#I was going to do a video but it wasn’t working

[phantomsies]

𝖓𝖊𝖝𝖙 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖓𝖙 • 𝖆.𝖆𝖗𝖙𝖑𝖊𝖗𝖙

your biggest fan soons becomes your biggest obsession….

black onlyfans creator!reader (fem descriptions), nerdy!armin, public sex/public masturbation, squirting, mentions of toys, exhibitionism, throatfucking, cumshot

📝: I wanted to go a completely different direction with this but a) it’s no longer kinktober and it would’ve much better suited that and b) nerd!armin just scratches an itch in my brain I can’t quite put my finger on. So enjoy! 🫶🏾 (also, I AM SO SORRY THIS SHIT IS SO LONG 😭😭 I don’t intend on headcanons being this length but I can’t shut the fuck up.)

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nerd!armin had been a dutiful subscriber of (y/n) (l/n)’s or as the world knew you, (performer name) for quite some time. He’d faithfully watched your content, never missing an upload to your sites and shamelessly scrolling your Twitter.

nerd!armin preferred your videos over others because they were so unique. Always willing to push the envelope by shooting in unconventional spaces; your car, public bathrooms and even dressing rooms..a polar opposite to his shy, bashful nature. In a way, he was jealous but also aroused..

from your long acrylics, fluffy lashes, colorful hair that changed from video to video and of course, the beautiful, dark brown complexion that radiated underneath the sun or ring lights, nerd!armin was obsessed.

nerd!armin would lie in bed after a long study session, classes or even a hard day at work..mindlessly stroking his cock in one hand as he held his phone in the other, eyes glued to the screen whilst you performed those lewd acts.

shoving those dildos in and out of your tight cunt, those pretty pink walls and plump brown lips sucking on that silicone toy..stretching yourself open all for his pleasure. A jeweled butt plug shoved into your ass and cream oozing down onto that gorgeous skin and the leather of your seats as you worked yourself into countless orgasms..mewling and begging for the would be viewer to keep fucking you..

“Fuck, I’m about to come, daddy..you’re gonna make me squirt.” Crying out as nerd!armin jerked himself even faster..subconsciously responding back without a single other person being in the room. ”Squirt for me, baby. Come..” Whimpering before exploding with a load of his own..

despite only being an intern, nerd!armin was well off from his freelancing tech work and although it didn’t leave him much room for socializing, he would tip you amicably on all the new content, as well as leave kind, respectful, encouraging words. It wasn’t something you saw often in this field.

it also didn’t take nerd!armin long to realize that you never featured a partner in any of your content like some girls eventually did. Only the various assortment of toys gifted to you by supporters. Which only further fed his delusions when you made a mess and glared into the camera, batting those doe brown eyes before saying “..look at what you made me do..that big dick feels so good..”

nerd!armin, who had only been with one woman sexually in his entire life and didn’t date often, could only dream of being with a girl like you.

so it came as no surprise when you announced that you would be opening a contest to film with one of your subscribers for the first time, nerd!armin leaped at the chance! The thought of getting to fuck the woman he’d hopelessly fawned over excited him.

nerd!armin nearly fainted when he got a DM on OnlyFans one day to see that he had won, asking when he’d like to arrange the meetup.

nerd!armin was understandably nervous on the day you two came face to face..but felt as ease when you continuously reassured him and even made sure that both of you had been tested, as well as protection.

“You’re so cute..it’s nice to finally meet you. Thank you for supporting me..” your gentle voice sent a shockwave of butterflies soaring through nerd!armin’s stomach as you wrapped him in a tight hug…and of course, a tightening in his pants upon laying eyes on his favorite creator. But that was merely the beginning.

nerd!armin found himself blushing when you slowly traced circles all over his skin, examining the single tattoo on his forearm and complimenting the smell of his cologne as the two of you sat alone in the bedroom of the designated filming space of your spacious home. Impressed by the bookshelves full of old literature he passed on the way in.

“Mmmm..you’re nervous, aren’t you?” “…I guess you could say that.” “Well don’t be, I’m going to make sure we have a good time, I promise..”

nerd!armin had no idea just how true you were to your word when less than ten minutes after the camera came on, you were on your knees, tongue extended and a wide smile on your face as he towered over you.

nerd!armin could hardly contain himself when eventually, those glossy brims were now encompassed around his cock. Slurping noises emanating around the room, along with his adorable cries…sloppy drool and gag spit spilling from that wet mouth and onto the pulsating head, shaft and those swollen balls. Disregarding the fact that your pretty face had become a disheveled mess.

“Oh my God…that feels so good, beautiful. Your mouth feels fucking amazing..” “You wanna come for me, baby?” “..yes! Drain me, please..” pathetically pleading whilst relentlessly fucking your throat.

nerd!armin unabashedly spent days, practicing his stroke on a translucent flesh light, feeding it deep thrusts and stuffing it with an ungodly amount of cum, examining your videos like study material..in hopes of gaining some stamina against you.

but nothing could prepare nerd!armin for the sheer sensation that being inside of you brought upon him.. however, he wasn’t the only one caught off guard..especially when he’d gently tug your head down and force you to watch as he glided into that narrow hole.. a move he’d learn from his tapes.

“It’s so big..damn..” “I told you..” giggling to yourselves as your gazes met and he’d begin to move.

nerd!armin almost felt compelled to believe that you were faking your moans like other pornstars so often did…but that misconception was cleared up when your eyes began to trail back, legs began to tremble and a slight bulge formed at the very bottom of your stomach.

“Yes, you stretching the fuck out of this pussy, baby..right there!..” “Am-am I doing a good job?” “You fucking me so good, please don’t stop.”

nerd!armin nearly lost all composure when you all but pushed him away, only to shower him in a stream of your juices. Only increasing as he tapped that swollen tip against your quivering folds.

nerd!armin didn’t last more than five minutes after that powerful climax and began dry heaving as his own neared. Ushering you back to your knees to paint those pretty features and tits with his load.

nerd!armin was convinced that once the cameras shut off, you’d put him out for nutting too quickly. Surely a woman of your caliber would never deal with that again. But yet again, he was proven wrong when you smiled up at him, flicking your tongue across your lips before posing a question. “So..where should we should film next time? We gotta do this more often..”

nerd!armin had found himself the newest and sole object of (creator’s name) affection!

[mistresscitrusslice]

Thank you so much for going through the effort to even get screenshots! It’s seriously appreciated.

You make a good point, not least of which because this circle looks like a blast zone that came from within. It even pushed other bodies away. I’ve never seen Kindred gameplay, idk what their protective powers look like, but generally spells that are cast on you by someone else use the caster as the center of the spell, not the target. (Basically, the blast circle wouldn’t have been centered on Ambessa, but on the Wolf.)

The protected area around Mel and Jayce when they wake up doesn’t look like a blast zone the way it did with Ambessa (other than, you know, the Actual Bomb), so I’m not sure what to make of that.

I did not know that Ambessa had a bio already, let alone that included stuff from her music video! I thought she just had her blurb. It’s great that they clarified who she was pregnant with eventually. Uh, where’s Kino while she’s out at war then??? I imagine that Kino’s father was probably also a soldier and in the army too. Hopefully Kino was with relatives or family friends.

Also, Rokrund! It’s nice to get a name for the specific region Ambessa is from other than just the wider nation of Noxus. Is this a new name we’re hearing or has it appeared in any other League lore/media before?

“Visions that she would speak of to few others.” I wonder who those few are. Given how she treats her children, I cannot trust that even her kids are among these few. Their dad, maybe? I hesitate to say “Ambessa’s husband” because she definitely does not act like she has a husband, or maybe he’s deceased.

I plead the fifth on the Solari stuff because I know jack shit about the Solari, and if it turns out that Mel does have Solari magic, I do want to be surprised by their lore.

It still puzzles me why, if she does have magic, she wouldn’t use it to defend herself. You mentioned it being linked to situations with certain death. I’m iffy on this because it feels convoluted and kind of like a cop-out if that really is the reason can’t use it at will. If it is the case, though, then maybe Viktor wasn’t hurt because his magic clashed with hers, but because his death wasn’t guaranteed. I rewatched the opening scene, and he was still moving a little when Jayce performed Hexcore magic on him. If his death wasn’t certain, then the magic had no need to save him.

More likely, Mel’s magic has a cooldown and a long period where she needs to build enough magic back up to be able to use, but most likely, Mel doesn’t even know she has magic. There’s no sense in concealing her magic now, especially not after it saved herself and Jayce. Sure, it’d be a bad idea to come out about it to the world even after Piltover accepted Hextech since it would’ve been a secret for so long. However, I do believe she would’ve told Jayce. If not before, then definitely after it saved the two of them and Viktor still almost died.

Jayce needs as much information as he can get to figure out what’s going on with Viktor. Mel cares a lot about Jayce and seems to also care for Viktor even if she disagreed with him last season. She also has the same innate curiosity that Jayce and Viktor do. She’d want him to be able to solve this puzzle with all the information at his disposal and has been able to open up to him in the past with the trust that he would not share her secrets. She’d tell him so that they could figure out why her magic didn’t work as it was supposed to.

Unless there’s a reason we haven’t been told for why she needs to keep this hidden? If you squint your ears real hard, her line of “There’s no sense to these things, Jayce” in response to “How does the explosion do that to him and I just walk out without a scratch” sounds a bit like she’s trying to get him to drop the subject. After all, there is sense to these things for a scientist. There’s physics and calculations that go into why every single piece of debris falls in the way that it does. Which direction it flies in, how much heat is dispersed, the shock absorption in everything and every person in the blast radius, how far each person gets pushed across the room. To Jayce, “there’s no sense” might not be a comforting thing to hear. So was Mel just trying and failing to comfort him or was she attempting to change the subject? Or am I just reading too much into it?

Lmao imagine tho if Jayce found out she has magic, whether she already knew or not. He’d want to study her! And honestly she’d probably be down for it to find out even more ways to use her powers, maybe a way to replicate it with Hextech so more people can have a way to stay safe! That would actually be a good way to use Hextech to help people. And maybe Mel just has a scientist kink, who knows

Mel's protection should have saved Viktor too, and she's trying to figure out why it didn't

S2 ep1 shows a circle of protected stone where Mel and Jayce were during the explosion. My theory is that Mel's magic armor activated and saved them both. It seems like it casts a sphere of protection around wherever Mel is.

The center of this circle is not Mel's seat - it's Jayce's. She ran to Jayce to save him.

No other Councilors were in range of Mel's protection, so they all got hurt or killed.

But Viktor was, Jayce's words, "right next to" him. He was easily within Mel's circle of protection.

1) Viktor tried to run and mistakenly left the circle of protection. But are we meant to believe that Viktor, close to dying already and using a crutch, would have outrun Mel?

2) Viktor's augmented body clashes with Mel's

Why does Mel try to touch Viktor in episode 1? It seems like a throwaway moment, but not even Jayce touches him in this scene. So why Mel?

She's curious. And possibly, feeling responsible. She's wondering why her protection didn't work.

Is this Hexcore brand of the Arcane trying to reach out to Mel? Or trying to defend itself from her?

Mel was trying to protect both Jayce and Viktor, which is reflected in how she holds Jayce as well as Viktor's cane when she promises to protect Hextech:

But if, for example, Mel's magic is Solari in origin, and Viktor's is from the Void - or the Arcane equivalent of similar opposing forces - then it's possible that their magic rejects or hurts one another. So Mel's circle of protection either rejected Viktor, or was what hurt Viktor, and not the explosion.

