#Same with Eggs sorta

[apothesized-moth]

Egg: Only if Paired with something else (Fried rice YUM...) or if Cooked on Both sides.

Steak: I don't know anything about it, I just want the outside to be like maybe a bit crisp in some spots and for it to be soft inside.

Milk: Sure, but oftentimes not, I go BUCK WILD for Oat Milk tho.

Alcohol: Anything Sweet where you can't really taste it (Dangerous)

Warm Drink: Tea (Specifically Apple Cinnamon tea or a good Indian Chai, both with Absurd amounts of sugar.)

Potatoes: Baked Potatoes FTW (Also Sweet potatoes, specifically sweet potato Fries.)

Spice Tolerance: 6/10 (But I do crave the Spice, so I guess it's been building up?)

(I don't really have any friends to tag but if ur my friend and u see this feel free to do it yourself xoxo I love learning small things about my Friends.)

[luck-of-the-drawings]

so REVENGE, HUH? or justice, if that makes you feel better. it tastes the same when cooked just right. 'I REALLY WANTED A BROTHER.' such a shame to burn a bridge you so desperately wanted to keep, especially when it wasnt even you who started the fire. especially when you hope that not a single fragment of that bridge ever washes ashore.[MAY IT ROT FAR FROM MY SIGHTS] an unfortunate loss! atleast he has his friends.

[aoral]

Tubbo is snitching.

Oh.

Oh dear prime .

This just further proves the anarchist Tubbo theory - he:

doesnt support the feds, nor the order - or bbh- after whatever sthings happened between them, and now all he got is himself and friends. Man just want to bring his eggs back. And Fred. And Ron.

Watchout, here comes Tubbo with the Tubbochunk

[eggsmuses-a]

/i think itd be so funny to give wheatley a cyberpunk verse JUST so he could be a tourist attraction on the moon

[cielospeaks]

the last couple months for me be like

[endless-ineffabilities]

Diet Pepsi (18+)

A modern Aemond Targaryen x girlfriend reader smutshot

When we drive in your car, I'm your baby So sweet Losing all my innocence in the backseat

a/n : how do I explain this? I suppose the song Diet Pepsi got stuck in my head, and when I watched the music video, the only male lead I could envision in that sorta situation is our Aemond/Ewan. So here ya go! Reading time... depends on what you get into 😉💋

masterlist

themes/warnings : pure smut, filthy actions and filthy language, complete disregard for sports car interiors, old money boyfriend Aemond x bratty internet starlet girlfriend reader, sticky surfaces, foggy windows, wayward fingers, sliding tongues, and YES YES YES

"What's goin' on in that pretty head of yours?"

Your boyfriend glances at you from the corner of his eye, barely, his attention remaining on the road. But his veiny hand reaches over to squeeze your thigh, fully exposed beneath the scrap of pale pink fabric that you try to pass off as a miniskirt.

Mission accomplished. After only a few minutes of pretending to stew while looking out the window, he is quick to sense that something is amiss with his kitten.

"Nothing," you respond in the best downcast tone you can manage, fighting the urge to clench your thighs to trap his thick fingers in the warmth between.

"Come on now," he clicks his tongue, "don't play around."

"I don't know what you mean."

"You've barely looked at me since you got in the fucking car." Poor baby. You're getting to him, as planned.

Time to rile him up in a way that only you can. "Do you think Maris is pretty?"

He scoffs, "Don't start, kitten."

"So you do," you egg him on. "I knew it. You were looking at her tits earlier. I bet you loved it when that skank bent over in front of you. Gave you a good view."

"Kitten, please," his grip on your flesh tightens, trying to get you stop. "You're being ridiculous."

"And you didn't answer my question, Aemond," you snap back, grabbing his hand and prying it from your leg.

"Fuck's sake," he groans. He then rests both his hands on the steering wheel, at the standard 10 and 2, grasping onto it so roughly that the leather squeaks.

You called him Aemond. Not babe. Not handsome. You must be pissed, for some imagined reason, and he simply does not have the time.

Impatient, he goes off on a tirade, "You've asked me this shit before, babe, and my answer remains the same. I don't care about any other girl. You're the only one that I want, that I will ever want."

Licking your lips, and looking slyly at him behind your done-up eyelashes, you say, "You could've fooled me." He raises his brow at your childishness, muscles flexing under his tight white shirt as he makes a sharp turn. You continue, "I know what I saw. You want her, is that it? Is it because she's got status like you?"

"You have status," he corrects you, "The whole damn country practically knows your name."

"But it's not the same," you moan. "I didn't come from money. My blood isn't blue."

He sighs audibly, "We talked about this. None of that fucking matters, kitten. Especially not to me."

You cross your legs, leaning against the car door as if to inch away from him, your devilishly handsome silver-haired aristocratic boyfriend. The very one you're so keen on tormenting now. "You don't know how I feel."

But he does. You've long since lost track of the countless times you've been blindsided by an uncharacteristic wave of self-doubt. You, infamous for being one of the bubbliest and most outgoing personalities on the internet, your lifestyle guides and fashion spreads a mainstay on every social media platform.

But ever since you started dating Aemond, you can't help but feel unworthy sometimes. He is Aemond Targaryen after all, a glowing young heir to one of the most powerful families in the country, his lineage extending back to the great Valyrian empire.

Old money, as they say. That was his life, but before him, you thought old money was just some fashion trend that dominated your Pinterest boards.

You met at a charity gala for the Hightower Foundation. Unaware of who he was, he was simply a hot guy you set your sights on, and you managed to get his attention by accidentally spilling your espresso martini down his crisp tailored shirt.

Women were not usually that forward when approaching him, especially not those who ran in the same circles as him, like the Baratheon sisters or the Tyrell heiress. But you were different. You were simply, unabashedly yourself. Your biggest asset was you - your personality, your style, your genuine warmth that allows you to build connections with anyone in the industry - you didn't walk into a room with the snootiness and entitlement of a girl born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

The chemistry was instant, overriding any superficial issues that may arise from someone like him getting with someone like you. Which is why you snuck out of the gala together, and fucked each other senseless in the backseat of his car, sweaty and giggling and whispering sweet nothings like you were already long-time lovers back then.

As you are now, nearly two years later. Aemond's love for you has only grown a thousand fold, and he shows this every day.

The car idles at a stop sign. He reaches for your face and implores, "Kitten, look at me, please."

"No," you impetuously say, making him drop his hand.

"Baby, come on."

"Don't feel like it, Aemond."

The light turns green. The car zooms past houses and open fields. Shops and smaller, unknown places of business. They all come together in a blur. The tension is at an all-time high in the car, just as you intended.

He makes several maneuvers, and the scenery outside begins to look unfamiliar to you. The street you enter next is particularly quiet, almost empty, all the shops closed for the day or boarded up. It's likely on the outskirts of King's Landing, far from the Targaryen estate in its central area of Red Keep.

"You still gonna be a brat?" he asks lowly.

You smirk, "Don't call me a fucking brat."

"Have it your way, kitten," he says, and it sounds like a promise. The car pulls up to a vacant parking lot behind an old restaurant, the surrounding area covered by a thin tree line. There is no one, and nothing in sight.

He leans back, and takes a few deep breaths.

"You've been a bad girl, my kitten."

"Have I?" you bite your lip, no longer fighting the urge to clench your thighs. The miniskirt rides up higher, and his eyes become drawn to the sight, his cock hardening underneath his blue jeans.

He hums, leaning over and grabbing your jaw towards him with one hand, "Yeah, bringing shit up like that. Like I would ever look at anyone besides you."

"Wouldn't you?"

"Want me to fucking mention the time you actually flirted with the Stark boy in front of me?"

"I wasn't - "

"Shut up, kitten," he spits. "I'm not dumb."

His voice dips low, and you feel your cunny growing wet and slick. Gods, he is so hot like this. Assertive yet downright sensual. He only wants one thing, and you will surrender it to him in a heartbeat.

"What you gonna do 'bout it, handsome?" You lick your gloss-covered lips and you are caught off guard when he pushes his thumb inside and orders, "Suck."

You obey. His pupil significantly dilates in one eye, while the sapphire fixture in the other glints beautifully. He looks regal, and he's all yours.

"That's right," he breathes, his vision clouding over in lust as he feels the pad of your tongue, "fucking minx. Always so insolent, huh?"

"Mhmmm." When tears blur the corners of your eyes, he takes his hand and sucks right where you did. Then he pulls you in roughly, kissing you with everything in him, the lewdest grunts of pleasure escaping him when you push your tongue past his teeth.

"Come... come 'ere," he places you on top of himself, straddling him in the driver's seat, the lace of your underwear rubbing against his denim. "Gods, this fucking skirt." He pokes at it, lips curling. "You torture me, darlin'. Now you gotta make up for it."

You jut your bottom lip out, dragging your bright pink fingernails across his cheek. His mouth parts at the sight of his pretty little kitten practically begging for it.

"Is that so, handsome? Why don't you make me?"

He anchors his fingers in the thin bands of your underwear and in a sure and decisive flash of movement, he rips the material apart. He throws it over his shoulder, and it lands in the backseat, among the littered lollipop and bubblegum wrappers you leave behind. He loves it when you suck on that hard candy shell in front of him. It's partially the reason why your penchant for sweet treats has gotten worse.

Your pussy is exposed to the cool draft coming from the AC of his car, and it's a good and familiar sensation. He fondles your clit, little slow circles, making you whimper. He presses on, eager to unwrap his kitten like a piece of candy to be devoured. The zip of your miniscule skirt slides down, and your bare ass and cunny is revealed to him.

"Gods fucking damn, kitten," he rasps, then slowly buries three whole fingers into your slickness, spreading your folds, pumping in and out.

"Aghhhh, baby," erupts from your glossy mouth, breath hitching as he picks up the pace. In and out. Out and in.

His face appears almost sinister, clouded over in lust, his bottom lip trapped under bunny teeth, but then he whispers, "I love you, kitten. I love you so fucking much," and you see him as your Aemond. He's offering more than just his body - to you, he has already surrendered his heart and soul.

"I love you too, baby," you respond in as firm of a voice as you can manage, made even more difficult when he probes that sweet spot inside your sopping cunt.

You leak onto his fingers, droplets of your milky white substance beginning to pool in his palm.

"Ask me again," he snarls, shapely lips pulling back to reveal his sharp teeth.

"Wh-what?" you reply in a daze.

"That stupid question," he says. His pace doesn't slow; if he keeps up, you just might forget how to speak, save for incoherent noises that make his cock twitch.

"You'd rather be... b' with... a fancy heiress," you try, pausing when he pinches your hardened nipple over your crop top with his other hand. "Maris... Baratheon... or Floris... or - "

"Look at me, princess," he says, "You feel that? You feel me? There's your fucking answer."

"Not enough," you shake your head feebly, keeping up the ruse. Judging by the buldge he sports, he's into it too.

Smirking, he pulls his glistening fingers out of you, and helps you out of your crop top. He chucks the material somewhere, before ducking his head and nipping at the mounds of your breasts.

"Unnnghhh," you hear him, muffled by your flesh. He undoes your lace bra and sucks wildly. You cradle his head with both hands, keeping him pressed against your tits. His tongue flickers out to taste your skin, and he angles his face so that your eyes meet when he takes a nipple in his mouth.

"Shit, baby," you whimper, heating up all over from the sheer intimacy of it all.

His mouth lets you go with a resounding pop, and he tilts his head toward the backseat, hands gripping your hips to guide you. He follows suit, removing his white shirt in the process, as well as his jeans, shimmying them off his legs as he scrambles after you.

He smacks your ass with an open palm as it is raised in front of him in full view, the sharp sting of it only making you grow wetter.

You shuffle onto your hands and knees, looking back to see him already in position. His fine Valyrian steel chain dangles from his neck, the one thing still on his person. His boxers are also discarded, and his length is fully erect, slapping his stomach when he leans over to hastily cover your mouth with his. Your tongues battle for dominance, drool dripping down your chins. You feel a strain in your neck from twisting back to accommodate his kiss, but you don't care.

You feel it poking at your backside, feel him, his cock all slippery from hot precum dribbling down the sides.

He rocks back, hands digging into the soft flesh of your ass, keeping you in the prime position for him to take.

In a swift movement that nearly drives you insane, he twists downward until his face is level with your opening, and he buries his tongue in your soaking pussy. You know he likes it rough, so do you, and this is his way of getting you ready.

"Fuuckkk," you collapse forward, the side of your face colliding with the smooth leather seat. He twirls his tongue around, and you swear you can see stars.

You must have blacked out for a split second, delirious from the high only he can give you, because a moment later you feel his tip edging itself slowly into your cunt.

"Ready, baby?" he asks.

"Fuck me," is your strained plea.

His cock stretches you out, inch by inch, your slicked walls straining against his sheer size. A whining noise leaves you, music to Aemond's ears, and when he's fully sheathed, he exhales, "So pretty. Such a good little slut for me, kitten." That sends you over the edge.

You move forward slightly, then back again, your ass slamming right into his pelvis. He gets the message, smart boy that he is.

With an animalistic growl, he proceeds to frantically buck his hips into you, his huge cock just about splitting you open. He slaps your ass as he goes, making you tremble.

Each thrust sends shockwaves throughout your body, causing your eyes to roll back in your head. Your dripping cunt begins to feel that familiar ache, your lower belly spasming from his ceaseless thrusts. Your knees threaten to buckle, and if they do, you imagine that his firm throbbing shaft will be enough to keep you propped up.

"Aemond... baby... " your moans echo in the car, joined by his, "Yes... yes, kitten... so fucking good, taking me like this... pussy so sweet for me... "

The filthiest of words spill from the two of you like prayers from the damned, just begging to be answered. And seven hells, with the way Aemond makes you feel like you're floating amongst the skies, he just might be your salvation.

He does not relent, intent on rearranging your insides with how deep he buries his cock inside of you. You don't want him to stop. You never do.

You have to hold onto something to keep steady, to keep from utterly flopping down in a mindless haze. Your palms reach for the fogged up windows, and Aemond angles your bodies so that you're half-seated atop his thighs. He grabs hold of your breasts as leverage, squeezing them as your leaking cunt squeezes his cock.

The angle allows him to fill you better, and that heated coil unfurls in your belly, a signal that you are about to reach your peak.

He draws forward, pressing his mouth to the back of your neck, licking your sweat with reckless abandon.

"Baby," he moans, "I'm gonna cum... gonna fill you up... "

"Oh, yeah?" you answer in a high-pitched, wanton manner.

"Yeah," he breathes.

"You promise?"

He chuckles, and you feel the sound reverberating as your back is pressed to his chest.

"My sweet kitten," he purrs.

"I'm getting close, baby," you let him know, and he takes it as his cue to pound his cock inside faster. His lips are pressed to your ear, arms wrapped around your torso possessively.

He lets himself go, decorating your insides white with his Targaryen seed. You glance down and see it spilling out of your cunt, milky rivulets staining the once-pristine leather seat. His cock convulses in your pussy, waves of his release pulsing like fragmented aftershocks. It hits the right spot, bringing you to that little death, your walls contracting from the dizzying pleasure he gives you.

