#I lob him I want to eat him whole

[hamameiji]

happy happy happy birthday sayo ang inumin sayo ang pulutan 🎉🎂

[pparacxosm]

sigh like a chime

(postcanon!patrick zweig x infant halfsister’s au pair!reader; idk either man; came to me in a dream; title from the sound of music let’s all act shocked; major tw for suicide talk; tw depressive behaviour; tw disordered thoughts about eating; tw vague implication of alcoholic dependency; patrick zweig is generally not doing so hot; like at all; tw strained father son dynamics; tw grown adults projecting childhood trauma onto a baby; warning you now: this is a long one !! ; make a day of it; atp coexisting; lily donaldson being a weird little girl ™; tw airports during holiday season; whoever came up with the headcanon that patrick was late for his circumcision and it got cancelled i owe you a kidney; so cw smut obviously; cw religious ((Christianity, specifically Catholicism + Judaism briefly)) motifs; tw splicing of said motifs with the aforementioned smut; tw vomit)

“It’s not that I’m not happy for him,” Patrick tells Tashi, “I really am, you know I mean that.”

He paces her kitchen impatiently, running fingers through dark, dishevelled hair.

At such times, he still looks like the boy wonder sprinting carelessly across electric blue asphalt, eyes shimmering, as if he were part of that riot of colour. Some of his athletic maturity is replaced with the facetious, callow mannerisms of a hungry novice who wants to skip the necessary steps. Who wants to swallow experience and spit out the bones.

Tashi straddles a stool at the vast marbletop island. She’s pattering away like bulletquick rainfall on her MacBook. She doesn’t even spare him a glance.

Patrick makes an effort to rein in his temper. He drops into one of the stools. He swivels left and right and cranes his neck, staring up at the coffered ceiling moulding.

“It’s almost Christmas, Patrick. Go home.”

I am home, he wants to say, but that would be revolting and stupid and he doesn’t even really mean it. Art and Tashi aren’t home for him. Nothing is. And he likes that, he likes being a nomad.

Lily clicks in like a pony. Lily—well, Lili, Lieselotte—is also the name of his little sister. He likes the coincidence. The trick of the mind he can perform, imagining an alternative family. 

Family is just being nomads together.

“Hey, I told you no tap shoes inside,” Tashi says, eyes still swimming through the pixelmire of her computer screen.

Perhaps Patrick ought to feel flattered by her attention at all. His familial woes are just as perturbing to Tashi as Lily fucking up the flooring with her ball changes.

Patrick’s still quashing his irritation. She doesn’t even fuck him, anymore. He actually doesn’t fuck much of anything at all, of late. What with how tired he is all the time, how his flesh and bones deplete with each exertion. In a way, that’s her fucking him. But it’s also just the scorn of getting older.

It gets harder to shoulder things. His patience corrodes quicker. He should lean forward, take that laptop, and lob it across the room. She’s not even wearing those stupid bluelight glasses she’s supposed to be wearing.

“Do you just not care about anything?” It’s a petulant attempt at stoking her, but it’s too meandering and abstract to really matter, let alone take effect.

She doesn’t respond for a whole five seconds, still typing, and when she does, it’s a distracted whisper of, “What?”

Her power over him is such that she can afford to be so blindly condescending. But it still stings.

He groans into the air, and it’s such a thundering sort of noise that Lily spares him a weirded out scowl on her way to the pantry. “Do you really want me in Germany? I’ll sit on my ass and start drinking beer again all day, Coach.”

Three years into their partnership, he often uses her title to signal his annoyance.

Tashi sighs like she’s disappointed. Not disappointed that he’s trying, but the fact that he’s making such meaningless, childish stabs at it. Instead of just going for it. As in, yes, smashing her MacBook over his knee and yelling pay attention to me! She’d respect that more and he knows it.

But, anyway, she lowers the screen halfmast and looks at him. “Are you jeal—”

“I’m not jealous of the baby.”

“Okay…”

“But he’s sixtyfive, Tashi! It’s ridiculous.”

Tashi does something between a scoff and a laugh, shaking her head. She rolls up the sleeves of her sweater and narrows her eyes at him. “And how old did you say the new wife was?”

“Thirtytwo, Tashi.”

Tashi laughs properly now, dropping her head and dragging her thumb and forefinger over her lashes. Patrick smiles at her amusement, albeit at his expense.

“That is pretty ridiculous.” She looks up at him again, clearing her throat, “Don’t try to bullshit me and pretend you don’t still drink beer.”

He wants to contradict her, but he decides he wants to make her laugh more. “He met her because she was his masseuse for a hot stone treatment.”

Tashi sputters, her giggles spilling everywhere, and she’s waving her hands like she’s calling timeout.

“And then he calls me,” Patrick continues, before miming a phone to his ear and straightening and dragging his voice down like an anchor with an affected distinguished rumble, “And goes, Son, I am moving back to Germany. I have love again.”

“I have love again!” Tashi wheezes, her elbows thunking on the marble and her face falling into her hands. Her shoulders are shaking with laughter.

“Like it’s a fucking disease.”

“It is.” Art’s voice still manages to quaver delivering a glib oneliner. Maybe because he doesn’t mean it. Patrick’s willing to chalk it up to his brisk stride as he enters the kitchen. Always a fucking pep in his step these days, the fucking asshole.

Patrick doesn’t turn his head. He feels a sharp instance of vertigo when Art’s hand lands on his shoulder. But both the touch and nausea are gone as soon as they arrive, and he passes off the motion of his own hand going to grab Art’s fingers as a scratch to his nose. Tashi’s too busy wiping her tears away to have noticed that, thank God.

“Oh my God, please tell him,” Tashi cackles, still gathering lost breath as Art slides her bluelight eyeglasses onto her face and enswathes her body with his, caressing her arms with his knuckles.

“He knows,” Patrick says dismissively, even though that’s a lie. He hasn’t told him.

“What do I know?”

Tashi recounts the story with the engaging enthusiasm of what Patrick is beginning to recognise as schadenfreude. But even that is still a salve, and he feels a little foolish for forgetting its effect. Not just the laughter, but all of this. He wishes they would just throw him a bone and let him stay for Christmas. He feels like a dying dog made to live too long. He offered to dress up as Santa, but Lily herself informed him that she’s far outgrown such folly and resents his assumption otherwise. She’d kicked him in the shin with the metal plate of her tap shoe. He’d let her.

Art’s smile quirks up at the image. Mean old Mr Zweig laid nude across a spa bed, cock jumping for the meek masseuse.

“Bet he slipped her eight grand to fold the towel a little lower,” Art mumbles into Tashi’s hair, the strands buttery against his lips.

She makes a face at this. She raises her hand to swat his arm reproachfully.

But Patrick only chuckles. Spares a glance over his shoulder to where Lily is sprawled on the couch, gripping the handles of her shockproof iPad case with the focus of a pilot at the yoke of a plane, her little head swallowed by a pair of AirPod maxes. Turns back and looks up at Art with a conspiratorial smirk.

“Probably had her stroke his dick with two hot stones,” he murmurs.

Tashi thinks that’s even less funny. But Art thinks it’s even more funny.

He laughs very loudly and does a less than polite impression of an old German bastard wincing and coming.

“Ah—” he hisses, “The next one up my bumhole, yes?”

It sounds like a botched Hitler lampoon, and it’s ostensibly a caricature he’s done many times before. Sometimes, they spend whole days just wading through their ancient morass of shared memories and inside references and running gags. Sometimes, even now, it's just easier that way.

Patrick laughs so hard he falls out of his chair.

They do let him stay for dinner.

It feels like they’re mocking him, but he’s hungry. So he stares into the middle distance and listens to Lily spiritedly declaim facts about deep sea turtles. She keeps surreptitiously slipping Brussels sprouts from her plate onto his. It wouldn’t be his place to mention it. And, for her part, she quaffs down her mashed potatoes like an endurance test. He tells her they’re not going anywhere. She kicks his shin again and he’s pretty sure she should have taken those shoes off by now.

He watches every gentle graze of Art and Tashi’s limbs and shoulders.

He sighs and chews his sprouts until his jaw aches.

There are worse things in his head to beat himself up with than wishful thinking.

“What’d Sassy say?” Art asks as he uncorks a Montrachet.

The corner of Patrick’s mouth quirks up almost imperceptibly. Like the reflexive twitch of a bad muscle. But he can tell Art discerns it by the way he starts to chuckle preemptively. That grin that spreads across his face like fire on dry grass.

Patrick huffs. “She said she hopes the baby chokes and dies.”

“You’re killing me, Sas.”

It’s December eighteenth at JFK. Patrick feels like a fucking sardine. Everyone is everywhere. The emetic odour of tarmac and jet fuel embues him. His fingers are red and stiff and so tightly coiled around the stainless steel handrail of the escalator that he thinks they may just pop off like caps. There’s an acetous chill to the nighttime air, and he probably should’ve worn more layers, but the sweat on his back is already soaking through the thin fabric of his shirt. He doesn’t mind. It’s better than being late.

Patrick’s dad used to enforce punctuality like a jailhouse warden. Saskia knows that.

He has his phone tucked to his ear against one shoulder.

His sister’s voice across the receiver sounds warped and liminal. His stomach is grumbling.

“You’re fucking me, Sas, you’re fucking me right over,” Patrick says. “What’s in Brazil?”

“Well, warmth, for one.”

“What about me?”

Saskia laughs. That loud, tocsin laugh she used to do when he’d wet the bed. “You boycotted the christening, Brutus.”

“Why would I fly to Germany to watch a baby take a bath?”

“Why are you flying to Germany now?”

Patrick’s teeth are on edge as he schleps his weighty duffel toward the terminal. He fishes a cigarette out of his windbreaker pocket and shoves it through his lips. He wants to spark it, even though Tashi’s psychologically tortured him into quitting, and he’d get thrown out for sure. There’s a line of security guards at every corner, and he’s seen the German Shepherd sniffer dogs.

He chews on the cigarette instead. Grinds the tip between his molars to get that stark jounce of nicotine even if it’s mostly tobacco and paper.

Saskia is saying something in his ear, and he’s only halfpretending to listen. His eyes are fastened straight ahead, singeing holes into the back of a woman’s head. Her hair is pulled into an absurdly tight ponytail. And he is so taken by the movement of the strands as it bobs with each step that he is only dragged back to reality when Saskia says his name loud enough to stab his eardrums.

He blinks. “What, bitch?”

“Paddy, I’m sorry, but I can’t do it. I don’t wanna throttle the little shit. I’m pushing forty and I cried because he bought it a fucking babysize tiara.”

Patrick closes his eyes, inhaling deeply through his nose. He swallows a bit of that tobacco wad on his tongue. He nearly gags. He belatedly catches that a couple of security guards are looking at him with some suspicion. He holds up a finger as if to say, sorry, and turns around to walk away.

Saskia’s still on the line, and she starts singing something, though he doesn’t understand why. He has to hold the phone a good foot away until she shuts up.

“Wh—” he scoffs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Hey, maybe you’ll get along with it.”

“Unlikely.”

“Maybe you’ll get along with dad.”

“Un—fucking—likely,” he retorts.

He ducks into a corner of the empty terminal and drops inelegantly onto a hard plastic seat. He is hyperaware of the sweat fumes under his arms, the way his track pants cling too snugly to his thighs.

“Actually, hey,” Saskia says, and he can hear her perking up. He imagines her in a hammock in Rio. She’ll burn so bad. No earthly SPF could ever keep her from shedding like a crimson serpent. “She has this au pair.”

Patrick glances up at the TV monitor over his head.

Departures to Berlin 23 30, it reads, flashing jarringly in red LED lettering, accompanied by a blinking graphic of an airplane taking off.

He makes a noncommittal grunt. “That tracks,” he mumbles.

“I’m saying you don’t have to be lonely,” says Sassy, “Make friends! She’s nice. Bit young.”

“Reckon dad’ll try to knock her up next?”

Saskia laughs herself to piggish snorting. The bigeared little boy within him, tugging at the pantleg of his sister’s pyjamas for attention, is vaguely mollified by that laughter. Albeit at his expense.

He should spend the flight feeling guilty for not getting a gift for the baby, but he listens to a true crime podcast instead.

They’re talking about a young girl who was found unconscious by the side of a road. The truck driver who spotted her was a little drunk at the time, and he was afraid that if he called the cops he’d lose his job, so he just moved her body further up the road where someone else could find her.

Apparently, she was still alive, but the truck driver thought she was already dead.

It’s not certain if she would have made it, had he done The Right Thing, but maybe it would've made a difference.

“He should've just called the cops and driven away,” one of the hosts says.

“If you’re reporting an accident, you can’t just remove yourself from the premises,” the other one replies.

“Well no, but if you report a homicide—“

“Same thing. Also, how can you just leave a person bleeding by the side of the road?”

“Was she visibly bleeding?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Patrick closes his eyes and leans his head back. The clouds roll by like lambhide.

He can picture it clearly, driving away from this fucking mess, leaving a body by the side of the road. He’d do it if he could. But he thinks he’s the body.

He shudders with a pang of cold. He doesn’t know why this image sticks. It’s like ghosts, floating in between the clouds.

Saskia texts him. Suffocate the baby with a pillow. Also delete that text. And that one.

And he, the body by the side of the road, doesn't say anything.

The plane jostles a little in a patch of turbulence. They descend into Berlin at eight in the morning.

His knees hurt from keeping them bent at an angle for so long, his ass is going numb. He should feel sorry for himself, being alone like this.

As he deplanes, a few fellow passengers glance in his direction, their noses wrinkling. He can’t tell if it’s the bitter rot of cigarette between his teeth or his sudor stench or his mouldering heart.

People converge in the baggageclaim like a throng of cattle. Patrick shoulders through. Swallowed up and spat out and alone again.

No one pays anyone any attention. Everyone is hurrying to make this flight or get to the next. When Patrick finds a men’s room, he realises he should be glad for that. In the reflection of the large mirror above a long stretch of white porcelain sinks, he can see shadows like cosmic abysses under his eyes. Some of the veins in his arms—which are sticking out from under his sleeves like pythons—are slightly swollen and purple.

His duffle bag bangs against his hip as he shuffles onto the tarmac and joins the taxi queue.

Berlin greets him with an onslaught of sleet.

His bones rattle like clicking spoons in the cold. He’s cursing under his breath and trying to remember the last time he was sincerely back in Germany.

Not just a brief cut across for a match, a layover, a hamfisted excuse to see his sister.

He was probably nine.

Patrick lumbers up the walkway to his father’s home. It looks like it’s been shoveled already today but has endured several hours of snowfall since. That and—well—he guesses his dad’s playing humble now.

Sas had dubbed it a latelife crisis. But it’s not shabby. In fact, it’s nice. It’s no limestone portico. Far cry from the august Georgian Revival mausoleum he and Sas gleaned their nascent wounds in.

Lili gets a Hallmark ass two story colonial, strung with Christmas lights. Deep green door, ornate bronze knocker, festooned with a wreath. The doorbell echoes through his empty bones like a deathknell.

His teeth chinkle like coins as he waits.

When the door opens, he releases a protracted, puerile whine. “Fuck.”

You’ve never been cause of such overt disappointment.

It’s almost flattering.

But your smile quickly metamorphoses into a grimace.

His shoulders are drooping and he looks liable to topple facefirst to the snowswathed gravel at any moment. His eyelids keep fluttering, like he’s fighting a losing battle against the urge to just shut down.

“Is this the right house?” he groans, pained and shivering.

You’re marginally certain this is your boss’ son and not a homeless vagrant.

Either way, you’re nodding emphatically. “Of course it is.”

In the kitchen, he stands in the corner like a newly housed stray. Hands tucked into his armpits and chin touching his chest as he watches you spark up the cooktop through snowdappled lashes.

The powdered creamer, as you pour it into the teacup, reminds him, too, of snowfall. You keep flicking him conspicuously concerned glances.

“So you’re Patrick…” you say, spooning sugar.

He clears his throat and hums in a way that says, yeah, I’m not too thrilled about it either. His head is bowed, his eyes fallen shut, and he’s swaying vaguely on his feet. He looks like he’s making devotions. The kettle sings.

His fingers are bonetight around the cup and saucer. He lifts the cup and presses it to his cheek, like leaching the warmth from the ceramic. When he sips, you’re reminded of cats lapping milk.

There’s a moment of silence, and it’s awkward. And then he sneezes—once, twice. His throat clicks.

“Uh… tennis,” you try, folding closed the box of Five Roses.

The steam plumes up and curls around Patrick’s face, flushed and sallow. He clears his throat again, his eyes unfocused. He glances toward you and knows he should reply, but the only thing that comes out is a damp, congested sniff.

He wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Tennis,” he repeats, the word muffled by the cup still pressed to his lips.

You nod slowly, rapping your knuckles rhythmically against the counter. “Wimbledon,” you say then.

Patrick scrunches up his face as if he’s in pain. He’s trying to force some simulacrum of synapse action in the conversational skills faculty of his brain.

“Yeah,” he manages. He takes another gulp of tea and tries to clear his throat again. It hurts. Everything hurts. He hurts.

You nod some more. You can’t help but think that this feels a bit like a tennis game. You and he, volleying oneword utterances back and forth. “Impressive,” you offer, cocking your brows at him.

“Thanks,” Patrick mutters.

He does actually want to be witty. And he does actually want to be charming. And he wants to make a good first impression. But right now he wants to sleep, preferably through a few decades. Certainly, the last few of his father’s life. Which, speaking of,

“Hey, where is the bastard?”

He glances around, as if to see his father lurking in a crevice somewhere. You raise a brow. Could it be an affectionate nickname? Perhaps. But you’re starting to connect some dots.

You smile like you’re trying not to provoke a sabertoothed creature. But Patrick can see in your eyes that he’s amusing you, which he doesn’t mind. Of course he doesn’t mind.

There’s a vast window above the counter, pictureframing an expansive, snowshrouded back garden that, knowing his dad, is probably a rigorously manicured viridescent green in the warmer months. How warm do things get in Germany these days?

He squints against the luminous white splay as you point beyond the glass. There’s a distant brown pinprick that lets him know this property is larger than it seems. Larger than it needs to be. But the kid needs frolicking room, he guesses.

“He’s in the den,” you say.

Patrick throws the rest of his tea back like a shot, placing his cup and saucer onto the counter with a twinkling thunk.

“Alright, then let’s go.”

“My balls are gonna freeze off before we even get there,” Patrick hisses.

Every step forward sends his feet an inch deeper into the snow, and you watch him shake out his running shoes with displeasedness. You laugh at him, and he turns back to face you, and he makes this face that could either be a smirk or an indication of great turmoil. You are struck by his ability to wear that lopsided grin in his current circumstances, to look at you like that. Well, like what? You don’t know.

It’s just that the scarf and wool peacoat you’re wearing make you look like a well-loved heirloom doll. He can see the faintest wisps of your breath in the bitter air. Your smile is so kind and so warm, he thinks, smiling wider.

He appreciates you joining him on his doormat pilgrimage. A better guy would tell you that, but he just turns around and keeps footslogging.

Together, you trudge forward across the sprawling, sleety landscape.

The door to the den is unlocked.

Patrick casts a glance back at you before he pushes it all the way open, hitting the opposite wall with a hollow bang.

It creaks a little on its hinges as it opens into a long corridor. He takes a step in first.

“Hello?” Patrick yells, his voice lilting. “Armed robbery. I have guns and knives and… bombs. Got your pretty nanny.”

You feel the little smile on your face quavering with amusement as you close the door shut behind you.

The floors are clad in dark oak panels. The walls are lined with copper sconces. There’s an ostensibly hideous and probably hilariously expensive rug in the middle of the floor and Patrick makes a show of wiping his shoes clean on it. 

“Sure as fuck not taking this thing,” he mumbles, digging his hands into his pant pockets. 

He glances toward a long sideboard on the side of the corridor. It’s laden with antique trinkets and mahoganyframed pictures, and he reaches out to prod at an ivory figurine sitting at the edge.

You stay in silence for a few moments, looking at him. 

Then, the faint creak of footsteps comes from upstairs, and you both look up at the ceiling. Seconds later, it fades to your right, and, soon enough, there appears Rupert Zweig. Cashmere jumper, tapered joggers.

There is no denying the family resemblance. And if the way Patrick’s eyes narrow as his father descends the staircase is anything to go by, he is not gonna wanna meet—

“There you are,” says Rupert, corners of his eyes crinkling. He stops at the end of the hall, hands in his pockets. The two regard each other like snipers. You have the sharp sensation you shouldn’t be here, but where would you go?

Patrick clicks his teeth wryly. “Here I am.” His hands are also in his pockets. Their deportments are uncannily kindred.

