#I’ve been doing this for like months and somehow I’m still fucking going

[kosmicdream]

Comic endings & 2025 GOALS!

i am NEARLY done with chapter 17 of FFAK. it was originally twice as long but i cut it in half, so it wouldnt end up as another 900 page chapter. After this chapter is done (maybe in sept?), im going to take a short hiatus from FFAK (and nrd) to finally fucking finish my "Teacher & The Fairy" short story that i started in uh.. i guess the comic project started at least 5 years ago but part two has been in limbo since 2021. Ive honestly struggled a lot with the story over the years as it both got too big and i still wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to keep in the story or how I wanted to resolve it. Originally, it was one part. Then it had to be two, but as I’ve made two it felt stressful to know that it would probably end up 3. That kinda made everything sit in a standstill for a long time. This project isn’t like..one of my big ones obviously - but its still part of a larger goal of mine to get better at writing shorter, more compact comics to practice with storytelling as well as endings. So having it grow & grow was fun creatively but not my goal. I also had so many other comic duties to do, it was put on the backburner along with 23953095 other stories..

..Speaking of those, its kind of sad to say but at the moment I’ve officially/unofficially decided that all other comics besides FFAK & NRD are now on permanent hiatus/dropped. (Not including the ffak bonus chapters, which I do intend to return to in some form.) It was probably already a bit obvious that they were stuck in limbo anyway, but at this point I think it's much better for me to just really let go of them and focus on what is most important. There’s always “maybe i’ll come back to them somedays” because i DO have all the other comics written/outlined in some capacity.. (Save for Praeymoon, which is both a project about short stories and also part of a much larger narrative as well) ..But i still can’t really promise that’s ever going to happen when I still have newer ideas i’m more interested in pursuing. Or older/larger projects I’d rather dedicate my effort towards finishing. Even as I write this, its much more likely I might attempt to start “Religion of Toy” rather than return to “Eggshells”, “Replacer”, “The Eyes of Miasma” “Praeymoon” ..ect.. Which is fickle, i know! But that sort of is how creative endeavors go sometimes. I also will say, while I’m sure those series did have some readers and people who really looked forward to more of the stories (sorry ;;) - I’m mostly making this creative change so I can focus on NRD & FFAK which I’m sure everyone (myself included!) is more invested in and want to see conclude. Those two comics are still my #1 priority.. Yes.. both of them at the same time, somehow.. (its like impossible to place FFAK or NRD as #1, because while i’d be inclined to say FFAK - nrd is much CLOSER to being completed by a long shot.. So in a way it is #1.. But like gun to my head of course i’d pick FFAK.. so.. They both are just going to be #1. I have two hands!! Except I only have one that can draw. Alas.)

That being said, “The Teacher & The Fairy” will be my next goal to complete! and hopefully will accomplish this in this short hiatus from FFAK/NRD. If I just set aside a little time, I can make the decisions needed to wrap the story up in part 2. It might not be like this perfectly paced ending I intended - but the story has already gone through a lot of revisions that it never really has followed the intended path for it anyway.. I am expecting this to take like 2 months or something. 

The reason why I decided not to drop this comic along with the others, is that its still a fairly simple one and one of the “newer” comic projects I’ve had. I still feel a lot more relevance in my life with the themes in the story. I still think part1 of the comic is probably the best example of pacing done in a chapter for probably any of my comics, which is part of what set this like.. Perfectionist standard for myself to follow up with something just as strong as that. I’ll be honest, I don’t normally get as caught up in that sort of thing with my comics because I know its a losing battle - but part 1 really worked out WAY better than I expected that I really wanted to really make something polished and impressive.. Which lead me to feeling nothing WAS good enough and feeling disappointed with myself LMAO

IDK if part two and the ending will like.. Be as good as the first, at least in my eyes.. But I look forward to being able to cross SOMETHING off my list that I always wanted to finish. Sadly, for my other comics - they’d still require a lot more than even 1 or 2 chapters to finish.. Some even more than that.. And that kind of like, commitment just isn’t realistic for me anymore at least when I’m working IRL at my day job. I have much more limited time to spare for my comics than I used to and have for several years now, but even tho I draw fast its not the same as having unlimited artistic free time to dedicate to multiple webs of comics. Even then, it was more than I could handle anyway without feeling like I was never getting anywhere because I was spreading myself too thin. Too distracted by new passing ideas, unable to get back into the right rhythm for older ones by jumping around too much and all that sorts of things. Ofc I still love all the old stories and concepts I have had along the way and even the smallest ones have helped develop me as a storyteller and artist, but y’kno. Thems the breaks..

ALSO when i am finished with part2 of Fairy comic.. I will likely go back to FFAK for chapter 18! As.. I still need some “emotional processing” time for NRD.. MAYBE by the time the fairy comic is done, I will feel different.. But it is more likely that I will just continue with another FFAK chapter as that one was technically supposed to be THIS one.. And I feel a lot more like, prepared & organized for going forward with that chapter. ALL of arc2 for FFAK is very organized vrs the rest of NRD.. which puts NRD in kind of a funny place to me, ATM.

 I used to have a pretty “clear” idea on how many chapters of NRD were left exactly and.. Now I kind of dont know anymore. I definitely know what NRD ch9 will be, but I’m still having to figure out the pacing of the rest of the comic and make some final decisions on certain plotlines. I have written and rewritten many things, always kind of circling around more or less the original ideas -but since the final leg of this story is almost like.. Bleeds into each other events-wise, it makes it a bit difficult to know how many chapters it will take. NRD 7 & 8 were the longest nrd chapters and were also meant to jsut be “one” chapter. I am VERY satisfied and happy with how chapter 8 ended and where the comic is right now - so its probably the best time for me to take this creative break so I can get a better plan in mind so the rest of the comic can go along smoothly. 

THAT is also why I wanted to finish the Fairy comic, to help force me to challenge these.. Perfectionist aspects that keep me in paralysis mode. I have a habit of adding adding adding, and if a scene feels and is good to think about - I will still want to pursue drawing it even if it just adds to the length of the comic. Its clear, i could keep going with anything and always find a reason for digging deeper into a story/world, but that isn’t effective when you actually want to move on to other things or like. Reach some kind of emotional closure for something. Hilariously, I feel way more organized and satisfied with FFAK’s ending - which will take me many years to reach - than this final leg of NRD which will still take me at least a couple years.. But is much closer to completing even WHILE working on FFAK at the same time.

I just turned 35, which means .. I’ve been making comics I guess, for 14ish years. Technically longer, but I “started” eggshells at 21. FFAK is already almost 11 and NRD is .. SHIT! Its 7. I forgot to celebrate its birthday. UMMM well, its old too. Wow!

What was I saying? Oh right. Im getting old yall!! I want to finish some stuff already jeez!!!! I am not tired of anything but you know. It feels good to get stuff I planned actually made, as it frees up my weak mind to think about other stuff. I am definitely in a weird like.. New era of my work I think. Not bad weird, just very different. I feel a bit like.. Alien to my older self, or what I thought of myself as an artist.. And thats good! I mean, I’m welcoming this shift and it feels very natural at the same time. While all these goals of mine feel daunting, like finally cleaning out a car garage, I am good at sticking to at least.. Certain commitments. FFAK and NRD are proof of that, as they’ve basically been running non-stop since they started. FFAK did have its longest hiatus of like, technically 1 year - which is wild but you know. NRD had to have its time to shine. What’s also interesting, is that every year since NRD started- I have completed at least one chapter for that series! Wow! 

Okay, this post is very long btu that’s basically all i wanted to say and felt like getting some ideas off my chest about my goals with the rest of this year. Somehow writing things out like this helps me feel like I’m committing to a plan and its less nebulous in my mind. Plus I like “checking in” with everyone, if they feel like reading it or not. 

Have a great.. ! monday? -Kosmic

[frozenjokes]

if I write another 5k fic within the span of two days I’m going to vomit

[seilon]

top surgery…………tomorrow…………

[strohller27]

.

[barley-st-band]

hey does anyone know how we’re supposed to survive it all. asking for a friend

[exopelagic]

yeah I have more to say

[eowynstwin]

peristalsis - vii

selkie!soap x reader. depression. strangers to “lovers.” suicidal resolve. major character death. violent drowning. a reckoning. . Running away from life to the Scottish Hebrides, you meet a man who won't leave you alone. . Masterlist. Ao3.

previous

When you’re sure that Johnny’s friends have left, you return to the beach. The wind has died down in the late afternoon; the clouds sit heavy and motionless in the sky.

Night is coming, and it promises to be cold. It hangs in the wary stillness of the air, in the waiting quiet. The seabirds’ calling is absent; the dune crickets’ singing has ended.

He’s there on the sand. Somehow, you knew he would be. Felt it, even before he came into view. He stands by the kayak, almost as if he’s been waiting there for you.

You hold the folded pelt with both hands against your stomach as you approach. The fur is so soft against your palms, your fingers. Cool from having spent a night in the ground.

He looks at it with sharp eyes. Then, up to you, expectantly.

His eyes on you in the cottage bedroom, moonlight shifting in them. Teeth in your neck. The taste of brine in your mouth.

Pearls in your memory. Parting gifts to enjoy, as you come to the close.

“Missed you at the end there, bonnie,” he says, even and purposefully steady. “The boys were glad to meet you.”

He’s known—the whole time. He always has. You don’t know how you know this, but you do.

“I’ve had a nice time with you, Johnny,” you say, when you’re only a few paces away from him. “But I think it’s time for me to go.”

Three days. That’s all it’s been. Nothing much, objectively, to say goodbye to. A good way to end things, truthfully, with the aftertaste of good food still on your tongue, the heat and girth of him still lingering inside you. The etchings of his calluses still fresh on your skin.

A kind ending. A gentle one. Better than you and he deserve.

You hold out the pelt.

He looks at it. Mouth a tight line. Brows low and flat. Then his gaze moves to you.

“Where will you go?” he asks, still steady.

“I’m not sure,” you say. “Maybe—Amsterdam. Does it matter? I don’t know.”

“Just like that,” he says flatly. “After everything.”

You frown. “I was always going to leave, Johnny. Remember? I only booked the place for a month. This is just…earlier.”

Something frenetic buzzes in his posture. The slight lean forward in the way he stands. The angles of his face seem harsher, more pronounced. Eyes dark as wet stone.

