#I think about him a Normal Amount (is about to fucking explode)

[a-lonely-dunedain]

"it will be a reminder to me that there can be beauty even in sadness." A faded red blossom is tucked between two leaves of Narndir's journal, and it crinkles as your turn the pages.

[astrophileous]

A little fluffy piece of reader who normally takes her coffee black vs Spencer having a ton of sugar in his? The two of them getting their drinks mixed up and almost spitting it out at the pure amount/lack of sugar? 🤭

OMG I was actually planning to include a similar scene in one of my upcoming oneshots, but you know whattt!!! I'll write them again here anyway bcs it's such a cute concept 🥰

Warning(s): gn!reader but reader wears lipgloss, profanities, fixation over lips, bashful spencer bcs he's my babygirl <3

This blurb was written as a part of the "Zara's Birthday Bash and Road to 1K" celebration.

Zara's Birthday Bash and Road to 1K Masterlist / Criminal Minds Masterlist

"What the fuck?"

Spencer strode over just in time to see you spitting something out into the kitchenette sink. There was no concealing the disgust on your face as you eyed the cup in your grasp suspiciously.

"Hey." Spencer's voice tore through the air in a shaky ball of nerves. It sounded meek amidst the buzzing busyness of the BAU bullpen, yet still, you snapped your head up as soon as the single syllable left his mouth.

Your eyes instantly melted when they flickered towards his face.

"I think our drinks got switched," Spencer added, a little louder this time.

Your gaze played a tennis match between the identical cups in both your hand and Spencer's. The grimace you rewarded him in the next second was possibly the cutest thing Spencer had seen in the past few months.

"This is yours? That explains so much. Ever heard of diabetes, Dr. Reid?" you joked as the two of you returned each cup to its rightful owner. "What the hell is in that, anyway?"

"Um, coffee?"

"Right." You rolled your eyes. "I may know practically nothing compared to you, Doctor, but I know for a fact that was not coffee. Tell me, how many sugar canes had to be chopped down to satisfy your abominable preference of sweetness?"

"It's not that bad."

"Not that bad? Do you even know what real coffee tastes like?"

Before he could produce a reply, you suddenly thrust the cup of coffee in your hand right in front of Spencer's nose. The man staggered rearwards until his back met the wall with a thud.

"What are you doing?"

"Try it," you said sheepishly.

"What?"

"Try the goddamn coffee, Reid."

Spencer didn't actually need to try the goddamn coffee. After all, he knew your order like the back of his hand: iced americano with an extra shot of espresso, maybe one pump of syrup if you were feeling adventurous. He could already imagine how revolting the drink would taste.

But as you continued to peer at him behind your lashes, eyes twinkling with mischief and lips glossy from your favorite cherry lipgloss—the limited edition one that you had proudly boasted about in front of the entire team—Spencer could feel his IQ depleting in a rapid descension. He accepted the cup without a word and took a courageous sip.

"Well?" you questioned expectantly.

"Please don't force me to do anything like that, ever again."

Laughter exploded deep from within your chest when Spencer shoved the coffee back into your awaiting hand. He didn't have a lot of time to mull over the nauseating bitterness, however. Not when you proceeded to wrap your own lips around the lid—the same one he was just drinking from—and downed a generous sip.

Spencer averted his gaze away.

"Hey." JJ peeked into the pantry area, unaware of the rush of blood and inner turmoil that Spender was battling. The blonde waved the file in her hand before gesturing at the conference room. "We've got a case. Hotch wants everyone in five."

You skittered away after JJ's announcement, leaving Spencer dumbfounded and pathetically bothered by the image of your enticing lips. He followed after your footsteps, leading himself towards the conference room where the rest of his team was gathering. He drank a large sip from his own coffee to calm his racing heart, unaware of the reddish stain in the shape of your lips marking the area around the lid of his cup.

For the rest of that day, Spencer could taste traces of cherry on the tip of his tongue.

[godmadeaterribleerror]

I Skip My Pride - No Love Lost Bonus Chapter

Series Masterlist

Read on A03!

Author's Note: What an amazing opportunity to use that gif. Takes place in Chapter 22. Title from Lay All Your Love On Me by ABBA.

Word Count: 1.3k

Summary/Warnings: You share some music with Ben over text. Usual warnings.

Tags: Soldier Boy/Supe!Female Reader, canon divergence, fluff

whjt is empty v 

What? 

annie and mm are talkinng avout empty v. wat is it. Ben frowned at his phone, watching the little bubbles appear and disappear, and added theyre foghting about something calld a reeahna  

The bubbles disappeared for half a second, and then- 

Ask MM how to spell that. 

Ben ahead of him, where MM and Annie were locked in an argument about something that sounded fucking stupid. 

“How the fuck do you spell that.” 

MM twisted, frowning at him. “Spell what.”

“That weird fucking word you said. The reeahna.” 

“Do you,” Annie paused, exchanging a weird fucking look with MM. “Do you mean Rihanna?” 

“Sure. How the fuck do you spell it.” 

Ben listened as Annie sounded every letter out—slowly, like he was fucking stupid—and entered them into the phone carefully. 

rihanna. 

The response was immediate. Jesus fucking Christ, Ben. 

wat 

She’s a singer. And you’re thinking of MTV. 

whats mtv 

MTV was launched in the 80s. You should know what MTV is. 

Ben paused, then typed, cabel channel 

Good work. I’m proud of you. 

shutt up. why is that shit still aroond 

People love music, celebrities, and drama, and MTV provides all three. 

od they still do thw msuic show 

VMAs?  

sure 

Yes, they do.  

music goood 

What???? 

is musac still good 

I’d say it is, but it’s an incredibly subjective medium. 

wat music do u liek tha most 

Ben knew what music She liked. He’d spent hours listening to all her fucking songs, over and over while she was gone. But the variety had almost killed him with whiplash, and he didn’t have the goddamn time to comb through the infinite amount of songs she seemed to enjoy. If She’d just spell out the best ones, he’d memorize them because he loved Her, and not bother with shit that wasn’t necessary.

The little bubbles had started up again, appearing and disappearing for several seconds before- 

Did you listen to the playlist? 

dont knoww how

Do you want help?

He sighed, glancing up at Annie and MM to ensure they wouldn’t reach back and grab his fucking phone from his hand, and looked back down. yes 

Yes… Please? 

dont puush it 

I’m not helping you if you don’t say please, Benjamin. 

Ben scowled at the screen. pleas 

Thank you. Open the app, go to playlists, and hit the one labeled Benjamin Music Education Initiative. 

Ben rolled his eyes, but followed Her instructions, returning to the messages when he was done. now wat 

Listen to the music, dummy.  

i dont know theese songs 

That’s the point. There was a brief pause—Ben was really starting to hate these stupid fucking bubbles—before, There’s four songs per decade you missed. Three that are important for you to know, and one that I like. I also added some more familiar stuff that I thought you’d like, so you don’t listen to Toxic and explode.  

stuf i like 

Hughie said you like Steely Dan, so I went off of that. Ben grinned at the screen, even as the next message came through. Old fucking man music, by the way. You’re not doing yourself any favors in the “I’m not a goddamn dinosaur, Sunshine” department. 

He wasn’t a fucking dinosaur. Normally, Ben would’ve immediately typed that into the phone with a glare, but something in his chest was making him all fucking soft and fucking happy. He loved Her so fucking much, and it was making him a pussy, but Christ, he couldn’t bring himself to give a flying pig’s fuck. He could picture Her perfect face in a mock frown, almost hear Her voice dropped into that dogshit fucking impression of him as he read her words, and he did like Steely Dan. He had absolutely no memory of telling Hughie that, but Ben didn’t really fucking care if he’d mentioned it and forgotten, because now She knew. And She’d added a few of their songs to the stupid playlist, mixed in with a bunch of shit Ben didn’t recognize. 

doo i have to listeen now 

Do you not want to? 

i dont want to stoop talking to u 

There was a pause, and then, You can do both. They aren’t mutually exclusive. 

why 

Because two apps can run at once.  

Ben blinked, and went back to the playlist, hitting the button labeled play and almost dropping his phone as the music blasted through the car. 

“Shit!” MM turned around the glare at Ben as he smashed his thumb onto the screen, trying to stop the guitar splitting filling up the air. “Use fucking headphones, you asshole, not all of us want to listen to Nirvana right now!” 

“Nobody gave me headphone, you dicksack-“ 

“Here,” Annie threw a pair of thin white wires at Ben’s face, shrugging. “Those are my backups, they were like fifteen dollars. You can keep them.” 

Ben scowled at the alleged headphones. “This is fucking string.” 

“Goddammit,” MM muttered, snatching Ben’s phone and the wires from his hand and chucking them back into his lap, now somehow connected together. “You’re welcome, motherfucker. Go back to sulking about your separation anxiety and use those if you want to listen to music.” 

Ben didn’t know how to use them to listen to music. Headphones were big, and they went over your ears. These couldn’t go over fucking shit. 

how do u use wiires as headpones 

What? 

annie gav me string and said to use is to musicc 

Oh. Those are earbuds, you put them in your ears.  

Ben glanced down at the wires. There were little pieces on the end that looked bigger, and could maybe fit in his ears. 

They did. It felt really goddamn weird, but when he shook his head they didn’t fall out, and when he pressed play again it was like the music was being pushed into his brain.  

i got it 

Good work. 

shut the fhck up 

Rude. Do you like the music? 

its ok. loud 

I’ll take okay and loud. I did start with grunge, so it’ll get quieter.  

its not baad. didnt fuckinng expect it tho 

I have so many old man jokes. 

Ben rolled his eyes. brat 

Cunt. Wait until you get to the 2010s, you’re going to hate it. 

He might. Ben didn’t understand half the pop culture shit in the modern world, but She did, and he trusted her. He wasn’t listening to his music for himself, it was all for her. To find out what fucking music she deemed worthy of showing him, what stuff she loved, so he could love Her better. Maybe manage to understand her insane, genius fucking brain a little more. And he hadn’t been lying, the music wasn’t bad. A lot of it was weird as shit, but none of it made him want to rip off his ears.  

And it was making something inside of Ben all fucking soft and gooey, that She’d successfully figured out what music he liked. That she’d taken the time to do this, just for him. It was the Benjamin Music Education Initiative. This was for Ben, from Her. He fucking loved Her, and she cared about him enough to do this. He was going to memorize every single fucking song on this list, and maybe she’d do it again.  

He’d love Her no matter what. Even when she made old man jokes and called him a cunt, Ben would keep loving Her until it killed him. 

i thogt u hated romeo an juilet 

I do. Why? 

song 

Well, this version has a happy ending, and it’s an excellent fucking song. 

its fine 

It’s amazing. Do not disrespect that song, Pretty Boy. It’s blasphemy.

i said its fuckig fine 

I’m going to make you listen to the whole album. The entire discography. 

He could live with that. If it kept Her at his side, Ben would easily put up with listening to this twangy guitar for a million goddamn years. If it made Her smile, all the fucking better. wahtever 

Don’t test me. I’ll do it.

i no 

Know. 

fuckk off

No. You’re stuck with me. 

Ben could live with that as well.

End Note: Do you guys think Ben would be a swiftie. I feel like he would but he'd be like, angry about it.

If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

If you want to be tagged, just ask!

Taglist

@manicjk @lordofthunderthr @artemys-ackles @brtodd

[peroxiddeprincess]

✭ Random COD character headcannons cus i’m bored in class.

Alot of these are based on TikTok comments i have in my saved LMFAOO.

— Once, Soap said Ghost was, “Vertically Assisted”, referencing his height, and Alejandro is now addicted to calling people taller than him vertically assisted.

— Gaz and Soap joke about “rizzing eachother up”, and Price was very confused as to what this meant. Gaz told him it meant they were being bro’s, Soap nodded in agreement. Now everytime he shakes a teammates hand he references it to “rizzing them up”.

— Soap lovesssss karaoke. Alejandro, Rudy and Gaz hype him up. “Dude, that was fire!”

— However, Ghost disagrees with the karaoke. “Yeah, put it out.”

— Once when the others were talking to König about some candy, he promptly and very confidently said he was allergic to it. They were all confused, it was a very basic candy, and he’s allergic?? Then König says, “Well, i’m only a little allergic. I used to eat them all the time out of the little packet that came with the beef jerky.”

— Flabbergasted is an understatement. They didnt have the heart to tell him. They walked away and laughed for a solid 10 minutes, and König carried on like whatever he just confessed was normal.

— Soap called Ghost a senior citizen once. He was so offended, he avoided him for 4 days.

— Gaz likes to tell all the blue eyed people theyre products of incest.

— Alejandro thinks it’s funny to tell everyone they only have a certain amount of time to live when under pressure.

— “You only have 10 years left to live.” “Press the damn button, Aleja- ..What?” “I’m getting visions.”

— Price thinks its so funny to pronounce lactose intolerant as “lack-toast-and-told-her-aunt”.

— ALEJANDRO GATEKEEPS EVERYTHING. Don’t ever ask him where he gets anything. He’ll make up some crazy ass story.

— “Yoo actually i trecked up the himalayas to find a small hidden town. I got it from there and just as i left, the whole town exploded! Craziest day of my damn life.”

— Soap got Rudy to start calling everything “zesty”.

— Graves definitely the typa guy to download a font keyboard and type everything out in some weird ass font cause he thinks its “cool and hip”.

— Don’t insult Ghost. He’ll tell everyone you said a slur.

— Ghost also takes everything anyone says super personally. He jokes around sometimes, but if he thinks you’re being deadass, he’s gonna be deadass too.

— Rudy asked Valeria if she was a boy or a girl. She was very confused and didn’t answer, and now avoids Rudy whenever she can.

— Alejandro and Soap chew with their mouths open. Graves and Price have to give them a reminder that its fucking disgusting. The obnoxious chewing makes Gaz laugh so hard.

— König is accidentally brutally honest. Once, you were showing him your new uniform, and he awkwardly laughed and said, “Maybe you should stick with the old one…”

— Ghost texted Soap to ask how he was doing after a particularly hard mission. Soap said, “So intense.. Was on the edge of my seat the entire time #hellyea”, he got left on seen.

— Alejandro finds it so funny to joke about the backrooms.

— “One wrong step, and you’ll be in the backrooms. Watch out.” “Alejandro, shut the fuck up.”

— Price found a stray cat out on a mission. Gaz named it gluestick, and was very sad when they left gluestick behind. Nobody could figure out why he was so sad over a gluestick until Price explained the situation.

— GRAVES IS IN HIS ALAN WALKER PHASE.

— Gaz says “Ratio” out loud. Nobody but him knows what it means. He laughs at himself everytime he says it.

[jaylver]

ARE WE STILL FRIENDS? — L.HS

SYNOPSIS: Situationships were never fun. Unfortunately for you, you found yourself being in one with your long term best friend, and that ended up getting sour when confusions started to appear, which only had you questioning if you were still friends or not?

PAIRINGS: fwb!heeseung x afab!reader

GENRE: friends with benefits relationship, angst

WARNING(S): profanities, a whole lot of frustrations

WC: 1k

masterlist | © jaylver all rights reserved.

Are we still friends?

That was a question you asked yourself over and over again. You found yourself waking up next to Heeseung once every few mornings after spending the night, each time you ended up shutting your eyes and praying it was just a dream. But do dreams normally consist of you being bare naked and waking up to dread and regret? No.

People who said trying out friends with benefits was ‘fun’ were uttering absolute bullshit. If it was fun, you wouldn’t be wishing for a hole to swallow you up whole at this moment.

You couldn’t even tell when it had even started. 

Heeseung had always been your closest friend throughout highschool leading up to college. Everything was normal until one night at a party, where you two got too drunk to remember anything, only realising the damage was done the moment you woke up next to one another. You would be lying if you said it wasn’t awkward, you literally stopped speaking for days until confrontations happened and the stupid deal of friends with benefits was brought up.

You knew people would be calling you a crazy person if you turned down an insanely hot man who happened to be your best friend, but at the same time, he was your best friend, the same guy that you grew up with. So, no, you weren’t entirely crazy.

In the months of the entire sneaking around shenanigans happening, you wished you could lie and admit your feelings stayed indifferent, but alas, your heart had to skip a beat whenever he did something, even the ones that were the simplest. Who could blame you anyway? Heeseung was a flirt, a fucking flirt, and he happened to be a hopeless romantic that would pull the sweetest stunts you never experienced even with your past lovers.

Buying a bouquet of flowers after your finals, treating you to dinners at fancy restaurants, taking care of you when you feel sick, eating together with your family, your plus one to weddings … all that and the two of you still remained label-less, how insane was that?

After all that, the countless nights spent together and the amount of sneaking around, you might think either one of you would finally pop the question and admit ‘hey, I like you’ or something along the lines, but no, not even once. What made things worse was that Heeseung seemed to be avoiding you and hanging out with other girls. Really? You thought, completely gobsmacked. 

Now here you were, in the middle of your apartment, pacing around all antsy and anxious, waiting for the man of the hour to arrive. Were you going to explode soon from what was happening soon? Absolutely.

The familiar sound of the door twisted, your anxiety made you completely forget about the fact that Heeseung indeed had a copy of your keys, so you were left unprepared when he entered, even more so when he made his way towards you and pulled you into a heated kiss, his lips clashing onto yours, leaving you zero breath or space.

Don’t cave, don’t cave, don’t cave!

Your hands reached his chest, his hands only travelling further into your hair, tugging it gently to have your head tilted back in order to give way to his lips and your neck for contact. As much as you were enjoying this and wishing for more, you genuinely had to stop him, pushing him away hard, his touch lingered on your body, his dishevelled self staring back at you confusedly.

“Y/N?”

“Hee…we should talk,”

He raised an eyebrow, his head tilted to one side. “What’s there to … talk?”

You scoffed in disbelief. “You avoid me and fucked around with other girls then suddenly, you hit me up saying you’re coming over after all that? Do you expect me to welcome you with open arms?”

“Y/N…God, I didn’t fuck any of them—”

“Don’t you get it? I don’t care if you fucked them or not, it’s the fact that you broke my heart and what’s ridiculous is that we aren’t even together,” you let out a strained laugh. “I don’t even know if you want me or not, Hee. One second you say you love me in bed, saying how you never want to let me go and send me flowers at work, then the next second you pretend we’re nothing, completely insignificant. What are we? Are we still friends?”

