#Chasing: Dallas

[bengals-barnesbabe]

Official Masterlist ~ Welcome to the Jungle

~ where queens always outrank the kings ~

Description: Four friends with completely different dating lives help each other find their forever partners, but of course, there are some bumps along the way. A very carefree yet controversial story.

Pairings: Joe Burrow x Black!Reader, Ja'Marr Chase x OC, Sam Hubbard x OC, Tee Higgins x OC

TW: 18+ | 2 loverboys & 2 players |

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A/N: taglist is open!

More coming soon!

[aradassbadass]

cellular sentiment | ceedee lamb ꨄ iv

‘& shii took everything not to give yo lil ass exactly what you wanted. now call me and lemme see hear it forreal’

you stared at the message stomach in knots. part of you wanted to be excited knowing that it was something in him that yearned for you just as you did him, but the nervousness overpowered that feeling entirely.

you throw your phone on the bed in frustration.

he wants me- or at least it sounds like he does. what if its just a joke. no he’s grown and this isnt high school anymore guys dont just flirt with you as a dare anymore. but guys like him, guys that can have anybody they want, usually tend not to go for somebody whose status isnt similar to their own.

falling back onto the pillows your towel falls off of you leaving your bare body exposed to the air. nipples going frigid and you glance down at yourself- something you often try to avoid. you grab at the pudge of your stomach and sigh.

these moments tended to happen where youd find yourself being overly cautious about your body. usually itd be when you were shopping for clothes seeing as to how you didnt find yourself in a lot of situations that pertained men. you didnt seek out relationships, you never had, and whether it was due to your intense schedule or your subconscious fear of rejection you didnt take much time pondering on it. this for some reason really bothered you.

your phone began to vibrate throwing your train of thought out of the window. you stare at it as it rings body stiff and unmoving.

i cant do this right now.

declining the phone you turn on do not disturb.

you know ignoring the situation wont make it go away entirely but hopefully this will deter it for now.

ꨄ

it had been 5 days since you had last talked to cedarian and you would be lying if you said this little escapade didnt hurt. a sea of emotion still clouded your better judgement but you knew you couldnt keep it up much longer.

the calls & messages from him did not cease after that night. he felt bad that much you could tell and it made you feel ten times worse.

im sorry i shouldnt have said that

can u please answer

i shouldnt have said that

fuck please answer i js wanna talk

answer me please

im sorry goodnight

hey js got out of practice i hope you have a good day at work im sorry again for ts

please answer me

hello

goodnight im so sorry

every single message from monday on was akin to one another. you wanted to respond but you felt bad for all the time you didnt so you continued till ignore him or that was until now.

you sat in your car outside of your house as the phone rang on carplay. you groaned and hit the wheel in frustration- not at cee but at your childish antics. you sighed and clicked the green button on the screen heart thumping as you did.

the other end of the line was silent at first then came the rasp of the voice you missed so much.

“hey.” a word so simple yet it felt so loaded with emotion.

“hi.” you say in response, internally kicking yourself.

“i-i um i dont know where to begin- im sorry for what i said. it was inappropriate- really inappropriate for our friendship and i-i dont know why i even sent that. fuck im sorry these few days have been hell without talking to you.” he says voice laced with emotions- sadness and regret being the most prominent.

it tugs at your heart strings and you feel worse than you did before seeing how you made him feel. “cee, you dont have to apologize. none of this is your fault. i freaked out when i read the message and started over analyzing shit because i couldnt process my own feelings towards the situation. fuck, im sorry none of this is your fault thought.”

the other side of the line is quiet and if not for the screen still displaying his contact you would have thought he hung up.

“over analyzing what?” he quizzes and you could all but picture him somewhere eyes wondering as he chews on his bottom lip.

“the fact that you could feel even remotely attracted to me. you are you and well im just me. i-i dont know cedarian i just kept thinking someone like him- someone who has the world at their disposal could even feel something as meaningful as desire or anything towards someone like me. it just made me relive all the times i was asked out as a dare or some stupid joke. i really do like you cedarian, you are one of the only people i still have with me and i-it all felt too good too be true to think that you actually liked me too.” you say the last part quietly.

the line is quiet again and you suddenly feel stupid. “see, i knew it was too good to be real.“ you say voice shaky as tears spill from your eyes.

“what, no, no. stop crying please god stop crying i feel the same way about you. no cruel jokes or anything. you dont see yourself like i do- you are beyond beautiful.” he says words beginning to soothe the ache of your heart.

“ you dont understand how your voice is my favorite thing to hear after a game- win or loss. you dont see how when im on long flights home i go through the album of screenshots i have of just of you. you dont even know how good it felt to finally hold you in my arms after wanting to do that for so fucking long. when i say it took every ounce of self restraint i had to just hold you and nothing more when i heard you call out for me i meant that. i dont ever want you to have to want for anything as long as there is breathe in me because you deserve everything.”

hearing this your heart skips a beat. you feel an immense sense of relief at the words and a new found yearning for him, something just short of primal.