You think Patrick shouldn’t be so putout by that. Rupert Zweig is a handsome sixtyfive. Tall and broad and still in trim, despite most his days being ornamented by cognac and cigars. His silvery hair sheens like tinsel, and has not thinned much to speak of, if at all.

You figure maybe they’ll hug, as Rupert approaches. You know Rupert to be a hugger. But he only claps Patrick’s shoulder, and Patrick’s bones look like they’ve been swapped for concrete, and he watches his father give him a once over, like surveying an old car.

“I hope things are well with you,” Rupert says. Which isn’t strange paternal commentary. But his voice is tinctured with a concerned edge at the overall impression that his only son has been dragged along the pavement by the tail of a motorbike and then beaten with sticks to boot. I thought things were better, now, he’s really saying.

You think it’s concern, anyway. You, too, know Rupert to be quite concerned, and caring. But Patrick takes it as scorn.

He wears a bitter smile. “Things are peachy, Pa.”

His nostrils flare, he shifts his shoulders. Like he wants to shrug his father's hand off, but is keeping still for the sake of seeming mature.

And then it happens. A pule from the ether like the resounding stroke of a viola.

You perk up. “Oh! I’ll go—“

“Yes, dear, she’s with Giselle in the drawing room.” Rupert’s eyes crinkle, a kind brush of his fingers to your elbow.

Patrick—you glimpse, as you shuffle past him and out the passage—looks furious. And a bit queasy.

In the drawing room, Patrick stares at Giselle’s hands. She’s twisting her emerald engagement ring around her finger. The stone is big as a pebble, its facets winking.

He doesn’t let himself look to where you are. On an ivorycoloured foam playmat on the ground, doing something that is causing the baby to squeal and giggle like a strident string of bells and clap her pudgy hands together. He can hear the yarn of drool gurgling from her gummy mouth.

An angeltopped pine tree scintillates with fairy lights in the corner.

Giselle is slender porcelain. White sweater, skinny jeans, milkblonde hair. She crosses her legs at the ankles, knees to the side, like she’s the fucking queen of England. She is polite to varying degrees of genuineness.

“Lili’s so happy to see her big brother.”

Patrick’s knee shudders violently. Cut the shit, Giselle, he wants to spit.

But he knows he won’t. He doesn’t feel he can. Maybe it’d be easier, if she really was just some nympho naif. Then he could call his dad a perv and move on.

But no. Giselle is three years his junior but tenfold his put-togetherness. There are two infants in the room, and neither are her.

The room is so warm and well lit. There are bookshelves teeming with hardcover tomes whose rapiersharp corners look ostensibly untouched. A globe of the world, a framed Picasso original. Baroque vases and potted ivies and the permeating waft of jasmine and rose and leather.

It���s an intimate microcosm of his father and Giselle’s interwoven lives. Their very fumes amalgamate. And then there’s that puny thing, gossamer flesh, babbling like a brook. He doesn’t look. He can’t.

When his dad walks back in, Patrick is on his feet like a springing coil.

“You’re welcome to stay here,” says his dad, handing Patrick a set of keys.

Patrick shakes his head and feigns remorse. “Nah, Sas asked me to water her plants, so.”

Rupert looks like he’s going to say something, but decides against it.

“Right,” he nods and reaches into his pocket, retrieving a slim silver case. He flips open the lid, revealing a neat row of hand rolls. He plucks one between his long fingers. Patrick would say no, if he offered, but resents his father’s lack thereof enough to head for the door.

You think he’ll say bye to you, or maybe offer just a parting wave, but he doesn’t.

You hear him and his dad at odds like a cobra and a mongoose in the hall. You daub tender kisses onto the fleshy pink soles of Lili’s feet. You discern misty fragments of Patrick’s scathing whispers.

“... newage, hippie bullshit... nice guy act... fucking sweatpants... —christen the baby! What the fuck are you doing christening the baby? You never even took us to temple!”

However Rupert responds, on the other hand, is vaguely inaudible. It’s just a deep, cautiously placating rumble of syllables. 

You hear a bit more mumbled venom before the door creaks open and slams shut.

“He thinks he’s got everyone fooled, but I’m fucking onto hi— where is your alcohol?”

Patrick’s disembowelling every cabinet in his sister’s kitchen. On all fours like a hound rooting in the snow. He can hear the hot waft of tropical winds from Saskia’s end of the receiver. Crash of surf. Squawking birds. The staticky tempo of Brazilian phonk in the background.

“Ugh, Paddy,” Saskia mumbles like she’s disappointed.

He tears the fridge door open so fervently, the cord comes loose from the socket. There’s nothing there but bottled water, yoghurt, and salad dressing. He makes a strangled noise of agony into the ear piece.

“Saskia May,” Patrick groans with a sonnet’s desperation, resting his head against the icy fridgeshelf, between the organic grassfed butter and the handcrafted balsamic glaze, “I know you may be in a fucking beachside cabana right now, dipping Portuguese cock into your piña colada with the little umbrella in it and then sucking it off, but it is late here, and it is winter, and I am dying.”

“What do you mean you didn’t see the baby?” she asks.

“No, well, I saw her, just…” Patrick’s withdrawing all her earthenware now, “I just didn’t look.”

“What, like the fucking Basilisk?”

“Sassy, for the love of God, tell me you’ve left even a drop of liquor in your home.”

Saskia laughs, and he can hear the chime of ice. “Did you meet the au pair?”

Patrick stumbles back to the stillopen, halfway gutted fridge. He identifies with it. He sticks his head back in. “She thinks I’m a mess.”

“Wow, what a stupid whore,” his sister laughs. As everything, it is at his expense. He’s in emotional arrears, but it’s okay. It’s all okay.

He hears Saskia’s inbreathe. Marijuana? Probably. He doesn’t mind her lungs. He doesn’t mind that she’s always been more beautiful than him. He doesn’t mind that she’s warm in Rio. He knows it’s harder for her. She never got to be Rupert’s little princess. He wants to protect her in that asinine way baby brothers think they can protect their sisters. In that asinine way Patrick Zweig thinks he can protect everyone.

“Have pity on me, Sas.”

She directs him blindly like a game of Marco Polo. He wades through the ransacked bombsite he’s made of her kitchen. Avocados rolling across the slate floor. Spilled milk, which feels symbolic.

He unearths the bottle of Gordon’s dry gin from under the sink. Holds it aloft like a holy grail.

Patrick can’t remember the last time he set foot in a church, if such a time has ever occurred. Part of him expects the parishioners to take one look at him and know he doesn’t belong, for them to demand he leave.

For the things he has done, the things he has felt, the things he has wanted. Certainly for the things he cannot bring himself to believe.

He is struck by the towering stonework of the cathedral. The wooden cross in the apse is immense. Behind it, stained glass windows paint the icedover morning in vivisected coloursplays. Soft motes of sunlight waft in shafts from the ceiling.

He never thought he’d see the day—the Zweigs done up in their Sunday best. His mother would laugh herself to tears.

Rupert’s broad shoulders are ramrod straight, his argent hair slicked back handsomely. Giselle is wearing a ribbed knit dress in eggshell. Princess Lieselotte—finally, a worthy heir—is wearing a knit tunic dress embroidered with blooms, a scallopcollared ivory shirt underneath, and a crocheted woollen baby bonnet.

They look like an affiche for Norman Rockwell.

At first, he’s still trying not to meet the Basilisk’s gaze, but then he gets this disarming glimpse. The peonypink hue of her. Her comically outjutting little ears. Gibbous blue eyes, lapping up the world through cornyellow lashes. Those are Giselle’s. But the rest…

Unlucky little shit, Patrick tells her telepathically. And now he is looking straight at her, like the spell has been broken. He needs to let her know he’s onto her, and her bullshit doting father. You look like dad.

But what that means is she looks like Patrick, too.

He watches you hold her in your arms, rubbing your nose against hers.

Giselle had had you press Patrick’s shirt—his father’s shirt; of course he didn’t pack a buttonup—for him this morning. He was only kind of embarrassed. But he sat carefully in the car, leery of creasing your hard work. 

The linen of your skirt reaches your ankles. You’re wearing this creamcoloured slouchy knit turtleneck, and you’ve got a little lacy chiffon infinity veil halfway canopying your hair. Patrick is pleasantly amused by all this fabric. All the things he cannot see. Because of God, or the cold, or God and the cold.

The Zweigs find their pews, stopping frequently to greet their fellow churchgoers, and whisper inquiries after names Patrick doesn’t know. He shakes half a dozen hands if he shakes one, introduces himself as ‘Rupert’s son’ more times than he can count.

You, too, are pleasantly amused. Because Patrick is notably discomfited. You fish your little pewter cross necklace from beneath your collar. You hold it between your fingers and out toward him like an exorcist.

“He can smell your fear,” you whispergrowl, fauxominous. Lili giggles all saliva in your arms. That’s the voice you use when you pretend to be the babyeating ogre. She takes the cross between her tiny teeth. Patrick watches. You smile. “And so can she.”

Patrick looks at you for a moment, feigning indifference. “They’re both smelling how little they matter to me.”

Your smile widens.

Patrick—who has never endured a mass—takes his cues from the brush of your shoulder on when to stand, when to sit, and when to supplicate himself. The priest oscillates from English to Latin and back again. Seemingly on a whim. When Patrick fumbles trying to find the right page for the hymn, you tilt your book slightly so he can read along. 

He thinks the rosary looks good where it dangles from your lithe, supple fingers. Looping and weaving through your pretty knuckles like drops of blood. 

You are flawless in your devotion.

You slip to your knees with a fluidity that makes his tummy fasten.

You sing quietly and sweetly and when you turn to Patrick to wish peace upon him, your grin is so sweet and earnest it takes a moment for him to contend with that blessing.

Everyone falls down to the hassock again and Patrick is beginning to find the rhythm of the whole affair. At least enough to let his thoughts maunder and his body be at mercy to the motions.

It’s soothing, in its way. He can almost understand it. What blessed relief in lifting your human pains to be scoured clean.

The priest closes out the sermon with a few nice words about Jesus. Guy’s birthday’s coming up, after all.

Patrick leans forward a bit to glance at his father’s fingers, tapping on the dry leather of the psalmbook.

In the photo, little Lili is wearing a white linen nightgown that mantles her whole, like a tiny tarp. His dad cradles her, and everyone’s standing around a marble pool. He can see Saskia off to the side, hosting a very conspicuous hangover behind her mask. You’re in the picture, too. Apparently, you had been Giselle’s doula, in the beginning, and you just ended up sticking around. Which he finds more than a little strange. Patrick often sees life as a series of measures to get further away from his family.

On the edge of the photo, he can see the broad back of a becloaked man, plashing his fingers the water.

Patrick feels an inkling of discomfort at the sight of that man.

“She still sleeps in that dress, actually,” you say, rocking the babe.

The wallpaper of Lili’s room is printed with pale pink linework of woodland creatures. He’s straddling the vintage nursery rocker—a plush weathered lamb; it used to be his and Saskia’s—and his knees are hiked comically high on either side of him, his slacks riding up his ankles.

Patrick stares at the baby girl in this framed photograph. She looks too small—almost tenuous—underneath the white shift. Her eyes are flushed and still wombswollen.

“What’s the point?” he asks, trying to imagine that man softly slooshing water over her boneless head.

You smile. “It’s to protect her.”

“Protect her from what?”

You lower Lili into her French Provençal style woodcarved bassinet.

You look up at him, eyes flitting over his face. “Shame, I guess.”

It doesn’t quite make sense. A fullimmersion baptism means commitment. You have pledged yourself to God. You are bound to follow His laws. Shame is essential to these laws. Isn’t it?

You don’t know why he’s still here. Giselle is taking her Sunday nap, and Rupert’s playing solitaire or reading Guy Sajer or something in the den. Lili, too, is dead to the world. You need to do the laundry. The laundry room is too strait for him to be lingering, leaning against the doorframe, interrogating you. He likes watching the linen of your skirt gather at your feet as you crouch to the floor, depositing the armfuls of bedding into the mouth of the washing machine. All that fabric.

“It’s a different kind of shame,” you try to explain. “I can be ashamed of myself, of my body.”

“Why are you ashamed?”

You roll your eyes. “I don’t know. I’m alive.”

“Alright. And this helps?”

“A little, yeah. It takes you out of your body. Then returns you to it. And you feel brand new. Like you belong to Jesus.”

You laugh a little at the concept, but he can tell you treasure this belonging, deep down.

He walks toward you, taking the empty wicker hamper from your hands and setting it aside. “You shouldn’t feel ashamed in the first place.”

You shrug, noting his proximity. “It’s probably good to feel shame from time to time.”

He doesn’t say anything to that.

He doesn’t ask you if you feel ashamed right now. Face smushed against the top of the palpitating washing machine. If you said yes, he’d be unhappy. If you said no, he’d be unhappy.

He’s happy, now, hiking your skirt up around your waist, shucking your gauzy tights halfway down your thighs. Best not to ruin it.

So he doesn’t ask if you’re ashamed. He doesn’t ask if you’re a virgin. He does ask if you’re on birth control, and furrows his brows as his strong hands caress the flesh of your ass.

“Why not?” he laughs, dragging the beige skin down his rigid cock, rubbing the deep blush head against your hirsute pussy and bending over you. “Isn’t that shit free here?”

He burrows his head beneath your sweater, kissing your back through the cotton of your longsleeve. He doesn’t search for more bare skin, just keeps a good grip on that which he has, fingertips digging into the flesh of your hips.

He fucks into you and feels your body shudder around him with the jostle of the machine.

He doesn’t ask of shame or chastity or how long Giselle and Lili usually nap for, how far his dad is into The Forgotten Soldier. He does, however, feel it necessary to ask,

“Feels good, right?” Even though you’re drooling against the zinc and your hoarse groans are rivalling the churning noises. You roll your eyes but they stay there, your lashes fluttering.

“Yes,” you pant, clutching the edge of the machine. “It feels good.”

He bends over you, pinning you, elbow to elbow, his chin resting on your clothed shoulder. Your veil slips off your head and drapes around your neck. He quickens his pace. “It’s fucking big, isn’t it?”

You turn your head to look at him. His eyes look like they want to fuck your eyes. His mouth hovers over your drooling mouth as if to kiss you. The shaggy hair of his crotch abrades your tailbone.

“Verdict’s still out,” you say, voice quavering, and you let him lave your tongue sloppily with his.

His sister has a guestroom, but he sleeps in her bed. Reads her Audre Lorde and Laurie Colwin. Uses her toothbrush. God, she’d kill him. But he likes the transgression of violating her space. He doesn’t use her vibrator, or anything. He finds it, but he doesn’t use it.

He has his few ways of having people. So he���s always taking what he can get.

That’s why he fucks the nanny in the laundry room, and lets Art’s kid bruise him with her tap shoe, and sits on the kitchen tile drinking Saskia’s gin.

He has to hold on to the granite countertop, as he straightens from his haunches. His back is a wreck, but the ache is nothing compared to the relief and vindication and victory he feels. He can’t say for sure what the prize is. Maybe it really was just your pussy, and that’s where this all starts and ends, which is fine. The feeling of winning is so rare and precious and precious and rare and, as he unscrews the cap and raises the bottle to his lips, it’s as if he’s just slain a mighty monster.

He places the little tiara he’d filched from Lili’s room on Saskia’s mantel.

He’s less than compos mentis come Christmas Eve.

He lays in Saskia's bed for a bit, inhaling lime and ambergris, trying to figure out what to do with himself. He checks his phone: No Service.

He sighs and tumbles out the sheets like a rockslide. He figures he might as well go for a run before the blizzard clocks in since there’s nothing else to do. His feet already feel numb and damp. Everything has felt numb and damp the whole time he’s been here.

Running buzzed probably isn’t his smartest idea, but it doesn’t feel like his worst one either.

Patrick frenetically tugs two pairs of thermal leggings on. The radiotor whirrs but the house is still arrestingly gelid. He pulls on his sister’s comically inflated neon orange down jacket.

He looks at himself in the mirror.

“Oh, fuck yeah,” he whispers.

He loots and pilfers some mittens, goggles, and a neck gaiter from Saskia’s closet. She could never take to professional athleticism, but she’s a reasonably devout runner, and is partial to a halfmarathon or two most years. Which means free activegear for Paddy. He walks to the front door and slips on his dank shoes.

He steps outside once he feels decently covered head to toe, a skill he’s found refining itself as the week has shouldered past him.

Patrick strides the roadside briskly for almost a mile. His legs feel halfway atrophied, so he gives them time to warm up. The neighborhood seeps into copses of snowdusted forestry. He feels the beauty of the landscape flicker through him like a spark.

He starts jogging.

He has no mapped course, no mile time to hit. He just wants to move forward. For once. His goggles fog up with entrapped bodyheat crowning the cold air but he doesn’t fix them. The compressed insulation of his clothes, the whirring thump of his shoes to the tar—it engenders a strangely hypnotic effect. He realises, only after miles have elapsed, that he's forgotten to turn any music on. He doesn’t need it now.

He comes upon a clearing in the trees that discloses a river he hadn’t recalled.

He abates to a walk before stopping completely and removing his goggles. 

He knows a breathtaking scene when he sees one. That was never his problem, the discernment of the good thing. It was never even the obtaining of it. It’s that—well—if Sas actually had left plants for him to nurture, they’d be dead by now.

But anyway. The river.

Snowfall has burgeoned somewhat, but light is still breaking through. The sun reflects tenderly off the surface of the frozen water as if it’s all being illuminated from beneath the ice.

Patrick swears he can see evidence of a current still rushing below, but he can’t be sure that’s all too possible at these temperatures.

He tries to take a picture for posterity (or Lily; she’s ‘into vistas’ lately), but all the light is so strange and coruscating. Hardly anything can be captured in earnest.

Patrick takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

He pulls his gaiter down and doffs his hat. Allows his florid skin a few moments to feel the glacial squall, the moist sting of melting snow. He thinks he’s missed this weather, harsh as it may be.

He takes the opportunity to check his watch, vaguely hoping the GPS tracker’s been running. And hope seems to count for something here.

4.7 MILES

A surge of accomplishment and anticipation shimmers through him. He grins, breathless, at the thought of being able to tell Tashi that he’d done a cool ten miles. And the prospect of being able to eat a guiltless meal is emerging as an actual possibility. 

Patrick gears back up and begins to walk again in the direction he came. He takes advantage—always taking advantage, always taking what he can get—of the trodden path he’d made in the road. The surer grip of his shoes.

His head starts feeling strange as he’s walking. As though it’s sloshy inside, like the dirty snow he sees on the curb. But he pushes forward and chalks it up to temperature. Picks up the pace again. 

He finds himself less mesmerised by his own footfalls now and slips his AirPods in. Slips inside the eye of his mind. His sister used to have a ‘(What's The Story) Morning Glory?’ CD. Patrick’d scratched it, probably. He hopes Oasis can get back together some day. It's not so hard to reconcile. Mostly, anyway.

About a mile into the returning trek, Patrick feels his legs suddenly get heavier. He’s felt as much before. He assumes he’s just hitting the wall. It’s a little early for him, at such moderate mileage, but he knows inclemency and altitude can do things to a body.

He’s deliberate with his strides as he proceeds. He wants to be sure that his torpid legs are parting with the ground. 

It’s around the two mile mark that his spine rattles with an odd enough sensation—sharp, like an incision down the length of it—to bring him to a stumbling halt.

Patrick’s clumsily reaching around and groping at his neck and back the best he can through his layers. It feels almost like someone has poured water on his skin. Soused him like a baptism.

He tells himself he needs a second to breathe. Starts walking again. Eventually feels very marginally centred enough to pick up the pace. His knees feel like cinderbricks. Dense and angular. But he should be capable of making it home. Or at least determined enough to do so. He’s seeing houses again. He can’t be more than a mile out.

He’s thinking of raiding Saskia’s toiletries and snorting her cornucopia of bathsalts when a billow of abject nausea rolls through him. He’s stumbling again.

He moans vaguely with turnsickness. The trees are blurring together.

He sways.

Sidesteps jerkily over the curb into a stark white alloy of fresh and shoveled snow.

Doubles over.

Dissolves to his knees, bracing himself on his palms. All fours again.

He maintains this position for several minutes. He’s heaving in and out forcefully with his eyes screwed shut. It feels a bit prayerful. He’s praying to be made to vomit. Just wants to feel better and move on and he’ll never touch his dick again, he prays. Which isn’t true, but need it be?

Things go sloshy again, and warm, this time. Overwhelmingly warm, actually. He flounders in the wet, rips off his gear, and uses his bare hands to grab handfuls of snow off the ground and push it onto his face. The heat feels like bloodshed.

