#48 states visited | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

koenigami · 2 months ago

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'cause my love, is mine all mine. tags : fluff, fem!reader, child!reader, reader accidentally turned into child, a little angst and brief mention of his past wc : 2k synopsis : a failed commission leads to wriothesley having to take care of a mini-version of the love of his life masterlist - Laughter and squeals echo through the large hall as Sigewinne leisurely skips her way up to the Duke’s office, the sight that awaits her at the top of the staircase planting a soft smile on her face.

A slightly out-of-breath Wriothesley chasing a little girl around his desk, her h/c hair bouncing and flying back and forth as she tries to evade the man’s arms all while giggling and grinning as if there were no tomorrow.

To anyone else, this would seem like any other normal afternoon on which the Duke spends time with his daughter, a carbon copy of you, and entertains every single wish of hers because he’s physically unable to tell her no.

However, many things that occur in the Fortress of Meropide should not necessarily be considered normal. Because in fact, you and Wriothesley don’t have a child that looks exactly like you. Because said child is, as a matter of fact, actually you yet simply a younger version of yourself. How is that possible, anyone would ask?

Well, let’s just say that your last commission with the adventurer’s guild didn’t exactly go the way you had hoped it to. While on expedition, your team had found a yet unexplored cave and stumbled upon a variety of ancient artifacts.

By your colleagues’ reports, it seems like a look into a small hand mirror was all it took for your body to shrink, and your features to turn younger by two decades.

It has been almost 48 hours since Monsieur Neuvillette had visited him in his office, the young girl that had been tightly holding onto his hand immediately running up to Wriothesley as soon as her eyes fell on him. All it took was one single look at the Iudex’ apologetic expression, as well as one look at the child’s too familiar face to know that something must have gravely gone wrong during your mission.

“Sigewinne!” You smile when you notice the Melusine quietly standing across the room. With an equally kind face, she waves at you before motioning Wriothesley to have a word with her for a brief moment. So, dejectedly, you watch as the huge man with messy black and greyish hair leaves you to your own devices.

With a little pout, you settle down on his big fancy chair, fish out the markers that he had let someone bring for you, and continue the drawing that you started earlier while he was busy with some paperwork.

You aren’t entirely sure what it is about him, or the other man with beautiful long hair who had brought you to Wriothesley in the first place but- Amidst the chaos in your head, and the fact that you can’t remember a single thing that happened before the past two days, something about them was comforting and provided you with a sense of safety. Especially the wolf-like man. He was nice.

There’s a sudden warmth that settles on top of your head. With big, sparkling eyes, you peer up at Wriothesley who’s analysing the lines of your colourful drawing while his hand nearly engulfs the entirety of your head. “Is it okay if I leave you alone for a few minutes? There’s some stuff I have to check with Sigewinne. I won’t be too long, I promise.”

He notices your eyes widen briefly before you start gnawing on the inside of your cheek and contemplate over his words. Ever since you’ve come back like this, Wriothesley has not been able to leave you alone for even a second, which you’re more than happy about because spending time with him is fun! Of course he doesn’t let on that the reason behind it is his worry about something happening to you, or you getting yourself in trouble, or someone else using your current state as an opportunity to hurt you.

That’s why it pains him even more when he sees the brief look of reluctance in your eyes before you nod silently and go back to your drawing.

With a sad smile on his face, he sighs once he realises that even your younger self seems not to be any better at voicing her true feelings, instead opting to just swallow every negative emotion like a bitter pill.

With a caress over your soft hair, Wriothesley leaves, and the sound of his thick boots as he descends the staircase echo through his office before the door falls shut behind him.

True to his word, Wriothesley returns a quarter of an hour later, a small flacon in his hand which is supposed work as an antidote for whatever kind of higher power has cursed you. As much as he has gotten to enjoy your younger self’s presence, there is no denying that he misses the actual you. And the longer you’re staying in your current form, the more he frets about the possible consequences it could have for your body and health if you’re not turned back into an adult as soon as possible.

Climbing his way up to his office, he can already tell by your panicked little murmurs that you must be up to something. If anyone else so much as tried to snoop around in Wriothesley’s sanctuary, the consequences would be grave. Yet the simple thought of little you stomping around, your eyes sparkling with curiosity as your small chubby hands open and close drawers, and pry open insignificant boxes and chests- He can’t help but smile with a little headshake.

However, his smile immediately falls when he sees your slumped figure kneeling on the floor, surrounded by books and other objects that must have fallen out of the shelf and crashed down on the floor.

You startle when he softly calls out your name, the picture in your hand shaking the slightest before you clutch it to your chest and turn your head to face him.

Oh, you’re going to be in so much trouble. All you wanted was to have a look at the framed picture on the shelf, yet in your attempt to jump up to reach it, you accidentally knocked it over with other books and a little vase. And now everything’s broken. The vase, the frame. He’ll be mad.

“Hey, what happened here?”

“I-I’m sorry. I wanted to see the picture b-but-” Your lips wobble, tears fill your eyes, some of them already spilling over your cheeks, as your little body starts to quake with each sniffle and sob.

Comforting words are already on his tongue, but when his eyes catch the broken pieces of porcelain and the glass shards, he immediately feels his blood pressure rocket before he gathers you in his arms. The cushions of the leather couch creak as he sets you down on it before his hands trail over your arms and legs, making sure that there aren’t any cuts or shards lodged into your delicate skin. “You didn’t hurt yourself right?”

Confusion etches itself clearly on your face, because why is he not yelling at you?

At the light shake of your head, Wriothesley’s shoulder visibly sag as he sighs in relief. “That’s good. You have to be more careful, sweetheart.”

Your nose wrinkles as you sniff and wipe the snot off your face with the sleeve of the overly large shirt that you’ve got on. He seems anything but upset. He smiles gently at you, large and warm hands brushing over your cheeks to wipe the remaining tears away before he throws himself on the couch beside you.

“You’re not mad at me?” You sound like a little mouse, and shyly look up at him through your wet and clumpy lashes. Instead of a scowl and disappointed expression, you’re met with gentle blue eyes and an expression that radiates so much reassurance and comfort that it only confuses you even further. Though, at his next words, you think you understand his reaction a little bit better.

“Of course not. I mean it’s not like you knocked those things over on purpose, right?”

The quick shake of your head earns you a thorough ruffle through your hair, paired with a content See? No biggy then, which finally loosens some of the tension and fear in your body. And as the thick paper in your hand crinkles the slightest bit, you realise that you have completely forgotten about the initial reason for this entire ordeal. You hold up the picture in front of your face, and decide to show it to him.

“She… she’s really pretty.”

“Yeah?”

You shoot him an earnest expression, lips pressed tightly as you nod eagerly and hum. Wriothesley cocks a brow at you and a wide grin stretches his mouth, his hand again resting on your head. You like when he does that.

“You know, sometimes she doesn’t believe me when I tell her how beautiful I think she is. Unbelievable, huh?”

The way you gasp incredulously and look up at him with utter disbelief in your eyes almost makes him bite into your soft apple cheeks. “T-Then you have ta’ make sure you tell her more often. Until she believes it!”

Wriothesley seals his promise by hooking his pinky finger around yours, the difference in size making his heart melt into a puddle. And as you hum satisfiedly and return your attention back to the picture of you and him that has been taken a few months ago, he has to admit that as much as he misses the real you- He won’t miss this version of you any less.

But the presence of the little flacon burns in his pocket, and as Sigewinne’s words echo through his mind, he comes to the realisation that bed time is slowly but surely approaching.

As the sun rises, and the fortress automatically comes to life again, Wriothesley is more than relieved to notice your long legs entangled with his, your arm fully able to reach around his waist and pull yourself closer to him. Giving you the potion before falling asleep just as he has been instructed to do must have done the work. However, as his fingertips brush over your cheek, he’s alarmed at the sudden moisture coating them.

“Love? What’s-”

You’re awake. He notices when you bury your face further into his neck and refuse to look at him while tightening your hold on him. Speechless and with a still sleepy and hazy mind, Wriothesley instinctively buries his hand in your hair on the back of your head, the light massaging motions of his fingers seeming to calm you.

With a wet sniff, you eventually pull back and allow him to have a look at you. The same pretty eyes, the same gorgeous smile, the same cute nose that he loves to brush his own against, but this time with slightly less chubbier cheeks and a more mature expression.

“Are you alright?” His body follows yours as you sit up without uttering a word, and instead proceed to wipe your tear stained cheeks. “How are you feeling?”

The longer the silence between you lingers, the more Wriothesley becomes agitated. Could it be that the potion has any side effects? Physically, at least, you seem to be fine yet-

“I’m sorry. I’m fine, I promise. It’s just-” With a last sniff and brush of your finger along your waterline, you turn towards him with a wobbly smile and throw yourself back into his arms. Yeah, wiping all those tears away was for naught. “Gosh, Wriothesley, I just love you so much, you have no idea.”

Wide eyed, he accepts your embrace and snorts at your sudden outburst of love. Naturally, he would never dare to complain about it. Instead, his nose buries in your neck, inhaling your scent, his arms tighten around your waist, hands roam over your back and take in each and every part of your body.

He's truly missed you.

You don’t remember much of the past few days, yet what you do remember perfectly well is the warmth, love and care with which you had been handled. It’s overflowing and filling you with even more adoration for this man because you’re fully aware that it has been him who has taken care of you. Wriothesley, who never truly got to experience the same kind of affection in his early life, who has seen too many atrocities at such a young age. Your heart breaks over the things that he has missed, yet it mends again at the realisation of how proud you are of him. How proud and lucky you are for him to be yours, and you to be his.

And of course, it goes without saying that after this little incident it doesn’t take long until you and him happily announce that if all goes well, in a few months there will be a mini-version of you and him running around the fortress of Meropide. They will fill the place with joy and laughter, and yours and Wriothesley's life with even more happiness and love.

#wriothesley #wriothesley x reader #wriothesley genshin #wriothesley x you #wriothesley x y/n #genshin wriothesley #wriothesley fluff #wriothesley drabble #genshin x reader #|୧wrio.week୭|

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blooodymoon · 2 months ago

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A "RETURN of the Number of PERSONS FLOGGED in the BRITISH NAVY, in each of the Years 1845 and 1846; specifying the Name of the Ship, the Offence, the Sentence and the Number of Lashes Infficted." Parlamentary Paper, Number 661 of Session 1847

So after reading the Post about Jopsons Flogging by @handfuloftime I went down a research rabbit hole because I wanted to see if their exist sufficient & specific enough Data to accuratly compare his punishment and put it in the historical context.

I found this Website, which features the two tables from the Parlamentary Papers and their Source.

(Note: The tables on the website are incomplete and inaccurate in certain places. I compared it from top to bottom to the original source and corrected/added the informations in my table.)

I used that as a basis for my own table, where I also added Averages and Sliders so people can search the Informations!

(Apparently Sliders don't work on Mobil, and I don't know enough about Google Sheets how to fix it :/

If anyone knows or if you find a some kind mistake please let me know.)

This week I visited the University Libary, which has access to the Parlamentary Papers Online, to see if such tables also exist for earlier years but sadly 1845 was the first year where they went into such Specifics.

(I hope to add some of the Years after 1846 to the table, when I can.)

Earlier years only had these Informations per Year:

Total Number of Punishments

Total Number of Lashes

Highest Number of Lashes Inflicted at One Time

Lowest Number of Lashes Inflicted at One Time

This Information for 1839 - 1846 under the Cut.

Also under the Read More are some Graphs, Medians & Averages about Flogging for Drunkenness Alone, seperated by Seamen, Marines, Boys and Everyone!

Hope that someone find this useful/interesting !

Corporal Punishment for Drunkenness Alone

Everyone:

Lashes Sentenced Median: 32,75 (1845: 36 | 1846: 31,4)

Lashes Sentenced Average: 31,07 (1845: 31,13 | 1846: 31,02)

Lashes Inflicted Average: 30,8 (1845: 31,02 | 1846: 30,58)

Seamen:

Lashes Sentenced Median: 36 (1845: 36 | 1846: 36)

Lashes Sentenced Average: 34,37 (1845: 34,62 | 1846: 33,86)

Lashes Inflicted Average: 34,33 (1845: 34,41 | 1846: 33,86)

Marines:

Lashes Sentenced Median: 31,4 (1845: 32 | 1846: 31,4)

Lashes Sentenced Average: 30,8 (1845: 31,09 | 1846: 31,09)

Lashes Inflicted Average: 30,8 (1845: 31,09 | 1846: 30,69)

Boys:

Lashes Sentenced Median: 24 (1845: 24 | 1846: 33)

Lashes Sentenced Average: 26,22 (1845: 24,4 | 1846: 28,5)

Lashes Inflicted Average: 25,33 (1845: 24,4 | 1846: 26,5)

Years

1839:

Number of Punishments: 2,007

Number of Lashes: 59,341

Highest: 60 | Lowest: 3

1840:

Number of Punishments: 2,026

Number of Lashes: 60,302

Highest: 48 | Lowest: 1

1841:

Number of Punishments: 2,066

Number of Lashes: 61,669

Highest: 50 | Lowest: 2

1842:

Number of Punishments: 2,472

Number of Lashes: 71,024

Highest: 100* | Lowest: 1

1843:

Number of Punishments: 2,170

Number of Lashes: 63,985

Highest: 60 | Lowest: 3

1844:

Number of Punishments: 1,411

Number of Lashes: 42,352

Highest: 72+ | Lowest: 6

1845:

Number of Punishments: 1,070

Number of Lashes: 33,511

Highest: 48 | Lowest: 3

1846:

Number of Punishments: 1,077

Number of Lashes: 32,360

Highest: 50* | Lowest: 3

*By sentence of a Court Martial.

