#I started seeing a therapist last week for the first time ever. I think it's ok.

[gwen-pierce]

“That’s it for today, everyone! Thanks so much for coming, we’ll see ya next time!” Ruth called from her large desk at the front of the room, emphasizing her dismissal with a happy clap. Gwen began to gather her things from the table, the woman who shared the large slab of wood with waved a quick goodbye before taking off. She was going to pick up her kids from daycare, something Gwen had learned in their few conversations over the last couple of weeks since she joined Ruth’s class.

It had all started when she began therapy. Gwen knew she had dependency issues, self-esteem issues, and even some anger issues to work through. She had thought therapy was just talking about your feelings and suddenly you didn’t feel so bad anymore. It was so much more than that. It was work. It was hard and oftentimes it hurt. At first, she didn’t think it was helping but the more effort she put in the more she started to get out of it. When her therapist suggested she take some classes in the area, Gwen dove right in. She tried cooking and it turns out guidance wasn’t what she was missing in that field, she was downright terrible at it but the class was still fun. She found herself able to laugh at her mistakes instead of feeling stupid and unworthy. She tried other things. Failed at some, excelled in others. Ceramics wasn’t her calling but she did make friends in that class that brought her to some paint and fire events which she was actually good at and enjoyed. Aerial silks left her covered in bruises and so did pole dancing, but the later class made her feel empowered. Sexy, even.

Floral arranging quickly became her favorite weekly event. Not only did she easily get lost in creating bouquets she found the instructor, Ruth’s, voice soothing. Her presence calming. The classroom was warm and inviting and the flowers centered Gwen in a way she hadn’t ever been before. Like they understood her. Beautiful and delicate but maybe, just maybe, stronger than they looked.

“Gwen, dear, do you have a moment?” Ruth had asked as the young blonde passed by the front desk on her way to the door. Smiling warmly, she nodded, pausing opposite the instructor. “Of course, is everything okay? I know I sort of went outside the lines of the brief today and that the arrangement leaned a little more winter than autumnal…” Her voice trailed off as Ruth waved her hand with a soft laugh. “There are no rules in flowers, dear. Your arrangement was beautiful any time of year.” She said, smiling warmly and reaching out her hand to take Gwen’s and giving it a reassuring squeeze. “That’s why I wanted to chat with you. I know it’s only been a couple weeks but I think you’re really gifted, Gwen. The flowers, they speak to you. I think you’re ready for my intermediate class. What do you think?” “Really?” Gwen blanched, color rising to her cheeks. Her gut instinct was to reject the offer and put herself down but she swallowed that urge. That learned behavior that told her she wasn’t good enough. Instead, she mustered up a proud smile and returned Ruth’s hand squeeze with one of her own. “Actually, yeah. The flowers do speak to me and they’re telling me I should.” 

[skullshoal]

doctors be diagnosing me with problems.

[kookslastbutton]

Guilty Pleasures ༓ jjk, kth (m) | chapter ii

✒ Summary: Three years of being Seoul's power couple earns you nothing but a big fat divorce settlement and your face plaster on every gossip column around town. You're angry, hurt, and desperately want to move on, but worst of all? You're still in love with the man who started the whole mess, even though the most he can ever see you as is a friend. The renowned actor you've hired to be your company's new endorser seems to have a soft spot for you though. He's easy on the eyes, you'll admit, but who actually wants a divorcee like yourself? It's unrealistic really.

pairing: ex-husband ceo!jungkook x ceo!reader, actor!taehyung x ceo!reader

genre/AU: angst, smut, fluff, loverstoexesto ?, coworkers2?, unrequited love

Word count: 4.5k

Warnings: oc and jk are both 30, Taehyung is 32, swearing, fighting, confrontation, tornado of emotions, mentions of alcohol consumption, mentions of sexism in the media and business world, public shaming (both direct and indirect), morally grey characters, mentions of toxic relationships, mentions of abandonment issues, mentions of therapy, attempts to self-regulate but reader is pissed, mentions of self-blame though oc knows its not entirely her fault, mentions of defamation charges, JK is just 🤬 while KTH is 😇

playlist: Unkiss Me, Apologize, Hate That I Love You, etc.

a/n: Woah okay....so had I fun writing this, even though it took me a hella long time to decide whether to continue the story as a series or not 🫣 Anyway I altered the summary slightly from chapter one (and updated for consistency purposes), but it doesn't change my overall plans! As you read this chapter, I hope you will be able to see my vision (I'm nervous af! haha)! Enjoy 🥰 (edited but pls forgive me for any oversights...my typos are ridiculous)

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You’re seated in a wide sofa chair, surrounded by four blank walls, and the gentle sound of water tricking from a faux rock waterfall. Every element of the space is carefully integrated as a means to calm you. Yet it doesn't calm you in the slightest. Your hands are clammy. Muscles tense with the adrenaline spiking through your veins. It doesn’t help that you’ve been running on nothing but black coffee all week either, refusing to eat until the first promo shoot with your company’s new endorser was launched.

A natural in front of the camera, Kim Taehyung was able to speed the process up, yet it didn’t stop the massive dark circles from forming under your eyes. This morning, he'd told you they were unnoticeable but you've seen how you look in the mirror, and they're anything but unnoticeable. Still, you find his gesture to soothe sweet. Thankfully, your new partnership has been smooth sailing which is quite a blessing considering the disaster he nearly walked into.

Yes. You’re referring to that disaster in particular. When, in some desperate last-minute attempt for validation, you threw yourself into the arms of your ex-husband.

More like fixed the collar of his shirt and whoops, slid right on his dick…again.

What is wrong with you?

You’ve been asking yourself the question far too many times. You’d think being a hot-shot CEO of a million-dollar tech company would make you like titanium, resilient as finely pounded steel but no; you're just barely keeping yourself together. You regret your rash decision that day, you regret ever marrying Jeon Jungkook, and you regret ever giving in to your stupid feelings.

That’s why you’re here now, waiting in the office of your therapist’s private practice, hands restless in your lap. You’ve been seeing Melody for just over two months since your divorce was finalized, ready to move on; trying to, more like.

‘JeonX CEO Jeon Jungkook’s ex-wife compensated $1.8 billion in divorce’

‘South Korea’s Golden It couple split with ex-wife taking half the company revenue’

These are the lovely words that greet you from your phone screen.

You have the urge to grab your special red ballpoint pen from your bag and scribble out the entire paragraph, except it’s not a printed gossip magazine— it’s a newspaper column on the internet. Instead, you close out the pesky tab on your phone and reply to its sender.

Chim 🐥: can you believe this crap they’re saying about you?! It's no shit you were given a hefty divorce settlement. You brought in half the income! They’re making you look like some kind of gold digger. I swear if I ever lay my eyes on that pretty ex-husband of yours, I will end him! 😡 [sent at 5:06 pm]

Park Jimin, your childhood best friend, sends you a follow-up text when you don’t immediately reply to the news articles he forwarded over. He’s been extremely overprotective of you lately and especially pissed at how the media’s been portraying you, while Jungkook is seemingly getting a free ride. He’s always had an axe to grind with your ex-husband, to be honest, the divorce gives him only more reason to hate him.

You: Thanks for your concern Chim, but nothing they say surprises me anymore. If you don’t mind, can you stop sending these to me? [sent at 5:12 pm]

You hope your message doesn’t read as cold or dismissive. Jimin’s concern for you is a light in a dark place, but you don’t really want to be reminded of the amount of slandering articles still targeted towards you.

Gone are the days when the public saw you as a powerful woman in business, the one to watch, or the CEO of the fastest-growing startup in the last ten years. You're now simply Jeon Jungkook’s conniving ex-wife; as if you’ve merely seduced him for his money and ran when the going was good.

Of course, the whole situation is skewed to his side; half the world is in love with him after all, and that includes the few lingering reporters who've been practically salivating three feet from you at any given chance, hoping to get an exclusive “inside look”. Your marriage was a sham, you wanted to scream, a mutual business transaction.

Too bad rather than an increase in status, resources, and market share, you gained a pile of twisted, unwarranted emotions and regrets.

“I apologize for the wait Ms. __."

The door swings open as your therapist rushes into the room. She stops at her desk to retrieve last week’s session notes, then takes a seat in the chair adjacent to you with crossed legs.

“It’s okay,” you assure, straightening your posture. “I understand how crazy busy the day can get. It wasn't a long wait anyway."

Melody gives a small smile and jots a few words on her notepad. “Thank you for understanding. How are you doing this week?”

You take a deep breath. "Tired," you respond, "especially this week at work. It's like as soon as I wrap up one project, there's another jumping out from nowhere." You used to be ahead of the game. Now you're barely surviving.

"That's right," she hums. "Last week you mentioned having to attend a charity gala soon. Would you like to start there today?"

Crap, you're suddenly reminded that you have to pick up your gown by 7 pm tonight. You entertained the idea of not going to the gala at all, but that would do you no favors in the end. Given your situation, you can't skip out on such an important charity event.

"Sure," you nod. "The Winter Gala's tomorrow night, actually. It's funny how I used to look forward to it every year, being an opportunity to network and catch up with my peers. I can't say I feel the same thrill this time around."

"Because of the divorce you mean?"

"Exactly. Being the CEO of one of the largest software corporations in the world, my ex-husband's influence far exceeds my own. So whether out of loyalty or political agenda, anyone who's anyone will be on his side of the room. I'm gonna end up being that one awkward person in the corner in a far too expensive Dior gown who no one wants to dance with." You nervously chuckle out the last sentence.

Melody opens her mouth to respond, yet stops when she notices you're not quite finished.

"It'll be the first time seeing my ex-husband after months of no contact too. I guess that's what I'm looking forward to the least."

When you think about it, the most you've seen of Jungkook is his face appearing on the massive screens downtown. He's been featured in at least a dozen interviews lately, teasing a brand-new product his company's planning to release in the spring. Seems he's doing well.

"What you feel is valid Ms. __." Melody seeks to assure you. "In the past, you used to go to these events with Jungkook right? He provided you with a sense of safety, as you did for him, no doubt. I wonder if it's a lack of consistency and belonging that worries you, more than it is about seeing your ex-husband and your peers. Companionship too, of course."

"I suppose that makes sense, but it never used to be this way." Your voice raises to match your sudden argumentativeness. "I used to be very comfortable in my own skin. I used to be confident going to these events alone, long before Jungkook came into the picture."

You pause to take a breath before continuing.

"When Jungkook became CEO of his family's software company, JeonX, he was steps away from being bought out by both our competitors, so a partnership was proposed. We married at 27 as nothing more than two ambitious, rising leaders in business. Neither of us was after love or romance when our careers were at stake."

"But then that changed for you," your therapist carefully observes. "Combined, you both held the largest share of the tech market. You and Jungkook were also in an extremely intimate relationship, yet treated it as a business contract. Unfortunately, those don't always come out clean in the wash. It appears to me that while you gave him three honest years of your life, he stole those three years from you."

The words take a moment to sink in; Jungkook stole three years from you. It conflicts with what you want to believe, though from the bottom of your heart, you know she's right.

"I feel so...guilty. I hate that I fell for him, and I hate that I'm struggling this much to let him go." As you tear up, Melody hands you a tissue from the side table with an empathetic gaze. You mouth a thank you and gently dab your eyes with the soft fabric.

"I'd give yourself some grace Ms. __. But if I may ask, what about Jungkook?" she gently probes. "Do you think he feels the same?"

"No...," you say with remorse, shaking your head. "He's moved on."

Melody remains silent for as long as you need in the moments following, cautious to follow your lead. The last thing a therapist should do is rush their patient through the session, so she sits patiently and waits for your go.

"Sorry," you finally say. "We should continue."

"No need for apologies," she replies. "Take your time."

It takes a good minute or two longer of sitting in your car before you can fully compose yourself. As usual, your session with Melody was intense and insightful, but it was far too short. You're gripping the wheel with both hands when her final words of the session echo through your head: "Give yourself some grace; blaming yourself won't do any good."

Seemingly simple advice, yet tough to follow when you constantly feel responsible for the mess you're in. Yes, even though Jungkook has the bigger end of the stick, you made your share of mistakes too. You should have looked into other options when you found out your competitors were looking to buy out JeonX instead of eloping with their CEO.

Just what were you thinking __? you harshly scold yourself. You were trying to protect your company. You both were. Too bad you placed the cart in front of the horse.

Forcing yourself to take a slow, deep breath, your eyes widen in alarm when you catch the time on the clock— 6:38 pm. Fuck! The boutique that's holding your gown for tomorrow's gala is closing in twenty minutes. Without a moment to spare, you yank the seatbelt and slam your foot on the gas.

"Good evening Ms. __." A young woman, fitted in a black pencil skirt and white blouse, greets you with a faint bow as soon as you step foot into the posh boutique.

"Hello, Hana," you refer to the young lady by name with a smile. "I'm terribly sorry to be coming in this late. I came by to pick up the gown I sent in for alterations two weeks ago. The event's tomorrow and I know the shop will be closed for the day."

Knowing the exact dress you're referring to, Hana responds with a soft tone, "Please don't worry Ms. __. We have the gown ready." She disappears to the back of the shop to retrieve it.

As you wait, your mind drifts to memories of last year's gala. You had worn a vibrant, gold gown that evening, slightly risky with a low neckline. Jungkook liked it though, as he wore a matching gold vest himself. You can imagine how crazy the press went when you both set foot on the scene, arms linked and appearing to have coordinated your attire perfectly.

Every investor at the gig wanted to be your friend that night, anxiously pushing through the crowds to speak to you. One of them nearly split your dress in two, as he had accidentally stepped on your gown after one too many drinks. You recall Jungkook scolding the man before turning his full attention to you, making sure you were alright. You consider this to be the first time you truly started looking at him as your husband, a feeling of warmth blooming inside you.

How foolish you were to let that feeling grow.

You're attending the gala alone this year, without him.

Possessing no desire to call attention to yourself this year, you've chosen a rich, navy blue gown instead. It's subtle yet sophisticated. Made out of the finest silk, its silhouette is sleek and falls straight down to the floor without any extravagant frills. The neckline is simple too, paired with a tasteful open back. There are no flashy accessories or embellishments, just a straightforward, classic design. You find the gown beautifully elegant, and nowhere near as bold as your previous one.

"Here it is Ms. __," Hana chips from afar, her heels clacking against the polished floor tiles. In her hand is a generously sized garment bag, your dress flowing underneath.

"Thank you so much, Hana," you say, taking the gown from her hand. "Again, I'm sorry for my tardiness picking this up. I hope you have a wonderful night."

You leave the boutique, the sun having already set.

The Winter Gala takes place on the top floor of Seoul's most luxurious hotel, specifically in its grand ballroom. The walls are adorned with gold trim, and its floors are elegantly lined with polished black marble. Above, a magnificent glass chandelier glimmers, catching the moonlight filtering through the surrounding glass windows.

Despite being a private event, the gala attracts a whole slew of press and locals who eagerly gather on either side of the hotel's front doors, treating it as a prime spot for viewing the red carpet.

Physically, you're ready; dressed to the nines, and makeup done just right. Mentally, you're absent; secretly sipping a margarita at the end of the earth, wherever that is. The day finally comes for you to make an appearance at the Annual Winter Gala and it's clear, you're not prepared in the slightest.

Your nerves consume you as you sit in the backseat of your limousine. You protested against being dropped off at the front entrance. Hell, you hadn't even wanted to arrive in a limo. However, your PR team insisted you be seen arriving, happy to be supporting a charitable event for the eighth year in a row.

Reluctantly, you complied.

Chim 🐥: I wish I could be there with you tonight 😞 No matter what, don't let those snobs get into your head. You look stunning and you have nothing to be ashamed of! [sent at 6:23 pm]

"Thank you, love," you whisper to aloud upon reading your best friend's endearing message. Before you can craft a reply, your door is flung open, with harsh flashes of cameras blinding you. When you step out of the limo, you hear a mix of passionate cheering and interrogative remarks.

"Ms. __, could you share with us your experience of attending the gala without Jeon Jungkook by your side for the first time?"

"Ms. __, it's unexpected to see you here this year, especially considering your recent separation from your ex-husband, who is also on the guest list!"

"Ms. __, how do you plan to navigate the evening's festivities without the familiar presence of your former partner?"

Just keep walking __. If you can just get inside the building and tune out the noise, you'll be fine. You coach yourself with every step, but make little progress with the amount of discomfort only skyrocketing. Your photos are being taken, and questions barrage you from all angles. To top it off, you feel a strong migraine coming on and oh fuck— is that the devil now?

You don't have to glance back to guess the sudden increase in cheering is due to the arrival of another hot A-lister. It has to be Jungkook with a new woman by his side. You think he wouldn't bring a date to an event like this, even if she were a hire? You'd be horribly mistaken.

You fight against the urge to turn around and confirm if your suspicions are true.

"__!" a voice calls out, which you ignore.

But wait a minute.

You stop in your tracks—that's not Jungkook's voice at all; it’s far too raspy.

Peeking over your shoulder, your jaw falls open as you see Kim Taehyung steps behind you wearing a boxy grin on his face. He's dressed to the hills with a shiny maroon, Louis Vuitton suit hugging his slim waist. Quite handsome, per usual, but what is he doing here?

Taking the initiative, Taehyung strides next to you and waves to the crowd charismatically. “My movie shoot wrapped up early so I thought I’d swing by and see what all the excitement’s about,” he says.

You observe how easy it is for him to appease the crowd, a skill you’re still working to sharpen.

“Tae-” you begin.

He then turns to you and looks straight into your eyes. You shiver at from the sudden intensity.

“I got an invitation too, and the gala happens to support a cause that I find close to my heart.” His voice lowers for the next part, allowing only your ears to hear. “I also didn’t want you having to be alone this evening, __. I hope I didn’t overstep my boundaries.”

Taehyung’s words manage to coax you away from your previously frazzled state, comforting you as the chaos quiets around you.