Patrick tears off his jacket. Patrick lays his entire body facedown in the snow. Everything is numb and damp.

“Oh my goodness, Patrick?”

One imagines the voice of God to be a little less frantic.

He’s confused by how weak his muscles feel when he tries to push himself up. How he only sees lucent whiteness when his eyes flicker open. Shit, is this it? He thought for sure he’d end up at the other place.

“Jesus Christ, I thought you were dead!”

Oh, alright. So not yet. Not yet, and certainly not Heaven. Close, though, with how relieved you sound. He is the body on the side of the road, and you’ve stopped to triage him instead of driving off. He squints up at you. Floral puffer. Scarf and muffs. You look like a fairytale illustration.

His blood’s gone cold in his extremities, and he’s mumbling, “Sorry.”

“You’re a mess.”

There it is.

For your part, you don’t sound malicious, or anything. You say it like a forgone conclusion, a fact of the matter. The way a person in an Ionesco absurdist play would say, oh, it looks like I’m wearing pants right now.

He tries to make a stab at indignity. Like maybe if he denies that he’s a mess, that should suddenly make him clean. What blessed relief. But all he manages is a whimpered grunt of protest.

“What happened? Were you attacked?”

Patrick shakes his head, suddenly aware of just how wet he is.

“Patrick, tell me.” You sound concerned, but not in pieces. He knows this is all coincidence. That you simply happened to be driving by. But the fact that you’ve found him prone in the snow, the fact that you knew to call his name, knew it was him who’d ambled to the woods and buried himself in the ground like a coldblooded mountain climber, like a defiant zealot, staring into Earth, his back to God, taunting you with his dickish solipsism—he thinks all this should terrify you. He isn’t dead. Not yet. But maybe he’d already made up his mind. Perhaps you’re just picturing him as another baby. Something small and soothable. “What happened? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Patrick shakes his head again and takes your assistance in getting up. All his things are gathered in your arms.

“You’re soaked, Patrick. What were you doing in the snow?”

He looks around and feebly brushes some of the debris off of his leggings and thermal pullover.

“I... I don’t know? I’m pretty sure I started feeling sick, and then I got hot, so I took all my shit off,” he explains. He’s all nonchalant about it, too.

At first, he won’t tell you where his sister’s house is. You’re going all Nuremberg on him, like he really is a baby who will drop the knife if you tell him no sternly enough. But he soaks through the polyester of your passenger seat and grins and defies you. It’s like he’s challenging you to take him back to his dad’s. Like he’s a kid acting up in school for attention.

It takes a while. You circle the block twice. Then he sees the way his fingernails tinge cobalt, and thinks of how disappointed his father’d be. Concerned, you allege, but he doesn’t buy that.

Still, he confesses like a sinner.

He asks you—as you stand on the concrete steps to the quaint, Tudorstyle home, and he holds his cap in his teeth and fishes the keys from his pocket—not to hold the state of the place against Saskia. He says there’s a lot of damage he can do in a week. He’s always making a mess. Messing things up. Has he messed you up? He doesn’t ask, but has he?

He’s even sorry for fucking you. He doesn’t tell you that, either. And he’s about to do it again. But he is sorry. That has to count for something.

You stink. Not in a really bad way, not in a noticeable way, but the stale perfume and deodorant have turned into a cool film against your skin, trapping your sweat and guilt and other gross things which you’re too tired to name. You’ve been out buying gifts all day. You’re always so last minute. You feel like you might fall asleep on Saskia’s couch.

News says blizzard’s on its way. News is all choppy static pixel kaleidoscope, too. Even if you left right now, you wouldn’t make it home before the roads got dangerous.

You’ve heard enough hypothermia horror stories to know he should be taking a shower right now, warming himself up in increments. And you’ve heard enough suicide horror stories to know you’d be wrong to leave him anyway, after how you’ve just discovered him.

Was she visibly bleeding?

He doesn’t look like he’s about to call it quits.

On the contrary, he looks relaxed, calm, selfpossessed, sitting on the arm of the couch, one knee drawn up, cigarette dangling between fingers. Also his cock is out. He’s naked.

Has he already made up his mind?

How many times has he lain like that, in the snow, lucid about his slide into the abyss? 

He finishes his cig and takes a knee by your feet. Your bare feet. You shouldn’t have taken off your shoes. They stink.

You try to tuck your feet under you, but he reaches out and grabs your ankle and tugs like you’re the baby.

“What happened to your leg?” you croak, your voice a little fraught.

His thumb keeps brushing up and down the arch of your foot, like trying to ease your tension. He leans back and looks down, past the leavening weight of his dick, to the navy bruise bloomed through the hairs just below his knee.

You watch that Cheshire cat smirk spread his mouth apart. “Violent tap dancer.”

You do kind of wish he wouldn’t do the whole slapping your pussy and calling you a good girl thing. It feels weird and Freudian and it even makes you feel kind of guilty.

Not because of his stupid uncut Jewish cock all swollen against his thigh, nor the virgin’s innards mangled in a manger at this very moment two thousand years ago. You know that’s not how you measure innocence. There’s something idiotic about that, something primeval and pathetic, something no one should be proud or ashamed of.

It’s just that he doesn’t seem fully committed to the pastiche.

He spits a thin globe of saliva right onto your clit. His fingers sweep through your coarsehaired folds. Slow, methodical, like a cartographer mapping the world with his compass and pen.

Then, he raises his fingers and strikes them down against you. You flinch, you whimper. He groans straight into you.

“Good girl. Good girl.”

And it's hot, sure, but he could stand to be crueler.

You’re this nice twentysomething with no real bearing on his life. You pray. You care. You wipe his sister's shit. He suspects he didn’t take your virginity, but he could easily imagine he did, if he wanted to. That he’s teaching you something. This could all be a lot more plastic and pornographic.

But it isn’t. Not really.

He climbs over you, all over you. He’s all over you like the flu. He wants to crawl inside of you, burrow and fester. His knee is pressed between your thighs and he’s breathing into your neck, his head tucked under your chin. His nose is the colour of raspberry syrup and he drags the cold tip of it up the column of your neck.

He smells like smoke and snow. Like sweat and musk and something stale and dry.

You crane your neck with a piercing cry when he bottoms out. He cracks your hips open like a lobster claw. You feel his fevered heartbeat thumping through your body. He seems to think the heat of your flesh is enough to warm and cure him.

“You’re going to catch a cold,” you slaver into his hair.

“I don’t get sick,” he assures you, puffing throatily. “I never get sick.”

He licks Saskia’s bathsalts from the swollen underside of your tits. You gather palmfuls of warm water and pour them over his freckled skin, watching it bloom florid. Are you clean now? Are you shameless? Has the stink gone? Sort of.

Maybe, for a second there.

But Christmas day seeps in like another reek. You feel bad when you catch whiff. You feel the stroke of midnight in your bones, and you think you can hear Carol of the Bells. You feel especially bad, because you’re holding onto his shoulders and fucking yourself on his unhewn cock, the bathwater swashing tepid around you. And he licks the silver crucifix in the dewy valley of your breasts into his mouth, and sucks on it, and looks at you like he’s trying to make a point. He sees you frown.

The pendant glints between his teeth as he says, “Don’t worry, He’s not paying attention. It’s His birthday.”

And you duck your head to laugh.

The water ripples. He wraps his arms around you in a halfway embrace, halfway detainment. You can tell he is worried you will find your morals and leave him cold.

But you won’t.

He’s big enough that he won’t just slip out of you, even in the water. You’re all steamdizzy, eyes halfmast. You watch rivulets of condensation dance down the tiling.

Are you really about to fall asleep on this man’s cock in his sister’s bathtub? Perhaps. There is something grounding about his heavy presence in all four corners of you. You feel that mollifying pressure in your head. Your hands scrabble and slip all over the skin of his shoulders. You kiss all these droplets off his skin.

“I think I’m about to throw up,” he whispers in your ear.

You pull back and sigh. He does look quite waxen and wheyfaced. You feel bad. You were starting to think that you alone could break the fever.

Your knee knocks against the tub. He has to tug himself out of you. He clambers out of the water, puddles splashing everywhere. He slumps to the ground like marmalade, his arms drape the toiletseat, his head in the bowl. Runnels drip off him and sop the bathmat. He spits and heaves. Then he retches. There is nothing solid to the bile. When was the last time he ate something? His viscera slops out of him and into the water. The gin scalds twice as sore on the way up. He sounds horrifying. His lips drip with mucus.

He feels your soft, moist flesh against his back. Your arms around his toned middle. You feel his ribcage tremble against you.

He feels the bone of your chin against the crown of his head.

Patrick knows this is all very repulsive. He's not sure why you're holding him. Maybe you're picturing a baby again.

“What would you get me for Christmas?” he murmurs, his heavy breath echoing around the toilet bowl.

You can smell his puke.

“Um— well... you know, Giselle actually—”

“No,” he grunts stubbornly. “I mean, if you could get me anything, what would you get me?”

“I don’t know,” you say, pressing your wet breasts against his wet back. The humidity is starting to disperse, the trickles cooling off. You do get sick. You get sick quite frequently, actually. This will definitely make you sick. He’ll be gone soon enough, and that’s probably for the best, but who will hold you in your ailing?

“Come on, babe.”

You drag your fingertips down the hair on his abs until you reach the thatch between his legs. “I don’t know… A hot stone massage?”

And it’s cruel and stupid and funny—it’s something only a few people would ever understand. He and Art and Sas and Tash and you. Maybe Lili, one day.

You and Patrick burst into laughter at the same time. He chuckles until he’s wheezing. The sound of it catches in his throat like a fishbone. This is what constitutes a happy moment for him.

“That’s perfect,” he mumbles into the shitter.

[b4mpyre-k1zz3s]

The Jackass Guys Taking Care of You while you’re Sick HCs!

Johnny Knoxville X Fem!Reader, Chris Pontius X Fem!Reader, Steve-O X Fem!Reader, Bam Margera X Fem!Reader, Ryan Dunn X Fem!Reader

Warnings: Mentions of illness, pet names (ie. darlin’), alcohol

An: While writing this, I was actually bed bound for two days to to a nasty respiratory illness, so I think you could guess where my inspiration came from XD Ironically enough, in between writing this and coming out I got sick again. Boy, what an immune system I have! I get sick frequently and one thing I can always count on making me feel better is writing about the guys :)

You had no appetite, you could barely leave your bed, and you had a temperature of 101.9. Yep, with how sick you were, there was no way you’d be able to go to work.

So you called your boyfriend to help take care of you

Johnny

“Oh, darlin’…”

You were in sore shape, and like the amazing boyfriend he was, Johnny went to helping you feel better right away!

Really, he missed his calling as a doctor or nurse with how sweet and considerate he is to you

Helping you out of bed if you’re weak on your feet and to the shower, assuring you how much better you’ll feel after you get a lil’ steam in your system <3

And after you get out, he’d sit behind you and gently comb/brush our hair for you, no matter how many times you mumbled to him that yes, you were sick, but you could take care of your basic needs yourself

But you secretly enjoyed being babied by him

If you couldn’t stomach much, he’d bring you some warm tea and fruit with a kiss on the forehead before he went to set up the humidifier

When Robitussin and NyQuill weren’t making a dent in your fever, Johnny got a little creative,

“If it doesn’t make you better, you’ll forget you were sick in the first place!” He explained, handing you the mug of hot water, lemon, and a splash of bourbon

A hot toddy, he told you it was called, something his mama used to give him when he was sick at home

And that thing worked.

Your eyes were falling close as you murmured, half asleep already,

“Thank you, Dr. Knoxville…”

Bam

“You look like shit.”

Lack of bedside manner aside, he is probably the last person you want taking care of you while you’re sick.

“Well thanks, Bam- I feel like shit.”

Feeling a little bad for you he asked if you needed anything

So you asked for something to eat- maybe soup and warm tea?

But all you received was an uncrustqble (which you bought because bam doesn’t like the crusts on his sandwiches) and a bottle of water lobbed onto your bed from the doorway.

“D’you think you could grab me some tissues too?”

With a groan, Bam disappeared into the bathroom before you heard all this thudding and an exasperated, “Fuck!”

Before he emerged with a roll of toilet paper.

Sure, maybe he wasn’t Florence Nightingale, but he did what you asked and you honestly didn’t even expect this much from him

He mumbled, disticnt affectionate tone in his voice as a smile crept onto his face as he walked by your bedside to ruffle your hair a little,

“You’re a real pain in the ass, Y/N.”

Chris

“Time for your sponge bath!”

Chris is a firm believer in the fact that laughter is the best medicine

So that’s why he walked into your room wearing one of those sexy nurse outfits.

And while you appreciated the sentiment, you didn’t really need the sponge bath

You also didn’t need the rectal thermometer he proudly offered to you,

“Time to take your temperature! Roll over!” He chuckled that sweet stoner laugh of his, “Kidding, kidding- it’s one’a the normal ones.”

Or when Chris pretended to “accidentally” drop said thermometer next to your bed and bend over to pick it up with his ass in full veiw.

Soon, you began to recognize the click clack of cherry red high heels as the sounds of Nurse Pontius,

And you’d come to anticipate his spectacular bedside manner ;)

In fact, this whole ordeal just left you more endeared to him

Yes, even when he asked to warm your boobies up because in his words, they looked really cold.

“You know, your probably the best nurse I’ve ever had.”

Steve-O

“What’s goin’ on?”

He stumbled into your room, having kind of forgotten why you called him,

Steve isn’t so much of a caregiver as he is a heating pad

But damn it if he isn’t a good heating pad

He’d just walk into the room and lay down next to you, all warm and cozy- a heaven for your shivering, sick body

Despite how nice it felt to cling to him, he isn’t much help besides that given the fact he fell asleep five minutes ago (not that you noticed)

“Hey, do you think you could grab me some-“ Yep. Out cold

So you had to tear yourself from the comfort of your bed to make yourself soup

And when you return, all shivering as you slip back under the covers,

Of course that’s when he wakes up.

You had already started eating when Steve took the bowl from where it was resting on your lap to steal a few bites himself

When you pointed out that he just used the same spoon you did (and would probably get sick too), he just shrugged,

“So what? I don’t care.”

Ryan

“Are you dead yet?”

While there was an unmistakeable tone of sarcasm in Ryan’s voice, he really was concerned

Out of all the guys, he would be the one to get worried sick (no pun intended) about his ill girlfriend :(

But he played it off well, saying that he didn’t have anything to do that weekend despite canceling plans with Bam to look over you

So he might as well sit by your bedside to make sure you’re okay!

Or that he just conveniently rented all of your favorite movies because he wanted to watch them, but you’re free to join him if you wanna watch

And, despite your warnings that you’ll get him sick, he’d have no problem with laying down next to you if you can’t sleep

Because that’s what the two of you usually do! No reason to break routine because of a stupid cold.

“C’mon! With you shiverin’ like that, how could I not? It’s like seein’ a kitten out in the rain…”

[bowieandqueen11]

Monkey D. Luffy Confessing His Love For You Would Include...

Request: Hi! I absolutely loved your Straw Hat Birthday post 💖 genuinely didn't fancy Luffy until I read that and now can't stop thinking about him! I saw you wanted to write another post for him so how about a classic How Would Luffy Confess/Show His Feelings for you? I just know he'd be an absolute clingy weirdo about it 🤩 thank you!!

Awww thank you lovely!! SO glad to be sharing the Luffy love, and you're so right, he would be so clingy!! :)

Imagines always take a lot of planning and time to write, so comments are much much appreciated!!

(I do not own One Piece or its characters, all rights go to creators. Gif credit goes to @general-cyno.)

☆.。.:・°☆.。.:・°

Look, Luffy HAD to release his feelings for you. Right now. If not for the fact that every time he was in a ten centimetre radius of you his whole body shook with such perfervid vibrations he's nearly left a gaping hole in the deck, Zoro's clenched jaw was dead giveaway that he was ten seconds from lobbing his Captain off the side of the ship.

If he had to hear about it one more time. It was bad enough Mr. Curly Brows finding his way to butt into every conversation: placing down his whisk so he could clasp his hands to his cheek and turn to Luffy with such pulsing hearts catapulting out of his eyes at the mere thought of romance. Even worse was being subjected to Luffy's tireless campaign; the incessant drilling of Luffy in trying to make sure every crewmate knew his every inner, cogitating... sappy thoughts about you was starting to eat into Zoro's much needed nap time.

On second thoughts, hearing solely Luffy talk about romance was far better than hearing both he and the waiter prattle on about it.

Zoro placed his palms over his eyes and tried to block out the way the cook had begun fanning himself with the bottom edge of his apron. 'You need to woo them, Luffy! Make them feel like they're the most stunning person in the whole world- the most important crewmate on this ship!'

Luffy took a break from tearing apart the third plate of roasted beef and fresh bread poor Sanji had spent all afternoon sweating in the kitchen to bake to glance down at the meat quizzically. No - not quizzically, much to Zoro's chagrin. Luffy's eyes widened; his head tilted as he rubbed his fingers together and let his meal clatter back onto the plate, his eyes brightening as if he were burnishing all the world's sunsets between his hands.

He looked yearning.

What Zoro didn't understand - heck, what even Luffy himself didn't understand, was how long this long-held devotion had been balling in the pit of his stomach like gilded butterflies, trying to flutter out through his ever-growing smile. After his dejection at Shank's departure from Dawn Island, you had been the only person left in Luffy's life whom he still felt hope from. The only person, besides the kind Makina, who didn't treat Luffy and his dreams like a whimsical joke.

When you had found him on the shore of the coast that day: his legs shivering as he ignored the chill splash of the tide soaking over his legs, his straw hat hanging sorrowfully over his eyes, you knew immediately that all Luffy needed was a little bit of optimism. A little bit, as you stepped over the shards of splintered wood that you could only make out as the remains of a makeshift mast, of belief. As you folded your legs down on the sand and settled next to your friend and gently took the torn Jolly Roger flag from his clenched hands, that what Luffy really needed was your unwavering devotion.

Little did you know, as Luffy turned with bleary eyes and that - god - that still so tender smile twitching at his lips when he spots you, that he was thinking exactly the same. As you grasped his hand between your own and pointed out to the horizon, promising that one day the two of you would sail away underneath that spot: right there. That one! That little spot: those wavering streaks of shimmering gold that lay like a transcendental passage underneath the orbed sun, you could never have realised that Luffy would only reflect your adoration tenfold.

'Wherever we go, we go together right? You won't leave me?', Luffy has asked, wiping his snotty nose with the back of your intertwined knuckles.

'Of course! I promise, Luffy', you had recoiled with a laugh, wiping it off on his vest.

Luffy's so uncharacteristically still, so silent for a moment, that Zoro's almost tempted to shout for Chopper. 'They are!', he finally shouts, nearly making the table clatter onto its side with how fervidly his knee jolts. For a moment, Luffy looks almost sad as he drops the last piece of beef back onto his plate, but his spine is quick to shoot as straight as an arrow again: his wide grin blooming across his face like roped starlight when he remembers what he had been so busy thinking about mere moments before. And every hour before that. And every single day before that as well. You.

You had always been an integral part of his dream, and now he was beginning to understand why.

'I can't stop thinking about them!', he declares, much to a chuckling Sanji's delight and a groaning Zoro's annoyance. 'They're more beautiful than all of the meat in all of the entire seas!'

Zoro pinches his temples lightly before rubbing his hands down his face and crossing them stoutly over his chest. Sanji's quick to scowl over at him. Leaning back on his stool, the first mate sighs as he watches Luffy whip his head between his two cremates like a puppy whose just been tossed a juicy bone.

'What do I do now!'

'Just... don't... don't say that to them. The beef part. The rest of it's fine.'

Sanji clucks his tongue at the swordsman, desperately trying to hold back a seething retort. Instead, he turns his attention back to his Captain, coming to clean up his plate and reassuringly pat his shoulder at the same time. 'Don't worry, Luffy. You just need to show them that you care! Spend some quality time with them, shower them with gifts, offer them your hand when they're disembarking the ship... ', Sanji's eyes glaze over as he bites his bottom lip, and Zoro tries desperately to restrain himself from picking up the bowl soaking in the sink and dumping it over the moron's head. 'Such beautiful creatures should be treated with the upmost devotion.'

The only problem with Sanji's advice is, that Luffy somehow manages to become a thousand times clingier when he finally realises he's in love.