“Of course we are, what are you saying? Hell, we’re probably more than that,”

“Then, why can’t you just say it? I want you to want me, Hee, don’t you fucking get it? But it seems like you don’t,”

“You deserve someone more than me, Y/N,”

You bit your lips, pushing that lump in your throat back, the feeling of pouring tears pricked at your eyes. “Bullshit,” you seethed out, pushing his chest, anger and frustration overwhelmed you. “I can’t believe I actually believed you would feel the same, even for a second,”

“I do love you,” Heeseung breathed out, pining and desperation painted his expressions, but the words that left his lips reflected something else. 

“If you do, you wouldn’t have played me like this, for fuck’s sake,” you threw your hands up, trying your best to hold your tears in. “Maybe we should just end things here for once and for all,”

“We should,” Heeseung blinked slowly, processing everything gradually. “I’m sorry for hurting you. I know this sounds selfish but can we forget about this thing? I know we can’t mend what was already done and hurt, but you’re my best friend, you’ll always be. Can we start over? Can we be friends?”

You knew no matter what, there was no way you could ever let Heeseung go completely. The boy you knew since highschool, the boy you’ve gone through everything with, the first boy you entirely lost your heart to, you had a feeling nobody could amount to him, and that was your fatal flaw. Maybe, just maybe, he shared the same flaw of being unable to let go of you completely either. You and him travelled in the same wavelength, you completed one another’s missing puzzle piece, in short, you were soulmates, but whether you were aware of it, that was the problem.

“Of course,” you said, your voice coming out quiet and low, the lump in your throat still present, your chest squeezing hard.  

Heeseung nodded wordlessly, closing in to press a kiss on your forehead. That alone spoke louder than words could, it didn’t feel like a goodbye forever, it was more of a comforting reassurance, an apologetic one. He was already by the door, one hand on the doorknob before he turned around for another glance at you, his lips flattened into a small smile that didn’t quite reach to his eyes as it usually does, then once two beats has passed, he slipped past the door and was out of sight, but not out of mind.

You let out a big breath that you held in throughout, afraid that you might end up going breathless, falling onto your couch and you started blinking away the tears that were threatening to fall. You were a wreck and a mess, already strapping yourself in for the sad movies and depressing music playlists.

But it seemed that the universe had other plans for you instead. The doorbell rang and you froze, thinking it couldn’t be him again, right? You got up from your couch and trudged towards your door, wiping roughly at your face and praying you didn’t seem too slimy and gross. That’s when you whipped the door open, facing a delivery man, a flower bouquet in his hands. 

“Delivery for Y/N? Your weekly flowers, by the way,”

Oh, that. 

You took the flowers from the delivery man, bidding him goodbye before shutting your door shut. The timing was absolutely horrendous, you were played twice, how fun! The note was enticing you, though you knew it was a bad idea for your half broken but definitely weak heart. Curiosity killed the cat, and you were about to prove that right.

‘You’re my favourite flower. Always. — hee’

( © jaylver all rights reserved. do NOT copy, plagiarise or edit my work and repost whatsoever. once discovered will be exposed and blacklisted. )

[mattphobiia]

PLEASEE DO A CHRIS SMUT FIC LIKE THIS

ATTITUDE.

disclaimer: smut, this was requested by @mattsmunch so i hope you enjoyyy, dom!chris x sub!reader🤗🤗🤗, i also dont like this but I TRIED LOL

"what is your deal? you know i don't like parties!" i screamed, waving my hands in the air motioning over to the room filled with balloons and other party decorations as i release all my anger onto him. "why couldn't you just do the one thing i asked?"

chris stayed silent, he looked more intimidating than ive ever seen him, almost like he could explode with rage. "who the fuck do you think you're talking to?" he scoffs, but that one sentence seemed to make my heart drop. i really messed this up.

this time, i was the one who stayed quiet. he began to walk up to me slowly, taking small steps while i wanted to back away, but i froze in place. i felt terrified deep down, but i had to act normal. i took a deep breath as i swallowed, our bodies now pressed together as i was squished in between him and the wall, his face was now close to mine, almost inches apart.

"quiet now, huh?" he whispered, smirking as i felt a cold hand rest on my side, making me shiver at the contact. "you should be glad i'm not fucking this attitude out of you."

i hesitated for a moment. "what if i want you to?" my heart was practically thumping in my chest, almost like it was trying to break free. suddenly, he pressed the lower half of his body onto me more, and thats when i felt his hard bulge between my thighs. he only looked at me surprised, before that smirk began to reappear as he leaned in for a deep kiss.

"thats my girl." he pants heavily between kisses, feeling my stomach flutter while i grind myself on him, making us both more desperate for each other. "bedroom, now." he didn't have to tell me twice.

i practically sprint over to our room, nearly swinging the door off its hinges as i begin to undress, chris now locking the door before following after me soon. he throws me onto the bed, climbing behind me as he flips me onto my stomach, nearly breaking my back with the amount of pressure he was applying onto me. one hand shifted to my waist while the other was wrapped around my hair as he pulled back, lifting my head. i bit my lip to quiet my moans before feeling his tip rub up and down against my folds, slowly beginning to push into me as i gripped onto the bedsheets tightly.

i feel a gasp escape my mouth, but his hand moved down to my head as he shoved me down, now thrusting more aggressive as i felt my body shake with the amount of stimulation i was receiving. i nearly felt myself lose balance a couple times until he held me up towards his chest to stabilise me, his grip tight enough to suffocate me.

"you want to lose the attitude now?" chris speaks up, feeling his heavy breath on my neck as he was now close up to my ear. i could barely form a sentence, my mind overwhelmed with thoughts as i tried to find the right words. i could only nod, but that wasn't good enough for him. "use your words, you have a voice for a reason."

"more!" i plead, feeling the tears roll down my face. "i just want more, please- chris!" he didn't respond to me, but only laughed at how desperate and stupid i looked. he released my body, thumping back onto the bed as he shoved my face harder into the pillow, planting a harsh slap onto my ass before i yelled at the sudden sting.

seeing chris act all rough with me was a huge turn on, especially because he was attractive. i felt myself getting closer to coming as chris seemed to go faster, our skin slapping together as he did a final thrust, gripping my hips tightly as he released his semen into me, beginning to relax his pace as i shortly followed after him, soaking him in my liquids.

he collapsed down next to me, turning to his side to face me as we admired each other in silence for a couple minutes, until i remembered what actually happened beforehand.

"look, im sorry about the party thing." i sigh, trying to find his hand in the dimly lit room as i hold onto it tightly. "you were only trying to do something special for me, but you should know i don't like parties."

"i understand that, i should've got your opinion." he smiles, before continuing. "do you just want to order some food and chill for the rest of the night?"

i giggled, nodding my head before he kisses my forehead softly, wrapping his arms around me as i rest my head onto his chest, hearing the sound of his heartbeat as i close my eyes.

MASTERLIST

a/n: yall got me fucked up. when i saw some of my favourite writers began to follow me back my heart dropped to my goddamn ass. i say this every fic i post but i genuinely appreciate all of you reading my stuff, reblogging, and more! i have been seeing your requests for all the people waiting, just give me some time and ill get to it:), ill work on them over the weekend or when i have free time because work is very busy at the moment😭

[drstanfordpines]

barfing very incomplete stanford thoughts here bc i need to get them out of my brain or i’ll actually explode

hypervigilance headcanon go brrrrr (this one prob isn’t new to y’all; it’s practically canon with how he acts & seems to be popular in the ford fan community from what i’ve seen, i just want to amp it up some more. turn up that there angst dial babey!). more to this: jumpy at many things including but not limited to fast/unexpected movements, loud/unexpected sounds, etcetera.

gets really annoyed when people pronounce et cetera “exetra”.

studied latin in college. like a fucking nerd

paranoia but what if we added More. i said TURN THE DIAL UPPPPPPPPPPP

journal 3 says he is excited to hear newest eurythmics chart topper so i’m assuming he’s a fan. i want mabel to show him new music. i’m definitely going to project my music taste onto mabel. i also want him to hear WAP for the first time. i think it would be funny.

he’s either aroace or bi all around or some combination of those thangs, ie he has the same amount of attraction to all genders which is either a “normal” amount or possibly less or none (yes i am projecting. it’s called being valid and sexy). in other words: he doesn’t really understand romantic or sexual attraction and tbh he doesn’t care to. he has more nerdy important things to do. that being said he has def dated fiddleford and had a thing with bill (i feel like “dated” definitely isn’t the right term for the relationship of ford and bill. idk man i’m having thoughts at a million miles per hour rn i’ll explain later or whatever)

legitimately believed for a large portion of his life that anyone who gets close to him is either a) evil and wants to hurt him/the people he cares about OR b) inevitably going to get hurt/killed (or worse) because of what he called “the stanford effect”; basically the thought that he is Cursed™️ so he must isolate himself to save others from the effects of the curse or whatever the fuck

despite all the shit he’s been through, he does not identify as superstitious. he is first and foremost a scientist babey.

during his time in the portal, he clung onto his identity as a scientist desperately. i hc that he had to do some really fucked up shit to survive out there, and that he kept a series of field journals (or just one digital field journal would be easier probably) documenting his experiences as a way to keep himself sane (or as sane as he could be given the situation).

[a-substantial-trash-pile]

real downer mental health stuff below cut. sorry. it's been a real hard couple weeks and i need to get things out somewhere or i'll go crazy.

i just need to get my feelings written out because right now i feel like im going to explode and i can't afford therapy right now and i can't talk to any friends because i cant live with the guilt of burdening them with my problems. so this is the only way i can think of getting it out of me. but i still feel guilty even doing this so im turning reblogs off because i don't want anyone to feel like they need to provide words of comfort or anything like that. would turn off replies to this post too if i knew how to do it. i just need to get it Out.

a few weeks ago, my family had a discussion about putting our old dog down. he's deaf and blind and has dementia that's gotten much worse this year. and he isn't really "living" anymore. i'm not sure he even knows who i am anymore. and it hurts so so bad. i know it's time. but it hurts so fucking bad. i don't want to be the one to make the phone call and make the appointment and solidify the date i lose him forever, so i asked my dad if he could do it. my mom wanted to do it immediately but my dad said he would make the call after my mom's surgeries for her parkinsons that was happening this month. i know my dad doesn't want to put our dog down. the whole thing was brought up in the first place because my mom keeps bringing it up. and it makes her and my dad argue which is not what i fucking want right now. she tends to bring up the subject with my dad and i at the worst times, when im feeling especially terrible. she just had her last surgery yesterday so she brought it up again tonight. the way she brings it up has kind of really sucked for me. i was already feeling especially depressed because everything was just feeling so overwhelming today (stress from thinking about my dog and also hearing that my mom fell on her face and got hurt while i was at work). the past couple times my mom has brought up my dog with me, she's started it off by asking if i had been crying and then when i say that i was, she asks when we're putting our dog down. i don't know why she's doing it like this. i feel upset at her for doing it this way, but at the same time i feel bad for being upset at her because she has parkinson's and just had surgery. even though the surgery went well, i still feel guilty that i'm upset with her.

i couldn't give my mom a straight answer because again, i don't want to be the one to solidify the date, so i told her i'm waiting for dad to make the phone call. she said, "ok i'm going to tell dad." then i went downstairs and cried while she immediately went to tell my dad. i could hear my parents argue about it. it's not a subject my dad likes to acknowledge and my mom has been really pushy about it with him and me. i regret and feel guilty about asking my dad to make the call. i should have just sucked it up and said i would do it. i think i might have to be the one to do it. but it hurts so fucking bad.

whenever my mom talks about it with my dad, she always tries to pressure him by bringing up how sad it's making me. when she does that it feels like im being made into the main "reason" to put our dog down. that if we don't put him down as soon as possible, my mental health will keep spiraling. and yeah, im not doing great right now, but i don't want to keep hearing it brought up over and over like that. i don't want to feel like it's my fault. i know my dog needs to be put down. but i don't want to feel like it's because of me. does that make sense? is that selfish? is the amount of crying i've been doing not "normal" in this situation? it's not like i cry all day. i only do it at night and i try to hide it as best i can. i don't want my mom to see and tell me "this is why we need to put him down now." which she has done before. i don't know. it just hurts so bad.

i haven't been able to tell my mom about how she's been upsetting me. because she'll get upset about it if i do. and i feel bad for being upset in the first place. because i know in the end, these actions she's taking is because she's worried for me. she just. doesn't think things through all the time. she's always spoken before thinking. although im not sure if her parkinson's has made this habit worse. i can't remember if she's always been at this level or if this is something exacerbated by parkinson's. which makes me feel even more guilty about being upset at her. god. everything just feels fucked right now. so overwhelming. i wish i could see my therapist again, but i just can't afford that expense right now.

i've been having more nightmares. been having the stupid sleep paralysis shit. been having more frequent intrusive thoughts of driving off the bridge i go over on my commute or looking at my pills and wondering what would happen if i took everything in the bottle at once. i don't think i would ever actually act on these things, because i love my family too much to have them deal with that kind of hardship. it's just been exhausting for my brain. and some days the thoughts feel closer than others. but that's depression for you. been dealing with it for many years. this has just been one of those real bad times for it. if anyone is actually reading this, please dont worry. i know that's kind of dumb of me to say considering everything i wrote here. but really please don't worry. i just needed a place to put my thoughts and feel like i'm releasing them somehow. im still here. i've had these bad thoughts before and i'm still here. i will still be here. it'll get better. i just need to hold on again.

i just wish dogs lived longer.

[lover-of-mine]

I have realized what is making my head explode when a BT post accidentally goes through my tags!!!! They are completely ignoring Buck is bi. They are acting like my aunt in the early 2000s. I may not have been fond of all the LUs but they were valid relationships. If Taylor had not fucked up who knows where that relationship would have gone. I mean clearly nowhere once Eddie was out because once Eddie broke up with him he spiraled and kissed Lucy. But they are still valid relationships and at this point in time I don't see how Tommy is better than any of them. To be honest he has the worst traits of Abby and Taylor but the screen time of Ally. So frustrating.

Well, when have people ever been normal about bisexuality? But here's the thing, every relationship Buck had so far had his own set of issues that somehow have been reduced to the way he was dating women, which is fucked in so many ways and the amount of times I have to stop myself from picking a fight because of bucktaylor it's actually hysterical to me because we're seriously at a point where I need to defend the validity of Taylor's place in Buck's life. Like, how did we get here? Because here's the thing, do I think Buck and Taylor were meant to be? No. Do I think Buck would've clung to her until he literally couldn't anymore if her actions hadn't hurt his family? Absolutely. I see Buck going as far as panic proposing to her if that particular situation hadn't happened, just to have someone. Because they had chemistry and Buck kept trying to force that to become love. Taylor was wrong for Buck for a multitude of reasons, but none of those reasons were because she's a woman and Buck is gay. And the relationship with Tommy is not gonna magically last forever just because Tommy is a man. Tommy is this weird amalgamation of all of Buck's love interests with Ali/Ana levels of screentime and he doesn't magically have a fighting chance just because he has a dick and people can't seem to see this. And I think that's crazy. Because Tommy was given to us in an episode that had the theme of not recognizing people, while actively making us think it was about someone else and then they did the Kim storyline and I want to scream because people can't see the parallels. And the more I look at it the more insane I get because he's all of Buck's love interests smashed into someone who's Eddie two steps to the left with none of the things we love about him. But somehow he's perfect because he's not a woman. The only thing Tommy has going for him is not being a woman. You turn him into one and none of the things he did would fly. Letting Buck get away with physically hurting Eddie? Leaving him in the curb? Not dressing up? Making a kink joke after someone Buck loves almost died? Picture those scenes with Lucy and tell me anyone in the fandom would be shipping them. Let alone fighting for them the way people are right now. But he's a man so he gets a pass and that's so fucking weird. Evan Buckley is bisexual but getting dicked down isn't going to magically make everything perfect. Jesus.

Also, since you mentioned Eddie coming out, something that I've been thinking about since we found out it was supposed to be Eddie, a Buck who thinks he's straight finding out Eddie has a boyfriend would shortcircuit. I legit think they could not find a way to write Buck's reaction to Eddie being queer that didn't end with him figuring his feelings out so they switched things up, so Buck would for sure would've gotten there once Eddie got there because he would've had big feelings about it and Buck is not the repressed one.

[withacapitalp]

How to Rehabilitate a Jock Part 6

Part 1 Part 5. Ao3 Link Part 7

It was already the second week of December by the time the Hellfire club finally, finally, defeated the Demon Lord Graz’zt. Normally, Eddie loved when a campaign stretched and stretched. It was a devious kind of joy to get to see his friends get stumped and backtrack and do everything they could to defeat whatever he had put in front of them. 

This time, he just wanted them to stab his stupid demon in the chest, light him on fire, and be done with it. 

A thousand times he had thought about just letting them win, and just letting them get through the end of the campaign. But his integrity as a dungeon master and a storyteller stopped him from doing it every single time. 

That, and Eddie was pretty sure they would be able to tell if he was skimping out on an ending just to get to the next campaign. Especially since they all knew why he would be so anxious to get to the next campaign. 

But, last week they had done it. Right at the last second Graz’zt had exploded in a shower of red sparks, the party had gained treasure and XP galore, and Eddie had stayed up every night this week finishing a one shot just for the occasion. 

Usually there was a rest week in between campaigns, or one of the others would rotate in as DM and Eddie would get to play for a while, but he wanted to be the one to run Steve’s first game. He didn’t trust any of the others not to sabotage, or try and kill him off early. 

Besides, he had the perfect beginner game planned. 

Well, he would have the perfect beginner game if their beginner ever decided to show up. 

“Seems like being late is a character trait,” Frank said as the rest of Hellfire sat around the table, clearly bored. Jeff was doodling in his book, and Rocky looked like he was asleep on the far side, face smushed up against the wood. School had ended almost a half hour ago, but there was still no sign of Steve. 

“This does give us time for a JRP update?” Janet suggested, sliding her chair back and walking over to the board. 

“Well, the update is…wow! Nothing has changed,” Gareth said, faking a look of utter shock before sliding back into his usual grumpy scowl, turning to Eddie, “Do you really want to wait three more months just to have to admit that I am right about him?” 

