#I guess mostly because I need to make a compelling case for it LOL

[minty-playhouse]

Crazy how I started my career as a Moontwistle truther and slowly veered towards Daltwistle which was always my true calling but I didn't want to admit lol

[bleachbleachbleach]

[Bleach 080]

All that hype about the fancy radioactive danger rocks, and Kuukaku has something that can beat it.

The Seireitei can't know about this, right? Because otherwise they certainly would not have banished the Shiba without making sure that info did not leave with them. *I* wouldn't. Though now that I think about it. Do you need these balls to go up to the Royal Realm in the cannon? Now I can't remember. I know a bunch of Team Shinigami were charging their Royal Realm elevator or whatever, but was that for the thrust or the "don't dissolve on contact with the barrier"? I'd look it up but I guess I'm not feeling super compelled to; searching through TYBW is too hard lol. And I guess it's not like Kuukaku got banished FROM SOUL SOCIETY (or from the Seireitei), unlike some people. Just from being a noble, which would be separate from dealing with the Gotei and their dumb wall and their dumb Zero Division and what-have-you, anyway. But given that the Shiba have beef with shinigami, too, maybe it doesn't matter.

After the dust has settled on the ryoka invasion and Aizen's betrayal, is everyone mostly just focused on Aizen's betrayal (and Ichigo existing at all). Or, in the late aftermath, as the reports get filed and the assessments get written, does it occur to someone to wonder how the ryoka got in? Even if it's not the first question anyone remembers to ask at that point, surely, eventually, someone does. Which means this was a huge risk on Kuukaku's part, in which case! She has to love and trust Yoruichi (and Urahara) a lot, or believe that whatever's brewing in the Seireitei is worthwhile enough to make this secret visible, right at this moment.

In an earlier post, I mentioned Kuukaku's line about doing this because "if Urahara's involved, how can I refuse?" Given Urahara's 2nd Division posting with the Maggot's Nest and therefore general jailiness, it would make sense that he would have some dealing with sekki-seki. Knowing Urahara, that probably also means figuring out how to counter it--which is perhaps where Kuukaku comes in, since the Shiba were already in charge of the "let's go to the Royal Realm!" cannon. Did she have to know this already? If not, maybe she invented it after her banishment just, you know, for insurance, using sekki-seki notes left by Urahara, and that's where her sense of responsibility to him comes from. Either way, in enlisting her help with their invasion, Yoruichi had to have known about both the cannon (obvious) and the cannonball (secret), since she's aware of how the sekki-seki dome works.

[thekimspoblog]

I still think his greatest sin as Jimmy was how he got Irene ostracized by her elderly friend group 😭

How horrible is that? To be bullied and excluded in the last years of your life?

And even when he went back and “fixed” it by making himself the vilain, it was still too little too late. She still went through all that suffering. For his greed

Alright. I also got a lot of thoughts about that episode. But put a pin in that. Short answer: It's not Saul's fault that all of Irene's friends suck.

True, but…Jimmy still did her dirty :(

And it’s sad, because he clearly really liked her and his other elderly clients. He just put his hustle first over their best interests

Mostly what bothers me about that plot thread is that he lied for... literally no reason. There's nothing he said to Irene's friends that he couldn't have just said to Irene directly. If you're going to interfere with the case (however illegal that might be) JUST TELL IRENE YOU DON'T LIKE ERIN! She would have listened! Hell just tell her you need the payday. To me the cat cookies at the beginning of that episode - how Jimmy buys them from the store and then pretends he baked them - symbolizes this weird pointless pathological need to overcomplicate things.

Yeah, fair point on the overcomplicating for plot reasons regarding Jimmy & Irene. He *should* have just told her directly

I guess it ties into his pathological need to scam and wheel and deal? Bit of a stretch on the writers’/creators benefit there lol

Again, part of my brbabcs headcanon is that god isn't real but the devil is.

But Chuck wasn’t wrong when he compared Jimmy to an alcoholic. It is like an addiction for him

So, do you kind of conceptualize that some of McWexler’s bullshit is literal devilish temptation?

Not temptation exactly. More akin to a cruel determinism. I'm still working out exactly how this lore works. All I know is the POV camera seems to have a psychological effect on the characters. Makes them act erratic.

I think the underlying rule is that whatever entities are controlling these characters (yes it's an allegory for the writers but it goes deeper than that) will go to any lengths to be entertained. And it finds violence especially entertaining. Does it actively make the characters do bad things? Maybe maybe not. But if it gets bored it will make bad things happen, whether the characters are obliging it or not.

Don't know if you've seen "Hereditary" but I pull a lot of inspiration from that. That and Westworld, of course.

On a tangential note, I'm quite into ARGs and "dark video games lore explained" videos. I am currently watching a deep dive into "Inscryption" and it's quite interesting!

But in the broadest sense, I'll just say that because BCS is a prequel, obviously free will is not as simple as it would appear to Jimmy McGill. Certain things were simply ordained to happen. In fact Kim's death might have been ordained to happen too, and that is why her living to 2016 signifies something gone wrong.

That’s an interesting idea!

I do love both Hereditary and Westworld (especially S1. I was a little disappointed by S2 and didn’t finish S3). But that idea of not only “destiny” in the sense of inherited/intergenerational trauma and actual hereditary traits, and also actual Destiny in terms of Fate is very fun to contemplate; and how much of a character’s actions are actually free will and how much is pre-destined.

With Jimmy in particular, that idea of self-fulfilling prophecy and his (in)ability to change in spite of or because of constantly trying to run away from himself and the consequences of his actions is very compelling. But it’s there for Kim, too! She wants “more” and seems to be constantly running away from the instability and deprivation of her past and towards some idealized, self-actualized version of herself

So that idea of a godlike or demonic force manipulating and controlling that element of destiny for them is a cool idea!

I feel like Jimmy "avoided" consequences for his actions (at least in the context of Season 1) in the sense that sliding under a sixteen wheeler and getting dragged for ten miles is "avoiding" getting hit by it. lol! Like sure, he never did time for the Chicago Sunroof incident, but it still followed him for the rest of his life. Maybe some would say he deserved to have his life ruined way back then and that would have been the end of it. And I can't really argue with that reading given that less connected people have their lives ruined for a lot less all the time. But I would point out that after that he completely reorganized his life and at least TRIED to be a good boy for almost a decade, before giving up and reverting back to his true colors.

Even though the brothers both had a hand in each other's downfalls, I don't think either of them were really the cause. Yes, Jimmy made a fool of Chuck, but Chuck was a control freak with no humility. Even if Jimmy had stayed far away in Illinois, I suspect something else would have inevitably caused Chuck to implode. Hell, if you buy into my extended theories about the rivalry between Kim and Chuck, it kind of seems like Jimmy was just the middleman in the first place.

And on the opposite side of the coin, conformity just isn't in Jimmy's nature. It's not like he would have walked a straight path if only his brother had been supportive. Chuck was probably onto something that Jimmy simply didn't have the right disposition for this level of responsibility. The problem is this institution IS corrupt to a fascial degree, so the fact that Saul makes a mockery of it might ironically be a sign that he's the only one in the room taking this seriously.

I mean, I think I've mentioned this before, but I just cannot abide the notion that Saul was some bane on the justice system when THE PROVOCATION DEFENSE is still widely accepted precedent.

I think that actually gets at one of my biggest problems with the way the show handles characterization. There's so much overwhelming evidence that the legal profession itself and the general concept of ambition is at the heart of why these people have such severe mental health problems, and yet it's never directly addressed as such.

Chuck put all of his self-worth into his career and had no plan for retirement even though he NEEDED to be thinking about that.

Howard's good reputation wasn't wholly unearned, but he still was an emotionally stunted person who had never experienced real hardship as the result of his privileged life. Had he survived that encounter with Lalo, maybe he would have learned sometimes people hate you for no reason and you just have to be okay with that. Sometimes you do everything right and you still lose. He would have realized he was so caught up in preserving a legacy he was losing everything else.

Jimmy's mistake was not his crimes, but the times he tried to be something besides a criminal. That he rose above his benign state as a petty crook, got access to the knowledge usually gatekept by "responsible" people and predictably used that power in an irresponsible way.

And no Kim! Jimmy is not a bad influence on you, nor are you a bad influence on him! The entire romance is a red herring. You're "poisoned" because you're poisoning yourself - working yourself into an early grave, tearing your hair out trying to bail water on a sinking ship. I'm 100% confident that if she wasn't working a job which riled her up so much, she and Jimmy would be able to have a normal relationship. This is why the CFLA plot point niggles me so much - wanting to help people the oppressed, and not wanting to hurt people in positions of power are diametrically opposed goals - and whether or not Kim is still involved with Jimmy by the end of the story, she's set up to repeat her mistakes because she still hasn't dealt with that.

Humility means a peaceful if mundane life, but it also means accepting the world around you as it is. Ambition means pain - being the hero to some and the villain to others but never having the comfort of anonymity either way. Wielding power does weird things to the human brain, and that's a truth which goes far beyond individual case studies of whether any singular exercise of that power was subjectively good or bad.

Gus's story arc would probably be the closest the show comes to tackling this binary head-on. But still, it's muddied because I'm just left wondering how much further he could have gotten if he didn't waste his energy on a revenge quest against the Salamancas. To me, BCS is less about conventionally moral or immoral behavior. And more about questions of which stupid mistakes prevent the characters from becoming platonic ideals of themselves.

Haha, I love your comparison of Jimmy avoiding consequences to sliding under a truck only to be dragged by it! He avoids formal consequences and has a very difficult time truly admitting fault most of the time, but he does get bit in the ass bu the inevitable fallout of his schemes. So I guess he gets hit by natural consequences. I agree that he and Chuck were both instrumental in bringing each other down, but it likely would have happened either way for them. Chuck was clearly very triggered by his divorce (which happened for some reason) and his mental health was a ticking time bomb from the stress of his overwork, similar to Kim. The trouble with Jimmy was a chronic stressor that was constantly adding to everything else going on with Chuck.

I don’t personally see a rivalry between Chuck and Kim. I think he initially sort of patronizes her, but once she calls him out, he respects her and I think him trying to warn her away from Jimmy was a genuine attempt to “save” a promising young by-the-book attorney from Jimmy’s “corrupting influence”

I have so much empathy for Howard. Is he kind of a smug prick and unnecessarily punishes Kim with doc review? Yeah. But he is also the only character who really commits to trying to make positive changes in his life and his approach to other people. I understand Kim’s resentment of him, but her (and Jimmy’s) campaign against him was so vindictive and unnecessary.

With your point about the opposition between helping oppressed people versus propping up people/systems in power, I think that goes back to the larger flaw of both BrBa and BCS being so character-driven that they don’t even bother to interrogate the systemic problems causing the issues in characters’ lives. I don’t think either Jimmy or Kim have interest in being a revolutionary and overthrowing the system. But they do both genuinely seem interested in doing what good they can within the bounds (more or less) of the legal system

Jimmy as Saul has more of a stick-it-to-the-man attitude, which is why he’s often happy to bend or straight up break the legal procedures or break the law himself to benefit his clients or himself

I do wish BCS had given us more with Gus’s story line. I don’t think we really saw him change all that much between BCS and BrBa, and he’s such a fascinating character

[pidgecv]

early morning ramblings///

posting this for funsies

pidge talks about romance as horror for far too long and makes no sense in the process 2024 colorized

relationships as a vessel for psychological horror has always been something that fascinates me. take killing stalking for example. a viscerally disgusting and terrible work of horror fiction that i honestly find really compelling conceptually. now did SOME of the fandom™️ completely miss the point and just go “omg yaoi” yes, they did. and yeah the story is like,, not my thing exactly in execution i didn’t finish the comic itself. im not the biggest fan of gore and it crossed my personal line into shock horror (got a bit too into the wrong kind of uncomfortable) but it’s all preference. however, the inherent horror of things like stockholm syndrome, or the idea of a frankenstein being infatuated with his monster not because of who they are but because he made them are both SO interesting. imagine a person loving someone who they have manipulated and abused past the point of humanity. not romantically necessarily (though yeah that’s totally a thing, that all-consuming fascination being misunderstood as a sick romance) rather like a personal project they’re absolutely obsessed with. their creation. except that creation has feelings as well. or maybe in extreme cases, used to at least. problem is it’s difficult to write platonically, since a lot of that stuff can come off as romanticizing abuse and it’s a very delicate topic. deffo easier to have someone eat their own arm and call it a day. going back to stockholm syndrome, in a way it’s a removal of agency (which is a staple of horror media lol). so the horror could be applied both ways, the obsessed and the obsession. the monster and its twisted creator. the inhuman and the inhumane. idk it’s just so damn interesting. it gets complicated and tricky to pull off, but horror doesn’t mix well with cut corners. i may try and expand on this sort of idea but in a far less extreme way for the swapverse. absolutely nothing romantic, in fact i headcanon (or i guess canon?) both versions of cleo as aroace (fully, not just somewhere in the middle of the aroace spectrum but completely disinterested in romance and sex repulsed) ((mostly just wanted to explore familial and platonic bonds without having to consider any sort of romantic stuff)) (((yes s!cleo had a boyfriend pre apox. it was qpr, they were both aroace but were besties for the resties and were gonna marry for tax purposes))). but i’d love to pull off a platonic obsession. jo would absolutely obsess over her work. she would be so proud of herself for creating cleo. living (debatably) proof of her skill. her magnum opus. every success of cleo’s is actually jos, but also every failure is taken the same way. jo sees it as her own failure, and takes out that selfish anger on cleo or even V sometimes. cleo struggles with her humanity. she was one of the first infected. not patient 0, but one of the first. early enough to have been institutionalized and studied at least. and jo has twisted her memories so much that cleo doesn’t know anything about herself except that she belongs to jo. she’s property, a dangerous weapon. that’s what makes their deaths so poetic. jo dies at the hands of V, through her own weapon. because while cleo hit the detonator, it was V who rigged the bomb. Cleo and jo depend on each other so much. the way you need the sword to cut but the sword needs you to polish. to sharpen. even to forge. of course V is the only one who survives. cleo was never going to be able to live without jo and vice versa. they weren’t friends. they weren’t family. they were something else entirely, something torturous and hateful and tragic. a dynamic of lies and manipulation and cruelty. they died as they lived, together. while the original final lives cast was threatened by the new world, they managed to overcome it by being a team. in the swapverse, the outside world was never the threat. they dominated the apocalypse, thriving compared to the og crew. but they were torn apart from the inside, and they couldn’t overcome it. yet another reflection of the original cast. i was gonna type more but hit tumblr limit goodnight fazgang

[yeehawpurgatory]

Listen, I know this might sound untrue, but Arthur IS mostly a bad dude—or at least not as good a man as some claim. (I love him still but hear me out)

This is not me arguing “he’s bad so you shouldn’t like/glorify him” at all, I promise—I can’t stand that rhetoric. It’s just that I see a lot of “he’s so kind” “so good at heart” “so hard on himself” and I wonder why folks so often adamantly, un-ironically claim him as a misunderstood gentle giant type.

The fact that he’s mostly nice to those he cares about and is willing to help strangers in need (never mind both of those things are optional anyhow, you can just as easily play him as an asshole who doesn’t come to anyone’s aid—) doesn’t undo the harm he’s responsible for throughout the game. Nor does him being told to do so by an authority or being a victim of circumstance undo it.

His good doesn’t make up for his bad, and I don’t think it actually needs to. His bad certainly doesn’t take away from what makes him compelling and likeable to the audience; but within the context of his world, he’s right to be unhappy with who he is. It’s not a matter of low self esteem or self worth issues, his unhappiness with himself comes from self awareness.

(Saying this with a grain of salt because you know, fictional character with no real agency whose actions are as such for plot reasons), he may have had a shit hand dealt to him, but he’s a person who makes bad choices. He’s charming and relatable (and hot lol) but I’m not sure I understand the whole simplifying his character to “good person stuck in bad situation” thing, when it plainly isn’t the case, no matter how much we like him.

I think the “you’re a good man Arthur” line gets thrown around as proof of him being good at heart; but I think it’s more like, he needed to hear it to act as such. He needed to be told how to be good and pushed into reflection and immediate actions. He needed to be told that he’s a good man by others because he needed permission in a sense to be different than he knows himself to be. (Take a shot every-time I say good)

“The Thomas Downes mission was out of character” it really isn’t. He says what kind of man he is multiple times, he hammers the point home that he’s a bad man. And while there is definitely a bit of self loathing in that sentiment, he’s still speaking his truth. He’s just unhappy with it; he IS the type of man to commit an atrocity like beating a dying man for a few bucks. It goes against the beliefs fans have projected onto him, usually coming from their own moral compass instead of what the character shows his own to be, and that’s why it ‘feels so wrong’ to see him doing something actually despicable.

We arrive at this misunderstanding due to fandom projection, as well as this rampant desire to problem solve by ‘fixing’ the canon material to fit a sort of agenda. Ie, ‘I only like the good attributes in this character’ ‘it’s only acceptable to like this bad dude provided he’s always feeling guilt for his actions’ or ‘he’s not really at fault for them.’

But the thing is, even if Arthur is at conflict with his actions, the guilt he may feel isn’t an indication of anything pure within him. He’s in total control and chooses still to go along with everything. I tend to think an action done in guilt is functionally the same as an action done with enjoyment. Arthur feeling bad at the end of the game for his faults and complicity doesn’t mean he is good. Nor does it mean he ‘was a good the whole time’, nor does it excuse what he’s done.

We don’t have to make him a better person than he is in order to like him, is what I’m trying to say I guess. It’s fine to acknowledge all parts of him, to do otherwise does a disservice to his character as it often flattens them beyond recognition. And it’s also fine to hone in on what you appreciate most and write and draw and celebrate that while functionally ignoring the rest if you so choose—but it’s also fine (and usually important) to acknowledge who the character is without the plethora of projections placed upon them.

Arthur ends the game with a loving act, more or less saving John, saving Abigail, Tilly, paving the way for them to become something better than he was. None of these things are meant to be a great action done to save his soul or redeem him in any eyes, especially not his own. He dies on a good note (and yeah I would say low honour/back for the money is still a ‘good’ choice for a low honour story), and shifts his focus to the last good deed he’s done in his final moment as a way to leave off peacefully despite all his wrongdoings. He doesn’t get redemption really, and he doesn't wholly achieve 'goodness', despite all the potential for growth the audience can see in him, that’s the deliberate tragedy of it all.

[middlenameray]

Realized on Sunday that I have assembled more than enough cohesive song ideas to justify a new album. Have been slightly consumed with that realization ever since (in a good way, I think?)

The major catalyst for this is that I started learning how to play guitar in earnest in the fall of 2022. It’s been really transformative to my identity as an artist, to my songwriting, and to my relationship with music making in general. I have a LOT more to learn, but I think I can begin moving on the seeds of material I’ve been storing away as I’ve gone along.

Of course these longform projects have a way of evolving into completely different animals as they progress, but at this moment, I’m inspired to use this potential project to reach some semblance of closure on things I’ve been carrying around my whole life. (read: formative experiences with shame, disappointment, bullying, abandonment, grief and so forth.) Not exactly a happy record lol but will certainly be cathartic.

Why has it taken over three albums for me to “get personal” like this? Well, for one thing, my upbringing as a gospel singer trained me to put The Message before my own narrative. So much of my early music has stopped short of going too deep because I’ve always felt I needed to put a hopeful or positive spin on things.

Even with my Backslider album, which was very critical of this indoctrination, I felt like I had to balance the introspective with more global subject matter. Songs like “Abomination”, “Hostile Cordiality” and “Take Too Long” are the beginnings of me going “hi, this is about me and the real life experiences that have shaped me,” but they’re sandwiched among other songs that more broadly speak to systemic oppression and humanity.