With that stupid and blissed-out smile on your face, you lean back, collapsing on top of him. You soon find yourselves curled together on the backseat, a mess of sweaty and satisfied limbs.

His silver hair is matted against his forehead, and you reach up and brush them away. He catches your hand and presses a loving kiss to the back of it.

He props his head up on one arm, as you draw lazy circles on the firm planes of his chest. You whisper sweet nothings to each other, as you had on the night you met.

"You should rile me up more often, you little brat," he smirks crookedly.

You roll your eyes, but peck his lips anyway with a cheeky smack, "Isn't that all I do, baby?"

"Sure, kitten," he says, "and I fucking love you for it."

"Oh, baby," you purr, and your wayward fingers reach down to stroke his half-erect cock. His brows raise in amusement, but it only takes several good pumps before his shaft is again taut from your touch. You whisper, "I love you too."

And so the second round begins.

Taglists (refer here to be added)

Vhagar - @gwaynehightowerswhore @kravitzwhore @litchifaerie @g-cf2020 @9431789 @noxytopy @fan-goddess @m00n5t0n3 @diannnnsss @nsr-15 @the-awkward-barbie @rockstwrsz @yellowstonebaby @urdeftonesgrrrl @eddieslut69 @callsigncrushx @starwarsdinosaur @qweq-6802 @tulips2715 @hotdismylife @joyismm @itseunaimonia @just-mj-or-not @crystal-siren @zaldrizzes @all-for-aemond @ajantanijhum @darylandbethfanforever9 @vhwyrm @purpleskiesandroses @technicallystrangereview @jjkysnk

Targaryen - @angel6776 @different-tale-student @binchissimo @teasweeter @raging-panda @rhaenys-nyra @gelacat0413 @simplymurdock @yariany02 @barnes70stark @stupid---person @lonan-hane @thescooponsof @donalesaa @rosey1981 @urmomsgirlfriend1 @wabi-sabi1090 @girl-lost-not-found

P.S. eagle-eyed readers can probably spot the nod to chemical override ;)

[sunny-knight]

oh….. the THINGS i would give for a @forgettable-au movie……..

gang- okay…

The vision of Papyrus and Gaster at Wingdings’ funeral…. was so vivid in my head. And now its going to be there forever. and i have 0 complaints.

Dunno if any of you have played Omori, but SPOILERS!

the context to this is kinda like the Blackspace segment. Papyrus is in his head sorting out the shit he needs to sort out through metaphors n such. But Gaster is also there because he can do that because theyre the same person (IT MAKES SENSE)

I imagine that whole thing happens right after Papyrus regains all his wingdings memories like he gets knocked out or something- IM MAKING A LOT OF ASSUMPTIONS HERE LIKE HE MIGHT NOT EVEN REMEMBER, EVER!!! I REALLY HOPE HE DOES!!! BUT!!!

Just let me have my silly fanfics…

After a lot of fighting and agony over the question of WHO IS PAPYRUS? ESPECIALLY AFTER HE’S LEARNED TOO MUCH?

it ends with a somber scene of putting Wingdings to rest, letting his 2 halves live their own lives.

Papyrus asks “Why did you do this?” as in… Why did you bring me here? and why did you do what you did? throwing yourself into the void?

Gaster has the same answer for both of those questions

Thats my theory, I think a lot of Gaster/Wingdings’ ambition, in game and in comic, is just curiosity

TIME FOR SOME FUN LITTLE EASTER EGGS!!!

In the first frame, theres a raindrop in front of Papyrus’ eye socket, meant to allude to Wingdings’ eye lights.

Also the field is filled with Echo and Golden flowers. Echo represents Wingdings, and Golden represents Papyrus. Gaster is just Gaster, don’t worry about him

I also had fun making the save point star look sorta like a cross from the distance…cause yknow…heaven….TEEHEE

I got emotional putting “dearest brother” on the grave cause I couldnt put any more stuff like “closest friend” or “dear son”….Sans was kinda all he had…

and lastly heres some bonus behind the scenes stuff because I have enough room for it

some sketches, and a speedpaint with the best instrumental song ever made from the best liveaction movie ever made that has absolutely nothing to do with the forgettable au (Little Miss Sunshine - “THE WINNER IS”)

Highly recommend, 100/10, makes me UGLY SOB, think the undertale gang would like it (especially Papyrus and Undyne)

[sugurusombereyes]

breakfast with suguru

the smell of burnt maple syrup and something savoury wafted through your apartment; jogging towards your body and filled your nostrils as you travelled towards the smell.

“sugu?” you croaked out, your feet dragging themselves towards the tall figure looming around your kitchen. the counter tops beyond him were dusted in flour and empty egg cartons. what the hell was he doing?

“hi my love.” sugurus raven hair was tied into a messy bun, the rest of his hair cascading down his broad shoulders. he laid out a plate of waffles and bacon on the side, the little squares overflowing with maple syrup just how you like.

(even though he thought it was too sickly he was forced to eat it by you)

“i made us breakfast, sorta.” his breathily laugh sending the sweet syrup to your heart, melting it entirely while leaving your pulse beating in his breathing pattern. you let out a soft sigh, not a sigh of exhaustion but of content. the small act of geto making breakfast had evoked the feeling you had been fine with not having.

you settled for sufficiency all your life, happiness was being sufficient in your eyes as the same as love was butterflies and the spark you would spot in his eyes when you first starting going out. but geto had just fed you peace and serenity.

each square in the waffles he hated were coated in the harmonious hums of his heart once aligned with yours. the melted butter he used to fry the bacon full of the serene richness which sent those butterflies in your stomach to sleep; but your apitetie roaring to consume the affection suguru grew for you.

your arms found it’s way to getos bare torso, your head aligning with his chest; the beating of his heart slowly your breathing rate down. “you okay baby?” he hummed softly into your hair, kissing the top of your head gently as you squeezed a big tighter. suguru snaked an arm around your waist, his free hand rubbing your back into soft circles.

“we can go back to bed if you want.” you shaked your head no into his chest, his husky voice sending a pang to your heart. “ts’ okay if you’re not hungry, thought you loved waffles.”

(the kind of pang that would make you want to hold him tight and not let go until your hands had moulded your embrace onto his skin)

“i love you.” you whispered into his chest, your voice soothing the scars that he had sworn were closed but still felt like they were raw to the touch. “i love you tremendously angel.” his words felt like they were engraved in the lines of your palm, seeping into the cracks and coursing through your bloodstream. suguru softly rubbed the back of your nape with his thumb; his free hand playfully squeezing your waist as you took in his graceful presence.

“how bout’ we sit and eat your disgustingly sweet waffles yeah?“ he muttered into your shoulder, pulling back from the hug and holding your cheek with his other hand. “okay.” you mumbled, nuzzling your face into his soft skin.

“and then you’ll clean the kitchen while i watch right?” you beam at him while he drops his head.

“damn i thought you would’ve forgotten about that and been focused on the five star meal in front of your face.” he says playfully as you softly laugh.

he was going to propose that night.

[wife-of-all-dilfs]

the five stages | f. odair

masterlist

summary: a journey back to a golden period of time of polaroid pictures, white knitted sweaters, and lively sea-green eyes. why? because in the present, those same pair of eyes are ruthlessly unrelenting and you have no other chance of their escape.

pairing: finnick odair x fem!reader

warnings: heavy angst, vomiting, implied smut, depression, maggots, hallucinations, relieving fluff, mild horror. I don’t want to spoil the story too much, so I won’t be adding any more warnings, sorry y’all. this could be very triggering so please read at your own discretion. some descriptions are quite graphic!

notes: I’m super proud of this one—it’s sorta based off “little talks” by of monsters and men and “on the nature of daylight” by max richer. this fic probably won’t get many views, so I’ll be incredibly grateful for any—if any at all—type of engagement! <33

word count: 8k

The bedroom was cold; dark; empty. Empty even though I still resided in it.

My alarm had gone off two hours ago, yet I hadn’t moved an inch. When I finally turned my head to the side, I found that the space beside me was vacant. Cold; dark; empty—I reached out my hand anyway.

Thirty minutes passed before I wrestled myself out of bed and started making breakfast downstairs. The otherwise warm and flavourful plate of fruit-filled yoghurt and scrambled eggs on toast left my mouth feeling dry and my throat lodged.

It used to be one of my favourite meals. At least, when he was around.

Dishes were piled in the sink, dirty and untouched. I sat on the couch, pondering whether today was the day I would finally get to cleaning them. It wasn’t. I couldn’t. We always did that together. I wondered—if I left them in the sink long enough, would he return? Even just for five minutes to help me put them away? One month and seventeen days had passed, and yet I still entertained this thought religiously.

I wasted an hour running circles round the same contemplations before deciding fresh air, as cliché as it was, might do me some good.

Grey clouds concealed the sun’s warm golden light when I stepped outside, but that was fine—I didn’t like anything golden anymore. But he would want me to leave the house at least once a day, so that’s what I would do. I would go down to the beach beside our—my house and feel the sand collect between my toes as I walked to the water’s edge.

But wasn’t that where he was when it happened? Wasn’t he in water? Didn’t those things pile on top of him? Didn’t they sink their fangs into his neck and tear at his flesh until he was blown to…

Bits of egg, yoghurt and stomach bile sat at my feet. My legs buckled, and I collapsed to the ground in a sandy, tear-stricken heap. Since my lower body had refused to cooperate any longer, it took me until midday to crawl back up the dune and to my front doorstep.

Fuck. I needed to rest.

“I need you to rest, sweetheart.”

“I told you, I’m fine,” I whined. “I’m not sick.”

Finnick placed a bucket on the ground beside the bed. The room smelled of lemon disinfectant—a joy I often found in being sick… That is, if I were sick, which I was not. I must have drunk spoiled milk or eaten something bad during breakfast. Nevertheless, Finnick was not having it.

“You’re throwing up everything you manage to get down, and you’re shivering like it’s the middle of winter,” he said adamantly, tucking the comforter up to my chest. “It’s summer, and you’re very much not fine.”

I sat up, ready to heatedly debate the subject, but the room began swirling, and my ears were hissing like a staticky television channel without a signal. A quiet whimper buzzed in my throat as I hunched forward. Damn him, I was sick.

The mattress dipped as Finnick sat beside me. His hand was on my back, rubbing it soothingly as he used his other hand to tuck away the curtain of hair concealing my face. I huffed, half in annoyance, half in an attempt to suppress the nausea rising in my throat, and then sunk back against the pillows.

“Not sick, she says,” he jested, smiling down at me. I rolled my eyes, though unable to hide the weak, betraying smile creeping across my lips. “Close your eyes, sweetheart,” he said, a gentle command. “I’ll see you when you fall asleep.”

The wooden flooring welcomed me with hard, cold arms as I hauled my sandy body through the front door. Images of fangs, bloody flesh, and panicked sea-green eyes flooded my mind.

More breakfast, more bile. No lemon disinfectant.

My knees were folded beneath my body; my body was hunched over my knees. I was sobbing now, so hard that I threw up again (was there even anything left in my stomach at this point?), creating a thick puddle of vomit and tears beneath me. Cries and gasps for air bounced around the house. To call me a mess would be an understatement. I was a disaster. A disaster wrapped up in an unmendable tragedy with a ragged, threadbare ribbon barely holding me together.

And in case I wasn’t aware of this fact, the floorboards were so shiny that they mirrored a reflection of myself. My hair was a being of its own, all wild and unkempt, and my face was another story entirely—a red, blotchy thing I wasn’t too interested in delving into.

But the most unsettling aspect had nothing to do with me, it was that there was someone else in the reflection. Two green balls of light were glowing above my head.

Dishevelled golden hair…

Dimpled cheeks…

My forehead was pressed to the floor as I screamed.

“I don’t want to make you sick as well,” I said, contrarily enjoying the feeling of Finnick’s skin warm against mine, hot blood flowing through his veins.

A day had passed since I first became unwell, and the sickness had continued to wreak havoc inside me.

We were both under the thick covers, our limbs tangled together as he held me atop his chest. (my body didn’t register the scorching summer temperatures. I actually felt as though my core temperature was a few degrees below freezing. Meanwhile, Finnick was characteristically toasty warm. It was perfect for me, but not so much for him, evident in the beads of sweat collecting on his forehead. Nevertheless, he made no complaints).

My body rose and fell with each breath he took. I was trying to inhale whenever he exhaled in a weak attempt to prevent the festering sickness in my body from entering his, and though it was a futile gesture, I did it anyway.

“In sickness and health, remember?” he said.

I smiled. “We’re not even married.”

“Yet, you mean,” he countered. “I plan on spending the rest of my life with you, sweetheart. You know that.”

My heart fluttered at the thought of spending an entire lifetime with him—waking up in each other’s embrace each morning, the warm sunlight peeking through the blinds of our bedroom; Finnick calling me “Mrs. Odair” or “My wife” at every opportunity because doing so made us both giggle like two moronic, love-struck teenagers; and being unable to prevent the deep smile lines on both our cheeks as we age, a constant display of our perpetual happiness.

“Sixty more years of having and holding you,” he continued with a gentle musing in his tone. “For better or for worse... For richer or for poorer.” He then stroked the side of my face and brushed away the sweaty strands of hair sticking to my forehead. “In sickness and in health…”

“…Until death do us part,” I finished, my voice slow with fatigue.

Two fingers sat beneath my chin and tilted my head upward. My eyes connected with Finnick’s. They were soft. Heartfelt.

“Not even then. I’ll love you beyond the grave,” he murmured. Then his lips were slowly curving into a pensive smile. “When we’re both ghosts and haunting the next owners of this house.”

I was now smiling, too. “I’d hoped you would say something like that.”

How could he lie like that? There was no we. There were no next owners. There was only me, alive and alone in a comatose house. And mind you, I was sane enough to know that it wasn’t actually his ghost haunting me, though I wish I weren’t because having that knowledge was even worse. It meant he was truly erased from existence.

“Go away,” I whispered to the reflection on the floor.

He didn’t. His vacant green eyes kept staring down at my crumpled figure.

I shot off the floor and spun around, hot tears streaming down my face. “Go away!” His face remained expressionless. He looked like himself, only colder. “You said sixty more years! You said we’d be together!” I mindlessly picked up and flung a small picture frame at him, only for it to pass through his body and shatter on the floor behind him. “Why did you lie to me?!” My voice was frayed with fury, though underlined with grief.

He said nothing, did nothing. All he did was watch.

My legs buckled, and I was on the floor again. I was whispering, half-sobbing, the same question over and over until the words slurred together. “Why’d you lie? Why’d y’lie?” The only time I stopped was when my tongue grew too heavy to move anymore.

To my surprise, he eventually came and sat beside me, remaining cold and silent—as I too had become.

Glass fragments from the picture frame were scattered across the floorboards. The photo within had fallen out and, ironically, drifted towards me. I didn’t bother acknowledging him as I moved onto my hands and knees and began crawling forward—my palms slicing open and blood seeping out—until the photo was in my hands. My shins had granules of glass pricking into them, but I couldn’t feel the pain; all I could do was stare at the memory in my hands.

