#WE MUST GO FISHING. NOW.

[k16is]

more of my personal dad juri bit because. it’s just so funny.

[mokeonn]

I think something that is REALLY fun about having a small animal that needs to live in a habitat is making it a hobby to try to make the best possible habitat for them. Like there's nothing more fun than planning and executing different ways create paradise for an animal with a brain no larger than a peanut.

[kateis-cakeis]

people are really so weird and so fatphobic huh

(and oops most of my commentary is in the tags XD)

[anastasiamaru]

The moskva missile cruiser is a flagship and pride of the russians.First it eventually did go fuck itself, and then in April, two Ukrainian Neptune missiles sent the ship underwater. As it turned out, the nature itself helped to sink the vessel — a radar had identified the enemy’s cruiser in a way it was not designed to.

[risingsunresistance]

all the gold skills is SO weird, never thought i'd be anywhere near this. how do i get gold in cactus and netherwart someone please send help despite all my farming fortune i still barely break bronze-

[hauntingblue]

Kuina and zoro???? Hello

[whereisthedamndaddymanual]

I like old Cogliostro themes.

They never show Merlin as the Demon cleansing the moist with victory ridden battlefields.

Or the foliage the trees grow in tribute after

[mcmansionhell]

the motel room, or: on datedness

I.

Often I find myself nostalgic for things that haven't disappeared yet. This feeling is enhanced by the strange conviction that once I stop looking at these things, I will never see them again, that I am living in the last moment of looking. This is sense is strongest for me in the interiors of buildings perhaps because, like items of clothing, they are of a fashionable nature, in other words, more impermanent than they probably should be.

As I get older, to stumble on something truly dated, once a drag, is now a gift. After over a decade of real estate aggregation and the havoc it's wreaked on how we as a society perceive and decorate houses, if you're going to Zillow to search for the dated (which used to be like shooting fish in a barrel), you'll be searching aimlessly, for hours, to increasingly no avail, even with all the filters engaged. (The only way to get around this is locational knowledge of datedness gleaned from the real world.) If you try to find images of the dated elsewhere on the internet, you will find that the search is not intuitive. In this day and age, you cannot simply Google "80s hotel room" anymore, what with the disintegration of the search engine ecosystem and the AI generated nonsense and the algorithmic preference for something popular (the same specific images collected over and over again on social media), recent, and usually a derivative of the original search query (in this case, finding material along the lines of r/nostalgia or the Backrooms.)

To find what one is looking for online, one must game the search engine with filters that only show content predating 2021, or, even better, use existing resources (or those previously discovered) both online and in print. In the physical world of interiors, to find what one is looking for one must also now lurk around obscure places, and often outside the realm of the domestic which is so beholden to and cursed by the churn of fashion and the logic of speculation. Our open world is rapidly closing, while, paradoxically, remaining ostensibly open. It's true, I can open Zillow. I can still search. In the curated, aggregated realm, it is becoming harder and harder to find, and ultimately, to look.

But what if, despite all these changes, datedness was never really searchable? This is a strange symmetry, one could say an obscurity, between interiors and online. It is perhaps unintentional, and it lurks in the places where searching doesn't work, one because no one is searching there, or two, because an aesthetic, for all our cataloguing, curation, aggregation, hoarding, is not inherently indexable and even if it was, there are vasts swaths of the internet and the world that are not categorized via certain - or any - parameters. The internet curator's job is to find them and aggregate them, but it becomes harder and harder to do. They can only be stumbled upon or known in an outside, offline, historical or situational way. If to index, to aggregate, is, or at least was for the last 30 years, to profit (whether monetarily or in likes), then to be dated, in many respects, is the aesthetic manifestation of barely breaking even. Of not starting, preserving, or reinventing but just doing a job.

We see this online as well. While the old-web Geocities look and later Blingee MySpace-era swag have become aestheticized and fetishized, a kind of naive art for a naive time, a great many old websites have not received the same treatment. These are no less naive but they are harder to repackage or commodify because they are simple and boring. They are not "core" enough.

As with interiors, web datedness can be found in part or as a whole. For example, sites like Imgur or Reddit are not in and of themselves dated but they are full of remnants, of 15-year old posts and their "you, sir, have won the internet" vernacular that certainly are. Other websites are dated because they were made a long time ago by and for a clientele that doesn't have a need or the skill to update (we see this often with Web 2.0 e-commerce sites that figured out how to do a basic mobile page and reckoned it was enough). The next language of datedness, like the all-white landlord-special interior, is the default, clean Squarespace restaurant page, a landing space that's the digital equivalent of a flyer, rarely gleaned unless someone needs a menu, has a food allergy or if information about the place is not available immediately from Google Maps. I say this only to maintain that there is a continuity in practices between the on- and off-line world beyond what we would immediately assume, and that we cannot blame everything on algorithms.

But now you may ask, what is, exactly, datedness? Having spent two days in a distinctly dated hotel room, I've decided to sit in utter boredom with the numinous past and try and pin it down.

II.

I am in an obscure place. I am in Saint-Georges, Quebec, Canada, on assignment. I am staying at a specific motel, the Voyageur. By my estimation the hotel was originally built in the late seventies and I'd be shocked if it was older than 1989. The hotel exterior was remodeled sometime in the 2000s with EIFS cladding and beige paint. Above is a picture of my room, which, forgive me, is in the process of being inhabited. American (and to a lesser extent Canadian) hotel rooms are some of the most churned through, renovated spaces in the world, and it's pretty rare, unless you're staying in either very small towns or are forced by economic necessity to stay at real holes in the wall, to find ones from this era. The last real hitter for me was a 90s Day's Inn in the meme-famous Breezewood, PA during the pandemic.

At first my reaction to seeing the room was cautionary. It was the last room in town, and certainly compared to other options, probably not the world's first choice. However, after staying in real, genuine European shitholes covering professional cycling I've become a class-A connoisseur of bad rooms. This one was definitively three stars. A mutter of "okay time to do a quick look through." But upon further inspection (post-bedbug paranoia) I came to the realization that maybe the always-new brainrot I'd been so critical of had seeped a teeny bit into my own subconscious and here I was snubbing my nose at a blessing in disguise. The room is not a bad room, nor is it unclean. It's just old. It's dated. We are sentimental about interiors like this now because they are disappearing, but they are for my parents what 2005 beige-core is for me and what 2010s greige will become for the generation after. When I'm writing about datedness, I'm writing in general using a previous era's examples because datedness, by its very nature, is a transitional status. Its end state is the mixed emotion of seeing things for what they are yet still appreciating them, expressed here.

Datedness is the period between vintage and contemporary. It is the sentiment between quotidian and subpar. It is uncurated and preserved only by way of inertia, not initiative. It gives us a specific feeling we don't necessarily like, one that is deliberately evoked in the media subcultures surrounding so-called "liminal" spaces: the fuguelike feeling of being spatially trapped in a time while our real time is passing. Datedness in the real world is not a curated experience, it is only what was. It is different from nostalgia because it is not deliberately remembered, yearned for or attached to sweetness. Instead, it is somehow annoying. It is like stumbling into the world of adults as a child, but now you're the adult and the child in you is disappointed. (The real child-you forgot a dull hotel room the moment something more interesting came along.) An image of my father puts his car keys on the table, looks around and says, "It'll do." We have an intolerance for datedness because it is the realization of what sufficed. Sufficiency in many ways implies lack.

However, for all its datedness, many, if not all, of the things in this room will never be seen again if the room is renovated. They will become unpurchaseable and extinct. Things like the bizarrely-patterned linoleum tile in the shower, the hose connecting to the specific faucet of the once-luxurious (or at least middling) jacuzzi tub whose jets haven't been exercised since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wide berth of the tank on the toilet. There is nothing, really, worth saving about these things. Even the most sentimental among us wouldn't dare argue that the items and finishes in this room are particularly important from a design or historical standpoint. Not everything old has a patina. They're too cheaply made to salvage. Plastic tile. Bowed plywood. The image-artifacts of these rooms, gussied up for Booking dot com, will also, inevitably disappear, relegated to the dustheap of web caches and comments that say "it was ok kinda expensive but close to twon (sic)." You wouldn't be able to find them anyway unless you were looking for a room.

One does, of course, recognize a little bit of design in what's here. Signifiers of an era. The wood-veneer of the late 70s giving way to the pastel overtones of the 80s. Perhaps even a slow 90s. The all-in-one vanity floating above the floor, a modernist basement bathroom hallmark. White walls as a sign of cleanliness. Gestures, in the curved lines of the nightstands, towards postmodernity. Metallic lamp bases with wide-brimmed shades, a whisper of glamor. A kind of scalloped aura to the club chairs. The color teal mediated through hundreds if not thousands of shoes. Yellowing plastic, including the strips of "molding" that visually tie floor to wall. These are remnants (or are they intuitions?) of so many movements and micromovements, none of them definite enough to point to the influence of a single designer, hell, even of a single decade, just strands of past-ness accumulated into one thread, which is cheapness. Continuity exists in the materials only because everything was purchased as a set from a wholesale catalog.

In some way a hotel is supposed to be placeless. Anonymous. Everything tries to be that way now, even houses. Perhaps because we don't like the way we spy on ourselves and lease our images out to the world so we crave the specificity of hotel anonymity, of someplace we move through on our way to bigger, better or at least different things. The hotel was designed to be frictionless but because it is in a little town, it sees little use and because it sees little use, there are elements that can last far longer than they were intended and which inadvertently cause friction. (The janky door unlocks with a key. The shower hose keeps coming out of the faucet. It's deeply annoying.)

Lack of wear and lack of funds only keep them that way. Not even the paper goods of the eighties have been exhausted yet. Datedness is not a choice but an inevitability. Because it is not a choice, it is not advertised except in a utilitarian sense. It is kept subtle on the hotel websites, out of shame. Because it does not subscribe to an advertiser's economy of the now, of the curated type rather than the "here is my service" type, it disappears into the folds of the earth and cannot be searched for in the way "design" can. It can only be discovered by accident.