+By order of the Commander-in-Chief for theft, in a shop at Chusan, and violence to the natives.

Sources: A "RETURN of the CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS inflicted in the ROYAL NAVY, in each of the Years 1839 to 1843, both inclusive, stating the highest and lowest Number of Lashes at each Time, and the aggregate Number of Lashes in each Year [ ]" Parlamentary Paper, Number 308, of Session 1845 + ABSTRACT of Total Numbers of CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS inflicted in the NAVY, and the Total Number of LASHES Inflicted, in each Year up to the 31st December 1846 [ ]. Parlamentary Paper, Number 661, of Session 1847

#british navy #the terror #thomas jopson #cornelius hickey #tagging him also because maybe some fan find this interesting too #good I hope this post is formulated okay #i tend to overthink that #also it's late BUT I finally need to post this #before terror camp next week #okay this week for me #but I havent gone to bed so I dont feel like it's monday yet #i spend lots of hours searching until I found that website the day the post hit #and when the Keynote was Anounced I knew that I had to finally finish the table #I spend SO SO Many Hours on this #I hope at least one person will find this useful #also the Admiralitys Capitalising really didnt help reign my german brain in #also this isn't all the maths I have in my notes #I calculated more Averages but I thought I might overwhelm people so I streamlined this Post a bit #Still mad that I worked so much to get this Sliders to work #even after they Broke #and they not even work on Mobile #need to fix that somehow in the future #i always had the Vibe that Floggings in The Terror might have been tuned down/adjusted for modern audiences

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she-is-ovarit · 6 months ago

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A Glance at Women's Oppression

Oppression may be measured by assessing socio-structural conditions. Males oppress female human beings on the axis of sex, and this pattern has been recognized across several disciplines of scientific research.

Violence Against Women

One in three women globally experience physical or sexual violence.

More than 1 in 4 women (26%) aged 15 years and older have suffered violence at the hands of their partners at least once since the age of 15.

The vast majority of substantial research on violence against women in the United States is now 20+ years old :)

As high as 64 - 84% of cases of sexual violence go unreported, so these estimates are low.

A male perpetrator was reported in 98% of cases of violence against both men and women.

58% of all women murdered in 2017 were killed by an intimate partner or a family member (source. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2018).

80% of women are victims or survivors of corrosive violence - aka "acid attacks". 60% of these attacks go unreported, most instigators of acid attacks are male, and there has been a 90% increase in these attacks in the last 10 years, with the UK being the country with the highest rate of acid attacks.

Worldwide 1 in 5 girls are married off usually to men twice their age or more.

Globally, as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by a male intimate partner.

200 million women have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting.

71% of all human trafficking involves women and girls – mainly for sexual exploitation (source. UNODC, 2016).

The killing of women accused of sorcery/witchcraft is reported as a significant phenomenon in countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands.

Many women are killed specifically in "honor killings" - to defend the honor of a man.

200 million girls experience female genital mutilation.

National studies indicate indicate that as many as 4 million women are battered each year, but only about 48 percent of these cases are reported to the police.

Violence against women meets the requirements of widely accepted definitions of hate crimes, but crimes motivated by hatred of women are not included in most antibias crime legislation.

Medical Misogyny

The disregard of pain and illness by medical professionals

This doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of this, but: women are seven times more likely to be misdiagnosed and discharged than men in the middle of having a heart attack. 70% of the people who experience chronic pain are female, but 80% of chronic pain studies have been conducted on males or male mice. Women also wait longer for a diagnosis and pain management than men.

Lack of research: the vast majority of scientific understanding and research on human beings conducted globally has been on males.

Period poverty and death due to misogynistic period shame (and I hope that this is obvious, but I am on Tumblr so I will emphasize that 100% of these deaths, illnesses, and disabilities are happening to female human beings.

Reproductive exploitation, discrimination, and control

Women across many countries have little to no access to abortions and other reproductive care, and are forced to carry their rapist's child.

Women are imprisoned for having abortions, and even people associated with helping them in any way to obtain an abortion experience legal consequences. Being impregnated through rape doesn't change this. In multiple states, rapists can sue their victims for parental custody. Women who are victims of stalkers and had children with them also are forced into allowing them visitation in the vast majority of cases.

Women also experience the brunt of forced sterilization and uniquely endure mortality rates from childbirth complications, in which often the infant's life is prioritized over the mother. Doctors may also refuse women and girls birth control, or subsequently deny women's requests to be sterilized.

Being forced to co-parent with their rapist.

Even if rape is proven, men can sue their victims for custody and may use children as a point of control over their victims and contact with their victims continuing psychological terror and causing trauma to children.

Over 3 million women experience pregnancies as a result of rape.

Men who donate sperm privately and through sperm banks experience no regulations and enforcement of how often they donate, resulting in some men producing thousands of offspring and others deceiving women on whose sperm they were impregnated with. Mothers of these children endure severe psychological trauma from this rape by deception in addition to themselves and their children navigating the psychological effects of avoiding potential incestuous relationships with the donor's other children.

Job Discrimination

In 38 countries, women can be fired for being pregnant.

From January 2017 through December 2019, 2.7 million workers age 20 and older were displaced from jobs they had held for at least 3 years; women accounted for 45 percent of those displaced.

While on leave, substantially fewer women than men

receive full pay (32 percent versus 55 percent), and more

receive no pay (41 percent versus 25 percent).

Women continue to experience occupational segregation in nontraditional jobs. In 2013, women composed 7.3 percent of all Craft Workers, while the participation rate for women in the Office and Clerical Worker category was considerably higher at 75.6 percent.

Despite the gains in employment made by women in the last 50 years, the annual median earnings of women working full time in 2013 was $39,157, compared with men at $50,033.

In 86 countries, women face some form of job restriction and 95 countries do not guarantee equal pay for equal work. 59 nations have no laws on the books addressing sexual harassment in the workplace, and 18 nations around the world allow husbands to legally prevent their wives from working.

Influence and resources:

Less than 15% of landholders worldwide are women, despite most women in the global south working in agriculture (source. Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015; World Bank, 2019).

Women make up just 25% of parliamentarians worldwide (source. Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2019).

Between 1990 and 2019 women made up 2% of mediators, 5% of witnesses and signatories, and 8% of negotiators in major peace processes worldwide (source. Council of Foreign Relations, 2019).

Only 1% of aid supporting gender equality went to women’s rights organisations in 2016-2017, despite governments around the world committing an extra $1bn to gender equality initiatives globally (sources. Guardian, 2019, OECD, 2019).

130 million girls are denied the right to an education.

According to the largest study on the portrayal, participation and representation of women in the news media spanning 20 years and 114 countries, only 24 per cent of the persons heard, read about or seen in newspaper, television and radio news are women.

A glass ceiling also exists for women news reporters in newspaper bylines and newscast reports, with 37 per cent of stories reported by women as of 2015, showing no change over the course of a decade.

An analysis of popular films across 11 countries found, for example, that 31 per cent of all speaking characters were women and that only 23 per cent featured a female protagonist—a number that closely mirrored the percentage of women filmmakers (21 per cent)

#women's oppression #feminism #global feminism #women's rights #human rights #social justice #violence against women #patriarchy

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macfrog · 1 year ago

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illicit affairs

cowboy like me chapter eleven

howdy everyone it's me again 🤠 latest chapter of cowboy like me is now yours. do with it as you wish. love u all so much. see ya soon x

pairing: dbf!joel x fem!reader

summary: your relationship with joel is getting harder and harder to hide, especially when a surprise visit from your dad threatens to spoil your romantic weekend

warnings: 18+ (minors dni!!!) reader is a lil hungover, gluten bagels, lots of LIES, reader and joel being horny devils, gene kelly, unprotected piv sex, sex tape, praise kink, fluff, cockwarming, angst!!! and pain!!!!, reader and joel fight, cheating....??, age gap (reader is 23, joel is 48), cursing

word count: 8.4k

series masterlist | main masterlist

You wake in the same position you fell asleep in just hours ago: curled up in Joel’s bed, the curve of his body safely encasing yours. His lips are still by your ear, breath gentle against your lobe. You lean over to lift your phone from the nightstand.

8:14. You’ve had less than four hours’ sleep.

Below the time there’s a text message, sent a couple hours ago.

Dad: Remember to take the trash out before you pass out kiddo. Hope you had a good night 👍

Well, that was never happening, was it? As far as your dad knows, his best friend had picked you up from Frank’s and given you a ride home. Probably walked you to the house on his steady arm, made sure you downed a glass of water before seeing you off upstairs to bed. Polite. Respectful.

Of course, your dad is blissfully unaware that, in actual fact, at 6AM you were in said best friend’s bed, pressed up against him, no clothes between you, fast asleep. Definitely not making sure the trash was out.

The bright screen burns into your eyes as you squint at the notification below his text, decorated with alarm emojis – your way of ensuring you remembered to get back before him. DAD HOME stares back at you ominously, eventually persuading you to push yourself up off the mattress, loosen Joel’s lazy hold on your waist, and slip out of bed.

Joel, still asleep, rolls across your side of the bed onto his stomach when you sit up, sighing into your pillow as you prop yourself on the edge of the bed. You sit for a minute, dumb smile wide across your lips with no one to conceal it from, staring at him. Studying every part of him in his content, sleepy state.

The sharp curve of his jawline, the flecks of gray through his beard. The soft brush of hair falling on his forehead, deep brown curling just above his eyebrows. His toned shoulder, round and strong, flexing some with the grip his arm has around your pillow. His face buried in the cotton, breathing you in.

You jump when your phone starts vibrating in your hand, pad across to the door and slip out, closing it gently behind you.

“Hello?” you whisper.

Your dad’s voice is like a foghorn in your hungover ear. “Mornin’, kiddo! Wake ya?”

You wince, clutching your forehead as the quick movement from Joel’s bed to his hallway catches up with your aching brain. “Mighta done, yeah.”

He chuckles. The car hums in the background while he talks, meaning he yells even louder to compensate. “I’m about an hour out, thought I’d bring in some breakfast. You want anythin’?”

“I’m good with whatever. You’ll be back soon?”

“Nine-thirty or so, looks like. Why?”

“Nothin’, just wondered. I’ll see you in a bit, then.”

“Hey, d’you take the trash out?”

“Uh, I can’t– You’re breakin’ up, there, Dad, I’ll see you when you get home. Alright, cool, see ya then, bye.”

You cut his babbling voice and hang up, clutching the phone to your chest, close your eyes and exhale. When you swing back into the room quietly, Joel’s still sleeping.

You slip back into your dress and pull your boots on, scanning the room for your panties. No sign of them, though, and it’s not like you got all the time in the world to search. They’re probably underneath Joel’s deadweight body, anyway.

You tiptoe over to the side of the bed and crouch, kissing his neck softly.

He stirs, hand lets go of the pillowcase and finds yours, intertwining your fingers sleepily.

“I gotta go, baby,” you whisper, running your fingers through his unkempt hair.

His voice mumbles into the cotton, deep and groggy. You catch the tail end of his sentence: “…give you a ride.”

“No,” you reply, laughing a little as you sweep hair from his forehead. “I’m good, I’ll walk. You sleep. I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Text me when you’re…home…”

The words barely pass through his lips as he begins to drop off again, and you kiss his head before straightening up, grabbing your bag, and heading downstairs.

You dip into the kitchen before you go, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. You’re fucking parched. Hungover, exhausted, you roll the freezing cold bottle across your forehead. It does little to soothe the throbbing pain, but it takes the edge off of it for a few seconds before you’re slinging the bottle under your arm and searching through Joel’s cupboard.

You steal a bagel. Feels kinda hard, probably a day past its best, but it’ll do. You set off, picking at the dry bread as you walk, holding it between two fingers as you gulp at the water.

It’s the blandest walk of shame that ever happened.