“How could anything have changed so far, Gareth?” Eddie shot back, sick and tired of his best friend’s issues. 

He held up a hand and began to count on his fingers right in front of Gareth’s face. Eddie knew that the other boy hated when he did things like that, but he also knew that he really couldn’t give a flying fuck at this point. Steve was trying, really honestly trying, and Gareth was being a jerk for literally no reason. 

“We just finished our new campaign, Steve isn’t even aware of the band yet because I’m not allowed to invite him to a show, and your third ridiculous checkpoint still has no defining parameters!” Eddie finished with a flourish. 

“Well, technically you can invite Steve to a show,” Kaiden said, grabbing everyone’s attention. He shrugged, pointing to the board, “It doesn’t say that Eddie can never invite him. It just won’t count towards the JRP until Steve goes without an invitation,” 

“Kaiden, what the hell?” Gareth said, spinning around and shooting his glare over to him instead of Eddie. 

“I don’t mind Steve, Gar.” Kaiden said with a shrug, unphased by his mood. By now they were all getting used to working around Gareth’s griping, “He’s pretty chill, he can be kinda funny, and I can’t think of anything he personally did that was that bad. Maybe he really is trying to be someone different now,”

The rest of the club didn’t speak, which Eddie decided to consider an extremely minute amount of progress. Sure, they weren’t sticking up for Steve, but they weren’t actively fighting against him anymore. 

Well, all except for one

“Traitor,” Gareth muttered under his breath. 

“Hey,” Eddie immediately snapped. Gareth could be pissy with him all he wanted, but he couldn’t go after another one of Eddie’s sheep just because he was mad. 

“I agree with Kaiden, I don’t see why Eddie would be forbidden from ever inviting Steve to a show,” Janet said, tapping her chin. 

Either she was unaware of how close the boys were to actually fighting, or she was actively ignoring it in favor of staying logical. Eddie would bet all of his money on the latter. Janet really was too smart for her own good. 

“As for setting parameters for the third point, I’m not sure how we go about that,” She continued, tapping her chalk against the board as she wracked her brain for potential ideas. 

“We don’t. We’ll know it when we see it,” Gareth stubbornly repeated, crossing his arms, “Though I doubt we will. This is just a waste of time.” 

Okay. Enough was enough. 

“What is your problem with him?!” Eddie shouted, starting the rest of the group. Rocky’s head popped off the table with a gasp, and Jeff immediately stiffened up. They were used to Eddie shouting, used to him raising his voice or getting angry, but that was all play, a show. This was actual anger, and that was scary. 

“Where did your problem with him go?” Gareth said, giving as good as he got, “You used to be the first to say that they aren’t us! They’re the enemy! He is literally the face of that enemy! What happened to the Munson Doctrine?!” 

Eddie opened his mouth to tell Gareth exactly where he could stick his Munson Doctrine, but before he could, Jeff stood up. 

His shoulders were up by his ears, and he looked completely uncomfortable, but Jeff was standing up anyway. A silent look from their bassist took the wind out of both boys’ sails, and they sat back down, tense and on edge. 

“Sorry Jeff,” Eddie sighed, pushing down any potential self hatred that wanted to rise up. The two of them knew Jeff’s story, knew why he wasn’t comfortable with angry yelling close to him, and they had done it anyway. Eddie forced himself to take a deep breath, watching as Gareth did the same. 

“Yeah, sorry,” Gareth echoed, looking genuinely remorseful. 

“This isn’t productive,” Frank pointed out, rolling his chair backwards until it collided with the chalkboard next to where Janet was standing, “I think that we should settle for a compromise.  All of the club members agree that Steve can stay. That would at least be enough to be considered a renouncement of some sort, right?,”

“That’s not the same,” Gareth protested. 

“Well, seeing as you don’t have a good argument for your checkpoint,” Frank replied, trailing off and waiting to hear if he had anything else to say. When Gareth remained grumpy and silent the rest nodded. 

“Okay so, I’ll just write our initials here, and when we decide we’re okay with Steve-”

“If” Gareth interrupted. 

“Fine. If we decide that we’re okay with Steve staying, we can cross out our names,” Janet said, miffed at being talked over, but choosing to move past it in favor of keeping the peace. 

She quickly began to jot down everyone’s initials, adding Steve’s right at the top just to keep up appearances. Eddie wasn’t exactly sure how they would explain that one, but hopefully Steve wouldn’t ask. He usually didn’t question things around the room unless they were particularly outlandish. 

“I’m fine with Steve,” Eddie said the second she wrote his initials. 

“We got that one, Eds,” Jeff replied with a good natured eye roll. Now that things were calming down again, he seemed way more relaxed. Janet clicked her tongue anyway, putting a thick white line through the E.M. she had just written. 

“I don’t mind him,” Kaiden tacked on. Janet shot him a quick nod, crossing out Kaiden’s initials, and then, surprisingly, her own.

“Janet?” Frank questioned. She shrugged, pausing for a second to ruffle his hair as she continued to write. She was the only one that didn’t see the way Frank’s face went beet red the moment she touched him. 

“He’s interesting,” She said, as if that was the only explanation she needed, “I’m a scientist. I like to experiment,” 

She finished with Gareth’s ‘G.L-W.’ turning to face the group. 

“Anyone else?” 

The rest of the club shook their heads, but Eddie couldn’t care less. He was already a third of the way there! And, there was no doubt in his mind that at least a few of them were going to be impressed with Steve’s gameplay today. 

After all Steve had been taught by the best. 

“Okay so, slightly modified parameters, but-” 

“Sorry I’m late!” Steve said as he burst into the room, cutting Janet off. 

If she was annoyed at being interrupted a second time, she didn’t let it slip. Instantly, she and Frank were back in their seats, her chalk abandoned, broken in two on the ground. The entire club did their best to look perfectly innocent, a truly terrible job that left them all seeming extremely, extremely, guilty. 

The only reason they got away with it was that Steve was way too caught up in rambling and trying to explain himself. 

“I’m so sorry, I was trying to get the kids set up in the library, because they want to come to my house after school for a sleepover. Winter break, right? But then they kept asking me question after question, and wanting to come watch me shoot hoops. They never want to watch me shoot hoops! Why now?! I swear this is what I get for letting them use my house to take pictures for the Snow Ball.” Steve groaned, getting stuck in his scarf as he tried to unwind it from around his head. 

Eddie laughed softly, getting up and coming around the table, slowly helping Steve get free of his yarn filled prison. 

“Are you going to chaperone this Sunday?” Eddie asked. Instantly his mind was filled with the image of Steve in a handsome black suit, a dark red rose sitting in his lapel and perfectly complimenting his ruby lips. 

Okay. File that under ‘Things Eddie was never allowed to think about again except when alone in his bedroom’. 

“Definitely not. I’m a babysitter, not a chaperone,” Steve said with a smirk, “I’ll let them get ready at my place and have a little after party there, and that should stop them from being arrogant whiny brats for a little while. Hope I didn’t miss anything though,” 

Just the rest of the club talking about using him as a human lab rat. 

“Nope,” Eddie lied smoothly, pulling Steve’s chair out for him and making a huge grand gesture for him to come sit. 

“Welcome to this side of the table,” Kaiden said from his seat across from Steve. Normally Gareth sat on Eddie’s right side, but since the first meeting that Steve had joined, his best friend had regulated himself to the corner as far from Eddie as he could get. 

Whatever. That was better anyway. Eddie didn’t care. 

(He cared so much more than he wanted to admit.) 

“Glad to be here?” Steve said, pulling out the folder Eddie had given him for all of his character sheets and looking around the group nervously. 

He didn’t have anything to worry about. Eddie had helped him to build a totally awesome persona. 

“It’s hell,” Frank sighed solemnly, patting Steve’s shoulder. 

“Hellfire,” Eddie corrected, the rest of the group groaning at his bad pun. He waved off their lack of appreciation for his fantastic word play, perching on his throne and raising a hand. 

“I would like to take a moment to recognize that this is a special occasion. We are here to celebrate the birth of Steve’s very first Dungeons and Dragons character,” Eddie said, pausing so the rest could react appropriately. 

Sure enough there was a round of foot stomping and table slapping. Steve startled at the noise, but quickly recovered, blushing, but still staring directly at Eddie with those big beautiful browns. 

God damn this brave, lovely, completely adorable boy. 

“May I introduce the former Prince of the realm, Level One Human Ranger Stefan of Herringtown. Stefan, Welcome to Hellfire,” Eddie said, pausing to give Steve a secretive wink and loving the way that the blush on the other boy’s cheeks traveled to his ears when he did. 

Stefan was, arguably, a pretty cool first time character. Steve lingered just on the edge of being a paladin, but he had enough chaotic energy that Ranger seemed to fit him better. He was a loyal to a fault kind of guy who had a habit for picking up strays, a smooth quick talking charm that tended to get him in and out of trouble, and a chip on his shoulder from being exiled from his kingdom. 

In short, he was Steve, but dungeons and dragonsified. Perfect for the first play through. 

With that settled, Eddie rolled his shoulders, settling himself into his dungeon master character and taking a long breath in. 

“Your party is starting off trekking across the frozen tundra,” He began, feeling the mood shift to excitement as the rest prepared themselves for his opener, “Your feet are freezing, and your fingers have gone numb, but you continue on anyway. You have heard tale of an abandoned factory at the highest point of the world- a place littered with treasures and everything a being could ever ask for. You want to see the place for yourselves, and maybe even loot some of the booty.” 

Rocky gave a vicious grin at this, chuckling softly to himself. His tiefling rogue was always looking to horde more treasure, and Rocky loved to get into character as quickly as he could. It was fun, it added something to the game. 

“You see a building and hurry closer, eager to get out of the biting frost. It is a dark unnatural place with high smoke stacks and mounds of coal sitting all around the entrance. You enter as one without thinking or stopping to check your surroundings, collapsing on the other side and panting to catch your breath. What is your first move, Goren the Great?” Eddie asked, starting on the far side of the table. 

Even if he and Gareth weren’t on the best of terms right now, Eddie still wouldn’t want to start a campaign with any other player. It just wouldn't feel right. 

“I do a perception check,” Gareth decided. Eddie nodded towards his d8, and Gareth grabbed it, throwing down a seven. 

“As a dwarf, you have spent many years hunting through mines for precious gems, so your ability to see in the dark is unparalleled. You can see strange boot shaped bags all around the room, and boxes that are wrapped with twine bows,” He said, watching as their brains began to spin with possibilities.

This was the best part. Watching his players try to figure out exactly what was going on around them was just so fun. 

“Well, I have a feeling we may have stumbled upon the right place. I can see treasure from corner to corner,” Gareth remarked, throwing his voice into a growling rumble, perfect for his hardened grizzled character. 

“I can’t see anything,” Jeff complained, getting into it. 

"That's because you are a stupid elf, and your stupid elf eyesight only works in the day,” Gareth replied, both of them holding back laughter. 

“How dare you?! You, you…tiny little man!” 

And then they were off, back and forth insults that were cheesy, yet sometimes creative. The club watched in amusement. Even Steve was snickering, and he normally tried to pretend he didn’t exist when it had anything to do with Gareth. Usually Eddie would try and focus the group back in, but he was happy to let them banter for a little while. 

This was the kind of fighting they should be doing. This was the Gareth Eddie knew, and getting to see that that guy was still somewhere in this new person was very comforting. 

“I am through with your impertinent conclusions,” Jeff huffed in mock exasperation, keeping his voice high and flighty as he did, “I am ready to take my turn, master of the game.” 

“Very well,” Eddie said, inclining his head and waiting to hear. 

“I open my bag and get out a torch, but I want to hit Goren with my bag as I do it,” Jeff said, the rest of the group immediately bursting into laughter.

“Roll 2 d8. One for hitting him, and one for how much light the torch is going to give you,” Eddie instructed, biting his lip to hide his smile. Jeff let the dice fly, getting an eight and a two respectively. 

“As you pull out your torch, you smack Goren right in the face with your bag. Goren loses one hit point,” Eddie said, making a note on his paper. 

“Ow!” 

“Oh, I am sooo sorry that was completely unintentional.” Jeff gasped sarcastically, holding a hand against his heart and raising his eyes to the sky. 

“Goren does not believe you, but he will hold his anger for later,” Eddie said, sliding in smoothly before another ‘argument’ could take place, “You light your torch, but the draft coming in through the broken windows makes the flame flicker and shrink. You can just see the edge of an image drawn on the wall,” 

“I want to examine the drawing,” Kaiden jumped in. 

“June Iper it is not your turn,” Eddie replied, referring to Kaiden by his character’s name. If they were doing things their normal way, then it would be Kaiden’s turn, but as it was, it was time for Rocky to go. 

Kaiden grumbled to himself, then sat up straight. He and Rocky made eye contact for a brief second before quickly scrambling to switch seats. 

“Now it is my turn,” Kaiden said, his head held high in victory. Eddie rolled his eyes but allowed it to slide, just happy that the two freshman boys were having a good time. He let Kaiden roll and then continued on, eager to get to the entrance of the main enemy. 

“You snatch the torch out of Boz’s hand, scampering up to the wall and holding it as high as you can, which isn’t very high at all,” Eddie pointed out. Kaiden’s character was a gnome, and Eddie never missed a chance to make a short joke at their expense, “The rest of the party can only see what looks like a chariot being dragged by cloven hoofed beasts.” 

“Wait a second,” Janet said, her face lighting up in realization. She turned to Eddie with her eyes narrowed, and he schooled himself into a completely innocent expression. 

“Yes Miss Ngyet?” He asked innocently, having a feeling she had already guessed where this one shot was going. 

“I take the torch from June so we can see better,” 

“Is there normally this much torch stealing?” Steve asked softly as Janet rolled, quirking his head to the side as he gave Eddie a raised brow. Before Eddie could respond, Frank interrupted. 

“Hey, you’re on our side now,” Frank said, nudging their arms together, “Ask us your questions,”

“Oh, sorry,” Steve apologized, turning towards Frank. 

Behind Steve’s back, Eddie gave Frank a grateful little smile. Sure, he was probably only being nice to Steve right now because Janet had said she was okay with him, but Eddie would take any kind of progress. Frank gave Eddie a short nod, and they settled back into their roles, continuing the game. 

“With Miss Ngyet’s extra height you can all see the full mosaic. Gasping in horror you finally recognize the picture you’re looking at. A man dressed in robes that are bathed in blood, a stampede of reindeer pulling his sledge. All at once the lights turn on in the factory, blinding you. There’s an ominous laughter from behind. Ho. Ho. HO.” Eddie roared. 

More light bulbs around the room as Jeff and Frank both caught on. 

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Jeff sighed, putting his face in his hands to muffle his laughter. Eddie grabbed the mini figure sitting in front of him, standing up and beginning the monologue he had practiced in front of the mirror all week. Wayne had nearly forced him to go outside to do it after the first few days of never ending repetition. 

“Your foe! A man turned God who knows the name of every child in the world, and watches endlessly. This God, who was once a benevolent overlord, loved to shower gifts upon those he deemed good, giving gentle reminders to those he saw being bad. Now he feasts upon the ‘Naughty’ alongside his favorite meal of milk and cookies,” Eddie ominously lowered his voice, coming to stand between Steve and Frank. 

Steve leaned backwards and turned his head. Frank did the same. 

“Is this what I think it is?” Steve whispered behind Eddie. 

“Yes,” Frank whispered back. 

“The demonous, the dastardly, the fat…” 

Eddie thrust the minifigure down onto the table, standing back as he hollered at the top of his lungs. 

“KRIS KRINGLE!” 

Eddie had been absolutely, completely, 100%, right. 

This was an epic one shot. 

After their initial reactions to finding out they were doing battle against Santa of all people, the rest of the club dove into the campaign with glee. Eddie had taken care to create an awesome story filled to the brim with little easter eggs, and they were eating up every bit of it. 

There were hypnotically enslaved elves, blood thirsty reindeer, exploding candy canes, even a section where the party had to sing Christmas songs to escape from a platoon of killer carolers.

Yeah he was biased, but Steve’s giggly rendition of WHAM’s new hit song was the best thing Eddie had ever heard in his life. 

Speaking of, the biggest shock of the game had to be how well Steve was doing. Eddie had honestly expected to have to subtly take it a little easy on him, but the jock was turning out to be one of the trickiest players he had ever gone up against. 

Sure, the math and the writing portion was a bit of a hiccup, but Steve’s strategic thinking was unexpectedly excellent, and he seemed to have a knack for survival. He had quickly made himself an invaluable player, and the rest had accepted him into the fold, if only for now. 

And the best part of it all was how much fun Steve was having. The smile on his face was bright, utterly joyful in a way Eddie had only seen once years ago. He had seen Steve smile plenty since then, but it was always quiet, kind of hidden away, like he was scared to show how much he was enjoying himself. 

But this was just…happy. Pure, clear, happy, with nothing standing in its way, and Eddie was drinking in the sight like a man in a desert who had found an oasis. 

After a grueling four hours, Hellfire had finally managed to kill off the final reindeer (Vixen had gone down in a blaze of glory) and release all of the elves from their mind manacles. 

There was just one foe left. 

“As the not-so-jolly man with a bag gently lays his last beast on the ground, he looks up at you all with complete rage in his eyes,” Eddie said in a hushed tone, letting things get as quiet as possible before exploding into sound.

“Naughty! You are All on my naughty list!” Eddie declared, slapping his hand on the table before standing and reaching over his binder to point, “You! And You! And You! And-” 

“Steve?”

Eddie paused mid monologue, his finger still hovering in the air directed at Janet. All of them turned around as one, facing their new intruder. 

Little Red was in the doorway, staring back at them with big eyes. A mischievous grin quickly overtook her face and she opened the door wide, crossing her arms and smugly jutting her chin out at her babysitter.

“Shooting hoops, huh?” 

“Max? Why are you here? Where are the boys?” Steve asked, quickly getting up from the table and coming to her side. The anxiety coloring his tone was unexpected, and Eddie felt himself wilt a little as all of Steve’s walls seemed to have pulled back up in a snap. 

“Down the hall. We’re fine,” Max said, quickly reassuring him and dropping her act. Steve relaxed for a second, but then stiffened once more as she peeked her head around his side. She waved, and the rest of the group waved back. 