“Thank you, Taehyung. You didn’t, don’t worry,” you reply, giving a tight-lipped smile. “It’s actually a good thing you came since you’re basically the second face of my company after all.”

“I’m happy to hear that. We’ve been working so well together recently, and I don’t want to ruin it. May I?” He offers you an arm.

“You may.” You slip your arm into his and continue towards the hotel entrance. You admit you’re glad to see him.

With Taehyung nearby, your apprehensions of the night start to subside. He’s not always beside you, slipping away to mingle often, yet his mere presence relaxes you. You haven’t even thought about Jungkook to be honest. Well, maybe a little bit.

You take a sip of the drink in your hand and casually scan the ballroom until bingo, you spot your ex-husband by the bar in the middle of half a dozen people. Figures he’s the center of attention, effortlessly tethering people to himself. Jungkook loves the spotlight, and the spotlight loves him. As you continue watching him from across the room, a whirlwind of conflicting emotions swirls within you; longing, sorrow, anger. You haven't seen him in over two months, it feels surreal.

Memories of your time together come flooding back all at once—both the good and the bad, yet mostly bad. It's strange how someone you were once so close to can suddenly feel like a stranger. You allow your gaze to linger a moment longer, curious to conclude a date is nowhere in sight. Perhaps you’re mistaken and they’ve merely slipped away for a second. You’re positive he would’ve brought someone.

Bitterly, you gulp down another sip of your drink. When you place your glass down, you nearly choke at the sight of Jungkook's dark eyes burning holes at you. You avert your gaze immediately, silently begging that he didn’t just witness you staring at him and take it as an unsolicited invitation to come over.

“So,” a provocative voice unexpectedly slides next to you. “Looks like you just traded one bachelor for the next __. I’m shocked to see you’ve shown up to our little soirée.”

Oh god, you roll your eyes, recognizing the owner of the slithery voice like the back of your hand. You do not have the stamina for this tonight.

“Kathy," you greet with the fakest, yet sweetest smile possible. "Nice seeing you again. I haven't seen you since last year. How's the baby?"

"Oh please," she scoffs. "Don't try to deflect, sweetie. We both know it's you who is of far more... intrigue. If you understand my gist."

You want to hurl at this woman's condescending tone. Nothing gets under your skin more than someone your age calling you sweetie. It's not endearing in the slightest, especially when it's Kathy Lee, Director of CommaTen. You despise each other, likely because you both hit it big in the industry at a young age. Meeting someone who reminds you so closely of yourself isn't always a blessing.

“Anyway, as I was saying," she continues, brushing her hair behind an ear. "I have quite the bone to pick with you about stealing that actor from me. Kim Taehyung was mine first, you know."

Hers? She speaks as if a person can be owned. You won't lie, you're surprised Taehyung agreed to partner with you at a time when most of Seoul's elites have turned against you. You're naive to assume that his support wouldn't backfire on his reputation. On the other hand, he's been your endorser for two months now and his following remains fully intact.

“To be frank, I didn't know the two of you were talking business at all," you respond to the accusations with composure, though burning up inside. "But of course, he's free to make his own decisions, can't he? Whatever the reason, something must have enticed him."

“You—" Offended by your insinuation that your offer was better than hers, Kathy doesn't stop what comes next. "We both know the only reason why Kim Taehyung's with you is because Jungkook left you! And you need the extra publicity, isn't that right?"

Fuck. Well, now you're really fucking embarrassed because, at that moment, everyone in the room shifts their attention your way. A pin drop could be heard in the entire ballroom since even the live band ceased their playing.

This is why you didn't want to come. Your fingers fumble with the fabric of your gown.

“Don't act like you're above me just because your company might be worth more than mine, __. We'll catch up with you soon," Kathy spits her final words before spinning around and triumphantly walking away.

Don't cry, you tell yourself. Everyone's staring at you; the press, your peers, Jungkook, and Taehyung. Don't you dare cry.

As the murmurs of conversation gradually resume around you, you force yourself to take a deep, steadying breath. Kathy's words were nothing but a feeble attempt to save her own face. Besides, what company doesn't have at least one endorser?

"Are you alright?" Taehyung's low, gentle voice catches your attention as he swiftly returns to your side, no doubt influenced after witnessing Kathy's verbal jab.

You manage a tight-lipped smile, nodding faintly as you attempt to push back the overwhelming wave of humiliation. "I will be," you reply, though the words feel hollow even to your own ears.

His gaze lingers on you for a moment longer, a silent understanding passing between you.

"I hope you don't take her words to heart, __," he mutters. "I chose to become your partner because I genuinely believe in your product. I'm selective about who I support, so please trust me when I say it wasn't because of material gain or pity."

You're on the verge of responding to his reassurance when you catch sight of your ex-husband from the corner of your eye, striding his way over to you for the first time tonight. His expression is unreadable, so you brace yourself, unsure of what to expect.

"__," he starts, his voice low but carrying an unmistakable urgency. "Can we talk?"

You and Taehyung share a quick glance before you follow Jungkook out of the ballroom, seeking privacy.

As soon as you're out of earshot, Jungkook turns to you, his features softened by a hint of concern. "Hey," he starts. "I meant to get over to you sooner but got tied up. You know how it is."

"Yeah, I know," you respond, though you'd rather he didn't come over at all, especially after being dragged into the spotlight in front of all your peers and colleagues.

The two of you share an unsettling silence before he speaks again.

"You-You look good." He allows his eyes to rake up and down your body, causing you to cross your arms in discomfort. There was a time when his gaze brought a flutter of excitement, but now, you're not so sure it brings you the same pleasure.

"I'm sorry for what happened in there," he says. "You okay?"

"What?" you repeat, your eyes wide with surprise, stunned by his unexpected apology. "Am I okay?"

Where was this concern when he handed you the divorce papers nine months ago? Or when he willingly took advantage of your vulnerability that time in your office, only to disappear afterward, as if he hadn't just torn your heart out of your chest? You clench your fists, trying to contain the rising temperature of your anger.

"Yeah, about what she said about you," he clarifies. "It was uncalled for, and I feel horrible about it." He reaches out to touch you, but you instinctively step back, as if his touch would scorch you.

"Please, don't," you sigh, a trace of weariness in your voice. "It's fine."

"I'm serious __, I can have her charged with defamation for that. It wouldn't take much!" His insistence is unwavering, and it strikes your last nerve.

"You don't need to fight my battles for me, Jungkook," you suddenly snap, voice stern. "I'm not completely helpless now that you've divorced me!"

Jungkook's expression darkens, regret flickering in his eyes. "I'm not saying you are. I'm just trying to help."

"Help?" you repeat, doubtful. "How do you think that's going to look for me in the media? Jeon Jungkook slaps another high society member with a defamation charge for ex-wife. Thanks, but no thanks. I get enough of that as is."

He sighs, running a hand through his hair in frustration. "I know they've been difficult on you recentl—"

"Difficult?" you interject, your anger bubbling to the surface. "In case you haven't noticed my face is on every gossip magazine, billboard, press release, and anything else they can use to scorn me with. It's unbearable, especially since I still have a business to run."

Jungkook winces, clearly stung by your words. "Then let me help. I'll get them removed for you. I still care about you, __."

You scoff. "You care about me? Is that why you made me sign our divorce papers three months after you found out I wanted more than a fake marriage?"

His jaw clenches, gaze dropping to the floor guiltily. "It's not like that, __. I'm not trying to be an avoidant asshole. I want you to-"

"Find someone else. Yeah, I got it," you mutter bitterly, feeling a fresh wave of hurt wash over you.

"I'm sorry, __. I am."

You stare at him, torn between resentment and a lingering ache for the connection you once shared. Now, he's apologizing?

"So am I," you say, slowly backing away from him. "You don't have to do anything, Jungkook. I'm fine."

You then turn on your heels to return to the ballroom where Taehyung still waits for you, leaving your ex-husband standing in the hallway, alone.

a/n: A much-needed confrontation between oc and jk eh? But... *laughs evilly*..this is not the end...LMK what you think! 🤔🤍

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[sugarushwriting]

bed chem

“who's the cute boy with the white jacket and the thick accent?”

frat boy jakey won the poll 🙂‍↕️

smut coming forewarning

please reblog, like, comment, share!! do not translate or repost as your own.

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ ₊˚⊹♡

“do i really need to be here?” you questioned.

winter crossed her arms at you with a straight face.

you huffed. it’s not that you weren’t a fan of going out to frat parties, house parties or dancing with sweaty boys, but this was the last thing on your mind. you were worried about a paper you needed to work on.

“would you relax? the paper is due next week!”

“i know but you know i like to start ahead!”

“but you work best under pressure?”

“yeah but my therapist told me to stop that.”

winter laughed, agreeing with your therapist. you surveyed the room of the house party that was being hosted by a few members of a frat that winter was familiar with. you two currently stood at in the corner of the room. you had a bottle in one hand, your phone in the other mindlessly scrolling.

“can you try to have fun tonight? you need to drink more! i hate seeing you pout.” winter begged.

you chugged the rest of the bottle, holding it up to winter who had a big smile on her face.

you pulled down the sheer dress you wore, which kept rising up higher on your thigh than you would like. you borrowed it from winter, who you didn’t exactly share the same body type with, but she said it would fit you and look great on you.

she didn’t lie, it just sat higher on your thighs than it did for her.

“come on, let’s see if we can mingle with any of the fraternity members.” winter pulled you by your hand to the other side of the house, where 3 men were gathered in the kitchen talking amongst themselves holding drinks.

one caught your eye with his full lips and white jacket.

“what’s up winter!” one of them greeted.

“hi sunghoon!” winter smiled back. “have you all met my roommate and friend? she’s been here a few times with me, but she’s only met jay!”

and jay wasn’t there sadly. you felt comfortable around jay. not only was he cute to look at, but he was funny and charming.

winter introduced you to the boys first. “and this is, sunghoon, heeseung, and jake.” she pointed to each boy to put a name to a face.

that’s when jakes eyes lit up and a smiled crept on his face. “hey! i think i know you!” he pointed to you.

you were confused, then remembered his face looked familiar, followed by his thick accent.

then your eyes went wide. “i—uh,”

“i accidentally kicked the soccer ball over the goal and it hit you!” jake recalled.

yep, you went to a soccer game with your other friend, lia, and ended up leaving the game with an ice pack over your eye.

the boys stared at you, and winter laughed. “even when you’re not moving, you’re getting hurt!”

heeseung smiled, “don’t worry, ever since that day, he’s been worried about you.”

jakes neck started to redden and scratched the back of his his head.

“you’ve been worried for a week?” you asked shocked. “i’m okay, i promise. no permanent injuries.” you eased his mind, getting closer to him so he could check your face out.

and the closer he got, the more he saw how pretty you were up close. the way your eyes sparkled, and your lips turned up in a smile.

suddenly, jake felt his chest tighten. his eyes took in your body, your short dress, eyes lingering on your thighs, then up to your chest.

he wanted you. he wanted to corrupt you. you seemed innocent for him, and he liked that.

he thought about the bed chemistry you both could have.

“wanna dance?” he suddenly asked you. you were taken back, but nodded.

walking away hand in hand, you heard one of the guys talking from behind you both.

“he shoots and he will score.”

an upbeat, reggaeton song came on, and jake pulled your back flush against his front. in no time, his arms wrapped around your waist, his face tucked into your neck.

his breath tickled on your skin, as he made sure to pull your backside as close as possible to his frontside. you felt his body start to melt more into you.

and his bulge grow in his pants. and it only turned you on more than you were.

when another song came on, the rhythm between you all didn’t change, but the air felt thicker, hotter.

you wrapped your hands behind you and around his neck, leaning your head back, and jake kissed your neck, causing a moan to leave your lips drowned by the music.

one of his hands moved down your waist to your thigh, then one of his finger tips glided up your bare thigh, to the hem of your dress.

then it ghosted to behind you, in between your lower halves, and two finger tips glided their way up your back thigh, just below your ass.

jake could only think about getting you to a bed or anywhere private right away.

you imagined his thick accent sweet talking you in bed while absolutely doing bad things to you. with you.

jake lifted his head from your neck, “my bedroom is upstairs, wanna come?” jake whispered into your ear.

you nodded. to both questions. even though technically it was only one question.

jake led you in front him by both hands on your waist, up the stairs.

thankfully you knew the men of this frat house kept things clean, keeping everyone in the main area downstairs on the first floor.

jake led you quickly to his room, the atmosphere only getting thicker with every second, your heart thumping excitedly in your chest.

you were not necessarily innocent, but preferred your toys or books to get you off more than men.

but you kind of knew jakes reputation when it came to pleasing women. and it was a good one.

he took out a key from his pocket to open his bedroom door.

smart for them to lock their doors when random strangers were in their home.

he opened the door wide for you, inviting you in, you smiled stepping inside the dimly lit room, eyeing everything in its place. the shoes, leggos, artwork.

when you turned around to face him after he clicked the door lock, you noticed his eyes. that look. the way he was looking at you, you knew what that meant.

and you were obsessed with that hungry look for you in his eyes.

jake stepped forward, and took your chin in his hand. “i am about to have so much fun with you.”

his lips met yours in a hurried and desperate kiss. both of you just so desperate for each others lips. your hands and arms wrapped around jake’s neck, his own wrapped around your waist.

his tongue found yours, and both of you groaned at the taste of one another. sloppy sounds of the kiss with occasional groaning was the only sound to be heard in the room, with a light fade of the music below.

jakes hands went to below each ass cheek to lift you up and your legs instantly wrapped around his lower half. not once did the kiss depart.

he groped your ass with his delicious hands, not delicate with it, causing you to grind your lower half.

one of his hands moved to the hem of the dress and lifted it up, bunching it around your waist to show your underwear. thank goodness it was your cute pair with the matching bra.

still in a desperate kiss, you only broke apart when his finger traced the top lace, your forehead resting against his, both of you chasing your breaths.

you looked him in the eye, hoping he could read that you were giving him permission. he kissed you quickly, as he laid you on your back on his bed.

his two fingers hooked on your underwear, and slowly pulled them down your legs, making sure his remaining free fingers traced every inch of your bare thigh and legs.

when your lower half was bare in front of him, he licked his lips, nearly drooling at the sight. “looks so good, baby.”

oh sweet lanta.

“actually, i want you to ride my face.” jake said, quickly taking off his white jacket and the shirt underneath revealing his toned abs.

he laid on the bed beside you, taking your hand in his, to tug you up and position you over his face.

his head towards the headboard, you were basically faced reverse cowgirl so you faced the door.

slowly hovering over his lips, you guided your way down meeting his awaiting tongue.

jake hummed in satisfaction, sending vibrations straight through your core. you moaned at the feeling of his tongue flattening against your folds.

you leaned forward, as jake sucked, nipped and licked at your wet core, between your lips, fucking you with his tongue.

he appreciated how wet you were for him. licking up every drop you gave him, he continued to hum and groan in pleasure, his hand snaking around your front to pull your dress down the best of his ability to grab onto one of your breasts, to pinch a nipple.

this caused you to grind lower and harder against his mouth, as you placed a hand on each of his thighs to brace yourself.

you bit your lip, suddenly wanting to busy your mouth. you looked down to the growing bulge in his pants and bent down as far as you could to not disturb him eating you out.

jake was so focused on you, he didn’t realize you were slowly unzipping his jeans and unbuttoning them.

it wasn’t until he felt your hand wrap against his dick, that he groaned even more and slapped one of your ass cheeks.

“yes baby, suck me off while i eat you out.”

you licked his tip, then slowly wrapped your mouth around him, taking him as far as you could in this position.

and sadly, you did have a gag reflex.

jake had thickness to him more than he had length, but you knew that he could still pleasure you with what he had.

you continued sucking him off, using your lips and tongue, and occasionally scraping your teeth causing him to hiss at the good pleasure.

jake continued to eat you out exceptionally, and he took two fingers of his and guided them inside your wetness to prepare you for him. not once did he lose a beat using his tongue on you.

jakes teeth and lips wrapped around your clit, as his fingers continued to rut in and out of you, unable to control your moans and suck him off at once.

“mhm so close jakey.” you whined.

you took your mouth off from him, but replaced it with your hand so he wasn’t left unattended.

you picked up your pace with your hand, it barely able to wrap fully around him. you took your thumb to rub his tip where his precum was leaking.

this was even better than you ever imagined in your head.

“oh baby, i’m close too.” jake sighed against your lips of below.

it didn’t take much longer for you two to orgasm at the same time.

his come messy all over your hand, you licked your hand and the rest of him clean. thankfully he must take care of himself well, because it didn’t taste too bad.

you came all over jakes face, him smiling at the way you leaked all over him, and he licked you clean. causing you to go into sensitive overdrive.

you removed yourself from your position, rolling over so you laid beside him, your dress askew, cunt still bare and glistening.

his dick was limp, but was quickly getting harder once again, by just looking at your post orgasm face.

jake leaned over to kiss you on the lips, your tongues immediately finding each other to mix and swap spit of each other. it only turned you both on more.

jake went to hover over you, ready to fuck you into oblivion. your legs wrapped around his waist, as his tip teased your clit and entrance.

“i can’t wait to feel you. to fill you up and having you moan my name over and over until you go speechless.” jake said kissing your lips, face, neck, and top of your chest.

his hand went to grab a condom from his night stand, but his hand froze when he found it empty,

fucking heeseung must have took the last of his condoms because he had at least seven left.

“fuck, i am out of condoms.” jake sighed.

you pouted. jake looked cute and hot at once.

“are you free next week?” jake smirked lazily.

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ ₊˚⊹♡

mhm part two maybe?

the house in this scenario

[ambrosiagoldfish]

HI! Can I request Vox, husk or anyone else with a s/o who has an addiction problem?

Yes I know my Grammar and punctuation is out of line 🙏🏽

Hazbin Hotel x Addict!Reader

(Vox, Husk, and Angel Dust)

Viewer Discretion is Advised!