And of course my last album was an intentional homage to my gospel roots, so again, the focus was mostly on universal messaging - “Stars” and “It’s Not Too Late” are probably the most introspective lyrics on the whole project.

The other reason is that, in regards to the specific stories that I want to tell now, a lot of them go back to early childhood: things I have hazy memories of and/or that in many ways have felt unnecessary or self-indulgent to revisit now that I’m an adult.

Add to this the fact that I’ve had quite a few transitions in my life that have ended my time in communities before I was ever able to get closure on them. In childhood, I moved around a bit which meant repeatedly starting over at different schools and neighborhoods - we also changed churches a few times, too.

At 18, I relocated states for college and came out: in many ways, I never looked back. I then relocated states again after graduating to get married and moved around even more for the next half-decade. We moved back to Nashville in 2019 and have been living in the same home for almost 5 years now - which is honestly the longest I’ve lived at any address since I was like six years old.

Anyway, each and every transition has lended itself to constant reinvention - using each ending and new beginning to redefine myself. Sometimes I had intentions of staying in touch with the loved ones left behind; other times, less so. In either case, it barely happened, and today I don’t really have close friendships (people I talk to on even a monthly basis) with very many people outside of my husband and immediate family.

Even my latest transition from Twitter to Bluesky has been an online mirror of this: the blessing of constantly getting to redefine and set new boundaries for what I want from community paired with the curse of said community never lasting.

I could go on and on about that but the point is: being able to dive completely into introspective storytelling feels very, very long overdue. And I’m excited about it. I also think, as I write this, that I’m emotionally capable of doing this work in ways that I probably would not have been in the past. So, I guess it’s all in due timing, actually. These songs feel really stimulating and compelling to work on, which, for as heavy as the subject matter is to revisit, is joyous and affirming for me that I’m supposed to be doing this.

[biisexualemma]

unrequited pt.2. peter parker

word count: 3.6k

warnings: anxiety, panic attack? i guess kind of

requested: yea a few people asked for this lol

plot: you haven’t seen peter for weeks and start to worry about him

a/n: i finished re-writing this late last night and i’ll be honest with you i haven’t checked it over so sorry if there are any mistakes but i’m tired sis goodnight! lmk if you like this! pls comment / share!

pt.1 / marvel masterlist / multi-fandom masterlist

"ned... you're so wrong for so many reasons," m.j.'s expression was flat, her eyes rolling before she continued to fight ned on who was really the strongest avenger. you were supposed to be working on a group project for your history class but somehow the topic of the avengers came up and the conversation derailed. ned was making a, somewhat, compelling case for the hulk but m.j. was clearly winning with her argument for wanda.

"nobody even knows the full extent of her powers... and the hulk? what? he's gonna smash some more?"

you sat quietly, chin in the palm of your hand, listening in and out of the conversation. you didn't really feel much like contributing. you would occasionally chime in to support m.j. but mostly you just heard the noise of their bickering and let it happen.

you didn't want to be that person, but your mind was (much to your frustration) completely consumed with thoughts of peter. and at the worst time, you had so many tests coming up, and essay deadlines were also creeping up on you. usually you were on top of this stuff, but your mind was preoccupied almost all the time.

because of peter, who was no where to be seen. in the past few weeks he had stopped showing up to school all together. ned said it was something to do with tony stark but you had a feeling it was more than that. you didn't know how to explain it.

you hadn't spoken to him in a long time now, and you didn't exactly leave things on good terms. it was the longest you'd gone without talking since peter called you a poopy head in the third grade.

you just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. especially since you had no idea what he was getting up to, peter was known to get himself into some messes when he was left to his own devices. and you just knew ned was lying to cover for his best friend but that only made you feel even more out of the loop.

everything felt a bit off without peter around, like something was missing. that, on top of the guilt and worry you were feeling, was turning your head to mush. last time you'd spoken to peter, he was erratic and wounded and desperate. something bad had to have happened for him to be gone this long.

the bell rang, signalling the end of your last period for the day, and the rest of the week seeing as it was a friday. you snapped out of your daze, jolting as your eyes focused back on your surroundings.

"what time did you say again, y/n?" your eyes drifted to m.j. who was collecting her notes on her desk, her eyes meetings yours, waiting for your answer. a crease formed between your eyebrows, you hadn't heard a word of the conversation before right now. m.j. seemed to realise this, rolling her eyes at you with a playful smile. you did this a lot lately, she was getting used to it. "homecoming? what time did you want to meet tonight?"

"oh," you nodded, still sitting at your desk as your classmates hustled around you. "right, homecoming— i— uh—"

"tell me you're still coming," ned interrupted, his eyes wide suddenly, clearly desperate that your answer was anything but no. "c'mon we've had this planned for ages!"

"no— yeah— of course i am," you nodded quickly to reassure him. "yeah— sorry— i just spaced. is seven good for you guys?"

they hummed in response, nodding.

you packed up your books, shoving them into your bag, still in a slight haze with all these thoughts running through your head about peter. you couldn't think about homecoming, it seemed trivial now compared to the worst case scenarios running through your mind. maybe you could try to call peter again? you thought to yourself as you quickly left the classroom, forgetting about m.j. and ned and homecoming, your muscle memory alone leading you to your locker.

you swapped out your books from your bag with the ones you needed to study from for your biology test next week. after slamming the locker door shut, a familiar face was met with yours.

"jesus," you muttered as he stood inches away from your face, your heart racing from the shock. clutching your books to your chest, after nearly having a heart attack, you let out a loud sigh and furrowed your eyebrows. "peter? where the hell have you been?" you regained some of your composure, enough to find some anger in you towards him. he was the last person you were expecting to see today.

"you're ok?" his usual soft brown eyes looked sunken and tired, his hair was scruffier than usual and his lips chapped as they hung open, his eyes scanning over you.

your mouth hung open to speak but he just shook his head as if answering his own question. he gripped your forearm, urging you to walk with him. you dug in your heels, yanking your arm back, wanting him to slow down and explain before you went anywhere with him. "will you just walk," he muttered sharply when you tried to resist him. "please," he softened quickly, his eyes meeting yours.

you frowned, uncomfortably shifting the stack of books in your arms as peter pulled you along behind him hastily. you watched his eyes shifting about the hallway as students weaved around the two of you, his grip not loosening for a second. he was definitely up to something stupid and dangerous that he absolutely should not be involved in.

he'd dragged you all the way out into the parking lot, pulling you aside and away from the crowd of people.

"what's going on? why do you look like— i mean no offence but— you look like crap," you couldn't help but show some level of concern. no matter how complicated your feelings were for him at the moment, he was still your best friend, and he looked like hell. you couldn't stop yourself from staring at him.

"i need you to just— stop talking and listen to me," the look in his eyes made your heart beat a bit faster, your eyes darting between his trying to understand his urgency. "you're not safe—"

"no— i'm fine—" you were never very good at doing what you were told. you glanced down at yourself, perfectly safe and standing in front of him. "see?—"

"no— no you're not," he gulped, his eyes darting away from yours for a split second. "i'm taking you home and you have to stay there. ok? please."

his voice was horse, cracking when he spoke. you didn't understand any of it. peter was the friendly neighbourhood spider-man, what the hell had he gotten himself into that had him this worked up?

you tilted your head slightly, he couldn't think you'd blindly do whatever he said. you needed some answers. "pete," you mumbled, shaking your head with a faint frown. "can't you just tell me what's going on? you're kinda' scaring me."

"i screwed up," his face contorted, his eyes screwing shut for a second and his nose scrunching. you were glued to him, following his mixed expressions trying to understand what was going through his head. he took a deep, shaky breath, running a hand through his hair. "and i know you— you hate me and the last thing you wanna' do is listen to me but i need you to do this for me."

"alright," you said after a moments hesitation. you just wanted him to relax. all your pent up anger and hurt that you'd felt over peter had dissipated quite quickly. you were too occupied with trying to ease some of his stress, and if that meant becoming a homebody for a few days, you would do it. "alright— don't worry. i've been putting off my english essay for a week now anyway, it's about time i cracked down on it."

you tried to ease the tension, act like he wasn't asking much of you. he let out a heavy sigh, looking over at you with those brown eyes. "it's homecoming tonight, i know w—"

"is it?" you feigned forgetfulness, not wanting to make him feel any worse than he already did. you shrugged. "i was never one for socialising anyway."

peter knew you better than that. he knew what he was asking you to give up. "i'm sorry," he took a step closer to you, his hands hovering in front of you, unsure that you wanted him to touch you. "i'm sorry you got dragged into this."

your eyes lingered on his hands before you pulled back up to his stare. you pursed your lips and shrugged. "i'd feel better about it if i knew what i was getting dragged into," you pulled away from your conversation for a second to slip your books into your bag. "walk me home and you can explain everything."

and he did. he told you all about the vulture, the weapons, what really happened during the decathlon trip. all of it. right up to when the vulture figured out his identity— which lead to him finding out about aunt may, about his friends, and about you. he told you about how he'd spent the past few weeks figuring out where the vulture's next major deal was being held, how he'd messed up so bad and how mr stark had taken his suit.

by the time he'd finished, your mouth hung open slightly. you didn't know how he'd been dealing with all of this by himself. spider-man helped old ladies cross the street and returned stolen bicycles, he didn't fight men in bird costumes to stop illegal sales of dangerous advanced weapon tech.

"peter, this sounds pretty dangerous," you spoke up after he told you about his plan to intercept the vulture's airplane heist. "don't you think you should just call happy? or tony? this sounds like iron man territory."

"i can't do that," he sighed. "besides, i already tried happy— he's not taking my calls right now. something about a time out."

you let out a heavy sigh, having taken everything in that he'd told you. you had reached your door, peter standing behind you with his hands stuffed in his pockets. you motioned for him to come in but he hesitated, opening his mouth to decline. "c'mon," you grabbed his arm and tugged gently. "this heist isn't happening 'til late tonight. you can keep me company 'til then."

"maybe, get some rest, too, you really do look like hell," he let you pull him inside, following behind you. he ignored the second dig you had now made about his appearance.

"may must've been pretty mad when she found out you'd been skipping school?" you collapsed onto your bed, crossing your legs over and watching peter perch himself on the edge of your bed. he leaned forward, his hand running over his face with sheer exhaustion.

"you have no idea," he groaned, holding his head up with the palm of his hand now. "i'm pretty much grounded for the rest of the year. and i have to send her a pic' of me sitting in every one of my classes from now on," you nodded, pursing your lips because that sounded about right. "but mainly she was worried."

"well, she wasn't the only one," he glanced at you over his shoulder, his eyes lingering there for a while. you breathed through your nose, looking away from him and down to your hands to give yourself a moment. you'd forgotten how difficult it was to have him look at you like that. "you just took off with no word, peter."

he turned his gaze away from you, focusing on the wall in front of him, his eyes glossy. for weeks that last conversation with you had been sitting at the back of his mind. he knew he'd handled everything in the worse possible way. he tried to protect you, hurt you by doing so, and then had everything he tried to protect you from blow up in his face anyway.

"i haven't been able to think clearly for weeks," you gulped, scared to meet his gaze again, in fear that you might lose your confidence. "i missed you. and i was worried out of my mind about you."

"y/n—" his voice was quiet.

"and i know i was the one who told you to leave. but i was hurt and sad. i'd convinced myself that you felt the same way, and when you—" you closed your eyes for a second, feeling him watching you. you hadn't been able to say any of this out loud for weeks and now it was just spilling out of you. "anyway— i shouldn't've punished you for that. they are my feelings i need to get over. it wasn't your fault and i'm sorry i made it seem like it was."

he shook his head faintly, sniffling slightly, catching your attention. "i screwed up," he shook his head a little harder, pushing himself up off your bed, his back turned to you. "i screwed up so bad," he ran his hand over his face, his thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose. your eyebrows knitted. "it wasn't supposed to turn out like this."

"don't," you shook your head, willing him to stop. "it's not your fault. i shouldn't have—"

he cut you off, turning to face you as he did. "i'm in love with you," his mouth hung open slightly, his eyes now stinging red. "i was in love with you then, and i'm in love with you now. i think i always will be."

your eyebrows unknitted, your mouth opening to speak but nothing came out. you watched his hand tug on the ends of his curls, his eyes locked onto you the entire time, trying to read your expression.

"i was trying to protect you and it went completely wrong—" his breathing was erratic. "i thought you'd be safer if i distanced myself—" the look on his face was breaking your heart. he knew how stupid it all sounded now he explained it out loud. "i screwed everything up— and now you're in more danger than ever— because of me."

"you— you—" your brain was trying to keep up. you shook your head. you had spent the past month telling yourself that everything you thought he'd felt for you wasn't real, that you'd over thought everything he'd ever done for you. you'd been telling yourself for a month to move on. "you didn't screw up, pete. i know you. whatever you did, you did for the right reasons."

the lump in your throat was growing as you tried to keep some kind of composure. it wouldn't do either of you any good to get upset with him when he was worked up like this. he didn't need to be told he'd made a mistake, he was already painfully aware.

"you don't— you—but— i—" he was hyperventilating, completely vulnerable as he fell apart in front of you.

"pete," you mumbled carefully, climbing over to where he was stood, hand in his hair and he pulled on the loose curls, his eyes wide with anxiety and stress. you moved your hands to his, pulling them down to his side and giving them a small squeeze. "calm down," you cooed. "everything will be ok."

you trailed your hands up to his shoulders, giving them a soft squeeze before pulling him into a tight hug. you wrapped your arms 'round his shoulders, one hand moving to the back of his head, running your fingers through his hair. his head ducked, burying into your neck, his arms wrapping around your waist in a desperate grip. his breathing was heavy at first, uneven and jagged as he clung onto you. your heart was beating out of your chest, you were sure he could hear it, but you held onto him as tight as you could, pressing your whole body against his trying to offer him as much comfort as you could.

after a while of standing around, holding each other, peter's breathing began to grow softer and slower. he began to notice the sweet scent lingering on your skin. his lips innocently hovering over the curve of your neck, breath fanning against your skin. you could feel goosebumps growing on your skin, the hair of your arms standing on end.

"better?" you mumbled softly. he gave you a faint nod in response, his lips leaving your skin as he pulled himself back from you. your hand slipped from in between his curls and down to the neck, your thumb brushing over his skin as he looked straight into your eyes. you gulped, eyelids fluttering.

he was a state to behold. his nose was pink, under eyes wet, your eyes trailed down to where his lips parted. he hiccuped a breath. you tried to push away the impulse to kiss him because he was clearly vulnerable. you didn't want him to later regret anything. "thanks," he mumbled breathlessly. "i don't know what happened there."

you pouted your lips, about to reply when peters eyes fluttered down your face, catching you off guard. his eyes lingered and you noticed his head tilting down and nearer, his lips catching onto yours before you could register what was happening. it was soft, gentle and didn't last longer than a couple seconds before you had to force yourself to pull away.

"peter— you're overwhelmed right now so maybe we shouldn—"

your whispers against his lips where cut short, he pressed his lips to yours again. unable to resist now he'd had a taste. his arms tightened around your waist, pulling you back flush against his chest. you swallowed a gasp, feeling his full weight behind the second kiss. his lips pushed against yours a little more desperately this time, you fell back a step, peter's arms where the only thing keeping you upright at this point.

both your hands where either side of his neck, trailing up into his hair where you pulled softly at the roots of his messy curls. he let out a soft moan against your lips, and you stumbled back once more, your thighs hitting your bed.

your hands quickly slipped down to his chest as you gently pried him off you. your head was spinning a little, his lips were plump and pink and the way he looked at you, with pure love and obsession, made you want to kiss him again and again.

"did you mean it?" you muttered breathlessly.

his eyes trailed back up from your lips, his gaze locking with yours again. he noticed the vulnerability and fear in your eyes now that he was paying you his full attention. he felt a wave of guilt hit him, knowing he was the one that put that look there.

"yeah," he hummed. "i did," he said with his chest. "i do. always will," he was breathless.

"you're not just saying it 'cause you've missed me?"

he shook his head quickly, shutting down any traces of doubt in your mind. "i have been in love with you since that summer we took that trip to coney island when you threw up after you ate too much cotton candy."

your scrunched up your nose at the memory. "gross."

he shrugged. "i don't know what to tell you. that's just when i knew."

your lips twitched into a small smile. "you should probably get some rest," you diverted the topic, trying hard not to kiss him again. he looked so tired. he had poured out months worth of anxiety and stress all in the past ten minutes. "you can't chase bad guys if you're half asleep."

he wore a half-hearted smile, his mind clearly flickering back to the task he had to take on later tonight.

"you can crash here if you want," you motioned to your bed.

"y'sure? i don't wanna get you in trouble."

"mom's working late, so you're good. plus she loves you, pete," your hands slipped down to his, giving them a quick squeeze of reassurance.

"sure she'll still love me when she finds out about us?" he quirked an eyebrow, the small smile on his lips was sloped and tired.

"m'sure," you hummed, biting back your growing smile at the word us. you moved him to sit on your bed again, his hands lazily holding yours. his eyelids fluttered as he looked up at you, a small crease forming between his eyebrows again. you could tell his mind was wandering again. "lie down, you need to rest or you're no good to anyone."

he nodded hesitantly and followed your instruction. "i'll sleep better with you next to me."

his voice was soft after you'd turned your back on him to leave him to rest. you rolled your eyes faintly, smile tugging your lips again. "is that right?"

he hummed, his arms outstretched, waiting for you to fall into them. you dragged your feet back over to him, biting the inside of your cheek, the corner of your lip twitching upwards. "there's a scientific reason behind it but my brain's too sleepy to think right now, so you'll have to take my word for it."

his words slurred together, his eyes rolling slightly the longer he forced them open. you just nodded. "alright, spidey, just this once."

"hm," he hummed as you climbed in next to him, his arms wrapping around you and immediately pulling you against his chest. "thanks," he muttered, his lips pressed against the top of your head. "don't know what i'd do without you."

[chrisevansgoodgirl]

give me all your venom, i love that shit

summary: i do apologize. no one asked for this...but i accidentally watched assassination nation. okay, it was intentional the first time. but the twenty times after that while i was writing this were accidental. anyway...smut stuff. webcam smut with love of my life Andrew Barber.

warnings: cheating. age gap. andy gets a little dark. this is prob as dark as i would ever write this perfect, beautiful man. a million and one pet names also.

word count: around 11,100 lol oops

pairing: andy barber  x reader

a/n: so yes, age gap. it’s unclear what that is. go ahead and do what you will. it’s truly none of my business. also...one day, i’ll write in my tags ‘i’m gonna post tonight’ and actually post that night. not 300 nights later!

Laurie was a great woman, pretty much the kind of woman that you had always wished your mom would just wake up one day and feel completely compelled to act like. She was always so nice when she spoke to you, even the times you were clearly a little drunk and practically falling out of your tiny skirts.

She chalked it up to youth, so you’d once been told. That was huge in the little town you lived in. Mostly, if people saw all the skin you were showing, what they thought of you was clearly written all over their faces.

Laurie just liked talking to you. About anything. Everything. School, friends, boys, the future. This interest that she took in you didn’t end when you stopped babysitting for the Barbers, if anything, it made your conversations warmer. It was evident that the little time she could get with you was precious to her.

Jacob was the sweetest kid in the world. You had been apprehensive when she first called you. One reason only: babysitting boys was the worst. They were little demons and their parents either were blissfully unaware or did know and just didn’t care. You’d seen the same show for several years.