You'll be minding your own business: trying to eat dinner with your friends when you'll sense something sprightly and warm barrelling towards your side. Before you can even register why Nami's stopped chewing on a chunk of torn bread to wiggle her eyebrows facetiously at you, the jut of Luffy's chin weighs down on your shoulder. You flush, trying not to embarrass yourself in front of your crewmates (and losing your bet with Nami to see whether you or Luffy will cave in first and kiss the other one silly), you pretend to be intently stabbing at your carrots. Definitely not squirming your legs together under the table at the feel of Luffy's jean shorts riding up the edge of your thigh. Definitely not inadvertently hitching your breath as the harsh edge of his knee bumps against your own, his leg resting heavily as he your Captain nearly climbs on top of you. And definitely, definitely not feeling your hands go clammy with the intensity of Luffy's puppy dog eyes fixedly contemplating the faint splatter of blush on the cheek nearly pressed against his nose: as if mapping out the intricacies of your body was the most interesting thing he'd ever done.

'Y/n!', he finally starts, making you jump up. Nami was not impressed when your leg reflexively kicked out and hit her shin, but you Luffy was more than delighted when you slunk it back with an apologetic smile and hit the side of his big toe. Without a second thought, he wrapped his foot around your ankle under the table and nuzzles his forehead against your jaw. 'You've been training so much with Zoro lately, I saved you some of my meat so you can get big and strong like me!'

*Cue the shocked gasps from Usopp and Sanji, the controlled exhale from Zoro as he tilted his head back against the porthole and closed his eyes, and the self-congratulatory smirk from Nami.*

'I also borrowed some cookies from Sanji! They're super chocolatey. I tried a few to make sure that you'd like them!'

'Hey, those weren't for you!', Sanji bites his tongue and flops his tea towel down onto the table, but Luffy's too busy inadvertently ignoring the cook to care. His sole focus is on the sweet delight that blooms across his face at the thoughtful gesture as he fumbles some half-broken cookies out of his pockets.

'Sorry', he murmurs as he places them into your hand. 'I got a bit hungry and ate some of them.'

'On your way from the counter to the bench?', Usopp asks.

'Yeah, what is that? Like, ten steps?', Nami teases, but the words don't even register in Luffy's whirring mind. He's far, far too busy trying to stop his heart from pouring out of his gaping mouth like choking saltwater, he's blubbering so much. His fingers shake as he splits the last cookie from his vest in half and - as gently as he can - prods it against the plumpness of your closed lips. Once you've started chewing, you decide to return the favour; you barely half to lift the other half of the cookie before Luffy's nipping at your fingers like an energetic snapping turtle. When your pointer finger accidentally enters his mouth though, and brushes against that warm velvety spot lining the inside of his bottom lip, he freezes; the faint taste of sugar of toffee melts off your skin and against his tongue, and the usually so assured man forgets, for a second, how to breath.

It's only when your finger pulls back to wipe a few stray crumbs away from his Cupid Bow that Luffy finally springs.

'Y/n, let me get your crumbs too!' He leans forward with crinkled eyes almost closed painfully tight and pursed lips. Whether he was going to kiss or lick the crumbs off your face you'll never know, because at that exact moment Sanji tackles Luffy to the floor before he could get any closer.

Just want to warn you in advance: if you want to sleep alone, you'll have to bribe Nami into keeping watch outside of your room every night. Or you'll have to sneak off and try and stowaway in some old oaken kipper barrel under deck (although the stench is so bad you couldn't sleep anyway, and Luffy went wandering around the pantry for a midnight snack that he lifted the lid and found you anyway.) Because the only preparation you'll get before being launched into your hammock is the pounding of his sandals making the gunwales shake, and the slight pant of his famished breath before your door is kicked open.

'Y/n! I can't sleep! Can I come snuggle with you? Captain's orders!'

You don't mind though, and even if Luffy can be incredibly clingy, if you told him no he would feel sad, but he would always respect your wishes. It would be the worst thing in the world for him to hurt you in any way - seeing you upset feels like his heart is being clawed out of his chest, because in a way it is.

There's barely any time to plop your book down onto the floor and hold your hands out to Luffy before you're flung into the air like a ragdoll, his rubbery arms wrapping five times around your abdomen as if he were growing sunflower roots from his fingers: winding the roots around to kiss your body, rooting his blooms within your skin. Embedded together until you were almost sharing the same breath, Luffy passes out almost immediately; he spends the whole night snoring with his nose squished just under your eye, but you can barely sleep with the way he keeps rubbing butterfly kisses against your cheek every so often. It doesn't help that he keeps whining desperately in his sleep - his already clenching and unclenching fingers leaving their home in your side to claw at your thighs and lift them closer to his bellybutton. His dragging lips left a wet trail against the pulse point as he burrowed himself further against you, only settling again when the heavy weight of his legs squirm in between your own.

One time you were spending the afternoon wandering through the delightful market square of Seahorse Shore: the sweet smell of jasmine blooms woven between sun streamed lattices was matched only by the warm sound of Sanji's friendly chatter as he walked beside you, stopping from time to time to pick up and squeeze a rare fruit.

You froze when you heard something: an echoing pounding, like an elephant stampeding away from a wild hurricane that whipped at its tail, before someone jumped on your back.

You were about to toss the guy head over ass onto the ground, when you heard the delighted shrill of Luffy's frantic voice ringing against the shell of your ear.

'I missed you so much today! Mmmh, you smell so good, like meat and flowers!'

'Luffy, how did you get back here so quickly?? You were at the opposite end of the island!'

'He followed his nose back to you.' Zoro just turned around, deciding to take his chances getting lost down the billion white sun-bleached cobblestone alleyways on this twisty island than to stay watching the two of you be all lovey-dovey for another second. Gosh, by all the seas even Sanji yelped when he you stumbled forward, steadying yourself by wrapping your fingers behind the raised kneecaps Luffy had haphazardly thrown around your hips. The man hugged onto you like a koala bear backpack, because he had been apart from you for... hmm... twenty minutes?

He's always dragging you off for some big, wild adventure, I don't know, there's just something about the two of you sitting under the speckled shade of an orange tree with interlocked arms, a few fireflies beginning to peek their heads out from between the stout leaves, like honey dripping down from bowed boughs as you leaned against each other, watching the sunset. You were here. You had made it. You were free.

And most importantly, you were together.

Luffy lunges for your hand and starts pointing at the grass swaying between your shoes, excitedly telling you about all the bugs and beetles running around the soil (to Luffy, a big part of love is trying to share what you're passionate about with each other.) He does lift up a stag beetle at one point and places it on your hand, but he starts to panic when the insect frantically starts scurrying up your arm. Somehow you end up face down in the dirt with Luffy leaning over your back; the buttons of his Hawaiian shirt sway over your spine as his chest heaves, his lips dangerously close to being only a few centimetres away from landing on your shoulder blade. You would have blushed at the proximity if you weren't too busy picking grass blades out of your hair, and trying to help Luffy's stretchy arms unloop themselves from under your armpits.

When Luffy gets to flop his head back down into your lap though, feeling you card your fingers through his hair, all is right in the world again. For a while, the two of you just exist: watching the sunset brew violet and lilac gleams across your eyeline, talking about your latest adventure against Captain Kuro at Syrup Village and playing with each others shaky fingers. Its only when you take a break from stroking his curly hair against your palm that he stops and pouts, blinking rapidly up at you. When you lean forward though, tickling that soft spot between his earlobe and the cute freckle by his jaw using your free hand to pluck a daisy from behind the rim of his hat and tuck it through the loop, a bashful burn shines across his face.

Before he can think twice, he musters his courage and determination, squeezes his eyes shut, and lifts his spine up so he can plant a wet kiss against the tip of your nose.

Your eyes flash as you pull back, tenderly rubbing your nose against his. Cupping his cheek, you press a kiss against his forehead and fold your enclosed hands against the rapid pulse of your heart. Your eyes never leave his, and his eyes trace your path in... confusion?

I mean, the two of you have been in love with each other since you were ten years old, and this is the first time Luffy's brain has stopped to think: 'Hey! Maybe Y/n likes me too!'

The real time he surprises you though is when he plops his hat on top of your head. You'd been caught up fighting some Marines off the coast of the Conomi Islands, and had unfortunately been struck down by a rather forceful cannon ball to the side of the Going Merry's railings. When Luffy bust down into the Medbay, you'd never seen such clouds thunder across his face. His whole body seemed to sag once he spotted you, his eyebrows unfurrowing as he almost tripped over his own feet in his desperation to get to you.

'I... I was so worried. I saw that Marine hit you, and I-

For once, Luffy stops talking. Instead, he takes his hat and places it over your tired eyes, hoping you won't see how flustered he looks when he leans down to press his lips against the top of your bandaged arm.

'You- you promised', his voice wavers as if he's about to start sobbing, but he hides the noise by wiping his nose with his forearm. 'You promised you'd stay with me. Always.'

'I meant it Luffy - I'm a Strawhat Pirate, you can't get rid of me that easily. What would my helpless Captain do without me?', you smile, brushing the back of your knuckles languidly down his the growing tearstains of his cheek, despite how much your whole body screamed at you to rest.

'Promise?', he asks, his voice shaky.

'I promise.'

He didn't have to say it. You both knew. You had always known. There was no one without the other. There was no dream without you.

So when he clumsily slapped his hands on either side of your cheek, smushing them together so you looked like a blabbering pufferfish, you weren't surprised. When he nearly sent the stretcher you were perched on rolling across the room by standing between your legs and pressing his torso up against your chest, you didn't blink. When he smashed his lips against yours, leaving kitten licks against the inner seam of your mouth as if he were trying to eat his way into your tongue, you didn't think twice.

All you did was kiss him back, the unwavering devotion that had always tied your lives together finally finding freedom by flooding into your hearts.

[oreosmama]

What's in a Virtue (Kyle "Gaz" Garrick x Reader)---Part 3

*GIF not mine*

Summary:

Gaz wants you, but the hotel bar you work at has rules; when a bartender calls dibs, all others have to back off. It’s how the peace is kept, and as the new girl just trying to rack up some savings, you’re not willing to rock the boat.

But Gaz doesn’t take kindly to you avoiding him, and he’s never been one to beat around the bush. From confessing his love on the first night you met to shouting your name seven times from across the bar, he’s not letting you off the hook that easy. Not when he’s seen the proof that you’ve fallen just as hard for him.

A/N: mwahaha, and they said it couldn't be done. those who doubted me shall gaze upon my very first (and perhaps last) complete series! Victoryyyyy! I hope you enjoy!

Word count: 8374

Part 1 Part 2

   You’re pretty sure you didn’t hear him right. 

You’ve got morning-after brain, and his chest is so hot and adamant behind you, and his breath is right next to your ear. Plus, your stomach is growling with a pit only chocolate-chip pancakes and white peach oolong can fill. 

And he’s doing that tracing thingy again. G. A. Then what?

R. Maybe.

And that leads you to think you might’ve just maybe heard him correctly, because why the hell is he drawing his last name on your hip so brutishly that it twinges? 

“Um.” You stiffen. “What.” 

Not really a question. The way you say it, it comes out more like you don’t want to know the answer even if you really did ask. 

Kyle groans that long, gruff way, husked past his vocal cords and throbbing a path through your entire body. “Look, I get it.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Just let me… ah, fuck, I know it sounds ridiculous, love, but hear me out.” He moves away, giving you space to think while he leans against the counter and grips the edge, tight. 

“Wait,” you hold up a hand before he can start talking again, because you need a minute. Several minutes, actually. A whole assload of minutes to comprehend the suggestion he’s just thrown at you. “Wait, wait, wait. Are you serious?”

This is probably just what Kyle’s morning-after brain is like. It makes stupid, sudden suggestions that he just blurts out on a whim with no regard for how it’ll land. In all fairness, you doubt it’s ever done him wrong before. Even in a regular headspace it’d be hard to tell him no. 

Never mind that he’s shirtless, and that his broad shoulders eat up the space of three cupboards, and that his gaze is doing that thing again—that unfair thing where he towers over you but can still make you feel like he’s kneeling, dips his head so those pleading irises look up at you. 

“Dead serious, love.”

There’s an air about him that’s resolute, despite it all. He’s tender but stern, decided and confident in his conclusion. He’s shedding his clothes and skin, leaving himself belly-up for you to bite. 

“Kyle…”

“Too soon?” He doesn’t even look hurt. Just expectant. 

You shrug helplessly. “Yes? Very too soon, don’t you think?” You spin around, fiddle with the pancake mix but don’t open it. The mug you’ve microwaved for your tea is probably cool at this point, and you try to turn that into your biggest problem of this morning. 

Not the special forces sergeant who lives life at three-hundred miles an hour, exuding such a new energy in here that you can’t remember the basics. It’s the morning after, and as beautifully new as Kyle is, like the stretch of new blue jeans, he’s not threadbare enough in here yet. Too tight, sucking the air out of your own home and leaving you all prickly and sweaty and nervous. 

And he wants you to move in with him? Right now? This soon?

It’s easy, when you turn your back to him and lob your hand towards the microwave handle, to pretend that your biggest problem can be amended in minutes. 

Because now, despite that itchiness of Kyle’s gaze on your face, your biggest problem is that you haven’t even begun to steep your tea. That’s a huge deal. You’re supposed to do it seconds after the microwave beeps, pull the mug out and let the steam soak into the tea bag that you swing for a bit, always have to watch the foggy-air disruptions back and forth. Then you steep it, let the water grow murky for ten minutes as you cook the rest of the meal. Add sugar, an ice cube because you’re scared it’ll burn your tongue like the first time, and stir while you pour syrup on your plate. 

You’re horribly set in your ways, so much so that you hate—actually hate—the newness Kyle’s thrust upon you. It took him twenty-four hours to upset everything. 

Well, not everything. Just you. While you feel fresh out of the box, everything around you has been preserved in mundanity. 

If you took two rights and a left from this building, you’d find a sandwich shop owned by a short man with an orange cat. If you went two floors up, you’d find a pack of graduate students; one more floor, and you’d see Mrs. Beverly and her purse dog. If you went into your living room, finagled with your window a bit, the shutters would close in a perfect angle so that the sun falls on your couch but doesn’t glare on your TV. 

You know it takes you twenty-seven minutes to get to work in the morning right after you brush your teeth. It takes you fourteen minutes to walk home after you clock off. Thirty more minutes to order food and settle in, Netflix the pinnacle of your night before you nod off in a tank top with exactly three holes and short shorts you’d bought under the duress of a busted AC.

You have milk and eggs both two days away from expiration in your fridge, along with old Chinese takeout. You have books with crackled spines and ruffled pages on your bookshelf, and a muddy stain on your entryway carpet from two days after you’d bought it. A bedroom unruly and unbidden, clothes strewn everywhere.

You could envision it all, see it all because you knew it all. Have known it all for the months that this place has been your home and you’d begun working at the hotel bar. You could have the rest of your life mapped out by tomorrow if you really wanted to. It’d be safe. Predictable. Boring, in that average way you’ve always known. None of it would be moving by so fast that you wouldn’t get a break to think of the consequences. 

None of it would make you feel like you’re reaching new heights by jumping off cliffs, taking big, stupid risks that wind up working all the damn time—and solely because Kyle makes them work. Because he runs seven steps ahead of you and lays out the golden carpet for you to step on, telling you it’s okay to keep pushing forward.

The phone calls, the talks, his touch and voice. All of it closing in on you, molding you into something fresh and unseen. 

But that’s just it. It’s still just you who’s changed. 

Not Kyle, who’s certainly been like this his whole life. Who’s used to making snap decisions that have an impact, gotten so damn used to doing that that he carries it with him now. 

And it’s not Mariano or his cat Garfield, or the ham and swiss you get on Fridays. It’s not Jared and Samantha, both of whom play Mario Kart after writing another page in their theses. It’s not Mrs. Beverly and Chloe, or Jeanne, or your family or friends you haven’t texted in a while. 

Only you. 

You’re stripped to your marrow, neurons and fibers spilling all over the place because—oh hell—you’ve grown too big for all this. Kyle’s had you melting and flowing fast and sharp since he first showed up in your life, and you’re moving too fast to feel out that old stagnancy. 

But there’s an ugliness that lives inside of you too, that hates how uncomfortable every little step forward is, even if you can’t stop taking them. 

It’s exposing. You feel naked, but not in the new, comfortable way Kyle’s helped you discover by virtue of his longing. More naked like school nightmares and too-small bath towels. Naked like someone’s going to douse you in lemon juice and salt any second to watch you writhe. 

“Kyle.” Your hand’s still propped on the handle. The microwave beeps again, impatient. “Last night was—God, it was amazing.” You open the door, pull out the mug despite how lukewarm it’s grown. “Best I’ve ever had, by a long shot. But…”

“But what, love? You’re scared?” His voice is barely above a whisper, and you’ve no doubt he’d watched your mind run and run circles around itself, and had had enough time to form an argument of his own. “It’s too much? A lot to ask? I think that too, love, but we’re running out of time.” He rises to his full height, and you try not to shy away at how much space he takes up when he’s grim and serious. 

He’s massive, bigger when he’s panting over you, sleek hips pressing down, suppressing your twists and jolts. He’s gotten better at trapping you, too. It’s intimidating. Thrilling, in better circumstances.

You can’t think straight anymore. He smells like pine all over again, and looks it too. 

“Come back with me to England. We’ve got bars—bars I can bother you at. We’ve got universities for second chances. I’ve got a flat with plenty of room, plenty of money to—”

“Kyle, please.” The whine rips from your throat, and you drag two hands over your face. 

In the corner of your vision, you don’t miss the way he stiffens and swallows a bit. But then he says your name through choked sigh, and rasps, “I know it sounds fuckin’ crazy—I feel like a bloody fool saying it out loud. But I don’t want to lose this, and I can’t keep comin’ back here to start us from scratch every few months.”

You don’t know what to say to that, can’t stop bobbing your mouth open and closed, trying to find those useless words that might explain what’s holding you back.

Something like, It’s only been three months.

Yes, but Kyle knows that too. And he still wants you. 

You don’t even really know him.

Sure. But what was there to learn that he wouldn’t offer you on a silver platter?

It’s going to fall apart. It always does for you. Months will pass, and he’ll realize he made a mistake. He’ll kick you to the curb, and you’ll be back to square one. 

A coaxing palm cradles your cheek, and a warm thumb prods over your lower lip, both of which make you flinch out of your thoughts. Kyle tips your head up, up, up until you’re looking at him, brown irises gentle and luring.

“I can see it, you know. That cruel little brain of yours is whirring so loud it’s makin’ me nauseous.”

Your eyes fall closed, and you reach up, grapple at Kyle’s wrist, massage the tender spot at its center. “I’m sorry.”

He inhales, ragged and slow. Exhales, blowing past your flyaways. “For what, bunny?”

You continue to caress the baby-soft skin of his wrist, marveling a bit at how different it feels from his rough fingertips, from his scarred thighs, his bruised back. “I need… time. A little bit to think. Consider things.”

The last thing you wanted to do was tell him to leave. You felt like an idiot for even implying that space from him was the something you needed right now. You know the silence will swallow you whole when he’s gone. 

“You want me to go?” he breathes out, and his face crumbles. Likely, he didn’t want to leave. He could barely be goaded out of your bed, and now this? 

Kyle looks like he wished he hadn’t asked, hadn’t said anything. Those mournful brown eyes slip to the counter, where your mug and pancake box sit, then back to you, to your eyes and nose and lips. 

Your lips. He prods at the bottom one, like he can’t help it. The caress slows to a stop when he pinches his eyes closed and tips forward, dropping his forehead to yours. “But I don’t wanna leave, love,” he mumbles. “Scared if I do, you won’t let me back.”

You don’t think you could ever keep him out. Not out of your house, and not out of your head. But your brain feels unspooled and uncollected, and all that’s left are too-sweet cotton-candy wisps that can’t quite latch onto anything. 

“I…”

Don’t want you to leave either.

I want you to stay. I want to move in with you. I want every night to be like last night, and every morning to begin like ours did.

I want it all to be ours.

Your hands rise up and brush against the dips and swells of his chest. Goosebumps blossom under your touch. 

“Kyle, you know this isn’t goodbye. It can’t be. I need you to tell me you understand that.”

He sighs again.

“I know, love. I know that.” His thumb wanders over the arch of your cheek. “I’m used to all this, with you. All the pullin’ away and coming back.” He chuckles bitterly, a bit breathy. “It’s just so fuckin’ hard this time ’round.”

Your chest feels like it’s split open, gaping and pouring out. But your mind, or what’s left of it, knows you need this. You need the separation from him, deserve time to think through all he’s offering, all you could barely repay him for in return. 

The debt between the two of you is yawning. But if you gave in and told him yes, all you’d be left with is uncertainty. 

Not even a man as perfect as Kyle can make up your mind for you. 