Twenty minutes later and you’re pushing through your front door, fucking drenched in sweat. Your jacket’s tied around your waist, leather hot and stiff. You toss your keys on the kitchen counter and collapse into the couch, letting your heartrate settle and waiting for the room to stop pulling in and out of focus.

Your head is pounding now, your throat feels like sandpaper. Your body aches, though if you’re honest with yourself, you’re not sure that’s just from the hangover.

Once you’re in a fitter state, pulse no longer beating through your eyeballs, you head upstairs and tears your clothes off to jump in the shower. You keep it on a low heat, only warm, and it soothes your skin and flushes the smell of alcohol, sweat, and Joel down the drain.

You’re back in the kitchen, hunched over the counter nursing a coffee, when your dad waltzes through the front door. You lift your towel-wrapped head from your hand and look up.

“Well, hello,” he calls. “I notice ours is the only house in the street with no tra–”

“How was your trip?” you cut in, eyes screwing shut.

“Ha. Good. Nice drive, up that way. I got us bagels. Want one?”

Sometimes it’s like some twisted fucker is sat writing this comedy into your life. He brought home bagels? After you just choked one down walking home in the blistering heat? Whatever, dude.

“Thanks,” you mutter flatly against your mug, reaching out for the paper bag he’s offering.

Your dad lifts his own bagel, takes a huge bite, then looks up at you and gives an enthusiastic thumbs up. When you bite into yours, you’re…less enthusiastic. It does taste better than the dry one you just had, though. The cream cheese helps.

“I, uh…I’ll be headin’ out again soon,” you tell him.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Staying at Anna’s tonight,” you lie, setting your coffee down. “Said we’d have a pool day.”

He nods, mouth full of food. “Sounds nice, kiddo. Nice day for a tan. Hey, uh, how was Joel?”

You almost choke on your bagel. “Wh-what?”

“Joel. He alright?”

You shrug, picking at the bread. Unable to meet your dad’s eye. “I dunno. Why don’t you ask ‘im? I don’t know how he is.”

He stares at you. Brows knit, a line between them pointing upward. “I was just wonderin’…since he…He did pick you up last night, right?”

Oh, fuck.

“Oh,” you bat a hand, tucking it back under the counter when you notice it trembling. “Oh, right. I thought you meant this morning. Yeah, he was fine. He…Yeah. Fine.”

“Uhuh,” your dad nods, eyes narrow.

You don’t have the energy or the brainpower to be convincing. Not right now. There’s alcohol still drying up in your blood, muscles still tight from that fucking hike home, and your mind isn’t even in the room with your dad right now. It’s elsewhere – wrapped up in Joel’s bedsheets with him.

“I hope you didn’t keep him up too late.”

“It was, like, 2AM or somethin’. Wasn’t so bad. He said he was up watching TV anyways. So.”

He seems to believe this – swallows it down with the last few bites of his breakfast. You continue chatting, covering over your blunder like packing dirt back into a hole in the earth, conversation drifting from how your girls night went, to how his trip was, to an awkward apology for ‘forgetting’ the trash. He won’t let that go, will he?

But it’s short-lived. Soon, you both fall into silence, and the air between you feels muggy. Thick with lies and secrecy. Things you can’t say – I wanted a McDonald’s, but Joel wouldn’t budge, then I caught him watching Grey’s Anatomy, did you know he’s only slept with ten – I mean nine people?

Your dad glances up a few times, studies your face. You hide behind your bagel, guilt and shame across your cheeks like a wine stain. But he only smiles pleasantly, until he’s throwing the last bite into his mouth and rubbing his hands together, announcing he’s going for a shower.

“I’ll take your bag to your room,” you crumble the paper wrapped inside your fist, toss it across to him, “I gotta pack anyways.”

“Thanks, kiddo,” he says, patting your back as you pass him.

You don’t look back when you lift the leather straps of his bag and lug it upstairs.

It drops from your clutches with a thud at the foot of his bed. And then you’re quite literally skipping through to your own room, grabbing a black tote from your closet and blindly tossing clothes into it. A spare t-shirt, underwear, socks. Who gives a fuck what you pack? You’re going to Joel’s – the clothes will probably last five minutes on your body before you’re peeling them off again.

One thing you do take time picking is your bikini, opting for a red strappy one. Your old roommate once told you it made you look like you were in an episode of Baywatch. Which, y’know, seems like Joel’s kinda thing.

Your dad’s stood by his bed, hair damp from his shower, unpacking his bag when you emerge from your room.

“That you leaving your old man?” he asks with a tut, folding a t-shirt onto the mattress in front of him.

You wander through, sweet smile on your face, and kiss his cheek. “See ya tomorrow.”

“Have fun, honey.”

And then you’re gone. Straight back to Joel’s.

You’ve been away a couple hours, if that, but when you wander up his driveway, he’s not home. He keeps a spare key under a plant by his door, so you let yourself in. Sink back into his couch, throw on an old episode of Love Island while you wait. Twenty minutes later, his truck pulls up and he shoulders the door open, grocery bags in his arms.

“Hi, baby,” he says, leaning down to kiss your head as he passes.

You switch the TV off and follow him through to the kitchen to help him unpack, rocking into his side as you empty the bags with a giggle.

“He ask?”

You shake your head, chewing on a Twizzler.

“Nothin’? Really?”

“Didn’t really give him time to,” you reply. “Had breakfast, grabbed my stuff, left. And I parked a couple streets away, just on the off-chance.”

Joel looks down at you with a hesitant smile on his lips. He steals the Twizzler from between your teeth and puts it in his own mouth.

“Dick,” you mumble, and he chuckles quietly.

“You know, darlin’…all this lyin’, covering our tracks, I…”

“Joel,” you lean into him, standing on your tiptoes to peck his lips. “I don’t care. There’s nowhere else in the world I wanna be. Just with you. He’ll find somethin’ to do, you know he will.”

He gazes at you for a few seconds, eyes flitting back and forth between yours. You lean your head back and his arm snakes around your waist, squeezing you into his side.

“Trouble,” he mutters, taking a six-pack of beer over to the fridge.

----------

The summer sun blazes down over Joel’s backyard, and the pair of you spend the afternoon by his pool, keeping cool by having a dip every now and then. The red bikini is, as it turns out, a hit: Joel can’t keep his eyes – or his hands – off you, anytime you push up off your lounge chair and slink over to the pool edge, slipping in beside him.

You lock your arms around his neck, legs lazily draped over his hips as he floats you both through the water, and turn your head to the sky; eyes shut, the inside of your lids bright red with the sun screaming down through them. Joel idly kisses your chest, lips curving around your collarbones.

“I like this,” you say, looking down at him. Droplets run down the ends of his dark hair, beads of water rolling down his temples. “I could get used to it.”

“Wish we could,” he replies, bucking you up under his forearms. “I like it, too.”

It feels nice, if a little bit of an ache. Hearing him talk like that. Everything you two ever say, no matter how thick with sincerity, is laced with threat. Wish we could. Because you never will be able to get used to it, right? Something will always be swimming underneath you, a black shadow that disappears whenever you attempt one good glance at it.

Something always threatening to spill your secrets. Something threatening to blow everything apart.

Joel lifts a hand to cup the back of your head and pulls your lips down to meet his, moving backward until his back hits the wall of the pool. Your teeth pick up his bottom lip, tongue slips past into his mouth, and he groans, smiling into the kiss.

You begin to feel him harden under his trunks, and you grind your core against him.

“Inside?” he breathes between kisses.

“Mhm,” you whine, and he drags you out of the pool back into the house.

You spend the entire day following a pattern: eat, chill, tease, fuck. Eat, chill, tease, fuck. As the sun begins to melt behind the trees lining Joel’s backyard, you’ve spend more time on your knees, underneath, or on top of Joel than you have actually tanning.

Can you blame yourselves? Whenever you get alone time with no risk of being caught, it’s hard to keep your hands off one another. With no reason to keep quiet or hidden, you can fuck around all you want without a care in the world, right?

Right.

You order pizza, laze in the slow-dying sun to eat it, talking about nothing and everything before one of you steers the conversation and, before you know it…your bikini bottoms are pushed to the side, or otherwise torn from your body.

Eat, chill, tease, fuck. It’s too easy.

When the yard is finally drowned by dusk, Joel grabs some blankets and you spend the evening on his couch, talking some more and then deciding which movie to watch. You’ve never seen Singin’ in the Rain. Joel takes obscene offense to this fact.

“What kind of film student ain’t seen Singin’ in the Rain?”

“We actually did study it for one of my classes,” you mutter, tossing popcorn into your mouth. “Flicked through the important parts. Wasn’t my thing.”

“Well, you gotta watch the whole film. It’s a classic. Won at the Oscars ‘n everythin’.”

His enthusiasm almost makes you hold back – the way he’s sat on the edge of his seat, twisted around to chastise you properly for your ignorance of musical film. This could be the most animated you’ve ever seen him – over Gene Kelly. So, you almost bite your tongue.

Almost.

“Didn’t it…famously get nothing?”

His face sours in a heartbeat. Expression drops like a sack of bricks. He turns away from you and throws himself back into the couch, grumbling. “Alright, smartass. Watch it, and we’ll talk after.”

“I’m just sayin’, it–”

“We’ll talk. After.”

It’s still not your thing. For a multitude of reasons, but the newest one, the most difficult of all to let go: you can’t get the way Joel spoke out of your mind.

Just shut you right up, didn’t he? With three flat words, and a look in his eye that warned you not to push him. But fuck, you want to. You want to make him talk. Now.

Fifteen minutes into the film, you sit forward and swipe his phone from the coffee table.

“What are you doin’?” he asks in that monotone voice, the one he always uses whenever you’re pissing him off. Whenever you’re…getting to him.

“Bored,” you state, thumbs tapping in his passcode. You’ve been around him enough by now, studying every little move he makes, to just absorb dumb little things about him like the fact that his passcode is 0908, because those are the three numbers his thumb can reach easiest.

The phone clicks open and your eyes dance over the screen, deciding which app to load first.

Joel says your name. Just once. But it’s enough.

You angle your head in his direction. Bat your eyelashes.

“Enough. Watch the damn movie, would ya?”

Your head rolls back around to his phone. You click the photos app.

Joel curses under his breath, shaking his head and turning back to the screen. His eyes are boring into the pixels, mumbling things you’re too busy scrolling through his camera roll to listen to.

It’s mostly screenshots. Contracts, invoices, receipts. Boring Joel stuff. There’s the odd photo of his backyard, a few where the sunset rips across the tops of the trees in a fiery glow. They’re a little tilted, a little off balance. You smile at his attempt at photography.

“You gotta learn how to straighten your pictures, dude.”

“Took that for you,” he utters through a mouthful of popcorn. “Thought you’d like the sky with the trees in front, ‘n all.”

“Coulda text me it,” you say, letting him swipe through the photos to show you, each one from a slightly different angle to get more of the trees in, crop the pool out, hide the horrendous rosebush his neighbor has creeping over his fence.

He shrugs, pulling his hand away. “Musta been distracted by all the dumb stuff you send me.”

“Fine, no more funny videos. You’ve done it now, Miller.”

He chuckles and his attention turns back to the film. You’re slowly creeping further back through his pictures – measurements for something he’s building, different thicknesses of lumber propped against each other under the fluorescent light of Home Depot. And then –

You recognize the huge arching window first. Sunlight casting across a white tablecloth, polished cutlery shimmering. The velvet curtains in the background, and the made-up diners dotted around behind you and Sarah, both grinning into her phone camera.

“When did you…?”

Joel’s lips press the crown of your head. “Saw her gettin’ her phone out ‘n thought it’d be a nice picture from that angle, too.”

“Joel…” you breathe, eyes stuck on the image of your swollen cheeks, more centered in the frame than Sarah’s brown curls.

Your thumb swipes once and there’s a second photo: Sarah’s arm is lowered, she’s typing out her caption. You’re still smiling, looking over her shoulder as she selects the perfect cocktail of emojis.

She’s barely in the frame. It’s all you. Only you.

“I can’t believe you,” you whisper, limp hands dropping the phone to your stomach.

“’s just a photo, baby.”

And he’s right. Or – he’d be right, if it weren’t the only two photos of a human being in his entire camera roll. The only person he deems worth taking a picture of. The only one, in amongst trees, and emails, and wooden planks. The things that make up Joel, in your mind. His work, his home, and…you.

As quick as the thought delights you, it’s already terrifying you. Thrill barging through your veins, competing with fear to shock through your system the hardest.

“Alright,” you mutter, switching to his camera app and turning the phone to aim at him, “just a photo.”

You watch on the screen as he gives you a telling glance, holds his hand up to block the lens, and says, “Baby. Will you put that–? Hey. Watch the damn movie, now.”