Not Jacob. And definitely not the Barbers. They were all so perfect and well-adjusted. You hadn’t been sure what to make of them those first few months. You had briefly suspected that both Laurie and Andy were total sociopaths who’d spawned another little sociopath. Come to find out, you just actually had such a fucked-up family situation.

Jacob loved playing video games with you, even though you were terrible at them. He never got upset when you made him lose, he just insisted that you needed to practice. Around the time you left, you’d started to get a little decent at them. He also enjoyed coloring and reading, two of your preferred babysitting activities.

Still, he was also an energetic little boy and that meant that he had dragged you outside sometimes to play very distracted versions of soccer, basketball, baseball a few times, and football once. Only once.

You’d both ended up covered in mud, it had been raining that morning but neither of you wanted to be deterred by that. When Laurie found you, she was horrified. Maybe a tad amused, seeing as she needed several pictures of the two of you.

You had wanted to walk home that night, the same thing you did after most shifts. The problem was, they had arrived home a bit later than usual. Laurie first, Andy about 10 minutes later. You didn’t want to walk through the house, so while Laurie was still threatening to hose off Jacob outside, you made your way around to the front porch.

Just as Andy was unlocking the front door.

Andy. He was easily the most beautiful man you had ever laid eyes on. Mostly, he was in these perfect god damn suits because he was a lawyer. Other times, he didn’t shy away from tight shirts that clung to his arms and chest, and jeans that did the same for his ass.

The coveted position of babysitting for the perfect, loving Andy and Laurie Baber. It was hilarious that it went to you because you were the only one who hadn’t been desperately trying to get it. All your friends would bend over backward, even though a friend of a friend of a friend, Julia Something, had claimed that Jacob was an utter hellion.

But what it came down to was the fact that Andy looked like he had been made by someone trying to create the perfect human being. Everyone was just looking for a way in and when you got it, no one could believe it. You hadn’t been as serious about babysitting. You liked the families you liked and tended to stick to three to five, but Laurie got your number from one of those mothers. How could you say no?

According to many of your friends, you should have. It was a betrayal, but one they couldn’t be too mad about because only an idiot would turn down an offer like that. They tended to pay generously also, so it took a total of three seconds to decide you were in.

He arched an eyebrow at you. “Back door locked?”

“No, I just didn’t want to walk through the house.”

“Right.” He gave you a once over before turning down to his phone. “Do I even want to know?”

That would officially mark the most words he’d ever said to you in one conversation. Laurie loved you, Jacob claimed that he was never, ever going to allow another babysitter to step inside his house, but Andy hardly even looked at you. That wasn’t uncommon. Most of the dads didn’t care, but those were the families that you didn’t stick with for too long.

“Football,” you explained.

He gave you a surprised look.

“But don’t get your hopes up or anything. Jacob sucks.”

He scoffed.

“Can you grab my bag? It’s just right by the door.”

“Heading home?”

“I should. My parents hate when I work this late, they’ve probably been texting me for the past two hours now.”

“Yeah, one sec.”

He didn’t close the door after him so you could hear Jacob excitedly screaming about his father being home. Andy was a great dad and Jacob idolized him just as much as he idolized Laurie. It was a beautiful family dynamic that sometimes still baffled you. Your family looked much different.

He returned with your bag.

“Thanks.” You took it and turned.

“Y/N!”

You looked back as Laurie was rushing out.

“Oh, don’t walk home, dear. Andy will drive you.”

The look on his face told you that he had not offered and that she hadn’t even run it by him before that moment.

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” you attempted to decline. “Honestly.”

“It’s late and cold.”

“I don’t want to get mud all over the car.” It was an expensive fucking car.

“Nonsense, it’s just a car,” Laurie insisted. “Besides, I paint the house a lot. I’m sure we have a few tarps still. Andy, will you go get one?”

He didn’t need further prompt to disappear inside. Laurie apologized for being late, you told her not to worry about it—more time with Jacob was never a bad thing. She thanked you for everything you did for them and you shyly accepted. She asked about your parents then, and before you had to give an elaborate answer, Andy was back with the tarp.

The drive was awkward.

It had started silent and you tried to hide away in your phone, but apparently, no one felt like texting you in that moment. Prior, your friends had been trying to talk to you nonstop, but wasn’t life just funny like that?

You felt like an idiot just staring out the window. This wasn’t anything you hadn’t seen around a thousand times before; he wasn’t even driving a different way. It looked like you were trying to avoid him and this insane, aggressive part of you just hated to appear weak or caught off guard.

Maybe it was your fault then. You were the one who spoke first and after that, things were just different. “How was work?”

It took him a moment to come up with a reply, and what a reply it was. “Fine. I guess.”

“Cool…” you sighed, clicked your tongue a couple of times, then glanced at him. He was staring forward, eyebrows pulled together, confused. Sure, he’d never taken much of an interest in you, and up to that point, as far as he knew, you’d never taken an interest in him. “What kind of lawyer are you?”

“What kind?”

“Like…a wife kills her husband for all of his money. Where are you in the courtroom?”

He chuckled. “I’m a public defender. I don’t normally get cases like that, unless my boss is trying to get on the good side of some irritating, rich people.”

You hummed. “You like it?”

“I do.”

“Cool.”

“Why all the questions? You want to be a lawyer?”

You snorted. “I was just curious. I don’t really hear you talk about work.”

He didn’t say anything else and you felt shot down in a sense. Most fathers were easy to talk to. They loved to hear their own voice and they loved how you pretended to like to hear every word. Obviously, Andy wasn’t in that group. At least a few of your friends had responded to your texts so it wasn’t terribly awkward. He said goodnight when you climbed out of the car, you said it back and closed the door.

You thought that was that.

After that, any time you babysat, he would drive you home. Laurie didn’t even have to say anything, it was just expected that he would do it. He was the one who spoke on the second drive because you weren’t going to try again. It was just stupid stuff. How you were doing with school. How your family was. How your friends were. How your boyfriend was. Because you had a boyfriend, right? He had asked but you knew that he knew you did, Laurie asked about him a lot. Andy never seemed to be paying attention.

That was how it was for almost a month. Then something just changed. The conversations became something else. He asked you where you wanted to go, you weren’t sure you wanted to leave Massachusetts, but you knew you wanted to put some miles between you and your family. He asked you about the future, where you saw yourself. He told you a little about himself, only what he had wanted his life to look like when he was your age.

He had believed he was going to be a high school history teacher.

It wasn’t weird. You didn’t talk to any of the other fathers like this, but it didn’t feel like something you shouldn’t be doing. He just liked talking to you and he actually wanted to hear what you had to say, what you thought about things.

It was innocent. Even when he started coming home early just to make sure he could drive you home. Even when you started taking your jacket off in the car or crossing your legs and pretending you didn’t notice that your skirt was riding up. Even when he looked at you and you acted like you didn’t see it. Even when you would end up sitting in his car, parked down the street from your house, just talking because he knew you didn’t want to go inside.

Perfectly innocent. For almost six months.

You were walking home from school when you got a text from Jacob. He couldn’t find his science project that you had helped him work on. You could have just told him where it was, but then you wouldn’t get the chance to stop by the Barber house. You showed up and Laurie happily invited you in. It was in the garage, something you pretended to remember after about an hour. Jacob had a play date so when his friend’s parents picked him up, Laurie asked you to stay for coffee.

You did. You wanted to extend your time there because even if he didn’t come home soon, Laurie would tell him you had been there. She would mention you and he would be thinking about you. Which is all you ever really wanted.

But sometimes your plans didn’t really work out. You had been turning down jobs, better-paying jobs, jobs you’d had far longer than the Barbers. They had been friends of your parents, it was how you met them, so typically, word got back to your mother. She felt you were the most irresponsible person in the world and didn’t fail to remind you of those feelings when she sent you seven texts and ordered you to get home.

You didn’t want to deal with the chaos of making her angry by spending any more time trying to see Andy. It was a failed attempt at getting closer to him, and as you were walking down the street, you were almost thankful. What the hell were you doing? Why were you trying to get closer to him? Jacob’s father, Laurie’s husband, your boss. That was it. That was all he could be.

But then, much earlier than you’d ever seen him, he was driving by you. You smiled, waved, but kept going. He was the one who circled back and told you to get in. You didn’t need to be told twice. You wanted to talk anyway, you wanted to tell him what was going on with your mother.

He parked down the street again. It wasn’t dark like it usually was but there was no one around. Everyone was staying warm inside. The heaters were on and you had draped your jacket over your legs. It was freezing but leaving the car was the last thing you wanted to do.

He only spoke when you had finished venting. And it wasn’t in the direction you had thought it would go. “You’ve been turning down jobs?”

Shit. You just shrugged. “A few, I guess.”

“Why?”

“I’m busy.”

“You’ve been around the house a lot more lately,” he pointed out. “Is that how you’ve been so busy lately? With Jacob? With us?”

“I…I just don’t feel like babysitting for them anymore.”

“Because you just want to babysit for us.”

“I don’t know,” you finally said. “I don’t know why I’ve been turning them down.”

“I know.”

You lifted your eyebrows.

He placed his hand on your thigh with absolutely no hesitation.

You couldn’t explain how good his skin felt against yours. Like after running a mile and then finally catching your breath. Or waking up and seeing that you still have hours before your alarm clock goes off. Like when you’re walking down the streets during October and the houses are all decorated. Like when you’re starving and you finally eat something you’ve been craving.

“You want to see me.”

“I like seeing Jacob,” you muttered. You saw his hand move up before you felt it, your breath audibly caught and you shuddered. Pathetic. Weak. Desperate.

“You come over almost every day.”

You turned up to him, trying to keep your voice level. “You come home early every day.”

“I want to see you,” he assured. “Just like you want to see me…right?”

You nodded.

“Because you feel something for me.”

You wanted him, that was the best way to describe it. So fucking bad, so bad you couldn’t think straight sometimes. So bad that when your boyfriend touched you, you nearly got physically sick sometimes. So bad that in your bed, at night, with your hand between your legs, you pictured Andy and no one else.

“And you feel something for me,” you countered.

“I do.”

Before you could respond, his phone was ringing. Laurie, oh god. He saw the look on your face but clearly had no interest in letting those logical emotions—shame, guilt, disgust—grow. “Give me your phone.”

You weren’t sure why you did so. He handed it back to you with a new contact. Under the name: Daddy. You closed your thighs, rubbing them together, catching his fingers where they were still laid over your leg. You were so wet, desperate for some friction.

“You’re going to go inside,” he started. “You’re going to go to your bedroom, strip down, get in front of your mirror, and fuck your fingers. You’re going to watch the whole time. Then, when you can’t take another orgasm, you’re going to send me a picture.”

“Of what?”

“Whatever you want.”

Your mind was reeling. You had never sent naked pictures before, but that was because you knew what would happen if you did. They would get shown to everyone. Andy couldn’t show anyone. Andy wouldn’t show everyone even if he could.

“Okay.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Okay?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

You swallowed thickly. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Give me your panties,” he ordered. “I want to take them home.”

You wondered if he had done this before, if he did it often maybe. But did it matter? At the end of the day, that wasn’t going to make either of you any less terrible than you were being.

But there was just one problem with his request. “I’m not wearing any.”

His eyes dropped down. “You aren’t wearing panties?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“I think you do. Now, you didn’t plan on fucking me tonight. That’s too much too soon. But I am the reason…it wasn’t because you thought my fingers would end up buried in your pussy, not yet… Daddy wants an answer, baby girl.”

Baby girl. Oh, fuck. Instead of speaking again, you spread your thighs and brought your own hand up your skirt. You were soaking, something he could hear when you pressed your fingers down. Which was why you had decided to skip underwear. Any time he was around, in a suit, you were wet.

His hold tightened on your thigh and you let out this small whimper. It was almost deafening in that car.

You pulled your hand back and brought your drenched fingers up to the steering wheel. You just wanted to leave something for him without risking anyone seeing you both in a weird situation.

He leaned forward almost instantly, inhaling as his eyes shut. “Fuck, you smell exactly like I thought you would.” His tongue dipped out just slightly and he licked the slick off the steering wheel, groaning gently. “And you fucking taste…”

Your phone buzzed and you both startled. “Shit.”

Andy sat up, clearing his throat. “Go. Do what I said.”

You went to reach for the door, but he cleared his throat. Oh, god. After what you just did, could you even pretend that you hadn’t surrendered completely? “Yes.”

“Good girl.”

After that, it was all kind of just a blur. You quit babysitting, which was very hard. You really did love Jacob and you were sad for a very long time every moment you remembered that you weren’t going over there to see him. You were never going to that house again, at least that was what you had told yourself.

That meant you didn’t see Andy quite as often, which was probably for the best. But he saw you. Often. Very naked. You sent him nearly hundreds of pictures a month, dozens almost every night. He was never too busy for you and maybe you liked that, maybe that was what made you feel so special. Maybe it was just him, the way he looked at you during those awkward exchanges when your mother dragged you to the grocery store with her and you ran into them. Maybe it was when he would call you even though he was at the office once you got home because he wanted to hear you orgasm. Maybe it was after your boyfriend would drop you off at home—and Andy always knew because you told him, you weren’t going to lie, you had no reason to—and he would ask you if he touched you, if he made you come.

He was your age. Andy was much older. More experienced. He never failed to remind you that that meant he could make you feel so much better. You weren’t sure what you were doing, why you didn’t just break up with him. Security, probably. If Andy ever decided to end this. Whatever it was. At least you wouldn’t be alone.

When Laurie wanted something, she got it. It wasn’t because she was aggressive or just didn’t take no for answer. It was because she was such a good person, how could anyone feel okay disappointing her? You certainly couldn’t.

When she insisted that you come over for dinner, you knew it was wrong. You knew she would rightfully hate you if she knew what you were doing with her husband. You knew she would feel hurt by the both of you, betrayed, outraged, disgusted. But you went anyway, and it wasn’t to flirt with Andy. Sure, you had done that once or twice in the past, but not this time. This time was for Laurie because she missed you. You had quit so suddenly and then it was like you didn’t exist to her at all. You owed her this dinner.

The look on his face when he saw you in the living room told you that he hadn’t been told about this. He looked terrified, worried.

“Look who I ran into this morning!” Laurie called out from the kitchen. She was over the stove stirring some pasta and you were at the table looking at all of Jacob’s drawings he had done in the past few months since you’d last seen him.

You gave him a look. He should know better than anyone why this was something you couldn’t just get out of. He couldn’t be mad at you. And he better not be accusing you of playing with Laurie like this.

He nodded once, just slightly. “Y/N.”

“Mr. Barber,” you returned.

Then nothing, he went upstairs and you returned your undivided attention to Jacob. Around a half-hour later, Laurie had to go upstairs and drag him downstairs, both trying and failing to hide their irritation.

She asked you about the usual after you had all settled in a bit. School was always the start. Laurie told you that school was the most important thing in the world. She had graduated but with a degree that she didn’t utilize. She loved her life, but she had her regrets and she didn’t want you to make the same mistakes.

She moved to family next. You always kept the answers light around Jacob, knowing that Laurie could read between the lines anyway. Your mother joined two different book clubs. Laurie knew that meant she was just trying to avoid your father.

Then your boyfriend. Another thing she wanted you to be careful about. She wasn’t expecting to get pregnant with Jacob when she had. She loved both Andy and Jacob, but she would have loved to hold off for a few years. She told you to take care of yourself first. Take care of your dreams, your future, your body, your identity before you worried about anyone else. Be selfish, be ambitious. She was like a mom; one you never even knew existed outside of television. You often wished she weren’t so nice to you. You knew you didn’t deserve it.

She just wanted to know how he was. How long had you guys been together, again? Right, that was quite a long time, she claimed. Where was he working? The same place still? You felt Andy’s eyes on you the entire time. He hadn’t looked at you for the whole dinner until Laurie mentioned your boyfriend.

Did you know about his politics? She promised it was better to know before it was too late. She knew his parents, knew that they were rather conservative. Everyone there was, though. The chances of finding a perfect man? Well, Andy was already taken.

Had you guys spoken about the future? Not really, not cohesively, but that wasn’t the answer you gave. You knew what he wanted and he pretended that he didn’t know what you wanted, pretended that one day you would just wake up and see it all his way. What does he want to do?

You were thinking about Andy. His hands, his mouth, his beard. You thought about making him mad, jealous. You thought about how he would be short over text and make you send him pictures and videos until he was less angry, then he would call and his voice would be so deep, he would growl orders at you. Fuck. “Yeah…he wants a huge family.”

“Oh.” Laurie nodded, clearly it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “Well…what do you want?”

“I don’t know.” That wasn’t necessarily a lie, but Andy would give you hell for it later. He told you that was one of the sexiest things about you. That you knew what you wanted. Basically, he just meant it was sexy that you were selfish enough to be getting involved with him.

“Well, just make sure you know before you make any choices that can’t be undone.”

If only someone had given Andy this lecture all the way back. You wondered how things would be if he wasn’t married, if he had never met Laurie, but If he was still here. You wondered what relationship you would have with him.

“You want to stay in Massachusetts?”

You shrugged. Andy wouldn’t let you come later, until you promised you were going to stay. You just had this deep, sinking feeling he wasn’t going to be kind about it either. Good. It had been so long since he was rough with you. Even over text, he was dominant and in total control. He owned you but you were worried he was getting comfortable with that, you worried that he was under the impression that he could be less possessive. Hell no. You were his, undeniably, but only so long as he was going to claim you as his.

“Well, you’re young…the possibilities are endless.”

“Well, I hope you guys break up,” Jacob bluntly stated.

You and Laurie both turned to him with wide-eyed looks. Andy was stunned for a moment, then had to hide his smile by sipping at his beer.

“Jacob,” Laurie scolded. “Don’t say things like that. That was very mean.”

“Well,” he huffed, ‘if she has more time, she can come back to babysit me.”

You scoffed.

He turned to you. “Is it because of him?”

“No, I promise. I’m just…busy.”

“Busy?” He rolled his eyes. “Adults are always “busy”.”

“You know, I think it’s time I put him to sleep,” Laurie scoffed.

“No,” Jacob whined. “I never get to see her anymore!”

Laurie sighed. “Jacob—”

“I’m not going to bed until you promise to come back,” he declared.

“Jacob,” you pleaded.

He crossed his arms over his chest, brow furrowed. “I’ll stay awake forever if I have to.” Then he set his jaw and turned forward. He had never looked more like Andy, where usually, he looked eerily like Laurie.

You really did miss him. Not that you would ever tell Andy, but a part of you did resent him for the fact that you had to quit. It wasn’t all on him, but if he had never let this start, things would still be the same.

Laurie looked completely exasperated and it wasn’t like you didn’t have enough guilt where she was concerned. “Okay, Jacob, if you go to bed, I will try to come back for the summer. You know, I won’t be so busy.” You glanced at Laurie who appeared just as hopeful. “You know, maybe at least a couple of days while you guys are at work.”

“Well, I was going to do this later because I didn’t want you to feel like this was the only reason that I asked you here. We miss you and I just wanted to see you, but…” she glanced at Andy. “I just found out that I’m going to be taking a work trip this summer.”

“Work trip?” you inquired. You weren’t aware that her job would ever require traveling.

“Yeah, just this conference, kind of, for people who work with children. This is the first time we have been invited to it, so it’s really important but I’m just not okay leaving Andy and Jacob alone. Andy’s job…”

“I told you, I could take the summer off,” Andy assured.

Laurie gave him a look. Yeah, that was highly unlikely. Andy wouldn’t know what to do with himself after probably the first three weeks. She faced you. “I don’t want to put any pressure on you. If you can’t come back, we understand. The Rifkins were telling us about your friend, the one who also babysits. Her name is Lily…something?”