“One more kiss before you go?”

He takes you up on it before you can say any more. 

His lips are a harsh press against yours, bruising enough to leave them puffy for hours. He kisses to consume, to swallow you up and spit you out wanting more. 

Gentlemanly as Kyle can be, there’s not a glimpse of it to be seen now. He’s not playing fair, at the moment. 

He hooks a finger under your chin and holds you steady, keeps you close and running out of air as he slips past your defenses, the hot, wet press of his tongue on top of yours. It’s instantly dominating before you have a chance to fight.

And then he’s toying with you, kneading you back into the fray with long prods and swipes, his stubble from the morning a heady friction on your skin. He’s playing and caressing and devilishly stroking needy whimpers from you, fingers dancing along your skin, drawing circles on your skin and whines from your throat. That dangerous tongue of his performs another sweep about your mouth, then slips back. Kyle begins worrying at your bottom lip, teeth digging in so harsh and quick —

—and he tears away from you so abruptly that you gasp, can’t even see straight. Suddenly you’re cold and alone, panting and losing your balance without Kyle’s sturdy form keeping you upright. 

You only realize what had happened when you hear a rustling from your bedroom. Kyle reappears seconds later, avoiding your gaze as he zips his jacket up over his bare chest, legs and hips clad in last night’s jeans. 

Subconsciously, you pick at the neckline of the black cotton tee you’re wearing—his shirt, one you guess he doesn’t want back before he leaves. “You don’t want your—”

“Don’t take it off—not yet, yeah?” He meets your eyes for the first time in two minutes, and there’s little brown left to them, all dilated pupils and a consternated furrow. Even his lips, wonderfully swelled, are tugged into a small frown. “Keep it on f’me. I’ll come back for it when you’re ready.”

But you don’t know when that’ll be. How could you possibly make an unbiased decision when the damn thing still smells like him and you can’t forget that ravenous look in his eyes when he’d first found you in it?

Kyle’s hovers near the door, hand tight around the knob like he can’t quite figure out how to open it again. He glances back at you over his shoulder, lets himself take you in, take the entire scene in. He even looks back at your bedroom, where the sheets are rumpled and need to be washed. Then he settles on you one last time, jaw set, muscle feathering a bit.

“Call me. Text me. Anything, darling. But don’t you dare forget about me.”

The door closes with a slam.  

~~~~~~

The first day, Gaz is sure it’s fine. You need time to think, and that’s okay. He can handle that. He’s handled it multiple times.

And, yeah, when he’d gotten back to his hotel room, he had to sit for a moment, staring at the wall. Had to replay that whole night all over again. 

Then again. 

He did the same thing with that morning, reimagining licking the sweat off your thighs, sliding up and burying his face into your stomach, pawing at your body wherever you’d get the loudest. Replayed the feeling of your supple palms and soft fingertips—every inch of you was so damn soft, fleshy and yielding in his hands—wandering over his cheeks, his lips, his scalp. 

Fucking beautiful. Every goddamn second of it. 

Gaz, that first day, tries not to linger too long on how it’d ended. 

So stupid of him to bring that up. Suggest for you to move in with him when obviously you both functioned at two vastly different paces. 

Isn’t it ridiculous that he can’t even bring himself to think it’s crazy? He can’t find it in him to say no, that’s bullshit, because who are you and why the hell did he ever think moving with a woman he’d only known for three months was okay—desirable, even?

So bloody desirable it almost crossed that line and became imperative. 

He spends that night checking his phone, wondering if you’ll call him again, borderline tears and needy like yesterday.

That was his favorite aspect of yours so far—when you needed him, you needed him badly. You needed him while you choked back gasps and almost-sobs. You needed him while you breathed a little sigh of relief at the sight of him and jumped into his arms. You needed him with that first kiss, shy and tentative, but trying your best to imitate reckless abandon—until he taught you properly. 

He’d spent that whole night watching you be shocked at yourself for how badly could want him, all confused and flushed when you’d noticed your fingers digging into the buttons of his trousers. A little stunned “o” formed on your lips when you’d dug your nails in, body trembling with exhaustion, and still begged him for more. Kyle, please. More.

Gaz only convinces himself to take a shower for the night when the thoughts become too much. He almost trips over his own feet in a mad scramble when he sees his phone flash, only to find a notification for an update. 

He goes to sleep in a sour mood. 

The second day goes about the same. He wakes up late in the afternoon (because, due to your midnight upset, he was still on his Middle-East sleep schedule), spends way too much time remembering and staring at his phone, waiting for a buzz or a ring. Eats his dinner and drinks in a deathly silence. 

Because silence is unnerving to him now. You’ve changed that much in him. Every second spent in lonely quiet feels like a waste of his time. 

But you don’t call. And you don’t text. 

You don’t do any of it for the next three days. 

Gaz wallows even worse. He gets antsy, goes to the hotel gym and sprints on the treadmill, because he knows if he runs outside he’ll find himself at your place. He goes to stores, buys himself another black t-shirt, same size and brand as the one that you’d worn, that’d cinched in at your waist and flared out to capture your hips and thighs. 

He wanders into the bookstore next door and finds a few of the ones he’d spotted on your bedroom bookshelf whenever you’d tapped out on him. He flits through a few pages, eyes catching on the naughty words, and reads through for… wistful entertainment, at least. 

Research purposes, at most. 

And Gaz chuckles to himself, winking at the girls that try to wander into the section inconspicuously. The same ones who surely have as good a poker face as you, and who immediately vacate the area at the sight of an invader. 

It would be more fun if it was you he was teasing. Same pink ears and face, same eyes avoiding contact at all cost, fingers fidgeting at the hems of your sleeves.

A longing ache floods his chest so directly and intensely that he has to take a second, breathe and set down the book so he can center himself again. That same flood of cognizance about his situation hits him when he’s on missions, when the victims’ sobs finally get to him or he looks too long in the eyes of a dead man. 

Like he’s yanked to the surface after hours underneath the tide, and the sun shines so brightly his eyes burn. But he’s seeing and feeling everything he’d shoved deep down, knows exactly what led him to this moment. 

Gaz doesn’t go out much after that. 

Not the next day, or the day after that. Not even the next two days after those. 

It’s around this point that he wishes you would just put him out of his fucking misery. He’s so tired of thinking of you before he goes to bed, dreaming of you, then waking up to phantom touches all over his body. He’s driving himself up the walls trying not to call you, break into your house and just steal you back to England anyway. 

Patience. Son of a bitch—patience. God, you strung it out so thin with him that it could snap like a rubber band and hurt you both. 

It’s midnight of the tenth day of no contact with you that Gaz’s finally got his sleep schedule under control, and he’s twisted up in the sheets, body caked with sweat. 

Well, actually, he’s in Prague.

He’s rapidly approaching a target in a dusty, dark alleyway. Just before they turn the corner and get into public view—can’t let that happen, have to maintain cover—Gaz wrestles them away from the glow of the streetlamps and back behind a dumpster, kicking away their gun while he wrenches a biceps around their neck—

But it’s your voice ringing through the air. Your pleas and sobs pierce his conscious too late. Your neck snaps so loud he flinches, and all the while his mind is screaming no, no this can’t be right. She’s not the target. She’s never the target. 

Gaz scrambles away, tearing off the sheets and rolling out of bed. 

Jesus Christ.

He has to see you. 

After that, just needs to make sure. Needs to check that you’re still in tact, your sweet neck not cracked and limp, eyes not dim and silenced. 

He rises to his feet and can’t find his Goddamn socks anywhere. A yellow glow from the window lets Gaz catch himself in the mirror at the perfect moment, and he can see the thick sheen of sweat that covers his body head to toe. 

You deserve better than that. Better than a sweaty, desperate man with no patience pushing his way into your house and demanding an answer, a single word, fucking anything from you. 

Even a nod or a shake of your head would settle his poor heart. The damn thing aches in his chest all the time now. 

Gaz slips into the bathroom for a quick, cold shower, stubs his toes against the not-wide-enough walls of the tub several times, and ambles out a bit slower and far more jittery than he’d gone in. 

He’s shifting a pair of pants up his not-yet-dry legs when he spots it. 

A dim flash from the hotel nightstand, where his phone is plugged in. 

Gaz freezes.

Surely it’s not…

Well, it might be…

But he’d been gone for not even five bloody minutes; that’s not even fair!

Suddenly, he’s kicking off the pants and hurdling over the bed, buck-naked and scrambling for his phone.

No, no, no, no, no, no, NO.

But yes. It’s a voicemail from you. Three minutes and forty-seven seconds, and he wasn’t there for any of it. 

He presses it with wide eyes and a heaving chest, and something stabs him, hard, cruel, and swift right in the center of his gut when he hears your voice. 

“Wow, I’m getting deja vu.” You laugh, but it’s empty and short. “I’m really hoping you didn’t sneak off to a mission without telling me. That would, uh…” Your tone grows dreary, even as you huff another laugh. “That would really suck. But I’m sure I deserve it.”

You thought he’d leave you?

You can’t see him, and he knows that, but he still shakes his head, brow furrowed because no, no, no, he would never do that to you. Damn that evil brain of yours. 

“I just… um, I just had a dream, though. Wanted to tell you about it. It wasn’t even bad so, like, I don’t even know why it woke me up.” Some shuffling, and a sniffle. “Well, I mean I do, but… okay, fine, I’ll just tell you. 

“It was pretty lame. Nothing big, but I was hanging out in an apartment—a flat, you might say—which is a stupid name for an apartment, but you Brits don’t even know what chips are, so whatever. I’ll let it go. 

“Anyway, I was sitting on the couch kinda bored, and then you came in. Came back, really. It’s like that background knowledge thing you get in a dream, where you only know exactly what’s going on the moment it happens? But you were back from a mission, and I had dinner and a hot bath ready, and you…”

Another sniffle. Gaz hovers over the phone, waiting for those seconds to dwindle down, needing to know how you felt when the message ended so he could call you and be…well, be whatever the fuck you needed him to be in that moment. 

“I don’t know. We were about to kiss, and then I woke up and you weren’t even there and I just…hated that. The idea of that. Of you not being there when you could’ve been. And knowing that the only reason you weren’t was because I was being so stupidly stubborn.”

You sigh, then, and get too quiet for him to hear without crouching closer. “Kyle, if you still want me even at all after this, I…” You suck in a long breath, and he hears that little hitch at the back of your throat. “I need it to be slow. Slower than what it’s been. Especially if… if it’s gonna be the same apartment. I’ve never had anything like this before. Never felt it. And I’m scared of, well, all of it, honestly.

“But I’m more scared of never taking that chance with you. And you’ve been commuting to my home, my country all this time, so… you know, maybe it’s time I reciprocate. Reciprocate a lot of things.”

Then someone knocks on his door.

~~~~~~

Kyle never directly told you which hotel room he was in. But when he’d kicked his pants off and you’d watched them soar over your bedroom floor that night you’d called him over, you’d laughed into his kiss at the sight of his wallet, his key card, and some loose change rattling across the floor. 

The next morning, you’d picked it all up while he was in the bathroom, where he was hopefully not glaring at the impulsive hickey you’d given him. You’d snagged his t-shirt for yourself, some womanly, possessive part of you wanting to squeeze yourself into his clothes, whether it would fit or not. You’d felt like a damn fool crammed into it—until Kyle saw you for the first time, and the look he gave you made your stomach clench. 

You’d organized the rest of his things onto your dresser, only eyeing the room card, and the number sharpied on the back, passively. 

Room 428. 

You knocked on the door now, pulse thump-thump-thumping against your eardrums. 

An “Oh fuck” was muffled and low through the door. 

It didn’t sound like you’d woken Kyle up, and you admit that you’d been seriously considering the fact that he might’ve left for a mission while you were in AWOL mode. A bit of luck, really, that it was actually him, still here after ten days of radio silence. 

But you’d know that gruff, British grumbling anywhere, and your body began to tremor. Small, at first, in your fingertips and toes. Then your knees felt a little loose as time went on and all you could hear from Kyle’s end was quick footsteps and the snap of fabric. By the time the door whipped open, your every breath came out stumbling, like waves over jagged rocks.

And Kyle…

Oh. 

Oh, Goddamnit. 

Ten days was too long for both of you. 

Because Kyle, for all his effortless handsomeness, was a wreck. Untidy stubble’s laid claim to his jaw and throat, and his lips look bitten raw. Deep-seated crescents curve under each eye, lined and dark and angry. He’s draping himself against the door with the black curls on top of his head in complete disarray, and watching you with a low-lidded gaze. 

Gaunt, worn, weakened. Like the life has been drained out of him. 

But it’s still Kyle. There’s a phantom of his old self in his form now, a tautness to his shoulders and neck, slight bend in his knees, vigilance in his whiskey eyes. You’ll have to reel his spirit to the surface.

Looking at him now, though, it hurts to think you’re the one who’d done it to him. So damn hard to believe that he takes absences of you like shots to the heart. It’s lovely, to be so wanted by Kyle Garrick. 

Harrowing, too. 

There’s a learning curve to holding his tender heart in your hands and trying not to squeeze it too hard, too often, but you get the feeling you’ve been treating it like a stress ball. You forget that he keeps himself at this rough idle for you. That he always carries soft, warm feelings all the time, and lets them fester behind the velvet steel of his abdomen.

“Did you get my voicemail?”

He nods a little. 

“So you heard that I…?”

Another nod. 

The air is thick and straining with his silence. All he is right now is two eyes watching you and ten long fingers flexed against the door, features bordering on unreadable. 

But there’s yearning. There’s always that fierce yearning with Kyle.

You lean a little closer, don’t quite know whether to be disturbed or flattered at how his nostrils flare when he suddenly sniffs. 

Then he hums, low and deep.

“Peaches,” you mumble, recalling months ago, a staunch memory of his words about your perfume. 

“Tha’s right, bunny,” he mutters. His fingers peel off the door before he lurches toward you, a lovely swoop in your gut when he hauls his arms around your waist, tilting his face to yours. He takes another sniff, this one nestled against the top of your scalp. “It’ll smell like peaches.”

When Kyle takes a step backward, his arms remain iron-stiff around your back, dragging you with him. Step for step for step until you’re in his hotel room, kicking his door shut with the heel of your shoe. 

His hand rises and sweeps back the hair stuck to your neck, already slanting his lips over your pulse point, teething at the skin. “My flat,” he whispers. Then he scoops up your jaw, tilts your head to the other side and reattaches his mouth to the next indent in your throat. “My bedroom.” Another readjustment of your head, aligning himself just below your chin, your head tipped all the way back, blurry, blissed-out eyes locked on the ceiling. “My sheets.”

“Kyle.”

His fingertips dig in hard enough to leave purple dots against your lower back. “All of it’ll smell like peaches. Like you.”

You pry him off with a tugging grip at his damp hair, only slightly intrigued by the water droplets that you now notice litter his skin. 

A bit too busy trying to think back to why you’re here, outside of getting his hot mouth all over you again, to try and care about something so minor. 

There’s an indignant huff against your bobbing throat before he draws back. Kyle looks damn near put out by the fact that you hadn’t let him keep sucking distractions into your skin, and his teeth bare slightly when he grumbles, “What is it, love?”

Lest you forget Kyle first and foremost loves to grope at the plush of your thighs, he does so now, mindlessly, detrimentally to your train of thought. “There’s—there’s so much to figure out, Kyle.” Your words are more like a sputter, wild spilling past your teeth. “There’s getting my stuff there, and passports, and visas. Things that take more time than how long we’ve known each other.”

The golden gleam of his smirk almost takes you out of commission. One second he’s bitter about his mouth and the lack of your skin against it, the next he’s pulled back far enough to meet your eyes dead on, confident like he knows you inside out. 

“Bunny, when you first started to walk, did you go ’round asking everyone what running felt like instead of trying it?”

You… don’t know what that means. Like at all. 

And you’re fairly certain you wouldn’t be able to figure it out even if you weren’t exhausted from four-hour sleep and the wandering of calloused fingers. 

“Kyle—what?”

The deep timber of his chuckle floods your ears like spools of silk. It’d almost be mean if it wasn’t the same playful laugh he used to give you from across the counter, one hand on a drink, the other reaching for yours, and if he hadn’t done it with little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. 

“I just mean…” he pauses and strokes at your thighs a little slower, “that all of this has felt so bloody natural. Like I’m made to be doing this. Like I’m learnin’ how to walk all over again. And you…” One hand departs, rises and encompasses your cheek, thumb swiping over its swell. Kyle’s features soften. “Love, you make me want to run so badly.”

Your hands fist against his chest, but you know he can still feel the quivering that’s begun. That slowly showers over your body, tip of your skull down to the bottoms of your feet, electrifying and frightening.

You say his name again, startled at how much you want him. 

He’s not wrong. Not even close. Being with him is like warm sweaters, or old socks, or scuffed shoes. Things that always just fit.

But it’s new, these butterflies frenzied in your stomach, this chain reaction of shivers and sparks of pleasure and licks of sweet heat. 

New, and timeless. Confusing, and so damn easy. 

“I’ve got connections, love. And so much time for you. All the time in the goddamn world.” His hips press into yours, and once more, he begins to sway.

And, once more, you follow suit.

“And there’s bars aplenty in England, love,” Kyle whispers the words against your forehead. “If that kickin’ little mind o’ yours feels like it has to repay me—pain in my arse, but I’d let you do it. Even though I wouldn’t mind it if you could just sit in my apartment and look real pretty. That’s always on the table for you.”

“Definitely off the table, Kyle.”

“All right, all right, fine.” He peppers kisses over your face. “So long as you’re there each time I walk through that door, yeah?”

~~~~~~

Gaz can smell it from the hallway. 

The heavy scent of chocolate and those pretty candles you love to light, along with a lingering hint of peach. The door to his flat towers, ominous and contingent, like if he doesn’t open it now, any second it’ll slip away and he’ll be back on the field, gunsmoke thick in his eyes and throat. 

Coming home is always a little hard.

 He’s unwinding vertebra by vertebra, trying to fracture himself into small enough pieces to fit through the door. And there’s the crotchety stiffness of his limbs, too long for these halls, too sturdy for a scene soft as this. 

Gaz shoots for quiet and hits dead silence when he twists the knob. Slips through the doorway and takes in this little fault he’s discovered in reality, phenomenon he’s kept under wraps for the past year or so. 

Because entering the pocket dimension of his flat is nothing short of ascendant. Every damn time. 

The air in here is velvety smooth and warm. Not unbearably, for July—it almost feels like the warmth of a sweaty palm still interlaced with his, making his body all syrupy slow. The lights have been dimmed and everything in view from the doorway is more shadow than actual features. London, like the determined sadist it is, is gray and drizzly outside each of his wide-open windows, helping none with his search.

That is something he’d had to bargain for—open windows. Gaz doesn’t mind the subpar reward any creeper might receive peeking into his home, but you weren’t as convinced. The task to win you over had become almost insurmountable when he’d grown too greedy in the living room and you, with eyes only barely comprehensive over his shoulder, locked gazes with an elderly woman across the way and screeched.

But he’d won, and it seemed you honored your promise now. 

Speaking of you, he doesn’t even spot you the first look-around. Even as his nerves meld into the sleek familiarity, panic splices through his gut when he glances once, twice, then thrice around. You’re not running toward him like he desperately wishes you would. You’re not hovering over the kitchen stove, or digging through the fridge. You’re not even curled up in the window seat, sipping on a steaming mug. 

Gaz knows he was quiet, but he didn’t know he was too quiet. 

It becomes increasingly obvious that you’d had plans to greet him. 

Because not only is his favorite meal still sitting over the burner, and the kitchen’s covered in dirty dishes, but you’re lounging on the couch, plush thighs crossed one over the other with a book in hand, clad in fantastically sparse lingerie of frilly black lace that leaves meager gaps for his memories to fill in.

With a stuttering breath, he fills the gaps in tight. 

Your lazy fingers scrape at the corner of a page, then you flip it with a bored sigh, shifting a little by hooking your heel over the top of a sofa cushion, splitting your legs wide so he can see—

His pack drops to the floor with a thunderclap of noise. 

Your body jerks all at once, a quick shriek splitting the viscid atmosphere in half. 

Your wide, prey eyes latch onto his while you grapple at your chest, book having been launched halfway across the carpet. “Kyle, you son of a—could you have been any quieter? What the hell?!”

He barks out a laugh. The potency of your voice saying his name is already swimming through his mind, and he reaches back and closes the door while you rise to your feet. “Sorry, love. Next time I’ll just crawl through the window, yeah?”

“Fuckin’ may as well have,” you grumble, adjusting the stringy straps of your bra. Your skin is all blank and pale right now from months of his absence, white space where amaranthine marks should be. 

Four months. The longest the two of you have been apart, and every step you come closer that heady scent of your perfume prickles its way up his spine. 

“My sweet little bunny, precious love of my life—what have you been up to, hmm?”

Your hands slot on your hips, and you pout up at him. The build-up of energy crackles all over his skin the longer you stand so far away from him, but you’ve still settled for a lecture instead of a kiss. “Well, I had this whole plan where I’d feed you and bathe you, and then we’d fuck like rabbits, but I guess that’s out of the question now.”

Gaz snickers, the abject disappointment raw on your face. “How is that out of the question?”

“Timing’s off and you ruined the whole sexy vibe I was aiming for.” You fold your arms, and Gaz shamelessly drags his gaze down from your face. “You really suck, you know that?”

His lips part in that effortless grin you so easily drag out of him. “So sorry, love. If you come over here, I’ll be sure to apologize quite thoroughly.” Gaz lifts his arms, holds them out and gestures his fingers enticingly. “I’ll have your forgiveness in a matter of seconds.”

Your expression’s all stubborn and prickly, but you sway forward a little anyway. “I…” You grunt and stomp toward him, let him wind his entire body around you, and relax a little when his palms massage and dig into your shoulder blades. “I really did have everything planned,” you mumble into his chest, fingertips all twisted up in the back of his shirt. 

Gaz is starting to get an idea about what’s going on. 

Only about half the candles are lit throughout the flat, the majority of which are near the bedroom. The bathroom light is still on, door opened a crack, but there’s unpacked bath bombs strewn about like you gave up halfway through. Even the kitchen is more messy than usual after the nights that you cook. Only half the pots and pans look actually used, the rest an anxious jumble of utensils and ingredients he knows you didn’t need to make chocolate-chip pancakes alone. 

It looks like you were distracted. So very terribly disturbed by something that you could only commit half a mind to all your ideas. 

With him, you’re rarely left to your own devices for this long, and it shows. 

Gaz can see it, feel it, and practically smell it all over you. Despite his embrace and what should be relief about his return, the muscle and tissue all over your body are pulled taut, bowstring-tight and ready to pitch forward at any second. 

He hums, feels the tension in your spine only grow as he draws little circles against your skin. “I know, love. I see it. Candles, and the dinner, and the bath.” He kisses your forehead, grins wider when all you do is huff and puff. “Did so well. I know it’s hard.”

It only serves to wind you up more. “I’m supposed to be the one massaging and calming you. Feeding you and taking care of you after your mission. This is…” you hiss a curse, nails scraping at his waist now. 

“S’okay. I’ve been through this hundreds of times.” His fingers dance a little lower, teasing that arch in your back that you curve a little harder against him. “I know exactly what you need, bunny. Sort you out so you can get back to your plan, yeah? Just need you to let me take care of it.”

“I don’t…” you shake your head. “I don’t know why I just—I mean, all of the sudden it’s you, and I can’t—”

You fall silent so fast when he shushes you, presses a too-short kiss to your lips. Already, he can feel the verve traveling through your very bones. He lets his words brush along your lips when he repeats his promise. 

“Know jus’ what you need. Let me handle it.”