Warning: Drug/Alcohol Abuse, Gn!Reader, Reader being defensive, happy-ish endings.

Request Box: Open

Word count: 1170

A/n: Hi! Thank you for the request! This is my first time writing both Vox and Husk so I had to do some research (and by research, I mean reading 2+ hours of how other write them) to get an idea of their main characterization.

I really enjoyed writing this as I personally have my own experiences with addicts and how it’s affected me as a person. So this was also a little bit of a vent post if anything. I also added Angel cause I think it fits the theme but also he’s one of my comfort characters and writing for him made me happy.

Hope you enjoy <3

Proofread like once so sorry for any mistakes!



Vox

He’s used to being friends/knowing addicts. I mean one of his closest allies (And TOTES not previous hook-up buddy) Valentino, is also an addict who also employs many as well. So he’s not a stranger to it.

So mostly he’s indifferent to it, almsot desensitized to it. He doesn’t really see a danger to it, I mean we’re in hell and you can’t exactly OD and die

But of course, death isn’t the only thing that can happen when you're an addict. The breakdown of you as a person often happens, as well as you being reckless with money. And this is where Vox starts to have a problem.

If you’re in a relationship with Vox, then clearly you mean a lot to him, he may not be the most expressive about it but he does. So to see the partner that he has opened up to and grown attached to deteriorate slowly in front of him is something he refuses to accept.

So one day he cancels a meeting with his staff and calls you to his office so you two will be alone. When you get there he gives you a cup of coffee and you catch up a bit. How was your day? Have you ate yet? Those kinds of things.

Until finally he decides to just break open the floodgates with one simple statement.

“Darling… I think you should get clean”

You were caught off guard at first

“It’s fine, What’s the problem? we’re in hell”

He then comes out with his honest opinion

“*Sigh* I know it’s hell and you can’t die… but surely you can see how it would make me a bit… worried for you.”

He paused

“I mean even last week you spent all the allowance I gave you on it and you would have starved if I didn’t buy you food, surely you can see why it’s a fucking problem!”

Eventually after talking and depending on how it goes you either agree to go clean or it ends with an argument and he’ll just try again later.

If you agree, he’ll make sure he’s with you ever step of your sobriety. Considering he’s one of the top rising Overlords and owns VoxTech he’s got money so He’ll higher the best people to help you go clean(Do therapist exist in hell?)

“Thank you dear, you have no idea how much this means to me”

Husk

Similar to Vox in a lot of ways but also really different. He himself is an addict with alcohol so he clearly understands the struggles of it.

He has lots of walls up but for someone who “lost the ability to love” he sure does care a lot for you. I don’t think he would try a get you to go clean, at least not right away (or even at the beginning of the relationship) simply cause he thinks he doesn’t have a right to judge. So in all honesty he might just let you be.

That is until he realizes that you do it to forget things and ignore your problems/past. He knew first hand that drowning your sorrows away with your choice of addictive vice did nothing but harm you.

Then when you two are alone at his bar he’ll talk to you about it in a similar way he did with Angel. Perhaps a bit more softer than he did with Angel but even then “softer” is a bit of an overstatement.

“Look, I know you got a lot of shit that you don’t want to think about… but doing this *sigh* it’s not going to work, at least not in the long term.”

“That’s rich coming from you.”

He laughs. I mean, you were right. He was single handedly the worst person to be judging you. But surely you can understand his point of view, right?

Either way though, he leaves it alone again. Occasionally bringing it up when you’re both alone. He expresses the same sentiment about it each time hoping that eventually, hopefully…you’ll come to see from his perspective.

When you do finally see that he’s worried for you and understand why, you agree to go clean. Which, for once in a long while, made his supposedly cold dead heart melt.

“Glad you finally came to your senses… Seriously, I’m glad…”

Angel

He is THE addict of the show, so obviously he knows what you are going through and THEN some. Now,. Here’s the thing, how he handles it depends HEAVILY on when exactly you got with him/when you started having you addiction problem.

If you started dating him when you already were an addict he most definitely wouldn’t question anything about it. Hell, chances are you both might have taken part in it together. And it’s only when he starts making progress in the hotel (post EP4) is when he starts realizing how bad of an influence you both were on each other.

If you started sometime AFTER you both started dating then this boy would honestly feel terrible about it, ESPECIALLY after EP4 when he actually started being sober more often. He’d feel like he was a bad influence on you and that it was his fault you turned to your addiction.

Either way though, he will eventually realize that he doesn’t want you to be/continue to be on the same path he was. He’d talk to Charlie about arranging you to stay in the hotel, either in your own room or you guys could share one (he would honestly prefer the latter) and then after the preparations are made he would finally ask you too

Angel wasn’t expecting it to be easy, he gets what it’s like to suddenly be asked to go clean. And he knows how addicts act when they don’t get there vices, how he acts. So he mentally prepared himself for the worst first before asking you to come over and talk.

“Uh… Y/n can I talk to you about somethin’?”

You nod your head

“I’ve been thinking and… I think you should crash here at the hotel with me… and’ go clean.”

You only laugh “Angie I’m glad this hotel thing is workin’ for ya but that’s not really my style. No- I mean, I’m fine!”

Angel knows he put you on the spot, so he lightens off a bit but continues pressing on. He explains how he feels and how he doesn’t want anything bad to happen to you, to end up where he is. The poor boy starts crying honestly with how much he’s worried. He rarely opens up to people so this was a big step for him.

Seeing how much he cared and worried about you really put into perspective how important this was to him. So you agreed after some thinking.

“*sniff* thank you Baby, I’ll be there with you every step of the way… I love ya’ you know.”

[livums]

Liv’s {Totally Optional Non-Mandatory Completely Voluntary} Pointers for Fleshing Out Character Relationships

Hi I’m liv e. and by middling demand I am going to blab a liiittle* bit about relationships.

So I will start by saying that I’m trained & licensed as a marriage and family therapist. So this is kind of what I do all fucking week. And I like this whole writeblr thing so why not make it fun and about fiction instead. LOL.

The purpose of this liiiiittle** post is to offer some ways in which you, a writer (great job btw!), might deepen your own understanding of the relationships between two or more characters in your writing. More specifically, by thinking a little deeper about how relationships function in real life.

These are ways in which I might conceptualize a relationship between people who seek my services as a clinician.

A small disclaimer: the VAST majority of my work is with couples (because I. prefer to see couples over families, lol), so this advice is coming from that perspective. Please keep in mind also that there are certainly infinite other ways to think about relationships. This is just the way I was trained. Or at least, the parts of my training that resonated with me the most, especially as I began writing more seriously.

My hope is that reading and practicing/toying around with these tips will help add another dimension to how relationships play out in your writing. So um. Cheers! Let’s chat.

*it’s not a little. it’s a lot.

**it’s a long post.

i. What I Say vs. What I Mean

When was the last time your partner or good friend pissed you off?

Maybe they were flippant about your feelings. Maybe they blew you off to hang out with someone else. Maybe they keep loading the dishwasher like a neanderthal.

And did you say to them, “Baby/honey/sweetums/bestie, it really upsets me when you load the dishwasher like that. I’ve asked you to do it X way several times, and it feels like you’re not listening to me, or that you don’t care about how I feel” ?

Probably not? Because, hello? (If you did, first try, then, wow! you’re a better person than i’ll ever be.)

You might’ve said “Dude, stop cramming shit in the dishwasher like it’s a fucking suitcase,” or “Haha, wow, again with the dishwasher. Awesome. No, it’s like, whatever.“ Or you might not’ve said anything at all, on purpose.

There is a tension that exists, there, in the CONTRAST between what we are thinking/feeling/meaning (e.g., I love you/I miss you/You hurt me) and what we are communicating via our words and actions (e.g., You never make time for me/You’re so lazy/You’re such a(n) [expletive of choice]).

That tension is ... really fucking interesting to read, huh!

Personally, I have a lot of fun watching the needs/wants/feelings of a character (that we might be privy to, as readers) get filtered through their unique... voice.

So say you write a character who is quite rough around the edges, and not very skilled in affection. They have a deep yearning to be close to [love interest], but they just aren’t accustomed to languaging their true feelings. Maybe we see how scared they are of putting their feelings out there. It’s vulnerable. It’s terrifying.

So instead of “I really care about you, [love interest]”, maybe it comes out something more like “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time than follow me around all fucking day?”

And we, the readers, are like, wow! That’s not what you were thinking at all man! You’re so bad at this, that’s awesome.

So the point of all this is that it’s very helpful to clarify for yourself, in any meaningful interaction between characters in or soon-to-be-in a relationship:

What are the characters individually thinking during this interaction? What are the emotions that are present? How does it show in their body or their movements? Are they careful not to let these things show, or do they not notice at all?

How are they expecting this interaction to go? (Are they afraid something might go wrong? Are they looking for a certain reaction from each other?)

What DON’T they know about what the other person is thinking? What are their assumptions about how the other person perceives them--in general, and in this moment?

What is the GAP or the CONTRAST between all of the above and what actually ends up coming out of their mouth? Or what actions they end up physically taking (or not taking)?

Are the characters aware of their own contrast, here? How do they feel about it? Or, do they think they are being perfectly congruent?

In this way, you have the ability, as a writer, to create some devastatingly (or delightfully) poignant moments between characters. These are the moments that can really sell the reader on the relationship--its importance (why are you showing us this?) and its appeal (thank you for showing us this, this blew our tits off, etc).

ii. Tender Spots and How to Attack Them for Fun and Profit

So we’ve got issues.

What are the things that really fuckin get at you? Those topics that, when brought up, make you really upset and really defensive at like, mach speed. Maybe you’re insecure about your skills. Maybe it really bothers you when people see you as weak/unintelligent/a burden/unattractive. Maybe you have a rough and complicated relationship with a family member.

So these can be thought of as, like, tender spots (lol). You can also think of them as “raw” spots, sensitive spots, or triggers.

Figure out what your characters’ are!

This is another key way in which you can create deep and believable interpersonal drama--Character A (accidentally or intentionally) stomps all over Character B’s sensitive spots. So to speak.

A very cursory and relatively uncomplicated example of this in action:

Tasha and Mimi are two adults in a committed partnership.

Mimi’s got a real fucking chip on her shoulder about being seen as a burden--her father always went to great lengths to make sure she knew just how much he did for her, just how many opportunities he passed up in order to raise her, just how great his life would have been if she’d never been born.

Tasha is the oldest of five siblings. She was frequently tasked with their care, growing up. She did her best not to complain, as her parents were always very busy working to keep a roof over their head. So, Tasha did her part. She would’ve loved to rest and play and goof off like other kids and teens, sure, but it never felt possible with all of her responsibilities.

Mimi is suddenly injured and is unable to do certain things on her own that she had been doing before. Tasha goes about taking care of these things as well as taking on certain other tasks on her own that the pair of them may have tackled as a team before. Tasha feels stretched very thin by the workload, but is deeply concerned about how Mimi feels. There’s nothing to be done about the situation, she reasons, so there’s no point in complaining about how stressed out she is.

Mimi offers to help to the best of her ability, but Tasha is very concerned about her, and insists that Mimi rest and not exert herself. Mimi insists back. Tasha insists back back.

Mimi points out how stressed Tasha must be. Tasha agrees that she is stressed, but does not elaborate on her feelings. Mimi assumes that Tasha must think that she is a burden.

Mimi then becomes very emotionally activated--she is reminded, consciously or unconsciously, of how shitty it felt to have her father tell her over and over again what a burden she is, and how better off he would be without her. So this must be how Tasha really feels about her, Mimi accuses.

Tasha, who is very stressed but who cares very deeply for Mimi and her well-being, and who does not see Mimi as just a burden, becomes very activated in turn--she feels maligned and misunderstood. And now she certainly can’t talk about how stressed out she is, because it will only convince Mimi that she is right.

So Tasha is now convinced that she must continue to hold her feelings in in order to keep the peace--she’s reminded of her childhood spent taking care of others, and how she never felt allowed to express herself.

This example is obviously from a very zoomed-out view, chronologically, and is not exactly the way we would see it written in fiction (fiction is much more moment-by-moment and, well, exciting, usually). BUT we can see where Tasha and Mimi’s sensitivities lie, and how they specifically hurt each other with their behavior (unintentionally, in this case) by stomping RIGHT ON those sensitivities.

Readers love drama. And drama makes the plot go ‘round! So don’t be afraid to lay it on them!

In your (very good and compelling) writing, ESPECIALLY if you want to write engaging relational conflict, you would do well to clarify what your characters’ deepest sensitivities are. Consider the following:

What needs went unmet for them, growing up? A very cliche therapist-y question, but for good reason--our upbringing is where many of our deepest insecurities originate.

Additionally/alternatively, what do your characters understand to be their role in relation to other people? E.g., are they always the caretaker, the burden, the comic relief, the heartbreaker, the lonely hero, the boss? How did they first get this idea of who they’re ‘supposed’ to be towards others, and how was this reinforced throughout their life? Are they satisfied or dissatisfied with their ‘lot in life’? What do they hate about their ‘role’, if anything?

What sorts of situations might remind them of what they hate most about this role? E.g. ‘I enjoy taking care of others, and I’m good at it, but my partner gets upset if I discuss how stressed I get sometimes--I’m never allowed to express myself.’ How can you incorporate these situations into your story to create conflict?

How does your character respond when these sensitivities are triggered? Do they lash out? Do they retreat and get quiet? Do they ghost people altogether?

What do they think will happen if they are unwilling or unable to fulfill this role in their relationships with others? E.g., ‘My partner will leave me if I am not a good caretaker’, ‘Nothing will get done right if I’m not the one taking charge’, ‘If I don’t keep others at arms’ length, even if they say they love me, I’ll end up hurt.’

This is another way in which you can help your relationships really come to life! Anyways. Read on for more cheer and relational joy!

iii. We’re Attracted to What Hurts Us Sometimes, AKA Oops! I Ran into the Knife, Ten Times,

(less of a part 3 and more a part 2.5, but it was simply too long. so,)

So maybe you have a good idea of what your ideal partner/bestie looks like. It’s probably any number of positive traits: kind, considerate, good sense of humor, shapely posterior, ambitious, active, fun-loving, studious, etc.

What probably don’t make the list are things like: emotionally distant like my mother with whom I long to have a reparative experience.

Maybe you’ve witnessed (or been in) a relationship wherein all parties can be described as ‘just so bad for each other’. And maybe this relationship should not have lasted as long as it did (or shouldn’t be lasting as long as it is). And maybe you’re like--’Why are these assholes still together?’ Or, importantly: ‘Why did these assholes get together at all?’ The answer may surprise you! But more likely, it won’t.

Sometimes, we pick people on purpose specifically because they stab us right in the sensitive spot (again. so to speak).

(i should clarify before moving on: I am specifically NOT talking about relational abuse, here. That’s kind of an entirely different subject that is like. the cousin of this subject. In this discussion, I specifically mean relationships in which there is no major power differential--you’re just bad for each other. These relationships can be what we might call ‘toxic’, sure, and painful, but not abusive. The distinction is important, moving forward. ok ty)

[Author’s Note: I need everyone to know that I wrote and subsequently deleted 700 words here because I realized they didn’t make any fucking sense ok. let’s try this one more time.]

Essentially, it’s a known phenomenon among humans that, when we have experience with relational distress in the past (e.g. a partner who neglected you emotionally, or parents who disregarded boundaries you tried to set), we like to seek out similar people with whom to form relationships. Weird! But not really.

The human brain seeks closure and resolution--where we couldn’t get things to work out with our parents, or our exes, we try to get the same situations to work out next time, with someone new.

Let’s look at another example, together. Take my hand,

Suppose you write a character (Character A) whose mother was in and out of their life from a young age, and never seemed to prioritize them. Now suppose you are looking to craft a fraught or tragic or dramatic romance (or other relationship) with this character. Using what you’ve written of your first character’s backstory, you can do just that!

It’s perfectly believable, you know now, for your Character A to pursue a love interest (Character B) who has a tendency to... not want to stick around. Maybe this love interest seems to fear commitment and intimacy.

Now, maybe Character B in actuality has a very dangerous profession that requires that they maintain the utmost discretion, and be ready to flee anywhere at a moment’s notice. Maybe the fate of the city/kingdom/nation/world relies on B’s profession.

It probably doesn’t make them leaving all the time hurt A any less, though.

Character A, unconsciously or not, is determined to make things work this time around. As the relationship deepens, B is faced again and again with the choice--stay, for your love, or go, as duty commands. Maybe they’ve taken a vow for their profession that is no light thing. They leave, time and time again.

Character A, unconsciously or not, remembers this feeling--it’s an old one. Mother, time and time again, chose something else over them. It would be understandable for A to feel a deep anger towards Mom and B both. Maybe A takes drastic action to get back at B (action that is also, symbolically, retaliatory towards Mom)--maybe they cheat on B, or do something that endangers their own safety.

When all they really want is just to get B to stay.

It’s probably very clear now why it’s not so simple a thing for A to choose to date someone more consistent--this is something that goes beyond B alone.

In this way, you can very easily weave themes into the relationship(s) of your main characters. Maybe the story of A explores the pain of abandonment, or loneliness. If B is the protagonist, maybe the story explores the way we excuse our shitty behavior in relationships (maybe the job is a pretext--maybe they really are scared of commitment), or maybe it’s about the dilemma of duty over love.

Relationships don’t always make sense. Or rather, they do make sense, just in a different way than we might expect. You can use this understanding now to intentionally explore a number of complex relationship dynamics, and to create nuanced (but sympathetic) characters. As you do, consider:

In your existing characters’ relationships--what keeps these assholes together? Why do they have to be with each other, as opposed to anyone else? This is important, again, for selling the reader on the relationship, especially if it’s your work’s main relationship.

What initially attracted your characters to each other? Consider again from the previous section (what is this, a fucking textbook?) the historically unmet needs of your character(s).