“Shooting hoops,” She repeated, raising a brow, “You know, Steve, I’ve never played basketball, but it looks a lot more like Dungeons and Dragons than I expected it too,”

“How long have you known?” Steve sighed.

“That you were lying?” Max asked for clarification, “The whole time. You’re a bad liar, and Billy just couldn’t shut up about how you were benched from playing, and he was going to be the one leading the team now. I wasn’t expecting you to be doing this though. I thought you were meeting up with a girl.” 

“I’ll pay you real money to not tell the others,” Steve said, completely serious. 

Max tapped on her chin, a move that was so reminiscent of Janet that Eddie had to stifle a laugh. He didn’t want to call any attention to himself right now, too invested in seeing how this would all play out. 

“How much?” She asked, giving him a shrewd eye. 

“Five bucks?” Steve offered, sounding slightly desperate. 

Max hummed, making faces as she pretended to consider it. 

“Not enough,” She finally decided with a cute little shrug, sticking her head into the hallway and shouting for the boys to come. 

A stampede of footsteps and hollering began in the distance and Steve groaned, shooting Max a look of utter betrayal before turning to pout at Eddie. 

“Lord, help me,” Steve sighed. 

“Nay, I shan't. Lord Kringle has deemed you naughty, Stefan, there is no hope for you now,” Eddie replied, shaking his head. Steve did not seem at all amused by this, but the rest of the club was chuckling, exchanging wry little grins. 

“Oh, are we about to meet Harrington’s famous children?” Kaiden wondered aloud, already knowing the answer. 

“Don’t,” Steve warned with zero heat in his voice, seemingly already resigned to what was about to happen. He was rubbing at his temple, his eyes shut with a look of pure exhaustion on his face. 

Max patted him twice on the arm before coming over to look at the board, looking over Steve’s character sheets with glee. 

“Hey Little Red,” Eddie said. 

“Hi, Steve’s friend,” She replied with a smirk, “You guys are gonna have fun watching this,” 

Before anyone could ask what she meant, a veritable horde of boys burst into the room. They were once again all talking over each other, but this seemed to just be the way the boys communicated. Dustin, Lucas, and Mike all stayed crowded around Steve yelling at him, while Will began to look around. 

Max quietly whistled, jerking her head and catching Will’s attention. He obediently trotted over, and she showed him what she had found, both of them exchanging quiet whispers that even Eddie couldn't make out over the other kids shouting. 

“Why are you not in the library?” Steve griped, managing to raise his voice above theirs. 

“We finished our campaign and got bored. You’re taking forever, we’re hungry, and we want to see El,” Mike whined, crossing his arms and glaring at his babysitter. 

“What are you doing anyway?” Dustin asked, trying to look around Steve.

“Nothing,” Steve said quickly, pushing Dustin’s head back in front of him, “Get out. I’ll come get you guys in like an hour, or you can walk back to your own houses,”

“Who are they?” Lucas wondered, ignoring Steve’s minor threat. Everyone in the room already knew how hollow it was, “This is definitely not the gym,” 

Eddie was sure Steve had some sort of excuse, something he had cooked up to explain why he was here, but he was not eager to hear it. Sure, Eddie understood why Steve might have wanted to have something that was ‘just his’ (or, at least, he respected it), but the rest of the club wouldn’t. They would definitely think Steve was trying to hide the fact that he knew them, and that would reinforce everything Gareth was saying. 

No matter what, this was not going to go down well, and would probably erase any progress that had been made. 

Luckily for both of them, Will Byers decided that this was the moment to speak up. 

“Steve?” Will said, catching everyone’s attention, “Are you…playing DnD?”

Tension thick as a thousand page novel blanketed them all. Dustin gasped in an extremely melodramatic fashion, and Mike blew past Steve, storming over and slamming his hands down on the table, making all of the figures tremble. Steve seemed lost for words, turning back to give Eddie a ‘help me’ look of terror. 

So, Eddie did what he did best. 

He caused a little chaos. 

“Why yes, young small one, he is playing Dungeons and Dragons,” Eddie said with a tricky grin, loving the explosion of mayhem that came right after, 

Tag List: @paopaupaus @zerokrox-blog @surferboyzaza @whatever-is-a-good-name @minjintea @addelyin @5ammi90 @hagbaby420 @shinekocreator @bornonthesavage @starxlark @electrick-marionnett @resident-gay-bitch @ash-a-confused-enby @classicdinosaurdeathpose @valon-whomsttf @rotten-lil-goblin @thereindeerlady @love-ya-kash @kerlypride @sparkle-fiend @thefreakandthehair @flowercrowngods @milf-harrington @sadcanadianwinter @gothbat99 @hotcocoaharrington @henderdads @lightwoodbanethings @colorful565 @h0n3y-dw @craterbbox @sourw0lfs @lesliiieeeee @bidisastersworld @tinynebula @ravnlinn @bonescaro @mexmatch @cottagecoredreams @joruni @hellykelly @maegan1116 @farewell-wanderlvst @desertfern @due-to-the-fact-that-im-a-slut @anythingforourmoonyedits @eerielake @fandemonium-takes-its-toll @sidekick-hero

[msnihilist]

for the darkship bingo I have to ask for the obligatory rickorty and/or maxvid or else I will explode (- @asperfern)

For the dark ship bingo.

Here is my bingo choices for Maxvid!!

This bingo sheet makes them seem almost vanilla 😭 They aren't violent, they're fucked up in other ways!! "They deserve each other" is meant positively, btw.

As for Rickorty....

Much closer to getting a bingo on this one! My basis for "they could make each other so much worse" is that I think Morty is a fucked up little creep who enables Rick, and I love him for that.

I think representations of their relationship where Morty is a victim in all of it are not entirely true. He definitely was in the beginning, but Rick has done a really good job at grooming this kid. I think Rick would be incapable of loving Morty if he was just another one of his victims.

And just because I know you're a fan of Irrational Attachments, I will include a snippet for an upcoming chapter (that I will probably never get around to finishing, whoops)!

_______________________

"C-Cut the bullshit. I asked your little messenger boy "how much?" and haven't gotten a fucking ansURPwer yet," he snapped impatiently. 

“Prices vary depending on who you select,” Chávez said matter-of-factly, all business now that they were talking about money. He set his hand on the small of Rick’s back, and Rick had to resist the urge to put a bullet through his forehead for that alone. “The pretty ones cost more, you understand. Higher demand. Have you been with a Morty before?”

“No,” Rick grit out through clenched teeth.

Chávez chuckled, patting Rick’s back before letting his hand drop. “Then, for you, it’s half off.”

If there was one thing that Rick knew about himself, it was that if something seemed too good to be true, it definitely was. He scowled. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch.” Chávez held his hands up in mock surrender. He quirked his unibrow, smug. “I just know that you’ll be back. They always are.” He gestured around the room. “Pick one before I change my mind and rescind my generosity.” 

“Fine.” Rick jerked his thumb at the most normal-looking Morty — the one with the scar who had led him down here. “Him.”

The Morty looked taken aback. “I don’t—” He started to say, and was cut off when Chávez set a hand on his shoulder, squeezing hard enough to make Morty wince.

“Fifty tamerbons for an hour,” Chávez said, not so much as glancing at Morty.

Rick rolled his eyes. “Jesus, and that’s half off? This place is a fuckin’ rip off,” he grumbled, but reached into his lab coat. He counted the amount out of his wallet, making a show of it like that wasn’t money Rick used to wipe his ass with.

Chávez didn’t hesitate to snatch it from him once Rick extended his hand. He counted out the amount a second time, then nodded, satisfied. “Show him to an open room, sweetheart,” he ordered, smacking Morty on the ass. 

The Morty winced, but didn't make a sound. He started walking, and Rick followed.

[suzukiblu]

Heyyyyy, who wants the expanded excerpt of that one WIP of mine with transfemme!Kon, two glorious and terrible Amazons, and familial soulmates that's behind this here read-more?? (( tw: internalized misgendering, unintentional misgendering ))

Kon just saved Lex Luthor's life, so that's kind of weird and unfortunate. Like, he's perfectly aware that Kal would've wanted him to do that and would've done it himself if he hadn't been too busy bashing on the robot minions of the latest morally dubious AI to need dropkicked out of Metropolis, but also now the whole stupid world is gonna know he's the kind of dumbass who wastes time saving Lex Luthor. 

Specifically, wastes time saving Lex Luthor in the middle of a situation that has at least an eighty-five percent chance of being Lex Luthor's own goddamn fault, just to really rub it in.  

Look, somebody had to have programmed that morally dubious AI. 

Kon can't even enjoy the fact that Luthor's currently knocked out on the ground and both of the dude's super-hot and allegedly Amazonian bodyguards are on top of him. And considering that the one's all buttoned up in a sexy chauffeur uniform with semi-sheer stockings and the other's wearing a black minidress and strappy gold stilettos under a trenchcoat, and that they're both at least six feet tall and built like, again, actual Amazons, that is a lot to not be enjoying. 

. . . although actually, he can't help but notice, they're weirdly not his type despite the fact that they're both absolutely gorgeous and also the fact that he pretty much just described the stars of at least the last three pornos he watched. 

Very weird, Kon thinks, then attempts to get out from underneath said porn star bodyguards. The chauffeur-looking one–Mercy, he thinks her name is–cuffs him upside the head, then pulls out a gun that he cannot even imagine where she was hiding and takes aim at the nearest robot. 

"Quit wriggling, brat, you'll throw off my aim," she orders, and then starts firing. 

"Aren't you supposed to be a fucking Amazon?" Kon demands incredulously. Since when the fuck do Amazons use guns? Since when is that a thing? 

"I am also not too stupid to see the benefits of high-velocity rounds," Mercy replies dryly without missing a shot. Every robot she hits immediately explodes. There is literally no reason a normal handgun should be causing that reaction, so Kon's just gonna assume that's not actually a normal handgun. 

"Always with the high-velocity rounds," the other bodyguard–Hope, Kon's pretty sure?–snorts as she strips off her trenchcoat and reveals a truly improbable amount of absolutely flawless muscle packed into that skintight minidress that Kon, again, finds bizarrely just . . . not hot, somehow? And neither is Mercy's narrow-eyed look of concentration or the fact that they're both still on top of him. 

Maybe he's coming down with something. 

Admittedly, he's pretty sure they're only on top of him to keep him pinned down to be a useful meat-shield for their currently unconscious boss's much less invulnerable body, but Kon has found people who were repeatedly bashing him in the face with an I-beam or just straight-up about to murder him hot, so . . . yeah, definitely coming down with something. There's really no other explanation. 

"Hmmm," Mercy says, eyeing the swarming robots that are very aggressively beelining for their position. Like, these robots are way too interested in their position for this whole stupid situation to not in some way be Luthor's fault, in Kon's opinion. "We need to clear some space." 

"Then you should've packed a bigger gun," Hope says dubiously, dropping her trenchcoat on Kon's head. 

"Fuck's sake," Kon mutters, then flattens his hands against the pavement, grabs every robot he can reach at once with his TTK, and rips them all to pieces in one burst. 

It's not easy, but he at least nails a pretty respectable amount of them, so he's got that much. And also, like, about a hundred-yard radius without anything that's trying to murder them in it. So that's nice. 

". . . huh," Hope says, tilting her head. 

"You're welcome," Kon snipes. "Can I get up now?" 

"No," Hope says as a fresh wave of robots rushes them. "Do it again." 

"Whatever," Kon mutters, but he does. He's got better shit to do right now than argue with alleged Amazons of unexplained origins. Taking out as many damn robots as possible, specifically. 

"That's convenient," Hope observes, inexplicably dropping a hand onto the back of Kon's neck and squeezing . . . approvingly, actually? "Good job, kid." 

And that, bafflingly, still doesn't do anything to his dick. 

Okay, so he's probably actively dying of radiation poisoning from, like, some kind of new stealth kryptonite that Luthor has in his pocket or whatever. Luthor would absolutely be the asshole to have stealth kryptonite in his pocket right now, ungrateful prick that he is. 

Kon really doesn't have time to be worrying about that right now, though, so he just grabs another group of robots with his TTK and does what comes naturally as Mercy keeps firing at the ones in the air overhead and Hope keeps her hand on the back of his neck. It . . . still isn't doing anything to him? 

Except it sort of is, just . . . not in a way that makes sense. 

Kon really doesn't have time for this. 

Mercy reloads her handgun. Hope squeezes the back of Kon's neck again. Rubs the pad of her thumb across his pulse, the gesture more absentminded than anything else. 

Kon feels weird. 

Then he rips apart every single fucking robot left on the ground. 

Which is . . . a lot of robots. 

Like. Way, way more robots than he actually should've been able to get a grip on. Or even reach. 

"Uh," Kon says, blinking stupidly. 

"Damn convenient," Hope says, then gives his neck a neat little pat of appreciation before dropping her hand away. Kon does not examine the part of himself that misses it, mostly because said part has literally nothing to do with his libido and he just can't make that fact make sense. "Mr. Luthor? You with us?" 

"Not at the moment, no," Luthor mutters from the pavement, pushing himself up carefully and dusting his suit off with a mildly annoyed expression, like they're not currently in the middle of a half-destroyed city block while innumerable robot minions and Kal and Kara are all throwing down in the sky overhead. "Hn. Is there a reason the two of you are perched on one of Superman's pet teenagers? The more annoying one, even?" 

"Convenient bullet-catcher," Mercy replies dismissively, shooting down a couple more of the aerial robots. 

"Also surprisingly obedient," Hope muses. 

"Asshole, I literally just saved your life and fucked up half an army of shitty robots to keep it saved, and as for you two, I did your fucking jobs for you, and all three of you are all gonna be shitheads to me about it?" Kon demands in exasperation. "Seriously?" 

"Seems like a reasonable source of entertainment for the afternoon," Luthor says, idly watching Mercy shoot down a few more of the airborne robots. "Given that Superman's being inconsiderately dull and not getting himself punched nearly hard enough." 

"Let me the fuck up already," Kon says flatly. 

"Oh, that hit was a slight improvement," Luthor says musingly as he gets to his own feet and finishes dusting himself off, clearly far more interested in watching Kal get knocked around by the aerial robots than anything else. Kon flips him off on principle. Mercy pistol-whips him for it. It doesn't really hurt, which bemuses him enough to lay off the rude hand gestures. She's an Amazon, probably. Almost definitely. Either way, she definitely could've made that actually hurt. 

So that's weird. 

Actually a lot of weird has been happening in this whole stupid interaction, really, which is what Kon gets for saving fucking Lex Luthor's life. 

Something explodes really loudly in the distance, which is probably the command center that Steel was supposed to be dealing with because all the remaining robots jerk violently and then drop out of the sky like rocks all at once and crash into the ground. Which–thank fuck. 

"Hm," Mercy says, holstering her gun as she glances around the smashed-up street and finally gets off Kon. "We might actually make your three o'clock, Mr. Luthor." 

"Unfortunate, given that I'm fairly certain my three o'clock is good ol' Brucie Wayne," Luthor says dryly. Hope gets up too and, absolutely inexplicably, offers Kon a hand up. He's so fucking bemused that he actually takes it, and she pulls him to his feet. "That man is absolutely unbearable." 

"Mmm, I don't know, Hope and I usually find Mr. Wayne good for a bit of afternoon delight," Mercy drawls, sounding amused. 

"Ew," Kon mutters reflexively as he lets go of Hope's hand and makes a face. Then he wonders what the fuck kind of kryptonite that stealth kryptonite is, because picturing two dangerous and gorgeous Amazons making a sandwich out of a slutty Gothamite playboy shouldn't be making him say "ew". Like, that is very literally the last thing that should ever be making him say "ew". Ever. 

Seriously, what the fuck. 

Luthor looks back over at them. 

And then he frowns. 

"Hope," he says. "Mercy." 

"Yes, sir?" Hope asks. 

"What the hell are those?" Luthor says. 

Hope and Mercy frown too. Then they look at each other. Look each other over. And . . . pause. 

"Oh," Hope says. 

"What the fuck," Mercy says. 

Kon has no idea what they're all frowning about, but whatever. An annoyed supervillain and his annoyed bodyguards are not his also-annoyed problem, at least not as long as they're not actively trying to murder Kal or blow up Metropolis or whatever. He's just gonna go make sure everybody he actually gives a shit about is okay, and then get back to–

Hope and Mercy's frowns deepen, and then they both flick their eyes towards him. 

"Bullshit," Mercy says, her eyes narrowing. 

"What, do you think it was one of the drones?" Hope asks dubiously, raising an eyebrow. 

"He's a damn man," Mercy says accusingly. "Worse, a damn boy!" 

"Excuse you?" Kon says, bristling reflexively. He's technically eighteen, okay? Or at least the rough equivalent of eighteen, whatever. 

"I will say, not quite what I pictured for either of your types," Luthor says, looking Kon over with an unimpressed expression. 

Oh, gross. 

"Annnnnd I'm out," Kon says firmly as he lifts off the ground, because Lex Luthor just checked him out and he needs to go gag now. And like, scrub the entire memory from his brain. 

Hope grabs his shoulder and shoves him back down onto his feet. 

"You're our soulmate, kid," she says matter-of-factly. Kon . . . blinks. 

"The fuck?" he says, and Hope points down at herself. He looks. There's a soulmark wrapped halfway around her right thigh, which is . . . weird, actually, because he doesn't remember her having a soulmark there earlier, especially not such a big and flashy one, and . . . 

What the fuck, Kon thinks. He looks over at Mercy and sees the exact same soulmark showing through her stockings in the exact same place on her own thigh. He doesn't remember seeing it there before either. 

It's . . . well, it's a soulmark, he guesses. It's gold–like, several different shades of gold, but all of them metallic and gleaming. He can see the shine of the mark even through Mercy's stockings. It looks like a mosaic of a stylized sun, all intricate rays and bright circles and interlocking shapes, and it takes up a hell of a lot of real estate, going all the way from just above their knees to who knows how high up under their skirts. It's . . . well, it's pretty. 

Actually, it's beautiful, and Kon kind of wants to touch it. To touch both of them, more specifically, ideally at the same time. 

And still not in the pervy way. 

So that's a bad sign, definitely. 

"Take your pants off," Mercy orders impatiently. 

