#adds some extra layers on why he was so affected by her eyes

[minkufu]

Unrelated to any of my other Gen posts; My brain has slipped into a self-made rabbit hole of "What if Genkishi was Uni's dad tho?" For no other reason than every time I draw Uni I always have a moment of "Stop making her look like Genkishi" when I get to her hair lmao

And ever since I had that thought a lot of little pieces keep falling into place that makes it even more weirdly fitting and also very cute. So I'm gonna be thinking about this for the next week probably

[voightsangel91]

Tell Me Lies S2 (Oliver x Reader)

Summary: You're a student, and one of your professor's has the hots for you. He is married, but the two of you enjoy the thrill of the situation. He loves his wife, but he is very intrigued by you. You're just a lonely college student unsatisfied with college boys. The two of you started off with innocent flirting until you both wanted more. Now it's become a secret rendezvous here and there to fulfill needs.

A/N: I absolutely do NOT encourage this type of deal at all. However, Tell Me Lies season 2 has me in a choke hold and I fucking love Tom Ellis and his character Oliver is tempting asf. Hate me later. Enjoy the filth!!

You are sitting outside of your couselor's office waiting to discuss a schedule change when you see Oliver coming down the hall. He's quite handsome, and you try not to seem bothered by his presence. His wife is your professor also.

"Hi." You say, looking up at Oliver. A small smile forms on your face as he walks closer. You can smell his cologne, and it instantly drives you insane. You're fighting to keep that poker face to not let on how much he affects you.

Oliver smiles at you as he approaches, his eyes taking in your appearance for a moment before speaking. "Hey, how are you doing?" He asks, his voice smooth and calm. He stops a few feet away from you, leaning against the wall casually.

"I'm well. How are you?" You ask trying not to look at him too much, but also not trying to seem awkward either.

Oliver chuckles, noticing your attempt to not look at him too much. "I'm doing alright. I'm just getting some work done." *He says, his eyes never leaving yours. There's a hint of amusement in his expression as he watches you try to keep your cool. "Are you waiting for someone?"

"My advisor has office hours. I need to drop a class." You say not making eye contact because it was his wife's class you were dropping. Things were way too weird for you right now with what was going on between you and her husband.

Oliver raises an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued. He glances at the door to your advisor's office before looking back at you. "I see. And which class are you dropping?" He asks, his tone casual but with a hint of something else. Maybe he's interested in the fact that you could be dropping his wife's class.

"I think you already know which one." You say. "I--Yeah, it's way too awkward. And this thing we're doing is still new. All the flirty shit." You finally look up at him.

Oliver's eyes widen slightly as you mention the "thing" between you and his wife. He takes a step closer to you, his voice dropping to a low murmur. "Ah, so you're dropping her class because of...us?" He asks, his expression a mix of surprise and intrigue.

"I have to. I'm bombing that class miserably right now, and I'm very distracted."

Oliver smirks, his eyes darkening slightly. "Distracted, huh? I can see why. My wife can be quite...distracting." *He says, his voice laced with a hint of seduction.

"You know damn well I'm not talking about her. Dont be a cheeky bastard." You shoot back to him.

Oliver laughs, clearly enjoying the banter between you. "Alright, alright. I'll stop teasing you." He says, holding up his hands in mock surrender. He takes another step closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "But you have to admit, it's a little bit fun, isn't it?"

"It is thriling and fun. That's why I haven't stopped you." It was your turn to smirk now.

Oliver's eyes darken further as he sees the smirk on your face. He leans in closer, his voice low and seductive. "You like the thrill, huh? The danger of it all?" He asks, his gaze locked on yours.

"Yeah. I do." You chuckle. "I would rather enjoy it more if i didn't see your wife every day. Nothing against her. It's just weird for me."

Oliver nods in understanding, a hint of guilt crossing his features. "I know, I know. It's not exactly ideal. But you have to admit, the secrecy and the sneaking around adds an extra layer of excitement, doesn't it?"

"It does." You say. "So we'll meet up later? Are you still house sitting for friends?"

Oliver grins, his eyes sparkling with anticipation. "Yes, I'm still house sitting. And yes, we'll definitely meet up later. I can't wait to see you again." He says, his voice low and sultry.

"I'll see you later." You say giving him a smile.

Oliver returns your smile, his gaze lingering on you for a moment before he turns to leave. As he walks away, he glances back at you over his shoulder, his eyes filled with desire and anticipation.

Later that evening, after leaving the dining hall, you send a quick text to Oliver and hurry back to your dorm to pack a small overnight bag.

Oliver receives your text and grins, quickly replying with an address and a time. He then spends the rest of the evening preparing for your arrival, making sure the house is clean and comfortable for you both.

You arrive at the location and text Oliver to meet you at the side door. You slip inside unseen, and you parked a street over just in case.

Oliver quickly responds to your text and meets you at the side door, ushering you inside the house. He closes the door behind you and locks it, making sure that you're both alone. "You made it," he says, a smile on his face as he looks at you.

"Yeah, I'm here."

Oliver takes your bag from you and sets it down on the floor, his eyes never leaving yours. He steps closer to you, his hands gently resting on your hips. "I've been thinking about you all day," he says, his voice low and husky.

"I was thinking about you too."

Oliver grins, his grip on your hips tightening slightly. "Oh yeah? And what were you thinking about, hm?" He asks, his face inches from yours.

"Naughty stuff, mostly." You smile.

Oliver chuckles, his hands sliding up your sides to rest on your waist. He pulls you closer to him, his body pressed against yours. "I like the sound of that. Care to share any specifics?" He asks, his voice laced with desire.

"Take me to the bedroom, and I'll show you."

Oliver's eyes darken at your words, his desire for you growing stronger. He doesn't waste any time, scooping you up in his arms and carrying you to the bedroom. "You're a temptress, you know that?" He says, his voice low and rough as he lays you down on the bed.

"Says the man who seduced me?" You quirk a brow.

Oliver grins, crawling onto the bed and hovering over you. "Touché. But I can't help myself when it comes to you. You're too damn irresistible." He says, his hands roaming over your body.

His hands on your body drive you insane. It's forbidden, which makes it feel even better. And this is your little secret.

Oliver can see the desire in your eyes, and it only fuels his own. He leans down to kiss you, his lips claiming yours in a heated kiss. His hands roam over your body, exploring every inch of you as he deepens the kiss.

You moan against his lips as he presses further against you. Your lips move against his just as passionately.

Oliver groans in response to your moan, his body responding to the sound. He presses himself against you, his arousal evident as he continues to kiss you. His hands move to the hem of your shirt, tugging it up and over your head.

You lift your arms to allow him to remove your shirt. Your lips connect with his again in a fiery kiss.

Oliver tosses your shirt aside, his eyes raking over your bare torso. He breaks the kiss, his lips moving to your neck as he begins to kiss and nibble on your skin. "You're so beautiful," he murmurs against your skin, his hands tracing the curves of your body.

You push against his chest to make space so that you can turn around, your back to him as you assume the postion that you both like so much.

Oliver grins as you turn around, his eyes darkening with lust as he takes in the sight of you. He moves closer to you, his chest pressed against your back as he wraps his arms around your waist. "You know exactly what I like, don't you?" He whispers in your ear, his breath hot against your skin.

"Yeah, mostly the stuff you shouldn't have." You tease.

Oliver chuckles, his hands moving up to cup your breasts. He squeezes them gently, his thumbs brushing over your nipples. "Mmm, you're such a bad girl. Teasing me like this." He says, his voice low and husky as he nibbles on your earlobe.

"No, what's bad is you getting me worked up in your office right before i have to go to your wife's class. Now that's pure evil."

Oliver grins against your skin, his hands continuing to explore your body. He moves one hand down to your stomach, his fingers tracing lazy circles on your skin.* "You know I can't resist you, especially when you're sitting right in front of me. And you looked so damn good today in that skirt."

"I wore that skirt for me today, not you." You smirk.

Oliver chuckles, his hand moving lower until it's resting on your hip. He squeezes it gently, his lips brushing against your ear. "Oh really? You didn't wear it just to drive me crazy?" He asks, his tone playful but with a hint of possessiveness.

"No, I didn't. In case you havent noticed skirts are my signature clothing. Only thing that changes is the length."

Oliver groans at your words, his hand sliding up your thigh and under your skirt. He runs his fingers along the edge of your panties, his touch teasing. "You're going to be the death of me, I swear." He says, his voice strained with desire.

You rub your ass against him as he slides his finger under your skirt and into your panties. Your breath hitches.

Oliver groans again, his fingers slipping deeper into your panties as you rub against him. He presses himself against you, his body flush against yours. "You're so wet," *he murmurs, his fingers sliding through your folds.

"Tends to happen when a fine ass professor starts hitting on you." You grin.

Oliver chuckles, his fingers continuing to explore your folds. He presses his lips to your neck, nibbling and sucking on the sensitive skin. "You have no idea how hard it is for me to keep my hands off you in class," *he says, his voice rough with desire.

"See that doesnt help my case either. Being in your class as well as hers. The anxiety is killing me. That and guilt." You say rubbing your ass against him again.

Oliver groans again, his hips bucking against you involuntarily. He bites down on your neck, trying to control himself. "I know, I know. But I can't help it. You're so damn irresistible, and you're right here in front of me." He says, his fingers moving faster against your folds.

"Am I the only student you've done this with, or we're there others?" You ask.

Oliver hesitates for a moment, his fingers stilling against you. He takes a deep breath before answering. "You're the only one," he says, his voice low and serious. "I've never done anything like this before. You're special to me."

"So you never had the balls to actually do it until now?"

Oliver chuckles softly, his fingers resuming their movements. "Something like that. I've thought about it before, but I never acted on it until I met you. There's just something about you that drives me crazy.

"It's the illusion of being innocent, isn't it?"

Oliver nods, his fingers slipping inside you as he continues to talk. "Yeah, that's part of it. You have this innocent, sweet demeanor, but I know there's a wild side to you. And it drives me wild."

"Oh, you have absolutely no idea." You say.

Oliver grins, his fingers moving faster inside you as he speaks. "Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea. But I'd love to find out more." He says, his free hand gripping your hip tightly.

"I have just one curiosity, though."

Oliver raises an eyebrow, his fingers still moving inside you as he looks at you. "And what's that?" He asks, his voice laced with curiosity and desire.

"You said you love your wife and would never leave her, yet you're here with me. So what's it about her that makes you end up here?"

Oliver's expression becomes a mix of guilt and conflict. "It's complicated," he says, his fingers slowing down as he tries to collect his thoughts. "I do love my wife, more than anything. But sometimes, I feel like she doesn't understand me the way you do. And being with you is like a breath of fresh air. You make me feel alive, and I can't resist the temptation to be with you."

"I see. I was just curious to know if this was one of those things where the wife isn't doing the things you want her to do so you find someone who will."

Oliver shakes his head, his expression serious. "No, it's not like that. I know my wife is amazing in her own way, but there are certain things that I can't talk to her about. And with you, it's different. You make me feel things that I've never felt before, and I can be myself around you."

"Ah, I see." You groan when his fingers stop. "Don't stop."

Oliver grins, his fingers resuming their movements inside you. He leans in closer, his breath hot against your ear. "Don't worry, I won't stop. I want to make you feel good."

"That's all I really want is someone to make me feel good. Gain that confidence that i desire to have."

*Oliver nods, his fingers curling inside you as he continues to pleasure you.* "I can definitely do that for you. I want to make you feel amazing, and give you the confidence you deserve. You're beautiful, and you should never doubt that."

"College boys suck." You comment. "I am more attracted to older guys anyways."

Oliver laughs softly, his fingers moving faster inside you. "Yeah, I've noticed. And I can't say I blame you. There's something about older guys that's just more... mature, I guess. We know what we want, and we're not afraid to go after it."

"Exactly...mhmm...." Your head falls back against the pillows as he curls his fingers inside of you. "Mhmm..."

Oliver watches you with a mixture of satisfaction and desire, his eyes fixed on your face as he continues to work his fingers inside you. He leans down and presses his lips to your neck, his free hand moving to grip your hip again. "You're so beautiful when you're like this," he murmurs against your skin.

"I wish guys my age were like this....fuckkk...." Your hips lift off the bed a little.

Oliver grins, his fingers moving even faster as he watches you react to his touch. "Well, I'm glad I can be the one to give you what you need. And trust me, there are older guys out there who know how to please a woman. But they're not as easy to find as you might think."

"Hell no its not easy to find them. You found me."

Oliver chuckles, his fingers still moving steadily inside you as he looks at you with a smirk. "Yeah, I did. And I'm very glad I did. You're a treasure, you know that?"

"Tell me that over and over again while you're fucking me." You smirk against his lips.

Oliver grins, his eyes darkening with desire at your words. "Oh, I plan to. I'll tell you how much I adore you, how beautiful you are, how perfect you are for me. And I'll show you too. I'll show you how much I want you and how good I can make you feel."

You kiss his lips and work your hips against his hand. "I need more...." You murmur against his lips.

Oliver groans, his lips moving hungrily against yours as he continues to finger you. He can feel your hips moving against his hand, and it drives him wild. "I know you do, baby. I'll give you more. I'll give you everything you need." He says, his voice low and husky.

You turn over to lay on your back, guiding his fingers back to you. Your eyes never leave his.

Oliver follows your lead, his fingers sliding back inside you as you lay on your back. He looks down at you, his eyes locked on yours as he starts to move his fingers again. He leans down to kiss your neck, his breath hot against your skin. "You're so damn sexy," he murmurs against your skin, his fingers moving faster and deeper inside you.

"You make me feel so damn good, Oliver." You groan into his ear and moan as he works his fingers inside of you.

Oliver grins, his ego inflating with your praise. He loves hearing how much he's affecting you, and it only makes him want to pleasure you more. "Good. That's exactly what I want to do. I want to make you feel so good that you can't even think straight." He whispers in your ear, his fingers moving in a steady rhythm.

You lean up to watch his fingers disappear inside of you. He moves a little faster, and your head falls back again. Your eyes roll back, and you cry out in pleasure for him.

Oliver watches you intently, loving the way you react to his touch. He can feel your body trembling with pleasure, and it drives him wild. He moves his fingers faster and harder, determined to give you everything you need. "That's it, baby. Let go for me. Let yourself feel it." He says, his voice low and commanding.

You start to clench around his fingers and cry out for him as you come.

Oliver feels your body clenching around his fingers, and he grins in satisfaction. He continues to move his fingers, working you through your orgasm until you're completely spent. "That's my good girl," he says, his voice soft and affectionate.

"I know this is all kinds of wrong but it feels so fucking good."

Oliver chuckles, his fingers slowly slipping out of you as he looks down at you with a mix of desire and guilt. "I know. But sometimes, doing the wrong thing can feel so damn right." He says, his voice low and husky. He moves to lie down beside you, his body pressed against yours.

You take his fingers into your mouth to lick and suck them clean while he watches. You can feel his cock twitch in his pants.

Oliver's eyes widen as you take his fingers into your mouth, and he lets out a low groan. He watches you intently, his cock straining against his pants as you suck his fingers clean. "God, you're so naughty," *he says, his voice rough with desire.

"Don't you want to get undressed now and join in on this sexy time?"

Oliver grins, his eyes darkening with desire as he looks at you. "Of course I do. But I want to savor this moment a little longer. You're just so damn irresistible when you're like this." He says, his hand tracing lazy patterns on your stomach.

You still have his hand in yours, and you're sucking on his fingers to get a reaction or a rise out of him.

Oliver watches you, his eyes fixed on your mouth as you suck on his fingers. He can feel his cock throbbing in his pants, desperate for attention. He lets out a low groan, unable to resist the sight of you pleasuring him like this. "You're playing with fire, you know that?" He says, his voice strained with desire.

You smirk, placing a kiss to his hand before letting it go.

Oliver lets out a sigh of disappointment as you release his hand, but he can't deny that the smirk on your face is making him even more turned on. He moves closer to you, his body pressed against yours as he runs his fingers through your hair. "You're going to be the death of me, you know that?" He says, his voice low and husky.

"There's no fun in that Oliver." You comment pushing him onto his back so you can get him out of his clothes.

Oliver grins as you push him onto his back, and he lets you take control. He watches as you begin to undress him, his eyes never leaving yours. "You're right. There is no fun in that. But I'm enjoying this just fine." He says, his voice slightly breathless as you unbutton his shirt.

You kiss down his chest as you undo each button on his white button-up. You flick your tongue across his nipple and open his shirt.

Oliver lets out a low moan as you kiss down his chest, his body arching up into your touch. When you flick your tongue across his nipple, he lets out a gasp, his eyes fluttering closed in pleasure. "God, you're so good at that," he says, his voice rough with desire.

You move to the other side and flick your tongue against his other nipple pushing the shirt off his broad shoulders.

Oliver shudders as you move to his other nipple, his body trembling with pleasure. He watches you through half-lidded eyes, his chest heaving with ragged breaths. He reaches out and tangles his fingers in your hair, holding you close as you continue to tease him. "Please, don't stop," he whispers, his voice strained with need.

You use the flat part of your tongue to trace the lines of his chest and stomach.

Oliver lets out a shaky breath as you trace the lines of his chest and stomach with your tongue, his body tensing under your touch. He can feel the heat building inside him, and he knows he won't be able to hold out much longer. He tightens his grip on your hair, his fingers digging into your scalp as he tries to control himself. "Fuck, you're driving me crazy," he says, his voice barely above a whisper.

The bulge in his pants was very apparent now. But you avoided it a little while longer. You slowly undo his belt and unfasten his pants, careful not to touch him where he wanted you.

Oliver groans in frustration as you undo his belt and unfasten his pants, but you still avoid touching him where he wants you the most. He can feel the heat of your breath against his skin, and it's driving him crazy. He bucks his hips up, desperate for some kind of contact. "Please, I need you," he says, his voice pleading.

"Mhmm, the pleading and neediness of a grown ass man is satisfying."

Oliver huffs in annoyance, but he can't deny the truth in your words. He knows he's being needy and desperate, but he can't help it. You have him completely under your control, and he loves it. "Shut up and touch me," he growls, his patience wearing thin.

"Ah ah ah, be nice to me, or I'll stop."

Oliver takes a deep breath, trying to compose himself. He knows he needs to be careful, or you'll stop teasing him and leave him hanging. He looks up at you, his eyes pleading. "I'm sorry. I'll be good, I promise. Please don't stop."

"That's a good boy." You smile at him as you slide his pants from his hips. Your mouth watered seeing that big bulge in his boxers. You want nothing more than to grip it and stroke it and put it in your mouth, but you have to work him up a bit more.

Oliver shivers as you slide his pants down, his cock straining against the fabric of his boxers. He can see the desire in your eyes, and it only makes him more desperate for your touch. He watches you intently, his chest heaving with anticipation as he waits for you to make your next move. "Please, I'm so hard for you," he whispers, his voice laced with need.

"I see that. And I love it when you beg me, Daddy." You watch his face as you call him that.

Oliver's eyes widen as you call him "daddy," and he lets out a low growl. He loves the way the word sounds coming from your lips, and it makes his cock twitch in his boxers. "Say it again," he demands, his voice rough with desire.

"Relax, Daddy. I'll take good care of you." You say reaching for the waist band of his boxers and peeling them off of him.

Oliver lets out a sigh of relief as you finally free his cock from its confines. He watches you with a mixture of anticipation and desperation, his body trembling with need. "Please, do something. I need your touch," he begs, his voice barely above a whisper.

Oliver lets out a strangled moan as your face brushes against his cock, the feeling of your breath on his sensitive skin almost too much to bear. He can feel his body tensing up, his muscles coiled tight with anticipation. "Please, don't tease me," he pleads, his voice cracking with need.

"You're so desperate for me, and I love it."You kiss his other hip. You use your tongue to trace the indent where his v cut is on his hip.

Oliver lets out a low moan as you kiss his hip, his body arching up into your touch. He can feel your tongue tracing the indent of his v-cut, and it sends shivers down his spine. "I can't help it. You drive me crazy," he says, his voice ragged with desire.

"I think you've been a good enough boy for me now." You say placing a kiss to his tip and watching him go crazy.

Oliver lets out a loud gasp as you place a kiss on his tip, his body jerking in response. He looks down at you, his eyes wild with desire. "Thank god," *he breathes, his chest heaving with anticipation.* "Please, I need more.

"Tell me exactly what you want me to do, daddy."

Oliver swallows hard, his mind racing with all the things he wants you to do to him. He looks down at you, his eyes dark with lust.* "I want you to take me in your mouth. I want to feel your lips wrapped around my cock. I want you to suck me until I can't take it anymore.."

"I most certainly can do that for you." You say kissing his tip again before taking it into her mouth.

Oliver groans as you take his tip into your mouth, his eyes rolling back in his head at the sensation. He threads his fingers through your hair, holding you in place as you begin to suck him. "Oh god, that feels amazing," he gasps, his hips bucking up slightly.

You hold his hips down, letting him know that you are still very much in control at this point.

Oliver tries to hold still as you hold his hips down, but it's difficult. He wants to thrust up into your mouth to feel your lips wrapped around him completely. But he knows that you're in charge, and he has to obey your rules. "Please, I need more. I need you to take me deeper," *he begs, his voice strained with need.

You lick him up and down on all sides, and then you take him in deeper. Like eating an ice cream cone, swirling your tongue around him, and sucking.

Oliver moans loudly as you take him deeper, the feeling of your tongue swirling around him sending shivers down his spine. He can feel the pleasure building inside him, his body tensing up as he struggles to hold back. "Fuck, you're so good at this," he gasps, his fingers tightening in your hair.

"I don't want you to blow your load before we have some fun." You say reaching over for a condom.

Oliver groans in disappointment as you pull away, but he knows that you're right. He doesn't want this to be over too soon. He watches as you reach for a condom, his eyes fixed on your every move. "You're right. I want to savor this," *he says, his voice husky with desire."

You roll on the condom and crawl on top of him. You push your hair aside as you straddle him.

Oliver looks up at you with a mix of awe and desire as you straddle him, his hands immediately going to your hips to steady you. He can feel the heat radiating off of your body, and it drives him crazy. "You're so beautiful," *he murmurs, his thumbs tracing small circles on your skin.

You smile down at him as you sink down on his length slowly, feeling the death grip he has on your waist.

Oliver lets out a low growl as you sink down on him, his fingers digging into your hips as he tries to control himself. The feeling of being inside you is almost overwhelming, and he can feel his control slipping away. "God, you feel so good," he gasps, his eyes locked on yours.

