with your high school crush, Sam is there to pick up the pieces.

Warnings: Borderline sexual assault, language, implied female reader, some descriptors

Word count: 5.6k (geez)

Author’s note: Making my comeback with a THREE year old fic that I was always too embarrassed to post anywhere for some reason. Anyway Sam is my favorite Jon character after Frank and I think about him on a regular basis :’) Sorry I’ve been so inactive lately, college is killing me!! Can’t wait to get back to writing during summer break.

”Hey, are you busy?”

Looking up from his bookkeeping, Sam lifted an eyebrow and tried his very best to maintain a stoic, neutral expression rather than breaking into the giddy smile he always felt coming on in your presence. Seeing you at the doorway of his office, dark hair flowing in the cool breeze and a gust of your perfume invading his space in the process, was nothing short of enchanting, making him clear his throat as he briefly glanced at where your skirt rested against your thighs and then back to the shiny eyes behind your glasses.

For you? Never. That’s what he wanted to say, anyway — that hell or high water, he’d make time for you. Instead, he lifted one hand to gesture at the empty office. ”Nah, somethin’ wrong?” he asked gruffly, yet the rough voice was nothing short of polite as he eyed you up and down as if to search for any signs of distress. The nervous wringing of your hands was the only clue he got, but he chalked it down to your typically shy — and endearing — personality with a soft, barely audible chuckle.

”No, no, not at all. I was just wondering if I could bother you with a favor? I got some shelves for the new house and uh, as much as I’d like to campaign for being a strong, independent woman... I do not know how to handle power tools”, you grimaced in a way that made Sam laugh fondly and glance at his boots before bringing his enamored gaze back up at you. ”Really, if you can’t, it’s—”, you began again before you could corner him into agreeing, but waving you off, he interrupted.

”Be my pleasure. Rather that than, uh, drive ya into the hospital after lettin’ you do it alone, right?” he spoke, cracking a joke that almost sounded strange coming from his quiet, level voice. Once the amusement in his tone registered in your head, though, you broke into a grin and nodded in agreement.

”Yeah, I’m a much better driver if you end up drilling a hole in your own finger”, you countered, only to realize the potentially offensive hint in your voice — at that, your smile faltered, but before you could do much more than open your mouth to explain you hadn’t meant to poke fun at his hands, he smiled at you.

”I gotchu, sweetheart. ’S all good”, he reassured before you could worry about hurting his feelings. There was a moment then, with you gazing into each other’s eyes, goofy smiles on your faces with no one needing to say anything.

Didn’t mean it stayed that way. With an excited cheer, your goddaughter was soon emerging through the entrance, disrupting the moment between you and Sam as she grabbed your shoulders. ”I thought that was you! Did you bring me lunch?” Maggie wondered with a grin, and laughing, you jutted your finger in your car’s direction, encouraging her to break free from the office with a delighted sprint again.

She was the reason you had come here, to begin with. You were a teacher and when a job opportunity near your favorite goddaughter had turned up, you took the chance to go back home and reunite with what little family you both had left. Within days, Sam had grown smitten with you — and Mags could tell; you, not so much. In his defense, how could he not? You were smart, caring, had the prettiest smile he had seen in years and there was no doubt about your kind heart. The way you treated Mags, him, and anyone you came across made his own heart swell. You were damn beautiful, too.

Now, nearly a month into your stay, you had formed new habits and routines, including stopping by the motel to get lunch to Mags. Sam had insisted that he’d feed the girl if you just let him, but frankly, your visits had an ulterior motive now — see, you really liked him, too. Again, how could you not? He was everything you loved in a man and whatever chance you got to spend more time with him, you leaped at.

Hence why you had insisted the furniture shop didn’t need to come over and install the shelves for you; you had a guy for that.

Before you could say anything more, the rev of an engine got your attention and both you and Sam turned your heads to the motel’s parking lot only to see an old but well-kept, stylish car pull up with no regard to the actual parking spots. You would have recognized the car and its white stripes from a mile away, pulling a surprised gasp from you — the same, joyous reaction was far from Maggie’s face as she traipsed back to the office with a glare at the car she had seen enough times not to trust its owner.

”Oh my Gosh, what are you doing here?” you gushed as you stepped back out into the warm spring air, your hand on your chest as you watched the tall, lanky guy step out of the car while unfolding his sunglasses into the collar of his shirt. Sam certainly didn’t miss the amazed tone in your voice, nor the hand placed on your arm as the stylish guy eyed you up and down.

”Heard you were back in town, I just had to see it for myself”, the guy grinned at you, and even from behind his desk, Sam could see the blush on your cheeks.

Trying his best to tune out the rest of the conversation, he clenched his jaw as he looked down at the papers still waiting for his scrutinizing. His focus was everywhere else, though, and suspecting as much, Maggie leaned her elbows on the counter to share her gossip with Sam with her stare still trained on you.

”That’s Benny. Complete jerk, if you ask me. They almost dated in high school but he’s always just been stringing her along”, Mags dished casually, and with an incredulous snort, Sam looked up with doubt in his dark eyes.

”That guy?” he confirmed, struggling to imagine a world where anyone would be out of your league. You were a gem; a whole treasure and he would have never made you feel like anything else.

Nodding, Mags glanced at Sam with a hopeful smile. ”He doesn’t deserve her. Maybe if someone nice actually asked her out for once”, she theorized, far from sneaky, but before Sam could scold her for her taunting tone, she continued. ”Until then, she’s just gonna let him play with her feelings because every time she thinks it might work out.”

With a frown, Sam looked over to the parking lot where you were, indeed, fawning over the man, lovesick grin and all. It was in that moment that his jealousy got beaten by his anger — not towards you, but towards the man for toying with your heart.

That said, he would have lied if something envious didn’t brew in the pit of his stomach when he watched you touch his chest and lean into him, laughing at his jokes.

———————

”Nervous?” Sam rasped from where he was hoisted on one of your chairs, arm leaning against the wall while glancing between you and the drill he was setting up. Maybe it was the date, maybe it was the sight of him rolling up his sleeves and hiking up his tight jeans that made you gulp, but either way, you ended up nodding. When he effortlessly grabbed the shelf off the table with one hand and balanced it against the wall in a way that made practically every muscle in his body flex against his clothes, you had to look away.

”A little”, you admitted with a dry throat, fiddling with the sleeves of your dress as you wandered back and forth in the small living room just to channel the anxious energy somewhere. ”Not to sound like a schoolgirl, but— he’s so cool”, you breathed out, an embarrassed chuckle accompanying your words as you checked the time on your phone again and then turned back to Sam who had paused his work and was looking at you with a lifted eyebrow.

He seemed to weigh his options for a beat, wonder what was the right thing to say when eventually he sucked in a breath and turned back to the shelf with the drill hoisted at the right position. ”Ain’t no one cooler than you”, he pointed casually before activating the drill and getting the nail through the wood effortlessly. ”You got that?” he emphasized when silence landed in the room again, his words demanding but his voice soft when he eyed you briefly. ”You’re a real gem, sweetheart. You deserve to be treated like one”, he added before adding in the second nail and then the third, giving you the chance to collect your thoughts while he worked.

Suddenly feeling the tension in the air, you chuckled quietly. ”Did Maggie say something?” you wondered, well-aware of how little she liked the man you had been drooling over for the past decade and more.

With a quiet laugh, Sam reached for the final nail. ”Maybe”, he confirmed, not getting to say much more when the tremble of his fingers betrayed him and the nail flew to the floor with a clatter. As he cursed, you jumped into motion, not allowing him the chance to climb down when you were already crouching down to pick up the nail from the floor in a way that had your skirt hiking up your thighs.

When you stood back up to hand it over, Sam was staring at you in quiet amazement, and softly, you smiled at him. ”Well, thank you”, you whispered, still thinking about his previous words as you stepped back to let him finish without you in his way — he, in response, felt his heart swing at the loss of your warmth and perfume in his face. ”I appreciate all of this”, you gestured at him with a grin, ”but I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

With a nod, Sam gave you one more look, one that he was forced to tear away when the honk of a car filled your driveway with sound. He couldn’t help but feel his chest tighten at your adorable gasp, and any idea of saying goodbye left his brain when you reached forward to briefly peck his cheek, your soft lips tickled by the coarse hairs of his dark beard as you bid him farewell.

”I’ll make this up to you!” you promised with a smile, and chuckling, Sam ducked his head down and willed himself to not blush.

You already had.

—————

Ever the gentleman, Sam had decided to wait at your house for you to return from your date — partly to make sure you were safe, partly to see your excited smile when you’d burst through the door in an enthusiastic ramble of how it had gone. That was how he played it out in his head, anyway, giddy at the idea of your happiness even if it meant from another man. With your shelves up and installed, there was not much to do but linger around; even with the TV on, though, he found it hard to focus.

The entire house felt like you. Like one big comforting hug, one that you could never quite fit his large figure into but you always tried as hard as you could. You were sweet like that. As was the ghost of your perfume haunting the living room where Sam was seated, unable to think about anything but what kind of movie you’d choose to put on if you were there with him. One of the armchairs next to the couch he was on had some of your dresses draped over it — the rejected pile, he assumed, but the different colors and soft materials made his stomach swing when he imagined the edge of the skirt falling above your knees, the flowery sleeves a stark contrast to your dainty hands.

At that thought, he cleared his throat and got up from

the couch with unwillingness to stay there and obsess over you all night. He had already grabbed some water from the kitchen only to think about the baked goods you brought to the motel every now and then, the image of your warmth mixing in with the soft music you had mentioned liking while stirring a bowl of batter refusing to leave his head. And as he passed by the foyer on his way out, he noted your shoes, all in different styles yet somehow so you, and the large mirror where his smitten reflection was adorned by a colorful sticky note wishing a lovely day. With a smiley face and all.

He made his way to the local diner, then, figuring he could kill some time by grabbing some shakes and fries for when you’d get home. By the time he considered you already having dinner with your date, it was too late and he found himself striding up to the counter where he hoped the kind lady wouldn’t notice the red on his cheeks and the extra tremble in his fingers.

He had hardly limped his way over, though, when the lady he was quite familiar with gave him a sympathetic smile. A frown barely crossed Sam’s face when she pointed a finger across the diner, and when the tall man faced the right direction, he found you sitting in the furthest booth, drenched from the rain that had just stopped on his way over, hands shaky and cheeks stained with the make-up you had spent so much time on. An untouched cup of coffee sat in front of you, and it seemed like you had no intentions of moving anywhere.

Sam, on the other hand, abandoned his initial plan immediately and with a slight swing from side to side, stomped his way over to you. The heavy falls of his boots caught your attention quickly, and meekly, you looked up only to somehow feel worse at the worried pair of eyes you found staring back at you, concerned creases painted across Sam’s forehead as he fiddled with his fingers. He could see the slight disappointment on your face, but before he could take it personally, you were sighing weakly.

”This is so embarrassing”, you whispered, soon enough breaking into a sob as you covered your face with your hands and leaned towards the table. Without a second’s hesitance, Sam sat by your side, and when you moved to give him space next to you, he took the opportunity to wrap an arm around your shoulders and hold you close.

”Shh, shh, no, it ain’t. It ain’t. Promise, ’m not here to judge. Alright? Don’t even gotta tell me what happened if ya don’t wanna”, he assured, his rough voice so soft as he rubbed your arm soothingly and placed his head against yours. A mere second later, he was taking in your appearance, from the drenched hair to the mud on your knees, and with a regretful inhale, he walked back on his previous word with a gentle tone. ”Tell me if you’re hurt, though. Please, sweetheart”, he was quiet and respectful, and with the nickname welcoming something warm in your heart, you shook your head.

”Not hurt”, you confirmed, and although the faintness of your voice did little to comfort Sam, he nodded approvingly at the promise. When you said nothing more, he simply held you in his arms, caressing you softly and humming in your ear without empty vows of things going to be okay and you going to be alright. Right now, all he could offer was his presence and attention.

Somehow, that was enough. Your breathing leveled and your heart didn’t feel like it was going to jump out of your chest anymore, but rather, feeling the beat of Sam’s helped in grounding you. He was warm and comforting and for a moment, you forgot where you even were.

”That’s it”, he encouraged quietly when you grew more stable in his embrace, ”attagirl. I’m right here with you, darlin’.” Feeling you relax helped him relax, too, his fear slowly dismantling and his feeling of utter helplessness subsiding.

”You wanna tell me what happened?” he asked gently, never pushing, only giving you the chance to share if you felt like it. At first, you truly hadn’t, but now, with his care so thick in the air, you felt entirely safe telling him.

”You gonna tell me you told me so?” you asked, half-joking, and it earned a quiet snort from Sam before he pressed a tender kiss on the top of your head.

”Never.”

That was all the encouragement you needed, and with a deep sigh, you recalled the past two hours of your life. ”He took me to a drive-in”, you swallowed, feeling a shiver run down your spine at the memory. ”It was nice, actually Fun. Nostalgic. Then, he, uh, he kissed me. And I kissed him back. But then I—I tried to pull away and he—”, you continued, your voice breaking as you covered your mouth with your hand and exhaled.

”He wouldn’t stop. His hands were everywhere. So I—I somehow managed to get out of the car and I just… ran. I ran. I knew the diner was close by so I headed over here but it started raining and I fell so it took me a while but I just couldn’t go back”, you continued before gesturing at your ripped stockings and then leaning into Sam’s chest with your eyes sealed shut. ”I was so stupid. I should have listened to you and Maggie.”

Silence landed again, apart from the sounds around you and your soft sniffles. It was Sam, then, who was silent — his nostrils flaring and his heart pounding in his chest as he imagined the Hell you had been through. He wasn’t much of a fighter, but he sure as hell stood up to assholes like some of the men at his motel and this… this sad excuse of a human being who had had the chance of a lifetime with you. A chance that Sam would never waste for anything in the world.

”It ain’t your fault”, he finally rasped, trying to swallow down his anger even if the tick of his jaw betrayed him. He was glad you were huddled up against his chest, shielding you from seeing the fury in his narrowed eyes as he stared out of the rainy window and clenched his jaw. ”None of it. You did good, sweetheart. You did so good”, he continued, losing some of his temper as he wrapped both arms around your trembling body. ”You were real fuckin’ brave, ya hear me? Did nothin’ wrong. That guy is a piece of shit, you understand?”

You managed a nod before Sam continued. ”You deserve the world. I’m so sorry that happened. I ’preciate you sharin’”, he sighed, not even sure what more to say. He felt like he was going to be sick, though he doubted it was nowhere near to how you were feeling.

As if on cue, you shivered again, and he withdrew from you just enough to look at your drenched body. ”Listen, sweetheart, you’re freezin’. Okay if I drive ya home?” he offered, and unsure what other option you had, you simply pleaded yes to his proposal. Even if there had been an alternative, he was what you wanted — his safety, his reassurance, his guidance.

You just did not realize that he had sworn all of that since day one.

As you sat in his passenger seat, shaking from the cold as well as the adrenaline, Sam made sure to hold your smaller hand in his large, warm one, all the while cranking up the heat in the truck. It was silent for the most part, and when tears fell from your eyes only for you to hastily wipe them away, he said nothing, simply brushed his thumb across your hand and let you be. There was no judgment in the air, and even with your torn appearance, he didn’t stare, only glanced at you to make sure you were alright, eyes full of care and the wish that there was more he could have done for you.

When the truck was parked in your driveway, Sam was quick to leap out of his seat and circle the car to open the door for you and help you out of the fickle seatbelt. You didn’t hesitate to cling onto him, allowing him to guide you inside to the safety of your home where you toed off your shoes and let him hang up your jacket.

”You go get changed, alright? I’ll make you some tea”, Sam whispered, gentle as he brushed a hand across your hair and took a step away to allow you your space. The hesitation in your eyes suggested you weren’t quite ready to leave his side, but certain that getting dressed on your own was the best idea, you nodded and hid into the bedroom while he wandered to the kitchen.

It didn’t go unnoticed by either of you how naturally he blended into your life. Having him around the house felt like the most natural thing, and he breathed easy while getting out your kettle and pouring the boiled water into one of your big mugs. Well-aware just how much sugar and honey you liked in your tea, preparing the drink for you was like second-nature, like he had spent years with this routine, attached to you so tightly he didn’t even question it.

When you shyly snuck out of the bedroom, dressed in tights and a large, grey sweater, he was seated in your living room with his hands nervously wringing with one another. It made you want to laugh, how both of you were so on edge, but when you saw his eyes light up at the sight of you, as well as the steaming tea he had made just for you, and the shelves perfectly balanced on the wall behind him, you burst into tears, instead.

”The shelves look so nice”, you cried with a laugh, trying to wipe at your eyes while sniffling and taking a seat next to Sam. ”You’ve done so much for me”, you whispered, amazed by the kindness of his heart, but he was quick to protest with a quiet chuckle.

”’S just basic decency”, he countered quietly before observing you carefully. The scratches on your palms and wrists made him swallow and look away, but he gently knocked his knee into yours to promise he was right there as long as you wanted it. ”Whatever you need, alright? Just say the word.”

Carefully, you took a sip from the tea and then glanced at Sam. ”Is it weird if I ask you to stay?” you questioned weakly, and with an exhale, Sam wanted to promise you that he could have never said no to you. Instead, he gave you a shake of his head and offered a hand for you to take.

”I’ll be right here”, he swore. And true to his words, he stayed all night, making you a second cup of tea, helping you brush through the knots of your hair, sanitizing the scratches on your hands, messaging Maggie that you were home safe. He wiped your tears, hugged you tight, rubbed your back and kissed your forehead. And at the end of it all, he let you fall asleep on him on the couch, your head on his lap and his trembling fingers caressing your hair until you were soundly asleep.