When I look at all of these objects and things, I do so knowing I will never see them again, at least not all here together like this, as a cohesive whole assembled for a specific purpose. I don't think I'll ever have reason to come back to this town or this place, which has given me an unexpected experience of being peevish in my father's time. Whenever I end up in a place like this, where all is as it was, I get the sense that it will take a very long time for others to experience this sensation again with the things my generation has made. The machinations of fashion work rapaciously to make sure that nothing is ever old, not people, not rooms, not items, not furniture, not fabrics, not even design, that old matron who loves to wax poetic about futurity and timelessness. The plastic-veneered particleboard used here is now the bedrock of countless landfills. Eventually it will become the chemical-laced soil upon which we build our condos. It is possible that we are standing now at the very last frontier of our prior datedness. The next one has not yet elided. It's a special place. Spend a night. Take pictures.

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams.

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[luveline]

hii can you please write about Hotch adoring the reader at night as she's sleep talking sweet things please please?? love you!

The first thing he does when he gets home that night is pop his head into Jack’s room. He wants to go in and kiss his forehead, or maybe hold his hand, but he’s worried he’ll wake him and it’s nearing three in the morning, so he whispers, “Love you,” and heads to the master bedroom. 

You’re sleeping not dissimilar to Jack, on your back, the sheets pulled up to your turned head. Aaron moves away from you reluctantly to get undressed and change into soft sleep clothes. He cleans his face and brushes his teeth, and when he returns to you, you’ve curled your arm over where he should be as though you’d sensed his homecoming. 

He shuffles to you in the dark. Pulls back the sheets, and slides under your arm. He finds your hand to hold and brings it slowly to his lips, letting your hand rest over his mouth indulgently. 

He closes his eyes.

After a short case like this one, he isn’t tired enough to forget how much he misses you. If it had been a week away, Aaron would’ve come home and collapsed knowing he’s back with you, and that you’re going to look after him, but it’s only been two days. All he needs now is a kiss.

“Miss you.” 

He clasps his hand over yours, takes your hand to his chest to see you without obstacle. “I missed you, too,” he whispers, though he squints at you after. You aren’t facing him. “Honey?” 

“Aaron…” 

“Yeah, it’s me. You okay?” 

You rub your nose into your pillow and make a nonsense sound. 

Oh, he thinks to himself. Is she…

“D’you– did you have dinner?” 

“Are you awake or not?” he asks. 

No answer. You can’t be awake, then. You’re talking in your sleep, silly disjointed murmurings, your voice like velvet despite the late hour. 

Aaron hasn’t woken you with his questions, so he assumes you’re sleeping deeply. He shuffles further into the bed, onto his side, and wraps an arm around you. Careful in the dark, his nose comes to rest against your cheek.

“Well, we can try again tomorrow.”

“Shh,” he says softly, “shh, honey.” 

“‘Cos of the time,” you mumble.

He breathes in your skin. This is nice, he supposes, sitting and listening to your voice. You don’t even have to wake up. Aaron must spend half an hour listening to you talk yourself, or whoever it is that’s opposite you in the dream. It’s okay, we can fix it. I don’t know what colour that is. It’s Jack’s book. The book. And then your dog will come home. 

He’s nearly sleeping when it runs back to him. “My hubs,” you mumble, hand suddenly alive where it twists under his arm to return his hug. “Miss my hubs.” 

Aaron laughs in earnest. He’s never heard you call him such a thing. “Missed my wife,” he says, giving your cheek a quick kiss. “Love you.” 

“Miss him… want him to rub my back.” 

Your whining is adorable. Aaron pulls you bodily onto his chest and begins to rub your back, smiling, happy to indulge your sleepy nonsense with whatever it is you’re craving. “How’s that?” he murmurs. 

You don’t talk again for a while, but when you do, you say, “He needs to feed the fish,” and Aaron’s left wondering what exactly it is that you and Jack have been up to this weekend. 

[coryndoll]

lover of mine

drew starkey x actress!reader au

— in which drew and y/n, secretly exes, must fake date in order to keep the peace at a mutual friend’s wedding, but the forced proximity makes them question whether they ever truly moved on.

warnings: sweet baby boy drew whos willing to help u, nothing else rly

next

authors note: i wanted to give it a sort of “the proposal” / “anyone but you” type of feel !! this is obviously going to be a series so let me know if u want to be added to the tag list from now on so u dont miss an update ! <3

your body freezes in place when you’re asked about the wedding. crap, you forgot. but it isn’t like you received any invite.

“theo sent you an invite through the mail. you got it right?” your friend, leila, asks you. leila and her fiancé theo have been your friends for years now, ever since you met leila during a movie priemere and shared respect on each other's careers. she’s been your closest friend, so theo naturally had to come along too.

“what? yeah,” you lie right through your teeth, and guilt punches you in the face when you stare right into her bright eyes. you raise the cup of coffee. “was literally jumping for joy when i got it.”

leila sighs in relief. “thank god we got the right address,” she says and you question what she means by that before she continues, “we didn’t know whether to send it to your apartment or drew’s.”

your breath is caught and you pause before your drink reaches your lips.

“drew,” you repeat, and she nods.

“yeah, but we figured you’ll both see it either way so, sent it to his place ‘cause theo said it was closer,” leila says, and you raise your eyebrows in amusement. “but anyway! before the wedding, i wanted to stay with our inner circle so if it’s possible for a little two-week vacation? the venue is close to my mom and her boyfriend’s house so we’d just be staying there. i would’ve picked after the wedding if theo didn’t already have the honeymoon planned. he’s too excited.”

“wait, two weeks?” you inquire, “who’s coming?”

she shrugs, “you and drew, libby, gia . . .” she trails off as she thinks about it, and you swallow as you set your cup down. “i forgot who else. i know it’s one of theo’s coworkers but i forgot who. let me text him actually.”

your face lights up at the opportunity to get away, and you nod. “i need to call drew actually,” you say, and she smiles and nods as you stand from your seat and make your way to her living room. “need to remind him to take the . . . fish . . . out.”

“fish?”

“we’re having fish tonight, yeah.”

you turn away to scroll through your contacts until you find his, then click on it. you settle down on the couch as you wait anxiously for him to pick up, and just hope that he does.

just before the call goes to voicemail, the line clears. “yeah?”

“you are such a—!” you hiss quietly, careful not to let leila hear you. “why didn’t you tell me leila and theo sent you a wedding invite for us?”

“i literally just checked my mail, alright? i would’ve said something about it as soon as i saw it,” he tells you. “i just flew in two days ago, y/n. i’m at the . . . i’m not at my apartment right now but my mail’s all on my counter. i’ll look for it once i’m home and then send you pictures of it, okay?”

you know that your situation with drew is slightly complicated. you were together for five years before ending things just a year ago.

because of your careers, you aren’t surprised that people assume you’re still dating. even close friends like leila and theo. everything was kept private. a year into the relationship was when fans even found out about you two.

you both have been looking for a time to address the breakup, to friends first for sure, but with your conflicting schedules, the time’s just never come up, and sending a “by the way, we broke up” text to an imessage groupchat wasn’t totally ideal.

even with the wedding coming up, having to be around everyone while you celebrate your closest friends, how are you either of you supposed to bring it up now?

“okay,” you tell him. “just text me when you’re free. any time before 10, please.”

“okay,” drew’s voice is soft and understanding. the line goes dead and you pull your phone away from your ear, seeing that he’s hung up.

your expected text comes around 8pm. drew’s sent you four different attachments. all are photos of the elaborate and detailed wedding invitation. the designs must’ve been leila’s idea.

you’re surprised to see an incoming call on your laptop right after. you hover over the accept button, then click on it.

his face fills a rectangle of your screen. he’s on his phone—“do you see it?”

“yeah wait,” you mumble, clicking out of the facetime to open your messages with him, then click the first photo. “leila and theo; rsvp by september twenty-seventh.”

“the letter’s addressed to my place but they put our names on the envelope,” drew tells you, and it looks like he’s ruffling through something before he flips his camera to display his counter. on it is the envelope in question, which is addressed to his apartment, but for y/n and drew, it says.

you hum. “are you going?” you ask him.

“of course i’m going. what do you mean?”

you shake your head, “nothing.”

drew only knows of leila or theo because of you, because leila works with you. maybe he’s made friends with theo but it’s not something you’ve personally seen, so you’re just assuming that maybe since you’ve broken up, there’s no reason for him to go? especially when he’s filming soon?

you stare down at your keyboard as you speak again, “leila wants us to come on a two-week pre-stay with her and theo. and others.”

there’s a brief pause from drew, like he doesn’t understand.

you sense it immediately and continue. “like, before the wedding, she told me today about how her mom has his house she wants us to stay in, just a few of us for two weeks, then they have her wedding— i don’t know, i need to ask her more about it. i think she just wants to fly everyone out and spend more time with us before she’s on honeymoon and living the wife life.”

“could be fun,” drew says. “i mean, i can’t even remember the last time i was out with theo or leila. it might be good for us.”

you furrow your eyebrows at him through the screen, and you try to read him to see if he’s joking. “there is no more ‘us’, remember? and by the way, neither leila or theo or anybody else knows that.”

drew hesitates as if he’s trying to justify your situation.

you rub your eye before resting the side of your head against your fist, “they addressed the invitation to both of us, drew. i feel like we should at least tell them the truth so that when we get there, they know.”

drew hesitates, his eyes moving around as if searching for the right words. “yeah, i know. it’s just . . . complicated.”

“complicated doesn’t even begin to cover it,” you say, feeling frustration build up. “it just feels dishonest. they think we’re still together, and if they find out at the wedding, it’ll look like we’re hiding things.”

“we are hiding things,” he reminds you. “we’ve been avoiding the topic. do you really want to drop this bomb on them right before their wedding?”

you go silent as you think about it, because if telling them isn’t a good option then . . .

“what if we just kept up the appearance that we’re still together?” drew suggests. it draws your attention as you look up at your laptop. “for the wedding and the pre.”

you blink, taken aback. “what do you mean?”

“i mean,” drew continues, “what if we act like we’re still together while we’re there? it might make things easier for everyone. seeing us apart will just create tension. people will feel like they’ll need to walk on eggshells around us.”

you give him a skeptical look. “acting like a couple isn’t the same as actually being one. i’m not sure i can just pull it off without it feeling fake.”

