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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 6 months ago

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1968 [Chapter 10: Poseidon, God Of The Sea]

A/N: Only 2 chapters left!!! 🥰💜

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 7.2k

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💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

It’s Friday, November 1st, and it begins like every day does: with you sneaking a birth control pill and swallowing it with a handful of cool water from the sink. Aemond is usually gone before you wake up—writing speeches, reading newspapers, strategizing with Otto and Criston and Sargent Shriver—but you always lock the bathroom door just in case he reappears. You’ve popped the tiny pink pills out of their circular packages and hidden them in hollowed-out tampons, each opening sealed with cotton balls. You don’t like taking the pills; you don’t fully understand how they work, and you don’t like feeling out of tune with your body’s own rhythms, but they are infinitely better than the alternative. You can’t imagine having to carry Aemond’s child now, sacrificing your comfort, your health, your future, your life for a man who doesn’t know the real you and doesn’t want to. You return the modified tampon to the box you keep in the linen closet, then begin to pin up your hair.

When you venture downstairs, you’ve thrown on a long flowing floral skirt and chunky black sweater, black flats, small unceremonious gold hoops in your ears. You’ll have to change before the journalists arrive to fawn over the children as they bake homemade apple pies this afternoon. You’ll have to wear whatever Aemond tells you to. But presently, it’s Aegon you’re looking for; you begin with the basement.

He isn’t sprawled across his futon, he isn’t lazing on the floor. He isn’t there at all. As you stand on the steps, you see only Eudoxia, muttering irritably in Greek and crawling around on her hands and knees as she picks globs of red out of the shag carpet.

“What is wrong with him?” she says when she glances at you. “Can you believe this? Melted candle wax everywhere. He is a pig. A pig! Someone should make bacon out of him. Then he could finally be useful. He’s just about fat enough. He could feed the whole family, and all the dogs too.”

You don’t know how to reply; you can’t apologize for helping to make the mess, you can’t agree that Aegon is a plague and nothing more. “Do you want help cleaning up?”

“If Aemond saw me putting you to work, I would be deported back to Tyrnavos.”

“No, Doxie. Asteria would fall into the sea without you.”

She peers up at you through fallen strands of her hair, dyed a palpably artificial pitch black. Then she grins, large doughy cheeks, crinkles around her eyes. “Go help Aemond win his election.”

“Yes ma’am,” you say dutifully, and head back upstairs.

In the living room, Aemond and Otto are hissing like snakes as they leaf through the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper reports that Nixon’s poll numbers are climbing in this crucial eleventh hour. They can’t decide if that’s true or if the Wall Street Journal, a Nixon-friendly publication, is trying to give him a little extra momentum as Election Day approaches. Criston nods at you from where he sits on the couch, looking exhausted, dark shadows around his eyes and shoulders slumped low; Aemond and Otto don’t notice you at all. You keep moving.

There is chatter and giggling and the clanging of bowls and pans in the kitchen. You peek inside from the doorway. Fosco, Helaena, and the nannies are making pancakes with the children. Butter sizzles, spatulas scrape, bubbles appear in wells of batter. Helaena is lifting Evangelos so he can pour a cupful of smooth, milky batter into one of the pans on the stovetop. Cosmo, drizzling maple syrup over an ambitiously tall stack of pancakes, waves at you. You smile and wave back. In the corner of the room, Ludwika is smoking one of her Camels and shooing away Aegon’s second-youngest son Thaddeus, whose fingers are covered with flour.

“Please take your paws elsewhere,” Ludwika says, flicking ashes into the kitchen sink. “This dress is Prada.”

Fosco spots you. “Would you like some pancakes?” he asks as he approaches, wiping his palms on the apron tied around his slim waist. Flour dusts his eyeglasses. “We have enough batter to make about 500. Although I cannot promise they will not be burnt. Our chefs are rather inexperienced.”

“Thanks, but I’m not really hungry.” You take one last look around the kitchen, wondering where Aegon could be.

Fosco understands. His voice drops low and discrete. “I have not seen him this morning.”

“He isn’t usually up yet.”

“He’s not, this is true.” Fosco taps his chin, leaving white dabs of flour there. “Maybe he’s sailing?”

“Maybe. I’ll check.”

“And I have no idea where you’re going or why,” Fosco says with a wink before returning to the stove.

Outside it’s grey, misty, only 50 degrees. It would be a bad day for sailing. The wind rips at your clothes and your hair like a man’s lustful hands; the waves are choppy and treacherous. You think of Icarus plummeting into the ocean, of Andromeda being offered as a sacrifice to assuage Poseidon’s wrath, of sirens beckoning doomed sailors. From where you’re standing in the backyard of the main house, shivering with your arms crossed over your chest, you can’t see Aegon’s boat Sunfyre bobbing in the rough surf. You turn left to investigate Helaena’s withered garden.

As you walk, the hem of your skirt dragging dead autumn leaves, you skim your fingertips over the evergreen emerald hedges, cool and damp. At the center of the garden—like a diamond in a wedding ring, like the sun surrounded by its planets—you don’t find Aegon smoking a joint or napping under Zeus’s shadow, only a silent stone circle of gods who watch you with unmoving, all-knowing eyes. You spin slowly, studying each of them, deities who loved and cheated and offered mercy and cursed and killed. From his gurgling fountain in the middle of the clearing, Zeus glares at you most fiercely, wielding his lightning bolts, aching to loose them. The wind rattles the leaves of the hedges; crows caw from somewhere out in the mist.

“Oh! You’re here, darling?” Alicent says from the arched doorway cut into the greenery. She’s pushing Viserys in his wheelchair. Sparse white spiderweb-strands of hair hang limply from his head, mottled with liver spots. His fingers are bony and clawlike. “In this awful weather?”

You scramble for an explanation. “I just, um, needed some quiet.”

“Yes, the children are very rambunctious this morning, aren’t they?”

“Children?” Viserys echoes, as if he is only just learning of them.

“Your grandchildren,” Alicent reminds him. “Aegon and Helaena’s kids. Orion, Spiro, Violeta, Thaddeus, Cosmo, Daphne, Evangelos, and…” Panic crosses her face. She realizes she’s forgotten one, but she doesn’t know who.

“Neaera,” you say.

“Of course. Such a sweet girl, gentle like a lamb.”

You weren’t blessed with that sort of disposition. Sometimes you wish you were. Life seems easier for women who don’t feel bitterness or forbidden ambition, who pain moves cleanly through like clear water. They have no thorns for it to snag on and grow roots into the bones, the soul. They are never at risk of becoming poisonous like Jupiter’s moon Io. “What brings you to the garden on a day this dreary?”

“I feel close to them here,” Viserys rasps.

You stare down at him, baffled. “Close to who, sir?” You rarely interact with the ailing patriarch of the Targaryen family. He is often confined to his bedroom, attended by Alicent and Eudoxia and his nurses, and even when he is physically present his mind is sluggish, alien, impenetrable. Now Alicent’s eyes are downcast, and she drifts away to inspect the statue of Poseidon, a formidable bearded man holding a trident and with dolphins and sea turtles emerging from the waves of white marble at his bare feet.

“I left them back in Greece,” Viserys says, his gaunt face vacant, distant, vaguely sad. He is bundled up in a thick wool robe that hides how skeletal he has become. “I thought about having them brought over to be interred at the mausoleum, but it felt wrong to disturb their bones. Now I cannot visit their graves. I can only hear them here, among the gods our ancestors worshiped.”

“Who…?”

“Aemma and Rhaenyra,” Alicent tells you from where she now stands by Aphrodite, gazing longingly at the goddess of love. You notice that she is clutching a komboskini in one hand; she must believe that what her husband is saying is blasphemy, but she doesn’t condemn him. “Viserys had a wife and daughter before he met me.”

You feel a sudden and overwhelming stab of grief for the old man; you are thinking of Ari. “What happened?”

“The sea took them,” Viserys explains. “A riptide off the coast of Euboea. We found their bodies three days later.”

“Oh God. I’m…I’m so sorry for your loss.” You don’t know what else to say; it’s too disastrous, too unspeakable.

“Aemma was pregnant. It was a boy. She delivered him in the water, a coffin birth.” And you know from his face, his voice, that Alicent and her children never stood a chance, that Viserys has only one true family, only one set of names carved into the scarlet chambers of his failing heart. You think of Aemond’s heart, claimed by Alys and her son; you think of your own.

“They’re at peace, Viserys,” Alicent says. “They are in heaven with my mother and Ari and Mimi.”

He continues, as if he hasn’t heard her: “I thought that if I made something of myself in America, if I helped contribute something incredible to the world, then they would not have died for nothing.” Viserys reaches out with trembling, gnarled hands, and when you realize he wants to hold yours you let him. His grasp is weak and cold. “Aemond will be president. He will save countless lives, he will save this nation’s soul. And you have made that possible.”

Where’s Aegon? Is he okay? Why is no one else ever looking for him? “Thank you, sir.”

Viserys begins hacking, doubling over in his wheelchair, and Alicent hurries to soothe him and provide a handkerchief that Helaena embroidered green spiders onto. When he has recovered, you leave them with the gods: Viserys to grieve his old life, Alicent to mourn the one she never had.

You plod through sand dunes out to the Atlantic Ocean, peering into the fog as you search for Aegon’s sailboat. Still, there is no sign of him. You glance back towards the main house as sea spray peppers your cheeks and your knuckles. You’re beginning to get nervous. Where the hell is he? Is he passed out somewhere, is he sick, is he hurt?

And then, at last, you see him: sitting at the bottom of a small bluff so he is invisible to anyone not at the water’s edge, arms linked around his bent knees, not smoking, not drinking, not gulping pills, just gazing out into the waves that thrash and rumble beneath a grey sky, his too-long blonde hair whipping in the wind. He wears one of Daeron’s army jackets over a white turtleneck sweater, ripped jeans, no shoes, a collection of other men’s dog tags slung around his neck.

“Hey,” you say as you join him, dropping down onto the cool, crumbling sand.

Aegon smiles. “Hey.”

“It’s strange to see you awake before noon.”

“Yeah…I didn’t really sleep.” No, he didn’t, you can tell: his eyes are bloodshot and his voice tired, husky. He is watching you, so hopeful but so afraid. “What are we gonna do?”

About us. About Aemond. “If he loses on Tuesday, I can leave him.”

“What if he wins?”

You don’t have a good answer. You shrug, avoiding Aegon’s eyes. “It’s not forever, you know? It would be four years, and then…”

“Four years?” Aegon says. “No, I can’t wait another four years. I’ve been waiting my whole life for something like this. And what if he gets a second term? Eight years? I’ll be almost fifty. We’ve already lost so much time, I can’t surrender another decade.”

“Aegon, first ladies don’t quit. It’s never happened before, not once since 1789. It’s a part of the democratic process. People aren’t just voting for Aemond, they’re voting for me too. You know that. You told me we were a package deal, and you were right. If they trust me and I walk away, it’s…it’s…it’s treason, it’s abandonment, it’s wrong. And Aemond needs to have the political credibility to get what he wants done.”

“Look,” Aegon says, like it pains him. “I get that my life is already half over, and I haven’t done anything worthwhile with the last forty years, but I want to be different. I want to be better. And I can do that, but I need you to give me a chance.”

“You think Aemond would let me leave? If I publicly humiliated and undermined him?”

“We don’t need Aemond, we could figure it out—”

“What do you think he and Otto would do to you, Aegon? They would ruin you anywhere you go, they would have you declared mentally unfit and take your children away.”