[naughtyneganjdm]

Love's Second Chance: A Holiday Reunion - Chapter 1

Summary: Christmas time is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, but for Y/N it has become a lonely holiday now that she is a divorced mother. This Christmas, she gets looped into a love triangle with two lovers from her past, Joel Miller and Negan Smith, where the holiday brings all of them back together.

Characters: (in chapter 1) Joel Miller, Negan Smith (mentions), the reader (OC), Rosita Espinosa, Carol Peletier, Tommy Miller (mentions), etc.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60501985/chapters/154453672

Warnings: Alternate universe, swearing, angst, third person reader, female reader, reader is a mother, reader is divorced, reader was a teenage mother, reader is in her 30s, Joel and Negan have both been de-aged, etc. There is a mix of both TLOU and TWD characters. Please be sure to check the overall warnings on AO3, so you know what to expect!

Notes: I'm a fool for Christmas stories, so I'm back at it again this year. This time having a story featuring both Joel and Negan. Apparently my favorite duo! I will be updating this story three times a week until Christmas!

Remember Y/N means your name or whatever name you choose.

The warmth of a crackling fire. The scent of gingerbread, peppermint or a freshly put-up Christmas tree. It was amazing how many things could really start reminding you of Christmas. It was a time where those who celebrated would start to get excited for the festivities that were to come. Radio stations were playing Christmas music. Stores would be full with people shopping for both presents and food for their holidays. Christmas was always certain to draw out many emotions from people. Whether it was the excitement of the holiday, the events that you could go to, getting together with your family or just the whole genre all together.

Sometimes baking, decorating, planning and enjoying the overall atmosphere of Christmas could be a good distraction for someone who was going through a hard time. Right now that was the primary focus for Y/N. It was toward the end of her workday. Luckily, she got to work remotely from home so that meant she could also do other things at home when she had her breaks. Right now, the smell of gingerbread and sugar cookies were filling her home and she knew the timer would be going off any moment now. She was in the middle of a video call with her boss Carol and her best friend Rosita who had gotten her this job so many years ago when she was in need of one. What was supposed to be a rundown of the work they were getting done when Y/N went on vacation had become a talk between friends instead. Each person going over what they would be doing for the holiday.

“You seem distracted,” Rosita noted with Y/N looking back over her shoulder. Forcing herself to look back at the screen, Y/N realized that she must have checked on the timer too much. Rosita wasn’t one to pick up on things like that easily, so it had to have been a lot. “What are you up to now?”

“I’m just baking some cookies before the children get home,” Y/N was honest with the two. There was no reason for her to lie. She got her work done fast. In fact, she was the best worker in the business. Not that it was a great job or something entirely too complicated. It was just a data entry job that she had gotten when she was younger so that way she could help cover the bills. It wasn’t her dream job, but Y/N had gotten pregnant when she was seventeen and had her daughter when she was eighteen. That led to her not being able to get a degree until years later and it was just an associate degree from the local community college. At the time she got the job, she was desperately in need of a job that allowed her to be home with the baby and this one just happened to work out. Thankfully, Carol understood at the time because she had children as well and this job worked for her. Y/N always told herself that she would get a different job eventually. One that was better, but now her daughter was seventeen and she also had a son that was thirteen. She just got comfortable in the job that she was in and stayed. It wasn’t something to brag about, but at least she liked the people she worked with. And she got to stay home except for going into the office a few times a month. She couldn’t really complain. Especially when she got to be home to raise the children. “Their dad picked them up from school and they were supposed to be going out to eat with him.”

“I don’t know how you do it girl,” Rosita declared with a long sigh, adjusting her Bluetooth earphones that she was using over the video. “It’s super hard with just having Coco running around the house now. Yet, here you are baking cookies, decorating the house, being the amazing PTO mom for your children.”

“It’s a little different having teenage children than it is a toddler,” Y/N reminded her friend with a hesitant laugh. “I remember the days of Elizabeth and Peter being that age and it was hard. Sleep was not a normal thing during those days.”

“And suddenly I’m very happy that Sophia and Benjamin are in college and Henry is about to graduate,” Carol spoke up with a half-smile, throwing her hands up in the air when she spoke. “Kids are cute, but if I could do it all over again, I’m not sure I would.”

“Carol!” Rosita laughed making Y/N smile when her over the top boss continued to make a very dramatic expression. “I doubt Ezekiel would be happy hearing you say that.”

“What Ezekiel doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Carol placed her hand to her chest, and, in that moment the sound of the timer for the cookies was going off. “Alright ladies. We can sign off now so you can get to the rest of your day. Enjoy your holiday vacation, Y/N.”

Signing out of work and closing up her laptop, Y/N pushed back her chair and headed into the kitchen. It had been a few years since Y/N had really taken time off for herself. In the past she would have taken vacation time a lot, but not so much lately. That’s why she had taken it all at once. She had to take it, so it just made sense to do it at Christmas time. It gave her more time to focus on the children and enjoy the holiday.

Taking her cookies out of the oven, she set them out onto a rack to cool them. Preparing the frosting, she knew that the kids often liked to help so she was getting things ready for them. Likely, she would start the decorating of the cookies and they would help her finish. While the cookies continued to cool, she made her way around the house cleaning things up. The fireplace was on which gave a nice aura to the room that matched the lights that went with the heavily decorated tree in the corner of the living room. At the bottom of the tree was a toy train that her family had been collecting multiple pieces for since she was eighteen years old. It was a tradition to put it out every year. And each year they would try to add pieces to it. For Christmas, she had always tried to go out of her way to make it magical for her children. Being such a young mom, she wanted to do her best to make the holiday feel special for her children. At first, they didn’t have much, so she had to find ways to make things special and decorating was really the easiest way to do that.

Moving over toward the front window, there was a nook that was dawned with a Christmas village with extensive buildings and figurines that she had been collecting since she was younger as well. Each year she would buy one piece to add to it and it always looked really neat setting it up every year and lighting it up in the front window. Turning that on, she knew this was a daily thing. She got into the routine of things and it was just normal for her. Stockings were hanging in front of the fireplace and it just felt cozy for anyone that may have enjoyed Christmas.

Heading back into the kitchen, she started decorating the sugar cookies first. There were various shapes of candy canes, Santa hats, sleighs, stuffed bears, snowmen, reindeer and snowflakes. Those she figured her children would be less interested in decorating. It was usually the gingerbread men and women they had the most fun with.

The sound of the front door pushing open was heard and it made her smile when her son calling out to her followed, “Mom? Where are you?”

“In the kitchen kiddo,” she responded, raising her voice just enough. It was probably obvious where she was, but her son was very dramatic and liked to make his presence known. Hearing the sound of footsteps, she gasped when she felt a pair of arms wrapping around her and hugging her firmly from behind. Looking over her shoulder, she saw her son cuddling into her and it made her smile. “Hey Peter. How was school?”

“It was the last day before vacation, so great,” Peter offered up a big smile, his long eyelashes fluttering to an open. Y/N turned on her heel, brushing her fingers through her son’s dark hair and he gave her a weak smile. “I’m not supposed to tell you, but dad got me a big peppermint chocolate shake today at the diner. It was huge! It had sprinkles too.”

“Good job at keeping a secret,” Y/N heard the sound of her daughter coming into the kitchen. Elizabeth’s dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, her dark eyes connecting with her mother’s when she dropped her backpack down in the corner of the kitchen. “No one is going to trust you with a secret ever. I hope you know that.”

“I have a hard time lying,” Peter explained, moving in beside his mother to see all the cookies she had already decorated. “I’m going to be on such a sugar high tonight.”

“Maybe you don’t deserve to eat those cookies since you told on me,” a voice spoke up from the entrance of the kitchen making Y/N look back. “Ellie had my back. You on the other hand…”

“Liz. I want to be called Liz, dad,” Elizabeth corrected her father making him groan out in frustration, reaching out to pull his daughter in closer to him. A frustrated sound fell from Elizabeth with how hard her father was hugging her to his chest. “Dad! Come on!”

“You know she wants to be called Liz now, Joel,” Y/N corrected with a long sigh. It had the color flooding into Elizabeth’s face since both her parents weren’t really latching onto the whole Liz nickname. “I’m also aware of it, but I’m still having a hard time not calling her Elizabeth.”

“I reckon I’m never going to be able to remember this whole Liz thing,” Joel’s southern drawl lingered, his dark eyes narrowing when he lifted his hand to give Y/N a small wave. It had her returning the gesture watching Joel lean down to press a kiss against Elizabeth’s temple. Looking between the three of them, she let out a long sigh. The older the children got, the more they looked like their father. Joel’s genes were strong in both Elizabeth and Peter. They had his eye color, skin tone and hair color. The trio looked gorgeous on her daughter and her son looked like a mini version of Joel. Pretty close to what she remembered when she first met Joel. “You’re always going to be my Ellie. You should know that. No matter how old you get, or how uncool it is to call you that. I’ve been calling you Ellie since before you could walk.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” Elizabeth pat her father on the stomach playfully. Pulling out from beneath Joel’s arm, Elizabeth moved over to look at the cookies. Almost instinctively she reached for some of the decorating icing to start helping. Following in his sister’s footsteps, Peter started to help as well.

“I always loved this day,” Joel stammered, walking across the kitchen to step in behind Y/N. Lowering his head in beside hers, Joel let his breath linger against the side of her neck. The closeness of him surprised her as he stretched his arm out to grab one of the sugar cookies that hadn’t been decorated yet. Instead of pulling away, Joel turned in to press a kiss against her cheek and it had her eyes coming to a tight close. Once the warmth of him left, her eyes opened and she saw him resting back against the counter. Tipping his head back, he dropped the cookie into his mouth and groaned at the way it tasted. “Your cookies were always top notch.”

“And you always stole a ton of them before they were done being decorated,” Y/N reminded Joel with a tiny chuckle causing him to shrug dramatically. Reaching for another cookie had her huffing out and he gave a wicked smirk.

Seeing Peter do the same made her scoff and shake her head. Wanting to be as much like his father as possible, Peter would often mimic the things that Joel would do. Which meant he plowed back two sugar cookies as well.

“How big was this shake?” Y/N wondered which had Joel shrugging and shaking his head. Obviously not wanting to give the answer.

“Gigantic,” Peter explained with a mouthful of the last cookie that he shoved into his mouth.

“You’re not helping buddy,” Joel grunted under his breath, swallowing down the last of his sugar cookie. “I need some milk.”

“You know where it is,” Y/N nodded toward the cabinet where the glasses were. With a sigh, Joel moved across the kitchen and grabbed four glasses setting them out on the counter. Heading over to the fridge, Joel pulled out the milk and started pouring a glass for everyone. “I guess it’s a good thing he is going to be with you tonight. Because you know how he gets when he has this much sugar.”

“I’m thirteen mom, I’m not six anymore,” Peter snickered, nudging his mother playfully with his hip and it had her smiling. “I can handle being on a sugar high. I’m a big boy.”

“Still my baby,” Y/N claimed with a wink, lowering down to press a kiss over the top of Peter’s head. “Did the two of you pack last night?”

“I did,” Elizabeth replied with a gaze down at her brother seeing him swallow down his last bit of cookie. “He did not.”

“Sellout,” Peter retorted under his breath, working to decorate the next cookie he grabbed from the rack. “I got…distracted. I was playing a game and before you know it, it was really late and I knew I had school…”

“Maybe you should have stopped playing the game?” Elizabeth suggested with a tip of her head, drawing Peter to grumble something under his breath.

“I really don’t understand why we can’t just have dad stay over,” Peter blurt out making Joel clear his throat. It had Y/N looking back at him and she could see that tension that filled Joel’s body while he was drinking the milk that he had poured for himself. “It’s Christmas. We should have things be the way they used to be.”