And all he could think about was how he wouldn’t have minded watching over you every single day.

——————

The following day, Sam made sure to wake you up before leaving, breakfast waiting for you in the kitchen once he had apologized for slipping away so soon — however, you understood that he had a whole motel to run; not to mention, he had already done so much for you. As much was obvious when you sat in the kitchen by yourself, munching on the eggs and toast he had prepared, surprising yourself with the soft smile that crossed your lips at the thought of his kindness.

Sam, on the other hand, didn’t find himself smiling much at work. Mags was yet to clock in, and he was grateful — not wanting to reveal what had happened without your permission, but knowing that the girl would see right through his bullshit. The other personnel, however, had already asked if everything was okay.

And for the most part, it was. You seemed to be doing okay when he had left you, and he was glad to have been of any consolation. Nevertheless, he was so, so full of anger that it had even happened in the first place. And the fact that he had been right there, with the opportunity to stop you, not once but twice, yet he hadn’t. He knew it wasn’t his fault, but he needed to channel the fury in his chest somewhere — why not himself?

That was what he figured until a familiar, sleek car was cruising onto the lot, parked like an asshole yet again. At the sight of Benny’s presumptuous face, Sam dropped the pen in his hand and swallowed thickly, his feet moving on instinct to stop the man from entering his premises. Suddenly blessed with a new target for his anger, Sam strode straight towards, a twinge of delight poking at his heart when he saw the scratches matching your nails on his jaw.

”Hey, is she around—”, Benny started, but that was all he got to utter out when Sam was punching him across the face, the crack of his nose most pleasing to the man’s ears as he watched the other man go down from the weight of his fist. Blood went flying across the concrete and despite the throbbing through his knuckles, Sam didn’t stand down from staring at the man at his feet now.

”You ain’t welcome here, you hear me? I never wanna see your stupid fuckin’ face again. Neither does she. You go anywhere near her, you’ll regret it”, Sam gritted out, his rough voice heavy as he glared at Benny who, in a flurry of panic, scrambled up to his feet and towards his car.

”You’re a piece of shit”, Sam added with a stern finger pointed at him, ”and you don’t deserve her. Fuck you.”

——————

Although the initial idea of being around people seemed exhausting, you were happy to get a visit from Mags. She pulled you into a hug out of instinct, but you had longed for the comforting embrace all day, therefore forcing her to stay in it a little bit longer. You supposed, then, you shouldn’t have been surprised by the question she broke the silence with once you finally pulled away and welcomed her inside.

”How was your date?” she inquired carefully, not missing the scratches on you but choosing not to blatantly point them out. Nevertheless, she radiated sympathy and you knew you could trust her — that said, you didn’t quite like the idea of burdening her with what had happened. You weren’t best friends gossiping, you were the closest thing she had to a guardian, and while communication was key, there were some things you weren’t meant to unload onto her.

”I don’t think there will be another one”, you stated simply with a quiet smile, and nodding thoughtfully, Mags followed you into the kitchen where you had been stress-baking all day. She, at least, was happy to grab one of your tasty brownies, and you hoped that Sam would appreciate the pie you had made just for him as a thank you for everything.

As if on cue, Mags hummed from the table she sat herself at while you continued slicing the brownies. ”So, uh, wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact I saw Sam

with bruised knuckles, would it?” she asked innocently, the obvious tension in your shoulders encouraging her to add, ”looked like someone got a taste of them, actually.”

Putting down the knife, you blinked at the wall in front of you and then turned to Maggie. ”Really?” you whispered, full of disbelief and amazement that Sam would do such a thing. He wasn’t usually a man of violence, so you struggled to come up with another explanation than him confronting Benny. And against all odds, the thought almost put a smile to your face — your asshole date had certainly earned it, but Sam doing that for you…

Well, you definitely hadn’t expected your heart to flip so violently at that.

”Uh huh”, Mags drawled before eyeing you with a grin. ”You like him, don’t you?”

You immediately reacted with a bashful chuckle and turned back to the brownies. You had thought about it before. Many times, in fact. He was handsome and kind and naturally loving, and despite his brooding, tall appearance, he was shy and gentle. He was good with kids and animals alike, and he made sure to make everyone feel welcome. But he was also so, so very easy on the eyes. And after last night… you had a whole new appreciation for the man and his good heart.

So, yeah. Maybe you did. You had just never been bold enough to take the leap and ask him out — he was, indeed, quiet and a little bit reclusive, making it hard to tell if he liked you or was just being polite. And frankly, you didn’t want to set fire to the friendship you had built with him.

Going out with Benny had seemed like such a good idea to find some company that wasn’t Sam, but now, you couldn’t help but wonder if it only had been good for driving you right into his arms.

—————

Sam was surprised to see you arrive at the motel — but positively so. When Mags stepped out of your car though, he guessed it was simply to drop her off, but he was quickly proven otherwise when you followed her lead with a pie in your hands. You were dressed in a worn pair of overalls and Sam couldn’t stop the somersault in his chest as he limped from behind the front desk to the parking lot, giving Mags a brief squeeze on the arm as she passed him by.

”It’s good to see you”, Sam breathed out as he nodded and observed you from head to toe briefly, ”you look damn nice.”

With heat already crawling to your cheeks, you ducked your head down only to catch a glimpse of his red knuckles in the process. You licked your lips tentatively and gave him a shy look. ”Your, uh, hand… Was that…”, you began, not really sure how to finish that thought.

…You decking Benny in the face for my sake?

”Yeah”, Sam rasped with a clear of his throat, ”yeah, he, uh… came lookin’ for you. Told him you ain’t interested.” For a moment there, he seemed almost embarrassed, his other hand going over the scabbed one to rub it nervously, but as soon as you broke into a careful smile, the worries in his heart evaporated.

”I appreciate that. I appreciate you”, you emphasized before handing over the pie. ”Pretty sure I owe you a dozen of these, but… I thought I’d start with just one. I don’t know how to thank you enough, Sam. You’re my hero, I guess”, you explained with a chuckle, your gaze falling to your boots before you looked back up at him only to find him shaking his head in a way that left his unruly curls bouncing.

”Nah, you don’t… you don’t owe me nothin’, sweetheart. ’M just glad you’re alright”, he promised while clutching the pie and pursing his lips as if there was something else to say.

You had something else to say, too. And for a second, you wondered if it was wise to speak out loud, but then you saw Mags and her vigorously encouraging gestures from inside the office, and then you faced Sam again and he just looked so beautiful and soft and—

”Would you wanna go on a date?”

Much to your surprise, your own words echoed back to you in his deep voice, your eyes flying wide when you realized he had posed you the very same question. A mere second later, you broke into a genuine laugh, and Sam’s lips curved upwards into a giddy smile as he nodded at you.

”We could start with this pie”, he offered with a chuckle, and with an agreeing smile, you returned his nod. Shakily, he lifted his hand for you to take, and you did not hesitate to wrap your fingers around his trembling ones so he could lead you indoors where Mags was cheering by herself.

Needless to say, your poor date was soon forgotten by an absolutely delightful one — especially when they did not stop coming, and within the next month, you found yourself being called Sam’s girlfriend.

He, for one, couldn’t recall the last time he had been so happy. Getting to leave his shoes next to yours in the foyer, getting to bring you tea to bed in the morning, getting to finally kiss your pink lips with his beard scratching your soft skin… He wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve it all, but he certainly felt lucky as hell.

[inchidentally]

https://x.com/charlclerc/status/1749478427239891090?s=20

I think someone here missed the sight of a soaked Oscar <3

ok so big shock!! I'm gonna use this sweet little morsel of Lando pausing in his remaining winter break to look back on that glorious day

to create an absolute smorgasbord of what Suzuka meant to him and to Oscar

I've edited together the most chewable parts of the post race press conference tho tbh it's mostly just removing the parts where Max tries his best to put a slight new twist on answering the exact same questions as last weekend lgflajsg.

so at the start I love the little private smile Lando and Oscar share when Max's fanfare is going on - it gives me a little rueful but also slightly creepy twinning vestal virgins au like are we going to destroy him Lando? yes we are going to destroy him Oscar

(I AM NOT BEING SERIOUS IT'S JUST JOKES).

which is even funnier with what Max leads into about seeing these two goddamn McLarens sandwiching him and for a split second thinking ah so they want to destroy me? oh dear. like Max is very at home on that couch but the presence of these two creatures sharing covert smiles with each other has him (and probably a lot of that room) uneasily wondering if that's all y'know, normal and above board? they're not like... witches, right? haha. crazy!

and I think the cool meticulous way Lando treats his own performance is a really good example of how (in my opinion!) his self-flagellation does need to be reeled in because he's never the sort to be soaring high enough to compensate for those lowest lows. for a while I was undecided but honestly I agree with Martin Brundle, Jenson Button and Oscar who've said (in different ways and indirectly from Oscar) that Lando is far too level-headed and race smart to be hanging his own tender hide out like he does. I so appreciate how measured he was in self-approval over his back to back podiums and no one's asking him to get cocky, but I'd really love to see him match this approach to when he struggles as a driver (and not just a car issue which was the case pre Silverstone).

contrast that with Oscar discussing his own self-criticisms of the weekend but equally saying he'll still relish the maiden podium. and crucially that he can fairly put at least part of his struggles - which he was also meticulous about - down to this being his first time racing at Suzuka. an anon sent an ask about Andrea praising Oscar specifically for his performance there and you can really feel the influence Andrea has had throughout the season on Oscar. because before Silverstone, Oscar had a tendency to monotone lowness and disappointment in himself that bordered dangerously on bitterness and maybe even a fear/doubt of how his rookie season would indeed turn out? but Andrea's approach of optimism, faith in teamwork and specifically in making sure Oscar was looked after while Lando naturally performed so much better, absolutely sank in.

and it makes sense that Oscar as a rookie has so much more mental plasticity when it comes to outside influence - and says a lot about Andrea's leadership too. it's where I wish Lando could have had Andrea as principal from day one too. bc understandably, Lando has graduated to that level of knowing himself so well as a driver relative the drivers around him that there's an existing almost prejudice about himself that the people in charge of guiding him have to overcome.

literally everyone who knows and who matters has said how similar Lando and Oscar are in terms of their approach to the car and their dedication to the team. and I know Andrea has shielded Lando in his own way by saying that it's a champion's mentality to have as much passion and emotion as Lando does. but - and this is honestly such a great piece about Andrea go read it and thank you again to @mecachrome for repping him so much - he also emphasized the positivity that was so crucial to pushing the team through those awful early races. I don't at all blame Lando for getting a bit grim toward himself at times thinking not only about that first race win but also the championship. but I also really hope that between Andrea and Oscar (source: Lando himself!) he can use the lifts of his highs to not sink so low anymore.

skipping back to around the minute mark when Lando says how much more this second place means to him than Singapore because of the double podium and also because of his own performance being better. not to get too ~contentious~ but this is why I really have needed the Singapore high to wear off as fast as it did for Lando when people are discussing Lando's 2023 as a driver and not as part of a ship. absolutely still revel in it in an rpf sense! but like, real life Lando is intensely loyal to his team and y'know what else? he's intensely loyal to loyalty. which is precisely what Oscar has been proving to McLaren since signing that pre-contract the summer before. it took an entire court case for Oscar to get to McLaren and he was met with a wall of hate coming from three sides. comment sections were filled with people celebrating McLaren's 2023 initial struggles and vilifying Oscar for how much he was costing them (in every sense) for paying out Daniel. and it was the Suzuka weekend when Oscar agreed immediately to extend his contract further.

Lando had a front row seat for all of that once the season started. and considering how few races Oscar's dad and Lily were able to make due to being on the other side of the world and final year of school respectively, Oscar spent a fair amount of that time getting to grips with being in F1, and the particular pressure and stress from media and fans, largely alone in terms of a private life. so it says so much about how well he was repaid by the team and also by Lando for keeping his cool and putting in the extra hours and keeping the faith.

and around 2 mins "we have two drivers up fighting for those positions" "we can help one another and use one another". that tandem the two of them have achieved before the season is even over was largely formed when the car was fighting against them. as was the case with Carlos and then Daniel and truly every other F1 driver, Lando did NOT have to intervene or take on a specific responsibility toward Oscar. F1 drivers aren't pack animals, they move through their careers alone and are happy if they can be buddies with their partner. so to see Lando as the number one show faith in Oscar and stand up for him and receive that trust and faith in return is so unique. Lando controlled that as much as Andrea did - maybe even more considering how he says he feels Oscar is so similar to him in a lot of ways. it's not uncommon for charismatic guys like Lando, Carlos and Daniel to make friends with their team mate.

but I think the whole "Lando effect" thing has actually been a huge disservice to what Lando has put into the partnership with Oscar. in this interview early on in the season, he says how Oscar is really quiet and that it's just how most people are in their first year and "we'll change him". but as we've seen, Oscar didn't end up changing and funnily enough the hanging out he and Lando do off the track has been as private and only alluded to as the rest of Oscar's private life. Lando got a lot of Oscar on his camera (again, a lot we haven't gotten to see yet) but really there was no big transformation in terms of Oscar becoming one of the charismatic personalities of the grid. and yet he and Lando only got closer and more supportive of each other in all the ways that matter to a partnership. so I think it's a much bigger credit to Lando that he learned to understand Oscar's personality better and still found ways to establish that sense of trust and loyalty without a bromance or a bunch of common interests to act as glue.

when they do that slightly eerie, intense active listening when the other is speaking, it's them having a synchronicity that has nothing to do with how guys usually bond. (that's why my vestal virgins au yes I know it's weird)

Lando wasn't in any position of power for any of that to be relevant with Carlos or Daniel - Carlos was so far advanced already in his career and Daniel had his thing going on w McLaren that Lando had no control over (and rightly didn't respond to people demanding he show some kind of shame?? or partake in the blame). so loyalty never really played a part in his partnerships with those two, whereas (and maybe as a result of that) Lando's loyalty to McLaren as a team only grew each season. so seeing someone close to his own age but far behind in experience, work so hard and prove so early on that he wants to stay, absolutely brought out a pride from Lando for Oscar that I really hope he will also extend to himself more. major Zak Brown levels of back pats to Lando.

and side note but it needs to no longer be a question or point of contention when Lando says that Silverstone and then the double podiums are superior races for him. Lando loves his F1 buddies, absolutely. but Lando didn't burn through junior championships by favoring his buddies. he loves racing and his team more. and he sure didn't get that second place podium in Singapore because of a buddy, it was because of the position he'd put himself in. just like how Carlos would have given DRS to anyone behind him who was on older tires like he was to ensure that win. like, let's remember the manic obsession that has brought these men to where they are. buddies are a part-time thing. rpf is my meat and drink but I'll never confuse it up with that reality lol.

4:45 the Senna-Prost comparison - and I could probably get all deep about the youngest generation referring to those old bitter alpha male rivalries as something long gone (but I won't). but it's a really good call-back to Monza and the coming together because there's Oscar's ability to see his performance clearly and where it went wrong for him leading to that third place and not higher. and god, I am in no way saying that it's possible to compare Lando being in his fifth season without a race win to a rookie celebrating his first podium. I just really hope that Lando reminds himself that he's come of age in F1 in the Max Verstappen era and that in the cool down room at Qatar, Oscar giddily thanked Mercedes for clearing a path for him. that it doesn't always have to be pure perfection and pace to keep him afloat. sometimes points are points and serendipity plays her part.

"I've been drowned by Lando in champagne" god I will never be over Lando's smug toothy smile

and I will also never be over the way Lando went from clearly dreading being the "older/experienced" teammate and not knowing what to make of Oscar's quiet, reserved personality, to the intense proprietary authority of practically holding Oscar up by his collar like a prize cat in Suzuka and saying "this is mine! I helped make this what it is! look how good this is!"

all while baptizing him in champagne <3

[syntheticfoxfire]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ niragi + fireworks [post-borderland] yes i'm late

The night is getting loud. As the world approaches the end of yet another year, people on the streets are getting wilder and louder, and even if there's still plenty of time until midnight, some of them are already shooting off fireworks. The pretty lights sparkle in the night sky, lighting up the night.

Niragi's never been one to appreciate things just because they’re beautiful. Yet for some reason, each New Year’s Eve he stands on the balcony of your apartment and watches the sky erupt in colors. He seems to be looking past them, though, lost in thought.

He’s never told you about the scars on his body, how exactly he got so badly burned, and you don’t push. You have your theories, of course. After years of knowing him, at times almost analyzing his behavior, you’re pretty sure you know - and you suppose he’s aware of it too.

You were fortunate enough to avoid the whole catastrophe that happened in Tokyo, but you were fascinated and read about every article and interview with the victims out there. Most of them, if not all, mentioned seeing fireworks. In hindsight, of course, it is apparent that that’s not what the lights were, but it explains a lot. It explains the lost, almost longing, look on your boyfriend’s face as he stares at the night sky.

You open the doors to the balcony and shiver in the chilly night air. You’re sure he’s heard you come out, but you still move cautiously to avoid startling him as you wrap your arms around his waist and rest your head on his left shoulder. After all this time, he still prefers you don’t look at the burned half of his face. He makes an annoyed noise when you resist his attempts to pull you to his side instead.

“Just a moment, I promise,” you whisper. You can feel him rolling his eyes. His body tenses and relaxes under your touch, as if it can’t decide whether to enjoy it or shrug you off. You hope one day he’ll learn to accept it. It’s not your fault his back is so comfortable and it feels so good to hold him.

Eventually though you relent and let him guide you to stand in front of him. He seems much more comfortable having you trapped between his body and the railing. You can’t really see him now, which you suppose is another bonus for him.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you like the fireworks so much and say it’s cute,” you hum as you carefully cover one of his hands with yours. He scoffs, stepping closer until your back is pressed against his chest and the railing digs into your stomach.