The picture had been taken in District Thirteen, a day before he signed up for… the mission.

I was drifting in and out of sleep when a sudden bright flash lit up my eyelids.

“Oops.”

Heavy eyes fluttering open, I was met with a small camera pointing down at me, which was being held up by a lengthy muscular arm, which was connected to an even more muscular and broad shoulder, which was connected to—okay, sorry, I think you get it.

“Finnick!” I shrieked, pulling the covers over my naked figure.

He laughed, the vibrations rumbling deep within his chest, beneath my ear. A soft whirring sound accompanied the polaroid sliding out of the camera, its black film hiding the doubtless embarrassing picture beneath. He placed the film on the sheets beside him, letting the photo develop in darkness.

“I was supposed to cover the flash,” he said, still chuckling.

I rubbed my eyes, which were twinkling with little sparkles of light. “I think you blinded me.”

“Lucky you,” he jested. “You’re finally free from my repulsive exterior.”

I started to reach for the picture beside him—“You’re an idiot”—but then he was rolling us over until his arms were pillared on either side of my head and he was hovering above me.

His hair was a mess, a testament to the night before (and very early hours of the morning), and he was sporting a beautiful, lazy grin. “Yeah? Well, you’re engaged to an idiot,” he said, tilting his head in an arrogant manner. “So what does that make you?”

The sea-glass ring hugging my finger gleamed in the lamp’s dull light as I reached out to touch his face, my fingertips brushing along the edges of his pronounced jawline. Tangled strands of hair and a beaming smile were reflecting back at me in his eyes. No one had ever loved anyone as much as I loved Finnick—disregarding the one exception that was staring down at me.

“Blinded by love,” I whispered.

Brief yet poignant emotion trickled through his features, his eyes. Then, like a flick of a switch, he covered it up and lowered his face into my neck, groaning the words, “So corny.”

My fingers were tangled in his hair, holding him close to me. “Liar,” I laughed. “You loved it.”

“I love you, which is why I put up with your corniness,” he murmured into my skin.

Even after all this time, my heart still leapt whenever he said those three words, even when he was being a jerk about it. I kissed the top of his head. “I love you, too.”

We laid like this for a short while longer—Finnick keeping his face buried in the warmth of my neck, his arms curled beneath my body; me playing with the golden waves of his hair that were somehow softer than my own. He was so heavy on top of me that it was starting to become difficult to breathe, but in no universe would I ever tell him to get off. It was a blissful sort of suffocation.

A sort anyone would snap a picture of just to keep as a reminder of how beautiful it feels to be smothered with love. With that being said, the picture that lay awaiting beside me was brought back to mind.

“Oh no,” I moaned, picking it up and taking a short glance at the developed photo. I covered my face with my hands, repeating the words, “Oh no.”

The photo was plucked from my fingers, and Finnick began humming contentedly to himself.

In the photo, my face had been nuzzled into his bare, muscular chest, eyes closed in sleep-drunken serenity, hair thrown over my shoulder and spilling across the pillow. My hand rested on his contoured stomach with just enough of my upper arm and low light to conceal my breasts. Finnick had a delicate hand draped over my waist. He was gazing down at me with a smile that was just… full of pure love.

I had to admit—it was a beautiful picture. Despite my initial disapproval.

“Beautiful,” I heard him echo my thoughts, his eyes still scanning the photo. Then his brows furrowed, and his head slightly inched forward as though he had just noticed something peculiar in the picture. “Oh, and you are too, I guess.”

My head tilted back against the pillow with an abrupt laugh. I shook my head, looking back at him. “I hate you.”

“Liar,” he said, leaning in closer.

His lips were on mine for what must have been the millionth time in the past few hours. The bedside clock announced that breakfast was soon approaching, though it was clear neither of us would make an appearance within the next hour (or two).

“You love me,” he whispered as he slid inside me.

And I did.

I really did.

The muscles in my cheeks were straining due to how hard I was smiling.

It wasn’t my idea to keep a picture of us half-naked in the entryway of our home. He always was a bit unusual like that. Completely unashamed of who he was and how he acted. Sometimes a little too boisterously, but that’s what I loved so much about him—how confident he was in his love for me, so much so that nothing else mattered, no one else’s opinion.

God, I love him so much.

Love…?

Wait.

That’s not right.

Shouldn’t it be “loved”?

And why was I smiling? I didn’t have anything to smile about anymore. He was gone. Our wedding never occurred. Our faces never wrinkled with smile lines. Our clasped hands never weathered with age. He was gone.

The polaroid slipped from between my fingers. My hands were covered in glass and blood, blood that had painted a dark red splotch in the middle of the shiny film. Figures.

After a short while of staring blankly at the scattered debris decorating the floor, I finally found it in myself to start climbing back onto my feet. My straightened legs wobbled and ached beneath me with the little energy I had. That’s what happens when you can barely stomach food anymore: no energy, always sleeping, always swamped by nightmares or bittersweet memories—at this point, they were one and the same.

Not a strand of gold or a fleck of green was in sight when I glanced over my shoulder. For now, at least. He liked making an appearance once or twice a day.

Pieces of glass crunched beneath my bare, stinging feet as I made for the stairwell. A mess for another day, I reasoned. Just like the dishes. Sticky red footprints stamped each wooden step I ascended, growing less prominent as I reached the second floor.

After taking a right down a short hallway, the encompassing walls littered with magnificent seashells and dried ocean flora, I turned the knob to the furthest room and entered. The floor was landscaped with mountains of clothes which drenched the room in a familiar, all-consuming smell. The scent kind of reminded me of receiving a warm hug, albeit from someone you know you should let go of in more ways than one.

His hair, golden and tousled, caught my eye as I passed the wall of string-hung polaroids in our… sorry, my bedroom. His smile was all dimpled and brilliant, and he had his tanned arms wrapped around my middle. Just moments after the picture was taken, he had tackled me into the water and rightfully earned a smack on the back of the head. In turn, he did it again.

But before that, we were both looking into the camera with the most joyful expressions—huge grins, bright eyes. Frozen in time.

I never let myself look too long at that picture anymore. And I never, ever looked into his eyes. Green used to be my favourite colour. I didn’t have a favourite colour anymore. It was safe to say I didn’t have a favourite anything anymore; everything favourable was a reminder of him.

I picked up a white knitted sweater off the ground and tugged it over my head, staining it with splotches of dark red. Knowing him, he would wear it regardless—whatever was mine, was also his, and was equally the same in reverse, even things as grotesque as blood.

Well, he would have worn it, I should have said.

The sweater had been specifically tailored for him. I remembered how the soft sleeves hugged his arms so well that every fluid curve of his biceps was visible, similar to a building wave before it crested. On me, the sleeves swallowed my arms whole, which I liked to think in their own unique way had also been unintentionally tailored for me, like someone out there knew one day I would need some way to drown in him when he was gone.

Finnick’s fingers tugged at the silk ribbons, unwrapping the opulent gift box that sat on our dining table. Capitol devotees would send extravagant parcels weekly, turning up in abundance on our doorstep. Sometimes Finnick didn’t even bother opening them; sometimes we opened them together just to get a good laugh out of whatever ridiculous item was inside.

He never, though, opened the perfume-scented letters marked with lipstick stains.

“Oh,” I said in surprise as he lifted the lid. Inside was a folded piece of fabric, knitted and cream-white and intricate, though still simple. It was soft to the touch; thick enough to retain warmth. I held it up with two hands, admiring the hand-sewed threads of cotton. Whoever’s handiwork this was, it was nothing to laugh at.

Holding it up to Finnick’s torso, I smiled and said, “Try it on.”

“What?” He shook his head and smiled quizzically. “No.”

“Yes. I think it will look good on you.” I pressed it further against him with conviction. “Try it on.”

He tilted his head and exhaled deeply through his nose, giving me a begrudging, squinty-eyed look. From that, I already knew I had won him over, and watched as he snatched the sweater from my grasp and tugged his shirt off with one hand. I averted my eyes, feeling the tips of my ears flush with heat—we’d been together for over a year now; you would think I’d have grown accustomed to seeing him shirtless.

His head slipped through the neckline and he pulled the sweater down his body. I was right. It looked really good on him. Perfect, actually. The measurements were so precise that the fabric sloped off his shoulders like a compact mountain of snow. The thick-knitted collar dipped into a deep, uneven neckline that partly revealed his chest and made his neck look like a strong, contoured pillar. He looked at me expectantly, as though to ask, “Well?”

“It makes your neck and shoulders look really nice,” I blurted out, instantly cringing inside.

His expression contorted into something of amusement and surprise as he took a slow step towards me. “My neck and shoulders, huh?” he said, grinning devilishly. Oh, now I’d done it. Leave it to me to rocket Finnick Odair’s already atmospheric ego. “Anything else?”

I began backing away, but his prowling strides were so long that the space between us only shortened. When my backside hit the edge of the dining table, I knew I was done for.

“You know,” I began, avoiding his unrelenting stare. “I think it was just a momentary lapse of judgement.” He was closing in now, placing his hands on either side of my body to trap me in place. “It—It actually looks terrible on you,” I said, feigning sincerity and adding a little nod to help further my case.

His eyelids drooped as he gazed down at me, lips curving into that seductive smirk he had mastered long ago. “No takebacks,” he purred, voice low and gravelly. Dear God, I could only pray I wasn’t going to melt into a puddle on the floor. He always did this—took every opportunity to flirt and render me a stuttering, bashful mess. It was his favourite game to play. “This is now my new favourite shirt. All thanks to you, sweetheart.”

But, given the right timing and ever-wavering amount of confidence, I liked to play too.

I inhaled deeply, hoping my voice wouldn’t betray me. “Maybe you should take it off then,” I said, cocking my head to the side. “So you don’t ruin it.”

His mischievous expression revealed his next words before he even spoke them. “Maybe I will,” he said, and then he was tugging his sweater over his head, and I was tearing off my own. As his hands slipped beneath my thighs and lifted me onto our dining table, I prayed the wooden legs wouldn’t collapse under the weight of our next actions.

My fingertips ran over the soft, rippling patterns on the knitted sleeves, my arms crossed in a self-soothing manner. After that day, the sweater had become a sort of good luck charm—or so we agreed upon as we lay panting on the tabletop. He started wearing it to a multitude of events and parties in the Capitol (basically any place in which he needed a pick-me-up, a reminder of what he had to come home to, who he had to come home to).

He even wore it the day we got engaged.

So many happy memories were associated with this one white sweater. So many times, those cloud-soft sleeves were wrapped around my body, suffocating me in the scent of him—if nothing else, at least that remained.

The last time he had worn it was the day of the Reaping for the Quarter Quell; the last time our lives were ever semi-normal. I had fought tooth and nail to reach him before he was escorted onto the train, despite being ordered, “No goodbyes,” by one of the Peacekeepers. In modest terms, I had significantly decreased his chances of reproduction.

When I reached Finnick, he had brought me into a kiss so harsh and fervent that my lips were bruised the next day. He then yanked off his sweater, leaving his upper body completely exposed to everyone around us in complete disregard for his trauma-induced fear of doing so, and shoved it into my hands.

I had just stood there frozen in bewilderment, watching as he called out, “I love you, sweetheart!” Two Peacekeepers were forcing him onto the train, but he too fought for the last word. “Don’t forget—I’m always with you!”

That statement had never been truer than it was now. For better or for worse.

My vision unblurred as I returned to reality. Dismal, grey light was peeking through the shutters that formed the balcony doors, the daylight hours seeming to tick away at a snail’s pace. I used to wish for the days to be longer, for time to move slower, so I could savour the moments I had of happiness and sunlight which used to be plentiful.

Why do wishes only come true when you grow to desire nothing but the opposite?

Slothfully, I crawled onto the unmade king-size bed, my limbs crumpling and balling to my chest as the side of my head hit the pillow. The imprint on the mattress beneath my body didn’t match my own. It was much larger and broader. How long would it take for the springs to forget his body weight and recoil back into place as though he never existed at all?

I inhaled the sweater’s scent with every breath I took (and I tried not to wonder how long it would take for his scent to disappear as well) and hugged my arms around my waist. No pain was worse than the fleeting moments I forgot the embrace was my own and not his.

Hours passed, and so did the evening. A beautiful orange sunset hadn’t slipped through the shutter’s cracks because the clouds never dissipated. Night-time brought no consolation either. Not even the stars or moon made an appearance. Everything that once gave me a shred of optimism was hidden behind a veil of gloom.

I knew tomorrow wouldn’t be any different—the weather, my mood, his absence. Because the end of autumn was closing in, and the days were becoming bleaker. Trees would start shedding their leaves; the leaves would start to die.

I hoped I would too.

I was still curled up on my side, my body aching with stiffness, when my face began scrunching into this ugly, twisted mess of despair. My tears were slow yet heavy, synonymous with the day I had incurred.

But then something strange happened.

Someone called my name.

No. That couldn’t be right. I was the only one who occupied a house in the Victor’s Village; the others had either relocated after the war or were… dead.

But there it was again—my name, distant and eerie, yet spoken with a tone people often used to beckon over and aid a frightened, injured animal. My vision blurred, both from tears and concentration on the voice.

“Hey.”

I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment my surroundings transformed into a kitchen, just that they had and that I was no longer in my bed but standing upright.

Ahead of me, in the distance, the sun was beating down on the crystalline water, and white frothy waves were cresting on the smooth, golden sand. It was a perfect day; not a cloud was in sight. The only blemish that smeared the blue sky was the reflection staring back at me from the window I gazed out of.

In my hands was a soup bowl and a damp dishrag.

“Sweetheart?” That once distant voice, concerned and beckoning, was standing right beside me.

Blinking, I snapped out of my daze and turned away from the window.

He stood tall beside me, despite being half hunched over the kitchen sink and scrubbing the last of the few dirty dishes stacked neatly on the bench top. His head was turned towards me, his enamoured sea-green eyes peering into my own as though he was searching behind them for what troubled me.

“Hey,” he spoke softly, standing up straight. His touch was warm and gentle as he reached for my hand, leaving soapy bubbles on my palm and fingers. “Where’d you go?”

Three odd things seemed to occur at once: first, I flinched away from his touch, overwhelmed by its paradoxical unfamiliar familiarity; second, I felt an inexpressible relief from seeing him standing before me, seeing his cheeks painted with a soft pink hue as though blood-red roses were hidden just beneath his skin.

The third was an onset of disorientation. I couldn’t tell you why I felt disorientated standing in my own kitchen with the love of my life, just, simply, that I did. There was an answer—it was close by, right under my nose, yet unreachable. We did this every day, didn’t we? We would eat meals together and then wash up together. So, why did I feel so unsettled?

I shook my head, dispelling the confusion that muddled my brain. “Sorry,” I whispered. “I don’t know what happened.” I laughed uneasily, without a hint of mirth.

He laughed too, not to poke fun or because he found my obvious turmoil amusing, but rather to comfort me, so I would feel less alone in my unease. “It’s alright,” he said gently.

Neither of us addressed what had happened; we simply resumed our routine of washing and drying in domestic silence. And as seconds turned to minutes, and as the sky remained sunny, I found myself smiling. All that mattered was that he was standing beside me and that the sun was beaming in the sky. So, I kept smiling.