“No,” you reply, avoiding his palm to snap a picture of his face. You twist in your seat until you’re at a ninety-degree angle to him, your feet in his lap, pulling a cushion to swipe at his attempts to grab the phone. “No, c’mon. We gotta fill your camera roll with more ‘n just contracting stuff.”

“Oh, do we?”

“Yeah.”

Your thumb swipes to video mode, hitting the bright red button and giggling when Joel’s deadpan face turns to watch you behind his phone.

“Quit – it,” he chuckles, swatting the phone from his face.

“You wanna watch a movie, maybe I wanna make one.”

His stare darkens. A smirk pulls at the corners of his lips. You hear it how he heard it seconds after, and you mirror his expression.

“Enough,” he tells you again, voice low, but it’s less of a telling as it is…a warning.

You put the phone down. Lock it, slide it across the couch to Joel. Silent. Giving him the choice.

His fingers lock around it, clicking the button to light the screen back up. He studies it for a second, deliberating, and then leans forward, setting it on the coffee table.

When you turn to look, the phone is sat on its side, screen reflecting back the image of the two of you; Joel, sat upright in the couch, and you, strewn out beside him. The oversized shirt you’re wearing has ridden up past your underwear, pooling on your stomach.

He’s staring at you. You can see it in his phone. You turn to look back, and he lifts his palm. Ball’s back in your court.

“Turn the TV off,” you mutter. You’re not fucking him with Singin’ in the Rain in the background.

He keeps his eyes on you, reaching for the remote. The screen cuts to black.

“Sure you wanna–?”

“C’mere,” you cut in, tossing the cushion and pulling him into you when he moves.

Somewhere between Joel leaning down on top of you and taking a grip of your hair in his hands, he presses the record button. The tiny ding sound shines a spotlight on you that lights your skin with nerves, a little bit of embarrassment, but…thrill. Excitement. Arousal.

Joel grinds his hips into yours and you both moan, your head falling back to allow him room to bruise your neck with his lips. His fingers knead roughly into the soft skin around your hips, pressing divots into your waist, sneaking their way up to cup your tits.

And then you’re turning, craning your neck to watch yourselves on his phone screen. Joel’s lips on your neck, his hands beneath your shirt.

He lifts his jaw for two seconds, coming up for breath and noticing your gaze.

“You wanna watch it, baby?”

You laugh in response, nodding when he turns your jaw to look at him.

In two seconds, you’re on your front, flipped by Joel’s hands. He takes your hips and lifts them, lining them with his own. You cross your arms and rest your chin atop them, watching in the reflected image as he slips his tee over his head and pulls your ass back to meet his stiff crotch.

Both of your heads are just cut out of shot. Yours at the left-hand side of the screen, and Joel’s at the top. The only recognizable traits are your hair and his beard. Those – and the sounds escaping your lips.

He wastes no time undressing you. Just lets your tee fall down your spine to your shoulders, pushes your panties to the side, and tugs his sweatpants low enough that he can comfortably slip inside you.

It’s sloppy. And quick. It barely lasts five minutes. As far as sex tapes go, it’s a pitiful attempt. But it’s hot – pretending that someone might fucking see it one day, see you and Joel, arguably doing what you do best.

And it’s even hotter seeing it from a different angle; feeling the stretch of him inside you, and watching it happen in real-time on his phone. Thinking of him rewatching it once the weekend’s over, his cock in his fist, shooting cum all over his belly.

Joel thrusts into you, pulling your ass back until you’re swallowing every inch of his cock. Your fists ball and you bite down on your arm to counter the shallow pain of him deep inside you, groaning with pleasure.

“Fuck,” he whispers from behind, slipping back only halfway and pushing in again.

You breathe a laugh, whispering, “Harder,” and he listens.

His hips crack against yours, a whimper calling from your lips, knees slipping further apart on the leather beneath you to accommodate the fucking size of him.

“Yeah? You want it harder, pretty girl?”

“Mhm,” you whine, bottom lip between your teeth.

He picks up the pace, pushing deeper every time your ass comes into contact with his hips. His skin slaps against yours, squeals of delight and pleasure cutting from your throat with each movement he makes.

Your hand slips between your legs, fingers run quick circles over your clit.

“Good girl,” he grits, “make yourself feel good, baby.”

You whine his name, forehead flat against the couch cushion as he fucks you, pleasure building between your legs like a tornado, tightening, tightening, tightening.

And then you’re being hauled up from the couch, flat against Joel’s body, cock still buried deep inside you. His hand replaces yours, his fingers on your clit, rubbing faster and harder than you think you can take.

He’s whispering in your ear like he always does. Saying everything he knows you like to hear. You’re a good girl, you’re his girl, you’re taking him so well. It’s desperate, and messy, and you know you’re both just racing to the finish line, aching for the relief that only you two know how to bring to one another.

And you cum, hard, fighting against his hold in a desperate attempt to fall flat against the couch. Joel keeps you upright, fingers slowing on your aching cunt as you clench and squeeze his cock, your orgasm ripping through your body.

He lets go of you, settling you on all fours in front of him before he pulls out, spilling all over your back.

You sink lower, ass still in the air, tits pressed against the cool leather of the couch as his warm cum slowly trickles down your spine.

Joel groans, a deep, guttural groan, still holding his cock between your ass cheeks as he stills, watching every rope of cum coating your back.

You catch your breath, panting mixed with laughing, and turn, rolling over and staring up at him. He leans back over, grabs the phone, and stops recording.

“Fuck…” you breathe.

“Fuck,” Joel agrees.

You laugh again, the last of your energy going into taking his shoulder and pulling him down against your body as he examines the footage. Tender kisses along his neck, dipping between his collarbones, listening to the grunts and groans from the speaker by your ear.

“Jesus, darlin’,” Joel breathes, eyes never leaving the screen. “We’re a fuckin’ mess.”

Your head tilts back with laughter, and Joel’s lips ghost across your throat. “We are not,” you finally reply, taking hold of the phone and scrolling quickly through the video. “I liked that part,” you turn it to show him your bodies held to one another by Joel’s strong arms.

“Yeah?” he asks behind a chuckle. Then he takes the phone from your hands, locks it, and tosses it to the other side of the couch, pulling you up into his arms until you’re sat on his lap, noses brushing against one another. “I liked all of it.”

“I like all of you,” you say, and he presses his lips to yours.

Joel kisses you gently, running his hands under your shirt and across your back, still covered in his release. He presses you closer to his body, almost painfully, as if the cotton of your shirt, the skin of your bodies, the cages of ribs inside are all keeping you too far apart from him.

You pull your jaw from his, run two delicate fingers across his lips.

“Don’t go fallin’ in love, cowboy,” you whisper.

----------

Joel carries you to his room just after midnight – sun-kissed, chlorine-coated, fucked-out, exhausted. He slips into bed behind you, curling his body around your frame, and, when his leg lifts to slot between yours, your hand stops it.

“No?” he asks, head lifting.

“Don’t want your thigh,” you mumble.

“How come?”

“Want you to…want somethin’ else.”

Joel understands without another word. He kisses your shoulder once, then takes your hips in both hands and pulls your ass to his front. You feel him pull the elastic of his underwear, stroke himself a couple times, and then push his tip in.

You gasp when he enters you – half-hard, slow, but even still. You’ll never get used to the feeling of him filling you, of his body connecting with yours, of him knowing and feeling you this intimately. Knowing and feeling you more intimately than anyone in your life ever has. Ever will, maybe.

When you’re full of him, he steadies. You scoot your hips back a little, and he growls in your ear.

“Careful, pretty girl.”

“Just gettin’ comfy,” you sleepily sing, almost teasingly.

He snakes one arm under your neck, cradling your head in the crook of his elbow. The other lies lazily over your waist. A satisfied sigh runs from his lips past your ear. He sounds and feels the most relaxed you’ve ever known him to be.

And you wish you could say the same.

Your eyes close over, heavy and tired, but you don’t fall asleep as quick as Joel. Something’s tugging at your heart. Something solid, that drags it down to the bottom of your stomach, and pools like ice water there. Something that nips at your lungs, stealing breath from you whenever you think too hard about it.

Something you’ve been patting down, stamping out with your foot every time the flame relights. And suddenly it feels as though the entire room just caught fire from under you.

Sheer exhaustion sends you off to sleep, with dreams of conversations and confessions you’re sure would never happen. Could never happen.

Should. Never. Happen.

----------

Warm water pours down over you, soaking your hair and chasing down your shoulders, your arms, past your breasts and over your stomach. You grab some more of the shampoo you’d stolen from Sarah’s bathroom and lather it up, covering your hair in it and drowning yourself under the water again.

Joel’s bathroom is one of three in his house; Sarah’s is slightly roomier, and the guest bathroom has the best water pressure, but you don’t care. Something inside you goes wild knowing you’re naked and washing in Joel Miller’s shower, even though you two have been fooling around for almost a month now.

You’re busy relishing over how perfect the last couple of days have been, wondering what breakfast Joel’s cooking up downstairs when the bathroom door bursts open.

“Hey,” he says, pulling on the shower door. “Out.”

“Huh?” you reply, eyes screwed shut, hair covered in soapy bubbles.

“I said get out. He’s here. Your damn dad’s here.”

Joel reaches around you and hands you a towel as he pulls you out of the cubicle and quickly wrings your hair for you. In a daze, you throw his tee over your shoulders and take his hand, following him out of the shower room and across his bedroom to the closet.

He turns you, hands tight on your shoulders, and ushers you inside.

“What’s he doin–?”

“I got a leaking pipe. He was passin’ by, dropped in to take a look. You stay here, do not make a sound, you hear?”

He closes over the slatted door gently, and you peer through the wood with narrow eyes. You hear footsteps approaching, your dad’s unmistakable chortle as the bedroom door is pushed open again and Joel shows him to the leaking pipe.

“Somewhere under there,” he mutters, hands resting on his knees to point to the space underneath his sink. “Had a look myself, tried some stuff, but it ain’t for fixin’.”

“Let’s have a look,” your dad bends down, groaning when his bad knees reach the tile. He’s almost shoulder deep under Joel’s cabinet, flashlight on, when Joel steals a glance in your direction.

He shakes his head, holding a hand up. Stay quiet.

He gives the room a quick scan, frantic eyes searching for any evidence of your being there. He swivels on the spot, twisting behind himself, noticing your cell on the nightstand at the same time you do.

Joel leans back, feet still rooted to the carpet, and fishes the phone between two fingers, slipping it into his back pocket. You breathe a sigh of relief.

“Ah!” your dad exclaims, and Joel shoots straight back around. “It’s your trap.”

“Is that right? I had a look at it.”

“Mhm. Is your eyesight failin’? Look at this, son.” Your dad’s hand reaches blindly behind him into his toolbox and grabs a wrench. “Just the joint’s loose.”

Joel grumbles in response.

You hear the squeak of metal as your dad tightens the pipe and then the clank of his wrench being thrown back into his toolbox. With maximum effort – thanks to his bad joints – he straightens back up alongside Joel, who thanks him.

“Better be the last of my issues.”

“Ha! So little faith in me, ol’ boy. Anyway. I’ll get out of your hair. That’s a mighty good smell comin’ from your kitchen, don’t wanna hold you back from enjoying it.”

“Oh, yeah. Thanks,” Joel says, and you can see him trying to usher your dad out.

But your dad, though you love him, is kinda fuckin’ annoying.

“Anyone special?”

“Huh?”

“You, cookin’? Naw. ‘s gotta be for someone good. Anyone comin’ over for a breakfast date? A…receptionist from a plant hire, perhaps?”

Joel’s eyes squint as he looks your dad up and down, taking his bottom lip under his teeth. “Nope,” he grumbles after a beat, with one shake of his head.

Your dad laughs a little, and then looks to something behind Joel’s back.

“Nice hat,” he scoffs, pointing a finger.

Joel doesn’t reply for a few seconds. You know he’s having the same realization you’re having: your cowgirl hat is hooked over the corner of his headboard.

He laughs. Nervously. Though maybe only you can hear that.

“Yeah, uh…yeah.”

“Looks a hell of a lot like a hat my daughter has.”

“Yeah?” Joel asks, sensing the same accusatory tone you do. Your forehead falls into your palm, hearing the almost pissed-off tone in which he asks, “And what would your daughter’s hat be doin’ in my bedroom?”

For fuck’s sake, Joel. Subtle, much?

“No, no,” your dad’s almost protesting, “I ain’t meanin’…” He sighs. “You know what I meant. Alright, I’m gone. I’m outta your hair.”

His boots recede down the hallway, then downstairs. Your breath doesn’t come back until you hear his car door slam shut, and the tires drive off.

When Joel pulls the closet door back, you’re still stood, towel in your hair, head in your hands. You can’t even look at him.

He doesn’t say anything like you expect him to. No, Sorry, baby, I didn’t know he was comin’. No, Come get breakfast, I’ll make it up to you.