“Good thing you’re smart,” he bites back.

Another firework blows up in the sky, huge and majestic. It colors the world in hues of red for a few seconds, as if it was splattered in blood. You want to see Niragi, but he’s made it clear he doesn’t want to be seen. You’re grateful he’s accepted your presence at least. 

“Are you thinking about it?” whatever it is, you ask quietly, softly rubbing your thumb across the back of his hand. He stays quiet for a few seconds.

“Doesn’t matter,” he responds reluctantly, and you don’t push. There’s tension in his voice and body that wasn’t there before and you feel vaguely sorry that you’ve asked. It’s not like you need to know every little thing about him, but you can’t help being curious - especially since this is kind of a big deal.

“Alright, but I’m here if you ever need to talk. I can just sit and listen,” you reassure him, again. Sometimes you’re tempted to try and count all the things you’re dying to hear about.

“You don’t need to hear about my fuck ups,” he sneers. In response you hum and tilt your head back to rest on his shoulder. He allows it.

“I don’t but I want to. I’m already yours, Niragi. I’m not going anywhere no matter what you tell me,” you try to look at him, but he gently takes your jaw between his fingers and tilts your head back down to look straight in front of you.

“Just watch the fireworks,” he doesn’t sound upset, which is rare and surprising and works well in making you listen to him.

He doesn’t speak afterwards, but one of his arms snakes around your waist and pulls you closer to him. He holds you tightly, possessively, and you wonder whether maybe you should’ve worded your response differently.

That’s one more question to ponder in the new year.

[cowboydisaster]

The Fire In Your Eyes

part VIII: horseshoe overlook iv

pairing: Arthur Morgan x fem!reader

word count: 15.2k

summary: it's time for the train job, the biggest job you've ever done. You've got a bad feeling about it, and by the end you wish you would have listened to your gut.

a/n: Surprise! Early post! Thank you for your patience with this chapter! Yall know I always upload on Wednesday, but i was so sick that i couldn't write, and i had to go to the ER on tuesday night to get fluids. Anyway, this has been the scariest chapter to write ever. Don't kill me please and please don't give up on this series... love yall, don't yell at me and please trust me. This chapter was too long and got split into two parts: part two will be posted in three days time.

beta read by @margowritesthings

warnings: violence, death, minors dni, 18+

series extras

SERIES MASTERPOST

Arthur leaves long before you even wake up, heading back down to Blackwater to find Sean. It gives you a sick feeling in your stomach, but you trust he’ll be okay. Arthur is smart, and even though he's good at getting himself in sticky situations, he's equally good at getting out of them. It doesn't do much to help your worry, but it’s all you can cling to for right now.

You swirl your half empty cup of coffee in your hand, leaning down for the percolator to reheat it. The fire is warm, alongside the sun, and you find yourself grateful for the off the shoulder shirt you’d picked up a few days ago. It's the perfect temperature you think, tasting the bitter coffee. You're startled out of your thoughts by a weary presence.

“Penny for your thoughts, ma’am?” Kieran asks, walking passed to sit down opposite of you on a crate. He looks nervous, like he was afraid to come sit, and you feel sorry for it. Kieran seems like a nice man, just someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Just thinkin’ about all that's goin’ on… I see they let you live, huh?” You chuckle, and Kieran nods, nervously. 

“Well Mr. Morgan convinced Dutch to let me stay, I thought maybe that was your doin.” Kieran says, and your eyebrow pings up in shock. 

“Did he now?” You hum, surprised by Arthur’s choice, “No, That was all Mr. Morgan. Well good for you, I just hope he won’t regret it.”

“Oh he won’t! I'm real good with horses, miss, worked in a stable most my life. I’m sure I can be of help with anything you folks need, especially in that regard. I can do anything, even latrines. I’ll earn my keep, miss, I will.” Kieran stutters and you nod, eyeing him over. 

“But speakin’ of horses… that palomino over there, the blue eyed one, is she yours?” Kieran asks, nodding towards Athena, who has her neck to the ground, tearing through the bale of hay there. You smile, watching as she pins her ears at Old Boy, keeping the hay for herself. 

“Yeah, she’s mine. Just got her since we’ve been here.” You smile, and Kieran takes note of her configuration. 

“She looks like a thoroughbred. Nice and tall, lean and muscular.” Kieran points out, and you hum at his accuracy. 

“She is.” You respond, eyeing whether or not Kieran has a motive or if he's just a lover of all things equine. You sip at your bitter coffee, letting him speak for himself.

“Y’know palomino thoroughbreds are of the rare sort, n’ with those blues? Well you got a real fine animal, miss.” Kieran says, doting over your mare. You smile, making a note to mention Kieran’s knowledge of horses to Arthur. Maybe that could be his designated contribution. At least he’d be doing something he enjoys instead of getting harassed and threatened by the gang all day. 

“Thank you.” You hum, drinking the rest of your coffee. 

"Well I reckon I better take my coffee and head back to shuckin' corn till they give me a better job. But it was real nice talkin' to you, miss. You're the first person who's treated me like a person rather than an animal since I've been here." Kieran smiles, filling up his cup with the percolator before nodding to you and heading back to Pearson's wagon. You frown, feeling sorry for him. You were lucky enough to have been found by Arthur, but it could have gone any other way. O'Driscolls could have found you first, and you could be in Kieran's shoes right now. 

Sighing, and taking your cup of coffee, you stand up and walk past Strauss's tent, ignoring his greeting. There's a little log sitting near the edge of the cliff behind his tent, and it's a perfect little spot to sit and think. Not wanting to be bothered, your eyes stay pinned on the log as you make your way towards it. The view is breathtaking, you can see everything from the Dakota River to the tops of the Grizzlies from the spot as you sit down, drinking in the warm air. It's a secluded little area, far enough from camp to get away from the arguments and bickering, but close enough for safety. You're enjoying your solitude, watching two bucks fight down below the cliff, they're antlers are stuck together as they rip and rug. It's an interesting sight, until it's interrupted by a throat clearing behind you. 

"John." You sigh, annoyed not with his presence but the fact that you know why he's here. 

"Nice to see you too." John chuckles, bringing his leg over the log to sit next to you with a cigarette between his lips.

“Gotta get some supplies for this train job, I could use an extra hand that ain't a dumbass.” John asks, leaning backwards to stretch. You sigh, not wanting to even think about the damn train job. But nonetheless, you nod. 

“Sure. What exactly is your plan for goin’ about it?” You ask, scooching towards John as he pinches the cigarette between his fingers, shaking it before tossing it on the ground. He pulls a map from his pocket, unfolds the heavily used paper, and holds it out for you to see. 

“Trains' comin’ from Riggs Station. It’s dropping off its security detail in The Heartlands, and after dark it’s heading down to Rhodes to pick up the next regiment.” He explains, tracing his finger over the paper from Riggs Station to Rhodes. 

“So it’ll be completely unguarded for this whole stretch of tracks?” You ask. It sounds too good to be true, but you know that John and Arthur have done this enough by now. They know how to get proper information. But the idea of the train job still makes your stomach flip with anxiety as you’ve never robbed anything as big as a train. 

“Well, not exactly. The security that they’re payin the big bucks for won’t be there, but we expect a few armed passengers, and some local boys guardin’ the train for extra cash. It won't be completely unguarded, but it sure as hell won’t be a militia like you’d expect.” 

You nod, taking the map from his hands gently, and looking it over. 

“Where do we board, n’ how are we boardin’ it?” You ask, and John places his index finger over a little area labeled Dewberry Creek, just past the Lemoyne/New Hanover stateline. 

“Here. We’ll have to stop the train, or it’ll take us right into town. I figure we get an oil wagon, ease it over the tracks. When that train comes through and sees that oil? It’ll stop just fine. We board her, encourage those rich bastards to give up their grammy’s pearls and we ride out.” John explains, tucking the map back into his pocket.

“Alright… seems like a solid plan.” You admit, ignoring your gut, “Where do we get a full oil wagon?” You ask, dusting some dirt off of your new jeans. 

“That’s where you come in. Only place I reckon we find one is the oil fields, out in The Heartlands, you know of it?”

You shake your head no, “Uh-uh.”

“Well it's well guarded for the most part, but most of those guys sleep or drink on the job. And they don’t get paid enough to give a damn. I’m heading over now to scout the place out, get an idea of the schedule. Thought maybe you could tag along, put that head to use instead of washin’ clothes for old Susan.”

You raise an eyebrow, unsure if he's just complimented you or insulted you, but still, you nod. 

“Alright. Let me pack some stuff, I’ll meet you by the horses.” 

John nods as you walk back towards your tent. With a sigh, you pull the canvas open. Your saddle bag is sitting on your bed, and you stuff it with some provisions and a change of clothes, then decide that you’ll need to grab some more ammo from Arthur's tent just in case. Once everything is all packed and settled, you swing your saddlebag over your shoulder and head back out. You stop around the back of Arthur’s wagon, picking up a few cases of express bullets and some throwing knives from the makeshift armory. 

“What does she want from him now? I never liked hearin' about her…” Marybeth hisses, and you look up, startled, realizing she is standing in Arthur’s tent. You’re peeking around the back of the wagon, eavesdropping as Marybeth places a crisp white envelope on Arthur’s bedside table.

“I always thought Mary was nice…” Tilly responds, picking up the envelope and looking it over before returning it. 

“Nice like a patch of poison ivy.” Marybeth bites, and Tilly rolls her eyes. 

“You didn’t even know her. Not when she was really around, anyway. She was always kind, just… didn’t agree with our life. Can you blame her?” Tilly sighs, and they walk out of the tent together. 

Your eyebrows pull together, and you walk around the outside of his tent until you're at the entrance. You hum, looking at the envelope before striding through his tent towards it. It’s upside down on his table, and you know you shouldn’t be snooping through his mail, but you pick it up and flip it over regardless. Written in sloppy cursive is ‘Arthur’ and you look after the lettering for a while. The paper is fancy, the kind that is expensive and only available in the city. Your finger trails over the lettering, and it itches to tear the red seal off and read the contents, but you restrain yourself. You know if the roles were reversed Arthur would respect your privacy. Sighing, you place the envelope back and meet John by the horses, wondering who Mary might be the whole way over. John is just climbing into the saddle when you approach. 

“Ready to go?” He asks, settling himself down over Old Boy and checking the straps on his saddlebag.

“Sure.” You mumble, mounting up onto Athena and giving her a nice pat. Once you’re settled, the two of you start cantering out of the trails, nodding to Karen who is keeping watch. Instead of riding towards Valentine, John leads you out towards the Heartlands, into unfamiliar territory for you. You can’t help but think about those men, Milton and Ross, and wonder why in the hell you’re all robbing a train right now.

“Why does Dutch keep pushin’ this job?” You holler up, squeezing Athena to run faster after John.  

“I got no idea.” He yells back to you. Once you run over the tracks the terrain changes from grass to dry, sandy dirt, and you try to keep Athena on the trail to avoid getting any rocks lodged in her shoes. 

“It don’t make sense, we should be leavin. Now I don't want to, not at all, but there was Pinkertons right next to our camp, just a stone's throw away.” You shake your head, unbelieving of Dutch’s terrible call. 

“Do you think they know where we are?” John asks, turning in his saddle a bit as he gallops on. 

“No. No if they knew where we are they would have just came to camp… But still, approachin’ us like that when we had Jack with us? Tellin’ us, in front of him, what happened to Mac? They can all go to hell.” You hiss, and John goes quiet for a minute. All you can hear is hooves pounding as you wait for his response. 

“You and Arthur had Jack?” John asks, like he's angry, but mostly surprised. Your eyebrows draw together, unsure of why it’s a big deal.

“Well, yeah. Abigail asked us to watch him for a bit, just to cheer him up.” You respond as he leads you up the bank towards Citadel Rock. John huffs loudly, rolling his eyes and shaking his head as if he disapproves.

“You got a problem with that?” You bite, noticing the tension in his shoulders, and his quiet, aggressive demeanor.

“She acts like I ain’t there… for her or the boy.” John hisses, shaking his head. It grows quiet again as you think back to Abigail’s pleading tears, begging you to take Jack because John wouldn't.

“Are you?” You ask, with some judgment. John really thinks about your question, slowing Old Boy to a trot as he comes up near the slope of Citadel Rock. He left them, but he came back, that counts for something in his eyes. Surely, it counts in Abigail’s eyes too…. 

“Well yeah!” John says defensively, “Im tryin’... tryin’ to get money for them at least, so she can raise the boy up proper.” John says, stopping his stallion at the edge of the cliff, overlooking The Heartlands. You pull Athena up alongside him, stopping so you can look him in the eyes. 

“Money don’t matter if you ain’t there for ‘em.” You whisper, no harshness or judgment in your eyes, although he takes it with such, pulling back and scrunching up his face in anger. 

“The hells that supposed to mean?” He bites, dropping his reins and throwing an arm in the air towards you. You keep your calm demeanor, only wanting to help the little family. You have no quarrels against John or his parenting, but you’re the one in camp watching Abigail comfort a crying Jack when his daddy isn't there to tuck him in night after night.

“It’s just…” You think over your words, tongue darting out over your lips, “Your boys' real upset, he misses ya John. Abigail won't admit it but she misses you too.” Your wrist rests on the horn of your saddle, toying with the leather reins as you watch John’s face soften. He sighs, eyes downcast as he runs his hand over his face, careful not to catch the healing stitches on his right side.

“You think?” He asks, looking up to you, and you nod your head up and down, sure.

“I don't know what I’m doin’ Star.” John sighs, doubting himself. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be there for Jack and Abigail, he doesn't know how to. He doesn't see himself cut out to be a father or a husband, and he has a hard time believing his family wants him around. 

“None of us do,” You huff a laugh, thinking of your own situation with Arthur, “You just gotta try your best to do right by them.” 

John nods, offering you a small, sad smile as he leans over to tap your knee in thanks. Without another word, but with a mutual understanding, you both dismount your horses. Then it’s time to get down to work. John takes both the horses, and he hitches them down the bank a ways so they can’t be seen from the roads or the fields. As he takes them away, you pull out your binoculars. Crouching, you look through the glass and take in the infamous Heartland Oil Fields. There is one big building, the factory, on the left side of the tracks that run straight through the place. On the right are smaller buildings, you’re presuming bunks, outhouses and storage rooms. The entire place is fenced in, except for where the tracks run through and the main entrance, guarded by two armed men. You search for an oil wagon, and find a few but you’re not sure which are empty or full. Armed guards stand all around the place, and there is a damn moat of oil ponds on the right perimeter. You pull the binoculars down, hearing John return as he walks up beside you. He too is eyeing the factory, face drawn up as he thinks over a plan. 

“How do you reckon we go about this?” You ask, handing him over the binoculars. He takes them, and does the same look around that you’ve just had. 

“We stay here and figure out their routine. They have a checkpoint at the front gate, so if we watch them long enough we’ll know which wagons are full and when. Then we slip in at night, once the workers have gone home. We’ll only have to get past the guards.” John explains and you sigh, nodding. You look up at the sun, holding your fingers up to the horizon. It’s nearly 4PM, you’re gonna be here for a while.

“Why don’t you make us a fire or somethin? And grab my bedroll too. This is uncomfortable as hell.” You ask of him as you plop down on the dirt, taking the first watch. 

— — — — 

“Star?” John mumbles, and you groan, eyelashes fluttering. You curl your knees in tighter until John shakes your shoulder.

“Star, get up. It’s time to go.” John says, and those four words alone pull you from your slumber, it's time to go.

In the past six hours you and John had traded shifts a handful of times, and both picked up the same pattern. A wagon is filled every hour on the hour, and then left for only ten minutes while the guards do their rounds. Once the ten minutes are up, the wagon is taken out the front gate by a heavily armed detail, and sent off. You had suggested earlier that it might be easier to steal the wagon after it leaves the oil fields, but John had said the risk of the oil wagon getting shot would be too high. So you stick with the original plan, leaving you only ten minutes to sneak into the place and sneak out with the wagon. It’ll be hard, but it’s your only option. 

“They just started their rounds, hurry up.” John explains as you scramble to your feet. You notice he has the camp taken down already, and the fire is nothing but smoking ashes as you quickly roll up your bedroll. Quietly whistling for Athena, you wait for her to arrive before strapping down your bedroll and jumping onto her back. The ten minute countdown has already begun as you and John gallop down the hill. 

“Which way do we go in?” You ask, running after John towards the right flank of the fenced oil fields. 

“We're gonna come up on the right side, ditch the horses a ways out, and jump the fence. Wagon should be sitting right there. Then we just drive it right out the front gate.” John hollers back, slowing Old Boy down once you can see the fence. Coyotes yip and howl in The Heartlands, making the night even more eerie as you approach the factory. With the dark and the distance, none of the guards can see your horses as you both dismount and break for the fence. You shoo both horses, signaling them to flee. And then you're running, keeping your breaths controlled and steady as you watch out for any straggling guards. John reaches the fence before you do. It’s not very high and he easily jumps over it. 

“C’mon!” John whispers as you throw yourself over the fence, landing painfully on your ankle with a wince. He grabs your elbow, pulling you along with him. Once you're inside, you take a look around to get your bearings. You see a few swinging lanterns in the distance, all guards on watch, but none of them look in your direction. Most of the lanterns near the bunk houses have been snuffed out for the night, leaving you to the shadows. You turn in the other direction and see exactly what you're looking for.

“Right there!” You whisper, pointing ahead to the wagon. It’s pulled in front of one of the tents, and John helps you run towards it. Two white shire horses are hooked up to the wagon, and you’re glad to see that they’re strong and agile. 