~~~~~~

You’re straddling his thighs with a fork in hand, watching in a satisfied stupor as the plate balanced on his chest rises and falls at a rapid pace. 

Sticky, flushed, and sated all over, you saw off another sliver of pancake and hold it up to Kyle’s lips. He accepts it greedily, lets his head knock back against the headboard with a euphoric, close-lipped smile. 

He hadn’t been… wrong. 

Which is to say, you’d somehow managed to get yourself so worked up in his absence that the second he returned, all you’d wanted to do was jump his bones, sans any of the prelude you’d planned.

A warning would have been nice, now that you think about it. Anytime around four months earlier when he’d first begun preparing you for his absence without you even knowing it, would have been superb. 

Instead, he’d let it fester in you, like he’d planted himself a gift, fruit ripe for the plucking at a later date. 

You want to be mad. 

Can’t quite bring yourself to, though. 

A bit too… preoccupied. 

There’s still sweat dripping at Kyle’s temples when he cleans off the plate, hands still squeezing in distracting patterns around the meat of your thighs. 

“Fucking delicious, love.” He laves his tongue at the corner of his lips. “My two favorite meals.”

“You’re horrible.” You scramble off him unsteadily, trying to keep both you and the dishes in your hands balanced. “I should get a bar of soap for that mouth of yours.”

Kyle laughs first, then groans, swiping his hands down his face. “If you’d said that shit in the barracks, love…” he calls after you, tutting in the distance while you deposit the plate in the sink. You almost trip on your skimpy lingerie set from a couple hours ago while stumbling your way back to the bedroom. 

“Am I supposed to know what that means?” You raise a brow at him even as you tug on his arm, drag him out of the bed and down the hall. 

After it all, Kyle had insisted you keep up the plan. Didn’t want that guilty conscience of yours to fester and, even worse, those pancakes to grow cold. He’d poked at your cheek, voice slurring a little from exhaustion as he whispered, “Gotta stay awake, love, or your li’l rabbit heart’ll feel all sad tomorrow.”

So you’d rolled off the mattress and made the trek back through the apartment, and, admittedly, you started to feel guilty about the mess you’d left during your hazy planning earlier. 

You recalled trying to think of ways you could impress Kyle but not being able to think clearly after slipping on the lacy panties; too caught in imagining how he’d tear them off to really notice how half-baked the rest of your plan was. 

And how all you could think about was him serving you, which really wasn’t fair. It’d been over a year since you’d started living together, and when he went off on missions, it was an unspoken promise on your end that you’d welcome him back in calm and comfortable ways. 

His first few missions had been just that—romantic kisses and big, sweeping arcs of hugs; slow dances around the living room and the kitchen, sweet, bubbly champagne with dinner. 

All you’d managed this time around was half-assed pancakes, lacy panties, and a cold bath that you hadn’t been patient enough to finish prepping. 

You remember that you hadn’t even been exhausted today. The opposite, really. You’d been buzzing from head to toe the moment you got his call, mind too frantic to ever really stick to your old habits. 

Kyle kneels down beside you outside of the tub, three bath bombs encompassed in just one of his absurdly large hands. The other is curling your hair around a single index finger. He’s patiently busying himself by touching you, playing with some part of your body or other like he’s always done. 

One morning he’d had an absurd obsession with your left heel, and he’d nipped at the tendon out of sheer curiosity. 

You’d almost kicked him square in the face. 

But he gets new little obsessions with you all the time. Each day, he’s poking and investigating at a different part of your body, and he always—always—has to feel it against his teeth. 

And you let him. Even now, as he hinges his jaw around your shoulder. 

A true adventurer, unafraid to explore with all that he is. Wants to discover every little thing in a million different ways. 

You lean forward and wrench the faucet off, then pat at Kyle’s cheek. “Bath bombs, please.”

When he thunks them in the water, the air in the room floods with lavender and chamomile. The tub’s still fizzing purple when he clambers in and hauls you in after him, slowing your descent into his lap just enough that only a bit of water dumps over the edge. 

A long, drawn out sigh ruffles the loose hairs atop your scalp. Kyle’s hands sweep all the way up to the underside of your breasts, then way back down to the middle of your thighs, back and forth, back and forth. For the most part, you try not to move, try to let the aches melt away with the heat.

You drop your head back into the crook of Kyle’s neck and shoulder, tipping your face a bit to look at him. 

Everything’s fuzzy. Pleasant. Legs and arms weighed down by gratification, gut slick with sated heat. And your heart thumps wild and proud, bum-rushed red and gold. Natural and gleaming. Normal and perfect. 

“Can we stay like this forever?” Kyle asks again, a lifetime later. You’re only one year wiser when you nod yes, of course, how else would we be?

He burrows you deeper against him, trying to meld your skin into his because it’ll never be close enough. Touching and bruising and biting only mollifies it, this wonderful new appetite only Kyle can feed. 

It’s crumbs of food, or the tiniest sips of water. 

Or spare oxygen.

Kyle hunches over you, hard body slipping against yours. Soughs, like you hit just the spot. 

“Can’t believe you kept gettin’ away from me before all this. Tested my patience so bloody much to get here, bunny.”

You smile, tilting your head and pressing a tender kiss to his cheek. “It’s your best virtue, Kyle.”

[sheltoner]

uso photos :)) (i also added comments if you would like my thoughts, i also didn’t want to make a ton of separate posts for everyone i saw)

jannik and muso:

i got here at the very end of this practice session, but it was so awesome for the 30 mins it was there it was so cool, literally don’t have words to describe how great it was

especially just being in arthur ashe stadium was just crazy it’s been a life long dream of mine to be in there and it was so great

iga and karo:

i also only saw this one for abt half an hr, and i feel like i should’ve stayed longer, but what i did see was absolutely amazing. they’re both so cool and it was just great to be in the same place as them i honestly couldn’t believe i was there

taylor:

this was great bc when i got there there weren’t a ton of people in armstrong so i was able to be like only four rows back from the court so i was really right there. and yall. taylor is so tall holy shit it’s insane. i feel like when i watch him i don’t comprehend how tall he is but he is so tall it’s crazy. he was doing rly well (he was practicing with dan evans) when i got there but then progressively got a little worse and it hurt to see him slip into his mind in person, but i suppose i got the whole taylor experience 🙃

ben!!!!!!!:

definitely my favorite part of the whole day lol :) it was actually insane to see him in person and no i don’t think i will ever shut up about seeing him im fundamentally changed as a human being. i will never forget this. best day of my life, best hour and 15 mins of my life.

i wanted to get a ball signed maybe but there was no way i was going to push through the crowd that was there and he didn’t even sign that much stuff so i don’t think i would’ve gotten one

frances and jiri:

(left armstrong to go eat lunch so my seat changed) this was probably the most fun practice i saw, literally every other point was some crazy rally or lob or something it was one of the most fun hour and 30 mins of my life

aryna:

i got to see aryna practice for like 15 mins right before i needed to go home, and it was just so awesome to see her in person. i fr spent most of the day in awe that i was in the same space as all these people

[scarlettrust]

There was something about cards. The smooth feel of them when Slip dealt them in front of him The balance between strategy and blind luck, finding patterns in the cards you were dealt. He’d been playing a lot of solitaire since coming back, waking up both his mind and his sluggish muscles.

Things like walking and taking had become easier in time, but it was the fine motor skills that Slip still found himself struggling with. The once familiar pattern of shuffling and dealing was definitely helping, even if progress was slower than Slip would have liked.

Patience, Vespa kept telling him at every check up- firm and rasping. Slip knew she was right, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“You winning?”

From his spot cross legged on the floor, Slip looked up as a plate of flood was placed at his feet. A grilled cheese, the perfect shade of golden brown with a neat stack of carrot sticks next to it. All carefully made by the lady standing next to him, hovering like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to stay.

“Depends on how you define winning I guess.” Slip said, putting the cards down in favour of a carrot stick. At first he had bristled at the idea of being waited on like this. Like was a fragile doll that would shattered to pieces if it wasn’t taken care of correctly.

But that was just the way Juno was, Slip was slowly learning. He did the same to everyone, if given half the chance and kitchen.  It was cute… in a way that Slip was still trying to get used to. Back on Brahma nothing came without strings attached, especially as a pest. Doubly so whenever food was involved.

Something about Juno seemed like he understood that though. Slip had a hunch it was the same reason  why nobody ever left the detective’s apartment feeling hungry.

“I don’t have to um… keep playing solitaire though,” Slip offered, waving a hand to the empty spot in front of him. “If you want to play something?”

“Oh?” Juno sat down on the floor next to him, grunting softly as his knees popped in protest. “You got something in mind?”

Slip gathered up the deck, stacking the cards together before shuffling them. A swell of pride filled him as he managed the bridge without his hands shaking too badly “Street poker?”

“With a shark like you? not on your life.” Juno snorted, leaning back on his hands. “I’m still figuring out all the rules to that stupid game. It doesn’t make any damn sense.”

“That’s kinda the whole point.” Slip said, an easy smile filling his face. It was easy to see why Petya liked him so much- there was just something about the detective that put you at ease. The rumble of his voice, or the way you didn’t feel like you had to pretend. “You have any suggestions?”

“What about regular good old fashioned poker.” Juno immediately offered, plucking the newly shuffled deck from his hands. “no war goats required. Also, eat- before it gets cold.”

“Fine.” Slip mumbled around a mouthful of sandwich. He had to admit it was good, the perfect amount of cheese all melted to perfection. “But no way I’m playing poker with you. Not with the way you count cards.”

“Hey! Where’d you hear that!” Juno protested, actually having the audacity to sound offended.

“Vespa.”

“You can’t trust anything she says,” Juno huffed, arms crossed defensively across his chest “she’s just a sore loser.’

“And, Petya,” Slip continued without mercy, “ and um Rita and Buddy, and—HEY!”

Slip ducked just in time as a pillow from the couch was lobbed at his head. He scrambled for it, throwing it blindly back. It caught Juno square in the face, the detective letting out a muffled off as Slip started laughing so hard his lungs hurt.

Juno was also laughing as the cushion fell into his lap. Somewhere in the frey his eyepatch had come askew- revealing the mess of scars that lay beneath.  Slip wanted to ask him about it— maybe one day he’d actually work up the nerve.

“Alright, alright— no poker then.” The detective said, adjusting the straps across his face so his eyepatch sat properly one more. “Okay Jackson, you come up with something then.”

“I don’t know… crazy 8s?”

“Works for me,” Juno said, dealing the cards into two neat piles. “Winner does the dishes this week?”

“Only if we can’t bully Petya into doing them.”

“I like the way you think, Jackson.”

[turbulenthandholding]

👀 just wondering if you’re writing anything these days!

1. Hi, hello, thank you for the ask @anxietycroissant! ❤️

2. I am...or I am trying! I am about 16,000 words into what is probably going to be a pretty long fic. It's an unexpected pregnancy/speed-run-the-relationship Sydcarmy and I am happy to be writing it because it's what my brain wants to read but it alternately falls out of my head and gives me great angst. I had been pretty blocked for more than a week but 3000 words fell out of my head like nothing last night which was a nice surprise.

Excerpt (Syd and Carmy are at IKEA):

“Sammy, right? Weren't you Carmy's sous?”

Sydney looks up to see Claire standing before her. “Claire. Hi. It's Sydney, actually,” she says and rises. Claire's eyes fall to Syd’s abdomen. “And I'm his CDC now.”

“Oh, that's so cute!” Claire says, her eyes falling to Syd’s belly. “You finally got over your weird obsession with Carmy and moved on,” Claire says. “Congratulations!”

“Weird obsession?” Syd asks. She feels pinned again like she did the first night she met Claire during the reno, glared at for reasons Syd at least thinks she understands now. Jealousy, and this time, lingering anger at her breakup with Carmy, which Claire lobs at Sydney like a knife.

Syd struggles to respond. “Sorry...are you like here to look at a couch? Or like, eat some meatballs? Sorry.”

“How do you feel about a lingonberry juice box?” Carmy asks Syd as he returns, focused, unaware, unwrapping and inserting the straw as he moves to hand it to her. “Got some water too,” he says, finally engaging with the scene in front of him.

“Carm, hi,” Claire says, features pinching. Syd takes a sip from the straw.

“Uhh, hey, Claire,” Carmy returns. He slips his arm around Syd, possessive fingers digging into her hip. A united front.

“Just one…” Claire begins. “Did this, uh, overla…how far along are you?”

“Due at the end of February,” Syd says.

Claire calculates, glares at Carmy. “You didn't waste any time.”

Carmy shrugs.

“Well, this is just so fucking precious,” Claire says through clenched teeth. “I guess when you said you didn't have space for fun or enjoyment in your life, you really just meant you don't have space for me. Cool. Cool. That's just…I’ll see you around, Bear. Good luck with whatever.” She slings her bag over her shoulder and stalks off back towards the escalators.

“Uhh,” Syd says, before taking a last drink from her juice box. The lingonberry juice is good, a little tart cutting through the sweetness. The box scrunches and crunches in her hand and makes the sound that juice boxes do when they are finished. “Sorry, that was loud. And just like…sorry that, uh, this happened.”

(2.5 - I could probably use an alpha reader if any of my Sydcarmy mutuals wants to take a look and tell me if it's bad or that I'm crazy because it could very well be!)

3. I'm also working on a soul mark/soul scar Sydcarmy. It's probably about 3k words so far but I put it to the side because I realized I had a huge plot hole and haven't quite figured out how to come back from it yet.

Excerpt:

Sydney gets really good at applying foundation to her arms, pressing it in with setting powder to help keep it waterproof just in case. The number of tattoos gracing her arms has been growing exponentially over the last few months. There's a pyrex measuring cup holding the whole world, a couple of angels, a fish. S-O-U on the fingers of her hand. She's a senior in high school on track to graduate with honors and the body art would be a distraction, a mark against her. An indication that she's not serious enough to do anything other than make terrible decisions or jeopardize her future; a constant, tangible reminder that she doesn't have the grace about things like this than people whose skin is lighter than hers. She wishes she didn't care. But she does, so she covers them up every day in a routine that feels like it has become her religion. She wears button-down shirts with long sleeves secured at her wrists most days, even when the heat and humidity in Chicago are oppressive. Counts the seconds until she can go to the CIA where maybe the sight of Schrödinger’s tattoos (simultaneously hers and not hers) won't hold her back.

[tangerinesgirl]

I know it might be a bit too early for Christmas things, but I had a few small ideas I wanted to share! Thought it would be fun to do a few headcanons on how the Dan characters spend the season.

I didn't include Matthew Crawley I'm sorry I had no ideas that weren't already included in Downton Abbey, but feel free to send me some!

Warnings: a few brief sex mentions (*shakes fist* Lemtov) so 18+ and mature bc of that, but mostly fluff

Herr König

- beautiful landscapes at the resort overlooking the German Alps

- will comment on this saying the only thing more beautiful is you (a bit cheesy but we love him anyways)

- cozy nights in with the log fire, snuggling into König, watching the snow fall

- he plays with your hair while you read a book

- would gift you socks lmfao

- but then quickly gives you another more serious present

- you build a giant snowman, König watching inside knowing how bitter the German snow can be, but how could you resist NOT building a snowman

- he was right and you can't feel your fingers

- König trying to warm you up with hot chocolate, cuddles and kisses

- but just his voice and German pet names are enough to melt the cold away

- he does make a damn good hot chocolate though

Adam 'Frank' Barrett

- bah humbug

- doesn't see the point

- having a kid who loves it makes him demented about the whole holiday

- would fully ruin Christmas and tell his kid that Santa isn't real

- thinks Christmas is stupid but still gifts you some jewellery

- you dragging him around the mall for shopping

- will literally shoot a radio if it plays Christmas songs

- you jokingly suggesting for Frank to meet mall Santa but he reluctantly goes through with it after saying you'll make it up to him later

- now you have a wonderful picture of him cross armed and angry on Santa's lap

- you put it on the mantlepiece every year

- you trying to lighten his mood with a snowball fight but he gets too into it and nearly decapitates you after lobbing one that's pure ice

- he pranks you by pouring snow down your jumper like a child

Travis 'Trapper' Beasley

- VERY festive

- will decorate the house until it's seen from space

- goes all out and spends way too much money

- traditional Christmas movies all day in your pajamas

- will cook all day and reluctantly says yes when you offer to help (really he likes doing it himself)

- feeds you tasters of each piece of food

- dancing and (terrible) singing in the kitchen at the top of your lungs

- Trapper wearing Christmas themed apron, socks, jumper...you name it

David Collins

- Christmas crafts!

- making gingerbread houses

- his is perfect but yours can't stand up

- he says yours is better as we won't feel bad about eating it

- shopping for Christmas trees

- you pick the perfect one (maybe a bit too big) and David carries it over his shoulder effortlessly

- fits right in with the family at dinner

- lets you win at Monopoly

Alexander Lemtov

- likes buying you clothes and seeing you in them

- not like they stay on your body long

- adamant on spending it in his home at Russia

- will tell you a new Russian tradition every five minutes

- both of you going to the market in thick leather coats drinking some very alcoholic spiced warm beverages

- you point out cute ornaments, which he later goes back for to buy in secret and give you them Christmas Day

- another big foodie, but doesn't cook himself, will pay a chef to make dinner

- afterall, it means more time spent together

- he says that in a sweet way, but he means it in a "we're fucking all day" way

- the only time you don't have your hands all over each other is during dinner

- ...only for Lemtov to fuck you on the dinner table afterwards

- feeling content, stuffed full with food (and him)

David Haller

- honestly pretty on the fence about Christmas

- never really celebrated it or had pretty traumatic ones, so you're determined to make him have a good Christmas

- spoiling him with food and gifts

- adores the jellycat you bought him

- falls asleep on the sofa watching Home Alone

- thanks you for Christmas dinner and likes spending time with your family,

- very polite, if he is a bit shy at first

- just all round a sweet guy

- wears the lil Christmas hat out of a cracker

- likes all the distractions, helping take his mind off things, wishes it could be Christmas every day now

- no but fr we were robbed of a Legion Christmas special episode imagine the possibilities

[lemonandlime22]

A Festive Evening

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

A Secret Santa fic for @madamscreams Obey me! Secret Santa event made by @omsecretsanta2022

Pairing: Lucifer x reader/Mc (Romantic)

Warning(s): None

A/N: I did my best to make it as fluffy as I could lol. I hope you like it!