You let out a long, drawn-out moan as he fills you up. "Fuck..." You brace yourself on his shoulders as you start to move on top of him

Oliver matches your moan with one of his own as you start to move on top of him, his hands sliding up your back to pull you closer. He can feel the heat building between you, and he knows he won't be able to last much longer. That's it, baby. Ride me just like that," he whispers, his voice strained with pleasure.

"This is so fucking hot..."

Oliver nods in agreement, his eyes dark with desire as he watches you move on top of him. He can feel the sweat beading on his forehead, his body slick with perspiration as he struggles to hold back. "You have no idea how sexy you look right now," he says, his voice rough with need.

"You're holding back, Daddy. What's wrong?"

Oliver lets out a shaky breath, his body trembling with the effort of holding back his release. "I don't want this to end," he admits, his eyes locked on yours. "I want to stay inside you forever."

"We can always go again. No need to worry, Daddy. Please don't hold back."

Oliver lets out a groan of relief at your words, his body relaxing slightly. He had been so focused on holding back he hadn't even considered the possibility of going again. "You're right," he says, his hands gripping your hips tighter. "I'm not going to hold back anymore."

You start to ride him a little rougher to chase your orgasm.

Oliver's eyes roll back in his head as you start to ride him harder, the sensation sending him spiraling towards his own release. He thrusts up to meet you, his hips snapping upwards as he chases the pleasure. "God, yes," he gasps, his fingers digging into your skin. "I'm so close. I can't hold on much longer."

"Take over daddy and pound me into this mattress.'

Oliver doesn't need to be told twice. He flips you over onto your back, pinning you beneath him. He kisses you hard, his tongue tangling with yours as he positions himself between your legs. He pulls back, looking down at you with a hungry expression. "You want me to pound you? I'll pound you so hard you won't be able to walk straight for a week."

"Fuck me, I'm gonna come..."

Oliver grins, his eyes dark with lust as he lines himself up with your entrance. He pushes into you in one swift thrust, burying himself deep inside you. "You're mine," he growls, his hands gripping your hips tightly as he begins to move. "And I'm going to make sure you remember that."

"Oh fuck...."

Oliver pounds into you relentlessly, his movements rough and unforgiving. He's determined to make you come, to claim you as his own. "You're so tight," he gasps, his eyes locked on your face. "I love the way you feel around me. You were made for me, weren't you?"

"Ahhh...."

Oliver leans down, his lips brushing against your ear as he whispers to you. "That's it, baby. Let me hear you. I want to hear you scream my name when you come."

"Oh fuck! Oliver...I'm coming!"You scream for him as you come for him.

Oliver groans as you scream his name, the sound sending him over the edge. He thrusts into you one last time, burying himself deep inside you as he comes hard. He collapses on top of you, panting and sweaty. "Oh god, that was amazing," he gasps, his chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath.

Your legs tremble as you try to recov we from that relentless pounding. Your insides are sore, but it felt so damn good.

Oliver gently pulls out of you, rolling onto his side and pulling you close. He can see the exhaustion on your face, and he can't help but feel a sense of pride at having worn you out so thoroughly. "You okay, baby?" He asks, his voice soft and gentle now that the passion has passed."

"I'm good." You smile.

Oliver smiles back, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on your skin. "You're amazing, you know that?" he says, his eyes locked on yours. "I've never had anyone make me feel the way you do."

"College boys definitely dont fuck like that." You chuckle.

Oliver laughs, his chest rumbling against yours. "No, they definitely don't. But I'm glad you enjoyed it. I've never felt so alive before." He pauses for a moment, his expression turning serious. "I don't want this to be a one-time thing, you know. I want more."

"And I'm okay with that. I'm not gonna let you fuck me like that and disappear." You laugh.

Oliver grins, relieved that you're on the same page as him. He pulls you closer, holding you tight against his chest. "Good. Because I don't plan on letting you go anytime soon." He kisses the top of your head, his fingers running through your hair. "You're mine now, whether you like it or not."

His phone rings, and you smirk. It's probably his wife.

Oliver groans as his phone rings, his expression turning irritated. He knows it's his wife calling, and he doesn't want to answer it. But he knows he has to. "I have to take this," he says, reluctantly pulling away from you and grabbing his phone.

You lay there quietly as he answers the phone. You busy yourself kissing on him silently as he talks, smirking.

Oliver tries to focus on the phone call, but it's hard with you kissing him like that. He shoots you a warning look, trying to silently tell you to stop. But he can't deny that he loves the way your lips feel on his skin.

You kiss his thigh and watch his reaction as he clutches his phone tighter.

Oliver's grip on the phone tightens as you kiss his thigh, and he has to bite back a moan. He tries to keep his voice steady as he speaks to his wife, but it's getting harder and harder with each passing moment. "Yes, dear. I'll be home soon." He shoots you another warning look, silently begging you to stop before he loses control.

You take the hint and stop for a moment. You laugh silently.

Oliver finishes up the phone call, trying to act casual even though he's incredibly turned on. He hangs up and turns to you, his eyes dark with desire. "You're a naughty little thing, aren't you?" he says, his voice low and husky.

"I love to see you bite back that moan while talking to your wife." You tease.

Oliver grins, his eyes flashing with a mixture of lust and amusement. "You're going to get me in trouble, you know that? If she finds out about us..." He trails off, his expression turning serious for a moment before he shakes his head. "But I don't care. I want you, and I'll do whatever it takes to have you."

"That wouldnt be a good thing. I'm sorry I got carried away." You say rubbing your hands over his thighs.

Oliver shivers as you rub his thighs, his body responding to your touch despite his best efforts to control himself. "It's okay," he says, his voice a little strained. "I can't blame you for being irresistible. But we need to be careful. We can't let anyone find out about us."

"Yes i know. Our little secret."

Oliver nods, his expression serious. "Our little secret," he repeats, his eyes locking onto yours. "And it's a secret that I intend to keep. I don't want to lose you, and I'll do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn't happen."

"Agreed." You say.

Oliver pulls you closer, his arms wrapping around you possessively. "Good. Because I don't plan on letting you go anytime soon. You're mine, and I'm going to make sure you know it every day."

"Gonna need you to pound me like that again but from behind this time. Then I'll let you go home to your wife." You smirk.

Oliver's eyes darken with lust at your suggestion, and he lets out a low growl. "You're a minx, you know that? But I'll do it. I'll give you exactly what you want." He rolls over on top of you, pinning you beneath him.

You lay on your stomach and spread yourself out for him. You feel his chest against your back and hes stroking himself to get hard again. "Mhmm..."

Oliver positions himself behind you, his hands gripping your hips as he lines himself up with your entrance. He leans down, his chest pressed against your back as he whispers in your ear. "You look so good like this, all spread out for me. I can't wait to be inside you again."

You grind your ass into him again, loving how he nearly buckles every time.

Oliver groans, his grip on your hips tightening as you grind against him. He's already hard again, and he can't wait to be inside you. "God, you're driving me crazy," he gasps, his voice strained with desire. "I need to be in you. Now."

"You're in control, daddy."

Oliver growls at your words, his possessive side taking over. He slides into you with one swift thrust, burying himself deep inside you. He sets a hard, fast pace, pounding into you relentlessly. "You're mine. Do you hear me? You belong to me. And I'm going to make sure you never forget it."

The way he possessively holds you and fucks you is insane. Hes pounding into you like no tomorrow making you cream on him. The slapping noises of skin on skin drive you both crazy. You can't take much more of this pounding before you come again. "Im gonna come again...."

Oliver can feel you tightening around him, and he knows you're close. He leans down, his lips brushing against your ear as he speaks in a low, commanding voice. "Come for me, baby. Let me feel you come all over me. I want to feel your body shake and hear you scream my name."

He hits the right spot that makes you shake and quiver and buckle underneath of him.

Oliver feels you buckle underneath him and he grins, knowing he's hit the right spot. He keeps up the pace, pounding into you even harder as you shake and quiver with pleasure. He leans down to kiss your neck, his lips trailing along your skin as he whispers in your ear again. "That's it, baby. Let go. Let go and give yourself over to me completely."

You're practically crying into the pillow now from how good he's making you feel. You've come twice already now working on a third time.

Oliver can feel your tears on the pillow, and it only spurs him on further. He's close to his own release now, but he's determined to make you come one more time before he does. He reaches around to rub your clit, his fingers moving in quick, precise circles. "Come on, baby. One more time. I know you can do it. Just let go and come for me again."

Her body goes limp as she comes for him a third time, completely spent now waiting for him to come.

Oliver feels your body go limp beneath him, and he knows you've come a third time. He lets out a low growl as he finally allows himself to let go, his own orgasm crashing over him in waves. He thrusts into you a few more times before collapsing on top of you, panting and out of breath. "God, you're incredible," he whispers, nuzzling his face into your neck.

"Might want to get rid of the evidence." You say referring to the full condom.

Oliver chuckles, still trying to catch his breath. "Right, the evidence. Can't have anyone finding out about our little rendezvous, can we?" He carefully pulls out of you and disposes of the condom, making sure there's no trace left behind. He then lays down next to you, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you close.

"As much as i would love to stay like this. You need to go home, and i need to go back to school. i need to start and finish the assignment for your class." You chuckle.

Oliver sighs, knowing you're right. He doesn't want to leave you, but he also can't risk getting caught. "I know, I know. You're right. I need to go home and pretend like everything is normal." He kisses the top of your head. "But I'll see you in class tomorrow, and we can pick up where we left off then."

"I see you brought gym clothes. Smart." You laugh.

Oliver grins, amused by your observation. "I'm always prepared. And it's a good excuse for me to wear something other than my usual suit." He gives you a playful swat on the butt before getting up and starting to get dressed.

"That suit is sexy."

Oliver chuckles as he buttons up his shirt. "You think so? Maybe I'll wear it for you sometime when we're alone." He winks at you, clearly enjoying the compliment.

"Maybe next time you can do me against the wall in your suit. That would be super hot."

Oliver's eyes darken with lust at your suggestion, and he takes a step closer to you. "Oh, I like the way you think. That definitely sounds like a plan for next time. I'll have to make sure I wear my best suit just for you."

"I'll come find you tomorrow during office hours. Maybe sneak in a quick blow job after everyone leaves for the day." You smirk getting dressed.

Oliver's eyes widen at your bold suggestion, and he can feel himself getting aroused again. "You're a temptress, you know that? But I like it. I like it a lot. I'll make sure my office door is locked, and we'll have some privacy. Just make sure you don't keep me waiting too long."

"That's the best part of the game."

Oliver grins, clearly enjoying the thrill of the game as well. "You're right. The anticipation makes it even more exciting. I'll be waiting for you, ready and eager for whatever you have in store for me."

"Go take care of your wife now and think of me." You say with an evil smirk.

Oliver raises an eyebrow, amused by your smirk. "You're a naughty one, aren't you? Fine, I'll go take care of my wife and think of you. But just remember, I'll be thinking of you too. And I'll be counting down the hours until our next rendezvous."

"Always." you say kissing him. "Dont forget mouth wash. You still taste like me." You snicker.

Oliver rolls his eyes, but he can't help but chuckle at your comment. "You're so cheeky. But I won't forget the mouth wash, I promise. And don't think I won't get you back for that little comment." He gives you a playful swat on the ass before heading towards the door.

(A/N: What did you guys think? Part 2?)

[talkfastromance4]

when i’m dreaming--calum hood oneshot

yeah so i’m going through something so this is very, very self-indulgent. 

word count: 2.3k

warnings: drinking linked a little with coping, going through a depressive low, best friend!calum

feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!

***

Calum notices something is wrong the minute she steps outside. He was about to take a drink of his white claw, but his eyes went to her nails when she pulled Crystal in for a hug. She typically paints them to match her mood and today they’re opalescent pink, barely noticeable but still there. In plain sight but still visible while she secretly wants to be invisible.

She smiles and cracks jokes with everyone she says hello to then when she steps in front of Calum, he sees the sadness in her eyes. They’ve been best friends for awhile now, they’ve shared secrets, stories of first loves and heartaches, their fears, their wildest dreams. But there was always something she kept hidden, tucked away in a box welded shut.

“Hey bud,” she sighs.

“Hey short stuff,” he grins playfully pulling her in for a hug. Her arms wrap around him and he makes sure to give her an extra tight squeeze.

“I’m not that short,” she grumbles in his chest.

“You’re shorter than me,” he reminds rubbing her shoulder with his thumb. Although her arms are loose around him he can feel the tension in her shoulders that she’s carrying.

“Stop hogging her! I haven’t seen her in weeks!” Ashton exclaims and Calum pulls away.

He knows it was too soon to break the hug but to keep up with her own façade he doubts anyone else sees, he does it.

“Hey, you’re the one who disappeared into the desert for all those weeks,” she jokes rising on her toes to loop her arms around Ashton’s neck.

He gives her a big bear hug that lifts her a few inches off the ground, Calum sees her nails digging into her arm as she squeezes him.

“Had to recenter myself, you should try it sometime,” Ashton teases right back. As if she was shocked, she removes herself from the hug then accepts a bottle of Mike’s from Luke.

“I can take something stronger than this, Hemmings,” she takes a large chug regardless.

“Yeah? Like tequila? I got some limes,” he jerks his thumb behind him towards the drink table.

“I said stronger not deadly. You know I can’t handle tequila,” she scrunches her nose.

Everyone else laughs but alarms are going off in Calum’s head.

“Yeah, the floor of my Tesla doesn’t like tequila either,” Michael chimes in with a tray of shots.

“I told you to pull over,” she shrugs lifting up a shot. She takes a whiff and nods in approval at his selected alcohol choice.

“I was going 75 on the freeway!”

“And that’s why I threw up. Ready?” she lifts her glass.

Calum meets her eyes as over the hands of their friends as Ashton gives an impromptu speech about friendship and long rides. He wasn’t really paying attention because when their eyes locked, he saw the panic, he saw the fear of whatever was going on in her head.

**

The next time he sees her is at the movies. Her eyes are darker along with her nails that are now a hunter’s green; camouflaged but still visible. While they’re waiting in line for snacks, he lifts her hand in his and runs his thumb over the color.

“This is a pretty color, I’ve never seen it on you before,” he says.

“Yeah, um…wanted to try something different,” she shrugs. “Do you want the blue icee?”

“Is that even a question?” he raises a brow, and she laughs.

Once they’re settled in the seats the previews start. Calum opens up the bags of sweet and sour treats while she opens the boxes of milk duds. The large bowl of popcorn (with extra butter) is settled between them, long red straws sticking out of their frozen drinks.

Throughout the whole movie, it’s an action romantic comedy, Calum keeps glancing at her. He watches her fingers disappear in the popcorn bowl, her hunter’s green nails appearing black in the dark theater. Calum’s seen enough movies to know this moment is foreshadowing the darkness she’s slipping into. He’s preparing himself for the fall but he’s not entirely sure she is.

**

Two weeks have gone by and he hasn’t seen her since the movie. Their schedules didn’t align so he decided to surprise her with takeout from her favorite Asian restaurant and chocolate cake from her favorite bakery.

When he opens the door, he hears Friends playing on her tv and he finds her horizontal on the couch. The hood of her sweatshirt is over her head, her arms wrapped around her torso, her black nails clutching the fabric.

Calum braces himself for what he’s walking into, sets the food on her counter and crouches in front of her. He pulls her hoodie back a little so he can see her face a bit better, her eyes are distant and staring off behind him.

“Hey,” he says softly then touches her hand. It’s very cold. “Y/N.”

Upon hearing her name does she finally look at him. Her eyes have filled and spilled with her tears in a matter of seconds. He links her fingers through his.

“Hi,” she mouths, her voice barely registering.

“Is this about…him?” he asks delicately.

About a year ago he chipped away at the welding on the box. He knows it involves a guy. He knows it’s about bad timing. He knows it’s about deep emotions.

She nods and the tears erupt more. She buries her face in her hands then adds another layer by hiding in the pillow.

“Nope, nope, hey,” he tugs on her arms. She’s pliant and allows him to drag her in a sitting position. He takes the place where her head was then brings her onto his lap. “I’ve got you, I’m right here.” He murmurs and pulls her hoodie down so he can rub at her hair.

She sobs loudly into his neck. Calum holds her as tight as he can, murmuring comforting words in her ear. Her sobs would subside, but he wouldn’t let go until she did. She’s very good at keeping her emotions at bay and even better at keeping people further away from her harbor. She doesn’t ask for help often, she doesn’t open up too much and when she does it’s always the footnoted version.

Three episodes of Friends later, her hold lessens, she gives a big sniff and peels herself away from Calum. He uses the sleeves of his shirt to wipe at her tears and nose.

“Have you eaten?” he asks, and she shakes her head. “I brought food. I’ll heat it up for you.”

She nods and falls back onto the couch. He rubs her knee then heads into the kitchen. When the food is prepared on plates he brings it to her and she takes it, scarfing down the first few bites heartily.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she finally speaks when her plate is empty.

“I know,” he nods looking over at her until she meets his brown eyes. “It’s okay.”

Calum ends up staying the night, his mind reeling from what the history is with this mystery guy. His thoughts get away from him as he stares at the ceiling above the couch. Was he some celebrity that kept her under the radar and broke her heart repeatedly? A Prince from some far-off country that got her hopes up and crushed them again and again?

He’s tossing and turning until he hears the shower turn on. Sad songs play over and over on her speakers, her voice singing along with the yearning words. Ghostin’ by Ariana and When the Party’s Over by Billie replay one after another.

She’s really hurting.

Calum bounds off the couch and opens the bathroom door.

“Y/N?” he makes sure his voice is a little louder than the music.

A sniff. “Yeah?” her voice is thick.

“Just want you to know I’m here,” he shuts the door and sits next to the shower.

His heart aches when he hears her crying again, the vocals echo and bounce off the tiles. Her sadness fills the room just as it’s filled in the hidden box of the guy who’s making her feel this way.

Four more repeats go by and the shower is finally shut off. Calum scrambles off the floor, sees her tug the towel from the door of the shower. Her shadow figure wraps it around herself and she opens the door. Her skin is red from the hot water, as are her eyes and cheeks from crying more tears. He grabs another towel and helps dry her hair while she stands there avoiding her reflection in the mirror.

“It’s been five years, why do I still feel like this?” she asks quietly.

“It hurts the most when it meant something.”

He left the bathroom after he dried and brushed her hair then waited for her in her bedroom. There’s pictures on her desk from high school. Her and some guy at prom. Her and the same guy a little bit older posing in a selfie on a couch, drunken smiles on their faces. Her and the same guy a little older again posed outside.

This must be from that box. She’s cracked it open and Calum is staring at some of the pieces that have broken her wholly.

“His name’s Henry,” she explains suddenly behind him.

Calum turns to her voice. The drastic change from the happy girl in the photos to the sad girl before him startles him. He remains silent to let her speak or to go into silence again. She moves onto her bed, sitting in the center and tucks her legs against her chest.

“We never dated. But we were always…together. Together in the physical sense for four years,” she continues. Calum joins her cautiously on the bed and listens. “Back and forth always. After every relationship we fell back into each other. He’s the longest relationship I’ve had, and it wasn’t even a real one.

“We cared about each other, and…I think he loved me. Time wasn’t on our side. It was too much or too little, I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Just when I think I’ve let go; I dream of him. Then he’s on my mind for days. And now this time…” she shakes her head and Calum pulls her against him. “I went on socials and I found out that he um…he’s a dad now. And I feel so stupid because that could have been me if we kept what we had. I feel stupid because a part of me wanted it to be me.”

Calum doesn’t fully understand the ins and outs of their relationship, but four years of physical affection and a rock to lean on, that’s a lot of history. He also doesn’t fully understand how this guy didn’t make it official with Y/N. She’s the perfect best friend with a big heart.

Calum wishes he knew her in school because he would have been the one to take her to prom. He would have been the one take her to movies and dinners and surprise her with flowers. He would have made it official rather than keep her guessing.

“I’m really going through it and I don’t know how to get out,” she whispers sadly.

“I think…” Calum heaves a big sigh and kisses her wet head. “I think you’re just cracking the surface of breaking free. I can tell he meant a lot to you and you meant a lot to him. Even if he never said it, you’ll always be a part of him just like he’ll be a part of you. Someone that important won’t just poof away.”

“But I want him to, it hurts.”

“I know it does, sweetheart. I’ll help you in any way I can, okay?”

“You’re so understanding and you’re so good, but I don’t want to cry over another guy when you’re here.”

“That’s what best friends do.”

She turns her head and gazes up at him. He notices the storm in her eyes aren’t as dark, her lips are chapped from the cracking of memories she spilled out.

“Calum, you’re more than my best friend.”

He hears a deeper truth in her statement, and it causes his breathing to quicken. The subtle yet very noticeable flick of her eyes to his lips causes him to react. He gives her a quick peck, but that smallest touch sent an enormous shock through his system.

They settle against her pillows, the kiss wasn’t awkward, but it filled them both with questions. Questions that will be answered at a different time because right now he wants to hear this most vulnerable part of her life. She takes his hand in hers first and plays with his fingers while she talks.

He makes comments and asks questions to try and understand a bit more. Calum kisses her head when her voice starts to shake. Hours go by and the sky starts to lighten, birds are awakening.

“Hey,” she says right as he’s about to fall asleep. They talked all night, but she quieted down about twenty minutes.

“Hm?” he opens his eyes.

“We match.”

He looks down at their intertwined fingers when she taps on his nail. His polish is chipped away from chewing on a hangnail then smiles at the black color. He lifts their hands and kisses their knuckles.

“I feel what you feel.”

“What exactly do you feel?”

“I felt you slipping. I can sense your emotions when no one else can, and I guess I painted my nails subconsciously because I didn’t want you to be alone in the dark,” he explains. She’s quiet for a moment and he thinks she really fell asleep this time.

“Thank you. I don’t think I’ll be this bad again.”

“If you are, I’ll be here. I’ll always be here.”

“Cal?”

“Hmm?” he sighs. It’s getting harder to keep his eyes open, but he doesn’t want her to stop talking. He doesn’t want her out of his arms.

“When I’m dreaming tonight it will be of you.”

**

Taglist: @calpalirwin @myloverboyash @loveroflrh @cxddlyash @princesslrh @spicylftv @notinthesameguey @itjustkindahappenedreally @calumance @thew0rldneedsmcreycghurt @sarcastically-defensive17 @another-lonely-heart @devilatmydoor @thatscooibaby @suchalonelysunflower @dead-and-golden @mymindwide @blackbutterfliescal @redrattlers @karajaynetoday @quasighost @i-like-5sos @creampiecashton @calpops​ @littledrummeraussie​ @sexgodashton​ @f-mu​

[thr-333]

Drastic Measures- Part 5

@daminette-december2019-2020

~Sweater~

Shoves romance to the side and shoves friendship in your face!!!