After I finished drying the last dish, we began placing the plates, bowls, and an abundance of cutlery in their assigned drawers and cupboards, weaving past each other and giggling anytime we got in one another’s path. I was carrying a stack of white plates, eyeing the high cupboard they needed to go in, but before I could even attempt straining onto my toes, the plates were out of my hands and taken into another much larger pair.

The smell of sea salt and expensive cologne wafted from behind me as he towered over my shorter frame and placed the plates in the cupboard.

“I could have done that,” I said, smiling as I turned around to face him.

He had a playful glint in his eye. “Yeah, right. What are you, like, four feet tall?” he joked.

It was an extreme exaggeration since I was no way near that height, but I suppose everyone was miniature in comparison to him, being over six feet tall and all. I feigned open-mouthed offence, to which he gave the side of my head a quick, playful kiss of apology.

He then leaned against the counter with crossed arms. “Plus, when was the last time you actually put these dishes away? I’m surprised you even remember where they go.” He was grinning at me in a teasing manner, but every ounce of humour had drained from my body.

My eyes drifted to the floor.

Well, that was the question, wasn’t it—when was��the last time I put the dishes away?

I couldn’t remember. In fact, I couldn’t remember what had happened this morning or the day before. Hell, I couldn’t even remember what we were doing before the dishes.

To be standing in a room, in a place you call home, and have a sense that nothing is in its right place, even though that is where everything has always been, is a disconcerting feeling beyond belief. To be perplexed by your own state of being—your existence—is even worse. I could almost describe it as a nauseating bout of vertigo.

My hands found the counter’s edge behind me, and I exhaled a shaky breath.

He stepped in front of me, one large and gentle hand reaching up to cup my jaw. “Are you okay?” he asked, his forehead wrinkling with shallow worry lines as he inspected my face. I hated that. I hated that I worried him so much. Sure, partners were supposed to lean on each other for support in a relationship (as he too did with me when needed), but I always felt so guilty doing so. Hadn’t he already suffered enough… pain in his lifetime? Who was I to cause him any more?

A sunbeam suffused the room, oozing across his face. The illumination lightened his eyes into a refreshing mint green, though, in contradiction, unearthed a pain that had been previously been concealed. Pain from what, I wasn’t sure. From concern regarding my unusual behaviour? Maybe a thought that was troubling him? Or perhaps he too was enduring a spell of confusion and had an inexplicable feeling that he was out of place.

Whatever his pain regarded, seeing it had rattled the deepest structures in which held my mind together.

It was then that I suddenly realised I hadn’t answered his question, so I gave him a wan “I’m-not-too-sure-myself” smile and then began slinking back to the sink window.

He followed behind me. I could feel him staring into the back of my head, could feel his brows draw together and his lips pull into a tight line, patiently waiting for a further explanation, though I wasn’t sure I could offer him one.

I hadn’t noticed before, but on the windowsill was a small picture frame containing a polaroid picture of us in bed—I was lying on his chest, half-naked and asleep, and he was looking down at me, smiling fondly yet with a sort of mischievous knowability. Running down the middle of the protective glass was a small, jagged crack.

I plucked the frame from the windowsill, inspecting the picture in my two hands. It seemed to uncover a place in my mind—once clouded by disorientation—I’d forgotten. Whether this place was real or imaginary was beyond me, but the fear I felt upon its recollection was incandescently genuine.

“Do you think,” I spoke tentatively, “people can have nightmares while they’re wide awake?” My thumb ran over the crack.

I might have heard him inhale a quiet, sharp breath, but it also could have just been the waves breaking on the distant shore. “Like a flashback?” he asked, an unidentifiable unease in his tone.

“No, not exactly.” I searched my brain for the right words, the right way to tell him how I was feeling, but it was difficult when I could only conjure vague fragments. And it was all I could do to tell it to him elliptically, as I knew saying the words in any other manner would shatter my heart.

“I had this vision,” I began, my words apprehensively staccato, “where I was somewhere else.” My eyes flickered over the picture. “Somewhere… bad. Everything was grey and heavy, and I was alone. Sometimes you were there, but you—you weren’t really you anymore.” I paused and looked up to find him staring at me in the reflection of the window. He looked pained; it was then suddenly hard to recollect a time when he didn’t. My throat started to constrict. “You were gone and…” my voice quietened to a broken wisp of wind, “you were haunting me.”

The room was silent.

He said nothing in response

The transparency of his reflection in the glass was so familiar—so haunting—and it was like another forgotten matter had been dredged from the depths of my mind. Stinging tears brimmed my waterline, and, due to my inability to bear the sight of his translucent appearance, I forced myself to turn around.

I glanced up at him, smiling weakly as I whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head as if my need to apologise was nonsensical (even I was unsure of what I was apologising for), and he then pulled me into a tight embrace. His chin rested atop my head; my face was buried in his chest, and his arms held me like I was some dilapidated structure that relied on his support to remain upright. Part of me knew this sentiment was correct.

I expected his next words to be ones of consolation or reassurance, maybe an “I’m right here, sweetheart” or an “I’ll never leave you”. Instead, I felt his head turn and heard him say, “Think it’s going to storm?”

With a sniffle, I turned my head towards the window. The arms wrapped around my body tightened as if he somehow knew I would need the extra support. Because when I saw the wall of dark, opaque clouds rolling through the sky towards us, an unshakeable dread zapped through my heart.

My hands clung to the fabric of his cream-white sweater, which then brought to my attention that an inexplicable tingling sensation was spreading down the fingers of my right hand, numbing them.

Lightning flashed on the horizon, and the once serene waves began cresting violently on the shoreline. The dread grew.

Before my attention could drift too far, my name was called again.

I looked up to find those green eyes gazing down at me, swelling with tears. He was crying. Why was he crying? And why was his hair wet? His usually golden strands had darkened to a deep brown and were drenched with cold water that dripped onto my cheeks, and his hair was swept haphazardly across his forehead, a reflection of someone who had just endured an intense storm or had just been fighting for his life against a swarm of—of—

No.

My own eyes began to burn.

“It’s killing me to see you this way,” he spoke, every second word breaking and wavering in volume.

The world seemed to tilt on an axis. Return did the disorientation, ravaging my mind more violently now. “What do you”—My chest was rising and falling with heavy breaths—“What? What do you mean?” My lower lip was quivering, and my eyebrows were scrunched together in confusion. His words replayed in my head: It’s killing me to see you this way.

It’s killing me.

His hair was dripping—no longer with water, but with a thick, red substance that both dripped down and clotted on his skin. He didn’t look pained anymore; he looked like he was in pain.

It’s killing me.

But that can’t be right, can it?

It’s killing me.

Why?

It’s killing me.

Becausemy Finnickwas already dead.

I staggered backwards and out of his, no, this imposter’s arms. He stared at me as blood streamed down his forehead, pouring over his eyelashes and down his cheeks. I was going to be sick. This had to be some sort of cruel joke, a newly invented punishment from Snow. But that wasn’t right either: Snow was dead too.

“F…Fi…” I tried saying his name, my top teeth prodding the inside of my bottom lip, but I couldn’t make a sound.

He took a step towards me, and I almost stumbled onto the floor. “Remember what I told you?” he asked, though it sounded more like an urge.

I frantically shook my head. No, I didn’t remember. I didn’t want to remember anything.

Something dark and mountainous appeared in my peripheral vision, and an odious smell singed my nostrils. My head snapped to the left. Stacks upon stacks of plates and bowls mounded the kitchen sink, each crawling with maggots that were falling to the floor in white, wriggling heaps.

Nausea boiled in my stomach; horror brimmed my eyes.

I quickly turned away, my eyes meeting green again. His face was no longer stained with blood, and his hair was dry, shiny, and golden with life. I was as speechless as my face was drained of blood.

He took one more step toward me, but this time I didn’t back away, either frozen with fear or desperation for one last experience of closeness with him. My heart thrummed as he reached out to cup my face. It isn’t him, it isn’t him, it isn’t him, I repeated madly in my head. Oh, but it felt so much like him when his warm hand met my skin.

“I told you I’m always with you, sweetheart,” he murmured. And I knew engaging with him, in whatever form he took, affirmed my mental unwellness, but I couldn’t stop from leaning into his touch anyway. “Remember that.”

My cheeks were wet with tears. “I love—”

A bolt of lightning flashed, and thunder boomed throughout the house.

I was back in my bed.

My eyelids were heavy with sleep as they fluttered open. I felt detached, destabilised, and unsure of my existence in the world for I wasn’t sure which of the twoI was currently in. Real or fake?

A few minutes went by before I managed to get a grip on reality, which, in fact, was the real one. The Somewhere Bad. I pinched the corners of my eyes, not only finding them damp with fresh tears but also realising that my right hand—previously tucked beneath my head—was numb.

None of it had been real…

The entire time, my body was trying to alert me, to save me from the inescapable heartache I would feel upon waking. He hadn’t held me in his arms. He hadn’t cupped my cheek nor helped me wash the dishes. He wasn’t here. He wasn’t anywhere (not even in his own marked grave because there was nothing left of him to be buried).

Even despite seeing the familiar tall outline standing in the doorway, his features illuminated with each flash of lightning, I knew it wasn’t really him.

Rain was pummelling the roof, almost loud enough to subdue the perpetual rumbling of thunder (apart from the one sky-splitting thunderclap that had woken me). In another time, I would’ve been scared—of the raging storm, of my phantom lover who was watching from the shadows of our bedroom. But not now.

In recent months, I had found that no emotion, not even fear, surpassed the soul-crushing realisation that you have irretrievably lost the one thing you lived for.

On a defeated whim, and for the first time since his death, I let the singular, weighted word breeze past my lips.

“Finnick.”

It was a trembling plea, a desperate beckon.

And he indulged.

His footsteps were silent as he walked towards the bed. I couldn’t see his legs from my position, prompting me to wonder if he even had legs at all. Or did he only have legs when I could see them? That would then insinuate that if I couldn’t see him at all, he didn’t exist.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? In my case, the answer was simple: no, it didn’t.

It wasn’t really Finnick. It wasn’t even his ghost. It was my mind.

He reached the bed’s edge, and I scooted over to my side of the mattress, allowing him enough space to lie down on his. His weight neither dipped nor shook the bed as he laid down and turned on his side to face me. His eyes were sad, and I’m sure mine were too. We stared at each other for a long, long time, long enough for my fatigued body to start playing tricks on me.

If I focused hard enough, I thought I could hear the sound of his breathing (the wind was picking up outside), feel the warmth of his skin spreading onto the sheets (the remnants of my own body heat were left behind each time I moved), and smell the musky scent of cologne and sea-salted hair (the sleeves of his sweater were tucked beneath my nose).

Maybe for a moment—just one sickly, self-indulgent moment—I could pretend it was really him.

I inhaled deeply through my nose. “You really weren’t kidding when you said you would haunt the next owner of this house,” I whispered as light-heartedly as I could, my voice obscured by the heavy rain pouring onto the roof.

He smiled, and it was one of the most heart-wrenchingly beautiful things I had ever seen. I think I might have given him one in return, though I couldn’t be too sure because the concept of smiling had become so foreign. The last time I was truly happy was… the last night we spent together. In each other’s arms, safe and warm and together.

And then he was gone. Just like that.

Cressida, whom I had only spoken to once in Thirteen when the war ended, was the one to tell me how it happened. Katniss was too personal, too close to him; Peeta’s instability rendered conversation futile. So, I had asked Cressida to tell me every detail—every expression on his face, every word he screamed. I don’t know why. Maybe it was so I could cling onto those last few minutes where he was still alive and breathing, despite dying and bleeding; or so I could replay the moment over and over in my head, as if somehow, someway, I could change his fate.

“He talked about you all the time,” she had told me. “Actually, I don’t think he ever spoke of anything but you. No one minded, though. While we were out there, no one ever really smiled, but every time your name was mentioned, Finnick would get this great big grin on his face, and it was impossible not to look at him and start smiling as well.

So, we all started asking questions about you: ‘What colour is her hair? Her eyes? Where did you meet? What are her hobbies?’—just to see him smile… A week passed, and it was like we all knew you inside out. It was all we could do to hang on to some shred of happiness, even if it meant talking about a girl who, to all of us, was a stranger.”

I was inconsolable after that.

She kept talking, but my sobs had drowned out most of her words, so much that I had asked her to retell me everything later in the day, despite inducing the same outcome. So, she told it to me again, just as she did the day after that and the day after that and so on until I returned home to District Four.

“He also spoke about how you never felt comfortable living in the Victors Village. He had this idea that the two of you would move somewhere far away, outside the borders of District Four­, though he emphasised remaining by the sea was very important—something about how you looked while swimming during sunset and the water was all sparkly around you.”

At this point, she had been holding my hand, knowing full well how debilitating it was for me to hear. Then she had spoken with a quiet incredulity and a facial expression to match, as though she’d never encountered a love like ours before. “He wanted to build a house for you…”

He wanted to build a house for you.

And now he never would. Our love was too ephemeral for that to happen; destined to remain history; to be a memory.

Finnick's eyes stared into mine, the green hue now a dark grey from the overshadowing dimness of the room.

“I would’ve gone anywhere with you,” I whispered to him, placing my hand on the sheets between us. “I would’ve travelled thousands of miles away from this place. Would’ve lived in solitary, just the two of us, for the rest of our lives.” A warm tear tickled the bridge of my nose. His eyebrows scrunched together in shared anguish. “God, Finn, I miss you,” my voice broke. “I miss you so much.”

I contemplated crying, sobbing, screaming, or begging for him to come back, but I was just too tired. All my energy had been spent on grievance throughout the following day, and my eyes were growing heavier by the second as my body was sinking further into a state of relaxation.

Between slow blinks, I watched Finnick’s large hand move to rest atop my own, and at that point, I knew sleep would soon catch me because I swear I could feel his warm touch.

Images flashed through my mind—incomprehensible and melting together, yet somehow still graspable.

Sky blue water rippling with calm waves, the surface glittering in the setting sun. A white stonewall cottage fronted by soft, white sand and tall palm trees. Two plates of fruit-filled yoghurt and scrambled eggs on toast. Three pairs of footprints in the sand, one larger, one smaller, and another between them so delicately tiny I could fit them into the palm of my hand.

Sea-green eyes above me. Golden hair tangled between my fingers. Finnick standing in the wooden doorway of our white stonewall cottage wearing a cream-white sweater and rolled-up slacks. Finnick grinning deeply and then throwing his head back with laughter. Finnick standing in front of our bed, taking my hand in his and guiding me towards him. Finnick. Finnick. Finnick. Finnick. Finnick.

Finnick holding our child.

I was between worlds now, both indistinguishable from the other. My eyelids were drooping, and I was quickly growing insensate. Just before my eyes closed completely, I saw Finnick’s—he who wasn’t really my Finnick—lips move. It wasn’t in my bleak reality in which I heard him speak, but rather in my mind, and God, did his words offer the sweetest relief.

“I’ll see you when you fall asleep.”