“That’s not how things are done when your parents are divorced,” Elizabeth stated with a roll of her eyes making Y/N’s heart skip a beat with her children talking about her and Joel. “We’re lucky that our parents get along. Some of my friends, their parents hate each other. Fight over them just to make the other mad. And it’s never about them, it’s always for personal reasons. It makes them miserable because the parents are more so focused on hurting the other one instead of loving them.”

“I’m just saying,” Peter kept up with his previous statement setting aside the decorated cookie and reaching for another. “I remember things being really fun when we did this. I miss that. I wish we could just go back to the way things were. Dad could move back in and we could do what we did every year.”

“Bud?” Joel spoke quietly which had Peter looking over his shoulder at his father. Joel shook his head and Peter’s tanned flesh went pale.

This was the fourth Christmas that the two of them had spent separated. It was three years since they had been divorced. Joel was her high school sweetheart. Both of them had big dreams. She wanted to travel the world and be a journalist. Live in the big city. Joel wanted to be either a football player or a professional singer. But when she got pregnant? That didn’t exactly work out for either one of them. It meant she never left her hometown. Neither did he.

Joel’s parents died tragically when he was eighteen which left him taking care of his little brother Tommy. Tommy was five years younger than Joel and because Joel didn’t want Tommy going into the system, he also adopted Tommy. So not only was he taking care of his little brother, but Joel had gotten Y/N pregnant not long after. That meant an incredible amount of stress had been thrown on him.

At first? Everything was okay between them. Joel married Y/N right after Elizabeth was born. They moved into Joel’s parents’ house and he was a great dad. He never stopped being a great dad. Joel took on his father’s business of being a contractor since he had helped his dad when he was a teenager while she stayed home taking care of both Elizabeth and Tommy. Four years after Elizabeth was born, they had Peter. Originally, it wasn’t too hard because Tommy helped out with the children and around the house, but when Tommy turned eighteen he decided that he wanted to make a difference in the world and joined the army. That alone stressed Joel out to the extreme.

By the time she was twenty-one and Joel was twenty-three they had been through a lot. More than most people their age had been. They weren’t making much money and they were doing their best just to get by. Thankfully, she got her job soon after that which helped with the bills and she got to stay home to take care of the children. It was a few years more before they moved out of Joel’s parents’ home and got one of their own. Even though she thought they had the perfect life, Joel was unhappy. And each day that became more and more clear. He was still an amazing father, but they started bickering. A few fights here and there led to nights where they would verbally fight all night long, sometimes leading their fights into the middle of the day.

After years of that, it led to them separating four years ago and eventually to their divorce three years ago. Neither of the children took it well. They both really loved their dad. And rightfully so. Joel was a good father. There was something about Joel that they were drawn to. She was with them all the time growing up and Joel was always the parent that was gone long nights and was working really hard, so he was the parent they wanted the attention of the most. And when he was home? He gave it to them. So it was safe to say they mostly blamed her for the divorce. They tried to hide it more now, but when the separation first happened neither Elizabeth nor Peter were happy with her. It made her happy that after this long, there were no more fights and even though there was an occasional comment made here or there, they seemed to be happy with her.

Joel and Y/N had shared custody of the children. Which meant they were pretty open with things. They were supposed to be with her half the month and with him half the other, but they never stopped the children from seeing them if they wanted. Joel had moved back into his parents’ old home with Tommy which was only a few blocks away so they still spent a lot of time together.

Honestly? Y/N never really got over the divorce. Her feelings for Joel were just as strong as the day she met him. Joel’s family had moved to town when she was young and she immediately had a crush on him. They were just kids then though.

Their divorce was hard on her. It wasn’t like anyone cheated. It was just the tension of it all. Joel had become cold. He wasn’t a very affectionate lover. And it was always inherently clear how unhappy he was when he was married to her. Being married became lonely. Which was vastly different from how Joel was when they were younger. Joel was very affectionate in the beginning. Very loving. Now? They got along as much as they could for the children. Which meant she had to push down a lot of her feelings. But it was worth it for the children to be happy and grow up in a stable environment.

“I know, I’m not supposed to talk about the divorce,” Peter finally spoke up after the uncomfortable silence flooded the room with the three of them still decorating the cookies while Joel stayed in the back of the kitchen. “I just really miss how things used to be. That’s all.”

“I do too,” Elizabeth agreed quietly, but Y/N didn’t know what to say so she kept her mouth shut. Of course she missed the way things used to be.

“I can help decorate,” Joel offered, setting his glass of milk down on the counter. Moving over toward the gingerbread cookies, he pulled one of them off the rack and set up his area to start decorating. “We always used to decorate cookies as ourselves every year. So why not do that again?”

“This could take a while,” Y/N suggested, but Joel look to her with his dark eyes and shrugged. “Tess won’t get mad that you are here?”

“They aren’t together anymore,” Elizabeth was quick to answer and it had a rush of color flushing into Joel’s face. When his eyes connected with Elizabeth’s she shrugged her shoulders dramatically just like Peter had done earlier. “Well, you aren’t.”

“How long has that been?” Y/N looked to Joel noticing that he got uncomfortable when they brought up his ex-girlfriend. Tess and Joel had started dating a few months after their divorce finalized, so she was surprised to hear they weren’t together. Joel bobbed his head about with Peter adjusting his spot at the counter to move in next to his father to start decorating his gingerbread cookie.

“A while,” Joel grumbled under his breath, bringing his fingers up to suck off the icing that was at the tips of them. It had his dimples showing and he could see that Y/N was staring at him. “I don’t really pay attention to time with how busy I’ve been with work.”

“Months,” Elizabeth spoke again for her father keeping her focus on the cookies that were there.

“I’m glad you know more about my dating life,” Joel rumbled reaching for one of the sugar cookies to shove another one into his mouth.

“I just pay attention,” Elizabeth pointed out realizing that she was making her father uncomfortable talking about Tess. “When the two of you were together, she was always texting me. Making plans with Peter and me. Since you two broke up? I haven’t heard from her.”

“I thought you liked Tess,” Y/N recalled what the children had told her when she talked about the woman that Joel had been with.

“We did,” Peter replied back, his voice now muffled since he copied his father again in grabbing another cookie.

“It’s just strange that she drops us the moment they break up. You work so hard to build this relationship with us because you’re dating our father and then you cut us off completely when the two of you break up?” Elizabeth legitimately seemed bothered by the fact that Tess stopped interacting with them. “It’s messed up.”

“So how about these cookies? Huh?” Joel tried to come up with a distraction, going to reach for another one, but Y/N reached out to place her hand over his wrist to stop him. Instead of listening to her urgings, Joel grabbed one of the snowman cookies and bit off the head of it. “They taste really good.”

“I wouldn’t know. I was trying to finish helping mom decorate them first,” Elizabeth smirked back at her father, giving him a shake of her head. He finished off the cookie before going back to decorating. When they finished off the sugar cookies, the girls went to decorating their gingerbread women. Joel had moved on to working on other cookies, but Peter was pretty dedicated to making his gingerbread man perfect. By the time they were done, Peter was still working on that single cookie. “What’s taking you so long Peter?”

“You’re being lazy,” Joel moved in behind Peter to pick him up in his arms, pulling him away from the counter. The two of them wrestled while their laughter filled the kitchen. Finally, Y/N grabbed herself one of the finished sugar cookies that she had made while watching the two of them. “Making the three of us do all the work.”

“I just wanted mine to be good,” Peter jumped on Joel’s back, hooking his arms around Joel’s shoulders. It had Elizabeth rolling her eyes and grabbing a cookie with her mother. “You see what I mean? We shouldn’t have to go be with just dad and uncle Tommy. We should be together. Dad can just grab his stuff. Come over and we can pretend like we’re a family again. The four of us have the most fun when we’re all together.”

“Are we going to keep the gingerbread family like we did when we were younger?” Elizabeth looked to Y/N for confirmation. Nodding, she reached for a serving platter to first put down Joel’s cookie which he decorated in a green plaid shirt, work boots and a beard with dark hair. On his cookie, he gave himself a Santa hat. Then she set Elizabeth’s down next to Joel’s. Elizabeth had decorated hers in a softball outfit which made sense since Elizabeth was on her softball team and loved it. Reaching for Peter’s cookie, she could see that he decorated what she assumed to be an ugly Christmas sweater for his cookie and then Y/N placed her cookie at the far end. It was just a generic gingerbread woman with her hair color. Maybe hers was the saddest of the whole crew since it had the least amount of personality of the four. “You know your cookie is supposed to go next to dad’s.”

Elizabeth moved in beside Y/N to move the cookies together. It had a warmth flooding Y/N’s body when she sighed. In the past they would dry out the cookies by leaving them out before displaying them. Elizabeth seemed proud of herself when Joel finally let out a long exhale.

“Your Uncle Tommy has a big night planned of movie watching, so we better get ready to go,” Joel announced moving for his milk to finish it off. Setting the glass in the sink made Y/N’s head lower as Joel pointed upstairs. “Better go get packed buddy. You too Ellie.”

“Yes dad,” Elizabeth sighed knowing that she wanted to correct her father again, but instead she just accepted that he was still going to call her the lifelong nickname that he gave her.

It was almost as if their children were sulking as they dragged their feet out of the kitchen to head upstairs to grab their belongings to go be with their father. Once they were gone, Joel stepped in beside her and folded his arms in front of his chest. “It’s like Christmas brings out the inner child in them. Instead of being our teenagers full of teenage angst, they become young again. I like it.”

“They still are young,” she reminded Joel with a playful nudge before heading back for a container. “I’ll pack you some cookies for home.”

“And they will likely be all gone by tonight,” Joel declared with a snicker, placing his hand in over the soft part of his abdomen. It had her rolling her eyes and shaking her head while she gathered the cookies. “I always loved when you did the Christmas baking. All the cookies, cupcakes, pies…”

“You’re always welcome to take what you want,” she packed one container of sugar cookies and then moved to the gingerbread cookies to pack another. “So…who broke things off between you and Tess?”

“Uh…” Joel inhaled sharply, leaning against the counter again. Curling his fingers around the countertop, he shrugged his shoulders and didn’t seem to have a good response. “It was a little bit of both, I guess.”

Neither one of them spoke after that. It was awkward talking to Joel about his girlfriend. Tess was a very blunt person. It didn’t mean that Y/N didn’t like her. She did her best to like Tess, but Tess was very domineering. Which was hard since her and Joel shared children together.

“So…” Joel started, his thick fingers brushing through his hair drawing attention to his curls at the back of his neck. “What are you going to be doing while they are with me?”

“Tomorrow morning I’m putting decorations up around town. Helping out,” she explained, knowing that she needed things to do in order to keep herself distracted. It had Joel’s eyebrows bouncing up, his hands settling at his hips while he stared out at her.

“That sounds like you,” Joel commented, biting at his bottom lip having a hard time thinking of something else to say to her.

“You’re welcome to join if you want,” she offered and Joel let out a sarcastic laugh. When they were together she would always drag him along with her to do that so they had things they did together. Toward the end? Joel complained constantly and made it clear he hated it. “I’m just saying. Tommy is coming to help.”

“Well, good for Tommy,” Joel retorted with a long sigh, folding his arms in front of his chest when she shifted back and forth on her feet. “Unfortunately, I have to turn you down. I made an appointment with the children to go get photos with Santa. I know they are older now, but they seem to get a bigger kick out of it now than they did as children. It’s less scary and more so funny. I think Ellie calls it cringe, yet they still find it super funny.”

“Oh,” her face went hot when she thought about the idea of them getting photos. That was something she started as a tradition. One she was no longer included in. “That’s nice.”