Your eyes instinctively went to Andy. He was giving you a knowing look. All your friends would fuck him in a heartbeat. You shouldn’t have cared. If he fucked anyone, you should have had the plan to just walk away. You doubted your ability to do that, unfortunately. And you couldn’t stand the thought of him touching her. Anyone but her.

“I’ll think about it,” you promised Jacob.

He smiled widely. “Okay, I’ll go to bed now. I’m exhausted.”

You smiled.

Laurie took Jacob upstairs after saying goodnight to you. That left you alone with Andy for what you both knew would be just enough time for anything, but you had your limits. Not in the house. Not while Laurie and Jacob were here. You decided it was time to call it a night and he decided he was going to walk you to your car. It was dark after all.

You just rolled your eyes and marched out the front door. You tried to stay in front of him so you could get inside your car first, so he couldn’t grab you or talk to you. You just needed to get out of there, anything that needed to be said would have to wait for that night when he texted you.

“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t get my kid’s hopes up.”

That was how he wanted to start? You looked back at him; eyebrows lifted. “You mean yours.”

“Jacob misses you—”

“And you?”

He sighed at you. “What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing, just don’t try to use Jacob against me. I will think about it…there are just things…that could go wrong.”

“Like what?”

“You know what, Andy—”

His eyebrows shot up. “What did you call me?”

You crossed your arms, silently staring up at him. Your back faced the driver’s side door, the handle perfectly in your reach if you needed it.

“Baby,” he warned. “Don’t start acting up right now just because you know I can’t do anything about it.”

“I’m not acting up—”

“Then what did you just call me?”

“Nothing,” you muttered. “I’m sorry, I meant to call you daddy.”

He moved closer then, either hand on the car door behind you.

Your eyes widened in sheer panic and you immediately looked around. It was too dark to see anything, and this was Andy Barber. He was a trusted and well-respected man. No one would think anything even if they did walk out and saw this with their own eyes. He was a damn good lawyer and could convince anyone of anything.

It had been months since you spent so much time with him, but even still, the closest the two of you had ever been was in the car. There was an invisible line that neither of you crossed because you never wanted to get caught. It was always so light out, your creepy neighbors would just sit on the porch from sunrise to sunset because they were desperate for anything.

This was different. There was no one around. There was nothing to stop either of you from taking this further than you ever had. This was the extent of your relationship. Stealing moments. Secrets. But he had never touched you, he’d never kissed you. It was all you could think about in that moment.

“What was all of that?” he asked.

“What?”

“All that bullshit? You lied to Laurie.”

You scoffed. “No, actually, I didn’t.”

“Really? That’s what you want to fucking do with your life? Just be some god damn trophy for that boyfriend of yours?”

You shrugged. “I would love to be a trophy.”

He glared. “You’re smart, okay? And you’re interesting—”

“So, instead of being a trophy, I should be a spectacle? I should entertain people—”

“That is not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“That I’m fucking angry.”

“About what?!”

“Him!”

Well, mission accomplished. It wasn’t that you were surprised he felt that way, you just weren’t expecting to hear him say it.

He sighed, turning up. He was probably watching the window to make sure Laurie hadn’t heard anything.

“What are you even angry about?”

“I work with his fucking father.”

“And?” you demanded.

He looked down at you after several seconds of staring at the window. “He always fucking talks about you. He thinks you’re going to marry his son.”

You shrugged. “Maybe I will.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?” you pressed. “Maybe I fucking will, Andy.”

“He’s an asshole. You tell me all the time. And if you think I’m going to let you—”

“Let me?” you scoffed. “You’re married. You can’t do shit.”

The look he gave you told you that was the last thing you should have said. He grabbed your shoulders and turned you away from him, pushing you into the car door.

“Andy—”

 You were in a tiny pair of shorts, despite how freezing it was that night. That must have been what gave him the idea to smack you, more so your thigh than your ass, but it hurt, nonetheless. You slammed your hands over your mouth to stifle your yelp.

There were times when you thought you were going to die if he didn’t touch you. Obviously, you were always wrong, but you didn’t care. Sometimes, when you would plead to whatever or whoever it was up there, that you just needed him to touch you, just a touch, you would claim you didn’t care how. This worked. Even though it really fucking hurt and the cold air was still stinging your skin, this was what you wanted.

“You know what you need to be calling me, honey.” His hand was at the button of your denim shorts and you panicked.

You tried to catch his wrist, but he was much stronger than you. Before you said a word, he had yanked them open, the zipper too. But no, not now, not here. “Daddy, stop—”

“You still think I can’t do anything?”

“Please, not here—”

His fingers pressed against your stomach and traveled down. You instantly lost your ability to speak or think. When he reached the band of your underwear, he scoffed. “Wearing panties? Why?”

What kind of question was that?

“You’re such a good girl, aren’t you?” he cooed. “Such a sweet girl.”

“Daddy,” you whispered.

“Daddy will stop,” he promised. “But only if you want him to. Do you want daddy to stop?”

“Please.” Yes, please. But also, maybe please, don’t. Please, keep going. Please, touch me more because you never have. Please, touch me where we both want you to so bad.

“Okay, but first, I’m going to check if you’re wet. If you aren’t, fine. If you are, well, you know you’re not supposed to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying,” you promised. “But—”

“Shh, baby.” He pressed his fingers down and you felt like you were dying. Honestly, like your life was on the verge of ending because nothing had ever felt so good and nothing should feel so good.

He didn’t go inside your underwear, of course not. He was always teasing you. Instead, he moved down until he felt the material was damp and made a soft, disapproving sound.

“I wasn’t lying,” you insisted, trying not to move too much. If he thought you were enjoying this too much, he might decide to get cruel.

“So, you want daddy to stop right now?”

You wanted to say yes, you wished you could make yourself. However, you stayed silent because you knew he would stop, you knew he would completely withdraw from you until you were begging him. Mostly, you couldn’t force yourself to want him to stop touching you no matter how wrong you knew it was.

“You know, baby girl, daddy wants something from you.”

You almost promised him anything he wanted but thankfully, forming coherent words was still something beyond you.

“Daddy wants you to come back this summer.”

No. That wasn’t going to happen. You knew now that it couldn’t happen. You knew now that if you were ever in a room with Andy, that both of you would get as close as you possibly could, that you would try to touch in any way that wouldn’t raise concern. And if no one was home? If Jacob was upstairs and you and Andy were downstairs? No, you wouldn’t do that to Laurie. Not in her house.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

You shook your head. “You know I can’t.”

“All I know is that I don’t like it when you tell me no.”

Which is something he wouldn’t actually know because you had never told him no. This was different. This was about hurting someone who had only ever been good to you. And Jacob—god, Jacob. If you were caught, Laurie would leave Andy and that was the last thing you wanted for Jacob.

“I’m saying no,” you insisted, but your voice was hardly more than a mutter.

He said nothing for several terribly long seconds, then pulled aside your panties and finally touched your pussy.

Your eyes fell shut and you pressed your forehead against the car window. His fingers moved higher until he circled them around your clit and you shuddered. Even biting your lip couldn’t completely muffle the sounds you were making.

He shushed you, a completely patronizing gesture as he was the reason you were being so loud.

“Daddy,” you gasped. “Daddy, please.”

“You want to come on daddy’s fingers?”

You nodded fast. “So bad, daddy.”

“Mm. Well, daddy wants you back, princess.”

“Daddy,” you whined. This couldn’t happen, not now. Where was his fear? Anyone could walk out. Laurie could just glance out the window and see everything.

“Daddy wants to see you back in the house every day. Playing on the floor in your tiny little skirts and your tiny little shirts that you never wear a bra with. Daddy wants to see you biting your lip and pressing your thighs together when you’re watching me, when you think I don’t notice.”

Fuck. You genuinely had thought you were being discreet. He was clearly discreet, however, because you had never noticed that he was watching so closely.

“But more than anything, I want to have you all to myself, baby girl.”

“I…would be babysitting,” you reminded.

“Jacob has a lot of friends. I’ll schedule him some play dates. Say yes.”

“No, daddy, please—”

“Say yes,” he ordered.

“I can’t.”

“I’m not going to let you come until you do.”

The noise you made was a cross between a cry and a whimper, something truly pathetic. He had you scared and he knew it, so he thrust two fingers inside you and when your mouth opened to scream, he wrapped his opposite hand around your neck.

You swore you would come just like that if he didn’t stop. You had dreamt about his hands around your throat. You would try choking yourself when you were making videos for him, but you knew it wasn’t like the real thing. When he would call you, you would always beg choke me, daddy.

His fingers were thick enough to stretch you even though you were dripping. Your mind wandered to his cock. You could feel it against your ass, and even through his pants, you could tell he was big. But it was little more than a theory. You’d never seen his cock because he didn’t send you pictures. Most of your relationship with Andy had been set around your imagination.

He kept you quiet with his hold around your neck, but his fingers fucked into you so hard that the wet sounds echoed down the empty street. If anyone found the two of you, you would be completely humiliated by how evidently desperate you were.

“Daddy,” you gasped when you felt yourself just right there, so close to that edge. Maybe you were biased in the moment in thinking that this was going to be the best orgasm you had ever had. You had toys, Andy had made sure of that, and some of them did the trick. But it was never like this. Close, at times, but only ever when you were making videos for him or talking to him on the phone. It was all Andy, he hadn’t been exaggerating when he was telling you no one else could make you feel so good.

“You close, princess?”

You hummed a confirmation and just like that, he pulled his hand away altogether. The one around your neck was keeping you quiet but your pussy was completely neglected. It was absolutely devastating.

Stupidly, you’d forgotten his grand plan of forcing you to say yes. You weren’t going to, this was so much bigger than this stupid affair. You could live with yourself knowing you were a whore, you could live knowing you were a homewrecker so long as no one else knew, but you could not and would not even attempt to be okay with sheer stupidity. And stupidity was playing this game. You didn’t understand why he wanted to either.

“How do you feel now?”

“No,” you snapped.

“Watch the tone,” he warned.

“God,” you huffed tiredly. “I can’t. No, I’m saying no.”

He simply hummed and with no warning, buried his fingers inside you once more. “Then I guess we’re going to be here for quite a while.”

A whine caught in your throat and you practically choked trying to talk to him. “Daddy, we’re going to get caught.”

“Then say yes. You think you can have an attitude and mouth off and I’m just going to let it go because we might get caught?”

Well, honestly, yes, you had expected that. This was bad and you knew you were fucked up because that was making it feel better. He was pressed against you, hiding you from any eyes that may look outside because he was insanely possessive and didn’t want anyone else seeing you naked. He was holding you so tight that it actually hurt and he was barely letting you breathe, you were getting dizzy and lightheaded and you just needed to come.

He did this to you so many times that you lost track. The only thing you did know was that it wasn’t taking long even though it felt like it. It was Tuesday night and you had been here enough at this time to know that this was a busy night for these rich people. You’d walked out of the house at 7:46. The bathroom light was still on and would be for another 30 minutes at least, because Jacob was a menace when he wanted to be—but never with you. Mrs. Johnson always came home from her cooking club at 8:20 to 8:30. Mr. Garcia would always come out at around 8:15 to leave his trash or recycling, depending on the night of the week. Sometimes, Mrs. Wilson’s grandchildren would stop by for late visits. They were all doctors and lawyers, at least, that was the reason they gave for never coming at a reasonable hour, but they actually just wanted money and knew she would be too tired to say no. Mrs. Taylor’s twin demons you once had the displeasure of devoting your Monday and Friday nights to had to go out every night at 8:30 until 10:00 because of some stupid project they were doing on stars.

Andy had to know all of this also, so you understood that he was just trying to call your bluff.

Well, fuck, it was going to work. You were terrified. There were so many variables, anyone could show up early. Or hell, there had to be some people here with drinking addictions, an affliction for pills, a house fire could start. Or a revealed affair could lead to a staged murder that looked like something else. Andy being so calm was almost worrisome.

But you were more worried about Laurie. Apparently, you weren’t like him. You couldn’t just shut off your guilt surrounding her. You knew you had to try one more time to get out of this. Andy was pretending right now to be so hard, but he was more than soft for you. He spoiled the hell out of you and let you be very bratty even though he put on a whole show that he couldn’t stand it. But you knew that when you gave him a look, when you softened your voice just enough, when you said the right things, that man would give you the world if he could.

In your littlest, whiny voice, you begged him. “Daddy, please.”

He froze for a moment, letting his hand fall away only to take your shoulders and turn you back to him. He was looking at you curiously, also a tad suspiciously.

You simply stared at him with pleading eyes. He couldn’t honestly think this was a good idea. “We can’t do this. Not around Jacob. Not in the house.”

Realization showed on his face and he scoffed. “Oh, baby, you really are the sweetest thing.” He leaned in to press you flat to the car door once more and brought his hand up, slipping his fingers into your mouth. His eyes were on yours the entire time, as you sucked and licked, and then as he started shoving them down your throat. You gagged, tears were running down your cheeks, and you had started rolling your hips, grinding against the bulge in his pants.

“You are the most beautiful little girl in the world, you know that?”

You hummed, thankful that you didn’t actually have to put an answer to that. He never stopped telling you that you were beautiful, that he’d never see someone else like you, but when you really had to think about it, you were just the average insecure person.

“You’re my little girl, yeah?” He pulled his fingers from your mouth, touching your swollen lips. “Tell me.”

“I’m your little girl.”

“Do you know how badly daddy wants to eat your pussy?”

It took you a moment, but when you realized that he wanted an answer, you shook your head. He didn’t talk about it much. He just liked to listen to you, he liked to tell you that he just wanted to be inside you, that he couldn’t wait to feel you around him.

“Mm…I do. I want to lick you for hours until your begging me to stop. I want you to come in my mouth. I want you to grind your pussy all over my face. You have to know how badly daddy wants you on his cock, though?”

“Yes.”

“Say you’ll come back, gorgeous. Of course, Jacob can never know, this isn’t a game. I just miss seeing you. I miss smelling your perfume and hearing you laugh. I miss having you so close.”

“I miss you, too,” you promised. But. There was still a but, even if you didn’t come right out and say it.

You felt his hands moving against your stomach and then you heard the zipper of his pants. Oh, god. He took your hand and slipped it down his boxers, you both shuddered as your skin touched his.

His eyes fell shut and he took a deep breath in. He tightened his hand around yours and began slowly jerking your hand up and down his cock. “What do you think, baby girl?”

“You’re really big, daddy.” And so fucking thick, you were going crazy just picturing yourself trying to ride him. He was much bigger than your boyfriend, much bigger than anyone else you’d ever fucked.

“Imagine my cock inside your beautiful little cunt. I bet it’ll hurt so much that you cry. And I am going to pound that pussy until you are so stretched and used that your boyfriend won’t be able to make you come at all.”

You wanted nothing more, but you also wanted to have a little bit of fun. “I said you were big…but I didn’t say you were bigger than him.”

He pulled his hand and yours out of his pants and the next second, he was on you. His hand was around your neck, his other holding your jaw, and his face just inches away from yours. “You fucking little brat. You’re lucky I don’t make you get on your knees and choke you on my cock.”

“Kiss me, daddy.”

And just like that, he was no longer upset with you. It was hilarious how easily you could push this man into anything you wanted. And he didn’t even care, he just wanted to give you everything you could think to ask for.

He sighed, glancing around. “I can’t do that, baby, not here.”

Then where? That was when you finally understood. He wanted you back so badly, because where else would you be able to do this? He could get a hotel room but if anyone ever saw you, there would be no defense. It would be apparent what you guys were doing. Your house? Your parents were always around. That only left his house and if Laurie was going to be gone…maybe you didn’t see much harm in that.

“Say yes,” he whispered.

You should have never turned around to look at him. He had won, there was no way you could deny him anymore. You nodded. “Yes, daddy.”

He smiled and your heart stuttered. He was the most beautiful man in the world. “I’ll let Laurie know...I’ll tell her this was why I was out here so long. And you, angel, need to go straight home, shove a toy in that pussy, and make some videos for daddy.”

It was weeks later than Andy told you he had a surprise for you. A few months had gone by. You hadn’t returned to the Barber home since the dinner and you kept your usual contact with Andy. Just more sending pictures and videos and texting every second it was possible.

He was still thrilled that you were going back for the summer and regularly checked in just to make sure that you didn’t change your mind about it. You still had a few months and he was constantly worried you would feel a sudden burst of guilt. It wasn’t too farfetched, actually.

When you got home, your mother informed you that you had received a package. She claimed it didn’t say who it was from. You knew what that meant. You had checked your phone that morning and saw a text informing you to expect something.

You texted Andy, I got it, then you went to your drawers to pick out something skimpy and lacy.

Good. Take off all your clothes.

Odd, he usually wanted you wearing something. You did as was asked of you and let him know when you were ready for more instruction.

Go to your bathroom with the box.

Once more, you let him know when you’d complied with his orders.

Open the box.

Inside was another smaller box, a picture clearly displaying the product. He bought you a dildo, a rather large one. You didn’t normally get toys this size, they were harder to film with.

Before you could respond, he texted again. Get it out of the box and clean it really well, then stick it to the floor.

Again, you followed his directions. Once it was set up and immovable, you let him know.

Get your laptop, we’re going to Skype.

That left you naked in front of your laptop that was a few feet away. He had you sitting with your legs bent and spread wide so he could see your pussy.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt, that was the first thing you noticed. The second was his background, you didn’t recognize it.

“Where are you, daddy?”

“Home. My office. Laurie’s sister is in town so they both went out to see her. Focus, baby. I’m going to send you some videos that I want you to watch.”

“Videos?” You had a feeling you already knew what he meant. And mere seconds later, got confirmation through the email link he sent to you. Porn. Not surprising and you weren’t really opposed.

The videos he sent you were all starred older men, many roleplaying as the stepfather, and younger women playing the innocent, naïve daughter. Older than you mostly, but still significantly younger than the men they were fucking. The videos started tame, small, just cheesy scenarios and rough sex following. But as he sent you more, the men became more dominant. They would choke, pull hair, spank, call her degrading names. You didn’t hate any of it.

He wouldn’t let you touch yourself and he didn’t touch himself. He just watched you the entire time, sometimes talking and asking you questions, but he mainly just wanted you focusing on this. He made you keep your legs open so he could make sure you weren’t being sneaky, which was slightly humiliating. You felt that voicing that, however, would be considered talking back.

It was nearly an hour later that he requested you show him how wet you were. Your fingers frantically ran through your cunt and you held them out toward the camera. He told you to pause the video and get on the dildo. You gracelessly rolled onto your knees, your legs just a little tired from the uncomfortable position he’d directed you to hold for so long. You climbed over the toy, one hand holding it as you straddled it.

“Just take it slow, baby girl.”

You carefully spread your knees further, bringing your pussy closer to the head of the fake cock. You heard him shifting as soon as if touched your skin. You weren’t as nervous as you should have been, you figured you were wet enough to take it all. That insatiable longing to be filled and ruthlessly fucked by him clouded your mind.

As soon as it was inside you by what probably wasn’t even an inch, you froze. Yes, bigger than anything you’d ever taken. It stung a little, yet you didn’t want to pull off completely. You kind of liked the pain anyway.

“Keep going.”

“It hurts.”

“Just try for me, angel.”

You set your hands to the floor, once again spreading your legs wider. The ache didn’t dull as you kept going. “Daddy, I think it’s too big.”

“I’m bigger, that’s why I want you to get used to it.”

Bigger? Even though you were struggling to handle this, you wanted him instead of the toy. You wanted him on top, forcing you to take his cock, cooing to you and kissing your face the whole time. This was a flawed plan that he came up with because you were going to need some major convincing to get any further on this thing.