“Go on, get up there. I’ll drive.” John says, hushed as he breaks away from you to get on the left side of the wagon. You’re not sure how much time you have, but surely it’s not much. Your heart pumps loudly in your ears as you climb up the side of the wagon, ignoring the slight pain in your ankle. John clambers up, and just as he reaches the bench seat you hear a low, deep growl. You snap your head around to catch the source and the blood runs from your face at the sight of a massive bloodhound. A guard dog. His jaw snaps as he snarls at you with a warning. 

“John…?” You whisper, so quietly that he barely hears. He turns and sees the dog, and his eyes flicker from it to the guards walking on the other side of the factory. The dog's hackles are raised as it snarls, showing its teeth. You know that if it barks, or alerts the guards in any way, you’ll both be caught. John shushes it and slowly starts to roll the wagon away, quietly cueing the horses onward. The dog snarls again, snapping its jaws as you quietly ride the wagon away. 

“What do we do? What if it alerts someone?” You whisper, heart racing. If the dog alerts a single guard, you’ll have every person in the facility shooting at you. 

“I don’t know, drive like hell, I guess.” John offers as you watch the dog. John has the horses going at a nice trot towards the entrance, and sweat runs down your brow as the dog runs after the wagon. You’re just about to breach the front gate when it happens- when the bloodhound does what bloodhounds do. It bays, and it bays loud. 

"What is it boy? What ya find?" Someone hollers, and a lantern flicks on in one of the tents. John flicks the reins over the horse's backs harshly and they pick up a canter towards the front gate. 

“Shit!" You hiss as the dog continues, head tossed up in the air as guards start to come out and find the disturbance. One man comes out from a tent, still in pajamas with a rifle in hand. Your eyes widen as he stares directly at you. 

“Right there! They’re takin’ a wagon!” The barely clothed man yells, and John curses as he smacks the horses with the reins again, and they take off. More guards and workers seem to come out and see you all escaping, and everyone readies their rifles. John steers the horses out the main gate just as bullets start to whiz past your head. 

“Stop them!” Another guard calls out, “Get the damn law!” 

Bullets ping against the wooden wheels of the wagon, and buzz through the air past your head. You lean your head down to protect yourself as you grab your carbine from around your shoulder, good thing you grabbed those bullets. 

“Shoot somethin’!” John yells, maneuvering the horses along the roads in the direction of Dewberry Creek. 

“Im tryin!” You yell back, loading your carbine before popping up and taking down two guards who were shooting from behind the fence. A few bullets ping against the side of the wagon, and you gasp, realizing how quickly it could go up in flames. You pop up from the bench again, and fire into the chests of three men who were running after the wagon.

“Watch the damn oil, you morons!” One of the guards yells to his men. You shoot down three more men before you have to reload again. John is getting you further from the oil fields, and the flashing of gunfire gets farther away until two riders come out after the wagon. You’re still filling up the magazine when they ride up on you, and John ducks, yelling something. A few more bullets whiz passed before you stand up and shoot both men down from their horses. You pant, ducking as three more riders gallop after you both. John has the horses running at a dizzying pace as you stand, taking down two men. You're extra careful not to shoot or hurt the rider's horses as you come up and shoot the last man. 

“Is that the last of them?” John yells as you pant, wiping sweat from your brow and slumping back into your seat. 

“Yeah, that's all.” You breathe heavily, tossing your carbine strap back over your shoulder. You whistle, and turn around to watch for Athena. John does the same, and luckily after a few minutes, both come running behind the wagon. 

“Where we takin’ this again? I know you said the creek, but specifically?” You ask, taking your hat off and setting it in your lap to untie your braid. You pull the cloth tie out, running your fingers through the waves that are now down your back. 

“We’re droppin’ it near this torn down house. I’ll leave the horses go and we'll come back for it when the train comes through.” John explains, and you nod. 

It’s a bit of a ride, especially with the pace you go at. The horses are exhausted and scared from the shootout, so John doesn’t push them past a trot. It's nice to just relax in the passenger seat, and you focus on the humming of bugs and frogs while your heartbeat settles. It's a cloudy night, the kind where a cold fog settles over the place, but you don't mind. It's still beautiful. The moon pokes through the fog in a hazy glow, offering some light for John to lead you to Dewberry Creek. He winds the wagons down the open hills until you reach a small trail along a big dried up creek bed. 

"Guess the creek ain't fairin' so well." You point out, watching as coyotes yip and run through the dried up creek. 

"Guess not." John offers, pulling the wagons toward a structure. It looks like a little house that burned down. The foundation is intact, along with the fireplace and support beams, but the rest has burned away. 

"We pull them off right here." John says, turning the horses to walk in between the house and a patch of trees. He starts to slow them down, and you hop from the wagon before it stops. Immediately you jog around the backside to check the cargo. 

"Shit, John! Shit!" You hiss, taking in the oil wagon that is riddled with random bullet holes. There's about five or six, and no more oil leaks from them. You knock on the side of the wagon as John jumps down, groaning when the wagon sounds hollow. 

"All the oils' gone." You sigh, rubbing your face as John paces around the backside of the wagon. Athena grows antsy from the upset, and she stomps and rears lightly. 

"Now what the hell do we do?" You ask angrily, calling Athena over to comfort her. You hand her an oatcake to munch on and stroke her neck as John comes up with a plan. Athena's gentle nickers calm you down, and you take a deep breath as she leans into your hand. John is standing back from the wagon, hands on his hips as he thinks it over.

"It'll work just the same. The conductor won't know if it's full or not." John says, biting his cheek and you sigh. 

"We can't just go get another one." John huffs, "That oil factory is on high alert now." 

"You're sure it'll work?" You ask, stepping towards him with raised eyebrows.

"It'll work." He reassures you. You nod, sighing and waking towards the front of the wagon where the two white shire horses are hooked up. John does the same on the other side, and you both slice the leather harness straps, freeing the horses. 

"When's it comin' through?" You ask, patting the shire horse to run off. 

"Tomorrow night." John says, and your stomach aches at the thought. Only twenty four hours until your first train job. 

Athena and Old Boy are grazing next to each other just a short walk away from the wagon, and you and John silently walk towards them, sheathing your knives and watching as the pair of white shire horses run up over the hill, bucking and whinnying.

"You ever rob a train before?" John asks, looking over at your anxious expression. You shake your head, coming up to Athena. 

"No, afraid not. Just drunken idiots usually." You chuckle, and John smiles. 

"Y'know I'm glad it was Arthur's watch you stole, and not mine back in Tumbleweed. I probably never would have noticed, and you'd still be runnin' all over hell in the west." John chuckles, and you smile at the memory, mounting onto Athena. 

"Still can't believe he brought ya back like he did, but I'm glad for it." John says, climbing onto his stallion. Your eyebrows pull together lightly at his remark.

"Why's that?" You ask, cueing Athena into a canter with John behind you.

"Arthur, he ain't never brought someone back to camp before you, and he throws a big fuss when someone new comes in. He gets all pissed and leaves for a few days. He says it's 'easier to lie low with less people.' Musta seen somethin' in you, though." John hollers up to you, and your features soften. You wonder why Arthur chose differently for you, why he brought you back to camp. 

"He's different with you." John says, galloping alongside you, and you have to push Athena further ahead to hide the blush on your cheeks. You want to quip something back, but you come up short because you know he's right. You've heard the same testament from each of the girls, Hosea, and Arthur himself. 

It grows quiet as you gallop through The Heartlands, avoiding the roads and any lingering lawmen. It's late, near midnight when you finally get close to camp. You can hear the cheers and laughter from the road, and you smile back at John.

"Guess they found him." You chuckle, trotting Athena under the fallen tree into camp. When you breach the trees, coming into the little opening, the sight has you laughing. Camp is lighter than it's been in a while. Sean is standing on a crate giving some grand speech with everyone gathered around, and by the sound of it he's already drunk. You hitch Athena, and John nudges your elbow. 

"Reckon I'm gonna go be with my family. Thanks for your help." John pats your back before walking off towards the camp. You smile, taking off the straps of Athena's saddle and placing it over the hitching post before walking towards the crowd.

"Get a load of this bastard." Arthur huffs, walking up beside you with two whiskeys in hand, gesturing to Sean. He hands you a drink, and you smile, glad to be home. 

"Found him strung up in a damn tree surrounded by bounty hunters." 

"A-and I owe my life to old English over 'tere!" Sean points to Arthur, "Yep, 'tats right! Old grumpy Arthur Morgan! Come to save me, ya did! You're my brother, ya arsehole!" Sean laughs heartily, jumping down from the crate and approaching the two of you. 

"Miss!" Sean calls out to you, and Arthur chuckles, sipping his drink. Sean comes to you with a big toothless grin, a contagious one, and wraps you in a hug.

"Ah, I've already got the gossip from Ms. Jones, callin ya Star now, eh?" Sean asks, letting you go before nudging you with his elbow, "It's fittin! Y'know they say you twose are tied together like glue!" Sean winks at you lightly, nudging you and gesturing to Arthur. 

"I know a couple good spots for a shag if you two need a getaway. N' I know an Irishman if you get tired a' this ol'-" Sean starts, pointing to Arthur, but Arthur has had enough.

"Would you please shut up?" Arthur bites, hand pulling away from the bridge of his nose as you giggle. Sean puts his hands up in mock surrender. 

"I was just teasin'! Only pullin' yer leg!" Sean chuckles, tipping his hat to you before backing away and rejoining the crowd. 

"I did not miss that kid." Arthur sighs, leading you towards the campfire where Javier sits, playing a tune. Everyone is in good spirits, especially as Hosea enters with Dutch and two huge, full cases of alcohol, announcing the return party. 

"Yes you did." You tell Arthur, smirking as he sits down on the wolf pelt covered log. You sit down right next to him, closer than what's expected, but you're growing used to the proximity, finding comfort in it even. Sean is talking loudly to the girls as everyone gathers around the crates of hooch. The bottles pass around quickly as Javier picks up a new tune. It's one that everyone knows, and you smile. 

"Cielito Lindo." You remark with a chuckle as Javier picks up the rhythm on his guitar. More people gather around the fire. Dutch, John, the girls, Uncle, Lenny, even Abigail and Jack join in as Javier starts to play. Jack sits on John's lap, nestled right next to Abigail, and you smile at them. 

"¡Ay, ay, ay, ay! ¡Canta y no llores!" Everyone hollers out, not sure of the lyrics or their meaning, but enjoying the energetic song. Even Arthur sings along, and you giggle at his steadily behind, off key tune. 

"¡Porque cantando se alegran, Cielito lindo, los corazones!" Javier sings out, passionately stringing the guitar as a few people clap along and laugh. The smile on your face is brighter than it's been in a while as you watch the weight lift off of the gang's shoulders. Arthur is smiling, and for that you are very grateful. You'd do anything to see him like this more often, carefree and happy. Javier continues the song verse, and everyone claps along until the chorus comes. 

"¡Ay, ay, ay, ay! ¡Canta y no llores!" Everyone calls out again, and you hold your drink up a little as you sing it. Javier continues the song, and you chuckle as Jack pulls Abigail up from her seat to dance with him. He spins around and hops with very little rhythm, just having fun. Arthur chuckles beside you, eyes bright as they lay upon the same scene. 

"You want another drink?" Arthur asks, noticing that your first is nearly gone. You shake your head. 

"No thanks, think I'm cuttin' myself off for the night." You say, handing the bottle over for him to finish. 

"I'm surprised you drank at all after that mess in Valentine." Arthur chuckles as Javier sings out the song's verse. 

"I only had one. Don't plan on bein' that sick ever again, and we got one hell of a job to do tomorrow." You whisper, mind lingering on the train job. You'd like to drink, just to forget about it, but heading into it with a foggy mind is the opposite of what you need. Arthur sighs, digging the heel of his boot into the dirt. 

"We do." He remarks, eyes flickering up to Dutch. Arthur can't understand why Dutch is pushing this job right now with the Pinkertons so close. But he trusts Dutch, and knows he'll lead them out of it. You're not so sure. Dutch is watching you from across camp, a snake-like glint in his eye. You can see the way he wants to use you, to play you like his chess piece and defeat some great power. It's useless, it's ridiculous. An outlaw runs from the law, but Dutch is challenging it, intentionally aggravating it. It's a dangerous game. 

"I got a bad feeling about this job, Arthur." You bring up that gut feeling again, and you know you're right. You don't trust this job, and something is going to go wrong. 

"I know you do… You and John get that wagon today?" Arthur asks as Javier picks up a different song on his guitar. 

"We got the wagon just fine, but it's empty. We were caught red handed and they shot it to hell, all the oil leaked out." You sigh, embarrassed to admit the failure to Arthur, "John says it'll work just fine though, the conductor won't know if it's empty or not." You add as Arthur curses. 

"Enough about that, why don't we just enjoy the party?" You ask, wanting to talk about anything other than the train job and the damn empty wagon. Arthur taps your knee with his knuckles. 

"Sure." He says, offering you a small smile and you release a breath. Javier is playing a new song now, one you don't recognize, but it's a joyful tune, light and happy. 

"Arthur!" Marybeth calls from across the fire, giggling and trodding over towards you both with a big, bright smile. 

"Yes, Miss Gaskill?" Arthur asks as Marybeth comes forward and grabs one of his hands. 

"Dance with me?" She asks, leaning back in an attempt to pull him from his seat. He chuckles, looking over to you for a moment with a rosy blush on his cheeks.

"Oh, I think I'll sit this one out-" Arthur starts, but you shove him upwards by his shoulder, laughing. 

"Go on!" You encourage, shooing them with your hands. Marybeth giggles as she pulls Arthur away, and he turns around to shoot you a glare, with pink cheeks. You chuckle, looking after them as she takes him away from the fire. She pulls him just near the back of Dutch's tent, beside the poker table. He takes her hand, standing awkwardly far from her as the other rests on her waist. You can't help but snort as he starts to dance.

He's awful. Truly the man can't dance, but it's just another quirk that you love about him. He swings side to side with her, arms loosely flinging about, and even though it looks ridiculous they both have huge smiles. A few others have joined, and now Dutch spins Molly around eloquently, and Karen and Sean cling to each other, drunk as ever. Your eyebrows pop up in surprise at the two of them. You had only seen Sean in passing before Blackwater, but Karen had never mentioned they were together. 

Your eyes flicker back to Arthur and Marybeth. They still dance merrily, but Marybeth seems to be scolding Arthur over something, arguing with him. Your eyebrows pull together as he huffs, bickering with her like a sibling would. Javier's song crescendos to an end, and as the claps die down, he starts a new one. You recognize it immediately, Ángel de Amor. It's a slower paced song, a sweet and romantic one. People join their own conversations as the song begins, leaving Javier to quietly carry the tune on his own. As it begins, Marybeth and Arthur's argument seems to come to a head as Marybeth gives him one final scold, and then walks away from him with a big smile. Confused, your eyebrows pull together as Arthur returns to you, but he doesn't sit down. He stands in front of you, extending his right hand down to yours. 

"Dance wit' me?" He asks, and you chuckle. 

"I don't know, you gonna trip me?" You ask, smiling up at him. The nervousness breaks away as he chuckles. 

"Not tonight." He says, and you take his hand, letting him pull you to your feet. 

"C'mon." He whispers, leading you past the campfire towards the front of his tent, far enough away from the campfire for some privacy.

Arthur pulls you into the same goofy dance as he did with Marybeth, and you smile brightly. Arthur's sure that your smile could outshine the stars, evoking that joy from you is one of the better things he's done in his life, something he wants to keep doing. 

"¿Quién te cortó las alas, mi ángel? ¿Quién te arranco los sueños hoy?" Javier sings softly as Arthur dances with you. 

"Y'know, I'm sorry to say this Arthur, but you can't dance for shit." You chuckle, glancing down at his feet that move with very little rhythm. 

"Oh I can. I'm just havin' fun. You shoulda seen me in my ballroom days." Arthur quips, and you laugh. You're sure he's joking, how Arthur could willingly be put in a ballroom is beyond you, it's surely a joke. Arthur raises an eyebrow at your laugh, wondering if you're seriously doubting him.

"You weren't never in a ballr-" You start, but are cut off with your own gasp as Arthur pulls you tightly against him. His hand snakes to your waist, his other clasps your hand tightly as he stands up straight and tall with a raised eyebrow. His body is stiff, but relaxed all the like, he's collected in his movements, experienced, as he leans you down, dipping you. Your eyes are wide in shock, as he holds you in the dip with a cocky smirk. Your heart rate pounds with him pulled so tightly against you, your neck exposed and hair cascading down as he bends you backwards. Then he brings you back up, chuckling. 

"You continue to surprise me more and more every day, Arthur." You chuckle, still in disbelief, "Where in the hell did you learn that?" You ask, heart beat returning to normal as he pulls you against him again, swaying you in a very simple slow dance. 

"Had to take lessons once when I was younger. Didn't care for it at all, but I was an idiot back then." Arthur says, and you hum, wondering if these fancy dancing lessons have anything to do with the letter in his tent.

"Ángel, Ángel, ángel de amor. No te abandones." Javier continues the song as Arthur pulls you a little closer to him, hand warm on your waist.

Your cheeks flush, hidden away in his chest as Arthur sways with you on the grass. A few eyes linger on you both, but Arthur turns your back to them so you never know. He's enjoying the moment. You haven't left yet, haven't walked away with blushed cheeks or made an excuse as to why you can't dance with him, and that has to count for something he's sure.