"How about 'hell no'?" Kon says, because yeah he has literally no sense of shame or self-consciousness but Luthor was just eyeballing him like a weirdo and he very much does still want to go make sure nobody he gives a shit about got fucked up by a morally dubious robot or anything. And like–okay, fine, apparently he has soulmates and apparently those soulmates are both drop-dead gorgeous Amazons, but like . . . he doesn't actually give a fuck right now, and also they both work for Lex Luthor, so that kinda doesn't bode well for any kind of long-term relationship or whatever anyway? Like, this is very much about to be another Knockout scenario. Knockout in stereo, even. 

Ugh.

"I said take your pants off," Mercy repeats in annoyance. 

"Again, hell no," Kon tells her. 

Mercy grabs for his belts. Kon dodges her. 

"Hey!" he says. Mercy glowers at him. Hope folds her arms. 

"It's obviously him, Mercy," she says with a sigh. "We haven't touched anyone else but each other and Lex in at least an hour, and any of us would've triggered a mark long before now." 

"He's a child," Mercy bites off. 

"I'm eighteen, kind of!" Kon protests indignantly. If he had to forcibly lose sixteen-odd years of his natural lifespan, at least people could fucking acknowledge him as a fucking adult. Like, is that too much to ask?

"You're two," Luthor says dryly. "'Kind of'." 

"Oh, fuck you," Kon snaps, scowling at him and also not sure how he feels about the fact that the fucking weirdo actually knows how old he is. Like, why the fuck does he know that? 

"A literal child," Mercy says witheringly. "A literal child is our literal soulmate. In a V-shaped triad, of all things!" 

Honestly, if somebody'd told Kon half an hour ago that he had two soulmates and said soulmates were a pair of smoking hot older women dressed like professional escorts who could both kick his ass due to being unconfirmed Amazons, and he was the focal point of their V-shaped triad? He would have very literally needed to go have a lie-down until he recovered enough to get some bloodflow back to his brain. And it would've had to be a very, very long lie-down. 

Right now, though, it's just like . . . a thing, he guesses. A very weird thing that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, as far as he's concerned. 

"Well, he'll mature," Hope says resignedly. "Theoretically." 

"Oh, that's a turn-on," Mercy snorts. 

"Look, whatever, I'm not into you two either but I'm not being a prick about it, am I?" Kon says in exasperation, folding his arms. 

The other three all pause. Then they all turn their heads to look at him. 

"You're not?" Luthor says, sounding mystified. "What, neither of them?" 

"Not that it's any of your damn business, but no," Kon says, wondering what his life has come to that he's actually answering the asshole supervillain right now. 

". . . you know, you could just come out to Superman, it's not actually necessary to so aggressively pretend to be straight," Luthor says dryly, raising an eyebrow at him. Kon, again, wonders how and why this weirdo knows anything about him, much less enough to have an opinion about his sexual orientation and the way he expresses it. "I mean, you'll have to put up with him 'validating your identity' every five minutes, I'm sure, but he isn't going to disown you or whatever nonsense you're expecting." 

"I'm bi, asshole, and I am out to Superman," Kon says in exasperation. Who, admittedly, did kind of spend a couple months validating his identity every five minutes after he came out to him, but that's neither here nor there. "It's possible to just not be into someone." 

"But you're not into either of them," Luthor says, eyes narrowing in consideration. "And they're your soulmates." 

". . . oh gods," Mercy says in horrified realization, putting her hands over her face and staring at Kon through her splayed fingers. "Hope. Hope, are we fucking parents?!" 

". . . huh," Hope says, tilting her head. 

Kon blinks at both of them. Then stares at both of them. 

"Are you high?" he says incredulously. "There is literally no damn way!" 

"Really? Because it'd be one thing if you weren't sexually attractive to either of them yet," Luthor says, still eyeing him assessingly. "You're barely past jailbait, physiologically speaking, and that's frankly being generous. But neither of them is sexually attractive to you?" 

"It's possible to just not be into someone!" Kon protests again. "That doesn't mean they're my moms, for fuck's sake! It could just be, I don't know, platonic or something! Or a sibling bond!" 

Not that those options aren't just as weird and doomed as a romantic bond would be, obviously, but at least they'd make more sense than a parental one would. 

"Amazons only get sister bonds, brat," Mercy says dubiously, which Kon guesses makes sense but also makes him feel a little–never mind. Never mind how it makes him feel. 

He doesn't like how it makes him feel, though. For reasons that he's just . . . not ever gonna examine. 

Ever. 

"Yeah, well, last I heard nobody ever proved you two were real Amazons anyway," he snaps back defensively, clenching his fists at his sides. 

"It's adorable that you think we care what anyone else thinks," Mercy snorts, rolling her eyes. 

Kon very literally cannot imagine just not caring what anyone else thinks to that degree. Like–not ever. 

Must be nice, though.

[edosianorchids901]

Shatter

@flashfictionfridayofficial prompt - "you never cared"

Cw: anger, sensory overload, alcohol

Rome, 41 AD

Crowley had, somewhat naively, hoped that things were looking up. He’d always enjoyed spending time with Aziraphale, after all. An evening of oysters and alcohol sounded like just the thing to fix whatever was wrong with him.

Only, it hadn’t fixed it. Sure, for about five minutes he was closer to happy as they talked and drank together. But then the storm clouds rolled back in, and the bristling tension inside him had only gotten worse.

He tried taking deep breaths. He tried getting even more drunk. He tried telling himself that he was being ridiculous, and should just relax and enjoy having someone who would put up with him when he was this irritable.

It didn’t work. Instead of getting less irritable, he was getting more. A lot more. More to the point where he wasn’t sure he could keep it in anymore.

And Aziraphale. Kept. Talking.

Normally, that was fine. He liked listening to Aziraphale talking. Enthusiasm was great, and no one did enthusiasm like Aziraphale. Normally, it made him feel less alone.

Today, Crowley wanted Aziraphale, the other diners, and the whole of Earth to shut the fuck up and let him have two seconds of fucking peace.

A steady march of profanity had started up in his head a while ago. He couldn’t manage to switch it off. It didn’t help with the overload, except that it did in some way. Like it was releasing a little bit of the pressure.

But not enough. The pressure was still building, an explosion of panicked rage burning in his chest. Every single noise stoked the flames higher, pushed him further towards a supernova.

The clamor of the other diners rose, laughter from another group.

Crowley twitched. It was fine, nothing to get upset about…

“Oh, and then,” Aziraphale started, “the man said—”

“I don’t care,” Crowley snapped.

He hadn’t meant to say it. But his whole body shook with the overload. Everything needed to stop.

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed. “You don’t care?”

“No.” Dizzy, Crowley shoved to his feet. The whole restaurant pressed in, crushing him. “Just… stop. I can’t handle you talking more.”

The furrows in Aziraphale’s brow deepened. “You never cared. About me taking before, I mean. You always seemed to like—”

“Just…” Quaking, Crowley held up a hand. “Just shut up! Give me two fucking seconds of quiet!”

Then, before he could blow up, he fled. The quaking was only getting worse, agitation eating him alive. He couldn’t catch his breath, couldn’t stop the mounting explosion.

No amount of steady breaths or calm self-talk helped. He just kept heating up, reaching the boiling point.

It was overflowing now, no matter how hard he tried to choke it back under control. He couldn’t see, couldn’t think.

Gritting his teeth, he paused in the middle of an alley, clenched his fists, closed his eyes. It didn’t help. Nothing helped, and he’d probably pissed off the only person who ever cared about him even slightly.

The overload got worse and worse, a building helpless fury that tumbled out in smoke. He let out a howl, wordless distress.

Lightning exploded around him. Crashing into the buildings, the ground, shooting up into the sky.

It died down with a rumble, smoke still billowing from him, and he snarled as he shook himself off. The anger hadn’t died down, not even with the release.

It never died down.

“Oh my,” a voice said from behind him. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

Crowley whipped around, shaking. He would be shaking for hours at this rate. “What the deuce are you doing here? Why are you following me?”

“Well, you’re quite clearly…” Biting his lip, Aziraphale hesitated. “Struggling, shall we say?”

That was an understatement. But the gentle concern in his voice brought tears to Crowley’s eyes.

The dark glasses weren’t enough to hide the tears. He twisted around, stomped off.

Aziraphale fell in step beside him.

They walked down narrow alleys, through the forum, back into alleys. Crowley was still smoldering, still didn’t trust himself to speak. If he spoke, he might blow up again, and it was bad enough that he’d done it once.

Gradually, though, his strength failed. The tears rose again, and he couldn’t choke them back. He couldn’t push himself, not anymore. He’d run out of energy.

Exhausted, he crumpled to the ground and pulled himself to lean against a building. Aziraphale, who had been walking silently beside him the whole time, vanished.

Crowley couldn’t blame him. After all, who would want to be around someone who got angry enough to blow up?

“Here, I brought you some more wine. I-I thought it might help.”

Startled, Crowley looked up. Aziraphale hovered nearby, a jug in hand. “Why’d you come back?”

Aziraphale’s eyebrow lifted. “Because… I thought it might help? You seem to be having a particularly awful day.”

Crowley opened his mouth to reply, then closed it. He pushed his sunglasses up, wiped his eyes, took a deep breath.

“Awful week,” he finally managed, almost burst into tears. “It’s been an awful week. Sorry, I didn’t mean…”

He exhaled in a gust, worn out. Didn’t have the energy to put it in words.

Aziraphale sat beside him, holding out the jug. “It’s okay. And you don’t have to explain to me, if it’s too hard. We can just share a drink, silently.”

Choked up, Crowley took the jug. Maybe later, he could try to articulate what the helpless anger at existence was like, especially when it surged out of control. But for now, drinking silently with Aziraphale sounded damn good.

[tikiface]

Since someone went and opened my fucking pandoras box of Potemkin Headcanons: MORE

Potemkin spends a lot of downtime in Zepps public parks either painting or enjoying nature, and he is a bit like a Disney princess in that he stays so still that the wildlife tends to perch or hide on him like he's a weirdly shaped tree. He's very slow, patient, and mindful, and rarely scares animals away with his movements.

He's very popular with the elderly Zeppian citizens that visit him in the parks because he is a consistent presence and enjoy how well-mannered he is. He frequently gets gifts like handmade items and baked goods from them, and they check in on what he’s painting.

Gabriel sometimes has to remind Potemkin to take more time off. He's just way too eager to keep working or even shoulder the workload of other people simply because knows he can do the work of 10 men by himself pretty easily. Has a tendency to overbook himself without thinking. Why send 20 men when he can do it himself? Gabriel has to remind him that just because he can do certain things with ease because of his gift, it doesn’t mean its his job to always be the one to do it.

Gabriel has planned and fashioned Zepps headquarters and newer public infrastructure to accommodate for Potemkins size, Like larger doors, higher ceilings, and sturdier seats in places he frequents. This also lead to more extensive accessibility infrastructure for the elderly, deaf, blind, etc as well.

Potemkins house is comically huge on the inside. everything he owns is huge to the point of being unusable to normal people, though he still insists on having tiny furniture for guests. He enjoys actually being able to cook for himself though.

He has a set of Zepp-forged unbreakable tungsten artists tools given to him by Gabriel after he became president. They are some of his most prized possessions, mostly because they are some of the first things Gabriel went out of his way to make accessible for him.

Some darker HCs

Potemkin has personally witnessed a bomb collar go off on a fellow slave trying to defect at least once. This one is vaguely hinted at by Bedmans Theatre of Pain in Xrd where he reacts by saying "Wait, Don't go! It'll explode!"

Potemkin has only been free for around 8 of the 41-ish years he's been alive. (Time between GG and Strive being 7-8 years. Apparently the only thing close to a canonical age for Pot was some beta concept page putting him at 34 in the first game.) So it's no wonder he still adjusting and has severe self worth issues.

I like to think Gabriel is between 10-20 years older than Pot. Old enough to have been in a commanding position while Pot was still a kid.

Pots limiters are actually embedded in him and at this point, are required for him to survive. Releasing them for any amount of time allows him to use his full strength but is incredibly bad for his health in the long-term.

He has to eat so fucking much just to stay calorie-neutral. He burns energy like a diesel truck and can very easily begin to starve if he's not in an environment of abundance.

He has an over-apology habit from when he had less control over his strength and accidentally broke a lot of stuff. Even worse, he has trauma from accidentally harming undeserving living beings. He treats others with extreme mindfulness and a feather-light gentleness, but to this day it still takes a huge mental toll and it exhausts him having to constantly by hyper-aware of himself for too long. This along with his introverted nature leads him to need a lot of alone time.

He feels oddly comforted by the fact that Gabriel is strong enough to easily fold him. The one person in his day-to day life he doesn’t have to worry about hurting. Someone he admires and actually challenges him.

[weatheringfeelingsvn]

Can I request you do a nsfw alphabet for the therapists?

And maybe one for Miguel but separately cause I’m still mad at him

NSFW Below~

SONNIG’s

A = Aftercare: Is probably the one that will need the most aftercare but he will always prioritize you instead; how you view him, what you need. Even as he is experiencing sub drops, he will reassure you that he's fine. You gotta be a lil forceful with him to take care of him.

B = Body part: He will never admit this but he likes his arms. He worked hard for their muscle definition. He will explode if you admire them too. On you, he loves your hands. He thinks they’re pretty and they do magical things to him when you touch him.

C = Cum: It tastes like lemongrass tea :]

D = Dirty Secret: He’ll try anything you’re into, even if he tries to act like he won’t.

E = Experience: He’s only dated twice before, and they were pretty vanilla. Everything he’s doing with you is new to him.

F = Favorite Position: When you ride him or fuck him from above. Giddyup cowgirl/boy/person.

G = Goofy: With flirting and foreplay, it can be a little silly, he wants to start it off light! Once you get really into it though, he normally doesn’t have the concentration to crack a joke. 

H = Hair: He started off casually trimming because he was self conscious about it.… but then he started completely shaving… 

I = Intimacy: He craves it. Any touch you grant him is something that he wants, whether that touch be harsh or soothing, he just wants to be close. 

J = Jack off: Since he’s met you, he feels shame jacking off because you’re what he’s thinking of now. To sort of balance it out in his head, he also does some weird little rituals like ‘If I do this humiliating thing or feel this level of pain, it makes it a little more okay.’

K = Kink: He thinks he’s being lowkey with his submissive masochism kink. He’s not. He yearns to be dommed, degraded, taken care of. To be used.

L = Location: He feels safest in his bedroom with his dog tucked away safely elsewhere. He would die if Zodiac ever walked in on him. He’s not opposed to your teases in public, though. He likes the thrill… but only with you.

M = Motivation: Being completely at your beck and call.

N = No: No scat or excessive bodily harm. 

O = Oral: He’d happily please you. He’s a little experienced but he could always learn to do better.

P = Pace: He’ll follow whatever you’re feeling like that day, if you want to fuck him hard or edge him slowly.

Q = Quickie: You are literally the only person that could convince him of having a quickie outside of his home with just a look. You break down his barriers.

R = Risk: He is putty in your hands, you can screw him up pretty good. Whatever risky behaviors you wanna partake in, he’s gonna excitedly oblige.

S = Stamina: An amazing amount! He can go on for however long you want!

T = Toys: He has a few that he’s bought to experiment with. He’s open to more if that’s what you want.

U = Unfair: Likes to be the one that is teased. Can be edged for a long time if you so choose ;] He will beg the whole time.

V = Volume: He’s very responsive and with enough encouragement, he will allow himself to shed his shame and get loud.

W = Wild Card: He will probably tear up during sex. Whether because you’re doing him softly or sadistically, you will be seeing a lot of him crying.

X = X-ray: He has a toned physique and a long dick. 

Y = Yearning: He’s always down bad to have you mess with him anywhere anytime.

Z = Zzzz: He falls asleep pretty fast while he is wrapped around you. He enjoys being the smaller spoon, despite being so big.

YU:

A = Aftercare: Very used to taking care of his partner. Knows exactly what you need, he has it all prepared, you never have to worry about it.

B = Body part: He’s proud of how adept he is with his hands and tongue. He’s an assman.

C = Cum: It tastes like chamomile tea. :]

D = Dirty Secret: He tried bottoming when he was younger and in a bad time of his life. He refuses to do so again.

E = Experience: He is the most experienced and he’s pretty proud of it.

F = Favorite Position: Doggystyle, usually with your arms tied behind your back going at his preferred pace.

G = Goofy: If you laugh, he’ll punish you. It makes for a great opportunity to be a brat to him.

H = Hair: He likes to trim his hair himself and shapes it. 

I = Intimacy: He can be pretty romantic when he feels that you’ve earned it.

J = Jack off: He doesn’t do it often. He’d usually find a partner before he met you, now you get to be his fleshlight.

K = Kink: VERY into marking and letting other people know that you belong to him without outright stating so. It’s a mind game he’s fond of.

L = Location: He has his own special room for certain activities, but practically anywhere in his house is free reign. Anywhere other than the kitchen because he doesn’t want to have to sanitize the counters… 

M = Motivation: Knowing that he’s the center of your universe when you do it.

N = No: No scat or excessive bodily harm. 

O = Oral: He will eat you out like there’s no tomorrow. He enjoys making you squirm so he’ll take his time.

P = Pace: He’ll keep the pace to whatever the mood feels like. He can do both fast and slow.

Q = Quickie: He’s the king of quickies. He’s pretty good at getting down to business, finishing you up, and cleaning up fast.

R = Risk: He’ll take calculated risks whenever he feels like it.

S = Stamina: He might not have the best stamina but if he doesn’t tire you out, he always finds a way to keep going.

T = Toys: He enjoys including toys and has quite the collection.

U = Unfair: He loves teasing you. He will metaphorically ~~and physically~~ keep yanking at your chain just because he feels like it. If you try to do the same, you’ll get punished (or rewarded depending on how you look at it).

V = Volume: He’s pretty quiet when he’s not taunting or praising you. The most you’ll get out of him are a few grunts and heavy breaths.

W = Wild Card: 

X = X-ray: He’s a pretty average guy but he makes up for it in skill. Short king shit.

Y = Yearning: He has a moderate and controlled libido, but he loves making you flustered so when he sees the chance, he’ll take it.

Z = Zzzz: He’s a night owl. He’ll stay up, but if you want him to, he’ll stay in bed and pet your head until you fall asleep.