“cee,” you say voice barely above a whisper.

“just say the words baby.”

“i need you.”

[menheim]

𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗮𝘀 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘴𝘴 🥵🔥

[slamrink]

Nothing to see here just steph stealing glances of klay like he’s afraid he’s going to get caught 😃😃 (via namxsj on twitter )

[bluespirlt]

what am i gonna do with myself when dallas pulls this shit in the crystal catacombs scene

[realtapiocafan]

hiiiiiii i was reading your tags from the fic snippet and learned something new in that i did not Know ja’marr moved to dallas omgg 😀 can u provide some more info on this ✍🏿✍🏿✍🏿

Ofc! (This is long)

So from what I gather, after opting out, Ja'Marr went back home (Harvey, Louisiana - close to NOLA) until about November, when he moved to Dallas to get ready for the draft. In the Najee-Jaylen-Ja'Marr house thing they did (which includes what Pro Day was like post-COVID and has some other videos about the draft itself), Ja'Marr says himself that he hasn't actually been at the LSU campus ever since he opted out. (Also if you look at his twitter, he was live-tweeting LSU games lol).

Everything else below are articles mentioning Ja'Marr going to Dallas, as well as some other information regarding COVID-era Ja'Marr, sprinkled with my own little comments in between 🙂

So first off, the Dallas thing is specifically mentioned in this article by the Advocate (I'm going to include the necessary paragraphs bc some of these are paywalled smh)

There were more uncertain times, too. Chase opted out of the 2020 season during preseason camp last year, a time in which the pandemic was surging and there was tension in the football operations building after a mishandled team meeting regarding the team's player-led march amid national protests against police brutality. Chase told reporters at LSU's Pro Day that his decision to leave was because "I had a lot of stuff going on with my family at the time." Chase dedicated his time toward becoming a professional. From November until March, he lived and worked out at the EXOS training facility in Dallas. After almost a year out of public sight, he coolly ran a 4.38-second 40-yard dash at pro day — an impressive enough time that Jimmy said coaches and trainers told Ja'Marr he could shut it down. "I came here to put on a show," Ja'Marr told them, then proceeded to run routes and individual drills.

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The Athletic (which i honestly trust more) goes more into detail into Ja'Marr's exact location. Apparently, Ja'Marr moved from Baton Rouge back home (it sounds like it was about September). Then in November, he went to Dallas. This article also includes some more information on Ja'Marr's experience in quarantine. That quote by Ja'Marr's dad really opened my eyes, because Ja'Marr was never really alone before this. He was always part of a team, always surrounded by people until... well, he wasn't. (Also now that I think about it, Ja'Marr did say he started watching tape because of Joe and apparently spent most of this year -which was away from Joe- watching tape... maybe it reminded him of Joe 👀)

Ja’Marr stayed in Baton Rouge initially after opting out in August. He remained close with his teammates, especially the receiving corps at first. But once the season cranked up, Ja’Marr moved back home, feeling a sense of isolation without football... “We kept him close to home. We noticed that he was struggling a little bit. Life without football. Life without a team. His whole life changed. It was his first time not playing sports since he was a young kid. Gamedays were the hardest day.” One thing jumped out to Jimmy as they watched games together, though. He never fully grasped his son’s football IQ. “We watched the games with him,” Jimmy said. “He would call the plays before the snap was gone.  And he would say how Terrace (Marshall) needs to do this because the defense is about to do this. And Racey (McMath) needs to do this so he needs to watch out for this. He’d call the play and I was like, ‘Damn!’ It would happen just like he said. So sitting out actually helped in that sense. He never really watched football. He was always playing. Now all he could do was watch it. He told me and I saw how much it helped him.” Watching games with Ja’Marr, his parents sensed his pent-up energy. He was healthy, but he wasn’t playing. The energy fed right into Ja’Marr’s passion for working out. He’d run to the gym often after games to let that energy free. The regimented workout routine really kicked up about six months ago. “He’s been at EXOS (A Dallas-based training facility) since November,” Jimmy said. “They had an opt-out session group that started out where they would work out three days a week. So he started out there at the end of October or early November. That lasted until the end of December. Then in January, he started getting into the more combine workouts. He’s been working hard and getting stronger. That’s really the only thing that’s been keeping him sane is working. That’s all he could do.”

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This Sports Illustrated article further confirms he was in Dallas for at least part of 2020-2021. It also adds that Ja'Marr was so pent-up that he apparently wanted to opt back in (probably bothered by LSU being kinda shit that year -that third game, LSU lost 45-41 💀).

He spent the off-year training in Dallas, studying film and watching his former college teammates struggle through to a 5-5 COVID-impacted 2020 season. What many don’t know, his dad says, is Chase nearly returned to LSU midseason. “People don’t realize how close he was to coming back,” Jimmy says. “After the third game, he was watching and jumped off the sofa after they lost. He said ‘I’m about to opt back in!’ It was killing him.” The family seriously explored whether Chase would have been eligible to return (Jimmy says Ja’Marr would have) and spoke to coaches at length about his reinstatement. In the end, Ja’Marr remained on the sidelines. 