 It grows quiet between the two of you as you rest your head against his shoulder and sway with him. Soon your arm grows tired, so Arthur snakes both of his around your waist and you place yours on his chest. It's incredibly vulnerable for you to be like this, but you trust Arthur. He hasn't pushed you. Abigail nudges John across the camp, nodding her head to you, and a few more eyes linger on you both. Arthur ignores them, keeping you in a position so that you can't even see the nosey stares. 

"You look beautiful." Arthur whispers, eyes looking down at you, watching as the wind tousles your hair and your dark red shirt brings out your complexion beautifully. Your eyes sparkle up at him, but you blush and hide them away in his shoulder as he sways you to the music.

"Arthur, stop." You chastise, cheeks red as you hide them. You're a bit upset that he's ruined the mood, taken your mind from simple dancing to the conundrum of your heart. He hums deeply, nodding his head. 

"You ain't ready yet, I know… I'll wait 'til you are. For you, I will." Arthur whispers, and tears begin to pool in your eyes, "And if you decide you don't want any a' this, that's okay too. I'm still your best friend." Arthur whispers, and tears run down your face silently, soaking into his dark shirt. 

"I'll dance with you for real one day, somewhere nice." Arthur whispers, and you look up to his green eyes. They soften when they see the tears falling from your own. You're thinking of a proper response when Arthur speaks up for you. 

"S'okay. You don't gotta say anything." Arthur whispers, thumb wiping away the tears from your cheek. You sniffle, hands clinging to the lapels of his shirt as the music continues on for a bit longer. 

"Yo no siento el que me hayas querido. Yo no siento el que me hayas amado." Javier sings, strumming his guitar. 

Arthur's heart aches, holding you like this, swaying with you and knowing you won't allow yourself to open up. He places his chin atop your head, inhaling deeply before letting the breath go with his worries. You're here now, that's all he can ask for.

Your heart aches just the same. It's torn in two,  both sides fighting for different things. One is fighting for what you know: independence, freedom, and solitude in the west without being held down by a gang. And the other is fighting for what you want: family and friendships, the safety of numbers, purpose and most of all him. 

You sigh, squeezing your eyes shut while blocking the thoughts out, letting yourself enjoy the moment. 

"I'm sorry, Arthur." You whisper, and he leans back, unsure if he's heard you right. 

"What on earth are you apologizin' for?" He asks as Javier's song comes to a bittersweet end. 

"Me… us." You whisper, gesturing to him and yourself. You're a mess, unable to get your feelings in order, unable to figure out what you want, and to tell him. You feel awful, dragging him along without ever fully opening up to him but it's so hard. 

Arthur takes your hands in his own, and you look up to his eyes. 

"Cut that out. Don't you apologize to me, ya hear? Not for this." Arthur says, no room for argument and you nod. 

"Now c'mon. Plenty of people waitin' for us at the fire." Arthur says, pulling you by the hand towards the camp. You pass by John's tent, feeling a little better.

With a small smile on your lips, you walk on with him. That is until you hear a shuffling from John's tent, and a groan. You stop dead in your tracks, looking up to where John and Abigail sit next to Jack by the fire. If they're at the campfire… who's in their tent?

"C'mere ya little minx!" Sean chuckles from inside the tent. Your jaw drops, and your hand falls slack from Arthur's. He turns at your reaction, catching the same scene. 

"Isn't this John's tent?" Karen asks, and you hear the ripping of buttons immediately. You look at Arthur with wide eyes, and a slack jaw, chuckling in horror.

"Eh, it's not like he's usin' it anyways!" Fabric hits the floor as you and Arthur stare at the closed tent in shock, "Ah, you're beautiful Karen Jones, beautiful, I love ya! And I love these too!" Sean chuckles and your cheeks burn red.

"Oh." Karen whispers, disappointed in something as you start to laugh. 

"Meet Macguire junior!" Sean hollers, and immediately Arthur clasps his hand over your mouth to quiet the loud laughter that was about to fall from it. 

"Is- is that it?" Karen asks, and you're nearly wheezing as Arthur keeps his hand over your mouth, chuckling himself until you're out of earshot from their tent. 

"Oh my god." You laugh until tears form in your eyes, and Arthur is laughing as well. You've managed to escape in front of Arthur's tent to avoid the show those two are putting on. Once your laughter dies down, you wipe your eyes, moving them to the campfire once more. 

Abigail has taken Jack into her lean-to next to Strauss's wagon to lie down for the night, and some of the girls along with Dutch and Molly have retired for bed. 

"You comin' back to the fire?" Arthur asks, following your gaze. You look up to him, then to the festivities, biting your cheek. 

"I think I'm gonna go to bed, actually." You whisper, feeling bad for bailing so soon. You're exhausted from the oil wagon today, and you want to be well rested for tomorrow. Arthur’s face falls a bit as he glances at the party behind him, then to his pocket watch. 

"So soon?" Arthur asks, looking a little disappointed. 

"I'm sorry Arthur, it's just with the train tomorrow… I want to be well rested with a clear head." You whisper. 

"I understand." He whispers, it's past one in the morning, and he knows you're tired, "I reckon I'll stay up for a bit yet, keep these boys in line… Get some sleep, Star." Arthur whispers, coming forward to gently chastise you, tapping your temple, "and stop worryin' about the train. It'll go just fine." He offers with a smile before backing away. 

"Night Arthur." You mumble, attempting to follow his instructions and release your anxieties. 

"G'night, Star."

— — — — 

The next morning, you wake up earlier than expected. You don't know what time it is, still haven't replaced Arthur's pocket watch from where it was left behind in Blackwater. But it's quiet enough for you to know that no one else is up. You stretch in bed, enjoying the feel as your achy joints pop. You flex your ankle, noticing that the ache has subsided from your less than stellar landing yesterday, and then you're getting up.

You pull on a dark green overshirt, one of your favorites, a black pair of jeans that button up the whole way, and a little white neckerchief, tied in the front. It's a cute outfit, and you hum, checking yourself over before re braiding your hair and topping it with your black hat. Then you're on the move, in search of some coffee. 

You find that you were wrong, you're not the only one up. You chuckle as Jack whizzes up to you, more excited than you've ever seen. 

"Aunt Star!" He jumps excitedly, taking your hand and pointing to the hitching posts, "look!" He shouts, giggling. 

Your eyebrows knit together at the sight of Kieran taking on the role of the camp farrier. He has a very grumpy Balius with him, and he's working on pulling the nails from the shire's massive shoe. 

"Kieren's shoin' the horses…? You ask, confused as to why Jack's so excited, then a chuckle sounds out from your right. Arthur is leaning over his shaving station, face partially covered in shaving cream as he trims his mustache and beard with a barber's blade. You smile at the sight, something you've not seen him do before. Of course he shaves with an incredible amount of detail and care, just like everything else he does. 

"Well…" Arthur taps the blade against his pail of water before returning it to his cheek, "when Kieran's done, little Jack here will have four new shoes for playin' horseshoes' with everyone. We haven't been able to play in a long while, not since before you joined us." Arthur explains, and you smile at the idea. 

"Well then I can't wait!" You say, rubbing some dirt off of Jack's cheek before he runs off, on his way to tell his very hungover daddy about the ordeal. 

"You're good with him. He really seems to care about you." Arthur remarks and you smile. 

"Ah, it's nothin'. He's a good kid." You mumble, remembering your earlier task of needing coffee, and you spot the percolator from across camp near Pearson's stew pot. You wonder if it's even full, with so few of the gang members awake. 

"I'm gonna go make some coffee, want some?" You ask, but Arthur stops you.

"Already made ya some. It's sittin on my table, should still be hot." He says, wiping the extra cream from his face with a damp towel.

"On the ball this morning, are we?" You ask, chuckling as you move inside his tent to find a steaming tin cup of coffee. You gratefully accept the bitter coffee, enjoying the way the cup warms your hands and the caffeine wakes your mind. 

"Well I need a favor." He asks, turning towards you, "Ride with me?" 

You raise an eyebrow at him, seeing that he's bribed you, but you nod anyway. 

"Sure, where to?" You ask as he comes around the side of his tent, leading you to the large map plastered to the side of his wagon. 

"Think right here is a good spot." He taps the map right over a little marshy field labeled Heartland Overflow.  

"Why are we goin' all the way out there?" You ask, eyeing over the map. The marsh is near a spot marked Emerald Ranch, a place you haven't heard of before. 

"There's a feller nearby that runs a fence. I managed to steal some stuff from the camp where they had Sean, reckon I'll head down and sell it off. Then I figure me n' you can spend the mornin' there. I know you're worried about this train, we can just rest away from camp till it's time." Arthur explains, pulling out his hunting knife to sharpen the blade as he does. 

"Okay, that sounds nice." You smile, releasing a breath before taking a sip from your coffee, "Should I take my stuff for the train or will we be back?" You ask, gesturing to your tent. 

He follows your gaze, thinking for a moment. 

"Ya better take it, I don't know how long we'll be out." He mumbles, and you nod before walking back towards your tent. Amidst your anxieties, you had packed everything you might need for the train: your guns, mask, canned goods in case you get stuck away from camp, extra ammo and the shotgun you'd found at Six Point cabin. Looking over your bed and nightstand just to make sure you haven't missed something, you back out of the tent. 

"Kieran done with Balius?" You ask, keeping your voice quiet as to not wake up the many sleeping, hungover gang members. 

"Looks to be just about." Arthur says, nodding to where Kieran drops Balius's back hoof to the ground, giving him a pat. 

"C'mon then. I'll lead the way." He adds. 

You both take your time tacking up the horses. For once, there's no rush to be anywhere. You brush Athena's golden coat thoroughly, petting her and sneaking her treats while Arthur does the same for his stallion. You ease the saddle on her, tightening the cinches just enough before mounting up. 

"Ready?" You ask, looking down to Arthur with a chuckle as he is just putting Balius's bridle on.

"Just a minute." He says, rather grumpily. And you wait for him, loosening your reins so that Athena can graze while he clambers up onto his massive horse. Once he's up, he nods for you to follow him out of camp. It's a decently long ride. Emerald Ranch is pretty far out there, but it's close to Dewberry Creek, so at least you won't be far from the train come dark. You focus on the scenery, watching the way the landscape changes the further you ride on. As you get closer, the jutting cliffs turn to grassy plains, and bison cause the ground to shake as they thunder across the fields. 

"Are we close?" You holler up to Arthur. Your back is a little sore from the long ride, and you slip your feet out of the stirrups to give your legs rest. 

"Sure…  Why? You feelin alright?" Arthur turns in his saddle, glancing over your form to check. Really you don't feel alright. You didn't sleep much last night, truthfully you're not sure how Arthur is awake because he slept less than you. You're still not able to shake your nerves either. 

"Yeah, just tired is all." You semi lie, but Arthur isn't fooled. 

"I'll take you to the Overflow first. You can set us up a proper picnic while I run this stuff down to the fence. Sound good?" Arthur asks, turning Balius off the main road. 

"Yeah. You brought a picnic?" You smile, noticing that Arthur's saddlebags are bulkier than usual. You should have noticed earlier that they're stuffed to the brim. 

"I did. Nothin' fancy but I figured you might get hungry while we're out here." Arthur answers, and you chuckle, wondering what treats he's packed for you. You trot through the grass, coming upon a little collection of grassy ponds. This must be Heartland Overflow. It's beautiful, and wildlife runs about, scattering at the sound of the horse's hooves. 

"Why don't you take my bag n' find us a nice spot?" Arthur asks as you ride up alongside Balius. He turns in his saddle, untying the knots that hold his saddle bag on before slumping it over Athena's croup. 

"Okay. Don't take too long or I'm gonna be havin' this all for myself." You admit, chuckling as you turn Athena away, separating from Arthur. 

Arthur shakes his head with a smile before pushing Balius into a canter towards a green-roofed barn in the distance. Once he's down the other side of the hill and you can't see him any longer, you turn to your surroundings. 

Across the pond is a large weeping willow. It provides a perfect amount of shade, and makes a beautiful spot for the morning. You kiss to Athena, urging her to walk through the ankle deep water toward the other side. Water splashes up and soaks onto your boots as Athena trots through it, enjoying the coolness on her legs. Once you're on the other side, under the weeping willow, you slide down from your mare. You don't bother to hitch her. She trusts you enough to come when you call, and you want her to enjoy the grassy fields while she can. You take the heavy saddle bag and toss it to the ground under the willow before sitting on your knees to go through it. 

First you take out a blanket, it's a big blue one, and you stand to spread it out on the grass. The wind works to your advantage as you sprawl it out, making a perfect cushion for you both to sit on. Then, seated on the blanket, you pull out two cans of peaches, two bread rolls, a can of strawberries, two slices of beef jerky, and a chocolate bar. You eye the food hungrily, laying it out nice for when Arthur comes back. Then, just to double check, you reach back into the bag. Your fingers brush against an unfamiliar smooth texture, and your eyebrows pull together as you grip it, taking it out. 

Immediately your eyes go wide as, from the bag, you bring out Arthur's journal. You hold the precious book in your lap, looking down to the heavily used pages before looking up at the ridge.

You shouldn't… but Arthur won't be back for some time and you really want to know what he's written. You've only seen the contents of his journal once, back when he showed you in Horseshoe. 

Releasing a breath, you curse yourself, deciding just to flip to one page and then put it back. You run your thumb across the pages, flipping to one of the more recent entries. Immediately you smile, chuckling as your eyes run across the page briefly. It's a drawing of you and Lenny. He's leaning on the bar, drinking a beer and you're dancing in front of the pianist. Arthur had managed to capture the moment perfectly, as if he had paused time and drawn it. You scan down your smiling face, looking back to you in the form of Arthur's sketching. Even in the drawing you can see the drunken haze in your eyes, the freedom as you danced to the piano to your heart's content. 

Then your eyes flicker to the other side of the page where a neatly written entry is scribbled diagonally on the paper. 

In some ways I hope I never forget this night. In others, I wish to wipe it from my mind entirely. It seems that alcohol loosened Star's lips, and I guess it loosened mine too. I just hope I don't come to regret the things I said, the things I remember at least. 

You look up from the journal, jaw slack as you attempt to remember what happened that night. What had you said? What had Arthur said? 

You swallow thickly, looking down to the journal with some worry before flipping to the next page. 

Mary sent me a letter. Said she's in town and heard talk of us in Valentine. She wants to see me, said she misses what we had. I used to. I used to miss her a lot, but I reckon that's all old business now. I think I've finally put Mary in the past, moved on after all these goddamn years. I got some hope now, something good for once. 

You look up from the journal with your jaw open again. His journal has left you with more questions than answers, and you huff. Mary clearly meant something to Arthur at one point, perhaps an old fling? But the girls knew of her, so she had to mean something more. 

With a newfound sour mood, you tuck Arthur's journal back into his bag. Is it jealousy you feel? Or anger? You're not sure, but without having met her, Mary manages to get under your skin. You wonder if she's pretty, and if she has the money to wear nice dresses and makeup. Then you sigh, frustrated. Even though his journal is stuffed back into his bag, you can feel its leather cover burning into your skin, bugging you. 

Hooves sound out from the ridge line, and you look up to see Arthur appear over the hill. He's cantering down towards you, satchel lighter now that he's pawned off some items. Even though you're glad he's back, you can't help the annoyed curiosity that bubbles up in your stomach. 

Oblivious, Arthur rides up to the blanket before dismounting. 

"Good spot." He says, sending Balius off after grabbing a flask from his satchel, "Turns out old Seamus sells too." Arthur chuckles, tossing the moonshine flask down onto the blanket by your legs. 

Attempting to crack a smile, you take the flask and unscrew the lid. Arthur rests down on the blanket beside you, sitting just a few inches from you. Once the lid is undone, you take a swig of the alcohol. It burns, more so than anything you've ever drank, and you cough, throat raw from the stuff. 

"Jesus." You cough, handing the flask back to Arthur. 

"Moonshine. Nasty stuff." Arthur jokes, taking a drink from the same flask. He doesn't seem to mind it, only groaning once it's down. Arthur sees the distant look on your face, he notices that you haven't touched any of the food laid out either. 

"You okay?" Arthur asks, a little crease in between his eyebrows. You look upset, and Arthur hopes that you're not worrying about the train. 

"Who's Mary?" You blurt out, not even realizing you've actually said it out loud until Arthur's face draws up. 

"What?" Arthur asks, looking almost offended, and very surprised. 

"I asked you, who's Mary?" You repeat, looking up to Arthur. Your tone is irritated, and you realize that you're ruining the picnic, but you can't bring yourself to stop. You're mad, mad because Arthur has managed to keep this from you, and apparently you're the only one in the damn gang that doesn't know about her. 

"How do you even know about Mary?" Arthur scoffs, eyes squinted as he leans back from you. 

"Jesus, I didn't realize she was a secret. I guess I just wanna know why she's callin' you out to her house all the sudden when I haven't even heard of her before." You bite. 

Arthur's demeanor changes then, shifting to the angry, threatening man that you've only seen a handful of times in action. Part of you wants to shy away, but you push your shoulders back and meet him head on with the same stubborn aggression. 

"Did you read my damn mail?" Arthur hisses, glancing at you, and then down to the bag at your side. Everything seems to click in his head then, and he huffs humorlessly. 

"No. No you read my goddamn journal, didn't you? Just couldn't keep your nosey eyes off them pages huh?" He bites, picking up the bag just to toss it at your feet. The contents spill out in your lap, and his open journal falls out alongside the candies he had brought for you, the yellow ones. 

"Y'know I hope you read it all. I hope you read every damn page, cause then you won't have to ask anymore questions. We wouldn't be playin this damn game…" Arthur hisses, pacing as he begins to berate you. "Why do you have the right to ask me about Mary when you haven't told me shit about your past? You can't even talk to me. You can't open up at all, closed off like a damn bottle, but you have no problem pryin' into everybody else's lives!" He growls, waiting for you to bite back.