A = Aftercare: He’s new to all this, he will need a lot of guidance but he is very eager to fret over you.

Nubloso

B = Body part: He loves your tummy. He just wants to lay on you and hold you close. He honestly really likes his chest. It’s something soft that you can both enjoy!

C = Cum: It tastes like a subtle peppermint tea :]

D = Dirty Secret: If you gave him the chance, he would love to watch you pleasure yourself as both a learning experience to see what you enjoy the most and to just take the chance and focus completely on how you look in the moment. 

E = Experience: He only had experience with his hand before you came along.

F = Favorite Position: Good ol’ fashioned missionary, both for receiving and giving. He loves looking at you and holding you.

G = Goofy: He doesn’t try to be goofy, but he babbles so much during sex that sometimes it just happens 

H = Hair: Full natural. 

I = Intimacy: Inject it into his VEINS, he wants it all!! He’ll spout the corniest shit about how much he adores you and sometimes pause just to look at you with a dopey grin. He’s so in love.

J = Jack off: Quite a lot to be frank. He has a lot of pent up feelings and it’s a good method for self care.

K = Kink: He’s got the biggest breeding kink, he likes the fantasy of creating something new together and starting a family with you. If you’re not comfortable with it, he’ll keep it to himself, he doesn’t want to freak you out. 

L = Location: Here, there, anywhere. Bend you over in the office, lay himself across the couch, kitchens are free reign. Anywhere you are, it has absolutely crossed his mind. 

M = Motivation: Anything can get him started, really. Hearing your voice, being in your vicinity, smelling you, even just looking at you. This is his first time feeling so intensely about a person, he can’t control his reaction.

N = No: No scat or excessive bodily harm. 

O = Oral: You really gotta teach him what to do. He will enjoy learning!

P = Pace: You being his first, he goes pretty hard and fast like a rabbit. He has to learn to take things slow.

Q = Quickie: He’d love to have them as often as he can with you.

R = Risk: He likes controlled risky situations, like doing it in his office after he makes sure the door is locked. He likes the fantasy of showing people that you are his, but he’d actually rather not have anyone eyeing you.

S = Stamina: He’s a noob, he goes until he tires himself out so it can wildly range.

T = Toys: He’s open to them if you like them, but he kinda prefers going without (other than the strap, he loves it if you use it).

U = Unfair: He does his best to tease you to get a reaction out of you. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but he won’t give up.

V = Volume: He’s pretty talkative during sex. He does a lot of dirty talking when he gets lost in the moment.

W = Wild Card: 

X = X-ray: He’s got a soft physique with a thick dick.

Y = Yearning: He’s always yearning for you. His sex drive is crazy.

Z = Zzzz: He takes a while to sleep because he enjoys your presence too much. He’ll snuggle you and daydream about you as he feels you falling asleep. 

[jaketsparrow]

Tending Part 3!!

Pairing: Jake Kiszka x f! Reader

Word Count: 11.4K

Preview: What happened between Jake and Mariella? What’s happening to you? 

A/N: Y’all wanted the angst, so I present to you ANGST... Please don’t be mad at me. 

MINORS DNI

MENTIONS OF/ TW: Oh boy get ready… dirty talk, name-calling, unprotected p in v sex (don’t do this!), explicit sexual content, impact play, hate fucking (oops), dom/sub, mature themes, brief mentions of body dysmorphia, language, choking, safe words, public activities… fluff (hehe)…  But as always, it's filthy (IMO). Sorry if I missed anything! 

Tending Part 1!

Tending Part 2!

It’s been almost a week since you’ve spoken to Jake. 

Who knew so much could happen in a short amount of time? Dreams came true, and in one swift kick were knocked down. Your life was starting to feel like a movie. Like a meet cute, romantic, and sexy movie. But now, you were just becoming a sad Lifetime movie that your grandma would watch.

You were the sad woman alone in her apartment whose dream boy let her down. It felt pathetic to be this cliche, to be this hurt by a man who didn’t even seem to feel the same way.  Cue the sad montage of memories, and bring on the melancholy music; because this scene was never-ending. 

Saturday night ended in a catastrophic way. You finally had all the control and you still let it- well him, go. The feelings have been burning deep inside you. Your heart feels heavy thinking about it all; how you reacted, how he reacted. 

“Jake…” You coo, “What was going on with you and Mariella?” 

He pulls his head away from your hand and looks at you with a disgusted expression.

“Nothing.” He replies, still in his dominant form. “You have to get over this.”

Was there anything that could’ve changed the outcome? Yes.

The heat of the moment boiled over you and you exploded. You were in no place to be jealous; he wasn’t yours to claim. Still, the anger sat inside you, brewing, accumulating. There was no letting go of that. It was hard to feel like there wasn’t more going on between you two. He cared for you, he protected you in ways you hadn’t seen before. He made you feel like you were actually important to him in some way. 

You’ve run through the scenario countless times, thinking of what would have been better, how you could’ve cut deeper, how you could have forgiven. You’ve learned from your past. Learning that secrets might have been hidden from you, not only from Jake but from Mariella, was painful. You weren’t sure whether to believe what he was saying. There was no emotion, only facts. You felt crazy snapping at him as he remained there perfectly calm.

The worst part of it all was that he didn’t even seem sorry about it. 

You try your best to remain cool, calm, and unknowing in front of him, “Hi Jake,” 

He smiles at you. He holds his gaze for a moment trying to read you, but like every typical man, only sees the surface. He pats your head one last time and walks off to clock in. Fuck. Why is he choosing today of all days to actually be soft with you? He’s never been this comfortable in your presence, giving you pets, actually excited for a shift. You want so badly to feel normal for this moment; to be thankful that he’s trying. But every nice gesture feels like it's souring.

You move your hair back to its rightful place and walk down to the new set of customers that just arrived. 

“Hey, what can I get for you?” You ask. 

The couple doesn’t know, but inform you that they’ll call you over when they’re ready. You move on to the next gentleman, who before you can even ask, informs you that he’ll take the cheapest beer we have. How charming! 

You walk over to the tap and begin to pour him a glass. Jake is heading towards you and you try to be in deep focus on your pour. He turns parallel to you, sliding the front of his jeans over your ass; scooching past you to exit the bar. Purposefully. Not an accident. On purpose in an attempt to mark his territory here. 

He’s stuck his flag on the moon! He’s painting JAKE in big red letters across my ass. He’s trying to remind me that I belong to his cock. You want to belong to him. The butterflies in your stomach are fluttering for him, pleading for you to get over this jealousy and take him right here on the dank bar floor. You think back to the times this exact situation has happened before; maybe those other times weren’t accidental rubs. You want him amidst all your feelings, you want him to take you into his hands and fuck the anger out of you. Really prove to you that you're his and he's yours… But he wouldn’t.

Twenty minutes ago this sentiment would have been great. But now? You feel nauseous. Desperately waiting for a clue of what happened in Mariella’s house. He probably would touch her the same as you, taking control of her body… Commanding her to his will. Touching her in all her favorite spots, which of course would probably be the same as yours. It would be easy for him to do the same things, just interchanging the women. 

You bring the snippy gentleman his beer and take his credit card from the counter. Hardly looking at him. Men. Gross. 

What really could have happened last night? Why did Jake go to Mariella’s house? It had to be for some sinister reason. The smidge of doubt you had saved for him was starting to shrink the longer you waited for the truth. 

Mariella was a beautiful girl. She had this amazing long black hair that she would always style in cute ways for her shifts. Her face was soft, but she had these gorgeous piercing blue eyes. She also had the body of a fucking model. Not those skinny tiny runway models, but those Instagram models with hourglass figures. The ones who make you feel jealous that your ass isn’t that round, or that your body didn’t fit that way into a dress. You always felt a little intimidated by her beauty, surprised that she would want to work in a bar and not run off to Paris Fashion Week. 

After one night of seeing her tips though, you understood exactly why she stayed at this job. Everyone loved her. She barely had to show up for work to make crazy amounts of money. When you both would work Saturday nights before Jake came along, you were thankful that you split tips. She was beautiful, had a bubbly personality, and always convinced everyone that they should have just one. more. round. 

The insecurities are building inside of you as you compare yourself to her. You try to shake the feeling. You still have no idea what happened, you remind yourself. Dwelling on each negative thought that sat in your head wasn’t fair to Jake. You were only allowing the devil’s advocate to speak, instead of remembering that there are two sides to this story and you’ve only heard one. 

You were on a bender of sorts. The mania of the past week left you so high and now you were really feeling the low. Your bed had become a nest of random objects: chip bags, the book you tried to read, the clothes from Saturday night you still refused to move since you took them off, and your childhood stuffed animal you had pulled from your closet to comfort you. You were neglecting your body, neglecting your mind. 

Your room had an aura of depression. You didn’t think this collapse would hurt you so badly, but you felt so low. All that build-up and anticipation for Jake was lost by a dumb mistake. Or was it a mistake? You still didn’t know. Was it easier to preserve your feelings for him rather than trust him? Was it easier to end now instead of waiting months to find more secrets? Were you wrong to be so distrusting? These thoughts plagued you, shocked you… Hit you like lightning; thunder shaking everything you wanted around you. 

You only cried on Saturday night after it was over. The whole ride home you were struggling to see through the tears. Your breath was heavy, staggering, trying to stay alive. Panic was surging through you. Anger, fear, and sadness were attacking you from all angles. You felt even worse knowing you had no right to feel this way about a man who didn’t belong to you. He could have done whatever he wanted and you should have let him. But the way he touched you, the way he made you feel special… It made you feel like you had a fair fight. 

You even cried the whole way into your apartment, to your bed, and really, until you fell asleep from the exhaustion. You had been dreaming about building something with Jake, and you made a very serious decision to cut that dream short. You finally let yourself take control over him, and cut the chase off for both of you. The heat of the moment, the insecurity, the jealousy, exploded in a fiery argument. You felt played, you felt angry, you felt… misled. 

You woke up Sunday morning feeling empty. Your heart raced waiting to see if Jake would text you, would say something about how sorry he felt, or that he didn’t mean to hurt you. You were rotting in bed, smothered in blankets and grime. You feel empty. Your brain cycles over everything. You wish it was Friday night again and he was here, showing you brief moments of weakness…

Stroking his hair as he smiles at you. Caressing your thigh as a means to say thank you. Kissing you softly, holding you close. Finally giving you the form of aftercare he showed you Wednesday night. Staying the night with you. Playing with your hair to wake you up…

But that didn’t happen. And it wouldn’t now.

A message never came on Sunday, so you sat and rotted in bed. 

A message never came on Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or Thursday… 

And nothing today. 

Around nine, people started showing up to really drink. Each seat at the bar was full, and the tables were even starting to fill up too. The servers had tons of orders; large party groups treating themselves to more drinks than they should. Jake and you were jumping around the bar, trying to clear the orders. He brushed up on you a few more times, but you didn’t even have time to process or be angry at it with the amount of people that needed their precious alcohol. It's surprising to see how frustrated people get when they have to wait longer than five seconds for a drink to appear in their hands.

When you finally had a moment, you stepped off to the corner of the bar to make yourself your own drink. You couldn’t do this completely sober. You filled the glass with whiskey and put some cola in it, as secretly as you could. This was dangerous considering Chris would probably be checking your favorite whiskey during inventory, but you needed it. You took a few big sips, the dark liquor burning through the bubbles. The invigorating fire burns down your throat, forming a pit in your stomach. 

You were savoring this moment, drinking tonight was a means of self-care. You knew to be careful, not take too much at once, not to take too much at all. You just wanted a distraction, but it wasn’t really helping. You just wanted to convince yourself that numbing the feelings was better than feeling them all. You couldn’t numb everything though.

Seeing him jump around you in this new energy… It was hard to watch. Jake always looked so sexy behind the bar. He wore these tight dark wash jeans, black vans, and a black button-up that really showed off his tan. It made you mad how much you wanted him, how much you were thinking about your nights together. Thinking about how he corrected your behavior the first time you were petty with him. You felt better in his presence. Even though he never claimed any wrongdoing, you felt like his touch was his way of apologizing. 

You need to stay focused at the bar, but it was proving harder and harder to do. Every time you saw him, you thought of what Mariella said. You were creating scenarios in your head, convincing yourself that you weren’t the only one Jake was seducing. 

Why else would he go to Mariella’s? Why else would she be so upset? Wait, why was she upset about it? 

Maybe she had the same situation as him and you, and she was the lucky one who found out about the other woman. 

Is she why Jake wanted to take it slow? Is she the reason why he didn’t stay over that first night? 

She wouldn’t even look at him the night after he played, well actually, she wouldn’t look at either of us. She only brought us drinks, she wouldn’t talk or engage with us. She too was trying to focus on something other than him that night. Did she know he was playing that night? Is that why she agreed to cover his shift? Did he ask her to cover for him so that she could be the one there to support him from the sidelines? 

Why didn’t she tell you if anything was going on? After your first shift with Jake, you ran to her to tell her how sexy you thought he was. You even laughed about it together! She said you were crazy to go after a coworker, and that things would get messy. Was she trying to warn you then? 

When you came into the bar Wednesday night she wasn’t necessarily happy to see you there either. You specifically asked for a drink that wouldn’t get either of you in trouble, but somehow you did end up in trouble the next day. Did she tell Chris that you were asking for free drinks? How else would he know? We’re usually pretty good at hiding it or we always cover for each other. Was she upset at what happened that night? Knowing Jake had to drive you home?...

Could she sense something happened?

These thoughts are engrossing you. Breaking you down bit by bit. A lump starts forming in your throat. Your hands are getting clammy and you can feel the warmth taking you over. Picturing a teakettle, slowly starting to whistle and shake with the fire. Every time you turn down the stove, you pump it back up to high, screaming with the heat. You know you want to cry, but standing in the middle of a bar crying wouldn’t exactly solve anything. 

You swallow hard. Forcing the tears to pull back from your eyes. There would be no crying now. There’s a bar full of people and you have your job to focus on. You’re making it impossible for yourself by lingering on every little thought that pops through your mind. Each passing by like a highway billboard, advertising your mistrust and envy.

You rush back over to your drink and chug as much as you can. Your judgment is severely clouded, not from the liquor, but from the emotions. You feel the tension growing in you, tearing you apart limb by limb, nerve by nerve.

You swear that if you were lifted out of this bed, there would be a you-sized indent in the mattress from how you’ve sat there for so long. The bed became a hiding hole. You were sitting at the bottom in the dirt, trying to climb and find any way out. You put yourself in this hole to try and protect your feelings further, but it just made you feel worse. He was standing at the top of this hole, waving down to you; telling you to get out. 

You couldn’t trust Jake and that made you heartbroken. 

11:30 hits and you’d swear this bar became a fucking nightclub. College season is both the worst and the best time for Fleets. We have too much business coming in. 

Jake and you were handling it the best you could. You started pre-preparing the beer buckets; throwing 5 bottles in the tubs, and filling them with ice to pass along when they were ordered. Jake was taking his usual commanding role, telling people off, passing orders off to you, and-

“Back the fuck up!” Jake yells at the man reaching over the counter to touch your ass. You turn to look at the guy. He is quite literally standing over the bar, reaching his hand out, his finger inches from your ass. He’s stuck in a moment of shock, arm extended, completely caught. “Chris!” 

Chris is occupied at the table of regulars, but still, fortunately, hears Jake yell. Chris runs over from the table and removes the gentleman from his overhang on the counter. He yanks him off the bar stool, and escorts him not so gently out of the bar, with his friends in tow. The man is screaming at you, at Chris, and at Jake. 

“Fuck you! Fucking prude! Good thing your boyfriend’s there to save you!” His voice echoes into the night as Chris pushes him past the doors. 

You break your pause and continue making the vodka sodas in front of you. Trying your best to ignore what the man just said. Working in a bar like this means things like that will happen. It's not the first time someone has been caught trying to grab you, and you’re trying not to let it bother you. You didn’t want to feel protected by your ‘boyfriend’, because he wasn’t your boyfriend; you were alone. 

��Jake walks up behind you, resting his arm on your hip, checking on you. 

“I’m fine,” You bark. Trying to prove you’re not a damsel in distress. 

“Hey,” Jake nudges at you to turn to him, and you look back, scowling, “You sure?”

You close your eyes and breathe for a moment. You feel the heat building, growing, trying to come out of you. Your whole body is sweating, clamming up at the overwhelmed state you’re in. Trying to hold back your confusion, trying to hold back your anger at the man, trying to hold back the praise you desperately want to give to Jake. You wipe your hands on the front of your shirt and ball your fists up beside you. “Yes, Jake. I’m fine. He didn’t actually touch me.”

He looks at you with a sad gaze… Maybe he can see below the surface. He rubs your side briefly and gives you a firm squeeze before heading back over to the customers. You exhale slowly, trying to collect yourself. Why did he have to be so protective over you when you were so clearly trying not to be happy with him right now? He clearly wants something; wants you to feel trusted by him. You want to trust him, but it felt so hard to in this moment. 

If he didn’t tell you he was going to Mariella’s, then it obviously was something he didn’t want you to know about. He clearly was being secretive, hiding. You also realize, he probably knows that you know something. How could he not? If Mariella had that big of a reaction with you, then she probably had that big of a reaction with Jake. So here he was, being all calm, cool, and collected, meanwhile knowing that you know what he didn’t want you to know! 

You’re spiraling. 

You reach over and finish the rest of your cocktails. You grab the three vodka sodas in front of you and balance them between your fingers, gingerly carrying them over to the blonde party girls in the corner. 

“About time!” One of them snickers. 

“Next time, you can make them,” You snap back. The shocked look on their faces was priceless. That line would probably get you in trouble if anyone heard, but these girls are already too plastered to even form full cohesive sentences. “Also girls, the other bartender and I are a little concerned. We’re going to bring you some water and cut you off for now. Okay?”

They were understandably not happy about that. Your frustration was mixing with the liquid courage and taking you to an unhappy, and honestly, quite rude place. You tried not to care so much about it, but your heart was growing heavier with each interaction you were having. 

You wave over to Chris, who jumps and scurries to your side. Damage control. 

“Hey Chris, you see those girls behind me?” Chris turns to peer at the girls, quite obviously.

“Yeah?”

“Well, I think they’re probably done for now. They were being pretty snarky. Can you bring them some water?”

“Fine.” He grumbles. 