“we’re not faking,” drew says gently. “we’re just playing a part for a bit. we’re professionals. it’s literally our job. we can do this for a few days.”

you pause, considering his words. “but what if it just makes things worse? what if pretending just complicates everything?”

drew’s expression softens, and he speaks more earnestly. “look, we’ve been in tough spots before. there’s been so many times on set with you and i before that we’ve had to navigate headfirst. this is no different. think of it as a role we have to play for a short time. it doesn’t change what’s real.”

you sit back, processing his suggestion. “so we fake it for now and deal with the truth later?”

he hums. “it’s not ideal, but it could save a lot of awkwardness and stress. we can be civil and supportive for their sake, and then handle everything after.”

you let out a long sigh, feeling the weight of the decision. “it just feels like a lot of work to keep up a pretense. but i guess if we’re going to do this, we need to at least figure out how to make it believable.”

“we’ll figure it out,” drew says, his voice a little more hopeful. “it’s not about being perfect. it’s just about getting through the weeks without making things worse.”

you nod slowly, still feeling uneasy but recognizing the practicality of his idea. “okay. pretend for leila and theo, and then deal with the fallout afterwards.”

there’s a faint smile on his face as he nods at you. “just two weeks, remember? we can do that,” he says. “i’m gonna head to bed. i’ll talk to you tomorrow about it, alright?”

“okay,” you murmur, and drew hangs up on you.

the facetime window closes and displays your last app that’s been open, your messages. you’re face-to-face with the photos of the invitations once more, and a part of you is overwhelmed with emotions—fear, excitement, guilt.

two weeks. that’s all it is. just two weeks with your ex-boyfriend. you can survive that . . .

right?

[waitingonher]

because i love you — [hoo boys headcanons]

summary: your "thing" with the hoo boys!

author's note: in honor of the pjo series coming out today,,have this rlly rlly short draft from earlier this year! xoxo

percy jackson — doodling on him

“give me your hand.”

“yes ma’am.”

minutes pass as you doodle gods know what onto percy’s hand. you always resort to this whenever the camp head counselor's meeting begins late—which seems to be every meeting—and giving percy "tattoos" certainly kills time. last meeting, you drew a can of beans and the time before that, was a bouquet of tulips. so honestly his guess being a pair of socks this time isn’t too far of a reach.

“okay, done,” you release his hand, a proud smile gracing your features, “cute right?”

he quirks a brow upon seeing the drawing, “is that…” percy turns his head to the side, gaining better perspective, “is that a flying fish?” 

“wow, you’re good,” you say, giving him a nod of approval, “although, last time you did say that my can of beans looked like a roll of toilet paper…” 

your boyfriend throws his hands in the air, “in my defense, you used a shitty pen so it was hard to tell.” 

“whatever.” 

jason grace — sewing your initials on his clothes

“hi love,” jason says, plopping down beside you on the couch. you give him a bright smile as he places a gentle kiss on your head, “almost done?” 

nodding proudly, you hold up his pair of jeans to show him your work: your initials sewn onto a corner of his back pocket, “yup, just finished actually! what do you think of the color? i think you bought the thread for me on our second date. but i totally forgot i had it until i went digging in my supply box.” 

a grin plasters itself on jason’s face as he nods his head in realization, “i knew the color seemed familiar. i remember wondering why a tiny spool of thread was so expensive. but it’s perfect, i love it,” he kisses your cheek, “all my friends are gonna be so jealous that they don’t have their girlfriends’ initials sewn onto their clothes.” 

you laugh as you imagine jason vehemently bragging about his jeans to all his friends, “tell them i’m charging $50 if they want me to do theirs,” you wink. 

“we’d make more than the stolls’ and their smuggling business if we did that,” he laughs, admiring your work once more. who knew that having your initials on his pants would have such an affect on him, “also, can you do my sweaters and my other jeans?"

you raise a brow, "i might have to start charging you at this point."

leo valdez — impromptu fashion shows

“wow!” you clap enthusiastically, “your outfit even puts paris fashion week outfits to shame!” yes, because a rainbow checkered crop top with a humongous green tutu and a pink boa paired with insanely skinny stilettos beats any and all high fashion runway outfits, “now, leo valdez, can you give us a few words about your new clothing line? and possibly a bit about what it’s like to be so amazingly talented?” you inquire, raising an invisible microphone to his mouth. 

leo oh-so humbly bows and rises with a proud grin, “thank you, thank you, but i honestly must give all credit towards my beautiful muse, y/n, she’s the inspiration behind my new line. and about being so talented, it really is such hard work to be this naturally gifted.”

“ooh, do tell about this ‘y/n.’ i’ve never heard of her but she does sound absolutely gorgeous!” you exclaim, keeping up with the act. 

your boyfriend nods firmly, “oh yes, she’s very, very, very beautiful,” adding a playful wink, “but i must say, she has the worst morning breath i’ve ever encountered!” 

your smile drops and you squint your eyes, “i’m going to choke you with that stupid ugly boa if you don’t take that back right now.” 

“uh ma’am,” leo backs up nervously, clutching his boa, “i’m going to have to call security if you threaten me again.” 

"i'm seriously going to kill you."

[deadsetobsessions]

Sea Cryptic!Danny Phantom- pt. 8

[Pt.1] [Pt.2] [Pt.3] [Pt.4] [Pt.5] [Pt.6] [Pt.7] [Pt.9] [Pt.10]

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been to the hospital in the past three years, I’d have enough money to buy a bag of skittles from Target. Most of it wasn’t for me though lol I’ll add this onto the list in a bit, but I tend to do that from my desktop but I’m still currently attached to an IV drip. I’ve also never been this hydrated in my life lmao

——

Danny poked a puffed up pufferfish. The poison floated through his ghost form and did nothing but give him a little zap. Danny chuckled, wiping away a bit of oil that had gotten onto the fish from a nearby oil spill. Jesus fuck. Danny knew that bald headed, easily drawn Vlad wannabe from across the river would do something terrible to Gotham’s waters (not that it needed help being atrocious to Danny’s clean water appreciation).

The puffer fish- Danny gave up on understanding Gotham’s water ecosystem, having realized that it was a cursed mix of saltwater and freshwater and swamp- gave a fearful little wiggle and Danny let it go, turning to the oil particles floating around.

Danny took out his phone.

“Danny? Why the hell are you calling at three in the morning?”

Danny raised a hand and blasted out some ice, gathering the oil up. “Hey Sam. If I got you into contact with Poison Ivy, do you think you could team up to get rid of Lex Luthor’s new holding company in Gotham?”

“Danny, are you asking me to commit an act of ecoterrorism?”

“That’s not even the weirdest thing I’ve ever asked you to do.” Danny placed a hand on the ice mass and flew it, the oil, and himself across the river to Metropolis.

“Deal.” Sam’s voice gets further away as she pulled her phone from her ear. “I’ll text Tucker, see if he could futz with Luthor’s taxes. I heard her doesn’t even give his workers a livable wage, and that’s so not gonna fly.”

“Perfect! Thanks! We could totally meet up and hang out with my new friends!”

“Hah! That Tim guy? The one that wanted you to introduce Phantom to him?”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, goth girl.”

“Sure, dork. I’ll swing by Friday?”

“Sure! Want me to pick you up?” Danny phased through Lex Luthor’s frankly ridiculous amounts of security measures, still completely invisible and towing a giant mass of oil covered ice.

“Cool. Now hang up. I actually need sleep.”

“Ah, you must be dead tired. I get it.”

Sam hung up, and a second later, Danny got a pic of her holding up a middle finger with her signature purple nail polish.

Danny stared down at the sleeping billionaire. Gross. He let his face re enter the visible spectrum and lowered the temperature of the room drastically. Luthor groaned, waking up as he shivered like a hyped up chihuahua.

Danny bared his teeth, glowing green skin reflecting the black holes of the universe and imploding stars and burning planets as he leaned towards the frozen two bit villain.

“RESPECT THE PLANET,” Danny snarled. He unmelted the invisible ice as he simultaneously made the oil visible, the entirety of the oil spill coating every single inch of Luthor’s penthouse bedroom. Danny winked out, but not before snapping a quick picture of Lex Luthor’s absolutely covered in his company’s oil spill.

If Danny had made sure that there were fish droppings mixed in with the oil… that was his own damn business.

——

Danny floated over to a brooding Batman.

“Do you have two hundred dollars on you?” Danny asked in lieu of a greeting.

Batman grunted a yes.

“Two hundred dollars for a photo of Lex Luthor being hit with karma.”

Batman instantly handed over the cash and received a printed out photo of Lex Luthor (in his Lexcorp pjs) covered by fossil fuel.

"Is this..."

"The oil from his oil spill? Yes."

Batman stared at the picture.

"Why was this more expensive than ID'ing corpses?"

"Cause it's funnier. And dead people deserve more consideration than a egg looking ass polluting everything he touches."

Superman zoomed into the space in front of them, face eager.

"I heard you had something about Luthor?"

Danny figured that Batman probably contacted the hero, and confidently said, "$200 for personal use, $300 for commercial use."

Superman quickly got together three hundred dollars in cash and quickly forked it over. Danny gave him another physical copy of the photo and a usb drive with the photo in a digital format.

"I am so pinning this up." Superman muttered.

"Get out of my city." Batman said flatly. Superman waved a hand, beamed at Danny, and left.

"Did you know Gotham's waters is a mixture of freshwater, swamp, and saltwater habitats?"

Batman grunted.

"Also, please stop stalking Danny Fenton. It's odd."

Batman swiveled his head over. "What."

Danny stared him down. "Stop. Stalking. Innocent. Bystanders. Or else I will recreate the phrase "drowned rat" with you as the subject."

Batman stilled.

"I don't kill, by the way. I can, however, dunk you in the sea and lift you up like a goth version of Simba."

Batman relaxed minutely. "I can't."

"And why not?"

Batman gave him a despairing look. "Have you met my children?"

"... Point."

[woso-dreamzzz]

Second Time's The Charm

Alexia Putellas x Reader

Summary: You and your kind of ex-wife

Lips smashed against yours before you could even compute what was going on.

They were still as soft as ever and you opened your own so Alexia could slip her tongue inside.

"Hi," She said, pulling away slowly.

"Hi."

You smiled at her.