How do your characters go about expressing their needs? Think again about CONTRAST here--what is the discrepancy between what the actual need is, and how the character seeks to fulfill it? E.g. ‘I need to keep B from leaving me, because it really hurts me when they go, so I’ll go risk my life just to keep their attention (rather than express this pain to them).’

What similarities, if any, exist between your MC’s relationships with the people in their present lives, and your MC’s childhood relationship(s) with their caregiver(s)? Could you expand on/deepen any similarities in your writing? What themes might emerge if you did?

iv. Change / The Arc

So you’ve got your work’s central relationship. It’s believable, it’s just the right amount of dramatic, it’s suitably tragic, and just all-around devastating. People will cry. Great job!

Now what?

Well, that depends--what ending do you envision for your relationship?

If they remain together, do they get the happily ever after? The happy-for-now? Is the reader left to wonder about whether or not their relationship will survive?

Do they not make it at all? Are they separated by tragedy? Do they crash and burn? Or maybe they try their best, but despite how badly they love each other, it’s just not enough?

Whatever the Point B of the relationship is, if it’s central to the work, you’re gonna want to have a clear arc in there. Or not, idk, I’m not your mom.

You might already know, if you inhale every piece of writing advice you come across (like me), what makes a compelling character arc. The good news is that it’s much the same with relationships! Kind of.

Systems (relationships) tend towards homeostasis. Without deliberate intervention, relationships want to remain the way they’ve always been. Just like people!

And just like characters, relationships need a reason to change. Like a catalyst, or a motivation. Whatever the hell you wanna call it.

It’s not always, like, complicated to figure out the driving force behind change in your central relationships. Sometimes the pieces fall together!

Pay attention to the characters within the relationship--as your characters progress through their arcs, their relationship will naturally shift. It will probably not look exactly the same as it did when it began--there might be similarities, of course (they’re not entirely different people.. usually. And there’s a beauty to bookending a story with the familiar, certainly). But in this case, the relationship can be thought of as an extra character, almost. It’s unsatisfying to read a whole story wherein a central character stays exactly the same. It’s further strange and incongruent for a relationship to stay exactly the same while the characters have like, achieved actualization or whatever.

Outside events can force change on a relationship, just as they do individual characters. A couple that’s close to Characters A and B get married--and A & B start to wonder what their future together even looks like. B’s company hires a fiiiine honey, who’s exactly B’s type, and A starts steaming about it. A pandemic ravages the nation, and to prevent the spread of the virus, A and B have to stay inside togeth

YOU GET IT ok anyways I’m fucking tired of writing. If you’re wanting to develop the arc of your MCs’ relationship(s), think on some of this:

Do your characters see any problem(s) present in their relationship? Are they all equally aware of the problem(s)? Do they agree on what the problem(s) are?

How secure are your characters in their relationship? If anything could possibly cause doubt and conflict to arise, what is it?

Where do your characters see their relationship going in the near future? In the far future? Do their visions align? If not, how do they differ? Do they even want the same thing?

Is the arc of the central relationship congruent with the arcs of the characters who comprise it? I.e. does the relationship remain exactly the same as it was when it started, despite the characters undergoing wild metamorphoses? Is the reverse true?

When you think about their relationship, INDEPENDENT of any ending you may already have decided, where do you see it going? Like, where do these people feel like they’re headed, realistically? Does this align with the ending you’ve decided on for them? If not, this doesn’t mean you’ve written a bad relationship or anything, it’s just a possible sign that some really intense shit might have to happen in order to shift their course, y’know? Or not--the world is your oyster and you are the God of your own creation!

What are you trying to say with your story, and do the arcs of the central relationships reflect that message?

final thots

If you read all that shit, thank you. I wrote it all in one sitting and posted it without proofreading 💜

In all seriousness, I want to emphasize that, although some of these aspects of relationships are most visible in rels with a lot of anguish and maybe even some toxicity, you by no means have to write this kind of relationship in order to make use of these tips. You could write a very Normal couple!

The idea is to offer you some avenues through which to consider aspects of your characters’ psychology and personalities, and how they mesh or clash with their partners’ or besties’.

Anyways I hope this was helpful. I love talking about relationships I could literally go on and on all day. Which I kind of just did so. lol.

I’ve been liv and I’ve got two main WIPs I’m working on right now: The Romance of the Demigods and The Marking Blood and they’re full of really really super normal relationships and examples of me definitely taking my own fucking advice.

Cheers and happy writing! 💖💖💖

[janeyseymour]

stick season

summary: it's stick season. Hurt.

WC: ~1.85k

Feel free to listen to my cover of the Noah Kahan song!

Melissa has been your girlfriend for a year now. And she just joined you on a long weekend to go visit your hometown up in Vermont. Your parents absolutely adored Melissa, giving you the stamp of approval on your newest girlfriend, and you couldn’t be happier about that. 

It was warm, it was cozy, it was perfect. Or at least that’s what you thought. But apparently you were wrong, because the drive back to Philly just felt wrong.

As you promised me that I was more than all the miles combined, you must have had yourself a change of heart like halfway through the drive, because your voice trailed off exactly as you passed my exit sign; kept on drivin' straight and left our future to the right.

Melissa had told you that it was entirely worth all of the miles you were putting on her car to go up there with you over the weekend, and you can’t help but smile with joy. And then she’s kissing the back of your hand and promising you that you were more than all of those miles combined.

But then, about halfway through the car ride home, there’s a shift. She takes her hand off of your thigh as she drives, and when she passes the exit that she usually would to take you back to your apartment, she goes silent, biting her lip as if she’s deep in thought.

When she pulls in to her own driveway, she looks to you sadly.

“Hun? What’s wrong?” you ask, clearly concerned about this sudden shift in attitude. 

She bites her lip nervously. “Y/N, I don’t think I can do this,” she whispers.

“Do what?” you ask, although deep down you know what she’s hinting at.

She gestures between the two of you. “This. I- I’m not ready for the commitment that you’re ready for… you want to get married and have kids, and move back up to Vermont, and I can’t do that. I- I’m sorry.”

You leave her house in a puddle of tears. The uber driver that gets the misfortune of taking you home gives you quite a few concerned looks through the rear-view mirror.

Now I am stuck between my anger, and the blame that I can’t face, and memories are something even smoking weed does not replace. And I’m terrified of weather cause I see you when it rains. Doc told me to travel but there’s Covid on the planes.

You’re furious. You don’t know who you’re more mad at: yourself or Melissa. She just spent the last three nights with you up in Vermont playing the part of perfect girlfriend before dumping you and leaving you to explain to your parents that you’re single again. And you’re mad at yourself because you knew she didn’t want the future you did, but you had foolishly hoped she would change her mind. You suppose you should take the blame for that one, but you don’t want to face it- admit that it was your fault for putting blind faith in her.

Deciding that you need to relax, you roll yourself a joint, but the memories of you and Melissa over the past year just continue to replay in your mind. And for the first time ever since you started smoking weed, it doesn’t help the pain you feel in your chest. The drug might be able to remedy physical aches and pains, but it sure as hell can’t fix a broken heart; you’re not sure anything can right now.

You don’t leave your house for the next few weeks unless absolutely necessary. You’re a mopey mess, and your therapist finally tells you that you should travel. And you consider going back to Vermont because being in the same city as your now ex-girlfriend hurts too much. But there’s Covid on the planes, and you can’t quite justify driving up to Vermont on Friday night just to leave again on Sunday morning. Come Friday, you really do still toy with the idea of making your way back to your parents’ house, but there’s a cold front making it’s way through the Mid-Atlantic all the way up through New England, and you’re not about to attempt to drive through seven hours of rain and wind. Besides, when it rains, you can only think of Melissa. She used to have you dance out in the rain with her before cozying up on the couch and watching movies. She claimed it was the only way to spend a rainy day.

And I love Vermont but it’s the season of the sticks. And I saw your mom, she forgot that I existed, and it’s half my fault but I just like to play the victim. I’ll drink alcohol til my friends come home for Christmas.

There’s a season that happens in New England when Fall starts to make its exit and Winter presents itself- and every year, around stick season, your life changes. Melissa came during stick season last year, and she left during this stick season. It hurts.

You end up seeing her mother at the grocery store, and you look like a wreck. You give her a shy wave just to be polite- things may have ended with her daughter, but it’s clear to you that she’s entirely forgotten about your existence or previous presence in Melissa’s life.

That stings, and you make your way to the alcohol aisle, throwing a few bottles of wine in your cart so you can mope and play the victim at home tonight. You suppose you’ll just drink until a few of your friends from college come home for Christmas.

So I thought that if I piled something good on all my bad that I could cancel out the darkness I inherited from Dad. No, I am no longer funny cause I miss the way you laugh.

For the childhood that you had with your father, the relationship that you have with him as a grown woman is nothing short of a miracle. Because of everything you witnessed growing up as a child with having your father for a Dad, you came out better. You knew where to draw the line with certain things. You were funny because of the trauma that he caused you though too… but you aren’t funny anymore because the off color jokes that you used to make were usually just there for Melissa- and you miss the way she laughs. So now, you’re back to the quiet and shy, reserved person that you used to be before she brought out the best (and worst) in you.

You once called me forever, now you still can’t call me back. 

You remember when she told you that she was going to be yours forever. You didn’t think that she would ever say something like that- you knew that she hadn’t ever wanted to get married again, but you continued to pursue her romantically. And it was all looking really good for you, until she broke up with you.

You’ve called her a few times, to beg and grovel for her to take you back- tell her that you didn’t care about marriage and children as long as it meant you got to keep her in your life, but she refused to pick up the phone or call you back.

And I love Vermont but it’s the season of the sticks. And I saw your mom, she forgot that I existed, and it’s half my fault but I just like to play the victim. I’ll drink alcohol til my friends come home for Christmas.

You end up flying home after a few weeks because you simply can’t bear the pain of this heartbreak alone, and you can’t quite justify driving for a weekend. It’s still stick season though, and you feel the cool air wash over you as you exit the airport and try to hail a cab back to your childhood home.

After the flight back home, you see Melissa’s mother at the airport. She has a sign that she’s holding indicating that she’s picking someone up. But she doesn’t see you, and after the last meeting with her, you doubt she remembers you… she’s definitely forgotten about your existence by now.

You’ve come to terms with the fact that your breakup with the Schemmenti was half your fault at this point, but you still take the Septa to get closer to your house before stopping at a liquor store- with the intention of once again playing the victim and drowning your sorrows in a bottle of tequila.

Maybe once you’ve seen some of your old college friends, you’ll head back north to see your hometown friends when they come.

And I’ll dream each night of some version of you that I might not have, but I did not lose. Now you’re tire tracks and one pair of shoes, and I’m split in half but that’ll have to do.

That redheaded beauty has haunted your dreams since you broke up with her. And you miss her dearly. But in each of your dreams, she’s a different version of herself, and it’s quite odd. Somewhere deep inside though, you know none of the versions of Melissa that your mind had made up are her- so you didn’t really lose her in a sense.

You always wake up though and sigh. She isn’t next to you like she should be. And when you head into your living room, you see a pair of her shoes that she left here and hasn’t asked to get back yet.

Your heart splits in half every time you see those shoes. You should just throw them out at this point, but you don’t want to touch them- if they’re there, maybe she’ll come back to you one day. 

Oh that’ll have to do… My other half was you. I hope this pain’s just passing through, but I doubt it.

She really was your other half, and you hope that the pain that you feel every time you see her shoes passes eventually, but you doubt it will.

And I love Vermont but it’s the season of the sticks. And I saw your mom, she forgot that I existed, and it’s half my fault but I just like to play the victim. I’ll drink alcohol til my friends come home for Christmas. And I’ll dream each night of some version of you that I might not have, but I did not lose. Now you’re tire tracks and one pair of shoes, and I’m split in half but that’ll have to do.

Stick season passes by, and you’re still left on your own. Christmas time comes, and you find yourself with a bottle in your hand almost every night to try to help numb the pain. It’s becoming less and less, but you still miss her with all your heart. You know that being split in half will just have to do… maybe next stick season will bring you something happy again.

Tags (and let me know if you want to be included!): @schemmentis @thesapphictimelady @marvel210 @itisdoctortoyousir @morgana-larkin @thesamesweetie @doesthatsuggestanythingtoyou @marvels--slut @gwennybriggs @megamultifandomtrashposts @lemz378 @http-sam @melissaschemmentisbranzino @imaginesmultifandoms @sexysapphicshopowner @lilfartbox1 @maybe-a-humanbean @imlike-so-gaydude @sapphicxrat @a-queen-and-her-throne @sunsol-22 @notinmyvocab

[atinylittlepain]

Part Two

no outbreak!joel miller x f!oc

series playlist

joel miller masterlist

series masterlist

She's tired. He's tired. They're neurotic. They're in love. Something needs to change. They need to change.

word count | 5.1k

chapter content info | 18+ little angst, couples counseling, just two tired people trying to figure out the tangle of their relationship together

a/n | part two is here, and i'd just like to say thank you to everyone being so kind about the first part - i know this isnt the usual peepaw fare, so thanks for giving her a chance - and also big thank you to @wannab-urs for beta-ing this bad boy <3

............................................

This is not a failure. She is not failing. They are not failing. Every Thursday at four o’clock she shuts her laptop and locks her office and stops in the bathroom at work, silently repeats these things to herself in her mind while she rubs her fingers at smudged mascara in the bathroom mirror. Like a mantra, though she’s not sure she’s fully bought into it yet. Because the truth is, she has had plenty of conversations with plenty of girlfriends that, really, they shouldn’t have been having about other girlfriends, not in the room with us girlfriends who, did you hear, started going to therapy and, did you hear, started going to therapy with their, oh no, husbands. Yes, she has been the bitch who has made jokes about death knells and a marriage’s last gasp for breath, jokes about the husband having the emotional range of a goldfish, and the wife being so up the husband’s ass she should give him a colonoscopy while she’s at it. She’s not really making jokes like those anymore. 

She’s not supposed to be doing what she’s doing this Thursday at four o’clock. When they first went to Vicky (LMFT, for the record) her fundamental decree had been a period of full separation. Sixteen years, she had asked, and they had nodded, and she had said whoa boy, yeah, y’all need to back off each other before we do anything else. If Paula Dean had a penchant for self-help instead of butter, she’d be something like Vicky. And so, with all the care of a drill sergeant delivering commands, or a mechanic running a diagnostic on a fucked-up car, Vicky had told them how this is going to go. An apartment, she said, don’t care which one of you lives in it. Minimal contact between sessions, right, keep it civil, right, this isn’t for forever, right. So Joel got an apartment, and Tommy helped him move all the furniture in the basement with admittedly minimal, but still present, wariness, and for the last four weeks they’ve been doing everything their beloved herr-therapist tells them. She supposes it’s working, although you can’t really do much fighting when you only see the other person for ninety minutes every Thursday so, the results might be confounded, actually.

“Hey there.” Hey there? What the fuck, what the actual fuck. He doesn’t think he’s ever said those words to her, ever, maybe not to anyone actually. He feels a little insane, a little itchy under the skin, mouth full of cotton, brain too, because they’re not supposed to be doing this, not really. The first time she’s seen the apartment, or, well, the doorway of the apartment, doesn’t really seem interested in stepping further inside, running her curled palm up and down the strap of her purse and right, not here for that. He shuts the door behind him and then they’re on their way to therapy because it’s four o’clock on Thursday and this is what they do now at four o’clock on Thursday.

“Thanks again. I didn’t think my car would still be in the shop today.”

“Oh of course, you said it’s a transmission leak?” 

“Yeah, the bad, expensive kind that’s above my paygrade. Guy said they’re still waiting on a part for it.”

“Well I’m off work tomorrow if you need a ride anywhere.”

“Vicky’ll get pissed.”

“If she finds out. Are you gonna tell on me to Vicky?” It’s a joke, they can joke, right? She laughs a little on the end of her words to make it clear, hey, it’s a joke, awkward and out of touch and unsure of what the rules are. But he offers a breath of a laugh, at least, fine, it’s fine, they’re fine, and now they’re silent driving to Vicky’s office. 

Should he ask her how her week has been? If the kitchen sink is still leaking? He’s not sure. Not sure about any of it, really. Every week, Vicky asks them how they think they’re doing and Cass doesn’t even hesitate. Good, she says. Not fine, not okay, but good, usually with a sure, terse nod. It takes him a little longer to find the right word to describe how he’s doing. Not sure about that either, but it’s definitely not good. Some things are better, sure, easier not to argue when under foot, easier not to remember all the ghosts they’ve built up around themselves. But at the most basic level, he misses her, even misses arguing with her, in a perpetual state of missing something, walking around and wondering if he left his wallet at home, or if he remembered to call a client about a new build, wondering if he’s missing something essential, a limb or an organ he didn’t know about. No, none of that. Missing something else.

“You’re not wearing your ring.” She flexes her left hand over the steering wheel in response, her very bare ring finger making him feel a quick pinch of something he’ll call anger, though it’s probably something else entirely. 

“No, Vicky advised I try not wearing it during the separation.”

“Why the fuck would she tell you to do that?”

“Joel.”

“I’m just asking.”

“You’re swearing.”

“Well, why didn’t she say the same thing to me?”

“Maybe because I told her this is how you would react.”

“I think I’m having a pretty normal reaction to it, actually.”

“It’s not a big deal. It’s just for now.”

“Right.”

“It is.” 

“Seems like a strange thing to advise someone to do when they’ve been married for nearly two decades.” She parks outside of the office complex that Vicky works in, lets out a long sigh through her nose and doesn’t spare him a glance as she reaches around to the backseat and pulls her purse up front, producing her ring from somewhere deep inside of it and sliding it back on her finger. 

“There, are you happy now?”

“Why the hell were you keeping it in your purse?”

“Oh my god, really?”