You sigh. Chris would probably ignore whatever those girls had to say about you since you forewarned him about their behavior first. It wasn’t your first time throwing the customers under the bus, but you didn't enjoy doing it. 

You woke up from your second nap of the day around four. It was still light outside, but just barely. The clouds were making the sky a dull blue. Your hair is a mess, tangled around you. Just by the way it feels against your face, you can tell it probably looks like you accidentally left your windows down at the carwash. Your body is achy and tired. These naps are not exactly refreshing; more depressing than anything else. 

It takes you a moment to realize that your phone has been buzzing. You look at the screen through sleepy eyes. 

No... Jake. 

He’s calling you. The buzz buzz buzz continues as you stare blankly at the screen. Pick. me. up! Answer. The. phone! You tap the screen, sending him to voicemail. That lumpy feeling is happening in your throat again. You feel the sting of emotions wanting to bubble out. Everything you have ignored since Sunday wants to be thrown out. You take your palms and hold them over your eyes, pressing hard; trying to physically repress your tears. 

Buzz buzz buzz. Buzz buzz buzz. 

His name is flashing again over your phone. No! You grab your phone and tap voicemail again. The tears are coming now. They burn going down the sides of your face. The skin is still raw from Saturday night’s blubbering. You use your arms to wipe the tears as fast as they are coming. Your breath is shaky, uncontrolled. You breathe in deeply and try to hold everything in for another moment; trying to collect yourself. 

Buzz buzz buzz… Buzz buzz buzz. 

“No!” You yell. You grab your phone and throw it into the pile of laundry on the other side of the bed. The faint buzzing continues, only now muffled on the clothes. The burn of feelings is crushing you. Rising again, forcing the heaving and uneasiness to return. You collapse into your hands, holding your face and allowing the tears to fall around you. You lower your head into your lap, folded and compressed in your distress. 

Beep! Beep!

Can you get one fucking second? Some idiot out in the parking lot is deciding now is the perfect time to be honking their horn. Do they not realize this is an apartment complex? It's not your friend’s house, it’s a fucking community of people who don’t want to hear that you’re impatient.

Beeeeep! Beeeeep!

You grunt, exhaling as much negativity into your groan as humanly possible. You remove your hands from your tear-soaked eyes and sit up from your stupor. The sadness inside of you is quickly forming into an aggressive mood, overwhelmed by all the excitement. You swing your legs over the bed and angrily stomp over to the window, forcing the glass up to give this asshole a piece of your mind. 

“Shut the fuck up!” You yell. 

A familiar voice shouts back up to you, “Maybe if you answer your fucking phone!”

You look down to the parking lot to find him there. Jake. In the same spot as he was Friday night. His arm is reached over to the horn, temping another honk. In his other hand, he’s waving his phone at you. He’s wearing black linen pants, a distressed t-shirt, and wearing sunglasses to block any emotions from his eyes. He looks so good.

Seeing him after all of this is painful. You want to jump out of the window and let him take you. The sneaky twinge of jealousy and frustration consumes any feelings of absolving him. You made your decision for a reason. 

“No!” You yell back to Jake and slam the window shut. 

You return to the bar, and Jake is clearly behind on orders. Breathe. Walk over to him. 

“Give me something,” You say, watching him line up the tickets. 

He hands you three orders. Beer, beer, and oh more beer. Easy. You slide over to the tap again and start pouring. 

“Hey!” Jake yells to you over the crowd and music, “Last time, you sure you’re good?”

You fill the glass and place it down in front of you. Freezing again, trying to collect yourself. Whenever someone asks if you’re good, they clearly know that you are not. That question pushes even a person who is good to a breaking point. But it was especially pushing you, someone who wasn’t good. No, you were not good. No. Not at all. He is the perfect specimen. The perfect gentleman. The perfect lover. Except, he wasn’t perfect. He was hiding. Lying. Holding back from you. 

You were also probably being delusional and tipsy at this point which didn’t help your feelings towards him. You wanted to still give your heart away to him, even if he stabbed it, broke it, and kicked it around. 

“Not right now,” You look at him, seeing genuine concern in his eyes, “Not now Jake, okay?”

He swallows and nods. 

Maybe he did know that you knew. 

Shut up. You’re spiraling. 

Why the fuck is he here? What is he doing?! What are you doing? You walk over to the bed and fold in half over the mattress. Screaming softly into the comforter. The sheets and mattress vibrate your aggression. You weren’t ready for another confrontation. It was easier to try and ignore everything and let the world slowly collapse in on you. What the fuck?!

Buzz buzz buzz... Buzz buzz buzz. 

Ignore it. You’re still upset. You don’t have anything to say to him, and if you tried to now, you’re not entirely sure what would come out of you. 

Beep! Beep!

Dont. Don’t engage. Remember, don’t give into his control.

Buzz buzz buzz... Buzz buzz buzz. 

Fuck! 

You clamor over the bed to reach for your phone, sprawling out in despair. His name is flashing across your screen, you try to use all of your willpower to not answer. But you cave, sliding to answer. 

“What?!” You snap into the phone.

“Come outside,” He commands.

“You know Jake,” You try not to sound choked up, “I’m really not in the mood.”

“Just come outside.” His voice sounds sincere, “Please?”

Your heart drops upon hearing his tone. Maybe he’s going to apologize. Maybe he’s going to make it alright. 

“Fine.” You reply through grated teeth. 

You don’t even bother to dress yourself. Some might consider this look cozy fashion. Grey sweats, band T-shirt, messy hair. You’re practically dressed for a night out! Anger really brings out a moody sarcastic version of you.  

You begrudgingly head out into the hallway, each step forceful trying to extinguish the anger. You push past the glass doors and head down the steps into the parking lot. You walk over to him, head hanging low, trying to avoid his eyes. You take your last step in his direction, stopping and planting yourself a few feet away from him. You cross your arms, trying to physically exude your uncomfortable feelings. You look up at Jake. 

He’s matching you, standing with his arms crossed. Waiting for you. He seems disappointed in your attitude and probably also your attire.

“Get in the car.” He points to the open passenger-side door. 

“Why?” You grill. 

He walks over to the driver’s side and opens his door to get in. 

“C’mon,” He presses, “Just get in the car.” 

You drop your arms and give in to Jake. You resent how easily you cave into him, especially after everything that’s happened. Everything you’ve been mulling over. 

The last call finally happens around one. For the most part, the bar is emptying, the music has stopped and only the hushed voices of dates & friends remain. Jake hasn’t checked in on you since you kind of told him to back off. You felt bad for being mean to him when he was trying to be nice to you, but you didn’t want anything else to come out accidentally. 

You start to wipe down the counters and collect the empty glasses. Jake finishes closing out tabs and trying to rush people out. 

Chris walks over to Jake and whispers something to him. Jake is visibly disappointed in what Chris is telling him. You listen closely, trying not to be obvious. 

“Not tonight Chris.” Jake pleads. 

“C’mon bud,” Chris begs, “Last time. It’s an emergency.”

“Fine. Fine.” Jake points his finger to Chris, “Last time I’m saving your ass.”

Chris passes over the keys to the bar and Jake snatches them from his hand; shoving them in his pocket and walks over to you.

“I gotta close up. Can you stay?” He asks. 

I guess staying would provide the perfect opportunity for alone time with Jake. “Yeah,” you respond.

The car ride has been completely silent. You didn’t dare to break the tension. You didn’t have anything left to say to him unless he had something to say to you. 

You catch a glance of yourself in the sideview mirror. Yikes. You don’t look so good. Your eyes are red and puffy, your hair is clearly unbrushed, and you look miserable. Fair, considering how you’ve spent the last few days, but still not your usual polished self. You turn to look at Jake. His hair is doing that stupid perfect windswept thing again. Fuck. You look away and watch the road. 

You have no idea where he’s taking you and you’re starting to get concerned about that… The usual houses & buildings on each side have started to stagger, each mile becoming more remote. 

You walk back to the office to put the cash register drawers in the safe. Chris left it open for you so he wouldn’t have to give out the passcode. You drop them in the safe, and each box clamors down into the metal box. You push the door shut and lock the electronic safe. 

You walk back out into the hallway, trying to prepare yourself for your next move. You know the bar is empty now, the tasks are done. Jake is finishing returning the stools underneath the bar. Instead of immediately pouncing at him, you walk over to the bar and take two clean rocks glasses out. You pull a bourbon off the shelf and pour each of you a drink. He looks at you, confused for a moment. 

“Jake… Please sit,” You ask. The tones of disappointment are hard to shake now that the right time has come. 

You put down his drink and pass it towards him across the bar. He sits down on the stool and accepts the glass from you. 

“What?-” He begins to ask. 

“Jake.” You cut him off, “Mariella said something to me.”

The words are out. The anxiety is consuming you. The rage, the confusion, the insecurities, the frustration, all of it taking you entirely. Your arms are shaking. Your legs feel wobbly and unsure if they can hold you. A pit drops in your stomach. It feels like you’re the first car on a rollercoaster, heading straight down, closing your eyes, hoping you don’t fly off the tracks. You try your best to maintain eye contact with Jake, analyzing every facial muscle, and trying to read him. 

He takes a sip of the bourbon, holding it in his mouth a moment, before taking one big gulp. “What did she say?”

He’s too calm for your liking. He doesn’t even seem to be bothered at the thought of Mariella talking to you. Are you overreacting? You don’t like the way this situation is making you feel. 

“She said,” You take a deep breath, trying to not sound shaky or upset, “Well, she said you were at her house last night.”

You wash down the words with a swig of alcohol, trying to mellow yourself out. 

“Maybe you shouldn’t be-” Jake reaches for your glass, and you snap your hand back, clutching the drink to your chest. 

“Jake.” You scold. Reminding him he should be responding to your statement, not trying to baby you. 

He sighs and covers his mouth, rubbing his face. His expression gives away signs of guilt. He looks down at the counter, taps a few fingers, and looks back up to you, “Yes. I was at her house last night.”

Fuck. 

A flurry of raw emotion floods you. You grip the edges of the counter, holding on for dear life. You bite your lip to try and keep it from trembling. Your eyes are welling up and you feel stupid standing like an idiot in front of him. You were an idiot to think that he was yours. You were an idiot to think that someone like him could want just you. You were an idiot to think that he wasn’t trying to seduce any other coworkers. You were an idiot for not getting to him sooner. And you were an idiot for letting him have you. 

“After you saw me?” You croak. Your voice is unfortunately shaking, unable to prevent the upset tone from presenting itself. 

“Yes.” His answers are cold, stripped of any warmth.

Shit. You idiot. You’re so stupid. Of course, he went to her after you. That’s why he rushed out in a panic, scared to disappoint her. You choke down the remainder of your bourbon. 

“Why?” 

“I had to.” He states. 

“What the fuck does that mean?” Your answers are starting to be harsher, the alcohol pushing you into a mean-spirited tone. You’re frustrated and angry that he’s not comforting you, that he’s only doing the bare minimum. 

“Hey,” He snaps. “Nothing happened.”

“Oh really?” You snap back, “You want me to believe after seeing how she reacted, and how quick you were to rush out last night that nothing happened?...” Jake sits there for a moment, taking in your punches. Not fighting back, not saying anything, “I believe it was you who once said nothing doesn’t mean nothing, Jake.”

Jake exhales, trying to keep his cool exterior, which is pissing you off even more, “If I say nothing happened, I mean it.” 

You grab your face in your hands. Trying to hold yourself together a little longer. The echoes of his words and Mariellas echo in your head. You feel ashamed, you feel alone. You want him to reach across the bar and tell you everything is all right and that you’re his, and you don’t have to worry about her. That he wants you to be his, that he needs it. That no one else in the world has compared to you, that he’s been waiting for the right time to tell you. 

But now this complicates everything. Your head is spinning. Gauging whether to trust him or to push him away. Your insecurities flood through you, reminding you that he wasn’t ready for this. He didn’t want the drama. He didn’t want the insecurity: he wanted easy, he wanted the chase, he wanted the fun. You couldn’t be easy when you knew all you could think about was him. And here you were now, thinking about him with someone else. 

The road ends in a small cul-de-sac by a nature trail. He shuts the car off and walks over to your door to open it. You sit further back into the seat, scared of the situation. Scared of his silence. 

“C’mon.” He reaches his hand out to you. 

You hesitate for a moment, meeting his eyes, showing your distaste. You grab his arm and let him lift you out of the seat. 

“What is going on?” Jake finally breaks your silence. 

You pull your head away from your dripping hands. You wipe them on the front of your jeans. 

“Jake I can’t do this.” You look dead into his eyes. 

“What are you talking about?” He asks. 

This feminine rage urges through you. You’ve been in his control for too long. You’ve let him call the shots, you’ve waited for him to make you his prey. You waited for him to text you first. You waited for him to make the first moves. You let him tell you what he wanted, and he let you forget what you needed. 

“Jake I don’t believe you!” You snap. Every inch of your heart is fracturing. You think about all the conversations you’ve had at the bar, every night you’ve worked together in harmony. Every moment where you’ve been close to him. Every moment you’ve been his. Only to be shot back down to one of his. “I have so many feelings about you, too many. I am jealous. I am upset that you didn’t stay the night still. I thought we were starting, I thought everything that I had hoped for was finally coming true. I have been waiting months for you to notice me. Every Saturday hoping you’d look at me a little longer than the last. I’ve lived the chase that you want so badly. I lived it every weekend, trying to play at every angle. I’ve been waiting for you, and you don’t even seem like you want me!”

Jake reaches to grab your arm, “Hey, why don’t you-”

“No! No Jake. I don’t want to calm down. I’m frustrated. I’m confused. I’m confused especially as to why you went to see Mariella last night. I’m confused as to why one of my friends is mad at me now. I’m confused as to why the boy I like was so worried about disappointing her and had to rush away from me to go see her. Something had to happen, and if it didn’t last night, it had before. And I am so hoping I’m not right. Because that would mean, you went behind her back to see me, and she went behind my back knowing I wanted you.”

You take a deep breath. Everything is on the table. Your poker face is gone. Your cool, chill, fun side is gone. You are upset. You’ve revealed yourself too early on. The liquid courage has taken its hold on you, becoming a truth serum. You feel so stupid for it all. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jake scoffs. He takes a swig from the bourbon. 

“That’s it?” You say through tears, “That’s all you can say to that?”

“What do you want me to say? You want me to be perfect?” He leans into you, “I am not going to be who you want me to be, ever.”

His tone is serious, and cold, and makes you want to crawl up and lay on the floor. You wipe the tears from your eyes, and walk around the bar to him, standing at his eye level. You put your finger on his chest, pinning him, “I don’t need you to be perfect, I just wanted you. And you fucking ruin it every time. No matter how well you ‘take care of me’ you only come around when you get something from it.”

“Don’t forget who started those games,” He pulls your finger off of his chest, “You think I didn’t see the way you looked at me? You’re telling me you weren’t in it for the sex either? You seemed to also really enjoy those moments.”

His digs hurt. He makes you feel small in this moment. You know he’s right. But that doesn’t excuse how hurt you still are. You do want him. You did need him. Sexually. The tension that has been fabricated in your chest was imploding. You take your hand back from Jake and stare at him for a moment. Both of you are full of rage… And lust. 

He grabs your waist firmly and pulls you into him. Your hair hangs over the edge of his face; you’re so close… You look down in his lap to see how restricted he is against his jeans. 

“Look at me.” He instructs. 

You lift your eyes to meet his. An insatiable look of malice and desire brews behind the brown. An intensity that you haven’t seen has grown inside of him. Every time he’s played this dominant role, you’ve known that he wasn’t actually angry or upset with you, but this time… This time it was different. You loved it. You loved how you could actually see something behind his eyes, see the passion; he felt something because of what you said. This moment of deep, intense passion is almost enough to make you forgive him, but you still aren’t ready to let go. 

“Jake,” You whine. 

He pulls you further into him, taking his hand to the back of your head, and pulling you into his lips; your faces mashing together. The anger is like an aphrodisiac, making his taste insatiable. He stands, kicking the stool back behind him. It clatters to the floor, sending echoes through the bar. He shifts his arm around from your head to your neck and holds it tightly between his grip. You pull away from him, trying to choke at the air. You reach up and grab out to his stomach, trying to paw at him. 

“You’re not going to do this to me,” He says through grated teeth. He relieves his hand from your neck and pushes you over the counter, your gut wedged into the counter. 

“Jake!” You exclaim. 

He brushes himself across your jeans, letting you know he’s taking control. He takes his hands and runs them across your thighs, up your legs, and across your stomach. He runs his fingers towards the button on your jeans, quick to undo it along with the zipper. 

“Not my name,” He barks to you. 

You feel burdened by the weight of the situation, but you can’t deny feeling his touch is softening the blow. He reaches down the front of your pants, his hands just barely meeting your warming clit. He uses his force to pull you back towards him. Allowing you to better feel his cock pressed against your ass.  

“Sir!” You yell. 

He backs himself away from you, and a quick pained smack raps across your ass. Tears start forming in your eyes. You close them, trying to hide the glossiness. 

“This is what my slut gets when she talks like that to me.” 

“Please!” You yell, through gasps. 

“Color.”

You know you can take it, and you know you want to take it. Feeling him want you is the only thing holding you. “Green!” You cry. 

Another quick hand marks your ass. You hold onto the counter for dear life. 

“Do you like feeling this way?” He asks, “Do you like being punished?”

You want to scream ‘no’. You don’t like making him angry, you want him to be happy with you. But secretly you both know that his dark side is more enticing. It's addicting. Having him act this way is the only way you know he wants you. He’s right you won’t get a soft Jake, you won’t get the perfect boyfriend. But that’s not what you want right now. You want this frustration to be taken from you; taken from him too. Most importantly you know having him this way is the reason you’re starting to get wet. “Yes!” You squeal. You prepare yourself for another hit, but nothing comes. 

You start to lift yourself back up, easing your gut away from the rounded counter. Before you can even get inches off the surface, a hand comes down on your head, pressing your face into the cold wooden bar. The smell of cleanser is burning your nose. You feel everything in that moment. The counter that’s pressing into you, the stickiness of it attaching to the side of your face, the strong hand holding you down, and your body collapsing over his will. Jake assumes his mounting position behind you again, leaning into your ear. 