“Johnny, just—” you shake the pelt at him, still holding it out. “Just take it, okay?”

He looks at the pelt again, and then back at you.

At it, then you.

It—you—

Johnny lunges.

In one swift surge forward he snaps the pelt from your hands and flings it aside. As it flutters to the ground his hands whip at you, seizing fistfuls of your shirt a half-thought before you realize it, wrenching you forward.

“What the fuck?!” you cry, but then you’re off your feet, falling toward him, arms flailing as you lose your center of balance. You topple into him, and he hooks you beneath the shoulders with the iron bands of his arms, stepping away from the kayak, and only for a moment do you think that maybe he’s going to bring you back to the cottage before he starts dragging you in the opposite direction—

“Johnny, no,” you breathe, as you hear a wave break on the sand,“Johnny, no!”

You start to kick and thrash. You throw yourself against his grasp, dig your heels into the sand, try to find the meat of his forearm with your teeth, but he is resolute. Unstoppable.

You start to scream.

The waves eddy around your feet, rise up to engulf your ankles, your calves, as Johnny roils the water with wide, unfaltering steps, deeper in—

The water closes around your thighs. Your waist.

This is happening. This is really happening—

“Had a month to get to this, bonnie,” says Johnny, over your screaming, rough and harsh and completely unrecognizable. He slings you around to face him, jaw set hard, the muscles in his temples flexing as he clenches his teeth. “But I guess we’re doin’ it now.”

“Johnny,” you plead, “please don’t, Johnny, please—Johnny, no, no, no, no—!”

He clamps his hands on your shoulders and shoves you downward. You claw at him, push against the seabed, but your lover is too strong, immune to your fighting, and you are barely able to inhale before he forces your head below the water.

Frigid cold—it rushes into your ears, through your hair, knife-sharp and paralyzing. Salt flooding the open canals of your nose—

You close your throat. The surface swirls above you, distorting him, rippling and folding in on itself as a wave recedes. Hope waits for the retreating water to expose you, but he has dragged you out too deep, far enough that even the lowest point of the backwash still submerges you.

Seawater, eroding cilia, ramming against the rolled stone of your epiglottis. Burning the film of your corneas.

You reach up, swinging your hands at his face, but the distance of his straightened arms, muscles flexing to hold you down, is too great; you beat at empty air, or collide with the rock-hardness of his shoulders.

Another wave comes in, deepening the surf around you. You kick out, knee upward, wrench against him—you just need him to loosen his grip once, for just one moment, and then you can get away. You try to pry his fingers up, but they may as well have rooted in you.

Lungs pulsing. Throat already fighting to open. Chest heaving, diaphragm beating upward to pull in air. Pain lancing up your chest, unimaginably sharp, head so heavy it might burst—

You throw yourself to one side, kicking against the sand, and physiology subsumes your control. The cost of fighting is breathing. The floodways open—the ocean rushes into your throat—

Salt abrades the walls of your esophagus, claw-slashing downward. Acid bypasses the filters of your alveoli, honeycomb structures collapsing to the pressure, to the spasming of your lungs desperate to send oxygen to the rest of your body. Your diaphragm contracts—your chest convulses to cough, to force water out, only to welcome more of the sea in.

You beat at Johnny’s arms again. All you manage is to throw water against him. He is a sea stack above you. A pillar. Unmovable.

Holding your body against his in the bedroom, frighteningly strong, moving against you like the ocean itself—

The water churns above you with your struggle. You cannot see his face. All you see is the unstable shape of his silhouette, wavering lines distorting the edges as the corners of your vision darken.

More seawater, expanding your chest. Heart stuttering between your lungs, yanking in the last of your oxygenated blood, with nothing to send back out. The weight of your body swells, arms too heavy to hold up. They crash into the water before you force them back up again, searching and unwieldy.

Perception narrows. Him, and you. That’s all.

Sunlight through the window the next morning, rimming him in gold. The heat of his shoulder pressed to yours.

The seawater steals the tears from your eyes, throat convulsing on a sob you cannot make.

Grinning as you shared oysters.

You slap your hands against his arms, clapping your palms to whatever they can find, begging, praying—

Him moving inside you, his warmth, his smell, the weight of his tongue in your mouth. The tug of his hand on your arm.

His smile, his voice, his hand in yours—

Fists like weights holding you down. Fire in your chest. Too full.

Upward—something in you tugging upward.

You want to live. You want to live. You want to live—

It’s done.

Johnny lifts your body from the surf and carries it back to the beach. You fit in his arms as if they were the mold you were cast from.

He knew you would the moment he saw you in the airport. Perfect. You were perfect for him. He saw it in the angles of your body, the way you stood, the emotions moving behind the mask of your face.

He tried to explain it to Price once—the seeing. The knowing.

How he could look straight at his old captain, for instance, and know, without ever hearing the man say a word, that he felt responsible. For everything. For the gunshot. For the months afterword. Even though he hadn’t chosen to discharge Johnny himself, Price saw the mold of his hands in the shape his sergeant’s life had taken.

It’s how he knows Gaz couldn’t see the change in him, because he saw what he wanted to see—his best mate whole and healthy, thriving in a new stage of his life.

It’s how he knows Ghost doesn’t even recognize him anymore. Not really.

And it’s how he knows you’re just like him.

He lays you down on the sand, cradling the back of your head so it settles lightly down. Stretches your legs to rest straight out. He aligns your limp arms with the length of your torso, turning your hands upward so the sand will not cling to your palms.

Beautiful. Even with your face slack. Eyes half-open, unseeing. Mouth parted; seawater dripping from the corners.

Your feet touched the island the same way his did, years ago. Running away. Looking for the end, without really trying to find it. It was in the set of your brows, the tight pull of your mouth against your teeth.

Life had gone in every direction opposite of your intention. And it had left you alone.

Johnny smooths a few stray hairs away from your forehead, and kisses the place between your brows. The little line that has sat between them this whole time is gone, smoothed away. He kisses the bridge of your nose, and then your mouth, and then stands.

It took him a while, back then, to make the decision. It was hours before he woke to find Price watching him, sitting despondent on the sand, tears tracking salty down the older man’s face.

He goes to the place he threw his pelt away and retrieves it, shaking it out. Holding it in his hands assuages the anxiety that has wriggled in the back of his mind since the day he shoved it into the lintel of the croft. He’d known where it was, but survival instinct prevails over logic—for the rest of his life, he will always fear its loss.

It’s a consequence, but not one he’d been unfamiliar with.

And, in the end, preferable to the alternative.

He lowers himself to the sand a little ways away from you, propping his knees up and spreading the pelt across them.

When he had done this—he’d done it alone. It had been close. He almost hadn’t made it.

If he takes up this vigil—if he stays, the whole time, watching you—you’ll make it. It’s not a matter of hope or belief. It’s a matter of knowing.

He knows every time he looks into your eyes. Every time he’s been inside you. Every time your body has risen to meet his touch.

You want to live.

So he sits back. He keeps his eyes on you.

And he waits.

The sky claps you between its palms and hurls you back down the gravity well—

You vomit up the ocean.

Panting, with burning lungs. Closer—everything is much, much closer, loud and bright, and suddenly, individually distinct.

Channels of sound and aroma dance on the wind—sea salt, the smoke of someone’s grill from the village, burning meat, the rolling crash of the incoming tide, birdcall and the gust of beating wings and—and—

And you can sense them all.

A gap in the clouds lets the sunlight touch the earth.

You move on the sand. Turn onto your belly, chest heaving, empty and light. The cove—you’re still in the cove. There’s the path back up to the cottage. There’s the kayak. There’s—

Johnny, riotous, waiting in the crashing waves.

He calls to you: loud, long, triumphant, teeth bared in jubilation.

You cry out. Wordless. If you’d had any words to say, your lips could not shape them.

You’re alive.

It crashes into you. Alive.

You lift your head into the wind coming off the ocean. It caresses your face softly, tenderly, like a mother’s kiss on your cheek.

Johnny suddenly turns from you and darts into the water.

You wail with surprise. A wave rushes up to where you lay, water licking up the fibers of your body. You’re not ready. It’s too soon. Why did he leave you? What’s happening? Why isn’t the water cold?

You clutch at the sand. You can’t find your legs—you can’t stand up. All you can do is crawl, shuffle your ungainly body forward with the clumsiness of a newborn child. You cry out again, trying to convince him to return, to come help you, but if he hears it, he does not come to your aid.

Another wave surges forward; salt water crashes across your face. You flinch away from it, but something nictates over your eyes, shielding them from the burn.

Once you reach the surf, the water cradles your body, buoyancy easing your way. You submerge, finding something to kick with—

And then you’re gliding.

Murky, and blue. Sand clouding in the tide. But comfortable—cool, without being cold. You remember frigidity cutting into your skin only hours earlier, rending you at the seams, unmaking you.

Now, it receives you like an old friend.

Ahead of you, Johnny moves further out. You can feel him, far out in the distance, tiny eddies of water rippling against your cheeks.

He’s not the only thing you can feel. The radius of your awareness vibrates with blips of movement, darting, swaying, dancing, below and above and all around. It shocks you to realize, and you go still, hovering in place, momentarily stunned by how much there is living around you.

Johnny pauses too, ahead of you. Waiting. A lone distinct figure, patient for you to follow.

You shiver with startled wonder, and resume your way toward him.

The coastal shelf slopes downward, falling away. The water gradually clears as overhead, past the surface, the sun sinks in the sky. Warm golden light dyes the sea around you. He leads you on, further and further, until a forest of kelp grows up around you.

In the turquoise, ribbons of twisting green undulate and twirl, feathery and dancing in the windy current. Silvery bubbles trail toward the sunlight, intermingling with tiny schools of glimmering fish that dart and jump between the fronds. Down below you, red and green algae fur valleys of rock, swaying lazily like prairie grass.

It’s beautiful.

Johnny drifts to a stop in the middle of it all, wheeling around to face you. You approach him, coming in close—and it’s almost like approaching the sun, so much that he radiates across your senses.

His dark eyes hold yours the same way they had that day on the beach, and the pendulum swings balanced now between you.

He brushes the side of his face along yours, and with his touch he leads you downward, following the stipes of kelp toward the stone to which their holdfasts grip. The heat of his huge body warms the water that flows in the narrow spaces between your bodies, even as the coolness intensifies the further you dive.