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

"Ahh… finally, all the kids are in bed," you said, only half-joking, as you stretch your arms over your head in an attempt to get the knots out and made your way back into the living room.

Lucifer gave a quiet chuckle and lifted up the blanket over his lap for you to sit next to him. "Mhm, yes, now it's just you and me..."

You happily took the seat, quick to cuddle into his side. Lucifer silently offered you a mug of hot chocolate with little marshmallows floating on the top. You took it, the warmth of the drink feeling heavenly against your cold hands.

In fact, the atmosphere of the whole room felt heavenly, the two of you closely cuddled up on the sofa under the one fluffy blanket you managed to hide from Belphie, the small fire that brought just the right amount of warmth to the room. The beautiful Christmas tree set up not far from the fireplace, covered in all types of ornaments that reflected everyone's personality in a perfectly adorable fashion, made the whole room feel festive and warm. The lights twisted around the tree reminded you of golden fireflies, and their beauty made you just want to melt into a peaceful puddle of goo.

What tied it all together, oh so perfectly, was the pure exhaustion you felt throughout your whole body, the type that you know will make you sleep better than ever before. You recounted the day's events as you admired the tree and other assortments of decorations throughout the room, and listened to the soft Christmas songs on Lucifer's record player.

Earlier, you were woken up by a very excited Mammon.

"Human! Mc!! Wake up- quick quick!! It snowed last night! Come on already-!" 

Mammon bounced on the bed and you in an attempt to wake you up faster, proving your later statement that they were like kids. After dragging you out of bed, rushing you when you were eating breakfast and when you were getting ready, he pulled you and the rest of the brothers out the front door. Naturally, a snowball fight immediately started.

After a few bloody noses and petty hits, your royal damon, angel, and wizard friends joined in on the fun. You and Luke stayed out of the more competitive snowball lobbing, using the opportunity to make holiday-themed goodies and hot chocolate for everyone. The fun lasted for a few more hours until it was almost time for dinner.

They all returned to their homes, and the rest of you retreated inside and slipped into more comfortable and festive clothes while Beel finished off the goodies. The rest of the night was a warm memory you would remember for a long time. It was time to put up the final decorations.

Beel and Lucifer took care of the lights and higher-up decorations while Levi and Mammon checked the wires and put up miscellaneous decorations, respectively. Asmo directed everything, and you helped where needed. Satan slinked away to sneak cats into his room, and Belphie, as usual, fell asleep on the couch amid the chaos.

After all that was done, it was time for the best and arguably biggest bonding moment part of Christmas decorating: decorating the Christmas tree! With Beel's help, Mammon found and retrieved the ornaments. When everyone returned to the living room, Asmo instructed where to place each ornament, leading to a scuffle between him and Mammon. You and Lucifer sat back and watched as they argued over the best place for a little green elf, eventually getting their senses smacked back into them by Satan.

The rest of the decorating was just as amusing, though there was less arguing. Once everything was put up, you turned on one of your favorite Christmas movies and cuddled up on the couches with everyone.

Which lead you to the present moment. They had all gotten quite sleepy by the time the movie ended, and you tucked them into bed.

After setting the emptied mug down on the coffee table, you flopped back into Lucifer's side and snaked your arms around his waist in a vice grip. He let out an amused hum and wrapped his arm around your shoulders as he leaned into you.

"We should end more nights like this," you murmured.

"Mhm," he hummed in agreement. "That would be nice."

You spent the rest of the night sharing stories of past Christmases before finally wanting to drift off to sleep. When the time came, Lucifer carried you to bed.

He picked you up bridal style and headed back to his bedroom, making a quick stop at your room to grab your favorite blanket. By the time he reached his bed, you were already passed out. He gently laid you down, making you comfortable under the blankets, then changed and lay down next to you, carefully pulling you into his chest and letting you curl into him.

"Goodnight my love, sleep well," he whispered, kissing your forehead before closing his eyes for some much-needed rest.

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

[stevebabey]

steve is the most annoying man on the planet i wanna kiss him so badly

printing this out and framing it and then eating it!!! u get it anon

he will alway try lob his boxers into the laundry basket in the corner and without fail he always misses lmaoooo. u have nearly tripped over them a dozen times, cos they land in the doorway, and he always is like omg :) how did those get there? and ur like STEVEN either get good or STOP DOING IT

he’s a bottomless pit when it comes to food i swear. hoovers up ur leftovers when u guys go out to eat if u don’t want them, but will also start picking at them before ur even done. after his like 4th fry off your plate u have to slap his hand and he’s like :( baby i’m hungry like he didn’t just demolish a whole burger and fries right in front of you. and ur like ??? order something else then? and he’s like not that hungry :) just a little bit- can i have some of ur burger? god he’s annoying

worst is, he loves to go in for a kiss and then dodge u, just to blow a raspberry into your neck. you have YET to figure out the pattern of when he’s gonna do it, cos he always seems to surprise it with u — like going for a hug when you’ve come over to his, and you’re ready for ur kiss, lips pouted, but he’s got other ideas, letting out a wet slippery BLWHSHWW on ur neck like a BASTARD — u can’t even be that mad :( because he once let it slip that he doesn’t so he can hear ur laugh <3

[selfproclaimedunicorn]

another for the Autumn Symbolism OC asks:

Acorns 3 and 4 for any of the Roycegaryens and Oak Leaves 5 for Yorick specifically?

Kissing you on the mouth

Acorns 3: What is your OC's greatest aspiration? Is there an ultimate outcome towards which they are constantly striving? Is this something they keep secret from those around them?

Aemon just wants to protect people. He's a simple guy & that's all he needs (well that & maybe his favorite snack). Is this fueled by having witnessed his mother’s murder & being powerless to save her?

I wouldn't say that there's consciously any sort of end goal, Aemon just wants to "get good" & make sure that he is able to be the best damn meat shield known to man so that he is never unable to protect someone he loves ever again. And I wouldn't say this is something he necessarily talks about, but he's not keeping it a secret either. Aemon's drive to protect people is sort of an "if you know him & pay attention, you will see it" thing.

Acorns 4: Does your OC believe power is best held by those with the will to seize it? Or are they deeply suspicious of those with grand ambitions to hold authority over others?

Already did this one with Aemon, so I'll do it with Ella!

Nuance/other/I'm bald/vanilla extract. She definitely thinks that if an opportunity for more presents itself you should take it, because if you notice the opportunity then obviously you deserve to have that power & authority. Also, she thinks it's sexy if Robert does it. You kind of don't escape trying to be Your Dad's #1 Boy And Your Dad Is Daemon Targaryen without that doing a little something to your psyche. Something something the conquerors, something something Ella is a Valyriaboo, something something she just thinks Visenya is neat.

That said, Ella does think this "will & ability to seize power" should be altruistic in nature, I guess? Not necessarily "I'm doing this for other people," but just "I'm going to do good with this/this is for the greater good." Like, taking the power for power's sake makes it instantly uncool to her & "how dare you think you had the will to seize this power, my will to kick your ass is so much greater & I'm gonna do. That'll show you! Then we'll try this again & someone with better intentions will take this position of authority!"

Oak Leaves 5: What has been the most challenging obstacle or hazard your OC has needed to overcome? How did they manage this? Was it through grit and determination? Guile and cunning? Or simply dumb luck?

If you wanna get real literal with it, it was Yorick’s first encounter with Cannibal. That was a 10-year-old running into the actual worst dragon in existence & lobbing a stolen dragon egg at said beast so it would eat that instead of him. If Yorick weren't the most special boy alive, he'd be dead. But he is the most special boy & he thought fast & let the power of his fearful respect guide him lol.

If you wanna get real "character study" with it, it was navigating The Red Keep as a traumatized child & coming out the other side not completely off his rocker. That was definitely him just keeping his head down & going along with at least some people because the path of least resistance felt like the safest & easiest bet to him. It was definitely helpful that he thinks quickly & can adapt his plans on the fly, & that there were a few select adults that were at least mostly normal & let him have a break from putting up with his dad & uncle (everyone say thank you to Aemma Arryn, Lyonel Strong, & the Velaryons). Now, Yorick definitely didn't come out of spending his formative years around Daemon & Vizzy unscathed, he's carrying around a lot of baggage & hangups & emotional issues (RIP Yorick Royce, you would have loved modern psychiatry & talk therapy), but he definitely could have come out worse! Especially considering the whole "coming of age in an active warzone" thing.

[hush-writes-preg]

Pregnant monster idea #2: A giantess, who didn't even know her fun with the dwarf had consequences, until she's crowning around the first of her two relatively small children. Sure, she felt off for the past 14 months, kind of bloated, a little tired, but she never would have guessed she was pregnant, her muscular belly barely changed shape! At least the birth is easy..

I wholeheartedly approve of this pairing. You may have just given me a new set of OCs to adore, Anon.

The adventuring party had been on the cusp of raiding a bandit camp when Nagi's stomach cramps finally grew annoying enough to distract her from her battle lust.  She paused, one hand resting against a nearby tree trunk while the other went to her faintly rounded stomach. 

"Nagi, what are you doing?"  Lusac hissed from the other side of the tree, his cowl pulled low and his bow poised to shoot the first of many arrows.  The dwarf could be as abrasive as he was impatient, but he was also a hells of an easy fuck despite his much smaller size, so Nagi usually let his attitude go. 

Usually.

"Trying not to shit myself," the giantess grunted, wincing.  "My guts are all tangled up in knots from your brother's half-arsed cooking.  Next time I oughta just eat him."

"If you think the indigestion's bad now, just imagine how much he'd tear you up inside," Lusac snorted, more than used to the animosity between the two.  "Think you can make it, or do we need to pull back?"

They'd been tracking this group of bandits for weeks now, and the last thing any of them wanted to do was prolong the experience with winter already edging the air with its chill.  "I'm fine," Nagi ground out.  "Let's go."

She wasn't exactly fine, considering that the last 14 months had been a constant on-again, off-again test of her patience with unexplained fatigue and digestive upsets, but the giantess wasn’t about to let a little stomach pain get in the way of their bounty.  She'd never hear the end of it from the rest of their party, and she couldn't be bothered to try and find another group to run with.  Giants weren't exactly on the top of anyone's recruitment list, and easy jobs with decent people could hard to come by.  So Nagi forced herself upright, shouldered her club, and resumed her forward course as quietly as her large mass would allow.

The crunch of steel against bone as she walloped the first sentry almost made up for the roiling spasms in her bowels.  The second and third bandits fell with similar ease, though she missed the last one when an intense burning in her nethers left her dropping into an involuntary squat.  The giantess cursed, slamming her thick brow forward to smash into her enemy's unprotected forehead before reaching under her kilt to try and figure out the source of this newest annoyance.

What she found nearly sent her toppling over in shock.

Blunt fingers discovered the lips of her cunt stretched tightly around a small, hard mass, and while she might not be as bright as the condescending elven sorcerer currently lobbing fireballs into the bandits' tents, Nagi wasn’t stupid.  The giantess threw back her head in a blood-curdling roar as a whole lot of little things suddenly clicked into place at once.

Pregnant.  I'm pregnant.  I'm pregnant and whelping in the middle of a godsdamned raid!

An opportunistic bandit swooped in from the side, obviously hoping to take advantage of Nagi's distraction with a well-placed sword blow to her belly, but the giantess was having none of it.  She spun on her knee, knocking the imbecile's head clean from his shoulders and sending it arcing over the raging combatants like a leather ball.  Arterial blood splattered over her dark, oiled skin as Nagi bore down and passed the babe with relative ease now that she knew what was happening, nearly moaning with relief at the sudden reduction in pressure. 

Tucking the tiny infant against her arm, the cord still trailing from her body, the giantess rose to her feet and slammed her club down against the next unfortunate target, snarling in satisfaction at the way his body crumpled beneath the force of her blow.  Oh, how she wanted to be angry with Lusac, for he's the only one she'd bothered fucking over the past two years, but she knew he wasn't solely to blame.  It was her damned body that had decided to nurture his stupid seed, and if she'd been paying more attention, she might have bloody known. 

"Nagi!  Incoming!" 

The giantess spun around, her club already raised and swinging towards the bandit that Lusac's brother, Gibrig, had sent stumbling her way with a burst of earth magic.  The female didn't even have a chance to scream before the enormous length of fire-hardened bone and stone connected with her body and sundered it completely in two.  Fluids and viscera splattered over the fighters in gory precipitation, but Nagi found it difficult to keep her mind on the battle. 

The cramps weren't letting up.  Why was she still having contractions?

With another irate bellow, the giantess released her frustrations on a nearby crowd of enemies, crushing skull after skull while her belly churned.  Nobody seemed to notice the newborn in her arms in the heat of battle, especially not when its mother continued to savage her opponents without much of a hint of her physical condition, but Nagi sure as hells knew.  The pressure from before was back, and as much as she didn't want to think about the implications of it, she knew she didn't have much of a choice. 

When the next contraction gripped her womb and compelled her down into another instinctual squat, the giantess dropped her club and reached between her legs again.  There!  Divines take me, another one.  With a groan and a muffled curse, Nagi pushed and delivered the second child, grateful that the half-dwarven runt had nothing on the size of full-blooded giantkin as it slid easily through her birth canal. 

The fight didn’t last much longer after Nagi nestled the second babe against the first and jumped back into the fray.  Half drunk on warm ale and sleep, the remaining bandits quickly fell before the experienced group, soon leaving the five of them standing alone in the midst of a bloody, torn-up glade.

Silence fell for a brief moment, just before one of the newborns let out a thready squawk.  Not to be outdone, its twin followed soon after, drawing several sets of startled eyes in Nagi's direction.

"What the--"

"Is… is that a baby?"

"Nagi, why do you have a baby?"

"I think I hear two babies."

"The fuck?!"

Sighing, Nagi turned to the dwarven ranger who'd gone deadly pale and thrust one of the mewling infants in his direction, tiny by her standards yet already almost half as long as its sire.  "Here," she muttered.  "Congratulations, you're a father.  Now, will one of you fetch me something to tie these cords with, or are you all just gonna stand there and stare?"

[sillygoofyqueer]

The Untamed live review: episode eight!!!!!!!!

Skipping the undoubtedly gorgeous intro

OH, hey Wuxian. I like how you're stomping around.

He's gone to see Wen Ning, how sweet!

Shit, why's it all empty?? Where is he?

Hide and seek, expert level

Now he's with the bunnies, feeling so comfy

Hey, we saw this last time??? A recall, never happens.

Still so sweet that he doesn't want Wangji to feel lonely

He catches on literally so fucking quick

TALKING TO THE RABBITS LIKE THEY'RE HAVING A CONVERSATION

He feels so insulted, haha "such a stubborn guy"

Cheng and Yanli!!!

"so embarrassing to be holding a rabbit" Cheng, you really have strange views on what makes a man

"oh, of course" *fucking lobs the rabbit at him* WUXIAN BE CAREFUL FOR FUCK'S SAKE

Yanli looks so concerned

Cheng just immediately gives up and sits with it - he looks so uncomfortable lmaoooo

"do you want to eat them?" Ever heard of subtlety, Cheng???

Wuxian covering the rabbit's ears is fucking adorable

Cheng is saying that rabbits aren't manly, and yet he seems very content with them 🤔 uphold your own standards

He found them accidentally, suureee

They're all so sweet!!

Cheng looked like he was squaring up to the rabbit for a second there

Yanli, you have such a big heart 🥺

What's Cheng thinking about?

He doesn't want to leave them....the little pout!

THE NOSE NUZZLE

Bro being ditched

Wangji was hiding from them!!!!! STOOOOP

Xichen, how can you meditate in this weather

Also, I suppose Qiren was right haha

WHAT THE FUCK??? WEN CHAO?? FUCK OFF

Kill him

Kiiiill.

YOU WHORE, THAT IS LITERALLY PLAIN WHITE

Stop trying to break into the back hills, it's a cemetery

GET IN XICHEN, KICK HIM OUT

Get the fuck away from him.

DID YOU JUST THREATEN WANGJI?!??!? YOU MONSTER

He better be okay

Wuxian just fucking ditching them in the night, with a smiley face and all

How is he an idiot?

AWWW, CHENG'S MAD THAT HE DIDN'T SAY GOODBYE :[

The whole family coming to see what's going on

WHAT DO YOU MEAN JUST LEAVE HIM???

Yanli does raise a fair point

Fengmian looks traumatised

Wangji so stoic haha

BRO GETTING ASSAULTED BY LOQUATS

It must be Wuxian, no one else has the audacity

Can't escape him ahhahaha, he knows

"you broke the promise 😔" stop pouting, man

HE'S WORRIED ABOUT YOU, WUXIAN, JESUS

Wangji is very petty

FUCK OFF WEN CHAO

Oh, hey bbg Wen Qing

Watch out for the very conspicuous and loud flying object

Qing looks worried 😔

Wait for your boyfriend or he'll start casting spells

WHAT DID I TELL YOU???

Nice catch lmaooo

Oh, how the tables have turned, now Wuxian gets to tug Wangji around

Self made? Our boy really is a genius

Wangji looks so bored, he should be impressed

HE NEEDS TO KNOW WHAT TO CALL IT!!

Never mind, Wangji still drags Wuxian around

Oooh, it's glowing, must be important!!!

Wuxian is now looking so suspicious of everything

Tanzhuo, what a pleasant looking place

I see the spell has been released 😔

Wuxian is looking around like an excitable child

Wangji, let him have funnnnn

I like how he immediately turned around to see what Wuxian wanted

WANGJI BEING SURPRISED IS EVERYTHING TO ME

Wuxian's face <3<3

He looks so happy!!!

WHO THE HELL'S THIS GUY???

Nie Huaisang!!!!!!!!!!!

He can tell who it is from laughter alone 🥺

Bro is lying to Mingjue hahaha

Wangji looking like a jealous lover is everything to me

THE TWIN SMIRKS AND SYNCRONISED TALKING!!! THEY'RE SUCH CLOSE FRIENDS

HUAISANG LOOKS HORRIFIED WHEN HE NOTICES WANGJI

"it's okay" Wuxian didn't see the way that Wangji was fucking glaring at Huaisang

He's been kidnapped

THE LOTUS PIER LOOKS SO BEAUTIFUL!!!

What's Cheng doing, sneaking out?

Caught by Yanli instantly

He looks like a guilty child lmaooo

Go on, Yanli, look at his smile!!!

You're so sweet, Yanli

"I thought you were incompatible" Huaisang, they're gay, get with it

HUAISANG IMMEDIATELY ASSUMING IT'S A PUNISHMENT HAHAHA

Just throw the merchandise around then

Awww, Wangji doesn't want to go close because of the crowds 😔

Wangji is so autistic

Wuxian going to comfort him instantly!!!! His robes are literally good boyfriend material

The magical music that plays when Wuxian grabs Wangji's hand

THE WAY WANGJI'S EYES WIDENED!!

He's such a sweetheart

Immediately asking the first person he sees what's going out

THE LADY FLORIST??? DAMN

All cultivators??? Including Wangji and Wuxian and Huaisang!!!!!

The way Wangji looks up hehehe

OH, THIS IS THEIR VERSION OF THE FLOWER MAIDEN SPIRIT FROM THE DANMEI!!!

Huh...

The way Wuxian immediately turns to look back at Wangji like 'brooo, it's for you'

Wangji is too gay to be interested

Huaisang can read?!

Bloody hell, my world view has been shattered

It'd be well sweet if Wangji got it and gave it to Wuxian.

Huaisang only remembers what he wants

Stealing his fan, looking stunning

FLOWERS! SO SO CUTE!!

They're in awe

Wangji, what are you thinking with that pretty face of yours

The way Huaisang and Wuxian start admiring the flowers

What's up with Huaisang??? Even Wuxian's confused

Huaisang might be gay for Wangji standing amongst flowers

WUXIAN'S GAY THOUGHTS GETTING TO HIM SO HE TEASES HIM

Wangji is literally entranced

BLINK MOTHERFUCKER

There we go, the Yin Iron finally getting him snapped out

WEN OWL ALERT

The fuck is this dirty ass place??