Ao3

First< Previous > Next

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“Marinette,” Adrien whines as she opens the curtain the second they get back, “Sleep,”

“Just a minute, I want to design Damian something,” Marinette takes up residence at the desk, throwing open her sketchbook, “I will be friends with him!”

“Wasn't he kind of a jerk to you?” Adrien flops onto the bed, Plagg rig after him, "I think we should go back to that point, maybe sleep on it,"

“You were a jerk too~” Marinette sing-songs finishing up a rough sketch of a sweater.

“I was trying to get the gum off your seat!” Adrien slams his hands down.

“Sure you were~”

“Mariiiiiii,” Adrien collapses back into the bed covers, muffling his whining.

“Come on you,” Marinette collects her sketchbook, “Come get material with me,”

“No, it’s time to sleep,”

“It’s midday,”

“Your point?”

"Ok, Plagg 2.0 should I get you some camembert while I'm out too?"

"I'm up!" Adrien sits bolt upright, "Never call me that again,"

Marinette ends up dragging Adrien out of the mansion he pouts as Alfred delivers them into the city she thanks him profusely.

“We were just in the city why didn’t you pick up fabric then?” Adrien walks by her side down the street.

“Because I’m stuck between 2 concepts and I need to see the fabric before going forward,” Marinette bounces along looking through the windows there are quite a few craft shops in the area which suits her just fine.

“Please don’t run off,” Adrien gently holds her sleeve, “Marinette this city…”

“It’s filled with a dark energy,” Marinette agrees, even in this nicer area had something ominous hanging over it, “It’s like it’s seeped into the city’s very bones,”

“And the Akuma aren’t helping things,” A child across the street starts crying and they both instinctively lookout.

“On the plus side at least hawkmoth doesn't send Akuma after every little thing,” Marinette forces herself to relax, moving on as the kids parents comfort them.

“On the downside, he sends them after emotions that are a lot worse,” Adrien follows along into a store as Marinette filters through the shelves.

“Maybe but we can handle this,” Marinette absent-mindedly raises her fist, meeting Adreins, “Do you think I should make something for everyone, you know as a thank you?”

“I haven't gotten them anything,” Adrien takes the armful of fabric Marinette passes him as she brings out her sketchbook to select old designs.

“I’ll handle the making,” Marinette ticks off a vest she thinks with be perfect for Bruce, “And you handle the finances,”

“I stole my father's credit card,” Adrien says with a grin, “He’ll probably find out where I am soon anyway so might as well start using it,”

“In that case,” Marinette pulls out a roll of incredibly expensive fabric, “We also need new phones,”

“And we should go out for lunch,”

“Get our hair done?” Marinette adds, looking at her half hacked off hair “I still need to fix mine from this,”

“I was thinking our room could use a chair?”

“And the bookshelf is looking a bit empty,”

“A nice expensive rug would really liven up the room,”

“Would it be completely inappropriate to get a motorcycle?”

“Yes,” Adrien agrees, “Let's do it,”

They stop to get new phones first, having destroyed their old ones when they ran away. Adrien finds the most expensive restaurant in town, but it's on the far end so they stop to get a motorcycle first.

“I didn’t know you could ride,” Adrien gestures for the waiter in their private room, “Yes can I please have the duck?”

“My Nona taught me,” Marinette sips at the most expensive drink she can legally buy, “I thought you hated duck?”

“Oh I do,” Adrien grins, which drops when his phone starts ringing, “How did he even get this number?”

Marinette looks over his shoulder to see Gabriel trying to call. Adrien purposefully hangs up rolling his eyes.

“We should go do our hair next,” Adrien leans over the table with a manic grin, ”I was thinking of dying it hot pink,”

“Love the concept,” Marinette cringes at the very thought, “But the execution is flawed, you need to dye it a color you actually like not one just to spite your father otherwise he's still just controlling your life, just in a different way,”

“You're right,” Adrien sighs leaning back examining his blonde locks, “What do you think?”

“A nice pastel or cherry blossom pink would look amazing,” Adrien perks up at the suggestion he can still keep the pink, “Actually I might do that too- oh wait! Will that affect our transformation?”

“Not unless you really want to deep down,” Tikki explains, her and Plagg gorging themselves on expensive cheese and treats.

“Well deep down I really don't want to give away our identities like this,”

“It’s a plan then,” Adrien smiles, “Now do you want to order anything else?”

“Thanks but I’m full,”

“What's that got to do with anything?”

 ---

 “Looks great Nette,” Adrien gives her a side hug, the hairdresser shooing him away while he does the final touch-ups.

“Are you talking to me or yourself?” Marinette smiles at the new and improved shock of pink hair.

“Well obviously I look fabulous, but you look great too,” Marinette rolls her eyes at him looking back in the mirror. Instead of evening out her hair, they had made it look like her little episode was actually intentional giving it nice layers and even doing an undercut on the other side. Unlike Adrien, she didn't go all pink, instead the tips being white ombre up to pink and then her natural hair color.

“Thanks, you have to send a picture of your hair to Nino he's more invested in your teenage rebellion than you are, he’s probably also hurt you left him out of the running away part,”

“He has suggested, more than once, running away together,”

“Why what's wrong with Nino's family?”

“Nothing at all,” Adrien quickly covers, “I think he just really wanted me to run away, his mum offered to pack us lunches,”

“Well, maybe we could have used the turtle,” Marinette sighs, “But I could do that to Nino, you already had to leave Kagami behind, have you given her a call yet?”

“Oh um, about that-" Adrien points at her tapping his chin thoughtfully, "Never mention it again,”

“Adrien,” Marinette scowls, “Call your girlfriend,”

“She’ll kill me,” Adrien hides partly behind a seat looking meek, “Also you don't get to lecture me, you haven't called your parents,”

“That's different,” Marinette groans sinking into the seat, only to get told off for moving, “They’ll want me to come home, how am I supposed to explain that I can’t,”

“They’re your parents,” Adrien stresses, “I’m sure they’ll be happy enough to know your ok,”

“Maybe,” Marinette hums, the cloth being removed from her shoulders letting her get up, “I just feel so bad for putting them through this,”

“Maybe one day they’ll understand,” Adrien walks with her to the front to pay.

“Maybe,” Marinette looks down at the bill, “Wow this is a lot more expensive than the usual dye job,”

Made sense because they were in the higher income distinct of the city.

“Why Marinette,” Adrien grins swiping the card, “That's the point,”

Ten minutes later they were laughing as calls kept pouring in one after the other. They are only interrupted when they get the distinct feeling of an Akuma.

“Duty calls,” Adrien sighs putting his phone on silent.

“Seems so, at least we can call out skills multiple times," Marinette walks casually into an alley with him, “What are you up to?”

“About three,” Adrien shrugs transforming, “It takes about double the time for the transformation to drop now,”

“Same, wish I could say that gives us the edge but really it only keeps us from falling off the cliff,” Marinette also transforms, her new costume bringing a smile to her face.

“How eloquent my lady,” Marinette playfully pushes him, Chat catches himself catapulting over the building, she quickly follows behind.

The Akuma is standard, Marinette guesses the akumatized item is the wrist watch. The problem comes with their recurring thorn in her side.

“Ladybug-”

“Get out of the city,” She cuts Batman off, “Yeah, yeah let us handle this first,”

Marinette throws her yoyo out just in time to deflect an attack headed at Chat.

“Do you need any help?” Robin asks, Marinette smiles, partly at the aghast face Batman makes.

“Do you think you could tag-team it with me?” She asks formulating a plan, with the extra help she might not need the lucky charm, “Make your attacks big and draw his attention, grab the wristwatch if you can,”

“On it,” Robin gives her a nod jumping into the fray, Ladybug doesn't give batman a chance to object running after.

Robin does a good job they work in perfect sync falling back when the other moves to make an attack. When the Akuma focuses on them too much Chat swoops in and gets their attention giving them the chance to swipe at the wristwatch. It goes on she sees Robin get thrown back after another failed swipe at the wristwatch. Ladybug takes the chance to move forward grabbing for the wrist, she isn't watching out for the other arm, the impact hitting and sending her flying back.

“I got you,” Her momentum is stopped by a hand bracing at her back, saving her from crashing into the adjacent building.

“Thanks, Robin,” He helps steady her as she finds her footing again, “I’ll move in you follow me up,”

“No need,” He smirks brandishing the watch.

“You did it,” Ladybug beams, taking the watch and smashing it to the ground, “Great job!”

“Ah, thanks,” Ladybug doesn't pay attention to how Robin brushes, focusing on purifying the Akuma and fixing the damage.

“We made a pretty good team,” Ladybug turns to Robin when everything is settled, “Pound it,”

Robin meets her fist with some hesitance, which disappears when she smiles at him again.

“Ladybug!” Batman yells heading their way.

“Ops sorry,” Ladybug cringes, “Sorry! Cant stop gotta go, bye bye!”

They run from the scene faster than Batman can hope to catch them. They end up back at her newly brought bike stacked with fabric and protected by a bit of luck. Marinette races home to make everyone's gifts, knowing just who she wanted to start with.

 ---

 “There you are!” Marinette exclaims, having spent the past half hour searching the manor for him.

“What do you want?” Damian snaps as if he wasn't just playing with the cat on the floor half a second ago.

“Nothing, I made something for you~” He continues to scowl but Marinette doesn't let it discourage her, “Here, I didn’t know your size so I made a baggier style, do you like it?”

Damian takes the sweater holding it up to where she put it on him looking down a little shocked. Marinette almost wants to laugh at the expressions trying to shift back from awe to disinterest, it’s cute. She smiles wondering what his face would look like if she made a matching one for the cat, and maybe Titus too.

“.... It’s well made,” Damian eventually allows, folding it over his arm, Marinette notices how his fingers linger on the soft fabric.

“Good to know,” She smiles, bidding him goodbye before the moment can be ruined. She bounces down the hall humming to herself.

“Someone's happy,” Tikki flies out of her bag.

“He liked it, why wouldn't I be happy?”

“Someones really happy,”

“Stop it Tikki,” Marinette giggles, making the kwami laugh in turn.

“Just like adrien~” Tikki sing songs floating down the hall ahead of her.

“Well then, keep Kagami far away from this one,”

“Don’t turn into a stuttering mess and we have a deal,” Tikki agrees.

“Please Tikki I’m not thirteen anymore,” Marinette brushes her off, ready to go make the others gifts, if she spent the whole time humming to herself Tikki wasn't going to explain why to Adrien.

---------

Taglist? nope don’t have one, horrible at keeping track of them sorry~

[cdyssey]

Regret

Summary: When Fran doesn't come down to breakfast after spraining her ankle, the whole house is concerned for her—especially Niles and Mr. Sheffield. Set after "An Affair to Dismember."

A/N: Okay, so I've binge re-watched nearly four seasons of The Nanny in four days, and had to get at least one fic out of my system, lmao.

Fran Drescher's acting in "An Affair to Dismember" when she suddenly broke while talking to Maxwell made me sensitive. ;-;

AO3 Link

—

Breakfast is a remarkably boring affair without Miss Fine bursting through the door, raising her arms in a floral robe, and proclaiming, with signature adenoidal stylings, “Good moooorning, everyone!” 

The clink of silverware, the scraping of ceramic plates, the ruffling sound of Mr. Sheffield anxiously attacking the New York Times like a new Andrew Lloyd Webber play has just dropped—all of it is so terribly drab that Niles spends the first fifteen minutes of her pronounced absence coughing loudly in the hopes that his employer will pick up the hint to do something about it.

“Oh, do go get a bloody cough drop, old man,” he finally snaps, smacking his newspaper down on the table. “You’re driving me mad.”

“Sorry, sir,” Niles arches a brow as he refills Mr. Sheffield’s coffee mug. “I have asthma.”

He turns away to replace the coffee pot on the side table.

“And half a mind to kick your tetchy derrière,” he mutters under his breath.

“What was that, Niles?”

“Nothing, sir! Just saying thank you for your attentive care.”

“Dad,” Master Brighton thankfully interrupts, “where’s Fran, and what have you done to make her mad this time?”

Niles immediately turns around again in time to see his boss’s shoulders straighten in that way they often do when he’s indignant.

Or guilty.

Or some mixture of them both.

“I beg your pardon, Brighton,” he replies stiffly. “Why do you immediately assume I’m the problem here?”

“Process of elimination,” Brighton shrugs. “Fran’s not mad at me, Maggie, or Grace, and Niles is one of her closest friends.”

“You’re so astute, Master Brighton,” Niles smiles wryly as he moves to the left to get a better view of Mr. Sheffield’s face. The vein in his temple is beginning to throb, which is always a good time.

“She hasn’t dated anyone recently,” Miss Margaret pipes up.

“And she’s always fighting with her ma,” Miss Grace adds, “but that's never kept her from Belgian waffles before.”

“So, Dad,” Brighton grins, patting his father once on the back, “unless our math is wrong, that leaves you.”

“Goodness me,” Mr. Sheffield mutters, angrily stabbing a piece of link sausage with his fork. “I didn’t know I was in the presence of the lost Hardy Boy.”

“So you did do something!” Margaret exclaims. 

“No! I bloody well did not, Nancy Drew. For your information, Miss Fine accidentally hurt her ankle clubbing last night with Val. I don’t think it’s broken, but I’ve called a doctor to come by just to check.”

“Tsk, tsk. And you didn’t offer to pick her up Cinderella-style and swoop her downstairs so she wouldn’t miss breakfast?” Niles asks chidingly, only to be greeted with a nasty glare.

“Yes, I did offer to bring her down to breakfast as a matter of fact... but Miss Fine seemed strangely subdued when I spoke to her through the door... I didn’t know what to make of it to tell you the truth...”

Mr. Sheffield’s brow contracts as he searches Niles’s face for an answer, and Niles stares back just as studiously, observing the profound concern in his employer’s dark eyes.

The gentleness.

The romance.

The stunningly oblivious care.

Niles sighs fondly.

Unlike Miss Babcock, he’s never had the heart to kick poor puppies when they’re down.

“I’ll bring her Advil and a fresh ice pack,” he promises. “Perhaps some pain relief will help her to regain her spirit.”

“I hope so,” Mr. Sheffield replies, self-consciously turning to his plate again, the tips of his ears rather pink. “I hate when Miss Fine isn’t feeling well.”

“Here, here,” the whole table concurs.

—

Twenty minutes later, Niles is at Miss Fine’s door with a silver tray laden with all the essentials: painkillers, an ice pack, a mug of coffee (milk instead of cream and extra sugar), and a copy of the new edition of Gloss. He lightly taps on her door with the side of his loafer.

“Miss Fine, can I come in?”

“No,” comes an immediate and sharp reply. “I’m not dressed!”

“How discouraging,” Niles sighs smilingly. “What ever shall I do?”

“Suff’a, and at least give me a minute to find a brassiere.” 

“Oh, we’ll be here all day then.”

He hears a strange thud, a collection of evaluations (“dirty, dirty, slutty, Maggie’s, dirty”), and an assortment of Yiddish curse words he now vaguely recognizes from being friends with Miss Fine for nearly four years now. And then finally— 

“Come in, Jeeves, but shut the door behind ya ‘cuz I haven’t applied a morning layer of lipstick yet.”

Niles elbows the knob and pushes with his shoulder until the door lights open to a peculiar sight. Far from being neat, Miss Fine’s room looks like Macy’s after its annual Black Friday sale with clothes strewn everywhere—from the dressers to the wardrobes to the floor. An empty suitcase is lying on the bed next to Miss Fine, who is sitting in bed wearing an oversized t-shirt, her injured ankle propped up on a pillow. Niles can tell, even from the doorway, that it’s red and swollen, but to his satisfaction and relief, it doesn’t appear to be broken.

“Welcome to the jungle,” Miss Fine mutters when she notices his incredulous gaze. “We got all the animals out t’day.”

“I can see that,” Niles replies, placing his tray on her bedside table and shutting the door. With his usual efficiency, he then walks back over, retrieves the ice pack, and gently places it on the affected area, frowning when she flinches.

“Mr. Sheffield said that the doctor was coming at ten,” he says as he gently lowers himself onto the bed, clasping his hands primly on top of his lap.

“Mm,” Fran grunts noncommittally, grabbing the two Advil pills and knocking them back with a swig of coffee.

“What? You’re not curious as to whether or not said doctor in question is single, Jewish, and living in a Manhattan penthouse? Miss Fine”—Niles reaches over and places the back of his hand on Fran’s head—“do you have a fever?”

“Oh, Niles,” she swats his hand away, “I’m not in the mood.”

“It’s been awhile since I’ve heard that one.”

“Niles!”

“Sorry, Miss Fine,” he withdraws his hand with a laugh. “You know I have to warm up before Miss Babcock arrives.”

“Glad to assist,” Fran quips, taking another sip of coffee, and it’s only as she closes her eyes to savor the taste, that he notices there are lines beneath her eyes from what seems to have been a sleepless night. 

The smile sinks from his face.

“You know,” he says quietly, “in all of our acquaintance, I’ve never known of you to injure yourself while dancing.”

Fran opens her eyes only to immediately glance away, tapping her long nails against her mug.

“Val tripped me up when she thought she saw Elton John,” she shrugs dully. “Turns out it was just a really lifelike poster of him behind the bar...”

“I see,” Niles returns, raising a brow. “It was nice of Miss Toriello to forgo her weekend trip with her parents to come back and… boogie woogie oogie with you.”

“Dammit,” she pouts, scrunching her nose. “I didn’t think I’d told you that.”

“You didn’t. I overheard you and Miss Toriello gabbing on the phone about it yesterday morning.”

Fran can’t seem to help herself; she smiles crookedly, even as she shakes her head.

“I dunno who’s more absorbent sometimes—you or the dish sponge.”

He smiles back at her, patting her uninjured leg gently.

“Me, naturally."

"I can believe it, Chatty Cathy," she sighs.

"Now tell me, Miss Fine"—he regains his solemnity quickly, unwilling to let her deflect with jokes—"why does your room look like a tornado went through Loehmann’s?”

Her dark eyes immediately glance around the messy room, as though looking for an excuse and failing to find one.

It’s only now that Niles is sitting down, taking everything in, that he notices that most of the articles strewn about are her favorite clothing items, from her holographic Versace dress to the black tube top that Mr. Sheffield can’t pry his eyes away from every time she wears it.

“I almost did a very stupid thing, Niles,” she half-whispers, looking down into her coffee cup, her fingers tensed and shivering around the handle. “And the thing is, maybe it wasn’t really all that stupid? Maybe it was the smartest thing I could of done in a lifetime of doin’ so many stupid things.”

She pauses briefly before sardonically adding, “People included.”

Though Niles doesn’t have enough dots to connect the full picture, he has what he needs in the way of evidence to get the basic gist: Nigel being in town, the two of them going out, Nigel leaving town, the suitcase, the swollen ankle, and Miss Fine's uncharacteristic melancholy, smeared across her face so sharply that it may as well be lipstick.

He swallows thickly, suddenly grasping how close that they had all been to losing Fran forever.

“Well,” he says, making an effort to hitch an oblivious smile on his face, “isn’t it your mother who says that everything happens for a reason? It seems as though you’re right where you belong.”

“Yeah,” she snorts indelicately. “Twenty-nine multiple times over, single, and livin’ in a mansion with a man who won’t even commit to his meal orders at restaurants, much less his very available and desperate nanny.”

“Beautiful, young, and living in a mansion with three children who love you, a butler who’d be lost without you, and a man who won’t commit to his tie choices either but still cares for you deeply all the same,” Niles corrects her softly. “He was very worried for you when you didn’t come down to breakfast this morning. He didn’t even do the crossword on the Times.”

“Gee,” she rolls her eyes playfully, “how romantic.”

“Very,” Niles grins, “a modern day Romeo—emotional hangups and all.” 

With that, he pats Fran again and stands up; he has no doubt that Mr. Sheffield will be calling for him soon to interrogate him as to Miss Fine’s wellbeing. 

Maybe he can even get C.C. on speaker phone to rub it in her face.

“Y’know, Niles,” Fran smiles at him fondly, “if this whole Mr. Sheffield thing doesn’t work out, we should elope in Vegas in ten yea's.”

“Only if you wear this little number,” he says, bending down and picking up a black cocktail dress from the floor, folding it neatly over his arm.

“You wish you could be so lucky.”

“If we’re going to be in Vegas, anything can happen, I suppose.”

After he retrieves the silver tray from the bedside table, he bends down and kisses Miss Fine lightly on the head, his heart hurting when he notices the way that she closes her eyes beneath the gentle touch—young and vulnerable and terribly hurt by something he can’t quite fix with a well-timed witticism.

“Get some rest, Miss Fine," her murmurs against her head. "I'll check on you a bit."

“Thanks, hubby."

—

Scarcely ten minutes later, he’s down in Mr. Sheffield’s office as per usual, offering the producer a fresh cup of tea even though he had already drunk his traditional two cups at breakfast. 

He insisted, though, on a third, for some excuse he couldn’t quite come up with.

And instead of coming up with an excuse, he immediately asked for all the particulars of Miss Fine’s health.

Predictable chump.

“Thanks, old boy,” Mr. Sheffield frowns, returning to his crossword, tapping the end of his pen arrhythmically against the paper. “Let me know when the doctor for Miss Fine arrives. I want to be there when he checks her over.”

“Ooh la-la-la,” Niles hums, dropping a sugar cube into the tea with a zesty plop.

Mr. Sheffield places his pen down on the desk angrily. 

“Not like that… I just want to ensure she’s going to be well… you know, for the children’s sake.”

“Yes,” he sighs theatrically. “How will the children ever be able to bear their nanny having a twisted ankle?”

“Oh, shut up,” Mr. Sheffield snaps. “I don’t pay you to be sarcastic.”

“No, sir, you pay me to help you with the crossword when you’re missing three-across,” Niles smirks knowingly when he glances down at the incomplete puzzle. “What’s the hint?”

Mr. Sheffield adjusts his wire-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose before looking down again.

“A word that means feeling bad for not doing something that you should have done all along. Disappointment. A sense of shame.”

Niles straightens up with a long-suffering shake of his head.

“Oh, sir, do I really have to spell it out for you?”

[bowieexaminprogress]

Directorial nuggets

Vrijdag 20:14 part 2 (tw suicide, homophobia)

Please don’t read further if you are triggered in any way by the topics above because suicide and inner homophobia will be discussed thoroughly.

Yasmina finally opens up and asks the question that has been bothering her. It is her first attempt so far to understand. To reach out.

Why doesn’t Younes believe in god?

Note how he clears out his throat before he speaks. It is clear that the story he is about to tell is affecting him emotionally, recalling it makes him sad but he wants to share that with Yasmina.