The two of you draw up along the forest floor—and find the myriad little denizens of the sea. You’d known they were there, at the very edge of your senses, and now they bloom into fullness in your attention.

Shrimp perambulate beneath rocky ledges. Crabs walks along the ridge of a huge boulder, like climbing a mountain. And there, further down, snails in their spiral shells, pulling themselves across the sandy grain. Starfish, in shades of red and blue and orange. Anemones, translucent hair streaming.

Tiny lives—insignificant to you, before. Hardly worth your notice. Now, you marvel at them, reeling. You want to cup them all in your palms and bring them up to clutch against your chest.

Something brushes against you.

You look up—Johnny, sliding along your side, curving back in toward you, then looping underneath. He nudges at you, then darts away; you gaze at him, confused, so he comes back in, shunting you with his body, and once again retreats.

Behind him, you catch a turtle fluttering in between the green leaves. Atlantic salmon chasing capelin. An eel peeking out from its cave. Undisturbed by Johnny’s—and your—antics.

He nudges you again, then backs off, looking at you expectantly. Realizing his intentions, you follow—he makes a low clicking sound in his throat, pleased, and jets into the flowing leaves, buffeting you with the wave he leaves in his wake.

You’re shocked only for a moment before the kelp parts for you in your pursuit. Johnny quickly disappears ahead of you, dipping down below the canopy. You feel him rapidly shrink in your awareness, and you propel forward, scanning for telltale splashes of gray and white, arms of green caressing you as you pass.

You close in on him, but suddenly he evades. You follow again, only to find he’s nowhere in view. Then the chase is on: he stays in one place only long enough for you to catch sight of him before he bolts, or wheels around and backtracks to confuse you every time you approach. Teasing, taunting, flaunting the dexterity he has underwater which you have yet to acquire.

Golden shafts of dancing sunlight begin to dim and shorten as he leads you on. Frustration rapidly builds in your chest, buoyed as your lungs press against your ribcage. You need to breathe, even as Johnny becomes no more than a dot of movement in your senses, confounding you at every turn.

Why is he doing this? Why won’t he stay with you? If you surface, you’ll lose him, but the sudden memory of saltwater flooding your chest has you kicking toward the fading daylight. Self-preservation taking its place at the head of your priorities, and you follow it with no longer any second thought.

Above you shifts a mirror of silk.

You rise. Faster as the weight of the sea lessens, your reflection blooming as you approach, closer and closer to the wedge-shaped face, the large, dark eyes—

You swim into yourself and breach the air. Your nostrils open, and you inhale the wind.

You see the twilight bleeding into the day. Clouds moving quickly off as the sun sinks into the horizon.

Where is Johnny?

You can’t sense him anymore—as you knew would happen—and your chest contracts with fear and longing, suddenly believing you’ve seen him for the last time—that he’s left you all alone, to figure out what to do next, with no idea how to live in the skin of this new self you’ve become.

You give a mournful howl. You don’t want to do this alone, you can’t, you thought you wouldn’t have to—

But in the distance, back the long way you came, you hear an answer.

You whirl around, facing the shore, and almost too far away to see, a dark shape rests on the sand.

Your throat convulses with a clumsy breath, and then you dive. The water parts for your body, sliding around you, streaming through your hair. Faster than you expect, the slope of the shelf draws close, and you jet upward, belly meeting the sand, and when the water recedes and you drag yourself back onto the beach, your own weight settling heavy on your bones, you cry out again.

You shake the water from your head, wailing at the top of your lungs, desolate and blind as you blink the salt away, and then there’s a warm body up against yours, weight melding against you, heat reaching out to drive away a coldness you hadn’t felt until you’d surfaced.

You continue crying as Johnny closes his teeth around a hank of your neck and drags himself on top of you, pressing you down into the sand. You shift to let him settle over you, and all of his weight compresses your body—sandwiching you between himself and the earth, pinning you down in one place.

Something in you still wants to fight. To shake him off—to escape. But all you can do is cry. He enters you with no resistance, and you cry more, harder, until your lungs deflate, and then you take a deep breath and start wailing again.

Saltwater streaming down your face, dripping into your own mouth. Your voice hits the cliff walls, rebounds off the stone until the air fills with your weeping. Johnny shifts on top of you, pressing your head down to the sand.

The vessel you have contained yourself within overturns. You cry.

You cry for yourself. You cry for him. You cry for what you’ve done, what you haven’t, and for what you can never undo. Your lament fills your own ears and spills out again, all across the beach, catching in the wind to fly off into the ether, raised to the birds, to the passing clouds overhead.

You cry with despair of never going back. You cry with the terror of Johnny finally rolling off of you, to dart back into the waves, to leave you here alone again. You cry until your throat hurts, stinging and raw—

And Johnny’s hands, strong and warm, edge beneath your pelt and pull you out, still bawling with every drop of shame you’ve carried in your body since the day you realized you hated yourself.

“Shh, shh,” he murmurs, drawing you up into his chest, arms steady and strong around you. “It’s alright now, bonnie, it’s alright. I’m here.”

You cannot respond to him. Your mouth hangs open only to wail your grief. Your body wracks against him, convulsing, involuntary, as you scream with despair and relief and horror and resolve, too much to contain, too overwhelming now to ever split yourself away from.

You find his arms with your shaking hands and grip on tight. He slips the pads of his thumbs beneath your eyes every so often to clear away your tears, and you feel his mouth press against your forehead. You wait for him to drop you. Wait for him to see the mess you’re making and wash his hands of it.

He doesn’t. Every time another sob wracks you, he grips you tighter.

Eventually—when you begin to wonder if it ever could, if this is all you are now, a squalling bundle of fragile skin pebbling in the cold—it passes.

The next time you pause to draw breath, you find nothing more inside you to disgorge. You begin to shake in Johnny’s arms, trembling with exhaustion, whimpering with clenched eyes.

He breathes slowly against you. Calm and even. He strokes your face with gentle fingers, even and patient, as if there’s nothing more in the world he’d rather do.

You find the courage to meet his gaze when your heartbeat steadies, finding the rhythm in Johnny’s chest to match. You see again what you saw that first day, that next night; you know now what you’ve always known, somewhere inside you. Your face is familiar in the reflections of it in his eyes.

His mouth curls gently as he gazes down at you. His eyes dance in yours, corners creasing as he traces the curve of your cheek. Light catches in his pupils.

You see him clearly, as the sun gives way to the evening, and the moon rises over a cloudless night of stars.

epilogue

a/n: shoutout to @/gildui for suggesting screenshots for that one section of text. Thank you to @/bi-writes for trying to figure out how i could keep the formatting with tumblr's coding. Please let me know if alt text is necessary. God forbid a text-based website allow for formatting said text.

[lushleona]

for military what if he was off on a mission for a long time and he finally comes back home to you and its just so so so sweet?? like reader would just be showering him in affection and trying to reassure him and he’s just physically clinging onto reader like a sloth

── .✦ military!mattheo coming home after a long mission

warnings: fem!reader, fluff, kissing

the front door barely creaks open before he’s there, dropping his duffle bag with a dull thud, boots kicking it aside as he stumbles forward like a man possessed.

“baby.”

it’s barely a word, barely even a whisper, but you hear it—feel it, like the weight of him crashing into you the second you step closer. his arms wrap around you so tight it knocks the breath from your lungs, his entire frame pressed against you, clinging to you like he’s scared you’ll disappear if he lets go. his face is buried in your neck, and you can feel how deep he’s breathing, like he’s trying to pull you into his lungs, into his bloodstream, like he needs you to live.

“you’re home,” you murmur against his shoulder, your fingers threading through his grown-out curls, nails scratching lightly against his scalp. “i missed you so much, matty.”

he doesn’t say anything. just shakes his head, his grip tightening, his hands pressing harder against your back like he can somehow fuse you together. his uniform smells like gunpowder and earth, but beneath it—beneath the months of distance and longing—you can still smell him.

“let me see you,” you whisper, gently nudging at his jaw until he lifts his head, his tired brown eyes drinking you in. his face is rough with stubble, his skin sunburned in places, lips chapped. he looks exhausted. he looks beautiful.

“you look so good, baby,” you tell him, smoothing your hands over his cheeks, fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw, the scar near his temple that wasn’t there before. his eyelids flutter shut when you kiss it, when you whisper, “my perfect boy.”

his breath shudders out of him, and when he opens his eyes again, there’s something glassy about them. something raw. “god, i—” his voice cracks, and he shakes his head again like he’s trying to physically shove the emotions back down. he’s always been like this. never letting himself feel too much, never letting the world see when it gets to him. but you know. you always know.

���it’s okay,” you murmur, lips brushing against his. “you’re okay.”

he exhales sharply through his nose, a sound caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and before you can say anything else, he’s kissing you. hard. desperate. his hands are everywhere—tangling in your hair, sliding down your back, gripping your waist like you’ll slip away if he doesn’t hold on tight enough.

“missed you so fucking much,” he breathes against your lips, forehead pressing against yours, his thumb stroking over your cheek like he’s memorizing the shape of you.

“i know,” you whisper, brushing your fingers through his curls, pressing soft, soothing kisses to his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. “i’m here, matty. i’ve got you.”

he lets out another breath, shaky and uneven, and when you take his hand and guide him toward the couch, he follows without hesitation. the second you sit down, he’s on you—practically in your lap, arms wrapped around your waist, head tucked beneath your chin like a fucking sloth.

“matty,” you giggle, running your fingers through his curls, nails scratching lightly at his scalp.

“shut up,” he grumbles, burrowing closer, his arms locking around you tighter. “just lemme hold you.”

“not going anywhere, baby,” you whisper, pressing a kiss to the top of his head, his temple, his cheek. “i’ve got you.”

he sighs against your skin, and after a long moment, you feel his entire body relax, all the tension melting from his muscles, his weight completely pressing into you.

“yeah,” he breathes. “yeah, you do.”

m.list

[evie-sturns]

Cry - Matt Sturniolo

summary: you and your boyfriend, matt, have spent the day together. you've been snapping at him the whole time, until it gets too much for matt and you accidentally make him cry. you find a way to make everything up to him.

contains: sub!matt, nsfw, blowjob?, matt crying, angst.