“After that, I promised to take them shopping for their gifts,” Joel looked toward the exit of the kitchen toward the stairs. “And mine.”

“Last minute shopping. Totally still you,” she couldn’t help but throw that out at him since he used a similar line earlier. It had Joel smirking, his dimples showing when he shook his head.

“I guess I should go help them,” Joel pointed toward the stairs, backstepping toward the exit of the kitchen. “Make sure little man doesn’t forget anything.”

“I’ll clean up,” she barely had time to get that out before Joel was already making his way out of the kitchen.

Maybe that was too quick of a leave. It had Joel stopping at the bottom of the stairs to steal a quick look back at Y/N. Her head was tipped down and Joel felt tension in his body. Until that moment? She had actually looked happy. But now that she was alone in the kitchen to herself, she looked sad.

Considering his next move, Joel grasped tightly onto the railing of the stairway. Part of him thought he should go help her clean up. But he was never very good at that in the first place. It was one thing they used to bicker about when they were together. Joel always left dishes in the sink and his clothes all over the place. Which meant she was picking up after him all the time. They had more fights about it than he cared to admit.

Instead of helping, he let the other part of him win out and he started heading up the stairs. It was strange how even though he had been gone from the house four years, how much everything still felt like home. Y/N still decorated the same way. Just added a few more things here and there. Lights were wrapped around the railing leading up the stairs brightening the stairway. The photos were still up the way they were when they were together. With a few school photos added to the walls. The only ones that were down were the ones of their wedding or from when they were younger taking trips together.

The first bedroom on the right was Peter’s and he could hear the extensive shuffling. Standing in the doorway, Joel outstretched his arms and rest them against the doorframe, “You need help there kid?”

“No, I got it,” Peter insisted shoving a few of his clothes into his bag messily. “Thanks though dad.”

“I’ll check on your sister,” Joel pointed back toward Elizabeth’s room and Peter waved his hand about. Going to move for Elizabeth’s room, Joel backstepped when he saw the door to the room he used to share with Y/N was open. Looking to the stairs, Joel swallowed down hard and moved quietly into the bedroom. Even that didn’t look any different. The only difference is that his things weren’t thrown all over the place. His exercise equipment was gone along with his dresser. Instead there was a small sitting area there.

On the center of the bed was a robe that Joel assumed Y/N had been wearing earlier in the day. Reaching out, he caressed his fingers over the soft material before bringing it up to his nose to smell it. The scent of her perfume lingered over it and it made Joel smile. That was something he always loved. Her perfume. It had been a while since he had been close enough to her to actually smell it.

Setting the robe back on the bed, Joel looked to her dresser to see that two of the photos she had taken down that were originally in the hallway were now sitting on top of it. Stepping in closer to the dresser, Joel bit at his cheek when he saw the first one was their wedding photo. It was the two of them together with Elizabeth dressed in her flower girl outfit. Because they were just kids themselves, they had a backyard wedding at his parents’ home, but they were happy enough at that time. They had each other and that was enough.

Placing that photo back, Joel reached for the photo of them on their last anniversary that they shared. Tommy had made them reservations that Tommy was really proud of at an expensive local restaurant. It was something that Tommy had saved up for as a thank you to them for all they did for him growing up. It was completely out of Joel’s scene. All throughout dinner he felt awkward. It was one of those places that had multiple courses already chosen for you. Since Tommy pre-paid for it, Joel forced himself through it, but he hated it. And he really let Y/N know how much he hated it. Having to dress up nice was not something that Joel enjoyed. He was uncomfortable the whole time. When they got home, Tommy had taken the photo of them. It was Joel sitting in a chair with Y/N in his lap while Joel was holding onto the gift she had gotten him. Y/N got him a really nice acoustic guitar that he had told her he wanted when they first started dating. It was something he would go to the store and play all the time.  It was something she was really proud of. In the photo she looked really happy. And at that moment? She was.

It was after Tommy left when their fighting started again. Instead of appreciating the guitar that she got him, he told her to return it since it was stupid to waste the money. Especially since in the time that they had been together he had learned how to do wood carvings and he knew how to make acoustic guitars himself. Back then? He didn’t understand the meaning behind the gesture. He just saw it as a waste of money. Especially since he lost out on his dreams of actually becoming a singer.

They also fought over the fact he bought her nothing other than flowers. Grand gestures were something that Y/N was big on. Even when they didn’t have money, she always tried to do things special. That anniversary, he just bought her flowers and gave her them when he got home from work. She didn’t complain, he just could see that she was disappointed. Which led to them fighting about her needing to be honest with him about things. That night they didn’t get intimate together. Not once. It ended with him sleeping on the floor in Elizabeth’s room.

The guitar put a big wedge between them because she told him if he hated the guitar he could return it to get the money back. Not wanting to look bad because it was a small town they lived in, Joel just let it sit and collect dust. Until they got separated and he took it with him. Now he played it occasionally and realized why she was upset because it was actually a really romantic gift.

It surprised him that she kept that photo considering how bad that night went. Setting the photo back where it was, Joel moved back over to the bed. Dropping back onto it had him staring up at the ceiling feeling an ache at his chest. Crawling over to the side of the bed that was his, Joel reached for her pillow and wrapped it up in his arms. Burying his face against it, he closed his eyes and realized how much more comfortable this whole set up actually felt than it did back at his place with Tommy.

After a few minutes, he forced himself to get up since he realized that it was probably creepy what he was doing. This wasn’t his house anymore. It was just a vague memory of how things used to be. That’s it.

Leaving the room, he headed over to Elizabeth’s room to see that she was sitting at her desk doing something on her laptop and he smirked. Leaning against the doorframe, he tipped his head to the side and cleared his throat causing her to jump.

“Getting in trouble?” Joel watched her shake her head when she showed him that she was writing her best friend in a chat. Taking a quick look, he sighed and moved over to her dresser to grab the softball that was there. Dropping back on her bed, he started throwing the ball up in the air catching it repeatedly.

“You know, Peter’s not wrong. Things were better when it was the four of us,” Elizabeth stressed hearing her father sigh loudly and she shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t see what the problem is. You’re not with Tess anymore. So why not spend time with mom? She’s hot, right?”

“What?” Joel chuckled at his daughter saying that about her mother.

“Listen, I’ve seen the moms at my school. I know mom is a catch,” she suggested to Joel hearing him laugh before going back to throwing the ball. “Why don’t you want to spend time with the four of us?”

“Hey! I didn’t see your mom jumping at the idea when Peter was talking about it,” Joel fumbled the ball, letting out a groan when it rolled across the floor. Pressing up onto his shoulder, Joel scoffed out when his eyes fell upon one of the posters that she had hanging up. It was one that was new and it made him roll his eyes. “I still can’t believe you’ve had a crush on that man since you were fourteen.”

“Everyone has celebrity crushes dad,” she looked back over her shoulder at the poster that he dramatically groaned over. Giving her father her attention back, she saw him throw his head back into the pillows.

“Sure. But most girls your age have crushes on twinks from a boy band,” Joel declared hearing his daughter laugh at the description of the kind of boys that he thought she would like. “Instead, you like a professional baseball player that’s my age. Do you know how creepy that is?”

“Most women here have a crush on Negan Smith,” she stood up from her chair to head over to point at the poster that was on the back of her door. “He’s the hometown hero. Rookie of the year when he started. One of the greatest baseball players of our time.”

“Do you know how old you were when he won rookie of the year?” Joel’s eyebrow arched up in curiosity, dramatically turning his head to stare out at her. It had her cheeks flushing over with red and he let out a hesitant laugh. “I think I need to stress here that he’s my age.”

“You were young when you had me,” she pointed out, heading over to the edge of her bed to sit down with him.

“Not that young,” Joel countered finding it creepy that his daughter’s celebrity crush was Negan Smith who was probably the most popular player for their state’s professional baseball team. “What about that boyband kid that you liked when you were eight?”

Tipping his head back, Joel eyed over the magazine cutouts that she had plastered over her ceiling and he felt his heart skip a beat when his eyes fell onto one of the photos. Hopping up onto the bed had her gasping out when he snatched the photo from the collage of photos she had up there.

“The hell is this?” Joel’s dark eyes almost seemed angry when he held the magazine page out in front of her face.

“Uhm? Negan Smith?” Elizabeth flashed him an innocent smile with Joel looking over the photo. “It was a photoshoot he did in order to bring attention to the sexism in sports magazines. It was him making a statement.”

“He’s naked,” Joel sneered, looking over the photo. It had the baseball star holding a baseball glove over his groin and he had a baseball bat thrown over his shoulder. They had covered him in dirt and he had eye black under his eyes. “Why in God’s name do you have this photo over your bed? Why do you have this at all? Does your mother let you put these up here?”

“First of all, he’s not naked. Everything is covered,” she reached for the magazine pull out and he tugged it away from her. “Second, mom doesn’t know that that’s there. She actually kind of gives me my privacy. So, there is that.”

“You’re seventeen,” Joel scoffed looking over the pullout feeling like the room was spinning around him. “This is way too sexual for you. I went to school with this guy. He was one of my best friends. This is another level of creepy.”

“Dad, you’re being a little hypocritical. I know you and mom were having sex at my age. A magazine pull out is not the end of the world. It’s not even porn,” Elizabeth fought back trying to reach for it, but Joel yanked it back away from her again. “I used my babysitting money to buy that dad. It’s a few years old and it’s hard to find.”

“How much did you pay for it?” Joel scoffed seeing the confusion in her eyes. “How much?”

“Like thirty dollars,” she explained and he felt his blood boiling. “What?”

“Thirty dollars for this?” Joel’s eyebrows furrowed and he grunted out looking it over. “Can’t you just find a photo of it on the internet and print it out? Why waste the money?”

“Because it’s authentic and an original. It would probably be worth more too because he just announced that he was retiring because of his most recent injury. Do you remember when that one guy purposely hurt him when we were watching that game?” she brought back a memory of when he was still living here and they’d watch games together. “Well, he came back from that injury, but it still made his leg weak and he hurt it really bad. So bad that he has to retire. He’s only doing one more season. People are going crazy over his stuff,” she reasoned with Joel who reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet. Pulling out thirty dollars, he tossed it on the bed beside him and rolled up the poster causing her to gasp out. “You’re going to bend it dad!”

“Good. It doesn’t belong in my…” Joel stopped realizing he was about to say it didn’t belong in his house, but this wasn’t his house anymore. “It doesn’t belong in my seventeen-year-old daughter’s bedroom. I paid you back for it. I don’t care if it’s worth a hundred dollars. Spend your money on something better than some naughty ass photo of someone I used to be best friends with.”

“Oh come on, all of that’s bullshit dad,” she bickered with her father, throwing her hands up in the air and he dramatically shrugged his shoulders. “I know you say you two were best friends and I know you were on the same baseball team, but other than that? I think you’re pushing it with the best friend thing. If the two of you were best friends, why have I never met him? Why do I see no photos of the two of you together?”

“Because in our last year of high school we kind of…went different ways,” Joel explained, still clinging onto the magazine pullout that he had stolen from his daughter. “Him, your mother, me and Uncle Tommy were the closest of friends. We were since I moved here. Honestly? I reckon he was probably better friends with your mother. But we all considered each other best friends. We were together all the time. And back then he didn’t have a single tattoo on him.”

Joel reached up to pinch up at the bridge of his nose, “And as far as photos? We probably have loads of them upstairs in the attic. I can prove it right now. I still haven’t cleaned out that thing since we moved in here and I doubt your mother did either because she always asked me to clean things up, but I didn’t.”