“Take a minute,” he decided, and you needed no further prompt to pull off.

You hissed lightly, looking at it. You had barely made it down the head. So, this was going to be one of those long calls.

“Use your mouth,” he instructed.

That you could do. You leaned over it, immediately dropping down until it hit the back of your throat. Your eyes flickered up to the screen where you saw his arm moving so slowly, back and forth. You would ask later if you could see him, when you didn’t have something in your mouth.

“Baby doll, you are fucking beautiful.”

You hummed, pulling back and then sliding back down.

“Gag on it. I want to hear you choking.”

You prepped your throat by bobbing up and down, taking it a little further each time. It wasn’t until your nose was hovering just above the floor that you gagged loudly. You backed off hurriedly but did it once more, a second time, a third, a fourth, until he told you to stop.

“Stay there, sweetheart, keep it down your throat. Try swallowing around it. I want you to get used to that, too. That’s how I love having my cock sucked.”

You obeyed, attempting to swallow around the thick piece of silicone. Those tries were followed by a lot of short coughs, gagging noises, and your body moving almost violently every time you got just a little too ahead of yourself. You were suddenly very thankful that you’d woken up late, since you’d stayed up until almost 5 in the morning talking to him, and hadn’t had time to eat anything.

“You think you can do it now?”

You hummed and hoped he wouldn’t press for more. You weren’t sure. You were nervous to try but it wasn’t like he was going to let you off that easy.

“Okay, try again.”

Positioning yourself over it, you realized you were much wetter now. Getting the head inside was easy enough but just as soon, it started to hurt again.

“You okay, princess?”

“Yeah.” You turned your attention down and tried to force yourself to relax. You were nervous, double that now because you didn’t want to fail in front of Andy. You wanted to show him that you knew what you were doing and that when he finally fucked you, it was going to be perfect. You didn’t want him to think of you as some inexperienced little girl.

“Remember, take it easy. Don’t hurt yourself.”

You never thought you would have an issue with him babying you. “I wish this was your cock, daddy.”

He hummed as if it was a question but was much more focused on your comfort than your attempts to distract him.

“Mhm,” you returned. “I can’t wait to feel you inside me. I can’t wait to be filled up and dripping with your cum.”

“I’ll cover you in my cum, sweetheart. You wanna try taking a little more?”

You hadn’t moved and it was still aching, but your mind was getting hazy. You were thinking about Andy and how good he was going to fuck you. You wanted it so hard and so fast that you didn’t think the dildo would even suffice. You lowered a tad too fast, earning a disapproving sound from him.

And yes, it hurt, but admitting any type of defeat was beyond out of the question. “Fuck, daddy, it’s so big,” you sighed. You didn’t pull off, but you tried shifting your hips to get a little more comfortable.

“Fuck yourself with it.”

You used your arms for balance and began pulling back carefully before dropping back down. You did this several more times until it was no longer uncomfortably painful. “Daddy?”

“Yes, baby?”

You pushed yourself up, balancing on your knees as your hands came up to your breasts. “Can I see you?”

He arched an eyebrow at you. “You wanna see me?”

You nodded. “Please?”

He sat up, pushing the laptop back as he stood. You finally got to see that hard stomach you had been pressed against that night and it did not disappoint. You had no idea that he was going to look so strong and beautiful—and honestly, what the hell was he doing with you? You were confident enough and sometimes, some days when things were just going your way, you even loved how you looked. But Andy was inhumanly, unfairly breathtaking.

Then you saw his cock and you instantly whimpered. He was so big, bigger than the toy just as he’d claimed. You’d suspected he was exaggerating, most men did. He laid his cock out on the desk, tip leaking, skin angry and red.

“Daddy,” you whispered.

“What, honey?”

“I can’t wait for summer. I need you now.”

“Just be patient. You need to get a little more accustomed to the toy first because I’m not sure I’m going to be able to be gentle.”

“I don’t want you to be gentle.”

“You want daddy to make it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Touch your clit, princess. I want to see you come.”

Your hand snapped down to your cunt, mindlessly searching for, and at times successfully catching, that hypersensitive spot. As soon as you heard him grunting, jerking himself off to the sight of you, you knew you weren’t going to last long.

You watched his arm move, the way his muscles tensed, you noticed the veins. He wasn’t the kind of man to show off. His suits were always fitted and occasionally, he wore a short sleeve tee, but you were starting to realize he was rather modest. It was this secret that he finally told you, he was finally showing you parts of himself that you never would have known about had he not extended some type of trust to you.

You needed him to fuck you. You needed him wrapping his arms around you and holding you against his chest, hips thrusting into yours. You were bouncing on the dildo now, uncaring of how much it hurt, fingers still rubbing large, unskilled circles into your clit. You were high off him, completely entranced and focused on Andy. “Daddy…”

“You close?”

“Yes. Can I please come?”

“You can come, angel.” He stroked himself faster, opposite hand settling on the desk as he leaned over a little.

You took as much of the dildo as you could and stayed, just focusing on touching your clit. You whimpered and whined as you approached your finish, mewling ‘daddy’ at least a dozen times, and told him several times that you needed him inside you, and promised you would do anything for his cock. He was quiet even though he was still fucking his fist, wanting to hear every sound you were making for him.

You nearly collapsed when your orgasm hit. Thankfully, instead of down—because seriously, this was an obnoxiously large toy and there was still so much that wasn’t inside you yet—you fell forward and caught yourself with both hands. You continued to roll your hips, haphazardly moving your hair out of the way with one hand at a time so he could see your breasts move and just how far down you were getting. One feeling you never quite got rid of, no matter what you were doing, no matter how good whatever you were being fucked with was: his praise was even better than coming.

“Fuck, baby girl,” he blurted out. You heard one of his knees buckle, it hit the desk he was standing behind.

“Are you close, daddy?”

He hummed shortly.

“I wish I was there, daddy. I want to taste you so bad.”

And that was all he needed. With a slight groan, his cum streaked out onto the desk between him and his laptop. His hand slowed but didn’t fully stop until he was done coming. He fell back into his chair, chest rising and falling with his quick breaths.

“You want me to come over, daddy? I could help you clean your desk.”

He scoffed. “Come on, princess, don’t start being a tease.”

“I’m not,” you promised. “Really, I’ll come over if you want me to.”

He finally looked back at the screen, eyes moving over you as you pushed yourself back onto your knees. Though you still felt the toy was too big, it no longer hurt so you were counting this a success. If you continued to use it every day until you were working for him again, fucking him wouldn’t be so difficult. At least you hoped.

“You wanna come over? You’re not scared of getting caught anymore?”

You shrugged. Yes, you were still terrified but your pathetic desire to be touched by that man could make you do some pretty stupid things.

“Don’t be a brat,” he scoffed.

“Then you should come here. My parents won’t notice.”

“I’m not some uncontrollably horny teenage boy you can convince to sneak in through your window. Come on, you just gotta wait a little longer.”

You sighed. “But I want you.”

“I know, trust me, I want you…” His eyes lowered on the screen and he sighed. “I want to taste you, too. Especially after you just finished.”

You leaned forward to grab the edge of the laptop and pulled it closer. “Look, daddy, I took a lot.”

“You did, baby,” he agreed, voice still just a little light. You came down much faster than him. You had to stall and get him ready to go before he decided it was time to end the call. You wanted to see him. In person. And you were not opposed to playing dirty.

“Do you want me to try again? I can do more—”

“No, no, don’t worry about it, angel. You did good today, you need to rest before we do this again. Maybe take a day or two.”

A day or two? Fuck that. He couldn’t see your face, all he could actually see was the dildo still buried in your pussy. You looked down, finding your slick was dripping down the toy. This was going to be easy. You took your fingers and ran them up, collecting what had leaked out of you. You brought it up to your mouth and moaned lewdly—you had to be a little extra, just to make sure he knew.

“Sweetheart,” he warned.

“I wish you could taste me, too, daddy. I’m really good.”

“Come on,” he complained. “Stop it, right now.”

“I could get in my car right now, daddy. We could drive out to that dead-end street by the park. Just one quick, little taste and then I’ll come back home and get into bed and make some more videos for you.”

He said nothing, which you always knew actually meant that you were closer than he wanted to let on.

“Please, daddy? I just need something…summer is so far away.”

“Damn it,” he muttered, finally sitting up straight in the chair. “Damn it, Y/N.”

“I’m sorry, daddy but I really, really need you.” You started to pull your hips up and then slowly slid back down. “Can’t you hear how wet I still am?”

“Fuck,” he hissed. “Okay. Okay, fine.”

You shoved the laptop back, leaning down on your forearms. “Really?”

“But you’re going to keep that toy inside your pussy.”

“What?”

“Keep it right where it is. Get dressed. Drive to the dead-end street. Wait for me. Oh, bring a towel.”

“A towel?” You tried not to sound too excited, but you knew you’d failed. He wasn’t really planning on fucking you, was he? You wanted it, you would never say no to that man, but you hadn’t thought it would be so easy.

“You’ll need to bite down on something when I’m spanking you.”

Oh, fuck.

[lonelyghosts-stuff]

Loki x Reader Imagine/Plot Summary Idea

Very slow burn, enemies to lovers

Disclaimer: this turned out to be MUCH longer than I planned and waivers back and forth between being a story idea to prompt others to write a full story and having fully written sections lol.

During the events of the Avengers movie y/n, a seemingly normal everyday citizen, got in the line of danger and inadvertently showed her unstable powers (im thinking something along the line of telekinesis caused by an astral power form that struck her as a teen and used her as a vessel to contain itself (it’s not necessarily alive, I guess you could equate its “sentience” to that of Doctor Strange’s cape) this power source is unstable in y/n as it needs to be controlled and flow and not suppressed, but also not overreleased or the vessel, in this case y/n could die. I’m picturing some kind of blue-ish purple mist.) which made the Avengers take note. Y/n goes into hiding because she doesn’t want to hurt anyone with her powers but the Avengers track her down and kind of have to subdue her to bring her to Stark Tower since she acted a bit brash and reckless trying to escape them believing she was a danger to everyone around her. During her time there more events of the first Avengers movie take place and she remains in a room of the tower, not necessarily being held prisoner, but more of to keep herself safe and everyone else safe. At one point Loki gets ahold of her and uses the staff to control her during which she causes a lot of damage to the city. Eventually the Avengers rescue her and what she regains control and realizes the damage she’s done she spirals into a major depression and feeling of not deserving to live. Eventually, she ends up fighting Loki, trying her best not to use her powers too brashly, also while not caring if she died in the process as she felt she deserved it. At one point she gets incapacitated and knocked unconscious, leaving the rest of the Avengers to defeat Loki and capturing him. With Loki now imprisoned and free from any of the brain altering effects the staff also had on him, he’s been informed of the effects he’s had on y/n and feels a bit guilty but not too much. He still has his wicked side to him and a desire to escape and get revenge on the Avengers and Thor. Using his range of skills in lies, illusions, manipulation, and skills in combat, he tries many times to escape, all the while slowly developing a curiosity for y/n as she struggles to contain her powers and forgive herself for the destruction. Drama occurs here and there as minor fights break out about how to handle Loki. Y/n’s unstable powers are also a strong concern for the Avengers as she could indeed cause some major damage, all the while, ever since the display of her powers when she first defended herself to when she fought Loki have spread and reached the ears of Hydra agents, intrigued by them and their potential to be weaponized. As danger continues to rise, Loki finds himself feeling sympathy for y/n, seeing their similarities: they both were seen as monsters, they both don’t know their real parents, people are pursuing them to take advantage of their powers, etc. Y/N finds herself talking to Loki quite a bit as time progresses, feeling numb and not caring if he was considered dangerous (at one point or another he tricks her into entering his cell and he restrains her and threatens her to try and use her to escape, but despite her initial panic and fear, she still feels like she deserves death and pretty much doesn’t fight back). Slowly but surely a slight, unspoken bond forms between them, nothing serious or romantic, but just a connection.

One day (maybe a time skip to after the matters of Winter Soldier? I don’t know how long that might be), when an incident arises and the Avengers are called into action and take the Quinjet, taking Loki with them, manacled, to keep an eye on him, and y/n also to make sure she’s safe, a squadron from Hydra kidnap y/n and take her away to torture her and try and weaponize her. Loki, knowing how that feels with Thanos, desperately pleads with the avengers to try and save y/n. The Avengers still distrust Loki and refuse to free him but do bring him with them on their mission to rescue Y/N just in case he could provide any insight into stopping her. Y/n gets tortured and experimented on until she feels like a shell of her former self, vulnerable to manipulation. (She doesn’t necessarily get the full on “Winter Soldier” treatment, but close). When the Avengers track her down and go to rescue her, her powers, while still unstable, have grown and she uses them more confidently and aggressively to fight. Steve, having seen this before, is hesitant to fight her knowing she’s not the one in control, but still finds himself needing to do it. The others, while not necessarily wanting to fight her either, don’t have as much care or grief with fighting her as they don’t have as much of a connection to the situation as Steve. Loki witnesses a lot of the fight from the Quinjet comms and feels a pang of guilt and remorse seeing her, reminding himself of his actions.

Eventually, the Avengers take down y/n (it takes a bit not only due to her powerful, not yet completely understood powers, but also because Steve refused to let anyone take on lethal or seriously dangerous means of taking her down) and subdue her with a magic restraining collar. Not entirely sure how to reverse the brain washing without bringing her to Wakanda, she is kept in the towers as a prisoner in a cell opposite of Loki’s. Loki continues to argue with the Avengers asking to enter her cell and to remove his manacles so he can try to remind her of her memories, but the Avengers refuse to budge until Thor steps in saying he trusts Loki’s intentions and will be standing closely by to catch Loki if he tries anything, just in case. When Loki enters the cell and is freed of his manacles, while tempted to escape, he feels compelled to try and help y/n. Grabbing her head he instills his magic inside of her mind to restore her memories, reminding her of who she is. When she comes back to herself, y/n looks shell shocked and traumatized before weeping. To everyone’s shock, Loki comforts her and reassures her it’s not her fault. Y/n then proceeds to ask Loki to kill her, shocking Loki as he feels his heart crack at the thought of how she views herself. Having seen into her mind, he witnessed the tortured she endured, he witnessed her getting her powers, he witnessed her scared when she displayed her powers on accident to protect herself, he witnesses her devastation when she realized what she had done under Loki’s control, and now under Hydra’s control. He sees how broken and alone and worthless and dangerous and hated she feels. To further shock everyone else, he takes her hands into his and assured her she’s not alone. She’s not worthless. She is brimming with potential and so much more. Her scars do not define her nor do the actions or influences of others define her. Y/n quickly and rather suddenly pulls Loki into an awkward hug, Loki not really knowing how to show or return affection or care, and despite the hug feeling cold and icy, she feels her heart warm as she calms down. Thor quickly interrupts and reattached the manacles to Loki before escorting him back into his cell (he knows Tony is most definitely watching from security cameras) before carefully approaching y/n to ensure she was okay. After confirming she is, Thor escorts her to the others to reintroduce her to them and clear the air. Y/n can’t help but stare at Loki as they leave him in his cell. She feels sorry for him but also confused as to why he helped her and embarrassed at the fact she hugged Loki, the supposedly evil god of mischief, the man who had fought her, threatened her, and even mind controlled her. It felt like too much to wrap her head around.

After getting re-accustomed to the Avengers and having her revelation with Loki, y/n began to pursue training. Aided by Thor and the others, y/n slowly gains a better control of her powers, mostly how to prevent them from going haywire and getting out of control, but she still has yet to truly understand them despite knowing the case in which led to her obtaining them in the first place. Eventually, the avengers let Loki out of his cell, but requiring him to still wear the manacles and remain within the tower. Y/n, despite Loki having helped her recover from the brain washing and even showing her genuine care, found herself still being wary of Loki, especially now that he was out of his cell. Hearing of the many times he has gone behind Thor’s back or seemingly turned a new leaf only to betray Thor again made her increasingly doubtful and hesitant to believe this Loki was truly turning around or just using her as a pawn to escape and trick them all. Of course in Loki’s mind, being out of his cell was a breath of fresh air (despite him not being allowed to leave the tower besides occasionally going to the top and standing near the helipad to watch the sun set or rise). His spirits began returning to him including his mischievous and tricky nature. However, even with these returning, he didn’t have as much of an urge to act on them. At least not while y/n was around. He almost felt obligated to resist these temptations and urges as long as y/n was around as to not dishearten her or make her doubt her own abilities to stay in control of her own powers. If he slipped up or decided to leave, y/n might lose faith in herself and reclaiming the light side and controlling her powers. He already felt responsible for the pain and guilt she has experienced due to his mind control, but he couldn’t let her feel any more. He could still sometimes picture what he saw when he looked into her memories; the torture, the experiments, the loss of her own free will and identity. He couldn’t let himself go back down the road of darkness and make her think it’s inevitable she will do the same.

Despite his restraint to not cause any serious trouble, Loki still found himself causing some trickery here and there within the tower, mostly through minor illusions he could still conjure despite the manacles (his energy levels are much higher since being out of his cell) or through his general snarky, sarcastic, and sassy attitude. The Avengers still didn’t trust him, but they did begin trusting Y/n more with her control over her powers. Y/n proved her ability to keep her own for brief periods when she trained more with Thor with her powers and with Natasha with hand to hand combat. Eventually, the day came that Nick Fury approached and inquired about y/n, her moral leanings, her powers, and the potential of recruiting her for the Avengers. Y/n felt quite overwhelmed by the whole situation but also felt honored and like she could make up for the destruction she has inadvertently under the control of others by now helping others in need. As y/n grew more confident, some of the other Avengers grew concerned. Considered with his inexperienced she was, her unstable powers and emotions, her guilt complex, and even more so that hydra and even other organizations could possible still have a target on her or even more ways to control her now that they have done it already. With all these things in mind, however, the Avengers ultimately agreed with Nick Fury to recruit y/n, after all, she might as well continue to learn how to control her powers and potentially be useful instead of self loathing and dangerous. Loki managed to peer into the minds of the others and was able to piece together their plan to recruit y/n. If that’s the case, he could potentially still escape if he was certain she would be in good care with the Avengers, despite how he still detested them. His betrayal could potentially not have as big of an impact on y/n if she grew confident in her powers and ability and worth. Who knows, maybe his betrayal could even inspire her be nothing like him or to track him down. Then, they could have a more evenly matched fight. He kept lying to himself and telling himself the last part over and over again in a desperate attempt to justify his betrayal without hurting y/n. He had no real clue as to why he cared so much about y/n. Yea they had a lot in common but she was just another puny, midguard mortal.

Eventually, a mission was announced and y/n was about to go out into the field with the Avengers for the first time. Loki debated whether or not he should try to escape now or wait for another mission in which y/n may have more confidence built up after at least one successful mission. Loki ended up wracking his brain so much with his predicament he ended up not even leaving at all and still thinking by the time they all returned. A few scratches and bruises here and there but nothing too serious. Y/n was the worst looking of them all, not because she was injured severely, in fact she was probably the third most injury free, but because of how exhausted and almost gaunt she looked. It seemed her powers take severe tolls on her mind and body when she is forced to control and concentrate them to do specific tasks and avoid letting them unleash chaos. She almost fell onto the floor as she approached one of the many couches in the immensely large leisure room in the Stark Tower. She barely caught herself before flopping onto the couch and immediately falling asleep. Despite her looking like hell, seeing y/n lie there peacefully (again, despite her rather unconventional position she fell asleep in). He could sense her mind was at peace with herself. While doubts still were present, the didn’t dominate her thoughts anymore. She was easier to read like this without walls of fear and hatred and doubt clouding her mind. It wasn’t long before Loki realized the others caught him staring and y/n as they proceeded to exchange odd and confused glances. Of course, Loki being the way he is, immediately played it off that he was just in shock of how dead she looked and wondered why they seem to hate her so much to throw her into action. To which of course Thor responded by pressing his hammer into Loki’s chest and leaving it there until Loki yielded. Loki now felt more confident that he could escape during the next mission without any regrets.