She looked nearly the same as when you divorced her and left the country. The same cheeks. The same nose. The same eyes. The same awkward little smile on her face.

“I missed you,” She said,” I heard from Alba you were coming home and I couldn’t believe it. I missed you!”

“I missed you too, Ale.”

Her arms were open and you stepped into them. They were just as familiar as they were when you broke up and you melted into them now.

“Sorry,” Someone said,” What the fuck?! Alexia, you’re dating now?!”

Both you and Alexia looked at Mapi in confusion.

“No. Why would you think that?”

“Because you just started snogging her in front of all of us,” Lucy replied, hands shoved into her pockets casually,” I thought we were meant to be meeting the new medic but, no, I guess you were really getting acquainted.”

You laughed, shaking your head fondly as Alexia pouted, her arms tightening around you just like they did years ago when Alba teased you for being mushy.

“She’s my wife,” Alexia insisted, stamping her foot.

“Ex-wife,” You butted in quickly as the team’s mouths fell open in shock. Very few of them had been on the team the same time you and Alexia had been married, childhood sweethearts that eloped the day after you both turned eighteen.

Alexia laughed nervously and you narrowed your eyes.

You recognised that laugh. You’d heard that laugh for years when she pretended to a teacher that her homework was just in her locker and that’s why she hadn’t handed it in or when she promised Eli that she wasn’t the one that broke her favourite glass cabinet and it was really her who had kicked a football right through it.

You knew that laugh very well.

“Alexia,” You said, teeth gritted,” What did you do?”

“Now, amor,” She said,” Just remember that-“

“Alexia, confess!”

“I may have forgotten to file the papers.”

“Alexia!” You snapped before sighing. A bubble of laughter emerged from your throat until you were trapped in an almost hysterical laughing fit. “We signed them together. At the kitchen table. How did you forget?”

“I promise I was going to!” She insisted,” But I had other stuff to do and it just got buried and Mama did some cleaning and she must have shredded them on accident!”

“Alexia, that was years ago! Are you saying that we’re still married?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“On which answer will get me in trouble.”

Fondly, you tugged on her ponytail. “You are so lucky I love you.”

She grinned. “Enough to stay married?”

You shrugged. “Well, it’s a hassle to file the papers and work out the separation of assets again.”

“Oh, thank god.” Alexia fished something out of her pocket and it was only when she slid it onto your finger again that you recognised it as your wedding ring. She was the one that had bought them and while you knew that hers had remained on a chain around her neck, you hadn’t ever wondered what had happened to yours after you returned it.

You just assumed it had been thrown to the bottom of her jewellery box.

“Have you been carrying that around since you found out I was coming home?”

Like a professional, she skirted around your question. “Home! You need to move in again! The clothes you left all got put into a storage locker so we should probably swing by there after work. Your office is practically the same but kind of dusty so I’ll clean it up while you unpack.”

You nodded, mulling over the plan in your head. “You know that if I have back in then so does Mr Stinky.”

Alexia wrinkled her nose in disgust. “You still have him?”

“Yes, Ale! Just because I moved to England doesn’t mean I abandoned my cat!”

She pursed her lips before admitting. “I think there’s still a few of his toys under the sofa. I can never manage to get them all.”

“And I want the left side of the bathroom sink.”

She nodded before freezing. “Hey! Wait, no! That’s my side! That’s always been my side! You can’t just take it!”

You flashed your ring. “You want this to work? I want the left side of the sink.”

“Well…I want…I want…I want the right side of the dresser!”

“Done!”

“Done!”

“Sorry, no,” Mapi butted in. You’d almost forgotten that you were meant to be introducing yourself to the team. “Not done. Let me get this straight. You two got married, divorced but not really and now you’ve decided to get back together?!”

You shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“But you divorced!” It was clear that she was struggling to wrap her head around this.

“It wasn’t really a breakup though,” Alexia said flippantly,” We still hooked up every time she came home. We only really tried to get a divorce because she was leaving for England. I was clingy when I was younger.”

The whole team pointedly stared at Alexia’s hands on your waist and how they hadn’t moved but to put your ring back on your finger.

“Clingier,” You amended,” And I needed to leave for more money. We decided it would just be easier to get divorced but I guess that didn’t work out.”

“Oh!” Alexia said suddenly,” I need to tell Mama! She’ll be so happy! She’s always talking about you to everyone.”

“Oh, I’m glad. I’ll have to call my Mama too. She’s always telling people that her daughter-in-law is Alexia Putellas. You’ll have to come to Sunday lunch this week. My aunts and uncles will be there.”

“Next week we’ll go to mine then,” Alexia agreed,” Mama will want you to try her paella again. She tweaked the recipe.”

“Oh, great! I love Eli’s paella. My-“

“No!” Mapi said, pointing at both of you in turn,” This is moving so quickly. I’m sorry but what the hell?!”

“Oh,” You said,” I didn’t introduce myself properly. I’m y/n. I’m the new doctor on the team. Alexia’s…well I was going to say ex but apparently we’re still married so I’m Ale’s wife! I look forward to getting to know you all.”

[lovebugism]

I love your ones with shy x king steve could you write more with lots of angst lolll

ty for requesting !! — the trials and tribulations of dating hawkins' golden boy (shy!reader, secret relationship, hurt/comfort, king!steve universe | 1.6k)

Gravel crunches under your feet, digging into the bottoms of your shoes with every step. You storm through the empty alleyway between the gymnasium and the chemistry lab despite that. Despite the whipping wind that threatens to pull you back. Despite the calls of your name from an achingly familiar voice.

“Hey! Hey, wait up!” Steve shouts at the back of you, laughing like it’s funny. 

You hear his footsteps kicking up gravel as he rushes to catch up with you. It takes little effort on his part — legs long and mostly bare in his Hawkins Tigers basketball shorts. He towers over you accordingly, when he slides ahead of you to stop you suddenly in your tracks. 

“Hey. What’s going on?” the boy pants with a crooked smile. His cheeks, freshly shaven, are now flushed from a merciless practice. The shirt clinging just perfectly to his torso, too, is damp at the neckline with sweat. “Why are you avoiding me, huh?”

He’s met with an emotionless scowl from you, which is strange, ‘cause you’re usually all smiles around him. But you keep your arms crossed over tight your chest, adamant in revealing nothing to him. 

Steve’s smile wavers at the edges as he forces a breathy, unsure laugh. “Oh, you’re not— you’re not talking to me? Shit, I must have some serious groveling to do, don’t I?”

His wide hands settle warm on the outsides of your elbows, just before he ducks down to kiss you. You catch a smirk pulling at his pink mouth when the tip of his nose traces the bridge of yours — like it’s still so funny to him. 

He frowns when you flinch back from him, boyish features twisting like a puppy’s might. “You okay?” he wonders, suddenly solemn.

“No, Steve,” you snap. “I’m not.”

He stammers hopelessly. “Well, what— What happened? Did I… Did I do something, or…?”

“No. You didn’t do anything,” you bite. “Because you never do anything.”

You try to walk past him, but Steve sidesteps to block you, his hands spread awkwardly before him in surrender. “Okay, well, now I’m confused,” he murmurs, face swirled with uncertainty. “‘Cause you’re saying I didn’t do anything, but… it kinda sounds like I did do something…”

His disregard sets you aflame from the inside. 

“Tommy made fun of me in front of all your friends. In front of you—” You dig your finger into the center of his chest. “—And what did you do? Nothing, Steve… Nothing.”

Your voice breaks. You clear your throat when emotion starts to strangle you. 

The memory of earlier that day pangs your chest like it just happened — like it’s still happening. And it’s not so much what Tommy said to you, but what Steve didn’t have the courage to say.

The boy sighs, swiping a hand through his sweat-drenched hair. “He’s a dick, babe. You know that. Don’t let him get to you—”

“That’s really easy for you to say, isn’t it?”

He flinches at your foreignly sharp tone. “Well, what was I supposed to do?”

Now, you can’t tell if he’s oblivious or just a coward. Neither is particularly attractive.

“Anything,” you spit. “Literally anything.”

“I just didn’t want them to find out about us, alright?” Steve argues, harsher now. “That was the agreement, wasn’t it? That we stay a secret—”

“‘Cause you’re ashamed of me,” you choke, eyes going glassy.

“‘Cause I didn’t want this shit to get any worse for you!”

“It can’t get any worse, Steve! I’m fucking— I’m fish bait!”

“What?!”

“Every day, I’m terrified of what your friends are gonna say to me,” you confess, despite the cracks in your voice and the tears blurring your vision. “I’m self-conscious, all the time, ‘cause they always have something to say. About my hair, my clothes, my makeup—”

Steve’s chest burns with a palpable ache. Every inch of your heartbreak is his own. His arms cross over his chest in a feeble attempt to quell the flame. “Really?”

You scoff a bitter laugh. “God, you’re so oblivious…”

“I didn’t know it was that bad, babe, I swear,” Steve says, voice suddenly fragile as he takes a step closer to you. His sneaker scuffs the gravel with hesitancy. “I thought Tommy was just being a prick, you know? He’s like that with everyone. I had no idea it was like that, okay?”

Your tight chest deflates with a sigh. “The point is, Steve… That Tommy shouldn’t be doing anything to be at all. You should be protecting me— Not even as my boyfriend, but as a decent fucking human being.”

“I’ll talk to him,” the boy says with a firm nod.

“Steve—”

“I will. I-I’ll sort it out, okay? I promise.”

Even though the look of hurt twisting his features makes your eyes sting, you smack your lips indifferently against your teeth. “No. Don’t worry about it. I’d hate for him to find out about us—”

“Babe—”

“Or, god forbid, you lose any shot of being prom king,” you laugh cynically. “Wouldn’t that be a bite?”

Steve huffs, though it’s hard with the leaden weight on his chest. “Okay. Now you’re just being mean.”

You know you are. You wanted to be — wanted to hurt him like he hurt you. But you’re questioning if he deserves it now, so you shrink into yourself all over again. “I have to go. Me and Robin are going to the library.” When you walk past him this time, he makes no effort to stop you. 

It hurts only slightly.

“Let me drive you,” he calls to you, anyway.