“They don’t own us!”

“They do,” you insist. “And if you try to fight them it will destroy you. You’ve never cared about strategy, and I love that you’re truthful, and I love that you’re real, but I need you to understand what you’re asking for right now.”

“But he breaks the rules,” Aegon says, and his eyes are glistening. “He has Alys. He has a kid out of wedlock.”

“Yes,” you agree softly.

“And what, I’m supposed to hope Aemond loses?” Aegon swipes tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Because that’s the only way I get to touch you? Nixon wins and more draftees get butchered in Vietnam, and Daeron doesn’t come home, and the white supremacists get to resegregate the beaches at Biloxi, Mississippi and wherever the hell else they want to, and civil rights protesters get attacked by police dogs, and teenagers get sentenced to decades in prison for marijuana possession?”

“I’m sorry.” You can’t tell him he’s mistaken about any of that. He isn’t.

“I’ve spent my whole fucking life in a cage, but I’ve never felt this powerless.”

“Aegon?”

“Yeah.”

“Am I…” It’s terrifying to ask. “Am I the same way Mimi was when she was younger? Is that why you like me?”

“No,” he says immediately. “No, you’re different than Mimi. Mimi was fun, and we could party together, and I cared about her, obviously, but…” He stares out at the ocean, shaking his head. “She wasn’t as strong as you. And she couldn’t really get to me. I feel like you could kill me if you wanted to, you could reach inside my chest any time it crossed your mind and crush me in your fist and I’d be gone.”

You stretch out your fingertips until they collide with his sweater, warm yielding flesh woven over his ribs. “Not so easy,” you say. And then Aegon smiles and he leans in to kiss you, the ocean roaring like an ancient beast, a titan, a maelstrom. The wind rakes through your hair and stings your eyes. You ask when he rests his forehead against yours, your hand on his face, your thumb stroking his cheek: “Do you wish you could go back to when you hated me?”

“Never. I’ve gotten used to not being alone.”

“The kids made pancakes. You should go have some.”

“Come with me.”

“You first. I’ll be five minutes behind you. We shouldn’t walk to the house together.”

“Why?” Aegon teases. “Because people might think we fucked in the basement last night?”

“I’ve already told them. Aemond is waiting for you in the kitchen with a bazooka.”

Aegon laughs and struggles to his bare feet, slipping on the sand. “Okay. See you soon.”

“See ya.” Once he’s gone, you recite the full length of Here’s To The State Of Mississippi in your head, then trek across the sand and through the backyard to rejoin the rest of the Targaryens.

When you open the sliding glass door, Otto is standing in the hallway. His icy blue eyes sweep from your simple black flats to your windswept hair, still pinned up but unacceptably tousled. “Why the hell aren’t you dressed for the reporters?”

“Because they won’t be here for another two hours. Surely you are well-acquainted with the itinerary that you yourself arranged.”

“Don’t get yourself in trouble, girl.”

“Remember when you used to defer to me about things? Were you stupid then, or are you stupid now?”

“Do you know what Joe Kennedy did when his daughter Rosemary threatened the family’s reputation?” Otto says, eyes glittering cruelly.

You really don’t know; you weren’t aware that JFK had a sister named Rosemary. “What?”

“He took her to a surgeon to be lobotomized. Now she’s hidden away in a little cottage in Wisconsin, can’t speak, can’t walk, with full-time nurses to wipe the drool off her face and change her diapers. How would you like that? Would your obscene little flirtation still be worth it? We could tell people that you were in a car accident or fell down the stairs. The doctors go in through the eye socket, you know. And you’re awake the whole time.”

“You can’t do that to me,” you say, shellshocked.

“Oh, if that’s what it takes, I’ll find the will somehow.”

There is shouting from the basement, and you and Otto both bolt for the staircase. At the bottom of the steps, Aegon and Eudoxia are embroiled in a ferocious confrontation, red faces, hands itching to slap and shove. Aegon roars, jabbing his index finger at her like a petulant teenager: “I told you to stay the fuck out of my room!”

“You are filthy, you leave crumbs everywhere! We will have mice!”

“Where’s the garbage?” Aegon demands. “Huh? Where’d you put it? Out by the curb?”

“It has already been picked up.”

“No, no way! That’s bullshit!”

“You’re too late!” Doxie says. “The truck went by 20 minutes ago. And why is this a problem? What precious heirloom did I steal from you? An empty rum bottle? A magazine full of naked women? Candy wrappers, cigarette ashes, melted candle wax? You live like a pig, you should not be so outraged when you are treated the same as one.”

“Aegon, what happened?” you ask. Otto is equally bewildered, surveying the markedly clean basement, his brow knitted into deep crevices.

Aegon doesn’t answer. He only glances at you—frustration, anger, but shame too—and then sighs in defeat and stomps up the stairs to the main floor of the house.

Eudoxia looks at Otto and shrugs nonchalantly. “At least there were not so many used condoms this time.”

Your gaze catches on the end table by the futon. The empty cups are gone, the ashtray is spotless…and there is no folded white corner of a receipt poking out from under it.

The math problem from Mount Sinai, you think, that relic, that talisman, that worthless scrap of paper that Aegon never wanted to talk about but kept so close to him, just like you cling to the card he gave you and Aemond cherishes his engraved Ouija board. It’s gone. It’s almost like it never happened.

~~~~~~~~~~

After the journalists arrive and the apple pies, so quintessentially all-American, are made—you help Cosmo with his job, layering strips of dough into lattice crusts that turn golden in the oven, glinting with sugar crystals like diamonds—Aemond’s retinue begins the last of their campaign stops by travelling via limousines to Philadelphia, just an hour and a half across the width of New Jersey and over the Delaware River. In your penthouse suite at the Ritz-Carlton, you soak in a bath opaque with bubbles, steam hot and dewy on your skin. Your hair is long and free. The Zenith radio out in the kitchenette is playing Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles.

Your hands have just slipped beneath the hot water—your skull full of Aegon, things he’s done, things he’s said—when you hear the bathroom door open behind you. You rest your arms on the spotless white rim of the tub, porcelain-enameled steel, and try not to look like you’ve been interrupted. Aemond’s footsteps cross the linoleum floor, then he kneels by the bathtub and wraps his arms around you, his long uncalloused fingers skating over your shoulder, collarbones, nipples, before linking like a long necklace. He likes you best like this, when your scar is hidden, something that might have been a nightmare or a sad story that happened to somebody else. He rests the mutilated left half of his face against the right side of yours; his eyepatch scratches against your temple. You shift uncomfortably, you can’t help it. You don’t want him touching you. His arms tighten around your ribs.

“You know, JFK’s mother went through a crisis of sorts as a young wife,” Aemond says calmly. “She realized her husband was a hopeless philanderer and tried to leave him and go back to her parents. But her father sat her down and explained that she had made a commitment. Marriage is for life, and you don’t abandon your vows when the circumstances prove difficult. So she went back to Joe. And if she hadn’t, there never would have been a John F. Kennedy, or a Bobby, or a Eunice or a Ted, or a million other things too.”

“I am so fucking sick of hearing about the Kennedys.”

“You used to love being compared to Jackie.”

“I’m not her. I’m never going to be her.”

“I’m giving up things too,” Aemond says. Now he’s combing his fingers through your hair, unraveling tiny knots, yanking at your scalp. “If I win, I won’t be able to see Alys and our son. It would be too risky, someone might catch me. For as long as I’m president, I’ll have to be apart from them. You don’t think that’s painful? But Alys understands. She knows it’s for the greater good.”

“Please stop touching me.”

“You’re mine to touch as much as I want to.”

You stare at the seafoam green wall and try to pretend you’re in another place, another year.

“I’ve been thinking,” Aemond says sympathetically, an appeasing sort of tone, like he’s trying to strike a bargain. “I’m a realist, I’m aware that I can’t keep you locked up in a basement or put you in a straightjacket for the next fifty years. That doesn’t serve either of us. If you are truly desperate to be rid of me, there’s nothing I can do to change your mind. And I require a partner who is fully committed to my cause, my legacy. Not a captive. I can’t fight Nixon and you too.”

You twist around in the tub to look at him, skeptical, amazed. Is there a way out? “So what are you offering?”

“I need you for as long as I’m president,” Aemond says. “If I win, I need you for at least four years, probably eight. And a short while after that to establish myself in retirement and fade from the headlines, another few years. But then…we could work out some arrangement that is mutually agreeable.”

The hope is so fragile, so fearful, splintering glass. “You would let me go?”

“We’d have to negotiate the details, particularly as far as our future children are concerned, but…yes. In some sense, at least.”

You can’t find any words. You don’t want to offend him, to shatter this moment. And yet the price is so steep. Four years, eight years, ten years. But then…but then…

Aemond smiles, his remaining blue eye bright and cunning. His fingertips trace the slope of your jaw. “I care so deeply for you. You are my Aphrodite, you have made my wildest ambitions possible. You will help me save this country. I am worshiped because of you, I am trusted, I am envied. No one has a wife as beloved as mine, and everybody knows it. So I feel…I’ve considered…” His hand moves down to your throat, drawing invisible chains of gold or silver. “If you’ve given me so much, I can extend some mercy in return.”

“You can’t harm Aegon,” you say. “Or take his children away, or do anything else to punish him.” And then you lie, a necessary fiction, an invention, a myth, Prometheus stealing fire to give it to humans, Zeus hiding Io from Hera. “He hasn’t betrayed you.” And he’s saved me over and over again.

“Of course I won’t harm Aegon. I need him too. This act he has now of the devoted, reformed, tragedy-besieged single father? People adore it. At this rate, I’ll be able to make him the attorney general for my second term if he uses the next four years to rack up some experience. And his children are gold mines for the photographers. They have filled the void left by our own son’s death.”

“Ari,” you say.

“What?”

“He had a name. He wasn’t just ‘a son’ or ‘our son.’ His name was Ari.”

“You’ll feel better once we’ve had others.” Aemond stands and holds out a hand to you. He’s wearing a black suit like he’s getting married, like he’s going to a funeral.

You gaze up at him, not wanting to leave the water. You belong to him, but when he touches you it feels like the earth dying when Persephone is stolen away by Hades each autumn, it feels like Eurydice’s spiderweb-fragile life evaporating when Orpheus dared to look back at her as he led her out of the Underworld. “What if I can’t get pregnant again?” you ask. “It took over a year the first time. And the surgery…what if there’s too much scar tissue, what if I’m just…just…broken?” There’s real pain in your voice that staves off any suspicion Aemond might have. You do want more children, you believe, you know; just not with him.

“Then it is God’s will. But we’ll keep trying.”

Aemond draws you out of the water like a fish from the sea, something to devour, skin and muscle, delicate bones sucked clean.

~~~~~~~~~~

The sunlight is cloudless and glaring. Leaves swirl in the brisk wind in jewel tones: gold, ruby, fire opal, honey calcite, tiger’s eye, red jasper. Aemond has just finished a speech at Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park, standing in a stone gazebo that you can’t help but think resembles a Greek temple, tall columns that house deities of love and death, oceans and fire. Alicent and Helaena have taken the children to attend the opening of a new public library on the other side of the city. The rest of Aemond’s entourage—you, Criston, Otto, Ludwika, Fosco, Aegon—are arranged in a semicircle around him on the stage. Only 50 yards away, there is a small parking lot full of police and press vehicles. Philadelphia residents have walked miles to hear Aemond speak, to glimpse him, to cheer for him, to take leaves he’s stepped on or loose threads from his navy blue suit as relics like the bones of a saint. You match him, as you always must: navy blue dress, high heels, hair neat, makeup mature and understated, gold jewelry gleaming on your ears, throat, wrist. Ravens flap their wings from the skeletal limbs of bare trees. A car radio is blaring Break On Through by The Doors.