“When will you ever learn?” He asks. 

“Never sir,” You spit back between pressed lips. 

Jake scoffs and releases his hand from your head, moving it down to the small of your back. He takes his hand and yanks your pants down to your ankles. Your ass is bare and red, presenting itself to him. 

He takes his free hand to bring it back to your front, dancing his fingers over your tender clit. You can feel the warmth, the wetness, growing. Your brain is telling you that this is what you need, “This,” He says, applying pressure, reaching further down your pussy, “Is mine.”

“Sir-”

“No.” He barks back, “Color.”

“Green…” You whine. You know you want this. You want him. You need his touch, need to feel secure in this moment. The thoughts of him you’ve been having are consuming you, you want your jealousy to be fucked out of you entirely. 

You hear the jingle of his belt as he takes off his own pants. You dare not move or open your eyes to see. He’s groaning softly, you can hear him start to take himself into his hand. You listen to him lubricate himself, the wet sloshing sounds filling your ears, hearing each pump of his cock in his hands. He presses himself against you again, meeting the threshold of your needy heat. He takes his hands and rubs them over your hips, making large slow movements over your body. He’s teasing you entirely. 

He knows what he wants to do to you, but he has to make it as painfully slow as possible. He rolls his hand over your hips and begins directing towards your cunt. Each second that passes is getting slower, and slower until he slips his middle and ring finger inside of you. 

You gasp, not expecting his fingers to breach you so soon. He takes his other hand to grab your face, his fingers sprawled out on either side of your jaw. “See?” He asks. He slides his fingers out from you, and you open your eyes, “You want this…” He lifts his fingers to show you the dripping wet digits, “You’re already wet for this.”

He’s right, you are. You knew it all night, every glance at him made you want him more. When he saved you from that asshole you wanted him right then. You had been fighting your need for him to touch you. Each moment that he wasn’t touching you, you wanted him more. 

“I know sir,” You reply. 

He takes the fingers and puts them in your mouth. You take them in, suckling up to the knuckles. His rough fingers linger in your mouth for a moment, making sure that you take everything in. He slides them out of your mouth and proceeds to move them back between your shaking legs. He doesn’t insert them, but rather teases your clit, touching just lightly enough to drive you mad. 

“This is what you get,” He snaps. 

Without warning his cock breaches you, and he is by no means gentle with you. Pushing himself in, the hilt of his shaft meeting your body. He grunts aggressively feeling you envelop him completely. A sharp breath escapes you, feeling completely unprepared for his size. He’s stronger, rougher than he had been with you before. A new energy has taken him.

He grabs hard onto your hips, taking a hold you know will leave marks worse than before. He’s using your body as leverage to rock himself in and out of you. Each stroke comes at you harder, pushing your body further into the counter. He’s fucking you into oblivion. 

“Please!” You moan. 

He starts to pick up his motion, pounding you harder against him. Your groans are loud, echoing through the empty bar. Your unprepared pussy is aching, feeling yourself stretch over him, trying to adapt to his size. With minimal warm-up, he’s testing your body's limits. Your knuckles are red and tight squeezing on the edges of the counter. Your breath is sustained to limited gasps, unable to take in too much with the counter being wedged underneath you. Bouncing forward, face gripping to the bar, knowing there would be no way to make yourself more comfortable. 

Jake reaches up and grabs a chunk of your hair, pulling it back from your scalp. You’re arched completely, stomach tightened against the edge of the bar. You adjust your hands to try and hold yourself from completely cutting your stomach off. He reaches his other hand under your stomach, finding a new way to leverage himself further in you. 

“Fuck!” You gasp. 

“Color!” He demands. 

“Green!” Your whole body is in blissful agony. Not feeling any pain, but pure raw pleasure. He’s swiveling his hips, moving his cock inside of you. Each stroke forcefully passes over your g-spot, sending signals of complete dopamine to your brain. 

His soft deep grunts are signaling he’s close, and you are too. The pounding is becoming overstimulating; needing a release. You moan with each pump, letting him know you're on the brink of boiling over. He releases your hair and scoops you up by your neck, not grabbing it but holding it upwards to maintain his positioning. 

Through ragged breaths, he still tries to control you, “You don’t cum… until I do.” 

“Please, sir!” You protest. You can feel the heat and building happening within you. Your legs grow weaker, shaking against his body. You squeeze onto anything your hands can reach, his arm, the counter… You almost can’t hang on. You tighten yourself and try to hold back any orgasm. The night has been needing a release like this, a moment of selfish pleasure. You wanted him to use you like this, to remind you that he still wanted you. 

“Fuck!” He wails. In a few last pumps, he spills into you, and you let yourself go. Completely. A loud pleasured moan escapes from your lips. Your body convulses at the final feeling. A warm hot burn caressing you, sending tingles through your muscles. Your body collapses in his arms as the two of you mix together. 

He places you on the counter gently, careful to not let your head completely smack against the surface. He slowly pulls out of you, both of you gasping at the over-stimulating sensation. You watch him from the corner of your eye, trying to regain your breath. 

He carefully tucks himself back into his jeans and falls back onto the stool. You pry yourself from the counter and slowly pull your jeans back on. The feeling of denim pressing against your aching pussy doesn’t feel great, but you’d rather not be the only one still showing off. 

The release you had been wishing for finally came, but you didn’t feel the sour memory of dishonesty leave with the pleasure. The feelings of euphoria start to pass. Washing away from you like a tide being pulled in. The satisfaction swooshes away from you, leaving behind the mess that it had tried to cover. 

The clarity of the situation clouds back over you, still wondering about the unanswered questions. Feeling him take you was exactly what you wanted, but it still didn’t give you everything you needed. He did want your body, but it wasn’t clear whether he wanted you. He didn’t tell you the full truth or really answer anything. All he did was attempt to distract you so you’d shut up and forget the whole thing. 

The lust has quickly left your body and mistrust begins to consume you again. You try to engage with him after this moment, hoping that maybe the sex will have loosened him up. You walk over to him; he’s nursing a few sips of the remaining bourbon, trying to calm himself. His breathing is deep, exhausted. You reach out to him, and he grabs your hand to pull you towards him, wedging your legs between his. 

You reach out to move the hair out of his face, lightly brushing your fingers across his forehead, moving the airborne pieces back to their rightful place. A ritual of sorts for you two. You pat down his head, matting his hair back into shape. Trying to find the courage to speak again.  

“Jake…” You coo, “What was going on with you and Mariella?” 

He pulls his head away from your hand and looks at you with a disgusted expression.

“Nothing.” He replies, still in his dominant form. “You have to get over this.”

He had you where he wanted you. But you also had him cornered in a lie. You know if he can’t even tell you what happened, then he was hiding behind an excuse. The rage is starting to fill you again. Any progress that was made from your earlier fulfillment was gone, the envy was in full effect. You deserved the truth. Considering how much of yourself you’ve given to him; your body, your control, your thoughts… All of it belonged to him, and he couldn’t even amuse you with the truth. 

You pull away from his legs, scoffing, brewing with irritation. You wrap your hands around your face, trying to clasp onto the last bits of sanity that remained

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” You throw your hands in the air towards him, “You can’t even answer that question? After I just did all of that for you?” 

“For me?” He scoffs, “You were the one getting worked up so I would do that to you!”

“No Jake, I wasn’t getting worked up so you would fuck me!”

Jake stands to assert himself again, “Sure seemed like it…”

“No, that’s not what that was. I didn’t want this to be the outcome, but after the fact, I was hoping that one little moment of intimacy would maybe compel you to tell me the fucking truth.”

“I don’t even know what else to tell you.” He sits back down on the stool, dismissing your worries, voiding his emotions. 

“Fuck this.” Tears stream down your eyes. “Fuck you, Jake! You lead me on, you make me feel important, and you can’t even do me the justice of telling me the fucking truth! I’m just an easy fuck for you huh? One of your little sluts you can toy and play with!” The anger is crescendoing, “Fuck you for making me feel this way!”

You swivel and turn to leave the bar. The tears stream over your eyes and your breath becomes ragged. Each step away from him feels like it takes forever. It feels like you’re walking away from the most important thing that’s happened to you. You’re walking away from the passion, from the beauty, from the sincerity. In just a few days Jake had made you feel like no other man had, he meant more to you than he probably even realized. He couldn’t even see how much of an impact he’s made on you, and judging by his reaction, maybe you’ve done nothing to him. Each step is a soft goodbye from a future with Jake, but it's also a goodbye to pure trouble. 

A loud shattering sound pops up behind you. You snap your neck to see the cause. Jake had smashed his drink; the amber liquid mixing in with the shards on the bar floor. Jake doesn't linger to see the mess he made, instead already heading out to the front door. The trail of glass stays put behind him. 

His anger pains you. His upset pains you even more. His reaction means that there was more to say, but you wouldn’t listen and he wouldn’t tell you. 

You run out the back door into the cold fall night. The breeze frosting the wet edges of your eyes. You feel so stupid, so dramatic. The whole world is imploding on your heart. 

He pulls you through the trail, practically tugging your wrist the whole way through. At this point, you’d wished that you put on better shoes, or maybe brought bug spray. Each step brings a crunch of fresh fallen leaves underneath your feet, clinging onto your fuzzy slippers. 

“Jake-” 

“Wait,” He says, pulling you harder through the brush. 

The trees get scarce, opening up to more sky. Before long, a field appears in front of you. The grass is tall, crisp, and dying, brushing past the legs of your sweats. The wind is blowing a soft chill breeze; the same autumn air that woke you on that Thursday morning and the same air that touched you Saturday night. 

He yanks you through, creating a path through the green. The ground is soft beneath your slippers; the damp dirt creates a light brown halo around the edges of your soles. Still being pulled by your wrist you try your best to keep up with his large strides through the grass. It feels like you are being waded through a pool of brush, slowly drowning through the field. He grabs at you harder and pulls you nearly off of your feet. 

“Jake!” You protest, yanking your arm back from his grip.

He turns to look at you. You grab your wrist and massage it, trying to ease the light red marks on your wrist. He looks bashful for a moment, seeing the dull pain he caused. He takes a deep breath and paces closer to you. 

“Yell.” He commands. 

You look up from your wrists a shoot him a confused look.

“What?!”

“What are you upset about?” 

“Jake,” You challenge, “I don’t want to do this right now, take me home.”

“I’m not taking you home yet. I asked what you’re upset about.”

You sigh and throw your hands down. You feel like a child whose parents just asked them to tell them about their feelings. This whole situation feels childish. “Jake I’m upset because I feel like I’m not the only one you're sleeping with and that makes me jealous.”

“Okay, and?”

You growl. Seeing him so calm again presents flashbacks to Saturday night. Tossing your stomach around like a punching bag. A welling of tears starts to present behind your eyes, but you try to breathe through it, “And!” You try to hold back the choking, but it's becoming visibly more noticeable, “And I’m mad about that because if something did happen, then you weren’t honest with me, and my friend wasn’t honest with me.”

He crosses his arms for a moment, watching you. It makes you feel uneasy when he does this, you feel insane; like he’s judging you for having real emotions. He gestures out into the field, “You’re mad at me, so yell.”

“Jake, I’m done yelling.” You admit defeat. “Can I go home now?”

“No.”

“Jake.” 

“If you’re done, then is it my turn to yell?” He asks. 

You fear for what he has to say. He could very easily make you look like an overdramatic woman, putting thoughts into your head, and making it all up. In some ways maybe you were, but you always knew when your gut was right and something was going on. If that’s really why he brought you here, then you definitely made the right decision to get out. 

You try to soften your tone and prevent any backlash from him, “Jake…”  

He takes in a deep breath and turns away from you to scream into the distance. His anger trailing with the wind, being carried away in a gust. It's a long and painful yell. Deep, full of frustration, and tension. He trails off, breaking his voice. The long note extinguishes with a sweep of the calling air.

He clears his throat and turns to you. 

“It's your turn now.”

“No!” You exclaim. 

You stand clenching your fists. You want to yell. You really do. You’re so angry about everything too. Angry for letting your lust get in the way of a real conversation. Angry that Mariella is somehow holding one over you. Angry that Jake couldn’t admit anything. Angry for telling yourself to stay away. Angry that you feel alone. Angry…

You rotate away from Jake and let out a gut-wrenching wail. Saturday night bubbles through you. 

“Fuck this.” Tears stream down your eyes. “Fuck you, Jake! You lead me on, you make me feel important, and you can’t even do me the justice of telling me the fucking truth! I’m just an easy fuck for you huh? One of your little sluts you can toy and play with!” The anger is crescendoing, “Fuck you for making me feel this way!”

Friday night surges through. 

“Yes,” He answers. He beams at you, letting you soak in his happiness, “Be good for me until then, okay?” He pulls you in for one last kiss. When he breaks away, he looks at you another moment before rubbing your cheek and turning away. 

Watching him leave is always depressing. This night confirms your feelings for Jake are far past just sexual. The promise of seeing him tomorrow is the only thing keeping you together. 

Thursday morning’s pain seeps out last. 

“Jake, stop!” you yell to him, scared he might actually leave. His hand is on the knob but he's not turning it. “Why didn’t you stay?” You finally asked it. 

Your anger for being alone is releasing itself. Your anger at Jake is releasing. He’s brought you here, he came for you. 

You let the cry echo through the field. The wind taking your sorrows away, cleaning your spirit with a bitter touch. You drop to your knees; just barely catching yourself with your hands. Jake walks over to you and puts his hand on your shoulder. He uses you as a crutch to lower himself next to you. 

“This is where I come when my bandmates piss me off,” He explains. You turn to look at him. Your head is clear, but your eyes are glossing over. “This is where I came Saturday night.”

You rest your hand on his knee, “I just wanted you to tell me the truth,” You cry. 

“I know,” He turns to meet your eyes, “You were right. It wasn’t nothing.” You pull your hand from his lap and turn further towards him to engage in his honesty. “Mariella and I did sleep together… Once….” He seems ashamed to admit the truth, “It was after my first week at the bar before I met you.”

“Oh.” You’re disappointed to hear the truth finally come out. You hoped deep down that something really never happened. You hoped that Jake hadn’t given into Mariella’s vixen-like nature. Jake looks down, embarrassed. 

“She wouldn’t leave me alone after that. She kept calling me and texting me. I played along for a little, trying to prevent things from being awkward... But then I met you,” He reaches for your hand, “And I knew I wasn’t ready for anything so I didn’t know what to do.” He passes his fingers over your hand. It's undeniable that he’s not used to being this vulnerable. His hands are warm and shaking slightly, “So I waited, and tried to keep Mariella quiet.”

He finally looks back up to you, an awkward and unsettled look flashing across his face. “Then the band really started to play more, and I knew the bar had their live music on Wednesdays… and I knew you always went. I asked Chris to let us play since he owed me anyway. He told me we could have that Wednesday and he let us take the time.

“When the night finally came, I hoped that you would still show up. I selfishly thought that maybe you only came in on Wednesdays to hang out with me, but I was proven wrong.” You laugh, knowing that he was far from the truth on that, “When I saw you at the bar, ugh. I finally had to take you home that night. I could see the way you were looking at me and I just knew I had to do something about it. I’m not the kind of guy who likes waiting.”

 “For someone who doesn’t like waiting, you sure seem to drag a lot of unwanted stuff out,” You blurt.

He sits there for a moment gritting his teeth through an embarrassed expression. “Fair point… You really knocked me off my game. As soon as I figured out you had a thing for me, I got all weird.”

You blush, hearing him talk about you like this is new and different; the kind of Jake you can trust. You play with him a little to lighten the mood, “How could you possibly figure out that I liked you?”

“It was quite obvious. Do you realize how bad of a staring problem you have?” He jokes.

You gawk at him, stunned by the truth, and push his arm. “Shut up!” You feel the color rising in your cheeks. 

He laughs and his usual Jake smirk splays across his face. It felt good to see him smile like that again. 

“I just knew that night, things would be different. I didn’t want to stay because I wasn’t sure if I was ready for it all at once- I’m still not sure if I am. But I felt even more guilty laying in your bed that night because I knew Mariella still wanted something from me too. I didn’t want to give you too much before closing that off completely. I didn’t want her to get any ideas. She already knew we went home together that night and was pissed.”

“She should be fucking jealous,” You joke, nudging him.

He laughs, and smiles smugly, “She was, trust me…” He looks up to the sky, “I told her I would talk to her Friday night,” He looks back at you, “Before you got all horny and texted me.”

“Oh my god!” You playfully push him again. 

He laughs again, squeezing your hand harder, “Trust me if I didn’t have to go tell her off, I would’ve been there with you all night… I saw that puzzle in your kitchen and it was killing me to not finish it.” 

You smile at him. Thinking about a domesticated form of Jake makes your heart warm. A possibility. “That puzzle still isn’t done.”

“Perfect.” He pulls you into his lap. Holding you softly, resting his arms over the tops of your thighs, “But before we do that puzzle, I have to tell you the rest of my story, okay?”

“Okay.”

He holds the side of your face to turn it to his. “I told her that I wanted you. Okay? She’s jealous that I chose you… Did you hear that? I chose you, okay?”

Your heart is finally lifting out of the hole. The dirt that you once sat in was growing fields of flowers, healing you. He’s lifting you out of the hole, stretching out his hand to grab you, closing the gap. “Okay…”

“I’m not saying I’m ready to be your perfect happy sweet boyfriend or whatever, okay? But there is no one else, and I’m sorry if you thought that.”

I’m sorry. The words you had been craving. He was owning up. It felt like a massive bandage across your heart. He might not be able to give you everything you needed, but this was becoming a fairytale. Sitting in this field with him was serene, healing, natural… 

It was your turn to apologize next. 

“I’m sorry for yelling at you. I should have trusted you.” You melt into his shoulder. 

“I shouldn’t have been such an asshole… Oh, and don’t worry, I’ll get you back for the yelling.” 

The sun is starting to set around you. This moment is pure bliss. It's soul-cleansing. He’s brought you to a space of his own, cleared his mind with you, cleared his conscience. It felt good to forgive him. 

“Do you want to come over to my place?” He asks, rubbing your shoulder. 

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Taglist!: (I love and appreciate all of you for wanting to be on this)

@jakekiszkasbuttsweat @ohgodthefeeling-gvf @gretavansara @sanguinebats @awkwardlyamazing2000