“So you can be seen with a bunch of dweebs at the library?” you scoff, not looking back at him. “I’d hate to see what that would do to your reputation.” 

“Please, don’t,” Steve sighs, with his hands on his hips and his head tossed back like he’s talking to the sky. “Don’t leave when you’re mad at me. Please.”

His words are carried to you on an early fall breeze, which stills suddenly when you spin around to face him. The sight of you takes his breath in a similar way — eyes teary, chin quivering, face twisted with the hurt he caused.

“Do you know how humiliating it is?” you ask him, voice trembling. “To watch your boyfriend stay silent when all of his friends are making fun of you?”

“I’m sorry—”

“It’s fucking humiliating.”

His jaw clenches. So hard his temples shift. “I thought I was helping,” Steve explains, gesturing wildly with his hands. “I thought if I said something, then everyone would find out, and you said you didn’t want that—”

“Because you’re King Steve,” you retort, agonizing the point he seems to be forgetting. Your voice breaks like splintered glass. “And I’m— I’m nothing—”

“That’s not true—”

“—And I thought the only way I’d get to be with you was if no one else knew. So you could keep being Hawkins Royalty while dating the… the local fucking prude.”

An emotionless laugh sputters from your lips. It cuts through Steve like a knife. 

“I didn’t… I didn’t know you felt that way,” the boy confesses, closing the short distance between you. The snapping gravel under his sneakers fills the silence. You duck your gaze when he towers over you again.

“Well… now you do,” you murmur.

“I’ll make it better, okay? I’ll fix it,” Steve assures. Unsure of what to do with his hands when they’re not holding you, he sticks the trembling limbs in the pockets of his short shorts. He shifts on his feet and kicks a rock with his sneaker. “You just… You just have to let me.”

He flashes you a look then, a pleading sort of glance from beneath his lashes, glimmering with a darkened honey. It makes your chest sparkle in a similar way. But still slightly hurt, you only shrug in response.

“Can I have a kiss, at least?”

You shrug again with eyes wide and pleading, shining now with a surer answer you hope he can hear in your silence. 

Steve leans in slowly, testing the waters. His gaze darts from your eyes, to your mouth, and to your eyes again. When you don’t flinch away by the time his nose grazes yours, he finally kisses you — a chaste peck that makes your tense shoulders slowly relax. You fight the urge to chase him when he pulls back from you. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt you. Really,” Steve says in a pained murmur. He swallows hard, adam’s apple bobbing. “‘Cause you mean— You mean a lot to me, you know?”

It’s the closest he’s ever gotten to telling you he loves you, which is saying something, ‘cause he thinks he almost tells you every day. 

“You mean a lot to me, too,” you mutter shyly in response.

Steve tries and fails to bite back a grin. He ducks down for another kiss –– the long and languid one he’s been dreaming about all day. The kind that tastes like strawberry chapstick and nicotine and yearning. The kind that pains you to pull away from.

Your kissed mouths smack apart in protest. You try hard to conceal a lovesick smile. “I really do have to meet Robin, though…” you confess in a mousy voice.

His rosy mouth falls softly agape. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, uh,” he clears his throat. “Call me later?”

You step back from him and shrug, still smiling. “We’ll see,” you lilt beneath the gravel crunching under your feet. Only when you’re at the edge of the alleyway do you glance at him over your shoulder. The puppy-like hurt on his face returns.

“You’re breakin’ my heart!” he calls to you, only partly serious.

“Just like seeing you grovel,” you joke. “That’s all.”

[tropes-and-tales]

🥰 FINALLY

(Frankie "Catfish" Morales x F!Reader)

CW:  Angst; talk of addiction; talk of failed relationships. Smut (PiV, unprotected). 18+ only.

Word Count: 6734

AN:  This was originally requested by @elegantmusicdragon, and it's a sequel to this!

There’s no pretending they don’t know.

Will saw it firsthand.  Pope heard it, then got text confirmation from Will.  Ben slept through all of it, but when he wakes early in the morning, he looks across the loft and sees his brother in the wan pre-dawn light, staring at the ceiling with a haunted look on his face. 

A bit of prodding later, he finds out what he missed while he slept.

You and Fish, fucking.  You and Fish, the two members of the team who squabble and irritate each other the most, who sometimes outright fight and sometimes require someone else—Will, usually—to referee.

You and Fish.  You thought you were quiet, but by morning, everyone knows.

And worse, you and Fish know they know.  After you finished, quiet as you could be, both of your cell phones pinged with a string of incoming messages.  From Pope.

Pope:  👏👏👏👏

Pope:  excellent work you two

Pope:  🍆 💦💦💦💦

Pope:  seriously tho ur both gross

Pope:  but congrats happy for u

You read the messages and felt a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, but when you glanced over at Frankie, he only raked his hand through his hair and muttered, “fuck.”

-----

Breakfast is a surreal affair.  No one says anything at first, so the only sounds are forks and spoons clinking against dishes.  Chewing.  Benny, doing his usual gross early morning phlegm-clearing cough.

Your face burns in embarrassment.  Frankie keeps his eyes fixed on his scrambled eggs, which he only pushes around with the tines of his fork.  You can feel Pope’s eyes on you, Will’s eyes, and the cabin is full of anticipation.

Pope’s the one who breaks it.  He clears his throat, asks in a tone that’s phony-casual, “everyone sleep okay?”

“I didn’t,” Will replies.  “Thought I heard something last night.”

“Outside?”  Again, Pope’s voice is fake, an edge of chipper teasing in it. 

“Sounded like something got into the cabin.”

Pope pulls a thoughtful face.  “Y’know, I think I heard something too.  Kinda like a wounded animal?  Two wounded animals, grunting and moaning—”

Frankie huffs out a heavy sigh, and you slouch lower in your chair.  Benny grins around his mug of coffee and adds, “it is mating season, I think.”

Pope snaps his finger, a eureka sort of gesture.  “That must be it!  We must have come here during mating season and just didn’t realize it.  Wild.  Who knew?”

You chafe at the word mating, which makes it sound like you and Frankie are…well, mates, so you mutter, “it’s just hooking up,” which makes Frankie sigh again, because that launches Pope into a blistering lecture about responsibility and poor choices and Jesus Christ, you two, are you even using protection?  Are you at least being safe, because you sure as shit aren’t being smart?

You mumble a defensive comment that it isn’t his business (though you’re on birth control, you sure as hell aren’t admitting it to the guys—Frankie knows, and that’s all that matters), and then you find the strength to stand up, announce that you’re going for a walk down to the lake, and if they care to speculate further on your reproductive health, they can do so without your presence.

*****

Frankie can’t remember the last time he has been so mortified.

No, scratch that.  He can remember.  It was when he was in the throes of his addiction, and you ambushed him with an intervention.  Now, a full year after that, he sees the love and care that went into it, but at the time, he felt a furious blend of anger and frustration and mortification.

This is like that, albeit less strong…but incredibly fresh.

After you march off—abandoning him, naturally—he lets the guys get their shots in.  He clenches his jaw and fixes his gaze somewhere over Pope’s head, at a pattern of knots in the wood paneling on the wall.  He tries to let their ribbing wash over him, but he takes each comment personally.

And he’s embarrassed.  It would be one thing to be caught with a random woman from, say, a bar or a party.  You, though?  It feels like a weakness, a failure of character, to be caught fucking someone he barely gets along with.  Pathetic, like he can’t do better.  Like he couldn’t find a woman who simpers for him, who is eager to impress him, who is impressed by him.  Like he’s had to settle for someone who rolls her eyes at him, who snarks at him, who doesn't think that highly of him. 

Someone who saw him at his weakest, when he was addicted to coke.  Someone who rolled her eyes and marched in to save the day.

Weak.  Pathetic.

Frankie stews.  The guys wear themselves out, split up.  Benny goes to find you on your march down to the lake.  He says he’ll calm you down, soothe your chagrined soul and smooth you out.  Pope disappears into his room to take a work call, since he has a new contract coming up in a few days.

It leaves Frankie and Will.  Frankie stands up from the table and makes his way out to the front porch, and Will follows.  Frankie heaves himself onto the porch swing, and he sets a rhythm of fast, jerky swinging.  Back and forth.  Back and forth.  He swings in time to his pounding heart, the headache forming at the base of his skull.

Will settles on the step and stretches his leg out.  He turns his face to the rising sun, and he’s silent for a long moment.

“You okay?” he finally asks.  There’s no teasing in his voice.  He sounds genuine.

“Great.”  Frankie spits it out, sarcastic.

Will jerks his chin in the direction of the cabin door.  “You know we’re just teasing.”

“Yeah.”

Will hesitates before he asks, “is it really just hooking up?”

Frankie sighs.  “Obviously.”

Another beat of hesitation.  “You don’t have feelings for her?”

That pulls a bitter laugh from Frankie.  “Obviously not.”

“Thing is, it’s not so obvious.”  Will turns his head and fixes Frankie with an appraising look that Frankie doesn’t like.  He meets his eye for a beat, then slides his own gaze away, looks past Will to the clearing where the fire pit is.  That first evening here seems a million years ago, though it was only a couple of days. 

“It’s just that you two make a weird sort of sense,” Will continues.  “You’re so similar—”

“We’re nothing alike.”  Frankie cuts him off tersely.  “We don’t have a damned thing in common other than a shared history.”

“You’re both stubborn.  You’re both strong-willed people, and you both obviously care about each other—”

“No.  Nope.”  He cuts him off again, and all of those bad feelings—mortification being the strongest—bubble up in him.

“I don’t care about her.  Are you kidding?  It was just hooking up.  She was available, and it was convenient, and that’s it.” 

There’s venom behind his words, a force fed by his deep embarrassment to have been caught with you.  It makes his voice carry just enough that you and Ben both hear it as you walk back from the lake.  Will sees you first, makes a noise in the back of his throat as he catches your expression—the hurt there, the pain that Frankie’s words cause—and then Frankie sees you too.

“Hey,” he starts to say, but you wave him off, tell him it’s fine, you’re fine…and in all the years that Frankie has known you, this is the first time you lie to him.

-----

The weekend ends on a sour note.

There’s no fight between you and Frankie, and that hurts the most.  For as much as you bicker, you go silent now.  When you talk to him, you’re flat.  Polite.  Distant.