“Senator Targaryen,” a reporter calls as flashbulbs strobe dizzyingly. “What do you think about Tommie Smith and John Carlos getting death threats for raising their fists in the Black Power salute at the Olympics in Mexico City?”

There is a split-second lull; it is a difficult question. Aemond must remain the savior of the hippies and college kids and civil rights activists, yet he must not let the old-money urban elite or suburban families mistake him for a discord-sowing radical. You and Aegon exchange a glance; Otto placed him on the opposite side of the gazebo, and this is not a coincidence. Then Aemond decides what to say. “Peaceful protests—even those that can make us confused, defensive, fearful—are not a threat to democracy,” he speaks into the microphone steadily, deliberately, commandingly. The crowd leans forward as they listen, enraptured. Journalists’ pens fly across the pages of their notebooks. “They are not the harbingers of some doomed descent into anarchy. They are a manifestation of the fact that we have already failed. Our nation has failed, our laws and our leaders have failed, and this is our chance to address those dire inadequacies. I urge every single American to listen to what Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos have actually said about their concerns and their hopes, to be empathetic, to be honest when reflecting on what our country has achieved and yet so desperately still needs to improve upon. These men are not enemies of the United States. They are the United States. They are a part of us, and we are a part of them, and we must not allow prejudiced, ignorant voices”—he means Wallace, he means Nixon—“to draw divides between us. The harassment that Mr. Smith, Mr. Carlos, and their families have experienced is a travesty. It is something that we should expect from a fascist or communist regime, not from a democracy. And to do my small part to show my admiration for them and atone for the mistakes of this nation that I so fervently hope to make better, I would like to personally fund private security services for the households of Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos for the foreseeable future.”

The crowd erupts into applause, cheers shouted, signs held aloft. Your eyes snag on one, clutched by a middle-aged woman bundled up against the cold; only her eyes—grey, tearful, shining like quarters—are visible above the red plaid of her thick wool scarf. On her sign is a large photograph of a young man in uniform, maybe nineteen, maybe twenty. Below the photo in red marker is written: Ryan Farrelly, my youngest son, burned to death in Phan Thiet on September 21st. Bring Daeron home! Bring them ALL home!

The woman waves at you. You raise your hand wave back. And then there is a sound that comes from everywhere, a boom of thunder, an explosion, bullets like the one that demolished Aemond’s left eye in Palm Beach back in May, a lifetime ago, a truth that has become mythology. There is something hot and sticky splattered across your face, and you can’t see; when you wipe it away with your sleeve and open your eyes, there is a hole in your palm that you can look through like a window.

Where else?

But when you check your chest, your belly, you are whole. It is only a hand would, and that won’t kill you. It doesn’t even hurt yet, though the blood runs in torrents down your arm. You peer frantically around to see if anyone else is hurt.

Aegon, Fosco, Ludwika, Criston??

People are rushing the stage to shield Aemond and his family from bullets. Police are tackling somebody in the audience and beating him bloody with their batons. Aegon is screaming and shoving through the chaos as he fights his way towards you. Otto slams him against one of the columns of the gazebo and holds him there, because Aegon is not the one who’s supposed to get to you first. Now Aemond’s arms are around you, and he is ushering you down the stone steps towards the parking lot, and Criston is running alongside him and telling Aemond that the closest hospital is Jefferson Methodist, but UPenn is better and only two miles farther.

“Who else?” you ask as you cradle your hand against your chest, blood turning your dress from navy to black. Now it hurts plenty, like waking up from your c-section, like a crimson wave that is scalding and crushing and dragging you under to be drowned. “Is anyone else—?”

“No, just you,” Criston says, a reassuring grip on your shoulder. “Don’t worry. Nobody else is hurt.”

“Senator Targaryen, this way!” a police officer is yelling, and he leads the three of you to his black and white car. Criston leaps into the passenger seat; Aemond pulls you into the back with him and slams the door. The sirens shriek and the police officer careens out of the parking lot, Criston giving directions, Aemond yanking off his suit jacket to wrap around your hemorrhaging hand.

“I’m not going to lose it, am I?” you ask dazedly. None of this seems real. You wish Aegon was here. “I need my hands.”

“No, honey. I don’t think they’ll have to amputate.” Then Aemond stares down at the blood on his palms, warm scarlet ruin, water and oxygen and iron that once pulsed in your arteries and veins and now stains him. He frowns, then wipes his hands on his white shirt until almost all the blood is gone from his skin. He is cleaning you off of him. He is readying himself for the cameras that will undoubtedly be waiting at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Inside the glass doors of the building, dust motes circle in aisles of sunlight; you watch them as doctors and nurses push you towards the operating room on a stretcher.

“We’re going to take excellent care of you, Mrs. Targaryen,” a doctor says as he ties a sterile white mask over his nose and mouth.

Don’t let Ari die, you almost murmur in response; and then you remember that’s already happened.

There are needles gliding into your veins, bright lights, pain vanishing like the memory of a dream dissolving when you wake.

~~~~~~~~~~

Four hours later, you are propped up in bed on a mountain of pillows, your hand surgically repaired and bandaged, morphine in your IV drip. The doctors think you shouldn’t lose much function—the bullet was from a pistol, blessedly small in size and missing most of your major tendons and nerves—but you won’t know for sure until it’s healed. Ludwika is here with you, lounging in the chair beside your bed and flipping through a copy of Cosmopolitan with her Louis Vuitton stilettos propped up on the ottoman. She is content to be here, but this is technically a job; she has been tasked with supervising you while Aemond and Otto meet with the Philadelphia police who are investigating the attack. The rest of the family—everyone except Aegon, who you suspect has been forbidden to enter the premises—has already been here to fret over you and ask if you need anything. But you aren’t in the mood for visitors. You are stunned, and aching, and you hate hospitals. You keep thinking of tiny babies in incubators, priests in black robes.

Your room is already filling up with flower bouquets. Every few minutes, the phone rings and Ludwika has to answer it. Each time she announces who it is—“Oh, hello Lady Bird, so nice of you to offer your well-wishes!” and then looks to see if you nod, agreeing to take it. The current first lady says that you are already as beloved as Jackie Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt. Pat Nixon calls you a gladiator.

There is a mint green Zenith radio on your nightstand, the volume turned way down low, and a television mounted on the wall. NBC news is on, but you’ve muted it to attend to the barrage of phone calls. There is a knock on the doorframe. Aegon stands there in his khaki pants and ill-fitting viridian button-up shirt and tan moccasins, wide searching murky blue eyes, carrying a white Dairy Queen cup.

Ludwika observes him as she puffs on a Camel cigarette. “I am suddenly struck by the inspiration to spend Otto’s money at the gift shop. I hope they take American Express.” She rolls up her magazine, shoves it into her oversized Gucci purse, and clicks in her heels out of the room and down the hallway.

Aegon commandeers the chair and drags it closer to your bed so he can feel your cheeks and your forehead, so he can get a good look at you. “Hey, little Io. You hurt your hoof, huh?”

“It’s not that bad. The caliber of the bullet was really small. Who shot me? One of Wallace’s Klansmen?”

“No, just some insane guy who thinks Aemond is a Russian double agent trying to overthrow capitalism here and put us all in gulags. I heard you could see right through the wound.”

“Yeah, I had a hole in my palm.”

“Just like Jesus.”

“I guess they fixed it.”

“Messiah status revoked.” Aegon sets the Dairy Queen cup on your nightstand. “I brought you a lemon-lime Mr. Misty.”

“I need to get out of here.”

“They gotta make sure you’re okay, babe. You could spike a fever or something.”

“Aegon,” you say seriously. “I can’t be in a hospital. I need to leave.”

He understands; his voice is gentle. “I might be able to get you out tonight, okay? I’ll try. I’ll talk to the doctors.”

“Okay,” you whimper.

Aegon turns up the Zenith radio, Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl. He sings along, snapping his fingers and shimmying his shoulders, his hair shagging over his eyes:

“Hey, where did we go?

Days when the rains came

Down in the hollow

Playin’ a new game…”

Reluctantly, you give him a smile. And you think very clearly, though you don’t say it: I love you.

Aegon leans across the bed to rest his head on your lap. He says softly as you run your fingers through his hair with your good hand: “Maybe Aemond will lose.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

On the muted television, Nixon is giving a speech in Charlotte, North Carolina to a euphoric crowd. You can’t hear the people gathered there, but you know their applause are thunderous. Nixon is flashing peace signs with both hands and beaming radiantly, this man who was once so poor, tragic, ordinary, unwanted, unloved. He has learned what it feels like to be a god.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Sunday, November 3rd, and your hand hurts like hell. You swallow your pills, smiling a little. Now Aegon is getting clean and I’m the one swimming in a haze of narcotics. Who could have predicted that? Still in your robe and bare feet, you swish to the hotel bathroom to wash your face, brush your teeth, rebandage your hand and make sure it isn’t growing dark insidious vines of blood poisoning.

When you venture out to the kitchenette, Aemond is in a sapphire blue suit and seated at the table, reading the Wall Street Journal, his face hidden by columns of black ink and interspersed photographs. This is unusual; he should be scheming with Otto and Sargent Shriver by now.

“Everything okay?” you ask with only vague interest as you go to the refrigerator to get yourself a leftover slice of apple pie, meticulously wrapped and packed in a cooler by Eudoxia before your departure from Asteria. Aemond doesn’t answer. You plop a piece of apple pie onto a plate, return the rest to the refrigerator, and then turn to your husband. And only now do you register the newspaper’s front-page story.

The photographs, all three of them, are of you and Aegon. They are blurry, taken from a distance, but you recognize the moment immediately. You can feel it again: ocean wind in your hair, his lips on yours, your hand on his face as you willed him to be closer, healed, permanent. You are sitting at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, turbulent and perilous. The journalists must have been north of you, shrouded in mist, their camera shutters clicking feverishly. The headline reads: A Family Affair?

And you remember what Aemond said on your 23rd birthday before he left for the Washington State Convention in Tacoma, how he scolded Aegon when he saw him lighting a joint in the backyard at Asteria: You know journalists will sneak around trying to get photos. You know we’re never truly alone out here.

You can’t speak, you can’t breathe. Aemond knows. The whole world knows.

Slowly, Aemond lowers the newspaper so you can see his face, scarred and hateful and horrifying, lethal like the volcanic hellscape of Jupiter’s most cursed moon.

~~~~~~~~~~

What are my earliest memories? Aegon getting drunk on his futon in the basement while I played with toy soldiers on the green shag carpet, Aemond with his poems and his myths, Helaena letting a praying mantis creep across her knuckles, Criston teaching me how to swim and sail, my mother cleaning sand from my face and hands and giving me water to wash the grit out of my teeth, my father wandering through the doorways of Asteria like a ghost, always on the periphery of my vision, and I had the sense that if I reached out to touch him my hands would pass resistlessly through his skin and sinew like a stone through water.