------------------≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫-----------------

matt and i have been dating for 7 months, sure, we’ve argued before but it’s never lasted more than a day and it’s never affected us that much. i’ve never seen matt cry, according to his brothers he hates crying infront of people, or even talking about it. 

today we’ve been bickering non stop, i’ve been making snarky comments and snapping at him for pathetic reasons, matt’s just been ignoring it.

9:24pm

i sit on the dining table, matt directly opposite me on his phone as he takes small bites of his dinner. “matt.” i say, my voice almost like a robot.

“mhm?” he hums, his eyes fixed on his screen, i groan, “for fucks sake matt.” i huff under my breath. 

“what is it?” matt asks, his finger continuing to scroll across his screen. 

i don't know why i've been so on edge today, everything matt's done has pissed me off. the way his hand is cemented onto his phone pisses me off.

“fucking stop! you don’t even care about me the only thing you do is go on your phone, your an actual excuse of a boyfriend.”

the words leave my mouth quicker than i can process, i don’t even fully comprehend what i’m saying.

i finish off my yelling fit by slamming matt’s phone out of his hands.

he stands up abruptly, his bottom lip shaking as his eyes well with tears. “don’t fucking say that.” 

i scoff, folding my arms and playing with my nails. matt lets in a sharp inhale, a shaky sob exiting his mouth.

my head snaps up to look at him, he’s got tears soaking his pink cheeks, his lips a raw red. he reaches his ringed fingers up to rub his eyes before speed walking out of the dining room, directly towards our bedroom.

my heart drops, an aching infecting my body. i feel a wave of guilt wash over me, tears somehow prickling in the corners of my eyes. i wipe my face quickly, 

i’ve just made matt cry. shit.

i stand up from my wooden chair, the chair legs screeching on the wooden floor. 

my footsteps tap on the ground as i slowly walk towards matt and i’s shared room, the door is shut. 

i stand outside for a few seconds, pressing my ear, which is decorated in sets of earrings, up to the wooden planks.

i hear sniffles coming from inside the room, and small crys. my heart pounds against my ribs as i twist the door handle.

i’m met with matt’s body which is sitting at his desk, his back facing me. i’m not sure he heard me, so i walk over to him. 

i tap his grey sweater, the cute wool sweater that he wears whenever he’s cold, the sweater his mom gave him in high school, which still fits him.

i feel him tense under me, he swings his head round to look at me, his eyelashes are dark and wet, his cheeks a deep red and his lips swollen. 

i take one look at him and my stomach forms a pit, i wrap my arms around his neck, yanking him into a deathly tight hug as i bend down to his seated height.

matt doesn’t hug me back, his arms hang loosely by his sides. i bury my head into the crook of his neck,

after a few seconds i pull away, visible nerves on my face, matt’s tilts his head down to his lap, where his hands rest, fiddling with his rings.

“matt please, look at me.” i say, my voice barely audible. his head shakes, i nod my head “okay.” i whisper.

“i’m so sorry sweetheart, i didn’t mean any of that, i promise it’s just the week before my period. you know i get in these stupid moods that i can’t handle.”  i say softly,

matt continues to stare down at his lap.

i get down on my knees my hands resting on his thighs, my nails scratching the material of his sweatpants.

im at the height where i can see his full face, his lips slightly pouted. i stare up at him, his eyes lock with mine for a split second. my hands travel to his waistband and grip the elastic, i look up at him again, asking for permission. matt's gaze drifts to my eyes again, he nods, his top teeth sinking into his lower lip.

i pull down his sweatpants to his midthighs, he's got no boxers on, already half hard.

i brush my thumb over his tip, earning a shaky groan from matt. i maintain eye contact with him, i feel him grow fully hard in my hand. i run my hand up his length a few times before taking my hands off him completley.

"please" matt clears his throat, "please what?" i tease, resting my hands on his thighs, he almost looks as though he’s going to cry again,

i can see his breathing intensify, "tell me what you want." i say calmly, matt lets out a whine, his leg bobbing up and down on the spot, "please." matt breathes out again.

i lean foward, wrapping my lips around matt's tip, a soft moan exits his mouth as he gentley tangles his fingers into my hair. i swirl my tongue around his tips before taking more of him further down my throat.

"close-" matt warns, bucking his hips up as his hands grip my hair tighter. i pull off his cock for a second to catch a needed breath,

"i need to." matt protests as his cheeks flush, small droplets of sweat gathering on his forehead, he runs his hand though my hair. i wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, "i know, i know." i say, quickly wrapping my mouth around him again as i scratch his thighs with my nails.

i bob my head up and down quicker, matts whimpers filling the room. i look up at him with doe eyes, he squeezes his eyes shut, thrusting his cock deeper into my mouth.

i can see his breathing intensifying before he releases in my mouth, i pull off of him.

matt leans back in his chair, before quickly reaching a hand down under my mouth, i spit it out into his hand "sorry.." matt laughs slightly, grabbing a bunch of tissues and cleaning his hand and my lips.

"don't say sorry matt, my fault for getting you so worked up." i say, standing up and grabbing matts arm, pulling him up onto his feet. i lead him towards the bed, he stumbles slightly as he recovers from his orgasm.

i sit down on the bed, my back resting against the headboard. matt lays down next to me, i pull his head onto my chest.

"matt, i feel really bad." i start,

"what? for what? that was the best fucking experience i've had all month, the nails did somethin-" he rambles, i cut him off.

"no! about the things i said, and.. you know.. making you cry" i say with a small laugh.

"trust me, you made up for it, can you do the same tomorrow so i can get another blow job." matt smiles, i run a hand through his hair, shaking my head with a scoff.

---------------------

[sebsbarnes]

four months || andrew ‘pope’ cody

andrew 'pope' cody x reader

summary: three words. four syllables. a simple question that somehow managed to feel like a bullet raged in the chambers of your heart shredding the organ to dust. unsalvageable.

warnings: language, illusions to suicidal ideations (brief), angst, tiniest mention of something in early s2, improper grammar, cliches, no mention of reader age or gender

word count: 900+

a/n: quick lil read! i wasn’t going to write for pope until i finish the show but sorry i got so much in my mind for him. just started s3<3

“are you happy?”

it was easier to stomach the pain of the knife that had lodged itself into your thigh on a shitty job that went wrong.

are you happy?

three words. four syllables. a simple question that somehow managed to feel like a bullet raged in the chambers of your heart shredding the organ to dust. unsalvageable.

a bitter laugh spilled from your lips, “happy? really, pope, happy?”

his stance was solid, back straight, head tipped the slightest bit towards the ground. a learned behavior from 3 years inside. pope’s lip curved down, a sign discomfort was setting in.

“couldn’t fuckin’ tell you the last time i was happy, pope.”

a small tsk sounded, “you know i wanted the best for you,” voice gravelly.

“the best for me? really because you didn’t fucking run that by me when you iced me out and told your family to pretend i’m not alive,” anger radiating off your body, your pointer finger jabbing into your chest with each word, “i didn’t realize you were all-fucking-knowing, pope. didn’t know you could determine how i would feel about something that you don’t warn me about.”

pope’s hand grabbed your wrist halting the repeated action, “it’s not safe for you.”

he was closer to you now with his body mirroring the slightest movement of yours. pope’s eyes locked on yours as if he will lose sight of you if he breaks away.

“i’m not safe for you,” he whispered.

the lump in your throat went down roughly, “i’ve been doing this shit just as long as you. i’ve known you pope, andrew, for years. i have loved you-i love you for years now. but pushing me away? what the fuck was that.”

you were forcing the tears back forbidding them from capsizing over your bottom eyelashes. now not only was the bullet still rattling in your heart, but it felt as though an invisible pump was deflating your lungs. depriving you of oxygen, skin growing cold, vision a haze.

“four months. up and vanished. not a word,” you choked all attempts to hide your emotions failing. you shoved at his chest causing him to stagger back, “i live two blocks away and i couldn’t find you. you’re not a hard man to find so i know you were putting in effort to avoid me.”

he stabilized himself, boots grounded into the floor, the squeaky boards under his feet now silencing. there was regret etched into his face evident by his eyebrows pulled together, a deep ridge forming between. pope chewed on his bottom lip as embarrassment set in. he knew it was fucked up to assume vanishing would be the best for you. safe for you. safe from his brothers, his mom, his past, him. it was a culmination of jobs gone south and self-doubting tendencies that blindsided him from good decision-making. you were right, of course you were, you always were. you and pope lived the same but separate lives for a long time before finding each other. been through the same fucked up shit.

maybe it was a horrible idea to love someone just as fucked up as you, but god did pope need you. he craved you in the simplest forms. the feeling of you walking next to him, your hand ghosting his shoulder as you passed him at your apartment sink, the warmth of your body tangled in the bedsheets with him.

it was idiotic of him to think either of you would be better off without the other. pope spent the last four months awake with almost no sleep. his demons creeping up, greeting him in the dark of night nagging him with reminders of the ghosts of his past. pope’s legs would swing from the ledge of the wall, eyes cast to the ocean with his right hand toying with his silver gun. there were many moments in the last few weeks where his skull and the barrel of the weapon acted as a magnetic force, the connection unwavering.

unbeknownst to him, you were spiraling at home desperate to find him anywhere. pope was two streets away yet it was as if he never existed on this earth. the tires of your car would screech into smurf’s driveway but the no trespassing sign greeted you, its commands unyielding. with a fist, you would barge into deran’s bar seeking answers but he would warn you to leave with his glock hesitating to point at you.

pope’s shoulders shook. a silent sob consuming his body. his life was shit but these last four months felt like hell had opened up and was punishing him for all his sins, torturing him in ways that mankind has yet to discover.

his hands reached forward softly grabbing your cheeks. your head lulled in his hands a sensation you have longed for. pope’s thumbs caught the droplets running from your eyes. a sight that caused him more anguish. tears that he caused.

“i am so sorry. please—please forgive me,” pope’s voice quiet and unsteady. his face was flushed and eyes now bloodshot.

you grabbed onto his hands removing them for your face, fingers slowly intertwining, “please never do that to me again.”

pope’s head rapidly nodded, tears decorating his face. c’mon you whispered softly before the weight of his body crashed into yours. relief flooded through your bodies as you molded together once again. it was love, no matter how unconventional.