He just wanders off back downstairs, leaving you to get dressed by yourself.

When you enter the kitchen, he’s plating up pancakes and drizzling them in syrup just the way you like. You pass him and run a hand over his shoulder blades, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t even flinch.

When you sit at the table, he puts the plate down in front of you. Silently. Then sits across from you.

You watch his every move. He picks up his knife and fork, and begins cutting into his own breakfast. Staring down at the plate. Then out of the kitchen window to the backyard. Then back to the plate.

You give his calf a light kick under the table, and his eyes lift, but only to your plate.

“You gonna eat?” he asks. Toneless. Less emotion than he talked to your dad with.

Without a word, you pick up your cutlery and start on your own pancakes, though your appetite suddenly disappears.

He made them with banana – your favorite – but the way he’s being with you right now, they taste sour and dry. You chew your way through as much as you can until you’re staring him down, desperate for him to –

“Would you just say somethin’?”

He looks up. Finally looks you in the eye. “What?”

“Say something. Get mad. Yell at me or something, I dunno.”

“Why would I yell at you?” He plants his fork into a scrap of pancake and drags his knife alongside it.

“I mean, you seem pretty mad right now.”

“I ain’t gonna yell at you.”

“But you are mad?”

Joel doesn’t reply. He leans to one side, fishes in his back pocket for something, then slides your cell across the wooden table toward you. He nods down at it, and you click to unlock it.

Dad: Hey, I’m heading over to Joel’s to check something out for him. Wanna meet me there?

Dad: If your slumber party’s over, that is

He sent them an hour ago. If you’d fucking looked, you’d have known.

“Fuck…” you whisper.

“Yeah,” Joel mutters, jaw chewing, “fuck.”

“He didn’t– I mean, he didn’t see me, though. Right?”

“He saw your hat.”

You lean back in your chair, cutlery clattering against your plate. “He didn’t know it was mine.” A smile forms on your lips, you can’t help it, but it quickly vanishes when Joel’s tone doesn’t shift. Not even a note.

“And how do I know he ain’t drive by your car on his way?”

“Aw, c’mon, man, I’m parked, like, four streets away.”

Joel shakes his head, eyebrows arched. “You’re unbelievable,” he whispers.

“Uh, okay. Thanks. Jeez.” You fold your arms and glare out to the backyard, face beginning to heat. Eyes beginning to sting. Joel’s never like this with you. Never mad, never disappointed. Never makes you feel like a kid being told off.

“I mean, your bikini’s hangin’ up out there,” he points his fork toward the backyard, “and ain’t your bag sat in my hallway? How in the hell he didn’t see that, I have no idea.”

“But he obviously didn’t, so what’s the big deal? It’s only a black tote, it could’ve been anyone’s.”

“The big deal is that he could’ve seen it, baby! And it’s not just anyone’s, is it? It’s his daughter’s.”

And the thing is – he’s not even wrong. You can’t argue back much, ‘cause you know as well as he does that everything he’s saying is true. It’s valid. Your dad would’ve walked right by that bag – twice. The same bag he saw you hook over your shoulder right before you kissed his cheek and skipped out of his room.

This whole time, you’ve been dancing on a knife edge. Waiting to be caught. You came too close this time, and Joel tells you as much.

“Alright, well, what do you want me to do? I can’t go back in time and move the damn bag. I’m sorry, Joel. I didn’t fucking mean to let him see–”

“That’s not the point,” he interjects, which is another thing Joel rarely does.

This whole argument is something Joel – something you rarely do. The two of you. The last time you saw him this animated, this angry over something, it was Arthur Kennedy eyeing you up at the barbecue. And even that – that wasn’t directed at you. He wasn’t mad at you.

“Then what’s your point?” you ask, hands slapping down on the table.

“My point is – how many times are we gonna come within touching distance of someone finding out about this? If it wasn’t Hank almost finding us upstairs, it was your dad waltzing right in while I had you fuckin’– while I was…” He sighs, and then throws his cutlery down onto his plate.

Your head drops, thinking back to the seconds of panic between your dad opening your front door and him seeing you two, an awkward, guilty distance apart. Your shorts under the couch. Your wet on Joel’s fingers.

Joel’s kitchen table blurs in and out of focus, tears swimming across your eyes. You rapidly blink them away, but they’re forming quicker than you can rid yourself of them. When he speaks again, you can’t look at him.

“Look,” he runs an almost trembling hand through his hair, rising from the table, “I gotta go. I got some things I need to do today.”

You stand to height opposite him. “You…gotta go? Right now?”

“Yes, darlin’. I got work stuff to see to.”

“Right. Sure.” You lift your plate, turning away, and hear him sigh.

“I’ll only be a couple hours. We’ll talk more when I’m back.”

You spin then, pursing your lips. “So, I’m to wait here for you? That what you’re sayin’?”

Joel’s already picking up his keys. “No…If you wanna go, you can go. Just…if you wanna talk, then stay. We’ll talk.”

You look up at him, no more words coming to the surface to say. He moves a lock of hair from your face, and heads for the door.

Wait here for him. What a fuckin’ joke.

Still, that’s exactly what you do.

You throw yourself down on his couch, flick on his TV. Put on another episode of Love Island. Think over which boy you’d pick, then decide it’d be none of them, and wonder why the hell you’re watching it in the first place.

You wander upstairs to his room. Sift through the shirts hanging in his closet – all different variations and prints of flannel because it’s Joel fucking Miller. Pull the sleeves to your nose, breathe in the smell of him. The sweet, sandalwood smell that wraps over you like a warm blanket; comforting, calming. Fix the pillows on his bed, punch out the lumps where you lay huddled against him last night, his body against – and inside – yours.

You feel hot with anger. Frustration. A little bit of guilt. It sits heavy on your head, drips down to your stomach, swirls around and mixes with the anxiety already in there. If he’d just come home, you could argue it out. Force whatever he really wants to say out of his mouth. Say a few things of your own back to him.

You never fight. It’s the one thing – you never fight. You bicker, you toss back and forth. You piss him off and he shuts you up with his words, or his lips, or with more. But you never really fight.

It’s like something’s different. As if something’s changed, right from under your feet.

Joel comes home two hours later. Lets the door shudder closed behind him, sighs as he kicks his boots off. You’re still upstairs in his room, perched on his side of the bed reading some stupid book on Alcatraz you found in a drawer.

“Baby?” he calls, and you don’t reply. You’ve little right to be as mad as you are, but he can search for you for a minute as reparation for walking out earlier.

“Hey…” he whispers when he pushes the door open, spotting you with the book resting on your thighs. “Alcatraz, huh?”

“It ain’t that good,” you huff, slamming it shut and sliding it across the nightstand.

He breathes a Hmph, then sweeps around the bed. Like he’s scared to make a sound. Like he’s trying not to be noticed. When he reaches you, he sinks into the mattress at your feet, elbow resting on your knees.

“We gotta talk.”

Do I want to hear this? you ask him with your eyes.

He sucks a deep, unsteady breath in, and his brows furrow. He sighs again.

And you know what he’s about to say.

“This…We’ve pushed this too far, now. We’re way beyond reining this in.”

You stare at his lips. Waiting for them to offer something more. When they fall silent, your gaze trails up the shape of his nose, curving around his brows and then finally falling onto his eyes. They reveal all you need to know.

“You gotta be fucking kidding me. You’re not serious, right? Joel.”

“Kid, I…”

“No. What? Because of a bag?”

“Not because of a bag.” He looks you in the eye and shakes his head, whispers your name., then, “…because of the lying.”

“It’s never been a problem up until now.”

“It’s never been as bad as now. You ain’t been home in almost two days. Your dad has no idea where you are.”

“I’m not in danger, Joel.”

“You think he’d be happy? If he knew where you were really at right now? Knew you’d lied to his face this entire weekend?”

You sink back against the headboard, defeated. Desperately trying to find another way through what he’s saying. “What, then? What do we do? Come clean?”

He almost fucking laughs. Plays it off by pushing the air from his cheeks. “No. I don’t think we should…No.”

You shrug. “Then, tell me. Just fucking say it.”

Joel shakes his head, holds his hands out. “You’re lookin’ at me like I’m breakin’ this off outta the blue, baby. Like it’s comin’ outta left field.”

“So you’re breaking it off?”

“No, I’m– It’s not– I don’t…” He sighs, fingers pressing into his eyes.

You stand up, towering over him, silhouetted by the window behind you. “Just – fucking – say it. End it. I’ll go.”

“That’s not what I’m tryna do, kid.”

“What are you tryna do, then? There are two of us in this, Joel. You’ve been lying just as much as I have.”

“You don’t think I know that?” he hisses, standing up until you’re chest to chest, inches apart from one another. “Jesus, kid. I’m checking myself every fuckin’ conversation I have with your dad. Makin’ sure nothin’ I say will clue him in. Makin’ sure I don’t accidentally let slip what the hell’s been goin’ on!”

“I’ve been doin’ the same!” you yell back. “It ain’t just you, Joel, but that doesn’t seem to mean nothin’ to you!”

“Mean nothin’,” he repeats with a laugh, turning away and running his hands through his hair. “You don’t mean nothin’ to me? That what you think?”

“What else am I supposed to take from this, asshole? That you’re fuckin’ in love with me?”

He falls silent. His lips pull into a frown. He backs off.

Downstairs, his phone starts ringing. He glances to the doorway, shifts between his feet.

“You don’t get to do this, you know,” your voice trembles, “you don’t get to pull me in and then just drop me when it becomes inconvenient. Once you’re done with me.”

“Don’t.” Joel’s voice cuts like glass. “Don’t.”

You step back. Stare him down, try to make him say something. Try to make him do something. Your hands are on his biceps, eyes boring into his, swelling with tears you’re trying desperately to hold back.

Nothing. Not a word.

“I can’t read your mind anymore…” you whisper.

Joel takes a deep breath, his eyes flicker across your lips just for a second. He looks sad, eyes glassy, lines around his eyes where his eyebrows meet. But they tell you nothing.

His phone’s still ringing out, echoing through the silent house like an alarm bell.

You look at him blankly now. “Phone’s ringin’, Joel.”

He says nothing back, just looks at you from under his low brows.

You back out of his bedroom, shaking your head and stumbling a little over thin air. You’re staring at each other; you, trying to work out who the man is standing in front of you, and Joel, trying to plead with you to hear him out.

When you reach the threshold, you turn as if to run.

“Darlin’, come back. Hey.”

He follows you into the hallway and you feel his hand around your wrist. You whip it to your chest and turn to face him.

“Darlin’? Not your darlin’ anymore, am I? ’m just some girl you were fucking for a month.”

“C’mon, now, you know that’s not true.”

You lead downstairs, shoes thudding as you go. Joel’s right behind you, trying any combination of words to slow you down, make you look at him, stop for five seconds.

When you reach the bottom of the stairs, your arm swoops down to grab your bag, and as you straighten up, Joel’s ringtone cuts and his machine beeps.

“Hey, Joel,” a woman’s voice fills the space between you both. Your head whips around to stare at the machine.

“It’s Lois. I was just callin’ to…to check in. It was really nice seein’ you today. Give me a call when you can, okay?”

The voicemail cuts and the two of you are plunged back into silence. Silence, save for the heaving of your breath. Your chest rises and falls rapidly, your heart ready to burst through it. You haven’t taken your eyes off of the machine, red light blinking menacingly.

Joel lifts his hands. “That is not…It’s not what it sounds like…” he says, slowly, calmly. Quiet. Like you’ve never heard him speak before. Not We’re about to be caught quiet. Not even Quit arguin’ back quiet.

This is desperate quiet. And desperate’s not something you’ve ever heard pass Joel’s lips.

Your whole body is shaking, and you’re not sure whether it’s from adrenaline, or fear, or hurt, or pain. It takes most of the life inside you just for your lungs to open and close. You can’t fucking look at him. You can’t – fuck, you can’t even look in his direction.

You turn slowly toward the front door. You unlock it in a daze, and pull on the handle. The heat from outside hits you like you’ve opened an oven door.

“Baby…” Joel whispers.

“I’ll see you ‘round, Joel.”