But then the next mission came around and he remained.

And then again.

And again.

And yet again.

Loki was even shocked and surprised with himself. He ended up waiting nervously for them to return from their missions, now nervous something may happen to y/n. She didn’t deserve to suffer they way she did at his hands or the hands of hydra and she definitely doesn’t deserve to get injured or worse, killed while helping others. Thor began to grow hopeful and trusting of his brother, believing he had truly turned around a new leaf and that he was proud of him. That only made things harder for Loki. His whole life as a child he was jealous of his brother and secretly looked up to him, especially when they father had favored Thor over him. Loki was determined to find a way to shake off these feelings before things got any “worse”, making it harder for him to escape without a guilty conscience.

One day, when the avengers, including y/n, were on a mission, Loki saw over the news that people were trying to attack y/n specifically a family and their friends who were affected and attacked by y/n while she was under Loki’s control. Loki was able to see her powers flowing through her and her eyes as she tried to contain them as to not cause any more damage, but then the youngest one of the family against her, a young boy of around five years old, calls her a monster. Suddenly, y/n’s heart feels like it stops and shatters. Her powers glowed brightly in her veins and into her eyes as she screamed before falling to the ground, a massive shockwave rushing out from her and knocking back everything within a square mile (fortunately for the family and friends that were confronting her and everyone else in the area, the wave seemingly went around them) purple blue mist followed the wave before curving up and angling down and plummeting directly back into y/n as she seemingly uncontrollably floated into the air. When all the power returned into her, she went limp before falling to the ground, motionless. Loki immediately made his way out of the tower, desperately trying anything to remove the manacles as he rushed to the location the news had reported the incident was occurring. Halfway there, Thor stopped him having predicted he would have tried to escape a while ago but having realized his brothers developing interest in y/n. Knowing Loki held all kinds of reality changing powers within him, Thor took a leap of faith and unlocked Loki’s manacles. For a brief second, as Loki’s powers surged through him once more, he got a sudden and powerful urge to make his escape. But then an image of y/n came into his mind. And with that, he immediately pushed aside any desire of escaping to rush to y/n with Thor on his side.

When he finally got there, y/n had been pulled up off of the ground by Tony who carried her quickly trying to get away from the apparently still present threat. It was then that the immense (insert threatening, giant beast here) emerged into sight. Almost within a second of the beasts reemergence, y/n bolted straight up out of Tony’s arms, eyes glossed over with a purple and blue hue. She walked forward to the beast seemingly in a daze, unresponsive to the avengers cries. Suddenly, the beasts attention is turned to the family from before. Y/n’s eyes come back into focus as she realizes what’s happening. Without a second thought y/n rushed in front of the family and produces an immense wall of energy, defending them from the beast. As the beast struck at the wall, it appeared as though y/n was feeling the force transmit from the wall into her. The Avengers and Loki, albeit shocked and confused as to what was happening, took advantage of this to strike at the beast with all they had. When the beast seemingly began to weaken, y/n’s wall broke down and sent her flying back with the force of one of the beasts swipes. The family, now exposed, found themselves facing death as the beast lowered in to attack. Before it could make any advance, however, y/n bloodied and staggering, made her way between the beast and the family once more. Putting in all of her energy she produced one more wall of energy right as the beast struck, this time, y/n forced the energy into the beast and sent it flying back, but it grabs her last minute too and she flies with it.

The dust settles and the beast is slayed. The family immediately gets ushered to safety by Nat and Clint as the others close in on the beast to see what remains of y/n. Lying motionless on the ground as blood streamed from her head and chest, a razor claw is stuck through her upper right side of her chest and shoulder, the beast had just barely managed to swipe at here as she forced it back. Loki immediately rushed to her said and held her, to the shock and initial protests of the others, and began creating magic runes on y/n’s exposed skin around the wound. Y/n’s slowly fluttered open before she released a sharp shriek of pain. Seeing Loki healing her was too much with everything else going on, almost feeling like a fever dream. Her vision went in and out of focus as her blood loss lessened with Loki healing her. As he did so, he carefully and slowly lifted y/n off of the beast’s claw, resulting in many painful groans and shrill exclamations from y/n, eventually making it all of the way off and allowing Loki to safely seal the wound. Both looked absolutely exhausted. Y/n with blood loss and overloading her magic, and Loki straining his magic to its extent while it still is freshly returned to him and kinda of hard to control for now. It wasn’t before long when y/n closed her eyes and fell almost motionless once again, just her chest rising and falling as she breathed deep and raspy breaths.

Immediately returning to the tower, Loki not being forced to wear his manacles for the time being as somewhat of a test trial, y/n was ushered to the medical floor to rest and be treated for any other injuries alongside the other avengers who had managed to be wounded. Loki found himself almost never leaving y/n’s side, peering into her mind and seeing her at peace, feeling as though she had made it up for what damage she had previously done. And while this made Loki secretly happy for her, it also made him somber as it was his fault to begin with. It was four days before y/n woke up. And to her surprise, the god of mischief was slumped against the wall on the ground next to her bed, asleep. Despite it undeniably being a weird site to see, y/n felt warm and fuzzy inside. Suddenly, she remembered exactly what happened and quickly nudged Loki’s shoulder to wake him up. Loki immediately sprung to his feet to get a good look at y/n, awake and moving. In a reverse turn of events, this time it was Loki who pulled y/n into a rushed hug. This time, it was just right. Y/n returned the hug and they stayed there for a bit before slowly receding back. Y/n opened her mouth to say thank you, but before she could, Loki quite suddenly and boldly said he was sorry. Sorry for everything. Sorry for hurting her and making her do things that led to her hating herself, sorry that because of him, she’s had to suffer like this. As he apologized, tears began to well up in his eyes. Y/n was taken aback before gently cupping his face and telling him it wasn’t his fault either, the power of the staff was affecting his mind too. They were both used. It was another beat of silence as they both just stared into the galaxies in each other’s eyes. They were bonded and connected more deeply than ever before in ways no one else could ever understand. Slowly, they both inched their faces closer to each other...

And kissed.

Right as the rest of the avengers showed up to see y/n.

[whentherewerebicycles]

hi! i wanted to say i love reading your reflections on teaching, and in general i really look up to/am inspired by your thoughts regarding education and academia. if it's not too much to ask (completely understandable if it is, in that case please disregard!) i would love to get your advice on college related things?

i had pretty significant academic struggles throughout grade school, and ended up dropping out of college after a year. i would've graduated this may, so lately i've been considering going back and finishing my bachelor's. but i've been waffling on this decision because of 1) anxiety about having to drop out again, and 2) some confusion about what i actually want to study. i guess i'm wondering, is it worth it to start from scratch? my struggles were mostly about mental health stuff & difficulty keeping up with coursework—i loved being in the classroom, working with professors, learning from other students. i like being challenged intellectually, but if i have issues with followthrough, is there a way to work on that??? i know these are Big Questions, lol--whether they are answerable or not, cheers and thank you and i hope you are doing well these days. <3

hey! happy to give my thoughts, for what they're worth. you know your situation better than i do so the specifics may or may not be relevant, but i can give some advice just based on seeing lots of students pass through four-year programs!

i've worked with a number of students who took time away from college and came back to finish later. i took a year off myself in the middle of college for mental health reasons, though my school allowed you to take a two-semester leave of absence for any reason (so i always had the safety net of knowing i could come back without having to reapply or start over). in my experience, time away is almost always a good thing. sometimes people just really need that break from the stressors of the college environment! but more importantly, i think people benefit from having a few years' experience living and working in the world.

even though it can be intimidating to come back to college as an older student, i think older students or nontraditional students who took time off and came back tend to underestimate how much more confident and assured in themselves they'll be once they're back in the classroom. working out in the world for a while, even if it's not a job that you especially love or feel is relevant to your long-term goals, tends to help you build more trust in your own ability to get stuff done, manage responsibilities, and be an adult person in the world. in your time away, you've probably grown more than you think, and you may find that some of the things you struggled with at 18 just don't feel as daunting anymore. or they might feel daunting, but you also have more experience talking and working with other people, and you may feel more confident in seeking out & using your college's various academic success resources.

have you considered a two-year college as a possible next step? one of my advisees this year was an adult student who went to college for a year, dropped out, served in the military for four years, came back to do an associate's degree, and decided he liked school enough that he wanted to transfer to our university and finish his degree. (now he's going on to do a phd next fall!!!!) he's one of the most passionate advocates for community colleges i've ever met, and he's stayed actively involved in our local CC community & now mentors recent transfer students at our university. he's talked at length about how CCs are this amazing way for students to explore their interests without having to take on the huge price tag of a four-year degree, within a learning community that's much warmer, more responsive to student needs, and more accepting of the diverse paths that lead people to & through higher education. i wonder if you might consider taking a semester or a year of courses at your local CC, to dip your toes back in and see if you're still feeling energized by the experience.

you might find that some of the courses aren't intellectually challenging enough, but this might also be a wonderful opportunity to create the kind of learning experience you want to have. i was a full-time community college student for a year during my year away from yale, and while i'm sure i was just INSUFFERABLE in many ways, i had a prof in my Western Civ course who was really generous with his time/energy and met with me outside of class to help me figure out how to make the papers into something that i found really exciting and challenging to write. so the class kind of became what i made of it, and i got to read some stuff (dostoevsky!!!) that sent me down all kinds of interesting unexpected rabbitholes. the former CC grad i mentioned above was an extraordinarily bright student who would always go to office hours and ask his profs for more recommended readings, and he ended up becoming a TA for one of his courses and helped them redesign basically their entire intro humanities curriculum as a student advisor. so your CC experience can absolutely be what you make of it. and even if your profs can't give you that kind of support, you could practice doing it for yourself, setting little challenges for yourself either focused on the intellectual aspects ('I'm going to read and cite two scholarly sources in this paper, even though it's not required') or on developing strategies for effectively managing the workload ('I'm going to schedule a writing center appointment on Thurs, so I have to finish this paper two days before the deadline—and then I can devote my weekend study time to practicing for my Spanish test').

CC would be a slightly lower stakes environment for you to try out college again— lower-stakes both in the sense that it's cheaper (so if you decide you don't want to continue, you're not out as much money / don't feel compelled to go on to justify the debt you've taken on) and in the sense that the workload might be more manageable for you as you readjust to academic life and build systems & structures that work for you. as you probably have gathered from this blog, i am a HUGE believer in doing lower-stakes things many times over to build your own confidence and your trust in yourself, and then gradually scaling up the difficulty. by the time you reach the hard thing, you've already built up this strong image of yourself as a person who can handle challenges (and you've also had the chance to identify areas where you struggle & experiment with developing workable solutions).

if a two-year college isn't something you're especially interested in, i think it's definitely possible to start a four-year degree again. if that's the path you choose, i would strongly recommend reaching out to students in some of the degree programs you're tentatively interested in. people are almost always happy to share their ~wisdom~ (see: this ask response, lol) and most people love being asked for their thoughts on the pros and cons of something they know well. so you could get an honest sense from students of what the program is like, what the workload is like, and how useful or engaging people find the required courses for the degree. but also know that it's pretty normal to take courses all over in your first year or two (you have the advantage of having done a freshman year before, so you probably know this!), so you might just want to plan to try out a bunch of different things, with the goal of narrowing your focus by the end of your first year, or midway through your second.

i would also HIGHLY recommend spending lots of time familiarizing yourself with the resources your university has to offer. learn everything you can about the kind of mental health counseling and support they offer to students, and see if there are things you can set up in advance for yourself before you even step foot on campus. for instance, our university offers individual counseling, but they also have free groups that meet every week or two around different topics (coping with stress, students in recovery, etc) that are led by a counselor. check out your university's writing center or peer tutoring centers, too, and set up a standing appointment once a month or once a week or whatever, to bring in something you're working on—so that you know that every week, you're going to talk with someone about what's going well and what you're struggling with in your assignments.

you might also want to look into your university's services for students with disabilities office, as they can help you figure out if you are eligible for various kinds of accommodations or additional support (extra time on exams, notetaking services, recorded lectures, etc). i know you mentioned that you've dealt with academic struggles in grade school, too. if you think it's possible that there may be underlying learning differences that are affecting your academic work, it might be worth seeing if they can help you find lower-cost testing, so you can get a diagnosis that qualifies you for additional accommodations and university support.

many schools, esp large public universities, also have resource centers and mentoring programs for students from specific demographics who may benefit from additional structure and support in their early years of college. my university has a variety of resource centers and programs for students from low-income backgrounds, first-gen students, students who transferred from community college, etc. you don't have to take advantage of ALL of these resources, but proactively establishing a support network long before you need it is a really good way to set yourself up for success. and even just doing the research will probably help you feel more confident in your capacity to 'follow through', since you'll know that you're going into this with your eyes wide open AND with a detailed plan for what to do if you run into some of the same obstacles you encountered the first time around.

speaking of detailed plans: i find it helpful sometimes to do IF-THEN exercises with students when they're stressed about something on the horizon or unsure about whether they can handle some new challenge. IF-THEN is just what it sounds like: 'IF this thing I'm nervous about happens, THEN I'm going to do X, Y, or Z.' what i like about this exercise (i use it with myself too aha) is that it acknowledges that sometimes the thing you're dreading DOES happen. sometimes the professor you emailed for an extension says no. sometimes the TA doesn't understand why you're confused about the assignment. sometimes you don't have time to finish the reading before class. sometimes you overschedule yourself and you have to pull an all-nighter to finish two papers on the same night. scary things, confidence-shaking things, happen all the time, but they are rarely fatal! and there can be something really powerful about acknowledging and naming the thing you're concerned about, and then generating a few next steps you could take, should the thing you're dreading come to pass. i could see you doing something like this as you start thinking about the things that tripped you up last time, or made it difficult for you to balance the workload. if X happens, then what could you try next? giving yourself a few options means that you already have backup plans, too, which can make the whole situation less terrifying. if this happens, i might have to try this, or this, or this, and those things might not be the most fun or the easiest to do or the 'best' thing academically, but they'll get me through this difficult moment mostly in one piece, and once i'm through it i can look back on it and learn from it, or adjust the structures i've built for myself moving forward, to reduce the chance that X happens again.

PHEW!!! sorry this got so long but that is just the RISK YOU TAKE when sending me anons 😅 i hope that some of this is helpful to you, or at least sparks some useful thinking for you, even if it's not all directly applicable to your situation. i would say that if you love learning and find being in the classroom exhilarating, then you should absolutely go back to college! but that doesn't mean you have to go back right away, or that you have to go back and do it exactly the same way you did the first time. there are lots of possible paths to higher ed, and there's no particular rush—college will always be there, if it's something you decide you want now or at some future point in your life. i would also just reiterate again one of the core Themes of This Blog, which is that the brain is NEUROPLASTIC, and that humans have a truly astounding amazing capacity to change, grow, and learn new things (including new ways of getting around old obstacles or working through old challenges). just because you struggled the first time doesn't mean you are doomed to repeat that pattern. if you can spend some time thoughtfully reflecting on what you found most difficult to manage the first time through, you are better equipped to make plans, design new structures for yourself, and build the support networks that will help you thrive in college.

[werevulvi]

I wanted to write a bit about sex segregated spaces, in regards to people who pass as the opposite sex. This is not actually about trans people, as much as it is about the safety, integrity and general rights of male-passing biological women. I am not the only gender non-conforming woman who gets tossed out of female only spaces, based on the false presumption that we’re men. I do not care about validating trans women, or even trans men, for that matter. I care about real life practicality, risks and safety for ALL women, not just those who look conveniently clearly female, which starts with accepting that some women, whether they've medically transitioned or not, pass as male. And none of them should have to feminise themselves to access female only spaces. Whether that be to ensure safety from males, or to just take a leak.

The fact that I choose to keep my beard has almost nothing to do with that I'm male-passing. It may be my strongest "male" feature, but it's hardly the only one. I still pass as male with a clean shaven face, which makes shaving my beloved beard rather pointless, in my opinion. I would realistically need to go through more than just facial hair removal to pass as my own sex again. I'd probably even need facial feminisation surgery, hair transplant, voice feminisation and full body hair removal, at the very least, to even get close to passing as female again. But even then, I'd probably STILL be read as a trans woman, i.e. male. And even IF I did all that... WHY should I have to mutilate myself (a second time) by buying into harmful patriarchal beauty standards, which would worsen my dysphoria and reduce my comfort in my own skin significantly, to be allowed the safety of male-free spaces?

Does that sound feminist to you? Because to me, it's incredibly misogynistic, and strongly counterproductive. To uphold patriarchal gender roles for the safety of women... is the most insanely anti-feminist double standard I can possibly ever think of.

To lay out my argument on this topic, I'm going to use my own experiences as examples a lot. Mostly because I cannot with any conscience speak for anyone else than myself, at least not in such detail and with such harsh judgement. But I'm sure a lot of my experiences are applicable to other masculine women as well.

First off, I still consider myself gender critical, but my allegiance to radical feminism has been waning lately. This is mostly due to that although I agree with the base premise of radfem, I tend to disagree with the proposed solutions to almost all of the issues, because to me they come across as unfounded beliefs (yes, BELIEFS) that "it would just work" without much of any evidence to back up such a claim.

And when it comes to trans people, I've noticed a lot of... shall we say, willful ignorance, going on among many radfems, which does affect opinions on gender abolishion as well as sex segregated spaces to appear rather... intellectually dishonest, to be frank. Although this is not intended as a call out by any means, I merely want for people of all sides of the radfem/gender critical/pro-trans fence to stay critical and keep questioning everything, even one's own beloved ideology. Which I don't see a lot of. Instead I see almost religious defending of radfem as the ultimate/perfect ideology... oh, guess where I've seen that before? I've come to believe that "hivemindedness" is probably part of every possible ideology out there. Even radfem.

So, anyway.

One thing I come across time and time again is the belief (yes, I dare say "belief") that people never pass as the opposite sex, although it's mostly directed at trans people, this very much applies to people who are just gnc as well. Let's not forget that. And this belief seem to often lead to that transitioned/gnc people can just use the space intended for their biological sex, no problem. However, this is not the case. There is a problem. Very many trans people, and some gnc people, pass well enough to at least blend in enough to not raise much of an eyebrow among the opposite sex, and to most definitely stand out as an outsider among people of the same sex. OR they pass barely enough as either sex, and thus stand out as an outsider among both the same sex and the opposite sex, which can cause similar problems with single sex spaces.

There's also the thing that it generally is easier to pass as the opposite sex among complete strangers, compared to people who know you/your background. They tend to read you differently, depending on that.

At least in my experience, complete strangers assume I'm male and don't even as much as raise an eyebrow about how male I come across as. They accept their false assumption at face value. And why wouldn't they? 99,97% of people who "look like me" are biologically men. Then people who know I'm transitioned, but didn't know me pre-transition, tend to see me as a female who looks very convincingly male, whether that makes me a masculine woman, trans man, or any other (female) label in their eyes. They claim to be able to "see" my female nature, yet they somehow had no idea before I told them about my true sex. Then people who know about my history and saw it happen from the time before my transition (now only really my family) never quite succeeded to see me as anything other than a gnc woman. To quote my dad: "You look like a woman who's trying to look like a man." Although I'm sure my mom and sister don't have quite as harsh views about me, lol. They still seem to see me the way they always have, regardless of what name or pronouns they use for me.