These are the things I think of here in the rain-dripping darkness, bruises down to my bones, eyes swollen almost completely shut, teeth broken and throbbing like blows from a hammer, fingernails ripped out. I know Tessarion is here because I can hear her, soft sympathetic squeaks, the padding of her tiny feet. I know John McCain is still alive because sometimes he taps back through the cracked concrete wall. I have run out of folklore, so now I tell him the truth. I tell him that I am afraid each beating will kill me as my body becomes a stranger, someone weak and brittle and helpless. I tell him that all my life I wanted to run as far as I could from home, but now I would crawl back to them through razor wire, I would fall into their arms in a shredded bloodstained heap and I’d be happy to do it. Isn’t that funny? I mean, I don’t laugh much these days. But maybe you can appreciate the irony.

Has the election happened yet? Has Aemond won? I’ve lost track of the days, but it has to be getting close to November 5th. What happens if he can’t get me out? What happens if Nixon wins?

I don’t want to be a hero anymore. I don’t want to have adventures like Heracles, Achilles, Jason, Odysseus, Perseus, Orpheus, Ajax. I just want to go home. Please let me go home.

I can hear keys jangling against the lock on my cell door. My heart jolts into a breakneck, pounding rhythm; I think that sound will terrify me all my life. Some things you just can’t forget, you know? Some things dig down deep and build a home in the marrow of your bones, a rust-red cave of immutable memory. I know exactly what the communists want from me. They’ve been asking since they dragged me out of the Loach four months ago.

Everyone has a breaking point. This is mine.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #aegon x y/n #aegon ii x you #aegon ii x y/n #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon ii fanfic #aegon ii x reader #aegon ii fic

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restwellsoon · 7 months ago

Text

Afterhours

Minors and ageless blogs do not interact (liking/reblogging) or follow! You will be blocked!

Pairing: Jason Todd x F!Reader

Summary: The Red Hood decides to confront you after work regarding a curious rumor you started as an informant.

/ “You know what I do to bad guys, but what I do to bad girls is even worse.”

Warnings: dubcon, crime lord!Jason Todd/ Red Hood, degradation and humiliation, toys, daddy kink, being called princess, mention of drugs (for the plot)

Scrubbing at your arms to get some kind of warmth, you huffed impatiently. The informant was late. Sure, it was understandable why the Bat would want all contact to be verbal; both of you–well, mainly you–would go down if you were caught. Everyone knew what Cobblepot was capable of. The shorter list of convictions compared to other Gotham criminals didn’t mean that he was less capable, and working for the corporate and legal end of his business meant that you were privy to the real reasons behind the sudden company reorgs.

You shivered before deciding to pace around your office. It wasn’t like the informant to be late. Were they caught? Were you busted? Maybe you should just go home. You spent too many hours working overtime anyway.

The goosebumps weren’t going away. The office A/C that you cherished in the sticky and humid summers of Jersey was now a frigid hell. You weren’t sure of who was punishing you–the Batman or the Penguin.

With the creak of your door, you snapped, “About fuckin’–”

The last word fell into the nylon carpet as you stared into the glowing eyes of the Red Hood. The door slammed shut, and he left it unlocked. It didn’t matter. You knew you wouldn’t be able to get past him anyway. Instead, you froze in front of your desk.

“Yeah, let’s talk about getting fucked.” The robotic drawl of your full name in perfect pronunciation made you grimace as he stepped towards you. Any thoughts of him walking into the wrong office and getting the wrong person were gone. “That was pretty ballsy of you to drop my name in your conversations with the Bat.”

You couldn’t even deny his accusation. You thought you were being clever, that maybe you could do some of that double-crossing shit that the vigilantes and villains played so easily. It seemed easy because you were an amateur; maybe you were fucking up this entire time. All you remembered were the extra zeros in your bank account as you played Batman and your boss.

“Mr. Cobblepot has an image to maintain,” you told the informant–Spanky? Or was it Matches? Either way the name was ridiculous–“so he wouldn’t intentionally let this new drug hit his clubs.”

The latest street drug in Gotham had a similar chemical compound to drugs like buprenorphine and chlordiazepoxide. They eased the symptoms of withdrawal, making a more tolerable and safer transition into sobriety.

“So you’re saying that sobering up his clients isn’t in his best interest?” His mustache twitched, and you wondered if it was glued on or real.

“Exactly. His regular clients would seek out other dealers to get the high they’re used to. They don’t go to the Iceberg Lounge for the atmosphere. They go because it’s one of the safer options to get snowed. Who knows what sort of diabolical shit is mixed into the Black Mask’s supply?”

His mustache wiggled as he hummed. “Well, if it isn’t the Penguin, who else would put this on the streets?”

The informant paid close attention to your words as you paused to give him a new lead.

“Well, if you're looking for the name of a cartel or gang, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I don’t know much about its manufacturing or distribution. I work in communications, so…”

Crossing your arms, you blew some air as you tried to think of a name to distract the Bat and keep your wallet fat. “The only crime lord that would benefit from this is the Red Hood, don’t you think?”

Ever since he first showed up on the scene, he’d been adamant about cleaning up the underbelly of Gotham. His strict rules against selling to kids made the areas he controlled safer. Commissioning this drug and letting it hit the Gotham market was a way to help addiction-addled neighborhoods rebuild.

His expression was unreadable behind his dark glasses. The only way you knew that he was satisfied with your answer was when you heard your bank app ding with the agreement that you’d meet again in two weeks.

At the time, you thought that mentioning the Red Hood was ingenious. Compared to other criminals, the Red Hood seemed to be less vicious towards women. Since his rise to power, there hadn’t been any reports or news about him or his henchmen attacking them. If the informant wanted you to name drop someone, you were going to choose someone who would maybe spare your life. Yet seeing him up close gave you some doubt.

You swallowed your nervousness as you edged to the desk. Your hands blindly reached for something that could do some damage, but alas, your laptop was packed away and your pens were in their drawer.

“Look,” he sighed, “if you’re gonna play dirty, you gotta make sure your opponent can’t find dirt on you.” It was a roundabout way of calling you a dumbass.

You half turned to watch him circle round your desk, kneeling to dial in the combo to your locked drawer. Stupidly, you got closer when you heard the click that told you he opened it successfully. Using your birthday backwards as the combo was enough to deter nosy co-workers but clearly wasn’t not secure enough to deter a crime lord with a vendetta. If you made it out alive, you promised yourself that you’d change all of your passwords to something with stronger security–you’d even make sure that you didn’t repeat them on several accounts.

“Jesus,” the Red Hood laughed through his modulator, “you got the rechargeable one too? I’m not sure if Cobblefield ain’t paying you shit, batteries are expensive, you’re environmentally-conscious,, or it’s some combination of the above.”

The sight of a cross-armed Red Hood with your rabbit vibe in his hands was something you’d never imagine in your wildest dreams.

“Your little toy isn’t the only thing I found out about you.”

Oh god, what else did he find? Your face felt hot from embarrassment.

“Did you know that the sites you go on and the things you search can still be tracked by an establishment’s WiFi network log?”

He was grinning beneath the mask, you just knew it. Bastard.

“Yeah, even if you use your phone on private browsing… Crazy, right?”

All you could muster was a choked ‘yeah’ as you tried to recall everything you looked up in the past week. It was highly likely that the Red Hood looked back at least a month. Now what did you search for that wasn’t related to work?

You didn’t have to recall. He listed it out for you in a painfully slow and enunciated manner.

“Red Hood shirtless, Red Hood legs spread, Red Hood dick size, mask or helmet kink, intro to BDSM, what is a service top… And this was just within the past two weeks, goddamn.” He shook his head in judgment. “Should I continue?”

Fuck.

You couldn’t show fear to these types of people, you learned early on in your career. That’s what they got off on.

“What’s wrong with a woman having a healthy sexual appetite?” You asked defensively. “You some kind of prude or what?” That seemed to get a genuine laugh out of him.

“See, here’s the thing,” he told you, helping himself to your luxury office chair, leaning back as his boots settled on the desk. “Everyone thinks that I’m a bad guy, that I just blindly use violence to punish even badder guys. ‘There aren’t any brains under that hood! He’s just some beefy bastard with a fat cock! An idiot! A dunce!’” If he was speaking in some high-pitched mocking tone, his modulator didn’t catch it. It stayed in that robotic monotone.

Jason paused for a second to see if you’d agree, forgetting that a normal reaction was to be scared shitless and mute. When you didn’t make an indication of anything, those combat boots of his hit the carpet with a thud, chair screeching and lurching forward to see your face. Your toy laid forgotten on the desk.

Audibly you swallowed as you looked at him–well, not really him but the mask that he wore, the bright white of his eyes a stark contrast to the cherry red of his helmet. It was the mystery of what he looked like beneath it that drove your imagination wild. What color were his eyes? His hair? How full were his lips? Did he have scars?

As if knowing that you wanted a better angle, he tilted your chin to comply with your unspoken wish. It wasn’t as if it changed anything; you still knew nothing of his looks, but the cool leather of his glove made you more aware of how starved you were of any kind of touch. That healthy sexual appetite you claimed to have suddenly turned into hunger pangs.

“There was a lot of thought put into this plan, sweetheart,” the Red Hood chided.

His glove left your face to press on some hidden panel close to his jaw. There was a soft click that loosened his helmet.

Then you heard him–somewhat muffled and low and incredibly human.

“See, I’m giving you a pretty sick deal. You get to live out one of your fantasies in exchange for recanting your statement to the Bat. Even if I have nothing to hide, I hate whenever the old man comes sniffing around. Don’t worry. I’ll even promise my protection too in the event of retaliation–from him or Cobblepot. Do we have a deal or not?”

Your voice came out breathier than you realized. “And if I say no?”

He made a show of taking off his helmet, and to your surprise, a red domino mask covered his eyes. Tousling his dark curls, he pursed those perfect lips, “Well, shit. When I was searching through those logs, I figured that you’d be so horny for me that refusing wouldn’t even cross your mind.”

It was starting to make sense why Cobblepot was always irritated after dealing with the Red Hood. You laughed. “Look Hood, the quips were cute at first, but they’re getting old fast. You’re so full of yourself. Now tell me what happens if I refuse.”

“One, if you say yes, you could be full of me too.” You imagined that if he took the domino off that he’d punctuate that sentence with a wink. “And two…”

You could hear the smile in his voice along with something devious. When did he get so close? He was slotted between your legs as you sat on the edge of your desk. The cool feel of his gloves pulled your arms back and held your wrists there, leaving you captive to whatever he had to say.

“You know what I do to bad guys, but what I do to bad girls is even worse.”

“Oh yeah?” you breathed out. Fine, you’d admit it. That was fucking hot. “Then show me.”

“Show you what?”

His thigh nudged your center, pushing your dress skirt up with the motion.

“What you do to bad girls,” you said through gritted teeth. His hold on your wrists kept your upper body in place.

“Say it for me first.”

But that didn’t mean that you couldn’t use your leg to drag him closer. You hooked one leg behind him. Now you could feel his length against you though he wouldn’t budge otherwise.

“Please.��

Nothing.

“Daddy, please.”

“You can be obedient when you want to be, huh? Fuckin’ brat.” Jason found amusement in your frustration. “Sorry, but those aren’t the right words. Do we have a deal?”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, we have a fuckin’ deal.”

Finally that thick thigh was back to putting sweet pressure on your clit, the Red Hood’s slight movements providing teasing friction that kept you slick.

“Atta girl, princess. ‘Fraid I gotta shut you up for a few though. I know your performance reviews say that you’re well-spoken, but they made no mention of you being so damn chatty.”