----------

taglist: @yvonneeeee @subconsciouscollapse @leahlovestwd @peqchsoup @whorror-s @k1ttybean @whichwitchwanda @abuttoncalledsmalls @anner--nanner @jpbplvr @laysmt @ankhmutes @bookishhella @cannolighost @luvrking @mellymbee @yourwinchesterbros @nostalxgic @scottstotts @daiseygriffithx @letsgroovetonighttt @huffle-punk @unbotheredbeeeee @iluvurfather @wildcat116 @godisawomansblog @55vvaa55 @koshkaj-blog @initforthebooks @theywhowriteandknowthings @thatgirljayy@sasakipsposts @casa-boiardi @milla-frenchy @aim-formyheart @taeslarityy @lxstbxyscave23 @joelmillerxapologist @capt-rex @giixo @capricorngf @feministfanboi @fifia-writes @darleneslane @theplumsoldier @sharp-cheekbones-locked @suzmagine @endlessthxxghts @ivebeenflagged @blognametakenn @jessahmewren @nobodycanseeinsidemysoul @ranahx @pedropascalsbbg @cartoon-garbage04 @caatheeriinee07 @kngslayr @hopplessilse @vickywallace @lelifesaver @serenaxpedro @lizzyervs @bitchwitch1981 @brittmb115 @stormseyer @scarletthefierce @patti7dc @pattwtf @pascalpvnk @jediknightjana @mrsquill @uncassettodiricordi @gracieispunk @hellishjoel @regalwhovianbrowncoat774 @casa-boiardi @msjarvis @totallynotastanacc @earthtogrogu @sexygaypalpatine @cool-iguana

(lmk if i’ve missed you out & check my taglist info for how to be added!)

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sovietpostcards · 1 year ago

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Russian State Library

The biggest library in Russia and one of the biggest in the world. It was designed in late 1920s, soon after the birth of the new Soviet state, and fully finished in the 1950s. In includes 4 buildings and one 19-floor book repository. There are several reading halls, a cafe, and a whole bunch of book-filled nooks and crannies.

I'm writing this post sitting in the library's biggest reading hall - Reading Hall No. 3. It was opened in 1957 and still retains most of the original furniture and design (only there are now individual power sockets in every desk). Most of the tables are occupied by people with books and laptops. It's very quiet.

The book depository is a huge building that rises high above everything else in this historical area. It had 10 floors originally, each 5m high, but later it was divided into 19 smaller floors. We visited one of the floors. I was impressed to see that the windows are made out of Falconnier glass blocks (made specially for the library in Gus Khrustalny).

There are two automated delivery systems in the library: one delivers readers' orders into the depository (pneumatic tubes) and the other delivers books back to the reader (monorail). We had a chance to see both of them in action, very impressive! They also kept a bit of the old book delivery system that worked from 1953 until 2015. I saw it on pictures before, and it was great to see the granny in real life. :) There are a lot of "grannies" in the library, from the green lamps to rotary phones to wall clocks. The pneumatic tube system has been in place since 1975. People whose job is to preserve books are very likely to preserve everything else.

I loved this anecdote. In one of the reading halls, there's a big painting of Lenin (pictured below). Apparently it was put in place in mid-1950s to cover the bas-relief that was there originally. On the bas-relief there are Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death in 1953 and debunking the cult of personality, images of him were quickly removed from everywhere. The library, being true preservers of history, kept theirs but covered it up. It just shows what kind of people librarians are. :)

Although the library is working on running a full digital catalogue of all their 48 million items, if you want access to older editions you'll probably need to use the old paper card catalogue. The room gave me major nostalgy - I remember using this kind of catalogue in my local library when I was a kid. The sound of pulling out a narrow box, then the little built-in table, going through the cards one by one, writing down what you need on library cards. It was a whole process! Of course, the local library's catalogue was WAY smaller.

A few more shots of interiors. Although the building itself was designed in 1920s (during the era of avantgarde and art deco), the interiors were mostly done in 1950s when the main design style was neo classicism.

I enjoyed this tour immensely, so much so that I had to go back and get a library card so I can see more of it, sit in every reading hall and drink a cup of tea in the marble hall cafeteria. Also, the idea of 48 million books at the tip of my fingers makes me giddy. Thank you to my followers for the monetary support and making this real for me: K. T., H. W., T. B., m., @depetium, @transarkadydzyubin, S. R.

#it's a great place to work #i wrote this post finally #libraries #russia

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lila-lou · 1 year ago

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✨FaceTime✨

Summary: Jensen needs to get himself off, so he calls you.

Pairing: Jensen x Reader

Warnings: 18+ only! Language, smut (kinda), fluff

Word Count: 1967

A/N: No hate towards anybody. It's just fiction.

English isn’t my first language, so please be lenient. 💙✨

“Hey babe… Kept me waiting quite a while”, Jensen’s voice came from the other end of the line.

You didn't even have to see his face to know he wasn't just calling. He was fucking horny, you could hear it in his voice.

You, on the other hand, didn't even have the strength to sit up anymore. It was a Friday night and instead of going out with friends, partying and socializing, you had such a tiring and shitty day at work that you left the last tiny bit of your motivation at the gym. After a hot bath, two missed calls and 7 messages as well as a picture of him lying in bed annoyed, you finally called your, well, kinda boyfriend back.

Unfortunately, since you both lived in different states, it wasn't easy to keep things in sync, although that wasn't even the biggest problem. In fact, Jensen was still married, had a family and a job that didn't exactly offer planning security.

Jensen and his wife have been having some pretty bad marital problems for several years, but to date he hasn't been able to bring himself to file for divorce. The day he found out that his wife had cheated on him, he got so drunk, that he could no longer decide between good and bad. That's when he met you. One thing led to another and the two of you ended up in your hotel room in the middle of Austin, where you had just completed a week of training for your job.

When you both woke up the next morning and started to sober up, you were sure that it was just a simple one-night stand. But fate probably had something else in mind. Within 48 hours, you met four times. In the supermarket, in the park and at the gas station.

A few weeks of texts, calls, and FaceTimes later, Jensen visited you in Montana. He stayed for a few days and told you about his family situation, his career and everything related to it. Despite your initial remorse about having something with a married man, you just couldn't stay away from him. You attracted each other like two magnets.

So 12 months later you were lying in your bed more than tired, which your eyes clearly showed.

“Sorry… crap day at work… I fell asleep in the bathtub”, you yawned, rubbing your eyes vigorously with your free hand before looking back at your phone, at Jensen. "How you doin?", you snuggled into your pillow.

“Ugh, it’s time for you to finally move your nice little ass to Austin. You would never have to work again. That’s all I can offer”, he grumbled slightly, causing you to roll your eyes.

“That's more than generous of you, but as your affair, living in an apartment on the outskirts of a city I barely know and have no friends in? That's somehow not so great. And… you know, that I want to make my own money”.

The two of you discussed things for a while, but after a about 20 minutes, the topic of moving, jobs and affairs faded more and more into the background.

“Where is Danneel?”, you murmured, realizing that he was at home.

"Out with a friend", he murmured before stretching and getting more comfortable. “But-” he started, but was quickly interrupted by you.

“But why you called…”, you finished his sentence and grinned knowingly.

“Why don’t you take off your hoodie?”. His big ass smirk beamed across your phone screen.

“Mhmmm… I don’t know", you started to tease him as you could hear him undoing his belt and zipper before pulling down his jeans.

It wasn't the first time that you helped him jerk off. It was almost a ritual now. When you both realized your feelings for each other, Jensen wanted you to stop seeing other men and at the same time promised you not to have sex with his wife anymore. But since Jensen found it really difficult to have so little sex, you had to resort to this alternative.

“Come on, sweetheart. I need this… badly”, he grunted briefly as he wrapped his hand around his cock and began moving it up and down. “Show me your nice tits”.

“Wanna see them?".

You could see the impatience in his eyes and you surrendered. Even though absolutely nothing could top what Jensen did to you every time you saw each other, you had to admit that watching him, getting himself off, was absolutely hot. Especially since his eyes were on you. Just the sight of you made him come.

You routinely leaned your phone against the bedside lamp so that you were completely in view before kneeling in front of it, low enough so that your ass touched the mattress again, before slowly pulling your hoodie over your head. You heard Jensen growl again when he saw your perfect breasts.

"Fuck… I wish I could touch those”, he muttered, unconsciously licking his lips.

"You do ? How about a little proof of your need?”, you whispered seductively, playing with the waistband of your panties. Jensen wrapped one hand tightly around his already rock hard cock and gave it a hard squeeze before starting to pump up and down again. He knew that you wanted to see him as much as he wanted to see you, which is why he winked at you and switched the camera mode so that you had the perfect view of his hard length. Even though it was a shame not being able to see his pretty face anymore, the sight of him, squeezing his cock, made your pussy clench aroung nothing.

“Look what you’re doin to me”, Jensen moaned deeply, tightening his grip a little. “I’m so hard just looking at your fucking tits".

“Well, that´s nothing new”, you grinned as your hands slid to your breasts, kneading them gently.

"Imagine what I would do to you if you were here right now”, he grumbled, watching your actions through the screen. You grinned knowingly, lying down on your back so that your phone's camera films you from the side, before you painfully slowly rid yourself of your last piece of clothing by lifting your hips slightly and elegantly pushing the material off your legs.

“Don’t you wanna touch yourself for me?”, he whispered, his voice heated. “Show me your nice, tight pussy Sweetheart". His voice was dripping with excitement and you knew he wouldn’t last long. Especially since it felt like it had been ages since the last time. "Tell me what you would do to me if I was in your bed right now”, you grin sideways into the camera before bending one knee and sliding a hand up your thigh.

“Fuck, (y/n)", he groaned with the effort. "I would spread your thighs", he started. "Before getting down on that sweet pussy of yours… As always, you wouldn't even last two minutes before you had a first class orgasm and squirted all over my tongue". You turned, so that your pussy was perfect in the picture, but your legs remained closed for now. Nevertheless, Jensen could see part of your wet, shiny folds, which made his cock twitch immediately.

“The way you're lying right now, I'd rub my cock between those juicy, beautiful lips until you're even wetter than you already are… Just before you´d came a second time, I would sink my cock so deep inside you that you would forget to breathe”, he grunted, speeding up his hand movement as you began to rub two fingers over your glistening pussy.

“Fuck, push your finger inside”, he groaned, almost annoyed by your teasing. “Imagine it’s my cock. I want to hear your sweet moans”.

With that, you let your thighs fall apart, giving Jensen a perfect view of your clean-shaven pussy, drenched in your juices, before sliding two fingers inside you. The throaty moan, which was a little too loud, almost made Jensen choke on his own spit. He missed you even more than he ever expected. With his Airpods in his ears, he could hear every little whimper, every breath, and most importantly, every movement of your fingers on your swollen and wet clit.

“Jay… fuck, I miss you”, you let your head fall back with another moan as you continued to play with your clit, two fingers still inside you.

For a brief moment his feelings almost overshadowed his excitement, but when you kept moaning, he had to concentrate on his violently swollen and twitching cock again. “I would fuck you so hard you wouldn't be able to do anything but trying to catch your breath.. You couldn't sit for days because I would tear your tight little pussy apart. I would remind you what it's like, to get fucked by a real man".

By now it was hard to tell which of you was panting harder, who was closer and who just wanted to simply feel the other for real again.

“After I fucked you this good and you would be trembling beneath me, I would shove my cock down your dry and tired throat until you could finally taste me. And like a good girl you´d swallow all", he grunted, running his thumb slowly over the wet and swollen head of his cock.

“Jensen… shit”, you came, soaking your fingers and your entire palm. Your pleasured, exhausted moans echoed in Jensen's ears as he closed his eyes for a moment, imagining exactly what he had just said.

“Fuck (y/n)”, he gasped, spilling onto his stomach while struggling to breathe.

You both just laid there for a while. The tension and stress of the last few weeks washed away as you stared at the ceiling.

After a few minutes, Jensen broke the comfortable silence. “Gimme… like… five, Sweetheart”, he mumbled into his phone before getting up and heading to the bathroom to clean himself up. You also used the time to freshen up before snuggling back into your bed. You lay on your side, holding your phone tightly in your hand, waiting to see your boyfriend's pretty face again.

“Hey”, Jensen mumbled as he sat on the porch a short time later with his phone in his hand and a cigarette in his mouth. “Hey, yourself”, you smiled softly.

For a while the two of you just looked at each other. Lost in each other's sparkling eyes.

“I miss you, Jay… a lot”, the corners of your mouth twitched down briefly. Jensen sighed and took a long drag from his cigarette.

"I know sweetheart. I miss you too”. His hand, with the cigarette between his fingers, rubbed his forehead firmly. "I promise you, I'll sort things out". His look showed that he was serious. Jensen knew it was time to clean up, no matter how dirty it would get.

“I love you”, he murmured, flicking his cigarette away and watching you snuggle further into your pillows. “I love you more”, you yawned exhaustedly. “Sleep tight, (y/n)”, he smiled slightly.

Jensen stayed on the phone until you fell asleep before hanging up and returning to the here and now.

Each of your calls and each of your meetings was a little escape into another world. To a better world. You made each hotel room a place where Jensen felt safe. Felt like home. The thing he hasn't been able to do for ages. You were his home. And he didn't just want to visit anymore. He wanted to be home forever.