This matters, because although people who know I'm transitioned and may even have witnessed my transition from the beginning, struggle to see me as a man (which I respect entirely and I'm VERY careful to not push wanting to be seen/read as anything in particular, but also, people do not want to be rude, especially irl) that does not go for people who have never even seen me before the moment I walk into... say, a public bathroom. To them I cannot possibly be anything other than a man, and it's almost impossible to change their view of me as male once their brains have registered me as such. I need to conjure up pretty fucking compelling evidence to shatter that view they have of me.

This is important, because it means I cannot feasibly use female only spaces, unless someone else (who is also female) vouches for me and explains my situation for me. This is, most likely due to people being more likely to believe an unlikely explanation when it's told by someone else, because maybe I could be lying; and only someone of the same sex as me can accompany/escort me into female only spaces, obviously. But even then, there's a ton of tension around my presentation. An air of distrust, basically. The question that hangs in the air: "Is that a trans woman?" even after they've been given a thorough explanation of my situation. It's uncomfortable for everyone involved. Imagine how it goes then if I'd just show up unannounced, and without someone to vouch for me. I just get booted on sight.

Yes, I can whine about this all day, but that is NOT my point.

My point is that I'm either directly, or implicitly, unwelcome in female only spaces, despite being biologically female, because of my transitioned appearance... despite I'm not even on testosterone anymore since 2 years ago. Sure, most gnc women (whether transitioned or not) don't seem to have turned out quite as passable as me, but clearly, it happens. So let's stop pretending that it doesn't.

So with that in mind, I don't always have access to a gender neutral space. Like for example when I travel with the ferry that goes between my island and the mainland of my country, there is only men's bathrooms and women's bathrooms. No third option. That's a 3 hour boat ride, and with my coffee drinking habit, I will need to pee at some point or another while aboard that ship, alright. And no, peeing in the ocean is not an option, as squatting over the railing would be incredibly dangerous, and most likely not even remotely allowed. Granted, I don't take the ferry often, it's just the most clear example I can think of. Because it's my only means of transportation to/from the mainland, except from flying, which is incredibly expensive, less reliable and obviously an environmental hazard. So when I do have to use that ferry, I'm kinda stuck with my choices.

So then, am I better off going with the men's or women's bathroom? I am much more likely to be left alone to do my business in the men's, so even though that is not the space I want to be in, nor do I think it's "right" for me to be there, sometimes it's even a bit scary, other times even impractical if there's only urinals and no stall, and it's absolutely not validating at all - it's the only bathroom that I can realistically use, without too much trouble. And I don't want trouble. But I also hate having to put my own safety on the backburner for the perceived safety of other women, who are not actually at any higher safety risk when left alone with me.

So, onto the more general, political aspects of this issue:

Women in male only spaces may be less of an issue in regards to safety, at least for the majority of people (men) in that space, especially if the woman in question passes as male. No one gives a fuck, generally. But problem is then that she is at far greater risk than the majority of people (women) would be with a single male, in a female only space. As I think a group of women against one male is generally less risk towards the women, when compared to a group of men against a single female, which can be extremely dangerous for her. Although I've so far never been faced with any sort of violence in a male only space, let's not pretend that my presense in a male only space is somehow LESS dangerous for me, than how dangerous the presense of ONE male in a space with a whole group of women, would be for those women. Statistically and realistically, I'm at a far greater risk than they are, and no, I do not have any more choice in the matter than they do.

Thus, this kinda skewed idea of safety and choice, becomes a question of ethics, I think.

Furthermore, I'm a person of principles, and it wouldn't sit right with me that if males should never under any circumstances be allowed in female spaces, but females could be allowed in male spaces. I refuse to be a hypocrit on purpose! No, if males should never under any circumstances be allowed in female spaces, then females should also never under any circumstances be allowed in male spaces. OR, if females CAN under some special circumstances be allowed into male spaces, then males should be allowed the same in female spaces. Both of these solutions pose serious problems, which I keep seeing being brushed under the carpet a lot, and that annoys me.

But if we go with the first idea, of barring people from using opposite sex spaces altogether, then where the fuck do I pee? Should I utilise my "right" to use female spaces, despite making everyone uncomfortable and feeling threatened by my presense, as well as risking being kicked out and forced to use the equivalent male spaces anyway, which is exactly what that idea is meant to prevent - or should I completely avoid being in places which I know does not have a gender neutral bathroom, such as the ferry? Would that not be discrimination? Which is the most reasonable option here, what is the most practical, what's wrong and what's right? Do I even have a RIGHT to use female bathrooms, and if so, how do I prove it, considering my ID still says I'm male?

Trans men aren't gonna be nearly as willing to use female only spaces, and trans women definitely not eager to use male only spaces. But aside from that validation factor, I have the exact same struggle as trans people do on this particular point. Quite often they do toss and turn at which bloody bathroom to pick, not just out of validation, but because they genuinely struggle to figure out which one is the best option for them practically. Especially if they don't quite pass as either sex, and most and foremost just wanna do their business without unneccesary drama.

Also, to clarify: barring trans people from opposite sex spaces is NOT discrimination, as they never belonged there to begin with - but leaving them with no other option than to pee themselves, is. Which means that I think it's fucked up to barr them from those spaces BEFORE having solved the problem of "if they can't go there, then where?"

Perhaps I'm the only one around here who cares about males' integrity, safety and human rights. But even if so, I should not be the only one to care about gnc females' integrity, safety and rights. Male-passing females, whether transitioned or not, whether bearded or not, are still female, and if we don't want them in female only spaces, and not in male only spaces either; why? Because they "chose" to medically transition and/or dress in men's clothing?

Yeah, well, in most cases of transitioned females, they transitioned because of dysphoria, which no one chooses to have. It's a medical condition. Barring people from spaces they'd otherwise be welcomed into, due to the visual outcome of the treatment of their medical condition... is ableism. Barring a woman from a female only space she belongs in, solely because her unusual physical appearance freaks you out... is ableism. Also, simply being gnc and being viscerally uncomfortable with presenting femininely is also not a choice. And even if it was... shouldn't it be? That's why I cannot roll with that sorta solution. I dunno if it counts as a form of discrimination by definition, but it just smells a lot like it from where I sit. That it's no more right to toss me out of, or give me trouble, in a women's bathroom, than a masculine women who also passes as male but who has not medically transitioned.

That said, however, women's safety DOES matter a lot to me. Hence my reluctance to join their spaces, despite being a woman myself. I guess, what I'd want is complete sex segregation to work in my favour, but I can't promote a rule that would discriminate against me. I'm sorry, I just can't. I desire FUNCTIONAL sex segregated spaces, but realistically they cannot function. Truth is that the only womens spaces I've been allowed into since I began passing as male, are "trans inclusionary" ones that openly allow in trans women, ironically. I care about the safety of other women, and their right to have their own spaces... but not at the expense of my own rights, as a fellow woman. To say otherwise would be a crime against myself. I really wish this could be solved in some way that would work in practice, but honestly I don't think it can anytime soon. Not without some seriously tried and proven, practical and humane methods to check what sex people entering single sex spaces actually are.

That is the reality that people have to face. And personally I'd rather focus on women's rights than trans rights, but as a woman who's medically transitioning, I'd shoot my own foot no matter which one I'd choose. That's quite a dilemma.

So where my opinion stands on this right now, is basically this: I think female only spaces should only be for biological women, but I'm reluctantly okay-ish with males who pass as female utilising female only spaces, and vice versa for females in male only spaces. However, this does not feel ideal at all. It's a compromise. Ideally, I want such spaces to be entirely sex segregated, and for even people who pass as the opposite sex (like myself) to be allowed into spaces of their biological sex. My appeal here is both realistic practicality with the reality that some people really do pass as the opposite sex, as well as the safety, rights and integrity of male-passing women.

[appleciders]

personally, im also deep in the station 19 muck but like you i wish i wasn't. randomly watched it because pandemic and maya bishop is just so compelling, even with all the bad writing i still love her sm. is there anything you would want to see for season 4? your hair cut fic was so good and i cant stop thinking about how much better the season would have been had it ended like that instead.

first off, sorry to both of us for being here! but i guess let’s take escapism where can get it, hey. second, thank you so much for reading the fic!! i’m super honored you liked it <33

as for what i would want for s4...whew. a lot, lmao. i’ll put in under a cut to save my poor non-s19 followers.

mostly, i want them to please slow down the pacing. let story arcs breathe and build and develop. last season was so rushed—ryan’s death and rigo’s death and pruitt’s death all crammed in, andy and sullivan having a shotgun wedding out of nowhere, maya and carina fastforwarding to i love yous with only 30 second scenes and not a real date to be seen, vic hardly getting to process ripley—i could go on. it’s cheap and messy storytelling. cut it out. 

i also really want them to let relationships do the same. i want to see the friendships that were so strained last season to grow again. show me andy, maya, and vic being friends and supporting each other!! for the love of god!! (show me andy and maya being friends, period. for the whole season. the whole goddamn season. no drama between them, only supporting each other through outside drama. if i have to see another season where these ‘best friends’ are at each other’s throats half the time, i swear to god.) 

show me more team-as-family! a) i eat that shit up, and b) that’s supposed to be the underlying theme and premise of the show. show them laughing and goofing off together, show them holding each other up when things get tough, show them teasing each other to hell and back while they cook together in the beanery. invest in that again.

for the romances....develop that shit. honestly, i really hope andy and sullivan either break up or really do the fucking work to fix their relationship, because as-is, it’s a hot mess. and not a hot mess i particularly care to watch. i liked them fine in season 2, but the sullivan arc in s3 (which...not to out myself as having watched chicago fire, but which is a blatant rip-off of severide’s s1 arc in cf) puts him in a place where he’s not really ready for a relationship. and with the amount of shit they put andy through, she’s not, either. i know it’s impossible on a drama, but i would really like andy to be single this season? idk, i’m tired.

maya and carina better not be all sunshine and rainbows. they need to do the work! they need to show the work! after that rushed-ass ‘forgive me’ scene (where carina was...pressured into forgiving maya like the day after she cheated on her??? and that was framed as a good thing?? make it make sense), they deserve to show them actually navigating that broken trust and rebuilding something real. and as someone who doesn’t watch grey’s, i really don’t know carina very well? 90% of her scenes were her supporting maya through her ongoing breakdown (though a  totally understandable breakdown! not criticizing maya for having trauma), so i’d like to see more of a balance of support in the relationship and more development of her as an individual apart from maya. she’ll be sticking around, and that will be much more interesting if she bonds with other members of the team.

dean and vic...look, my hands-down #1 wish for season 4 is that they treat vic hughes well, with respect, with screentime, and with a good arc. she’s the absolute best. and as much as i love dean miller (hint: a lot), he needs to start guzzling his respecting vic juice if the writers are gonna try to set up anything. personally, i’d really like to see them move past it? awkward crushes between friends happen. putting myself in dean’s shoes, living with one of my best friends who i’m also secretly crushing on, watching her play with my baby...it’d be a lot too!! but that doesn’t excuse being a dick, so i’d really like to see them take some time apart, and then start their friendship back up on a foundation of honesty and communication. because they’re so good, guys.

individual character notes!!!

well. i want every person at this goddamn station to go to therapy. they won’t, but i want them to.

andy needs to go to serious grief counseling after season 3. compounded by what’s bound to be a shitstorm from the discovery that her mother is alive? please. in regards to the whole mother arc, i really don’t want it her disappearance to have been like...gang-related. i’ve seen that posited as a theory, and that’s just a whole bundle of stereotypes we don’t need to get into. i also want the mom reveal to be the main revelation that takes up the majority of her arc the first half of the season, just to have time to process it. the captain’s race took up all of season 1—you can give this twist time to marinate properly.  

vic hughes, my moon, my stars! i really loved the snippets of vic’s backstory that they gave us in s3. as someone who lost a family member to early-onset alzheimer’s in november, 3x09 was...oof. a lot. i love how they committed to fleshing out her past and her backstory more and i love the emotional depth barrett doss always brings to the screen. for season 4, i’d love to see vic get to process ripley and jackson properly. (and here i repeat my forever adage for female characters lol: let them be single for a hot sec.) i want her to move in with maya, because i think that dynamic is so fun and ripe for exploration, and then i’d love to see her digging in to her issues and getting help—going back to the firefighter group, actually talking, spending time with her found family. (sidenote: would love to see her help out with some like youth community theatre classes on her days off? developing connections with kids who have gone through losses, supporting them and in turn realizing the support she needs herself...tell me vic singing with kids wouldn’t be the cutest shit). anyway, i just rly want her to get a good storyline. but i’m not a screenwriter so like...hope they come up with one!

i’ve already written much more than i’m sure you wanted, so i’m going to condense the boys into one paragraph lol. i want jack gibson to heal himself and stop sleeping with taken women! his new found family is super sweet, so i really hope he gets to keep it throughout s4. i want travis montgomery to get only good and happy things, and the same goes for warren. actually, i’d love to see warren step into his new role as team Older Person a bit more? i think that would be a really fun and heartwarming dynamic to play with all the other characters. dean i think i already touched on, but i’d love him to take a breath, apologize to vic and explain, and lean on the rest of his found family. he’s gonna be such a good dad and i’m excited to see more of that.

finally: maya. oh, maya. she needs therapy. you can’t have a character say she’s been dealing with suicidal ideation and anxiety for nearly 20 years and just...magically make it all better. she deserves to get to unpack all the shit with her dad, and all the ways that’s impacted her. on some level, i kinda wish she’d not stayed as captain—i love her scenes so much when she’s allowed to be just chilling on the same level as her team. since that’s not the case, finding a right balance of her as captain and her as friend is gonna be super important. i want her to open up to her friends and lean on them. i’d love for mason to come back, too? i think her trying to heal herself, establish herself as a team member and leader, and rebuild her relationships with her brother as well as her found family and girlfriend would be more than enough material for an arc. it won’t always go great! this stuff isn’t an easy fix! but that’s why it’d be worth writing. plus, so many members of the team have shitty relationships with their parents that even though they won’t understand what maya went through, there’s some really fertile ground for compassion and cathartic ‘fuck our dads’ ball-busting i’d love to see seeded. bonus father’s day episode where literally none of them are happy and they decide to like...go play laser tag or something.

anyway, i’m sure that’s more than you wanted!! but thank you for the q lmao apparently i had a lot to say

[werewolfhooligan]

How does some of the lore for your werewolf OCs work? Since there's a lot of interpretation 'n all that.

1. thank u for the unprompted question ill love u 4ever

2. im not quite sure what you're asking! if it's just general lore, i guess i'll run through some common points, and if you had something else in mind then whoops lol

-werewolves are Relatively Uncommon. they tend to gravitate towards each other, because they're social and just inherently Like Being Near Each Other, but comparatively the population is kind of small. they're just a fun little secret 🤫🤫🤫 . it's always been that way, but since werewolves have been welcoming more humans in2 their lives in recent history the werewolf child lottery's gotten harder to predict. it can lead to some inter-family strife in some cases, but the option to be bitten is always open to the human children of werewolves (though this usually happens when they're older and have more of a sense of themselves, because this is irreversible)

-WHICH LEADS TO the whole biting thing: you can only be turned into a werewolf if you're bitten. other werewolf-related injuries won't do anything, unless there are Extremely weird circumstances, because the ... im not sure what i want to call it, the Transformation Agent TM is present, transferably, in the saliva . typically you need to get permission from your alpha to bite someone, because if you do something wrong or your new pal does something wrong it's ultimately going to be their responsibility. because they're like your mom in every way that matters, or they should be

-werewolves can transform whenever they want! ive mentioned before that werewolves can have different relationships to their different forms, and that means some transform more or less often than others. it Does hurt quite a bit, and some would rather not deal with that, but others are more willing to put up w it for the ability to run around on all fours and eat things in the woods. regardless of preference , everyone needs to transform on the full moon. it's just part of the deal. it's not an issue in packs further from large human populations but packs closer to cities or in town centers will try to tire themselves out before the sun sets to keep themselves from getting too rowdy, because the full moon is exhilarating and their senses can become overwhelming-- they retain most of their control but are more prone to impulsiveness, which can get them in trouble. they'll run off on their own as the night wears on, but most will stay within their own pack's territory so that they can keep an eye on each-other

-im really in2... everyone sleeping in a big pile 2gether... werewolves are really touchy-feely, and they like casual contact. knees knocking together, hands on backs, nuzzling. entire pods will share one large (large? ig it depends on their living situation; kirby and the gang share an apartment, so it's not large per se) sleeping quarter. lone wolves have a harder time of it because it feels less secure to sleep alone.

-in lovise's case, she doesn't make plans. like, ever. a pack alpha needs to be available to their people at all times, and because her pack is so big she needs to be prepared to drop anything on a dime and visit any one of her pods. this causes some frustration as well, because she literally can't do it all, but she's compelled to try

-speaking of alphas, the passing of the title from one wolf to another is kinda important. the alpha can't choose who will succeed them, but other wolves can put themselves up as potential successors and the pack will decide based on a few factors like trustworthiness, ability to take care of their pack and pods, whether or not they personally like them, etc. if it comes down to it there'll be a fight, but that's only when the pack can't choose and the alpha hopefuls won't back down. if an alpha needs to be replaced on the back of a sudden death, their second or deputy will temporarily hold the title. they can attempt to succeed themselves, but it's not a guarantee (even if it is common because the pack will know that they understand the responsibilities)

-not incredibly violent with each-other. internally packs can have drama and they'll dislike each-other but it's not impossible to avoid each-other. wolves can leave packs at will, but it's a difficult decision and many would rather not. being accepted into another pack is difficult as well, because other packs will see outsiders as threats, at least in the beginning. obviously it's on a case-by-case basis and some packs are more conservative than others. to decrease the chance of exposure to the world at large conflicts between packs are solved only between those two packs; others are encouraged and mostly happy to mind their own business, though they might think less of you for whatever you've done to tick each-other off and trust you less because of it.

-transforming in front of unfamiliar wolves is still like throwing down the gauntlet, though. just dont bring out the claws and you should have a polite if unfriendly reception.

-im playing with Origins Lore as well but it's nothing concrete and i want to get a second opinion first 🤪

[libralita]

Fangirl Vol. 1

Sam Maggs, Rainbow Rowell, Gabi Nam (Illustrator)

Summary: The manga adaptation of the beloved novel by #1 Bestselling author Rainbow Rowell! New York Journal of Books Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, everybody is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life. Cath's sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath just can't let go. Now that they’re in college, Cath must decide if she’s ready to start living her own life. But does she even want to if it means leaving Simon Snow behind? Cath doesn’t need friends IRL. She has her twin sister, Wren, and she’s a popular fanfic writer in the Simon Snow community with thousands of fans online.  But now that she’s in college, Cath is completely outside of her comfort zone. There are suddenly all these new people in her life. She's got a surly roommate with a charming boyfriend, a writing professor who thinks fanfiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome new writing partner ... And she's barely heard from Wren all semester!

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review:

“Why Taylor,” you—hypothetical person—asks, “why are you reading a Rainbow Rowell book? You basically swore off reading her!”

Well, hypothetical person, it all started when I saw this on Amazon, saw the art and I was like “Ey, it’s not half bad, I’ll ask for it for Christmas.” And now here we are and it was…actually better than I expected. I first read Fangirl in 2014, back when I was a junior in high school. In 2020, I graduated from college with my bachelors. So my ideas of college have change and boy now I find this book hilarious.