Before you could talk about the irony of his comment, Jason let your wrists go and stepped back, using his free hands to unzip his pants and pull out his cock and balls. Your mouth hung open at the sight.

Giving it a stroke upwards, his balls followed the movement. Jason smeared his precum over the shaft, giving it a nice shine before ordering you to lay flat on your desk with your head hanging from the edge. His sack looked heavy and full.

“So this is what you meant–”

“Less talking, more sucking,” he grunted, taking the opportunity to shove the tip into your mouth.

The girth was unexpected as your jaw stretched to accommodate his size. You gave it a suck before relaxing your throat to take more of him. Jason eased into you slowly, watching as you swallowed as many inches as you could before pulling out and smearing his spit-laden cock across your mouth. You jerked him while gently sucking on his nuts, thinking about the reward you’d get if you could edge him long enough. The thought of him filling you up with a big, hot load made your center ache.

So focused on your thoughts, you hardly noticed that Jason replaced himself with your toy, watching as your drool frothed and dribbled down your chin while you gagged.

“Be patient with me, princess,” he murmured as he leaned across your body, vibe in hand, to push your panties aside, cock pressing against your cheek. You tried to move your head to take his length but the Red Hood’s weight made it difficult to do so.

Jason wasted no time shoving the entirety of the toy inside you, making you gasp. If you wanted him as desperately as he thought, then he had to prep you well so you could take him.

“Patience,” he lightly scolded you. “Damn, if I knew you were this needy for Daddy’s cock, I would have come earlier so the fun could last longer.” He placed himself back in your throat.

Slow deep breaths through your nose, you reminded yourself. It was difficult though when he was facefucking you in sync with your toy. There was little room for your moans and sighs to escape.

He most definitely understood your muffled ‘FUCK’ when he turned on the toy though, both shaft and rabbit ears vibrating. Your knuckles were white from desperately clutching at whatever you could; you needed something to keep you grounded from the assault on your clit, toy shaped perfectly to hit your G-spot.

The vibe kept making you moan, making your throat squeeze in ways that would make Jason cum early. “That’s it for now,” he said to deaf ears, pulling out to focus on playing with your pussy. He repositioned himself so one hand controlled the toy and the other held you down.

“Is this all you got?” You taunted, sweat catching the neon lights from the window. Your hair was disheveled and stuck to your forehead. Your legs quivered. You looked pathetic.

The Red Hood laughed, and you weren’t sure of what you wanted more of–that mocking robotic modulator or the rich tones of his real voice.

“The way your lips are wrapped around that toy tells me that’s more than enough. If you want this,” his cock was still perfectly hard and this angle highlighted the thick veins that lined his shaft, “then we need to take our time. Luckily for you, I have the patience of a saint.”

“Well, I don’t. Sit down, so I can fuck you.”

He was used to more demure requests to ride him, so your brazen words lit something inside Jason. Fuck it, he thought. He was still annoyed at you mentioning his name to Bruce. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if he watched you struggle to take him.

The toy came out with a yank, your pussy aching. The emptiness was only temporary though. There was something more filling, waiting for it.

Seeing that slight look of surprise on his mouth was worth it as you pushed him onto the chair, spitting on his cock before straddling him. Your panties were lost in some dark corner along with your bra. Your disheveled office wear struggled to maintain your modesty with loose buttons and crumpled fabric.

“Mmfph–fuck!”

Your nails dug into the Red Hood’s shoulders as you tried to find your pace. You had about halfway more to go.

“Told ya,” he said smugly, reaching beneath your dress to squeeze your ass. He buried his face in your tits, sucking on whatever flesh he could. You gasped when he finally reached your nipple, his tender suction making you shiver.

“Big motherfucker,” you grumbled, bouncing up and down on what you could with his help.

“Damn, you feel good,” Jason sighed.

Lately he’d been so focused on the complicated aspects of his line of work; it seemed like he could never just chill and do something for himself. Isn’t that what all the experts say? That self-care was important?

So when one of his informants told him that Bruce and his band of bat brats were poking around his turf, Jason’s first thought was to dispose of whoever Bruce paid off. When the informant said that the rat was the Iceberg Lounge’s hot publicist, he considered his first reaction too harsh, that perhaps it’d be best if he investigated this personally. Oh, he was so fucking glad that he did.

With each bounce, he pushed you lower on his length, and he’d go by half-inches if it meant reaching heaven. Fucking you with the toy first was a brilliant idea. Even though you didn’t say it, he knew you came. That’s why you were struggling on his cock. That cute little cunt of yours was still spasming from your first orgasm. How could anyone be so tight and wet, he thought, and for him.

He sat back and watched as you kept riding him with frustration. Your sweet pussy nectar was pooling at the base, and the lewd sounds it made was music to his ears. But the sound of his balls slapping your cheeks would be even nicer.

“Good effort, princess, but you’re starting to look pathetic and needy and desperate. What?” He laughed, swiping his thumb along your pout. “It’s cute. Daddy’ll take care of you.”

He hoisted you off him with ease, giving you another reason to make your pussy throb. A part of you wanted to ask him to fuck you while standing or maybe against the wall. No! A small rational voice told you. Let’s see what he does first.

Laying you on the ground, he pushed your legs back with your ankles on his shoulders, exposing your cunt to cool air. It was slick and puffy from all the work you put in. Taking two fingers, Jason spread your lips so he could tease your clit. Each little movement made you twitch.

Perfect, he thought. He knew how to get you where he wanted. The feeling of his thick, heavy tip rubbing your most sensitive spot made your toes curl as you huffed and moaned at his touch. Your hips pressed up in a weak attempt to slip it in. Your heels were nearly dangling off your feet from the movement.

“Since you want this cock so badly, I’ll give it to you, princess, but we’re doing it my way.”

Eagerly, you nodded. Your way, his way. It didn’t matter as long as he was in you.

Yet quickly you found out that you shouldn’t have agreed so readily. He moved impossibly slow.

“It’s a shame,” he tried to make small talk, one gloved hand carefully keeping the distance between you and his cock while the other balanced his weight above you, “that you chose to work for Cobblepot. How bout you work for me instead? Name your salary–I’ll double it. As a bonus, we can even fuck whenever you want.”

“You act as if I need your cock.”

Ignoring your tone, Jason stated the obvious. You did. Your body practically melted in the carpet when he went completely in.

“Look how full you are. You think you can go back to your toys or another man’s cock after this? I ruined you, princess.” Instead of sounding remorseful, he was proud. “I bet in the days after, you’ll be thinkin’ ‘bout how empty you feel without me.”

You didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of being right–his cock felt so good once you got through that first bit of discomfort–but there was no point in being stubborn. The Red Hood didn’t intend on having you hear him out. He was going to show you.

He fucked you as roughly as you imagined, using long strokes that left both of you breathless. There was something erotic about the sudden silence. There was only heavy breathing and moans, slick sounds and pounding.

And when you came, it was like the lights cut out, eyes squeezed shut for total darkness. The only electricity existed in his touch, sparking waves of pleasure throughout your body.

–

Uncertain if you actually dozed off or not, you woke up to a familiar mechanic hum. He had his helmet back on, his clothes back to their baseline level of grunge. Perhaps it was because of the intimacy you shared, but the Red Hood seemed far less threatening now compared to the start of the night.

“Don’t forget about the deal we made,” he told you, standing near your feet.

Like him, going back to how you normally were was easy now that lust no longer clouded your actions.

“And what if I don’t?” you asked, standing slowly from sore muscles. “Like you said earlier, I am a bad girl.”

“I’ve already planned for that.”

You tried to fix your dress to the best of your abilities. It was no use though. It was a poor victim of your decisions.

“Well, if that’s the case, expect another visit.”

You stalled, letting the fabric fall as you tried to decipher his meaning behind the modulator. Was that a threat or a promise?

“And next time, I’m coming during office hours.”

You let the warm sensation of his cum sliding down your thighs decide for you.

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Curated Masterlists

Jason Todd’s Masterlist

#jason todd x reader #jason todd smut #rest writes

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eimids · 10 months ago

Note

C, D, J, Y, X, Z for bottom Leah?

Bottom Leah Williamson NSFW Alphabet

All letters

Hehee me and @rachdalysworld decided to do this together (i'm a bottom at heart so it's hard for me to imagine topping someone haha)

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Aftercare is important to Leah. She want's to feel loved and the best way for that is to draw her a bath and wash her body. She loves when you take care of her and be gentle with her afterwards. And she needs A LOT of kisses, anywhere you can just give them.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

She loves your boobs and curves. She loves to suck on your nipples and just hold on to them. She just uses them as her personal stress balls sometimes hehe.

On her own body, she loves her arms and the muscles in them. She loves to work out to get her arms bigger.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

When Leah comes on your tongue, she loves it when you lick her all clean when she is sensitive and after that you will kiss her to make her taste herself. She would be a moaning mess for you when you like her sensitive pussy all clean.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Wanting to be fucked in public is a dream of Leah's. She would love for you to sneakly finger her at a restaurant or use a controllable vibrator on her at a party.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Leah usually tops, that's just a fact. So as a top she has a lot of experience but as a bottom she has nothing. It was all new to her to be your pillow princess and just take everything you have for her.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Subby Leah would love to be fuck on all fours. Face in the pillows and back arched as you fuck her from behind. But tbh she loves anything you give her.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Leah is more serious in bed. Things as a bottom are new to her so she wants to be more serious to make sure everything goes well.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

She likes to keep it neat and shaved. She shaves often and feels more like herself with none of hair.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

She likes to feel loved and loves when you use cute nicknames on her. So I would describe her as more intimate during the moment.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

She can only cum if she has your permission. She loves to call you and show herself while she pleases herself. She want's you to talk her trough it because she is just way too needy for you.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Mommy kink. She calls you mommy all the time. She first said it by accident but after a discussion with you, she started to use it more and more. She just wants to be your baby and suck your tits. (me with @rachdalysworld)

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Leah loves when before or after a game you drag her to a random room to fuck her. She loves the way you put your hand on her mouth to keep her quiet so no one finds out about the two of you.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

If you are only wearing like her jersey, she will go feral. OR like some pants where she can see that you are wearing a strap. She will go insane and just cling to you till you decide to fuck her completely senseless.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Leah is okay with bondage but just not with handcuffs. She just worries that they will hurt and leave marks so that's something that she doesn't wanna do. Other would be humiliation. She doesn't like if you humiliate in front of others or even in the bedroom where it's just the two of you. She likes degrading but not humiliation .

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Well she is a bottom so I think that the end of the day, she will much rather receiving nut she know that she has to get you off first before she can have your mouth on her pussy.

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Rough, she want's it hard and fast. To be honest, she gets nervous often if you fuck her slowly. She just need a good, rough fuck.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Often, often and very often. She loves to have you between her legs even if it's just something quick.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Yes ma'am, Miss Leah is a risk taker and loves if you fuck her in any public place. She loves the exitement that anyone could see or hear you guys.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

She can go for long times but only can take like 3 orgasms. If she is receiving, she can't go for very long but if she is giving, she can go for all night.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

A. LOT. OF. THEM.

She loves straps. She love when you wear them, loves when you use them on her and loves it all. She might look very masc, but in the bedroom she just loves being fucked by a good cock.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Hates being teased. She hate's that if you are a party and you're wearing a strap. You will grind on her ass with it but won't leave before the party ends. She will be all hot and bothered.