———————————

A/N: Please let me know what you think.🥰

#jensen ackles #spn #soldier boy #supernatural #jensen ackles x y/n #jensen x y/n #jensen ackles x you #jensen ackles x reader #jensen x reader #smut #fluff

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ohdearlingwhathappened · 8 months ago

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A Pair Made in The Pits Chp 3.5

Summary: The aftermath of Y/n and Agent Fowler's Kidnapping back at the Autobot Base.

WC: 623

A/n: Have fun

First ... Previous

The base is silent. The kids have been sent home, allowing them to grieve in their own ways. The only child who remains with their bot is Miko, saying she doesn’t want to go back home to host parents who barely tolerate her, and she would much rather go for a ride with Bulkhead. Optimus leaves for his habsuite, exhausted by the turmoil from not only Megatron’s plans, but from losing two friends in the span of 48 hours. The normally proudly tall, strong leader now hunched, making his way down the halls half-sparked.

He broke his word. Again.

Losing his footing, Optimus leans against the wall to his left, pausing to recollect himself. His optics are shaky, unable to focus on any one thing, blurred beyond comprehension, and he’s sure if he had a set of lungs, they would be inoperable.

I didn’t keep them safe. I didn’t keep her safe. I didn’t keep him safe. I failed Cybertron.

I am no Prime.

“-imus. Optimus. Optimus!”

Startling out of his fraying state, the leader of the Autobots looks up and slowly focuses in on the worried look on his sparkmate’s face. Noting that he was looking up, he realizes at some point he’s fallen to one knee, still balanced on the wall. Using said wall as a weight-bearing source, Optimus lifts himself from the ground and closes his eyes, regretting anyone seeing him in such a state- he is a Prime and a Prime can not crumble.

“Ratchet, I apolo-”

“Up hup hup,” Ratchet shakes his hands, successfully cutting Optimus off. “As your physician, I am ordering you to get to your berth and rest after today… and as your sparkmate, I am asking you to talk to me.”

He wants to express his appreciation and gratitude towards his medic, but with the way Ratchet throws Optimus’ arm around his shoulder allowing himself to be leaned on for support, already going on about how he should be taking care of himself and to rely on him more, Optimus knows he’ll never be able to come up with enough words to even touch the surface.

Looking down at the one he loves the most, he quietly utters, “I promise, my Spark.”

And he swears to himself he will keep his word.

Primus damn him if not.

* * * * * *

“Miko, I’m going to have to take you home at some point.” Bulkhead tries to goad the girl into finally agreeing to go home and rest. Said girl sitting in the passenger seat, blankly staring out the window, watching the desert sands fly by, her eyes drooping every so often.

“No. Just a little longer… we- we haven’t found her yet.” She whispers, her normal spitfire personality nowhere to be seen. Bulkhead rolls to a stop, conflicted on what to say. There’s nothing he can say or do to uplift her spirit.

“Miko, we don’t know where Starscream may have-. What I mean to say is, we don’t know where Y/n’s body is.” Bulkhead does his best to gently explain that they may never find Y/n’s body, knowing he’s failed when he feels the girl curl up on his seat, legs hugged tightly to her chest.

Another moment goes by before Bulkhead gets an idea, “You remember how I lost my friend, Cliffjumper? Well, since we couldn’t bring him back to base, we made a small site to remember him. I-I know it’s not the same, but you can visit it anytime you’d like.”

“...please?” She lifts her head just a smidge, something other than emptiness shining in her eyes since she was told about her first friend in the US.

By the end of the next hour, another rock structure stood by Cliffjumper’s gravesite.

Taglist: @the-unhinged-raccoon @hystericalanarchy @mythicallystupid @darkfangx399 @nixblizzard16 @crowleysthings @delectableworm

#transformers #fanfic writing #maccadam #x reader #megatron x reader #tfp megatron x reader #a pair made in the pits #tfp transformers prime #transformers prime #transformers x human #transformers x reader

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episims · 6 months ago

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Foxfire ROS

After playing Foxfire for 9 rounds I've started to feel like I could use something to nudge me out of my routines a bit! For the next round, I'm going to try how adding random scenarios to the mix feels like 😁

I didn't find any existing scenario lists to be exactly what I wanted: more gameplay prompts that leave room for interpretation, and not so many strict rules or tasks or forced drama (my sims create enough of that as it is lol).

So I cherry-picked some scenarios that I liked, edited others, and created many new ones. A shout-out to @kayleigh-83 for this list that was a great starting point!

Night out: Visit a community lot after dark.

Bring your own basket: Visit a park with family or friends.

Movie marathon: Invite friends over for movies and snacks, or go on a movie binge by yourself.

Family matters: Invite over a relative or someone you share a similar bond with.

Fits like a glove: Wear a new accessory.

Games night: Set up a board game or fire up a console for an evening. PC owners can throw a lan party.

Burn off steam: Devote a day to exercising in any form.

Playing hooky: A child or teen skips one school day.

Online friends: Spend an evening chatting over the internet.

Fence-mending: Talk to a walkby you don't know or have a low relationship with.

Fertile ground: Get a new plant to your garden or other outdoor area.

Pulling strings: Use influence to your advantage.

Tired of cooking: Order delivery for a meal.

Peculiar flavor: The sim with the least cooking points takes the cooking turn.

Sprucing up: Choose a room or space and give it a facelift.

Touch base: Call the friend you currently have the lowest relationship score with.

Dine out: Eat at a restaurant.

New hobby: Try out a hobby you haven't explored before.

Broken record: Talk about your favorite hobby to every sim you encounter during one day.

Slumber party: Invite friends for a sleepover.

Power outage: Turn off all the lights except for candles and only make uncooked meals for a day.

Cloud over a head: Argue with every sim you encounter during one day.

Old gang: Meet up with the friends you have known for the longest.

Turn up the heat: Woohoo in public.

New ink: Get a tattoo.

Fresh air: Spend a day outdoors.

Homebody: Spend a day indoors.

Got the moves: Visit a community lot to hit the dance floor or turn on a stereo at home and dance until you run out of energy.

Make the bed: Change sheets for all beds on the lot.

Health concerns: Visit or call over a doctor.

All things are transient: Sell three objects.

Odd bottle: Consume a potion from your inventory.

Dig it: Spend a day treasure hunting.

Capture it: Take a picture and hang it on the wall.

Running on fumes: Have a cup of coffee once every few hours.

Reaching enlightenment: Meditate for a day.

Sugar rush: Prepare only desserts for a day.

Clocking extra time: Spend an evening on a computer either blogging, writing, or giving financial advice.

Dressed to the nines: Go on a date in formalwear.

Pretty lights: The outdoor areas of the lot are filled with fireflies for the round.

School assignment: A child or teen collects bugs for the round.

Stealing the show: Perform with an instrument or a microphone, freestyle for tips, or breakdance in public.

Devil on a shoulder: Prank every sim you encounter during one day.

Turning the page: Negative relationship effects are reduced for 48 hours and any existing fury states are cleared (get the 'forgiving' vacation benefit).

Meeting deadlines: Job performance is increased for 48 hours (get the 'industrious' vacation benefit).

Hot stuff: The attractiveness is increased for 48 hours (get the 'je ne sais quoi' vacation benefit).

On the ball: Skill, talent badge, and homework rates are increased for 48 hours (get the 'refreshed' vacation benefit).

Scatterbrained: Skill, talent badge, and homework rates are decreased for 48 hours (get the 'jetlagged' vacation penalty).

Bonfire night: Light up a bonfire with family or with friends.

Explosive entertainment: Throw a party with fireworks.

By example: Share hobby tips or instruct someone in a hobby, or find a sim who can share tips or instruct you in one.

Score points: Visit a community lot to play arcade games, poker, don't wake the llama, mahjong, or myshuno.

Self-care: Skilling is forbidden for a day. Instead, practice recovering activities like taking bubble baths, enjoying hot tubs or hot springs, getting massages, relaxing in saunas, or sunbathing.

Feeling chipper: Compliment every sim you encounter during one day.

I'll probably add these whenever I come up with new ones. Scenario ideas are welcome!

#text post #foxfire forest #ts2 #the sims 2 #sims 2 #*appears out of nowhere to post this*#i hope these will be fun!#i left out some obvious ones like changing clothes or hairstyle #as i tend to plan those in body shop

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greenwitchcrafts · 1 year ago

Text

January 2024 Witch guide

Full Moon: January 25th

New moon: January 11th

Sabbats: None

January Wolf Moon

Known as: Bear Moon, Chaste Moon, Cold Moon, Disting Moon, Goose Moon, Moon of Little Winter, Moon of Strong Cold, Quiet Moon, Snow Moon, Stay at Home Moon, Sun Has Not Strength to Thaw Moon & When Snow Blows Like Spirits In The Wind Moon

Element: Air

Zodiac: Capricorn & Aquarius

Nature spirits: Brownies & Gnomes

Deities: Freya, Hera, Innana & Saraswati

Animals: Coyote & fox

Birds: Blue Jay & pheasant

Trees: Birch & Hazel

Herbs: Cones, holy thistle &marjoram

Flowers: Crocus & Snowdrop

Scents: Mimosa & musk

Stones: Chrysoprase, garnet, hematite, moonstone, onyx & jet

Colors: Black, blue-violet, grey, silver & white

Energy: Adventurous, ambitious, awareness, beauty, beginning & conceiving; business, career, conserving energy, energy below the surface, organization, political matters, potential, protection, recognition, reputation, reversing spells & spirituality

The name for the January full Moon is believed to have originated from Celtic and Old English roots, which European settlers then brought to the New World.

At one point, gray wolves were among the most widespread land mammals on our planet. According to the Wolf Conversation Center, gray wolves “inhabited most of the available land in the Northern Hemisphere.” Habitat destruction and persecution by humans have reduced their range by about a third worldwide and 90 percent in the lower 48 states.

The wolf’s adaptable nature to survive in a wide range of habitats and ability to prey on the largest mammals living in those regions made it widespread. Basically, if there are enough deer, moose, elk, caribou, bison, and musk ox, wolves can survive. Predation of domestic animals caused friction with European settlers and early Americans who aggressively hunted the wolves.

Werewolf myths can be found in ancient Greek and Roman societies, throughout European history and among some Native American tribes. In modern storytelling the transformation from man to wolf has been closely tied to the full Moon in films like “The Wolf Man” and “American Werewolf In London.”

Howl at the Moon means to waste energy pursuing something unattainable. It’s shorthand for doing something crazy. However, howling is hardly a waste of energy among wolf packs. And they aren’t howling at the Moon. The Moon just happens to be shining during times when wolves most often howl.

A wolf’s howl can be heard miles away. The vocalization helps wolves locate separated members and even communicate between packs marking their territories. One study recorded spontaneous howls and responses happen most often between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The cry of wolves doesn’t play into the Sioux name for the January full Moon, which is known as “The Time When Wolves Run Together.” Wolves do plenty of running to defend territory that can stretch hundreds of square miles to find enough prey to support the pack.

Other Celebrations

• Hogmanay | January 1st: is the Scots word for the last day of the old year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. It is normally followed by further celebration on the morning of New Year's Day (1 January) and, in some cases, 2 January—a Scottish bank holiday. In a few contexts, the word Hogmanay is used more loosely to describe the entire period consisting of the last few days of the old year and the first few days of the new year. For instance, not all events held under the banner of Edinburgh's Hogmanay take place on 31 December.

The origins of Hogmanay are unclear, but it may be derived from Norse and Gaelic observances of the winter solstice. Customs vary throughout Scotland and usually include gift-giving and visiting the homes of friends and neighbours, with particular attention given to the first-foot, the first guest of the new year.

• Compitalia/ Feast of Lades | January 3-5: was an annual festival in honor of the Lares Compitales, household deities of the crossroads, to whom sacrifices were offered at the places where two or more ways met.

Dionysius said that Servius Tullius founded the festival, which he describes as it was celebrated in his time. Dionysius relates that the sacrifices consisted of honey-cakes (Ancient Greek: πέλανοι) presented by the inhabitants of each house; and that the people who assisted as ministering servants at the festival were not free men, but slaves, because the Lares took pleasure in the service of slaves. He further adds that the Compitalia were celebrated a few days after the Saturnalia with great splendor, and that the slaves on this occasion had full liberty to do as they pleased.

During the celebration of the festival, each family placed the statue of the underworld goddess Mania at the door of their house. They also hung up at their doors figures of wool representing men and women, accompanying them with humble requests that the Lares and Mania would be contented with those figures, and spare the people of the house

Sources:

Farmersalmanac.com

Llewellyn's Complete Book of Correspondences by Sandra Kines

A Witch's Book of Correspondences by Viktorija Briggs

Llewellyn's 2023 magical almanac: practical magic for everyday living

Wikipedia

Encyclopedia Britannica

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wandafiction · 1 year ago

Text

Drunk

Warnings: Alcohol consumption, very drunk reader, reader gets sick, mentions of blood.