[astonmartingf]

VOODOO DOLL ; LH44

lewis hamilton x mercedes driver!reader

. . . hamilton is a penchant for opposing teammates, and after the previous one he somehow got stuck with another, but after years of dominance new emotions develop between the two.

amgf i am a sucker for yearning and fluff and this is exactly that, lewis the man that you are... also if the format is different from previous posts it's because i'm testing out formats

death of a bachelor ; masterlist

[2025]

“You called us for this?” Alonso raised his brows looking pitifully at you sharing the same expression as Nico from the left side. You groan in your palms, hiding your face from the two men.

“This is a big deal okay. Why are you invalidating my feelings?” Mumbling under your breath, you reason out hoping for a sliver of understanding. It’s been so long since you bottled your feelings, and as much as you hate to admit it, you might start-

“No one is invalidating your feelings other than yourself amor, otherwise why would you call us to convince you that you actually like-”

“Okay, okay, okay. Shut up will you, it’s like you want the whole world that I like…” You turn around, checking the surroundings. “Lewis.”

Nico pressed his lip into a thin, a short sigh leaving his mouth, “You’re in denial and in love.”

You shot Nico an incredulous look, a scoff escaping your lips, “I am not in love. Alo, tell him.”

The older Spaniard grimaced, shaking his head. “At this point, you may as well be- four years? He’s already moved to Ferrari for God’s sake and you have yet to make a move.”

You groan once more, reminding yourself of the signs and signals you missed or accidentally dropped towards Lewis. “I have made a few moves…” Your voice thinning as you feel two pairs of eyes staring right at you.

“And I’m embarrassed to say that they also flew over Lewis’ head. So no, don’t ask me what I said, or did- just ignore what I said.” You rest your head down on the table, sad and moping.

Nico laughs at you, “Look at the state of you, hung over a boy.”

“He’s not just any boy Nico, gosh you’re acting like you moved on quickly from him- this is Lewis we’re talking about. Heck that was a semi-platonic relationship you had going on there, how am I supposed to cope with actually knowing that I can’t be in a romantic relationship with him?”

A gasp left your lips, hands shaking as your cover over them. Avoiding Nico’s gaze who was still laughing at you, despite your jab at his relationship with Nico and Alonso who took a sip from his cup of tea.

“So you admit it…”

Alonso broke the silence leaving you nodding to yourself.

“I actually- Fuck.”

[2023]

Lewis sits in silence, watching Nico squint his eyes from the other side of the table. “When was this?”

Gulping, Lewis didn’t think this far. He was ranting first, and then eventually spilling in some white lies in between before Nico filled in and connected the dots. He should’ve known Nico would catch on- Lewis is being too obvious. At least that’s what he thinks.

Sighing, Lewis mulled over his thoughts gathering his words before speaking it out into existence. The three words he’s been replaying over his head for the last two years- When did things get complicated?

“Two years ago? I thought about it far longer than I’ll admit. But I’ve recently come into terms with it…” Lewis nods his head, sitting in silence with Nico.

“And what happened? What’s different?”

Smiling to himself at the thought of you, Lewis goes through all the times you’ve managed to tug the tiniest of his heartstrings causing him to malfunction like the current state of their engine. It was pitiful, not just the team, but the state of his heart.

“I don’t even understand… Which makes me even more furious! How could she do that to me? I think about her all the time, she’s not even racing anymore. She’s nowhere near me, yet she’s all I think about, it’s driving me insane. And don’t get me started on whenever she’s actually on the paddock- I see her what? Once a month, I go to the F1 Academy races to get a glimpse of her. I'm such a loser. And her face! How could I not stop by and greet her, she’s always enthusiastic whenever I’m there- Not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty good company, and we are friends but God I wish she’d take in the signs I’m putting down. I like YN- too much at this point, I can’t believe it. And you! You’re laughing at my misery.”

Lewis raises his head, far too into his thoughts only realizing that Nico has been laughing at him for the past minute. His back flushed into the seat, legs crossed with arms resting on the table.

“At least one of us is enjoying this, because I’m a suffering loser, who can’t get a grip. She’s actually doing things to my mind. I’m acting crazy because of her.”

Nico bursts into laughter, “You’re- you have a lot to say about YN.”

Lewis scoffs, giving his friend a pointed look, “That’s all you have to say? Wow, I miss talking to you, but this- this is a personal attack towards me.”

Shaking his head, Nico wheezes at Lewis, “No, no, no… Think about it- look at you. It’s just funny to me, I remember when you first talked about her. You said, and I quote, “I will never like her as a teammate.” and you also compared her to me. Look at you now. I think it’s funny.”

Lewis shakes his head, disappointed. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.”

“No- you’re not taking all that back. Go on- tell me more.”

Lewis raises his brows suspiciously, “What? So you can tease me?”

Nico raises his hands in surrender, “Hey if not me who else would listen to you talk on and on about YN?”

“I know Seb would listen to me without judgment, and maybe Charles…” Lewis lists the few people in and out the grid who are aware about his feelings towards YN.

Nico raises his brows laughing to himself, “Oh Lewis, you truly are living in your own bubble- you’re too good for yourself. Guess how I know what you’ve been talking to Seb about? Right, he calls me to check on you.”

Lewis pales at the realization, how Nico is somehow always available, how he calls on the right time.

“And Charles, who calls Seb, who calls me. Right Lewis, there’s three of us- and you’ll always end up with me if you don’t get your act right.”

lewishamilton

liked by nicorosberg, charles_leclerc, and 21,582,953 others

lewishamilton me when my crush finally noticed me...

view 1,648,592 comments...

user1 EXCUSE NE? WHAT HAPPENED TO HELLO AND HI?

user2 am i seeing this right?

user3 the power of yn

user4 why would you assume it's yn?

user5 i mean who else could get lewis to post like this?

user6 bro got 21 million people watching this confession

nicorosberg this is what you got from our conversation two years ago? embarrassing, even i can do better than this

sebastianvettel5 he's trying, leave him be

charles_leclerc is this what we've been waiting for the last four years? the bar is actually low

user7 what do you mean 4 years?

user8 HELP, they're actually implying that this is for YN

user9 there goes the lewyn fans going crazy it could be anyone 🙄

user10 can't a girl have their fun, jeez leave people alone

user11 it's embarrasing

user12 they're actually eating lewis up with this

nicorosberg this is your plan?

lewishamilton yeah, it's working is it not?

nicorosberg i don't think so man

charles_leclerc is she even on instagram?

lewishamilton ...

sebastianvettel5 for someone who has a crush on this person for the last 4 years i might add this is actually embarrassing behavior

user13 what is happening?

user14 i love this too much what the heck

user15 i know they're grilling him in the messages

user16 another one for the history books 😤✍️🔥🔥🔥

user17 it's blow after blow for hamilton

user18 he's a loser in love actually, does it make you stupid?

lewishamilton i don't care if i look stupid i want her to see this

amgf ahahahahaha the end! uhm... enjoy 👍 this actually had me giggling and shit wtf, maybe it's lewis maybe it's the fluff but /sighs/ the lore i can add to this fic... just you wait 😤

[eggyrocks]

SICK: KUROO T.

tags/warnings: kuroo x f!reader, coworkers to lovers, new year’s party, throwing up, drinking/alcohol, reader is throwing up from being too drunk that’s basically the plot, it's a little gross

word count: 1.1k

Through the thin walls of the bar’s bathroom, she can vaguely hear the cheers of the crowd, and she can only assume that the clock has hit midnight. It’s the new year, and she’s face down in a toilet, spitting up green tea shots. 

The noise of the crowd fades, and the music gets turned up. But it’s harder to hear now, because she’s heaving and coughing, body desperately trying to expel all the poison she filled her body with, up until about twenty minutes ago. 

There’s a large hand holding up her hair. Because the physical pain of puking in a sticky bar bathroom isn’t enough, she has to endure the humiliation of doing it in front of Kuroo Tetsurou. 

When Kuroo had asked her if she wanted to accompany him to this New Year’s party that his friend was hosting, she didn’t hear him, because she was too focused on the way his hand tugged at the knot of his tie, yanking it away from his neck. When he asked her again, her face got hot and the blood whipped around in her body so fast she thought she might pass out. Naively, she had assumed that after months of festering a fat, blistering crush on her coworker, she would finally have an opportunity to look desirable in front of him. 

She didn’t account for the fact that, out of nervousness, she would compulsively order shots and drink them like water, leaving her with blurry vision and a swayed step before Kuroo even finished his first beer.

When the bile first started working it’s way up her throat, she had tried to excuse herself quietly, without much commotion. But because Kuroo is fucking perfect, and has to be a gentlemen, he followed her to the single-stall bathroom, water bottle in hand. 

A hiccup pops out of her, and she slumps. Her stomach feels almost empty now. And the worst part of it is, the puking killed her buzz, and now she has to face Kuroo that much more sober. With her face still pointed down, and a bit of spit dripping from her chin, she says, “Please don’t get me fired over this.” 

Kuroo laughs, and his hand releases her hair, and travels down her back, spreading out between her shoulder blades. His thumb draws circles over her shirt. “I blew chunks at the office Christmas party, so, y’know, mutually assured destruction.” 

She chuckles, and then regrets it when she thinks she’s going to throw up again. She holds her breath, but nothing comes up. It’s a false alarm. 

“C’mon,” Kuroo urges, and uses his thumb to tap on her back. “You should sit up, have some water.” 

She doesn’t want to. She’s not sure she can look Kuroo in the eye, but she can’t live in the toilet bowl forever, so she lifts her head, and whips off the corner of her chin with the back of her sleeve. His hand slips off of her and settles back into his lap. Her eyes dodge his, and instead they linger on the floor between them. 

His long legs are folded as he sits on the floor, and his knees brush against hers. Kuroo grabs a plastic water bottle, and holds it in her direction. “You should drink.” 

Without any protest, she grabs the bottle and it crinkles under her grip. She uncaps it and swishes water around in her mouth, spitting it out back into the bowl before she takes a good, proper gulp. Once she’s done, she caps it again. “Thanks.” 

“No problem,” Kuroo replies easily. Neither one of them makes a move to leave. 

“I’m really sorry,” she says. “I know you didn’t want to spend New Year’s with your puking coworker on the bathroom floor.” 

Kuroo smirks. “See, that’s what you would think. But I’ve actually been hoping for this outcome. This is actually really lucky for me.”