[taniushka12]

THIS DOESNT GO INTO THE PITCH BUT I NEED TO TALK ABOUT IT

since this is a prequel i suppose you can watch it w/o spoiling much but this is a short minishow that aired around the time the game came out to promote it:

it tells about some Strange Happenings in the town and i think its great, the atmosphere is fantastic and it really nails down how creepy some of the things happening in the game would look like in real life

theres also two comics that tie in with later events of the game, Night Springs and Psycho Thriller which i wont talk about but are post episode 4 and 5 and both are very good as well 😌😌😌

theres more stuff that tie with the og game but i havent checked them out yet u_u

pitch alan wake to me? 👀

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

alan wake is a horror/action game from 2010 about the titular character alan wake, a writer with some serious case of writer's block (🍻), who goes on vacations with his wife alice to this lovely little cabin in the middle of a lake, next to a town in the middle of the woods, Bright Falls. Before the day ends, however, alice is attacked by an unseen force that drags her to the bottom of the lake, alan diving in right after....

next thing you know BAM you (alan) apparently crashed your car on the road, you have no memory whatsoever on how you ended up like that, your wife is still missing and (!!!) strange people (and birds) engulfed in shadows are stalking you and attacking you AND (???) you're finding these pages scattered around the forest not only detailing events that are happening, or Will Happen, but also are apparently written by YOU 🫵 AND NOT ONLY THAT, but at the end of the first episode you find out that you've been missing for an entire week, having zero memories of that week either, and oh that cozy little cabin i mentioned? doesnt exist. there hasn't been a cabin at the lake in forty years

gameplay wise is a p standard shooter ig where you point a flashlight at the enemies with right click and shoot em with the left when the darkness around em dissipates, simple enough, but the Real deal (after the story of course, with its twists and turns and very interesting characters too and a Handful of antagonists that i havent mentioned) lies in the collectibles: you're not only looking for the pages of your manuscript, but you can also find stuff like radio shows! which are a charming look to the town's inner life imo, or Night Springs episodes, twilight zone esque shorts that you can find here and there. example:

THERES ALSO music made by real life band poets of the fall, playing as fictional band old gods of asgard, that you can find in game :) (example 1, example 2) (you also meet the aforementioned band, two old brothers who are epic, honestly)

[back-on-my-bullshit-hahaha]

DPxDC Prompt

I've had this idea for a while (since seeing that art of Johnny and Kitty robbing a bank so Danny can get Top Surgery lol) but I haven't even had the brain to work on my own fic recently (sorry about that btw) so I'm writing this instead

So the concept:

T4T Johnny and Kitty, who died in the 80s after running away together.

Johnny was the kid of some rich asshole automobile mogul from Bristol, and Kitty was one of the workers' kids from the Narrows. They become friends, fall in love, both realize they're trans around the same time and then decide to run. They know that being trans on top of tax bracket difference gives them almost no chance of making it. Johnny steals a bike and a fuck-ton of money from his parents, and Kitty's parent(s) helps them leave.

They're still toxic and spiteful as hell, but nothing the other does can change the fact that they know and understand each other better than anyone else could.

They travel around the country being menaces together for a while until they decide to settle down in a strange city called Amity Park. They figured it could handle a couple more anomalies. But before they can get there, they get into a bike wreck with their final thoughts being of each other and Johnny specifically cursing his bad luck in life.

The next thing they know, they're in the infinite realms being given the chance to stay together and the freedom to simply exist with no strings attached. (Other than each other cause I firmly believe that they're mutually the others' obsession)

About 20 years have passed, a portal to their old world is permanently open and this scrawny little ass kid ghost that they've never even heard of keeps stopping them from going through it.

It isn't until Johnny actually starts paying attention a few months into it that he notices that first, the little shit can actually fight, and second, HE WAS FIGHTING THEM WITH A BINDER ON. (Johnny also vaguely wonders why Danny looks so much like his old neighbor Brucie, but that's a little Easter egg). Johnny lets out the universal ghost fight timeout signal and vaguely explains the situation to Danny, who seems confused about the noise he made and why it made him stop.

Johnny gets Kitty to spread the word that if the timeout isn't called off by the next morning, stay TF away until they get an all-clear.

That night, *after yelling at him a bit*, he starts teaching Danny how to reshape his ghost form to his preference and even his vocal cords.

From there, Johnny and Kitty sorta ghost adopt him as a sibling and then take him to Frostbite to make sure his T-shots are ecto compatible.

(I hope this was coherent it's 4am for me and I haven't slept lol)

[quitealotofsodapop]

AU idea: Wukong goes into labor with the stone egg WHILE he's fighting Macaque

Not sure which fight you mean honestly, but I assume you meant the "OG" fight back during the Journey days.

I imagine this all occurs likely in a version of the Jttw Stone Egged au where Macaque joins the gang after he found out.

Wukong and Macaque are fighting neck and neck when Macaque finally stops to listen to Wukong's shouts;

Wukong, in tears: "Macaque please! Don't make me do this! I'm with-" Macaque: "What's that weird noise??" Wukong: "Huh?" Macaque: "It sorta sounds like a... bag of water? With a heartbeat inside of- OHHHH!" Macaque: (*points at Wukong's pants*) Wukong: (*looks down and sees that his water has broken*) Both monkeys: (*start screaming!*)

Macaque drops his glamour immediately to tend to his mate.

Macaque: "I have so many questions! Who, why, and how long?!" Wukong, has Macaque's hand in a death-grip: "You, Mountain, 500 years." Macaque, mental gears turning: "Huh!?! How did- ohhh wait... self-spawning. If I had kept coming and fed you peaches you wouldn't have-" Wukong: "Yeah!" Macaque: "And since I wa- Am your mate the kid would be-" Wukong: "YEAH." Macaque, trying to lighten the mood: "Do I get visitation rights?" Wukong, voice deepening: "DON'T PUSH IT, BUD!"

Eventually the Pilgrims and Guanyin catch up (the Bodhisattva heard that water break from across the sea), and see the Six Eared Macaque has completely dropped his Monkey King glamour and is trying his best to keep the real Sun Wukong's breathing steady.

Guanyin quickly gets to work; bringing Wukong to somewhere nice and warm and dry to have the baby. They suggest that the reappearance of the other parent (i.e Macaque) caused the Egg to prematurely decide to make itself known.

Bonus if this is the first time certain Pilgrims (besides a wise dragon-dragon) heard of such a thing XD

Ao Lie, excited: "It's already happening!? Congratulations!!" Wukong: "Thanks Lie, but I'd prefer to get the kid out before you all start thanking me." Zhu Bajie, oblivious: "Wait what kid!? They heck is everyone talking about?!" Tripitaka: (*hyperventilating into his hat like it's a paper bag*) Sha Wujing: "I suppose well wishes are in order! Did Brother Wukong drink from the same river and choose to decline the cure?" Wukong: "No, it's HIS fault." (*jabs thumb at Macaque*) Macaque: (*blushing, waves nervously at his mate's Pilgrim brothers*) Ao Lie, breaking the tension: "So this is your Equal in Strength you've been telling us about!" Macaque, slight smugness: "That's what you've been calling me?" Wukong, gritting teeth from pain: "Not now Mihou..."

Macaque stays at Wukong's side the whole time, even as his instincts are going nuts, snarling at the Pilgrims if they dare approach. And even when his hand was definitely broken by Wukong's grip during a really bad contraction.

The rest of the Pilgrims meditate and pray for Wukong and the baby's health. Ao Lie makes a point of chilling in his dragon form to scare off any passing creatures or people - dragons don't like being disturbed when they're laying an egg, and he imagines its the same for Stone Monkeys.

After a lot of pushing and encouragement, a tiny egg makes itself known, cracking open shortly thereafter.

What lies within?

A chirpy, chubby-faced baby monkey with glowing (Macaque starts crying then) ears and dark fur - the little thing's cries sounding indignant as if they'd been awakened from a long sleep. Guanyin makes a point to gather the citrine and amethyst-imbedded shell of the newborn for the parents to keep.

Wukong and Macaque can't even remember what they were fighting about earlier - all that matters is the clinging baby on Wukong's chest. Little thing is a bit smaller than expected due to their premature birth, but they're healthy and hungry.

The rest of the Pilgrims are allowed in after everything is cleaned up and Macaque's hand has been bandaged.

First thing out of anyone's mouth is;

Zhu Bajie: "I thought monkeys had litters?" Wukong, growling: "Don't jinx me."

So yeah, now the Journey has a newborn baby and it's dad along for the ride.

[fire-lizard-ro]

Dragon Dan Heng + Oviposition

Warning: oviposition, non-human anatomy things, oral, rut cycles, feral behavior, biting, belly bulge, breeding, copious amounts of cum, cumplay????, plugging??? tf do I call it-, author rambling again with little coherency, top character

GN reader I think.

NSFW under the cut:

He- Oml we're going with the combo of one cock + oviposition + internal sheath thing + ribbed dick.

Oml so if we go the egging route... God he's whining as the eggs make their way into his cock from whatever internal pouch he has. Moaning like a pornstar and grinding into your hole as they slide through his cock and stretch out his dick's slit to make themselves at home inside you with a spurt of precum. There's LOTS of that, making your insides already messy before he even cums. The size of the egg has your belly feeling bloated already. But by the time he's done, your tummy has been rounded out like you're already months pregnant and then he's emptying his cum inside of you on top of that to fertilize the eggs. When he's filling you with his eggs, his teeth are likely latched into your shoulder. He really didn't mean to he's just so far gone that he did it without thinking about it. :(( He just wanted to lay claim on you in more way than one with that rut brain of his. :(( Secretly but not so secretly because of how he looks at it later likes the marks on you.

You can feel free to add this into your fantasy or not, but personally- Sometimes I think about how his internal egg pouch where he keeps the eggs (grows them??? tf-) ends up bloated by the time his rut comes around. Sorta makes sense because how else would big eggs fit in his body to put into you? Like I imagine he has a flat belly until getting close to his rut and suddenly his lower belly is swelling with eggs that he just has to put in you once it's time. Please won't you let him breed you? :((

Sometimes this idea shows up in my fantasies and sometimes it doesn't. As most things go with dragon Dan Heng in my head.

Also random thing about his large pecker dick: I think it might have a thinner tip. Like... it's mostly the same size all the way down with only the slightest of tapering, but then right at the tip it tapers a lot. Like not even an inch before the tip it does that. Also I still like the idea of it being ribbed. :D

Also oml there's something obscene about the way the eggs also stretch out not only his cock but the opening of his sheath oifjsoegi- Once again pushing the internal sheath agenda.

I think that as long as he doesn't fertilize them, they won't grow or anything. So you'll just lay them later on. Always very sweet with you whether you're laying unfertilized eggs or birthing the eggs that will eventually hatch. Will soothingly rub your belly and hold your hand. Might reach in to help coax the eggs out. If they aren't fertilized, it means he doesn't have to be as careful with them and just uses his claws to gently pull them out fjsije- This makes me think that he probably takes them out after his rut is over because he'd wanna keep them in to pacify (god there was another word I was gonna use-) his Need to Breed TM.

But ye when he's done filling you with his eggs and cum, he's watching the way his cum spills out of your thoroughly bred hole and will gather it back up to finger it back in. Probably cups his hand on your hole to keep it in before putting a plug in you to keep all that thick cum in you. Slides his fingers in your mouth to have you clean them off but then licks his tongue into your mouth because he wants to taste the mixture of his and your cum in your mouth.

Talked about aftercare last time, but now I'll add a lil more and say that with rut it's not just fucking. His dragon rut brain tells him to take care of you and protect you, his mate. So he's also making sure you're drinking water, fed, and warm. Will feed you by hand and help you drink your water. If you're into it, maybe he even puts the water into his own mouth to give to you. Possibly because you're too fucked out to even drink it when he puts the cup or waterbottle to your lips. Probably does a fucking perimeter check of the room because his rut brain demands he makes sure it's safe before he snuggles up with you and you have an armful of purring dragon to help you fall asleep.

Wrote this and then did not read through it so there maybe typos and things that don't make sense whoops.

Will check it later.

[paper-mario-wiki]

PLEASE share the pancake recipe!!!

ingredients (eyeballed measurements, you can do this):

pancake mix (buttermilk mix bought from farmer Bob who has a corn maze outside of seattle)

milk

1 or 2 egg whites per serving (you can determine what that means, i trust your judgement)

i preheat my stove to a little over medium. like in the 5-7 range.

pour the milk into the buttermilk mix until it's like, as thick as a smoothie. it doesnt have to be perfectly smooth, and actually wouldn't benefit from it either.

crack an egg but open it upward so that the contents dont spill out. then, over the bowl, pour the yolk back and forth between the two pieces of shell. after a few times, the yolk will separate from the whites, which will fall out and into the bowl.

then you feed the yolk to Scarlet, my dog, with her breakfast kibble.

i whip the egg whites in a cereal bowl with a fork. the whole point of whipping the whites is to trap air in them, until they basically turn into a foam. keep that in mind while you're mixing, and try to trap air in the mixture. imagine you're a taffy puller. ya know, pulling taffy. same principle. use the arm you jerk off with, as it's probably stronger and has the same basic muscle memory for this task.

after they're nice n foamy, add them to the batter, but don't mix or whip it in. as much as you can, gently fold the two concoctions together. you don't wanna pop all those bubbles you just made.

i like to hold a stick of butter and draw all over the pan to coat it in a semi-generous amount of butter, which will make the skin super crispy as it sorta fries in it.

the old "wait until the bubbles on the back of the pancake pop to flip it" rule doesnt really work here, since the thing is basically gonna be bubbling and foaming and popping IMMEDIATELY, so INSTEAD:

wait until the batter is only 40% shiny on top, as a lot of the pancake is going to cook through very quick since the batter is basically a dense network of very thin bubble walls.

after flipping, give it about 70% of the time you gave it on the first side to properly finish up the bottom.

i suggest pairing with bacon and hashbrowns.

[bigfan-fanfic]

Star Shower (Batdad Pokemon Fanfic)

Can you do a fic where the batboys seeing batdad do a pokemon contest performance for the first time in real life? Batdad used to be a top pokemon coordinator and sorta quietly stopped being a coordinator because of Bruce disappearing and the whole family of vigilantes and having to take care Wanye Enterprise. Now that the batboys are adults and (mostly) stop vigilante-ing, batdad decided to re-debut.

Bruce, of course, leads the family down the red carpet.

He's so very proud of his husband. He has always felt a little guilty about the fact that you had to take an early retirement from your Coordinator career to run Wayne Enterprises and watch over the family after he came back.

But now you're back in full form, and the press is on fire, calling it "The Return of the King" and other such dramatic claims.

You were known for the powerful combination of your Lucario and Gardevoir - a glorious display of simple martial prowess combined with psychic illusions and effects.

But there's been a surprising development.

Instead of Lucario, you've registered with Gardevoir and Cubone.

The very same Cubone you raised from an egg.

People are intrigued, knowing you're bringing something completely new, but totally unable to keep from speculating.

"B, did you ever go to one of Pops' shows?" Dick asks. He, Bruce, Tim, and Barbara head down the carpet - Jason and Damian and the others have sought out a more discreet entrance.