Younes starts telling the story of Badr a friend who passed away in an accident. Note how Yasmina gives her condolences and immediately rushes to explain that bad things happen but that this is not a reason to not believe. She is rushing to explain but forgets to listen at the beginning. I like how Younes cuts her off. He says I know “Shit happens” but wait a minute and listen because for Badr things were very difficult. Badr was a gay Muslim man that felt that the fact that he was gay was the ultimate sin, he tried to “cleanse” himself by reading the Koran and reciting passages, claiming that homosexuality was the biggest crime. Younes tried to reach out to him. We clearly see here where Younes stands when it comes to the issue of homosexuality. He believes that love is all that matters. Badr got angry and said that it was Satan taking over him and that’s why he was having these feelings, it wasn’t about love. He considered himself possessed, infected. He tried to “heal” himself. We don’t know exactly what that “healing” entailed. Younes implies here that the car accident might not actually been accidental but intentional. It might have been a way for Badr to take his own life, as his way to finally “heal” himself. That event pushed Younes away from Allah and any god for that matter. For him religions are not letting people be who they really are.

Yasmina brings a different perspective into that conversation. It is not necessarily religion that creates those feelings in people. She has seen that from her non religious friends. This is a clear reference to Robbe and his journey during season 3. Remember his conversations with Yasmina at school. How he said at some point to Milan “I want to be normal again”, his inner homophobia preventing him from being himself and him conforming to a cis straight relationship as a way to fight what he feels, to “heal” himself. This sequence is extremely painful because we have seen and witnessed with our own eyes someone who went through that journey with a different outcome and Badr’s story gives us a perspective into what could have happened if Robbe’s story didn’t have the happy ending that it did.

I like how Younes listens to Yasmina’s argument. He shows us the beautiful things he took from Islam. We clearly see that he is not seeing Islam as something that is only bad. Islam is about empathy, gratitude, altruism, always trying your best but not only for yourself but also others.

We are entering now one of the most beautiful parts of this discussion and my favourite part from the OG. Yasmina’s view of religion and prayer. For her religion’s purpose is all about the good things that Younes listed above. Fasting and prayer are reminders of those purposes. They work as beacons of light between the stresses and worries of everyday life. For Yasmina prayer is a grounding force. She feels more herself when she is praying, the background noice of life is silenced, it is her at her purest most, honest form. Everything appears right, everything has a purpose. For her religion, prayer is actually being the ultimate you a juxtaposition to Badr, Younes’ view. 3 people, 3 different perspectives of religion, 3 different interpretations of Koran.

I like how she asks Younes if he gets what she means and he says yes. Maybe at this moment their view on religion is different but spiritually they are at the same place.

We hear the first guitar chords from “Where is my love” by SYML play and the song begins to play as Yasmina throws the ball away from them. Their intimacy symbol. At this moment she needs to lighten the mood a little bit but maybe also needs a tiny bit of space to breath after everything that was revealed.

The lyrics of the song again are reflecting Yasmina’s and Younes’ thoughts. It is not a happy song. It is a song about a hurting lover, someone who is searching for his missing love. A love that might have run away but also might have gone from life. It is trying to offer solace to that love. When one hurts or bleeds, the other one bleeds the same, if one is scared the other one is there for them. The lyrics add an extra layer to Younes and Yasmina. They bleed the same at the end of the day, they are hurting the same, they are searching for each other.

Yasmina’s expression once Younes leaves her side shows that this conversation has filled her with thoughts and questions. She looks pensive. She is surrounded by cold, cloudy light.

For Younes on the other hand this conversation has brought him closer to Yasmina. He now has reached a point where he has stood bare in front of her and he feels safe and more connected than ever. He looks happy. He is in warm, golden light.

He finds a rock. The same connection object we had between him and Yasmina at the beginning of the clip with the little pebble. This time around it is heart shaped. It is orange. The colour of adventure, optimism, youth, enthusiasm, the colour of emotion. He tries to hide it at first but he offers it fully to Yasmina immediately. He says you have my heart now, take it and do with it whatever you want.

This shot of Yasmina with the light behind her showcases where our lovers stand at this particular point. There is light, there is hope, but Yasmina still has a shadow of doubt.

[sleepyjuniper]

HI! I am June, and I love movies! I've been working on something, and I don't usually post my work because I don't get a lot of views, but I feel what I've written here is really important, and I would very much appreciate a read, and maybe an upvote if you enjoy what you've read! I've really put my heart out on the line here, and it would be great for it to get some traction, so a movie I care about greatly can finally get some recognition.

So, Home is now back on Netflix. As a result, the passion I've always felt for this film has been rekindled, and now feels like the perfect time to bring it back to attention, to get it the praise it truly deserves. To explain, I was watching it last week and I suddenly had an epiphany. I suddenly connected more with Oh's character than I ever had before, and every little detail in the movie started to pop out at me and further strengthen this feeling. I became so obsessed with the depth of it's heavy emotional scenes and gorgeous visuals that I immediately got to writing. It gets a bit tricky to collect my thoughts every time I try to address what this writing actually is; it's not necessarily an analysis, not necessarily an essay, because it lacks direction and a real conclusion, or motive, I guess. I'm simply going in depth into the scenes that I think are most pivotal to Oh's development as a character, and providing my own personal insight into how he's thinking and what he's feeling, based on the evidence I am able to glean from what the movie shows me, rather than tells me. I'm picking into each scene and bringing to light the specific details that make it so powerful to me, and how these details allow me to fully understand and connect with the characters in a way I can't with other films.

But regardless of what it is, the more in depth I go, the more it speaks to me, and the more I understand it. The more reason I have to believe that Oh has a perfect character arc, which is so well written and perfectly pulled off, that it creates a movie that is authentic, heartfelt, and complete in every way. There's simply no other like it. Now, with no further ado, let's get into it.

Every good story starts with an introduction to the main character. The beginning scenes of Home introduce us to Oh's character perfectly. They depict him as an adorable misfit with a propensity to make mistakes, who just wants to make friends. We learn that he is widely disliked by the rest of the Boov because of his differences, that he adores Captain Smek, and that he believes Boov are best at everything. We learn a lot about his personality too. All the Boov look similar, but he is much more animated than the other Boov, moving with more energy, and appears to be in a perpetual state of excitement. He’s the only Boov we see smiling at first, and what really sets him out is the way he emotes. While most of the Boov carry neutral expressions, their eyebrows relaxed, his eyebrows are constantly raised and his eyes are wide, making them stand out much more prominently. His color changing also adds an extra layer to his character, allowing us to see even deeper into what he's feeling at any given point during the movie. The movie can tell us more, with less words. It is immediately apparent to the audience just how different Oh is from the rest of his people; we can clearly see from the get-go that Oh's emotions work differently than the rest of the Boov. And this only adds to the impact of later scenes, as he starts to experience more complex emotions and venture further into unknown territory.

When the starting conflict of the story is introduced, we learn about the first real challenge he needs to overcome. He made a mistake, and is now on the run from his own people, who want to arrest him. Right now, his motivation is simply to avoid capture. It can be assumed that until now, Oh hasn't faced danger alone. He's likely faced danger while the Boov were running away from the Gorg, but he was always facing the threat with the rest of his species. This is the first time he's been completely alone while running from something, and it's all his fault too. We can pick all of this up from context, and feel sympathy for him and his terror, which is very much justified.

When Oh and Tip first meet, they start out not liking each other, and have conflicting opinions. Oh believes the Boov are more advanced than humans because Smek said so, and he doesn't understand why Tip cares so much about one human. Conversely, Tip hates Oh because his species is the reason she's separated from her mother. They are agreeing to work together out of common interest, that's it. Oh has promised to help Tip find her mom, but he does this only to avoid capture. These scenes are full of fun quips and hilarious antics, as the movie starts to build up a foundation for Oh's character dynamic with Tip. What the movie conveys to us is that these two characters don't know each other, and don't have any interest in listening to and understanding each other.

Things really pick up later in the movie. Oh disappears for a long while, and when he returns, Tip yells at him, and he stops in his tracks, looking genuinely astounded and confused by her anger. He was especially shocked that she was afraid he'd been hurt. We can actually see the moment he does a double-take at the realization that she had been worried about him. Likely, no one has ever worried about him before. For the first time, we see him actually absorb what she's saying, listening to her with a curious expression as she tells him to try and put himself in her shoes. Tip explains to him that kids aren't supposed to be by themselves, and that the Boov's arrival ruined everything for her. When Oh says that Boov don't have families, she remarks that it's no wonder they take things and don't care about anyone else. This gives him pause, and he appears to think carefully, before speaking. No amount of explanation can really do this scene justice, so a direct quote of his monologue is needed. He says: "So, your mimom.. is a very important humansperson to you. More important than others. To not belong with her.. causes you being sad. But, recent moments ago, you are kicking on me and yelling. Which is seeming more to be mad than sad." This gives us the first true indication that Oh is trying to be more open minded. Tip tells him to try and feel how she feels, and he does. With genuine sincerity, he's trying to understand how Tip can be feeling two emotions at once. Tip looks surprised by his sincerity, and has no energy to continue talking, but she listens, and she gets back into the car when he's finished. Not only does Oh state out loud that humans are more complicated than he thought, this scene is important because it's the first time they have anything close to a genuine moment of understanding. Simply put; he sees her react in a way he didn't anticipate, is perplexed by it, and pushes aside his own belief that he already knows everything about humans, and just asks her questions to understand her better. It is the first small sign of growth we get to see from him.

Tip and Oh gradually warm up to each other more over the course of their next few escapades. Oh explains to Tip why he's in trouble, and Tip realizes he's sad, and cheers him up by teaching him about jokes. They make a plan to give Oh a makeover so they can sneak into the Great Antenna without being caught, and Tip seems amused by his antics rather than annoyed. In the Antenna, Oh helps Tip find out where her mom is, and Tip hugs him. He looks surprised and uncertain for a moment, but quickly adjusts to it and even smiles, turning orange and hugging her back. From the information we have, we can extrapolate that this may or may not be the first time he's ever been hugged, due to the Boov's aversion to both Oh and physical contact. This is the most affection Tip has expressed with him so far, and he seems to just melt into it. He also looks as if he wasn't ready for the hug to end so abruptly. It's a sensation he's unfamiliar with, but immediately decides he wants.

This is when we see Oh, specifically, starting to trust Tip a bit more and even maybe like her, and their escape from the Tower shows them working with a newfound chemistry as they outsmart the Boov. We can tell Oh is scared at several points during the scene, because his yellow coloring indicates it, but he's also grabbing onto Tip as if it gives him reassurance. He trusts her enough to at least find comfort in her presence, which is something that wasn't true of their relationship in the beginning.

Following the events of the Eiffel Tower scene, Tip starts to talk about her mom, excited to find her and maybe even come back to Paris. When she turns around, Oh is standing further away and looking at the now wrecked central command, his skin displaying a dejected blue color. What does he have to come back to after everything is over? Tip knows where she belongs, but Oh would never be able to go back to the Boov in safety after his mistake. He is questioning his belonging. Tip notices he's sad, and attempts to cheer him up. It doesn't work, but Oh does something that surprises Tip. He apologizes to her. During the confrontation with Smek, Oh finally realized how Smek was wrong for causing the misunderstandings between Boov and Humans, and that he would never accept any Boov for showing individuality. Oh acknowledges everything that he previously thought about humans was wrong, and that Captain Smek was also wrong. He even looks ashamed to tell her that in the beginning, the Boov thought humans were simple and uncomplicated, and that they needed the Boov. He tells her he thinks the Boov should never have interfered with Earth, and that he's sorry for how it affected her. He doesn't say anything during his apology that would guilt Tip into responding a certain way; just gives an honest apology, and allows her the freedom to decide how she reacts. This is something that's incredibly meaningful coming from Oh. He's not trying to get anything from her, he's just apologizing for something he was complacent in and is now feeling regretful about. It's raw and heartfelt. She hands him the keys, and he looks surprised at first, then gives a huge smile, holding the keys close to his heart and turning orange.  

The following scene is perhaps the most important one in the film, and is incredibly impactful. Accompanied by the gentle tune of a song that slowly gets louder as the movie switches from dialogue between characters to simply visual storytelling, we watch as Oh and Tip take turns driving, and exchange vulnerability with each other, both describing their own experiences with being misfits. We see them laughing together, taking selfies, and just in general enjoying each other's company. Tip completely accepts Oh for who he is, and in turn he lets his walls down, and is finally able to be himself. This is a real bond they've formed. They are truly friends. Both look nothing alike, yet have so much in common.

Finally, we see Oh taking his turn driving at night while Tip sleeps, and he goes to tuck her back in when her blanket falls down. As we hear Kiezca's 'Cannonball' playing in the background (and on the radio) he takes a moment to appreciate the things in the car, discovering he does indeed enjoy them. Finally, he adjusts his mirror to watch Tip sleep, and we see him slowly turn a brand new color: pink. If you were to recap his life so far, the significance of this moment becomes clear. Oh is outgoing and friendly, but he's never fit in in his entire life. No matter how hard he tried to fit in with the Boov, he simply had emotional needs that the rest of the Boov did not, and as such they did not care about or recognize his need. Tip is the first person who has ever listened to him and gotten to know him, and accepted him for who he is. She's his first friend. In this moment, he is looking at Tip, and he's feeling something he's never felt before: love. It feels like a part of him he's always been missing has finally been found. For the first time in his life, he feels like he belongs.

We find Oh further appreciating Tip's qualities when they find the Gorg super-chip; he was afraid to go towards the ship but she convinced him, and when it worked out he realized that her idea had worked out better than his would have. He realized he can achieve things through being brave rather than giving up; essentially, if you don't even try, you can never succeed. You can see in his expression after Tip smirks at him that he was surprised; he realized he had faced his fears, all because of Tip's help.

We see a monumental backslide in his progress when he leaves Tip instead of staying by her side and fulfilling his promise. His greatest challenge is revealed to be that he's still not brave; not brave enough to put his faith in the one he cares about, not brave enough to face his fears and stick by her no matter what. We do know that he's terrified; both of being left alone, and of losing Tip. He has just found a sense of belonging with Tip that he's never felt before, and he can't bear to lose that. He tries to bring her with him, and she feels betrayed and breaks off the friendship. The detail that went into this scene makes it incredibly impactful. It's raw and filled with emotion. For context, during the course of the movie, we only see a Boov go pale in the face during a few very intense situations, and said pale-ing was usually followed by fainting. This suggests that a lack of color is indicative of a much stronger, primal emotion: dread, or pain. When Tip turns and leaves, he loses pigment. He blanches, and staggers. There's a physical impact of Tip's words on Oh. This isn't simply sadness or fear he's feeling, it's anguish. It's his world falling apart, his heart breaking. He is quite literally torn in two, as he looks back and forth between his best friend and his chance at escape, changing rapidly from red to yellow to blue and back again. It emphasizes his turmoil; the panic he feels at seeing a rapidly closing window to decide what action to take, before he turns back to what he's always known, running away. There's high stakes on both sides, and we as an audience can feel his pain, as he displays clear indecision and helplessness at this impossible choice.

As the Boov travel farther from Earth, bringing the Gorg with them, Oh and Tip have never been farther apart. As the Gorg mothership closes in, everyone runs to the other side of the ship; all except Oh, who stares it down. He knows he can save everyone. He pulls out the super-chip, his gaze hardening with determination, and runs against the flow of the crowd to plant it in the control panel. Everyone stops to stare in disbelief, crowding around him afterwards, curious to hear him speak. Smek tries to ostracize him for acting unBoov-like, and Oh directly challenges him. He tells the listening crowd that he used to believe what Smek said was right, but he'd learned things that said otherwise. He talks about the human he met, and how she's smart and brave, and has an emotional capacity for caring for others that Boov lack. During this monologue, we see his skin turn pink again as he talks about Tip, reminding us as that he does still care about her. This also reminds him of his own actions, and he turns blue, concluding his speech by saying that the Boov may be better in some ways, but not in the ways he thinks are most important now. He realizes that Tip has strengths that are/would have been useful many times for the Boov. This is when it becomes apparent that he's regretting leaving; Tip made him stronger, and he now knows he can be as brave as she is. 

Which is why it's an incredible payoff scene when he is made leader. He's surrounded by Boov who are cheering for him, but he feels lonelier than ever. He wanted to be accepted, but he wasn't ready to be looked up to. It doesn't feel right, he doesn't belong here. When he watches the view of Earth grow smaller as it fades into the distance, he actually cries, and catches a tear as it rolls down his cheek, a pensive look crossing his face. He pulls out Tip's keychain, and all in one instant he realizes why he's so miserable. He doesn't feel like he belongs here, because he belongs with Tip. It's where he's meant to be. He turns pink, looking hopeful, and in the next scene he turns up on earth, by himself, and finds Tip. It's not really necessary to explain why this is an important development; we can see everything there is to be said in the way they compose the scene. There's also the parallel shots where we see Tip and Oh both pushing through crowds and both looking completely alone despite all the people around them, emphasizing that they need each other. Oh just had to figure out he could follow Tip's example, what he'd learned from her bravery, to realize he could still salvage things. He realized a life feeling alone among the Boov was worth nothing, and a life with someone he truly cares about is worth facing any danger, no matter what may come. 

Oh and Tip are reunited, and he tells her what he learned, that he realized she's his friend, and he belongs with her. You can see from the look they share that both of them feel this way. They've come full circle, to a full understanding and acceptance of each other. 

Oh helps Tip find her mom, finally fulfilling his promise, and when the Gorg attack and he realizes it's because of the Boov, he tells Tip he's fixing his mistake, protecting the reunited family by making it so they're unable to chase him and be put in danger. He loves Tip, and he wants her and the human she cares most about to be safe. He's not about to let her risk losing that. So, bravely, yet stupidly, he runs to the Gorg mothership and holds up the thing they've been chasing the Boov for all this time. He tries to do it on his own, which is a major sign of his growth as a character, but the only reason the Gorg actually see him is because Tip has his back. He was fully prepared to sacrifice himself. When the ship is closing in on him, and the dust and sparks are blinding him, he turns around, and sees Tip running to him. He smiles, his trust fully in her; if he doesn't get out of this, she can save everyone else. He throws the rock to her before the ship covers him, choosing to put his faith in her in what he believes to be his final moments. He went from caring only about his own survival, to caring about the survival of his best friend, and wanting Tip to help make peace with the Gorg so the Boov and humans can be safe as well. 

After we see Tip mourn for Oh before it's revealed that he's okay, she pulls him in for a hug, and he immediately embraces her back, then over Tip's shoulder we see him looking at her fondly, smiling, and he turns a vibrant pink as he closes his eyes and leans into the hug. Just by the look in his eyes in this scene, we can see that he's fully appreciating this being who cared about him enough to listen to him, to stand by him and stand up for him, and run after him when he's in danger. In this moment, he's getting a second chance to embrace her, when he went in not knowing if he'd ever see her again. In this moment it was all worth it. Because he looks at her, and he is home.

[delyth88]

Loki episode 5 rewatch

It’s been a busy week so it wasn’t until yesterday that I had a chance to watch Episode 5 again. And I was a little worried I might not like it as much as I did on first watch, but thankfully I did still find a lot to like about this episode.

Spoilers below...

Firstly, I think it’s taken this long, but I’ve finally gotten used to this new variant of our Loki. To this overly emotive, sweetly stupid at times, often bewildered version of the character.  Let me be clear, he is absolutely not being presented in the same was at the first three films, Infinity War, or even Ragnarok. But I’m finding him easier to watch now that I have no hopes or expectations that he will be the Loki I was hoping we’d get to see again.  Sure, I’m sad they didn’t give us a continuation of the Loki we’re grown to love, but this guy seems to be starting to find his feet, and I’m curious to see what his potential is now.

I was again struck by the increased sense of purpose (no pun intended) of this episode.  It seems to be going places more so than previous episodes were. And again I loved the opening sequence and the music as we travel through the TVA and then out into the Void. It did make me wonder whether the destroyed city was actually a version of the timeline where Loki/Thanos win the Battle of New York, and that’s as far as the significance of that set goes.  My hunch is that we won’t see that long shot of Loki from the trailers in post-apocalyptic New York. They opted for the mirror of the Avengers scene instead as the way Loki finds himself in this place.

I laughed at Loki’s little rant this time too. Particularly the line “plus an alligator, that I’m heartbroken to report I didn’t even find all that strange!”.  In fact there were a few moment when I felt we were getting a little bit of Loki’s old humour. Such as, his “Delightful.” In response to kid Loki talking about cannibalistic pirates, “This is a nightmare.” and “Don’t die isn’t a plan, it’s a general demand of living”.

I do wonder though if this is just about comparison with the other Lokis?  Like they’re all so very much more on the extreme end of comical that it makes our Loki seem the straight guy in comparison? *shrug*

After several days I am still taken by Old Loki and his story.  And on watching it again I was able to appreciate the little moments leading up to his fighting Alioth. He gives the impression of being just so Over It and his crazy comics outfit also directs the audience away from how much he actually cares.  For example he is really quite upset at Lokis in general and presumably also himself after the betrayal by Boastful Loki. He says “We cannot change. We’re broken. Every version of us. Forever.”

And he seems quite affected by Mobius’ offhand comment that “it’s never too late to change”.

And then that look back towards Loki and Sylvie as Alioth approaches.

Gah! This is the kind of thing I wanted for our Loki.  I don’t have the right words to describe it, but it’s partly the back story, partly the change of heart, partly the stakes, the emotional depth. I’m really quite sad that we won’t see more of him.  :( 

@scintillatingshortgirl19​ you asked me what I thought of Loki’s response when Sylvie asks, “How do I know that in the final moments you won’t betray me?”

“Listen Sylvie, I…” Loki pauses and takes a deep breath “I betrayed everyone who ever loved me.  My father, my brother, my home.  I know what I did, and I know why I did it. And that’s not who I am anymore. Okay? I won’t let you down.”

To be honest on my first watch I think I just let it slide over me as yet another one of those lines where they keep telling us what we’re supposed to think of Loki (whether it’s true or not).  I think Episode 4 might have broken me – I didn’t even blink an eyelid.  I think I’ve just heard so many people saying things that I think are absolutely wrong about Loki that I’m just… used to it now?  I dunno. Maybe it was just my mood, or the fact that there were enough other things I enjoyed in the episode that I could ignore it.

But since you pointed it out I’ve been thinking about it and after my rewatch I kinda think Loki has been a little bit influenced by recent events and conversations.  He’s just watched with embarrassment several different versions of himself strike bargains and then betray each other, in such an extreme example of this behaviour that it seemed absurdly comic. Boastful Loki even says “I betrayed you, and now I’m king.” And as they leave the Loki fight behind Old Loki says “We lie and we cheat! We cut the throats of every person who trusts us! And for what! Power!”  So I can kinda see why betrayal is on his mind.  