“That’s a real easy way to lose it is all I’m saying.” The truth is, she’s been keeping it in her purse in order to have easy access to it. Like a pulsepoint, sometimes she just needs to know it’s there, reaching into her purse underneath her desk and yep, still there, still okay. Sometimes she doesn’t get through a whole day without putting it back on. Like reflex, like ghost limb aching. But she’s not about to tell him that.

“Do not bring this up with Vicky.”

“Why not?”

“Because then she’ll know we drove here together.”

“You’re that worried about what Vicky thinks?”

“She’s our therapist, I’m a healthy and appropriate amount worried about what Vicky thinks.” 

“You know she’s not the arbiter of marriage just because she has a couple of degrees, right?”

“Really, the arbiter of marriage?” 

“Are you doing that thing you do, is that what this is?”

“What thing?” 

“Cass.”

“What thing?”

“Are you trying to win therapy?” Fuck him. No, really, fuck him. He’s doing that thing, his thing to her thing, half a smile in the passenger’s seat like he’s got her. Awful, of course he’s got her, smug and sure in his getting her. She doesn’t answer his question, knowing that her silence is an answer in and of itself and not really caring because they have therapy, damn it, and it’s going to be his fault if they’re late to therapy, damn it.

“You know, I’m starting to see why Vicky told us no carpooling to sessions.” Slammed shut, he sighs when she gets out of the car, thinking idly to himself that yes, he doesn’t necessarily disagree with that commandment of their therapist either. At the very least, Cass’ ring is still on her finger. He tried a few times in the past to get her something new, something nicer than the gold band he had given her when they were still young and still not able to afford much of anything, but sure enough in each other to want to keep doing it, all of it, together. No, she would tell him, doesn’t want anything other than the gold band. What she doesn’t know is that he pawned his grandfather’s watch and an electric saw for the ring the shop owner kept in a padlocked display case. Twenty-six years old, and looking back, he thinks he would have sold a whole lot more just to get it for her. 

He used to call her pearl. Something about grit that would make her roll her eyes and ask him what late night National Geographic TV special he got that line from, all the while inwardly swooning because sure, she had been baby before, babe, an errant sweetheart even, but pearl was new, and tooth-decayingly sweet. And when he proposed, Sarah bouncing around them like a manic cupid, Cassandra made an ugly sound somewhere between a laugh and a cry, little black velvet box and a ring that was more signet than wedding, simple and gold and a single pearl set in the center of it. Her hands clasped, she runs the pad of her finger over her ring, wordless and worrying it on the elevator ride up to Vicky’s office. 

Vicky has a thing for lamps and art prints of naked women. Her waiting room is a little dim, no windows, green velveteen loveseat and two high-backed wooden chairs that they always take when they get here, his eyes scanning over the coffee table laden with back-ordered Psychology Today magazines, headlines about overcoming anxiety and exercising your way out of depression. There had been one about postpartum  depression somewhere in the pile the last time they came, but he had made a point of hanging back after Cass left, some excuse about checking an insurance thing with Vicky, though what he really did was pluck out that magazine and throw it away in the men’s restroom down the hall. One less thing to worry about, at the least. 

“Hi, you two, come on back.” The sessions always start the same. Vicky asks them how they think the week went, and they both offer up some iteration of fine. Vicky asks them if they’ve been upholding their phase of separation, and she answers before Joel can, pointedly not looking at him, yes, no contact between sessions. But apparently, this week is going to be different.

“We are nearing the end of the total separation phase. After this initial period of cooling off for both of you, the real work can begin.” Right, phases, because Vicky works in phases like this is some sort of military siege. He tries not to roll his eyes at the real work beginning. 

“Can either of you remember the last date you went on together?” 

“It would’ve been in August, right before the separation.” Cass scoffs at his answer, tilt of her head like, really?

“Tommy and Maria’s baby shower hardly counts as a date. But we did go to dinner at the end of July.”

“I don’t think your work banquet counts either.” Vicky hits them with that look, that yeah, that’s what I thought look, all raised brow and scrunched nose and nodding. Not that she is, but if she, hypothetically, were trying to win therapy, Cassandra thinks she wouldn’t be doing a great job of it right now.

“Right, well, you’ve made my point for me. It’s not unusual for people who have been together for as long as you two have to let things like this fall to the wayside. However, it can be very helpful to reestablish some of these routines. Think of it as marriage maintenance.” 

“So you want us to start going on dates again?” 

“Yes, but not with each other.” Did she? Did he? Hear that right? Cass is nodding like it’s the most reasonable thing in the world, like, yes, of course, this is just the solution they’ve been looking for. This time, he doesn’t hold back a laugh.

“I’m sorry, what?” Both of them look at him like, yes, keep up, please, let us explain this to you very slowly so you can keep up, please. Something about seeing what life is like outside of their marriage, testing the waters, seeing if they still like the same things without their extra marital limb, something about making a decision about their marriage, though he tunes most of that part out because, no, thanks, no new decision has been needed since he got down on one knee during that trip to Galveston, sunscreen and sticky sweet and he’s not sure if he or Sarah was more excited, but he was definitely more nervous. And Cass said yes, and then he wasn’t nervous anymore, not scared anymore, and that’s all there was to it, is to it, right? Right. 

“This is the closing exercise of the total separation phase. It’s really important that you both have this opportunity to see what it’s like to be back in the dating pool. Think of it as a trial run of if you decide to make this separation–”

“No, no thanks. That’s not– we’re not those people, so, you know, we can just move onto the next phase.” 

“Joel.” The mom voice of all things, and he knows for certain now that Cass is trying to win therapy, nudging her shoe into the side of his, and, come on, really? She’s really bought that hard into what Vicky’s selling? Now that, that isn’t like her, at all. 

“What feelings are coming up for you right now, Joel?” She fucking hates that question, and she imagines that he does too, fingers drumming on his knee, long sigh, and she knows that look, that’s his getting ready to bolt look. Big man, big, skittish man who has accidentally nailed his fingers to house frames and hardly shed a tear. But feelings? Yeah, forget it. 

“Uh, I guess I’m confused as to why that is so important for us to do. We came here to help our– to help us, not to create more problems.”

“And you think that if you and Cassandra went on dates, one date, with other people, that it would create more problems in your marriage?” Well, it’s hardly rocket science, Vicky, though judging by the way she’s speaking to him, he’s pretty sure he failed some kind of test of hers. He doesn’t particularly care.

“I imagine it’d do that to anyone’s marriage.” 

“It’s just one date, it’s a part of the process.” She’s starting to get pissed, and trying very hard not to show it in front of Vicky should she get the what feelings are coming up for you treatment. When they agreed to start going to therapy, like a pair of dogs gagging down a pill, they had both agreed to put their full effort into it, and if Vicky wasn’t in the room with them currently, Cassandra would sharply remind him of that agreement. 

“Maybe I should clarify the expectations around this exercise. It’s one date, preferably with people outside of your shared social circle, and it would be best if the focus is just on the date, no sexual relations.”

“Oh really, you think that’d be best?”

“Joel.” He gives her a slack and slanted look, speaking two different languages, apparently. And really, she doesn’t see what the big deal is. One date versus sixteen years is pretty obvious math for her to square up, though it doesn’t seem to be for him. But, watching him engage in psychological tennis with Vicky, some new jab dripping in sarcasm for every reassurance she tries to offer him, the realization comes to Cassandra slowly, simply. Joel is scared. 

By the time they leave Vicky’s office, he feels deflated, defeated, because yes, they are, apparently, going to do this fucking exercise that fucking Vicky has fucking assigned to them, scheduled in three weeks instead of one to give them time to do this fucking exercise that fucking Vicky has fucking assigned to them. 

“Can’t we just, you know, say we did it but not actually do it?” 

“Are you serious right now?” Judging by the look she gives him, a quick, sharp flicker of her eyes before she focuses back on the road, he thinks he probably shouldn’t say anything else. He shouldn’t, but, well. 

“Is this about pleasing Vicky, or are you just that interested in dating someone else?”

“Don’t be a child about this, Joel. It’s a therapeutic–”

“It’s bullshit is what it is. I don’t– I already know what I want, and I don’t need to go testing the waters to be sure of it. What I’m not so sure about is if you can say the same.” She can’t put her finger on anything specific,  probably just a slow-building amalgamation of things. Stressful week at work, and the leaking sink getting worse, and her doctor increasing a medication dosage that’s made her body feel like something other than her body, and this fucking therapy and this fucking trying and she’s trying so hard and she feels like she’s failing and when she glances at him he looks hurt, really hurt, a close crumple in his face, deep frown, and it frustrates her because all she’s trying to do is do it right, and all she gets is this constant rhythm of resistance, this push and pull and yes, it’s all of that, all of that creeping up her throat tight and hot and curling behind her eyes sending salt pinpricks and sharp pangs. When the first sob breaks, it does so as a gasp, like a small and stunned thing in her chest. And, well, it’s never uphill from there, is it?

“Do you– do we need to pull over?”

“No, I don’t need to fucking pull over. I’m not an invalid, I can cry and drive at the same time.” Except it doesn’t come out quite like that, not smooth like that. The words get stop-started with each new shudder, new stutter, hiccuping on fucking and invalid. The world has gone to slanted stained-glass through all her tears. 

Unsure what to do, but that’s nothing new. He doesn’t say anything else, watches her through the wary side of his eye, sobs turning into something more subdued, little wounded sounds high in her throat, a choice fuck you with a little more bite behind it when someone cuts her off merging onto the highway. He feels useless, feels like, maybe, this is what Vicky should be talking with them about instead of her siege on marriage plan. All he knows is that he seems to get it wrong every time, so this time, he doesn’t interject or intervene, doesn’t say any more than he already has. He lets her cry, and he lets her drive.

He doesn’t know when it happened. When he decided he was going to fix things for her, or just fix her, really. His lady in pieces and he was going to put her back together, and it seemed like every time he tried to, she just shattered a little more. That April is the obvious answer, the most shattered he had ever seen her. But the fighting had started before then, and so had the fixing that wasn’t really fixing. Like a relief, like a release, the slow realization that no, it never worked, and no, it was never going to work. The sobs turn into shivers turn into something even smaller. By the time they pull up in front of his apartment complex, it has passed. 

“I just– I want to do this right, this therapy thing, and I want it to work, and I want it to work so we can be okay again. That’s what I want.” The words hang between them. He makes no move to get out of the car, and she counts her inhales in the silence, waiting for him to say something, anything. It feels like a child’s logic, or maybe a hail Mary, and she knows it, feels a little insane saying it, the words fitting strangely in her mouth. The brief wondering comes to her, what would she have said about where they are now to her girlfriends, what snark, what sharp jokes at their expense? Him in an apartment and a fifteen minute drive separating them and a woman named Vicky unraveling (and in theory, putting back together) their marriage in phases, fucking phases, and fucking Vicky. She doesn’t want to go on a date with someone else, and she doesn’t know why she’s taking Vicky’s instructions as gospel. But she does know, doesn’t she? It’s not about Vicky, not about Vicky and her fucking phases. Fixing, being fixed, that’s what she wants. 

“So, you’re saying you want us to date other people in order to fix our marriage.” Grateful that she takes it for the joke he meant it as, it’s just enough to slough off some of the tension, roll of her eyes, please. They both let out a sigh, too tired for much else. But maybe, he thinks, this counts as progress, sitting here with her in the car and the sun washing everything down burnt and orange. He watches her eyes drop shut for a moment, fine lines like porcelain fissures and he loves those lines, liked catching her in the bathroom with her face pressed up close to the mirror and her fingers pulling those lines taut around her eyes, her mouth. He’d pull her hands away from her face, ask her if she was planning her halloween costume for next year, earning a scoff and a roll of her eyes and her trying to pull away from him, and he wouldn’t let her. Making it better with kisses to those lines, and eventually, her pressing her fingers as light as prayers over his, an implicit wondering, where did the time go?

“Look, if it really makes you that uncomfortable, let’s just lie to Vicky. We could still get like, an A-minus in therapy if we leave just one thing out.”

“I didn’t realize therapy came with a grade.” He smiles, all soft, and she can’t help the sheepish bloom in her chest, rolling her lips back into her mouth to hide her own grin, eventually, reluctantly, admitting in a quiet, skewed to the side voice, okay, so maybe, maybe I was doing that thing, that winning thing. He doesn’t say anything, and that’s a mercy. Just nods, of course, and of course, he knew, maybe even before she did, and is that knowing not a mercy too? She thinks it is. 

“I want to do this right too, Cass. And, I mean, we’re paying Vicky enough money that we should do what she tells us to.”

“Are you saying you want to do it then?”

“Want is a strong word.”

“Okay, are you saying you’re willing to do it?” 

“It’s just the one?”

“Just the one.” 

“Alright, fuck it, let’s do it. We better get a goddamn A-plus at the end of this.” 

“Mmm, gold stars too.” Another sigh, another settling. How nice, another sigh, another settling. It’s a strange equation, but she thinks it still adds up. Neither of them want to do this, not really, but they’re willing to, and they’re willing to because of each other. Willing to try and get it right for each other. Just, well, ignore the finer details of what getting it right entails. 

“You hear from Sarah lately?”

“On Monday, yeah. Called to wish me a happy birthday.”

“Well, only off by four days, not too bad.”

“Oh no, she called on Monday because she was, and I quote, too busy the rest of the week to call.”

“Wow.”

“Right?”

“Is it bad that sometimes I kinda hate it?”

“Hate what?”

“That she’s like, a fully-formed person now. I miss the days when she was a little blob who liked holding onto me by one of my belt loops.” He has to smile, nod, because he knows exactly what she means. And the truth of it is that Sarah was so good, maybe the best, if he’s allowed to give his completely biased opinion. And the other truth, Cass is, was, one of those people simply meant to be a parent, a mother. He remembers when they first started dating, and all the exhausting maneuvering he did, getting his parents or Tommy to watch Sarah, a string of canceled dinner plans when his kid couldn’t seem to stop catching things at daycare. He was sure that Cass would lose interest every time another piece of his reality was revealed to her. After all, he was not unfamiliar with being left behind. But that never happened, she stayed every time. 

It was Cass who first suggested it. Didn't want to impose, but what if, maybe we could, would it be okay if, why don’t we. They went to the zoo that weekend, if he remembers correctly, Sarah in tow, shy at first around the woman she barely knew, though she bloomed over the course of the day. Yes, he thinks, it was the zoo, because he remembers how by the end of the day, Cass had her on her hip, as easy as anything, so she could get a better view of the rhinos. He knows now that, even in those earliest days, she loved his kid just as much as she loved him. He knows now what a gift that was, and continues to be. 

“She’s gonna be alright, Cass. We did good with her.” She sighs, yeah, we did. She had been worried about telling her about the whole lieutenant-LMFT thing, the whole quasi-separation thing, but that was a direct command from Vicky, letting the family know what was going on. Sarah had taken it surprisingly well when she called, could be good, mom, like a reset. Of course, they kept the worst of it away from her, and of course, she still knew something had changed, something not right between them. No one was left unscathed after that April.

From the start, loving him included loving Sarah. It was never difficult for her to do both. Sweet girl, bright like the sun girl, rounded cheeks and bouncing curls, and Cassandra found that her love for her had a particular effect on her heart. Whenever small hand reached for one of hers, whenever small face tucked into her neck, whether tear-damp or milk-tired, and eventually, whenever she was given the name mom, like a stop and restart of her heart, like something turning back on inside her and finally working right. An everything kind of love, to not only be chosen by him, but to be chosen by her too. 

“Well, anyways, Vicky didn’t make any stipulations about birthdays, so I have something for you.” Just a small thing, she says, leaning over the console and into the back seat, and he knows better than to say no, shouldn’t have, because there’s already a perfect package being placed in his hands, navy blue wrapping paper and a white bow, and her hand cups underneath his for just a moment, there and gone. 

The truth is she had already picked out this gift two months ago, what feels like a lifetime before this separation. Now, watching him open it, she’s a little worried it had been presumptuous of her, if not completely narcissistic. But if he thinks that, he makes no show of it, lets out a quiet laugh as he takes the watch out of the box and holds it up in the fading light to look at it. 

“It’s a little sappy, maybe. But, well, we have something that kinda matches now.” Something is unfurling in his chest, heat loosening something he didn’t even realize he had been tightening up around. It’s a beautiful watch, rich leather strap and polished silver. And the face of it catches and shimmers a little in the light. He knows right away that it’s mother of pearl. 

Here, she says, let me, and he does, feeling a little indulgent watching her fasten the watch around his wrist, and definitely breaking one of fucking Vicky’s fucking rules when he ducks his head down and steals a kiss, another one, letting the third deepen just a little, both of them humming because missed this, missed this, didn’t realize how much, but missed this. 

“Thank you, pearly.” It feels good to be so close to him, noses brushing and smiles curling around each other. Feels like a relief. 

“Happy birthday, one day ahead. We could, you know, do something tomorrow? Get dinner maybe?” Before he can answer, say yes, she’s already caught herself, sheepish smile and pulling a little further away and oh, right. She says sorry, wasn’t thinking, and they do an awkward dance around the whole thing, right, yeah, probably shouldn’t, right, yeah. He is not a hateful man, and it would be too strong to say he’d wish Vicky harm. But if something were to happen, in theory, that’d make Vicky go the fuck away, in theory, he wouldn’t be too torn up about it. 

“See you next Thursday then?”

“Well, next next Thursday, because we have to do the– yeah.”

“Right, yeah.” Right, yeah, this is the part where he gets out of the car. The part where he goes up to his apartment and she drives home and they don’t eat dinner together and they don’t brush their teeth together and they don’t go to sleep together. Right, yeah. They say goodnight. He’d like to say love, but he doesn’t. She’d like to say love, but she doesn’t. And they part ways. 

She hates being in this house alone. Leaves all the lights on all hours of the day and checks all the locks three times before going upstairs to bed. Passes by the closed door that remains closed with her breath held. She knows it makes no sense, but she’s been sleeping in the guestroom, makes the whole thing a little easier. Always had a tendency toward insomnia, tossing and turning brain and body. 