"I did, once, before I left for training. It was... beautiful. He actually pulled me onstage and kissed me in public for the first time, after the performance. Honestly, I can't recall much about that show, but I remember the cologne he wore that night." Bruce sighs happily.

Tim rolls his eyes. "Some help you are. I still don't know what we're going to see tonight."

"I sent you a whole file of Contest performances last month to get you up to speed!" Barbara protests. "Do you... mute the group chat?"

"It's just not as fun now that it's... just a normal family chat."

Dick laughs. "I don't think we're that normal, Timmy."

They do a few short sound bites for the press, making it clear that tonight they are here for you. And backstage, Jason and Damian have come to give you good luck hugs.

"Awwww, my baby boys." You chuckle.

"Papa, are you sure you'll be alright that Brown and Cain and the Rows and Thomas won't-"

"Don't remind him of that!" Jason growls. "He doesn't need-"

"It'll be fine. Alfred's watching them all, and I don't blame them for avoiding the press. It doesn't mean they aren't with me." You smile. "Plus, I know Tim will be recording it for them."

Jason hugs you. "Go get em, Dad."

You smile softly, then look down to Damian. "Dami? You alright?"

Damian gives you a little shaky smile. "I suppose I'm just... excited, is all. To see you perform."

"Me too, kiddo. Go find your seats, okay? I want you to make sure you stick by your dad. You know he gets anxious when you're all out in public."

As they head back, you don the classic hat and tailored suit you were known for as a young Coordinator, adjusted and updated for the man you are now.

And you walk out on stage to thunderous applause from the audience - the loudest cheers from your family. The other Coordinators flourish on their entrance, throwing their Pokeballs into the air wildly, but you simply open your hands and let them exit. A little shy to debut, Cubone tries to hide behind you, but Gardevoir lifts the little thing up with psychic power into your arms for a quick cuddle, making the audience "awwww."

Eventually the show continues, each Coordinator doing their set, leaving you for last. Which definitely sets them on edge, you can tell.

But you're here because you wanna show the world that you didn't lose yourself all those years ago.

You start out cross-legged on the stage, sitting down. Cubone cuddles in your lap before tumbling out, seemingly eager to show you something.

The audience gives a little chuckle at the orchestrated adorable tumble.

Cubone withdraws a large bone and begins to slowly swing it around, twirling it like a baton. And when it tosses the bone into the air, it... lifts.

And then another, and another. Seven bones float in a large oval, continuing to revolve faster and faster as they spin across the stage.

The spotlight darkens, as light fractures behind you both - the stage becoming a prismatic field of light. Gardevoir appears, floating in the middle of the circle of spinning bones.

Cubone gives an excited cry and hurls a Bonemerang and one by one the bones break open in bursts of glitter powder, which swirl and swirl like a nebula forming into a planetary ring.

Gardevoir twirls in midair, the center of the nebula, and sends the shining rainbow powder running down to the stage-

-only for Cubone to use Icy Wind to freeze the powder in midair, making a beautiful mix of rainbow and snow, in an intricate swirl as Gardevoir manipulates the crystal formation.

As a grand finale, Gardevoir levitates Cubone into the center of a globe formed of ice and glitter, only for it to use Earth Power, bursting out in green and gold light, dissolving the ice and sending the glitter drifting like stardust across the audience.

There's a moment of stunned silence. And then in a great wave, the audience stands, and as they applaud, you see your husband practically glowing with pride and awe.

Of course, you win the Contest, and you hold your Cubone close in reward. The press calls it the greatest Contest Comeback of all time, but you're too busy watching your family gently praise your shy little Cubone and elegant Gardevoir.

And your husband never leaves your side the rest of the night.

[lacroixwh0r3]

The First Taste (p.2)

DBF!Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: It's the second day at the lake and you meet some people that live in the neighborhood.

Warnings: SMUT!!! DUB CON (sorta? Just gonna leave it to be safe), heavy sexual tension, pet names, age gap (Joel is 36 and reader is 21), masturbation (F and M), voyeurism, daddy kink, dom!Joel, Joel is a perv and an asshole, cursing, Bill, Frank, and Tess appearance, use of Y/N (1x), jealousy, degradation, no outbreak

Song inspo (feel free to read if you want): Skin by Mac Miller

PART 1 PART3

A/N: I am sooo sorry for taking so long with this one, life has been crazy and weird, but I already have plans for the next part hehe. Also, this is probably all over the place...I wrote some parts of this high lol

Please share, comment, like, and reblog...enjoy my pookies!<3

Trying to act normal around Joel was a bit of a struggle for you.

It was the second day of the trip and he was completely normal during breakfast—he laughed and joked with everyone, seeming a little more lively than the day before. It didn't seem like he had seen or heard anything last night. And if he did, he was being very closed—lipped about the whole thing, which you were grateful about that because you'd probably die from embarrassment.

Sarah had done the honors of waking up early and making breakfast this morning, which consisted of pancakes and eggs. It was something simple and everyone enjoyed it, meanwhile, you could hardly touch your plate. Not because the food wasn't good, but because you were too occupied with staring at Sarah's dad, the man you had fantasized about the night before. It seemed that no one was even paying attention so you assumed that no one would notice your lingering eyes.

Unbeknownst to you, Maria had quickly caught onto your crush on the older Miller brother, yet she never said anything. Not even to Tommy, her husband. She sat there quietly as she watched you watching him. She really thought nothing of it other than a simple crush and from what she could tell from Joel's stoic attitude, the feelings were not mutual. However, Maria didn't know that Joel was beginning to grow a desire for you—he could hide it better than you.

You were glad that Sarah has been too busy typing away on her phone to even pay attention.

“Y’all had fun last night?” Joel asked as he peered over at the three that went out last night, but mainly looking over at Maria. 

Joel was interested in their night, but he also knew how Tommy was after a few drinks. After Tommy and Maria had gotten married, it was obvious that he matured, but he still had his moments.

“It was lots of fun—there was good live music and good drinks there,” Maria said to him as the other two just nodded their heads in agreement.

"We actually ran into Bill and Frank while we were there, they were with a friend...what was her name again?" Tommy asked as he tried to recall the unknown woman's name.

Joel didn't know much about Bill and Frank outside of the fact that they were married and lived next door. During the very brief encounter with the two yesterday, he could tell that Frank was the outgoing one out of the two and Bill was more reserved and not too keen on strangers—Joel didn't blame him, he was the same way too.

"Her name was Tess." Your father reminded Tommy as he took a quick sip of his coffee.

"Right, it was Tess!" Tommy said before speaking up again, "I think you'd like her, Joel...she's your type." he said slowly to his older brother.

This instantly piqued everyone's interest—Sarah's head had snapped up from her phone, while your eyebrows raised with surprise. Joel didn't need any convincing because he instantly shook his head after Tommy said that, letting him know that he wasn't interested.

"Oh come on, Dad!"

"You can't be serious."

"Joel!"

With these responses from Sarah, your dad, and Tommy at the same, Joel scowled at them. Meanwhile, you just sat there silently as you picked at the food on your plate with your fork. For some reason, you were happy that Joel had turned down Tommy's suggestion.

"Tommy is right, Joel, I think you and her would get along well and she's beautiful," Maria shrugged at Joel. "You should meet her and get to know her first."

He hadn't dated in a very long time and hadn't been interested in dating either. He decided that he would agree to get everyone off his back

"Fine, I'll meet her," Joel said as he put his head down and looked up at you. From the corner of Joel's eyes, he can see his daughter and Tommy high-five each other from across the table, while you looked at him with an unreadable expression.

You didn't think that he would agree that easily, but it didn't matter. You couldn't get jealous over someone who isn't yours.

"Great! Tommy and I will go over there to invite them over for this evening and we'll be sure to tell them to invite Tess," Maria winks at Joel.

Before Joel could respond, he was interrupted by Sarah's phone. it began to blow up with messages by the second. Sorry—she said as tried to silence it until eventually, the person called her, making her answer the phone before telling the person on the other line to hold on. Joel was about to scold her until she cut him off, "I gotta take this, I'll be right back. Girl problems!" she tells him with a sheepish expression as she hopped off her chair and started to loudly to talk to the person on the phone as she walked up the stairs to her room.

You all heard her yell into the phone to her friend about some boy before her words became intelligible. You stifled your laugh as you watched the look of defeat washed over Joel's face and he shook his head.

"That girl," Joel whispered, making everyone at the table laugh a bit. When he heard you laugh, he looked at you with a cocked eyebrow, and you did the same.

The split moment between the two of you was briskly intervened by your dad.

"What did you two get into last night?"

You were about to make up some bullshit lie about what you had done last night before you stopped yourself and began to internally freak out because you remembered that Joel caught you smoking weed yesterday and he could easily tell your dad right now if he wanted to. You looked over at Joel with silent pleading eyes not to tell your dad what he saw, but he just looked at you with a blank stare as he proceeded to answer your dad's question.

"Nothing really, I think this one found out there's a balcony connected to her room, you should ask her about it," Joel said before finishing the rest of his food on his plate as he looked over at you. You felt everyone turn their attention to you, making you feel like your heart felt like it was going to jump out of your chest after Joel said that.

"Oh yeah? How was it, honey?" Your dad asked.

You felt like you had the words guilty written across your forehead, lying was not your strongest suit. You looked around the table and gulped down your spit, noting how amused Joel looked as he watched you become a nervous wreck.

You realized how insane you must've looked at that moment and cleared your throat before speaking up, "it was cool," you said in a composed manner.

"It was just 'cool'?" Your dad asked you, confused by your short response.

There you go again, embarrassing yourself in front of Joel.

"I mean the view was really nice from there, I liked it a lot," you shrugged. Your dad let out a hum, letting you know he was a little more satisfied with your response, making you relax. You looked over at Joel to see him looking at you with a discreet smug look on his face.

...

You had eventually finished their breakfast, to which Joel offered to wash everyone's dishes. Your dad got up from the table with a groan as he grumbled about going to the couch to rest for a bit, while Tommy and Maria headed over to Bill and Frank's house.

You decide to help Joel bring the dishes over to the sink.

"I can help you with that," You tell Joel as placed the mugs down and stood next to him by the sink, grabbing the drying towel that sat on the counter before looking up at him

"I got this, darlin'. You go sit and relax yourself," he said reassured you, yet you made no attempt to move. You shamelessly checked out Joel, watching as he focused on the dish, not even sparing you a glance. He could feel your gaze on him, but he said nothing to you. You peaked down and saw as he gripped the plate with his strong hand as the other rubbed the soap around the plate, the suds were dripping down his wet hand.

You pushed whatever thoughts that were about to appear in your head and looked back up at Joel. "It's fine, Joel. You wash, I'll dry," You tell him. He stops scrubbing before looking back at you, letting out a sigh, and going back to what he was doing.

You said nothing to him as you dried the dishes and Joel said nothing to you as well. There was this weird, awkward tension that lingered between you two. You got a feeling that Joel wanted to say something, he was just waiting on the right time to say it. You decided to break the silence first.

"Thanks for-um-for not saying anything to my dad, by the way,"

"That was nothing, sweetheart. Didn't wanna get you in trouble," was all he said. You weren't sure what to say after that so it went back to being silent.

Joel rinsed off the plate then passed it to you before clearing his throat and speaking up. "So, uh, how'd you sleep last night?" He asked you lowly and passed the plate to you. As you open your mouth to respond and go to reach for the plate, your body stills and your words get stuck in your throat. You had registered what he had said to you.

He was so casual with his words; to anyone else in this house, it didn't seem like anything, it was just Joel asking about you. However, you both knew there was a deeper meaning.

Joel new favorite thing was making you flustered-saying things to you that would catch you off guard and just leaving you hanging. He absolutely loved it.

"Oh come one, sweetheart, I asked you a question. It would be rude not to answer me," he said teasingly as he pushed the plate toward you some more so that you could take it.

You slowly reach for it as you watched him from the corner of your eyes, afraid to even turn your head to him. "I-I slept pretty well. Wha-what about you?" You asked him. You were nervous as hell and you could feel your hands shaking, so you decided to start drying the wet plate in your hand to cover it up.

"Me too, sweetheart," he said to you. You thought that was going to be the end of that conversation, but no, he kept going. "You know what though?" He asked you before turning to face you, got close, and bent his head down slightly to catch your eyes, but never did because your eyes were laser-focused on the now dry plate in your hand. You could feel his warm body close to yours.

"I was sitting on that balcony last night and heard some strange noises comin' from your room, had t'make sure you were alright before I went to bed." He said as he began to speak you again, "but I'm sure you were too busy to notice, right, darlin'?"

Kill me, you thought to yourself, just fucking kill me.

He was right, you were too busy too notice, but you refused to admit that to Joel. Just as you were about to lie to him again, you think back to the night before when he had called you out on lying to him about smoking.

You sat the plate down with the other plates and looked up at Joel, "I don't know what you're talking about," you say innocently as you turn your head to look at him and gave a tight, faux smile, which he returned as well.

This motherfucker.

"Mmm, I'm sure you don't, sweetheart." He says before the phony smile dropped from his face as he got closer to you. Your eyes flicker over to where your dad was sitting, making sure that he didn't see what was going on, before going back to Joel's dark ones.

"But I know what I saw when I looked in that room. I saw the way you fingering that wet cunt, moaning my name," he whispered to you menacingly. You suddenly feel his damp finger gliding across the back of your arm, causing goosebumps to spread around your body. You tried to move put some distance between the two of you, but he followed. "Cummin' all over those fingers while you thought of me."

There is no way your dad's friend is admitting that he watched you finger fuck yourself, while you moaned his name at that. It didn't feel real to you.

You had yet to say anything back to Joel, so he kept going. "Made me cum so hard in my hand. I couldn't help myself, you looked so perfect touching yourself." Instantly, you gasped loudly before looking over at your dad again, and luckily he wasn't paying a lick of attention. The sound of the running water must've covered it up.

Joel's confession should've disgusted you, but it didn't—in fact, it turned you on a lot. Some sick part of you liked that he jerked off while watching you.

Finally, you had gotten the courage to speak up. "You're a sick fucking bastard, Joel," you told him as you push his arm from you and your face scrunched with false disgust. "A sick pervert," You spit out at him as you turn your body to him and point close to his face.

You refused to feed his ego, which was already inflated.

Your words did nothing to him, not even a little bit. "Oh, honey..." he said as his large hand rested on your lower back, "You were the one moanin' my name last night, but I'm the pervert? Now that ain't fair," Joel smirked.

You scoff before you speak again. "Get your hands off me now before I tell my dad."

Instead of letting you go, Joel pulls you into his body, making your hands come up to his chest so you can push away. Still, he didn't budge and kept pulling you closer to the point you could feel the hardness of his cock against your stomach.

What a sick man he is.

"Do it, baby, and I'll tell 'em all about what I saw and heard last night," he says as his hand drifts down to get a quick squeeze of your ass.

"You liked thinkin' about me fuckin' you? Makin' you squirm while you cum all over my fat cock." He whispered. You saw how Joel's eyes darkened with desire as he said this. Truthfully, it was giving you a strong indescribable feeling deep down in your stomach, reaching your core.