Her body is exhausted from the drinking and the puking, but it still somehow finds enough energy to get nervous over this. Her spine straightens out. “Why, you have some weird fetish or something?” 

And Kuroo laughs, but she groans, immediately regretting the words as soon as they leave her mouth. She’s still operating off the whiskey in her body. “Ugh,” she bemoans, “don’t get me fired for that either.” 

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not a fetish,” Kuroo tells her. “I’m just happy to be alone with you. I can deal with the puking if it means getting away from the crowd.” 

Her face gets hot again. Her whole body gets hot, and her ears start to buzz. “Well, maybe next time you want to be alone, you can be the one throwing up, and I’ll be the cool one with the water bottle.” 

Kuroo nods, and she can almost swear that there’s a tinge of red to his cheeks. “Okay, next time I’ll drink all the green tea shots. Then we’ll be even.” 

She smiles. Her stomach has stopped rolling, but it’s oddly comfortable on the bathroom floor, sitting cross-legged across from Kuroo. And even though her throat is burning and her head is throbbing, she’s content, sitting there with him. She doesn’t want to get up, and she wants him to feel the same. “Do you want to go back out there?” she asks softly, voice hoarse. 

“Nah,” Kuroo replies. “The party kind of sucks.” 

“Maybe you’re not drunk enough,” she rebuttals. “Seemed great to me.” 

Kuroo shrugs. “To be honest with you, I didn’t really wanna come out tonight. The only reason I did was because you said you’d come with me.” 

She swallows thickly, and now she feels dizzy again. “Really?” 

“Yeah. If you had said no, I wouldn’t have come. But you said yes, and I thought that maybe you’d let me kiss you at midnight.” 

She throws up again. 

It comes quickly, and she coughs it up as fast as she can, not sure if it’s from still from the alcohol or now it’s the nerves or it’s some awful combination of both. When her stomach’s emptied again, she sits up so quickly there’s black spots in her vision. “What?” she pants. 

Kuroo looks at her with wide, amazed eyes. “Y’know, that’s the first time someone’s thrown up at the idea of kissing me.” 

“I’d kiss you,” she rushes out. “If I wasn’t puking, I’d kiss you.”

For a moment, Kuroo studies her. His eyes trail over her face and down to her chest that rises and falls with each breath. “Are you sure you’re not just drunk?” 

She nods, almost too eagerly, but she can attribute that to being too drunk. “I’ve wanted to for so long.” 

Kuroo leans forward, and his hand raises to gently cup her cheek. His skin is pleasantly cool, and she leans into his touch, enjoying the way it cools her hot, clammy skin. “Well, let’s get you home, then,” Kuroo whispers, “so you can brush your teeth.”

an: this was stupid lmafo

[steddieas-shegoes]

a new bottom in town

for @steddieholidaydrabbles pop up event 'anniversary'

rated e | 902 words | cw: references to injury | tags: post-vecna, established relationship, top eddie munson, bottom steve harrington, anal sex

🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃

“Can we try something new?” Steve asks as they finish eating the cheesecake Eddie brought home to celebrate their anniversary.

Six months may not seem like a lot to some, but for Steve and Eddie, it was a major milestone and they wanted to treat it as such. The first four months they spent together was mostly at the hospital while Eddie learned how to walk and talk and eat again.

“Sure, baby. What is it?” Eddie sets his fork down and leans forward so he’s in Steve’s space.

“Um. Could you…could you fuck me?”

Eddie’s heart stops.

Listen, it’s not that he doesn’t want to. If anything, he’s fantasized about doing just that for years.

But he’s still gaining muscle mass back in his legs and abs, and he doesn’t have the stamina he had before the bats took it with their teeth.

“Like…put my…”

“Yeah. I’d really…I’d like you to be inside me.”

Eddie’s not sure if he’s dreaming, but this feels like something right out of his best fantasy. He’s just a little hesitant because, well, he doesn’t want to be a disappointment. Their sex life is great as it is, and changing it up now, especially before Eddie’s back to full health, may put everything to a screeching halt.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to.” Steve continues when Eddie doesn’t answer. “I’m good with fucking you if you prefer that.”

“No! No, Stevie. I want to. Trust me.” Eddie gives a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m just not sure I can?”

Steve seems to realize what he’s worried about quickly, nodding like he understands. But after a few seconds, he’s smiling.

“I could ride you?”

Eddie’s definitely dead and somehow he got into heaven or hell is a lot nicer than people led him to believe.

“You would wanna ride my dick? Like, while I do nothing?” Eddie asks for clarification.

“I mean, I’m sure you could do something. But yeah. I could do most of the work,” Steve shrugs like this is not life-changing to Eddie.

“You want me inside of you that bad?”

“Yeah. It’s kinda all I’ve been thinking about for a while,” Steve flushes as he scoots his fork along his empty plate.

“And you think this is a gift for you?”

“It’s a gift for both of us.”

“Then let’s get upstairs, sweetheart.”

Steve’s head snaps up, his eyes bright with desire and excitement. “Really?”

“It’s not exactly a big ask of me to lay in bed and let you ride my dick, baby.”

Steve is out of the room before Eddie’s even up from his chair. Eddie laughs as he follows him, much slower, but finally able to go without the cane around the house. He doesn’t really mind it, but it’s nice to feel more independent without it for something like this.

By the time he’s in their room, Steve’s naked and pouring lube onto his fingers.

“Damn. Okay. Are we in a rush?” Eddie leans against the doorway and crosses his arms.

“I was gonna prep myself so you could watch.”

“Steve. Baby. Love of my life.” Eddie walks to the bed and sits down, crossing his legs and leaning his face in his hands. “This is the best gift you’ve ever given me. Continue.”

Steve flushes from his chest to his forehead and Eddie can’t get enough. He resists further interrupting him, though.

He watches Steve lean back against the pillows at an angle, teasing his own hole while Eddie barely bites back a moan. He’s been hard since he walked in the room and saw Steve’s bare ass in the bed, but now he can feel the urgency of needing to lose his clothes and get inside Steve.

Steve’s efficient and Eddie is definitely asking him about how he’s so good at opening himself up later, and within minutes, Steve’s begging for Eddie to lay down.

Eddie gets undressed as quickly as possible and finds a comfortable position against the headboard.

Steve straddles him, lines up his cock, and slides down before Eddie can even process what’s happening.

They moan together, long and loud.

“Fuck, is this how you feel when I’m inside you?” Steve gasps as he lifts himself and drops back down.

“Full? Hot? Tingly?” Steve nods. “Then, yes. Shit, Stevie, you’re so tight. It doesn’t hurt?”

“No, feels so good.” Steve’s head falls back as he finds a slow rhythm, still cautious as he stretches himself further.

Eddie’s hands rest on his hips, not helping, just holding.

“Wanna do this every night,” Steve groans as his pace picks up. “Forever. Can we?”

“Baby, if I wake up and this wasn’t a dream, we can do it whenever you want.”

“Touch me.” Steve demands, always so bossy even when he’s getting everything he wants. Eddie touches him because he will always do what Steve asks of him. “Fuck, faster. Yeah, like that.”

When they come less than a minute later, Steve collapses against Eddie, head on his shoulder and arms a deadweight by his sides.

“You okay?” Eddie asks as he rubs his back with one hand.

“So good.” Steve kissed his shoulder. “I’m the bottom now.”

Eddie cackles. “We can take turns.”

“80/20?”

“Okay. Let me get my strength back so I can fuck you properly and we’ll see if you still want that.”

Steve pulls back and smirks. “Where’s your cane?”

[danvazini]

only know you love her when you let her go — megan skiendiel

she tried to convince herself it wasn’t that bad, i mean, all good things must come to an end right? so why did she still miss you so much.

(📓) angst , breakups , misunderstanding / miscommunication , megan thinks you’re happier without her , cursing , etc maybe?

(🧦) i’ve been in such an angsty mood when it comes to megan i really cannot do this anymore. smth with comfort, or fluffy angst w her is js in my mind.

(wc) 0.7k — prev katz works

—

"i think you'll be happier this way" — those words rung through your head like an annoying tune, those were the last words you heard from megan when she broke up with you. it's been two months by now, and you still haven't let her go.

megan hasn't let you go either, she loved you so much but after a while she began to feel like you wanted something better than her so she let you go. — which wasn’t the best idea.

ever since she last spoke to you, she couldn’t operate the same. every second of the day she was thinking of you, thinking if you missed her, if you loved her, if anything that happened between you two was real.

it began affecting her personal life not even a week later, you weren’t blocked from her socials so she’d see your friends posting you out with them and it made her heart ache.

she was happy you were fine, you had been stressed for months now, but she couldn’t let go of that fact that she couldn’t help you. — that she wasn’t the one to make you happy. it made her feel even worse now seeing you post breakup, happy and smiling.

but she saw your note, the one on instagram, the weird new “status feature” and it said — i miss you so much meimei — honestly, you had a nickname for one of your pets, you called her meimei, it was the cat you and megan adopted. but megan just assumed that’s who it was for.

she tried staying off of her phone, knowing that would kinda be the only time she’d ever see you, but then while walking the streets of los angeles, she bumped into a familiar person.

“god, i’m so sorry” megan said, not even looking up, but reaching her hands out to help the person up. she picked up whatever was on the floor, an awkward smile plastered on her face when she looked up to hand the papers over — “megan?”

she just looked into the eyes of the person, those eyes were way too familiar. “hey!” she said, trying to play this off but it was so awkward..

somehow she ended up in a cafe with you, and you guys had the long awaited talk, what happened. — “you know, that day” you started, “it was hard for me, imagine getting that text from the one person who you loved” you said, a dry chuckle coming out of your throat but you just sighed, looking at megan.

she was nervous — if that wasn’t already obvious, her fingers were fidgeting, biting the insides of her cheeks, legs bouncing, her eyes darted across the room. “mei..” you softly said, pulling her attention to you.

your hand rested on hers, “you know, i still love you right?” and she nodded, “tell me that you know that, please” you begged, honestly you swore to yourself you’d never beg anyone to love you back or believe you loved them after your previous relationship played you but there was something with megan you couldn’t just let go.