On the ground, feeling like a fool, your lip trembles. You know he's right. He's hit the nail right on the head with his assumption, but it hurts nonetheless. You've stepped too far, you know, but it doesn't stop Arthur from overstepping too. 

"Heard you was pryin' into John's business too. God- you're a hypocrite. Did you think at all about your inability to handle your own shit before you went and did that?" Arthur fumes, and you bring your knees up to your chin. Arthur is waiting for your retort, for your comeback. He knows it'll come, but with his back to you, waiting, it doesn't. You always have a retort, and your silence is louder than any insult you could have thrown back at him. When he turns back towards you, already realizing he's crossed a boundary, he sees the tear track running down your cheek.

"Don't." You whisper, sniffling back the tears that fall so often now, "I can take this from anyone but you." You whimper, head falling to your knees. 

When Arthur's eyes land upon you he doesn't know what to do. You look so small, crumpled up on the ground, a mess. He wants to argue with you, to be mad about the journal, but at the same time he wants to comfort you. He knows what you're battling right now, and he knows he shouldn't have brought it up. Feeling like an ass, Arthur slumps to the ground at your side again. He lays back against the blanket, looking up at the sky before sighing. 

"Mary was my fiancé. Long time ago. Ain't talked to her in years." Arthur admits, and you peek up from your knees, wondering what sparked the change in his tone. 

"Now that's all I'm giving you until you tell me somethin too. But for now, eat somethin. We gotta get movin soon." Arthur says, coldly. 

— — — —

It's nearly dark. There's just enough light for you to make the trip over to Dewberry Creek. You lead the way silently, still not having said a word to Arthur since the argument. You don't know what to say. Apologies aren't exactly your strong suit. You're mad. Mad at Arthur, but mostly mad at yourself for ruining the day with your selfishness, your hypocrisy as Arthur put it. 

You can hear Sean rambling as you approach the old building, and you trot Athena up to where the wagon is hidden. 

"Why the hell are you here?" Arthur snaps at Sean, clearly still irritated from earlier. You've put him in a sour mood, one that everyone is going to have to deal with. 

"Oi I’m just taggin along! Back for a day n’ already jumpin inta the action! My da always used to say that jumpin in was better than jumpin’ out! But I think he was talkin about gettin some arse!" Sean chuckles, not skipping a beat over Arthur's attitude. 

"Oh, shut up." Charles groans, and at the sound of his voice you notice him leaning against one of the beams of the burned down house. John is already in the driver's side of the wagon, and Taima and Old Boy are hooked up to the front. You dismount, walking over to the wagon behind Arthur. 

"Look at us! Four strong shootin men, and a lady!" Sean chuckles, climbing up on the wagon beside John who rolls his eyes. 

"Shouldn't we be going over the plan?" Charles points out, climbing onto the side of the wagon to hang on, just as you and Arthur do on the other side. The wagon begins to roll out of the trees as John smacks the reins over the horse's backs. 

"We roll the wagon over the tracks and leave the horses go." John explains, "They'll see the oil and stop. It's easy." 

Sean turns in his seat, looking over the wagon before turning back to John. 

"Yeah but t'eres no oil in the wagon." Sean points out, and collectively everyone else rolls their eyes. 

"Well the conductor don't know that, so it don't matter!" John bites, irritated with everyone's doubts and questions. 

"I don't like it…" You whisper, gripping onto the metal bars of the wagon as it rolls down the road, inching closer towards the train tracks. 

"We ain't got much of a choice." John replies. Once the plan is set, Arthur begins ordering people around, crafting a more detailed plan for the job. 

"As soon as she stops, board her. Charles, deal with the conductor and the front security. John take the passengers. Sean and Star, as soon as she slows, head to the baggage car." He orders, and you roll your eyes at the assignment he's stuck you with. 

"And what are you gonna do?" Charles asks. 

"I'm gonna make sure she slows." 

John pulls the wagon forward, slowing the horses to a stop once the oil wagon is situated over the tracks. You jump down as John and Arthur begin untying the horses from the front, sending them away into the woods.

"Is everyone good with the plan?" Arthur hollers, and you look around, realizing that this is happening. It's inescapable now, and you'll have to deal with the anxiety in your chest. 

"Yeah, we're good." Charles answers, and you nod your head, eyes fixed on the bed in the railroad tracks where the train will be approaching shortly. 

"Alright everyone get in the woods!" Arthur orders, pulling his mask up over his nose before placing one of his boots on the iron track. Charles notices your hesitancy, and grips your arm to pull you towards the treeline. 

"Hey, you alright?" Charles asks, pulling your neckerchief up over your nose as you've forgotten. You nod, a little too quick for his liking. 

"Just nervous." You admit. 

"Just stick with Sean. You'll be okay." Charles offers, squeezing your shoulder lightly. You nod, focusing your attention back on Arthur. 

You feel the vibration of the train long before you see it coming. Arthur's boot shakes against the track, and once he feels it coming he climbs up on top of the oil wagon. You gasp, eyes going wide as he holds his carbine in front of him, in a threatening stance on top of the wagon. He looks like nothing short of a criminal up there, a cold hearted killer. He stands on the wagon with a threatening stance, symbolizing everything that the government wishes to destroy. Feet planted on either side of the oil barrel, it doesn't appear that Arthur will be giving the law a break any time soon. The sight of him standing up on that wagon is one you're sure you'll never forget. If you didn't know Arthur, you'd be terrified. 

Nothing can be heard but uneven, anxious breathing as the train comes around the corner. it's far off, too far for the conductor to see Arthur, but once the bright white headlight peeks around the bend your breath hitches in your throat. 

Arthur cocks his repeater, and you watch as the train comes closer. You expect the train to blow its whistle, for the conductor to do something to warm off Arthur, but he doesn't. Your eyebrows draw together as the train continues to barrel forward, unbothered by the obstruction ahead.

"Why ain't it slowin'?" You ask, breath uneven as your heart rate picks up speed. 

No one responds, watching as it continues forward. Even Arthur seems to lose his composure, stance faltering as the train continues on. It's getting closer to the wagon, and you're not sure if it'll have time to stop before it crashes. 

"There's still time. Hold on." Sean says, eyes flickering up to the rapidly approaching train. 

"John?! Why ain't it stoppin?!" You beg, looking frantically between Arthur and the train. Charles pulls out a pair of binoculars, looking through them to the engine car. 

"Shit! He's dead or he's asleep, but either way the train isn't stopping." Charles says, stuffing his binoculars back as anxiety pangs in your chest. The train is too close now, it can't stop in time even if the conductor were to wake up.

"ARTHUR JUMP!" John screams as all four of you jog out of the woods. Arthur glances between the group of you and the train, unable to hear over the rumbling and screeching. 

"JUMP!" You plead, screaming. Arthur glances at the train once more, and getting the message he jumps as far out as he can. He hits the ground hard, rolling down the slope before he stops. It's only seconds later that the train smashes into the oil wagon. You thank god it's empty, and there's no explosion, but the metallic screech hurts your ears as the train pushes the wagon over in a huge crash. Sparks fly as metal scrapes off metal, but the train carries on forward, pushing the oil wagon in front of it until itfalls off to the side. 

"Why the hell didn't he stop?!" Arthur yells, whistling for Balius.

"The conductor is dead!" You yell, "Are we really still doin' this?" 

Four horses come running up the hill towards you, and the boys mount up ahead of you. 

"Yes! Now mount up, we can catch it before it gets to Rhodes!" John yells, and you leap onto Athena, urging her forward before you even put your feet in the stirrups. The chase is terrifying. It's hard to see in the dark, and you put full trust into Athena as she barrels forward after the train. Sean is the first to catch up, and he jumps from his horse onto the train's roof.

Your heart pounds in your ears as you run forward, watching as Charles, John and Arthur all jump onto the train. 

"Star, cmon!" Arthur yells, and you try to breath as you stand in your saddle, barely able to balance. You jump as far as you can, hoping that you'll make it. The jump is terrifying, but worse is the pain as your body slams against the side of the train. Only your hands have made it to the top as you grip onto the roof, feet dangling down to the rapidly passing ground below. Then a hand grips yours, and pulls you up into the roof. You gasp, looking up to yours and Arthur's hands, muttering a small 'thanks' between trembling breaths. 

"Plan stays the same. Charles, get this thing stopped!" Arthur orders, just as two armed guards climb up onto the roof.

"They're fixin' to rob the train!" One of the boys yells and starts shooting from his revolver. You unholster your own, balancing on the quick moving train as you fire twice into the man's chest. The second man breaches the top, and Sean takes him down with a headshot. The train makes you motion sick, and you have to bite down bile, forcing your eyes away from the ground. 

"We're gettin' too damn close to the town!" John yells, firing into more men as they climb up onto the roof. 

You whip around, looking for Charles to see if he's made progress in getting to the engine car. You don't see him on the roof, so you assume he's close. 

"John! Get down there, me and Star will hold them off. Sean, get to the baggage car!" Arthur yells out. They follow his orders, jumping down to the train cars from behind you and Arthur. 

"Why's there so many?" You yell over the noise as two more men fire toward you.

"I don't know, sure are a lot for an unguarded train- goddammit!" Arthur yells back. 

You lose your balance as the train quickly starts to slow down. Sparks fly and metal screeches as the train begins to slow. You release a breath, reloading your revolver as more guards shoot at you from across the train cars. The train never stops, instead in one fluid movement it slows enough and then starts going backwards.

"Wait- wait, shit!" You yell as the train starts moving in reverse. Just as quickly as the train has stopped, it starts accelerating in the wrong direction, back towards Valentine. 

"What the hell is happenin?" You scream back towards the engine car. You fire into one last guard, and then they stop coming up to the roof for now. 

"We're goin' too fast!" You point out, losing your balance again as trees start to blur by, making you dizzy. 

"Shit, I know. Just get to Sean, I'll see what's happenin' up front!" Arthur hollers, bracing himself as he jumps onto the next train car. 

"Star?" Arthur yells, and you turn around, "Don't get hurt." You nod, and with that he turns, running on the rapidly reversing train towards the engine.

You try to calm down your breathing as you run across the tops of the train cars, jumping as far as you can between each one. Your heart pounds rapidly in your ears, and the train accelerating is nothing but a background noise in your head. Revolver in hand, eventually you make it to the baggage car. 

"Sean you alive?" You yell, bracing yourself as you jump from the roof down onto the platform below. The land sends an ache through your knees, but you do land. 

"Yeah makin out real good down here!" Sean hollers back as you enter the caboose. 

"Why the hell are we in reverse?" Sean asks, stuffing a saddle bag full of cash and jewelry. You immediately get to helping him, ripping open the cupboards and stripping them of their content before shoving the precious items into Sean's bag. 

"I got no idea. Arthur n Charles are dealin' with it." You respond, glancing out the window and gasping when you see that you're nearing Flatneck Station. You've crossed the state line back into New Hanover, and in less than five minutes you'll be crossing over Bard's Crossing, the infamously high railroad bridge. 

"Oh my god, fuck." You curse, stuffing the bags even quicker. Shots ring out from the roof, and you gasp, neck snapping up. 

"That's gotta be Arthur or Charles." You gasp. You look down the train cars to see John pistol whip a man for not giving up his money. 

"Go help ‘em! I'm alright here for now!" Sean hollers, and you nod, running out of the car. Momentarily holstering your gun, you leap up onto the roof, pulling yourself up. Arthur is up there, shooting at a couple of men across the train as you run up to help him.

"You guys got the money?" He asks. 

"Yeah! Why ain't we stopped?!" You yell, shooting at the men, and clipping one in the neck. He falls off the train, and you wince as his body cracks against the quickly passing ground. Just then, Charles comes running across the cars, jumping over the gaps towards you. 

"Conductors dead! Doors locked and he fell on the reverse lever. I can't stop it." Charles explains, "We gotta go NOW, it's not stopping!" He yells, just as two more boys climb up onto the roof. 

"Rot in hell you bastards!" One yells, and you go to reload your revolver, but it's empty. You curse, looking ahead to where the caboose is barreling towards the bridge. 

A man climbs up from behind you, taking you by surprise as he knocks the gun from Arthur's hand. Arthur turns around and punches him right in the face, nose cracking as blood pours from his face. 

"Get off the train! I got this bastard!" Arthur yells, and you hyperventilate, glancing between him and the bridge. Sean and John have already jumped, and you see them riding alongside the train with Athena, Taima and Balius. Charles jumps down, just as Arthur kicks the man off the side of the train. He hits the ground with a sickening crack, and Arthur turns to you, no longer asking. 

"Star, go!" Arthur commands, and you gasp as another man comes up from the side of the train, pulling Arthur into a chokehold from behind.

"Get down here! We can't help him till you're out the way!" John screams up to you, and panicking, you leap. The jump is terrifying, and the land onto your saddle knocks the breath out of you. But then you're safe on Athena, barreling towards the cliffs edge where the bridge begins, waiting for Arthur to deal with the last guard. 

"Does anyone have a shot on him?" Sean yells, gun aimed up at the man who is fighting Arthur. Arthur's body is bigger than the man, and at the angle you're at, it's impossible to kill him without killing Arthur. Arthur struggles, elbowing the man in the gut to break free from his chokehold. 

"No!" John yells back. 

"Arthur!" You scream, though futile, watching as the train gets closer to the bridge. 

"I got this bastard." Arthur chokes out, coughing as he elbows the man enough to get away from his grip. You slide Athena into a stop to avoid running off a cliff as the train starts to go over the bridge. The wind howls in your ear from the elevation as you watch on in horror.

"What do we do!? John-" You whimper, feeling useless and helpless as Arthur punches the man, fists raised as they brawl atop the train. 

"He'll be okay. He will. He'll get down on the other side and we'll run over and get him." John replies. All you can do is watch as the train accelerates across the bridge, and you've never been so afraid in your life. Arthur takes a punch in the gut, leaving him vulnerable. 

"Does anyone have a shot!!?" Sean screams, gun raised. But Arthur is still in the way, and no one can help him, he's on his own.

Somehow the next moment happens in a lifetime, and a fraction of a second. Arthur takes a punch straight straight to the gut, and he doubles over, left vulnerable. The guard steadied himself, lifting his leg until the sole of his boot meets Arthur's stomach. The train is rolling right over the highest part of the bridge as the guard kicks out. Arthur stumbles, and the kick sends him falling over the side of the train. 

All the air leaves your lungs, your eyes go wide, and everything stops as Arthur falls. You're frozen, watching as Arthur falls down past the bridge. It's a high drop, too high. Your eyes go wide as Arthur's arms stretch up, attempting to grasp onto something that isn't there as he plummets two hundred feet down to the lake below.  

"No-" You breathe out, just barely a whisper as you stumble down from Athena, nearly falling from the saddle. 

"Arthur!-" John gasps.

"NO!-" You scream, breaths coming in quick, uncontrollable pants as tears fill your eyes and fall out in thick rivulets. You stumble to the ledge of the bridge, on the tracks, gripping the fence so tight that your knuckles turn white. 

The other three men are slack jawed, horrified. They all gasp, stunned beyond being capable to speak. When you look down, you see the rippling water where Arthur had landed, landed but not come back up.  

"NO!!" You sob, unable to hold back your tears as you fall back, hands never leaving the fence. Your cries are shoulder shaking, and you can't bring yourself to care that you are sobbing in front of the other men. 

"Get back to camp right now and don't get followed." John orders Charles and Sean, tears in his eyes that he quickly wipes away. They comply, silently nodding before turning their horses and galloping home, shell-shocked.

You're too stunned to notice what's going on around you, but your sobs have slowed, turned into aching, painful heaves as your nails dig into the fence, as if you holding on to it will pull Arthur back up to you. 

"Star?" John whispers, so quiet from behind you. You shake your head, knowing what he's going to ask of you. 

"Star, we gotta go. The law will be here soon." John tries to reason, fighting his own internal ache. You're not having it, not leaving, and John places his hands on your shoulders, begging you to come with him. You can't stop looking down at the rippling water, waiting for him to come back up, and tearing your eyes away when he doesn't, a vicious cycle. 

"W-we can't leave him John. What if he- what if he's down there and he needs help?" You cry, lungs aching. 

"I know. We won't. We won't leave him. But we can't help him if the law gets to us." He says, and you nod frantically, thinking over his idea. 

He tries to pull you backwards, away from the bridge. You make it two steps back before the anxiety of not seeing the water wins over and your body practically shies away from John. 

"I can't- I can't go, he…" You begin, biting your cheek until it bleeds, stuck in a state of shock that you can't shake. 

"John, what if he didnt-" You sob, unable to finish the sentence that plagues your mind along with the image of his plummet. 

"He did… Star I ain't goin back to camp missing two people, please come home." He pleads, turning as law whistles sound in the distance. 

"No. I can't." You say, stern in your choice. Because what is there to go back to without him? And what if he needs help?

"Where will you go?" He asks, glancing to the whistles in the distance. 

"I guess across the river so I-" your face crumbles at the idea, "so I can look for him." 

John nods, whistling lowly for Old Boy. The horse trots forward, and John quickly unwraps his camp kit from Old Boy's saddle before tightening it onto Athena's. 

"My camp kit. Take it, you'll need it." He turns to you then, red eyes looking into yours. "Be safe out here… and don't lose yourself. Arthurs my brother. But if he ain't back in a day or two, you gotta come home. He'd want that." John says, voice even raspier than usual as he deals with his emotion. You nod, tears filling your eyes as places his hand on your shoulder.

"If he comes back to camp I'll come for you right away." He offers, and you nod. 