And perhaps this is something he’s been thinking about for a while now.  Since he tried to strike a bargain with Sylvie before he even really knew her. Old Loki ask if Loki trusts Sylvie and he says” “She’s the only one [of the Loki variants] I do trust! “

But I guess the way I interpreted it is not just literal betrayal like he just watched with the other Loki variants, but also letting people down. Letting himself down. In this context betraying his father would be the events of Thor 1 where he betrays his father’s trust by letting the frost giants into the weapons vault (I think he’s talking about Odin here, not Laufey), and then by not being able to be a good king in the eyes of his father or even his own standards while Odin was in the Odinsleep.  I don’t think he would be thinking of the moment where he lets Laufey into Odin’s chamber because he always intended to betray Laufey and save Odin. Although maybe he feels guilt for that too, in terms of lying to his father.  In regards to his brother, I’d consider any of the times Loki is acting against his brother’s interests, in a serious way such as the times that he was evading and fighting against Thor in Avengers, or when he sent the Destroyer in Thor 1 as betrayals of a sort, and the frost giants at the coronation again. And in regards to his ‘home’ I assume from his perspective this is again about the coronation and the events that led to the destruction of the Bifrost and as far as he’s aware war with Jotunhiem.  Perhaps he’s thinking of the moment when Odin says to Thor “... you are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed!” Potentially he’s also thinking of Ragnarok and his actions in causing it after what he read in his file in the TVA. Personally I think he knows it was necessary but still feels a ton of guilt about being the one to actually do it. In this case it’s a betrayal in action but not in heart.

So I think he’s kinda focusing on the guilt he feels. And I think this is why he feels it could extend to Frigga, although he doesn’t mention it I think we as the audience are meant to assume it.  But again, this is in terms of the guilt he feels at a future version of himself inadvertently causing Frigga’s death – as he’s heard this story second-hand from Mobius. You know how if you start feeling bad about something it’s very easy to expand that to a whole bunch of other things you’ve done?  These are the times he feels guilty for his actions in hindsight.

I also think he’s kinda lumping a bunch of things together under the umbrella of the wording of the question that Sylvie has asked.  I think if she’d used a different word he would have echoed that back to her too.

I also think he starts of with “Listen Sylvie, I..” because he was about to defend himself, refuse to acknowledge that he would do such a thing and minimise it, by saying some version of “I would never do that”.  But he catches himself and takes the opposite approach of laying all his faults out plain. Admitting in a slightly exaggerated way that he has betrayed people in the past and he knows it, which he considers is more likely to be believed, and that he won’t betray Sylvie because he’s changed since then.

So I don’t know if I really have a conclusion to draw from this, but I think Loki is exaggerating out of guilt. 

But this is also one of those lines that where the character is telling us not showing us.  Which seems to have started in Ragnarok and is being continued in this series. It’s frustrating, I don’t like it, but it seems this is what they do now.  :/

***

So, it’s taken me a whole ‘nother day to get to finish writing this, and I’ve realised that this is the first episode in a while that has been on my mind since I watched it.  I’m actually invested again! Which I was very much not after Episode 4.

This episode had another piece of Loki’s story, in the form of Old Loki, and that was wonderful, and tragic.  And we’re starting to get somewhere with the plot now.  

And unlike in previous episodes where it looked like they’d left hints of things to come but that turned out not to be the case, I actually feel like we might get payoff for all those comments about Loki’s magic.  Probably not in a way I’d prefer, but at this point I’ll take any sort of change that gives Loki a bit more control over his life.

I’m also feeling again like this story matters.  With episodes 3 and 4 I wasn’t really feeling it.  I hope I’m not too disappointed. lol

I still don’t like the romance, but having resigned myself to the fact this is what they’re doing last week I was better able to watch this.  The fact that Sylvie is as utterly incompetent at personal relationships as our Loki does make it more tolerable to me, and if I take it as some weird AU (which lets be fair is exactly what this is) it is kinda cute. In a way I like that they’re both late 30s/early 40s in appearance, not teens or twenty-somethings. It adds this extra layer to their awkwardness and I think brings home how weird tit is that these thousand year old beings don’t know how to be friends if you can do the mental jumps required to believe this in the first place. I still want it to be platonic or at least not taken any further.  I will gag if they kiss in the finale. 

[yamagucji]

Bokuto x insecure!reader

request: “Hey hey hey! Can I request Bokuto fem s/o who’s super friendly, bubbly and super selfless, but is actually pretty insecure about her body and coming off as too annoying? Thank you love!!!” -anon

pairing: bokuto x fem!reader

warnings: mentions of bullying, uses pet names

a/n: just a gentle reminder to appreciate yourselves! realize that our thoughts are impacted by a toxic environment with a demanding media so it’s important that we try to strip ourselves from their standards. lots of love readers <3

you’re always volunteering to help the volleyball club so you’re kind of like a part-time manager to them!

this is a win-win for bokuto because he gets to spend more time with you AND volleyball

you are very attentive to the boys needs and give them lots of care (sometimes bokuto gets jealous bc your attention is divided🥺🤲)

your bubbly personality is something that helps bokuto avoid emo modes so the team is very thankful☺️

to show their gratitude, the boys will do something in return for you

a practice match comes up, but the official manager(s) aren’t able to make it so you come instead

when practice ends, a group of girls approach bokuto and get a little too comfortable

your eyes linger on their physique which causes your body insecurities to resurface

there’s still some time before the boys have to pack up and leave, so you decide to hide in the bathroom stall in order to recollect yourself

some moments later the same group of girls come in and start talking shit about fukurodani’s manager: you

Hearing their snarky comments feels like a cold brass hammer repeatedly hitting glass. You’re shattering quickly, and all of the insecurities that you’ve desperately tried to hide comes flooding out. You try to silence your sobs, rubbing hard against your eyelids in order to keep the tears at bay. But it just doesn’t do.

The moment the girls leave is when you receive a text from Bokuto. He had noticed your missing presence as soon as the girls had left. After receiving no replies about your whereabouts, he decides to text you.

From Bokuto: Babee🥺🥺

From Bokuto: Where are you? I miss you💗

To Bokuto: I’m in the bathroom babe! I’ll meet you guys by the locker room :)

After a few minutes of making yourself look presentable, you reluctantly leave the bathroom and hope the boys don’t notice you had been crying. Unfortunately, as soon as you head out of the bathroom you stumble against a hard surface. You look up, ready to start apologizing until you realize that the person itself was Bokuto. You can only hope that he doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. But he does.

He’s quick to wrap his arms around, steadying himself so you can lean on him.

“Babe?” He frowns. “Are you okay? Did someone hurt you? Ah- I swear if some guy harassed you while I was gone-”

At this point you don’t have the time to compose yourself. The hurt from earlier is still fresh and you can’t stop yourself from crying again.

You hide your face against his chest and sob. Bokuto’s worried. This is the first time he’s seen you like this and your state is enough for him to go on his emo mode but he refrains from it. He needs to be your anchor this time.

“B-Bo,” You muffle against him. “Do you think I’m annoying?”

He instantly grasps your face to look at him. “Babe, why would you think that? You’re not annoying! I think you’re beautiful and amazing and you always take care of me!”

He adds, “And you take good care of the boys too but sometimes I get a little jealous but ah!” Bokuto pokes himself in the head with the tip of his thumb when he finds himself rambling.

Bokuto gives you a look that’s genuine and full of sincerity. “The point is y/n, you’re anything but annoying.”

You can feel that Bokuto is anchoring you. He’s slowly healing your wounds but even though he’s only grasped a layer of your internal battles, it’s enough.

The rest of your time at the building, Bokuto’s got his hold on you. He’ll give you kisses every couple of minutes and offer encouragement. The rest of the team doesn’t cringe at his extra displays of affection because they’ve noticed. They care about you too.

You’ll feel a little prideful when the same group of girls attempt to approach Bokuto but he’s too caught up on you this time. He’s got his hands and lips all over you and feel all putty in his touch. You don’t bother to acknowledge the girls. You’re not annoying, you’re Bokuto’s girlfriend, and he loves every inch of you. That’s all that matters for now.

[chaoticpuff17]

A Dangerous Game

part 19

masterlist

Hello darlings, just a reminder that this Namjoon is an asshole, and we do not stan his behavior. He is particularly asshole-ish in this chapter, my apologies. But I hope you all enjoy! --- chaotic puff

Namjoon awoke feeling happier than he had in a long time. He was sated, and he had the love of his life naked in his arms. Normally, Namjoon would have already been up and ready for work, but he wanted to be with Y/N when she awoke that morning. He almost felt as if she would vanish from his arms, as she was so prone to do, if he left her now. It felt almost like a dream to have her in his arms like this after so many long weeks of her disdain.  

He couldn’t help but chuckle to himself as he looked down at her peacefully sleeping figure. He’d worn her out the night before taking her three more times before he’d been satisfied. He didn’t think he’d ever get enough of her. But he’d never have to. She’d promised him her life, her submission. His arm tightened around her possessively bringing forth a sleepy whine from the woman as she unconsciously snuggled closer to him, something she never would have done if she was awake.

Carefully, so as not to wake her, Namjoon reached over to the nightstand to grab his phone calling Miss In to request breakfast be served to them in bed this morning. His queen deserved the best after all, and he knew she would be sore after their activities the night before. He’d have Miss In run her a bath after breakfast, something to help sooth her aching body. He’d have to call Seokjin in as well. The pair hadn’t used any protection the night before, and it would be good to check on her health and see if she was on any form of intrauterine or implanted birth control as well as to discuss the possibility of a pregnancy if she wasn’t.

The idea of his child growing in her belly excited him. Namjoon had always wanted to be a father, and he was confident that Y/N would make a wonderful mother for his future heirs. Three children he thought to himself. Three little versions of them running around the estate. That would be perfect. Of course, so long as she wasn’t pregnant already, they would have to wait till she was more settled. She had promised to love him, to be his wife, but Namjoon knew better than to assume she would love him overnight. He would still have to woo her, and she, stubborn creature that she was, would not make it easy on him. But she would comply. Her precious Jackson’s life was on the line if she did not.

He had no problem keeping the man imprisoned as leverage. No, he wouldn’t hurt him. Namjoon was a man of his word after all, but Y/N, the poor thing, had never asked for his release, only his safety. That was her mistake though. Namjoon wasn’t one to add onto a deal when he did not have to.  

Namjoon froze as he felt her stirring in his arms, groaning sleepily as she curled into his chest clinging to the last vestiges of sleep too hazy yet to realize where she was and in whose arms she was curled.

“Wake up, jagi.” He cooed gently moving her hair out of her face.  “Breakfast will be here soon.”

Her eyes opened blearily, blinking the sleep from her eyes as she squinted at him in confusion. “Breakfast?” He hummed in amusement watching her try to fight off the sleep that threatened to pull her back under.

“Tired, jagi?” He asked lazily tracing the love bites that littered her neck and collar bones. The moment did not last long though, as the realization of her situation his not long after. She sat bolt upright clutching the covers to her chest staring at him with wide eyes as he sat up following her. “Good morning, jagi.” He chuckled in amusement kissing her shoulder, entranced by the little freckle there and ignoring the way she stiffened at the contact.

“Clothes?” Came the strangled question her voice still rough with sleep.

“I’ll grab us both something from the closet. Miss In will be here with breakfast soon.” He hummed pulling her in for a quick kiss before he left the bed.

She sat there faintly trembling in the morning light as she tried to process everything that had happened. The one thing that kept pulling her attention though was the soreness that radiated from between her legs. She winced remembering the activities of the night before. Namjoon was a conscientious, but he was by no means gentle. He craved her pleasure as well as her submission, and he was not afraid to take them both from her. After their first time, he’d been far more demanding, far more dominant, and she could feel the after affects all over her body from the bruises on her hips to the hickies littering her skin. She poked at one of the many marks experimentally only to wince when she found it particularly sensitive.

Namjoon returned a few minutes clad in a pair of low hung pajama bottoms with a soft sea green nightgown in his arms.  She was grateful for the covering but annoyed when Namjoon insisted on slipping it onto her himself and protesting when she tried to leave the bed.

“Namjoon, I need to use the restroom.” She grumbled extricating herself from his arms. Was the man suddenly an octopus? Why did he have so many arms? It seemed like every time she removed one there was another to take its place keeping her trapped in his embrace.

He pulled her in for another kiss, this one far more demanding before he released her. “Hurry back.” He ordered gazing at her with such a loving expression that it made her feel physically ill.

She washed up quickly gazing at herself in the mirror. There were prominent dark circles under her eyes, a testament to both her harrowing day and her lack of sleep the night before. In the mirror she could see the full extent of the damage Namjoon had done to her body. The marks were a range of lighter red marks to far more aggressive bruises that shone an angry purple color. There wasn’t enough makeup in the world to cover these marks. She’d have to see what her options were for scarves and turtlenecks. She was not about to give him the satisfaction of walking around the estate with his marks displayed for the world to see. She had a feeling he would enjoy that far too much.  

There was only so long she could hide in the bathroom though. She did stop in the closet on her way to pull out a long robe and a pair of panties to give herself an extra layer of protection.

Namjoon beckoned her back to the bed as soon as she emerged, pulling her back to lie against the pillows with him though he did give the robe she’d put on a look of distaste.

“We still need to talk about your punishment, jagi.” He murmured into her hair as his long fingers played with her own much smaller hands.

“Punishment?” She asked dread curling in her stomach.

“You knocked Jimin over the head, cut your ankle monitor, and fled the estate. I think a punishment is in order, don’t you?”

She froze. “I thought that was what last night was.” She murmured bitterly.

His hold on her tightened. His previously warm smile suddenly gone replaced with a cold stern look. “I seem to recall you being very pleased last night with my cock buried in that sweet little pussy of yours.” He growled slipping a hand through the folds of the robe to roughly grip her breast, brutally pinching the nipple. “I’m sure I can refresh your memory if you’ve forgotten.”

She squirmed pushing his hand away, and he let her, removing his hand to instead bring her face close to his. “You agreed to this, jagi.” He reminded his lips only a hair’s breath from her own.  

“I know.” She whispered swallowing thickly.

“Our time together is not a punishment, jagi.” He whispered against her lips. “You’ll come to see that in time. I can give you a good life.” He murmured pressing his lips to hers. “I can give you the world.”

“So long as I never leave this house.” She scoffed pulling back.

“You can earn that privilege in time, but you and I both know you’re not ready for that. You bludgeoned a man.”

“Is Jimin okay?” She asked looking down at her hands guiltily.

“Jimin will be fine.” Namjoon waved off her concern dismissively. “He’s been sent out on assignment.”

“Like Jungkook.” She felt bitterness welling up in her throat.

“Like Jungkook.” He agreed saying no more on the topic.

It was a grateful break from the tension when Miss In came in leading a small group of maids to deliver a western style breakfast in bed.

“Sajangnim.” She bowed paying her respect to the master of the house. “Bu-in.”

“Thank you, Miss In.” Namjoon waved her off dismissively. “If you could return in an hour to draw a bath for the lady.”

“Yes, sajangnim.”

“And call for Dr. Kim to come.”

“Yes, sajangnim.” She bowed again before shooing out the maids to give the master and the lady of the house their privacy.

“Why is Seokjin coming?” She asked picking at her toast. She was incredibly angry with Jin for being part of Namjoon’s plan, for putting a chip in her neck like she was some sort of dog, and had no wish to see him.

Namjoon sipped at his coffee watching her carefully from the corner of his eye. “I’d like for him to take a look at you.”

“Why?” Her tone was sharp, layered with suspicion.

“Because I was rather rough with you, and we didn’t use any protection, jagiya.” He smirked into his cup of coffee watching as the color drained from her face.

“Oh, god.” She whimpered her head dropping into her arms.

“Of course, we’ll bring in a gynecologist to take a look at you another day, but for now Jin will do just to make sure you’re alright, and prescribe some birth control.” He spoke of it like it was nothing, but it was everything to her.

They hadn’t used any protection. Yes, the odds of her being pregnant was slim after only one night, but her mind was racing. When had her last period been? When was she due to ovulate? Could she have been pregnant?

“Of course, it wouldn’t be ideal for you to be pregnant now.” He mused. “You’re still not settled yet, but if you are you are.”

“I don’t want a baby.” She whimpered feeling bile rise up in her throat.

“Not yet at least.” He agreed. “It would be better to wait.”

“No, Namjoon.” She repeated her voice low and grave. “I don’t want a baby. Ever.”

Namjoon set down his cup and gave her an indulgent smile. “Of course, you want a baby.” He tutted. “Perhaps you’d be more settled with one.” He mused rethinking his decision to have Seokjin prescribe her birth control. As much as he knew she hated it, he did know her, and he knew she would never leave her child behind just as well as he knew a child would make it all the harder for her to run.

“No, Namjoon, I don’t.”

He chuckled darkly his smile turning from indulgent to something far more cold and sharp. “We will have a child, Y/N. An empire needs an heir, and you are my wife.”

“No.”  She repeated her voice firm, unyielding. “I promised you I would be your wife. I promised you my love, and I can try even though the thought of you makes my skin crawl, but I did not promise you a child.”

“I’m afraid, my love, that you did agree to it. ‘Whatever you want’ where the words you used, if I recall.” He growled placing an kiss to the junction of her shoulder. “I would hate for anything to happen to dear Jackson just because you couldn’t comply with the terms of our agreement.”

Her blood froze in her veins. “You promised not to hurt him.” She pushed away from him looking at him with an almost wounded expression.  

“And I’ll uphold my end of the bargain, so long as you keep yours.”

“You sick, bastard.” She hissed hands trembling as she restrained herself from throttling him. “You would force me to carry your spawn?” She spat glaring at him with renewed fire in her eyes. She would not bring a child into this house.

“I would not force you to do anything.” He refuted his jaw clenched as he tried to reign in his own temper. “You are my wife, and we will, in time, have children.”

“That certainly doesn’t sound like a choice to me.” She huffed getting up from the bed and walking away.

“Where are you going?” He called after her frustration coloring his tone.

“To take a bath!”

“You’ve barely touched your breakfast.” 

She said nothing more, choosing instead to throw an obscene gesture over her shoulder instead as she disappeared into the bathroom.

part 20

[the-haven-of-fiction]

Not A Christmas Movie

Genre/Rating: Fluff and Sweetness of the holiday variety, T

Summary:  Tom and Astrid find themselves in a unique situation on Christmas Eve. 

Author’s Notes:  My first sappy romantic Christmas one shot, y’all!  Move over, Hallmark!  I tried to cover some of the best cheesy themes, I hope you enjoy it.  Thank you to Pillow Talk and Lolo for proofing.  

The sound of the wind and snow raced through the trees and whipped against the walls of the cabin, the remote mountainous location devoid of any welcoming lights from neighbors.  The two travelers dropped their luggage upon crossing the threshold and rushed to push the heavy door shut behind them.   

“When we get through this, neither you nor my sisters are ever allowed to make fun of my emergency preparedness again!  We’d be in major trouble without it!” Astrid declared, brushing snow off her jacket and holding up the lantern from the referenced emergency preparedness with her other hand as Tom attempted to lock the door.

“I think I can safely and assuredly,” he paused to run his tongue over his perpetually chapped lips in concentration, “give you my word as an Englishman that I shall never,” a grunt of effort, “allow either myself or your sisters to utter a syllable of criticism on that score.”  

She couldn’t help but giggle at his struggle with the lock.  

“Remember when you had the brilliant idea to build a set for one of our backyard holiday productions?  Was that when you played Scrooge?  Your word as an Englishman may be good as gold, but your complete lack of skill with anything slightly mechanical is something I wouldn’t swear by.”

Even in the dim light of the lantern, the slight twitch of a smile was visible on his face, the vision of the pathetic attempt so vivid in his memory.  

“No one is going to believe this,” she sighed, shivering and looking around for a light switch.

“Truth is stranger than fiction,” Tom quipped. “The best intentions of a Christmas surprise, a series of unfortunate events, a comedy of errors…”

“I blame my soon to be ex-mechanic, the weatherman, Anya and Arlyss and their crazy idea about trying to organize our families into coming out here to the wilderness to have some kind of storybook Christmas,” she huffed, fumbling along the wall, but finding the switch and flipping it to On in relief.

They both groaned when nothing happened.  No electricity, no heat.

“They must have disconnected the electricity during renovations, fantastic.”  He followed close behind her as they made their way around the cabin.  Although the snowstorm was in full force and there weren’t any outside lights on the driveway, they could see evidence of construction as they had pulled up a few minutes earlier.  

“Well, at least there’s a fireplace and I think there is actually a pile of wood next to it,” Astrid pointed as she spoke.  “How about that.  Must have been stocked by the same person who left the door unlocked. Remind me never to hire this company, whoever they are.”

“I could go outside and check for the…uhm…the…” Tom stuttered and gestured, making what she assumed was meant to be a square shape of some kind.

“The breaker box?” she asked dryly.  

“Exactly, yes,” he answered in a tone of false bravado, clearing his throat. “I was merely waiting to see if you knew the name.”

“Santa doesn’t bring presents to little boys who lie, ya know.”  She set the lantern on the mantle next to a small glass dish of matches.  “Especially little boys who grew up in a centuries-old estate and have servants who take care of locking the doors and fixing the electrical problems.”

“They are not servants, they are staff, Miss Sassy, and I doubt Father Christmas knows we are here, no one does,” he replied.  “Add the one forgotten mobile and the other with no service to the list of things that won’t be believed.”

“Well, anyways, Professor,” she went on in an exaggerated manner, “I may have a First Aid kit in my emergency supplies, but I am not equipped to perform any surgery on wounds you would most certainly incur from trying to play Electrician.”

He knew she was correct and they both smiled, cheeks rosy with cold.

“I suppose it was fortuitous that I ended up teaching Classics rather than embarking upon a career in carpentry.”

Astrid got a fire going and they were able to scope out their surroundings more thoroughly. A last-minute change of plans had allowed the visiting Tom and originally scheduled-to-work Astrid to join their families in the mountains for Christmas, but a quick succession of unforeseen events had brought them here, stranded close to midnight in a semi-livable cabin during a snowstorm on Christmas Eve.

The owners must have been undergoing some kind of renovations.  The cabin obviously had been inhabited previously, but half the interior wasn’t complete, including the kitchen.

“The toilet flushes!” she shouted from the bathroom.  “And there’s running water in the sink!”