"i love you too y/n, i just felt like you didn't want m-" you shushed her, "megan, what are you talking about? i love you, so much. you're my entire world, god, i was fucking living for you, and only you" you said, a tear sliding down your cheek.

megan began to frown, she still hated seeing you cry, it was one of the worst experinces she's ever had, "(y/n), i'm sorry i was overthinking i just thought you didn't like me anymore. i love you so much too" she said, bringing her hand to your cheek before using her thumb to wipe your tears.

"you're so precious to me, you know?" she softly said, she held your hand tighter, "please, can we just restart? try again and make things right this time?" megan asked, you could hear in her voice she was on the verge of crying, forcing herself to speak clearly to you.

"yes, of course. i love you, i can't say no. i can't do this anymore, not without you." you softly whispered, bringing her hand to your lips, planting a small kiss.

[mcondance]

lovely

“You say things with your mouth, cobwebs and flies come out / I hear a second voice behind your tongue somehow / Luckily, I can read your mind, flies and cobwebs unwind / They will not take you down, They will not cast you out”

Or, you’re fine. And whatever other words hide behind those four letters. Spencer sees what a piece of you wants to hide from him.

notes fluff (mcondance writes fluff??) but still MDNI, reader is neurodivergent this is for my baby girls (audhd spencer reid kissers), inspired by those lyrics from lovely by twenty øne piløts, do not listen while you read. this is what having a dual tøp-spencer reid era does to a writer. gif from pinterest. also guys please i’ve been experimenting with layouts for my works for like… months now if this layout is ugly just ignore it please please. mcondance capitalizes ?!

word count 1.1k+ (closer to 1.2k hello i am proud)

You lie still on your back in the middle of the bed as you watch Spencer close the door and set his cardigan down on the chair by the dresser. He floats through the dim room, momentarily lit up by the interludes of soft moonlight wafting through the windows. He takes his place beside the bed. Your music pauses.

“You okay?” He asks quietly.

“I’m fine.”

You’re lying. Spencer knows you’re lying; it wouldn’t take a genius to deduce that. It’s in your voice, most obviously. But it’s in the other details that only Spencer would notice, too. Not because he’s a genius, but because he’s your Spencer. 

The room is dark. Which wouldn’t be much of a problem, if you didn’t sound so bleak and tired when you spoke. You have your big headphones on, which, again, wouldn’t be so bad if you’d have pulled one back when he walked in, or even just told him that the song’s almost at the good part, and then after it hits you’ll take them off.

The room is bathed in moonlight. The moon, and your Spencer. Two shoulders for you to lean on. Three, actually, with the music you were just listening to. 

But all of the shoulders just aren’t enough to block out the bad feelings you’re having right now.

Overwhelmed. Sad. A little depressed. Whatever. 

“I don't think so, honey,” Spencer speaks softly from where he stands in a split of moonlight, hands in his pockets as he shrugs.

He glows in a silver streak. You sniffle. Fuck.

He allows silence to ensue, obviously giving you time to get your thoughts together. The bed dips to the left as he sits down beside you and props his leg up. A part of you wants to laugh at the common knowledge that if you had the will to look down you’d see an interesting sock and a Converse, but you don’t have the energy to do anything but what you’ve been doing since you let your playlist roll into its fifth run— lay down and alternate between staring out into the blackness of your room and the backs of your eyelids.

“It’s nothing,” you obfuscate. But it’s obviously not nothing.

Again, he lets his silence give you comfort instead of pushing you to talk. You take it gratefully, as it gives you the time you need to collect yourself and try to put words to what’s going on in your head and all under your skin.

You breathe in.

“I'm just… irritated.”

You breathe out.

A bit of weight lifts off of your chest at your short admission, but the elephant in the room continues to perch tall and proud on you, crushing you and leaving very little room for you to exist.

Still, Spencer is silent. The quiet puffs of his breath and the dip in the mattress are enough. Anything else would be too much, and he knows that. So he lets you lead him into the dark with you, he stays still and lets you guide him into the cavernous deep of all that you feel right now.

The fan whirs and cars pass outside the window. The stillness of the night almost laughs at the chaos ensuing in you.

Another breath, deeper this time as you gather the courage to try to express what it is you’re feeling.

“I don't know,” you blurt. “Everything's just too loud and my friends are all annoying and nothing on YouTube is interesting and I feel like I'm gonna explode and crumble all at the same time.” Those tears are bubbling up under the surface of your skin again and threatening to spill out of your eyes. 

And now that you’ve spoken and some of the tension in the air has dissipated, Spencer feels it’s appropriate for him to talk.

“It’s okay, baby. You’ve been working a lot lately without many breaks and now you’ve run out of steam, and that’s okay. It happens. You’re just burnt out.”

Horribly, his sweet words inflame a mean, hot part of you. You scoff, finding the strength to wipe a stray tear as it falls. Spencer knows you don’t mean it, that something up in your brain has just had enough and is now denying you of any feeling but solitary petrification.

Burnout. You hate that word. You wish it didn’t happen to you. You wish that you were normal and being stressed didn’t mean paralysis and staring at the ceiling like it’ll change and morph into an answer or a semblance of comfort. 

In the dark, you strain your eyes at his form. You can just barely make out the wisps of hair flying in all directions away from his face. His posture is terrible. You can tell he’s looking off to the side of you so you won’t feel overwhelmed under his eyes. Perhaps he was made for you.

The air softens, and you do too. The facade of anger slips away as quickly as it reared its ugly head. You take a shuddering breath and let your head fall towards him.

He moves closer and a beam of moonlight illuminates him as he takes you in with warmth etched onto the comfort of his face.

Something up in your brain has just had enough and is now denying you of any feeling but solitary petrification. 

Fortunately, Spencer won’t let that happen. 

How grateful you are for this man who won’t let you get the aloneness that some tired part of you craves. He’ll stick beside you and sit in silence for hours upon hours if it meant you wouldn’t feel alone. He has done that before. He’d do it again in a heartbeat.

With him smiling softly at you even in your cocoon of darkness, that sweet quirk of his lips that is ever-present when he’s looking at you, you feel a little better. Now, he can touch you. Before that thought even registers, he reaches out for your knee and rests his hand there, rubbing his thumb up and down over your skin.

It doesn’t cross the line of overstimulation, and it doesn’t feel like not enough. It’s just enough. Spencer can read you as well as the surplus of books he reads daily. There’s no push to get up, to take your headphones off or turn the light on.

Spencer wants only for you to breathe, and to know that he is here. When he hears your breathing become easy again, and he feels just a bit more of the discord you’re swathed in slip off of you, he knows you know.

His hand on your knee won’t nurse you back to your functioning form. And it’s not what he’s striving to do. 

And as you look through the darkness into his moon-bathed eyes, you know you’ll have him here with you every step of the way, by some divine power that put him in your life. And that’s okay. You won’t be okay for a while, but you have him to lean on. You’ll always have him to lean on. You feel the love he has for you radiating off of him, pushing into your skin as he caresses it slowly.

Getting out of bed sometime later sounds a little easier, now.

[nevarrhoe]

mea culpa (m.m) - 3

SUMMARY: "mea culpa" (exclamation - noun/legal term)

used as an acknowledgement of one's fault or error.

↪ in which matt murdock accidentally falls in love with the district attorney's daughter.

warnings: smut, angst, swearing, fem! reader

masterlist

(anyone caught interacting w/ out their age in their bio will be blocked)

Part of you was a little nervous to hang out with Matthew. 

You had undeniable chemistry. Undeniable. It was like a fucking nuclear bomb, in fact. But that was in the bedroom, miles away from the real world and in a place where talking - at least the conversational kind - was far and few. All the factors that made you different - age and money and social standing - made things hotter in that sense. It was frowned upon, even forbidden, and you craved it like an addict. Craved him like an addict; the rush, the highs, the feeling of his hand around your throat. 

In real life, though, you were the District Attorney’s rich daughter, fresh out of law-school and Matt Murdock was a small-time lawyer in his mid-thirties. Those things weren’t meant to be compatible; not when your outfits alone were three times his rent and his life experiences made you look fucking juvenile. You weren’t meant to understand his lifestyle. He wasn’t meant to understand yours. And yet, you both begged to try and wrap your head around one another. 

You knocked on his door at exactly 9:15PM; late, but fashionably so. Especially when you had been raised to think that you were always on time, and that everyone else was simply early. Matt had told you to dress comfortably - maybe you had different definitions of that, but you’d tried. Your oversized jumper was Versace but it was casual. It was also the cheapest thing you had in your wardrobe, but somehow still worth more than the average person’s college tuition. 

“Hey, sweetheart,” Matt met you with a smile. He looked different out of his work suits, but still charming in a tight shirt and sweatpants. No complaints on your part. 

“Hey,” you replied, following him inside his apartment. “I’m dressed casual, so what are our plans?”

He wrapped a large hand around your wrist and led you to the sofa. “Chinese takeout, since I sort of duped you out of it the other day at lunch-time.”

You dropped onto the couch opposite him; Matt kept a hand on your thigh, thumb rubbing circles as he reached to the coffee table and handed you a menu. The prices were a tenth of what you usually paid at your upscale places - most of them required reservations months in advance, and cost a small fortune for a tiny fucking plate. Your food bill was normally hundreds of dollars alone. 

“You did trick me,” you smiled. “What do you recommend?”

“The kung-pao chicken is good,” he replied. “I have this place on speed-dial. It’s the best restaurant to go to when it’s 3AM and I’m neck deep in a case.”

“Oh, tell me about it,” you said. “When I was doing my finals at Harvard, I would order take-out every night.”

Matt’s eyebrows shot up. “You went to Harvard?”

“Yeah, and I graduated Summa Cum Laude,” you explained. “What? You weren’t expecting that?”

“Honestly? I wasn’t,” he said. “I mean…I assumed you must have had some kind of legal background, with your dad and everything, but graduating Harvard with honours takes…”

He trailed off, pausing. 

“Hard work?” you offered. 

Matt grimaced. “Yeah.”

“Charming, Matthew. Real fucking charming,” you snorted. “You know you sound like every other man I’ve ever met, right?”

“Hey, I didn’t mean it like that,” he gave your leg a squeeze. “You just continue to surprise me is all.”

You sighed, giving him a small smile. “I know I seem like a spoiled little rich girl to you - maybe I am, but I did study my ass for my degree and one day, I’m gonna put it to good use.”