She likes to tease you. Often times she will be eating you out and licking everywhere except where you need her the most. After a threat of a punishment she will stop teasing.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Loud. Wants everyone to hear that she is yours and you definitely are not complaining about that. Often times she is loud and you have to quiet her by kissing her or straight up putting your hand on her mouth.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

When you take Leah's clothes off, you will most likely find out that she is already wet. You will also find her perfect muscles that she often loves to show off. They are her pride and god you love them too.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

She is basicly always in the mood. Maybe not before matches cause she is nervous and wouldn't be able to concentrate.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

She needs her aftercare and won't fall asleep before or during it, but after that she is a goner. (haha like gooner)

I had so much fun while writing this with my girl <3

#woso community #woso fanfics #wlw post #woso x reader #leah williamson #leah williamson merry me #leah williamson x reader #baby leah williamson #bottom leah williamson #subby leah is cute

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irisintheafterglow · 11 months ago

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End Game #10 - The Epilogue

summary: after signing with the best team in the country, satoru asks you a question on new year's day. (read the rest of the volleyball captain!gojo au here!)

wc: 1.1k

cw/tags: post-highschool time skip, established relationship, mentions of alcohol and parties,

note: happy new year everyone! i hope 2024 brings you love, happiness, and success. hope you like this little epilogue <3

likes, reblogs, and replies are always appreciated :))

“I didn’t think it was physically possible to have this much glitter,” you huff, pulling a stray golden streamer from the top of your head and discarding it in the trash bin. The dustpan and brush take a break on the dining room table and you lean against the back of the couch, picking at a loose thread on Satoru’s old high school jersey. “Next time, we’re having the party at Suguru’s.”

“You don’t need to do all of this, babe,” your boyfriend reminds you from the kitchen, taking inventory of the catering leftovers and copious amounts of alcohol covering your marble counters. It was still early enough in the morning that girls were walking around the building’s lobby with their heels slung between their fingers. “I’ll have the cleaners come by in the morning to pick up all of that.”

“There’s candle wax on the floor, Satoru. I don’t even know how that ended up there without setting off a fire alarm,” you point out and he nods in agreement. “I’m just glad we have hardwood. This would be a nightmare to get out of the carpet.”

“It doesn’t need to be a nightmare at all, if you just let the cleaners take care of it. But, if it makes you feel better, remember that I moved all the cleaning supplies to the cabinet in the hallway.” Colorful tubes of glass carefully clank together as he repositions them on the shelves of the wet bar, sweeping confetti and more streamers off of the marble with the back of his hand. When he’s done reorganizing the remaining bottles, he neatens the stack of square polaroids and then promptly messes them up again, spreading them across the counter like a dealer with a deck of cards. “Can you believe we had this many people over last night?”

“I’m still in disbelief that we have this place, honestly,” you admit, slinging a leg over the side of the couch and rolling over the back, landing in the living room of your shared penthouse with Satoru. It still surprised you, what Olympic gold and brand sponsorships could buy, even with the tall ceilings and stunning views of downtown Tokyo. It brought a lot of acquaintances that had the nerve to call themselves your friends, most of them whose names you couldn’t remember. The important people were still in your life, though, Suguru with his highschool ASB sweetheart and the former first years all sharing a flat. It wasn’t a bad life, to say the least. “I keep thinking I’m gonna wake up and you’ll just be a figment of my imagination.”

“Believe it or not, I have the exact same nightmare.” He flops down next to you and pulls you closer to give himself more space, absentmindedly chucking a few throw pillows to maximize the space. “All these fluffy pillows and expensive wines seem a little too good to be true sometimes.”

“You’re an Olympic athlete, sweetheart. Fluffy pillows and expensive wines are pocket change for you.”

“For us, you mean. Nothing is just for me anymore,” he corrects. Ever since he signed on with the most successful pro team in the country and you earned your degree in sports management, everything had been you and him. Though it was new territory for both of you, it still felt familiar in some ways as you served the same roles that you did during high school. When Suguru joined the team, it only became more comfortable and the light-hearted banter helped keep you grounded in such a competitive atmosphere. “Speaking of, we should consider getting married.” Your eyes fly open after fluttering shut against his chest and you sit up, stick straight.

“What did you just say?” You look down at him in shock, only to be met with a shit-eating smirk.

“You know exactly what I said,” he says quietly.

“You can’t joke around about those kinds of things,” you murmur as you fall back into your original position, poking a finger into his side for good measure. “It’s not nice.”

“Who said I was joking?”

“Why? Why now, of all times?”

“You expected me to have a much larger proposal,” he muses and you feel your face become warmer. In your defense, he was always known as the flashy one, the one who brought you bouquets of flowers when you were in class or sent your study room catering to make sure you’d eaten. It wasn’t like you hadn’t thought of marrying Satoru before. You just expected a much grander gesture than mentioning it while you procrastinate cleaning up the sparkly mess in your bathtub. “Disappointed?”

“No, just…surprised,” you say slowly and he hums thoughtfully. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

“About marrying you? Since we won Nationals, obviously,” he states like it was written all over your bedroom wall in Sharpie. “But, if you’re asking about proposing while we’re lying on a glitter-covered couch at five in the morning, I thought of it just now. Call it delirium.”

“Hmm,” is all you can muster up as a response.

“Hmm.” He hums in the same tone, looking at you curiously. “So, what do you say?”

“You actually wanna marry me?” He shakes his head and rolls his eyes melodramatically in exasperation.

“I can’t believe you just asked that,” he says under his breath, sitting up and swinging his legs over the edge of the couch. “I cannot believe that you just asked me that.” You follow his movements until you’re sitting with him, shoulder to shoulder.

“I didn’t mean to offend you, Satoru. I just…get doubtful at times.”

“Doubtful that I love you?”

“Doubtful that you’ll let me stay with you through all of this.” Your hands gesture vaguely at the high ceilings and the shining floors, out at the stretch of Tokyo’s skyline and the infinite horizon beyond it. “I’m scared you’ll find someone else to share such a lavish life with–”

“I wouldn’t ask you to marry me if I wanted to spend my life with anyone else, sweetheart. I’ve got this ring from my sock drawer to prove it.” Your jaw hits the floor and he starts laughing, your body frozen in place but screaming at you to see if he’s right as he fishes something from his pocket. “I wanna clean up glitter and bottles with you on New Year’s day for the rest of my life,” he promises, taking your hand and sliding an elegantly simple band on your left ring finger.

“I can’t believe you propose to me in the most unassuming way possible,” you chuckle, admiring the way the morning light catches on the metal. “You didn’t even get down on one knee.”

“This is the private proposal to make sure you say yes,” he reassures you with a grin. “The public proposal will be much more extravagant.”

“Mmm, I can’t wait. Happy New Year, Satoru.”

“Happy New Year, my love.”

if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi! you can also check out my full masterlist here :)

#gojo x you #gojo x reader #gojo x y/n #satoru gojo x you #satoru gojo x reader #satoru gojo x y/n #jjk x you #jjk x reader #jjk x y/n #jjk x gender neutral reader #jjk volleyball au #jjk au

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adorethedistance · 1 year ago

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RollerMagic - Quinn Hughes x Reader

Hockey Masterlist

Warnings: mention of vomit, swearing, suggestive comment

Words: 1904

Requested: could you write about quinn pleeeease. had a dream last night: Quinn was in New Jersey for a Canucks and Devils game and went out with his brothers to a roller rink (?), met a girl by the candy machine (her candy had gotten stuck and he politely punched the machine to catch it) they spent the night talking (the two youngest Hughes looking for him like fools) and he invited her to watch the game and, soon after, a date; she said she would go to the game but would only accept the date if he scored a goal for her (he scored a hat trick)

A/n: Listen I don't know Quinn very well so I was not going for realism on this one. This is literally just my best guess at flirting with him but I truly don't know him enough to know if this is true to his character so I'm sorry for that! I've also just never done a Quinn fic before so first time for everything I guess?

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” I say to myself as the small pack of Skittles I’d just bought becomes wedged between the coils of the vending machine. I gently bang on the glass but the Skittles packet doesn’t budge. Utterly defeated, I huff out a soft sigh before dropping my head and staring at the fluorescent patterning of the Arcade carpet. Today is not my day.

I was late to work because of my car stalling, some kid puked in the middle of the roller rink and I had to clean it up, I left my lunchbox on the kitchen counter by accident, and now the only food that I had enough cash on me to buy was stuck in the vending machine. Could this day get any worse?

I lift my head, preparing to cut my losses, when I lock eyes with a guy who is probably around my age but definitely attractive. His wavy brown hair and soft eyes shimmer in the dim arcade lighting. He smiles at me politely and I smile back, too absorbed by my own infatuation to think twice about it. He glances to either side before making his way over. I panic internally at the idea of such a cute stranger heading my way, but I can’t bring myself to walk away.

“You doing alright?” The hazel-eyed boy asks upon seeing me in distress.

“I’m great!” I fake being chipper as we both know the real answer. He laughs softly at the joke and I relax a tiny bit at the idea of making a good impression. “How much of that did you see?” I ask, praying his answer will keep my dignity intact. He hesitates for a moment before answering,

“Honestly? Everything.”

“Good. Good! This is good. First, I have a terrible day, and now a really cute boy has officially witnessed my latest and greatest downfall? This is just great.” I ramble out of intense nervousness.

“You think I’m cute?” He teases inquisitively. I search and scan my brain for a witty response to no avail.

“It was hypothetical?” I say though it comes out as more of a question than a statement.

“What’s hypothetical?”

“I don’t know, I was hoping if I said it with enough conviction that you wouldn’t question it.” The cute stranger apparently thinks this is very funny and heartily laughs at my confession.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I got your name?”

“Y/n.”

“Y/n,” he softly repeats my name, smiling at the way it sounds in his own voice. “I’m Quinn by the way.” Quinn extends his right hand politely, and the feeling of his strong hand in mine gives me butterflies. The shape of his palms and the length of his fingers. I wonder what it would feel like to have one around the base of my neck and the other in between-

“Nice to meet you, Y/n.” I blink rapidly to shake away the brief fantasy. God, it’s been a while.

“Uh, you too…?

“Quinn.”

“Quinn!” Quinn. “Quinn what?”

“Quinn Hughes.”

“Pretty good name.”

“Thanks, I guess?”

“Has a pretty good ring…” I pause, unsure of why I needed to tell him that.

“Have you worked here a while?” He asks, and my brows furrow in confusion.

“How do you know I work here?” Quinn laughs heartily before realizing I’m not making a joke.

“You… you’re wearing a name tag and a t-shirt that says RollerMagic.” I close my eyes and wince at my own unfathomable obliviousness. I’m surprised he’s still talking to me with the way this conversation is going.

“Right. It’s been a long day.”

“Tell me about it.”

“What happened with you?” I ask, genuinely curious about the day of the slightly less unfamiliar boy. Not that I could even help the sudden interest. Especially when he looks at me this kindly and smells like icy sandalwood.

“Also a bad day at work.”

“Where do you work?”

“Vancouver.” My jaw drops and Quinn bursts out laughing at the more than apparent shock on my face. I don’t laugh though, I just look at him bewildered, waiting for an explanation.

“Care to elaborate?”

“I play hockey.” “Like, for a living?”

“You could say that. Although it took a bit before making a living since I was drafted in 2018.”