And then he's mounting up, offering you a bittersweet tip of his hat as he rides away. And you're suddenly alone. There's no one here to pick up your broken pieces, so you pick them up yourself, climbing into the saddle and cantering away from the approaching law whistles. You don't try to stop the tears. Some are silent, sliding down your face and dripping into your saddle, but some are loud, and you have to leave go of the reins to sob into your hands. You make it to the other side of the river thanks to Athena, with Balius trotting beside you the entire way. No one tells you what to do when something like this happens. You're lost, left to figure it out as you operate like a shell of a human being, going through the motions to avoid the law. 

Once you're across the Dakota, situated just on the treeline close to the bank you slide down from your mare to sit in the grass, knees held up to your chin as you watch the water. You've never seen it so still. There's not a ripple other than the steady flow out to the lake. The law whistles get louder, and you listen for them as you numbly watch the water for hours, lost in your head. Eventually the law dissipates, giving up and going home.

You don't know if he's dead or not, but the chances of him being okay right now are bad. The bridge hangs over the horizon like a tyrant, a constant reminder of what's just happened. You try to avoid looking at it, try to avoid seeing the fall, the fear in his eyes as his feet left the train. 

You can't help but drift to the fact that your last real conversation was an argument, and you ache to go back in time and spend the day at his picnic like he'd planned. He was right about you. You're a hypocrite. All Arthur has done since you met him was offer kindness when you didn't deserve it. He gave and gave and you took and took. He told you his feelings time and again through his words and his actions. And you rejected him again and again. All because you were afraid. He said it when you went fishing with Jack, he said it when you danced at Sean's party and when you were drunk under the stars. Arthur told you he would wait. He would wait until you were ready. And here you are. It appears your time is up, and Arthur has waited all he can. 

You think back to that first night in Colter, what you'd told yourself that rang out to be true… good people die. 

Nothing happens for a long while. You don't move, and your limbs ache from your curled up position, but you don't care. You've been watching the water for hours to no avail, but then it happens. Something small washes up on the shore, something black. And as soon as your eyes flicker towards it your face crumples, and falls into your knees with a sob. 

"No, no, not him- please." You whimper to yourself quietly, realizing that he's really gone.

You wipe away your tears, finding the strength to stand up from the grass and pluck the object from the shoreline where it washed up. In your hand is an all too familiar black leather hat, wrapped with rope and adorned with a one of a kind hat ornament. 

You place it on the ground by your legs, curling in on yourself as the grief overtakes you, causing your body to ache and your lungs to burn from the sobs that erupt from them. 

taglist: @margofiore @mrsarthurmorgan7 @woman-with-no-name @tillith @luvliewriting @pine4pple-b0i @photo1030 @dudsparrow

series taglist: @catnotbread @chxosangxl @globetrotter28 @justalittlerayofpitchblack @fruittiest-of-loops @randomidk-123 @heyworld-whatsup @btsiguess-kpop @how-the-heck-would-i-know

[hxhhasmysoul]

Did u see these posts: https://linkspooky.tumblr.com/post/744136721881530368/hello-friend-i-thought-id-use-your-post-as-a . https://linkspooky.tumblr.com/post/744086250489774080/so-i-was-genuinely-surprised-last-week-when-we ? Honestly, I think am starting to dislike the Megumi & Killua comparisons more than I ever maybe did the Killua & Gojo ones (like I also saw a comment saying Megumi is smarter than Killua, and I don't think Megumi is dumb, but like how?). I'm not saying Megumi is a bad character, but he is not (imo) better-written or have a better arc than Killua (who has one of the best arcs ever).

P.S: Off topic from me complaining about Killua getting compared to JJK characters (which I was mostly neutral towards doing, but now, I might be becoming a bit less neutral). Great and pretty Palm, LeoPika, and Illumi's art u just reblogged!

The biggest problem with what that person writes is the value judgement. I don’t necessarily disagree with the stuff they say about Megumi, at least they see that Gojou forced Megumi into being a sorcerer and that’s rare. They also seem to acknowledge Megumi’s character flaws, even if I don’t exactly agree with every argument they make about him. And I especially don’t agree with how they compare Tsumiki to Alluka. 

They are right that Megumi tries to use others, Tsumiki and then Yuuji as justifications for his existence. And it’s true Killua uses the people he loves as a crutch because he has no goals of his own, because all his life the goals of others were forced onto him and he’s really lost at the beginning of HxH. 

The difference is that Killua’s relationships with Gon, Alluka and Nanika are very deep, he also grows close with others: Ikalgo, Palm, Bisky and Leorio, there’s clear potential for him developing a friendship with Canary. Killua also projects to some extent onto Gon, and onto Alluka too. But that’s something everyone does. Killua does it to a normal extent, the Gon in Killua’s mind is partially imagined and greatly coloured by Killua’s crush, but Killua quite often actually understands how Gon feels, or accurately reads the situation between them. The things he tells Gon don’t make Gon worse because they feed into Gon’s issues.

He does enable Gon, and he doesn't know how to help Gon after Kite's death, but his presence still helps Gon in those moments. He doesn't make gon better but he doesn't make him worse either, they are just two kids who are in a situation that's just too much for them to handle.

When Killua tries to enforce what he thinks is best onto Alluka and Nanika, Alluka puts him in his fucking place and he very clearly understands what he did wrong. Because he’s capable of seeing Alluka as a real person, he can see past the image of Alluka that exists in his head. 

Megumi’s relationships with Tsumiki and Yuuji are superficial, bordering on parasocial. The things Megumi tells Yuuji make Yuuji contract Megumi’s cog mentality. Megumi acts like he knows shit, how he's very smart and Yuuji buys into that, because Megumi reads a lot and knows long words. And Megumi also buys into that, and thinks he can talk with authority about who's to blame for what. Or which people deserve to be saved.

Megumi barely spends time with Yuuji in an active way, he just passively tags along and frowns and sighs, and he downright rejects Tsumiki and everything she stood for when she was conscious. He’s upset that Yuuji lashes out at Hana because Yuuji is mourning Nobara so fucking deeply. Megumi is taken aback because he never mourned Nobara, he never tried to get close to her, but more importantly, despite him thinking he cares about Yuuji, he has absolutely no clue how Yuuji is feeling. He projects his own idea as to who Yuuji is onto Yuuji. Yuuji the good selfless person who needs to be protected by Megumi but not engaged with, not reached out to. He has no idea who Yuuji really is or how he feels, nor does Megumi care. He never cared what Tsumiki felt or who she really was, and the whole situation with the bridge showed very clearly that Tsumiki led a life of her own and Megumi didn’t even know, and likely it wasn’t a completely pure and uwu life. But to Megumi what matters are his own made up versions of these two people. 

And this is actually okay, these are flaws and they are a consistent characterisation. I don’t like Megumi much but I will defend his right to be flawed, I will defend him from all the Gojou fans who pretend Gojou didn’t make a child soldier out of a little kid. Or who pretend that it isn’t clear that Gojou left Tsumiki and Megumi to fend for themselves in their daily life and just borrowed Megumi to force him to work so the two kids had a place to live and other necessities. And I will defend Megumi from anyone who tries to deny him his right to a fucking mental breakdow.

But what they write about Killua is extremely shallow, the mentions of Gon and Yuuji, and the paragraph about Maki, those are downright upsetting. They show very clearly that they will write whatever needed to prop up their fav. And I really don’t get what drives people to do this kinda stuff.

They honestly undermine their arguments (some very solid) about how nice Megumi’s arc is, because they can’t just argue their case. No, they need to bring another character into it and attack that character. It’s always a foolish thing to do. I get that they might not like Killua as much or think he’s overrated. But Killua was not needed for their argument. Everything they get wrong about Killua weakens their arguments about Megumi. And Killua’s relationships with his close ones really highlight the issue with Megumi’s. And the person never addresses that. 

I think I’ve seen maybe their posts or similar posts about Megumi, not exactly comparing him to Killua, but for example posts about how he’s the true MC of JJK, where Megumi’s fans argued about how complex Megumi is and how there’s nothing to Yuuji. And this person’s posts are just written to prop up Megumi by dismissing and discrediting other characters. 

The JJK fandom is vicious to most characters that aren’t sexymen. Megumi is much more liked in the fandom than Yuuji, but yeah, one can consider him disliked if one compares him to how people are about Gojou, Getou, Nanami, Touji, Chousou, Higuruma, Sukuna or even Kusakane, Shu and Ino. Also as they rightly notice Megumi isn’t overpowered so he gets a lot of shit, something Yuuta never gets. As to Maki, this person clearly doesn’t give a shit about her, so not only they very clearly didn’t pay attention to Maki post Mai’s death, they also have no idea what the fandom says about Maki. 

They also write as if the way the fandom treats Megumi is unique, when Yuuji gets that far more and over everything. Even Sukuna got that just because in the battle of JJK sexymen, Gojou truly is the strongest and his fans are fucking rabid and allergic to canon and the text of JJK. 

Gege’s love for HxH somehow creates the need in the JJK fans to compare the two stories and their respective characters, and I’ve never seen it done right. In this case it really just cheapens what they were trying to say.

[kewpidity]

posting my loz au here cause its like the third time ive lost it and had to recall and retype my thoughts about it, dont mind me or the terrible typos if you read it i was on mobile lol

okay so firstly, this is not a completely solid idea yet, the way i have the triforce divvied up is subject to change and also i realize there actually isnt that much emphasis on the swamp anyway, moreso im swapping their settings around but for now the vague idea is zelda - power, ganondorf - courage, and link - wisdom (this also reflects a bit more in their personalities, so we get a wilier zelda and a calmer link for example)

zelda is a young shepardess living in a nowhere hamlet in hyrule, feeling she's wasting away on the farm and hoping for a great big somewhere else, you know Hero Stuff. she lives with her two aunts (gotta get in that old lesbian rep) who are sheikah women that are also literally not related to her, who are set on keeping zelda on the farm, insisting that the world is dangerous and onlyl fools go out of their way to find it- in fact one would think that they were keeping her hidden away on purpose.

meanwhile, ganondorf is a diplomat from the gerudo nation, and a powerful wizard besides that. a strange and terrible sickness that seems to be magic based has ravaged his people, and desperate for a cure he didnt have the knowledge to make, he sets on into the world to search for anything that could point him in the right direction, in particular places of great age and magic, old temples, castle ruins, etc. all the while trying to keep ignore the gnawing feeling that he might somehow be the cause of the sickness because of a darkness thats been building inside of him the past year, right before things got bad. he doesnt know what it is but it scares him.

and then there's link, who lives deep deep in a forest (probably the lost woods). he was raised by fairies in some old hylian ruins choked with vines and impossible to reach without his assistance. he doesnt get much interaction with the outside world, and locals from the nearest town sometimes tell stories about a ghost that lives there that might help you out or might lead you further astray, so most people are smart enough to steer clear. he's lonely. he doesnt know where he actually came from, and it mostly doesnt bother him, but sometimes he feels a pull in the back of his mind when he looks at the words painted on carved on the temple ruin walls that the fairies never taught him to read, he always feels a bit like he's forgotten something and its Just out of his reach

now the catalyst for all of them meeting is ganondorf traveling through hyrule and stopping at the village zelda lived nearby, and when she heard that a powerful wizard from a distant land was visiting, she snuck out in the middle of the night to meet him at the inn, demanding that he take her with him. he was absolutely gonna say Hell No, but he notices the triforce symbol on her hand (i'll likely have them be a kind blobby birthmark that isnt super obvious immediately what you're looking at) thats v similar to his own, and that pesky darkness welling up in him has a v weird and strong reaction to her presence, and he isnt sure its a good thing, but its Something that must mean Something so he agrees to it

their travels lead them to the forest that link is living in, and they get horribly terribly lost and tbqh link considers just leaving them to stay lost forever, but he also feels that weird pull to the travelers that he does from the temple walls, and figures its worth helping them out because obviously he's curious about the feeling, and v much longing for companionship, like mentioned earlier

the overall plot is basically them going to the various temples, etc that ganondorf travels too (he's kind of in change in the au, since he's the oldest and Obviously most well traveled)

if it wasnt already clear, the darkness he's dealing with is actually the demon demise literally starting to take hold of him so he's got to push on for his people despite it (courage)

zelda is going on a more typical hero's journey sort of thing, where her resolve and overall goodness is tested through the adventure, and she has to find the balance of being righteous and Self righteous (balancing power)

link is kind of unknowingly a vessel for a lot of ancient knowledge that he doesnt know how to unlock, and is literally illiterate, so his journey is a little more vague but basically when he's the key to knowing what exactly to do about demise, maybe the language of the temple is a dead one because thats how ancient it is, and he can unlock the knowledge with some spiritual exploration (so wisdom)

zelda and link are the keys to getting rid of demise here, but none of them realize it

also ganondorf and link fall in love Obviously

[rebornologist]

Xanxus, Squalo & Yamamoto ♡ Relationship + Kink headcanons ✧ REPOST

tumblr ate my post (it probably got flagged but idk how else to cope so I've dug it back out of my google drive to repost it) If you've seen this already, I'm sorry. If you haven't, I'm still sorry.

♡ Xanxus

Doesn’t let you off the hook just because he’s in a romantic relationship with you; In fact, he has very high standards for who he would deem a worthy partner, to be seen with him, to be his arm candy, to fight alongside him, etc.

You were definitely the one to woo him, mostly with your impressive work as a hitman and the occasional bending over in front of him to pick up the reports you dropped before handing them over to him. He knows that you’re far too careful to accidentally drop them, so he’s only amused by the games you’re playing and enjoying the eyeful. It takes quite a bit of brains and skill to stand out to him.

He keeps it very much on the down-low, he believes in your capability to protect yourself, but it’s only natural to keep your relationship under wraps because that’s vulnerability, babes! He knows you’re too smart to get caught and ransomed.. but there’s still a nonzero chance if there’s a target on your back and that doesn’t sit well with him.

You just happen to be seated next to him at every organized dinner event, adorned in the fattest diamond rings and gold necklaces, with luxury furs and a beautiful smile on your face as you laugh along with his men. Guess it pays well to be "just a Varia officer".

♡ Superbi Squalo

I’m biased as hell but I think he’s a fairly sweet and simple partner. He remembers most anniversaries, is surprisingly sentimental, and is overworked but tries to make time for you. Unfortunately, it means that he’s unlikely to be with someone high maintenance, he just has too much on his plate already, and his partner should be a solace for him, someone that both appreciates him for all that he does and doesn't add more expectations for him to meet.

Oh to get fresh sashimi omakase dinners for your anniversaries with the best sushi chefs (Tsuyoshi Yamamoto, ofc), you tease him and try to get him to play little drinking games with you and y’all reminisce your best and worst times that you’ve experienced together. The more liquor you get into this man, the softer he gets, and he will absolutely ramble on and on about you.

Squalo didn’t really know how to take people on dates for the longest time, because he committed himself to the art of the blade, or whatever... so his best shot at taking you out initially was just a fancy candle lit dinner and dessert. He didn’t know what to talk about, and his hair almost caught on fire with the open flames, but you laughed it off and found him super charming regardless, because you knew him outside of the whole dating scene as one of the most handsome, dedicated, and impressive men you’ve ever met. He didn’t have to do a lot of work to sweep you off your feet, even though he did try.

♡ Yamamoto Takeshi

He’s such college sweetheart material, have fun attending all of his games! You either get to tag along for away games (good luck keeping up with your coursework) or he calls you every night that he’s out of town to update you on how he’s doing.

You’re one of his biggest supporters, and he relies on you more than he wishes he did. I see Takeshi as a fairly monogamous man, and being raised in a traditional household, he withholds a lot of his emotional vulnerability, and alas, it’s kind of dumped on a significant other. On the bright side, you make him happier just by existing and being in his life. He feels so lucky to have you, and thanks his ancestors for blessing him with your presence every day.

He seems like a childhood-friends-to-lovers type of guy, which is super funny to me because he also seems like a notorious friendzoner! Yes, Takeshi, they definitely invited you over to hang out alone, as friends, in their room, with the lights dimmed, as friends, with a bottle of wine, looking at you like they want to kiss you breathless, as friends. (He knows, he's just avoided addressing it with everyone that he didn't reciprocate feelings for.)

You had to sit him down and tell him that you wanted him in more than just a platonic way, and you watched as he turned beet red, clumsily asked a few clarifying questions, and had to excuse himself for a moment to process the information.

He shares some of the most ridiculous bits of gossip with you! He’s a social butterfly that seems to be in every circle and people share everything with him since he’s such a good listener and tactful enough to not blab.. except for to his partner! You get annoyed with him for not asking the important questions to dig up more tea, to which he just giggles and shrugs like “I’m sorry, they just told me all of that unprompted! Do you want me to ask next time..?” (to which you’d scream “NO THAT’D BE TOO SUS”)

Voted number one most likely to hit a home run and sprint over to the stands to steal a kiss from you before running the bases. He almost got penalized for it, but they let it slide because everyone thought it was really cute teehee

Ngl idk what to write for kink HCs anymore I’ve written about their kinks enough

✧ Xanxus

I think.. Xanxus is a bastard, and when you sit him down in thebedroom to talk about kinks for the first time, he has the most blankly confused expression on his face because “what the fuck are those?” (HE’S ACTUALLY SO STUPID LORD HELP US)

You furrow your brows and rephrase the question; “so… what are you.. into? sexually,”

You do not get a good answer out of this man because he’s so repressed dear lord.. He grumbles about just being like.. into fucking, or whatever.. and you decide to just lay out what you like first, and let him respond with whether he agrees or disagrees. The discussion goes much smoother that way. He was much too invested in the whole ‘being the 10th generation boss of the Vongola’ thing to think too hard about his sexuality during his developing years.