For a brief moment, the disgusted expression on your face faltered, your eyes had batted open and shut, and you let out a shaky sigh as you looked up at Joel—hopeful that he hadn't seen your quick moment of weakness. Except, he did. You looked back up at him only to see him deeply observing your face with a small smirk on his face as if he had just accomplished something great.

"You liked that?" He asked you cockily with his hand still resting on your ass. You just rolled your eyes at him as you tried to push yourself away from him a second time. "You like it when I talk to you like that?"

You didn't even have to answer him because he already knew the answer.

"You need to let me go before someone catches us, Joel," You tried to change the subject, but this only made his smirk bigger.

"Aw come on, sweetheart, no one is gonna see us," Joel insisted before looking over at your dad. "They're all doin' their own thing

His actions after this had caught you off guard.

You can feel his big hand trail up your body, while his other one still rested on your ass to keep you close to him; going from the back of your waist to the front and going up to your breasts, giving them a quick, firm squeeze as he cupped them over your shirt. You whimpered as you looked down at the sight between you and looked back up at him.

Joel's hand moved up again, but this time he wrapped his fingers around your neck. He loved the softness of your neck against his rough calloused hand.

His long fingers flexed around your neck, growing firmer as he held your face up at an angle just under your jaw as he bent down. "Or I can take you upstairs if you want..." Joel's grip tightened some more. "Make sure to take my time with you, darlin'," He said as your eyes nearly rolled to the back of your head. Not because of his hand around your throat—Joel made sure he wasn't choking you to death, but because of his words.

Joel had this seductive nature about him and it was obvious that he knew how to use it to his full advantage. He could probably get you to do anything he wanted.

Fuck—you couldn't believe that you were actually thinking about saying yes to Joel after the way he spoke to you. But again, there was some sick part of you that got a kick out of the way he spoke to you. You weren't exactly sure what it was about Joel that you allowed him to speak to you this way, but if this were anyone else, you were sure that you would have absolutely freaked out on them.

"Fuck, Joel," you whined as you felt him inhale the scent of your perfume that you spritzed a little below your ear earlier this morning.

"Mmm, you smell so good, baby, just wanna taste you," He murmured, taking in your scent. His mouth was so close to your neck, you wanted him to place his plush lips onto it. You wanted to feel the prickly feeling of his facial hair on your neck while he sucked, licked, and kissed it.

"Sweetheart!" You heard your dad call out, instantly pulling you out of the half-conscious state that Joel had you in. Your eyes shot wide open as quickly pushed Joel away from you, making release your neck and causing him almost fall to the ground as he stumbled back. Shit—he cursed out as he caught himself. You really didn't mean to push him that hard, but you were deathly afraid of your dad catching sight of his closest friend choking his daughter behind his back.

"Uh-yeah? I mean, yes, dad?"" You said as you scrambled to fix your clothes and make yourself seem as normal as possible. The adrenaline rush made you feel like your heart was damn near beating out of your chest and made your hands shake with fear.

"Y'all still ain't done with the dishes yet?" He asked, making you tried to voice out some lame excuse, but was unable to. Instead, all you could do was make these odd sounds.

"Anyway, you don't mind gettin' me a glass of water, do you? This damn headache won't go away," he groaned out. You felt relief at the fact that he couldn't hear the nervousness in your voice.

"N-No, I'll-uh-get it for you in a sec," You told him as you looked over at Joel. He just looked at you with a faint worrisome expression on his face—his breathing was just as hard. You gave him an apologetic look before getting the glass of water for your dad.

You made no attempt to look at Joel as you brushed past him, you were too ashamed to look his way. Your hand was still trembling as you walked over to your dad, who was sprawled out on the couch, and handed him the water.

"Here you go,"

"Thanks, sweetheart!" He gave you a weak smile before downing the water, to which you returned as well. You plopped down next to your dad on the large couch as you heard Joel shut the water off in the kitchen and shuffled his way up the stairs.

You sat there feeling guilty as your dad talked to you about whatever was on his mind.

Even though you and Joel didn't go all the way, it still wasn't right to think of him in that way or allow him to do those things to you. You decided that you were going to stop thinking about joel for good.

...

Bill and Frank were great, though Frank was a little more lively. The moment you greeted them Frank gave you a quick side hug with a bright smile on his face, which caught you be surprise, and Bill just stood awkwardly next his husband as he introduced himself to everyone.

And then there was Tess.

You along with Sarah watched the painful sight in front of you as her and Joel introduced themselves to each other. You tried not to listen to their conversation, but you were curious and you couldn't help it. They barely speaking a word to each other besides saying their names and where they were from, which made you a little happy because it meant Joel wasn't interested.

Thank god.

"Well, that was a fail," you heard Sarah say not-so quietly, making you let out a chuckle.

Then Tess came over to us, making you both straighten up. From the moment you met her, she was nothing but nice to you and Sarah. She introduced herself to the two of you, smiled, and shook your hands.

"I'm Sarah, Joel's daughter," Sarah beamed at her.

"It's nice to meet you, Sarah," Tess smiled warmly at the young girl before turning to you, "And what's your name, sweetheart?" She asked. Her calling you sweetheart caught you by surprise honestly.

"Oh, i'm Y/N...that man right there is my dad," you said as you pointed to your father who was a little behind Tess, making her laugh a bit.

"Well, it's lovely meeting you as well." She softly stroked your arm, causing you to tremble with nervousness. Just as she finished her sentence, your dad and Tommy suggested that all the older adults go and hang out in the back while there was still light, to which they all agreed.

"Hopefully I'll catch up with you girls later?" she asked. Sarah and you just nodded your head before she gave the two of you one last smile before walking to the back.

That was weird, you thought for a moment.

"Tess seems nice," you said now that the house was completely silent, making Sarah nod her head in agreement.

"Yeah, she did, too bad my dad didn't seem interested in her," she shook her head, "anyway, what do you wanna do now that it's just us?"

"Mmm," You tried to think about what you could do with her, "I think Maria has some cookie dough in the fridge, you wanna bake cookies and play card games?" You asked the young girl.

"Sure!"

The two of you walked to the kitchen—you grabbed the cookie dough from the fridge and the baking sheet from the bottom cabinet. "You mind preheating the oven?"

Sarah walked over to the oven before staring at it, confused on how to use it. "Um, I think you're gonna have to do it. I'm not sure how to even work this thing," she turned to you.

You let out a giggle as you go to preheat the oven. After you did that, you stood next to Sarah as you both began to place cookies onto the baking sheet.

"You know we're gonna have to make a lot, right?" Sarah giggles out.

"And why is that?"

"My dad is obsessed with chocolate chip cookies," She confessed to you, "he'd probably eat them all if you let him."

This made you laugh.

Joel Miller liking chocolate chip cookies came to somewhat as a surprise to you. He didn't seem like the type to enjoy sweets, but according to his daughter he did and you found it cute.

Once you two had finished putting the last pieces of cookie dough on the sheet, you picked it up and went to open the oven. "Can you put on a time for 15 minutes, please?" You asked her as you place them into the oven.

"Sure," Sarah then began the timer for the cookies right as you closed the oven.

"So what was up with that phone call you got earlier? Sounded pretty serious," you asked her as you sat down at the island next to her.

Sarah lets out a loud sigh before talking, "where do I even start," she groaned. She began to tell you all about the drama amongst her friend group—supposedly, her best friend, Lillian, got with their ex-best friend's current boyfriend and now it's a whole situation. Sometimes you would ask a question or even give your two cents about the situation.

"And you wanna know the kicker to all this? Him and Lillian used to date last year and our ex-best friend got with him while they were dating, so we kicked her out the friend group," Sarah tells you. As soon as you let out a dramatic gasp, the alarm for the fifteen minutes had went off.

You got up and went to the oven, "wait, why would Lillian get back with him again? That doesn't seem smart," You say as you grab the mits from the countertop and took the cookies out the oven.

"I don't know," Sarah sighs out, you couldn't help but to laugh at her frustration at the situation.

Teenagers are so funny.

"You guys are crazy," You tell her as you, "You should tell your friend to leave him alone, he seems like bad news,"

"I have, but she doesn't listen," Sarah said in a disappointed tone.

You just shrugged your shoulders, "cookies are done, we just gotta let them cool for a bit,"

Just as you were letting the cookies cool down, Sarah asked you about your high school experience. You began to tell her all about it—your friend group was small and you mostly stayed to yourself throughout the whole time there. You made sure to focus on your school work rather than getting wrapped up in the silly drama or with boys.

Bill walks into the house and asked where the bathroom was, which you point him to the direction where it was and he went on with his business.

A few minutes later, as you and Sarah were munching on the soft chocolate chip cookies, Bill comes back from the bathroom, "It smells delicious in here," he mumbles as he makes his way to the door.

"You can have some if you would like, Bill? We made sure to make enough for everyone," You told him as you give him a small smile.

"I shouldn't," he said reluctantly, but you quickly reassured him that he could have some if he wanted.

"Well if you insist," Bill grabs a napkin before taking two cookies and said a low thanks as he made his way outside with them.

"I bet they're all gonna come in here to get cookies," Sarah laughs as she finished up her cookie.

And she was right.

They all eventually crowded into the kitchen around the island as they devoured the cookies, nearly eating them all. In between their chews, they spoke loudly to each other.

You tried to engage in with conversation with them, but you were too busy watching Joel. You watched as he had his right arm wrapped loosely around his daughter's shoulders while the other one brought cookies up to his mouth—he looked relax right now.

And sexy too.

You didn't see that Tess was next to you until she spoke up.

"Thank you for the cookies by the way, they were really good," She said to you with a kind smile on her face as she looked at you. Her eyes lingered on your face for a little

"Oh-thanks! I-It was nothing really, we were just really bored and needed something to do," You laughed awkwardly, squirming with nervousness. You couldn't even make eye contact with her while speaking to her.

Tess made you feel nervous in ways that you couldn't describe. Not as nervous as Joel makes you, but close.

"No problem, sweetie,"

...

You were starting to fucking hate this.

Sitting here and pretending to not be affected by watching Joel flirt with the hot, older woman made you want to flip your shit.

You hated to admit it, but your dad and Tommy was right—Tess absolutely was Joel's type. She's hot, smart, a tough woman, yet she was kind, and most importantly, she is close in age to Joel. She was also kind of like the female version of Joel.

At first, there was this awkward tension between Tess and Joel that was almost hilarious to you, but it quickly dissolved as the evening progressed and the drinks began going, making it no longer funny to you.

You had to remind yourself that you decided to back off of Joel that morning, but whatever was happening between the two quickly made you forget about it.

After a little while of being around them in the kitchen after baking the cookies, you sat down on the couch to unwind for a bit. However, that quickly ended when Joel and Tess decided to join on the couch right across from you.

While everyone was still sitting around the kitchen island, listening to music and laughing, you were sipping on your beer and looking at them with no expression on your face.

You didn't even like beer, you just needed something to drink on right now.

Joel was relaxed as he spoke to her, with his muscular thighs spread wide open as he held onto the beer in between them while the other arm rested on the head of the couch. He looked so relaxed and comfortable talking to her.

Sometimes, your eyes would sweep down his body, causing you to catch sight of his pants-covered bulge. You weren't going to lie and say that you weren't looking because you absolutely were.

Next to him was Tess, she sat closely to him with her legs folded up on the couch as she faced Joel, giving him her undivided attention. They both spoke in hushed whispers to each other, occasionally letting out some laughs.

She looked so beautiful as she sat there attentively listening to Joel as she gave him a smirk and flipped her long hair to the side, giving him a view of her neck.

God, you hated how jealous this made you.

And the worst part of this all is that he hadn't given you an ounce of attention since she got here. Ever since the incident in the kitchen this morning, he was distant and didn't pay you any mind—matter-of-fact, Joel just pretended that you didn't exist and that made you even more mad. Whenever you were around, he would avoid eye contact with you.

While you were staring down Joel and Tess, Sarah had suddenly appeared next to you as she plopped down on the seat next to you.

"You alright?" She asked you as you took another sip of your beer. "You look pissed right now."

Was it that obvious? If Sarah can notice the look on your face, that meant so did everyone else.

"Oh, me? I'm good, just some boy problems back at college," You lied to Sarah so she wouldn't know the real reason you looked mad.

Okay—was all she said to you, sounding unconvinced, but didn't push any further.

"My dad and Tess look pretty comfortable now," She leaned over and whispered to you. "Never seen him this way with a woman before,"

Honestly, this didn't seem surprising to you at all.

From the way Joel seemed reluctant to even get to know Tess earlier and the awkwardness when she had gotten here made it very apparent to you. Had you not seen any of this, you would've thought that he was quite the ladies man from the way he spoke to you whenever the two of you were alone.

"Interesting," was all you said as you took a sip of your beer again.

"Anyway, you wanna go to my room and watch a movie?" Sarah asked. "I'm gettin' bored of them already," You laughed and nodded your head in agreement and began to get off the couch, still watching the two across from you. Still, Joel continued to talk to the lady without even spairing you a glance.

You let out a scoff and roll your eyes as you make your way to the steps to go upstairs.

Fuck Joel.

...

It was getting late and Sarah eventually fell asleep a some time after you started the second movie. She was knocked out cold. You were tired as well, but not fully tired to the point that you were ready for bed—you didn't feel like hanging out with everyone down stairs and you didn't feel like seeing Joel and Tess all over each other either so you decided to go to your room for the night.

Before quietly slipping out of Sarah's room, you made sure to put the blanket over her and turn off the tv. Afterwards you brushed your teeth and changed into your pajamas, which was just a tank top and your underwear, before getting into bed.

For a while, you laid in the dark and scroll through Instagram while you blasting music through your headphones. You were tired, but not fully tired to the point that you were ready for bed—you didn't feel like hanging out with everyone down stairs and you didn't feel like seeing Joel and Tess all over each other either.

You suddenly felt the vibrations of a door slamming shut and heard the muffled sounds as well, making you yank your headphones off. It almost scared you to death.

You waited a moment to hear for any sounds that might follow up after. It was silent for the most part besides the sound of Joel's heavy footsteps next door, he must be getting ready for bed. You also assumed that Bill, Frank, and Tess had went back to their place because you didn't hear the music playing downstairs anymore or the sound of them talking loudly.

You were about to put your headphones back on until you heard Joel start to talk. You thought that he must've been on the phone or talking to himself until you heard the tone of a females voice—it was Tess. You couldn't make out what they were saying, but you hear them talking back and forth to each other.

At this point, you were holding your breath as you tried to eavesdrop, completely interested as to what they were doing in Joel's room together.

Joel must've said something funny to Tess because she laughed fairly loud at whatever he said.

He isn't that funny, you begrudgingly thought to yourself.

One of them flopped down on the bed, causing the bed to creak and the headboard hit against the wall. And because the beds were on the same wall, you could hear almost everything. They continued to talk for a while until it went completely silent and the bed creaked again.

You didn't want to jump to conclusions because you weren't sure what was going on in that room and you and Joel aren't anything so it really shouldn't matter to you. You also felt weird sitting there in the dark, snooping on Joel and Tess so you decided to try and get some sleep.