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This Washington Post article also goes more into depth about the impact COVID had on Ja'Marr's family and what went into the decision to opt-out (Ja'Marr apparently has a hole in his heart which SHOCKED me the first time I read it) (It also goes the most in depth into Ja'Marr's aghast reaction at Les Miles saying he should be a DB and why Ja'Marr didn't want to commit to LSU at first)

But that March, Jimmy Chase says, their family began suffering from flu-like symptoms, and older son Jimmy Jr. and Toleah would be hospitalized with what they later learned was covid-19. “I was like: Shake it off, man,” Jimmy Chase Sr. says. “I can’t die now.” During a most unpredictable spring, when the coronavirus pandemic paused sports and shut down the world, the Chase family survived but eventually learned about “long covid” and the heart and respiratory problems some patients reported. Jimmy Chase says his son’s heart problem has healed, but it remained a frightening preexisting condition and again placed the father and son on opposite sides of a tense debate.

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Last thing, if you were wondering about the team meeting in the first article, here's what information i found. Again, I don't know how reliable The Advocate actually is and unlike the article above, this is literally the only source I found that mentions this. I don't recall Ja'Marr or any other LSU players saying anything remotely negative about Orgeron - most of them say he was a great coach!

(At the same time, an old white guy giving ... maybe not racist, but tone-deaf advice to a bunch of college-aged black men, in the height of Black Lives Matter -it's not out of the question.)

Multiple sources told The Advocate that team morale turned south before the season even began, when a large group of players felt Orgeron mishandled a team meeting regarding the team's player-led march in August amid national protests against police brutality. The players skipped practice that day, met outside Tiger Stadium and marched to the university president's office without Orgeron, who later told reporters he didn't know about the protest before it happened. Orgeron met up with the players at the president's office and took part in a meeting that lasted about an hour. He later told reporters he and the players talked "about the things they're going through and how we can be a part of the solution." Privately, the meeting did not come off as productive as described. Orgeron and some players were upset during the meeting, multiple sources said, and while some players said the situation could've been handled better by all sides, other players left feeling Orgeron wasn't supportive. Three days after the meeting, star wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase announced he was opting out of the season, joining starting nickel safety Kary Vincent in preparing for the NFL draft. By the end of the week, starting nose tackle Tyler Shelvin opted out as well.

[lily-s-world]

Call me Bruce Wayne because I'm about to start adopting traumatized teenagers and a 24 year old goat boy.

[burrowscigar]

the pic vs behind the pic

WHY R THEY SO DAMN FINE… ESPECIALLY U JA’MARR

[alaskan-wallflower]

hard of hearing dallas and johnny yelling WHAT at each other for twenty minutes just to piss pony off

i can kinda see this lowkey, lol—those two are assholes (we love ‘em tho)

[dyingrubberchicken]

whoever says dallas liu isnt the best zuko to ever possibly zuko needs to rewatch the original atla series ASAP.

YES he's whiney YES he has the survival instincts of a drowned fish YES he is an angsty teen.

BUT THAT'S WHO ZUKO IS.

my guy lost to aang, angrily doodled him, smacked him on a wall, and burst into flames. he is the embodiment of >:(

LOOK AT HIM. and im talking season 1 zuko here. that man is the DEFINITION of angsty teenager. he is a soggy wet cat. he is hopelessly incapable of social interaction and we love him for it. look at that dumb dumb man and tell me dallas liu does not perfectly encapsulate what an absolute idiot (/aff) season 1 zuko is.

thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[shuteyeshuttle]

I NEED SOME HELP!!

I’ve been really into the Outsiders lately and I’ve been trying to figure out what greaser would be in what cabin.

Ex:

Pony - Apollo

Dally - Ares

Johnny - Hades

Steve - Hephaestus

Darry - Zeus

Two-bit - Hermes

(Feel free to fight me on this)

BUT I CANT FOR THE LIFE OF ME DECIDE ON ONE FOR SODA

[loriiisstuff]

MY MASTERLIST!!!

Want to be notified when i post about your favorite characters? comment asking to be tagged in the tag list when new imagines are posted <33

That 70s Show | Dazed and Confused | Percy Jackson and The Olympians | Avatar The Last Airbender

Future of Hollywood

[comfortabletogether]

new headcanons drop Percy Jackson is Filipino and identifies as gender-fluid and completely unlabeled.

In other news we have a headcanon that Grover is Bolivian. He is genderqueer and is pansexual.

And to top that all off we have dug up the headcanon that Annabeth is a Swedish-American Jew. She is an asexual biromantic.

[39oa]

jake oettinger x disparate youth — SO LET THEM SAY WE CAN'T DO BETTER

[0xeyedaisy]

Okay II'm gonna need to lock the fuck in and stop thinking abt Sepbox cuz it's making me genuinely upset (in a good way, sad story is making me sad ya know) I don't need my customers seeing me in this state