“Prove it,” she frowned, folding her arms in front of her chest reminding Joel of what he looked like when he was angry.

Urging her to follow him, Joel set the magazine pullout down on the table that was in the hallway. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Elizabeth was reaching for it and he snapped his fingers at her to get her to stop, “Ellie! Don’t think about it!”

“You are so infuriating sometimes,” Elizabeth frowned realizing that she had officially lost part of her collage. Joel hopped up to pull at the hatch to get it opened and get the stairs down to go into the attic. Motioning her to go up first, Joel knew that if he turned his back on his daughter that she would likely grab what he had set aside. Color rushed into her face, her eyes rolling when she moved up the steps. Joel followed her not far behind. When they got up there, Elizabeth let out a dramatic cough and he huffed. “It’s dusty.”

“It’s not that bad,” Joel suggested taking a look around. A long time ago, Joel started to remodel the attic for Y/N, but he never finished it. Half of it was done and the other half just looked like a normal attic. Moving across the way, Joel cleaned off the bench that was at the far end where the nook he designed was. Holding his hand out, he motioned Elizabeth to take a seat. She eyed it over with disgust before slowly lowering down. “Give me a few minutes.”

“So,” Elizabeth began, her curiosity growing while Joel started going through boxes. “What was he like when he was younger?”

“Arrogant,” Joel stammered, his whole face scrunching up when he thought about Negan. “Everyone loved Negan. We were the two most popular guys in school by our senior year. He played baseball and basketball. I played baseball and football. We had a bit of a feud going on that last year. He was a smartass.”

“But you were friends?” her eyebrow arched in curiosity. Pausing, Joel looked over his shoulder at his daughter. Taking a second to think it over, Joel nodded and cleared his throat. “What did you like about him?”

“He was funny. He could really get under some of the teachers’ skin,” Joel responded, setting aside some of the boxes letting out a sigh when he dug through them. “He was really smart. He could look at a book and just memorize everything. He was a class clown so it always infuriated the teachers when they tried to embarrass him and he would come back with the answer. Negan either had people really loving him or hating him because he was so good at reading people. He could have people eating out of the palm of his hand.”

Smirking, Joel opened one of the boxes to see on top of the box was some photos of him and Elizabeth when she was a baby. Holding out the photos, he saw her smile when she reached for the photos accepting them to look them over.

“Maybe I’ll come over here and finish the attic up for your mom. Clear up some things and go through the photos,” Joel offered appreciating the smile that Elizabeth was giving when she looked at the photos of them together. “It’s been a long time since I had a clean-shaven face.”

“You look so young,” Elizabeth commented holding a photo up of Joel holding Elizabeth on his shoulders at a football game together. “You were such a jock back then.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Joel waved his hand in the air, getting down on the ground to make it easier for him to go through the boxes. After looking through a few boxes, Joel stopped when he found photos of Y/N and him from high school. With a smirk, he grabbed a handful of the photos of them at his prom. Holding them out to Elizabeth, he allowed her to look them over while he dug through the photos. When he realized this was the box that he wanted, he headed over to the bench to sit down beside her. “That was a fun night.”

“Please don’t go into details,” Elizabeth groaned causing Joel to roll his eyes. “I know what happens on prom night.”

“I just mean we had a fun time at prom, then a few of the kids were throwing a party at their parents’ house. It was right off the water, it was awesome,” Joel explained with a long sigh, his eyes narrowing when he cleared his throat. “It was right before your grandparents passed away.”

Elizabeth gave Joel a sideways glance before continuing through the photos, smiling when she saw a photo of a young Joel kissing Y/N on the cheek with her mom laughing, “You two looked so happy together.”

“We were. We were so in love. All that mattered to me back then was her,” Joel admitted, his breathing growing uneven when he thought back to that time. “I just wanted to be with her all the time. I was afraid to let her go. I was supposed to be going off to college and she still had two more years left at school. I was so worried someone else was going to swoop in and take her. I guess the world solved that problem for me though. College was just never meant to happen.”

“You still could have gone,” she thought aloud and it had Joel taking a moment to break from looking at the photos to gaze out at her. “You could have. You had a full ride. You could have made it work. Mom eventually went to college.”

“I couldn’t. I had to take care of Uncle Tommy or else he would have been put into the system. And then your mom got pregnant with you,” Joel recalled his younger years, shifting uneasily knowing that Y/N had been pregnant at seventeen which was how old Elizabeth was now. “I couldn’t do that to Tommy. And I couldn’t do that to you and your mom.”

It looked like Elizabeth wanted to say something, but she didn’t. She just went back to looking at the photos. Seeing a photo of Negan training with him when they were on the baseball team, he handed it over to Elizabeth and she snickered.

“I know the two of you were on the team together dad. I’ve seen the team photo in the hallways of the high school,” she reminded her father hearing Joel grunt. “That doesn’t mean you were best friends. He looks so different without the facial hair.”

“Not as big of a babe,” Joel mocked the way a teenage girl would talk. It had her reaching out to hit him in the chest and he chuckled. “That was before he got that scar on his face over his eyebrow.”

“You know how he got that scar, right?” Elizabeth was eager to tell the story, but Joel hushed her.

“Everyone knows that story. He told it all the time when he first started becoming popular,” Joel pointed out feeling a bit of jealousy at how much this town loved Negan Smith. Stopping on one of the photos, he tossed it to Elizabeth and heard the surprised sound that followed. It was a photo of him, Negan and Y/N sitting on the couch that was in his parents’ basement. A young Tommy was laid out across their lap and they were all laughing. “Told you. That’s at your grandparents’ home.”

Noticing that all the photos were starting to include Negan, Joel handed piles of photos to her and could see the awe that came from her looking at the photos, “See. I’m not a liar. I’ve always been a very honest person.”

“Holy shit,” she held up a photo of Joel and Negan together. Negan had his arm wrapped around Joel’s shoulders. Negan was curling his lip up in a ridiculous pose with Joel wearing a backwards baseball cap. Elizabeth clung to the photo before reaching for the next. It was a photo of Y/N between both Joel and Negan. Both of them were kissing her cheek and it had Elizabeth laughing. “So many people would be jealous of mom with this one.”

“Yeah, I know. I was really cute,” Joel knew that Elizabeth was talking about Negan, but he was being a smart ass. Elizabeth rolled her eyes before continuing through the photos. There were a lot of photos of Y/N and Negan which had Elizabeth shocked. There was an extremely young photo of Negan and Y/N that was in that box leaving Joel to shrug when Elizabeth held it up. “I told you those two were closer. Negan was my age, but they knew each other pretty much her whole life. They were neighbors. Together all the time.”

“Why doesn’t mom talk about him?” Elizabeth stammered, stopping on a photo of her mom sitting on Negan’s lap with her arms wrapped around his shoulders.

“Uhm,” Joel considered what to say next before clearing his throat. “Because when he stopped talking to me, he stopped talking to her. The woman he ended up getting married to showed up at the school the last year. Really pretty girl. Negan was hooked on her. Your mother wanted him to be your godfather…”

“No shit,” she gasped, clinging to the photo of Negan with her mother. “What the hell happened? Could you imagine if Negan Smith was my godfather?”

“He just stopped interacting with the two of us all together. Your mother tried to reach out to him multiple times, but then she just stopped trying,” Joel cleared his throat, rubbing at the side of his face before sighing loudly. “I think it hurt too much, so she just wrote him off. Didn’t want to think about it since the two of them were so close.”

“How did I never know this?” Elizabeth seemed upset that this was a part of her parents’ lives that she didn’t know. “So you just were friends with Negan Smith?”

“Yeah. When your Uncle Tommy and I moved to town, there was this boy that kept picking on your Uncle Tommy. All the time. He was smaller for his age. It was during the summer and this boy would knock him off his bike. Push him down. Do what bullies do. One day, I was outside and I saw this boy hit your Uncle Tommy. Your mother and Negan were outside playing hockey. We all saw it happen. I was heading over to whoop the bully’s ass, but she beat me to it. Hit the boy with the hockey stick that she had. Then she beat his ass,” Joel explained with a laugh mimicking a few punches drawing Elizabeth to laugh. “She kicked that boy’s ass so bad that he refused to tell his parents. He didn’t want the whole school knowing that he had his ass kicked by a girl. But yeah, you’re mother had a crush on me from the first moment I met her, but I’m pretty sure that day is the day she fell in love with me. That was the day we first started hanging out.”

“She fell in love with you? Not the other way around?” she was surprised to hear that and Joel tipped his head from side to side. “How couldn’t you fall in love with her after that?”

“She kind of scared the shit out of me, but in a good way,” Joel claimed, his hand placing in over the center of his chest. “So yes. For your mother it was love at first sight. For me? It took until I was about seventeen.”

“What are you two doing up here?” a voice made them both jump and they looked to the stairs to see that Y/N was moving into the attic.

“Your daughter has like the biggest crush ever on Negan Smith,” Joel once again teased his daughter, talking in a stereotypical way that had her pushing into Joel’s chest. A loud laugh fell from his throat when he pointed toward the photos. “She didn’t believe that we were best friends back in the day. So I had to prove it.”

“Why’d you never tell me?” Elizabeth was curious when Y/N moved forward to look at the photo that Elizabeth had of her with Negan and Joel kissing her cheeks. “I’ve had the biggest crush on him forever and you never said anything.” 

“It was a long time ago,” she reasoned, shrugging her shoulders as Joel started pulling himself up from the bench that he was seated on with Elizabeth. Talking about Negan didn’t seem to appeal much to her when she waved her hand about. “I have all the cookies packed up and I made a pie the other day that I’m sending with you.”

“How I remained skinny when we were together blows my mind. I like your food way too much,” Joel reached down to pat his stomach realizing now that he was older, it was harder to stay in shape for him. “Come on Ellie. We have to get home. Uncle Tommy is probably waiting.”

Elizabeth didn’t really want to, but she accepted her father’s hand when he helped her up. They moved down the stairs and onto the second level. Joel had Elizabeth going back to her room for her stuff before reaching for the poster he snatched from Elizabeth’s room. Handing it out to Y/N had her looking down and unrolling the photo. Once she realized what it was, her eyes grew wide.

“I guess her and her mother have the same type,” Joel sneered and it had Y/N lifting her eyes up at Joel slowly. “That was on her wall. Our daughter should never have anything like that on her wall. Maybe pay a little more attention to the things that she is getting her hands on.”

“Yes sir,” Y/N almost seemed offended when she rolled the photo back up and felt a warmth flooding into her face. The look that Joel gave her almost looked angry, but she couldn’t say anything else because the two children were walking out with their bags.

Seeing them out to say her goodbyes, Y/N cleaned things up before heading back upstairs. Noticing that the stairs were still pulled out for the attic, Y/N went to close them up before thinking things over. Going up into the attic, she headed over toward the box of photos. Lowering down on the bench that Joel and Elizabeth were on earlier. Pushing through the photos, there was a sense of sadness that ate her up inside seeing some of her photos of when she was pregnant with Elizabeth. Joel was so loving and sweet back then. And he looked so happy. Stopping on a photo had her heart racing. In that pile was a photo of a much younger version of her and Negan kissing. Clearing her throat, she pushed the photo into her back pocket. That was the last thing her daughter should be seeing and she knew that.

Closing up the attic, she headed to bed and pulled out the photo she snatched along with the magazine pull out that Joel had given her. Taking a look at it, she shook her head and tossed both of them into the top drawer of her dresser. For so long Y/N had pushed away her past. It almost felt like she had forgotten her past. Right now, she was just living and working to get through every day. And that was enough.