“Unfortunately there is no sofa or chairs of any sort and only one bedroom,” he reported when she came back into the main room, “No fireplace, but it does have a bed with linens.”

“Well, my kit has extra batteries so we should be okay with the lantern in there,” she assured him, completely missing his point about the issue of a single bed.

He noticed that her shivering wasn’t decreasing as much as it should, looking her up and down in concern.  She was wearing an ankle-length corduroy skirt in a shade that matched her eyes, with a long-sleeved but thin sweater.  

“I think we should go through our luggage and put on a couple of more layers.  That centuries-old estate was a bit drafty, so I am accustomed to an indoor chill,” he informed her with a tinge of that irritating blend of both humility and privilege.

She rolled her eyes, but went over to her suitcase and started sifting through her clothes.  

“You and the twins have always been bossy. It’s a wonder how I have managed to get through life as an adult without the three of you hovering over me like you did when I was a kid.”

He pulled on another shirt and grinned at her.

“I still remember the day you were born.  I was visiting Dad and Roberta that year for Christmas,” referring to the alternating schedule their families had of who went to which country for the holidays. “And your sisters and I were old enough to be excited rather than jealous of a new child coming.”

Astrid turned away from him, hoping he wouldn’t see her reaction.  Why did it please her so much to hear him speak of her birth with such affection?  It must be this ridiculous situation.  And the holiday.  And her birthday.  And this sparkling blue-eyed man whose place in her life she had never been quite able to define.  Not a blood relation, but as close as a family member, certainly more than a friend.  But more than a friend, in that sense?  College and adulthood had made the unanswered question less important, as the shared summers and holidays of their childhood had grown fewer and fewer.  She didn’t let herself ponder why he hadn’t married and had a dozen children to help him keep up that manor. Any woman would be elated at the prospect of sharing her life with him; she knew he had a string of casual relationships, just as she had, but their age difference had made her sure years ago that he would be a distant memory by this time.  

“Born on Christmas Day to parents named Joseph and Mary, merely the beginning of my life’s trajectory of ‘You won’t believe this!’ events, continuing to this bizarre night that has practically every plot point needed for a cheesy holiday movie except that we aren’t secretly pining for each other.”  She zipped up the windbreaker over the thicker sweater before reaching for her parka, not seeing the brief flicker in his eyes.

“Did you know that Arliss wanted to call you Snowflake and Anya’s choice was Mistletoe?” Tom picked up her scarf and hat that he had placed on the hearth so they would be toasty and walked back to her.

“I hear that story every year, along with all the suggestions from everyone to aunts and uncles to the postman.  Thank God my parents went with something on theme, but not silly.”  She pulled on her boots after a second pair of socks and looked up at him.

His expression changed and he drew in a short breath.

“Do you like your name?”

The inquiry was brimming with something that sounded like hope to her.

“Oh, yes, I’ve always loved it.  In fact, I love it as much as I’ve disliked having a birthday on Christmas because it is beautiful and unique and it made me feel beautiful and unique.”

A wave of pure delight lit up his face and something clicked in her mind.  Her parents’ version of where her name came from was always that someone had mentioned it to them and they couldn’t remember who it had been.

“It was you, wasn’t it,” Astrid said.  And it wasn’t a question. “It was your suggestion.”

He worried at his lower lip, a tic she’d come to know years ago that was a sure indication of him being both pleased and embarrassed.

“Yes,” the soft affirmation punctuated by the crackles and pops from the fire. “And your description is precisely how I thought of it then, thanks to having just started Latin in school, and,” a heartbeat of silence, “it is how I think of you now.”

He was standing directly in front of her and paused to survey her face for a few seconds before tapping lightly under her chin.  

Without even thinking about it, it seemed, she looked up at the ceiling so he could wrap the heated scarf around her neck.  The warmth felt wonderful, although the feeling caused by this stunning revelation about her name and the look on his face was already warming her up in a way she tried to herself wasn’t happening.

He tucked her hair behind her ears and pulled the hat down while she argued with herself that he was simply being affectionate in the manner of a friend.

“Well,” she said, a little too loudly, stepping back from him, “That down comforter is calling to me, I guess we should be getting to bed.”

Good heavens, the bed, she thought.  As in one bed.  

As in here, as in they were stuck with a snowstorm swirling around them.  

In a cabin that was being renovated.  With no power or heat.  

On Christmas Eve.  

This couldn’t be real, it was not a Christmas movie.

“I suppose we should,” still in that soft voice.  

A distraction.  She needed a distraction.

“Oh!  I just remembered!  I have my favorite Christmas movie downloaded on my phone, we can watch it before we go to sleep.”

Less than two hours later, David Niven was giving his sermon and Loretta Young was gazing up at him while Cary Grant walked away in the snow.  Tom was propped up a bit against the headboard and had insisted on holding the phone so she could stay under the blankets.  Somehow she had ended up almost pasted to his side as the story progressed and his arm was around her.  About halfway through, they’d had a little tussle about whether or not he should leave the warm cocoon of the bed and get them another candy cane from her Snack Pack.  He argued that they had already brushed their teeth, but a sincere plea from her with an affectionate “Be naughty with me, Professor!” addition was something he simply couldn’t resist.  

She sighed and closed her eyes, contented and drowsy and finally no longer cold, too tired and confused to attempt to figure out what was happening, how years of ignoring what was just below the surface had nearly bubbled over.  It was impossible.  He wasn’t interested.  He was just being Tom.  Typical Tom.  Caring, attentive, making you feel like you were the only person in the room.  She wouldn’t think about this anymore right now.  Maybe tomorrow.  Or not.  

Tom closed the app on her phone and noticed the time.

“Hey there, it’s 12:01.”

“Mmhhmm,” she murmured, feeling herself about to drift off.  He was so familiar, so comforting, so exactly like Christmas itself should be.  She wanted to enjoy this moment before she went back to being the little kid and he the older…the older what?

“Happy Birthday,” he said and dipped his head to kiss her forehead, his breath sweet from the earlier candy cane.

She turned upwards toward him without opening her eyes to give him a peck on the cheek, almost without knowing what she was doing in her sleepy state, but she miscalculated and missed his cheek, her mouth landing on his.

He didn’t jerk back in shock.  Or horror.

It’s now or never, she thought, suddenly wide awake and ready to throw caution out the window that was probably frozen shut by now.

Ten seconds later, ten minutes later, she wasn’t sure which, he pulled back breathlessly and she opened her eyes. 

“What are you doing?” he asked in bewilderment, in surprise, but not in accusation.

“I’m kissing you, do you mind?” she responded, quickly pulling off her mittens and his beanie so she could sink her fingers into his curls.

“I, uhm…”

“Have no fear for your virtue, Thomas,” she teased in a low voice, tugging on a fistful of those ginger locks and causing a sharp gasp from him that thrilled her and gave her courage. “We are wrapped up like a couple of stuffed sausages in this icebox and there is a foot of clothing between us.”  

His gaze narrowed and focused on her lips.

Another kiss, sweet and shy, but sure.

“I thought we weren’t secretly pining for each other,” he quoted her words back to her.

“I lied,” Astrid admitted while placing a string of kisses down his nose and nipping the tip. 

The gasp changed to a growl, his grip on her upper arms tightening.

“Santa doesn’t bring presents to little girls who lie,” using her words against her, again.

She kissed him, again.  Longer, lingering.

They were side by side now, the blankets becoming tangled.

“Did you lie?” she whispered, not knowing what to do next if he denied it, but also feeling like she couldn’t let another minute pass without settling the matter.

He propped himself up on an elbow and raised an eyebrow at her.

“I don’t recall either confirming or denying your assertion at the time,” wanting to tease her in return.

“But,” he rushed to continue upon seeing her immediately crestfallen, “I will make it absolutely clear now,” each word followed by a brush of his lips across her jaw and down her neck, “that you,” lifting his head to smile at her, “are the one I desire.”

Tears of happiness welled up and slipped down her cheeks.  

“Happy Christmas, my starshine,” he whispered against her lips.

[thesecretvaultofwritertitan]

Morning Dew

A necessity for going to the ‘Morning Dew’ was dressing warmly for the occasion. Even in the summertime, as it was so high up in the mountains, it required a little more layering. Especially in the evenings. You dawned a sweater and a wool coat with your favorite pair of bottoms that kept you warm, and headed out, heart already racing in anticipation for what he had planned. 

The drive was scenic up the canyon. Nothing but pines, their needles dusted with snow, and views of snow-capped mountain tops. The winding road always kept you nervous, but it was a clear day, no traces of snow on the actual road. A perfect Valentine’s Day already. 

Morning Dew’s cozy and cabin-like exterior peeked through the trees right on time, a rich mix of dark wood pillars and stone chimneys. You parked and braved the short distance from your car to the inside of the lodge, the bone-chilling cold seeping into your body nearly instantaneously. 

Shivering, you walked past the reception desk and towards the cafe itself. The Morning Dew Cafe was nestled inside of the most prestigious ski lodge outside of town, smartly located in the part of the lodge with the most beautiful view of the slopes and the valley below. 

The hostess caught your eye immediately and offered a knowing, beaming smile, beckoning you over to where she stood with a menu already tucked under her arm. To your surprise, she said your name, in the form of a question, likely to ensure she was right about who you were. 

“That’s me…,” you confirmed slowly, pulling your coat tighter around you as you approached her. “I’m supposed to meet someone here.” 

“Oh, don’t worry, he told me,” she assured you with a bright grin. “I was given a very specific set of instructions by your boyfriend. This is for you!” 

She pulled out a small bouquet of your favorite flowers, making your cheeks grow hot as you took them from her and lifted them to your face to get a whiff. They were wrapped together tightly with red twine, a tiny sprig of rosemary tucked into the front of the bouquet. 

The hostess led you to a more secluded area, one you had always jokingly referred to as the “bougie section” of the cafe, and your eyes found his form immediately. 

“Here you are,” the hostess announced, the pink heart she’d drawn by her eye scrunching up slightly as she smiled at you again. “Your server will be with you shortly. Happy Valentine’s Day, you two!” 

“How’d you manage to get a spot in the bougie section?” you teased, watching as Levi stood from his seat to greet you. He looked handsome as ever, in his favorite cashmere sweater (that was also your favorite) and black dress pants. At your greeting, his lips pulled up in a small smile. He helped you to your chair and you sat down after kissing his cheek, setting your flowers down on the table in front of you. 

“It was a real bitch to book,” Levi answered you, settling back into his own seat. 

Your hand reached to fiddle with your bouquet, a smile still present on your face. “I love my flowers, by the way. They’re so pretty. But why the rosemary?” 

Levi looked a little embarrassed at the question, imperceptible to anyone else except you, but he cleared his throat and shrugged, not looking at you as he perused through the menu. “Lady at the flower shop said I should add it, so I did.” 

You smirked but didn’t push it, vowing to Google it later. Levi was obviously avoiding the question, and doing it in the most ridiculous way by pretending to look through the menu. He didn’t need to look at it at all; the two of you had been here enough times for special occasions to know exactly what you were going to get. It was practically a ritual at this point. Morning Dew was the only place that served the peppermint and white chocolate tea that you and Levi liked. Neither of you ever searched for it elsewhere or tried to make it from scratch. It was something that stayed in this little bubble, in your favorite spot to come to for celebrations. 

Levi had outdone himself by grabbing a spot in the bougie section, however. Though most of the cafe had floor to ceiling windows that looked out into the evergreen landscape, the usual seating section you had been in largely looked out to where the skiers were, and glimpsed some other areas of the lodge itself. A lovely scene to look at while sipping at your tea, yes, but the reserved seating, where you were now, was the only area that looked out to the valley below, no skiers or other pedestrians or other parts of the lodge in sight. It was almost unreal. Not to mention that the seating itself was better; more like a private lounge area than the typical table and stiff chairs. You and Levi were nestled next to each other in plush armchairs with a tall wooden coffee table in front of you, overlooking the valley landscape, instead of the usual wooden setup of a bistro table and intricate chairs with padding to make them more comfortable. 

You were gazing out the window at the picturesque scenery, awestruck at the beauty of it with the sunset lighting it up in a lovely golden tint. When your server came you barely noticed, but turned quickly when you heard what Levi was saying. 

“Two of the Peppermint White teas, and the Valentine course,” he said. The server nodded and jotted the order down in his notebook, while you stared at Levi with wide eyes and seriously considered calling the server back. 

There was a reason that you only came for special occasions, and only ever had tea. The Morning Dew Cafe was expensive. The tea, combined with the reserved seating, and then a meal on top of that? Outrageous. 

“Levi, the tea is enough-” you started, but Levi clicked his tongue in that familiar way and stared you down, the rest of your protest dying in your throat. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he told you matter-of-factly, his foot sliding over to discreetly nudge yours in a small act of affection. You reached over to squeeze his forearm tenderly in response. Levi caught your hand before you could pull it away and intertwined your fingers, lifting them to his mouth to press a gentle kiss to your knuckles. Your hands stayed joined after, and rested on the arm of his chair. 

An extra plus that you hadn’t even considered: such private seating arrangements allowed for Levi to feel more comfortable showing some affection, like he would when you were alone. 

Once your tea came out, you curled up in your chair and held your ornate teacup close to you as you stared out with Levi at the mountain landscape as you held hands. Now that it was dark, the string lights outside had turned on to offer a much more romantic lighting and illuminated the forest just enough for it to look mysterious and alluring. The lights from the ski slopes also helped give some illumination too, and somehow, it all looked even more surreal than before. 

Levi excused himself to the bathroom before your appetizers arrived and that was when you took the opportunity to look up what the sprig of rosemary could mean. 

To add rosemary to a bouquet ensures an unforgettable love.

-

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-

back to main post

[gottawriteanegoortwo]

Mermay - Dilliam - Getting To Know You

William and Damien want to get to know each other, but these things take time. There are more important matters that need to be addressed first.

Read the first part here!

Word Count: 2,159

--

Sure enough, early the next day William hobbled down the steps to the shore. He kept his balance with one hand, and gripped a flask with the other. Unlike the previous day, he wore more layers to keep warm. It made the chilly morning more bearable as the pair sat on the picnic bench. Even so, Damien's high energy and energetic gesturing as he told William the story of when he first met his extended merfamily was infectious. William kept the hot flask in both hands as he sat forward to take in everything and encourage Damien with more questions.

At one point, Damien seemed to snap out of the moment and throw William a concerned look.

"I'm sorry… this, this isn't too much, is it? I don't get to talk about my experiences too much -" He was cut off when he felt a warm hand on his.

"Keep talking. I want to hear everything." William's smile was so wide, it could be seen either side of his bushy moustache. He gave Damien's another reassuring squeeze before lifting his hand away; and Damien had to rapidly suppress the instinct to snatch the hand back. It was such a simple thing, yet Damien felt comfortable enough to keep going.

As it turned out, it was very easy to talk to William. He knew nothing about the world of the ocean, except a small selection of fish names… and even that wasn't right:

("Oh yeah! An orca! That's the one with a horn, right?"

"No. It's the large whale that is black with white markings."

"... Then what am I thinking of?"

"Either a unicornfish or a narwhal, I'd imagine.")

However, as William would later argue, it was because he was normally assigned to tasks on land and was better acquainted with recognising animals, something that Damien was not too confident on:

("But what about that big cat with the hair? You know, the one that has the hair all around its head like this!"

"... Damien, that's what I've been telling you about. Male lions have manes, see?"

"... I knew that.")

Back and forth the conversation went, and Damien could feel a pang of disappointment when Mark came down to accompany them when he returned from rehearsals. Then, to make matters worse, William got a call from Celine regarding something that needed to be reassembled ASAP, so he had to scramble back up.

"Hey… Damien?" Mark broke the silence that had descended on the rocky coast. "I know you were told William was staying for a day or two, but if he gets the all-clear to take off the boot at his appointment tomorrow he has offered to stay longer to help us with odd jobs around the house. Would you be okay with that?"

"Why are you asking me? I don't live here." Damien made quite a considerable effort to give a calm response, and he could only hope that Mark couldn't see through the flimsy act. "It doesn't really affect me what happens up there."

"Well… I wasn’t sure if you were going to continue on your travels soon. If you need to keep on track of your itinerary, don't let our possible change of plan mess with that." Mark's response had Damien cursing his sister. Did both Celine and her partner know about his plight? But Damien knew Mark. If that was the case, there would be obvious teasing. Maybe it was genuine concern on the actor's part. 

"It's alright. I'm not under any time restriction, remember?" One key difference between humans and merfolk was how humans were obsessed with time and schedules, whereas merfolk were more flexible and carefree. "I don't mind staying a little longer. It's nice to be with family again. I'd be a fool to hurry off too fast and miss out on this." Mark's face lit up as he turned to pick up a bag Damien hadn't noticed originally. It was passed to him without any hesitation.

"Speaking of being with family - here. I had this commissioned for you. Consider it a 'new home' gift from both myself and Celine." The merman gingerly opened the present, surprised when he pulled out a small stacked stone ornament on a waterproof pedestal, complete with aqua blue natural sea glass for decoration. "I know you enjoy travelling the seas. Just know that we want this to be your home as much as it is ours when you are in the area. I might only be your brother-in-law to be, but you are still family, and this can be your home if you want it to be. There’s nothing too hard for us to do to make this your home. Just say the word - I have a credit card." Mark reached forward to ruffle Damien's hair, earning himself a dramatically offended hiss in response.

When Mark left, Damien took the decoration in his hands. It was beautiful, and he was enamoured by it… But it made something in his stomach twist. A home… such a concept was different between a merfolk and a human. If they wanted this to be his 'home', were they going to make some sort of enclosure and expect him to ‘settle down’? Celine wouldn't, he knew she never would. Even so, there was the worry if she felt sorry that he would never have a 'home' in the way a human can.

He put the gift into the chest to keep it safe and slipped into the water. He needed time to think about this.

--

"You sure you want to help out? I was kidding about working you to the bone." Celine accompanied William back to the car after his appointment the next day. The crutch and boot were gleefully returned as he was given the all-clear. Now all that was needed was to simply not break it again any time soon.

"Of course! You expect Mark to move things around for you? Or are you planning on killing your fiancé by letting him try his hand at wiring a new light in one of the empty rooms?" He threw Celine an accusatory glare when she laughed at the suggestion. Thankfully, the conversation returned to the matter at hand as they spent the drive to the hardware store deciding what needed to be done in the seafront cottage. 

"Can I ask you a favour?" Celine had stopped in the middle of the 'outdoor' section during their shopping expedition. William screeched the shopping cart to a halt so he could reverse and see what caught her attention. "I want to make the rock pool a place Damien feels comfortable to call home. The positioning of the rocks means it's sheltered from the tides, but I don't know how safe it will be from winter storms. I don't suppose there's anything you can do about that?" William's eyes went from Celine to see what inspired her to request such a job. It was a rock waterfall, an ornament for a garden. The colour of the rocks matched the ones by the sea.

"I'm not sure, only because I've not seen much of it. It'd depend on if the 'pool' is shallow or not. I could try and add some extra support to those rocks that frame the water, maybe check what supports are normally put along beaches to protect coastal towns?" Celine nodded as William spoke, fetching several LED lamps and dropping them into the cart.

"We should ask Damien when we return. I didn't want to bring it up too soon after we moved in because I know he's not one for staying in one place for too long. I suppose it's the mer instincts at play." When she noticed William's confusion, Celine continued, "When we grow up, we normally want to settle down in a house of our own, right? Merfolk might have nesting grounds or communities of their own, but they tend to travel since they can cover large distances in a short amount of time. It's why Damien would often disappear for months at a time." She sighed as she shoved her hands into her pockets. "I wanted a house by the sea so Damien would have a place he could call home too and feel he can stay longer. I can't protect him if he's forever travelling."

"Protect him?"

"You've heard the stories, right? Where people have exotic 'pets' that are categorised as 'mythical'? Having a merman as beautiful as Damien is one thing, but one with fluency in English and an awareness of human behaviours would be a valuable asset to American collectors… Or worse." Even if her hands were hidden, William knew her fists were tightly clenched in anger at the thought of something bad happening. "I don't want anyone to hurt him. Even if he travels the seas and has plenty of connections, he's still my little brother."

"Hey," William braved putting a hand on Celine's shoulder, "It's okay. He'll be okay. We can go back and see how he feels about rubber duck decorations." He pulled back to lift the item in question. They were tiny LED lights on a string, but each light was encased in a small model that resembled a toy rubber duck. "If we got a few of these and draped them around the rocks, it'd really look like home. And look! They're half-price. It's meant to be, Celine." Though still worried for her brother, the distraction worked as Celine finally cracked a smile and lightly shoved William. "What? Oh! You're right. That's far too ambitious. Just the one will do." That was that as it was innocently dropped in, followed by an actual rubber duck toy.

"Trust me. I might not be an outside landscaper-person, but I know we'll be able to make the rock pool the most spiffing place this side of the seven seas!"

-

To William's credit, he had only gathered a handful of impulse purchases that he paid for himself, including a pair of small hanging mirror shaped like a crescent moon and a star as a belated housewarming present ("Mark is the star 'cause he an actor, and you're the moon 'cause of your magic stuff."). Everything else was relevant to the required home improvement jobs that William would be working on over the next few weeks. Once they had brought everything inside, it was then the turn of Mark to bring William out of the house and make the drive to William's family home. William could grab his tools and show his elderly parents that his leg had fully healed. His mother insisted they take a loaf of homemade bread and some cupcakes with them once she had smothered William in hugs and kisses and made him promise to come by while he was in the area.

Meanwhile, the twins sat on one of the large rocks, gazing out over the sea. Damien rested his head on Celine's shoulder as she told him about how her job was going and some of the ideas for the home renovation now that William was staying and ready to work. Damien held her phone, idly scrolling through the photos as she explained what was going on, until he realised the next few photos were of the area they were in.

"- some sort of way to make this place a little safer in the storms. Do you think you could have a think and see what can be done?"

"I'll think about it." Damien returned the phone to Celine as he sat up straight. "Whatever happens will happen, I suppose."

"But this is your home. Whatever happens here is your choice first and foremost."

"Yeah, sure."

"Damien. I'm serious." She reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, only for him to pull away. The fins on his collarbones flared briefly in agitation.

"This is your home, Celine. You don't need to pretend that I have a say in any of this, or that you'd even listen to what I'd want anyway. I don't need your pity because I can't go buy a house like you can."

"That's not what this about-"

"Isn't it? Don't think I never heard those conversations you had with Mom and Dad about wishing I could 'settle down'. I'd bet you even want to build me some sort of little enclosure to make up for that fact."

"Damien, stop that!" But it was too late. He had slipped into the water. Confused and frustrated, but wanting to avoid further argument, Celine stormed back up to the house.