"seems we're late again :(" uh, like, twenty years late, apparently

Huaisang is baffled.

Where is everyone else??? FEATHER-

'dire owl'? WEN CHAO

Kiiiill him.

Nice door kick though

You're vile man, literally so vile

Huaisang is literally a genius, goddamn

WUXIAN STOP IT

HAHAAHAHA, WUXIAN POSSESSIVE OVER HIS QUEST WITH WANGJI

Running off without Huaisang

Wangji, your eyesight is impeccable

He wants him.

Will you fuck off, Wen Chao?? You don't even look cool

WEN QING!!!!!

You're not half the man that Xue Yang is!!! (He isn't much better, but I fucking hate Wen Chao)

Yeah, don't fucking shoot the messenger

SHE'S A LOYAL PERSON, BITCH. BETTER THAN YOU!!!

She just likes people who are nice to her, DON'T YOU DARE MOCK HER. PIG.

He has TWO of them now?!?

Wen Chao, you're overcompensating because your dad doesn't love you. He respects Xue Yang more than you

Don't you dare, Wen Chao. You better not threaten her!!!!

I'm going to fucking kill him myself.

THE SLAUGHTER TORTOISE???

Sacrifice Huaisang

Oooh, blood thingy.

Oh, nevermind, it was the dancing maiden ;(

I want the slaughter tortoise.

Causing trouble 😒

Wen Qing, hang out with better people

CAREFUL BBG, DON'T SPILL YOUR ALCOHOL.

JIANG CHENG!!!!!!!!!!!

They should kiss. Hahaha.

STOP BULLYING THE WAITER SO, HE DOESN'T DESERVE IT HAHAHAHA

Rich people bullying working class people, come on guys 😔 (/j)

THIS IS LITERALLY JUST WHO CAN MAKE THE WAITER SNAP FIRST

Wen Qing. You are being MEAN. Leave him alone!!!

He looks so upset...HE JUST WANTED A REST

Wait. Wait. SHE'S PUSHING HIM OUT SO HE'LL BE SAFE. DON'T THINK I DON'T SEE THAT

SHE GAVE HIM INFORMATION!! SHE'S HELPING HIM!!! I KNEW OUR BBG WOULD NEVER BETRAY US

The shock on Jiang Cheng's face

The guards actually look so upset, like they were so excited to fight hahaha

I love her so much my god.

Woah, what's wrong with this woman? Is she alright?

Walking together like a boy band, hahaha. I wonder what roles they'd take.

Immediately thinking of stopping somewhere to rest

Hello madam Wen!!!

She is fucking traumatised, my girl needs a break

WUXIAN, WILL YOU JUST STOP, SHE OBVIOUSLY IS NOT RESPONDING.

Never mind. I love how Wuxian looks so happy while Huaisang and Wangji look mildly concerned

I wish I could use a fan as well as Huaisang :(

Bro, this place looks dead

WANGJI KNOWING WHEN SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH WUXIAN, THIS IS LOVE

"bad feeling" who fucking doesn't???

Now everyone is suspicious

I feel really bad for her, poor lass.

How is Wuxian this smart? I love him.

Haha, it looks like an ass I SWEAR MY HUMOUR IS BETTER THAN THAT

Why do they just follow her?? I'd be a bit more worried

Never mind, I do love her so much

What's wrong with her? Hmmm????

They literally look like a fucking boy band. When Jiang Cheng joins, they'll look even more like one.

DON'T INSULT THE STATUE!!

Who the fuck's this one?

"I'm here all the time, I should be interrogating you" Fair point, can't argue with that logic

I think he's suspicious, but he's just trying to help

Wuxian looking for Wangji for reassurance 🥺

Okay, more lore time, nothing we don't already know (I think)

Monologue, monologue, monologue

What grand clan?? The Wens???

He is old, but not that old.

CALLED IT.

He's actually really suspicious, I don't trust him.

Also it's dusty, do you even have any blankets???

They're all suspicious of him, even Huaisang picked up on it.

Oh, hey madam wen

AWWW, SHE BROUGHT THEM FIREWOOD

They're going to be fucking sacrificed, no doubt about it

Tiannu temple is the name, and they're cooking up a fire.

How can y'all sleep like this, my neck'd be fucked up

Also A ROCK???

HUAISANG'S SCREAM HAHAHAHA

Never mind, they're literally all going to die

I thought she was flipping them off then, so friendly

Besties, it's moving

Back the fuck away right now guys

WANGJI GOT SMACKED HAHA

Literally saving his husband, well done Wuxian

THEY'RE SO IN SYNC

WUXIAN GO FUCKING FLUNG

I wish I could fight as well as they do, but I can't even do a handstand, let alone fly

IN SYNC, IN LOVE, HOMOSEXUALS

WUXIAN STILL JOKING AT A TIME LIKE THIS

His little smile

Wuxian seems to take joy in being flung

Hahaha, Wuxian's little spin

NICE SEALS!!!

What could go wrong

Huaisang, you coward

"thanks to your presence, Hanguang Jun" WEI WUXIAN WAS LITERALLY HALF OF THE BATTLE. HE GOT FLUNG THREE TIMES.

Wuxian's pout, he deserves more recognition

THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE- oh, they're corpses, never mind then

Let's get this party started!!!!

I love them all so much, what a vibe

Naw, they're actually quite scary, not gonna lie

I'd give up right then and there, but that's why I'd be a SHIT cultivator

Huaisang is about to have a heart attack

THEY WERE LIED TO

Told youuuu, called iiiittttt

Welp, they're trying to break in now, fuck's sake

Doing it quite slowly, lmao

"nobody's home, guess we'll come back later"

THE FACT THAT WANGXIAN JUST KNOW WHAT THE OTHER IS THINKING

Boom, seal, geniuses

Bastard Dire Owl

Yes, you did. You fell for the trap I warned you about.

NOOOOO THEY GOT IN AND IT ENDED FUCK

I don't even have time to watch the next one. FUCK.

[trigun-floopers]

S1 Ep 1

Vash approaches the plant tanks:

"What's wrong with that one?" Meryl asks offscreen.

"A red plant, huh?" Vash says as he peers at the camera for his closeup, red and blue reflected side by side in his lenses.

He shifts his head down and Rosa starts to deliver her line. "How bad is it?"

"Cut!"

"Shit, was I too early?" Rosa asks.

"No, you were great, Rosa. Take five until Vash moves his head right."

"You!" The Director pointed at Vash. "You did this pefectly while blocking lights and now that we're rolling-" she jerked her hand out to finish the question silently.

Vash laughs nervously and sideglances Meryl, who rolls her eyes. Roberto sneaks a gummy worm.

---

After the 4th try the Director throws her hands up in defeat and leaves to get a sandwich.

Shazza, the Assistant Director takes over. About 15 minutes later she looks up apprehensively as the Director returns.

Placated by food, the Director asks with a mouthful of salmon sandwich, "How'd you go?"

"He uh..." Not wanting to say it outright without the evidence, Shazza replayed the take of Vash lifting his head for the winning shot of the reflection on his specs. "He got it right after you walked away."

The Director's face went full FML. She lobs what's left of her sandwich at Vash, who's facing away talking to Roberto, and it lands right in his hood.

He jumps in surprise. "What the- what was that?" He spins on the spot, checking the ground for what hit him.

Nick, having seen the whole thing, walks up to Vash with a shit eating grin and says, "Time to go fishin."

He digs the sandwich out and starts eating it.

"Fuck me," Vash exclaimes. "Where did that come from? And where did you come from!? I thought you weren't here for a few days."

"Wardrobe, ya numpty. When Val and Zelle call, you best get your ass in."

Roberto nods sagely.

[wonkyelk]

Directors cut of any of your cat rodney fics! 💜 please?

Thanks very much for the ask, this was a lot of fun to revisit. Have never done a director’s commentary before, so hope this is the right sort of thing.

Have opted for the first one, “A cat may look at a particle accelerator” - fic and commentary under the cut. If you just want the notes, skip to everything in italics.

So, this whole series was entirely @massharp1971’s fault. 

We got into a conversation in the comments of another fic (In which Rodney is not a princess and John works through a few things) in which we agreed that Rodney was, in essence a cat. They then pointed me in the direction of the Pallas cat, who was so quintessentially Rodney that I broke off what I was writing and jumped fully on board the Cat!Rodney train:

“I knew it! I knew there was Ancient tech here! McKay is going to go green…”

“Yeah, yeah, Langstrom, but save the victory dance for now. Just remember the golden rule is don’t…”

[Langstrom is a name plucked from the Quarantine episode of Red Dwarf - for no particular reason, except that Red Dwarf was my childhood and I love that episode in particular. Plus, she’s a great creepy villain, who undergoes a transformation of sorts, so there is a tenuous link.]

VSWOOSH!

[It took far, far too long to work out how to spell ‘Vswoosh!’]

“… touch anything.”

———

“Sergeant Holly, you weren’t due back for another three hours. Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Ma’am.” Pause. “Well, mostly fine.” Pause. “It’s not fine.”

“Sergeant. What’s in the bucket?”

“It’s more of a ‘who’s in the bucket’ really, Ma’am.”

Pause.

“I see.”

Tap.

“Dr McKay? We’re going to need the Rehumanator.”

[The name was intended to give off fifties style Mad Scientist vibes. Every sci fi adventurer needs this particular bit of kit and, honestly, it’s surprising that it doesn’t come as standard]

——-

Rodney stalked up and down the lab as Zelenka readied the cumbersome ray for use. If he’d had a tail, it would have been lashing with angry fervour.

[I wanted from the start to make Rodney an actual cat, who had - for practical reasons, mostly thumb-based - transformed himself into a human, rather than have him discover his inner cat through some form of Pegasus Standard Malarkey. Hence a bit of heavy foreshadowing.]

“…how many times do we have to go over the most basic safety protocols? I mean, three penguins, two mountain lions and a gerbil wasn’t enough? And who the hell gets themselves turned into Bouillabaisse soup?”

[this is a direct nod to the large number of - generally excellent - transformation fics in the fandom, though only the penguins are referencing stories that I knew existed. There may well be a gerbil Radek or Rodney or Teyla out there and I’m sure the world would be a better place for it.

Bouillabaisse Soup is there, by the way, because it’s just fun to say (not so much to type)]

John rested a placating hand on Rodney’s shoulder.

“You did catch all the drips, did you, Sergeant?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“Hmm. He does smell more pleasant than the mountain lions, at least.” Rodney inhaled from the bucket with a slightly dreamy expression.

“Er, Doc, can I humbly request that you don’t eat Dr Langstrom?”

As Rodney raised his hackles to full and started savaging Sergeant Holly for such an infamous suggestion - while casting the occasional longing look at the bucket - Zelenka stepped in with a hasty wave.

[more cat anvils being lobbed at you]

“Rehumanator is fully charged and ready.”

Rodney rolled his eyes so far, they went all the way round and came back again.

“Honestly, Radek, I expect this sort of thing from the grunts and soft scientists, but you, of all people, should know better. It’s not a Rehumanator, it’s an original DNA restoration device…”

“A factory reset.” John put in, mostly to watch Rodney go purple.

“Yes, yes, if you must reduce complex scientific principles to the most banal possible description.”

“I really must.”

[this is one of the most fun dynamics they have, when Rodney is being precise and wordy and John just cuts it down to essentials, with a huge smug smirk. Honestly, Rodney might just win in a smug-off, but John would be close]

Rodney glared at John. John smirked back. Radek carefully walked around them, so as not to get hit by a stray bolt of sexual tension. The last time that had happened, he hadn’t left his quarters for a week.

But what a week.

[I swear, this sort of thing actually happens in the show. Extras and side characters were constantly being hauled off the set with Sexual Chemistry-Related Shrapnel Damage]

“Perhaps we should restore Dr Langstrom now, Rodney? Unless you feel that he has not yet exhausted all the possibilities inherent in being soup?”

Rodney tore his gaze reluctantly from John’s and nodded impatiently.

“Yes, yes, of course. Do the thing.” He waved his hand at the ray and backed swiftly away from the bucket.

Zelenka aimed and fired.

VSWOOSH!

“Ouch.”

It turned out that scientists and buckets, in combination, could bond with more of a tenacity than one might imagine, when picturing them separately. Two Marines held the bucket, while Rodney and John took one arm each and began to heave.

In hindsight, Zelenka should not have leaned down over the Rehumanator to get a better view of his boss’s contraband, but inarguably excellent, ass, with muscles all nicely taut in the act of straining.

[There is an SGA Fiction Law which states that any fic containing more than a few sentences of Rodney McKay, must also contain due reverence towards his ass. This is just me complying with the law]

VSWOOSH!

“Sorry, sorry, my elbow slipped. But, is fine it should not do harm unless… ah. Now that is unexpected.”

The marines and John looked down at themselves, relieved to be in one piece. But sitting on the floor, with a glare like a rabid tiger, was the angriest, fluffiest grey cat they had ever seen.

[if you haven’t seen a Pallas cat, go look one up now. It will warm your heart and also glare at you, like you just ate its kittens]

———

“So let me get this straight. It wasn’t a malfunction with the Rehumanator?”

“No, no, was working perfectly. But, as Rodney explained,” Radek gave a nervous glance to the cat on the chair next to him, who was currently portraying the world’s mightiest huff with every separate fur he possessed, “it does not actually turn you human. It merely undoes any transformation that you may have undergone.”

“So, what are you saying?” Elizabeth glanced at Rodney and then Zelenka with incredulity. “You mean that Rodney is not human? That he’s really a cat?”

Sheppard knew that couldn’t be what Zelenka was saying. Except that, no, he was saying it. In those exact words.

“I have done all diagnostics, all possibilities for error. All it did, as the Colonel so eloquently put it, was a factory reset on Rodney. Therefore,” he shrugged. “Rodney is cat.”

They all looked at Rodney. Rodney glared at all of them, before letting out a little kitty sigh, licking a paw and nodding slightly.

Sheppard blinked and turned pale. “Excuse me. I need to just… process a few things.”

[as a side note, I believe there must be at least one SGC form for accidental bestiality; though whether anyone has dared to fill it in is very doubtful]

Rodney tried to follow but he was firmly scooped up and placed - to his absolute horror and indignation - in an improvised and very secure cat basket, which all of Rodney’s science team had worked together to make, with an unusual swiftness and sense of unity.

“Sorry, Rodney, but we need to get you checked out at the infirmary.”

“Actually, Dr Weir… I believe that Dr Sanders has a degree in veterinary science…”

The very secure cat basket proved to fold like so much tissue paper, in the face of the lashing of vengeful claws.

———

“Carson, could you be on the alert for three scientists and two marines headed your way with multiple lacerations, bites and one severe fur allergy?”

———

“Atlantis General Notice: Should anyone spot a largish, extremely fluffy cat in your vicinity, please report it immediately. Do not, repeat, do not, approach the animal or attempt to capture it. Nor, and this is very important, should you make kissy faces at the cat or use phrases like ‘Here Tiddles!’ or ‘Who’s a little cutie pie, then?’. The infirmary is rapidly running out of bandaids.”

[I ran through several alternate cutesie cat names (which I can’t remember now but probably were along the lines of FluffyBoots or Snugglekins) but ultimately ‘Tiddles’ had just the right quality of banality and depressing indignity]

——-

“Atlantis General Notice: Colonel Sheppard has asked me to also point out that the cat should not be harmed in any way. Or, I quote, “if anyone harms so much as a whisker on his angry little face, they will spend the rest of their lives, and afterlives, regretting that they were ever born.”

[Sheppard will, naturally, protect Rodney under any circumstances and as any species, no matter the cost - and, frankly, I think he enjoys being just that much of an ethically flexible badass] 

——-

“Atlantis General Notice: Seriously, stop it with the pet names. We’re now down to two Spiderman bandaids and a roll of sellotape.

[the author does not recommend that you tend your wounds with sellotape and refuses to be held responsible for any subsequent physical and emotional distress consequent on trying]

———

Sightings of Rodney ceased after less than a day. It wasn’t until two days later that he returned: bipedal, distinctly less fluffy and wearing an improvised toga made of bedlinen.

Elizabeth allowed him to retrieve a uniform before the debriefing.

“So, I think you can understand that we have some questions…”

Rodney scowled, his expression so like his cat self that, for a moment, the whole Command staff thought he had reverted and backed off about a foot.

“Okay, look. Yes, I was born a cat. Obviously. And I would go so far as to say that I was a very good cat. For about six months, I lived a happy, catly life, deducing natural laws from first principles, studying the stars and enjoying the benefits of an incredibly flexible tongue and spine. Until I realised that, for all my incredible intellect, the stupid prejudices and species-centricity of humanity was going to make it impossible for me to ever win a Nobel prize.

So, I worked for weeks on my own personal transformation ray, which, let me tell you, was no picnic with paws. But, you know,“ Rodney preened smugly, “genius.”

[or, in other words, the author couldn’t really think of a method of complex DNA-shuffling machine-construction by a kitten and used the ‘get out of explanations free card]

He leaned back on the chair, absently lifting his hand to his mouth then hastily lowering it, just before it met his gently poking tongue.

“Anyway. I was still pretty young, from a human perspective, at that point, so I smuggled myself to Canada, got adopted and threw all of my energy and time into science. And also, quite a lot of batting at scrunched up paper for the first two years, but some habits are hard to shake.”

[I considered whether to make Jeannie a cat too, but ultimately decided to just go simple. At this point in the series, at least, therefore, she doesn’t realise that her brother is actually a cat. I don’t know whether Rodney’s been brave enough to risk that conversation since]

Rodney crossed his arms and scowled fiercely at everyone.

“So, how did you turn back?” Sheppard asked.

Rodney sighed.

“Apparently you weren’t listening. I built a transformation ray at the age of six months. And that was with the drawback of the lack of materials to be found on the rocky steppes of my birthplace. You would not believe how hard it was to source a DNA reconstituting module… well, anyway. Short answer, I’m a genius and Atlantis is chock full of weird stuff. The only reason it took me so long was that it’s also surprisingly full of string and… well, that’s not important either.”

[the birth of Cat!Rodney’s fascination with string, which all cats I have known have been greatly enamoured with and scientists are rather keen on in general too]

“So, are you planning on staying as a human, now?”

Rodney waved his hand vaguely. “Yes, yes. It was… not wholly unpleasant to connect with my roots, but the lack of opposable thumbs and intelligible speech would always be a drawback. Though some of my scientists seem to manage…”

Elizabeth stepped in before he could get going on a full rant.

“Well, I’m sure that we’ll all be glad to have you back. Though, you might find that people need a little time for adjustment.”

Rodney snorted. “What’s to adjust? I’m exactly the same as I always was, except now everyone knows that my baby pictures are cuter than theirs.”

[some kind person left a link to a Pallas kitten on the last fic in the series, which should definitely be checked out if anyone doubts this]

Sheppard nodded. “Can’t argue with that.”

The meeting adjourned shortly afterwards.

——-

“So, er, Rodney…”

Rodney sighed and removed his hand from John’s pants.

“This whole interspecies sex thing is freaking you out, isn’t it?”

[despite this essentially being crack, I felt this whole issue had to be addressed a bit, if only to then sweep it firmly under the carpet]

John missed Rodney’s hand but he felt they probably did need to discuss the issue.

“Well, yeah. Kinda.”

“Okay, so look. I don’t do my DNA alteration by halves. I’m completely physically human. Ask Carson. I would never have been allowed on the expedition otherwise.”

“So…”

“So, sleeping with me is not bestiality, nor does it make you a furry, if that’s a concern for you. It just means you have excellent taste.”

John considered for a moment and then popped Rodney’s hand back into his boxers.

“Well, okay then.”

———

“So, Rodney. Ever thought about having kittens?”

“I will end you in your sleep, Sheppard.”

“Goodnight, Rodney.”

“Goodnight.”

——-

And, at least, now John knew why Rodney had always purred after sex.

[this whole fic took about an hour to write (plus some polishing time afterwards) and the longest part of that was trying to end it; which is something that goes for almost all my stories. It almost finished with Goodnight, but that just felt too abrupt; fortunately I think Rodney is easy to imagine as a happy post-coital purrer, without stretching disbelief too far. Because, you know, this is a very serious fic 😁]

This series is one of my favourites to write, because it’s full of love and support from everyone, and because I love the sheer goofiness of it all, with, hopefully, a lot of heart at the centre.

And because cats. You can never have too much cat.

Appreciate the ask! 💖