----

Tags: @chainsawsangel @fancypeacepersona @violent-darkness @negansbestie @elegantfanficluv

@sanctuaryforthelost

[tmrwsuns]

xikers when you ask to tie a ribbon around their biceps

ᯓ the moment you even begin to suggest the thought of tying a ribbon around his bicep. minjae he has already agreed. his goal in life is making you happy, and (even more importantly) he loves to see how much you adore his body. he puts a lot of  work into it a (maybe solely for that reason), so whenever you make a praising comment towards the results he can’t help but feel a pang of pride go through his chest. he saw in this situation the perfect combination of your happiness and his ego inflating, and he wasn’t going to let that go. once you both agreed he makes it his priority to pick up a ribbon at the craft store the day after, eager to try out the trend you had suggested. when it finally happened, he smiled proudly as he listened to you gush about how his bicep looked flexed only for you. 

“hey jae?” you spoke softly, looking up from your phone. minjae sat on his desk, headphones partly on as he produced new music for the group. his attention immediately went to you, turning on his chair and smiling gently at you with a questioning look. “what do you think about doing this trend?” you asked, showing him your phone where the video replayed, a flexing arm with a ribbon around it being reflected on the screen. “we can do it if you want” he smiled. you had this effect on him ever since he met you where he couldn’t say no to anything you wanted from him, and that was a big factor to his answer. however, the pride he felt for the fact that you wanted him to flex for you was even a little more of an incentive. with a small squeal of emotion, you agreed that you would do it the next day, leaving minjae looking forward to it as he turned around and continued on with his task. once the next day finally arrived, minjae found himself sitting on his bed, arm flexed as you wrapped the pretty pink ribbon on it. you had an unwavering smile as you tied it in a bow looking proudly at your job, cheeks slightly tinted at the sight. “what do you think, baby? do you like it?” minjae asked, a smile evident in his voice. “of course i do, you’re arms are hot” you answered, looking up at him through your lashes. his smile widened at your words and he grew a little closer to you, eyes scanning your face and stopping at your lips. “and all yours, too” he said, voice low as he looked back into your eyes.  “is that so?” you asked as you grew closer, eyeing his lips for a couple seconds in return. “it is” he answered before leaning in to capture your lips in a kiss. you were so down bad.

ᯓlet’s be real, no one could even try to blame you for immediately thinking of junmin when the trend popped out in your for you page. you had a boyfriend with perfect arms and there was absolutely no reason not to take advantage of that. when you told junmin about it, he hesitated at first. don’t get him wrong, of course he liked it when you fawned over his body, specially his toned arms; but the thought of you maybe posting it made him feel a little flustered. of course, you told him he didn’t have to do it, but the slight disappointment in your eyes obliterated any thought of saying no to you any further. you jumped in happiness at his answer, wasting no time to go on.

“you know, i saw this trend in the morning that made me think of you” you commented as you sat around his room, simply spending some quality time together between your busy lives.  junmin arched an eyebrow in curiosity “yeah? what was it?” you smiled and muttered a little “ill show you” before pulling up the video, facing your phone screen towards him with a smile, your eyes focused on his reaction. “will you let me do that to you?” you questioned, and he immediately felt his heart skip a beat and his ears begin to heat up.  “why?” he almost stuttered, causing you to laugh softly. “you have such pretty arms and i want to brag about them” you answered, your lips curling upwards at his response. however, you noticed the slight uncomfortability on his face, which made you immediately speak again “its okay if you don’t want to, though, don’t worry about it” the rapid way you were speaking made junmin smile softly, admiring how you always seeked for him to be comfortable even if that meant him saying no to something you wanted. “ill do it” he interrupted you, making your eyes light up again. “are you really okay with it?” you asked once again, letting out an excited hum as he nodded. you went straight for your backpack without another word, grabbing the ribbon you oh so conveniently had packed and going back to your previous position. you waited until junmin flexed, your eyes focusing on the way his muscles strained and bulged on his toned arm, letting a few seconds pass by before snapping back into thought and moving to tie the fabric around his bicep. once it was done, you stared again, causing junmin (who was looking at your face throughout the entire exchange) to smile softly. his initial embarrassment had banished, now being replaced with a surge of confidence from the way you looked at him. “people are gonna be soooo jealous” you smiled and looked up at his eyes, earning a chuckle to come out of his lips as he shook his head at your antics. “sure, baby, whatever you say” he hummed.

ᯓ the moment you told sumin about your intentions when you appeared holding the pink ribbon in your hands, he groaned like you had just said the most ridiculous thing that had ever come out of your mouth. he was used to your delusional suggestions, and to be completely honest he didn’t mind them even a little bit. but he would never tell you that, of course. you both knew knew he would say yes eventually since he couldn’t say no to you, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t make you beg a little before. so that’s exactly what you did, enjoying watching you exaggerate how much you just loved his arms until he agreed, acting all defeated as if he didn’t love the idea.

the universe was definitely trying to tell you something. multiple videos of the ribbon trend had popped on your feed, which you constantly attempted to ignore in order to not create thoughts in your head. yet you understood you just had to when an edit of your own boyfriend appeared just under one of them. the way he flexed his arms on your screen made your brain (and body) tingle with feelings only sumin ever made you feel, so you gave into what the universe clearly wanted. you rummaged through your drawers before heading to your boyfriend's studio, finding him focused on the painting he had been working on for so long. sumin heard you come in and turned around, smiling at your presence and puckering his lips as his way to ask for a greeting kiss. “whats up, babe?” he asked once he got what he wanted, watching how a mischievous smile took place on your face as you held up the ribbon. “let me tie this on your arm? its for a tiktok trend” you asked, smile never faltering as he groaned. “why am i always the victim, were the hello kitty tattoos not enough for you?” he asked as he jokingly glared at you. he knew he would let you do absolutely anything you wanted with him, but that wouldn’t stop him from making you beg. “sumin, pleaseeee. i was watching the trend and then i saw this video of you and you have such pretty arms that they deserved to be shown off by your girlfriend that you love sooo much” you pressed, conjuring your best puppy dog eyes. your boyfriend sighed as he looked at you, turning around to get a rag and clean his hands from all the paint. “you know i can’t say no to you, don’t you?” he smiled, causing you to celebrate and pull out your phone. he proceeded to comply with everything you wanted him to do, watching you with a fond smile as you giggled at his toned arms. “i love you” you said once the video was taken, a smile on your lips as you watched his amused smile. “i love you more” sumin answered, stealing a quick peck from your lips before urging you to show him the video.

ᯓ look, jinsik is a complete sweetheart. he is soft hearted and can get a little shy whenever you show interest in his body majority of the time. still, he knows he’s fine and he loves that. he loves to see you fangirl over him and is completely conscious of how obsessed you are with him and his body, so he was not surprised at all when you told him what you wanted to do. he agreed fast, not having it in him deny because one, he couldn’t bear saying no to you; and two, why would he waste the opportunity to tease you when it was right there? the flush on his cheeks and rapidly beating heart had never stopped him from making you flustered, and they wasn’t going to start now.

“love?” you called out for jinsik’s attention. he was currently sprawled out on the floor of your bedroom, mindlessly scrolling through his phone as you laid on your bed. he let out a hum of acknowledgment as he put his phone down on his chest, his eyes travelling towards where your head peaked from above the mattress. “would you let me tie a ribbon on your bicep?” you asked, causing him to frown in confusion at the strange request.  “i mean, sure, but what for?” he watched as you looked for your phone on the bed, pulling up the video and giving it for him to watch. you looked for his reaction as he watched it, trying to decipher his stoic expression. “pretty please?” you chimed in, giving him a small smile. jinsik smiled automatically as he watched you, weighing his options in his head. he could either say no because of the slight embarrassment he felt at thinking that you would post that for the public to see or he could agree and spend a few minutes of his day with his girlfriend gushing about his arms while she ties pretty ribbons around them. there was a pretty obvious choice this time. “sure, pretty, let’s do it” you smiled triumphantly and leaped off from your mattress, going straight for a drawer where you were sure you could find some ribbon to carry out your assignment. jinsik smiled at the soft “aha!” that left your lips as you found a roll of the material, sitting up from his position on the floor and looking at you expectantly. you took a seat by his side and waited for him to flex his arm, smile widening impossibly much when he did. wordlessly, you tied the ribbon around his bicep before picking up your phone. “so pretty” you mumbled as you recorded and took a couple pictures, entirely too focused to notice the way he was smirking while looking at you, his heart almost beating out of his chest at the way you looked at him.

ᯓ as we all know and love, hyunwoo is a little shit (affectionately.) he loves being smug whenever you express your love/desire for him in any way, shape or form because that’s his way of coping with how much it affects him to have you outwardly gush about him. he ignores the pounding of his heart and the way his ears are heating up and acts out to make you feel like that instead; so when you told him about wanting to do that trend with him he took it as the perfect opportunity to tease the living shit out of you. of course, he agreed, but just because it gave him a perfect excuse to make you flustered. (definitely not because his ego grew about three sizes.)

“hyunwoo” you called out, attempting to grab his attention from the videogame he played on his computer. nothing. “hyunwoo” you spoke a bit louder. nothing. you knew he was doing it on purpose. he always left one of his ears uncovered when he gamed if you were around as his own little way to show you that he was still listening and paying attention to you. you sighed as you noticed why he wasn’t answering “babe?”  “yes, doll” he turned around on his chair, a smug smile on his lips as you rolled your eyes.  “would you do this tiktok trend with me?” you asked as you looked at him, your previously “annoyed” expression erased by the sight of your boyfriend's pretty smile. “depends, which one?” you looked for the video and pointed the screen at him, watching his reaction as the video played. “why would you want to do that?” he questioned, a hint of a smirk on his lips. “you have hot arms” you shrugged, attempting to maintain your cool and not give him what he wanted. hyunwoo raised his eyebrows at your response, taking out his headphones and rolling his chair towards you, now closer to your body. “do i? you’ve never said so before” he teased, making you groan. “never mind, i dont want to do it anymore” you stuck your tongue out to him, causing him to chuckle. “it’s okay, babe, i get it. i would want to show my super hot arms too” he smiled as he jokingly flexed. “we can do it, come on” you smiled amused at his antics, standing up to find the ribbon you carried in your bag for your hair. once you had it you walked back to his chair, waiting for him to flex his arm so you could tie it around him and get the pictures you wanted. “i'm just irresistible, aren’t i?” hyunwoo gloated as he watched you. “and only yours, isn't that crazy?” he loved the way your cheeks tinted as you glared at him, sending his heart on to its own frenzy because he couldn’t even fathom how insanely beautiful his girlfriend was. he wouldn’t tell you that right now, though.

ᯓ junghoon is so incredibly unbothered that you had no idea of what he would answer when you asked him to let you do the trend with him. don’t get me wrong, when it comes to you he is anything but uninterested. you are everything to him and he would do anything you asked him to, even if he wasn’t particularly fond of the idea. that was what scared you, you didn’t want to push him to do anything he didn’t like, so you approached him with a bit of more shyness than he usually would. surprisingly, he was very on board with the idea. he liked the idea of you liking his body enough to think of him when you watched that trend, and he was more than happy to participate in it.