You are sitting on one of the many empty stools at the not so empty bar nursing your third whiskey, or was it fourth? Maybe fifth? The party is in full swing, the birthday boy (Tony Stark) is currently giving a speech on stage. Something about how you only turn 48 once and that people should leave their many gifts for him on the stage. You scoff to yourself, sure you and Tony were friends, but you swear- sometimes - even you wonder why, when he is so far stuck up his own ass you're sure he can see the daylight coming from his mouth when he speaks. Because my god could that man speak.

So here you are sitting, drinking, on your own because your girlfriend is currently on a mission and you hate coming to this sort of things without her. Not because you were an antisocial, ball of anxiety…Okay maybe you are…. But you also didn’t know anyone here, not really, you weren’t an avenger like she was. You were just a regular barista at the local coffee shop that just so happened to be the one she would go to every morning for her morning shot of go go juice after going for a run. What you didn’t realise, not until she told you recently, was she only kept coming back to work up the courage to talk to you.

You smile to yourself just thinking about it.

You down the rest of your drink taking a look around all the party goers seeing only those she has introduced you to and those you see around the tower when you visit. You see Tony dancing with a drink in one hand swinging his top above his head with the other, cringing slightly at the sight of the drunk man. You spot Steve over on the couches talking to Sam and Bucky on the other couch, all three of them with a beer in hand as they seem lost in the conversation they are having. You smile when you see Bruce raise his drink at you in a small greeting from the other end of the bar, lifting yours in return before you watch him walk over to try and get Tony, who was now trying to rip his pants off as he stood on one of the many tables, away from people.

“Well what is such a thing like you doing here all on your lonesome?” You turn quickly at the unknown voice behind you squinting your eyes with scrunched brows as you try to see if you recognise the woman.

“Thing?” It’s now you realise that maybe those five whiskeys, or could it have been seven, were not such a good idea as you struggle to keep your focus on the blonde woman in front of you. Or women, not sure if you were seeing three of her or if there were three different people in front of you.

“Well I saw you enter with Tony Stark himself so I believe I am only right in thinking you must be an avenger, and one of your beauty must be a goddess.” At her words you snort, quickly using your hand to cover your nose and mouth waving the other one at her as your face turns bright red.

“Goddess?” The three women that you see now merge together, in your drunken state, finally able to see the blonde woman in front of you who has a small smirk on her lips.

“Well now I feel stupid. Are you not a goddess?” You shake your head quickly, not missing how when the woman takes a seat next to you she pulls the stool closer so her knees can rest against yours, but you try to angle your body away from hers not wanting to give her the wrong impression.

“I am most definitely not a goddess. Just plain old human being.” She gives you a small nod turning to grab the bartender's attention and ordering you both new drinks.

“Okay, well, I’m a normal human being too. You got a name?”

“Is Y/n. Y/n y/l/n.” You slur out at your hand grabs out for the new drink the bartender has put in front of you.

“Aren’t you going to ask mine?” You shake your head downing your drink as the one woman blurs into more than one again.

“Sure. What is your name blondie?”

“The names Jessica. But you can call me Jess.”

“Well thank you for the drink Jesssssssica.” You giggle as you over pronounce her name leaning back slightly on your stool, Jess seeing the opportunity to place her hand on your leg.

“Sorry, I didn't want you to fall backwards.” She answers when she sees you look down at her hand.

“Mhmm, thanks. Anyway, do you not have anyone around here you should be hanging out with?” Even in your drunken state you know what her aim is and you know it's definitely not something you want.

“No. I’m enjoying drinking with you.”

“Well this is my last one before I leave this place.”

“Can I join you? The party is kind of lame.”

“No, I am just gonna head to the sleeping chambers and try to sleep this off.” You try to pull her hand off your thigh but she is persistent and fights against it.

“Oh you’re no fun. I just wanted to spend the night with you, get to know that amazing body. Then maybe in the morning I can show you the best way to get rid of a hangover.”

“Sorry I am really not interested.” She scrunches her brows leaning closer to you with a pout on her lips.

“Come one, I know you want to.”

“I'm sorry I really don’t and I am in a relationship.” You think the woman rolls her eyes, and maybe you hear her scoff but you definitely don't miss the way her eyes bulge out of her head as she looks behind you, and you don’t miss the feeling of a pair of strong hands landing on your shoulders.

“I’m just going to…” She slowly removes herself from the stool leaving money to cover both of your drinks. “It was nice meeting you.”

With that she scurries off and you scrunch your brows, turning around to see who is behind you but the 8, maybe more drinks, have once and for all won the battle of making everything blurry and your words a slurred mess. The hands give your shoulders a small squeeze and your head turns left to right to look at either hand. They are dirty, maybe have some blood on them and when you look up at them their face is not much better.

You take in her beauty. The red hair, green eyes are all you are able to identify mixed with the dirt and the blood on her face. You can see a small look of worry, amusement and something else as her brows furrow as her eyes scan your face.

“I’m sorry. As I just told blondie I have a girlfriend.”

“Is that so?” You nod your head quickly, humming out a yes as the woman only giggles to herself.

“I think it is time for your bed, detka.” You pout, shaking your head quickly.

“But I want to stay up and see my girlfriend, she should be home soon.” The hands on your shoulders move to cup your face tilting your head to look up at her.

“You really don’t know who I am.” Her tone is amused as you push her hands off your face.

“I already told you I have a girlfriend. And she wouldn’t appr-apprec-apprecia….she wouldn’t like you flirting with me.” Once again the woman only laughs, and you scrunch your brows as it sounds vaguely familiar but can’t quite place it.

“How about this? I help get you to bed, and when you wake up I am sure your kind, loving and drop dead gorgeous girlfriend will be there when you wake up.” You take a moment to think about it, looking the woman up and down every second she becomes more familiar and if she is familiar then you’re sure you can trust her.

“Okay. Thank you. My girlfriend would kill me if she knew how drunk I was right now.”

“I’m not angry, in fact it is quite amusing, but I think we do need to get you in bed to rest.” You look up to the woman as she leads you down the hallway, seemingly knowing where Natasha’s room is.

“Hey, how did you know?” The woman turns to look at you with a raised brow as she opens the door and you stumble inside as she lets go of you for a moment to close the door.

You stumble into the room, cursing as you trip over your own feet and fall with your side hitting the bed and landing on the floor with a hmph. You bring your hand up to rub at your side, the other pulling at the covers on the bed to help you stand but it does nothing as the moment you yank the covers they move and you end up falling on the floor again.

“Fuck it. This is where I am sleeping I guess.” You mumble to yourself, reaching for the blanket that you know is on the bed somewhere behind you.

“Hey, let's get you off the floor my love.” You gasp as you look up to see your girlfriend in front of you moving her arms so they are under yours.

“Baby!” You squeal as you wrap your arms around her pushing yourself forwards causing Natasha to stumble backwards and land on the floor herself.

“Oh so now you recognize me?” You push yourself up slightly, your hands either side of her head so you can look down at her.

“What do you mean?” You tilt your head in question and Natasha raises a brow.

“You mean you don’t remember the past 10….okay nevermind.” She places her hands on your waist gently pushing you off her so she can stand up, your arms moving to hold her hips as you struggle to stand yourself. “Let's get you to bed.”

“Yes! Take me to bed lovergirl!” You jump, knowing Natasha will easily catch you, wrapping your legs around her waist and your arms around her neck as you litter her face with drunken and very sloppy kisses.

Natasha lets you continue smothering her face with kisses as she places you down on the edge of the bed, your body naturally falling backwards; dragging Natasha with you by your arms around her neck. Her hands move out to catch herself so she doesn’t land on top of you and instead hovering above you. You try to use your arms to pull her down more but pout when you realise she isn’t going to budge.

“You can’t be on top of me and not top me baby.” You pout more as your hands start playing with the baby hairs on her neck. “You know I can’t resist you when I see you from this angle.”

“Not tonight detka. Firstly, you are very drunk and in no way can give consent to anything. Secondly, I’m covered in blood and dirt. Thirdly, you are drunk.”

“Maybe you’re drunk silly because you already said that once.” You giggle as you boop her nose with one hand causing her to roll her eyes at your drunken state.

“Let's get you changed and in bed.” You hum as you close your eyes but only for a second as your brain registers what she said a few seconds ago.

“Wait, blood and dirt?” You push her off of you gently as you sit up, suddenly feeling completely sober in your worried state as your hands and eyes search her body and face for injury.

“It's not mine.” You don’t hear her as your hands grab hers, turning them over multiple times trying to figure out why there is so much blood, but she quickly removes her hands from yours cupping your face and tilting your head so you’re looking at her. “Hey, hey. It’s not mine, my love. It’s not mine.”

“Not yours.” Your voice trembles as you mumble the words back to her and Natahsa nods her head brushing some hair out of your face.

“It’s not mine.” She repeats softly back to you as you look back up to her about to say something but your body says otherwise.

Quickly you’re off the bed and running into the bathroom only just making it to the toilet as the contents of however many drinks you’ve had, surely it was 10. Or maybe 12.Your knuckles turn white with how hard you are holding the sides of the toilet, coughing as the vomiting subsides for the moment. You don’t dare move your head from where it rests on the top of the toilet seat, too afraid that any movement will cause your stomach to turn.

“Oh detka.” Natasha crouches down to your height holding a small cup of water towards you, as her other hand reaches to pull the flush. “Don’t drink too much too quickly otherwise you will make yourself sick, just rinse your mouth out for a moment.

You lazily nod your head, now feeling the room spin as you do so the feeling of sick raising again. You shut your eyes tightly, your hand that's holding the cup shaking slightly as your body tries to recover from already throwing up, and Natasha seems to take notice as she removes the cup from your hand placing it on the floor next to her. She moves closer to you, her hands going to your hair as she does it up in a messy bun as her eyes stay trained mostly to your face watching carefully for any changes in your appearance. Just as she finishes tying your hair your body lurches forward as another round of vomiting up alcohol begins.

You don’t know how long your head has been down the toilet for, or how long Natasha has simply stayed by your side but what you do know is your throat hurts and there are tears rolling down your face from throwing up. You did eventually stop, and you cleaned your teeth next to the toilet just in case. You lean against Natasha more as she wraps an arm around your shoulders pulling you against her as you both slowly move to lean against the wall of the bathroom.

“I’m sorry Tasha.” Nat is quick to silence you as she shakes her head, pressing a kiss to your temple as she uses her finger and thumb on your chin to turn your head.

“Do not apologise detka. You have nothing to apologise for.” Your bottom lip temples a little as Nat moves a hand to wipe at your tears, your head instinctively leaning into the touch.

“I do. You came back from a mission, and instead of sorting yourself out you’ve been stuck looking after me.”

“Hush.” She presses her finger against your lips, once and for all stopping you from talking, you knew she was serious by the look she was giving you and it made you shrink back a little bit. “I am not angry, or mad or maybe a little frustrated but that's more to do with the fact that that woman was flirting with you when you were clearly too drunk to even know what was going on. Now let's get you into bed, then I will sort myself out and join you.”

Natasha helped you off the cold bathroom floor leading you back to the bedroom and once again placing you on the bed, this time making sure she had a hold of your body so you didn’t fall backwards. Your eyes start to feel heavy, closing slowly as you feel Natasha start to undo the few buttons on your blouse before lifting it over your head and in the next moment removing your bra. She pushes your body slightly, giggling when you flop backwards so she can unbutton your pants and remove them with some struggle as they get stuck on around your ankles for a second.

The next moment your arms are being pulled and your body moves off the bed so you are sitting back up. You open your eyes with a goofy smile on your face as you see Natasha grabbing one of her shirts for you to wear. You lift your arms above your head earning a small chuckle and a kiss on the forehead from your girlfriend as she slides the top on you.

“Crawl into bed then baby I won’t be long.”

You were already nearly asleep, your body and mind exhausted from being drunk and then throwing it all back up, laying on your back because you felt to sick to lay any other way when you feel the bed dip and the covers move slightly. Natasha leves a small kiss on your cheek as she shuffles as close to you as possible without being on top of you knowing it would not help you right now. Her hand rests on your sternum, her finger drawing small shapes as she looks up at you from where her head rests just next to your shoulder.

“I love you, you big idiot.” You smile tiredly, peeking one eye open to look down at her.

“I love me too.” You giggle as she hits your chest gently rolling her eyes. “I’m joking, I love you too.”

“Good because next time you are dealing with a drunk me.” You smile closing your eyes again as you let your body completely relax again teetering on the edge of sleep, as Natasha’s hand continues to draw patterns on your chest.

“I would love to see a drunk Natasha.” Is the last thing you mumble before letting sleep consume you not hearing Natasha’s next words.

“I’m so gonna marry you one day you drunken fool.”

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#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff x y/n #drunk reader

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