This. This is exactly what you were about: Matt had probably worked a thousand times harder than you for his career. You figured he didn’t come from money - not in a bad way, just in a way that meant he was normal to some degree. His future wasn’t guaranteed like yours. There was no nepotism or family money for him to fall back on so of course he was going to see things differently to you. Everyone did. You didn’t care what anyone else thought most of the time, and you could safely say there were only two people in the world whose opinion mattered right then: your father’s, and for some reason, Matt Murdock’s. 

God, you hoped that Frued wasn’t right. 

“I don’t doubt it,” Matt said. “What about everything before that?”

“What do you mean by everything?”

“I mean everything,” he shot back. “I wanna know about you.”

You smiled. “Okay. I’m the youngest of three; my older sister is married to some guy who’s like 500th in line to the British throne, and my brother is on a party boat in Mexico right now with his boyfriend and Kendall Jenner. My dad’s family earned a fuck ton from oil in the early 1900s and my great, great grandad once tried to fight John D. Rockefeller.”

Matt snorted. “Who won?”

“Think about it, Matt - who has their own skyscraper?”

“Not your own grandad, I’m assuming.”

“Exactly,” you replied. “That’s all the interesting stuff. All the other stuff is kind of boring-”

“- it’s not,” he cut you off. “What about now? Do you also try to fight billionaires?”

“Not fist fights.  I once got into an argument with Anna Delvey at a banquet because we both wore the same outfit,,” you said with a grin. “Honestly, though? I probably just do everything you think a rich girl does. I eat, I drink, and I tell people that someday I’m gonna make a change.”

“What’s stopping you?”

You shrugged. “I got my law degree because I wanted to help people, like Nelson and Murdock do. But that means taking the stand against my father and things get complicated, you know? It’s a big risk to take if I want to stay good with my family.”

Matt pondered for a second - his initial thought was to call you out for choosing a corrupt man like your father over justice. Then he thought about what his own father meant to him. Jack Murdock likely had strikingly different morals to your dad but wasn’t that the common denominator? He was your dad. Matt would have given up everything he had in the world to get his back, if even for just a second. There was so much he never got to say; so much he never got to do. And for that, he couldn’t blame you for choosing family over making a difference. 

“Yeah, I get that,” he replied. “Where did you study before Harvard?”

“Guess,” you said. “It’s not hard.”

“Cambridge?”

“No,” you dropped your head into your hands, letting out a small groan. “Oxford.”

“Ah, of course - how could I be so stupid?” Matt grinned. “I’ve heard England is nice, though.”

“It’s not New York,” you shot back. “That’s enough about me. Tell me about you, Matthew Murdock.”

He paused for a second. “We have lived very different lives.”

“And I want to hear about it.”

“Are you sure? I was happy listening to you-”

“- Matthew, are you deflecting?” your tone was joking, but your actions were gentle as you took his face in your hands. “There’s no pressure to share but don’t avoid it because you think I don’t want to listen.”

“Okay,” he smiled. “It was just me and my dad, growing up. He was a boxer so things were a little tight but we got by. He died about a year after I lost sight and then I, uh, I grew up in an orphanage.”

“Wow,”  you murmured. “That’s a lotta history in not many words.”

Matt shrugged. “That’s the abbreviated version, I suppose.”

“What was your dad like?” you asked. 

“He was my best friend. I know I was probably biased because I was nine but he was the best guy in the world,” he continued. You couldn’t help but notice the way he smiled when he spoke about him. “It was always just me and him. We had very little money and the worst apartment on the block but we also had each other, you know? That was all that mattered.”

He’d said you know? but truthfully, you didn’t. Maybe your father had money and riches and had given you all the material things you could need, but you weren’t sure he’d ever loved you. The man had certainly never said it. Your entire childhood was nannies and boarding schools and the amounting pressure to give your parents more in a world where they already had everything. Perhaps they’d loved you in their own way, but it hadn’t been enough. 

“Hey, are you okay?” Matt gently asked. 

“Yeah, it’s just…your dad sounds amazing,” you replied. “I’m sorry you lost him.”

“I made my peace with it a long time ago,” he said. “I am who I am today because of him and I’m forever grateful for that.”

Then more than ever, you realised just how fucking incompatible your lives were. You’d had the audacity to complain about your parents not showing enough affection when people had actual, real problems. And Matt, a man who was no stranger to those actual, real problems, acted like they were nothing. Like losing his dad and his sight in the space of two years was something casual and flippant. 

You should have gotten up at that point and left. Told Matt that it had been a nice week of fucking and chatting, but now you had to go. You back to your world, and him back to his. Worlds that were supposed to stay separate, and not collide right here on his couch. 

The key word there was should have because like fuck did you get up in leave. Right in front of you was a beautiful man with a complicated past and crystal clear morals and leaving him was a Herculean task. Some part of you wished that he’d been an asshole - at least then you could have set the boundaries at just fucking, and no talking. 

You didn’t half ass things though. Maybe that was a good enough excuse to get emotionally involved. 

“You’re deep in thought,” Matt commented. “Wanna share with the class?”

“We’re so different, Matt,” you said. 

“I had noticed that, funnily enough.”

“No, I’m serious,” you said. “You’re a person with like…actual substance. And if you were a vigilante or something? You’d have a killer backstory.” 

He laughed nervously. “I guess so.”

“I get why you want to sleep with me, I’ll admit that,” you continued. “I just don’t get why you actually want to talk to a girl whose main personality trait is an American Express card.”

Matt didn’t say anything - instead, he pondered for a moment. You made a fair point; you couldn’t have been more different if you tried. Still, he was drawn to you the same way you were drawn to him. It had started with just an exciting fling but the more you spoke, the more it got him thinking. 

“You’re right,” he said. “You are a spoiled little rich girl, but you’re also smart, and funny, and…I don’t know. Every time I talk to you, you surprise me.”

–

You had to leave Matt’s early the next day.

Even though you didn’t work for your father, you still ran the occasional errand for him. It was obvious what his intentions were every time he introduced you to every judge and partner he saw in passing: daddy dearest wanted you to have in on the family law business. If only he knew that the singular reason you bothered helping him with the occasional legal job was for your own sanity. You had to be productive every now and then. 

After slipping out of Matt’s bed around 7AM with a soft kiss, you’d crept back home and gotten changed into something a little more…formal. Black and Chanel was always the way to go, with your red-soled heels and a little more concealer than usual to cover up the hickey on your jawline. 

Tired felt like an understatement. You’d stayed up talking til some stupid hour; your food had gotten cold and by the time you were done chatting, you were distracted by other things. 

You couldn’t help smiling, despite your exhaustion. Any worry you'd had before about Matt - about your age, or social standing, or anything - had gone. There was something there. Something good. You might as well have been the only two people in the world when you were alone together. 

“Once you’ve run the witness statements by Rand’s office, I need you to come back to my office and go over some testimonies for me,” your father was droning on and on. “Nothing too complicated, so you don’t need to worry-”

“- I passed the same bar as you, father,” you cut him off, tearing the papers from his hands. “What am I doing before that? Rand isn’t around ‘til midday.”

“I need you to sit in on a meeting with the defense attorney on the Althorpe case,” he explained. “Again, nothing too hard for you. We just need to reiterate what their point of law will be for their defense and - ah, here he is now!” 

Your dad grabbed your arm and pulled you to the court waiting area. 

“Mr Murdock!” he called. 

What were the chances? What were the fucking chances? 

Matt looked equally as surprised as you. He’d mentioned the night before that he had an early meeting but surely he would have mentioned if it was with your dad. You’d both made an unspoken point to not bring up work too much but it seemed like a huge fucking detail to skip over. 

“Good morning,” Matt gave him a tentative smile. “Sorry if I’m mistaken, but I thought I was meeting with the assistant district attorney-”

“- something came up,” your father cut him off. Gross. “Have you met my daughter? She’s a representative for my office and will be meeting with you this morning.”

“Uh, no, we haven’t met,” you quickly said, pulling Matt into an awkward handshake. They were warm and familiar. “It’s nice to meet you…sorry. What was your name?”

Matt bit his lip in an attempt to hide a smile. “Matthew Murdock, ma’am. Just Matt is mine.”

After exchanging a quick goodbye with your father, you both headed down the corridor and into your assigned meeting room. It was a box room, with a simple chair and table in the middle; grey walls, grey floor, grey roof. A perfect metaphor for the entire legal profession, it seemed. 

If you’d been exhausted before, you didn’t know what you were now. New York City was small at the best of times but that only increased tenfold when you limited it down to a courthouse. How many times had you and Matt breezed past one another before now? How many times would it happen again in future? Were you just meant to act…casual? Because acting like the perfectly respectable man right in front of you hadn’t had his hand wrapped around your throat less than twelve hours ago was difficult. 

“A representative for your father’s office, huh?” Matt teased you, tossing aside his cane as he took a seat. “You told me you avoided his work-”

“- I do!” you cut him off. “Generally speaking, at least. He just needed some help with stuff and I agreed. It’s no big deal. I’m literally just here as a formality.”

“Your acting was impeccable, by the way,” he chided. You could tell he was fully relaxed now, a smile on his face and broad arms folded over his chest. His morning had just become a thousand times better at least. “I don’t think he suspects a single thing.”

You let out a sigh, taking the seat opposite him. “He can’t. It’s over for both of us if he works anything out.”

“Hey,” Matt reached a hand across the table, taking yours. “He won’t.”

“This is very…grounding,” you muttered. 

“Grounding how?”

“Because it just goes to show how fucking small the world is!” you groaned. “We’re going to be running into each other a lot. How are we meant to act when we see one another?”

“If I see you then I would be very concerned. I am blind, after all.”

“Matt, I’m serious. This is serious,” you huffed. “We need to lay out some ground rules.”

He ran a hand over the back of your palm and gave it a squeeze. “The we that we both like only has to exist where we want it to.”

“Your apartment,” you said. “I like your apartment.”

“Okay, fine,” he gave you a smile. “My apartment is our safe space and in the court house, we are strangers.”

“Yeah, strangers,” you nodded. “Unless we find like a closet, or something-”

“- I am not going to fuck you in a court room closet,” Matt lightly whacked your hand. 

“Fine,” you grumbled. “You do realise we actually have to do work now and you have to sign off on these witness statements, right?”

“Right,” he nodded. “Just two strangers, doing some work.”