“hoonie?” you called out softly as you looked up from your phone, looking at your boyfriend who laid next to you as he read. he looked up from his book and tilted his head in question, making your heart melt into a puddle because of how much he had resembled a cat just then. “have you ever seen that trend where they tie a ribbon around their partner's bicep?” “i think i have, hyunwoo did it with his girlfriend i think” he nodded, the book he was reading now completely discarded as he gave you his full, undivided attention. “why?” “uhm, i kinda wanted to try it out with you” you explained, struggling a little to maintain the eye contact he so diligently held. “sure, do you have any ribbon?” he asked, agreeing as if it was nothing. you were a little surprised at how quickly he had complied, your heart melting even more than it already had. “i think i do, let me check” you smiled and hopped off the bed, not before leaving a sweet kiss on his cheek that left him smiling softly. junghoon watched you move around your room, rummaging through your drawers until you found the roll of ribbon you knew you had. you approached him with a big smile, waiting for him to sit up and flex his arm for you. once he did, you couldn’t help but giggle like a flustered little girl, watching your handsome boyfriend flexing his arm just for you.  junghoon watched you tie the ribbon around his muscle with a soft smile on his lips, waiting for you to do whatever you wanted to. “you’re adorable, did you know?”  his voice made your eyes travel back to his, light tinting on your cheeks. “yeah?” “yeah” he answered your question before laying back down and opening his arms towards you, his smile never faltering.

ᯓ a little shit (affectionately) pt 2. seeun absolutely adores making you flustered, he lives for it if you will. the capacity he has to make you get shy is outstanding, even when most of the times his insane confidence played into making you annoyed rather than flustered. you have a very playful relationship between you, which consisted in humbling each other most of the time, reserving the praises and affectionate words for special moments.  when you approached seeun with the idea of doing this trend he just knew this was his chance to get you to admit he was the most handsomest man alive (which you had no doubt about, you just liked humbling him.) so he made it his goal to hear those exact words come out of your mouth, even if he achieved it through annoyance.

you had been thinking about asking seeun to do that trend with you for a while now. naturally, when you had seen it for the first time you knew that you had to do it with your boyfriend or it would be a waste of his efforts at the gym. the only issue was that it wasn’t easy to ask seeun to do these kind of things. he had the tendency to tease you about the littlest things and you asking him to do something with his biceps was basically asking to be driven insane. nevertheless, your love for your boyfriends arms was stronger than his annoyance could ever be, so you asked him. “can we do this?” you asked as the video had conveniently popped on your screen. you were laying on the bed, your head resting on his arm as you watched your saved tiktok videos, a little ritual you had started doing when you were bored. “aww, you want to coquettify my muscles?” he cooed, a teasing tone present in his voice as he looked at you with a sly smile. “it sounds gross when you say it like that” you wrinkled your nose at his words. “but i just really wanted to do that trend and i couldn’t think of anyone else to do it with”  “of course you couldn’t, because you’re so incredibly in love with me and my hot body” he pressed further, incorporating his body onto his arms so he could look at you better. the sheer beauty of your face would never seize to amaze him, but that’s a topic for later. “sure, whatever. now, will you do it or not?” you tried to hide your smile, clearly enjoying the lighthearted nature of your banter. “i will if you admit I'm the most handsomest man alive” his words made your eyes roll and a groan escaped your lips. “i should’ve known you would act like this, so annoying” you teased back, acting as if you were to move on and look at your phone again. “don’t be like that, come on, let’s do it” he nudged you, eliciting a smile from your lips. you sat up and kissed his cheek rapidly before grabbing the ribbon you had brought in your bag and sitting in front of him. you waved at him to hurry, smiling about the opportunity. seeun rolled his sleeve and flexed his arm, allowing you to tie the piece of fabric on his bicep. you grabbed your phone to snap a couple of pictures, smile unwavering. “you’re the most handsomest man alive, seeun” you looked back into his eyes, just in time to watch him erupt into a cheer, causing you to laugh loudly.

ᯓ it’s no secret to anyone that yujun melts to putty in your hands. he loves making you happy, and that leads him to be the object of your silly little desires more often than not. he absolutely adores the fact that he is who you think of first when it comes to things like these, so the moment you tell him you want to do it he has already agreed. he is so happy and excited about it that he makes it into a full blown date to go find some ribbon you both liked, leading to a long walk to the craft store full of smiles and silly stories about his day. despite his cutie patootie nature, he can’t deny he is a gym rat through and through. he is proud of his body, he enjoys working towards his good shape and loves to see the results of all of his hard work. so when his pretty pretty girl also allows herself to fawn about his beauty outside of his cute demeanor? he could have a heart attack.

“yujunnie?” you called, earning a hum of acknowledgement from the boy. “have you seen the trend where they tie ribbons on guys' arms?” you asked as you laid next to him on your bed, his arm lazily draped over your middle as he rested his eyes, completely relaxed in your company. “i have, why?” he speaks, opening his eyes to be able to see your face, one of his beautiful smiles immediately taking place on his lips as his eyes found yours. “would you be okay with doing that? you have such pretty arms” you asked, voice relaxed as you caressed the arm around you, the sleeveless shirt he wore allowing you to see the entirety of his toned limb.  yujun couldn’t help but smile as you spoke, finding it adorable how you did little to hide your adoration for his body. “of course, we can walk to the craft store to get some later” he smiled “not right now though, im too comfy” he muttered and brought you back tighter to his chest, eliciting a cute giggle to come out of your pretty lips.  “sure, prince, whenever you want” you smiled and cuddled further onto his chest, relaxing as you took in his scent. hours passed before you finally went to the store, taking the long way there as you walked hand in hand with your boyfriend. your laughs could probably be heard from the other side of town as you listened to his stories about practice; bashing on his teammates bad habits as he quickly skipped past his own, making you roll your eyes in amusement. once you finally got home with a few strands of different color ribbons, you sat back on your bed. yujun flexed his arm for you like you had instructed, watching the way you ogled at them with a sly smile. “see? i told you so much time in the gym would pay off” he teased as you finished tying the ribbon, causing you to roll your eyes. “i never said it didn’t” you answered, grabbing your phone to take pictures as well as to record the video you wanted. “i forget sometimes, though” “what?” yujun couldn’t keep your eyes off of you for a second, too enamored by the sight of your pretty face to even consider looking away. “that you’re ripped, you’re so squishy” you smiled, taking your hands to his cheeks and squishing lightly. he chuckled at your action, taking your hand in his to bring it to his lips and kiss your palm. “i’ll have to remind you more often, then”  “keep going with the sleeveless shirts and I won't forget for a second.” you laughed, stealing a quick peck from his lips. “i knew the plan was working” he muttered all smiley before joining your lips again.

ᯓ let’s be completely real for a second. there was absolutely no way that this trend could exist without you dragging your boyfriend into it. you know it, his members know it, he knows it. in complete honestly, hunter was waiting for you to ask him if you could do that trend for a while now, knowing that you wanted to by the amount of times he had seen one of those videos play on your screen while you mindlessly scrolled. he wasn’t going to bring it up, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t hint at the fact that he would be more than happy to partake in the video if that’s what you wanted. with that said, when you asked him if you could do it, he agreed immediately and with no objections. he tried hard to contain his smile and not show you just how much he had been waiting for you to ask, but he could never keep a secret from you.

you were sitting down on hunter's lap as you laid on the couch, watching tiktok on your phone in hopes to cure the boredom of a rainy day when a video of the trend appeared on your screen. hunter smiled as he waited for you to speak, knowing that you couldn’t see him because of the position you found yourselves in.  “i always wanted to do that with you, you know” you mumbled, letting the video play. “really now?” he mumbled, doing his best to contain the humor in his voice. you shifted on his lap, looking at him with a soft smile. “yeah, can we?” you asked, doing puppy dog eyes like he didn’t immediately say yes to anything you ever asked for. “of course, princess. i think i have ribbon on one of the drawers” he smiled and kissed your forehead. what he didn’t say though, is that he had bought it the first time he had seen you look at the trend, knowing you well enough to know that the question would be asked eventually. you let out a small “yay” before climbing away from him to rummage through his drawers, looking for the ribbon until you found the small pink roll of it. you went back to your prior place one you had cut a long strand of it, waiting for hunter to flex his arm so you could get to work. once it was done you couldn't contain the small squeal at the sight of your boyfriend’s arm with the bow around it. hunter chuckled as he watched you take pictures and the video, enveloping you in his arms again when you were done. “wait… why do you have ribbon just laying around?” you asked curiously after a couple moments of silence. “let’s just say i know you well enough” he chuckled, making you smile and cuddle further into his body. 

ᯓ oh, yechan had been waiting for this one. the truth was that he had seen these videos before you had and he really really wanted to do it. he had even begun exercising his arms more often so he would be in his prime when the moment came. the only issue is that you didn’t seem to want to, because it had been weeks and you had not asked him nor even hinted at wanting to do it. spoiler alert, you whole heartedly did, you were just too shy to bring the idea up to him because you thought he would laugh at your face at the mere mention of it. so imagine your surprise when he was the one to bring it up, more as a whine than an actual proposal to do a simple little tiktok trend.

yechan had noticed that the trend had been spreading like the plague throughout the group. the way all the boys were flexing (see what i did there) about the videos their respective girlfriends had posted was driving him a little insane at this point, because he hadn’t been asked yet. he knew it was not an issue with his body, of course. he had worked his ass off to get to where he was today, and he deserved to have a pretty, girlie little ribbon tied to his bicep too, but it seemed like you didn’t think so; and he had had enough. you were sitting on your respective chairs in front of his monitor (yes, he got you a chair too), playing videogames as you normally did when you were bored. you were seconds away from winning when the screen froze, indicating that yechan had paused it and eliciting a whine from your lips. you turned to face him, about to complain about him being an absolute baby before being interrupted by him voicing his own complaints. “i think i have great arms, you know?” he spoke, causing you to frown in confusion.  “what?” you questioned, moving his chair as well so he could face you completely. “i have great arms, i work out a lot” he pressed, his eyebrows creased with what seemed like annoyance. “i know you do, babe” you answered, watching his face full of frustration, so very confused. “then why haven’t you asked me to do that stupid trend?” he asked, and then it clicked on your head. “the ribbon one?” you asked, your confusion slowly morphing into a slight smile. “yes! i’ve been waiting for you to ask and you haven’t and i don’t get why” he frowned, and you almost cooed at how incredibly adorable he looked. you stood up wordlessly, going towards your bag as yechan looked at you intently. were you really walking away from him right now?  his concerns dissipated as you sat back down, a long piece of ribbon in your hands. “i’ve been meaning to ask you, but i was too embarrassed” you explained, your smile a little shy, “i thought you thought it was dumb, by the way you talked about the other videos” yechan’s facial features relaxed immediately, overtaken by sheer softness. “i would never think anything you want to do is dumb, baby” he smiled, grabbing your face as he caressed your cheeks. “cute, will you let me do it now?” you smiled and kissed the palm of his hand before moving away, waiting for him to get into position. he rolled up his sleeve and flexed his arm, causing your smile to widen as you began tying the ribbon around his toned arms. when you were taking the pictures, inwardly giggling because of how good he looked, you realized something. “have you been working out more?” yechan’s face tinted a light red at your question, but he nodded sheepishly nonetheless. “maybe.. i wanted to look good on the video”  his words made you laugh, shaking your head as you moved forward to cradle his face, peppering kisses all over it “how cute.”

★ pairing ;; ot10 x reader

★ authors note ;; i took so incredibly long to write this its not even funny. anyways this is for my two pookies ILY.

★ taglist ;; @tiramisumin @astrasng

★ back to the (temporary) masterlist.

★ please do not copy, adapt or steal any of the content !!!

[jenthebug]

Little Bro and his friends are participating in a race called 24 Hours of Lemons. They bought a car for $500 and are fixing it up with junkyard parts on a strict budget (though the budget for safety equipment is unlimited). They’ll then have a 4-driver, 8-hour race where each driver races for 2 hours. I’m stoked to see how this turns out.