Pope needs to head back early to get back to Colombia, and you catch a ride with him.

“Got things I need to do,” you say, and everyone knows it’s a lie, but no one knows how to call you out on it.  You’re hurt, Frankie has hurt you and the guys fed into the bad feelings that led to that hurt, and everyone parts in a low mood.

A hundred times Frankie’s finger hovers over your name on his phone.  A hundred times he starts to craft a message in his head, only to toss the phone aside.

A hundred times he struggles to fall asleep because he cannot get your face out of his head.  That look of surprise and hurt, and all his fault because he was an asshole who was embarrassed to be caught hooking up with you.

No, not was an asshole.  Is an asshole.  Because a hundred times he thinks he’ll summon the courage to reach out, but a hundred times, he fails.

-----

He doesn’t see you for six months.  He don’t talk to you directly, and the best he gets is your short, clipped responses in the gang’s group chat.  Even there, you tend to go silent.

He dare not ask one of the guys how you’re doing.  He sees the Miller brothers the most, talks to Pope only sometimes, and maybe there’s a separate group chat because it seems as though the three of them have reached some agreement to never mention you around Frankie.

Six months.  Half a year after the cabin by the lake.  How does Frankie spend his time?  Lonely, mostly.  He goes to work, then goes home.  He goes to meetings once a week, but he rarely has cravings and has less pressure to use.  He started using before because he just had too much going on—work and married life, Pope’s scheming to make them all millionaires, Tom’s death.  Now Frankie has very little.  Just a job.  Just a small apartment where he sits alone on his secondhand couch and eats microwaved leftovers while the TV plays at a low volume.

A hundred times he thinks to call you.  A hundred times he thinks to drive to where you live—one town over, but only a fifteen minute drive.  He could apologize; he could try to understand why you looked so hurt.  Of course he cares for you, deep down, but it isn’t love…or was it?

A hundred times that question floats to the front of his mind, and a hundred times he shoves it down, ignores it, waits for it to recede from his thoughts.

-----

Six months after the cabin by the lake, Frankie sees you again.  Pope is in town for his birthday.  His latest contract has ended, the next one hasn’t begun, and he has a stretch of time to visit and gorge himself on all the things he can’t get overseas.

His birthday is held at Will and Benny’s place.  When Frankie rolls up a solid half hour late, though, Will is outside waiting for him.

“How’s it going?” he asks, and the two exchange their usual handshake into a half-hug.

“Good.  You?”

“Good.”  Will jams his hands in his pockets and fixes Frankie with a curious look.  “She’s in there, you know.”

It says a lot that the she in this case is you and not his ex-wife, who arguably would put the guys more on alert.  How have you managed to reach such a dubious place of honor?

Frankie tries to sound casual.  “Yeah, I figured.”  A beat, and he adds, “don’t worry.  I don’t plan on fighting with her.  It’s Pope’s night.”

Will furrows his brow at that, shakes his head faintly.  “Yeah, I know.  But Frankie, she’s in there with someone else.  Pope’s buddy, remember?”

-----

Fucking Paolo.

Fucking recently-divorced, recently-cheated on, sad piece of shit Paolo.  Pope’s buddy that he tried—and apparently succeeded at—setting you up with at the cabin.

Thing is, the guy isn’t a sad piece of shit.  Or a troll, as Frankie had teased you at the cabin.  The man is handsome; an easy smile and warm eyes.  Hair that looks great but like he didn’t try to make it look great.  Clothing well-fitted and well-made, but not obnoxiously designer.  Good handshake, when Frankie is introduced.  A genuine ‘nice to meet you’ in accented English.

Frankie’s jealousy, as it turns out, is wide and deep and never-ending.

Because for fuck’s sake, you look happy.  Relaxed.  Paolo puts his hand on your lower back and leads you to get fresh drinks.  He slings an arm around your waist as you stand and chat with Pope.  He turns and whispers something in your ear that makes you giggle, and how is Frankie just now learning that you fucking giggle, and that it sounds cute on you, a musical little laugh that makes his stomach turn because he’s never drawn such a sound from you?

And Paolo must smooth out your rough edges because you gift Frankie a little smile and ask how he’s been, and there’s no venom behind the question.  No lingering bad will. 

You’ve moved on, it seems, and it hits Frankie harder than he thought it would.  He ends up leaving after only a few hours, lies and says he’s coming down with something, but he takes one backwards glance at you before he goes. 

You aren’t looking at him at all.  You’re looking—gazing—at fucking Paolo’s handsome fucking face, and Frankie’s first thought is she never looked at me like that.

His second thought is maybe I never gave her a reason to look at me like that.

-----

Frankie sees you once a few months after Pope’s birthday, by accident at the grocery store.  You’re alone and frowning slightly in the produce section, looking at the selection of apples on display.  Paolo is nowhere in sight, but that doesn’t mean anything.

You don’t see Frankie.  He stands by the cut flowers and studies you from under the brim of his hat, and he half-hopes you turn and see him.  He half-hopes you don’t.  He stands by a bucket of cheerful daisies and wonders if Paolo brings you flowers.

He half-hopes the man does, because you deserve flowers.  He half-hopes he doesn’t, because Frankie is jealous and hates the thought that Paolo has only known you for a fraction of time—far less than Frankie has known you—and is still probably that much better for you than Frankie would have been.

Frankie doesn’t know what to do with himself.  His thumb still hovers over your contact information in the still, quiet hours of the night. 

He thinks of the intervention you staged for him.  He had stormed out, furious to be so embarrassed and exposed, and you had followed.

He remembers you stopping him, your hands turning him to face you.  Your hands gripping either side of his face as you stared deep into his eyes and pleaded with him to get his shit together.

It’s as good of advice now as it was then.

-----

A year after the cabin by the lake, and everyone returns to the cabin by the lake. 

Frankie hesitates when Will calls for his confirmation.  Will must guess why, because Will not-so-casually mentions that it’s just the core folks, you and Frankie and Pope and the Millers.  No plus-ones.

“Just us,” Will reminds him.  “To remember Tom.”

So fucking Paolo won’t be there with his nice smile and nice hair and his hand resting lightly on your back, and Frankie agrees to come.

When he arrives, it is just like the year before.  Pope pulls rank and calls dibs on the lone single bedroom.  The Miller brothers scamper up to the loft like children, poking at each other and laughing the whole way.

Which leaves you and Frankie exactly where you were a year ago.  Awkwardly sharing the living room with the lumpy couch and a mattress on the floor.  Frankie glances at you, opens his mouth to say something, but Pope—who tosses his bag into the bedroom, then strides back out—comes up to you and pulls you into a hug that kind of looks like a headlock.

“Sorry to hear about it,” he says, and Frankie is bewildered for a beat before Pope adds, “for the record, I told him he was being fucking stupid.”

His mind guesses that this is about Paolo, but his mouth, which often operates independently of his mind, blurts out, “did you break up?”

You peer out at him from where Pope has you tucked against him, and grumble, “how’d you say it last year?  I’d only disappoint him.”

Frankie sucks in a breath, remembers the shot he took at you.  He shakes his head, ashamed at the memory, but doesn’t say anything.

“No.  No, no, no.”  Pope adjusts his hold, puts you in an actual headlock.  He glances over at Frankie and clarifies, “he got back together with his ex-wife.”

“She was better than me,” you chime in, and it sounds muffled.

“Nope again.  She’s a cheater, and she’ll cheat again, and you’ll be off with someone far better.”  Pope adjusts his hold as you struggle against him, and he adds, “now say something nice about yourself.  No feeling sorry, so say something nice.”

“I’m a good cook.”  It’s muffled again; your face is pressed against Pope’s side where he holds you fast.

“No good.  I mean, you’re a good cook, yes, but you learned that.  It’s not essential to who you are.”

“Pope, c’mon,” you whine.  “Lemme go.”

“Not until you say it.”

Frankie smiles at the exchange, but he puzzles over it too.  He wonders at the relationship you have with Pope, separate from him and the other guys.  He supposes he’s never considered it—he always thought you and he had a separate thing, but never considered how you got on with Pope or Will or Ben independent of him, separate from the broader group. 

But Paolo was Pope’s friend too, and Frankie wonders how much Pope hyped you up to Paolo and vice versa.  And how much Pope has been there for you now that it’s ended, perhaps feeling guilty to have it go sideways on you.

Hence this little game that seems well-established:  Pope holding you in a headlock, forcing you to speak well of yourself.

“I’m…loyal,” you finally concede.

Pope shoots Frankie a grin and replies, “yes, you are.  You’re good as gold.”

But he doesn’t release you quick enough, and you get enough of an arm free to lightly sucker punch him low in the stomach, and Frankie smiles wider because that’s the you he recognizes best—the one who puts up with shit to a certain level, then comes out swinging.

-----

The first night this time is much the same as the last time.  There’s a bonfire, a cooler of beers, laughter.  Loons call across the water to each other, and sparks from the fire drift on the updraft to merge with the stars glimmering above them.

Frankie feels restless.  He fiddles with his bottle of beer, rolls it between his palms, peels the label.  He hasn’t seen you in so long, hasn’t talked to you for even longer, and now you’re sitting across the fire ring from him.  Your face is gilded orange and gold in the flames, and while you laugh with them, you seem a touch sad.  Quieter than usual.

When everyone finally turns in, he offers you the mattress on the floor.  For the first time since you’ve arrived, you pause and look at him.  Actually look at him:  meet his eyes, study his face. 

“The couch is lumpy,” you remind him.  “Your back.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Nah, I’m okay.”  You turn away and shake out the folded blanket, and Frankie despairs at how polite and distant you are now.  His own fault, but he loathes it.  He wishes you’d squabble with him again, pick a fight, tease him until he huffs in frustration.

“Hey, can we talk?” he asks.  He watches you lie down.  You punch at the pillow, turn on your side, then settle and sigh.

“I’d rather not, Fish.”

“I wanted to say I’m sorry—”

You arch an eyebrow at him.  “For Paolo?  You kinda said it would go down the exact way it went down.”

He shakes his head.  “No, but I should have never said that—”

“It’s fine.”

“I meant, I wanted to say I’m sorry for before.”

“Oh.”