“Oh shit, you’ve been pro since 2018?” He nods, surprisingly patient with my disbelief. “So you’re like, rich rich?” Quinn laughs at the question and concedes a little bit.

“I don’t know about that-”

“I know what sports contracts pay, my mom is a lawyer. Also, look at your watch. You can’t pretend and play coy when you’re wearing something that expensive.”

“Touché. What about you? You never answered my question.”

“I’ve been working here since Freshman year so coming up on four years now.”

“You’re a student?”

“Yeah.”

“Where at?”

“Princeton.”

“Holy shit. So you’re like smart smart?” Quinn makes fun of me and I roll my eyes at him.

“Okay, I see how that sounds now. Wait if you’re from Vancouver what are you doing here?”

“We’re playing the New Jersey Devils? Ever heard of them?”

“No, I got that, you little priss. I mean why are you here as in why are you at a roller rink?”

“I don’t know. My idiot brothers were hellbent on going to an arcade.”

“Do they play for Vancouver also?” I ask playfully.

“They play for Jersey actually.”

“I was kidding…” After I trail off, Quinn and I begin laughing, the absurdity of the conversation continuously growing in magnitude. “But like, both of them?”

“Yep.”

“How did that happen?”

“You ask a lot of questions.” He states in a non-judgemental, yet amused tone.

“Only when someone is interesting enough to be worth interrogating.” Quinn smiles flirtatiously and I drop my eyes to the floor, shocked by my own boldness.

“You’re really cute,” He says simply, as if the very statement didn’t ignite every nerve in my body.

“So did Vancouver lose and that’s why you had a bad day at work?”

“No, just a rough practice. The game is tonight actually.”

“Good luck,” I say without any snark or playfulness. Just a legitimate regard for his success. Quinn is taken aback by the genuine care and he smiles brightly as a result.

“Thanks.”

“I’ve never been to a hockey game before.”

“Never?!”

“Never.”

“Well, then you’ve gotta come to the game tonight.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Are you working late?”

“No, I’m off at six.”

“That’s perfect.”

“I don’t- I’m not-” I sigh, unsure of how much or little I should share with Quinn in this moment. “I can’t really afford a hockey game right now.” I put as simply as possible. Quinn pauses for a moment and then laughs softly.

“Don’t even worry about it.”

“...What?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I stare at him dumbfounded as if I’m stunned he could be so nonchalant like this.

“There’s gonna be three of us from the same family out on the ice tonight and our parents don’t even live here. I’m pretty sure we can swing getting you a seat or two.”

“I can’t accept that. We just met and I’m not really cool with taking things from strangers.”

“Even if it’s a really cute boy with a sports contract?” He says jokingly and I drop my guard a tiny bit. I huff out a sigh, still feeling conflicted and slightly uneasy. Quinn picks up on the uneasiness and looks me in the eyes before softly saying, “Look, you don’t have to take me up on the offer, but it would be really cool to see you there tonight. Either way, it’s totally fine with me.” The lengths to which he is going just to ease my anxieties and ensure my comfort fills my chest with warm, radiant light and I smile gently at the level of consideration.

“...Okay.”

“Okay. Could I get your number to send you all the information you’ll need?”

“Is that the only reason you want my number?” Quinn looks off and shrugs a little as he admits,

“Well, I’d also like to get to know the pretty girl from the roller rink. And I was hoping I could possibly take her out on a date while I’m still in town?” My stomach erupts into a million butterflies and I hold out my hand to take his phone. He gives me the unlocked device after setting up a new contact. I brazenly decide I should keep Quinn on his toes, out of concern that he thinks I’ll make things easy for him.

“If you win tonight you can take me out.”

“Bro, what?”

“I’m serious!”

“Why? This is so childish!”

“No, this is serious, Quinn. I can’t date a loser!”

“Oh my god- okay, fine. If we win-”

“Win what?” A strange voice says from behind me. I turn around to see two other boys have appeared behind me and Quinn from seemingly thin air. Out of fear of more of them appearing, I lean back against the vending machine I was once sworn enemies with. Seeking shelter in the cool glass that’s been illuminated by LEDs.

“Nothing.”

“Is this guy bothering you, sweetheart?” The tallest one says and the one he’s standing with laughs.

“Seriously, Q. We leave you alone for ten minutes.”

“I’ll meet you guys in the car,” Quinn speaks up, clearly flustered by their presence in this moment.

“Okayyy, don’t be long, lover boy.”

“You’re on the clock.”

“And that was…”

“The idiot brothers I was talking about.”

“Right. Got it.” I’m amused if anything, but I can tell Quinn is struggling to shake off the encounter. Rolling my eyes, I extend my hand to him which he takes confusedly. Pulling him closer to where I’m leaning against the vending machine, he gets the idea and steps forward to close the gap between us. I didn’t anticipate being flustered by the close proximity, but as he steps closer he places his hand against the glass of the vending machine, above my head. His crisp scent is stronger and I’m grateful he took the invitation to close in.

“Anyway. If we win-”

“Mhm.”

“I get to take you out?”

“And if you lose?” I ask, challenging him. He takes a moment to think it over.

“I don’t know. What happens if we lose?” I mimic his expression from when he was deep in thought, before saying with a completely straight face,

“I kill you.” We both burst out laughing. I hate to think that I already like Quinn as much as I do.

“I guess I’ll make sure to win.”

“You better.” Quinn backs up and the excitement I was having trouble controlling vanishes when I can no longer feel him near me. My subconscious urges me to be nearer to him and I push off of the vending machine as well. Quinn looks past me and I follow his gaze. He’s examining the Skittles packet that I abandoned, and in one swift movement, he hits the side of the machine and the packet neatly falls to the bottom. My lips part in shock and I’m amazed at how seemingly easy that was for him. He grabs the bag and holds it out to me like it’s no big deal, but I can tell he’s very proud of himself.

“See you later tonight then?”

“See ya later.”

***

A/n: hope y'all liked it and I've got a Jamie fic in the works so stay tuned!! Special thanks to the person who requested this !

#Quinn Hughes #Quinn Hughes x reader #Quinn Hughes x y/n #Quinn Hughes x you #Quinn Hughes fanfiction #Quinn Hughes fanfic #Quinn Hughes fic #Quinn Hughes imagine #Quinn Hughes one shot #Quinn Hughes oneshot #Quinn Hughes reader insert #Quinn Hughes smut #Quinn Hughes fluff #Quinn Hughes angst #nhl #nhl fanfiction

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carpetlinenj · 1 year ago

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carpetcleanersbricknewjersey · 2 years ago

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The Top Benefits of Professional Carpet Cleaning in Brick, New Jersey

Carpet cleaning is an essential aspect of home maintenance that many homeowners often overlook. While regular vacuuming can help remove surface dirt and debris, professional carpet cleaning can provide a deeper clean and help improve indoor air quality. In this article, we will discuss the top benefits of professional carpet cleaning in Brick, New Jersey, and why it’s crucial to hire a professional carpet cleaning company.

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Professional carpet cleaning is a crucial aspect of home maintenance that should not be overlooked. Regular cleaning can help improve indoor air quality, extend the lifespan of your carpet, remove stubborn stains, and save you time and effort. If you’re looking for a professional carpet cleaning company in Brick, New Jersey, be sure to choose one with experience, expertise, and a commitment to excellent service.

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johnscarpetcleaningbricknj · 2 years ago

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The Top Benefits of Professional Carpet Cleaning in Brick, New Jersey

Carpet Cleaners Brick New Jersey

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glitterge1pen · 2 years ago

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Have you ever stood in an empty hallway and been put into 2005-2009?

Rukawa Kaede x reader, sfw, fluff, word count 3,490

guys I've done it again I have wrote something vague and tender

Stadium Operations Manger had not been the job you thought you would find yourself in. At least according to the results of the career aptitude test you took in high school.

Scheduling and preparing the stadium for events was your main job. Working with musicians teams to figure out how their touring stage would fit in your space. What nights were for basketball or hockey or monster jam trucks.

What charity wanted to sing at that hockey game? And there's a new food vendor right? These were questions you handed off to other people, the managers beneath you. With a walkie talkie, clipboard, and google calendar you hoped yourself invincible.

That was of course until Rukawa. His name squeezes its way out of the corner of your mouth, it tingles the tip of your nose and turns the ends of your ears hot. Your staff in aprons, yellow crowd control vests, and black security jackets moves out of your way as you pass.

There is twenty minutes until the doors open and then another hour until the game.

Your shoes clunk on the tiled floor, your legs burning from the fast pace. Where could he be this time? You were almost back at where you had started and there was no sign of him.

Pressing on the walkie you ask if anyone has seen him. They don't have to ask who. But he is still amiss and you don't know if you should be angry or impressed.

Deciding that he can wait just a couple minutes you walk over to the glass wall that overlooks the city. In the summer doors lead to a rooftop cafe, a balcony, but now in the colder months the doors are locked and you can only look.

At night the lights and reflections of the city are like rain. You often find yourself taking in this exact view, either on the first floor or higher up on the third floor where you are now.

Next to you is one of the smaller merchandise shops. The front of the shop also glass. All the local sports teams merch is stocked here and tonight the basketball teams logo is most prominent amongst the jerseys. Especially Rukawa’s jersey. That number of his, 11, seemingly mocking you. Where was he?

The shop door was propped open, you'd have to check the schedule and remind whoever closed last night to make sure to shut it. A sneaker. There behind the cashier counter on your right is a sneaker on the floor.

You leave the door to investigate. There is Rukawa on that blue shop carpet. His arms crossed over his chest and his breathing even. You kick the bottom of his shoe.

"Come on," he groans, "Get up, game time is soon,"

"You're lying,"

"I'm not lying you got to get your ass up and back downstairs,"

He doesn't say anything. You huff, knowing that the next part of this charade is trying to yank him off the floor. Rukawa is tall and mostly muscle, you tug on his arm but never get him very far. Today he is limp dead weight. You set your clipboard down to use both hands, in a misstep you tangle your shoes with his. Your hands loose grip on his forearm and you're tumbling backwards.

This is what seems to wake Rukawa up. His own hand grips onto your wrist pulling you in his direction just as he’s standing onto his feet. You bump into his chest and are momentarily in a whirlwind. Rukawa smells nice, his cologne faint but there, beneath the vague spicy citrus is the gentle sweat of sleep. His jersey isn’t pressed to flat clean lines but it is clean, it smells fresh. He’s looking at you not saying anything and you can feel his gaze but do not meet it.

“Your boss is going to kill me,”

“He’s not my boss,”

“He's your coach and that’s close enough, come on we have to get you down there,”

Rukawa follows you out of the store and into the massive stadium halls. He keeps pace with you, employees eye him but don’t ask for pictures or autographs. Around the bend is the employee only elevator and your shoulder brushes against him on the ride down to the basement floors.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,”

You say with a nonchalant tone, your eyes feasting upon your clipboard trying to find when the medic team is supposed to arrive tonight.

“I didn't mean for you to trip,”

This time he can't look at you while you look at him. You don’t know what to say, your mind trying to find some other instance where you’ve heard him apologize but can't. It's the thing that twitter accounts, sports journalists and other players say about Rukawa. That his head is too high, that he can't admit when he's over stepped but instead will say what he plans on doing next. The elevator dings open and you tell him that it's alright.

༓･*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾

Your office is tucked away in the basement. It's barely big enough for the desk, couch and shelf of binders that hold it together. Rukawa is there on the couch, his back to you as you type away on your computer. Players were required to arrive at the stadium at least forty five minutes before the games. Most came earlier than that. Rukawa's teammates were lounging in the locker room with take out, in the seats below the announcers box playing Xbox on the jumbotron and listening to music on the court.