He likes to get kinky with his partner because he likes his partner. He doesn’t particularly consider himself a kinky person, he’s just full of sexual energy and open to finding new outlets for it, especially anything that’s particularly intense. He does not like to be a gentle dom, and he gets impatient easily, so don’t count on him to play along with anything for too long before he just jumps your bones.

Generally speaking, he tends to be quite rough, or at least intense; he tends to like.. cum (yours and his).. dirty talk, and marking (giving/receiving), and y’all have recently come to terms with the shared affinity for predator/prey play in the bedroom.

He tends to agree with what kinds of kinky activity to engage in with his partners as his partner proposes them. Bring in some dark chocolate syrup next time and he would probably eat it all up ;)

Completely unarmed (though he could never truly be unarmed), he steps out of the shower to find you waiting for him, scantily clad and leaning against the wall, batting your eyelashes. It’s going to be that kind of night, huh... He snorts quietly under his breath, and a small smirk dances across his features.

With a few taps of your fingers, you turn and run, hiding in a corner until you hear him approaching. You dodge him and slip from his grasp a few times before he finally knocks you over and pins you to the ground, roughing shoving a knee between your legs and holding your wrists above your head.

You giggle, kicking up at his hardened muscles and squirming. He buries his nose in your neck and inhales your scent before biting down roughly on your shoulder. “Quiet, bunny.” He grumbles, and you whine in what could easily be satisfaction. You were in for a long play session.

✧ Superbi Squalo

He’s considered his kinkiness before. He doesn’t really know how to list them straightforwardly, because he also thinks of it as ‘I just like what I like’, similarly to Xanxus.

I’m not sure what this is called, but I think he’s definitely christened every shared space with you. The kitchen island is not safe from your lovemaking, the shower is not safe, the bathroom counter is not safe.. the couch, however, is. He thinks you look beautiful when you’re completely drenched, and nothing makes his day more than receiving a tasteful and slightly fogged up picture of you getting nice and clean in the bath. He often enjoys joining you in the shower to hoist you up against the wall just to kiss and caress down your entire body. It’s times like this where you tend to be less careful with digging your nails into his back, as you hold on for dear life in the slippery space. He wears the marks with pride.

He does get off on semi-public risky business on occasion, but it’s specifically when he has close to zero chance of getting caught. He doesn’t admit it, but he does enjoy you teasing him through his pants under the safety of the tablecloth at dinner, with onlookers believing that you’ve just got a hand innocently placed on his thigh. He side-eyes you with a raised eyebrow, as if to tell you to knock it off, but it does nothing but spur you on until he whispers for you to meet him on the balcony.

And that you do; you excuse yourself to “use the bathroom”, and he later follows with a mumble of “let me make sure they’re okay..”

That’s how you find yourself hidden out of plain sight behind a sharp corner, pinned up against a wall, in a spot where you’re unlikely to be spotted. The cool night air makes you shiver as it hits the wetness between your thighs as he roughly tugs your underwear aside, grumbling under his breath about how “damn impatient” you were, and how you’re “such a fucking brat”, but you know that he loves that you’re his fucking brat.

There’s something so raw and hot about you biting down on his gloved hand as he fucks you from behind, muffling his own sounds by kissing your shoulder while his other hand wraps around you to work you to your climax. He’s not often a fan of quickies, but there’s something so special about it being a quickie in this specific context.

✧ Yamamoto Takeshi

I actually deny what I said 3 years ago about him being only a dom, he’s a soft dom and a very good little subby puppy

He’s fairly vanilla, especially compared to what usually comes to mind with the rest of the KHR cast, but he enjoys anal play for both himself and his partner, and is sooo down to be pegged please bend him over nicely and sweetly

He doesn’t really enjoy sensory or impact play, because he’s not a fan of pain for either parties, but he has a lot of fun with dirty talk, role-playing, and anything more.. mental? The physical acts of intimacy are already so much for him, and you’ll still be in for a ride because he’s got stamina. He can just go and go and go and go..

He has never said this outright to you, but he kind of enjoys being edged, and the few times you did it accidentally, he came so hard that he saw stars. He proceeded to breathlessly ask if you could do that again, and when you asked, “what do you mean? Do what again?” he found himself stuttering in front of you like it was the day he first asked you out.

He can be a bit of size queen, and he loves watching his partner try to take his whole cock in their mouth, and the mean side of him doesn’t want to let up even when they gag or tear up; he thinks it’s so sexy, and one day he finally gets brave enough to let some praise slip when they gag, spurring them to take him even deeper.

If his partner is okay with it, there’s something so hot to him about cumming on them; be it their face, their chest, their stomach, ass, or back.. He cums quite a bit and it goes pretty far. He definitely failed to warn them beforehand (not on purpose) and felt so terrible when it got everywhere, but he also... instantly got hard again.

He has a habit of holding your hand in some way in most positions, but if you ask him nicely, he’ll release them to let you run your hands down his body :’) if you’re face-to-face with him, he likes intertwining your fingers, and if you’re facing away from him, he might… hold you by your wrists or lay his hands over yours. The constant contact is a regular thing with him.

[seresinhangmanjake]

Beyond the Hills: Part 3

Jake “Hangman” Seresin x female!reader (College AU)

Summary: Technically, you and Jake Seresin have known each other for twelve years. All throughout your childhood education, you and Jake shared classes, lunch periods, homeroom teachers. It seemed if the opportunity for you to be in the same space arose, the universe made it happen. But you were not friends. Not enemies, either. Not much of anything to one another outside of the occasional class project partners. When high school ended you assumed you wouldn’t be seeing him any time soon, but then you find yourselves at the same college, and once again, forced together. It seems no matter where you go, Jake Seresin is there. But you are not the shy girl you were in your youth. You want to try things now; party, have fun, do things you’ve never done before, and suddenly, for reasons you don’t understand, Jake seems to take issue with your new choices.

Notes/Warnings: 18+, just to be safe. Minors DNI. underage drinking (depending on your country, but I’m in the US). I’d bet on typos, kind of my thing, as I learn after I’ve posted. I don’t have a beta reader, sooo…just me, myself, and I, and sometimes that does not cut it for editing purposes. Smut-ish.

Words: 2591

Masterlist / Main Masterlist

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He'd decided the night after the first meeting that he wanted to get to know you. The need took root in his chest and he couldn’t shake it. But was he making progress? He didn't know. The second meeting you were paired with Ellen and he with some new addition named Maria. Rooster hadn't shown. Didn't need to now that he'd gotten his foot in the door with your friend. Jake didn't care. He cared about the fact that you clearly were fine with being someone else's partner that Tuesday when he certainly wasn't feeling the same. But if there was a silver lining—he got to watch you laugh and smile, he got to see your eyes shine, and he didn't have to worry about what you'd think because you weren't paying him an ounce of attention. Silver lining to the core. He'd prefer the attention. 

The third week was a little better. He'd given extra consideration to Pride and Prejudice, staying up late to finish the book and form his opinions. He didn't so much enjoy the story, but he did enjoy the idea of appearing smart in front of you. So when the TA told them to pair off, he practically snatched you up and did his best to prove he had a decent head on his shoulders. Maybe he got you to believe it, too, at least by the time the meeting was over. 

Progress. Right? Right?

He sighed as he opened his room's door, hoping he was right. The thought was consuming him, so much so that he didn't hear the mix of moans and groans and the squeaks of an ancient mattress.

"Fuck, baby."

Those were the words that drew Jake back to the present. 

He grimaced. "Oh, what the actual fuck."

Lydia yelped on Rooster's lap and whipped her head Jake's way, letting out an "Oh my god" as his roommate pulled her chest flush against his to shield some of her bare body. 

"Hey, man," Rooster chuckled, grabbing the blanket from behind him and wrapping it around them both. "We were just—"

"I think I can guess," Jake snapped as he gestured his hand at the scene before him. "How about a text next time? Or a note slapped on the door?"

"That's fair."

"Thank you," Jake huffed. He ran a hand through his hair. A handful of beats passed as they all looked anywhere but at each other. "And how are you, Lydia?" It seemed polite to ask, albeit with a little irritation in his tone. 

"Good, thanks." She smiled, all awkwardness fading once the shock of his presence wore off. Of course she was as confident as his roommate. Entirely unbothered. She shifted slightly on Rooster’s lap and the man groaned in response, biting into her neck. "Oh hey, by the way, Y/N is coming with us to the bar tonight if you want to go. It's the one on Lake that doesn't ask ages."

Jake's eyes narrowed into a glare. His arms crossed over his chest. "You told her?"

Rooster shrugged. "It was a bonding moment. Right, baby?" He said as he brushed some of the wild platinum hair behind Lydia's ear.

She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck, hummed in agreement, and leaned in to give him a quick kiss. Something in Jake ached at the sight—the tenderness. Rooster had known Lydia for weeks and he already had more with her than Jake did with a girl he'd known for years. 

He didn't like you. Those thoughts just crossed his mind every once in a while, completely out of his control. But he'd find a way to bury them because he did want to be your friend, at the very least. Fighting that was out the window. 

Jake looked back at the two sitting atop the bed, still intertwined, still holding each other, still giving one another little kisses as if he wasn't there. "Goddamn you move fast," he said. 

With reluctance, his roommate pulled back slightly from the woman in his arms. "Yea, and we'd like to move a little faster, so can we maybe talk some more about this when I’m, uh, not hard and buried deep in—"

"Stop."

"Unless you want to watch?"

Jake was already shaking his head before he said, "Absolutely not."

Rooster winked. "We'll be quick."

—--

You couldn't decide if you were comfortable or not, cramped in the tight space, shuffling through a sea of bodies just to get from one end of the bar to the other. You were leaning more towards uncomfortable until you finally saw Lydia waving at you from the entrance, her hand clasped in Bradley's and dragging him along. You took a breath and a sip of your drink but it almost sputtered at your lips when you saw Jake following behind the two. 

Shit. What the hell was wrong with your friend? Your first one in forever and she'd already betrayed you. You couldn't fully relax if he was here, and while you hadn't told Lydia a damn thing about the confusing thoughts in your head about him, you had a suspicion she was catching on. 

You took another drink, a long one, emptying the rest of your glass.

"Hi, hon," she said, taking the seat opposite you in the booth and dragging her—boyfriend? Sex partner? you didn't know what they were—down beside her. 

It left you with no choice but to make room for the blond, who plopped down in the space you had occupied. He was close. So close you couldn't tell if the warmth of your body was from the alcohol or his own heat enveloping you. Either way, it wasn't…unpleasant.

"Hi," you finally remembered to say. 

—--

Your voice was unsteady on that word as much as his heartbeat was inside his body. Both were clear and unmistakable, yet unstable. Irregular. If he spoke, his words would’ve sounded the same, and he wondered if your heartbeat was currently as wild as his. Maybe you were a perfect match. What a dangerous thought. 

Ok, maybe he liked you. Just a bit. 

Fuck.

"So," Lydia began, and Jake suddenly decided he had never liked the girl better. Her drawn-out syllable was a crack in the walls of silence that encased the four of you. A sweet smile split her face. "Have you guys seen anyone else from home walking around?"

Your head shook in his peripherals and Jake remained silent, watching as Lydia glanced nervously at Rooster. He gave her a nod, urging her to continue. It didn't fool Jake in the slightest. They were trying to get him to talk to you in some way that wasn't about books, but their conversation starters were lousy and you weren't biting. 

"Well, I saw Cooper Michaels today," she said.

—--

Jake stiffened beside you—spine suddenly rigid while his neck muscles strained from his clenching jaw. His thumbnail started to scrape up and down the side of his curled-in middle finger and his other hand began balling up one of the napkins the bar used as a sorry excuse for coasters. 

"Really?" You asked. You knew Cooper, in a way. Nearly everyone from your high school did, regardless of year. But it was simply a matter of recognizing his name and being able to put it to his face if the situation called for it. Nothing more.

"Yea, he transferred from a different school already. Said it wasn't a good fit." Lydia paused, clearly waiting for something more from either you or Jake, but she wasn’t going to get it; not from you because you didn’t care much about anyone from high school, and not from Jake for, well, some reason. Not until Lydia said "I invited him tonight” did Jake finally look up at her again. 

His brow was drawn tight and his next word he practically spat at your friend. "Why?"

"Dude,” Bradley snapped, but Jake’s attitude didn’t phase Lydia; likely because of her four brothers and their natural moodiness—something she claimed Bradley was already terrified at the thought of. 

"Because he just got here and he doesn't know anyone else,” Lydia said, giving back a minute degree of sass that was just enough to spread an ashamed look across Jake’s face. "Wasn't he your friend?" 

Jake mumbled something under his breath, then, "Not really."

"Oh. Well, he said he was glad he was going to get to see you tonight."

His mouth was sealed shut, face devoid of emotion. He looked…blank. Not all there. And then he was gone, out of the booth and disappearing into the crowd. 

—--

He wanted to shatter his own reflection—just to relieve some of the tension in his body, to expel some energy, maybe feel something other than irritation at his own bad luck, even if that feeling was sharp pain from glass shards buried into the skin of his knuckles. 

He couldn’t catch a damn break. Wrapping his head around you, picking at his brain with a needle to try and figure out why he felt what he felt, was enough to occupy him. Enough to disrupt his sleep, as the bathroom mirror reminded him. He didn’t need more. He didn’t need the return of an intentionally neglected memory. 

Cooper fucking Michaels. 

Maybe he’d never see him again after the night was over. The school was big enough. But could he really wake up tomorrow and pretend one half of a destroyed friendship wasn’t within a mile radius at all times? He doubted the other half would. Cooper hated him, and that wasn’t going away any time soon. 

Jake twisted the knob on the sink and gathered some of the cool water in his palm to run over his face. He needed to get himself together; to walk back out there, sit down beside you, and remain calm. He might not even show, he told himself as he dried his face. He could have had something better to do.

He shoved the door open and stepped into the liquor-scented air, making it all of five paces before your face filled his vision. You stared up at him, and he down at you. Then your mouth opened and Jake waited patiently for the words you were going to gift him. 

“Are–Are you ok?” you shouted over the music booming through the speakers that were set up in nearly every corner of the room. “Lydia and Bradley asked me to come chec—” 

A body shoved yours forward, directly into his. A harsh collision, but Jake welcomed it, savored it. You huddled a little closer to him as the rest of the moving group of people passed, and his hands instinctively went to wrap around your upper arms. 

Tingles, zaps, shocks. Whatever you wanted to call them, Jake got them just by brushing his fingers over some bare skin—your bare skin. And he finally knew what those meant. His thumbs began to slowly stroke back and forth along your biceps but he couldn't say if you noticed. Your attention was still on the migrating group. 

Soft. So fucking soft. And warm. And right in front of him. 

He whispered your name before he could stop himself, and as if you'd heard him, you turned your head, your eyes widening when they connected with his. His chest rose and fell, pressing against yours with each inhale as he gathered the realization of his sudden desire. 

He wanted you. He wanted this mouth on yours. He wanted his hands dipping into your clothes. He wanted more of your skin. 

Jake blinked hard to break his stare and shook his head. "I, um—"

"This your girl, Seresin?"

Pure ice shot through his body, solidifying the blood in his veins and stopping his heart mid-thump.

He'd know that voice from a mile away; could pick out its specific notes and tone in the sea of mindless chattering. Never would he forget the voice of the man who cursed his name and told him in about ten different ways to fuck off and go to hell. Not even in his nightmares did the memory fade, despite his best effort.

An ocean-blue gaze landed on your face as Jake dropped his hands back to his sides, and it took everything in him not to block that look with his body. It was too suggestive, too bold, but that was signature for the man he used to call his friend. Flirting was in his nature—was once in Jake’s nature, too; deeply embedded in the wiring of his brain. That is, until he fucked up under the influence of that flirty nature mixed with an abundance of alcohol. 

"I'm Cooper," he said, his lips thinning into a smirk. He winked and took a sip from the beer bottle in his hand. 

"I know. We went to the same high school." You replied without skipping a beat. 

Jake’s brow furrowed at your words and the pang in his chest that followed them. How many times in your life had you reminded people of who you were? To the idiots who could somehow find you so unimportant as to forget your face. He couldn’t blur the image of your face if he tried, and he had tried, relentlessly, for years. That determination had only increased when he saw you walk into his class, but you returned with a vengeance; the center of his dreams. 

"You sure?” Copper asked. “I'd think I would've remembered a girl like you."

You smiled a tad awkwardly, your head falling forward, eyes landing at your shoes. He wanted to hold you. Wrap his arms back around you. Protect you. Save you from the discomfort that you never should’ve had to go through. He’d failed you countless times before, without you even knowing it. He could have done those things in school. He’d certainly felt the pull, and yet he didn’t. He kept away as best he could. Now, the instinct was thick and wild and it was a sickening struggle to restrain his limbs from reaching out. But he did. The possible repercussions of acting in this moment would tear him apart. 

"I'm sure," you replied, looking back up. You briefly met Cooper’s eyes, but shifted them to Jake as you said, "I'm going to head back."

Best fucking thing he’d heard all night. Get away from Cooper ran through his head. Good girl. Even if it meant also walking away from Jake, he needed you to go. 

Jake nodded, watching you turn and weave back through body after body until he lost sight of you. 

"You never answered my question." All flirtiness gone. A tenseness turning that tone to stone.

"She's no one,” Jake said, his gaze still locked in the direction you had gone, though you were far from his area of vision. “Just in my class."

Cooper hummed. "Just in your class, huh?" His wide shoulder rammed into Jake’s as he passed him to make his way to the booth where you sat with Rooster and his girlfriend. Cooper glanced over that shoulder, his strawberry blond hair—the hair that had won him the attention of numerous girls for years—shifting in the act, and said "Somehow I doubt that."

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