When they were just starting to get more serious, and she was just starting to stay over at his more often, she got worried that eventually it'd drive him mad enough for the whole thing to not be worth it, neither of them getting much sleep as they learned how to share a bed together. And she doesn't remember how it started exactly, maybe out of a moment of pure exasperation, him draping just enough of his weight over her to press slower breath into her lungs and still her body. It became a routine, she'd ask could you? And he'd already know what she was asking for without her having to say any more than that. What she also doesn't remember, when that stopped working, when she stopped asking, and he stopped answering. She supposes it all happened slowly, just like the rest of it. 

[herlondonboy]

Beauty And The Beast

Pairings: Tyler Galpin x gn!reader / Wednesday Addams x twin!reader

Summary: Tyler helps you realise that you really don’t deserve to love.

Warnings: angst kind, manipulation. I write this whilst I was supposed to be tidying my room.

Word Count: 1.0k

You never believed that you deserved the love your parents got; the love you see in movies or love at all. You weren’t as smart or as cunning as Wednesday and you weren’t as funny or kind as Pugsley. You found yourself wanting to be your siblings. You wanted the the relationship that they had. You wanted Wednesday to protect you from bullies in a bittersweet manner, you wanted Pugsley to talk to you, period.

You didn’t know what happened or what went wrong, but Morticia and Gomez somehow ended up with you as a child. Maybe you were switched with someone else in the hospital because you didn’t feel like an Addams. You felt like an outcast in your own family. You liked colour, you weren’t abnormally pale, your touch was warm. You were you and that was enough for your family, so why wasn’t it enough for you?

When your sister was sent to Nevermore, and your parents decided it was best for you to tag along, you almost began to despise them. It only got worse when you found out you had a single room, closed off from the rest of the school. It was like you were being punished for no reason.

You were exiled by the world’s outlaws.

It didn’t take long for you to realise that you weren’t welcome there. You started taking long walks down to Jericho after your last period just to sit in the back booth of the Weathervane and write down all of the reasons you didn’t deserve to be an Addams. The book was nearly halfway full.

But one uneventful Thursday, a barista, the youngest one that you had seen working in here, walked over to you. “May I sit?” He asked, a kind smile on his face. You nodded hesitantly as he sat. God, how you wished you could turn back time and tell him no. “My name’s Tyler.”

“Hello, Tyler.” You smiled at him, looking down. You felt like if you looked any longer you’d drown in his eyes. “Uhm, y/n.” You held out your hand.

“Oh, I know.” Tyler said, shaking it. “I’m not stalking you, I just… we have to put names on the cups, remember?” He said at your raised eyebrow. You chuckled slightly and he cleared his throat. “I know that we don’t know each other, but i was hoping that we could get to know each other.”

“I didn’t think it was so easy to make me cringe.” You joked, smiling at his blush. “I’d love to get to know you, Tyler.”

“Oh! Great, uh, great, yeah.” He stammered. It was as if he was expecting a swift ‘no.’ “Uhm, here. My number.” He handed you a piece of paper. “Call me. O-or text me, whatever you prefer. Uh, bye.”

From then on, your alone time at the Weathervane became your Tyler Time. Your notebook hadn’t been touched in weeks and there was a predominant smile etched onto your face. For the first time, you actually felt like you deserved to be loved. Tyler saw what no one else did. Tyler saw you. Not y/n Addams - not Wednesday Addams’ abnormal twin. You.

Tyler had asked you to be his date for the Rave’N and you said yes. It was a great nice. Excluding how the normies put red paint in the sprinklers and drenched everyone in a blood-like substance; how Tyler ran away towards the end; and how Wednesday’s friend was attacked by the monster she was hunting.

The first, and last, time you kissed Tyler, something happened. You blacked out and then suddenly you were watching Tyler turn into a beast and murder Kinbott, your therapist. And then you watched him attack Eugene Otinger. And then you watched him talking to someone about how you would help him get insider information on Wednesday. It was awful, like everything you had gone through to allow yourself to love was wasted. You gasped awake in Tyler’s arms as he looked into your eyes, concern written all over his face and you wondered. Was any of it ever real?

“I’m okay.” You mumbled. “I just- I need to go.” You rushed out of the Weathervane. Tyler watched until you were out of his view. You sobbed all the way to Nevermore, hugging yourself as you made your way to your sister’s room.

Wednesday looked almost alarmed when she saw the state you were in. “y/n?” She asked and her voice made you break down.

“It’s Tyler.” You said, standing awkwardly in front of her. You’d kill for a hug right now, but this is Wednesday that you’re talking about. “I kissed him and had this vision thing and saw him attacking Eugene Otinger and I-“ You choked on your words, finding it so hard to breathe. “I thought he really liked me too. I thought… I thought that I deserved love, but it’s all my fault.”

“y/n, nothing is your fault.” Wednesday said softly.

You shook your head. “It is. I told him things about you, us, the school, because I thought I could trust him.” You clenched your eyes shut, sadness dissipating into anger. “I’m so stupid. Of course he didn’t love me. Stupid, stupid.” You began hitting your head in frustration.

“y/n, stop.” Wednesday said, but you didn’t. She grabbed your hands and pulled you into a hug.

You cried into her shoulder. “I want to go home, Wednesday. Home was bad, but it was so much better than this.” You told her. “I loved him and he-"

“y/n, Tyler manipulated you and conditioned you into thinking about him like that. He used you to get to me. You are not at fault here. You let yourself believe that you can be loved, y/n. That’s good. I’m sorry that I wasn’t here for you.”

It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault. You could love again if you let yourself, but would you?

[the-lighthouse-lit]

BBRae Week Day 3: "Please don't ever do that again"

Length: 2,114 words

Rating: T

Excerpt: In an instant the goofiness gave way to suaveness. "Again? You wanna see me again, miss Raven?"

@bbraeweek24 🥰

───

“Okay,” the guy started as he sat down, “when I was seven years old, my parents took me to a zoo for the first time. I started crying and they were like, what’s wrong? I said it was about the cages, and they thought I meant, I was sad about the animals being kept in—but really, I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t allowed inside the cages with them. Anyway, they never took me again. But I still consider it the day I found my calling—I still ended up in a sanctuary.” He reached for his newly-refilled glass of water and then stopped, reconsidering. “Working there. I mean, I became a wildlife caretaker.”

“Thanks for clearing that up,” the girl said as he drank. “Wait, that’s what you open with? That’s how you choose to introduce yourself?”

“Yeah, I thought it was solid. Gives you an idea of who I am.”

That it does, thought the girl.

“Hit me with yours,” the guy requested.

She shrugged. “I’ve been letting people open and seeing them squirm.”

She did have squirm-worthy eyes. They were dark blue and stared on unapologetically. She also spoke with a detached tone, and she hadn’t smiled when he’d sad down—all things that would put most men on edge, but he liked to think he was charismatic enough to make up the difference. She was striking, but he didn’t remember her from the introductory mingling. That’s what was good about these events, he thought, you got to focus on people you wouldn’t normally go for.

Her name-tag read ‘Raven’. Like many women here she’d chosen not to add her last name. He himself felt he’d had no choice but to write ‘Gar Logan’, otherwise his tag was three whole letters, which felt suspiciously too casual. At that point it was like, what’s that guy hiding?

“What’s next? What do you do with uncomfortable silence?”

“Oh, you know, there’s all the clichés,” Raven said. “You covered ‘what do you do?’ Then there’s the where’re you from, and the what’d you do for fun?”

“Well, I’m from all over. I mean really I was born in Africa.”

“Africa? What country?”

“Middle of nowhere village in Upper Lamumba. Best childhood you can imagine.”

“Wow,” she allowed. That was a cool origin. If he was lying, so help her…

“But I can’t really say I’m from here, I was six when I left.”

“I like how you say that as if you, as six-year-old, made the decision to pack up and leave.”

“Mmh, the exact circumstances will be a story for another day.”

“Another day? You’re assuming we’re both swiping left?”

“I like to assume the best.”

He offered a smile. He’d been smiling too much since he’d sat down, thought Raven. He’d also gone straight for the little bowl of cashew nuts, and was popping one into his mouth every other sentence. He was an odd mix of performative and carefree, but he still seemed like he knew exactly how charming he was. In short, less than a minute into this speed-date, he was exactly the kind of guy she never went for. It made Raven relax, having discounted him in her head.

But she dutifully said, “I’m a teacher. Community college. I teach literature, and I’m also the unofficial therapist on campus. I’m from here, New York. And for fun, I read.”

“Not write?”

“Not every literature teacher wants to be a writer.”

“Fair enough. I write song lyrics, not that I want to be a singer. That’s for your third question. I also play the guitar. I like concerts, I like hiking, I like camping… the outdoors in general.”

Raven almost chuckled at how effectively he was ticking off all her ‘incompatible’ boxes. She couldn’t keep a smile back, and he noticed. “What?”

She shook her head. “I was just thinking how I hate camping more than anything.”

“Noted. You never answered where you’re from?”

“I didn’t? I’m from here, New York.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone here who’s actually from New York.”

“Would never live anywhere else.”

He scrunched up his nose. “Really? I wanna travel as much as I can. Like, I never want to spend more than a couple of years in the same place. It’s a tough dream, I know,” he added, because apparently he’d taken her bewildered expression for simple surprise. “So, you’re satisfied with your questions? You don’t feel they’re a little shallow?”

“I’m not the one who opened with a monologue.”

“Well, that was just the ice breaker. Now we have the chance to get deeper.”

“Is there a chance to get any degree of deep in an eight-minute conversation?” she questioned.

He thought about that. “I mean, just deep enough to know whether you wanna see someone again. That’s what speed dating is about, right?”

“I don't know. Everyone’s trying so hard to make a good first impression, you can’t really get a genuine assessment of people.”

He cocked his head at her; it made his wispy blond hair move with him. (He had too much hair, she thought. And she was decently sure he was younger than her.) “Sounds like you don’t believe much in speed dating at all.”

“Oh, jury’s still out on whether tonight was a complete mistake.”

He pointed at her and went, “Okay, core values. Go.”

“Seriously? That doesn’t work.”

He gaped. “How… that’s very important. What could you possibly have against that?”

She almost smiled at his indignity. “People telling you their core values is useless. The shallowest people can tell you they value genuineness. The drama seekers will tell you they crave peace and harmony. You don’t really know what people's values are until it’s actionable.”

“Yeah, I think I heard that. Don’t marry a person until you’ve seen them stressed, uh…”

“Gone on a trip with them,” she supplied.

“Yeah.”

“And when they’re sick?”

“I think struggling financially was one of them.”

“There’s probably different versions,” she allowed.

“Well, you give me questions, then.”

“Okay. Pet peeves.”

He gave that a moment's thought. He’d picked up some nuts and now let them drop back into the bowl. “Littering. Food waste. People who won’t try new stuff just once, like new food. Like vegan food.”

“You’re vegan. That’s a strike.”

“It usually is,” he laughed. “But, I’ve never forced anyone to try it.” He waited for a sign of acquiescence that never came. “Isn’t that a point in my favor?”

“Could be.”

“But…?”

She hesitated. “But nothing says you actually practice it. You could tell me anything. Anyone could say anything.”

“So could you.”

“Yeah, but…” He saw her hesitate for the first time in this date. “You seem like the kind of person who tries to make everyone like them.”

Raven had just been trying to push the conversation away from pet peeves without having to answer herself; she’d proposed the topic without thinking and regretted it instantly, because he was doing some of her pet peeves right in front of her. She would’ve had to tell him some of them included people eating absent-mindedly, people reaching for food they weren’t going to eat, people looking at you while they chewed… But now he was blinking at her, and she feared she’d gone too far.

“…Doesn’t everyone?” he posed.

“No.”

“So you don’t care if people like you?”

“…I care, I just won’t change in order to make it happen.”

“Well, I wouldn’t either. But you don’t trust me, so.” He finished that statement with a smile. (She was hit with the idea that she had really offended him, and he was using a smile to put distance between them. But she didn’t care what he thought of her, right?)

“Is it a bit? When you opened saying, I’m at a sanctuary, but I’m working there, I’m not there as an inmate? Do you do that every time?”

He laughed then, and she thought it sounded genuine. “No, the way I tell it deteriorates as the night goes on. I couldn’t act that well. But I get what you were saying.” Now he spoke carefully. “You’re… intimidating. Which is not a bad thing,” he rushed to add. “But, I guess, you’re used to people having a problem with that. So you don’t try to make them like you. Right?”

Now he was sheepish. Maybe he’d wanted to throw it back at her, maybe he’d just wanted to get deeper. Either way, she was satisfied she could consider them even. “You know what?”

“What?” he asked in a small voice.

“A girl behind you just got up from her table and is doing the splits, and I can’t focus on anything you’re saying.”

So he turned around. Sure enough, across the room a girl was straining her dress with a side slit as she lowered into a split under the eyes of her bewildered date.

“That’s a lot of trust she’s putting on that dress,” Raven commented, and took the space of time he was turned around to make use of her own complementary glass of water.

“Ooh, that’s what she was getting at,” said Gar when he turned back to her, “That girl asked me if I had any secret talents. When I told her what mine was she just… stopped talking. Completely. Until the eight minutes were out. I guess my talent was supposed to be sexy.”

She observed him, trying to take a guess. “I’m almost scared to ask…”

He didn’t let her ask. “I can move both my ears individually.” He used both hands to push his hair painfully back from his ears, and kept eye contact with her as he twitched one ear, then the other, then again.

The actual tip of his ears twitched down when he did it. For some reason it freaked her out. “Please don’t ever do that again.”

He let go of his hair, and in an instant the goofiness gave way to suaveness. “Again? So you do wanna see me again, miss Raven?”

She scoffed. But he seemed to be really waiting for an answer, so she said, “Realistically I won’t, no one here will. You’ve got one foot out of the city and you wanna relocate every couple of years.”

“That’s a deal breaker?”

“It would be for most people,” she defended. “Most people stay put in one place.”

“You know phones exist, right? The Internet?” He couldn’t seem to stop teasing her. He’d just realize she was blushing from when he’d put her in the spot just now, and it made a thrill go through him.

“You were hoping to meet someone who’d commit to waiting for you after talking for a few minutes?”

“Or maybe the right girl will come along with me. Maybe you’re underestimating the number of girls who are willing to be swept away to a completely new life. And didn’t you say people need to go on a trip together before they get married?”

“Is that what you’re after tonight? Marriage?”

“Would that be so surprising?”

The ring that signaled the end of the date came like a shot. Both looked at each other in surprise, recognizing it was the first time in the whole night they’d wished the eight minutes hadn’t ended. Both wondered if it was the same for the other.

Gar still got up, slowly.

“Did we finish a single line of conversation?” Raven asked.

“There’s a way to fix that,” he said, leaning on the table more than he needed to, she thought, in order to pick up his glass.

After the night was over, after she’d gone home and showered, and taken some time to soothe the nerves of her battered introverted nature, Raven pulled up the app for the speed dating event. A gallery of men’s pictures stared back at her, and she quickly located the one that read Gar Logan.

It would be borderline leading him on. They were completely incompatible, from their personalities, to their tastes, to their plans in life. It probably wouldn’t work out.

But somehow, they had never stopped talking the whole date. And all she wanted to do right now was find him and talk shit about the guy who came after him, who was actually here to recruit girls to join him and his girlfriend as their third.

She only had the name he’d given out—a security measure that had led her to choose this app. And she knew he wouldn’t stay long in New York. If she didn’t match him, she simply might never see him again. She’d lose him in the wide scope of the world.

Throwing caution out the window, she swiped left. Immediately she got the access to the profile screen that let her know he’d matched her too.

───

Notes:

I’m either writing 3 entries for this Week of literally just this one. T_T Whatever I end up doing will be up on AO3 eventually!

The ‘Camping’ comment is a subtle reference to the fact that I couldn’t think of anything for the prompt for Day 1.❤️

I pulled the workings of the speed dating app, and speed dating itself, right out of my ass. Don’t take my word for anything. I did ZERO research for this.

[citruswriter]

Say It Again

Listen with me! ↠ⁿᵉˣᵗ ˢᵒⁿᵍ ↺ ʳᵉᵖᵉᵃᵗ ⊜ ᵖᵃᵘˢᵉ

Pairing: Nobody. Leonardo if you squint. 🧡

Warnings: Angst, Reader has white feathered wings, set in the second movie after the river scene.

A/N: Sooooooo I came up with this while maladaptive daydreaming. Your welcome.

"That's enough!" You said, breaking the brothers up. "I will not just stand here and watch you guys berate each other!" Donnie, Mikey, and Raph just grumbled but agreed and sat down. "Like you have any room talking. You're not even a proper member of this family". Leo hissed, arms crossed as he stared at you. "Oh shit..." Raph muttered. "Oh he did not..." Mikey said softly. Even Donnie stared at his elder brother in utter shock. You turned your head with wide eyes to look at the brother in blue. "What?" You said softly, giving him the chance to save himself as your wings began to bristle but Leo just glared at you. "I said what I fucking sa-" he wasn't able to finish before you started screaming at him in utter rage. "You are such a fucking dick! You don't have any right to utter such words at me! The utter gaul you fucking have to say such a thing to me!" You screamed, tears spilling down your face as you continued. "News flash! This is your fucking fault! You want all of us to be little soldiers that think like you and blindly follow your orders but that ain't how this fucking shit works! I know it may be hard to see the truth from the high horse your riding on but if you stopped being so fucking arrogant, you might see the truth!" Leo had never seen you so angry, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't scared right now. "We all look up to you, you just don't know how to fucking lead Leonardo!" You spat, voice beginning to go hoarse from your screaming.