“Here, last year.”  He swallows and studies your expression, which gives nothing away.  “I shouldn’t have said what I did.  It was cruel, and—”

“I get it.  I remember.  It’s fine, Fish.  Everything’s fine.”

He wants to add more, but you roll over to face the back of the couch, your back to him.  It occurs a moment later that you’re still lying to him, because you’ve just said everything was fine at least four times in the past five minutes, and he gets the distinct impression that nothing is fine.

-----

The next day, you hike again.  It’s a different route this time, and the summit is different but the view is the same, just a different angle:  placid lake below, brilliant blue sky above, and a picnic lunch spread out on the rock. 

Frankie has done a lot of work on himself.  In the past months, he’s learned to stop thinking of himself as a fixed point.  Life is not a ladder, as he always imagined.  He can change and adapt and not think himself weak for backing up and taking a different route when the first route proves to be a dead end.

Case in point:  you and your occasional balking as you hike down a mountain.  There’s a stretch that is dicey, loose graveled and steep, and sure enough, you falter, then freeze.

Frankie from last year got impatient with you, and left you behind for Benny to rescue.

Frankie from this year recognizes that your fear isn’t a personal failing.  It’s a quirk.  It makes you you, and how he reacts now is what makes him him.  The new and improved Frankie.  Less of an asshole.  Back up, try a new way. 

“Take your time,” he tells you now.  “There’s no rush.”

You don’t seem to hear him.  You’re so used to him being frustrated that you say, plaintive, “just go around, Fish.”

A breath.  New and improved Frankie.  “No, I’ll wait for you.  I’m here.”

You glance at him, and he sees the whites of your eyes:  the fear there.  He regrets that he wasn’t patient with you before.  Another breath, like his therapist taught him.  He feels the regret, then lets it go.  He reminds himself that he can be better now.

Frankie reaches out a hand to you.  “C’mon,” he says.  “I’ve got you.”

Of course you stare at him a long moment like he’s grown two heads.  Like he’s been replaced by some alien double who is kind instead of snappish.

You end up taking his hand, though, and he grips you firmly, takes you step by step out of the perilous stretch of the trail.

-----

Dinner is Pope on steaks, you on pasta and vegetables again.  Benny, who took an internet wine course to impress a girl, pops the corks on a few bottles of middle shelf vintage.  He explains about how it has to breathe, how it has to release the bouquet until Pope steps away from the steaks to smack him upside his head.

New and improved Frankie.  When the dinner conversation touches on your breakup, he murmurs his consolations.  When Pope gives the entire history of Paolo and his volatile ex-wife, he clicks his tongue and shakes his head in disgust.

New and improved Frankie.  He tells you your contributions to the meal are delicious, and he misses the sly look that Will gives to Pope because Frankie is too focused on you.  Your face twists in confusion at his praise, and you reply a beat later with a lilt of questioning, “thank you?”

-----

New and improved Frankie.  He manages to beat you to the living room before bed, and he snags the couch while you’re brushing your teeth.  You stop in your tracks when you see him, and you narrow your eyes.

“Take the mattress tonight,” he says.  He ignores the spring in the couch digging into the left side of his ass.  “Seriously.”

The guys are all already tucked into their own beds, so when you put your hands on your hips and demand to know what the hell is wrong with him, you keep your voice low.

“Nothing wrong with me.”

You don’t buy it, but your scowl softens.  “Frankie, are you using again?”

He laughs.  Of course you’d associate his attempts at niceness with drugs. 

“Not at all.  I’m at about eighteen months clean.”

That replaces your scowl with a smile.  A genuine one.  “Oh, Fish.  Congratulations.”

“It’s thanks to you.”

“Nah.  You’re the one who did the hard work.”

“You’re the one who saw I had a problem.”

“The guys noticed it too.”

“Yeah, but.”  He takes a breath.  “You’re the one who took action.  You probably saved my life.”

You wave him off, and you kneel down on the mattress, then sit cross-legged and look at him.  “You give me too much credit, Fish.”

That makes him shake his head.  “No, I never gave you enough credit.  I was married, remember.  Sophie never noticed, and if she did, she didn’t set up an intervention.  It was all you.”

Something about being so open makes you uncomfortable.  You fold your hands in your lap and look down at them.  “Where is all this coming from?”  Your voice is quiet, and Frankie has to strain to hear you.

“What do you mean?”

A sigh.  “I mean, I don’t want you to be nice because I got dumped.  I hate pity.”

He sits up a bit, props himself on his elbow and watches you.  “It’s not pity.”

“Then why are you being so nice?  We haven’t argued once and it’s been over a day.”  You glance over at him, your hands twisting in your lap restlessly.

He sits up completely and leans forward, his elbows on his knees.  “I hated the way I left things with you before.”  A pause.  “Remember what you told me at my intervention?  You said I had to get my shit together.  I thought, ‘okay, I’m clean now, I have some clean months behind me.  So why am I still so fucking miserable to be with?’”

“Fish, you aren’t miserable to be—”

“I am.”  He cuts you off.  “And I don’t want to be.  I don’t want to be the man who makes you feel like shit because I’m embarrassed we got caught hooking up.  You’re not something to be ashamed of, and I acted like a complete asshole.”

The corner of your mouth twitches in a sardonic smile.  “The guys were being obnoxious.”

“And I should have been obnoxious back.  I could have talked you up.  Talked us up.  Instead of being a dick, I could have said, ‘yeah, we’re hooking up, and it’s amazing, so be jealous about it because you’re all single with no prospects.’”

“We were technically single too.”

He nods, serious.  “Yeah, we were, but maybe we shouldn’t have been.”

That makes you laugh; an honest-to-god belly laugh that has you wrapping your arms around your stomach.  Frankie winces, glances up at the loft where the Miller brothers are theoretically sleeping, then he pushes the worry aside.  Who gives a shit if they hear you laughing with him?

When he doesn’t laugh too, your laughter dies down.  “Wait, you’re not joking?”

“No.”

A long pause with the two of you watching each other.  “…and you’re sure you’re not using?”

“I’m sure.  I had a piss test last week for work.”

“…okay.”

He sighs and holds his hands out to you, palms up.  Entreating.  “I’ve been seeing a therapist.  Yes, it feels like bullshit, but it’s something, you know?  Having a third party to bounce my bad memories against.  My bad feelings.  He’s helped me figure out some stuff.”

You blink at him in sincere surprise.  “I’m proud of you, Fish.”

That makes a warm flush course through him, you being proud of him.  “It’s a cliché, but there’s shit from childhood that really can fuck a person up as an adult, you know?”

“Oh, I know it.  Eldest daughter, right here.  Child of functional alcoholics.”

“I guess I always had this set idea in my head of how life was gonna be, and when it was not that, when it turned out to be something that I constantly had to work out, I didn’t know how to handle that,” he admits.

“I get that too.”  You nod along, and you stop fiddling with your hands.

Frankie takes a deep breath and plunges ahead.  He has to get it out, and he has your attention.

“And, you know, I had set ideas about relationships.  Women.  Marriage.”

The sardonic smile returns.  “Here we go.”

“I was trying to recreate a perfect version of my parents’ marriage,” he admits.  It took some deep work to realize it.  Talking in therapy, dredging up memories he thought he had buried nice and deep.  “I thought if I could do it like them, but better, I would have won.”

“Won what, exactly?” you ask softly.

“Life?  I don’t even know.  It sounds stupid to say it out loud, but I thought it would mean that I had succeeded as an adult.  As a man.  Like people would look at me and be impressed.”

He glances at you, and you nod encouragingly.  He takes another deep breath, and he asks you to just listen to the next part, to not interrupt.  To let him get it all out before you stop listening.

“Okay.”  Another nod, and you settle your hands in your lap again and hold them there.

“So I tried to recreate my parents’ marriage, right?  I found a woman a lot like my mom.  Traditional, stay at home.  Sophie wanted to be taken care of, you know.  She didn’t want to work.  She wanted someone to make the decisions for her on all the big adult stuff.  She wanted to keep house and have kids and be a soccer mom.  Make homemade Halloween costumes and throw elaborate birthday parties for our four or five children, and there was nothing wrong with that.  I thought she’d be better than my mom, an actual mom, you know?  Not someone to get bitter about her missed opportunities and tell her kids how she sacrificed everything for them.  Because that’s what my childhood was like.  My mom always couched everything in what she gave up, like me or my brothers asked to be born.”

He pauses, catches his breath.  You’re watching him, expectant, so he continues.

“And meanwhile, I thought I’d be the best husband.  The best dad.  I had a military career, and they trained me to fly helicopters.  I was so much further ahead than my own dad, who drove a tow truck.  He worked hard all day, then came home to a bitter wife.  The best thing in his life was drinking cheap beer in the garage and hiding from her, and here I was, married to Sophie with a good military job and benefits, and I should have been so happy to be winning.”

“But you weren’t,” you say gently.  It isn’t a question.

He shakes his head.  “No, I wasn’t.  And I didn’t know why.  I started to resent Soph for never making a decision.  Mortgage went up because property taxes went up?  Not her problem.  Roof needed replaced?  I had to figure it out.  Car registration expired while I was overseas, and she got a ticket?  Somehow I had to solve it from the middle of goddamned Afghanistan.  We didn’t even have kids yet, and I was feeling all this pressure to be an adult for both of us.  When I got back home on leave, she tells me that she’s stopped her birth control, and I just…cracked.”

“I get it, Fish.  I mean, not being married, but I get how it feels to expect one thing in your life and have the opposite happen.”

He holds up a palm to remind you to let him get it all out, and you whisper “sorry.  Go ‘head.”

“And then there was you.  The complete opposite of Soph, you know?  You were…are this super independent woman, and whenever we were stuck overseas and Soph was struggling with running a house stateside, you were just there, chirping about what she needed to do.  Like it was nothing.  And I got irritated with you because you are just so damned pulled together and even-keeled and…and easy.  It’s so easy with you, and I hated it because I knew I made the wrong choice after all.  I tried so hard to avoid my parents’ marriage’s pitfalls that I just fell into the same pattern even harder, and you were the one who showed me that.”

He watches to see how his words land.  When you blink at him, he sees a film of tears there, so he plunges forward to get the rest out.