Mark and William had decided to cut into the bread when the back door opened. Their argument on what would best accompany their snacks was abruptly cut off as Celine marched past them and down the corridor, before a door slammed shut. A silent nod was swapped between the men. Something happened between the twins. Food could wait. They needed to get to the bottom of this. ---

(I normally don’t stick these notes on the bottom, but I’m planning on spreading out this story over the month. It’s currently 20 pages on g.oogle docs total, so there definitely will be more. However, I will be putting the next part up tomorrow since 1. I’m not mean to leave it on a cliffhanger for several days and 2. It was waaay too long to put everything as one chapter)

[sprnklersplashes]

hey who wants some good old fashioned early s1!bellarke fic?

The dropship is cold at night.

Clarke keeps telling herself that’s why she can’t sleep. Not because every time she closes her eyes, all she sees is Wells, or her dad, or Charlotte. She wakes up because of the cold, not because she’s choking on words she never said, or because her eyes are too filled with tears to stay closed.

No, it’s just the cold.

In fairness, it is freezing in here. The Ark really should’ve given them more supplies, but then she remembers with a silent groan that they can’t. The whole reason they’re down here is because they were already stretched thin. That doesn’t make it fair, of course. At least they have machines to make more blankets up there, and workers to run them. Down here they just spread them out as fairly as they can and wait for their turn. Or steal them, in some cases.

She walks in a silent circle, mindful of the others dotted around her. She turns around on her sock-clad feet-her boots might keep her warm but they’re far too noisy for this time-and looks at them. Monty is spread across two seats, his hand hanging off the edge and his lips slightly parted, his hair falling past his forehead. Jasper is next to him, because where else would he be, tucked slightly awkwardly beside the chairs with his back against the wall, a blanket around him. They both look so young when they sleep. They are young, Clarke reminds herself, but now they’re not pretending to be older. They don’t have to be. In sleep, they look like they did on the Ark, before they were arrested. There’s something unfamiliar about them like this, and so she turns away.

Octavia is on this floor too, wrapped so carefully in a blanket that it could only be Bellamy’s work. She looks different in sleep too, far less angry than she is during the day. But somehow, still tense. Clarke’s observed that she’s a light sleeper, and it makes sense. She can’t imagine how she could have lived like that for so long, her own existence deemed a threat.  Bellamy may be an ass most of the time, but she can’t blame him for being so protective over her.

Hang on she thinks. Where is Bellamy? Not that she cares, but he was in here when she fell asleep. Just before she nodded off she saw him, whispering something to Octavia, who was half asleep already. She turns again, her eyes better adjusted to the near-darkness, but she doesn’t find him.

She shakes her head and hopes he’s not off doing something stupid. She has enough to worry about without chasing after him.

She pulls her jacket tighter around herself and watches as her breath appears in white smoke in front of her face. Seriously, would it have killed them to add a heater or something? A second layer of insulation? More blankets? Warmer clothes? Anything. Sure, they probably didn’t have much time to plan, and they didn’t know what climate they’d be in, but still. It would’ve been nice to cover all their bases.

She tilts her chin up, her fingers straying to her bare wrist. She probably shouldn’t, but her mind turns up to the Ark, to her mother, who thinks she is dead because she wanted to spite her. Was she ever this spiteful before? Ever in her life, had she gone out of her way to hurt someone the way she has. She doesn’t know. Maybe she’s changing. Maybe the ground brings out the worst in them.

She shivers, and this time it’s not from the cold.

“Morning, Princess.” She nearly jumps ten feet, her hands raised instinctively to fight. Funny how quickly habits have been built into their bodies. Bellamy raises an eyebrow, amused, clearly, his lips curled into a smirk.

He may not be a grounder, but maybe she’ll smack him just for this.

“Is it morning?” she asks instead. Bellamy shakes his head.

“I checked out one of the windows. Still pretty dark out,” he replies. “I’d say we have a couple of hours yet.” She nods and ducks her head as he eyes her curiously. Her first impulse is to storm out and find somewhere else to sleep, but she stays behind, feet rooted to the ground. His eyes stay on her, even if he pretends they don’t.

At least she’s not cold anymore, thanks to the hot flush on her face.

“So what are you doing up?” he asks eventually. He takes a step closer, not invading her space but not staying away either. “Couldn’t sleep?”

She shakes her head. It’s not his business, but there’s no reason to lie. She has a feeling she couldn’t lie to him, not with that sharp mind of his. Or the way he seems to see right through her.

“What about you?” she asks. “Do you regularly walk around the dropship at night, or is this a new habit?”

He laughs at that, soft and quiet. Different from how he usually is. Her curiosity is piqued, even if it’s just slightly.

“Only on nice nights,” he replies, and now it’s her turn to laugh.

They fall quiet again, listening, or at least pretending to listen, to the sound of their friends soft snores. It’s strange, living without the constant rumble of engines in the background, or the casual humming of lights and generators that used to lull her to sleep. Quiet means something new on the ground.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches as his gaze moves to Octavia again. She sees the way his jaw clenches protectively, but also how his face softens, how his eyes fill with affection at the sight of her. It’s amazing, this fierce kind of love she sees in him, reserved for her and her only.

When she first heard about Octavia and her arrest, of course she was shocked. Who wouldn’t be; a family hiding another person in their unit was unthinkable. But she was curious too. In almost a century, no-one had known the kind of bond that siblings share. Not until them. They were unique on the Ark, just as they’re unique on the ground.

“We should try to sleep too,” he tells her. He looks back at her, and the mask is quickly restored. “We have a long day tomorrow.”

“We always have a long day,” she says. “Sometimes I wonder if we’ll ever stop.”

She doesn’t mean to say that part out loud. Her breath hitches, but when she raises her eyes to meet his, she only finds understanding.

“We will, Princess” he tells her, his voice both soft and firm. “We will. One day you’ll be sitting out on a deck chair with a drink in one hand and book in the other and you’ll be laughing about all this.”

She doesn’t think she’ll ever laugh about this, but she smiles all the same. It’s a nice thought.

“And you’ll be there too?”

His smile fades then, the bravado slipping away. Twice this has happened now, and both times it’s drawn her in. Like a loose thread on a sweater that she’s desperate to pull at. To unravel him until she gets to his core.

“Maybe,” he says, but there’s no conviction there. “For now let’s just get some sleep.”

He turns away from her, his clothes blending with the darkness surrounding them, making it hard to tell where he ends or begins, and settles himself against the wall. He leans back and closes his eyes, only to open them moments later.

“You going to stand there all night?” he asks her. “Or are you one of those people who can sleep standing up.”

A sarcastic remark dies on her lips and she crosses over, settling herself a little bit away from him. It would only take extending her arm to touch him, and the thought shouldn’t comfort her as much as it does.

Maybe she’s just lonely, she thinks to herself. She’s never alone. not with 99 kids asking her anything and everything, and certainly not with Finn hovering around her almost all the time. And there’s always something that needs doing, something that occupies her time. But lonely? That’s something she knows. The boy who was her closest confidant is dead in the ground, buried under mounds of dirt, and she spent the little time they had together hating him.

Oh God, the time she wasted.

“Clarke?” Bellamy’s voice snaps her back to reality, his eyes wide when she turns to look at him. He’s pushed himself up the wall and into a half crouching position, one hand ready to reach out to her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she says. She wipes at her face and buries herself in her jacket, her arms wrapped around herself. “It’s freezing in here, aren’t you cold?”

He hums in agreement. Even when she turns her head away, she feels his eyes on her.

“Come here.” The command catches her off guard, so much so that she’s convinced she imagined it. Until she looks up at him and finds his eyebrow raised and he’s once again sitting, but shifted to welcome an extra body. “Come here.”

“What?” is all she can ask.

“Come on, I know you’re smart, Princess,” he tells her. “Body heat and all that.” He shrugs, playing it off like it’s nothing. Maybe that’s what it is. Nothing. “We can keep each other warm.”

She feels like she should roll her eyes, reply with a quip about how not even in his wildest dreams, but she can’t. Maybe it’s the lateness of the hour, or the fatigue and cold creeping up on her, or the lack of an audience. But she can’t, and she doesn’t even try.

“Just for tonight,” she tells him.

“Just for tonight.”

She shouldn’t be wanting this. She can take care of herself, always could. And besides, he isn’t her friend. He’s done little more than antagonise her and risk lives and be an asshole since they got here. He’s made it his life’s mission to make her life more difficult. He’s selfish, and a dick, and the last person she should ever want to be with.

But he’s sitting there and she’s freezing and the way he’s looking at her is doing something to her. She’s not sure if it’s something good or something bad. It’s just something.

So she settles herself down beside him and ignores the way her heart skips a beat when his leg brushes against hers. Her position is awkward at first, the two of them struggling to get comfortable. The dropship isn’t meant for comfort. But his body is and when she rests her head on his shoulder, he doesn’t complain. And she doesn’t when he takes off his jacket and pulls it over the both of them, his arm around her waist. They’re both too tired and too cold to, and there are more important things to waste their energy on.

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t scare her, being this close to him. Not in that way. Not scared of him, just of the proximity to him. Feeling his breath tickling her ear, or her legs slipped in between his. Or his heartbeat, steady and strong against her side. Doesn’t mean that this doesn’t confuse or scare her, this feeling of complete serenity washing over her. Only means that there are things to do, people to lead and she can only do so much.

Besides, serenity is hard to come by on the ground.

“Don’t think this means anything,” he says, his voice murmured. There’s the Bellamy she knows. “Like I said. Just for tonight.”

And despite herself, she smiles.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she replies, but he’s already asleep.

                                                                                                               ******

She wakes later than usual in the morning, the sun already beaming through the dropship door and dragging her out of sleep. She groans and buries her face in her knees, for a moment forgetting herself and make believing she’s back at home, ignoring her mother’s morning greetings. But her instincts and the Earth’s sunlight are stronger even than Abby Griffin, and her eyes drag open of their own accord. And when they do, she finds the dropship empty, save for Jasper, who she believes could sleep through anything. She shakes her head fondly and pushes herself up, despite her body’s protests. Her arms and legs twinge and her back creaks like the ship’s escape hatch. She’s had her fair share of nights spent on the floor and yet the waking up never gets easier.

There’s a noticeable lack of a body beside her. He must have gotten up before, and a few seconds spent listening confirms her suspicions. He’s outside already, barking orders in that unmistakable voice of his. He carries so much authority in his words, when he wants to. No wonder he was training to be a guard. She considers going out and joining him, or more accurately taking over, but something in her holds back. He’s got it covered, and baring a grounder invasion in the next five minutes, she has time to wake up properly. Besides, he can’t do that much damage this early in the morning.

He must have slipped out quietly enough, she thinks. And carefully, because she didn’t feel a thing. If it weren’t for the heavy guard’s jacket carefully wrapped around her body, she’d have thought last night was a dream.

But it wasn’t. She didn’t dream at all last night. For the first time in far too long, she had slept soundly.

And who’d have seen that coming?

[dunkindestieldonuts]

The Beach Episode

6200 words, rated T (read on ao3) The Winchesters go on a beach vacation in southern California. (Wrote this a while ago but now that it’s finally summer beach weather, I thought I’d post it here too!)

Part I: Dean

Dean loves the beach.

Well, the idea of it anyway, seeing as this was his first time actually going for a vacation. He’d seen it enough in movies and on television to paint what he thought was a pretty accurate picture, though.

The long drive from Kansas to California had ended late that morning. Dean drove with the windows down once the highway ended, waiting for the telltale smell of salt on the air.

When the sea breeze finally hit his nose, he breathed in delightedly. They were still probably a few minutes away from seeing the sand but he was already itching to stretch his legs.

The road was straight for a while, but when it bent around a cluster of low hills…there it was. The ocean.

The sight of so much water took his breath away. The only thing his mind could relate it to was the seemingly never-ending plains of Nebraska, which were a total bitch to drive through. But instead of “HELL IS REAL” signs or dilapidated iron sheds to break up the vast expanse, there were sailboats and red-lined oil barges.

He turned left when the road ended at a bluff, but he kept looking at the water out the window, trying to spot paddleboarders around Sam in the passenger seat.

“Dean,” Sam said, “the road. We’re almost there.” He indicated the beach they’d chosen on the map of southern California spread out on his lap.

When they’d discussed where to go back at the bunker, Dean had insisted on the west coast. He wanted to watch the sunset with his family. To start their week-long vacation, they’d chosen a smaller beach, away from big crowds and attractions (although Eileen did want to try her hand at carnival games at some point during their stay).

They packed all the essential gear: blankets, beach chairs, picnic baskets, beach umbrellas, beach balls and baseball mitts, and a plethora of colorful sandcastle-building equipment that Jack helped pick out. Dean even bought matching Hawaiian shirts for himself and Cas at the first kitschy tourist shop he could find in the Golden State (his was covered in California landmarks and Cas’ was all about the Pacific Coast Highway).

He was looking forward to so many things, like the feel of the sand between his toes, the taste of salt on his lips. He was also very excited to get a piña colada or something similar. With a little umbrella, of course.

Dean probably pulled into the parking lot a little too quickly, judging by the look a surfer sitting in the back of a pickup gave him. He made sure to park far away from the guy.

The first thing he did when he got out of the car was change his shoes, throwing his boots into the trunk and grabbing some flip flops. He fed the meter an entire roll of quarters before helping everyone gather their things.

When they got everything out of the Impala, he rushed down the stairs of the lot, barely containing his excitement. Then someone grabbed the back of his shirt, stopping him from being run over by three bicyclists. He looked down to see a paved two-way bike lane between him and the sand.

“Thanks,” he said over his shoulder. Cas rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

They found a spot away from most of the other people and set up camp. Once the blankets were laid out and the umbrellas stuck in the sand, Dean surveyed their surroundings. He spotted a small building with the words “Surf Food Stand” painted on a surfboard above a serving window, and realized it was in fact lunchtime.

The building and its seating were directly on the sand. They sold food like hot dogs and smoothies, and rented various beach equipment. Dean immediately wanted to rent a surfboard. Sam told him it was a stupid idea, Dean didn’t even know how to surf, he was definitely going to hurt himself!

But it was a word from Cas that finally stopped him from going through with it. He reminded Dean they were staying for the week, and convinced him to sign up for surf lessons the next day. Cas even signed up with him.

They ordered food (Cas even let Jack get two smoothies when his son couldn’t decide between banana and mango) and took it back to their spot. There weren’t any tiny umbrellas, but it was all delicious.

☼ ☼ ☼

Dean sits cross-legged on their blanket with Cas behind him, rubbing sunscreen into his back. Cas has beautiful, broad hands, and Dean appreciates whenever they’re on him. And when Cas starts digging his thumbs into the knots just under the back of Dean’s neck, Dean makes a noise that has Sam looking over in disgust.

“Dude.”

“What? I’ve been driving for hours, I deserve a massage.”

Cas laughs behind him, placing a kiss on the back of Dean’s head. He stops the massage but continues with the sunscreen. He takes extra care to add multiple layers to Dean’s left shoulder.

This would be the first time since he got it that his new handprint tattoo would be out in the sun. He swore it was completely healed - this wasn’t his first tattoo after all - but Cas insisted that Dean still moisturize it daily (it was less of a pain than it sounded, since he could usually convince Cas to do it for him which often led to other fun activities).

When Cas is done he leans forward, putting his arms around Dean’s middle. He rests his chin on Dean’s shoulder. “Done.”

“Thank you.”

Dean leans back into him. He’s so comfortable in Cas’ arms now, like he belongs there. The physical aspect of their relationship was intimidating for Dean at first, but it was something Castiel wanted so he made the effort. The angel deserved to be shown affection in every way possible, deserved to be as happy as he made Dean.

It worked out well - Dean realized early on in the process that it was something he wanted, too. Something he’d been denying himself for a long time.

Really, it was just an extension of how they’d been before: the lingering gazes now ended in pecks on the cheek, the shoulder touching moved down the arm to hand holding.

The way they fit together made Dean sometimes wonder if they were made for each other, if they were always meant to be together. Something unbearably poetic or romantic like that. But then he thinks no, nothing about this is destiny or fate or someone’s grand design. They’d fought against that. Defeated it.

No, this was choice.

It’s all choice, which Dean believes makes what they choose from now on even better. He chose Cas. And Cas chose him, too.

Which is, wow, by the way. Cas is older than the beach they’re sitting on, had seen more in his existence than Dean could ever even begin comprehend…and yet the one thing he wants in all the universe is Dean. Dean couldn’t fully believe it for the longest time. He couldn’t believe it when Cas had first said the words. Wouldn’t believe it, until Cas explained that yes, he meant love love.

At some point Cas had practically begged him to stop asking questions riddled with self-doubt. Things like “You sure? Me? Really?” were always met with the same answer, sweet and sincere: “I’m sure. You. Really.” Then Cas would kiss his forehead, or hold his hand, or let him have the last chocolate chip cookie, and he’d know it was true.

Cas was also helping Dean see himself the way Cas saw him, the way all the people who love him saw him. Dean is a good man. He’d done so much for the world, so much for the people he cared about. And he does deserve nice things.

Nice things like someone who loves him unconditionally and without reserve. Nice things like seeing his brother finally escape the life and settle down with an awesome woman. Nice things like having a son to take care of.

And, maybe, nice things like getting to hang out on the beach with his family without having to stop the world from ending.

He turns his head to kiss Cas on the cheek before getting up to stand in front of everyone.

“Who wants to play pickle?” he asks, rubbing his hands together excitedly.

Eileen raises her hand. “Me!”

Dean grabs the baseball mitts and tosses one to her. “Sam? Jack? Cas?”

Jack jumps up with Cas close behind, but Sam shakes his head.

“Uh-uh, we’re ALL playing,” Dean says as he grabs Sam’s arm.

His brother rolls his eyes but he gets up. “What’s the point of asking ‘who wants to play’ if you’re just going to make us play?” Sam teases. Dean swats his arm.

He explains the rules to Jack and Cas as Eileen sets up the bases by making mounds of sand.

They don’t keep score while they play. Dean and Eileen let Jack be “safe” when they definitely could have tagged him out, the same mercy absent when Sam gets near them. Dean swears Cas kissed him just to distract him while Sam and Jack ran at least once, but Cas won’t admit to it.

Part II: Castiel

Castiel loves the ocean.

Unlike Dean, he had been many times. But he wasn’t going to brag about it. Most of that time had been spent in quiet observation rather than in volleyball tournaments anyway, so he doubted Dean wanted to hear about it.

Dean once told him in passing that people born near the ocean, in the fresh sea air, were healthier. He’d talked about the pull some experienced - people born near water often come back to it, almost always ended up living near it. Castiel could understand why.

Humans that lived around it always had gods for the sea. Often, the sea god was among the more important in the pantheon. Abzu of Mesopotamia was the father of all the other gods. Poseidon was one of the big three in Greece. In some cultures the sea was ruled by a multitude of deities.

The respect people had for the ocean was well-deserved. The fear, as well. It was one of the most dangerous natural forces. But humans were always trying to push the boundaries of their capabilities. They’d gone to space, after all.

Castiel found it interesting that humanity was able to travel through space better than through Earth’s oceans, that more people had been on the moon than had seen the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

He sometimes thought about the more philosophical reasons why they turned their eyes upward rather than down. When he started to spend more time around humans, he started to develop some hypotheses. Maybe humans want to look to the future, and the past is in the ocean. Life started there. Maybe they didn’t want to face Creation, but wanted to Create.

Of course, the simpler answer was that deep sea vessels were required to be approximately 1100 times stronger than spacecraft in order to withstand the pressure. But humans had almost always been more interested in the sky than the sea. There was more funding for space, more media regarding it.

And Castiel did love those stories as well. The stories humans told about space were often filled with hope, while the ocean was filled with monsters (to be fair, the Leviathan had come from the sea, and they were certainly monstrous). Most ocean tales were set on the surface anyway.

But the surface was fascinating, too. It’s near the surface where the most colorful fish in the Great Barrier Reef live: bright yellow butterfly fish, striking turquoise and orange parrotfish, beautifully striped angelfish. It’s at the surface where bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales play, where Portuguese men o’ war float to sting unsuspecting plankton.

He could watch the sea for eons. Had done so, in fact. During the beginning, most of the angels watched humanity. Castiel had often turned his eyes to nature, to the flora and fauna of the Earth. That in turn pointed his gaze to the sea, seeing as how more than three quarters of life on the planet was to be found under the waves (the vast majority even now as yet unidentified by human science).

Some of Earth’s oldest creatures resided still under the rollicking waves of the sea. Most sharks and the lobe-finned coelacanth had hardly changed in the millions of years they’d existed. Castiel knew, because he had watched.

He watched as life arose from the simple organic compounds found in the depths. He watched the first fish climb onto land. He watched as God flooded the world, as Moses parted the Red Sea. He watched humanity’s exploration, as well: Polynesian way finders discovering the tiniest of islands in the Pacific, the mad race to the South Pole that spanned the first few years of the 20th century, the first submarines.

☼ ☼ ☼

Castiel continues his watching today. He sits on a blanket watching Sam and Eileen help Jack make a sand castle, the shape oddly reminiscent of the Tower of Babel. He turns to tell Dean this, but Dean is lying down next to him under the shade of the umbrella, eyes closed under his sunglasses and hands folded behind his head.

Castiel takes the opportunity to let his eyes travel over Dean’s body, admiring the splattering of freckles across his chest. He lingers over Dean’s middle, which has gotten a bit squishy in their time being retired, which Castiel loves. It showed him that Dean was safe and healthy, eating more than he would if he was stressed or on endless hunts. He almost reaches out to poke Dean in the side, but he resists.

When his gaze reaches Dean’s face once again, he’s met with a pleased expression. Dean opens his eyes and smirks, lowering the sunglasses onto his nose.

“I can feel you starin’ at me.”

Castiel smiles down at him. “My apologies. Were you asleep?”

“Well, I’m up now.”

Dean sits up, puts his arms around Castiel, tucks his chin onto his shoulder, rubs his cheek against Castiel’s ear.

Castiel revels in the touch. It had taken Dean a while to be comfortable showing this level of affection, and another while before he was okay showing affection in public. Cas was patient with him, of course. The rewards were well worth it.

Sometimes Castiel got the urge to go overboard, to grab Dean’s face in the supermarket and kiss him till they both can’t breathe, to tell everybody and anybody who would listen at the bus stop that the man that he loves loves him back.

But right now he’s happy with a solid arm around his shoulders. He hums contentedly.

Dean shifts next to him. “Cas?”

“Yes?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

Dean sighs heavily. His hands flex once, then he moves closer to Castiel, settling his body more fully against the angel’s.