You readjusted in the bed and closed your eyes—occasionally tossing and turning because it felt like there was a million thoughts going through your mind right now.

Your eyes snapped open when you heard faint sounds of the bed screeching and the headboard thumping against the wall. The sounds were unbroken until Tess lets out a low moan, causing the noise to come to an abrupt stop and Joel shushes her.

He was fucking her and you were hearing it.

Joel says something to her and the noise continues again, this time it was a little fast. Your heart was beating against your chest just as fast, if not faster. The sound of your heart beating almost muted the sounds of Joel and Tess fucking.

Joel's grunts got a little louder as Tess lets out a few fucks here and there along with a couple moans. You listen closely to the plap-plap-plap sound that were smothered by the wall.

There's no way that you were the only one hearing this because they were not quiet.

It probably would've been best if you put your headphones back on, but you couldn't bring yourself to do it. There was something about it that made you furious, yet aroused. It shouldn't have, but it did and so much to the point that you felt a throb begin to form at your core.

You needed to relieve the ache somehow and suddenly this bright idea popped into your head. You slipped your underwear off and threw them somewhere off the bed before grabbing a pillow as you get onto your knees on the bed and tucked in the sides a bit, and straddled it.

You began to steadily rocking your hips back and forth, feeling your folds grind against the pillow and the wetness spreading as you became increasingly wet, as you tried to match the pace. Quiet whimpers escaped your mouth though you were trying to stay silent.

You felt like a creep listening to them and you knew you would feel ashamed of your actions later, but right now you didn't care, you just wanted to touch yourself.

At that moment, you thought back to earlier, remembering the way that Joel sat on the couch, sprawled out as he talked to Tess. You imagined him under you, seated the same way while you were on top of him grinding against his hard cock. His warm, rough hands would be gripping at your waist underneath your tank top, as he guided your hips. One of his hands would trail up to your braless breast and cup it while he would thumb at your erect nipple.

You grab onto the headboard, picturing it was his shoulders you were holding onto.

"Feel so good, daddy," You breathed out as if he were actually under you. "Makin' me feel soo good,"

"Atta girl, you like grindin' your pussy against this cock? Huh, baby?" he would ask you before letting out a loud grunt as he tried to hold back from cumming over his stomach and between your thighs.

Goosebumps trailed down your spine as you imagined this and your hips move faster against the pillow, making the headboard hit the wall harder.

"Yes, Joel," you moaned out as if he were actually there, not even realizing how loud you were.

You assumed you weren't being loud at all, but in actuality, you were. Tess and Joel had heard everything from the moment you started. Due to the wall and the fact that you were just so caught up in your own fantasies, you couldn't even hear them talking about you.

"S-she can hear us, Joel," Tess groaned out to Joel, but not once did Joel stop his thrust. He kept going because knowing that you were pleasuring yourself turned him on.

"Yeah? Let her hear," Joel purred as he felt Tess pulse around his cock. His thrust got faster, intensifying the harsh sound of the frame striking against the neighboring wall.

Just on the other side of the wall, you were hunched over listening to them and humping against the poor pillow. "P-Please, daddy, don't stop," You shook your head as you go to grip the pillow under you so you could get more friction. You could feel the sweat dripping down your face from how intense this whole thing was, but you didn't dare to stop.

You were barely listening to Joel and Tess anymore as you were close to your orgasm.

"Don't fuckin' stop," your torso was stiff as you opened your legs wider and pushed your core down on the pillow harder. Your toes wiggled and curled as you were seconds away from cumming. You whimpered Joel mindlessly the closer you got.

You needed this badly, you need him.

"Fuck, I'm gonna cumming," was the last thing you rasped before biting down on your lip. Not once did you stop nor slowed down the thrust of your hips as you shook with pleasure. You kept going as you chased your climax, hardly even breathing.

Right after you, Joel came shortly after.

"Aw, fuck!" he grunted loudly as he held onto Tess' hips. His seed spilling into the condom. Because his thoughts were so hazy at the moment and the only thing he could think of you, he nearly moaned out your name while fucking Tess, but thankfully he stopped himself before it could roll off his tongue.

"Shit, Joel," Tess groaned, cumming around his cock. Joel stayed behind her for a moment, still holding onto her buckling hips.

Eventually, Joel pulls out and collapses next to her before pulling the condom from his cock, tying it, and sat it on the nightstand. Tess does the same. They both say nothing to each other as they lay there.

Joel wondered what you were doing now.

Meanwhile, you were still trying to catch your breath, still holding onto the headboard as you tried to calm yourself.

You heard the talking as they got out the bed and moved around the room to put on their clothes you assumed.

Finally, Joel's door opens and you can hear them walking out of the room and go down stairs.

The front door opens as they quietly exchanged a few words to each other.

Joel eventually shuts the door and makes his way back upstairs. Once again, you could hear his heavy footsteps as he trot up the steps.

You decided that once he goes back in his room, you were going to dash to the bathroom to clean up the mess you made on yourself.

You were about to get out of the bed so you could clean yourself until heard Joel's feet about to shuffle past your door before he stopped right in front of it. You sat down on the middle of the bed, waiting for him to go to his room.

Joel hesitated for a moment, contemplating whether or not he should knock on your door, but he decided to do it anyway.

Joel's hard knuckles knocks at your door making your body go stiff. You were going to pull the blanket over your body and answer him, but you decided to pretend to act like you were sleeping.

You thought that this worked until your door suddenly swung open, revealing the large outline of Joel Miller. You scrambled to pull the duvet over the bare bottom-half of your body, hoping that he didn't see anything.

He stood there a moment before speaking up. "You good, sweetheart?" Joel asked you. He obviously knew you were awake.

It took you a few seconds before you replied as you were trying to calm your beating heart after he scared you. "Yeah, i'm fine, Joel," you said, thinking that he would just fuck off and go back to his room, he didn't. Instead, he came fully walked into the room and closed the door behind himself before making his way over to the bed.

"W-What the hell are you doing, Joel?" You asked him, caught off guard that he would just come in here.

Joel was going to speak until he realized something got caught onto his slipper as he approached the edge of your bed, making him suddenly stop and look down. Because it was dark in the room, he could tell what it was, but it was obvious that it was a piece of clothing. He bends down and grabs it, feeling a slight dampness to it before coming back up and holding the material out in front of him.

Joel goes to flick on the lights and your heart flutters when you see what he was holding. You look at Joel with a panic look on your face and see that he had this surprise, yet smug expression on his face.

It was your fucking underwear that you threw off.

"Look what we have here, sweetheart," He says as he walks closer to the bed, making you clutch the duvet closer to your body. "These yours?" He asked you even though he knew the answer.

"Can you put them down, please?" You pleaded with him silently as your face burned with embarrassment. He doesn't answer you, instead he brings the damp fabric up to his nose and inhales your scent, closing his eyes as he took it in. You let out a squeak, surprised that he was doing this.

Again, if this were anyone else you'd probably be creeped out by this, but there was something about Joel that made you want him badly.

"Smells so fuckin' good," he says as he pulled them away from his nose. You just look at him, mouth agape as he opens his eyes, balls up your panties into his hand, and sits on the edge of the bed. As if your grip couldn't get any tighter, you pull at the duvet again, hoping that Joel wasn't seeing anything under it. He immediately noticed you doing this and looked at you curiously with his dark eyes, making you feel nervous.

"What's under the blanket, baby?"Joel asked as he pointed at your lap.

You shook your head and avoided eye contact with him, "please don't make me do this, Joel," you begged him again, but he didn't budge one bit.

"Oh come on. Be a good girl and show me what you're hiding under there," He said sternly. You didn't need much convincing because you quickly gave into his demand. You slowly move the blanket off of you, shaking as the feeling the air hits between your legs.

Joel groans at the sight. "Baby, look at you," his deep southern voice says so softly as he brings his warm on on top of your thigh, making your thighs clench together.

"No no no, you don't close those legs unless I tell you, you understand me?" You nodded your head and let him pull your legs open.

"So beautiful up close," He groans out. His hand moved to the inside of your thigh and slid up, making you whimper. Your core throbbed again, longing for him, but he never did.

"Touch me, daddy, please." You whispered to him, so desperately.

"Mmm, not tonight, baby," He says, while his fingers continued to tease you. "Can you do somethin' for me?" He asked softly.

"Yes, Joel," you said and nodded your head without a second thought, ready to do anything he asked you.

"I want you to show me how you were touchin' yourself when you were listenin' to me and Tess,"

You stilled once he said this, you didn't know that he heard you moaning. "W-what?"

"Don't be so surprised, girl. You weren't bein' very quiet." He teased you before speaking up again. "Now, I want you to show me,"

You sat there for a moment, embarrassed that you were about to do this in front of Joel. You grab the cum-soaked pillow before getting up onto your knees on the bed and stradling it, trying not to look at him.

"Look at me." He orders. You look at him, feeling nervous as he watched you with his intense gaze. "Now, ride the pillow. Slowly."

At first, you were reluctant as you began to slowly grind against the pillow, so embarrassed at the moment that you couldn't even enjoy the pleasure. And the look on Joel's face made you want to die.

He brings his hand onto your thigh making your stop, "Relax yourself," he mutters.

You nod your head before you let out a loud sigh. You try to calm yourself down before you lean forward, making your back arch and held onto the pillow with one hand while the other kept you up.

You began to move your hips, this time feeling a little more comfortable as you did so. You let out a weak whine as the pillow grazed against your wet clit.

"Good, darlin', go a lil faster now,"

You didn't need any convincing with that, you instantly went faster, making the bed frame to knock against the wall.

Joel's cock jumped in his pants as he watched you with greed in his eyes. He wished he could take you right there, make you weep and bite into the pillow as he pounded into your wet pussy.

"Look at ya, humping that pillow like a slut," he groaned, thinking about you riding him the same way. "You like being a slut, don't you?" Joel asked you.

"Mmhmm—I love it so f-fucking much, Joel," You moaned as you convulse on the pillow, nearly cumming.

"P-please—" was all you said. You couldn't even get the words out of your mouth as the the uncontrollable waves of pleasure passed through your body.

"Please what, baby? What do you want?" He pressed for you to continue your sentence.

"Please touch me, I need to feel you right now," You grab Joel's hand from the bed and bring it up to your breast, taking him by surprise.

Such a needy girl, Joel thought as he felt your hard nipples through the cotton. He fumbled and teased at them before pinching your nipple, making you yelp loudly and your back arch more.

"Baby, you gotta be quiet or someone will hear you." He whispered to you, trying to get you to be quiet.

Instead of just being quiet, you shook your stubbornly, closed your eyes in pleasure, and bit your lips, loving the feeling you were experiencing right now.

"I don't give a fuck," You said as you breath out a humorless chuckle, after releasing your lip from your teeth.

The way you were acting right now in front of Joel surprised him a bit—it was different than the way you were this morning, even minutes ago. He didn't mind though, not one bit. Joel actually enjoyed seeing you this way. So wild, allowing your pleasure to take over.

"Oh shit, I'm gonna cum," You gasped out.

"Yeah? You gonna cum?" Joel teased. Mmhm, you whimpered in response as he releases your breast and starts to move his hand up your shirt, starting from your hips and going up your tank top. He palms your breast again, feeling the goosebumps rise on your skin, and flicks your nipple hard.

"Come on, cum for me, sweetheart. I wanna hear you moan for me," He eagerly said as he watched your body tremble, ready to fall apart for him. Your moans got louder and louder before your breathing hitched and got caught in your throat.

You came almost immediately, your body shook and your hand went to your clit as you keep on grinding on the pillow, intensifying your orgasm. "Daddy, oh fuu-shit!" you squeaked.

"Look at you, my pretty, slutty baby. Cummin' so hard f'me," he purred, but you couldn't get out your words. You were so overwhelmed that you nearly fell over as you tried to keep yourself up, but luckily you didn't.

Joel continued to spew out teasing comments as he egged on your climax, until you eventually calmed down a bit. He removed his hand from your shirt as your slumped against the bed with exhaustion.

He let out a chuckle as you face plant into the bed before giving your back some rubs as he tried to calm you down. You were breathing heavy as your body trembled and your hips rolled against the pillow, causing you to let out a dreamy moan.

"Oh darlin', come on, get up so you can lay down right...gonna hurt your back laying like that," Joel said to you softly. You were tired as hell and on the verge of falling asleep right there, so you stayed there for a little before getting up.

Once you did get up, you fell back into the soft pillows with your eyes closed as you felt yourself relax into them.

You can feel as Joel grabbed the pillow from that you humped from between your legs. You thought that he was going to put it to the side or something, but that wasn't the case at all.

"Oh, baby, look at the mess you made," you hear him say, almost moaning. Your eyes shoot open, which you catch him running his finger through your wetness on the pillow, bringing it to his mouth, and licking it off. He groaned the moment it touches his tongue, which made your eyes widen with shock and you let out a gasp.

To Joel, you tasted as good as you smelled and he loved it.

"Joel, why would you do that?" You asked him, shocked that he would do that.

He gives you a wide smirk, making your stomach flutter with butterflies. "Why not, baby? You taste so good."

You say nothing after this, feeling flustered by his actions.

It was quiet between the two of you until you remembered that you didn't have anything on from the waist down.

You were tired, but you gathered the strength to get up from the bed.

"Where you goin', sweet girl?" Joel asked you as you made your way to your bag.

There's that name again. You loved it when he called you that.

"Just grabbin' some shorts," you looked over at Joel as you bent down to grab your shorts and put them on, feeling his eyes on you, watching you so intensely. "I can feel you watching me, Mr. Miller," you tease him.

"Mr. Miller, huh?" You turned around and made your way back to the bed to find Joel still watching you.

You just nodded your head as you plopped down onto the bed a lay down. You pat the spot next to you, trying to get him to lay down next to you, which he obviously got the hint.

"Want me to lay with you, darlin'?" He looked over to you, searching your face for permission.

You quickly nodded your head as you scoot over to make room for Joel, making him crack a small smile on his hard face.

God he looked so handsome when he smiled.

"Alright, baby."

Joel laid on his back on the pillow next to you, making readjust yourself as you snuggled into him with your head and hand resting on his chest. He wraps his arm around your shoulder, pressing you closer to his body.

You laid there listening to his steady heart beat, your heavy eyelids almost closed.

You noticed that he had all the chances to touch you, even have sex with you, yet he never did and it made you wonder why.

Before you could stop yourself, you called his name."Joel?"

"Yeah, sweetheart?" He asked

You hesitated before speaking up again, afraid of what you might hear from him, but fuck it.

"Why won't you touch me?" You asked him curiously, the sleep was audible in your voice.

He was quiet for a moment, making your wrench with rejection, until he spoke up. "One day, baby. Just not right now, okay?"

You nodded your head against his chest before answering. "Okay," You said softly, feeling somewhat content with his response, but still feeling a little rejected.

At least he didn't say never, you thought to yourself.

"Good girl, now get some sleep." He said, making you nuzzle into his chest and close your eyes, almost instantly drifting to sleep as you felt his hard body under you.

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