Rukawa was napping. You wondered if he had some sort of sleep disorder. Since finding him in the shop several weeks ago Rukawa had stopped napping in various places around the stadium and taken up your offer to sleep in the office. You turn to look at him now and find that he is already looking at you.

“You're awake,”

And he nods, sitting up.

“You ready for the game,”

He scoots the couch closer to the desk.

“I’ll take that as a yes,”

“We’re weak on defensive because Miller is out. Their good scorers, and so are we but our weak point is shining,”

“You can still win,”

Rukawa is close to the desk so that he can rest his head in his arms. His breath itches your skin as your attention battles to focus on the computer screen in front of you and not him.

“And you have to move the couch back when you leave for warm ups,”

༓･*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾

The team was on a losing streak. You did not bring it up to Rukawa. He sulked in your office before games, twisting in his sleep. He had been spending even more time in the gym. The training center was only two blocks away from the stadium. He parked his car in the same lot as yours, you saw him in there sometimes before you had to clock in, the training center not open yet. Most often he was napping, but sometimes you caught him watching game highlights. You always made sure to bump your fist on his window as you passed by.

Today, in the cold night air, he was there again. The trunk of his car slamming shut as he tossed his duffle bag inside. His eyes widened when he saw you, having caught him off guard. Another thing that you had not been able to do before. You see the bags under his eyes, the red creeping around his pupils.

“Rukawa, what are you still doing here, its really late,”

He shrugs, “I could ask you the same thing,” you were carrying a box full of posters. The new ones for the holders had come in, you liked to keep the cool ones of bands you liked. Rukawa held the box for you as you unlocked the car. Your breath came out in white clouds, the air slithering around you, Rukawa put his hands in his pockets.

“Hungry?”

He asks. The restaurant of Rukawa's choosing was at first surprising. Empanadas served over a counter. Traditional ones, and ones with more flashy fillings like Vegan Caprse and Spicy Bbq Chicken. The place is small with few tables, it's on the mall strip downtown and has doors on either side. People filter in and out easily, their empanadas wrapped in wax paper, steaming hot as people head back outside. Most seem drunk, rosy, and loud as they wait for their food.

You order first and snag the window seats, gliding onto the high stools. It's Friday so even though it's late the street is still buzzing. When Rukawa slides into the seat next to you, he hands you a cellophane wrapped pastry.

“For letting me use the office,”

“Oh you didn't have to do that,”

“I did. I have to do something for you,”

He's so matter of fact about it that it makes you want to roll your eyes. He's serious and dead set on small things like this, it makes you grin. You watch the people on the street, your reflection mixing with the lights, the people behind you in the small restaurant just blurry shapes in the window. The food is good and warm, the bread flaky and filling.

“Are you okay?” He doesn't answer but instead just looks at you. If he was going to be stubborn about it you supposed you could be a little mean, “I know you don’t like losing and…” You trail off hiding a smile behind your empanada. He twists around in his stool, propping his elbows up on the counter. You don’t stop looking at him and eventually he sighs and swivels the stool to face you.

“Fine. I don’t like it. And I can't do anything about it,”

“And have you done other things?”

“Like what?”

“What you've never taken, like a spa day or something?”

“I’m not going to a spa,”

“I’m not saying go to a spa I just mean when you aren’t playing basketball what do you do?”

༓･*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾

“When I first moved here this is where I would come,”

It's the next day and you had spent more time than you'd like to admit thinking about what to wear. Only to find that Rukawa was bringing you to a bridge looking down at the freeway. It was the massive freeway too, the one with ten lanes and the toll. The bridge had nothing but chainlink, that enclosed the concrete path, and a single iron railing keeping people from throwing rocks and themselves down at the cars. It connected a neighborhood of houses to a strip mall.

“And why would you come here? There's like nothing here,”

He shrugged, “This path connects to the river, the one down by the stadium. I used to run it every morning and sometimes I’d stop here at the bridge.”

There's stairs you have to descend, they seem clunky and odd next to the freeway. Drivers slow down as they approach and merge from the ramp onto the lanes. The city is still in view and you find your eyes wandering to the skyscrapers and glistening windows. Rukawa nudges your shoulder with your own.

“This is the part I like,”

A car gets on the exit ramp.

“What about it?”

“Look at the drivers,”

The next car comes, a blue honda, and the girl driving looks over her shoulder to see if she can merge. Almost everyone does this, the peek over the shoulder. Of course everyone does this, but it is charming to see that Rukawa has picked a spot just to watch people do this mundane task. You try to think of other things like this that everyone must do but your mind comes up blank, too busy watching the cars pass by.

There are easy things to think of, like breathing, drinking water, sleeping, that all people somehow complete. But smaller things, like having to check over your shoulder, escape you. But you know still that other people exist in the same way you do.

“I get why you come here,”

༓･*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾

“That just isn't going to work sir,”

The grody man in front of you was trying to convince you that his musicians stage set needed another rig for lights.

“There has to be some way you can do this for us, we’ll downsize if we have too,”

“You're going to downsize over some lights?”

All the pleasantries between you two had been used up. The past ten minutes had been very tense, the forty five minute meeting was entering two hour meeting territory and you were jittering with nerves. Not because you couldn't handle this man but because there was a game tonight and you still hadn't made your first round of check-ins with your team.

“Hell yeah we’ll downsize over this. This is money that you’ll be losing,”

“It's not possible, we simply don't have the room for it,”

“Then make room!”

The door to your office swings open, Rukawa is there, duffle bag slung over his shoulder and frozen as he takes in the atmosphere.

“Oh, I didn't know you had a meeting today,”

He’s about to turn away but you usher him in.

“No, no, its alright we were just finishing up,”

“No we aren't!”

Rukawa’s eyes dart between you and this man, he tosses his duffle bag onto the couch, stepping aside to let the man pass. But the man is still in the chair across from your desk, his face red and his palms up like can catch him an explanation for this interruption.

“I’m sorry but we are done. I've explained several times that we don't have room for another rig, and even if we did I couldn't let you use that space because the amount of lights you're suggesting is a fire hazard,”

“Other places have given us the space so why can't you?”

“Because we don't have it!”

You are practically yelling and the man's mouth is open in shock, his hand on his chest like he has the right to be appalled.

“You have to leave,”

Rukawa says. You don't take your eyes off the man in front of you.

“You don't have any say in this matter!”

“They told you to leave, leave,”

Finally, after a long, long beat of silence the man gets up and leaves. He slams your office door hard. Your fists balled up at your sides, you jump at the door. Opening it only to slam it shut even harder than he had. You stand in the middle of your office unsure of what to do now. Your whole body burning hot, your eyes brimming with tears, and your hands still clenched tight.

“Come on, you have to get out of this office,”

You run your fingers over the lines in your forehead, the ones that appear before you're going to cry.

“No, no, I have to check in with security and-”

“Do you think it's a good idea to do that when you're not calm and ready?” “But I have to,”

“Just ten minutes,”

You follow Rukawa to the elevator and find yourself retracing steps to the merchandise store you had last found him in. To your surprise Rukawa walks past that and to the doors that lead to the patio, and he opens them. He somehow has a key and though it's chilly out you still stand on the rooftop. It's afternoon, the sky a strong blue, clouds fluffy.

“Thanks,”

You say as Rukawa tosses you his warm up jacket.

༓･*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾

“Can’t you go talk to him,”

“Isn't that your job,”

Rukawa's coach, a balding middle aged man who wears too many rings, sighs, and shakes his head.

“Your better at it, he likes you better,”

“Which is it, am I better or does he like me better,”

“You know it's both,”

You hum and continue typing on your laptop.

“I’ll go with you if you're scared,”

“I’m not scared!”

“Then why aren't you going?”

“Beucae Rukawa is a professional athlete and I trust he knows what he's doing,”

“And I’m his coach and I’m saying he's doing too much, get him out of the gym, hes pissing everyone off,”

“Why do I have to do it? It's not my responsibility,”

“I already told you, he likes you best”

This is the conversation you had with him in your office that led to you braving the night and walking to the training center. You show your stadium badge to the secretary behind the desk and she does not let you in. So you call coach and he doesn't answer, which leads to you calling Rukawa.

“Can you come down to the front desk,”

He's breathless as he speaks, “The front desk where?”

“Here, like where you are, the training center,”

Suddenly you are scared and nervous and don't know exactly what you’ll say to Rukawa. When he gets down to the lobby he bursts through the doors, head whipping back and forth to find you.

“Did something happen?”

“What? No? Did coach not tell you I was coming?”

Rukawa's shoulders drop, and he shakes his head no.

“He wants you out of the gym,” He runs a hand through his hair, “he says you're stressing everyone out,”

Rukawa hunches over on his knees, he huffs.

“He couldn't tell me that?”

“He says he did and you didn't listen.”

He flops back onto the couch that's in the lobby. You stand there holding the strap of your work bag. You aren't sure what's supposed to happen next, are you supposed to sit down with him? Is he actually going to leave? He wraps the healthy leaf of the house plant that's next to the couch around his fingers. It shines underneath the lights, green, vibrant, of life.

“Have you ever been inside?”

༓･*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾

Since Rukawa had given you a tour of the training center he was more prone to dropping by your office on days that he did not have games. He had also begun inviting you to practices. You had only been able to make it to two but they were interesting to watch. You didn't sit in the bleachers but rather in this hallway with windows that looked down onto the court. There were hardly any people there, and they appeared to be other employees.

You were not in your office though when Rukawa had popped in. He saw the drink on your desk and the light of the computer screen. He went wandering the basement offices in an attempt to find you. He grabbed his lunch too, he had come from a practice and was starving. He knew the building pretty well from his adventures in napping. He checked the water fountain, the break room but found you in the office supply closet. Which is where the big xerox machine was.

“Hey,”

You said to him as he entered the small room.

“You weren't in your office,”

“Well, yeah I had to make copies of these,”

Rukawa hoisted himself up on the cabinet next to the printer. He clipped the stacks of paper you were making with paper clips and set them aside for you as he munched on his food.

“Is that a whole bag of tomatoes?”

You asked, lifting up the scanner lid. Rukawa had brought a ziploc bag full of tomatoes to eat. He nodded.

“Do you want one?”

None of the tomatoes were of the same size or color, but most of them were small. He handed you one of the bite size ones, and you don't know what compelled you to do this, but you put it on the scanner with paper. You pressed the start button and bright light illuminated the room. With the lid open you could see the bar of light as it whirred left and right.

Rukawa took the paper off the glass and dumped the rest of the tomatoes on. You scanned dozens of different piles of the tomates. Flipping them over and rearranging them on the glass. All the images were being sent to your computer but also being printed out. Rukawa assisted. Moving the red bulbs this way and that.

“When we’re done can we go to the roof?”

“Sure,”

You say to him. Many weeks later you will visit Rukawa's apartment and find the printed tomatoes framed in the hallway of his house.

༓･*˚⁺‧͙·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .·͙*̩̩͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩̥͙　✩　*̩̩̥͙˚̩̥̩̥*̩̩͙‧͙ .‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾

A/N; @z_adeh on tiktok has this video of them scanning tomatoes and it zapped my brain

#kaede rukawa #Kaede Rukawa x reader #slam dunk #slam dunk x reader #gender neutral reader

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