"I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry, (Y/N). I shouldn't have said that." He sputtered and you growled at him. "Stay in your fucking lane Leonardo. You don't get to shit on any of us. Mikey may be an airhead but he's the best fighter out of all of us. Raph may be an angry brute but he'll be the first one to sacrifice himself for his family. And Donnie, oho, Donnie. You'd be fucking dead without this man. And me? How many times have I played therapist for you? For this whole fucking family?" You stepped forward, squaring up to him as you glared at him with such anger that it made him shudder. "You ever have the audacity to say some disrespectful shit like that to me ever again, and I swear it'll be the last fucking thing you ever say." You seethed and Leo nodded. You walked off, angry and hurt, tears spilling over your cheeks. "Oh and Leo?" You started, looking over your shoulder. "Y-Yeah?" He stuttered out. "You're so lucky I don't tell Sensei about your little comment because we both know he'd beat your ass and you wouldn't leave the hashi for a week". You growled and Leo swallowed thickly, knowing damn well that was true.

Sitting in a corner of the plane, you broke down crying. "H-Hey. Look I'm sure he didn't mean it. He's just angry." Mikey said, rubbing your back in an attempt to calm you. "I don't care. It's no excuse." You sobbed angrily and Donnie crouched down to hold your face, thumbs wiping tears away. "I know. But please know he loves you as much as the rest of us do." He whispered and you nodded. "You are a valued member of this family. And we love you so much. Even Leo's arrogant ass". Raph rumbled softly and you couldn't help but laugh softly through your tears. "There we go! There's that smile". Mikey cheered, kissing your temple. "Feeling a bit better now?" Donnie asked and you nodded. Looking over to Leo, you saw the guilty expression on his face. Wrapping yourself in your wings, you thought back to the river and how you couldn't help. You wanted to but the water made your feathers sopping wet, rendering you useless. Maybe he was just frustrated. Maybe he was projecting. You weren't sure. But as you stared out the plane, rippling wind still working on drying your wings off, you knew one thing for sure. This fight was not over yet.

Anyways yea. Ik it's super short but I wanted to write it. So fuck ya'll. /silly

[sirgogington]

My Word Vomit Response on the Shelby Situation

Main Situation: Last week Wilbur Soot from Lovejoy was accused of having been abusive towards his ex girlfriend Shelby. Shelby is a live streamer and last week she did a livestream about the signs of knowing if you are in an abusive relationship. She never stated his name, but from details given people started assuming it was about Wilbur Soot. A few days later Wilbur confirmed that it was him in an apology tweet on his Twitter account. The abuse had to do with painful biting, and manipulation. 

    I want to start off by saying I do believe Shelby's story. I don't think Wilbur is innocent, but I do believe this situation isn't as black and white as people are claiming it to be. 

    Former fans after hearing the story started unfollowing Wilbur and Lovejoy and saying what a terrible man that Wilbur is, and vowing to never listen to or view any of his content ever again. He's not just a terrible man, he has to be evil too. I may be optimistic but I do think most people can change for the better if they truly want to. There are exceptions, but I truly believe that Wilbur can. The internet wants to just label him as evil and not give him any room to do that. The new thing is "guilty until proven innocent" and that's super harmful as I will go into in a different post. The way people are spreading hate in a us/them mentality is not a mature way of viewing/handling this situation and does more harm than good. Especially when it comes to death threats and doxing which have been received by both sides.

   Wilbur is someone who had a hard upbringing, and has brought up at different times his struggles with mental health. On screen or on stage you would never know this about him, because he has this mask of being confident, well spoken, and joyful. Through these details Wilbur has shared we know that touring took a lot out of him mentally and put him in a bad place, but that he was seeking therapy and is probably currently still seeing a therapist to try and get better. He's shared in the past that when he first blew up on the internet he used alcohol to cope because of how overwhelming it was that so many people were consuming his content. From Shelby's stream we also learned that his living space was dirty and unhygienic and that he would make excuses for it. The details for me paint the picture of a guy struggling badly with mental illness and having a hard time caring for himself and his home. Someone who can hardly take care of themselves should not have been in a relationship. This puts a lot on the other person.  It's different if he were stable and then then his mental health crashed in the middle of a longer relationship, but not if your too mentally ill to begin with. I do deeply feel sorry that Shelby had to experience that, as it truly shouldn't have happened. 

   I went to school for psychology and know quite a bit about different types of mental illnesses. I am by no means diagnosing Wilbur, but I do think he shows signs of someone with Boderline Personality Disorder. Borderline Personality Disorder is an emotional disregulation disorder characterized by unstable mood, behavior, and relationships. People with BPD self sabotage and will frequently end up pushing people away because they don't think they're good enough for them. (In this case maybe he wanted to act so bad so she would leave him, which is very unhealthy). People with BPD also go through depressive episodes and can act impulsively. Without therapy it is extremely hard to cope with this condition but with therapy you can make great strides in changing. I think like most mental illnesses you are aware of the fact you don't like the way you're acting you just have a hard time controlling it. For instance for me growing up with anxiety I knew most of my fears were completely irrational but that didn't stop them from overtaking my life and still feeling anxious. Wilbur has written some really deep lyrics on his new solo album Mammalian Sighing Reflex and I feel like it reflects that he doesn't like the way he is and feels guilty about those he's harmed through it. Maybe I'm giving this man too much credit, but like I said I do believe most people are capable of changing for the better. 

   Shelby stated she did the livestream as a way to help protect other victims of domestic violence and Wilbur Soot himself. He might still be dangerous to the public, it's really hard to know. I know after my own situation with being manipulated I was worried about the guy going after other younger women like he had with me. I didn't want anyone else have to be in that situation so I understand where Shelby is coming from. I also know that if the guy in my life had ever posted an apology, no matter how good it was, that I still wouldn't believe him and have a hard time forgiving him. Bold take but I think his apology was at least decent. Could it have been better, yeah, but could it have been a lot worse, also yes. In his apology he admits to being the person Shelby was talking about. He states that her feelings are valid, and that he wants people to hold him to higher accountability, and that he was sorry for any hurt he caused. Maybe he isnt, but it's hard to know. Wilbur stated in a livestream from last October 2023 that he was going to therapy the next day, because of this we can assume that Wilbur has been going to therapy at minimum since October. In that same livestream he states that he showers once a day when he's in his "big sad", and that he has rented places all over Brighton. He is at least hygienic in this regard, maybe moreso than he was before. It could be a red flag that Wilbur has lived all over Brighton due to possible evictions whether that be negligence or noise complaints from doing livestreams.

   We'll never know how other content creators truly feel about him except for the ones that made it obvious. Of course most content creators are going to jump on the bandwagon and agree that he's an evil man. If they don't then they'll lose their platform because of all the hate they'd get. I do believe some content creators will still hang out with Wilbur secretly or still even remain his friend. But we'll never know. 

   For the people who are posting different video evidences of Wilbur supposedly showing signs of being abusive in the past this is what is called confirmation bias. If you believe someone is abusive suddenly you can find details in the littlest things to confirm your thought process. A lot of the clips I've been seeing have been of normal everyday behavior or confirmed bits. I've seen people say that Wilbur must have bit down really hard to leave bruises. In some cases people bruise more easily than others. I know I have random bruises on my body from nothing. We can tell that what Wilbur did however was pretty painful due to have to use a safe word. Getting bitten usually hurts. I've been bitten by a 5 year old at work and can't imagine how it would feel to be bitten by a grown man who intentionally bit down hard.

This could be confirmation bias as well, but when looking at the lyrics in Mammalian Sighing Reflex and at the album art it seems to tell the story of a man (Wilbur) who really messed up in a relationship and is feeling the pain from that, and has a lot of regret due to knowing he was the cause of her pain. He poured so much of himself into the album it's like he's bleeding out in front of the audience with the amount of vulnerability.

Analyzing lyrics because why not, using lyrics from "Mammalian Sighing Reflex"

"I get so drunk I can barely see." If this album is related to his relationship with Shelby, which I think it probably is, then maybe he tried to cope with the relationship failing by using alcohol, or sabotaged the relationship through drinking.

"A lot of friends have left my life, escaping my tractor beam of woe" Having a mental illness can make it hard to maintain friendships. This could be because it makes you so self-focused on your problems, or that people get tired of hearing about your problems. If you constantly talk about how sad you are, some people are going to have a hard time dealing with that, or get burnt out from having to keep on cheering you up.

"Fuck my life, you cared when I was sick, no one ever gave a shit.....you fought this war one-sided and asked me what am I doing this for." These lyrics seem to speak about how in a past relationship (probably meaning with Shelby), that she cared that he was mentally ill/in a low point and wanted to help him get better. The fight to help him get better was one-sided due to Wilbur not helping to get himself better. If he would have helped her then they "could of stitched my mind together."

"Never been the one for romance, never thought that I'd get married. Never been the kind to give a shared life a second glance, selfish prose." In Shelby's livestream she talked about how her and Wilbur talked about the possibility of getting married and having kids until he backtracked and said that he wasn't that way and changed his mind.

The song "I Don't Think It Will Ever End" is how his mind seems to work in cycles. He'll be sad, because he feels sad he hides away for a bit, but then he feels silly for hiding himself so he forces himself to interact with people. But then when forcing himself to interact again he feels sad, which he says is not a good feeling when you're supposedly in a good phase. He says as self-sabotage he gets silly. Wilbur is known for telling a lot of jokes, and maybe this is a way he masks his true feelings. Also for Mammalian Sighing Reflex it says the songs were written by William Gold (his legal name) and performed by Wilbur Soot (his stage name). Wilbur is who the internet/fans see him as and William Gold is who he really is. Meaning the way we see him online is the extroverted, charismatic, likeable guy we know him as whereas William Gold is introverted, self-sabotaging, nerdy, and a deep thinker.

     The internet gives us way too much information. We're constantly bombarded with more and more information. Before the internet and even in the earlier internet days you did not have this. People were not being as closely viewed and known as they are now. You have to be careful about every little thing you say, because God forbid you say the wrong thing and get canceled. It didn't used to be this way. The only reason you'd ever know anything bad about a celebrity is if they were in the news. I think most of the media we consume whether TV shows, movies, etc. have the potential to have us supporting "bad people". It would be overwhelming to look up every single person we had ever consumed media from and sift through what are lies and what are not about each actor, singer, etc. I get that people don't want to give a platform to people doing bad things, but it's almost impossible to know and to remove every single bad person from the content you consume.  Being a celebrity in general is hard. It's easy to become addicted to drugs, and experience toxicity especially celebrities that live in Los Angeles. Most become people they regret, but some change for the better too. I'm not saying people who do serious crimes should get out of jail because they can become better people. People in jail should remain in jail for serious crimes. Time will tell what becomes of him. If more about him is released or if he's able to actually make strides in his health like he said he would. We will wait and see. I really hope he can heal and get better. Even the most unlikely ones can change their lives. You can both support Shubble and hope that Wilbur gets better.

[fate-motif]

VOYAGER CHARACTERS RATED BY HOW LIKELY THEY ARE TO GO TO THERAPY, AND HOW THAT GOES DOWN

harry: don’t be deceived, this doesn’t mean harry would go to therapy willingly. but i am 90% sure at that whatever posting he took after voyager, he was asked to do therapy and he scoffed because he didn’t go through the dominion war, why would he need therapy? but he’s still convinced to do it to go with the flow, you know, make everyone else feel a little less bad for needing therapy. but no matter how he ends up in therapy, that therapist is just shocked by all the shit harry’s telling him, and he can tell harry’s not telling the whole truth, but because he can’t make harry tell him anything he doesn’t want to, especially if it’s about the others’ insane psychological issues, that therapist needs to start getting therapy themselves. i’m half convinced this was migleemo and this is how he ended up on the cerritos.

chakotay: he’s perfectly well aware that he needs therapy, but he puts it off successfully for a long time by justifying that with so many dominion war veterans, he does not want to take away their more urgent care when he’s relatively well off in terms of functioning. of course, he’s hiding the trainwreck of a personal relationship he had with seven, and by the time he takes the protostar posting he’s like, okay, alright, i’ll take a therapist with me on the protostar, this is going to help. and then he vanishes. and the therapist probably dies. rip.

tuvok: tuvok’s first inclination is to look for a psychiatrist, not a therapist. he can compartimentalize his trauma so much easier if he just points to any kind of damage he might have incurred between all those mind melds and head trauma in between missions. this lets him look a lot saner than most of the voyager crew who refuse to see any kind of professional but eventually t’pel outs her foot down and confronts him with the fact that his time on voyager has had a lasting impact on his rationality and control and he Requires assistance in addressing it. even then it’s most likely some kind of spiritual guidance, which is pretty close to therapy for vulcans considering their spirituality revolves around psychological control and all that, but he still dodges the needing therapy allegations publicly like a pro.

the emh: he recognizes that he needs therapy, would most likely want it, but he doesn't last more than a couple of weeks with anyone he tries because he thinks they're too dismissive of his issues because he's a hologram, so he tries to pour out his issues into trying to defend the right to mental healthcare for holograms while avoiding any kind of therapy himself because he doesn't want to go through all of that again.

seven: the federation has universal healthcare so therapy is available to seven, but she still refuses mental health care services when she realizes what the attitude towards xBs is in the federation. the closest she ever came was considering couples therapy when she was still with chakotay but that was a passing consideration and it was the prelude to her breaking away from the federation entirely after she broke up with chakotay. if she has received any kind of therapy afterwards it’s unlicensed, highly questionable, and probably self-managed which really shouldn’t have been the case. 

tom: he’s fully well aware he needs therapy, but he refuses to on the principle that he knows the therapists are going to blame his issues on voyager when clearly it all started with his dad and his unfair expectations of him and — but he does end up going to therapy specifically as couples therapy when his relationship with b’elanna was beginning to fall apart. the therapist recommends they both go individually for their own issues and they reject that vehemently. they probably continue to attend just for the insane task that is co-parenting miral between the two of them and they continuously rotate their therapist when they start getting into voyager a little too much.

b’elanna: it’s a miracle tom even got her to couples therapy at all. in the meantime, she’s mostly journaled, read books about therapy, done everything in her power to prove to everyone that she has her own mental health in her own hands and she’s doing great, but she can’t engineer her way out of depression since the age of 6 so you know. it would take a huge crisis for her to finally end up caving to suggestions that she go to therapy.

janeway: everyone who’s worked with her since voyager is telling their therapist about janeway and the way she is. no one directly asks her to go to therapy and the few people that do get shut down because clearly she’s keeping everything together, right? but the psychology academics’ circle of the federation and probably beyond know that they need to be ready for the day kathryn janeway gets therapy. they’ve been talking amongst themselves about who’s going to do it, who’s ready for it, how the dsm is going to have like 42 new mental illnesses at the end of it all and how they’re going to divide the work when they all start working on the scientific papers that make their careers based on how this woman’s brain works.

[philtstone]

for the kisses prompt: 25. kisses in the rain for shules because we never got a rain kiss and i think thats criminal

[phil voice] i dont have time to start an elaborate and ever growing kidfic series [immediately starts an elaborate and ever growing kidfic series] i was thinking about how rarely shawn and juliet spend significant time apart on the show and this emerged. timeline spans from just before 5x01 to post series, and title is from my enemy number one, aka deb talans "big strong girl". unfortunately i have yet to listen to that song or watch that scene without weeping uncontrollably into my hands. i promise they do actually kiss in the rain, it just takes a while to get there. enjoy!

title: come on, come on, lay it down

I.

City Hall is boring. 

This is Juliet’s big takeaway after day seven at her new assigned desk. The first few days are filled with a flurry of administrative logistics and the chasm of anxiety at the pit of her stomach that has nothing to do with the objectively mundane and benign desk work she’s voluntarily chosen to return to. 

Then, boredom. 

She blinks hard against the possibly terminal lazy eye she’s started to develop after her fourth hour of staring at backlogged paperwork and tries to refocus on the wall across from her. It’s red: this dark potent color that her mother would consider classy. Somehow in this building it looks beige. Beige is a good bland shade, kind of like what a blank mind might look like. Metaphorically. Juliet’s new therapist is all about combating blank minds and working with metaphors. She’d suggested a meditation exercise last week. What’s a place that makes you feel safe? Picture it in your head. Imagine the textures and smells and sounds.

Brring.

She startles, looking down at the office landline in front of her.

Brring.

Juliet picks it up. “Hello?”

“Jules!”

Her eyes drop back down to the paperwork. “Hi Shawn,” she says.

As he begins his prattling, Juliet picks up her pen and doodles a dog on a stray post-it note. She’d buried her personal cell deep into her purse as some kind of weird defense against the outside world, but it’s oddly comforting that Shawn somehow knows the office phone number anyway. From her spot at the desk she can see far enough into the lobby that the big glass doors for entering the building are visible. It’s raining pretty torrentially outside. People come and go all the time, and Juliet comes in the morning and goes in the evening, but it kind of feels like she doesn’t. Shawn hasn’t actually come around to visit her yet, at this new job. Juliet tells herself she doesn’t mind. He needs his own time and space, just like she needs hers, and it’s only been a week that she’s been back at work, anyway.

A week during which he’s called her five times in as many days. They mostly talk about nothing.

“Tell me you were thinking about donuts.”

“I wasn’t.”

“That’s too bad, cause I got you one. Also! Italian food. Here’s the thing — yes, salads are fine and good, sometimes tasty even, but nothing beats a panini on a Thursday.”

“Shawn, it’s Wednesday.”

“Is it really? Well, that puts a damper on our plans.”

Read the rest on ao3!

[chaosduckies]

Friends In Small Places (Chapter 4)

As I’ve mentioned when I had first started writing this, this piece is meant to be gloomy. So, I give you the fearplay chapter. I’m so sorry for the delay, but I hope you enjoy! (I have no idea how to feel about this scene-) Also, I get to put my three years of spanish classes to use :D (Translations are included)

Word Count: 3.5k

CW: Anxiety, panic attacks, slight gore mentioned

4-Liam 

A week can pass by quickly. 