“Does part of you hate me for taking this long?”

“No. No, Dean,” Castiel says without skipping a beat. “No part of me could ever hate you. Sometimes I lament the missed opportunities, and yet…even if we weren’t at this stage,” he pats Dean’s arm, “I could tell you loved me, in your own way. Although I thought that ‘way’ was different from mine. But it was enough for me then. I do very much like this, though.”

Dean is quiet for a moment. Castiel swears he can hear the montage of memories going through Dean’s brain. Maybe he’s thinking of all the times he could have told Cas how he felt, all the scenes that would have been different had they been together sooner. All the times he could have said “I love you.”

Castiel knows he’s done the same - gone back and played a scene out differently with only the tiniest of changes. Another sigh from his side makes him rest his head against Dean’s.

“Sometimes I hate myself for it,” Dean says quietly, barely audible over the crash of waves and squawk of seagulls.

“Don’t. Please.”

“I wanna make it up to you somehow.”

Castiel turns to kiss Dean’s temple. “You don’t have to,” he says into his hair.

“Yeah, but I’m gonna.”

“Hmm,” Castiel hums in thought. He looks out to the waves and watches them wash over the shore. The water looks beautiful and, Castiel thinks, inviting. “You could start by going into the water with me?”

He can almost feel the weight lift from Dean’s shoulders. “You got it, sunshine.”

Dean jumps up with newfound purpose and grabs both Cas’ hands to haul him up, dragging him towards the surf. When they pass the others, Sam looks up with a smile.

“We’re going swimming,” Castiel says enthusiastically, letting go of one of Dean’s hands to sign as much to Eileen when he sees her look up at them.

Sam jerks his head, confused. “Do you know how?”

“I don’t think so!” Cas says, smiling.

“Dean!”

“He’ll be fine!” Dean shouts over his shoulder.

They run together the rest of the way, chasing a wave as it recedes. Dean lets go of Castiel’s hand when his feet hit the water.

“Fuck, that’s cold!”

“Yes, the south-moving current off the coast here brings the cold water from Alaska,” Castiel says as he steps in. He shivers and continues. “Plus upwelling brings the deep ocean water towards the surface.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dean says over his shoulder as he goes deeper.

“Indeed.”

Castiel follows him further. He stops when the water reaches his Enochian tattoo, and Dean wades back towards him.

Dean dives under a wave while Castiel hops up to float over it. He tries to spot Dean under the foam, but isn’t able to. Then he feels hands on his hips, and Dean pops up right in front of his face.

“Hey,” Dean says, smirking. Castiel wraps his arms around Dean’s neck.

“Hello.” He smiles before Dean kisses him. Another wave interrupts them.

Part III: Dean and Castiel

Later in the afternoon, Sam and Eileen relax on the beach chairs while Jack digs a hole big enough to stand in. Dean helped Jack dig most of it, but when his knees started to ache from the awkward angle he’d left the rest to the kid.

Now he stands with Cas at the water’s edge, their bare shoulders touching, shirts tucked into the back pockets of their swimsuits. Dean knows Cas could stand still for hours, days even, but he’s getting restless. He looks to the south and spots a small pier about a mile away.

“Walk with me?” Dean asks Cas. He holds his hand out. Cas grabs it with a smile, intertwining their fingers. With a wave at the rest of their family, they go off together.

They walk along the edge of the water, letting the sea wash away their footprints. Dean lets go of Cas’ hand only to run in front of him and splash him with a kick as a big wave comes around their feet. Cas kicks back, but Dean’s already out of range. He makes a pouty face and Dean returns to his side to plant a kiss on his cheek. The next time it’s Cas who gets the upper hand.

Further along, they walk through a flock of birds. They’re not seagulls, so Dean doesn’t recognize them. He asks Cas if he knows what they’re called, and yes, he does. The small gray and white ones with black beaks are sanderlings, specifically Calidris alba. There’s a few larger, longer-beaked marbled godwits, Limosa fedoa, mixed in as well.

“Do you know all the names for things?” Dean asks.

“I know most, yes.”

“That’s awesome, man,” Dean says sincerely.

He watches the sanderlings run back and forth, making it look as though they’re playing tag with the waves. Dean bends to pick up a small shell, no bigger than the fingernail of his thumb. He examines the alternating bands of oranges and white that mark its surface before offering it to Cas.

“I never really learned about this kinda stuff. Honestly I don’t know much about the natural world, y’know? Too focused on the supernatural.”

Cas nods, taking the shell and holding it up. “I could teach you some of it. Gould beanclam, Donax gouldii,” he says.

“Ah, I’m not smart enough to remember it.”

Cas stops walking, turning to fully face Dean with a serious look. “Don’t discredit yourself, Dean. You’re very smart. You didn’t have much of a formal education yet you still know so much. I would even rate the practical, useful knowledge you have over my list of factoids, because why would you ever need to know that scallops have up to 200 eyes unless you’re trying to impress someone with fun facts?”

Dean breathes out a laugh, just a sharp exhale through his nose. He turns to keep walking, using his elbow to nudge Cas along. To anyone else he would seem dismissive, but Cas can tell Dean appreciated what he’d said. He pockets the shell, thinking about where to put it in their room when they get back home.

“Guess so,” Dean says. “And I don’t hafta impress anyone anymore.” He grabs Castiel’s hand again. “You’re already impressed with me, right?”

“Of course, dear, you’re highly impressive,” Cas says just a little sarcastically. Dean squeezes.

“Hell yeah, I am.”

They walk in comfortable silence, watching the birds and the people.

Cas has to jump out of the way of a kid on a purple boogie board. Dean throws a foam football back to a group of players. Cas wonders if he should have brought a bottle of sunscreen so he could reapply it to Dean. Dean enjoys the heat on his back.

After about forty minutes, they reach the pier. They walk down it, avoiding skateboarders and glancing into fishermen’s buckets. Castiel comments on the interesting pale turquoise color of the railing as they lean over it to watch the surfers below.

To Dean’s delight, there is a small aquarium at the end of the pier. They put their shirts on and step inside.

A teenage girl in a blue vest greets them, offering to tell them about the cast of a seal skull she has in front of her. Dean listens receptively, glancing at Cas a few times to confirm if her facts are accurate. He nods each time.

They walk around the small space, sidestepping kids and appreciating the variety of creatures on display.

“You got a favorite fish?” Dean asks Castiel when they reach the kelp forest tank.

“Angelfish,” Cas says immediately.

Dean glares at him. “Wow. You couldn’t even say that with a straight face.”

Cas smiles, proud of his joke. He shrugs, turning back to the tank. “In sincerity, I don’t know if I could decide.” He leans towards the glass, following a Sheephead as it swims in front of the kelp. “They’re all charming in their own ways.”

Dean is uncharacteristically quiet in response, so Cas turns to him. There’s so much unrepressed love on Dean’s face that Cas almost asks him if something is wrong. But then Dean’s smirking at him, trademark confidence on his features.

“YOU’RE charming in your own ways,” he says, quirking an eyebrow.

Cas laughs. “Thank you, Dean.”

Before they head back, Dean leads Cas under the pier.

The sand is cooler and the waves are louder, echoing against the concrete above their heads. Dean leans against a pillar and pulls at Cas’ shirt. Dean goes to kiss him but is stopped by Cas bopping him on the nose with two fingers. He scrunches it in confusion, then he feels the heat bleed out of his face.

“You were getting sunburnt,” Cas says in explanation before kissing him.

Dean worries for a split second if anyone saw Cas heal him, but then Cas’ tongue is in his mouth and he can’t think anymore. Dean loses himself to the feeling of Cas against him for a minute, until some kids shouting nearby reminds him they’re surrounded by people. He pulls back and Cas follows the motion, trying to capture his lips again, but Dean stops him.

“Hey, uh, maybe we should keep it PG, yeah?”

Cas is still staring at his mouth, which makes Dean almost up it to PG-13, but then he flicks his eyes up to Dean’s. “Ah. This is not because you’re embarrassed to be seen with me?”

“No, no, I just don’t want some punk teenager yelling at us to get a room, y’know?”

“We could simply tell them we do have a room.” He keeps his hands steady on Dean’s hips.

Dean laughs. “Yeah, with my brother, his girl, and our son in it, so that’s not - nevermind, I’ll explain later.” He kisses Cas once, quick, then maneuvers himself out from in between Cas and the pillar. “C’mon, let’s walk back.”

On the way, Dean gets an idea.

“So, do you wanna come back here with me later tonight? We could watch the stars, just the two of us.”

“The moon is going to be almost full tonight, we wouldn’t see many stars.”

“Then we could do…something else.”

Cas quirks one eyebrow up in question. “What could we do?”

Dean does a double take, mischievous smile turning into a fond one when he realizes Cas doesn’t understand what he’s implying.

“Ah, you’ll see.”

They return to Jack and Sam hitting a beach ball back and forth, Eileen reading under the umbrellas. Dean runs up to steal the ball and sprints away with it, Sam on his heels. Cas joins Eileen.

“How is the book?” he signs.

“I’m almost halfway done and I still don’t know if I like the protagonist.”

Cas is about to ask if she thinks that was intentional on the author’s part when he hears Dean shout. He looks over just in time to see Sam catch up to his brother and tackle him into the water. Eileen giggles at the way Sam shakes his hair when they surface.

The beach ball rides a wave back to shore where Jack picks it up. He takes it to the blanket and places it next to Cas.

“Can I go swimming, Dad?” he asks.

“Did you reapply sunscreen while I was gone?”

“Yes.”

Cas turns to Eileen for confirmation. She nods.

“Okay.”

Jack smiles at him and Cas feels wonderful. Happy. So very happy. Eileen is smiling too, probably feeling something similar.

They watch as Jack skips down the sand to join the brothers. He runs into Dean’s arms, and Dean swings him around before throwing him into the water. He pops up a second later, laughing. Sam starts a splash war, and Cas and Eileen return to their literary conversation.

☼ ☼ ☼

Soon after they have a second round of hot dogs and burgers from the Surf Food Stand, it’s sunset.

Jack asks why the sky changes colors like that. Cas gives an incredibly detailed and scientific explanation, discussing the bending of light at different wavelengths through the atmosphere. Dean watches them fondly. He turns an equally fond look to Sam and Eileen, silently signing to each other. She’s sitting in Sam’s lap on the beach chair.

Dean sighs serenely, turning to watch the streaks of orange light dance on the water.

They pack up the Impala before it gets too dark. Once they’ve put everything away, they take a moment in the changing room near the parking lot to put on warmer clothes (and, by Dean’s instruction, to get all the sand off so none gets in Baby).

Already having changed into the dark gray hoodie and matching sweatpants Dean bought for him, Castiel takes the time to walk back down the sand to look out over the ocean.

He stands at the edge of the water, just far enough so the waves don’t reach his feet. He sees Venus shining in its place low in the sky. His tracks a few airplanes as they start their journey west over the Pacific.

Then Dean is standing next to him. Castiel looks over to see Dean looking out over the horizon. He admires Dean’s profile, appreciates how the blue light of just-after-sunset softens his features, how it makes his eyes look bluer than usual. He’s back in his usual jeans, with a dark blue hoodie on top.

“We’re ready to go,” Dean says after a moment.

“Okay.”

But neither of them move. They stand there together, silently listening to the steady roar of the waves. The breeze off the water stirs the hair on Cas’ forehead.

“You gonna tell me about it someday?” Dean asks.

“About what?”

“Y’know. All the time you were around before humanity.”

“That would take far too long.”

Dean makes a noise of agreement. “Then the highlights? Tell me what dinosaurs looked like, at least.”

He puts his arm around Castiel and turns him towards the car. He leaves his arm there as they walk across the sand, still warm despite the lack of sunlight. Cas lifts his hand to hold Dean’s where it rests on his shoulder.

“That would take the fun out of museum visits, wouldn’t it?” Cas says. “Me pointing out all the inaccuracies?”

Dean laughs. “Nah, that sounds like a blast.”

☼ ☼ ☼

The hotel room is small, but it has everything they need. Two queen beds take up most of the room, but there’s a coffee table with a small two-person sofa at the foot of one, as well as a small desk with one office chair. They had forgone fancier accommodations in order to be as close as possible to the beach. They were lucky they even found one room in this place, most hotels were already booked up. It was summer, after all.

Dean pulls a pack of cards out of his bag and slaps it down on the coffee table. He drags the chair over to the table for Cas and sits with Sam on the floor in front of the table, Jack and Eileen taking the sofa.

Dean argues for poker but Eileen talks him out of it, citing that the hunters would probably have an unfair advantage against Cas and Jack. They settle on a few rounds of blackjack without betting, despite Dean trying to get some started using the various snacks they’d brought with them (if some snacks are handed over wordlessly between the brothers as they play, no one comments on it).

When it’s time for bed, Jack goes to take his usual place in between Dean and Cas, but they persuade him to go for the other bed. They’re going for a night walk and don’t want to disturb him when they return. Jack just as happily settles in between Sam and Eileen, and Dean promises they won’t be long.

It’s a short few blocks from the hotel back to the beach. When they reach the sand, Cas glances at the empty lifeguard tower. “Is this allowed?”

Dean shrugs, a blanket rolled up under his arm. “Probably not, but who cares? It’s a pretty small beach, dude, no one’s gonna come check.”

Cas smiles conspiratorially, taking delight in this little rule breaking. “Okay.”

The light from the moon illuminates the beach so they have an easy time finding their way. It glints off the foam of the waves. The sand is cool under their feet.

Dean walks to where the sand starts to slope down to the water, so if they sit they won’t be seen from the sidewalk. He lays the blanket down and lies back on it.

“C’mere,” he says, opening his arms up and making a beckoning motion with his hands towards where Cas stands.

Castiel knows what he’s implying this time. He sinks down, knees on either side of Dean’s hips. He steadies himself on one elbow next to Dean’s head, the other resting softly on Dean’s chest. Dean reaches up to grab the back of his neck to bring him the rest of the way down.

Dean loves when Cas kisses him. It makes him feel loved, and it reminds him that he’s worth that love, too. And Castiel loves when Dean kisses him, too, of course. It floods him with relief because it shows him Dean feels the same way he does, because for so long he’d thought that wasn’t true. But it is. They love each other.

This particular kiss is deep, slow, filled with a heat it couldn’t have been with other people around to bear witness. It’s like the ones they save for totally private moments, when Jack is away at Sam and Eileen’s, when there are no wayward hunters taking refuge in the bunker with them, snacking on Dean’s baked goods (he was getting really good - they’d even had people stop by just for his cinnamon rolls).

With nothing but the moonlight and the crash of the waves around them, Dean lets himself be loudly enthusiastic, moaning and making breathy noises into Cas’ mouth. His hands roam up and down Cas’ sides, his fingers rake down Cas’ back. He’s probably exaggerating with the noise a bit, but Cas doesn’t seem to mind.

In fact, he takes it as his cue to go a little further. He runs his fingers under the hem of Dean’s shirt and hoodie, pushing them up so he can explore Dean’s torso with one hand.

Castiel’s hand is surprisingly warm against Dean’s skin. When it reaches his chest, Cas rolls a nipple in between his fingers, the way he knows Dean likes. Dean arches off the blanket into the touch, breaking their kiss to gasp and bite his lower lip. When he opens his eyes, Cas is looking down at him, very pleased with himself.

“Yes, you know how to turn me on. You don’t have to look so smug about it,” Dean says, slightly embarrassed under Cas’ gaze.

“Hmm,” Cas hums before pinching a little harder.

“Ah…”

“I’ve been wanting to touch you like this all day. When appropriate, of course.”

“Is that right?” Dean tries for cockiness, but he’s too breathless to pull it off.

Then Cas is on his neck, leaving sloppy open-mouthed kisses from his ear to where the hood of his sweatshirt covers his collarbone. Dean grabs a fistful of Cas’ hair just to have something to hold onto.

“Uh huh,” Castiel breathes into his neck. The feeling against his spit-slick skin makes Dean shiver.

Dean’s hips jerk up involuntarily, Castiel a solid weight on top of him. He almost whines, almost, when Cas pulls his hoodie back down over his stomach. But Castiel puts his mouth back on Dean’s and he forgives him. Then Cas starts moaning and moving his hips, and Dean isn’t exaggerating anymore.

When Cas moves to unbutton Dean’s jeans, he grabs Cas’ wrist.

“Okay, actually, hold on Cas,” he giggles. “We’re gonna have to slow down because we cannot have sex on the beach.”

“Why not? I thought that was the purpose of being here now.”

“Trust me, there are certain places you don’t want sand.”

“Hmmph.” Cas smushes his face into Dean’s chest and lets his whole weight fall on Dean, his arms splayed out on either side of them. “You’re probably right,” he murmurs into Dean’s sweatshirt.

Dean laughs, which jostles Cas’ head. “I know I’m right.” He gets one hand under Cas’ chin and lifts his head up to look into his eyes. “You should keep kissing me, though.”

Castiel smiles. “Okay.”

“And believe me, I’m flattered that you want me right here right now but - mmph!” Dean’s cut off by Cas covering his mouth with his own.

Dean was right about no one checking the beach. They aren’t interrupted.

After a while longer, Dean’s flip flop clad feet feel like they’re going to freeze off and Castiel realizes the late hour when he checks the moon’s position in the sky. They head back to the hotel.

They sneak back into the room as quietly as they can, but Cas insists they at least rinse off in the shower before going to sleep. When they emerge in their pajamas, they see Jack looking up at them from his spot in Sam and Eileen’s bed.

“Goodnight,” he whispers sleepily.

“Goodnight,” Dean whispers back. Cas goes over to kiss Jack on the top of his head before joining Dean under the covers.

☼ ☼ ☼

The rest of the week goes as planned. Some highlights:

Cas seems to be a natural at surfing, standing up on the board for almost every wave. Dean’s not as lucky, but he doesn’t hurt himself.

Eileen wins a huge unicorn for Sam at one of the shooting games on the Santa Monica Pier. It barely fits in the Impala.

Castiel spots a striped shore crab in the tide pools of Abalone Cove. It scuttles under a rock when the shadow of his finger passes over it as he points it out to Jack.

Dean finally gets his drink with a tiny umbrella at a very fancy beachside restaurant in Malibu.

[blkgirlsinthefuture]

Kindred Words are Key

Week 3: Black Women of the Past By Keyyatta Bonds

To better organize my thoughts, I am going to layout my discussion points first (just so there’s a through-line): 1) Afrofuturism vs. Speculative Fiction 2) Reflection on BodyMinds, specifically how language choices and definitions guide a narrative 3) Hot Take about Kindred

After reading about Afrofuturism, (Black) speculative literature seems to be underneath its umbrella. The category itself doesn’t have many rules, as Schalk describes speculative literature as “allow[ing] us to imagine otherwise.” However, even though it seems boundless, in comparison to the realms described within Afrofuturism, it seems smaller and more compact to me. If you ask me for a particular point to make that distinction, I sadly could not tell you; but Afrofuturism seems to be a more complete encompassing of stories centered in Blackness. It may be the terms themselves as Afrofuturism’s name lends itself to its identity as a genre and (Black) speculative is very generic.

----

Schalk does a great job in the Introduction of BodyMinds in clearly defining her terms. Schalk, inadvertently, illuminated for me the faults of current literary evaluations and reviews. Not to get very English-majory, but a lot of descriptions used in storytelling and describing the stories thereafter are very static or fluff-filled. I would expect literary-minded folks to be more deliberate in how they relay, and especially, critique stories; but I have noticed that stories exploring ‘deep’ topics in fiction are often watered down to 2D descriptions OR overexplained and picked apart to the point that real messages get lost in the wordiness of it all. Moreover, if evaluations of a text go beyond the typical -isms, the relationships are explained very shallowly. To give a short example, Kindred could be described as a story about race and gender and racism – all of which are correct observations but provide no depth or intimacy within the story or its characters, which in my eyes, is doing it a grand disservice.

In this evaluation of the text, even though those topics can be seen as themes, it gives no clue to what characters are participating in these systems and the effects of these systems on the characters. Literary evaluations are meant to go that extra mile and provide a greater analysis of the text – but many people are attempting to discuss these topics without having (access to) the language to adequately support their ideas. [This line of thinking – in my mind – also greatly aligns with Schalk’s mention abut Barbara Christian’s approach to theory in that it does not have to be done in a certain way to “produce knowledge” and new idea do not need to be created but just looked at through a Black feminist lens.] I could get into my academia rant but I’ll save that for another day.

So, moving into Schalk’s definitions, I loved how she used and described bodymind. In lieu of Kindred, the word ‘bodymind’ perfectly gives way to what we already discuss as we analyze Black people and their relationship to slavery without the wordiness of it all. Schalk fills in that language gap and gives us the vocabulary to more adequately navigate the conversation without losing its sincerity. The word bodymind – alone – provides an intimacy and depth in relation to whatever character may be referenced. It more successfully explains how the two are connected and constantly interacting, even when we may think that an action  – let’s take whippings for example – may only affect the body. It provides nuance to conversations and concepts we have likely discussed before, especially when talking about literature centered around the Black experience.

Traditionally, talking about slavery is already a large task, so to add psychological effects then generational trauma and so many other layers leads to an ever weaving web of conversations. The experiences are all connected but there’s a better way to describe the interconnectedness, which can lead into Schlack view on intersectionality. Her takes on these fairly new, but truly old, ideas is very refreshing – as I am finding a new and more effective way to discuss such heavy topics.

----

I am running out of words – but I had to touch on this. I absolutely despise, hate, cannot stand the white man saving Black woman narrative. I fully realize Kindred is much deeper than that and the focus is on Dana’s journey as a free Black woman now experiencing life as a slave – I get it and there’s a lot to unpack there. I am not trying to reduce the story to this one narrative at all. However comma, I could not focus on Dana because this white man is just taking over the story.

This is interesting to read because my friends and I have been recently trying to analyze why outspoken, “revolutionary,” smart Black women always end up in relationships with white men. Here’s my mini-theory: White men are the first, in that Black woman’s life, to acknowledge their words and talents over their looks; and for a Black woman, who is discouraged by her community like Dana, it is an overwhelmingly validating experience. The white man compliments their intellect from the very beginning, along with their initial attraction of course, but the white man is willing to listen to the Black woman’s story because they have no experience with it and appreciate a new perspective. (And we can see this in Kindred when Dana is trying to explain to Kevin the plantation dynamics and Kevin is not getting it until he arrives there with her.)  The Black woman is over the moon that someone is listening to her thoughts and ideas and BOOM – they’re in a damn relationship just because they were appreciated. I need someone to do a case study because the correlation has got to be there.

Again, I have better takes on Kindred but that is something I wanted some outside perspective on.