“I didn’t even realize that I loved you.  That’s how fucked in the head I was.  I picked fights with you and told the guys how irritating I thought you were, and you stuck to me anyway.  I could never shake you off.  We mustered out and you saw me drowning in my addiction, and I still told myself that I didn’t like you, didn’t care about you.  I got divorced, and we started hooking up, and I swear to god, sweetheart, hand up to god:  the first time we slept together, it felt like I was finally home, and I still couldn’t admit it to myself.  I kept telling you each time that it was the last time but I kept coming back for more because you feel like home and I loved you, but I fucked it all up because I didn’t understand who I was or what I wanted.”

He stops there, spent.  He feels like he’s been emptied out, and he stares down at his own clenched hands and waits for you to say something.  Anything.

There’s a long, long moment of silence.  He hears the loons on the lake and the wind rustling the trees outside, but you don’t say anything for so long.

Then you breathe out his name, an “oh, Frankie,” and when he looks up, he sees the tears streaming down your face.

“I mean it,” he adds softly.  “I’m sorry, but I mean it.  I love you.  I’ve probably always loved you.  Thinking back, I can’t remember a time I didn’t.  I just didn’t realize it.”

You’re crying openly now, but you’re trying to be quiet.  Frankie doesn’t even think of the guys nearby; he stands up and makes his way to where you sit on the mattress, and he wraps his arm around your shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters against the side of your head, and he has no idea what you’re thinking—if you’re horrified or embarrassed or something else by his admission.  It’s out now, though.  He can’t take it back, and he doesn’t think he would want to take it back anyway.

It takes another long moment of him holding you awkwardly, you trying not to cry too loudly.  But then you give a weak laugh, and whisper hoarsely, “I really thought you were on drugs again.”

“Therapy is sometimes harder than sobriety.”

You pull away a little and stare at him with eyes brilliant with tears.  “Would you have said anything if I were still with Paolo?”

“Maybe.  I might have changed the messaging.  I wouldn’t have wanted to get in the middle of anything.”

You chuck him weakly on his bicep.  “I’ve missed you, you asshole.  And I wasn’t expecting any of this.”

He grins down at you.  “If you feel too out of sorts, we could argue.”

“Yeah?”

“You pointed out that we haven’t argued once yet.”

“Feels weird.”

“It does. Want a big fight or just a little one?”

“Might as well go big.  It’s been so long.”

Frankie chuckles.  He releases you.  He holds his hands up and makes a ‘gimme’ gesture with them.  A ‘give me your best shot’ gesture. 

“C’mon then.  Let’s hear it,” he says.

You smile and swipe at your wet eyes.  “Okay.  You’re a real fucking piece of work, dropping all this heavy shit on me out of nowhere.”

“Maybe you’re a real fucking piece of work to have never guessed.”

A laugh of surprise erupts out of you.  “How in the hell would I ever have guessed that?”

“You notice everything else.  You noticed I was using before.”

“So you dropping a ton of weight and looking like shit from coke is the same as being in love?”

“With you?” he scoffs.  “Absolutely.  Can’t sleep, no appetite, can’t think straight ‘cos of you—”

“Fuck you, Fish,” you say, and then you’re on him, your mouth sliding over his, and it feels just as he said:  you feel just like home.  It stretches out, long and eager, the two of you obviously missing each other and making up for lost time.  Too much lost time.

He breaks the kiss long enough to get you turned and under him, to get your thin cotton shorts down around your ankles, to get his own pajama pants down enough to free his hardening cock.  He bullies himself between your thighs but you spread yourself wide eagerly.  You grasp the back of his neck with one hand, but you reach down with your other hand, take him in hand, and stroke him to his full length.  He touches you between your legs, feels you growing wet and slick for him, and it’s just like home when he kisses you, and it’s just like home when he notches himself against your entrance and then slides into you.

What’s new, though, is how he drops his head so his mouth is near your ear, and he whispers, “god, I love you so fucking much.”

It’s new, too, how you clench down at those words, then turn his head to make him look at you, so he can see your eyes when you whisper back, “I love you too, Frankie.  Always.”

*****

In the past year, Pope has obtained a prescription for medication to help him sleep, so he misses the texts flying in the shadow group chat that is just him and Miller brothers. He only reads them when he wakes up to birdsong outside his window.

Will:  u hearing this?

Will:  Pope.  POPE.

Benny:  Wkae up, asshole.

Will:  u will never guess what’s happening

Benny:  🍆🍑💦

Will:  Fish told her he loved her.

Benny:  bro, wake the fuck up.  This is wild.

Will:  HE SAID HE LOVES HER

Benny:  disgusting but wild

Will:  I think she said it back

It’s five in the morning when Pope wakes up and reads the texts.  He grins, and he wonders if Benny realizes that the peach emoji usually is a stand-in for an ass, which means Benny was implying that you and Fish had anal sex while they all slept nearby, which seems unlikely. 

Pope climbs out of bed quietly to use the bathroom, and it takes him through the living room where you and Frankie are asleep.  Together, he notes.  You’re both fully clothed—thank Christ for small miracles—but you’re together on the mattress on the floor.  Frankie’s arm is over your waist, and your hand lightly circles his wrist.

Fucking gross. 

But also fucking adorable.

Pope uses the bathroom, then tiptoes back to his bed.  He re-reads the texts, then types out his reply to Will and Benny.

Pope:  🥰

Pope:  FINALLY.

[lexirosewrites]

Wealthy omega Steve going on an arranged date each week to the same restaurant because his parents want him to find a mate.

Alpha Eddie who busks in the parking lot for tips and always offers him a cigarette and a shoulder to cry on after it doesn’t work out.

It takes them a while.

“Another one? That’s the third date this week, pretty boy. You going for a record or something?” Eddie asks, already holding his half-finished cigarette out for Steve to take.

He does. It’s his only reward for doing all of this.

Well, that and Eddie.

Eddie makes this easier.

Steve takes a long draw from it, craving the burn of nicotine more than he cares to admit to himself.

He craves Eddie’s company too, but that’s between him and the cigarette.

“Yeah, my parents are working overtime it seems. They’re bound and determined to have me mated off before spring.”

Steve laughs.

Eddie doesn’t.

“They sound awful.”

They are. Their insistence on old-fashioned values and treating their omega son like a burden to be rid of is proof enough.

“They mean well,” he says. “I think.”

Eddie hums thoughtfully. It’s clear that he disagrees.

Steve passes the cigarette back.

The alpha snubs it out on the sidewalk they’re sitting on instead.

“How long are you gonna keep doing this for?”

“Well, as long as it takes to find someone who’s interested, I guess. There’s not an exact timeline or any—”

Eddie startles Steve when he cuts him off with a growl.

He doesn’t look mad, but his forehead creases, deep frown, and sour scent speaks of irritation.

“Not what I meant.”

Oh.

“I don’t know, Eddie. They’re my parents… and it’s not like I’ve got anyone else knocking down my door.”

Even his dates aren’t interested once they’ve met him in person.

Steve always looks good on paper. He’s attractive and from an upstanding family, a decent investment at first glance.

But then he opens his mouth. That’s where their interest always ends.

Sometime between shaking hands and dessert, their eyes get bored and they start checking their watch more. They don’t bother to hide that they’re running out the clock, eager to be away from Steve.

He thought it would hurt less after a while, but it doesn’t.

“How many times are we gonna do this, Stevie?“

And now even Eddie is bored with him. It makes sense. They’ve been meeting up for months and Steve isn’t worth much for stimulating conversation.

It had to end eventually.

“I’m sorry. I— I didn’t realize I was bothering you. I can leave you to your gigging, man. Let me just—”

Steve reaches for his wallet, pulling out a thick wad of bills to shove in Eddie’s guitar case as an apology for taking up his precious time.

Compensation for the therapy.

“Hey, no— that’s not what I meant, baby. I just— ugh, why is this so hard to say?” Eddie groans, grabbing at his own hair in frustration.

Steve hasn’t the faintest idea what’s ailing Eddie. The guy is normally chill 100% of the time. It’s why Steve goes to him for comfort. He’s hard to shake.

“Sorry?” he tries.

“No, I’m sorry! I just can’t sit here for yet another evening and pretend like there are more fish in the sea for you or whatever,” Eddie explains frantically, his eyes begging Steve to understand.

Ouch. Okay. Point made.

Steve is unlovable, got it.

He stands, brushing off his slacks so his shaking hands aren’t as noticeable.

Keep cool. Breathe.

“Understood. I won’t bother you anymore then. I can park across the street next time too. Good luck with everything, Eddie. I’m sure your band will get signed soon, you’re a talented musician.”

Eddie shoots to his feet, almost tripping over his own lanky limbs in the process.

He grabs the sleeve of Steve’s dress shirt, stopping him from leaving.

“Don’t go on anymore dates.”

Jesus.

“Yeah, I got it the first time, thanks. I’m undesirable. Can you stop repeating it?”

Eddie looks like he’s been slapped, but he doesn’t say anything back. The bluntness must have caught him off guard.

Steve sighs, attempting to pull free from the alpha’s grip.

He almost manages it.

But then Eddie snaps back to reality and his eyes go wide for just a split moment before he kisses Steve right on the lips.

It’s unexpected to say the least.

It’s also probably the best kiss of his entire life. Too bad it’s from someone who just told him to quit dating because nobody will ever want to court him.

They finally break apart and Steve sways.

“Eddie… what in the actual hell are you—?”

“I love you! I love you— I’ve been in love with you for months, but you insist on going on all these dates with alphas who have no taste and they keep breaking your heart and leaving me to pick up the pieces, but I don’t want to keep handing them back. I want to keep you, Steve. I want to be the only alpha you go on dates with.”

Steve stops trying to run away.

Instead, he yanks at the collar of Eddie’s shirt, tugging him into another, longer kiss.

This is love, huh? Makes sense.

His lips are warm and so is his heart. Patched up once more and encased in a body other than his own

No more arranged dates.

“That was a ‘yes,’ in case it didn’t translate.”

Eddie’s face is flushed and his happy smile is infectious.

“I don’t have the kind of money your usual dates have, but I had this really cute guy way overtip me earlier. Can I buy you dinner, pretty boy?”

It’s the first of many.