He also got in a wreck (no injuries!) that disabled his daily driver. Someone clipped his rear end going super fast. 😒 (Little Bro is the kind of brother where I find out about this stuff via social media, which is fine)

So yeah, I’ve been on the couch most the day, watching DanWithTheWrench and music videos.

It’s almost time to study. I think this time I’ll use a map and dry erase markers and try to follow what the operations dispatcher is doing.

Wanna see my Christmas decorations?

I’m thinking they’re catproof. A tree would get destroyed, but stuff hanging from the walls and ceiling (away from the cat tower) should be good. It looks more extra in real life, which is exactly what I was going for.

Tomorrow is my appointment with pre-procedure services (anesthesia). I remember that one being pretty chill, which is nice. I also have some lab work to be done, which means I’m hydrating today, because I’m a hard stick. 😒 I wish I could have kept my port. It wasn’t hurting me. And I’m sure they’ll need a few tries to get a big IV on me for surgery; they may even need the vein finder or ultrasound.

I’m taking it super easy, I need to get rid of this cold. In fact, I can’t be sick for 2 weeks before surgery. Back to masking at work.

I also need to do laundry, but I’ll do that after a few hours of studying.

[5ellaal5]

Here. The excerpt of this Fix-It Fic chapter with most of the flirting skipped.

This takes place after Singularity, after Burning Shores has started and Aloy’s companions disappear and leave data nodes for her.

It was inspired by the OP’s sentiment being shared by @fogsblue to give credit where credit is due.

Setting: Kotallo stops in at the Base and finds Erend already there doing some air guitar to [Travis Tate’s] death metal music videos/holos.

———————————

They were about to head out when Kotallo paused. Something about the Death Metal video had bothered him.

“Erend, would you bring up your music’s image once more. Uh, with the volume down. Just for a moment.”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

Kotallo stepped beside and slightly behind him, looking over his shoulder. Erend glanced at him with his eyes only, holding his face still, seeming to hold his breath.

Kotallo pointed, reaching around him. “Are those… subtitles?”

“Yeah! It’s helpful to read the lyrics. I love the screaming, but I like to know what I’m screaming, ya know?”

Kotallo squinted.

“Why are they so small? And what is that font?”

“Small…? Font…? What are you talking about?”

Kotallo leaned in further, resting his chest against Erends shoulder to try to see, trying to avoid stabbing him with his neck spikes.

“Hmmm. Can you bring up a text file? Just something simple. Maybe a data point from around the Base or one of those messages people leave each other in ruins.”

“Uh, ok.” Erend manhandled some Focus gestures, and chose a text file at random.

Kotallo squinted again, leaning forward again. He looked at the file name, and then stepped to Erend’s side, opened his Focus’ display with the publicly-visible setting, and found the same file. The text was much larger, in a clear font, with ample line spacing.

Erend’s eyes looked back and forth between the two displays and then he abruptly shut his Focus display off so he could stare at Kotallo. “Hey, what? Is that the same file!? Why does yours look so different?!”

Kotallo closed his as well and stared back at his uncertain friend, who was so often putting down his own ability to read or make sense of things. How to offer help, delicately?

“Hmmm…”

“That’s all you’ve got for me, you brooding Tenakth? ‘Hmmm ?’”

Kotallo waved a hand for patience.

“When I first arrived, some of the Focus gestures needed two hands with normal settings. GAIA showed me how to adjust ‘Accessibility Settings’ so that I could use it with only one hand. She also directed me to particular ‘fonts’ because I would mix up the same glyphs over and over as I was learning to read. Something called, oh, what was it…?”

GAIA’s voice sounded between their Focuses’ speakers. “ I believe the phrase you’re looking for is ‘dyslexia-friendly fonts .’”

“Yes! That was it! Thank you, GAIA. Here, Erend. Let me see if I can lead you to these settings. Open the main menu and then go to Focus settings… Further down. Oh, wait, your menu is shorter. Maybe… there?”

Erend followed Kotallo’s gestures, with some help since the menu lengths were so different between the two displays and Erend’s display text was so very small and in a strange font that looked like handwritten Carja glyphs made with a leaky pen.

With his metal hand on his shoulder, Kotallo helped him pick a font that was easy to read, and switched it a few times to make sure Erend’s choice worked in multiple contexts, and set it to default. Changed the screen’s view size and taught him how to temporarily zoom in on a text file. They even experimented with shifting the saturation of the text display light until Erend said it wasn’t hurting his eyes as much.

Erend looked delighted.

Kotallo felt a little ill.

He had overheard Erend talking to Aloy on many occasions about how much trouble he was having learning to read and understanding the content, and the glyphs causing headaches, and it had never occurred to him to not take the man’s own beliefs about his stupidity at face value and just look at the damn settings. What kind of a friend believed their friend’s self-criticism?

Varl was also Erend’s friend. And Zo? Aloy knew him the best; why didn’t she…? Oh, but at that point, she was relying on GAIA to train everyone because she was almost never there, and everyone else was learning the Focus from the very beginning. Aloy had to believe what her team reported to her, when she stopped in, and her team was all doing their best.

Kotallo had gotten help from GAIA and Beta with ‘accessibility,’ and had received Aloy’s special attention for making his metal arm, and rebuilding his trust in himself, because his main impediment was physical and obvious.

But during Kotallo’s first days here, he’d had trouble with swapping glyphs, confusing words, having them blur before his eyes or fade into the environment behind him, causing headaches, as Erend might have been having this whole time. GAIA had talked about ‘dyslexia’ but also about past head injuries affecting reading, and that was an injury they likely both shared.

But unlike Erend, Kotallo had been shown how to make adjustments right away, and then knew it was possible to ask for a change. It had only impeded him for a few days at most, and after that he hadn’t been taking it personally when new but similar challenges slowed him down.

He shook his head in dismay and also awe.

Once Erend had closed the menus, looking stunned at how easy it was now that he’d made the font size match his fingertips for better precision, Kotallo spoke.

“Erend, you are one of the smartest people I know.”

“What?! What in the Forge’s tool chest are you talking about?!”

Kotallo just kept shaking his head, amazed.

“You learned everything we all did. But it was if you were learning to fight swinging a warhammer the size of a cart, rather than a practice wooden one. And you did it —you learned it— all the same.”

Erend looked even more stunned. He blinked.

“I did?”

He looked down. Quirked a smile. Huffed a laugh.

“I did!”

Kotallo slapped him on the shoulder and gripped where his hand landed. “Truly, you walk in strength, Oseram.”

Erend looked back up at him, still apparently amazed, and a few other things besides. Then firmed up his expression.

“Hey, we should still go hunting. A couple of us battle-hardened ancient tech experts, forging into the wilds, should have no trouble bringing down a brace of pigeons. Otherwise I’m going to get all emotional.”

Kotallo smirked. It seemed none of Aloy’s friends particularly enjoyed having many feelings. “Agreed.”

Erend in Forbidden West

maybe controversial opinion again but another thing i've noticed so far in Forbidden West is that they lowkey kinda butchered Erend...

idk if anyone else feels this way, i never see it talked about, but i swear to god he didn't used to be so one-dimensional. Again i'm only halfway through the game so there's hope for change, but i recently rewatched the Ersa mission in ZD and it just made me realise how he used to have so much character outside of just "haha funny dumb alcoholic", and that seems to be all he is in the second game (so far). I'm sooo sick of hearing constant jokes about how he's stupid, clumsy, drunk and annoying, as if that's all he is when i swear he didn't used to be. Sure there were jokes about him being a drunk in Zero Dawn too but it wasn't the majority of his character! They can have him be the comic relief character without making that ALL he is 😭 i'm honestly really really hoping we get more serious scenes with him to cancel this out... justice for Erend man, he's supposed to be more than that.

[rosicheeks]

🫣

[shewhoeatssand]

I want to befriend Kaneki and meet with him and email him forever

[trash-bin-ary]

It sucks when you’re in a can’t formulate a sentence right mood and someone says something that you want to respond to but you can’t

[spideyhexx]

read some older interviews with tom and his Juilliard story is crazy

[zodiacsea]

ANOTHER coworker i love is leaving AND i have a bunch of shit i need to get finished at work before i go to vegas next week and not enough time to do it AND the zipper on my favorite jeans broke AND i woke up half an hour late this morning i actually want to go home and curl up in a ball forever. thanks

[boomerang109]

just saw a video that was like “do you even know who your grandfather’s father was?” YES?! i KNEW him! he died when i was 16!!!

[regallibellbright]

“Regalli, do you really think Game Freak intended for the Link Cable thing in Delta Episode to imply every Pokemon cartridge is its own unique pocket universe, and that every generation exists in its own continuity where their Pokemon and mechanics now retroactively Have Always Existed?”

To the second, absolutely. You don’t have a plan to move a meteor to another universe get shot down when another character asks “but what if we moved the meteor to a universe without Mega Evolution? Wouldn’t they be screwed?” WITHOUT intending to imply exactly that. To the first…

Listen, I don’t care if they INTENDED for the ‘every cartridge is its own universal iteration’ thing, it makes SENSE, okay? Like. Think about version differences. Starting in Gen III they impacted the route the story took. Why is that? Which is canon? Pokemon multiverse, all of them are. Some universes have Maxie screw up, some universes have Archie, some universes they BOTH cause mayhem and Rayquaza needs to get the fuck down there and tell everyone to knock it the hell off. Why is the Ultra Beasts plotline replaced with Rainbow Rocket from SuMo to USUM? Pokemon multiverse, Anabel and Looker only show up in SuMo variations and Giovanni only gets the Rainbow Rocket idea in USUM ones.

Why do version exclusives exist? Pokemon multiverse, they only live in this region in certain universe iterations.

Why can Leaf never challenge you at the top of Mount Silver in HGSS and you never get the choice? Pokemon multiverse, all HGSS cartridges come from a universe where Red exists, and for that matter they are separate from universes where you the player character did because of his specific team. Hell, that’s the case for any game where Red and Blue make battleable appearances, isn’t it.

Come to that the only individual cartridges that actually directly connect in continuity to each other, the only Pokemon games built on an assumption that not only did the EVENTS of the previous game take place but that they occurred under the guidance of a Player Character, specifically YOUR Plaher Character, are Black 2/White 2 and then only if you link your own save file. Every other Pokemon PC does not explicitly exist in every other game so they may just have generic versions of their character like Red and Blue and Green from Let’s Go or the Hilda/Hilbert Battle Subway NPC. But what about trading and cross-game transfer, you ask?

You guessed it! POKEMON MULTIVERSE. Canonically thanks to naming the plot device in Delta Episode a Link Cable, you can make a case that every instance of trading Pokemon back to the start of the series was multidimensional travel. (And, in Gen II-Gen I, canonically also time travel.) Union Rooms and the like actually connect distinct universes together. Hisuian Pokemon can show up in ScarVio without any explanation because they’ve been dimensionally transferred and anyway, in this universe they may never have actually gone extinct. Hell, we don’t technically know they actually WENT extinct, they just didn’t exist in the DPPt and BDSP universes. Maybe in the PLA universe they’re known as Sinnohan Goomy or whatever. Or maybe in the PLA universe it’s still known as Hisui. We don’t know. That whole “previous life” thing in ScarVio with the phone cases has the woman never having heard of Hisui (despite a photo of Laventon being visible on the board for history class).

It’s Pokemon Multiverse all the way down, folks. I don’t care what Gamefreak intended in this case, the end result actually holds up enough on reading I just accept this as canon.

[pebblezone]

Idk how welcome home has overrun literally all of my social media but I guess I welcome it

[darlinimamess]

.

[emeraldbabygirl]

Why does nostalgia hurt wtf :/