Cas and I have been slowly getting to know each other a little more. Not a whole lot since some topics were a little too hard for him to talk about. Classes at college were getting even more tiring, and before I could ask to take the classes online it turns out that they had already handled it when I brought up the subject. So, now I was practically staying at Cas’s house almost all of the time. Although it isn’t too bad, I’ve noticed something about his behavior. He likes to stay close by me. 

It’s not a bad thing, I’m not complaining at all, it’s just that it’s nerve wracking whenever he asks if I’m okay with him sitting near me. I’m not used to him all that much. I know most people are fine with being around shifters but of course I’ve believed all my life that most shifters were scary, intimidating even. It’ll just take some time to get used to living with one I guess. After all, I was supposed to be a therapist. 

Today I was just writing some notes while Cas sat on the floor, a bright smile on his face as he looked at his phone. I was about to ask what that was about, but then I remembered him telling me something about seeing his parents sometimes this week. Was that today? If it was I should probably get ready. The only thing I knew was that I was required to be there the entire time. They didn’t tell me what was going to happen, how long it would be, but I’m sure Cas would tell me on our way there. 

I shut my computer closed, placing my notebook on top of it before shoving it into my bag and glancing over at Cas. He seemed excited to meet with his parents. I would be too if I had been separated for however long. Then again I live in an entire different city than my parents. They do like calling every once in a while though. I don’t think they let Cas have his own parents phone number. 

“Excited?” I mumbled, walking a little bit closer. I’m pretty sure we’ll have to leave soon. It was already noon and I was mainly waiting on a text or a call that explains that his parents were ready to see him. For some reason he’s not allowed to go in early which I find is kind of irrational, but I can’t just go against them. Heck, I wasn’t even supposed to be part of this organization. 

“Mhm. Last time we were only allowed an hour to talk.” He smiled sadly at me, still looking positive about today’s outcome. I do hope he gets to see them today. I think he needs this. But I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as excited to see their parents as Cas was. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, but how old are you?” I asked, looking up curiously. He can’t be more than three years younger than me. He doesn’t go to school, and I doubt he’s any older than myself. 

“Eighteen. I know, I act like a child.” He chuckled, messing with his hands. Nervous? I don’t really think I could do anything about that. Actually, for someone who has depression and struggles with emotions, he doesn’t lose control a whole lot. Only ever twice has he in front of me, minus the times where he starts growing a couple feet from either watching someone thing or thinking about something. I try my hardest to shut it down before anything bad could happen. Last time I freaked out and couldn’t do anything useful to help him. 

“I don’t think you act like a child.” I laughed, hearing my phone go off. I hurried to pick it up, seeing Cas quite literally beam with a shocked smile. I told them we’d be right there, and then carefully climbed into his hands. Today would be a good day. I don’t know why I get the feeling something bad will happen. It’s just the way they had sounded on the phone… 

——————

The building looked relatively normal on the outside, with a fancy look that had screamed “We’re rich,” there were different sized doors, but what caught me off guard was that there was an entire security system right at the front that makes sure you’r not bringing a weapon. Cas set me down near the human-sized doors, telling me to just do what they say and we’ll eventually meet up again. It’s kind of awkward taking instructions from someone younger than me, but he’s been here for much, much longer. 

I went through security, answered a few questions, like who I was with, how long I would prefer the visit time be, mostly questions about Cas if I were being honest. Was this why he was only allowed a singular hour to talk last time? Because he had someone else? I don’t really mind spending a few hours here. What could go wrong? I answered as long as Cas and his parents were going to be here. I’d feel bad if I set a time limit. Plus, I’m sure his parents would love to spend some more time with him. 

Eventually they lead me to a huge waiting room, where I was guessing I would be able to keep an eye on Cas. I was I trusted to stay in there in case something goes wrong, but I sincerely doubt it. What was there to be upset about in the first place? I think everything would be fine. I was just staying on the sidelines anyways. Maybe meet his parents, talk for a while. Heck, maybe I’ll even get to know a little more about him. Cas doesn’t answer some questions I have. All for good reason I hope, it’s not like I was going to force it out of him anyways. That would just be plain wrong. 

Out side of the room, Cas had walked in, standing up near the platform I was guessing they’d be at. Weren’t they supposed to take me up there too? A woman wearing a suit walked into my holding room, taking a seat right next to me, “Kayla Cruz. I was Casper’s old therapist.” She giggled, holding her hand out. Oh? What was she doing here then? Why was she replaced by me of all people? She certainly looked like she was more trained for this job than I was. Something wasn’t right here. 

“Oh, um, Liam Rover. It’s nice to meet you.” I smiled, shaking her offered hand and watching as Three people wearing a guard outfit instructed Cas about something to which he nodded to. Wasn’t I supposed to be up there? I think I know which way to go to get up to him. I guess I can wait an extra couple of minutes. I have no idea why, but I had a bad feeling about everything. Maybe I could ask Ryan later? I know the person he was placed with is a shifter who can only reduce their size, was this really any different? I’d have to ask. 

The woman next to me watched, a frown on her face as she looked at Cas, a worried look on his face. His eyes darted all around the room, still waiting for when his parents walk through the safety of the doors high above where I was sitting. Was it supposed to take this long? Why was I the one worried? Was it just a feeling? 

Th woman next to me glared at me from the corner of her eye, a smirk appearing on her face, “They told you he was meeting with his parents today?” She leaned back in the seat. I nodded my head, confused. “It’s technically true, but the company has deemed Casper here too mentally unstable to meet with anyone but shifters and his corresponding therapist, which would be you.” 

My heart sank. 

What the hell. This was just wrong! I have to go up there before they do anythi- I stared up at the platform, seeing a singular guard walk in, say something to Cas, have a short conversation that made his eyes grow wide and slide slowly down the metal-looking wall behind him. My eyes darted around the room, searching for a door to go and help him. Of course I was terrified about what they’ve done, mostly the outcome of what’s about to happen, but it’s not like I can just leave him here. I know what they do to shifters who can’t control their emotions. Their either sent off to a special captivity prison, or they… I can’t think about that right now. I am not about to become the reason Cas gets sent to a place like that. I don’t have the heart in me to do so. 

I found a door that looked like it lead to the room, and almost as if they knew I was searching for it, it unlocked. I threw it open, rushing out, my heart beating fast and uncontrollable. My legs were about to give out from underneath me, breath shaky, my mind screaming at me to get the hell out of here. But I don’t. I knew what was about to happen. They weren’t letting Cas see his parents. I heard slight screaming and yelling in another room that sounded like a woman’s and crying from a kid. But I didn’t focus on that right now. I was more worried about the situation in front of me. 

What do I do? Something tells me this isn’t going to be anything like that other time. Cas has always watched how he reacts to things, what he does, but right now he’s not. He’s most definitely depressed, and there was just something else I couldn’t pin point. People do dumb things while they’re upset. They regret it all later, so it would be best if I make sure Cas doesn’t so anything he’ll regret. Because then that’s an entire different problem to deal with after this one. 

“Cas!” I managed to scream at the top of my lungs, knees buckling underneath me, but I force them to keep me standing upright as his gaze falls onto me. I jumped, chest heaving up and down as I struggled to find the words to say. My body was frozen in fear, not even able to move a single limb from it’s place. He winced when his legs uncomfortably hit the wall opposite of him. I didn’t know what to do. It��s almost like… they wanted him to lash out. Why would they want that? Soon enough, guards ran in, yelling orders while one tugged at me to head back inside, but I didn’t move. Instead, I rushed forward, avoiding the somehow careful limbs that were trying to move into a compact position on the floor. 

A guard was running after me, but I guess someone held him back since I was somehow gaining ground when I was running extremely slow and tripping every once in a while. I found Cas’s head, seeing him scrunched up as much as he could manage as of right now. He laid on the ground, arms and hands covering his face and knees up against the chest. He still realizes that he can hurt people. Maybe I can actually do this? Still, the size difference between us is huge. 

Cas wasn’t crying or anything. Just mumbling words I surprisingly couldn’t make out. He didn’t sound angry. Just upset. That makes it easier to deal with. People do horrible things out of anger. And I could only imagine how devastating it would be if Cas wasn’t thoughtful enough to watch himself. 

I found his head, buried underneath his arms and muttering incomprehensible words to himself. He groaned a bit, slightly turning his body to face the wall, moving his arms away from his face to lay them down. I guess he didn’t see that I was so close to him because his arm almost killed me. I quickly jumped out the way just before I would’ve been nothing but a pile of flesh and bones on the ground. My heart skipped a beat, unable to stare at the spot on the ground where I could’ve died. My breathing became a ragged, and the sounds close to me were slightly muffled, but it’s not like anyone was saying anything important to me. 

Cas turned his head, eyes meeting my frozen minuscule frame and gasping. He moved his arm away from me, doing his best to slowly sit up without alarming the multiple guards in the room, along with the weapons they probably have imbedded in the room itself. I could tell he was still upset, but right now I was too focused on the fact that I could have died. That reminded me just how much power Cas had over me. Even if I was the one who was watching over him. 

“L-Liam I-I’m so sorry I didn’t mean-“ He tried apologizing, voice hitching just before sucked in a sharp breath. My entire body was shaky, but I forced my legs to push me back up and walk over to the towering being. More people had walked in, Cas pressed his back closer to the wall scared. He knew what was going to happen. I knew what was going to happen. I just had to make sure it wasn’t the worst possible outcome of the the two. I don’t think I could handle the guilt that way. 

The week I’ve spent with Cas has been amazing really. Even though sometimes I get a little jumpy from the fast movements, or feel uncomfortable at times when he’s around me, Cas really isn’t bad at all. We’ve hung out for a while, watched movies, played a few games. I think we’re friends? With that thought in mind I’d hate to see them take him to a place he doesn’t even deserve to be in. Of course I was afraid of him still, instincts and all, but I don’t want him to end up being alone. 

I stood up, taking shaky breaths as I tried my hardest to stay upright. Come on I’m not even hurt- I was just terrified. Shocked. A little unstable right now even. If I had tried talking to Cas now he wouldn’t hear me. The distance between my and himself was huge. I looked back up at him, taking deep breaths. He stared worriedly at the people making their way in, looking ready to advance if he tries anything. 

“I’m not scared. I’m totally fine.” I kept muttering to myself. It usually worked when I felt like this. It’s what my dad would keep telling me. Little did he know that I was terrified of everything going on around me right now. 

Cas’s attention turned to me, a hand reaching taking up my vision as I stood frozen in fear. The next the thing I knew I was pinched tightly between two of his fingers, arms pinned to my sides and barely able to move any part of my body. The pressure against my chest increased, threatening to break my ribs. That was the least of my worries. I couldn’t breathe right now. 

“I-I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you like that!” He freaked out, holding me dangerously close to his face. He’s not being his usual careful self, but that was expected when a person was upset. I gasped for air, trying to free my arms from the prison I was in currently, but Cas just kept looking over the the people on the ground that was far, far below me and muttering words in a language I couldn’t hear. 

My heart was racing fast as my lungs had begged me for air. I managed to free one of my arms, and I forced my voice to work for once, “Cas!” 

“…Lo siento. Lo siento mucho. Estoy arruinando todo...” (*Translation: I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. I’m ruining everything…*)He kept on muttering over and over again, and it just makes me wish I had paid attention to my spanish classes in high school. Something about him being sorry? I think have much, much bigger problems at hand though. 

Cas shifted me in his literal death grip, allowing me to breathe, but he was pressing down harder, and a sharp pain erupted from my leg, but I was fueled by the adrenaline. 

“Cas!” I screamed again, trying to pull myself out of his grip. His eyes darted to me, wide and shocked. It took him a moment to realize, but he let go, laying me down in his open palm, running a hand through his hair. I coughed for air, wincing when I checked out the leg that felt like it was on fire. Most likely broken, but nothing I couldn’t handle. It was fine though. I know he didn’t mean to. But still, my fear never wavered at the fact that he could quite literally kill me by not even trying to. 

“¿Estás bien? I-I didn’t mean to-“ I nodded my head, biting down hard on the bottom of my lip. It’s okay, you know him good enough to know that he wouldn’t do any of this on purpose. I had to remind myself before gathering up my remaining courage to actually do my job. 

“Cas, just take a few breaths, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong.” I had only hoped he heard over how shaky my voice was. He slowly nodded his head, I closed my eyes, hoping that when I opened them the ground wouldn’t be so far from me. When I peaked out, the ground was a bit closer, people stood on the ground, frozen in either fear or shock. I calmed my heart down enough to actually get a few more words in. 

“Feeling a little better?” I asked, putting on the best smile I could manage right now. He slightly nodded again, continuing to take slow breaths. 

“What happened?” I asked calmly, genuinely worried about what was said before I rushed in through here. Cas eyes me sadly, wincing, “I won’t… be able to see my parents for a long time.” He whispered, suddenly aware of everything around him again. He moved further into the wall, away from the people below us. 

“And that means?…” He bit the bottom of his lip, “Apparently I’m too unstable to even see my own family.” He sighed, and I could tell he wanted to cry, but he knew what would happen if he gave into those feelings. 

“I-I have a little brother. He loves trying to climb up anything he can,” He started laughing sadly, “You can imagine how much fun he has when he and my parents come for visits.” He sniffled a little, smiling. Oh. Oh. He’s calming down in his own way. 

Why was the world so adamant on having people watch over the “dangerous” shifters? Cas doesn’t need me… and maybe shifters don’t actually need anyone to watch over them. 

“Yeah?” I smiled, laughing with him while he seemed to have calmed down. 

“… I’m sorry, Liam.” He pressed me up agianst the bridge of his nose, this time a lot more gentle. I winced from the sharp pain in my leg, but sucked it up. I think Cas needs this. Even if I was scared he’d accidentally hurt me again. 

Cas let me down, facing the crowd on the ground that had rushed to help me up, limping the entire way until multiple people were talking behind me, rushing into places. I turned back, ignoring the warning from the people helping me. Cas gave a sad smile as the red band on his wrists started blinking, clasping themselves together like magnetic handcuffs. Cas sighed. 

I heard people in another room yelling, even a child’s voice. It’s his parents. I gasped, finding a door to another room I haven’t been in, seeing a guard and a person with a suit and tie in there. Through the small window, I saw a tall man trying to comfort his wife, who sat crying on the bench while the child stared, screaming at the guard to let him see his brother. My heart sank. 

They weren’t going to kill Cas. I knew they wouldn’t. I just hoped I would be allowed to see him in the hospital they’ll be placing him in. This wasn’t right. Not at all. 

——————

Aghhh plot build up my beloved. This chapter leads up to something reallyyy important for later.

Aww all Cas wanted was to see his little brother 🥺

I hope you enjoyed! I have no idea how to feel about this chapter if I’m being honest, but I hope it’s alright TwT work is affecting my writing grahhhh. Thank you for reading though!

The drawing I did for this chapter is right here!

Taglist: @da3dm (If you would like to be added, leave a note or dm me! :D)

[gregorygerwitz]

AITA for having a daddy kink?

I (32M) have been with my bf, T (45M) for a few months now, and besides the first date (if you remember my post about that, I'm so sorry for the secondhand embarrassment I caused everyone) everything is going really well! Or at least I thought so.

Last week, my boss (who's kind of like the dad I never had) (he's also my bf's old boss but that's not really relevant) was in the hospital after a cartel burned down his house. He's fine now. Made a full recovery. But T and I met up at my place after I left the hospital so we could have dinner. I finally made this new lasagna recipe just right after trying to figure it out for WEEKS and it was delicious.

We were talking about things while we ate, like we've done on all of our dates, and we started talking about my boss in the hospital. T even asked if I was okay, which is a little weird because I'm not the one who was in a fire or the emergency room, but it was sweet. He's really sweet. He's always checking in to make sure I'm okay and he's not doing anything that makes me uncomfortable, and that's really new, but good! Anyway, talking about my boss (and how he's kinda my dad) made T bring up his rough relationship with his own father, and one of his other old bosses, and I could tell it was a little uncomfortable.

Who likes to talk about their strained relationships with family? I know I don't. I always try to change the subject when anyone tries to talk about my parents with me. So I did that.

All I did was joke that we both have daddy issues - because we do, no matter what he says about it - and it's so easy to just talk to him, you know? So maybe I was a little flirty. Okay, I was a lot flirty, but I just wanted to make him smile because I don't like seeing the people I love upset. And maybe that fed into some innuendos. And maybe we kind of came to the conclusion that I really like calling him "daddy" in bed. I had a really good night after dinner. It was great.

And it was all great. This is the happiest I've been in a really long time. I don't think I've ever been this happy in a relationship, actually. It feels so light and easy and like he actually likes me, not some idea of me or the potential I have to be something else? That's something I'll unpack with my therapist later. Don't worry about it.

Anyway, things were great until I talked about it with my best friend, E (32M) - and I'm trying to take what he's said with a grain of salt, because he's going through a lot of major changes in his life right now, and he probably just wanted me to stop talking about my sex life, but still...

He said that because T made the comment while we were talking about our boss being in the hospital, he was just taking advantage of my childhood trauma to try out a kink. Because we were talking about something pretty serious, he never should have turned things in that direction - flirty and sexual - while I was worried and stressed, and he was totally brushing off how I was feeling in the moment. I thought it was fine in the moment, even fun, but E has known me for the last 6 years and has watched me get into and out of relationships that weren't always good for me, and now I'm worried that he's right and it's happening again. I really trust his opinion and I know he just wants to look out for me.

I guess I just don't know how to feel. I really like T, and he hasn't done anything to hurt me, and I'm happy. But E does see things from a different angle, maybe less biased than I do because I'm in the middle of it. I don't know who to trust more right now. I thought I was the one who made the conversation flirty and brought up the daddy issues to lighten the mood and make us smile more, but is my best friend right? Is T brushing off my feelings and sexualizing our relationship? Or is E just overly protective because I've been hurt in the past?

I guess this isn't really an AITA - Is He (T) The Asshole (IHTA) for joking about my daddy issues hopefully giving me a daddy kink, too, in the middle of a dinner date?