First, let me talk about the surprisingly good parts of this book. First, I actually really enjoyed the characters. They are a bit archetypal for the YA genre. You have our protagonist an introverted, bookish girl with anxiety. Her sister is extroverted and a party goer. The love interest is basically a golden retriever. The friend (roommate in this case) that’s cooler, wiser to give advice, and is a little rude but always nice to the protag. This probably started a lot of those tropes.

While Levi, Wren, and Reagan are a bit bland (especially Levi who while dreamy and cute is pretty much just a cute love interest) Cath is actually pretty compelling. I found myself enjoying her most of the time. She’s not #SoRelatable anxiety girl. She over thinks things and over reacts but she has a good heart. For example when Levi is first sitting outside Cath’s door. On the one hand I understand how awkward it would be to hang out with your roommate’s boyfriend (or friend) while they’re not there. On the other hand, Cath don’t make him sit outside, let him in. Also…Cath is a fucking fujoshi and it is hilarious as fuck. Never show this girl anime, her nose will gush blood oh my god.

Also, I actually liked the Carry On stuff more in his format. Maybe it was just easier to digest when seeing it rather than reading sections of it. I am looking forward to reading the other books.

However, this does not mean this book accurately portrays what college is like so I will go into that. First, move in day. Move in day is one of the most exciting parts of college and the worst parts of college. Especially your first time. You’ll be hot, sweaty, sore, exhausted, and all around miserable (if you ever write a story where your protagonist does not have help moving in, they need to suffer those consequences). However, you will also meet people that could become your best friends for life. It’s new and exciting. Even after the first time (we’ll get to Reagan’s age) it’s still so exciting to see new faces and meet new ones.

Now on to Reagan. There is no way in hell that a junior would be a roommate with a freshman. In the manga we don’t get an estimate of how big the school is but I went to a small four year and there were separate housing for every years for very obvious reasons. So, no this would not happen. Also her needing to be in housing to have a scholarship. Pffft get the fuck out of here. Sign me up for that scholarship.

Next the creative writing class. The mechanics are a little…odd. So, it sounds like it wants to be an intro to creative writing class and like an upper division creative writing class and those are two different things. For example at my school a 200 level Intro to Creative Writing has no prereqs, basically anyone can take it. However, an upper division 400 level course called Creative Writing Project (which sounds similar to what Cath is taking) requires that Intro to Creative writing class and nine units from a list of other English classes. So, no you aint just gonna test out to get into that class. Regardless, English classes rarely have preqs anyway so it’s really not that surprising that a freshman is there. I understand Rowell just wanted to throw Cath into this “intense” creative writing class for drama but like…it’s not realistic.

Finally, the plagiarism thing…I’m not sure what the most realistic thing for a creative writing professor would do. I’ve taken creative writing classes and English classes that required creative writing on my part. No offense, Cath, but I wouldn’t have been so…stupid as to just turn in a fanfic. Like, if I was in Cath’s position, I would have just changed the names of the characters and world…hey wait a minute…I forget if this story addresses the fact that Simon Snow is a Harry Potter knock off? Because Harry Potter—hilariously—exists in this universe. Huh…I guess I’ll find out.

Now, as for the art, it’s good. Sometimes the artist skipped out on the backgrounds bu for the most part they were fine. The one problem I had with the presentation of this story was the word balloons. Naturally (at least for Westerns) we read things from left to right. However sometimes characters on the right need to say something first so what you do is you put that word balloon higher up in the panel than the one of left to indicate to the reader that you read one first. In one panel the one that was supposed to be read second was at the same level as the one to be read first and you had this big empty space so you could put the bubble anywhere. For the most part it was fine but that is something that should be edited.

While the portrayal of college is…not accurate, I still really enjoyed this book and had a lot of fun. I am looking forward to reading the next volumes.

…I didn’t know where to put this so just at the end: Emergency Dance Party broke my spine it was so cringe. That’s some early 2010s lol so random humor.

[pamitect]

Framing has begun!

Stopped by the site last weekend and got to see the beginning of the framing process!

Here’s the driveway (above) with a bunch of framing material waiting to be nailed into place, and beyond you can see our new bedroom and bathroom addition!  The window opening on the left will be the bathroom (small toilet room area), and the two windows on the right are our bedroom.

At the corners you can see our Simpson Stongwalls - structural steel used to stiffen the north façade framing that is mostly window openings.  You can also see that only 1 top plate has been added so far.  Once they add the second top plate the top of the wall will align with the top of the large header over the center window and everything will be strapped together.

You can see the hold downs bolted through the strongwall base and the sill plate framing.  The sill plates (bottom pieces of wood on the concrete slab) are pressure treated wood (looks green) to avoid water and rot issues where the wood framing is most susceptible to water intrusion.

Here you have Brett (and I) critiquing the less than stellar concrete skills of our contractor.  Not to mention his sweet tall socks with the shorts (LOL), yes I married him for his keen eye for fashion... ahem I mean construction errors.  The concrete edge of our slab bows out toward the driveway and at the center point is about 1/2 inch proud of the sill plate, but it aligns at the corners.  Yes we are perfectionists in our work... but even more so when it’s our house!  Meanwhile I am also wondering how the hell we are going to be able to plant anything between our addition and the driveway??  Our design left room for an approximately 30″ wide planting strip between the addition and the driveway.  BUT the contractor poured the large footings for the strongwall at this corner (that thing he’s standing on) just about level with the top of the driveway!  Last time I checked, you can’t grow anything in a concrete footing.  And we didn’t construct this addition to allow a raised planter against the wall... I guess I’ll be stuck with potted plants here and I’m not pleased.  I also don’t know how they are going to pour the new walkway up to our porch when this blob of footing concrete is about level with where that walk needs to be.  The contractor is likely going to have to chip some of this concrete out of there to do it right... ugh!

Here’s the back addition (above) - they had not started framing that area yet when we visited, but they have taken the back wall and part of the roof off.  The rest of that roof on the right side needs to be removed to get rid of the dutch-gable and will be re-framed with a standard gable to facilitate our vaulted ceiling in the great room.

Above you can see the recess in the new slab where it meets our existing slab.  This recess is for the new sliding door track!

Here’s a sample piece of that track in the recess.  Once all the flooring is installed, all you will see will be less than a 1/4-inch tall section of the top silver part of the track, and the base will be buried below.  They better set that track more level than they poured that recess...  We paid $250 for this recess as a part of change order #2... Looking at how uneven it is, I’m thinking we were overcharged!  

We did argue with our contractor about some items in change order #2: he was trying to double charge us for structural items that were in our permit set and the plans showing those items were sent to him prior to his first bid.  It was super annoying to argue this with him... lots of #rantsbybrett were endured by all!  During our meeting with the contractor I had to shush the ranting husband so that I could talk reasonably with contractor about how he was completely wrong... but you know, in a professional way.  Then we had to send a bunch more emails proving our case which was totally BS because the structural items were in the bid set and the permit set!  If this change order went to court, 10 times out of 10 we would have been declared right!  I even got personally offended that the contractor tried to sick his admin lady on me to try to get me to back down... as if I’m a push over - think again! HA!  Their only argument was, “none of our other home owners contest our change orders.”  Uhhh... then your other home owners are idiots!  We are architects AND it’s our money we’re talking about here so he better bring a better excuse than that if you want us to pay.  He finally agreed to revise the change order after I bitched that we are paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars and they are trying to argue about a couple grand, and furthermore, we are spending far too much of our valuable time even arguing about this item that seems pretty clear.  Very frustrating. 

Above you can see where they demolished the front door wall that had that funky plumbing pipe that was going at a 45-degree angle through the framing of the wall.  Our new front door will be in the same location, but we are raising the header over the door all the way up to the underside of the rafters and that will allow us to have an 8′ tall front door!  The door will be centered on the front porch with an operable side light on either side.  The roof over the porch is getting removed and re-framed for a 10′ tall ceiling above the porch.  So that beam with the white paint being supported by a another piece of wood, sitting on another scrap block of wood on the ground is all going away!

It was admittedly a little scary to walk around the house in this condition because structurally some items are not really braced at the moment in their temp condition... we were very cautious not to touch anything and I mentioned that if I felt an earthquake I was going to run for it!

We are both really disappointed that our contractor is trying to charge us for ticky-tacky shit that we have to argue against!  We didn’t think we hired the “Change Order Contractor” but it’s starting to look that way... ugh!  We are already arguing about change order #3 as well. 

He’s trying to charge us an extra $4,270.50 to replace our 60 year old sewer line from the front porch to the street.  This scope of work was clearly requested by us in our first bid addendum that we sent the contractor a month before his final bid.  In the final project budget there is even a $4,400 line item #1300 that verbatim states, “Replace Main Water Line and Sewer Line Will be going as far as we can to the city hookup.”  Again we argued that he is trying to double charge us for this scope that was clearly requested in the bid documents and shown in the budget!  I asked for him to tell us what the budget line item #1300 is for if it’s not the sewer and water line replacement and he tried to tell us some horseshit that it’s for replacing the sewer and water lines inside the house.  I called BS on that immediately and reminded him that the plumbing scope inside the house is covered in the $21,000 line item for rough plumbing!!  We are still waiting on his revised argument for why he needs to double the cost to replace the sewer line?  I know we are getting all heated about this... but if he had come to us and said that he forgot to bid the excavation for the new sewer line, or that he needs a change order because the sewer line is deeper than he though we would be able to agree or meet him in the middle.  I mean we are not unreasonable.  But don’t lie to me that sewer replacement isn’t in your bid... you will not win that argument and instead he’s just pissing us both off!  Not to mention, who the hell bids replacement of a sewer pipe and doesn’t include the cost to dig it up?  If this was a commercial construction project the contractor would have to eat that cost he “forgot” to bid.  How would we even know that it wasn’t included when we reviewed his bid?  Brett already just wants to hire another contractor to replace our sewer line after our contractor is done so he doesn’t have to pay our contractor another dime over our budget.  If the contractor keeps being a prick this might happen, but I’m not willing to burn that bridge yet... I’m still hoping that the contractor comes to his senses.

Then there’s the lovely change order #4!  Apparently our contractor only bid the removal and re-sheeting of half of our roof?!?!  Did he know we were planning to re-roof the whole thing... yes!  Did his bid state he was planning to leave half the existing roof in place... no!  BUT since we are having Brett’s Dad, who has owned his own roofing business for the past 40 years, install our new roof we agreed to the change order just because we don’t want to do the tear off ourselves.  Cha-ching... extra $4,130 there... smh!  

We don’t like arguing.  It’s not a fun or comfortable thing to be doing with a contractor that still has 80% of the project to finish.  Maybe we won the argument for change order #2 (which isn’t really a win when those structural items should never have been a change order in the first place), but now we are concerned that the contractor is going to try to make that money back on future changes or cut corners to make up the perceived “difference.”  We are already 2+ weeks behind schedule and our contract doesn’t have a lot of teeth to compel our contractor to finish by a certain date.  Not to mention that we still don’t even have a fucking schedule for the duration of the project!  Here we are 2 months into a supposedly 6 month project and all he can give us is a 4-week look ahead... ugh!  Lots of stress and frustration happening in our house these last couple weeks.  Time for a drink!

[walkerismychoice]

Stripped Bare - Chapter 17 (Bryce X MC AU)

Book: Open Heart

Pairing: Bryce X MC (Charlie Hawkins)

Summary: How will Charlie and Landry react to Katelyn and Bryce’s kiss?

Note: I was debating on doing a more plot heavy chapter and skipping through the smut, or doing just a bit of plot and ending with the smut before continuing on next chapter. Thanks in part to my official series consultant @choicesarehard, I went with the latter, so enjoy a few paragraphs of plot with some gratuitous smut tacked on, lol.

Rating: NSFW/18+

Word Count: 1733

Upon seeing Landry and Charlie, Katelyn pushes Bryce away. “Landry, I can explain! Bryce has had a bit to drink tonight, and he just got carried away.”

Charlie is still speechless, trying to process what is happening here. Last she’d checked, Bryce was fairly sober and Katelyn was the one who was wasted. If this were another time and place, if this were Andrew instead of Bryce, typical insecure Charlie would be crushed and doubting everything right now. But in such a short time, Bryce has taught Charlie to believe in herself and in him. She knows there’s no way this was initiated by him.

“You fucking bastard!” Landry charges at Bryce and takes a pathetic swing, Bryce catching Landry’s fist in his hand.

“Dude, you know I could crush you if I wanted. Take a deep breath before you hurt yourself. This is just a big misunderstanding, and I think your fiance can explain everything to you... in private before you make more of a scene here.”

Luckily for all their sakes they are in a mostly secluded alcove near the restrooms, but bar staff and patrons, including few wedding guests, are milling about nearby.

“Yes, Landry. I think we should go back to our room and talk,” Katelyn says as she bobbles towards him.

Landry sneers at Bryce and then grabs Katelyn by the arm. “Fine, let’s go.”

~~~

Charlie agrees to wait until they got back to the room to let Bryce explain what happened. She kicks off heels and sits on the edge of the bed. Bryce takes a seat next to her and sighs heavily.

"I know it didn't look good, but I hope you trust me enough at this point to know that I never would initiate something like that with Katelyn, especially in the state she was in."

"Bryce... I do trust you, and I think I know you enough by now, and I definitely know Katelyn enough, to know that backstabbing bitch is fully to blame."

Bryce chuckles. "Tell me how you really feel about your cousin."

"You know, I tried with her. She's been awful this whole week, and I thought, maybe, finally tonight she was having a breakthrough and would realize how terrible she's been and that she can do better. But I guess this is who she wants to be now. And you sticking around this whole week and putting up with her just because you want to be with me is a testament to what a great guy you are."

Bryce laces his fingers through hers. "I would have put up with one hundred Katelyn's this week if it meant in the end I could still have you."

"Bryce..” Charlie leans her forehead against his. "I still can’t believe this is real... that you’re real.”

He brings Charlie’s hand up to his chest and places it over his heart, his gaze never leaving hers. “Believe it. I’m one hundred percent real and one hundred percent into you.” Her heart fluttering in her chest, Charlie drifts closer, drawn to Bryce's lips. But before they connect, he stops her. “I think I should wash the Katelyn off before you kiss me.”

“Good call,” Charlie says with terse laugh. She’s still pissed as fuck at Katelyn, but the whole thing is funny, in a pathetic way. Knowing that Bryce has absolutely no interest in Katelyn just makes Charlie embarrassed for her.

“I could probably use a hand cleaning up.” Bryce raises an eyebrow and holds a hand out to Charlie in invitation. “I promised you we’d defile every surface of this suite, and our time is running out. We better get going.”

"You do make a compelling case. That shower is much too big for just one person anyhow."

Charlie accepts Bryce's hand and follows him into the bathroom. She turns on the shower as he brushes his teeth. As she starts to undress, she looks over her shoulder and catches him watching her in the mirror. Her initial instinct is to quick finish the job and hide in the shower, but she knows what Bryce wants to see. She makes a show of slipping her dress over shoulders with a teasing look, and Bryce smirks back at her. It's nothing like a Bryce Lahela strip show - he still needs to giver her that lesson - but he seems to be thoroughly enjoying it nonetheless. Her dress falling to the floor, she turns to the side to give him a profile view, unhooking her bra with one hand and letting it fall away. Finally she shimmies out of her panties, back towards him, and sashays through the open shower door.

Through the fog already condensation on the glass, Charlie can just make out the shape of Bryce's body. She watches him strip down, and is only certain he's completely naked once a uniform color appears over his body. Even though his features are a blur, the building anticipation makes it worth the wait. He opens the door and steps inside, and it's like Charlie is fully seeing him again for the first time - time to fully take him in without the danger of being out in the open, or the worry that she's gazing too long. Fuck, he's as perfect as she remembers, and judging from the current size of his erection, he's not at all disappointed by his view either.

"God, Charlie, you are so sexy." Bryce pushes her against the wall while capturing her lips in a hungry kiss. Then cold against her back is a shock, but her body heat quickly warms the marble tile.

Charlie breaks the kiss and pours some body wash into her palm. “The goal is to clean you up, right?” She lathers the soap over his shoulders and chest, working her way down. His cock twinges in anticipation as she reaches his hip bones and traces along his v-lines.

"I don't think the Katelyn contamination reached all the way down there, but I'm not going to complain."

“Then shush.” Charlie puts a finger to his lips. “Let’s forget about her for awhile.” Her fingers resume their unhurried descent until she finally grasps him in the palm of one hand. Her slick, soapy fingers glide up and over the head of his shaft, eliciting a gravelly groan from Bryce. She continues on, hands alternating one after the other until Bryce grabs her wrists.

“I think I’m plenty clean, now it’s your turn.” With a wicked grin Bryce spins Charlie, around and she plants her hands the wall. She hears some soap squirt out of the bottle before her starts to spread the cool liquid over her back. He presses firmly into her back, massaging the tight muscles and she swears she could almost come from this alone. 

“Mmm,” She moans. “You can just keep doing that forever.”

“But then we wouldn’t get to the good parts...like this....” Bryce says as his hands slide down over the curves of her ass. “... Or this.” His arms wrap around her front side, one hugging her waist while the other expertly locates her most sensitive place. Charlie sucks in a breath as he begins to draw spirals over the hood of her clit. He sucks on her neck and kisses his way up, talking low in her ear. “I could go back to the back massage if you want.”

“Uh-uh,” she mumbles. “This is good.”

Bryce suddenly spins Charlie around and she protests with a whimper. “I didn’t get your front side yet.” Bryce soaps up his hands again, starting at her collarbone then moving to breasts. He lingers there, thumbs twirling over her nipples sending ripples of heat straight to her core.

Charlie grabs Bryce’s ass and presses his body to hers, his hard cock pressing against her abdomen. “I need you, Bryce,” she pleads and kisses him hungrily.

“What do you need, Charlie? Tell me.”

“I need you to fuck me, Bryce.”

“I love this confident, dirty talking Charlie,” Bryce growls, deftly lifting her up with seemingly little effort, Charlie wrapping her legs around his waist. He backs her against the wall for leverage before lining himself up and thrusting into her with a groan. She gasps as he hits her deep. “Too much?”

“No,” she answers, even though it kind of is, but in a good way. It’s pleasure bordering on pain every time he pushes all the way in, and the intensity has her craving more. His pace quickens, one arm bracing against the wall. The angle and the friction are just so that she’s rapidly nearing the edge. “Oh my god, Bryce, more.”

“Fuck, Charlie. Anything you want.” He holds her tighter and thrusts up fast, his grunts and moans signaling he’s getting close as well. The pressure swells inside her until she gives in and lets it go.

“Yes! Oh my god. Yes!” She cries out, her voices echoing on the stone tiles as her walls pulse around him and her hole body trembles, a heady euphoria overtaking her senses. Moments later Bryce cries out as he finds his release inside her.

Bryce sets her down, propping them both against the wall until they get their bearings. He gets out of the shower first and hands her a towel.

“You know, I usually sleep naked. Now that were...together, would you mind?”

“Oh! Umm... no I don’t mind.” Why is she getting flustered over that of all things after everything they’ve done today? “I guess I’ll join you then.”

Bryce grins widely. “Perfect,” he says as he scoops her in his arms and walks her to bed.

Charlie snuggles in next to Bryce and rests her head on his shoulder. “Well this has been an eventful day.”

“I’d say. You think Katelyn will actually call off the wedding?” he asks.

“If you’d have asked me right after our conversation, I would have said yes, but after that stunt she pulled and then blaming you for it? Who the hell knows what she’s going to do.”

“Well no matter what, I got you out of this whole ordeal, so I’m calling this week a success.” Bryce kisses her sweetly on the top of the head.

Charlie squeezes Bryce tight and closes her eyes. No matter the outcome of the actual wedding, this trip has been one of the best things in her entire life.